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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF THE
CITY OF NEW-YORK
THE
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF THE
CITY OF NEW-YORK
FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT TO THE YEAR 1892
EDITED BY
JAMES GKANT WILSON
VOLUME ni
NEW-TOBK HISTORY COMPANY
132 NASSAU STREET
1893
483174
Copyright, 1893, by the
New- York History Company
• • . • -•••■•
. • • -• • • . -
. • - • •
'* •
• • •
• •
• •
PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS.
THIS THIRD VOLUME
OP THE HISTORY OP HIS NATIVE CITY IS DEDICATED
BY THE EDITOR TO THE ABLE GOVERNOR,
UNITED STATES SENATOR, AND SECRETARY OF STATE,
HAMILTON FISH
• ,• -
NOTE TO Vrl }LCEi
FR-\ZI
THE P\Pt-: ^ '- i ■-.•■E£5^"";
PLEASE R\.N':*_z'r:z:^
Manna-hata, the handsomest and most pleasant country that man can
behold. Henry Hudson.
The Island of New- York is the most beautiful island that I have ever
seen. Hessian Officer, in '* Stone's Revolutionary Letters," 1891.
She is a Mart of Nations. . . . The crowning city, whose merchants are
princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth. Isaiah, xxiii.
History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or gray
hairs, privileging him with the experience of age without either the infirmi-
ties or inconveniences thereof. Thohas Fuller.
This is a great fault in a chronicler, to turn parasite : an absolute history
should be in fear of none ; neither should he write anything more than
truth, for friendship, or else for hate, but keep himself equal and constant
in all his discourses. Simon N. H. Linguet.
Industrious persons, by an exact and scrupidous diligence and obser-
vation, out of the monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private
recordes and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of bookes that
concern not story, and the Uke, we doe save and recover somewhat from
the deluge of Time. Francis Bacon.
They who make researches into Antiquity may be said to passe often
through many dark lobbies and dusky places before they come to the Aula
luciSf the great hall of light ; they must repair to old Archives and peruse
many molded and moth-eaten records, and so bring to light, as it were,
out of darkness, to inform the present world what the former did, and
make us see truth through our Ancestor's eyes. James Howell.
I was surprised to find how few, if any, of my fellow-citizens were aware
that New- York had ever been called New Amsterdam, or had heard of the
names of its early Dutch governors, or cared a straw about their ancient
Dutch progenitors. . . . A lustory to serve as a foundation, on which other
historians may hereafter raise a noble superstructure, swelling in process
of time, until Knickerbocker's New- York may be equally voluminous with
Gibbon's Rome, or Hume and Smollett's England. Washington Irving.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
New- York City under American Control — From the Confedera-
tion TO the Constitution, 1783-1789.
Professor Henry Phelps Johnston^ Ph, 2>. 1
Changes in the Population Before and After the Evacuation — Less Eng-
lish and Dutch since 1783 — Domestic and Foreign Immigration — Reestab-
Ushment of the City Government — Temporary Council in Control until
February, 1784 — First City Corporation Officers of the American Period —
Their Character — Rights and Privileges of the Citizens as Freeholders and
Freemen — Interior Life of the City — Industries, Societies, Amusements,
Luxuries — Exterior Appearance of the Town — Streets, Public Buildiugs,
Coffee-Houses, Means of Protection — Local Politics, or the Treatment of
Tories by the Whigs — Hamilton's Position — John Jay and the Governor-
ship— National Politics, or the Constitutional Period — Attitude of the City
on the Question of Enlarging Federal Powers — Action of the Merchants —
Hamilton and the Conventions — The ** Federalist" — The City Delegates at
the State Convention, Poughkeepsie — Their Speeches, Influeuce, and Final
Victory for the New National Constitution — Rejoicings and the Federal
Procession in the City — Dutch Medals on the American Revolution.
CHAPTER II
New- York as the Federal Capital, and during Washington's First
Term, 1789-1793 Moncure 2>. Conway. 45
The City in a Poor Condition at Washington's Inauguration — The City
Hall Converted into a Federal HaU — Members of Cong^ress Disparage their
Accommodations — Washington Arrives in New- York Amid Enthusiastic
Greetings — The Inaug^iration and Attending Ceremonies — Mrs. Washing-
ton's Estimate of Life in New-York — The President and his Social Obliga-
tions—Caricatures and Party Spirit — Cincinnati and Tammany, and Other
Societies — Newspapers — ^Washington's Mode of Opening Congress — The
President's Residence and the Mansion on the Site of Fort George — The
Slavery Question— The Site of a Federal Capital Determined — Indian Chiefs
visit New-York — Congress and Government Remove to Philadelphia — The
''American Museum" — The Bank of New- York Incorporated — A Columbia
College Commencement — Tontine Association and CofPee-House— The Third
Centenary of the Disciovery of America Celebrated in 1792 — Jay Counted
Out at the Election for Governor —Virtuous Ordinances by the City Council
—The Walter Franklin Family.
VI HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
CHAPTER m
Society in New- York in the Early Days of the Republic.
The Editor. 87
A "Dinner and Supper List for 1787 and '88"— Character of New-York
Society in those Years — The Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Congress—
Mrs. John Jay — The French Court and the French Capital — The Representa-
tives of the New- York Bar — ^Hamilton and Burr in Society — Mrs. Hamilton —
Chancellor Livingston — Prominent Clergymen of Various Denominations —
Bishop David Provoost — Some Members of the Medical Prof ession — Old
Knickerbocker Families— Revolutionary Officers and Members of Congress
— The Leading Ladies of the Day —President of Congress — The Carps Dip-
hmaMque — Foreign Travelers: Brissot de Warville — The President of the
United States: His Title and Lifluence upon Social Circles — His Recep-
tions called *' Levees" — The "Three Hundred" — Dress Worn by Ladies and
Gentlemen — A Memorable Ball at the French Minister's — A Last Glimpse
at the Society of that Day.
CHAPTER IV
The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century, 1793-1800.
The Rev, Daniel Van Felt, A. M. 113
Changes in Material Conditions Within a Single Lifetime — The Eigh-
teenth Century in the American Colonies — Mayor Richard Varick and Muni-
cipal Affairs During the Closing Period — The City's Budget in 1800 — The
French Revolution and its Sympathizers Here — New- York Ceases to be the
Capital of the State — The City Turns the Scales in the Presidential Election
of 1800 — Death of Washington, and Funeral Ceremonies in New- York — The
Appearance of the City at this Time as Described by Foreign Observers —
Th6 Yellow Fever Visitations of 1791, 1795, and 1798 — Experiment in Steam
Navigation on the Collect — ^Associations for Literary, Benevolent, and other
Purposes — New-York Society and Popular Amusements — Races on the
Bowery — Behavior at the Theater — Commercial Advantages and Prosper-
ity — No " Down-town " a Hundred Years Ago — " London in Miniature "
— List of Houses and Lots valued at £2000 and over in 1799.
CHAPTER V
The Opening op the Nineteenth Century, 1801-1807. The Editor. 153
A Glance Backward — Great Cities of the World at the Beginning of the
Nineteenth Century — The Presidential Election Excitement Early in 1801
— The Tie Between Jefferson and Burr — The Duel Between Hamilton and
Burr — Consequences to Burr — The Founding of the Public-school Sys-
tem of New- York — Generous Support by the State Legislature and the
Corporation — Churches Enlarged, Altered, and Newly Built — The Disap-
pearance of Worship in the Dutch Language — St. Paul's and St. John's the
only Relics of this Period — Mayors Edward Livingrston, De Witt Clinton,
and Marinus Willett — War with and Defeat of the "Barbary Powers"
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
— Items of Local Interest: College of Physicians and Surgeons, News-
papers, Huguenot Church, Insurance Companies — Market-places Visited
by the Country People — Strange Street Cries of Venders — The Change in
the Conditions of Society — Class Prestige Disappears — Weehawken Duel-
ing-Ground.
CHAPTER VI
The Beginning op Steam Navigation, 1807-1812.
Charles Burr Todd. 184
Earliest Attempts at Steam Navigation — Robert Fulton: His Birth and
Youthful Experiments — Goes to England to Study Art under Benjamin
West — His Attention is Turned to Steam Navigation— His Book on Canals
— Fulton Meets Joel Barlow in Paris — Fulton Returns to America — Ameri-
can Inventors who Preceded Fulton Failed in Practical Application — John
Stevens and his Screw Propeller — Connection of Chancellor Livingston
with Fulton — Experiments on the Seine at Paris — The Clermont Goes Up
the Hudson to Albany and Back — Steam Ferry-boats — Parties in New-
York and the Embargo — Threats of War, and Fortification of the City —
The New-York Historical Society Celebrates the Two-hundredth Anni-
versary of the Discovery of the Hudson — City Hall in the Park Completed
— New Churches Built — The Laying Out of Streets — State Election of
1811 — Early Steps to Build the Erie Canal — Public School No. 2 — New-
York Orphan Asylum Founded — The Chartering of a Bank — ** Salmagundi"
and *^ Knickerbocker's New-York "— Cockloft Hall.
CHAPTER VII
New- York in the Second War of Independence, 1812-1815.
John Austin Stevens, 219
England's Hope of Reconciliation with the Colonies — Political Situation
and Progress of Negotiations with England — Growth of American Ton-
nage — Impressment of American Sailors by Great Britain — British Frigate
Fires on American Ship, 1806 — The Famous Orders in Council — Ruinous
Elffects of the Embargo Act of 1807 — Ambition of Clay and Calhoun — Madi-
son's Message to Congress — New- York Merchants' Memorial — Death of
Governor George Clinton — War Declared Against Great Britain, 1812 — Or-
ganization and Preparations of the Committee of Defense — Enthusiasm of ■
Seafaring Men for the War — Naval Engagement of Captain David Porter
— The Constitution Defeats the Guerri^re — Decatur Captures the Macedo-
nian— Great Britain's Mortification— The Wasp Defeats the Frolic — Mili-
tary Organizations, Arsenals, and Forts — American Reverses in Canada —
Battle of Queenstown — New-York Merchants' Grievances —Lake Defenses
— Capture of Toronto and Fort George— Perry's Victory, 1813 — British
Successes on Land — The Chesapeake Defeated by the Shannon — Blockade
of the Port — Reception of General Harrison — Canadian Campaign under
Scott— Second Invasion of New- York State— Public Action for Improving
Defenses of the City — Treaty of Ghent — Lawrence and Ludlow.
• • •
Vlll mSTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
CHAPTER Vra
TiiK Rkturn of Peace, and the Completion op the Erie Canal,
1815-1825 William L. Stone. 295
The Effect of the Announcement of Peace — Packet Lines Established —
Hevitro Weather — Removal of General Richard Montgomery's Remains
from Quebec to New- York — Ball to General Andrew Jackson — Burning of
the Old Park Theater— New- York Bay Frozen Over in 1820— Yellow Fever
in the (yity — Visit of Lafayette to the United States, and His Reception in
Now- York — Erie Canal Celebration — History of the Enterprise — First
Canal-boaty the Heneca Chief, leaves Buffalo — Description of the Celebra-
tion — Land and Naval Processions — Magnificent Appearance of the Fleet
— The ( JriH^k RobollioTi — Large Amounts of Money Subscribed in New-
York for the Relief of the Greek Patriots — First Gas-pipes Laid.
CHAPTER IX
The BEQiNNiNa op New- York's Commercial Greatness, 1825 - 1837.
John Austin Stevens. 334
The Tontine Coffw House and Chamber of Commerce — Increase of Trade
owing to Opening of Erie Canal — Commerce of New- York — Larger Build-
ings Kn»otod — Mayors Philip Hone, Walter Bowne, and Gideon Lee — First
Appiuiranoe in the City of Asiatic Cholera, 1832 — The Election and Aboli-
tion Hiot8, 18IM: — Procession and Ceremonies in Memory of Lafayette —
Stone-cutters' and Five Points Riots, 1834-35 — Croton River Aqueduct
IWidiKi Upon -On^t Fire of 1835— Flour Riot, ia37— The Banks of New-
York, includinir Savinirs-banks — The Farmers' Fire Insurance Company —
InHuence of Fret* Trade on the National Election — Albert Gallatin's Policy
->The National Hank of New- York Established — The Bank of the United
StAtt^ AectH>ts a Charter from Pennsylvania — Enormous Licrease in the
Issue of Paper Oirrenoy— Sharp Reaction — The New- York Banks Suspend,
May, 18^)7 — Oimeral Suspension of United States Banks — Convention of
Bank IX4e|rate« from Seventeen States Meets in New-Tork — Favorable
I V>speet» ^ - Resumption of Specie Payments by the New- York Banks, May,
IS38 -The Hank of Commerce Established -~ The New- York University
Founder) — Literary Si>eiety : •* The Oub ^ Organiied — Polish Exiles Arrive
in New- York — Fashionable Localities and Walks — Favorite Caf^ — Cele-
bratiHl Schoob and Institutes ~ Death of Chariotte Canda— The Freedom of
Uie City.
CHAPTER X
Trs YraR8 or Ml^XU^PAL Vuk)R, 1S37'- 1S*7* J. Eiifmpdem Ihmghertf. 364
PiMiwtl WelvrtxMT Vi^fits New-York — AppeMnne^ <rf the Stivets — Notable
llou!ii<>« — Iwpnnxmienls^ in RebuikUnij; Following th^^ Fire <if 1S35 — Parks
Mhl S«)iuure« INiblk" Hall^ lieltti>^|9illerie«k Hotels^ and Tbeattti« — Ball
in lUuHvr tvf CiiarW l>k»k»iis — Intr(>duetk\ii of l«»s — Oioivlwis — Chibs —
liAttt^mtxirv of iKk* Db^ — N«i'W«|«i|>t>i^-- lY«!Kk«t HamsiMiV IV«ili a3»d
I\i«K4rad^^lajgx«axid llor$vHwr« laut^doced — OMidlrttiAMtt of t^FVcMuth
TABLE OF CONTENTS IX
Avenue Tunnel — Immig^tion and its Factors — Its Effect on Local Poli-
tics — The Native American Movement — First Elected Mayor, Cornelius W.
Lawrence — The Council of Appointment — Suffrage Restrictions — All
Property Qualifications for City Voters Abolished in 1842 — City Conven-
tion Amends City Charter, 1829 — Charter Elections — High Character of
Municipal and Judicial Officers — Charter of 1830 Provides for Departments
in City Government — Early Police Systems — Municipal PoUce Act Passed,
1844 — Jacob Hays, the Last High Constable — Origin and Establishment
of the Public-school System — Conflict between Protestants and Romanists
over State Funds — City Pumps, Springs, and Water Supply — Croton Aque-
duct Commissioners Appointed — Major Douglass's Plans Approved, and
Work Begun — Water Admitted into Aqueduct, June, 1842 — Grand Cele-
bration upon Completion of Aqueduct — Fashionable New- York Moving
Up-town — Luxurious Living Indulged in — Distinguished Foreigners Ar-
rive in the City — The Presidential Canvass of 1844 — Invention of the Tele-
graph Perfected — Morse's Efforts to Obtain Patents in Europe — Election
of Polk — War with Mexico — Great Fire of July, 1845 — Gotham as Ap-
pUed to New- York.
CHAPTER XI
Telegraphs and Railroads, and their Impulse to Commerce, 1847 -
1855 Charles Burr Todd. 413
Commercial Development — First Telegraph Line Opened — Succeeding
Lines Established — The Erie Railroad — Preliminary Survey — First Sec-
tion Opened — Ceremonies on Completion of Entire Line, 1851 — Receiver
Appointed and Reorganization Effected — Second Receivership, and Sub-
sequent Reorganization — The New- York Central and Hudson River Rail-
road: Its Charter and Construction — The Pennsylvania Railroad — The
Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad — The West Shore Railroad
— The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad — Discovery of Gold in California —
The Chpper Ships and their Remarkable Voyages — The Yacht America
and her Famous Race — The Great Ship-building Yards — The Century
Club, and Gkdlery of Fine Arts — Passage of the New City Charter — The
Astor Place Riot — Asiatic Cholera Again Visits the City — The Astor
Library Opened — Philanthropic Societies Organized — The New- York Free
Academy Opened — The Children's Aid Society Begins its Work — St.
Luke's and the Demilt Hospitals Built — Young Men's Christian Association
Formed — Arrival of Jenny Lind — The Grinnell Expeditions under De Ha-
ven and Kane — The Central Park Decided Upon — The Crystal Palace
Built — The Clearing House Association — The City Markets.
CHAPTER Xn
Premonitions op the Civil War, 1855 - 1860 .... Eugene Laivrence. 447
Condition and Progress of New- York City in 1856 — The City Prosperous
— Severe Cold all over the Country — Central Park Progressing — Original
Plans for Parks in the City — MetropoUtan Museum of Art and Other Build-
ings Added to the Park — Battery Park Neglected — Incidents in the City
—The Chief Newspapers of the Day — The Burdell Murder — The " Five
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Points" — Creation of the Metropolitan Police — Mayor Wood's Opposition
and Resistance — A Riot Averted — The Advent of the Metropolitan Police
to Power Causes Numerous Riots — The Commercial Panic of 1857 — Gradual
Recovery from Financial Depression — Resumption of Specie Payments —
Crime and Disorder — The " Dead Rabbit" Riot — The Astor Library and
Cooper Institute — Readings and Lectures by Noted Speakers — Proposed
Introduction of Slavery into Kansas Creates Political Excitement in New-
York — Aspect of Broadway in 1858 — Laying of the Atlantic Cable, and
Grand Celebration in the City — Burning of the Quarantine Buildings on
Staten Island — Revival of the Slave Trade — General Condition of Affairs
in 1859 — Visit of the Prince of Wales — Peril of Free Institutions, 1860 —
Lincoln's Election — Plans of Disunionists — Southern Preparations for
Civil War — Vacillation of Buchanan — Evacuation of Fort Moultrie.
CHAPTER XIII
New- York in the War for the Union,1861 - 1865.
Gen. T. F. Rodenhough, U. S. A. (Retired). 478
The Empire City Furnishes Sinews of War — The Pine Street Meeting
— General Dix Appointed Secretary of War — His Famous Despatch —
General Scott and President Buchanan — President Lincoln Assumes
the Presidency — The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment Passes Through the
City — Great Meeting in Union Square — Patriotism of the Citizens — Large
Sums of Money Raised — Thurlow Weed Assists the President — Union De-
fense Conmiittee Organized — Departure of the Seventh Regiment, April
19, 1861 — Other New- York City Regiments Leave for Washington — Com-
modore Vanderbilt Presents a Steamer to the Government — Patriotic Ac-
tion of New- York Women — Organization of the United States Sanitary
Commission — Southern Disappointment at New- York's Loyalty — Foreign
Correspondents in the City — The Government Arrests Disloyal Persons
— Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Burke in Command of Fort Lafayette —
President Lincoln Invites Three Eminent Citizens to Represent the Govern-
ment Abroad — Call for Volunteers — The Enrolment Act — The Draft
Riots, 1863 — The Seventh and other Regiments Ordered to Return to New-
York — A Forged Proclamation by the President Published — Arrest of the
Author — Metropolitan Fair in Aid of Sanitary Commission, April, 1864 —
Assassination of President Lincoln, and Mass Meeting in New- York — No-
table New-Yorkers who Died for their Country — Gallant Leaders of Both
the Army and Navy — MiUtary Organizations Recruited Wholly, or in Part,
in the City and County of New-York — Compilation from Colonel Phis-
terer's " New York in the War of the Rebellion."
CHAPTER XIV
Recovery from War — Tweed Ring — Speculation and Reaction,
1865-1878 Arthur E. Bosticick, Ph. D, 518
New- York at the End of the Civil War — Activity in Building, and Local
Improvements — Rapid Growth of the City — New Streets and Avenues
Opened — Introduction of the Passenger Elevator — First Apartment-houses
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
Erected — Blast River Bridge Begun — Underground Roads Projected
—The Elevated Railroads — The Raihroad Viaduct on Fourth Avenue —
The Atlantic Cable Successfully Laid, 1866 — Admiral Farragut Leaves
New- York with a Squadron — Volunteer Fire Department Abolished, 1865
— Steam Fire-engines Introduced — Board of Health Established, 1866 —
Cholera Again Visits the City — Dock Department Created, 1870 — The
Orange Riot, July 12, 1871 ; Many Killed and Wounded on Eighth Ave-
nue— John T. Hoffman — Formation of the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals — Societies Formed for the Suppression of Vice, for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and for the Prevention of Crime —
Visits of Prince Arthur and Grand Duke Alexis — The Chicago Fire and
New- York's Contribution — Concentration of State Power at Albany Works
Injury to New- York — Best Elements of the Democratic Party Not Repre-
sented in its Councils — The Tammany Society Controls the Politics of Emi-
grants — William M. Tweed and his Methods — Origin of the Tweed Ring
— Peter B. Sweeny — Richard D. Connolly — The Ring Judges — Demoral-
ization of the Press — Fraudulent Naturalization — A. Oakey Hall — The
Ring in Control — The County Court-house Fniuds — The Tweed-Frear
Charter — The Rochester Convention, 1870 — Increase of City Debt — At-
tacks on the Ring by the Press — James O'Brien Secures Information —
Watson's Death — The *' Times " Publishes the City's Accounts — The Com-
mittee of Seventy — Disposition of the Plunder — Ci\41 Actions Begun
Against Members of the Ring — Tweed Imprisoned — His Escape and Sub-
sequent Capture — The New City Charter — The Panic of 1873 — Failure of
Prominent Houses — Stock Exchange Closed — The One-hundredth Anni-
versary of American Independence — Emperor of Brazil Visits New- York.
CHAPTER XV
New-York During the Last Fourteen Years, 1879-1892.
The Rev. Ashhel G, Vermilye, D. D. 570
Retrospective Review — The Genesis of the East River Bridge — Roebling's
Engineering Triumph — Difficulties to be Overcome — Completion of the
Great Work — Magnitude of its Passenger Traffic — Description of Hell
Gate — Attempts at Removing its Obstructions — The Hallett's Point Reef :
Its Destruction September 24, 1876 — The Harlem River Improvements —
Catting through Dyckman's Meadows — Revival of Architecture : its Pro-
gress— High Office-buildings — Passenger Elevators — Apartment-houses
— Up-town Movement of Large Institutions — The New- York University :
Its Associations and Contemplated Removal — Source of Columbia Col-
legers Wealth — Cathedral of St. John the Divine — The Methodist Book
Concern — Rapid Transit Discussed — The Streets ReHeved of Telegraph
Poles — The Electric-subway System — The Blizzard — Death of Roscoe
Conkling — Overworked Switchmen — The Statue of Liberty — The Cen-
tennial of Washington's Inauguration — The Columbus Celebration — The
Presence of Tramx>s in the PubUc Squares — Schools and Schoolmasters —
Nelson the " Blind Teacher " — Professor Anthon and His Characteristics :
His Original Mode of Punishment — Requirements of the Education of To-
day— Methods of Columbia and Barnard Colleges — The Condition of, and
Attendance at, the Public Schools — Women on the Board of Education
— ^The Public Schools Intended to Reach the Poorest, and all Nationalities —
• •
XU mSTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
Charitable Societies — Lodging-houses and Industrial Schools for Girls and
Boys — The Children's Aid Society's Work — The New " Charity Exchange"
on Fourth Avenue — Changes in Length of Summer Vacations — The Un-
rest which Characterizes the People — The Cholera Scare — Strikes of the
Laboring Classes — Bdsum^ of the Period.
CHAPTER XVI
Constitutional and Legal History op New- York in the Nine-
teenth Century Robert Ludlow Fowler. 615
The Constitutional Conventions of 1821 and 1S46 — The Convention of
1801 — Opposition to the Convention of 1821 — Final Decision in its Favor
— The Supreme Court of Judicature — Chancellors Kent and Lansing, and
Their Administrations — Kent's Aims and Work — The Courts of Errors
and Probates — Condition of New-Tork State in 1821 — New England In-
fluence Perceptible in Politics — Names of Prominent Delegates to the Con-
vention of 1821 — Debates in the Convention — The Basis of the Franchise
Enlarged — Changes in the Judicial Establishment — The BiD of Bights
Sections^The Act of 1823 Authorizes Courts of Equity — The Bevised
Statutes ~ The Bevision of 1821 ~ The Act of 1825 — The Bevisers' Work
Considered and Described — Definition of the Term " Common Law " — Fur-
ther Changes Made in the Ancient Courts — Effect of Foreign Immigration
upon the Bixly Politic — Disturbances Connected with the Great Grants of
iMd — The Convention of 1846 — Provisions of the New Constitution —
Court of Appeals ideated — Many Minor Changes Adopted — Jurisdiction
of the Various Courts — Determination of the Private Jural Belations of all
Citiieiis of the State — Status of a Citiien of New-Tork City — Conchision.
Table op Dat^ in New-York History 661
LIST OP STEEL-ENGRAVINGS.
ABTI8T. PAOB.
Alexander Hamilton ... ... Trumbull Frontispiece.
Mrs. John Jay Unknown Pace 87
Robert R. Livingston . Stuart " 219
De Witt Clinton Inman *' 834
John Jacob Astob Stuart ** 447
John Adams Dix Brady " 518
LIST OP PULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
Address op Returned Exiles, and Washington's Reply 4, 5, 6
Map of Livingston Manor, 1714 Pace 19
Washington's Reply upon Receiving Preedom of the City ... 23, 24
Fac-simile of Last Page of the Federal Constitution 36
Map of New-York, 1789 53
Fao-simile of Roll for Attorneys, with Autographs 60
Fac-simile of the De Lancey Proclamation Face 69
Chiefs of the Creek Indians 74
Fac-simile of a Letter by Marinus Willett 77
Eighteenth-Century Coins and Currency 112
St. Memin's View op New- York in 1798 127
Map op New- York, 1797 Pace 130
Fac-simile op Order op Washington's Funeral Procession . . . 132
Fac-simile of Page of the " Commercial Advertiser," 1797 .... 149
Fac-simile Page of Minutes of New-York Historical SociETy . . 178
Plan op New-York, Showing the Made and Swamp Land .... 197
Map of the City of New-York in 1808 Pace 208
Map op Harlem Heights and Plain, 1814 281
Interior of Park Theater, November 7, 1822 Face 306
Illumination of the City Hall upon Completion op Erie Canal . 325
St. Paul's Church and Broadway in 1831 358
Pine Street Meeting Signatures Pace 480
Two Great Questions. (The Tweed Ring) 549
" What are you going to do about it t " (The Tweed Ring) Face 556
Centennial Souvenir issued in April, 1889 591
New-York City and Harbor in 1892 611
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
Great Seal of New-York 2
Portrait op Red Jacket 3
The RoTAii Savage 7
Portrait and Autograph of Rev. Charles Inglis 8
xill
XIV HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
PAGE.
Autograph op Robert Lenox 10
Portrait and Autograph op Pierre Van Cortlandt 11
Portrait and Autograph op Marinus Willett 13
Pao-simile op a Freeman's Certipicate 14
Portrait and Autograph op John Pintard 16
The Lispenard Meadows 17
Portrait and Autograph op Lady Catharine Duer 20
New-York Sleigh op 1788 25
Portrait asd Autograph op Noah Webster 26
Prom a Contemporary Broadside 29
Portrait and Autograph op George Clinton 31
Colonel Lamb's Mansion 32
Autograph op John Watts (Sr.) 34
Autograph op Anne Watts . . 35
Portrait and Autograph op Gouverneur Morris 39
Procession in Honor op the Federal Constitution 40
Grand Federal Banquet 41
Dutch Medals on the American Revolution, 1 43
NOS. n. AND III. OP THE SaME 44
The Franklin House 47
President Washington's Reception at New-York 50
Washington Taking the Oath 55
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. Washington 57
Portrait and Autograph op William Dunlap 65
*^ Gazette op the United States'' (Fac-simile op Part op a Page) 66
City and Manhattan Banks and the McEvers House 71
The Government House 79
Fao^simile op Certipicate op Election 81
Portrait and Autograph op Joseph Brant 83
Mile-stones op the Eighteenth Century 84
Fac-simile op Washington's Note to Mrs. Jay 88
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. Rupus King 91
Liberty Hall, Birthplace op Mrs. John Jay 92
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. John Livingston 93
Portrait op James Kent in Youth 95
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. Alexander Hamilton 96
Portrait and Autograph op Egbert Benson 97
Fac-simile Autograph Order op Mrs. James Alexander 98
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. Dr. John Rodgers 99
Portrait and Autograph op Bishop Samuel Provoost 100
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer . . . 101
Portrait and Autograph op Euas Boudenot 102
Portrait and Autograph op Colonel John Bayard 103
Portrait op Mrs. James Beekman 104
Portrait and Autograph op Sir John Temple 106
Portrait and Aittograph op Lady Temple 107
Portrait op Philip Livingston 109
The Temple Arms 110
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XV
PAGE.
Residence op Lord Stirling Ill
Autograph of Mrs. John Jay Ill
New-York Near the Close op the Eighteenth Century 113
View Across the North River in 1796 115
Pao-simile op Order Signed by Mayor Varick 117
Portrait and Autograph op James Pairlie 118
Portrait and Autograph op Edmond C. GenSt 121
Portrait op Mme. Edmond C. GenIit 122
The Temple Monument 124
Stone Pound in City Hall Park 125
Portrait op Mrs. William Jackson 131
Portrait and Autograph op Mary Philipse Morris 134
Autograph op James De Lancey 135
Cato's House on the Boston Road 137
Fao-simile Notice op Meeting op Society Library Trustees . . . 140
New- York Society Library, 1795 143
Portrait and Autograph op General Matthew Clarkson .... 144
Corner-stone op Park Theater 147
Portrait and Autograph op John Adams 153
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. John Adams 154
View op Bedpord House 156
Portrait and Autograph op James A. Bayard 157
Portrait and Autograph op General Morgan Lewis 158
Portrait and Autograph op Aaron Burr 159
Portrait and Autograph op Theodosia Burr 160
Hamilton's Residence, " The Grange " 161
The Hamilton-Burr Duel 163
Richmond Hill Mansion 164
Hamilton's Tomb in Trinity Churchyard 165
Portrait and Autograph op Governor Daniel D. Tompkins . . . 167
New- York at the Beginning op the Nineteenth Century .... 169
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston .... 170
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. Dr. William Linn 172
The Bayard Country House in Harlem 173
St. John's Church, Varick Street - 174
Portrait and Autograph op Edward Livingston 175
Portrait and Autograph op Samuel Bayard 179
New- York Stage-coach 180
The Hamilton Monument 182
Portrait and Autograph op Robert Pulton 185
Portrait and Autograph op Joel Barlow 186
The Steamer Clermont ^ 187
Portrait and Autograph op Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill 189
The Clermont *prom an Advertisement' 191
Clermont Manor-house 192
Fao-similiE op Letter Written by Robert Pulton 194
Brooklyn Perry Ticket 196
Portrait and Autograph op Jacob Radclipp 200
XVI HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
PAGE.
Portrait and Autograph of Dr. David Hosack 201
St. James Church in Hamilton Park, 1810 202
Broadway at Canal Street, 1812 204
Map op the " Common Lands " Belonging to the City 205
The City Hall in the Park, 1812 207
First Free-school Building 209
The Rutgers Mansion 210
Portrait and Autograph of Washington Irving 211
Cockloft Hall and Summer-house . 212
Fac-simile op Title-page op " Knickerbocker's New-York ^ . , . . 213
Fac-simile of Bill for Passage on River Sloop 214
New- York County Seal 214
Portrait and Autograph of James K. Paulding . 216
De Peyster, Roosevelt, and Pell Arms 218
Escape of the Frigate Constitution 219
Bible upon which Washington was Sworn 220
Portrait of Mrs. Robert R. Livingston 221
Washington's Writing-table 223
The Livingston House 224
Gold Ring Containing Washington's Hair 225
Member of General Assembly's Order for Pay 227
Portrait and Autograph of Albert Gallatin 228
Portrait and Autograph of Ebenezer Hazard 230
Portrait and Autograph of Richard Bassett 232
Forts Fish and Clinton, 1814 234
Portrait and Autograph of General Jacob Morton 237
The Kissing Bridge 239
The Smith House, Haverstraw 241
Portrait and Autograph of Captain Isaac Hull 242
The Frigate Constitution 243
Billet-head op the Constitution 244
" A Wasp on a Frolic ^ 247
Portrait and Autograph op Major Wiujam Jackson 248
Tower at Hallett's Point 250
Washington Hall, Broadway 252
Henry EcKFORiys Residence 253
View op Spuyten Duyvil 255
Portrait and Autograph op Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer .... 256
Fort Gansevoort — ** The Old White Fort ^ 259
The Clarkson Arms 260
Portrait and Autograph op Colonel William S. Smith • 261
Portrait op Robert Livingston . 263
Portrait and Autograph op Commodore Stephen Decatur 264
Portrait and Autograph op General Alexander Macosib 265
Portrait and Autograph op Lieutenant Wiluam H. Allen .... 266
Washington's Inaugural Chair 269
Portrait and Autograph op Colonel Henry Rutgers 271
Tomb op Captain James Lawrence 272
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XVii
PAGE.
GK)LD Snuff-box Presented to John Jay 274
PREsroENT Washington's Desk 277
Portrait and Autograph of James Madison 278
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. James Madison 279
Fulton the First, Steam War Vessel 280
Portrait and Autograph of Colonel Tobias Lear 282
Fac-simile of Livingston Deed 286
Residence of the American Commssioners in Ghent 289
New- York and Brooklyn Perry Commutation Notice 290
Seals and Signatlties of American Peace Commissioners 291
Portrait and Autograph op Captain James Lawrence 293
Morris, Chauncey, and Lawrence Arms 294
Portrait and Autograph of John Stevens 295
Medal Commemorating Peace 296
Portrait of Mrs. John Morton 297
Autograph of Mayor John Ferguson 298
View of Mrs. Murray's House, Murray Hill 299
Portrait and Autograph of Lindley Murray 300
The Van Cortlandt SucIar-house 301
The Shakespeare Ta\^rn 302
Signature of Mrs. E. C. Gen6t 303
View of Jersey City in 1820 305
Autograph of Mayor Stephen Allen 306
Portrait and Autograph op General Jacob Brown 307
The Lafayette Medal 309
Portrait and Autograph op General John Armstrong 310
Bayard Punch-bowl 311
Portrait and Autograph of James Tallmadge 312
SnTTF-BOXES 3IADE FROM THE OaK OF THE CONSTITUTION 314
Provoost and Chapel Streets, 1826 315
Murray Street and Dr. Mason's Church in 1822 317
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. De Witt Clinton 318
Portrait and Autograph of Samuel Verplanck 320
Autograph of Cadwallader D. Colden 321
North Esd of the City Hall Park, 1825 323
Portrait and Autograph of Rev. Dr. John N. Abeel 327
Manhattan Reservoir, Chambers Street 328
Bath Ticket, 1819 330
The Leggett House 331
Portrait and Autograph of Captain Paul Jones 332
St. Peter's Church 333
Autographs of Invited Guests, Erie Canal Celebration 333
The Verplanck House 335
Portrait and Autograph of Gulian C. Verplanck 336
Portrait and Autograph op Philip Hone 337
Portrait and Autograph op Walter Bowne 338
Autograph of Gideon Lee 338
The New-Yobk Hospital 339
• • •
XVIU HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
PAGE.
The Verplanck Crest 340
Portrait and Autograph op Dr. John W. Prancts 341
The Provost Jah. . 342
Chateau La Grange 343
Masonic Hall, 1830 345
Portrait and Autograph of Rev. Dr. William Berrian 346
The Bridewell, City Hall Park 349
Pao-simile of Signatures from Order op the Cincinnati 350
Portrait and Autograph of Judge William Jay 351
Portrait and Autograph op Rt. Rev. Benjamin Moore 353
The New- York Society Library 354
City Hotel, Trinity Church, and Grace Church, 1831 355
Residence of Bishop Moore 357
Portrait and Autograph op Christopher Colles 359
Contoit's Garden, Broadway, 1830 360
The Canda Monument 361
Portrait and Autograph of General William J. Worth .... 364
Bunker's Mansion House, Broadway 365
Dutch Church in Garden Street 366
Portrait and Autograph op Rt. Rev. John Henry Hobart .... 368
The Beverly Robinson House 369
Autograph of John Wilkes 370
Portrait and Autograph of Samuel Jones 371
Autograph of Elizabeth Izard 372
Portrait and Autograph of Chancellor Samuel Jones 373
Autograph of P. G. Stuyvesant 374
The Bleecker Arms 375
Broadway, East Side, between Grand and Howard Streets . . . 376
Autograph op Mayor Aaron Clark 377
Autograph op Mayor Isaac L. Varian 378
Autograph of Mayor Robert H. Morris 378
Portrait and Autograph of Jonathan I. Coddington 379
Autograph of Mayor William P. Havemeyer 380
Autograph op Mayor Andrew H. Mickle 380
The Poulke Residence 381
John Pintard Book-plate 382
Portrait and Autograph of Dr. Ebenezer Crosby 383
Autograph op William B. Crosby 384
St. Patrick's Cathedral, 1815 385
Autograph of Recorder Richard Riker 386
Portrait and Autograph of Governor William C. Bouck .... 387
Portrait and Autograph of Jacob Hays 388
Autograph of Robert Benson 389
UfioLisE Du St. Esprit 390
Portrait op Mrs. Harriet Bayard Van Rensselaer 391
St. John's College, Pordham 392
Autograph of Archibald Gracie 393
Autograph of Charles Wilkes 394
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XIX
PAGE.
Portrait and Autograph op Laura Keene 395
Portrait and Autograph op Robert L. Stevens 396
The Gardiner Arms 397
Portrait and Autograph op Governor De Witt Clinton .... 398
Portrait and Autograph op David Gardiner 399
Teu: Sturgis Arms 400
Portrait and Autograph op Mrs. De Witt Clinton 401
Croton Water Procession, 1842 402
Portrait and Autograph op Henry C. Murphy 403
Opening op the Fountain, City Hall Park, 1842 404
Manhattan Reservoir, 1846 405
Portrait and Autograph op Samuel P. B. Morse 406
Portrait and Autograph op Andrew Jackson 407
General Worth's Residence 408
Proposed Washington Monument 409
Castle Garden as it Appeared in 1850 413
Portrait and Autograph op James H. Hackett 414
The Kip Arms 415
Portrait and Autograph op Matilda Heron 417
Autograph op Mayor Caleb S. Woodhull 418
Burnham's Hotel 419
Autograph op Mayor Ambrose C. Kingsland 420
Portrait and Autograph op Governor John Young 421
The Jay Arms 422
The Clipper Ship Dreadnaught 423
Portrait and Autograph op John C. Stevens 424
The Yacht America, Winner op the Queen's Cup 425
The America's Cup 426
The American Youth and Master Johnny 427
Sl'NNYSIDE, IrVING'S RESIDENCE 428
Autograph op Mayor James Harper 429
Portrait and Autograph op John J. Audubon 430
AuDi^BON's Residence 431
St. James Lutheran Church 432
Autograph op Mayor Jacob A. Westervelt 433
Portrait and Autograph op Anna Cora Mowatt 434
Autograph op John Jacob Astor 435
Portrait and Autograph op Charles Astor Bristed 436
Pont Hill, Forrest's Castle 437
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. Dr. William A. Muhlenberg . . 439
Portrait and Autograph op Jenny Lind 440
Portrait and Autograph op Kossuth 441
Portrait and Autograph op Henry Grinnell 443
The New-York Crystal Palace 444
Soldiers' Monument in Trinity Churchyard 445
La Grange Terrace, or Colonnade Row, in Lafayette Place . . 446
Pobtrait and Autograph op James W. Beekman 448
The Madison Square Cottage 449
XX mSTOKY OF NEW-YORK
PAOB.
Payette Street Baptist Church . 451
Elias Boudinot Book-plate 453
Portrait and Autograph op John Jay 454
The Old Park Theater 457
Autograph of Mayor Fernando Wood 458
Portrait and Autograph of Edgar A. Poe 459
Portrait and Autograph of Charles Penno Hoffman 460
Autograph of Mayor Daniel P. Tiemann 462
The Washington Chair 463
The Pierrepont Arms 465
Portrait and Autograph of Cyrus W. Pield 466
Second John Street Methodist Church 468
The Rutherford Arms 469
The Steamship Great Eastern 471
Castle Point, the Residence op Mrs. Stevens 472
Entrance to Castle Point 473
The Schieffelin Arms 474
View near Porty-second street 475
Portrait and Autograph of William H. Seward 476
The Gallatin Arms 477
Autograph of Wm. P. Brady 477
Portrait and Autograph of Charles O'Conor 479
Pac-simile of General Dix's Celebrated Despatch ....... 481
Portrait and Autograph of General Winfield Scott 482
Pac-simile of Major Anderson's Despatch 485
Alexander T. Stewart's Residence 486
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. John Tyler 489
Portrait and Autograph of Admiral John L. Worden 492
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Botta 495
View of Port Lafayette, 1861-65 498
Autograph of Mayor George Opdyke 503
The Old Brick Church 505
Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch 508
Autograph op Ulysses Hiram Grant 509
Portrait and Autograph of Preston King 510
Autograph of Mayor C.Godfrey Gunther 511
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland .... 512
Sheridan at Winchester 513
Portrait and Autograph of Dr. Peter Wilson 519
Vauxhall Garden 520
The Tontine Coffee House 522
Portrait and Autograph of Daniel Embury 523
The National Academy of Design 525
Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Daniel Webster 526
Terrace and Lake, Central Park 529
Chltrch of the New Jerusalem 530
Portrait and Autograph of Horace Greeley 531
The Pemale Normal College 532
LIST OF IliLUSTRATIONS XXI
PAOB.
AiTOGRAPH OP. John T. Hoffman 535
Portrait and Autograph op Henry Bergh 536
Autograph op Thomas Coman 537
Collegiate Reformed Church 538
Bridge and Lake, Central Park 539
Autograph op Mayor A. Oakiy Hall 541
Arsenal and Menagerie, Central Park 542
Broadway, North prom Post-Opfice 545
New- York County Court-House 546
The Mall, Central Park 547
Broadway, North prom Leonard Street 551
The Lovers' Walk, Central Park 552
The New- York Post-Opfice 555
**What are You Laughing at?" (The Tweed Ring) 558
"To Whom it may Concern'' (The Tweed Ring) 563
Autograph op Mayor William H. Wickham 565
Liberty Enlightening the World 566
Autograph op Mayor Smith Ely, Jr 567
New-York Docks, East River 569
The East River Bridge 571
The East River and New-York Bay, prom the Bridge 572
The Verplanck House, 1892 574
Hell Gate. — ^Excavations at Hallett's Point 575
Hell Gate. — Blowing up Hallett's Point Rocks 576
The Harlem River Improvements, Northwest prom Kingsbridge
Road 577
The Harlem River Improvements, West prom Kingsbridge Road . 578
The Vanderbilt Residences 579
New-York Bay, Battery Park, and Governor's Island 580
Autograph op Mayor Edward Cooper 580
High Bridge and Washington Bridge 581
Cathedral op St. John the Divine 583
Autograph op Mayor William R. Grace 584
The Bowery, North prom Grand Street 585
Electric Subway Man-hole 586
Washington Building and Produce Exchange 587
Washington Memorial Arch 588
Columbus Monument 590
The Columbian Celebration Medal 593
St. James Church 594
Autograph op Mayor Abram S. Hewitt 595
Fourteenth Street, West prom Unipn Square 596
Madison Square Garden 597
** Times,^ " Tribune," " Sun," and " World" Buildings, Park Row . . 598
The Terrace, Central Park 599
Portrait and Autograph op Rev. Thomas E. Vermilye 600
Park Avenue, North prom Thirty-fourth Street 601
Autograph op Mayor Franklin Edson 602
XXU HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
PAGE.
United States Cruiser New- York 603
The Battery, 1892 604
The Bowling Green, 1892 605
Autograph op Mayor Hugh J. Grant 606
Wall Street in 1892 607
The Post-Ofpice and Park % 608
The Audubon Monument 609
Autograph op Mayor Thomas P. Gilroy 610
Tomb op General Grant 613
Portrait and Autograph op Smith Thompson 617
Portrait and Autograph op Andrew Kirkpatrick 622
Portrait and Autograph op William Paterson 627
Portrait and Autograph op Benjamin F. Butler 630
Portrait and Autograph op Josla^h Ogden Hoppman 633
Portrait and Autograph op Samuel J. Tilden 642
Portrait and Autograph op William M. Evarts 647
Portrait and Autograph op Roscoe Conkung 651
Portrait op Thomas J. Oakley 654
Portrait and Autograph op David Dudley Field 657
CHAPTER I
NEW-YOBK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL:
PROM THE CONFEDEBATION TO THE CONSTITUTION
1783-1789
PON the evacuation of New- York by the British forces,
November 25, 1783, the city entered upon the third and
modern period of its history. Successively Dutch and
English, it was now to put on its distinctively American
exterior, and shape its course along new lines defined by new condi-
tions. Not all the original features, however, were to disappear. Ele-
ments of the old stock survived, and fundamental characteristics left
their traces. If, politically, the transitions from one power to another
have been violent, socially, and to a greater extent institutionally, a
certain continuity has been preserved. Derived from a common Teu-
tonic ancestry, each group of inhabitants has perpetuated its predeces-
sor in whole or in part, while each change has effected little more
than to introduce or evolve a new phase of Teutonic life. The quiet in-
vasion of the city in later days, under the guise of a vast immigration
from the Old World, encouraged by the opportunity and responding to
the spirit of the age, has fastened a cosmopolitan character upon us ;
but the family identity is retained. Cosmopolitan New- York con-
tinues, by absorption, to be essentially American. It is marked, un-
mistakably, by the inherited brand.
In the development of events interest attaches to what appear to
be beginnings — to the new order of things. One may sometimes see
inspiration at work here. As against the hardships, struggles, distrac-
tions, and quarrels inevitable in the changes and movements of com-
munities, tlie underlying resolution and confidence are bound to assert
themselves ; and these attract The first years of the city's American
career are an iUustration ; discouragement and comparatively slow
advance will be succeeded by great strides forward. In 1784 the
** plant " consisted of a partially ruined town, straitened resources, an
unsettled foreign trade, debts, and hampered enterprises. In 1789 the
city was on its feet and conscious of future unlimited expansion.
vouin.— 1. 1
2 mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK
The work in hand for this initial period was not so much a work of
reconstruction as one of restoration — restoration under a new impulse.
We can follow the process and appreciate the results. First of all, the
population, — who were the first American New-Yorkers, what their
numbers, affiliations, quality, sympathies I Then the municipal gov-
ernment— its reestablishnaent, the extent and source of its powers, its
new personnel, its agency in lifting the city
out of the depths. Then all the activities —
the revival of trade and manufactures, the
growth of industries, the status of the pro-
fessions, education, religion, societies, and
the general life of the city. And finally, the
looal politics of the time, and the larger ques-
tion of a national constitution, with the influ-
ence which the metropolis will have in secur-
ing the adoption of that famous instrument.
OEEAT BEAL OF KEW-TOEK, „.„ . ,, ,. , ,,.
By foUowmg out these bnes, the old city of a
century ago wiU come into view, in perspective at least, as the new
growth of that day and the true foundation of modem New- York. It
was the latest prototype of what is, and so far its history becomes a
piece of domestic reminiscence.
How far did the Revolutionary war affect the number and composi-
tion of the city's population t That it suffered a material loss, and a
loss mainly on the side of the original patrician stock, is a well-known
fact. The population of 1784 and after was less old English and
Dutch than it had been in 1775. While the middle, industrial classes
changed to a certain extent, the decrease was felt most sensibly among
the conservative, loyalist, highly respectable, and what may be called
the churchly families of the city. In the rush of the new life that
set in after the first interval of depression, the population assumed
more of the " young American " character, with its nervous activity
and practical bent, and rapidly pushed the city along tow(ird its
destined preeminence.
The change dates from the summer of 1776, when military opera-
tions opened in this vicinity. New- York then contained a population
of some twenty-five thousand souls — the streets lined wili about
thirty-five hundred houses. The exodus began with the arrival of the
enemy in June. Those who had homes or friends in other places, and
the more timid element generally, left before the battle of Long Island
in August. That disaster rendered New- York untenable, and by the
time of the American retreat, on September 15, more than seven
eighths of the residents had abandoned the city. The number ac-
knowledging allegiance to Great Britain in October following was
about nine hundred, which presumably included Ihe greater portion
NEW-TOEK cm UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 3
of the male inhabitaute who Temained with the enemy. From thiB
date the successes of the latter, followed by reaction of sentiment in
this neighborhood, and the constant expulsion of disaffected persons
from the American lines, gradually set the flow of population back
again to the city. Of the old population, however, it is improbable
that a large proportion returned. The new element was conspicuously
a refugee element — loyalists of all classes, the wealthy especially, who
had been forced from all parts of the country to seek British military
protection in New- York. They came from New England, from the
towns on the Hudson, from the Middle States, and from the South.
There were "Jersey refugees," and
"Maryland refugees," and "CaroUna
refugees," occupying vacant Whig
houses or living like squatters in
and about the town. In February,
1777, Governor Tryon could report
that the number of men subscribing
to the oath of allegiance had risen
to three thousand, with scarcely a
hundred remaining who had not
taken it. The evacuation of Phila^
delphia in the following year, and
repeated accessions, swelled the list
until, in 1780, the number of volun-
teers between seventeen and sixty
years of age, enroUed in the city
eompani^ during the alarm of that
winter, was five thousand five hundred. The increase continued, and
■ at the cessation of hostilities in 1782 the British were burdened in
New- York with a sympathetic and largely dependent population of
about thirty thousand men, women, and children, one quarter of
whom niay have been residents in 1775. Among these were many
British merchants and sutlers who had come from England and
settled in the city in the expectation of realizing large profits and
monopolizing the import trade on the return of peace.
The transformation thus produced during the war was to be suc-
ceeded by another at its close. The passions excited by the protracted
■ struggle became responsible for the loss to America of a large and
valuable element among her people. Neighbors who had sought to
dratroy each other for seven years could not remain neighbors. The
victorious party was bound to indulge its triumph in a demand for
justice or retribution upon those who had so long been the "unnat-
ural" enemies of the country, and the latter dared not remain. Thou-
sands of loyalists, as stated in the previous volume, exaggerating
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
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NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
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sM^%M sA^g^: ys^
6 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
HIS EXCELLENOT'S ANSWER.
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NEW-YORK orrr under American cohtbol 7
their alarms and fears, left their old homes or their refuge Id New-
York and went "beyond sea," wherever they could find shelter, pro-
tection, and the promise of an opportunity to recover themselves.
They dispersed in families and companies, and were furnished with
transportation by Sir Guy Carleton, the last British commander-in-
chief in New- York, who assured them of lands and temporary support
by the home government. They settled at Annapolis Royal, Nova
Scotia, at St John's, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec, and other points in
the Dominion. Some went to the Ber- ^^ — ^
mudas and Bahamas, some to the "West ./ ^ ^^.
Indies, and many more to the mother- / ^■t^'v. t- \
country. Numerous descendants of these f •^5L=^^t\*' \
old colonial Americans, who opposed the / .^Bfir wmWa \
Revolution and went into exile, may be , JjpT''*- Jifflft^N^^
found to-day at these distant points. In l=^^^^' ^!|^"^,', 1^^^/
Nova Scotia they appeared in the r61e of ^^^^^^SS^^^M^^^
settlers, building up new communities for ^E^S^^jfTiaj^i-^-^T^
that province, which so impressed Carle- . ..-?~~=- -
ton that in an unpublished letter to Lord ~" — -^^
North, dated at New-York, October 5,
1783, he trusts that "liberal measures of sound pohey will be im-
mediately adopted and steadily pursued" in their interest. Above
all, he believed that they should be granted an "expUcit exemption
. from all taxation, except by their own legislature" — a clear recogni-
tion on his part of the effect our Revolution would inevitably work
on England's restrictive colonial system.
As the Tories withdrew from New- York, the newly baptized Amer-
ican, the man of the Revolution, who had been patiently anticipating
the occasion, proudly marched in to reoccupy and possess the old
city. In reality the transfer had been going on by mutual agreement
for some months before the formal evacuation of November 25.
Permission was granted by the British authorities to Americans to
enter the place for business purposes, or to prove title to property
belonging to them before the war. There was accordingly much
going back and forth during 1783. But not aU the old American
population could return. It had suffered from the experiences of the
war no less than the loyalists. With the abandonment of the city in
1776, the "rebel" inhabitants had dispersed in every direction. Many
retired to the upper counties of New- York, and scattered through the
towns and villages. The families of the men who entered the service
were cared for by local committees, while others attempted self-sup-
■ Among the paparm of General PhllJp Schuyler Bpeoting Uie deTtce of the coDttneDtal flag ndsed
there waa preaerTad a mter-oolor eketoh of the at the samp opposite Boston, In January, 1776,
Ameriaaa aloop-of wkt of ths abore ubiub. It ia while the American forcee yivn besieging that
«ttling the mooted qnaEtton re- city. Editob.
8 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
port as they could. Not a few found their way into New England,
especially into western and central Connecticut, or into New Jersey
among the hills. The exodus entailed ruin of fortunes, loss of occu-
pation, separation of families, and seven years of distress. " You can
have no idea," writes an elderly lady, in 1782, "of the sufferings of
many who from affluence are reduced to the most abject poverty, and
others who die in obscurity." Obviously, now that New- York was
again open to them, comparatively few could return immediately, if
at all. The limited number who owned lands and houses in the city
went back, and others who possessed the i-eady means followed ; but
the mass of those who had formerly
paid rents and carried on the minor
trades found it impossible to change
their situation again. Their places
were eventually taien by strangers.
When New- York, accordingly, passed
ioto American hands, toward the close
of 1783, we find its population greatly
diminished and changed as compared
with that of 1775. For the six months
following it could not have exceeded
twelve thousand. Three years later
it had risen to twenty-four thousand.
The twelve thousand represented that
portion of the Tory, British, mercan-
tile, and lukewarm element that had
resolved to remaiD, and the incoming
Americans. At first the former out-
numbered the latter. "The loyalists are more numerous and much
wealthier than the poor, despicable Whigs," says a Tory writer in
December, 1783, not a month after the evacuation. But the Whigs
were masters. Altogether it was a changed and sorry representa-
tion of ante-war New-York. Old and well-known families were
missing and missed on both sides. "Ah!" wrote Jay to bis former
friend, Van Scbaack, at this time, " if I ever see New York again
I expect to meet with the shade of many a departed joy ; my heart
bleeds to think of it." Among prominent expatriated royalists, for-
mer residents of the city, were such men as William Smith, the his-
torian and chief justice of the province ; Rev. Dr. Charles Inglis,
1 The Rey. Owrles IngUi was a native of Iiv persiBted in retajniog the cbosea In the prftyere
l&ad. He come to America as a mlBsloDary In 1759, which mentioned the Idngsnd rofol family. Be
and In 1T65 he became assistant mlniater of Trinity left New- York in 1776, but was rector of Trinity
Cbuivh, this eitf. He was In violent opposition during the British occupation. At the evacuation
to the revolutionary BentlmentB of the colonists. he retired to Halifax, became Bisbop of Nova Seo'
and a pampblet written ag^natPalne's "Common tiain IT8T. and died in 1816. Hewi
Senae " was burned by the Sons of Liberty. He bishop by his son John.
NEW-YOKK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 9
rector of Trinity Church; Thomas Barclay and William Axtell, mer-
chants ; Colonel Edmimd Fanning, and others, who found new homes
in Nova Scotia. The Hon. Andrew Elliot, Judge Thomas Jones,
William Bayard, George Ludlow, Colonel Eoger Morris, and the Hon.
James De Lancey were among those whose estates were confiscated
by the legislature of New- York during the war, and who ended their
days in the mother-country. Bayard, on leaving New-York, com-
plained bitterly that "the rebels" had confiscated every shilling of his
valuable property.^ The immense De Lancey estate, lying on the east
side of the city along the general line of Grand street, and which was
sold under forfeiture after the war, accommodates to-day three hun-
dred thousand inhabitants of the city with homes. Among the Whigs
whom New- York was not to see again the most distinguished was
Philip Livingston, member of Congress and a signer of the Declara-
tion of Independence, who died at York, Pennsylvania, in 1778. Gen-
eral John Morin Scott, secretary of state for New-York, one of the
active patriots representing the city both in the field and in the
legislature during the memorable contest, died about three months
after the evacuation.
Bereft of more than half its original inhabitants, the remaining
half divided into two distinct elements, in part bitterly hostile, and
with trade relations and present resources precarious and meager, —
the old town for the time being little resembled its former prosperous
and hospitable self. As the immediate result of the war, we have a
sifting process and a lull. Six years more, and the population will be
thirty thousand. Apart from the natural increase, there will be in-
crease by immigration both home and foreign. The home immigrant
will be principally the rural New-Yorker, the New-Englander, and the
Jerseyman. It was in those early years that the city began to attract
and absorb that native American material which has continued to
flow from other places ever since. It was then, in 1783, that Alex-
ander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, among the first, settled here in the
practice of the law ; a little later, James Kent, the future chancellor ;
Rufus King, of Massachusetts, and James Watson, of Connecticut,
two of the city's early United States senators ; William Samuel John-
son, president of Columbia ; Francis Childs and Thomas Greenleaf ,
editors and printers ; Drs, McKnight and Cogswell, and many others,
including Revolutionary officers, whose numerous descendants are
counted to-day among our old New-Yorkers. As to the foreign im-
migrant, he was always with us. Before the Revolution, the Scotch,^
1 His New- York and Hoboken estates were sold aware branch of the Bayard family, and at his
under the eonllBeation aet The latter was par- death, in 1868, left her the estate, worth many
ehased in 18M by Cmptain. John Stevens, and in dne millions. Editor.
time paMsd to l&ia son, Edwin A. Stevens. He 2 Deserving of conspicuous notice among the
married for hia aeeond wife a member of the Del- Scotch immigrants is Robert Lenox. He was bom
10
mSTOBY OF NEW- YORK
Irish, French, and German elements were broadly recognized. After
the war the immigration appears to have been mainly Irish, and a
considerable number arrived during this period, though more went
to Pennsylvania. Two hundred foreigners were naturalized in this
city as early as May, 1784. A letter from Belfast of this date says :
"The passengers now going, and who have since the conclusion of the
r^j^^^ jy^ American War sailed from this port in such pro-
Ul/ril ' IA/I^^<li^ digious numbers, are not the refuse of the country.
No, they are those that form the yeomanry of the land.'' From Ger-
many came, in 1783, young John Jacob Astor, who was to lay the
foundation of that enormous private wealth with which the family
name is associated.
Passing to the municipal government of New-York for this period,
we shall find the old colonial forms preserved and continued. There
was simply a transfer of authority from English to American hands ;
and this was effected without friction or disorder. The original
charter under which the city had been governed since 1686, or, in its
amended form, since 1730, had been disturbed by neither party during
the war, except so far as British military rule prevailed, and it was
still operative in all its parts. Its revision upon the basis of the
advanced political theories of the colonists was yet to be agitated,
and upon the entry of the Americans it only remained to rehabilitate
the corporation through some authorized agency. The occasion had
been provided for. As early as October 23, 1779, by act of the State
legislature, a body was created, known as the council for the southern
district of New-York, which was charged with the duty of assuming
control of the city and neighboring counties immediately upon the
withdrawal of the enemy. It was empowered to preserve order ; to
prevent the monopoly of the necessaries of life; to impress fuel,
forage, horses, teams, and drivers into its service; to supply the
markets with provisions and regulate prices ; and to superintend the
election of members of the l^islature and city officers, at which dis-
affected persons were not to be allowed to vote or stand as candidates.
The members consisted of the governor, G^eorge Clinton; the lieuten-
in Kirkcudltriicbt, a fc«porl town on iht KNitb>
wtMit bonWr of Scotland. 4n 1739, and donnir the
H«vol\itlon vas placed in the charge of an nnekiy
a <K4iiniiMianr in the British svrrice. vho came to
lhi« tHHintrr in 177CL At the ckwe of the war.
RoWn lA^n€lS nettled in New- York and en^iafred
in the £a«t India trade. Mxm amawTOur a laree for-
t^ii«» f\«r Ihuae da3r«. Hi« hanneas trans»rtiofis
MMTi^MiM^ fvur nuoiT Tears those of any merchant
ilk thi* iMly uf that period. In ms he
aKmi thirty acrr* Wtwren Fourth and Fifth
iA\MGfc and Sixty-«ighth and Serentr-foorth
whWh ti«<4Mu«> what wm» known as the Lcaox farm.
irW Y^h^ paid was |«KNL For a portion oi this
property his only son James, who inherited it when
his father died in 1^39. receiTed some three mil-
lions <rf d<dlars between 1870 and 1880, and at his
denth in the latter year posaeeaed sereral acres of
the old farm, the raloe of which, together with
what he had gi^en to the Lorax Library and
the Preebyterian HospltaL was folly four mil-
lions^ Mr. Robert Lmmx was, like his son, a fnneat
benefactor to the Piesbyterian Chorrh, and for
fifteen years was president of the St. AiHtrew So-
ciety.— lus immediate ptedecessuiA bdnir Chan-
cellor LiriniESton and Waller Kn&erford.
portrait is preserred in the
NEW-YOBK Ciry UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
11
anfc^overnor, Pierre Van Cortlandt; the chancellor, Robert R. Living-
ston ; Judges Robert Yates and John Sloss Hobart, of the State Supreme
Court; John Morin Scott, secretary of state; Egbert Benson, attorney-
general; the State senators of the southern counties, Stapheu Ward,
Isaac Stoutenburgh, James Duane, and William Smith, and the
assemblymen of the same district. The judges of the district were
also to serve, but none had been appointed. Seven members of the
council, of whom the governor was always to be one, constituted a
quorum. For the city's guardianship, temporary or permanent, the
most punctilious community could
not have made a more noteworthy
selection. On Evacuation Day they
rode into the city four abreast, and
next in order after Washington and
the governor at the head of the
procession.
Occupying the council-chamber in
the old City Hall in Wall street, this
provisional body, with James M.
Hughes as secretary, entered at
once upon its duties. The original
records of its proceedings have dis-
appeared, but from certain of its
published ordinances, and from ref-
erences in the papers of the day,
the features of its administration
can be outlined. Protection and re-
lief for the daily increasing population were the first care. With the
^d of the light infantry battalion of the continental army, which re-
mained in the city under General Knox and Major Sumner for some
weeks after the evacuation, oi-der was maintained and the necessary
regnlations enforced. The first ordinance, issued November 27, re-
lated to great abuses " in the sale of bread." Thereafter a loaf was
to weigh two pounds, eight ounces, avoirdupois, made of good mer-
chantable flour, and each loaf marked with the initial letters of the
baker, price " eight coppers." All new-comers were to register their
names and places of abode, be they housekeepers or boarders. Li-
censes were granted, weighers, measurers, firemen, and watchmen ap-
pointed, thieves and robbers confined, and all the hundred other
requirements of city oversight fulfilled.
The first steps toward the restoration of the regular city govern-
ment were taken early in December, when the council authorized an
election of ward oflScers or board of aldermen. The election occurred
on the 15th of the month, xmder the old viva voce method, — the ballot
^^^^^
12 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
not being introduced until 1804, — and seven aldermen, one from each
ward, were chosen, whose names, with those of the assistant alder-
men, who were doubtless elected at the same time, appear in the list
of corporation officers given below. This incomplete body — incom-
plete so far as no mayor had been appointed — organized with John
Broome as president, and assumed the government of the city under
the title of the aldermen and common council. The provisional council
still continued its functions, as, by the terms of the act of 1779, it
was required to do for sixty days after the evacuation, but the details
of city management were clearly left to the new body. Seven weeks
later the organization of the government was completed. The com-
mon council and many citizens petitioned the governor to appoint
James Duane mayor of the city, and on February 7 the appointment
was made — the governor and board of appointment, authorized by
the State constitution, exercising in this case the right of nomination
vested in the colonial governors and their councils. On February 9
Duane was formally installed as mayor, at a special meeting of the
city council held at the house of "Mr. Simmons,^ — John Simmons,
innkeeper, in Wall street, near the City Hall — where he took the oath
of office in the presence of that body, and of the governor and Ueu-
tenant-govemor of the State, representing the State provisional coun-
cil, whose duties now ceased. The city corporation was thus restored
in all its forms and offices, as follows :
First American city government of New- York, 1784 : Mayor, James
Duane; Recorder, Richard Varick; Chamberlain or City Treasurer,
Daniel Phoenix ; SheriflE, Marinus Willett ; Coroner, Jeremiah Wool ;
Clerk of the Common Council, Robert Benson.
Aldermen : Benjamin Blagge, Thomas Randall, John Broome, Wil-
liam W. Gilbert, William Neilson, Thomas I vers, Abraham P. Lott.
Assistants: Daniel Phoenix, Abraham Van Gelden, Thomas Ten
Eyck, Henry Shute, Samuel Johnson, Jeremiah Wool.
These first "city fathers" of the new regime were representative
citizens. James Duane, the mayor, was a man of wealth and high
social and political standing. During the Revolutionary war he served
as a member of the New-York provincial congress, of the Continental
Congress, and of the State senate, and was elected a delegate to the
New-York constitutional convention of 1788. He served as mayor
until 1789, and was soon after appointed by Washington the first
United States judge of the district of New-York. His city residence
in Pine street had been practically destroyed during the British occu-
pation, while his farm establishment on the general line of Twentieth
street, east of Broadway, escaped injury. The latter was known as
"Gramercy Seat^ and included the present park of that name, this
being a corruption of the Dutch name " Krom messie " (crooked little
NEW-YORK CITT UNDEK AMERICAN CONTROL
13
knife), given to a creek running through the land. In his letter of
acceptance of the mayoralty, Duane requested that in view of the
severity of the season and prevailing distress, the public entertain-
ment usually given on the investiture of the office be dispensed with.
He also presented twenty guineas for the relief of his " suffering fel-
low-citizens." The recorder, Rich-
ard Varick, who succeeded Duane
as mayor, had been Washington's
private secretary during the latter
part of the war, and in later life
was for many years president of
the American Bible Society. The
sheriff. Colonel Willett, had dis-
tinguished himself in various ac-
tions at the head of one of the
New-York continental regiments,
while Phoenix, "Wool, Broome,
Neilson, Lott, Ivers, and others
of the common council, were old
merchants and prominent mem-
bers of the Chamber of Commerce.
The first meeting of the common
council, as completely oi^anized,
was held on February 10, 1784.
On March 16 it was voted to
change the city seal by erasing the imperial crown and substituting
the crest of the arms of the State of New- York, that is, " a repre-
sentation of a semi-globe with a soaring eagle thereon."
In its outward forms the city government reflected its English
derivation. The conditions of citizenship also remained the same for
many years, and so far presented a contradiction. The citizen of the
State of New- York was politically a freer man than the citizen of the
city of New- York. Suffrage rights were not the same for each. Under
the new State constitution of 1777, while the property qualification
required of voters for State officers varied, for assemblymen it was
moderate. The voter must pay assessments and a nominal house
rent of five dollars. To enjoy municipal privileges, to be able to vote
and to stand as a candidate for the office of alderman, it was neces-
sary to be either a "freeholder" or a "freeman" in the ancient English
sense. The ^'freeholder" was a real-estate owner; he must possess
land of the annual value of at least forty shillings. Ordinary tenants,
rent-payers, (!onld not vote ; and these restrictions limited the voters
ctf this class to a small number. The census of 1790 shows that out
at a popnlation of thirty thousand there were but 1209 freeholders of
14 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
£100 valuation or over; 1221 of £20, and 2661 "forty-shilling^ hold-
ers. Property interests — something like a landed aristocracy — con-
trolled municipal elections. The inconsistency of this system with the
general leveling principles on which the Revolution had been fought
out, was occasionally referred to. As early as March 31, 1785, some
one writes to the " New-York Packet '^ : " K you look into the corpora-
tion you will find men whom you both feed and clothe, that you have
James Duane, Efquire,
N«w.Yo«,p* MAYOR,
Andthe ALDERMEN of the Qtyof NEW-YORK.
10 alito whom the/kPrefenUjhattcpmetfind Greeting :
N O W Y E. That ^e^ifHC^cU^^e^^ /^-^i..*;^^^
is admitted^ieceiredand allowed aP R EEMANandCITIZE Nof tfaeiajd City;
lDHave» Hold, Uie and Enjoy all the Beaefit8» Privileget» Franchiies and Immunities whatibcver»
granted or bdongihg to tlie fiid City* In TssTiMomr wfaeieof. the laid Mayor and Aldermen
fcarecauied the Seal of the laid City to be bereonto affixed. WITNESS JAMES DUANE,
E%iiire, Mi^or* ^isr4c^iZ!^^t^f^ Dty of ./it^^ in tfacTear of onr Lord
^i/^ and oftbeSoYeitignty tad Ind^cndenceof the State the
V
FAC-8IMILE OF A FREEMAN'S OERTIFIOATE.
no power to elect. Is this right or wrong t Common sense gives the
answer." The agitation will wax warm about 1800, and in 1804 the
charter will be so amended that all New-Yorkers paying twenty-five
dollars rent per year and taxes may vote for aldermen ; but it will
not be until 1833 that they secure the right to elect their own mayor.
The "freemen,'* who were not so numerous as the "freeholders,"
were likewise a relic of the Old World municipal system. They repre-
sented residents not owning real property, who, nevertheless, as mer-
chants, traders, artisans, and workmen, contributed to the wealth of
the city, and on whom the city corporation conferred the rights of
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 15
citizenship on the payment of fixed fees. Such persons were made
"free of the city.^ Among the Dutch they had been called " burghers '^
of the lesser right. During Mayor Duane's term a considerable
number of "freemen" were admitted to the suffrage, including la-
borers, bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, weavers, tanners,
blacksmiths, butchers, grocers, cabinet-makers, cartmen, ironmongers,
and tradesmen generally. When admitted to this privilege, mer-
chants paid five pounds, and others twenty shillings, to the corpora-
tion, and fees ranging from one to eight shillings to the mayor,
recorder, clerk and bell-ringer of the mayor's court. They also took
oath that they would be " obeisant and obedient'' to the city officials,
" maintain and keep the said city harmless," and report and hinder all
"unlawful gatherings, assemblies and conspiracies" against the peace
of the good people of the State.
This custom of creating "freemen" died out early in the present
century, and was formally abolished in 1815, except so far as the
honorary right was conferred. Distinguished persons were pre-
sented with the freedom of the city down to a recent date, the roll
being adorned with the names of Washington, Lafayette, Jay, Clin-
ton, Steuben, Gates, Hamilton, the naval heroes of the 1812 war, and
representatives of the war for the Union. The "freedom" in such
cases was presented in the form of an address from the corporation
inclosed in an elegant gold box. In Washington's reply to the address
transmitted to him in December, 1784, it is possible that we have the
origin of the title New- York enjoys as the "Empire State." His words
were sympathetic and hopeful : " I pray that Heaven may bestow its
choicest blessings on your City; that the devastations of war in
which you found it may soon be without a trace ; that a well regu-
lated and beneficial commence may enrich your citizens ; and that
your Stdte (at present the seat of the Empire) may set such examples
of wisdom and liberality as shall have a tendency to strengthen and
give permanency to the Union at home, and credit and respectability
to it abroad." ^
The interior life of the new city had its interesting phases. In the
general activities an earnest start was made, although fortune failed
to smile on every initial effort. The Chamber of Commerce, organ-
ized in 1768, and kept up by the British and resident merchants dur-
ing the war, was incorporated by the New-York legislature, April
13, 1784. Its first president under the new charter was John Alsop;
vice-president, Isaac Sears; treasurer, John Broome; secretary, John
Blagge; and its first members were Samuel Broome, George Embree,
Thomas Hazard, Cornelius Ray, Abraham Duryee, Thomas Randall,
Thomas Tucker, Daniel Phoenix, Isaac Roosevelt, James Beekman,
1 See ftw-oiiiiile of this letter on pages 23 and 24.
16
HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
Eliphalet Brush, John B. Kip, Comfort Sands, Nathaniel Hazard,
Jeremiah Piatt, Gerardus Duyckinck, Abraham P. Lett, Benjamin
Ledyard, Anthony Griffiths, William Malcolm, Robert Bowen, John
Berriaa, Jacob Morris, John Franklin, Abraham Lott, James Jarvis,
Henry H. Kip, Archibald Cnrrie, Stephen Sayre, Jonathan Lawrence,
Joseph Blaekwell, Joshua Sands, Viner Van Zandt, David Currie,
Lawrence Embree, and Jacobus Van
Zandt. The influence which this body,
with its growing membership, exerted
upon the affairs of the city, and espe-
cially in shaping its policy during the
constitutional period, will be seen to
have been quite marked. Most of the
mercantile houses and offices, with the
docks and shipping, were to be found
on the east side of the town, near and
along the East River. About 1788, as
many as one hundred vessels might be
seen at any one time discharging or
taking in cargoes, but not all flying
the American flag. The first Ameri-
^ ^ /^ can merchantman bound for Canton
t^/^^ d^i^'V^Cu^C^ was the Empress of China, Captain
Green, which left port February 22,
1784, and reached her destination August 30. She returned May 11,
1785, after having made a paying venture. Congress passed a resolu-
tion expressing satisfaction at this successful attempt to establish
a direct trade with China. The ship Betsy sailed about the same
time for Madras. Packet-ships, American, British, and French, kept
up communication between New- York and European ports. There
was but one bank in the city during this period — the Bank of New-
York, established early in 1784, largely through the efforts of William
Duer and General Alexander McDougall, who was its first president
until his death on June 8, 1786. Isaac Roosevelt became its presi-
dent in 1789. In April, 1787, a Mutual Fire Assurance Company
made its appearance, which John Pintard, afterward prominent in
many enterprises, had been chiefly instrumental in organizing; he
was its first secretary. The General Society of Mechanics and Trades-
men was established August 4, 1785, with the object of promoting
mutual fellowship and confidence among all mechanics, preventing
litigation between them, extending mechanical knowledge, and afford-
ing relief to distressed members. Anthony Post was chairman. There
were societies for promoting useful knowledge, for the relief of
distressed debtors, and for manufacturing pmposes. The social or-
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 17
gauizations, or the societies of St. Andrew, St. George, and St. Pat-
rick, with a German and musical society and masonic lodges, all had
an txisteuoe or their beginning in those early years. The New- York
branch of the Cincinnati Society of Revolutionary Officers maintained
an active life, and regularly celebrated Independence Day with an
oration, a dinner, and toasts. General McDougall and Baron Steuben
were its first two presidents. The Society foi" the Manumission of
Slaves, organized in 1785, held its fii-st quarterly meeting on May 12
of that year at the Coffee House, when John Jay was elected presi-
dent; Samuel Franklin, vice-presidont; John Murray, Jr., treasurer;
and John Keese, secretary. Its members advocated the gradual
emancipation of slaves, and their protection as freedmen. Some set
their slaves free " at proper ages," and denounctd the separatmu of
families by exportation of individuals for sale m the Southern States.
In June, 1788, Jay wrote to Granville Sharp, the English philanthro-
pist: "By the laws of this State, masters may now liberate healthy
slaves of a proper age without giving security that they shall not
become a parish charge ; and the exportation as well as importation
of them is prohibited. The State has also manumitted such as be-
came its property by confiscation; and we have reason to expect that
the maxim that every man, of whatever color, is to be presumed to
be free until the contrary be shown, will prevail in our Courts of jus-
tice. Manumissions daily become more common among us, and the
treatment which slaves in general meet with in this State is very little
different from that of other servants."
The professions were revived under the new auspices, but without
material change in practice and methods. Lawyers were numerous,
aod the deranged state of things after the war made litigation lucra-
1 ThU representation of Iilspenard's Headows
wan drawn by Dr. Alexander Andersen in 1TS5,
and ma taken from the rite of ibe St. Niebolu
18 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
tive. The names of forty-two are given in the City Directory for
1786. Hamilton's office was at 58 Wall street; Burr's at 10 Little
Queen street; Morgan Lewis, 59 Maiden Lane; Eobert Troup, 18
Smith street ; Richard Varick, 46 Dock street ; Edward Livingston,
51 Queen (now Pearl) street. Among the few masters in Chancery
were John Jay, 8 Broad street ; John Broome, 6 Hanover Square ;
William M. Hughes, 20 Golden Hill, or John street ; and Edward
Dunscomb, examiner, 83 Wall street. The chancellor, Robert R. Liv-
ingston, conducted the limited business of his court at his residence,
No. 3 Broadway. The Hons. Richard Morris and John Sloss Hobart
were two of three judges of the State Supreme Court of Judicature,
who resided in New- York or its immediate vicinity. For local cases
the mayor's court, the oldest in the city, was the only resort, and it
became the nm^sery of all the legal talent that distinguished the bar
of New-York of that day. " Ignorant pretenders," we are told, found
little chance of making their way at law on account of the number
of critical examinations required of candidates for the higher courts
and the time of study called for by the rules of admission to the bar.
The New-York Medical Society, of which the well-known Dr. John
Bard was president, was exceptionally strong in the character of its
membership. Several of the surgeons and physicians had lately served
in the army. Dr. John Cochrane having been medical director of the
continental line, and Drs. Charles McKnight, James Cogswell, and
others, regimental or hospital surgeons. Dr. George Christian Authon
had long been identified with the British army, and during the Revo-
lution was stationed for a time as post surgeon at Detroit. He settled
with his family in New- York in 1784, and died here at an advanced
age. Among his sons was the late Professor Charles Anthon, the clas-
sical scholar. Among others were Drs. Benjamin Kissam, William P.
Smith, Nicholas Romaine, James Tillary, Samuel Bradhurst, " physi-
cian and apothecary," Samuel Bard, and J. R. B. Rodgers. Dr. Mason
Pitch Cogswell, subsequently the eminent Hartford physician, prac-
tised in New- York at this period, and was a member of the Medical
Society. Still another member was the distinguished Samuel Latham
Mitchill, who, as physician, scientist, professor, and United States
senator, became one of the ornaments of the city and the nation.^
With the doctors we also have the quacks, one of whom offers to heal
almost every ailment, from palsy to bums and toothache, with elec-
tricity— "no cure no pay."
1 One of Mitchill*8 ewrliwt scientific papers was shores of Long Island west of Whitestone, he
published in New-York in 1787. with the title, «* Ob- says : ** There is a tradition among that race of
servations, Anatomical, Physiological and Patho- men who, previous to the Europeans, possessed
logical, on the Absorbent Tubes of Animal Bodies, this tract of country, that at some distant period
to which are added Geological Remarks on the in former times, their ancestors could step from
Maritime Parts of the State of New-York.'' Treat- rock to rock and cross this arm of the sea at Hell
ing briefly on the latter pointy espedally of the Ckkte.**
liii
1 k 1 :
Hi
I 51 1 III
ii I ^^^«
^i! H ! ill i
4 ifllll
HAP OP LITIHaBTOK XAMOB, ITU.
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 19
As to educational institutions, it is interesting to note that steps
were taken, very soon after the evacuation, to put King's College, now
Columbia — the only college in the State — on a good working basis
again. During the war the building had been used as a hospital by the
British, who had rifled its library. The president, the Rev. Dr. Benja-
min Moore, had given instructions in a private house, and a nominal
faculty was continued, but little appears to have been accomplished.
On May 1, 1784, the legislature passed an act altering the charter of the
institution and placing it under the State Board of Regents provided
for at the same time. The last provision of the act reads: "That the
College within the City of New- York, heretofore called King's College,
be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia
College." Yoimg De Witt Clinton was the first student who entered
under its new name. A faculty of professors carried out the cur-
riculum until 1787, when William Samuel Johnson, son of the first
president, was elected to the presidency. The first commencement
was held April 11, 1786, after "a lamented intei-val of many years";
and on this occasion Congress and both houses of the State legisla-
ture adjourned to attend the exercises. College Place of to-day —
Barclay, Church, and Murray streets — marks the site of the original
structure, which was long and wide, three stories high, built of free-
stone, with a very high fence around it. Private schools also ap-
peare<l, but it cannot be said that any special interest was taken by
the public in the cause of education at this date.
The religious denominations remained of nearly the same relative
strength as before the war. There were the three Dutch Reformed
churches, which had been turned into hospitals, storehouses, and
riding-schools by the enemy during the Revolution, and shamefully
abused. The Middle Church required extensive repairs, and was not
reopened until 1790. The pastors during this period were the Rev.
Dr. John Henry Livingston and Rev. Dr. William Linn. The Pro-
testant Episcopal Church was represented by three parishes — Trinity,
St. PauPs, and St. George's. Trinity Church was destroyed by the
great fire of September, 1776, and it was not until August 21, 1788,
that the corner-stone for a new building was laid. Some excitement
was ocxiasioned at the time of the evacuation of the city by the
action of the Tory element in the parish in electing the Rev. Dr. Ben-
jamin Moore rector, to succeed Dr. Inglis, who had left with the refu-
gees for Nova Scotia. When the Whigs took possession of the town,
the Trinity members among them appealed to the legislature and
succeeded in obtaining full possession and reversing the election.
Their choice fell on the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost. The four Presby-
terian churches, one of them built in 1787, had for pastors such men
as Eev. Dr. John Rodgers, Rev. John McKnight, Rev. Dr. John Mason,
20
mSTOEY or NEW-TORK
and others not permanMitly settled. Of Dr. Eodgers, Rev. Manasseh
Cutler, visiting New- York in the interest of the Ohio Company, wrote
in 1787: "He is certainly the most accomplished gentleman for a
clergyman, not to except even Dr. Cooper, that I have ever been
acquainted with. He lives in elegant style, and entertains company
as genteelly as the first gentlemen in the City. This he may well do,
for his salary is 750 pounds, and his per-
quisites upwards of 200 more." There
were, m addition, two German Luther-
an churches, one Moravian church, one
Methodist, one Baptist, one Roman Cath-
olic church, one Friends' meeting-house,
and one Jewish synagogue.
On its strictly social side, New- York
life had always been attractive. Less
provincialism existed here than at any
other center in the colonies. Strangers
and foreigners alike remarked on the hos-
pitality of the people. What with the
State legislature meeting in the city, and
Congress following early in 1785, with
foreign miuistei-s, consuls, and merchants
entertaining, handsomely, society estab-
lished itself in full feather. Distin-
guished men and old families gave tone
to it. More than one member of Congress
from other States found their future part-
ners within the charmed circle. James Monroe, the future president,
married the daughter of Lawrence Kortwright ; Rufus King, of Boston,
the daughter of John Alsop; and Elbridge Gerry, the daughter of James
Thompson, who is flatteringly referred to as "the most beautiful
woman in the United States." A visitor at Colonel William Duer'H
house states that he hved in the style of a nobleman, and had fifteen
different sorts of wine at dinner. His wife, Lady Kitty, daughter of
General Lord Stirling, late of the continental army, and a person of
most accomplished manners, was observed to wait upon the table from
her end of it, with two servants in lively at her back'. But it hap
been estimated that less than three hundred families affected society
life at this time, and these were of different grades.
This sumptuous tendency did not escape criticism. As a whole, the
town was hard pushed for a living during these early years. The item
of house-rent alone was claimed to be out of all proportion to the con-
dition of business and the average of incomes. Before the war the
highest rental was one hundred pounds ; now nearly double that sum
(^aT^M
'«/^«-
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 21
was demanded. Seventy pounds and taxes was the figure for a mod-
ei*ate house in Wall sti'eet in 1786. House-owners, then as now, held on
for a rise, and declined to let houses at lower rates even when assured
that they would stand empty a good part of the year. Rent-day proved
distressing beyond its proverbial reputation. Money was scarce.
"Cash! Cash! O, Cash!" exclaims a writer to the press, "why hast
thou deserted the Standard of Liberty ! and made poverty and dissi-
pation our distinguishing characteristic I ^ The inability of the con-
gross of the confederation to regulate commerce accounted largely for
the slow financial recovery which marked the period.
These straitened lines presented a contrast to society drift, and
rebuked it. Luxuries, pleasures, and amusements were coming into
favor more and more, distm'bing the peace of mind of sensitive,
frugal, hard- worked people, and shocking church society. The ten-
dency was unmistakable, but hardly unnatural or extravagant. It
had developed alarmingly in Philadelphia during the later years of the
war, and New- York was now feeling something of the same reaction
without faring worse. Society and fashion, like everything else, were
simply reinstating themselves after the wreck of the war. John Jay,
who had seen enough of high life abroad for four years, was not espe-
cially depressed by the signs at home, when he could discourage La-
fayette's wife from coming to America in 1785, as she proposed, by
infoiming her that we had few amusements here to relieve trav-
elers of the monotony of a visit. " Our men for the most part," he
assures her, " mind their business and our women their families ; and
if our wives succeed (as most of them do) in * making home man's best
delight,' gallantry seldom draws their husbands from them. Our cus-
toms, in many Respects, differ from yours, and you know that whether
with or without reason, we usually prefer those which education and
habit recommend. The pleasures of Paris and the pomp of Versailles
are unknown in this country." No doubt of this ; but people, never-
theless, said, and printed it in the papers, that the ton of New- York
ou^ht to set simpler habits and fashions to the public.
The taste for luxuries was increased by the varied importations of
the foreign merchants. The assortment was attractive. Wines and
liquors of many bj'ands were advertised freely. At the " Universal
Store "in Hanover Square, kept by Randall, Son & Stewart, one could
buy almost everything, from broadcloths and carpets to nails and
cheeses. Leonard Kip's line of dry-goods included "shalloons, durants,
tammies, antaloons, moreens, dorsetseens, satins, persians, taflfities
and the like." At No. 11 Queen street, Patrick Hart & Company
announce ** London consignments of taboreens, rattinets, black and
colored callimancoes, checks, jeans, thread and silk hose, Irish linens
of all prices, shoes with common and French heels," and much more.
22 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The expansive dresses of the women also came in for censure. " The
article I mean to take notice of,'* writes a critic, in 1784, "is the hoop,
which is now so universally worn, that it is impossible for a person to
walk the streets without being frequently turned out of the way and
exposed to the annoyance of carts and coaches.'' A father adds that
he cannot afford it for his daughters. With the varieties of head-gear,
silk stockings, powdered wigs, and lessons in dancing and etiquette,
such life proved more or less expensive — unduly so for the times,
complained the wage-earners.
The question of extravagance and amusements seems to have stirred
public feeling very generally when, in the fall of 1785, it was proposed
to revive the theater in the city. The theater building of colonial
times still stood on John street, a short distance east of Broadway,
where before the war Lewis Hallam, a popular actor of the old
American company, who afterward was also its manager, drew re-
spectable audiences. It was a quaint wooden affair, with a gallery
and a double row of boxes in addition to the pit. As Congress had
recommended the closing of places of amusement during the contest,
and Washington had issued orders threatening dismissal upon all
officers who engaged in theatrical .entertainments, Hallam and his
troupe went to the island of Jamaica, and amused its inhabitants un-
til the peace opened the door for his return to America. His return,
however, was far from welcomed by the element which had been
harboring anxiety over the moral health of New-York. It protested
against the revival of the drama, and succeeded in giving the city a tem-
porary sensation. The controversy entered the newspapers, and the
theater became the talk of the town. What was said on both sides
can be readily imagined, but what is of special interes*t to the modem
reader are the glimpses afforded here and there in the discussion of
certain phases in the social status. Thus an appeal against the revival,
published by some reformer through the ** Packet,'' is quite in point:
"Are the families in this city,'' he asks, " of whatever rank, as rich
now as they were before the war t Are there not many who have
advanced a great part of their estates to their bleeding country during
the contest, who are not yet repaid t Have not many of our most
respectable families, to maintain the credit of our continental money,
which was then supporting our army against the Britons, received all
their outstanding debt« in that money, and thereby become nearly
ruined? And do not many of them, besides their losses, owe large
sums upon debts they contracted before the war t Have not repairs
and entering anew into some line of business exhausted their de-
ranged finances, and proved an exertion almost beyond their strength?
And are gentlemen in such a situation fit to indulge themselves, their
wives or children, in expensive amusements? Have not some hun-
24
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
dreds of citizens had their houses burned down while the British
army lay in New York! Are not multitudes obliged to take up money
upon interest to build a little hut or else pay rent superior to their
earnings? Is there not a general complaint of the unhappy situa-
tion of our merchants, of the distress attending our commerce, and
NEW-YOBK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 25
of the balance of trade being heavily against us — heavily in impor-
tations not only of necessaries, but also of articles of luxury, and
scarce anything to make a remittance with f And is a play-house
proper for a city in such a situation? Are
our taxes paid upt Are uot the wheels of
goverumeut clogged for want of money I
Have you a single ship of war to guard your
coasts or even defend your city from the in-
sults of one armed vessel!" And in all this
there is much to read between the Hnes. The
theater, nevertheless, was reestablished. Of
course there were the usual jugglers, mountebanks, waxworks, and
harlequin farces about town to amuse shilling sight-seers.
As to recreations and resorts, nothing irresistibly inviting offered.
The beats of summer found most New-Yorkers at home; but there
were pleasant excursions on the island. A small party could ride out
to Murray Hill in a hired carriage, and be gone half a day, for four-
teen shillings; two shillings more if they kept on to Grade's Point,
opposite Hell Gate. Sixteen shillings to go up the west side to
Apthorpe's, at Ninety-second street, lately Elm Park. From that
point one could walk a mile beyond, along the old Bloomingdale road,
and find himself on "Harlem Heights battle-field," about One Hun-
dred and Fifteenth to One Hundred and Twentieth street, just west
of present Morningside Park. The fine orchard through which
Knowlton's rangers, and Leitch's Virginians, and other troops under
Greene, Clinton, and Putnam, chased the choicest of the redcoats on
September 16, 1776, was still standing; so also was Jones's stone
house at One Hundred and Seventh street, near Riverside drive,
where the British Adjutant-General Kendall tells us the fighting first
began, and near where we know it ended. To go to Harlem, a day's
excursion, would cost thirty-eight shillings; to Kingsbridge, forty.
As to Long Branch and Saratoga, their attractions were known and
were beginning to draw. In 1789, about a dozen respectable persons,
including two or three New-Yorkers, were stopping at a wretched
tavern at Saratoga. " There is no convenience for bathing," writes
Elkanah Watson, the traveler, "except an open log hut, with a large
trough, similar to those in use for feeding swine, which receives the
water from the spring. Into this you roU from off a bench." About
the same time an advertisement appeared in one of the New- York
papers, offering an elegant farm for sale "at the place called Long
Branch, near Shrewsbury, in Monmouth County, in the State of New
Jersey.** It was described as most charmingly situated for a gentle-
man^ country-seat, or for a house of entertainment for "the gi-eat
cooconrse of people that every year fly to this sweet spot from the
HISTOBT OF NEW-TOBK
fatigues of business and the want of health to inhale pare air and
taste trae delight."
In ite exteTior appearance the city steadily improved upon the con-
dition in which the British left it in 1783. The burned districts, the
ruined churches and public buildings, the dilapidated residences,
stores, and docks, and the wretched streets, were for months a con-
stant eye-sore. By 1786 much had been done in the way of clearing
up, repairing, and building ; much more by 1789. The greater portion
of the town still lay east of
Broadway and stretched out
to Grand street. As the houses
were not very high, and garden
fronts and open spaces inter-
vened, Broadway commanded
a delightful prospect of the
Hudson. There were as yet
few stately residences on it.
"In this street," says Rev. Dr.
Manasseh Cutler, in 1787, "the
gentry ride every morning and
afternoon in their carriages,
which are generally very grand
and are principally coaches,
chariots, and phaetons. The
common people ride in open
chairs." Wall street was much
more "elegant." William was
the dry-goods street. Pearl street, then Queen, surpassed any in the
city, being wide, and more than a mile and a half long. "The build-
ings are grand, from four to sis stories high, and the sides of the
street within the posts are laid principally with free-stone sufficiently
wide for three persons to walk abreast." Noah Webster t«lls us that
in 1786 not many houses remained "built after the old Dutch style."
The new bouses going up were frame or brick; or, as the insurance
statements represent, most of them were "framed buildings, with
brick or stone fronts and the sides filled in with brick." Water
privileges were limited. "Most of the people," says Webster, "are
supplied every day with fresh water conveyed to their doors in casks
from a pump near the head of Queen street, which receives it from a
pond almost a mile from the city." This pond was the "Collect," long
snce filled in, and on the site of which now stands the Tombs.
Public buildings were few. The City Hall stood on the northeast
comer of Wall and Nassau streets, having been erected in 1700.
When Congress assembled in New- York in 1785, the city authorities
^y^tp-£uA^ /7&^^^€e^
NEW- YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 27
gave up the use of the greater part of it to that body. The main hall,
or " Congress chamber," was at the east end of the second floor. On
an elevated platform on the southern side stood the president's chair,
lined with red damask silk, and over it a curious canopy fringed with
8ilk, with damask curtains falling to the floor and gathered with
silken cords. The chaii'S for the members were mahogany, richly
carved, and trimmed with red morocco leather. In front of each chair
stood "a small bureau table.'' The walls were hung with the portraits
of Washington and the king and queen of France. The mayor's office
was on the first floor ; the common-council chamber at the west end
of the second floor. Upon the adoption of the federal constitution
by the several States, or in* the fall of 1788, the "city fathers" resolved
to appropriate the entire building to the use of the new government,
and Major L'Enfant, a French engineer, was intrusted with the work
of remodeling it. Thereafter it was known as the "New Federal
Hall," and passed criticism as the most imposing structure in the
country. It cost about $65,000. At the other end of the city, or on
the common, stood the jail, now the Hall of Registry ; the almshouse,
on the site of the present court-house ; and west of it, on Broadway,
the bridewell, or main prison for criminals. Near the jail had been
erected, apparently in 1784, a gallows tastily inclosed in a kiosk-like
structure, which a stranger took to be a summer-house. Six persons
could be executed in it at a time without exposure to the public gaze.
In 1785 the death sentence was passed on a negro horse-thief, a noted
burglar, and a city watchman found guilty of robbery while on duty
at night. Mentioning the first execution, without giving details, the
editor of the " Packet " observed that the criminal, in his taking oflf,
"had relieved many worthy inhabitants from unremitted apprehen-
sions of occult danger."
Inns, taverns, coflfee-houses, were scattered about the city, some of
them associated with stirring local events, as the headquarters of the
"Sons of Liberty " and political societies. The City Tavern, Fraunces'
or Francis' Tavern, Cape's, the Bull's Head, Loggett's and Day's, near
Harlem, were all well patronized. At Fraunces', at Pearl and Broad
streets, o<^curred the parting scene between Washington and his offi-
cers, as he was leaving New- York on December 4, 1783, to surrender
his commission to CongresiS at Annapolis. Since Evacuation Day he
had been the guest of Chancellor Livingston. One of his favorite
officers, Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, as already cited in the preced-
ing volume, describes the farewell moment in a feeling manner.
The first American post-office in the city opened November 28,
1783, at No. 38 Smith street, in the house fonnerly occupied by Judge
Horsmanden. William Bedlow was postmaster, being a deputy
under Postmaster-Gteneral Ebenezer Hazard, then at Philadelphia.
28 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
The first American newspapers were the New- York "Weekly Journal,''
published by John Holt, who returned with his paper to the city in
the fall of 1783, and was succeeded by Thomas Greenleaf ; the semi-
weekly " Packet," published by Thomas Loudon, January, 1784 ; the
" Daily Advertiser," by Francis Childs, begun in the spring of 1785.
In January, 1788, Noah Webster established his monthly " American
Magazine," devoted to essays on all subjects, " particularly such as
relate to this country."
From fires, crime, and the negligence of officials the city was only
passably protected. There were some fourteen or fifteen old-style
fire-engines, each pumped by about a dozen men, while citizens with
buckets supplied the water from wells. • Watchmen patrolled the
streets at night, but robberies and knock-downs were not uncommon,
and, in the absence also of good lamps, there was not much passing
at late hours. The ordinary city force was inadequate to cope with
a mob, as appeared in the case of the " Doctors' Riot," which suddenly
broke out on April 13, 1788, when the militia and citizens alone could
restore quiet. The mob had been excited to violence by a boy's re-
port that he had seen physicians or medical students dissecting dead
bodies in the hospital, a practice which stirred up a general revulsion.
Several persons were killed or wounded during the riotf among the
latter John Jay, who with others endeavored to quell the disturbance.
Our earliest local political disputes in the American period were the
immediate outgrowth of the war. It was a case where feelings and
sensibilities were keenly touched, and as time sooner or later softens
human nature in this regard, the issue did not long continue. Plainly
stated, it was a question whether the Tories who remained in the city
had any rights the Whigs were bound to respect. Chancellor Living-
ston clearly defined the parties as they stood in January, 1784. First,
the Tories themselves, who " still hope for power under the idea that
the remembrance of the past should be lost, though they daily keep it
up by their avowed attachment to Great Britain." Second, the violent
Whigs, who were for "expelling all Tories from the State, in hopes by
that means to preserve the power in their own hands." Third, those
who wish " to suppress all violences, to soften the rigour of the laws
against the loyalists, and not to banish them from that social inter-
course which may, by degrees, obliterate the remembrance of past
misdeeds ; but who, at the same time, are not willing to shock the
feelings of the virtuous citizens that have at every expense and hazard
fulfilled their duty " to the country in the recent struggle. The more
determined Whigs organized a " Whig Society," whose object was to
urge the removal of certain influential, ojffensive Tories from the
State. The society's president was Lewis Morris, and its secretary,
John Pintard. Outspoken views, public meetings, and petitions to the
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 29
legislature followed, but the status of the Tories was not eventually
disturbed. The measure which aflfected them most seriously was the
trespass act, by which all Whigs who had been obliged to fly from
their homes in consequence of the enemy's invasion could bring an
action of trespass against those who may have entered and occupied
their houses under the enemy's protection. Many Tories had done
At a very numerous and re/pectable Meetings
held at Corres Hotel, on Monday Evening the
23^ April,
JOSEPH HALLETT, Efq. Chairman,
'n ESOLVED, unanifnouny. That this meeting do concur in the followinjnomi-
^*^ nation of GOVERNOR, LIEUT GOV SENATORS for the fou them dif-
trifl, and ASSEMBLY. MEN, for the city and county of New- York, to be fup-
ported at the enfuing ele^ion.
G£ORG£ CLi;VTOM Efq. Gov. PIERRE VAA^CORTLANDT, Efq, Lieut. Gov.
SENATORS.
EZRA L'HOMMEDIEU, PAUL MICHEAU, JOHN SCHENCK.
ASSEMBLY^MEN.
JOHN WATTS, WILLIAM DENNING,
WILLIAM W. GILBERT, MELANCTOJV SMITH,
WILLIAM S, LIVINGSTON, MORGAN LEWIS-
SAMUEL OSGOOD,
By Order of the Meeting,
JOSEPH H A L L ETZ Chairman.
FROM A CONTElfPORART BROADSn>E.
this, and were held to be liable. In one case, however, that of Eliza-
beth Batgers against Joshua Waddington, a wealthy Tory, a decision
was rendered in favor of the latter in the mayor's court, on the gen-
eral ground that the State act was in violation of the provisions of
the treaty of peace, under which Tories were protected in property
rights. This caused great excitement, especially as Waddington's
counsel was none other than Alexander Hamilton, who, as a distin-
guished officer in the continental army, could be supposed to have
none but the most pronounced Whig sympathies. But with Hamilton
the war was over, and he discountenanced harsh measures toward
30 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
those who would in time assimilate with and be lost in the mass
of the people. This position he maintained in some able articles
contributed by him to the press, over the signature of "Phocion,"
and to which Isaac Ledyard replied over the signature of " Mentor.**
Hamilton's broad, statesmanlike views left their impression, though
his professional course excited the anger of his opponents. So bitter
were the feelings of some of the more violent among them, that they
secretly determined to challenge him one by one to a duel until he
fell. When Ledyard heard of this, he immediately prevented the exe-
cution of the scheme. This extreme hostility to the Tories died out
in the course of a year or two, and soon disappeared in the greater
question of the national constitution which was beginning to engage
public attention.
State issues or politics were yet to become prominent. The war
governor, Clinton, had held ofl&ce for eight years, and opposition in-
terests were bound to show their strength in time. The first attempt
was quietly made in 1785, when General Schuyler sounded John Jay
as to his willingness to run against Clinton for the governorship at
the next election. The general charged that Clinton was striving to
maintain his popularity "at the expense of good government,'^ and
that reform demanded a change in the office. "But who," he asks,
"is to be the person? It is agi'eed that none have a chance of suc-
ceeding but you, the chancellor or myself. The second, on account of
the prejudices against his family name, it is believed, would fail. . . .
I am so little known in the southern part of the State that I should
fail there." Jay was accordingly the only available candidate, and
Schuyler believed he would seciu-e the election by "a great majority."
But Jay declined. That he was then the most distinguished citizen in
New- York would have been conceded. The many services he had
rendered the State as a member of conventions and committees; in
the wider sphere of the Continental Congress, of which he was once
president; his diplomatic labors abroad as minister to Spain and as
one of the commissioners to conclude the treaty of peace in 1783 ; his
present position as the secretary for foreign ajffairs of Congress; — all
combined to put the State under a special obligation to him as a public
character. At this juncture, however, he stood aloof from local or State
controversies, and thereby rendered another service in not precipitat-
ing a party issue which would have worked unfavorably upon the
constitutional problem of the near future. " If the circumstances of
the State were pressing," he replied to Schuyler, " if real disgust and
discontent had spread through the country, if a change had in the
general opinion become not only advisable but necessary, and the
good expected from that change depended on me, then my present
objections would immediately yield." He was not impressed with the
NEW-YORK CITY UNDEB AMERICAM CONTEOL
31
aecessity in the case, and furthermore felt that it was hie duty to con-
tinue ID the service of Congress at that time. At a later date the gov-
ernorship will be his.
In the larger field of national politics or of national reorganization,
the city played a conspicuous part and exercised a decisive influence.
It will ever be to her honor that in the emergency through which our
federal constitution passed at its adoption, New- York kept the State
true to its best interests by powerfully
assisting in bringing its unwiUing con-
vention to ratify that instrument and
insure the formation of our "more per-
fect" Union.
The issue in New- York, at its cul-
mination in 1788, took a sectional turn
The city and its environs favored con-
centration of authoiity in a strong iia-
tioual government; the State at large
preferred the Confederation, with such
amendments or revision as immediate
exigencies demanded. In the contest
for the new constitution as finally pie
sented, the city triumphed by tonvert-
ing the State; she triumphed through
the wise and well-directed action of lier
merchants, through the superior ability,
persistence, and unremitting zeal of her
del^ates, and through the moral sup-
port of both on the part of a large ma^
jority of her eitizens. One of the toasts offered at the first public
dinner in the city after the war — that given by Governor Clinton on
Evacuation Day — seemed to serve as the key-note of local sentiment
throi^h the following years : "May a close Union of the States guard
the tomple they have erected to Liberty."
The history of the national movement in this State may be traced
to the action of the legislature on July 21, 1782, when, in response to
a resolution of Congress of May 22 preceding, ik gave expression to
certain decided views and convictions on "the state of the nation."
It resolved that the general situation respecting foreign and financial
matters was " in a peculiar manner" critical, threatening the subver-
sion of public credit and exposing the common cause to "a precarious
issue.* It resolved further that " the radical source of most of our
embarrassments is th^ want of sufficient power iu Congress to effec-
tuate that ready and perfect cooperation of the different States, on
which their immediate safety and future happiness depend"; and it
HISTORY OP NEW-TfOBK
proposed to Cougress " to recommeDd, and to each State to adopt the
measure of assembling a general convention of the States, specially
authorized to revise and amend the Confederation, reserving a right
to the respective legislatures to ratify their determinations." Con-
gress postponed action upon this recommendation, which operated
unfortunately in New- York ; for duiing the next five years delega-
tions and opinions underwent a change throughout the State, and it
was only by the most strenuous efforts that it was kept true to its
first professions. Those were the gloomy, distracting years after the
war, when the weakness of the Confederation made it impossible to
regulate trade and commerce, and its
defects opened up the question of the
reconstruction of the Union under cir-
cumstances which made it difficult to
discuss it dispassionately. The situa-
tion was not an unnatural one. It was
a transitional period. The States had
been living together for seven years on
a war basis ; peace, with its new require-
ments, now called for a readjustment of
the supports, and this could not be done
without a disturbing effort. In New-
York a variety of influences combined
to complicate the difficulties in the case.
A strong State pride developed as the question of surrendering furthei
powers to the Uuion was agitated ; jealousy and fear of such a Union
increased; jHsrsons and parties in power held tenaciously to the sov-
ereignty which they were enjoying in a practically independent State;
and the State's legislation looked toward autonomy. All this was
more or less true of every State. In New-York it was marked. Not
that any such thing as a disunion sentiment found expression; but, in
the absence of a binding national tie, local predilections governed.
For this state of feeling the governor, George Clinton, and his large
body of friends and supporters were mainly responsible. The gov-
ernor himself was a strong character. A partizau in one seuse, he
was eminently public-spirited in another. He was loyal to the Union
and the Confederation, but his hopes and his pride centered on his
State. To make that great and prosperous was his first ambition;
and his policy and wishes were reflected in the proceedings of the
State legislature. By the year 1788 New-Yoi'k was exercising all but
national sovereignty. She had a well-organized militia; she ap-
pointed boundary commissions ; she issued a paper currency ; she
levied duties; she maintained custom-houses. Under the act of No-
vember 18, 1784, one custom-house was established at the port of New-
COLOKEL LAMB'
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 33
York and another at Sag Harbor, on Long Island. Collectors,
surveyors, gangers, weighers, and tide-waiters were appointed. The
first collector for New-York was Colonel John Lamb, who com-
manded the first regiment of continental artillery during the war;
and the surveyor was Colonel John Lasher, of one of the early city
regiments of levies. Under the impost act of the same, date, many
articles were made dutiable. Sixpence duty was levied on every
gallon of Madeira wine brought into the State, and threepence on
other wines; twopence on every gallon of rum, brandy, or other
spirits, if imported in vessels owned by citizens of any of the United
States, but a double duty for vessels with British registers. There
were duties on carriages, chariots, sulkies, gold and silver watches,
scythes, saddles, hollow ironware, women's leather or stujff shoes,
starch, hair-powder, cocoa, teas, coals, bricks, wools, furs, and similar
importations.
But this system had serious defects — defects that were the most
sensibly felt by the commercial element throughout the country. A
prosperous trade was wanting. There was no power to regulate it.
Congress might propose treaties of commerce with foreign powers,
but lacked ability to enforce them. No uniform system of duties could
be imposed when each Stato was devising a tariff of its own. New-
York might draw up an elaborate schedule, but this did not establish
the New- York merchant's credit in London; it failed to open the
West India ports to his vessels. The one remedy in the case was to
confer the necessary powers upon Congress — "let Congress, and Con-
gress alone, regulate foreign trade and commerce."
It is here that New- York city followed the course that reflects so
creditably upon her. As between the policy which the State as such
was pursuing and the policy which the general government should
be empowered to pursue, she set herself in line with the latter. Her
merchants and her distinguished lawyers and statesmen were the
salvation of both city and State. The merchants agitated trade re-
quirements. There was an abundance, indeed a surplus, of foreign
goods in town during those early years from 1784 to 1787, but they
were largely the importation or consignments of British merchants
of ample means, who could wait for a market. The American Whig
merchant, entering mercantile life anew, found himself at a disad-
vantage, and he saw little relief under the existing system. The
merchants in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston were
in the same predicament, and all expressed themselves alike. By the
spring of 1785 the situation had become all but unendurable. On
March 7 a memorial was published, to be signed by residents of
New- York, praying the legislature to pass the impost act of Congress
and to recommend the regulation of commerce by that body. Under
Vol. m.— 3.
34 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the former act, which had been hanging fire since its passage in
April, 1783, Congress would hkve been able to pay the interest on the
public debt. New- York alone of all the States refused to approve
it. Sentiment in the city favored the measure. On March 14 the
Chamber of Commerce came forward with another and a more for-
mal petition to the legislature, signed by its president, John Alsop,
calling attention to the failure of the individual
1 States to regulate trade for the common benefit.
They could not possibly so regulate it, because,
in the words of the petition or memorial, — "Ist,
not being enabled to form treaties, trade cannot in their hands be
made the basis of commercial compacts ; 2d, because no regular sys-
tem can be adopted by thirteen different Legislatures pursuing differ-
ent objects, and seeing the same object in different lights ; and 3d, be-
cause if it even were to be presumed that they would at all times and
in every circumstance sacrifice partial interests to the general good,
yet the want of harmony in their measures and a common force, would
forever defeat their best intentions." In consequence of this loose
system, the merchants observed with concern that trade, "the gi*eat
spring of agriculture and manufactures," was languishing "under
fatal obstructions" and daily on the decline. The legislature made no
recommendations on these petitions ; but public opinion continued to
assert itself. In the following May, Boston voted, in town meeting,
that, as peace had not brought plenty, and foreign merchants were
monopolizing commerce by crushing out the American carrying-
trade. Congress should be invested with power competent to the wants
of the country. In Philadelphia a committee of thirteen merchants
was appointed to stir up the State authorities to the same end. The
Boston people went further, as in early war days, and invited the
cooperation of the New- York merchants ; whereupon the Chamber of
Commerce and "many other citizens," following up their March
memorials, called a meeting of merchants and "other inhabitants" at
the Exchange, June 15, at which Alderman John Broome presided.
Their former sentiments and views were reiterated in a body of res-
olutions, and a committee was appointed to correspond with the sev-
eral counties in the State and with committees in other States, in the
hope that " a free and reciprocal communication of opinions " would
rouse the country to action. The committee was composed of the
most prominent merchants in the city. To the committees in other
States it was proposed that they should severally take measures to
induce their respective legislatures to confer the necessary powers
1 The autogrrephs of John Watts, Sr.; and Anne sented by their great-grandson. General John'
Watts, his wife, are exceedingly rare. They were Watts De Peyster, to the New-York Historical So-
only to be obtained by tracing their signatures as ciety. By his courtesy permission was granted to
found on the valuable documents recently pre- trace them. Editob.
NEW- YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 35
on Congress. " Our Un\pn," said the New- York committee, " is the
basis of our grandeur and our power." To the counties of the State
the committee represented that if commerce languished, agriculture
would feel a corresponding effect. " By the Union of the farmer, the
merchant and mechanic," they wrote, " we have, in the most danger-
ous crisis, been able to withstand the open force of our enemies ; and
if this spirit still actuates us, we shall soon convince them that their
insidious politics in peace are of as little effect." The farmer was
accordingly urged to send assemblymen with federal views to the
next legislature.
What effect these appeals produced at large it would be difl&cult
to determine, but they kept the subject uppermost in popular discus-
sions and clearly strengthened sentiment in New- York. The papers
in the city, notably the "Packet" and the "Journal," published the
effusions of correspondents at intervals, which indicated the inter-
est felt. "What is to be done!" inquires " Consideration" in March,
1785 ; and answers, " All the States must give Congress ample powers
to regulate trade, . . . likewise all other powers necessary for an
active and firm Continental government." But "Rough Hewer, Jr.,"
who was known to be Abraham Yates, a pithy writer on the other
side, declared that histoiy had established the fact that republicanism
can flourish in small states only, and expressed a dread of " a mighty
Continental Legislature," which in time would merge and swallow up
the rights of the States. "Unitas" called for assemblymen who could
discern with precision " in what particular a ^ * H jT)
local must give way to a more general advan- //^^^^Tx^/x^W^
tage,"and could appreciate the benefits of a gen-
eral union. " The chain," he exclaims, " should be of adamant, indis-
soluble, eternal ! Should this chain ever be broken, good God ! what
scenes of death and misery lurk under the dreadful event." " Sydney,"
on the other hand, saw nothing but despotism and an oligarchy in a
congress which could control a revenue exacted from the States by its
own agents : " K you put the sword and the purse into the hands of
the supreme power, be the Constitution of that power what it may,
you render it absolute. Congress already have the sword vested in
them; the single power wanting to make them absolute is that of
levying money themselves. When this is compassed. Adieu to Lib-
erty ! " Such contributions to the press, however, appeared too infre-
quently to enable us to judge of the strength of parties at this date.
The discussion went on in the coffee-houses and clubs, and two years
later the fruits will be seen in test elections.
In the following year (1786) the situation improved so far as agita-
tion led to action. Virginia came forward with her proposition for a
convention at Annapolis, Maryland, " to consider how far a uniform
L 3 ji
The fenators and reprefentatives beforementioned, and tbe membcrt of the fereral fUle Itgrf.
htures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the feveralStuet;
fhall be bound by oath or aflirmaCion, to fupport this conflitntion; but no religious tefl fliall ever
be required as a qualincation to any o(Hce or public trud under tbe United States*
VII.
The ratification of tbe conventions of nine States, ihall be fufficteoi for tbe eflabliihment of
this conflitution between tbe States fo ratifying the lame;
Done in Convention, by the unanimous confent of the
Slates prcfent, the fcventecnih day of September, In the year of our Lord one thoufand fcved
hundred and cightv-feven,«nd of the Independence of tbe United States of America (be twelfth.
In witnefs whereot we have hereunto lubfcribed our Names.
GEORGE WASHINGTON. Prefidenr.
And Deputy from V i r g i n i a.'
George Read^
D^LAWARS.
New.Hampshue. Jfc^c5w
Massachusetts.
Connecticut
New-York.
New-Jerset.
Pennsylvania.
C Nathaniel Gorbanti
X^Rufus King.
r William Samuel Johnforif
J Roger Sherman,
Alexander Hamijton*
William Living/i^n,
David Brearle/^
William Paterfin^
Jonathan Dayton*
[^Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas M'Jlin^
Robert Morris^
George Chmer^
Thomas titx/imonsp
ared Inter foil ^
ames Wil/on,
uverneur "Morris.
Martlahd.
ViROINIA*
Gunning Bedford^ Juni^t
John Dkkinjffn^
Rubard Bafett,
Jacob Broom.
C James Mr Henry ^
^Daniel of St, Tbo Jemfer.
Q Daniel tarroL
C John Blair ^
i
James Madtion^ Jwiivr.
tWilliam Blount^
North-Caeolina < Richard Debbs Spatgbt,
(Hugh Williamson,
r John Rulledge, '
Q Pierce Butler,
C WilUam Few^
iMrabam BoldwiM,
Georgia.
Attcit; William Jacison, Seceeta-rt*
In CONVENTION, Monday September 1 7th, 1 787.
PRESENT
The State? of New-Hampfliire, MafTachufetts, Connefticut, Mr.
jF/iiw/7/<?« from New- York, New- Jerfey, Pennfylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia^ North-Carolina, South-Carolina and
Georgia :
RESOLVED.
tfHAT the preceding Conjlitution he laid be/ire the United States in Congrefs afembled^ and that it it
tbe opinion of this Convention^ that itjhould afterwards befubmitted to a Convention of Delegates f
thofen in each Stati by tbe People thereof under tbe recommendation of its Legiflature^ for tbetr ajfent
and ratification ; and that each Convention affenting to, and ratifying the fame, fbcutdgivt Notice tSerc'
of to tb( United States in Congrefs affembled,
Rcrolved, That it is the opinion of this Convention^ that as Joan as the Conventitntt of nine States fhall
have ratified ibis Con/iitvtion, the United Statet in Congrefs ajjembled fbouUk^ix a day oji vtbicb
ElcOors Jhould be appointed by the States which Jhall bavf ratified tbefame^ and a da^ on which the
EU^ors fljould affemhle to vote for tbe Pcefident^ and tbe time and place for commencing proceedings
under this Conjlitution. That after fucb publication tbe Eleflort Jbould be appointed ^ and the Senators
and Reprefentatives eleOed : That the Electors Jfyould meet on tbe day fixed for the EUdion of the Ptefi"
dent, andfhould tranfr.it tbetr votes certified, figned^ fealed and direded^ as tbe Con/Htu(ton requires,
to tbe Secretary of the United States in Congrefs affembledf that the Senators and Reprefentatives Jhonid
convene
e at tbe time and place aj/igned; that the Senators Jbould appoint a PrefidsAt ^ the Senate^ for tbe
fole purpofe of receiving, opening and tounting tbe votes for Prefident ; and, J bat afttr he fhall be chofen,
the Congrefs, togetbet with tbe prefident, flmld, without diloy, proceed to execute this Confiitution,
By the unanimous .Order of the Convention,
George ,Washington, Prefident.
PVf/liam y^fif/5;», Secretary
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL 37
•
system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to the com-
mon interest and permanent harmony " of the States. The convention
met on September 11, with commissioners present from but five
States — Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New-York.
Their action resulted in the assemblage of the famous constitutional
convention at Philadelphia in the following year. In each of these
bodies New- York city found its representation in the person of Alex-
ander Hamilton ; or, while being a representative of the State, he
more nearly reflected the sentiment of the city, which was largely
coincident with, and influenced by, his own. The possibilities that lay
in the Virginia call immediately absorbed his attention. His own
proposition for a convention, broached as early as 1780, was a sufficient
assurance that all his sympathies would be aroused by any movement
that might be utilized for national ends ; and the present opportunity
was not to be lost. The Annapolis proposition came in January,
1786. Hamilton then determined to make one more effort to induce
the State to accede to the impost act of Congress, which would be an
entering wedge toward granting general powers to the government ;
or failing in this he hoped to secure the appointment of commissioners
to the Annapolis convention. One of his intimate friends was Colonel
Robert Troup, formerly aid to General Gates, at this date a rising
lawyer in the city, and later judge of the United States district court
of New- York. He seconded Hamilton's efforts. " In pursuance of the
latter^s plan," says Troup at a subsequent date, " the late Mr. Du^r,
the late Colonel Malcolm and myself were sent to the State Legislature
as part of the City delegation, and we were to make every possible
effort to accomplish Hamilton's objects. Duer was a man of com-
manding eloquence. We went to the Legislature and pressed totis
viribus the grant of the impost agreeably to the requisition of Con-
gress. We failed in obtaining it. The resolutions of Virginia were
communicated by Governor Clinton the 14th of March. We went all
our strength in the appointment of commissioners to attend the Com-
mercial Convention, in which we were successful. The commissioners
were instructed to report their proceedings to the next Legislature.
Hamilton was appointed one of them. Thus it was that he was the
principal instrument to turn this State to a course of policy that saved
our Country from incalculable mischiefs, if not from total ruin."^ The
other commissioner was Egbert Benson, then attorney-general of the
State, who was in perfect sympathy with the objects of the proposed
convention, and who turned his business before the Supreme Court
at Albany over to a friend, to hurry on with Hamilton to Annapolis.
The outcome of the brief convention at Annapolis was an urgent
recommendation for the meeting of a more representative body at
I John C. Hamilton's " Life of Hamilton."
38 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Philadelphia in the following spring. Hamilton^ as Benson tells us,
was the author of the address to this effect sent to Congress and the
individual States. The work of the Philadelphia convention is a
matter of history. The delegates to that body from New- York State
were Judge Eobert Yates, John Lansing, Jr., and, again, Hamilton.
By the withdrawal of the two former from the convention, on the
ground that it was proposed to formulate a new constitution instead
of revising the existing one, Hamilton remained alone as the State's
representative. The measure of his influence in the convention may
be seen in the national character of the constitution.
There yet remained the problem of the adoption of the new instru-
ment by the States; and here, so far as New- York is concerned, the
value of the labors of distinguished men of the city appears to highest
advantage. The struggle for the constitution in the State convention
was not less earnest and critical than the effort at its framing. What-
ever the situation might have been elsewhere, it was well known that
in New- York ratification could not be secured without a close and
determined contest. " True it is," wrote Gouvemeur Morris to Jay,
October 30, 1786, "that this city and its neighborhood are enthusiastic
in the [federal] cause, but I dread the cold and sour temper of the
back counties." This sour temper was in reality the Clintonian dis-
position to resist centralization in the general government. There
still survived what Morris called the old "Colonial oppositions of
opinion," the strong, inherited local feeling, which it was necessary
to overcome; and the men of the new order of things set to work to
overcome it. The first work in hand was to parry the adverse criti-
cisms upon the proposed constitution, which appeared soon after the
adjournment of the Philadelphia convention. The anti-federalist
"Journal " for a while abounded with them, over the signatures of
. " Cato," " Brutus," " Old Whig," " Centinel," " Cincinnatus," and the
like. A " Son of Liberty," writing from Orange County, denounced
the Philadelphia outcome as " a preposterous and new fangled sys-
tem." Some saw in it the loss of State independence, others the
ascendancy and control of a government class, others a menace to
privileges and personal liberty in the absence of a bill of rights.
It was at this juncture that Hamilton and his associates appeared
in the field with their great defense and exposition of the constitution
in the " Federalist " papers. It is to the local controversy in the city
and State that we owe that lucid and authoritative commentary on
our fundamental law. Of the eighty-five numbers of the work that
were published, all of them over the signature " Publius," Hamilton
wi'ote sixty-three, Jay five, Madison (then a member of Congress in
New- York) thirteen, and three were the joint production of Hamilton
and Madison. The first number was printed in the " Independent
NEW-YORK CITY UFDEB AMERICAN CONTROL 39
Journal, or Weekly Advertiser " on October 27, 1787, and thereafter
the articles appeared, soraetimes two iu the same issue, in the
** Packet" and other papers, continuing through the summer of 1788.'
The New- York State convention had been called to meet at Pough-
keepsie on June 17, 1788. Delegates were nominated in the counties
early in April, and repi*esentative men
were put forward. All felt the im-
portance of the discussion and the
decision. It was at about this time
that John Jay reinforced the "Feder-
alist" papers with "An Address to
the People of the State of New-
York," which he issued anonymously
in pamphlet form. It had its effect
in strengthening federal views, and,
according to a eontemporaiy letter,
would doubtless have couverted many
an lionest anti-federalist in the upper
counties had it appeared earlier. " The
proposed government is to be the gov-
ernment of the people," he wrote; and
iu 1793 he reiterated this sentiment as
chief justice of th» United States, in his opinion on the suability of
the State: "The people, in their collective and national capacity,
established the present Constitution." Two sets of delegates for the
State convention were nominated for the city and county of New-
York. Jay and Hamilton appeared on both tickets. Who the candi-
dates were, how they were put in nomination, and on what platform,
appears from the announcement of the ticket itself, issued in the city
papers, in the following form :
THE FEDERAL TICKET.
TO THE CITIZENS OP NEW YORK,
A number of your Fellow Citizens, deeply impressed with the importance of the
Crtas, and convinced that it is your and their interest at the present jnnotore, by men
nnequivocaUy attached to the establishment of a firm national Goverument, beg leave
Teq>ectfally to recommend to your support and choice, the following persons as dele-
gates to the Convention.
John Jay, Richabd Mobbis, Robert R. Liv-tngston,
John Sloss Hobabt, James Ddane, Alexander HAiin.TON,
Richabd Harrison, Isaac Roosevelt, Nicholas Low.
1 The heading of the ttrat number read aa follows :
For the "Independent JoumaL"
Thb federalist, No. 1.
H> tMt iVopto of Iht Slatt of jVew York.
40
HISTORY OF NEW-TOBK
We flatter ourselves the characters proposed will uaite the suffrages of all those who
sincerely have at heart "That which appears to be the greatest interest of every troe
AmericaD — the consolidation of oar Union, in which is involved our prosperity, feli-
city, safety, perhaps our national e«iatence." . . . Those who have in view the
same object with ourselves, cannot but be sensible of the great importance of una-
nimity on the present occasion, and will consequently be on their guard against the
artifices which already begin to be practised for the purpose of dividing them. In
supporting the present nomination let One and All he onr Motto, It is not only of
consequence that men of proper characters and sentiments should be chosen, but that
the sense of the citizens should also appear in the choice. This will give weight to
FBDERAI, CONSTITDTION.
the exertions of your representatives, and manifest to the world that n
of State influence and State interest can induce the Patriotic and Independent Electors
of the City to betray the cause of the Union.
By Order of Ike Meeting,
Thoiias Raxdaiaj, Chairman.
New York, April 8, 1788.
This ticket was elected with a clean sweep. Jay received the high-
est number of votes, or only one hundred and one less than the total
cast, — 2735 out of 2836. Hamilton, Morris, Hobart, and Livingston
were less than thirty votes behind. The highest anti-federal vote was
but 134. But the upper counties were overwhelmingly anti-federalist;
and when the convention met, their majority out of fifty-seven mem-
bers was found to range from twenty-five to thirty. When the con-
vention adjourned, July 26, after deliberating forty days, this majority
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMEKICAN CONTROL
41
had been reduced to a minority. The convention adopted the consti-
tution by a majority of three votes — a result due almost wholly to
the abilities, character, personal force, and effective appeal of the dele-
gates from New- York city. Hamilton, Jay, and Livingston bore the
honors of the debate.^ In dealing with this whole question of a
stronger government, from the Annapolis to the Poughkeepsie con-
vention, Hamilton's services were the most conspicuous.
Although the Poughkeepsie convention had adopted the constitu-
tion in a certain sense provisionally, and called for its amendment by
a new national convention, the final ratification was binding, and the
State joined the circle as
the "eleventh pillar" of
the Union. This result
was in itself a triumph
for the federalists, and
when the news reached
the city, on Saturday
evening, July 26, great
was the rejoicing. Men
cheered, bells were rung,
and impromptu proces-
sions were formed which
marched to the bouses
of the several delegates "^""^ federal banquet."
to dieer again. When the delegates themselves returned to town,
they were personally complimented in the same way, with the ad-
dition of a salute of eleven guns for each member. " In short," says
the *' Packet," " a general joy ran through the whole City, and sev-
eral of those who were of different sentiments drank freely of the
Federal Bowl and declared that they were now perfectly reconciled
to the new Constitution." The result was received in Philadelphia
with " a glorious peal from Christ Church bells."
A feature and expression of the intense interest felt throughout the
country in the fate of the constitution were the popular federal pro-
ljlfei®C_-
1 RvpoTtliiK tl>e proceedtDgB at Poughkeepsie
thf Packet" of July 13, 1TB8, nyg: "We are in
formed that on Satorday last the Hon. Mr. Ja;,
Clianiwllor LivingMou and Colonel Hamilton,
mllf addmaed themaelTes to our State cod'
tioninamatfterly, animated and pathetic mani
which. It 1* said, made aenalUe impresHlonH on
Ibr mindfl of nieh anti-federal members who hare
not fet rmdered their eonception entirely ulloiin
by preconorived prejiidie«i ta the voice of truth."
* One feature of the eelebratioa, as mentioned
Id the text, was a irrand banctnet, at the Bayard
eoontry^ioiue. in the Tldnity of Orand street and
the Bowery. Ccora were laid for no lean than Ave
thMuaod peraona. At a laUe aomewhat raised
above the oUierB. sat the Preaideat and members
of Congtess. The pavilion under which this great
company were seated terminated Id a dome over
this table, and here stood Fame Boundinti upon
her trumpet the beginning of a new era. Around
the daU upon which theiie Heetti of honor were
placed, ten tablei were arranged like radii of a
semicircle, represenling the ten States which had
aiiopted thp Constitution, Each table bore an
OMUtcheoD inscribed with the armn and names of
a State ; while the colors of the French Monarchy
and of the Dutch Republic, and of whatever other
nations had aided or flyrapathiied with the Ameri-
can cBuse,were liberally blended with the brilliant
"Stars and Stripes." Editor.
42 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
cessions held at different placog, notably Philadelphia, Boston, Charles-
ton, and New- York. The New- York procession was the last and
grandest. It was held July 23, in honor of the adoption of the
constitution by ten States, and exceeded all previous demonstrations
in the country. There were over six thousand men in the line, repre-
senting all degrees, professions, trades, and interests. Each one of
the ten divisions included representations, flags, designs, and emblems
of commerce and labor. There were foresters, plowmen, farmers,
gardeners, millers, bakers, brewers, distillers; coopers, butchers, tan-
ners, cordwainers; carpenters, farriers, peruke-makers and hair-dress-
ers; whitesmiths, blacksmiths, cutlers, masons, bricklayers, painters,
glaziers, cabinet-makers, upholsterers, civil engineers; shipwrights,
joiners, boat-builders, sailmakers, riggers ; printers, binders, cartmen,
coachmakers, pewterers, goldsmiths and silversmiths, tobacconists,
chocolate-makers ; saddlers, harness-makers, founders ; lawyers, phy-
sicians, professors, students, societies, the Cincinnati, merchants and
clergymen. Near the center of the procession the fuU-rigged man-of-
war or "federal ship" Hamilton, carrying thirty-two guns, with a crew
of thirty men, complete in all its appointments, and drawn by twelve
horses, attracted a continuous gaze of admiration from the throngs
along the streets. Commodore Nicholson commanded. The costumes,
dress, implements, and general paraphernalia of the exhibitors and
participants made the whole immensely pleasing and imposing. The
entire day was given up to the festivities ; for, after the parade had
passed from the common down Broadway and around through the
streets on the east side, it moved out into the Bowery to Bayard's
grounds, where a temporary building, consisting of three grand pavil-
ions, had been erected for a civic and popular feast. Tables were set
for five thousand persons. We are told, in the carefully prepared
account of the procession published later, that, "as this splendid,
novel and interesting exhibition moved along, an unexpected silence
reigned throughout the City, which gave a solemnity to the whole
transaction suited to the singular importance of the cause. No noise
was heard but the deep rumbling of carriage-wheels, with the neces-
sary salutes and signals. A glad serenity enlivened every counte-
nance, while the joyous expectation of national prosperity triumphed
in every bosom."
Yet it is to be remembered that while the citizens of New -York
were thus celebrating the forming of the nation, their own State was
not yet a part thereof ; it was three days after this ere they knew
that the constitution had been adopted at Poughkeepsie. An elabor-
ate ode published at the time, in commemoration of the services and
in recognition of the personal greatness of Washington, Franklin,
and Hamilton, expressed the prevailing sentiment and hopes of
NEW-YOEK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
the people of New-York. To Hamiltoii.it addressed itself with t
Hoes :
And thou,
Out City's boast, to whom so much we owe.
In whom, the last and yoougest of the three,
No common share of excellence we see,
In every grateful heart thou hast a place,
Nor time nor circumstance can e'er erase I
All hail, ye champions in your country's Cause!
Boon shall that country ring with your applause.
Discord shall cease and perfect Union reign,
And all confess that sweetly powerful chain,
The FetPral system, which at once unites
The Thirteen States and all the people's rigbtft.
Under this inspiration, with its union feeling deepened by the
course of events, the city now entered, in the year 1789, into the
constitutional period of its history — the period of nationality and
of commercial prosperity.
DUTCH MEDALS ON THE AMERICAN EEVOLUTION.
The medals of which representations appear on this and tbe next pa^ are preserved
in the Boyal Mnaeum at The Hague, Holland. By reason of their interest to the citizens
of the United States, our Minister Plenipotentiary there, Samuel R. Thayer, Esq., re-
quested and was courteously granted permission to have copies of each medal struck
off in zinc. These he sent to the Department of State at Washington, D. C, accom-
panied with A despatch to Secretary Blaine, giving an historical and descriptive ac-
count of each medal, and asking the privilege of presenting one set to the department,
and one to each of several historical societies of tbe country. During his recent visit
to the United States, Ur. Thayer presented the editor of this work with a set of tbe
medals. The description of them,
as cited from tbe despatch to the
State Department, b as follows:
I. "The first medal in thi
series referred to was de«gned to I
commemorate tbe reoc^nitioa of '
American Independence by tbe
Province of FUesland on the 26th
of February, 1782, a description
of which is as follows: On the obverse side is a male figure personating a Fririan
in ancient costume, joining right hands with an American, represented by a maiden
in aboriginal dress, standing on a scepter with her left band resting on a shield
bearing the inscription [in Dutch]; 'The United States of North America'; while
with his left band the Frisian signals his rejection of an ohve branch offered by a
Bnton, represented by a muden accompanied by a tiger, tbe left band of the maiden
resting on a ahield having the inscription; 'Great Britain.* On the reverse side
is tbe figure of an arm projecting from tbe clouds holding the coat of arms of the
44 mSTOEY OF ITEW-YOBE
province of FrieBland, under which is the inBoiiption [in DntchJ; *To the States of
Friesl&nd ia grateful reeo^nition of the Acts of the Asaembly, in Febrnary and
ApiH, 1782, by the Citizens' Club of Leea warden. Liberty oMd Zeol,'" II. "The second
medal in the series was struak off by order of the States General in commemoration of
its rect^nition of the Indepen-
dence of the United States. On
the obverse side of the medal
will be found the United
States and the Netherlands,
represented by two maidens
equipped for war, with right
hands joined over a burning
altar. The Dutch maiden is
placing an emblem of freedom on the head of the American, whose right foot, at-
tached to a broken chain, rests on England, represented by a tiger. In the field of
the medal are the words : ' Libera Soror. Solemni Deer. Agn. 19 Apr. MDCCT.XXXTL'
On the reverse side is the figure of a tmicom lying prostrate before a &te«p rock
against which he has broken his horn; over the figure are the words: 'Tyrannis
virtute repulsa,' and underneath the same the words: *Sab Qalliie aDspiciis.'" m.
" The third medal in the series was made to conunemorate the Treaty of Commerce
and Navigation entered into between the United States and the Netherlands the 7th
of October, 1782. On its obverse side stands in relief a monumental needle bearing
the Amsterdam Coat of Arms,
upon which a wreath is being
placed by a figure representing
Mercury; underneath the coat
of arms is a parchment bearing
the inscription: 'Pro.Dro.Mvs.'
France, symbolized by a crowing
cock, stands beride the needle
pointing with a conjurer's wand
to a horn of plenty aud an an-
chor. Over all are the words: ' Justitiam et non tenmere divos.' On the reverse side
b an image of Fame riding on a cloud and carrying the arms of the Netherlands and
the United States, surmounted by a naval crown ; the figures are covered by the fol-
lowii^ words: 'Faustissimo foedere jimctae JMe VII. Ootob MDCCLXXXII.' "
CHAPTER II
NEW--SORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL, AND WASHINGTON'S FIRST TERM
1789-1793
i HE fourth day of March, 1789, — the day set for the assem-
liling of the first Congress, — found the city of New-York
rith about thirty thousand inhabitants. It was aUve to
tlie honor and advantages of being the first national cap-
ital, but had not been given sufBcient notice of the approaching dig-
nity to make itself at once perfectly presentable for the inauguration.
At this distance of time there is, for the historic imagination, a certain
picturesqueness in the contrast between the splendor of the presiden-
tial pageant and the antiquaiian frame in which it was set. The
streets, poorly paved and sparsely lighted; the uncleanly wharves; the
freedom of the city enjoyed by pigs and dogs ; the ragged rows of
wooden or brick-faced houses ; the blackened ruins lingering from
the great fire of, 1778 ; dilapidated Fort George, used for stables, and
its filthy earthwork, the Battery: these and other dismal features
suddenly became conscious of themselves on the eve of the inaugura-
tion of the republic. A sardonic bit of gaiety was visible in the
Chinese pagoda enshrining the gallows, which stood between the
jail and the almshouse, with stocks and whipping-post adjacent, in a
beautiful grove, where now stands the City Hall. It was to be a good
many years before the laws could become conscious of their barbarism.
John Shelvey, the public whipper, had enough lashing to do for his
$87.50 per annum ; ten different offenses were punished with death ;
the slave-market was active. There were more than two thousand
slaves in the city. " The sewerage system of the City," says Mr.
Thomas E. V. Smith, " consisted of the negro slaves, a long line of
whom might be seen late at night wending their way to the river,
each with a tub on his head."' The inevitable accompaniment of sla-
very, a large pauper population, was represented in crowded quarters
with many pallid and barefoot women.
Amid these somber things stood a few mansions, familiar to us in
old pictures, with a dignity and charm of their own. In them dwelt
1 ■- The City of New To* In the jeai of Washington's Inaaguration, 1789," p. 9.
46 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the gentlemen who did their best to improve the city, and among
other things generously raised thirty-two thousand dollars to turn
the old City Hall into a capitol. This edifice (where the subtrea-
sury now stands) was a monument of both British vandalism and
British benevolence. In it had been the public library whose nucleus
was (as has been related on a previous page) of English origin (1700),
and which during the British occupation was plundered and scattered.
In 1789 the charter was confirmed, and the Society Library, now
located in University Place, founded anew. The State and municipal
authorities were unwearied in their services for the emergency. The
city records — carefully kept, and now politely shown to the investi-
gator — should be printed as an instruction to modem councils in the
amount of good work that may be achieved in a brief time. It is not
quite pleasant, indeed, to find that these extraordinary expenses were
met by lotteries, even though the highest prize of the first (three
thousand pounds, a pound then being equal to $2.50) was won by two
poor girls. And it is sad to know that although the public-spirited
gentlemen who advanced thirty-two thousand dollars were repaid, the
artist who planned and superintended the work was never paid at all,
though mainly by his own fault. This was Major Pierre L'Enfant, a
French engineer, who in the American Revolution had been an aide
of Baron Steuben. On October 12, 1789, the common council, in
acknowledgment of the major's architectural and decorative services,
conferred on him the freedom of the city, and ten acres near the city,
in the region where now Third Avenue crosses Sixty-eighth street.
It was a remote territory, and Major L'Enfant declined such poor
compensation. He desired money, but scorned the $750 offered him,
and in the end got nothing; which was a pity, for few foreign
names stand so well in our national history as that of Major L'Enfant.
He came to America in 1777, fought gallantly throughout the war,
was severely wounded in 1779 at Savannah, and received the rank of
major in 1783. He is credited with having designed the steeple of
St. Paul's (New-York) ; he did design the medal of the Cincinnati ;
and assisted in planning Washington city. He died June 14, 1825, in
Prince George's County, Maryland.
Federal Hall possessed considerable beauty. It had a grand ves-
tibule, paved with marble, with arches and pillars in front; the
senate chamber had an azure ceiling resplendent with the sun and
thirteen stars (though North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet
entered the Union) ; the vice-president's chair was under a canopy of
crimson damask, above it the United States arms. From this chamber
three windows opened on a balcony overlooking Wall street. The
hall of representatives was larger, and had symbolic decorations;
but the plainness of the speaker's chair, compared with the canopied
NEW-YOKK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 47
seat of the vice-president, and other items, were enough to make
the building symbolical to the anti-federalists of aristocracy. One
party declared it the finest building in the world, the other described
it as a mongrel affair paid for by lottery. On May 15, 1812, Mr, Jin-
niogs bought for four hundred and twenty-five dollars the materials
of the edifice which, twenty-two years before, had been repaired at a
cost of over sixty-five thousand dollars.
On February 2 the corporation was authorized to raise by taxation
six thousand pounds for the poor, the street improvements, and the
bridewell ; also four thousand pounds for watchmen and street-lamps.
On February 28 regulations for
ferries were formed and passed
by the legislature. There were
to be boats always ready on
both sides of the rivers, each
passenger to pay two pence,
infants free. Women were al-
lowed to carry as much as their
aprons could hold of the articles
scheduled, as nearly all articles
were. Meantime the common
councU attempted to clear the ^^ ^^^„^^„ ^ouse.
streets of pigs by their forfeit-
ure if found therein ; grappled with footpads ; repaired the fire-
engines, attended to the markets, ordering that they should be
opened daily except on Sundays; increased penalties on unwhole-
some provisions; in fact, did all that such public-spirited and com-
petent men as Mayor James Duane, Recorder Richard Varick, SherifE
Robert Boyd, and Chamberlain Daniel Phoenix were expected to do
in view of the great emergency.
Edmund Randolph, the first attorney-general, having come on from
Williamsbui^, Virginia, in advance of his family, writes to bis wife ;
*' I have a house at a mile and a half or thereabouts from the Federal
Hall ; that is, from the most public part of the city. It is, in fact, in
the country, is airy, has seven rooms, is well finished and gentleman-
like. The rent, £75 our money {$250). Good water is difllcult to be
found in this place, and the inhabitants are obliged to receive water
for tea, and other purposes which do not admit brackish water, from
hogsheads brought about every day in drays. At our house there is
an excellent pump of fresh water. I am resolved against any com-
pany of form, and to live merely a private life. I confess I [torn] our
hoose in Williamsburg [torn] pleasing to me than [torn]." This defi-
ciency in the water-supply was formidable. The city depended chiefiy
on a pamp in Chatham street fed from a pond (the "Collect") where
48 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the Tombs prison now stands — a pond of uncanny reputation in New-
York folk-lore. Early in the year 1789 a correspondence took place
between the common council and the State legislature concerning
the invention of Rumsey for supplying towns with water. It was
proposed by the Rumseyan Society of Philadelphia to apply the
invention to New- York. The steamboat which Washington saw
launched by James Rumsey on the Potomac was little thought of
compared with his steam-pump; but the city could not afford the
expense of it, and the " tea-water'' carts continued their rounds.
The ambition of men in 1789 was provincial. They looked upon a
migration to New- York as expatriation. Remote congressmen came
reluctantly, and their complaints after arrival savor of homesickness.
" This town," grumbles Governor Page, "is not half as large as Phila-
delphia, nor in any manner to be compared to it for beauty and
elegance. Philadelphia, I am well assured, has more inhabitants than
Boston and New York together. The streets are badly paved, dirty
and narrow, as well as crooked and filled up with a strange variety of
wooden, stone, and brick buildings, and full of hogs and mud. The
College, St. Paul's Church, and the Hospital are elegant buildings.
The Federal Hall in Wall street is also elegant." Senator Maclay, of
Pennsylvania, finds the streets ripped up, the climate variable, the
wealthy citizens inhospitable, the people vile; but he wrot^ very dif-
ferently when he was going away next year.
March 4, the day appointed for the opening of Congress, had
brought to New- York eight senators and thirteen representatives.
From day to day the two chambers met only to adjourn. The pro-
longed failure to obtain a quorum was disheartening to Washington.
" The delay," he writes to Knox, " is inauspicious, to say the least of
it, and the world must condemn it." On April 1 the house had a
quorum of thirty, and elected Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, of
Pennsylvania, speaker. On April 4 twelve senators appeared, and
John Laugdon, of New Hampshire, was chosen presiding officer.
Washington received the whole sixty-nine electoral votes for presi-
dent, and John Adams thirty-four for vice-president. Charles Thom-
son was sent to inform Washington, and Sylvanus Bourne to inform
Adams, of the result. Three daj-^ lat^r a noisy conflict took place in
New- York city and Westchester County, which made one congres-
sional district, for this seat, in which the federalist, John Lawrance
(lawyer), was elected over John Broome (merchant). The city vote
for Lawrance was 2255 against 280; in Westchester County 163
against 92. Tlio anti-federalists, as they were called, could have
shown larger niunbers against a less popular man. For this first
congressman of New- York city had been on Washington's staff as
judge-advocate in the Revolution; had ser\'ed in the Continental
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 49
Congress (1785-87), and was a State senator at the time of his election
to Congress in 1789. John Lawrance, a native of England, who came
to this country at seventeen, was subsequently United States circuit
judge and United States senator (1796-1800). He died in New- York,
November 7, 1810.
John Adams left Boston, April 13, and was met on the 20th at
Kingsbridge by members of Congress and a civic escort of Light
Horse (Captain Stakes), his arrival being announced by guns at the
Battery. He was escorted to the residence of John Jay, 133 Broad-
way, where he was for some time a guest. On the 21st, Senators
Caleb Strong, of Massachusetts, and Ealph Izard, of South Carolina,
conducted Adams to Federal Hall. Adams's coachman assumed ma-
jestic airs toward the common folk, and unluckily affronted some
youths of Columbia College, who happened to be Southerners — John
Randolph of Roanoke, and his brother Richard. Adams was met at
the senate door by Langdon, and conducted to the chair, where he
made an unprepared address. The constitution having only pro-
vided a presidential oath, neither the vice-president nor the senators
took any oath until June 3.
On March 30 Washington wrote to Madison, in New-York, that he
had declined an invitation to stay with Governor Clinton, — "As I
mean to avoid private families on the one hand, so on the other I am
not anxious to be placed early in a situation for entertaining." The
president was already beset by oflSce-seekers, all politely put off, and
was anxious to incur no personal obligations. As he declined Gov-
ernor Clinton's in\dtation, so he declined that of John Jay. Congress
requested Mr. Osgood to prepare the Franklin House, which had been
used by presidents of Congress, for Washington's reception.
On April 16 the president left Mount Vernon, — "with feelings,"
as he wrote General Knox, " not unlike those of a culprit who is go-
ing to his place of execution," — and, retarded by ovations, a week
later entered New-York. Among those who crowded around Wash-
ington, on his triumphal progress through Philadelphia, was a newly
naturalized mechanician from England, John Hall. In a letter of his,
now before me, to a friend in England, Hall says : " The General, now
our King by the name of George the First, has passed through this
City to New York in the most popular manner. I hope your King
will never m6re cry out on the distraction of these colonies. It has
come home to him with a vengeance. And the Bishop of Canterbury
says the Lord has smitten him for the sins of the people ! I hope
neither thee nor thine are concerned in the affair: if you are, the Lord
mend you ! The prayer from the synagogue is more sublime than
the above Canterbury tale." This young radical could little imagine
the historic coincidence marking that St. George's Day, April 23, in
Vol. nL— 4.
50
mSTOEY OP NEW-TTORK
England and America. While George in. was moving in grand pro-
cession to St. Paul's, London, to offer thanksgiving for the restoration
of his sanity, the American George was moving toward a St. Paul's
in New-York, where thanksgivings were also to be offered. The
PBEBIDIMT WASHINOTOK'
widely parted processions moved to the same anthem, so far as the
music was concerned. Beside the decorated barge on which Wash-
ington crossed to the city sailed a sloop on which a large choir of gen-
tlemen and ladies sang the ode prepared by Mr. Low, contaihing the
much-admired lines :
Par be the din of anns,
Henceforth the Olive's chamu
Shan War preclude :
These shores a head shall ovd,
Unsullied by a throne, —
Oar much loved Washington,
The Great, the Oood!
If in the spectators witnessing the London procession there were mis-
givings that the king's recovery might be followed by the nation's
relapse, similar misgivings were not absent from many who witnessed
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 51
the entrance of the unanimously elected president. But they were
strongest in his own breast. In his diary he wrote: "The display
of boats which attended and joined us on this occasion, some with
vocal and some with instrumental music on board ; the decorations of
the ships, the roar of cannon and the loud acclamations of the people
which rent the skies, as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind
with sensations as painful (considering the reverse of the scene, which
may be the case after all my labors to do good) as they are pleasing.''
The president had been received on the Jersey shore by a com-
mittee of Congress and representatives of the State and city. These
were distributed on six barges, the gay fleet being under command
of Commodore Nicholson. The president's barge, fifty feet long, hung
with red curtains, festooned, was rowed by thirteen pilots in white.
The display of decorated ships, their yards manned, the salutes from
foreign flags, the thunder of guns, the Spanish man-of-war Galveston
saddenly displaying the twenty-eight colors of all nations, the shores
crowded with gaily dressed people, the companies with their banners,
made this the most memorable pageant in the early history of New-
Yoilc Washington was at times overcome with emotion, especially
when he stepped on the carpeted wharf (Murray's) near the foot of
Wall street; for there he was met by old comrades, who had struggled
in ** the times that tried men's souls," and who could share with him
the joy of this consummation of their sufferings and courage. The
president was dressed in the same " blue-and-buff " which John Adams
remarked when the Virginia colonel appeared in Congress, before he
was made commander. It had then no martial signiflcance, such as
some historians have ascribed to it ; it was the uniform in which he
had served his king, and was still ready to serve him if he were faith-
ful to freedom and justice. But time had given the costume historic
meaning : for it is to be noted that the lovers of liberty in England
were called " the Blue-and-Buffs."
The president was welcomed at the wharf by the governor and
State and municipal officers, the whole military and civic resources of
the city being drawn on for the grand procession which accompanied
the president. The French and Spanish ambassadors rode in their
carriages, in homage to the president, who was on foot: weary of riding,
he declined the carriage awaiting him. The procession escorted him
to the Franklin House (3 Cherry street), where the president found
but brief repose, for he presently went off to dine with the governor.*
A letter from Sarah Robinson to Kitty F. Wistar,- dated "New-York,
30th of the fourth month 1789," gives an account of the arrange-
i In the De Peyster House, Queen street, nearly lin House, married to Rowland Robinson, a mer-
opposito Cedar. chant of New-York. The Kitty F. Wistar to whom
3 The Sarah Bobinsofn mentioned in the text was the letter was addressed was a daughter of Mary
adaughterof a brother of the owner of the Frank- Franklin and Caspar Wistar, of Pennsylvania.
52
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ments made in the Franklin mansion for the president and his family:
"Great rejoiceing in New- York on the arrival of General Washington;
an elegant barge decorated with an awning of satin, twelve oarsmen
dressed in white frocks and blue ribbons, went down to E. Town
[Elizabeth Point] last fourth day [Wednesday] to bring him up. . . .
Previous to his coming, Uncle Walter's house in Cherry street was
taken for him, and every room furnished in the most elegant manner.
Aunt Osgood and Lady Kitty Duer had the whole management of it.
I went the morning before the General's arrival to look at it. The best
of furniture in every room, and the greatest quantity of plate and
china I ever saw; the whole of the first and second stories is papered
and the floors covered with the richest kind of Turkey and Wilton
carpets. The house did honor to my Aunts and Lady Kitty, they
spared no pains nor expense on it. Thou must know that Uncle Os-
good and Duer were appointed to procure a house and furnish it,
accordingly they pitched on their wives as being likely to do it better.
I have not yet done, my dear. Is thee not almost tired T The evening
after His Excellency arrived, there was a general illumination took
place, except among friends [Quakers] and those styled Anti-Feder-
aliste. The latter's windows suffered some, thou may imagine. As
soon as the General has sworn in, a grand exhibition of fireworks is
to be displayed, which, it is expected, is to be to-morrow. There is
scarcely anything talked about now but General Washington and the
Palace.'* * The latter term was no doubt a republican sarcasm.
From the time of the president's arrival until his oath of oflSce, his
time was occupied with receptions. Meanwhile Congress had been
torn with dissensions as to how he should be received, and with what
title, the disputes being continued to the very moment of the presi-
dent's appearance at their door. Old Fort George had thundered its
salute — nearly its last — to the sunrise of April 30, the church bells
had rung, prayers had been offered. At noon the oflScial escort had
gathered at the president's door. Congressmen, cavalry, artillery,
grenadiers, light infantry, Scot<3h Highlanders, German companies,
gentlemen in carriages, people on foot, made a vast procession, which
at one o'clock formed an avenue up to the Federal Hall, through
which Washington passed in his carriage, in which also sat Colonel
Humphreys and Tobias Lear. Arriving in the senate chamber.
The Franklin House became the property of Sam-
uel Osgood^ the postmaster-general, through his
marriage with the widow of the owner. Walter
Franklin. Hence arises the **Aunt Osgood" re-
ferred to in the letter. This lady was a daughter
of the Quaker Daniel Bowne, of Long Island.
Editor.
1 The original is in possession of Admiral Frank-
lin, U. S. N.y who favored the editor with a copy.
The barge, so beautiful in New-York, was seen
in distant re^ons as a dark corsair, being identi-
fied by rumor as the '' Federal Ship Hamilton''
carried through the streets in the previous year,
on the adoption of the constitution, when the
riots occurred. That the anti-federalists in the
city had not quite recovered their good humor
was shown by their dark windows. The common
council had (April 22) especially recommended
illuminations between 7 and 9 p. m.. and ordered all
bells to be rung.
^siassiissijfe^i*'
f II W i
54 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Washington passed up, bowing to the members, to a seat between
the vice-president (right) and the speaker (left).
The statue of Washington at the subtreasury has for its pedestal
a stone said to be that on which he stood while taking the oath. This
is all that remains of the edifice from whose balcony the Declaration
of Independence was read in 1776, where the Continental Congress
had last sat, and the new United States government began. There is
a legend that just before the oath was administered, it was discovered
that there was no Bible in Federal Hall, and that Chancellor Eobert
R. Livingston, grand master of freemasons, despatched a messenger
to bring one from St. John's Lodge. Washington wore his sword^
and was dressed in clothing of American manufacture; his matal
buttons bore eagles, each cuff-button thirteen stars. It was not his
fault that he had to kiss a London Bible (1767) containing a por-
trait of George II. On the balcony many of the chief men of the
nation stood beside him. Hamilton observed the scene from the
window of his house, nearly opposite. The streets and the roofs
were thronged. The president was overcome at the enthusiasm, and
laid his hand upon his breast in token of helplessness to address the
multitude. When he had kissed the book, the chancellor proclaimed
to the pectple, " It is done I ^ then cried, " Long live George Washing-
ton, President of the United States I " A flag raised to the cupola of
Federal Hall signaled the battery ; its thunder of guns was followed
by bells throughout the city, and universal shouts. After the presi-
dent had returned to the senate chamber, and his inaugural address
been there delivered, — with an awkwardness not unbecoming a man
of deeds, — all repaired to St. Paul's Chm'ch, where services were con-
ducted by Bishop Samuel Provoost, of the Episcopal Church of New-
York. Earlier in the day services were also held in the churches of
some of the other denominations.
A profound impression was made by the passage in Washington's
inaugural address which declared his intention to continue the course
he had adopted while in military service, of receiving no payment.
This is the more remarkable as Washington was at the time in pecu-
niary straits. He was compelled to borrow of Captain Richard Con-
way six hundred pounds to pay his debts in Virginia and go on to
his inauguration. He receded from this resolution, but his declara-
tion flew over the world. Thomas Paine proudly proclaimed it in
London, and remarks in his "Rights of Man": "The character and
services of this gentleman are suflicient to put all those men called
kings to shame. While they are receiving from the sweat and labors
of mankind a prodigality of pay, to which neither their abilities nor
their services can entitle them, he is rendering every service in his
power, and refusing every pecuniary reward." This, written nearly
NEW-TOBK THE FEDEBAL CAPITAL
55
three years after the inauguration in New- York, shows that the recon-
sideration was not known.
Samuel Fraunces, keeper of the inn which had been Washington's
headquarters in former years, was made his household steward. The
president's private secretary was Robert Lewis, a younger son of
Washington's only sister, — a handsome youth, whose diary (in pos-
session of his descendant Mrs. Ella Bassett Washington) showed that
he ver>' much enjoyed
the fashion and gaieties
of New- York. The presi-
dent had to diill him
iQ punctuality. On one
occasion when Robert
laid the blame on his
watch, his uncle said:
"You will have to get
a new watch, or I a new
seoretarj-." The presi-
dent had, indeed, to drill
New- York society in
punctuality. In Fenno's
"Gazette" of May 30 the
following hint appeared :
*'The President's Levee yesterday was attended by a numerous and
most respectable company. The circumstance of the President's
entering the Drawing Room at 3 o'clock not being universally known
occasioned some inaccuracies as to the time of attendance."
From April 23 to May 14, Congress was mainly occupied with the
subject of titles. On the latter date the senate concurred with the
determined stand taken by the house against titles. The vice-presi-
dent was compelled to call Washington "President," when reading the
senate's answer to his speech, and to describe the speech as "excellent"
instead of "most gracious." But he (Adams) on this occasion refused
to sit in the president's presence, though twice requested by Wash-
ington to do so, and although the senators with him did so, or as
many as could find chairs. This occurred on May 18. The president
would probably have regarded it as unconstitutional for him to ex-
press an opinion on titles while the question was pending, but his
silence and the course of Lee gave an impression that he was favor-
able to titles. Fenno's "Gazette of the United States," regarded as
the government organ, assumed the style of the English "Court Ga-
zette," Its court news included (May 30) the following : " The principal
ladies of the City have, with the earliest attention and respect, paid
their devoirs to the amiable consort of the President, viz., the Lady
56 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
of his Excellency the Governor, Lady Sterling, Lady Mary Watts,
Lady Kitty Duer, La Marchioness [sic] de Brehan, the Ladies of the
Most Hon. Mr. Langdon, and the Most Hon. Mr. Dalton, the Mayoress,
Mrs. Livingston of Clermont, Mrs. Chancellor Livingston, the Miss
Livingston's [sic]^ Lady Temple, Madame de la Forest, Mrs. Mont-
gomery, Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Gerry, Mrs. Edgar, Mrs.
McComb, Mrs. Lynch, Mrs. Houston, Mrs. Griffin, Mrs. Provost,
the Miss Bayards, and a great number of other respectable charac-
ters.'' Lady Kitty's title was understood, and seemed a defiance of
the House of Peers, which had refused her father's claim to be Lord
Stirling ; but why some of the others should be " Ladies," while the
wife of the secretary of war was plain " Mrs. Knox," or why not " Mbs.
Senator " as well as " Mrs. Chancellor," and so on, seemed to be court
mysteries. Child's " Daily Advertiser " reprinted from the " Albany
Register " a clever article which declared " La Marchioness " the only
title properly given, and proceeded with amusing quotations from a
court journal of 1800.
Mrs. Washington did not reach New- York until May 28. The inau-
guration ball had been postponed a week in hope of her arrival, but
she could not make her arrangements for it. After she had started,
with her two grandchildren, and under charge of the president's
nephew, Robert Lewis, they were delayed by a carriage accident.
She was received with demonstrations of respect along her route. At
Elizabeth Point she was met by the president, Hon. Robert Morris,
and other eminent men, and entered the same barge which had con-
veyed her husband to New- York. Their approach was greeted by
guns, and an enthusiastic crowd.
The subject of etiquette gave the president much anxiety. At heart
he was a plain Virginia farmer, and formalities were irksome to him.
But he was impressed by the necessity of presenting to the world an
elegant republican regime and submitted questions on the subject to
Adams, Madison, and Hamilton. Their diverse opinions were con-
fusing, and the president and his wife were compelled to solve the
problems as best they could. They held " drawing-rooms " between
eight and nine every Friday evening. Wild reports of the " court " at
New- York were spread throughout the country. In reply to a letter
from his old friend David Stuart, of Virginia, mentioning some of
these, the president (July 14, 1789) says that public business had ne-
cessitated a rule that he should return no visits, and that his enter-
tainments should be confined to oflScial characters, and strangers of
distinction. " So strongly had the citizens of this place imbibed an
idea of the impropriety of my accepting invitations to dinner, that I
have not received one from any family (though they are remarkable
for hospitality, and though I have received every civility and atten-
NEW-TOEK THE FEDERiL CAPITAL 57
tiou possible from them) since I came to the City, except dining with
the Governor on the day of my arrival. It is to be lamented that he
(Adams) and some others have stirred a question [titles] which has
given rise to so much animadversion, and which I confess has given
me much \ineasiness lest it should be supposed by some (unacquainted
with facts) that the object they had in view was not displeasing to me."
The president occasionally made calls on the vice-president, or very
eminent official people, but had to be careful about public appear-
ances. " Received," says his diary, " an in\'itation to attend the
funeral of Mrs. Roosevelt (the wife of a senator of this State) but de-
clined complying with it — first, because the propriety of accepting
an invitation of this sort appeared very questionable, and secondly,
(though to do it in this instance might
not be improper) because it might be
difficult to discriminate in cases which
might thereafter happen." Mrs.Wash-
ingtou for some time called on none.
The first year of this lady's term as
president's wife was a sort of martyr-
dom. She made a good impression
on those who met her, but she was in
no sense a woman of the world, and
was shy amid the circle of remark-
ably brilliant ladies in political so-
ciety. Of her personal appearance a
mistaken impression prevails, through
the error of Sparks in giving out a
portrait of Washington's sister as that .
of his wife. This has been reproduced ^^ 'Pya/^'^y^iA^ J^^^-^
by Griswold and others. Of Mrs. ^ f^
Washington many portraits exist. She was small in stature, her pro-
file clear-cut, and her expression amiable. She dressed richly, and
her manners were of well-bred simplicity. It is plain from the let-
ters both of herself and the president that they were for a time
grievously homesick in New- York, and suffered from the unneces- .
sary restraints of an ill-advised etiquette. Writing to a friend in
Virginia (Stuart) who had alluded to rumors of presidential pomp,
the president says that his Tuesday callers do not sit down because,
first, it is unusual, and secondly, the room would not hold enough
chairs. The dignity of office, he says, " God knows has no charms
for me. I had rather be at Mount Vernon with a friend or two
about me, than to be attended at the seat of government by the
officers of state and the representatives of every power in Europe."
Yet he was often denounced for his monarchical proclivities.
58 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The following pathetic letter from Mrs. Washington was wi'itten to
Mrs. Fanny Washington, then keeping house at Mount Vernon :
" New York, Oct. the 22d, 1789.
" My dear Fanny, — I have by Mrs. Sims sent you a watch ; it is one of the cargoe
that I have so long mentioned to you, that was expected, I hope it is such a one as will
please 3'ou — it is of the newest fashion , if that has any influence on your taste, the
chain is of Mr. Lear's choosing and such as Mrs. Adams the Vice president's lady and
those in the poUte circle wear.
" Mrs. Sims will give you a better account of the fashions than I can — I Hve a very
aull life hear and know nothing that passes in the town — I never goe to any public
place — indeed I think I am more like a State prisoner than anything else ; there is
certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from — and as I cannot doe as I
like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal.
" The President set out this day week on a tour to the eastward ; Mr. Lear and Major
Jackson attended him — my dear children has had very bad colds but thank God they
are getting better. My love and good wishes attend you and all with 3'ou — remember
me to Mr. and Mrs. L. Wn. [Lund Washington] how is the poor child — kiss Marie, I
send her two little handkerchiefs to wipe her nose. Adue."
To Mrs. Mercy Warren, whom she had met at Cambridge thirteen
years before, she writes: "I sometimes think the arrangement is not
as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather be at home,
should occupy a place with which a great many younger and gayer
women would be extremely pleased.'' One may speculate as to what
might have been the effect on the political aspirations of the American
women, had one so imbued with them as Mercy Warren, or, still more,
Abigail Adams, been wife of the first president. Meanwhile Mrs.
Adams, who in 1776 wrote to her husband of the rights of women to
representation, was enjoying " The Mansion ^ on Richmond Hill, and
the freedom of New- York. Of her new home she writes : " In natural
beauty it might vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw. It is a
mile and a half distant from the city of New York. The house stands
upon an eminence ; at an agreeable distance flows the noble Hudson,
bearing upon its bosom innumerable small vessels laden with the
fruitful productions of the adjacent country. Upon my right hand
are fields beautifully variegated with grass and grain, to a great ex-
tent like the valley of Honiton in Devonshire. Upon my left the city
opens to view, intercepted here and there by a rising ground and an
ancient oak. In front, beyond the Hudson, the Jersey Shores present
the exuberance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. In the background is a
large flower-garden, enclosed with a hedge and some very handsome
trees. Venerable oaks and broken ground covered with wild shrubs
surround me, giving a natural beauty to the spot which is truly en-
chanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and even-
ing, rejoicing in their liberty and security.'* From which one may
gather not only that the corner of Charlton and Varick streets was
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 59
different a hundred years ago, but that the lady, like the serenading
birds, was also rejoicing in her liberty and security.^ The ladies were
accustomed to present themselves in large numbers in the gallery of
the House of Representatives. In a letter to David Stuart the presi-
dent says : " Why they (the Senate) keep their doors shut, when act-
ing in a legislative capacity, I am unable to inform you, unless it is
because they think there is too much speaking to the gallery in the
other House, and business thereby retarded."
The sequelae of royalism having been cleared, so far as it could
be done, by Congress, the fateful question of human rights, as repre-
sented in the negro slaves, confronted it. The first challenge of
slavery, in the new government, came from Virginia. During the
first tariff discussion, eai-ly in May, the Hon. Josiah Parker of that
Stat« moved an amendment imposing a duty of ten dollars on every
slave imported. He expressed the hope that "Congress would do all
in their power to restore to human nature its ancient privileges; to
wipe off, if possible, the stigma under which America labored ; to do
away with the inconsistency in our principles justly charged upon us,
and to show by our actions the purer beneficence of the doctrine held
out to the world in our Declaration of Independence.'' Parker's mo-
tion— made within a few steps of a slave-market — was seconded by-
Theodoric Bland, and supported by James Madison, both of Virginia.
It was bitterly opposed by Jackson of Georgia, who declared the negroes
better off in the South than they were in Africa. "Virginia," he said,
** an old and settled State, has her complement of slaves, and, the
natural increase being sufficient for her purposes, she is careless of
recruiting her numbers by importation." But he asked if Virginia
would free her slaves, and said that " when the practice comes to be
tried, then the sound of liberty wiU lose those charms which make it
grateful to the ravished ear." Had the ten dollars import duty on
negroes been adopted, American history might have been less tragical.
But this proposal of Virginia was defeated by two Northern men dis-
tinguished for anti-slavery sentiment. Roger Sherman, of Connec-
ticut, approved of the object of Parker's motion, but " could not
reconcile himself to the insertion of human beings as a subject of
import among goods, wares and merchandize." Fisher Ames, of
Massachusetts, " detested slavery from his soul, but had some doubts
whether imposing a duty on such importation would not have an
appearance of countenancing the practice." By these sentimental
objections the practical measure was defeated.
The inaugural address of the president made a profound impres-
sion on the religious sentiment of the country. Some jealousy may
have been felt at the official recognition by Congress of the Episcopal
1 Mrs. Lamb*8 •'ffistory of the City of New-York." See also Dr. Francis's **OId New-York," p. 17.
60
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
'79^
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■•■ ^:i/i^ zji. j^fio /^
4.
c^^i'.rv, '"•y,^. -^r**^ •*«'■ y^^.
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777-^
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 61
Church, in the selection of St. Paul's for the services on the day of
inauguration ; that, however, was not ascribed to the president, and
all denominations were moved by the solemn religious utterance in
his address. The first response came from the Methodist Episcopal
Church. In the old John street church, their only one in the city, of
which Rev. John Dickens was minister, services tfad been held at nine
on the morning of the inauguration. On May 28 the New- York con-
ference began a session in that church. There were only twenty
ministers in it, but among these were men of weight. The bishops
present were Asbury and Coke, who had visited Washington at Mount
Vernon, and received from him a pledge that he would use his in-
fluence with the Virginia assembly to " secure the emancipation of
the slaves." With another present, the Rev. Thomas Morrell, of Eliza-
l>eth, N. J., Washington had special associations. Morrell, a young
major in the Revolution, had been wounded in leading the advance
at Flatbush, and Washington had detailed six soldiers to carry him
to his father's home in Elizabeth. On May 29, in pursuance of a
resolution of the conference and an arrangement with the president,
]tf orrell introduced the two bishops, and cordial addresses were inter-
changed. A sharp controversy followed this action of the Methodist
Conference relative to Dr. Coke's opposition to the American cause
in England. Bishop Coke had sailed (June 5) for England, where he
was assailed for disloyalty, while Morrell was maintaining (in the
"Daily Advertiser") that he (Coke) had accepted the new order of
things. But it was not so easy to defend the anti-American mani-
festos of John Wesley.
The mayor was annually appointed by the governor. In the earlier
part of 1789 the mayor was James Duane, who had held the office
since 1783 ; but in September he was appointed the first judge of the
United States District Court of New- York, and was succeeded by
Richard Varick (who held the office until 1801). Varick, who resided
at 11 Pearl street, had previously been recorder. He enjoyed the per-
sonal friendship of Washington. His successor as recorder was
Samuel Jones, an eminent lawyer, a trustee of the Society Library,
and active in city affairs. Aaron Burr, whose private office was 10
Cedar street, was elected attorney-general. Twenty-eight attorneys
were admitted to-the bar in 1789, making the total number of lawyers
in the city one hundted and twenty-two.
On Saturday, May 9, the mayor and corporation exchanged formal
addresses with the president. On the same evening the Black Friars
Society enjoyed their annual banquet, among the toasts being " Our
noble order of honesty,'' "Virtuous nuns to honest friars," and " The
mother friary of Europe." On June 24 the Knights Templar cele-
brated the "Festival of St. John the Baptist," a sermon being preached
62
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
at 12.30 p. M. The lodges represented were seven in number, and
were styled respectively Jamaica, Holland, Hiram, St. John's, St. Pat-
rick's, St. Andrew's, and Independent Royal Arch.
Mr. Thomas E. V. Smith seems to give some credit to an English
report that on the birthday of George III., June 4, 1789, the president
celebrated that monarch's recovery, A letter dated June 6, after-
ward printed in a London paper, says: "His Excellency General
Washington our new Congressional President, and perhaps I might
add Dictator of America for hfe, gave a very sumptuous entertain-
ment on Thursday the 4th, on account of the recovery of his Majesty
the King of Great Britain ; the Envoys of England, France, Holland,
and Portugal, and persons of the first distinction were present. This
very handsome respect to the British Monarch will doubtless be re-
ceived as it deserves." The English government had no envoy in
America, but only a consul-general (Sir John Temple). It is diflScult
to believe that Washington gave such an entertainment, or that it
would or could have been kept secret. The foreign representatives
in 1789 were Don Gardoqui (Spanish), the Count de Moustier
(French) and Louis Otto (Cbarg6 d'Aflfaires), Francis Van Berckel
(Holland), and Richard Sonderstrom (Sweden). Sir John Temple was
popular in New- York, and entertained handsomely. The entertain-
ment given in the president's honor, May 14, 1789, by Count de
Moustier (whose house was kept by his sister, Madame de Brehan),
has become historic through the description given in Griswold's
"Republican Court."
According to a masonic tradition, Washington kissed the open
Bible on a page, now carefully marked, adorned with a picture of
Issachar as " a strong ass, couching down between two burdens." *
There is no doubt that America and its president were between two
burdens, and that they were formidably displayed from the first in
New- York. One of these burdens was anti-federalism, the other a
federalism which seemed eager to invest the republic with the pomp
and circumstance of royalty. In an unpublished historical fragment
Edmund Randolph says : . " It was expected, at the commencement of
our revolutionary government, that these gaudy trappings would be
abandoned. They were retained indeed by usage, not by any authori-
1 Genesis xlix. 14. One must almost suspect in
this legend the invention of some political philos-
opher of the time who had remarked the profane
caricature representing Washingrton's "Entry**
seated on an ass led by David Humphreys. In
"The Century Magazine'' for April, 1889, there is
an admirable engraving of the open Bible, and a
full description of it, with its inscriptions as added
by St John's Lodge. A letter of John Armstrong
to General Gates, dated New-York, April 7, 1789,
says: "A caricature has already appeal^ called
* The Entry/ full of very disloyal and profane
allusions. It represents the General mounted on
an ass, and in the arms of his man Billy Humph-
reys [Colonel David Humphreys, aide^e-camp,
who accompanied Washingrton from Mount Ver-
non to New-Tork] leading the jack, and chanting
hosannas and birthday odes. The following coup-
let proceeds from the mouth of the devil :
* The glorious time has come to paj«s
When David shall conduct an ass.* "
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 63
tative recognition, nor yet from any admiration of the empty baubles
in the country of our origin, or an anti-republican tendency in the
p>eople ; but they may be ascribed to a degree of pride which would
not suffer the new government to carry with it fewer testimonies of
public devotion than the old." But democratic sentiment was exas-
perated by the proposal (already mentioned) to institute titles, sprung
upon Congress immediately after its organization. The vice-presi-
dent's warm demand for titles had been seconded by Senator Richard
Henry Lee, of Virginia, who moved that a resolution on the subject
should be transmitted to "the Lower House" — a phrase not soon for-
gotten. A committee of the Senate reported that the executive should
be styled " His Highness the President of the United States, and Pro-
tector of their Liberties." Among the titles suggested were " His
Majesty," " His Elective Majesty," " High Mightiness." It is said that
the president asked Speaker Muhlenberg what he thought of the title
" High Mightiness," and that Muhlenberg said it might do for a tall
man like himself, but if a little president should be elected it would
sound rather ridiculous. Lee's supercilious phrase, "the Lower
House"; the vice-president's proposal to thank the president for
" his most gracious speech," and his remark, when this was ridiculed,
that " could he have thought of this he never would have drawn his
sword" — the whole discussion, threw the country into agitation. John
Randolph of Roanoke, then a student in Columbia College, was pre-
cocious enough in radicalism to fill Virginia with alarm. The vice-
president's speeches about titles made him feel in the "spurning" of
his brother Richard by Adams's coachman (April 22) something sym-
bolical. The royalist whip was cracked over the head of the citizen.
He detected " the poison under the eagle's wings." " I saw the coro-
nation (such in fact it was) of General Washington." Soon after young
Randolph was in Richmond, and Edmund Randolph, in a letter to
Madison (July 23, 1789), mentions a report of the president's " total
alienation (in point of dinners) from the representatives." On the
other hand, it is said by the same statesman, in a letter of September
26 : " The President is supposed to have written to Mr. Adams, while
titles were in debate, that if any were given he would resign."
The two burdens between which the new government, like Issachar,
was beginning to couch found some representation in the Society of
the Cincinnati and that of Tammany. It is true that men of all par-
ties belonged to these societies; nevertheless, the Cincinnati, making
membership hereditary, had come to be regarded as aristocratic, and
Tammany had been evolved to counteract it. Washington had been
induced to remain president of the Cincinnati only on its promise
(never fulfilled) of abolishing the hereditary feature. This society
bad a large influence in New-York, where it had about one hundred
64 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
and eighty members. • Senator Maclay not^s in his diary (May 1, 1789)
the continuance of a party which, in the Eevolution, "cared for noth-
ing else but a translation of the diadem and sceptre from London to
Boston, New York, or Philadelphia,'' and adds : " This spirit they de-
veloped in the Order of Cincinnati, where I trust it will spend itself
in a harmless flame and soon become extinguished." But on July 4
the New-York branch of the society elected Baron Steuben president,
Alexander Hamilton vice-president. Major John Stagg secretary,
and Colonel Richard Piatt treasurer. These were strong men. John
Stagg had served in the Continental army, also in the New -York
assembly (1784 and 1786), and was now major of the City Legion and
city surveyor. Colonel Piatt had also a Eevolutionary record. The
society sent a committee with Fourth -of -July congratulations to
the president, vice-president, and speaker, aft^r which it attended St.
Paul's, where Hamilton pronounced a eulogium on General Nathaniel
Greene to an audience including magnates of the government and
their families. Washington was ill, but his wife was present. A
grand banquet with thirteen toasts followed at the City Tavern.
The St. Tammany Society had hitherto been a rather feeble survival
from the Revolution. The name of the pacific chief of the Delawares
(who signed the treaty with Penn, and had been largely invested
with mythology), Tammany, — canonized, as an offset to the foreign
saints Andrew, Patrick, and George,— was adopted for a patriotic
society that latterly had little purpose.* But in May, 1789, the organ-
ization in New -York city was strengthened, and the "Columbian
Order ^ added to its name* Its officers were to consist of native-bom
Ame^cans, while adopted citizens were eligible to the honorary posts
of "warrior'' and "himter.'' The officers were one grand sachem, twelve
sachems, one treasurer, one secretary, and one doorkeeper, the society
being divided into thirteen tribes, each representing a State and being
governed by a sachem, and containing one honorary warrior and one
hunter. The society at the outset included men of all parties, and did
not take a prominent part in politics. In 1789 its meetings were held
at Fraunces' Tavern, but it celebrated May 12 (old May-day) in tents
erected on the banks of the Hudson River, about two miles from the
city, where a large number of members partook of an elegant enter-
tainment, served precisely at three o'clock, after which there were
singing and smoking and universal expressions of brotherly love.
The society also had a curator of property ("sagamore"). John
Pintard, one of the few fashionable gentlemen among them, was the
1 An interesting history of the Tammany So- nated as Blossoms, Fruits, Snows, Hunting:. The
ciety, by R. G. Horton. is given in the Manual of months were ''moons.** A Tammany letter might
the Common Council of New -York, 1865. It is be dated: ''Manhattan, Season of Fruits, 17th day
curious that this society should have anticipated of the 7th moon, year of discovery 300th, of inde-
the French revolutionists in their wish to alter pendence 16th, of the institution 3d."
the names of the seasons, which Tammany desig-
NEW-TORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL
65
tirst Bagamoi*e. Although no partizanship was at first tnanlfeBt, there
are few indications of federalist or fashionable patronage. " Fashion-
able Society," says Smith, "in New- York in 1789 seems to have con-
sisted of about three hundred persons, as that number attended a ball
on the 7th May at "whieh Washington was present." The common
folk had to form their own social circles, and their own organizations,
which must naturally pass into a
democratic evolution. Tammany
was the American positive pole to
the Cincinnati's negative pole; and
in their relative importance to-day
our national history may be studied.
During the first year of Congress
three hundred and thirty tavern
licenses were granted {30s. each),
and gambling (Pharaoh) was pretty
general Prices ran high, and trade
societies were refurbished. The
foreign societies — St. Andrew's,^
St. George's, St. Patrick's — shared
the national enthusiasm. There
was one social club — the Black
Friars. There were twenty-two
church edifices. The gi'eat institu-
tion was Columbia College. At the
commencement on May 6, 1789,
the President of the United States
att«ndedf and the chief members
of both National and State governments. The number of students
was between thirty and forty. There were more than fifty schools
in the city. Literature appears to have been represented by Philip
Freneau, captain of a merchant vessel; Samuel Low, bank clerk;
and William Dunlap, playwright. There were, however, twelve pub-
lishing-houses, one of which {Robert Hodge's) announced on February
4, 1789, the " First American Novel," which was entitled, *' The Power
of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature."
The newspapers pubhshed in New-York in 1789 were : The " New-
York Packet," published three times a week, at two dollars a year,
by Samuel Loudon, 5 Water street; the "New- York Journal,"
weekly, two dollars, by Thomas Greenleaf, 25 Water street ; the " Daily
■ Among the (artieBt chuiteble o^anlzntioiu Barclay, fourth; and the Earl of Stirling, fifth.
of New-Tork dty 1b St. AndreVs Society, oi^ It la still an influential and useful orgamiBtion.
ganlieif in 1T56, of which Philip LlvlngRton, the and tbe oldeHt among eiistiog societleB of its
Rgner. waa tint preeideiit; Dr. Adam Thomp- character. EtilTOB.
•on. second ; John Horln Soott, third ; Anthony
Voi- HL — 5.
^i^^^^c^
66 HISTOEY OF NEW-YORK
Advertiser," six dollars, by Francis Childs, 190 Water street; the
" Daily Gazette," by McLean, 41 Hanover street, at the sign of "Frank-
lin's Head"; the "Gazette of the United States," biweekly, three dol-
lars, by John Fenno, 9 Maiden Lane, These publishers were also
considered editors of their papers. The laws of the United States
were printed by Francis Childs and sold at one dollar per one hun-
dred pages. Greeoleaf was printer for the State.
On May 11 and 12, 1789, the Bank of New-York (established in
1784) elected the following officers : President, Isaac Roosevelt ; vice-
president, William Maxwell; cashier, William Seton ; directors, Nich-
le-ta/lnt — ITi/^Vv •
fAC-8IHILX OF PART OP A PAQE.
olas Low, Joshua Waddington, Daniel McCormick, Thomas Bandall,
Comfort Sands, Robert Bowne, Samuel Franklin, Thomas B. Stough-
ten, William Constable, William Edgar, and John Murray. This bank,
the only one in the city, prayed for incorporation on July 3, but was
not chartered until two years later. The money was pounds, shil-
lings, and pence; the dollar being worth eight shillings.
One of the events of 1789 was the composition of the air " Hail
Columbia," by a German named Fayles, leader of the orchestra in
John street theater. It was called "Washington's March," and was firat
played November 24, while the president and his wife (persistently
styled Lady Washington) were passiog to their box. The air was re-
peatedly encored, and the well-known song afterward adapted to it.
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 67
The illness which had prevented the president from making his
appearance at the celebration of Independence Day, 1789, was a dan-
gerous carbuncle. His mother, whom he had visited at Fredericks-
burg before leaving Virginia, was suffering from a tumor, and was in
great anxiety about him. In July the Rev. Mr. Urquhart of that re-
gion came to New- York, bringing a letter from the president's sister,
Betty Lewis, in which (July 24) she says that although they had heard
that he was recovering, and " would shortly be able to ride out,'' his
mother must hear from him. " She will not believe you are well until
she has it from under your own hand." News of his mother's death
reached him September 1, when he was entertaining Governor St.
Clair and Baron Steuben at dinner. Parson Ryan brought a letter
from Fredericksburg stating that Mary Washington had died on
August 25. The president retired from the table, and remained for
some time in his room alone. He wrote a touching letter about his
mother to his sister. On October 18 the president left New- York
for his tour in the Eastern States, returning November 13. Con-
gress had adjourned on September 29, 1789, after passing twenty-
seven acts. The discussions had been heated, the city excited, and
the residents enjoyed the repose following the adjournment. The
president's appointments to office included some of the strongest
New-York men. Alexander Hamilton was made secretary of the
treasury, and William Duer assistant secretary. John Jay was ap-
pointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, Samuel Os-
good postmaster-general, and Gouverneur Morris (already in Europe)
was intrusted with a sort of undefined mission to negotiate with the
British government on various issues. John Lamb was made collector
of the port, Benjamin Walker naval officer, and John Lasher sur-
veyor. These local appointments were popular, the three gentlemen
being eminent for their public spirit.
The closing event of the year for the populace was the arrival of the
president's coach from England. It was globular, canary-colored, gay
with Cupids and nymphs of the seasons, and emblazoned also with the
Washington arms. On December 12 the president's diary says:
** Exercise in the coach with Mrs. Washington and the two children
(Master and Miss Custis) between breakfast and dinner — went the
fourteen miles round " (the old Bloomingdale Boad, nearly as far as
where Grant's tomb now stands; then to Kingsbridge, returning by
the Boston Boad). Probably the event so briefly entered in Washing-
ton's diary was graphically described in many letters. With his four
(or sometimes six) bays, his liveried driver, postilion, and outriders,
the president seemed to defy both the puritanism and the anti-feder-
alism of the country, even more than with his velvet and purple
satin costumes. This celebrated coach, after the president's death.
68 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
remained an archaic curiosity at Mount Venion, for it could not
move on Virginia roads. Ultimately it was given to the late Bishop
Meade to be cut up into little boxes and other relics for sale at church
fairs. The seat and steps were made into an ornamental retreat in
the garden of the bishop's sister, in Clarke County, Virginia, where
it remained until the day of desolation.
Three entries from Washington's diary may be given in closing our
account of 1789: "Friday, Dec. 25, Christmas Day. Went to St.
Paul's Chapel in the forenoon. The visitors to Mrs. Washington this
afternoon were not numerous but respectable. Monday, Dec. 28. Sat
all the forenoon for Mr. Savage, who was taking my portrait. Tues-
day, Dec. 29. Being very snowing not a single person appeared at
the Levee." The days of rubber shoes had not yet come.
On January 8 the president opened Congress in state, proceeding
thither in his new English coach, with six horses, preceded by Colonel
Humphreys and Major Jackson, in uniform, mounted on white horses,
the cavalcade being followed by Lear and Nelson in a chariot, and
Robert Lewis on horseback. The president was conducted by door-
keepers to the Senate, where the representatives were also present.
All arose as he entered, and stood while he read his speech. The an-
swers to his speech were received at the president's house on January
14, to which the members proceeded in coaches. After the ceremony
the president entertained a number of the members at dinner.
Congress had paid eight thousand dollars for the expenses of Mr.
Osgood in repairing and furnishing his house for the president's resi-
dence ; but early in the following year the owner, who had been living
three miles away, desired to resume his city mansion. The president
paid rent to Osgood up to May 1, though on February 23 the presi-
dent had finally removed to the McComb mansion on Broadway, a
little below Trinity Church. This house had been occupied by Louis
Otto, the French Charg6 d'Aflfaires. It was one story higher than
Osgood's house, and in every way more commodious. Washington
purchased some of Otto's furniture. This was the finest private build-
ing in New-York; diuing Washington's residence it was called the
Mansion House, and it was subsequently known as Bunker's Hotel.
It is said that Andre and Benedict Arnold once met there.
The slavery question again arose in Congress. On February 11,
1790, a petition of Quakers was submitted to the house, praying that
it would exert its endeavors to the full extent of its powers against
slavery, and especially against the slave-trade. On the following day
a similar memorial was presented from the "Pennsylvania Society
for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," signed by Franklin, and sup-
posed to be written by him, — the last thing he ever wrote. He died
April 17. Tucker of South Carolina and Jackson of Georgia were
His Majefty
over the Provincp
w America.
A
By the Honourable
JAM^S DE LANCEr, Efq;
Governor and Commanc r in Chiefs in a
?/" New-York, and the Territor ts depending tber^n
Proclamation.
Wbvtu Tkiin One tf fuch
ud dsuallr t&aU«l DihbUi
- - ■ Ifil - "
hifti bf wkidiincgi] Fmndiiim fopiMrud wUh «K, ibc CMufe of .'y£ce
hi> MajtAVi Subj^ Ml, and jviviic PiDpeiij ii bci. uul si'*''r i^'"'- •
1 Pitlaiit, In M^ to pnreciiic ilicir uriuA Diliini, Sibe Tih Dtt a< "^ !*&• *i
UahI, uibe Haifa <.(>MMUZ>.fl.>' which Ain> S ths DUbna of mh Dm
-.._ -- llie lid 7M«*m ZWto,
'" ' by iht DqiuB Shfriff of ' "
■t Tttkm vho cine Ihiidi
.-, , , jtion mm sff, Ibt odien Oiutiini i)
LnBUn, bad AraKh tba bc, vid bdon Ibcr di(ptrfal, r»cnl i
bwOawAM-fUJuatetlbi Tlnolufierih* Wgondi ihtfihen
the EaflcTii Borden of
ngJliM, jun. Efq; Propriflor of (he
in which tkj b fu
<i(ihcMUKi<uiaf
[ .'y£ce hiik
JiliniarAaPcKt, l>si
M|«MWn*Maanillfinl((a * i u4 w tfiHA ud Imp in Puce ind i Kood Ur
■Hi ■«anCMM*Bfr lUI bi I «)■ ■ hnl CMnft : I HAVE ibouEtii lit, >lil> the
MwahrrtrlmiiriMi, Hmbriii yytf-iNhBn, Briaif BijoininE .ifHIi Mijcfl^'i £<
•TAiLn. Aas dMIkiOfeid. btfon niowil uj ba biviiitit lo JuAki, Ibe Shiiiir. ol
■fha OCcoi dwiciii, ireh tt cammuided ind Kquiml to ippHbiiHl the fud Vvimtu kctir. ?ii*
M^ f«y,Ur. b—rf r. ', £iw»r r«k', Ud jh^ijy. flm, >rd .ll''u.d c. r of •)>"' Al
lobinbfa lidiH or ih«ii tbc bidOtleiidcn ibUk Rwc ibrrikid i ind ihcminil c<i : o< tbem to
CulMr, Jnll
id >» Ri> MiicCj'! SubjiOi
n^editrtCaumici, vhg vs hcfcbr
pMdii(ibtPnBiiluUIEuniUDii.
GIVEN -rndtrmjaM
June, Ojm nmfaJ
Ltri GEORGE iht
tf lit Ftilb, iwififi
Bf Hb Honour*! Comnund,
r, lira 7^ fti HMfi, HnJntt Brtfi, 7^
r Ttjl^, Ik.JiJri't y.Srf/iiUii Vani fo
«. in iheHn^na of dm of Hii MiJcIIt''
bi<H|ht to Ju
|uilHfl0.pp«
mn Gc
L'ccwi
tttlAOmfU^DUil^,, 1
iJ Stti 41 Ana, at Fott-Kjwnc, in lit Cilj if
) HatdttJ nd Fifty SnUm, u «fa Tbiriiilt Tiar
mi, Ij Iht Crtti if GOD, </Grul-B(iuln, iiix
JAMES
GOD Save the KING.
OBiulbed oith ibe ulmoS Kinu<
Counilt) of AOm ind Dwi^
i-Voik, tir Eighlk Dt/ tf
ihi Kdi;n >/ —r Smtrift
Hi lielind, K'tt Defniir
lELANCEV.
Fao-fttnile of proolammtloD warning i1
Uvlngiton Huior ; lamed If ^ '
(mor de I^ooe;. From &ti
blBnMkliolitLlvillg«toii,Eaq.,otLoB-
— flf "The UrtnintoiM of CalleniUr.wtd
^Cvleti,'* London, 1890. Bditob.
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 69
acrimonious in opposition, the latter going into the Biblical argument
in support of slavery which became so familiar at a later day. Scott
of Pennsylvania said that if he were a federal judge in the South he
would go as far as he could to emancipate them. Jackson retorted
that "perhaps even the existence of such a judge would be of short
duration.'^ This memorable debate ended, on March 23, in the asser-
tion of congressional power over the subject, but postponing action, —
the ultimate action being little foreseen by the first Congress.
New- York was anxious to remain the national capital. On March
25, 1790, Trinity Church, rebuilt, was consecrated, and a canopied
pew set apart for the president. On March 10 the State assembly
provided for greater cleanliness and sanitary care about the city
wharves. On March 16 it was enacted "that all that part of Fort
George, in the City of New York, and the lands adjoining there-
abouts, belonging to the people of this State [limits here defined],
shall be and hereby are declared to be forever reserved for the pur-
pose of erecting public buildings, and such works of defence as the
Legislature shall from time to time direct; and further, that the same
shall not at any time or times hereafter be sold or appropriated to
or for any private use or purpose whatever.^ It was further ordered
that the mayor and corporation demolish Fort George and level the
grounds, and erect a new bulkhead at the Battery. It is then in-
trusted to Gerard Bancker, Eichard Varick, and John Watts (the last
royal mayor of New- York) to cause new buildings to be erected for
the State government, "and to be applied to the temporary use of the
President of the United States of America, during such time as the
Congress of the United States shall hold their session in the City of
New- York.'' For these purposes the commission may draw on the
State treasurer for eight thousand pounds. Further provisions were
made for improving the road to Harlem, where Lewis Morris is
authorized (March 31) to bridge Harlem Eiver, without suffering any
competition from ferries.
The work of clearing away Fort George was begun, and the presi-
dential mansion was rapidly rising, when New- York's famous citizen,
Alexander Hamilton, was bargaining away for a national object the
city's chances of remaining the capital. There had been from the first
a keen competition among variout sections for this advantage, and
the contest had graduaUy become one between New- York, Pennsyl-
vania, and the banks of the Potomac. The Southern States were
vehement for the Potomac location, and the name of the president
was freely used in promoting this project. Hamilton, secretary of the
treasury, regarded it as a financial necessity that the national govern-
ment should assume the debts of the several States to England. This,
however, was naturally opposed by the States which had paid a por-
70 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
tion of their debts, but which, by •^assumption,'' would be compelled
to share the burden of States that had not so paid. The quarrel in
Congress on these two points — assumption, and the location of the
national capital — became extreme, and menaces of disunion had
already become familiar in Federal Hall. When the discord was at
its height, Hamilton met Jefferson on his way to the president's
house, and the two walked up and down before that house for a half-
hour conversing about the situation. This talk ended with the arrange-
ment of a small dinner company at Jefferson's house on the following
day, at which Alexander White, of North Carolina, and Eichard Bland
Lee, of Virginia, agreed to vote for assumption, though before they
had voted against it, on condition that Hamilton would secure votes
enough to locate the capital where it now stands. At one time
(June 28) the senatorial vote had gone in favor of New-York as the
permanent residence by 13 to 12. On July 16, the act for the re-
moval to Philadelphia, and afterward to the Potomac, was signed
by the president. But the woric on the mansion in New- York
continued with unabated vigor.'
An act of assembly of March 31, "for the further encouragement
of literature," set apart Governor's Island, and some lands in Clinton
County, for the benefit of Columbia College, and one thousand
pounds in money. The general paving of streets, ordered in the
spring of 1789, was coming to something like completeness. Little
"Oister Pasty Street" was altered (Exchange Alley, now called Tin-
pot Alley); Barclay, Little Dock, Front, William, Gteorge, Water,
Chatham, Greenwich, Murray, Beekman streets, began to be paved in
whole or in part. The Bowling Green, which had been a sort of
lumber place, and had held the wrecked federal ship "Hamilton,"
had been cleared away and fenced in July of the previous year. The
common lands had been industriously sold, and new houses and
gardens appeared in the suburbs.
On June 2, 1790, occurred the first funeral of a member of Con-
gress — the Hon. Theodoric Bland, of Virginia, who died June 1, in
his forty-ninth year. It was attended by Congress and by the State
and city authorities, also by the Cincinnati. The occasion was espe-
cially memorable for the manifestation of friendliness between the
Protestant Episcopal and the Dutch Reformed churches. After
Trinity Church was burned the Dutch Reformed Church invited the
congregation to use its edifice. At the funeral of Theodoric Bland,
which was held in Trinity Church, Bishop Provoost conducted the
1 *' We then walked to view the demolition of vaults in a chapel which once stood in the fort.
Fort George ; the leaden coffin and remains of The chapel was bnmed down about fifty years ago
Lord and Lady Bellamont, now exposed to the and never re-built. The leveling of the fort
sun after an interment of about ninety years, and digging away the foundations have uncovered
They and many more have been deposited in the vaults." Maclay's Diary, June 19, 1790.
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL
71
services, the sermon being delivered by the pastor of the Dutch
Reformed Church, the Rev. Dr. William Linn, who enjoyed celebrity
as an orator.
Independence Day, 1790, was celebrated on Monday, July 5. Con-
gress, the Cincinnati, and the State and municipal authorities waited
on the president, after they had all listened to an oration in St. Paul's
Church by Brockholst Livingston. "The Grand Sachem," says a
paper, "and Fathers of the St Tammany Society were honored with
an invitation to
dinner by the
members of the
Cincinnati, and
the evening was
spent with that
mutual goofl
humor and joy
which it is hoped
will ever be the
concomitants of
a day so remark-
able in the an-
nals of America."
be reckoned with.
CITS AH1> MAKHATTAM BANKS AMD THE
Tammany had thus rapidly become a power to
Probably Jefferson, who had assumed his duties
as secretary of state on March 21, had something to do with the
rapid development of the society. The sagamore was a vigorous
Jeffersonian. This was John Piiltard, the Tammanyite of highest
social position; also a scholar. Pintard was editor of the "Daily
Advertiser," assistant assessor of the city council, and assemblyman.
Under his leadership the society could lose no opportunity, and one
presently offered, for making a fine impression on the public mind.
Colonel Marinus Willett had gone in March, 1790, on a mission to the
Creek Indians in the South, and early in July news came that he was
on his way to New- York with the chief (McGillvray) of the hostile
tribe, and twenty-eight warriors, who would make a treaty of peace.
This important company traveled northward at the public expense,
greeted at every stage by vast crowds, and were met by the Sons of
St. Tammany dressed in aboriginal style. The Sons of St. Tammany
had charge of them, conducted them to the houses of the president
and secretary of war, and showed them the sights of New-York. At
a grand entertainment (August 3) Grand Sachem Hoffman addressed
the Indians in glowing terms, which were duly translated for them.
" The Spirits," he said, " of two great Chiefs are supposed to walk
backwards and forwards in this Great Wigwam, — Tammany and
Columbus. Tradition has brought us the memory of the first. He
72 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
was a great and good Indian Chief, a strong warrior, a swift hunter,
but, what is greater than all, he loved his country. We call ourselves
his Sons." The sagamore Pintard produced the richly ornamented
calumet, which was smoked by all in turns. The Indian chief. con-
ferred on the grand sachem of Tammany a title which did not seem
to be included in the society's general hatred of titles — " Taliva Mico'^
(Chief of the White Town). The President of the United States was
toasted as " The Beloved Chieftain of the Thirteen Fires.''
The president was deeply interested in all this ; for the Indians in
the Carolinas, Florida, and Georgia, instigated, it was thought, by
the Spaniards, had given much trouble to the whites, and probably
received as much. Chief McGillvray was made a member of the St.
Andrew Society. On July 27 the chiefs were present with Washing-
ton at a grand military review, and on another occasion he gave
them a dinner. The president's last visit to Federal Hall was to sign
a treaty with these Indians. He rode in his coach-and-six, with all
pomp — even the horses' hoofs painted. Addresses were interchanged
between the president and Chief McGillvray, who received a present
of wampum and a symbolical package of tobacco — Washington's
substitute for the calumet. The ceremony ended with a song of
peace, in which all, including the president, joined. The Sons of
St. Tammany, in costume, managed the business, and the society had
made its mark.
In November, 1789, Colonel John Trumbull, who had been study-
ing with Benjamin West in Europe, returned to America, and soon
after became the artistic "lion" in New- York. On February 10,
1790, he began his studies of Washington for his battle-pieces of
Trenton and Princeton. On March 1 the president's diary says:.
"Exercised on horseback this afternoon, attended by Mr. John
Trumbull, who wanted to see me mounted." The sittings ended on
March 4. In November, 1789, and January, 1790, Washington also
sat to Edward Savage for the portrait now at Harvard College. On
July 19, 1790, the common council requested the president to per-
mit Trumbull to paint his portrait, " to be placed in the City Hall as
a Monument of the Respect which the inhabitants of this City bear
towards him." To this the president responded favorably, and the
work is now in the City Hall. A similar request was made of Gov-
ernor Clinton, August 16, and consented to. For the president's
portrait Trumbull was paid, in September, 1790, £186 13^. 4rf., and in
May of the following year the same amount for Governor Clinton's
portrait — thought by some his finest work. While Trumbull was
engaged on the president's portrait, Washington brought some of the
Creek chiefs to see it. One of them looked behind, and was amazed
to find the surface flat. " I had been desirous," says Trumbull, " of
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 73
9
obtaining portraits of some of their principal men, who possessed a
dignity of manner, form, countenance, and expression worthy of the
Roman senators ; but after this I found it impracticable ; they had
received the impression that there must be magic in an art which
could render a smooth flat surface so like to a real man. I, however,
succeeded in obtaining drawings of several by stealth.'' These draw-
ings are given in Trumbull's autobiography, with the various signifi-
cant names of the chieftains.
Congress adjourned August 12, to meet in Philadelphia for a ten
years' residence. Senator Maclay writes in his diary : " The citizens
of Philadelphia (such is the strange infatuation of seK-love) believe
that ten years is eternity to them with respect to the residence, and
that Congress will in that time be so enamored of them as never to
leave them ; and all this with the recent example of New- York before
their eyes, whose allurements are more than ten to two compared
with Philadelphia." There is no doubt that, when it came to the
pointy the members of Congress felt rather gloomy in leaving the
only large city which at that time had a good theater or anything in
the way of fashionable life.
Toward the latter part of their residence in New- York the presi-
dent and his family had enjoyed life more freely than before. The
president had a pleasant outing of a week on Long Island, revisiting
the old battle-field, and Mrs. Washington made a pleasant excursion
with her grandchildren, accompanied by Mrs. Jay, to Morrisania,
where they breakfasted with General Lewis Morris. On another
occasion, in July, there was a sort of picnic to Fort Washington.
The party consisted of the president and his wife, the vice-president
and his wife, their son, and Mrs. Smith, Secretaries Hamilton and
Knox and their wives. Secretary Jefferson, Tobias Lear, Robert
Lewis, and one or two others. Washington surveyed the old grounds
with keen interest. A dinner was prepared and brought out to them
by Mr. Mariner, a farmer occupying the Roger Morris mansion (now
better known as Jumel House, near 161st street), where they alighted
on their return drive. The repast was enjoyed in the open air.
On August 28 the president gave his last state dinner, the guests
being Governor Clinton and the mayor and corporation. On this
occasion he expressed his great reluctance at leaving New- York, and
Mrs. Washington uttered expressions of the same kind. They told
their guests that they would leave on the 30th, but desired that it
should not be made known. Such, at any rate, is the traditional
explanation of the comparative smallness of the crowd that witnessed
his departure. A procession of the State and municipal officers con-
ducted the president and his family to McComb's Wharf', North
River. They stepped on the same barge that had brought them ; a
HISTOBY OF NEW-TOBE
OHIEre or TBE CBXXK DISUKB.
NEW- YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL 75
salute of thirteen guns was fired. The president, in response to the
cheers of the people, waved his hat, and said, " Farewell.'' He never
saw New- York again.
On August 12 Mayor Varick presented to the city council a letter
from Vice-President Adams conveying an order of the Senate that
the furniture of their chamber should remain for the use of the cor-
poration, with an expression of their thanks "for the elegant and
convenient accommodation provided for Congress." An exactly sim-
ilar note from Speaker Muhlenberg was presented on behalf of the
House of Representatives. The letters seem to have been received
in silence. Possibly the coimcil expected more substantial reward,
which, however, the youngest of them did not live to see. On Octo-
ber 5 the mayor informed the council that the gentlemen who pro-
vided the president's barge proposed to present it to the corporation.
The mayor was "requested to thank the gentlemen for their inten-
tion, and to inform them that as this Board can have no use for the
said Barge, they decline the acceptance of her." The vacated rooms
of the City Hall were eagerly sought for. On September 10, 1790,
St Tammany petitioned for and obtained the use of a room for an
American museum. On October 14 the Medical Society was allowed
to use the council-chamber; Dr. Nicholas Romaine gave medical
lectures there a year or so later. The St. Caecilia Society, and the
Uranian Society were assigned certain evenings. The city clerk's
oflSce was eventually removed to the building, for the better preser-
vation of the public records, to which the common council was for-
tunately wise enough to pay special attention.
On December 11, 1790, the aldermen and assessors who had charge
of the census of "Electors and Inhabitants" were paid at the rate of
145. per one hundred inhabitants in Harlem, 12^. in the Bowery, 10^^
in other wards. The number of inhabitants given were : South ward,
1756; Dock ward, 1854; East ward, 3622; West ward, 6054; North
ward, 4596 ; Montgomerie ward, 6702 ; Bowery ward, 4819 ; Harlem
division, 503. The year 1790 had proved prosperous for the city.
There had been 410 tavern licenses, bringing in £779, and the market
fees had largely increased. So Mayor Varick, in addition to his
modest salary (six hundred pounds, diminished by his consent from
Duane's eight hundred pounds), had seven hundred pounds in fees.
The ball was over, the prince vanished ; for a time it had seemed as
if the city, like Cinderella, would return to its ashes. But this was
not to be the case. For the remainder of the year 1790 it enjoyed the
blessing of having no history; but early in January there were indica-
tions that New- York was to be a center of political excitement. The
State assembly met here on January 3. John Watts was elected
speaker. The governor addressed the assembly in person. Straight-
76 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
way a keen contest for the senatorship took place between Aaron
Burr and Philip Schuyler. Burr was chosen by a majority of ten in
the senate, and five in the house. General Schuyler's loss of the seat
he had held in the first Congress was felt as a terrible blow to the
federal party, the result having been partly brought about by the
defection from that party of Chancellor Livingston and his brother-
in-law Morgan Lewis. Morgan Lewis was elected State attorney-
general in Burr's place. It very soon appeared that John Pintard,
the Tammanyite radical, had become a popular leader in the legis-
lature. Melancthon Smith, a Tammanyite of the same type, was
also in the assembly. There are indications in the public press that
in 1791 there was a good deal of agitation on the slavery question.
Greenleaf s paper published several letters against emancipation, and
one of these complains of the free negroes, — "the vices and promis-
cuous number of these black republicans.'' On Washington's birth-
day there was again cordiality between the Sons of Tammany (Grand
Sachem Josiah Ogden Hoffman) and the Cincinnati, which had sent
conmiittees to congratulate each other. Nevertheless, this politeness
preceded a duel between the federal and the democratic parties, —
the latter name having come into use as a kind of epithet for enthu-
siasts of the rising revolution in France. The newspaper combat,
which had lasting effects, was caused by the publication of Thomas
Paine's "Rights of Man." This work was printed in London, with a
dedication to Washington. It was published in America with a pre-
liminary note of high approval written by the secretary of state. Its
publication raised a storm of replies from the federalists, in which
Jefferson was severely handled. John Pintard published the whole
of Paine's work in the "Daily Advertiser" (May 6-27), and also the
celebrated letters in reply ♦by "Publicola." These letters, written by
young John Quincy Adams, were attributed to the vice-president.
It is pleasant to find that amid this raging controversy Tammany
had time to establish an American museum, the basis of our Histori-
cal Society. In the " Daily Advertiser " for May 25, 1791, a full state-
ment of the project, begun in September, was given. "The intention
of the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, in establishing an
American Museum being for the sole purpose of collecting and pre-
serving whatever may relate to the history of our country, and serve
to perpetuate the same, as also all American curiosities of nature and
art." It is stated that the corporation had granted a room in the City
Hall, which would be open at all times to the Sons of Tammany, and
to the public on Tuesdays and Fridays. Any article for exhibition
sent there, or to John Pintard, 57 King street, will be taken care of.
The trustees are: William Pitt Smith, chairman ; James Tylee, John
R. B. Rodgers, Jacob Morton, EflBngham Embree ; William W. Gil-
NEW-YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL
77
^A^
^<^
^^^>/^^
/-^
^' ^i2^^^^
78 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
bert, treasurer ; Gardner Baker, keeper. It seems that Pintard had
moved eminent personages in Boston in the same direction, the result
being the establishment of the Massachusetts Historical Society some-
what earlier in 1791. "To Pintard is due the honor of originating
both ; indeed, he may with justice be pronounced the Father of His-
torical Societies in this country.'' ^
A number of acts interesting to the city were passed by the legis-
lature in 1791. March 21, 1791, the Bank of New- York was incor-
porated, under the temporary directors: Isaac Roosevelt, William
Maxwell, Thomas Randall, Daniel McCormick, Nicholas Low, William
Constable, Joshua Waddington, Samuel Franklin, Comfort Sands,
Robert Bo wne, Gulian Verplanck, John Murray, and William Edgar.
There was to be a ballot for directors on the second Monday in May.
The total amount of the debts of the said corporation must not exceed
thrive times the sum of the capital stock subscribed, — for this the
directors being held responsible in " their natural and private capaci-
ties.'' On May 18 Verplanck was elected president, Rufus King being
added to the directors, who were elected as previously appointed.
Oil March 24 the regents of Columbia College were empowered to
OHtablish a College of Physicians and Surgeons. This new college
was never to hold property of more than sixty thousand pounds
value (New- York currency). The regents were to appoint professors
and (uniter degrees. An act was passed for erecting a building for
tJie preservation of the records and public papers'of the State.
Despite severe newspaper attacks on the lottery system, the city
(Miutinued to raise money in this way. At the same time it was
severe on private citizens who engaged in similar enterprises. At
the April term of the Supreme Court of Judicature for the State,
William Thompson (city) was fined £94 14^. and costs, and Gabriel
Leggett £510 and costs, for attempting to dispose of goods and wares
by lottery. The common council also sometimes made mistakes.
On May 20 it ordered all bow-windows, displays of goods, and trees,
ill front of houses, which impeded the view of the streets, to be re-
moved ; one week later, after an outcry from the city, the order was
repealed as regarded trees.
The corporation had to deal with a riotous element. On February
17, 1791, Robert J. Livingston reported for the grand jury that they
hud inquired into a recent mob. Thirty foreign sailors had with
l»ludgeous attacked Captain Culbertson and eight other watchmen,
who, "though scarcely one-fourth of the number of the armed mob,
not only faced them with intrepidity, but gallantly conducted six of
the rioters to confinement and put the rest to flight.^ On February
25 tho city council conferred the freedom of the city on the " Honor-
i Mm. Larab'H •• HiJitory of the City of New-York/ 2: 508.
NEW-TOBK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL
79
THB aOVEBHMENT 1
able Horatio GJates, Esq.," who had just become a resident, for which,
May 2, General Gates returned thanks. On October 4 the seven city
wards were more equally divided, and numbered. The winter was
severe, and firewood was generously given to the poor. The year 1791
was prosperous. The
exports of New- York
amounted to $2,505,465.
The city had raised
seven thousand five
hundred pounds by a
lottery, and was starts
log another. Bedlow's
Island was let for
twenty-three years at
ten pounds per annum.
One hundred lots on
and near Broadway,
each one hundred feet
by twenty-five, sold for twenty-five pounds each. The council
ordered disbursement for the poor, the bridewell, and criminals,
repairing roads and improving and cleaning streets, eight thousand
pounds ; for improvements at the Battery and in front of the Gov-
ernment House, three thousand pounds; for the watch and lamp
departments, four thousand pounds. In A^^fust the Bowery was
taken in hand, and an order issued for its "regulation" from the
head of Catherine street to St. Nicholas street.
The conservatism of the corporation was illustrated in October,
1791. At the aldermanic elections of September 29, William S. Liv-
ingston, chosen an assistant assessor, was said to be neither a
freeman nor a freeholder. Summoned before the board (October 12),
Livingston urged that though he was not a freeman he ought to be,
as his father and grandfather were ; and that he had served a regular
vlorkship in the city as attorney-at-law. He also expressed the opin-
ion "that this Board could not legally enter into the consideration or
iletennination of any question with respect to the qualification of a
member elect whose time of service did not commence until the four-
twuth inst., when he supposed the present Board would die a politi-
cal death." The board overruling these pleas, Livingston declared
that he was a freeholder, but could not prove it except by his oath.
Tlie board unanimously declared that the unsupported oath was
"isuffif'ient, and Livingston's name was dropped. The scat was
si^anied to John Van Dyke, who had the largest number of votes
1*^1 fo Livingston. Colonel Livingston was a municipal reformer,
*'"' introduced into the legislature a bill for making the office of
80 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
mayor elective. In the same month (March 14, 1792) he secured the
incorporation of the '*GI-eneral Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen
of the City of New- York'' — the delay of which, since the foundation
of the society in 1785, had angered its members.
The commencement of Columbia College took place on May 7, 1791,
and there is found among the speeches of the young graduates some
reflection of public issues. Pierre E. Fleming speaks on " Arbitrary
Power ^ ; William T. Broome on " The Late Revolution in France " ;
John W. Milligan on " Faction ^ ; Thomas L. Ogden on " The Rising
Glory of America." All of these were of New- York city. The pro-
vincial youth seem to have maintained the old commencement
themes, among which are found on this occasion, "The Improve-
ment of Time," "Sympathy," "The Beauties of Nature," "On the
Importance of the Fair Sex."
Among the notable institutions of this period was the Tontine
Association — a sort of mutual insurance and loan company formed
by the merchants. On March 12 John Watts and others petitioned
for the privilege of adding to the Tontine Coffee House (comer of
Wall and Water streets) a piazza, which must extend over the side-
walk. This was refused, but on May 11 permission was given for a
piazza to extend six feet over Wall street sidewalk. The leading
citizens appear to have been generous. Abijah Hammond presented
the council with a well-boring machine, which he had imported from
Boston. The council was much concerned about wells, and had an-
nounced that it would contribute for every well sunk by its consent
at the rate of one dollar per foot. It accepted Hammond's gift, and
ordered that sixty pounds should be advanced to try the apparatus in
sinking a well near the City Hall. The Hon. John Jay presented the
city council with the free right to regulate streets through his land on
Great Q-eorge street, and offered to release any part of his land that
might be encroached on in cutting a canal from Fresh Wat^r Pond to
the North River.
Washington's Birthday, 1792, witnessed a revolution in a branch of
Columbia College, which now had one hundred and fifty-six students,
besides fifty-six medical students. The medical students offered
their resignation in a body, because they were not " protected and
cherished in the prosecution of their studies." The trustees refused
to accept their resignation, but were notified by the students that they
no longer considered themselves connected with the college, and if in-
terfered with would appeal to the justice of their country. Dr. Samuel
Bard was dean of the medical college, of which, indeed, he was the
founder. The trouble may have been due to some enthusiasm for
Dr. Nicholas Romaine, who, for some reason (perhaps his religious
liberalism), had been left out of the faculty. This physician appears
NEW- YORK THE FEDERAL CAPITAL
81
to have founded a school of his own. On April 30 the city council
granted the use of a room in the City HaU to Dr. Eomaine for
medical lectures, though a similar request of Dr. Micheau (May 16)
was refused. Of Micheau, a French refugee who came to New- York
in 1791, a lively account is given in Dr. Francis's " Old New- York.''
Hi^UUi
He seems to have been unpopular among the doctors, one of whom
persuaded Dunlap to have him caricatured on the stage, for which that
ih-amatist received a severe personal assault.
The great event of the city in 1792 was the celebration of the third
centenary of the discovery of America. The following is from a con-
temporary report:
The 12th inst. (October, 1792), beinp: the commencement of the IVth Columbian
(^entuaiy , was observed as a Centuary Festival by the Tammany Society, and celebrated
in that style of sentiment which distinguishes this social and patriotic institution. . . .
An elegant oration was delivered by Mr. J. B. Johnson, in which several of the prin-
cipal events of the life of this remarkable man were pathetically described, and the
The above fac-siraile is that of a part of the cer-
tificate' of election of George Clinton as governor,
Herre Van f 'ortlandt as lieiitenant-govemor, and
of the variouH State senators in 1780. The gentle-
VoL. III.— 6.
men whose names are appended were a joint com-
mittee of the senate and assembly to canvass and
count the votes. The original is in the possessi(m
of General J. Watts De Peyster. Editor.
82 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ioterestang consequenoes to which his great achievement had abeady and must still
conduct the affairs of mankind, were pointed out in a manner extremely satisfactory.
During the evening's entertainment, a variety of national amusement was enjoyed.
The following toasts were drank :
1. The memory of Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the new world. 2.
May the new world never experience the vices and miseries of the old ; and be a happy
asylum for the oppressed of all nations and of all religions. 3. May peace and liberty
ever pervade the United Columbian States. 4. May this be the last Centuary Festival
of the Columbian Order that finds a slave on this globe. 5. Thomas Paine. 6. The
Rights of Man. 7. May the IVth Centuary be as remarkable for the improvement and
knowledge of the rights of man as the first was for discovery and the improvement
of nautic science. 8. Lafayette and the French nation. 9. May the liberty of the
French rise superior to all the efforts of Austrian despotism. 10. A Burgoyning to
the Duke of Brunswick. 11. May the deliverers of America never experience that in-
gratitude from their Country which Columbus experienced from his King, 12. May
the Genius of Liberty, as she has conducted the sons of Columbia with glory to the
commencement of the IVth Centuary, guard their fame to the end of time. 13. The
Day. 14. Washington, the deliverer of the new world.
Among the patriotic songs was an ode composed for the occasion,
— beginning :
Ye sons of freedom, hail the day
That brought a second world to view;
To Great Columbus' mem'ry pay
The praise and honor justly due.
Chorus — Let the important theme inspire
Each breast with patriotic fire.
There was set up in the hall an illuminated obelisk. At the base
a globe, emerging from clouds and chaos, presented a rude sketch of
America as a wilderness. At the top stood History drawing up a
curtain and revealing: 1. A commercial port, and Columbus instructed
by Science, who presents him with a compass and points to the set-
ting sun. 2. The landing of Columbus, the natives prostrate around
him. 3. Columbus at the court of Spain, pointing out on a map his
discovery to Ferdinand and Isabella. 4. Columbus in chains; Liberty
appears to him, the emblems of despotism and superstition crushed
under her feet. She intimates the gratitude of posterity by pointing
out the monument set up by the Sons of Tammany, or the Columbian
Order. On its pedestal Nature is seen caressing her various progeny.
The Indians are seen mourning over the urn of Columbus. Near the
chained Columbus is seen the inscription, **The Ingratitude of Kings.**
On two sides the eagle is seen prone, supporting the arms of Isabella
and the arms of Genoa. But above the eagle soars, grasping in its
talons a scroll inscribed "The Rights of Man." A year later this
transparency was announced for display in Bowen's Museum and
Wax Works, at the Exchange, where it was " surrounded with four
beautiful female figures.*' ^
1 Dr. George H. Moore, in the ** Magadne of American History," October, 1889i
NEW-YOBK THE FEDEBAL CAPITAL
83
It will be observed by the large place given in the Columbian
"Centuary" toasts to Paine and the "Rights of Man," that Tammany
had become enthusiastic for democracy. The radicalism of Jeffer-
son — afterward entitled Great Grand Sachem — was represented by
Governor George Clinton. In the year 1792 occurred the famous
contest for the governorship between Clinton and Chief Justice Jay.
One of the principal polling-places was Trinity Church, and it is
probable that the sacred edifice was never before or since surrounded
by so many raging citizens as in that conflict. Although the "democ-
racy," as the republicans were called by enemies, said much about the
rights of man, one of the points urged against Jay was his anti-
slavery sentiments; his adherents had to protest against the slander
that he wished to liberate the slaves in New-York. It was also circu-
lated that he had said there ought
to be two classes — the rich and the
poor. Another point against Jay
was that he still held on to bis place
on the supreme bench while run-
ning for governor. The acrimonious
character of the contest was inten-
sified by its result in a disputed
election. It turned on the ques-
tion whether an annually appointed
sheriff could continue to fulfil his
functions as protector and doUverer
of the ballot-box and votes after his
term of office had ended, his suc-
cessor having not yet qualified. It
was agreed to refer tlie question
to the New- York senators, Aaron - ^ ^
Burr and Rufus King, who were to f^if, ^ ^^^'^^^^
choose a third if they could not ^ )
agree. They selected the attomey-
neneral of the United States, Edmund Randolph, who decided that,
as the office of sheriff was governed by English law, it would have
to be determined by English precedents. These were against Jay.
The canvassers were thus compelled to throw out the votes of
Otsego County, and Clinton was declared the governor. The fed-
eralists were furious, and New- York city was on the verge of civil
war. Public meetings were held in the City Hall, — where they
were allowed between twelve and four in the afternoons only, — but
I .Tmcpb Bnnt'a Indisn name was ThnyeDda-
neKiv. He tought vigorously ftgainst the Amert-
eajifl duriDK Ihe RcTolntion, but Bfterward waa
Itrp^ljr iDstrumental in pacifyiog hia (ndlan
;e to etTect a treaty witli
84
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
they overflowed into the streets. A great dinner was given to Jay.
It was generally felt that Jay^s presidential aspirations depended on
the result of this election, and a determined effort to unseat Clinton
was made by his opponents in the legislature. But Clinton was be-
lieved to have been ill used, and carried the entire vote of the State
for the vice-presidency, which he nearly gained. Hamilton had
during the summer of 1792 written in Fenno's paper (the " Gazette ^
terribly severe attacks on Jefferson and Madison. They were anony-
mous, but their authorship was well known. They were replied to by
(as is now known) Edmund Eandolph. At the center of this excit-
ing controversy was the struggle between France and England to
gain the support of the United States administration. New- York
was in ferment. Secret political clubs were formed by the republi-
cans (called ''Jacobin'' by the federalists), and the democratic party
reached an organization it has never lost.
But meanwhile the city council seemed to incline to intrench itself
anew in virtue and piety. It ordered in the beginning of 1793 that
the current expenses, fifteen thousand pounds, should be raised by
taxation (not lottery), and that the law of Sabbath observance should
be published in the papers, and the police admonished to take care
that it should be more strictly enforced. This may have been partly
due to the large number of Frenchmen who had come to New -York
since the disturbances in their country, and brought with them new
customs. These new inhabitants greatly influenced the politics of
the city. But it is due to the corporation to say that during this agi-
tated period of the city's history, which reached a frantic pitch with
the triumphal reception of the French ambassador. Citizen Gtenfit,
the mayor and council maintained their creditable traditions for
industry and justice.
Mile
FROM,
Cth»Ha]I
NewYork
I ■
v^
FROH 1
City Hail
5.^
MILE-STONES OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY.^
1 These mile-stones remind us of a past century,
when the Bowery and Third Avenue were the
Boston Post Road. Strange to say. these relics
of an earlier period still remain. The one-mile
stone is in the Bowery opposite Rivington street ;
the two-mile stone stands near Sixteenth street;
the four-mile stone, near Fifty-seventh street; and
the five-mile stone, near Seventy-seventh street
They are all of granite, and the inscriptions are
faint on some, hut still legihle. Edxtob.
NEW-YOBK THE FEDERAL CAPITAIi 85
THE FRANKLIN FAMHiY.
The interest that attaches to the Franklin House; the first official residence of
President Washington, and which was thus the earliest executive mansion, justifies
some curiosity as to its inmates or owners, before it was honored by this distinguished
occux>ancy. We quote, therefore, an extract from the personal reminiscences recorded
by ^Irs. Mary Robinson Hunter, the wife of the United States minister to Brazil,
written at Rio de Janeiro in 1845. Mrs. Hunter was the daughter of Sarah FVanklin
(who married William T. Robinson), a daughter of Samuel Franklin, one of the brothers
of Walter Franklin, who built the house named after him :
'' My mother's grandfather on her father's side [the father of Walter Frankhn] was
a wealthy farmer of the State of New- York, bom of an English father and a Dutch
mother. They had a large family of sons of whom my grandfather [Samuel] was the
youngest, and two daughters. Of five sons I can speak, having known them all as a
child, and all treating me with overweening love and indulgence. James, the eldest,
followed the occupation of his father, and inherited the homestead. He married a
lady of high breeding, who used to come down from the country once a year to visit
the families of her husband's brothers, who were settled as merchants, three in New-
York, and one in Philadelphia. I well remember the awe her presence inspired among
us children ; the rustling of her silk, and her high -heeled shoes making her figure more
eommanding, and the reproach her never-ending knitting cast upon us idle and in-
dulged children.
** Walter, John, and Samuel resided in New- York. They inherited large fortunes
from their parents, which they put into trade, and the produce of China and other
countries was wafted to our shores in their ships. Walter retired with an immense
fortune from the firm, lived in the style of a nobleman, and drove an elegant chariot.
On an excursion to Long Island, driving by a country house, he saw, milking in the
barnyard, where thirty cows had just been driven in at sunset, a beautiful young
Quaker girl. He stopped, beckoned her, and asked who occupied the house. With
frreat simplicity, and without embarrassment, she replied, ' My father, Daniel Bowne.
Wilt thou not alight and take tea with him ?' My uncle accepted the invitation, intro-
duced himself, was well known by reputation. He conversed with the farmer on the
appearance of the farm, on his fine cows, etc., but not a word about the fair milkmaid.
Pref^ently the door opened, and she came in to make tea for the * city friend,' when her
father said, * Hannah, this is friend Walter Franklin, from New-York.' She blushed
def^ply, finding he made no allusion to having seen her before. The blush heightened
her loveliness. She had smoothed her hair, and a fine lawn kerchief covered her neck
and bosom. After three visits he asked her in marriage, and the fair milkmaid was
seated by his side in the chariot on her way to take possession as mistress of the most
eVj^nt house in the city, in Cherry street, near the comer of Pearl. She had a nu-
merfjiis family of beautiful daughters. They swerved from the simplicity of Quaker-
Wu\, and became worldly and fashionable belles. The eldest, Sally, married a very
wealthy man of the name of Norton, I believe of English birth, who was heir to an
vmraense fortune, left him by a Mr. Lake, who lived near New-York. The second,
^laria, was the wife of De Witt Clinton. The third, Hannah, married his brother,
^eor^e Clinton. They all had children. Their mother was left a widow just before
the third daughter was bom, — my uiicle Walter dying and leaving a rich young widow
and twmty thousand pounds to each of his daughters. His widow afterwards married
a very respectable Presbyterian named [Samuel] Osgood, who held some post under
govemmont [postmaster-general] — commissary of the army in Washington's time,
1 ^ Ave. She had a number of children by Osgood. The eldest, Martha, married a
1
86 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
brother of the famous Genet [miniBter from the French Republic]. My uncle Walter's
house is now [1845] the Franklin Bank, named after its builder and owner.?^
It is a matter of regret that there is no vestige of the house left to-day. The only
Unk to connect this historic mansion with the present is the name of the triangular
space formed by the junction of Pearl and Cherry streets. This is the well-known
'^ Franklin Square,^ made famous by Harper and Brothers' publishing house, and is
overshadowed by the lofty and vast structure of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Editor.
CHAPTER in
SOCIETY IN THE EABLY DATS OF THE BEPUBLIC
\ HE choice of New- York for the sittings of Congress gave
to that old home of the Dutch and Huguenots, hardly re-
covered from the war, a new dignity, and enlarged oppor-
tunities for social intercourse with senators, members, and
high officials coming from the various States of the American Union,
whose differing colonial antecedents were associated with the best
blood and the eventful history of Europe.
There is within reach an opportunity of gaining an exact and mi-
nute acquaintance with social events, and the personages who made
them what they were, in the early days of our republic. By a happy
chance there has been preserved Mrs. John Jay's " Dinner and Supper
List for 1787 and '8" — a period when her husband was secretary for
foreign affairs for the Continental Congress. The names which the list
furnishes, together with the memoranda afforded by occasional private
correspondence, and the published notes of European travelers touch-
ing that interesting period, contribute to give a picture, that already
possesses an historic interest, of the social circles of New-York during
its brief existence as the national capital under the articles of confed-
eration, and for two sessions of the first Congress under the constitu-
tion. Armed with this list, and some concomitant documentary or
printed aids, we can look in upon the banquet-halls of the substantial,
spacious mansions of that day, — owned or occupied by magnates of
the repuWic, of the State, of the city, of the diplomatic circles, and of
society itself, — and people them again with those who were accustomed
to gather there. "We can glance along the festive boards, and observe
who of note at home or abroad met in those days around them.
The society of New- York at that time, despite the comparative
insignificance of the city in extent and population, and all that it had
Buffered during the war, presented more strikingly than in after years,
when domestic and foreign immigration had made it a common center,
those distinguished characteristics, derived from its blended ancestry
88
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
and colonial history, that are still discernible in the circles of the
Knickerbockers, and which recall alike to Americans and to Euro-
peans the earlier traditions of the national metropolis. While here and
there might be found members of a family which, misled by mistaken
convictions, had during the war sided with the mother-country, or
^.
'.^^:
■2/^
r
•^.CoiaA^v
'ftKl» A
„, '^^f
WASHINGTON'S NOTE TO MRS. JAY ON HER DEPARTXTRE FOR SPAIN.
had timidly endeavored to preserve an inglorious neutrality, the tone
of society was eminently patriotic, and worthy of the antecedents of
an ancestry representing, in the words of an English historian, "the
best stock of Europe who had sought homes in the Westei'n world,
and in whose forms of government, chai-ter, provincial and even pro-
prietary, may be discerned the germ^ of a national liberty.^ With the
culture and refinement of a class thus happily descended and fortu-
nately situated was blended that love of country which lends dignity
to wealth, and respectability to fashion.
SOCIETY m THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 89
As host and hostess at the dinners and suppers for which the list
before mentioned was composed, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay would de-
serve to be singled out for notice before we devote attention to the
other social liuninaries. But there was another reason why they
figured so centrally in the social events of that day. John Jay was
now secretary for foreign affairs. To relate his pre\dous services as
patriot, chief justice of the State, minister to Spain, and commis-
sioner for peace, would be supei-fluous in this chapter. But it is
worth while to emphasize the significance of his position as foreign
secretary. In the inchoate condition of continental government, when
Congress was at the head, but was itself without very clearly defined
powers; when there was not any one person endowed with the chief
executive functions — the secretary for foreign affairs was really the
only concrete expression of the government by, of, and for the people,
which had just. been wrested from Great Britain, to which other
nations could at all clearly address themselves. He, too, was the
person to whom the several States must look as the link for communi-
cation between themselves and that delusive thing — the general gov-
ernment. Hence, John Jay's position made him in effect the chief of
state. It was not very unlike that of John of Banieveld or John
De Witt in the days of the Dutch republic, whose various members
would not resign their sovereignty to a chief or president, whose
stad-holder mainly led the national armies, but whose land's advo-
cate or grand pensionary — i. e., the principal civil functionary— was
the man who received the ambassadors of foreign princes and in-
structed the republic's ministers at foreign courts, and thus to all the
world abroad was conspicuously first among all her citizens. Being
thus similarly placed, it became John Jay's duty to do the honors for
his country, and his wife was eminently fitted to assist him in the per-
formance of that duty. As there has been no occasion in previous
chapters to give an account of her, it will be proper to do so here.
Her maiden name was Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, her father
being William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, and he the grand-
son of Robert Livingston, the founder of the family in America. Her
mother was Susanna French, the granddaughter of Philip French,
mayor of New- York in 1702, and who joined Colonel Nicholas Bayard
in that address which caused the latter's conviction of high treason.
Sarah was the fourth daughter, bom in August, 1757. She inherited
some of her father's finest traits, intellectual and moral, which were
developed by a very careful education. But with the father's stern
patriotism and resolution she blended features of gentleness, grace,
and beauty peculiarly her own. The delicate sensibility occasionally
exhibited in her letters seems to have come from her mother. Her
marriage to John Jay took place on April 28, 1774, in the midst of
90 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the agitations that foreboded the shock of the Bevolution, and abnost
exactly one year before the battle of Lexington, She was then not
quite eighteen years old, while Mr. Jay was twenty-eight. Up to this
time he had held no public oflBce, excepting that of secretary to the
royal commission for settling the boundary between New- York and
New Jersey. But now, before the honeymoon was complete, in May,
1774, Jay was called to take part in the first movements of the Revo-
lution. His public duties as member of the New-York provincial
congress, of the New-York conmiittee of safety, and of the Conti-
nental Congress, kept him constantly separated from his young wife.
But finally a post of honor, yet of difficxdty and danger, was given
him, which enabled the youthful pair to be more constantly together,
although far distant from friends and country, and which at the same
time was to furnish Mrs. Jay with excellent opportunities for training
to successfully occupy the position of first lady in the land during
the decade following the declaration of peace.
On October 10, 1779, Mr. Jay, having been appointed minister to
Spain, sailed in the congressional frigate, the Confederacy, accom-
panied by Mrs. Jay, by her brother, Colonel Brockholst Livingston,
afterward a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, as his
private secretary, and by Mr. William Carmichael, a member of Con-
gress, as his public secretary. After a rather quiet life in Spain
came a residence of several years at or in the vicinity of Paris, while
her husband was engaged with Franklin and Adams in negotiating
the peace which confirmed American independence. Did space or
scope here permit, we should be tempted to blend with this sketch
something more than a mere glance at the historic memories of the
period connected with the peace negotiations, in which Mrs. Jay was
almost a participant, from her intimate association with the nego-
tiators, who frequently met at her apartments. There is no page
certainly in our foreign diplomacy to which the intelligent American
reader will ever recur with more national pride and interest than that
which records the progress and resxdt of these negotiations. Mean-
while, the scenes and the society amid which Mrs. Jay lived for nearly
two years presented a brilliant contrast to the trials and hardships to
which she had been subjected by the war at home, as well as to her
more retired life during their residence at Madrid. As Mr. Jay de-
clined to accept the courtesies of the Spanish court except as the
minister of an independent nation, and as Spain would not recognize
him as such, it is probable that Mrs. Jay never appeared at the royal
assemblies. At Paris everything was different. History has made us
familiar with the Paris of that period, so interesting as presenting
the last pictures of the pride and splendor that were still unconscious
of the impending revolution.
SOCIETY IN THE EAfiLX DAYS OF THE BEPUBLIC
91
Marie Antoinette, now in her twenty-ninth year, but four years the
senior of Mrs. Jay, still justified by her grace and beauty the enthusi-
astic encomiums of her contemporaries. Mrs. Jay wrote of her : " She
is so handsome, and her manners are so engaging, that almost forget-
ful of Republican principles, I was ready, while in her presence, to
declare her bom to be a queen."
The fantasies of fashion, says a
court historian, revealed the spirit
of France as capricious and change-
able. The queen and her intimate
friends, especially the Gomtesse
Diane de Polignac and the Mar-
quise de Vaudrienne, changed the
mode day by day. The women
wore the hair most fantastically
raised in a pyramid, and this high
edifice was crowned with flowers,
as if it were a garden. It is both
apt and important, in this connec-
tion, to get a view of the Parisian
mode from Mrs. Jay's own band:
"At present the prevailing fash-
ions are very decent and very
plain; the gowns most worn are
the robes k I'Anglaise, which are /^
exactly like the Italian habits that
were in fashion in America when
I left it ; the Sultana is also & la
mode, but it is not expected that
it will long remain so. Every lady makes them of slight silk. There
is so great a variety of hats, caps, cuffs, that it is impossible to de-
scribe them. I forgot that the robe h I'Anglaise, if trimmed either
with the same or gauze, is dress; but if untrimmed must be worn
with an apron and is undress."
The two circles of society where Mrs. Jay was entirely at home in
Paris were those which were to be found in the hotels of La Fayette
and Franklin. Among the first to congratulate her on her arrival
there were the Marquis and Marquise. If the circle she met at the
Hotel de Noailles was marked by its aristocracy of rank, that which
surrounded the venerable philosopher at Passy was no less celebrated
for happily blending the choicest and the most opposite elements of
the world of learning, wit, and fashion. Among the more intimate
I Un. King ma Om oulj danghtar of John tbe ^raee of ber maniiera; her mtnd, too. was
AlMp. a promloent New-ToA morobant. She highly cDlUvatod, and she was among thoae who
vaa remarkable for her beaatj, gentlenen, and adorned American Bociety. EniTOit.
-^tfy^ta-t-Jt.
92 HISTORY OF NEW-YOEK
friends of Franklin were Turgot, the Abb6 Raynal, Rochefoucauld,
Cabanis, Le Boy, Mably, Mirabeau, D'Holbach, Marmontel, Neckar,
Malesherbes, Watelet, and Mesdames* de Genlis, Denis, Helvetius,
Brillon, and La Reillard. Thus among men and women of wit, wis-
dom, and beauty, amid the smiles of royalty and the ceremonious
conventionalities of the court and courtly circles, Mrs. Jay was being
prepared at the capital of the world of fashion for her prominent part
in the capital of the nascent republic. On July 24, 1784, after an
absence of more than four years and a half, she arrived in New- York
with her husband and children. Before their arrival Jay had already
been appointed secretary for
foreign affairs. As was stated
on a preceding page, there be-
ing then no president of the
United States, and the secre-
tary having charge of the whole
foreign correspondence, as well
as of that between the general
and the State governments, his
position has been well described
by some one as "unquestion-
ably the most prominent and
responsible civil office under the Confederation." The entertaining of
the foreign ministers, officers of government, members of Congress,
and persons of distinction, was an important incident, and Mrs. Jay's
domestic duties assumed something of an official character. But her
long residence near European courts, and her recent association with
the brilliant circles of the French capital, assisted her to fill with ease
the place she was now to occupy, and to perform its graceful duties
in a manner becoming the dignity of the republic, to whose fortunes
she had been so devoted.
The house which was thus made the center of the social world in
New- York deserves a moment's attention. The home of the Jays for
one or two generations had been in Westchester County. At the
age of forty the father of John Jay, having already acquired a com-
petency in mercantile pursuits, retired from business and from New-
York to settle in comfort at a country house and farm at Rye. Jay's
mother was a Van Cortlandt, through whom the estate at Bedford fell
into his possession. At Rye he was bom and brought up. On bis
marriage the occupations and duties to which the troubled times
called him, as has been noted, prevented the youthful pair from estab-
lishing a home of their own. Mrs. Jay, during the almost continuous
separation from her husband, passed the greater part of the time at
the residence of her father, the governor, at Liberty Hall, Elizabeth-
BOCIETY IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 93
towu. New Jersey. But occasional visits were made also to her hus-
band's parents at Rye, in Westchester County, New- York. There
was no opportunity for setting up a permanent establishment until
the return from Europe in 1784, when Jay's official duties required
bis presence in New-York city. He then built or rented a house in
Broadway, which in the directory for 1789 is marked No. 133; but it
is somewhat difficult to identify the
esact location, since there was then
no regularity about the numbers of
houses. "Thus No. 33 was at one of
the comers of Cortlandt Street ; No.
29 was near Maiden Lane ; and No.
58 was nearly opposite to it ; No. 62
was at the comer of Liberty Street ;
No. 76 was nearly opposite the City
Tavem,which was between the pres-
ent numbers 113 and 119; and No.
85 was nearly opposite to Trinity
Church. Odd and even numbers were
given to houses without regard to the
side of the street upon which they
stood, and in some cases two houses
bore the same number."' The present
location of No. 133 Broadway, if
there were such a number,* should
be between Cedar and Liberty streets, then respectively known as
Little Queen and Crown streets. The only Jay house in Broadway
which I know of was of granite — I think a double house with plain
exterior on the east side of Broadway, below Wall street, which by
Jay's will (he died in 1829) was left to his son Peter Augustus Jay,
who sold it. The purchaser erected upon the premises three or four
stores, which were used for the storage of government supplies.
The names that are preserved in so interesting a manner upon Mrs.
Jay's lists fall naturally into groups, and are to be studied to the best
advantage as thus arranged. The bar of New- York shall be noticed
first. It gave to the salons of the day an array of names never since
surpassed in our juridical history: James Duane, Richard Harrison,
Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Morgan Lewis, Robert Troup,
Robert E. Livingston, Egbert Benson, John Watts, Gouverneur
Morris, Richard Varick, John Lansing, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, and
I ThomMB.V.Siiimii"Ilew-YoA City In 1789." Botterdsro. He was the lather o( Bobert LiTing-
I John Lirtngitoii, a ScOttUb Preabrterlan dl- Bton, founder of the American family. The <rtg-
Tinet WM « member of the General AmemblieB, nette in from a painting in the posBesaion of Mre.
and tD leSO, one ot tbe eommlarioiien from the Bobert Kaliiton Oosbjr of New-York, a daughter of
Chnieli of SeoUaod to Charia IL, then at Breda. Col. Henry Llvingslon of Po'keepsie. Editor.
Bauiltbed In 168S Cor non-eonfivmltjr.he dlM at 'The number next to n9iD Broadway la 135.
94 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
James Kent. At various times they appeared onder the hospitable
roof of the Jays, and in turn met at the tables of other dignitaries of
their own or other professions; and it will be proper to take a more
particular glance at each of those named in the group above. James
Duane was at this time fifty-six years old, and in the full vigor of his
powers. He had been mayor of the city since 1784, a position which
he yielded in the year 1789 to his colleague in the profession, Richard
Varick, now city recorder. His wife was a daughter of Colonel Robert
Livingston. He had been diligent in the cause of the republic, but
withal conservative in his temperament, of exactly the position in all
the Revolutionary movements that John Jay, his frequent host, occu-
pied throughout. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress
when it first met, and remained a member of it all through its ex-
istence. He was elected a member of the senate of the State for the
terms 1782 to 1785, and again in 1789 to 1790. He was appointed
United States judge for the district of New-York in 1789, serving till
1794, and in 1797 he died. His residence was at No. 17 Nassau street,
and therefore within a short distance of Mr. Jay's. His presence lent
dignity to every gathering of celebrity of that day, either as mayor.
United States judge, or State senator, which honors were all upon
him in the year 1789, and some of them in 1788, the period to which
the list has reference. Richard Harrison was not quite forty years
of age when he was wont to meet his friends at Secretary Jay's table,
and he remained a prominent figure in the government, which was
then yet to be initiated, until far into the present century. He was
made auditor of the treasury by Washington in 1791, held that posi-
tion until 1836, and died in Washington in July, 1841, at the age
of ninety-one. He owned an estate in New-York which was then far
from the heart of the city, but which can be roughly described as
corresponding to-day to the block between Eighth and Ninth avenues
and Thirtieth and Thirty-first streets. His residence in 1789 was at
11 Queen (or Pearl) street, above Hanover Square. In the profession
of the law he greatly distinguished himself, and on the strength of
that distinction he was invited to prominent houses in 1788 and 1789,
as his official life had not then begun.
The two names that next claim attention naturally fill one with a
mingled sensation of pleased and painful surprise — pleased to observe
that these two brilliant minds could meet together in friendship and
brighten a gay company with their undoubted talents; painful because
of that future fatal day, which was mercifully veiled from their view,
but which posterity can never forget when their names are mentioned.
They were the leading lawyers of their day, often opposed, sometimes
united, on cases; but with a generous rivalry between them, we may
be sure. It was not on professional grounds that antagonism arose.
SOCIETY IN THE EABLT DATS OF THE REPUBLIC 95
It was the baneful influence of politics, and the lines that Anally
divided them had not yet begun to be drawn, or not very distinctly
at least, when they met in Jay's drawing-rooms, for the federal gov-
ernment had then not yet started upon its
career. We are concerned, therefore, with
their social qualities just here. Burr's were
eminent: bis engaging manners made him a
power when his legitimate political life bad
suffered a hopeless shipwreck. And M.
Brissot de Warville, who met him frequently
in the salons of the day, records with enthu-
siasm his favorable impressions. The wife
of Burr, ten years his senior, whom he called
*' the best woman and the finest lady I have
ever known," does not appear upon the
dinner-list. It is not likely either that she
received at her own house, as the dread '""=' '"'"' "" ^"^=-
disease (cancer) that carried her off five or sis years later may have
been already at work. The more celebrated daughter, Theodosia,
whose brilliant gifts made her a "queen of American society" later,
was then but a child.
Of Hamilton little need here be said. The vivacity of his French
blood would make him a welcome guest at every sociid gathering, and
the wit and wisdom of his conversation would flow with equal readi-
ness there, as on the more serious occasions of the public debate
before popular assemblies or in senatorial halls. As a bit of gossip, no
doubt picked up in just such drawing-room circles, M. de Rochefou-
cauld Liancourt (afterward the Due de Rochefoucauld) mentions
the following concerning Hamilton: "Disinterestedness in regard to
money, rare everywhere, very rare in America, is one of the most
generally recognized traits of Mr. Hamilton; and although his actual
practice might be very lucrative, I learn from his clients that their
sole complaint against him is the smallness of the fees which be asks
of tbem." ^ It is also well known that Mrs. Hamilton was a daughter
of General Philip Schuyler, of Albany, and thus in her veins flowed
the blood of one of the noblest colonial families, distinguished in the
history of the province for more than a century. From a letter of
one lady to another — from Miss Kitty Livingston to her sister, Mrs.
Jay, while the latter was in Madrid — we obtain a pleasant glance into
the incipiency of this happy nnion.' It is dated at Trenton, May 23,
1780, and contains this passage: "Oeneral and Mrs. Schuyler are at
Morristown. The general is one of three that compose a Committee
from CongreBS. They expect to be with the army all summer. Mrs.
1 "VoTBca dau let BtBta'Vnli d'AmMqae, 1T9G, 1798, 1T9T " (S vola., PstIbI, T : 160.
96
mSTOBI OF XEW-XOBE
Schuyler returns to Albany when the campaign opens. Apropos,
Betsey Schuyler is engaged to oar friend Colonel Hamilton. She has
been at Morristown, at Dr. Cochrane's, since last February." A con-
temporary aceonnt of Mrs. Hamilton, at the very time when her name
was put down on the dinner-list, occurs in the pages of M. BriBsot de
Warville: "A charming woman, who joins to the graces all the candor
and simplicity of an American wife." Her own hospitalities were dis-
pensed at her house, located on the comer of Broad and Wall streets.
Burr's residence at this time was scarce
a stone's throw distant, at 10 Nassau
street. Bichmond Hill had either not
as yet come into his possession, or was
nsed only in snmmer as a country-
seat. In 1789 it was occupied by Vice-
President John Adams.
Continuing to east the eye along the
list of legal celebrities given above,
we are reminded that then the city of
New-York, besides being the federal
capital, was also the capital of the
State. Here, therefore, resided the
chancellor, Robert E. Livingston, of
the Clermont branch of that numer-
E'j ous family. His residence was No. 3
Broadway. It fell to his share to ad-
minister the oath of office to President
Washington; and after he bad repre-
sented our nation at the court of the
great Napoleon, winning the latter^s
admiration, and doing signal service to
bis native land In negotiating the purchase of Louisiana, be immor-
talized his name above all these other causes by actively pushing
to success Fulton's invention for navigating vessels by steam, the
Clermont bearing the name of his estate on the Hudson. Egbert
Benson, another member of the group of lawyers, was the first attor-
ney-general of the State, holding the office from 1777 to 1789. Aft«r
that he was a judge of the Supreme Court of New- York, and, living to
a good old age, became the first president of the New- York Historical
Society. Another name high in the annals of the State government
is that of Morgan Lewis. After an honorable career as soldier, no
sooner were actual hostilities over than he resigned from the army
and began his civil career. "He was so impatient," observes his
granddaughter, Mrs. Delafield, "to resume the study of the law that
ho returned to New- York before the British troops had vacated the
■&. ^'*«/*>»*'^^»'T_^
SOCIETr IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 97
town." There was some risk in this proceeding, for on the eve of the
departure of the British there appeared good veaaon to expect a con-
flagration. But the danger blew over, and Lewis, as well as Hamil-
ton and other young lawyers, soon had his hands full of business.
Moi^au Lewis was married to a sister of Chancellor Livingston. He
became attorney-general of the State in 1791, then chief justice, and
in 1804 defeated Burr as candidate
for governor. Though Lewis was
no longer of Hamilton's pai-ty, it
was through Hamilton's efforts that
no part of the broken federalist
ranks went over to Burr; and out of
this gubernatorial contest grew the
({uarrel that terminated so disas-
trously to both men.
An honored place in the circles of
N'ew-York society was due also to
John Lansing, who had been mayor
of Albany, and was still a resident
of that town, but who was in New-
York as speaker of the State assem-
bly. He succeeded Livingston as
chancellor, and was in turn suc-
ceeded by James Kent. Gouvemeur
Morris, too, a lawyer, but preeminently a financier, the colaborer
in the difficult and desperate days of republican finances with his
namesake (but not kinsman) Robert Monris, would ride into town
from Morrisania, which he had just purchased, and be welcomed for
his patriotic services, as well as for his descent from some of the
oldest colonial families — from Gouverneur, the sou-in-law of Jacob
Leisler, and from the chief justice of the province when it was still a
royal possession. In December, 1788, however, he went t^ England ;
and while there was appointed minister to France, serving in that
post at the beginning of the Reign of Terror. It was also something
deeper than the amenities of social life which brought Gouvemeur
Morris under the roof of Secretary Jay. Once, while the latter was
in Europe, Morris hastily despatched this note, speaking volumes
for the affection which prompted it : " Dear Sir, — It is now within a
few minutes of the time when the mail is made up and sent off. I
can not, therefore, do more than just to assure you of the continu-
ance of my love. Adieu." Of the remaining names we need only
note that Robert Troup was a lifelong friend, from college days, of
Hamilton, and born in the same year ; that John Watts had received
back the estate which his father's "loyalty" had forfeited; and that
VoL-HL— 7.
£t^^K^
98 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Richard Varick, at first recorder, succeeded James Duane as mayor of
the city. Josiah Ogden Hoffman and James Kent were both in their
youthful vigor ; the latter admitted to the bar in 1785, and thus just
commencing the career that gave him, while yet living, a world-wide
reputation as advocate and jurist.
Pursuing our review of the contributions from professional life to
dinner-tables and social circles, a glance may be taken at the minis-
ters and physicians eminent in those days. Of the Reformed (Dutch)
•"'^sen^raatai^frt ^^ &^^^^=>w»^^PZ8^
<^a^^^ ^^ /^.e^. .^^
/
^
Church the pastors were Dr. John Henry Livingston and Dr. William
Linn; these preached exclusively in English, and were themselves
not even of Dutch extraction. But in the old Garden Street Church
there worshiped a remnant who still loved to hear the mother-
tongue, and Dr. Gerardus Kuypers ministered to them ; but he made
no practice of mingling with high society. Dr. Livingston, however,
was intimately connected, as his name indicates, with the most promi-
nent official and social circles, Mrs. Jay herself being a Livingston.
He had also married a Livingston, the daughter of Philip, the " signer **
of the Declaration, who had a house on Brooklyn Heights at the
beginning of the war. The doctor's tall and dignified figure and high
breeding would make him a notable addition to any company ; his
colleague. Dr. Linn, too, was a man of note, having the reputation of
being by far the most eloquent preacher in New- York and even in
The above is a fac-simile of an order written by Mary Alexander, wife of James Alexander, and
mother of Lord Stirling. The original is in the possession of Miss Jay.
SOCIETY IN THE EABLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 99
the Uuited States. In 1789 he was elected chaplain to the House of
Representatives, the first to occupy that office.
Both the Presbyterian ministers, Drs. John Bodgers and John
Mason, appear on the dinner-list. Dr. Eodgers was pastor of the Wall
Street and "Brick Meeting" churches, which were united under one
government. The latter church stood
on the site of the " New-York Times "
and the Potter buildings, or the tri-
angular block bounded by Beekman
and Nassau streets and Park Bow.
Dr. Eodgers was a native of Boston,
au ardent patriot during the war, and
having served as brigade chaplain,
he must have been on terms of famil-
iar acquaintance with most of the
officers of the Revolutionary army
who were now prominent in civil life.
He would be welcomed in society,
therefore, and also for the reason
that he felt entirely at home in such
surroundings. "He was elegant in
manners but formal to such a degree
that there is a tradition that the last thing which be and his wife
always did before retiring for the night was to salute each other with
a bow and a courtesy." As to his personal appearance, " he is de-
scribed as a stout man of medium height who wore a white wig, was
extremely careful in his dress, and walked with the most majestic
dignity." Dr. Mason was pastor of the Scotch or Covenanter Presby-
terian Church, located on the south side of Cedar street, between
Nassau and Broadway, now represented by the church on Fourteenth
street, near Sixth avenue. He, too, had been a zealous patriot, and
served for some years as chaplain at "West Point. He was a near neigh-
bor of Dr.Linn's, living at 63 Cortlandt street, while the lattei-'s number
was 66. He was of medium stature, earnest and solid in his pulpit
efforts rather than eloquent, born and educated in Scotland, and a
stout opponent there of state interference with the choice of ministers
by congregations. His manners were polished, as of a man who had
mingled much with people of distinction on both sides of the ocean.
Of the Episcopal clergy we find on the list the name of Dr. Benja-
min Moore, who was now rector of Trinity, but had at one time been
removed from the position because Tory votes had put him into it.
He lived not far from the church, at 46 Broadway. But chief among
them as a social figure, by reason of his office as well as because of
his social qualities and undoubted patriotic sympathies, was the "easy,
100
HIBTOBY OF NEW-YOEK
good-tempered, geutlemanly, and scholarly Dr. Provoost-, Bishop of
New- York, — a chaplaiu of Congi-ess, and a welcome guest at the din-
ner table of his friends." The doctor had been devoted to the Ameri-
can cause, was a native of the city, and of Dutch or combined Dutch
and Huguenot descent For even then the city presented the curious
" contradiction in circumstances," so often repeated since and seen
to-day, that in the Dutch pulpits stood men without a particle of
Dutch blood in their veins, while in the Episcopal churches the purest
Knickerbockers led the devotions of the people. The bishop was in
every respect a most estimable and agreeable person ; and, in addi-
tion to liis Hebrew, classic, and ecclesiastical lore, he is said to have
been familiar with French, Qerman, and Italian. It is even affirmed
that as a literary recreation — and the circumstance seems more sig-
nificant In view alike of his Epis-
copal duties and the times — he
had made a new poetical transla-
tion of Tasso. He was in a posi-
tion, therefore, to flavor his con-
versation at social gatherings with
the elegancies of modem literature,
as well as to edify men with "the
weightier matters of the law." He
was a neighbor of the Rev. Dr.
Eodgers, who lived at 7 Nassau
street, while the bishop resided at
No. 2. In person it is recorded of
him that he had a round, full face,
was rather above the medium in
stature, of portly figure, and very
dignified in demeanor." He was a
public-spirited man, hospitable, and so liberal to the poor as to in-
fringe rather too deeply upon his moderate salary of seven himdred
pounds per annum, with house rent-free; the pound in America then
being of the value of but about two and a half dollars.
The medical profession was represented at that day by Dr. John
(.'litu'ltuu, Drs. John and Samuel Bard (father and son, who operated
at tho lauciug of a cai-buncle from which Washington suffered during
liis rt'sideuce in the Franklin house). Dr. Wright Post, Dr. Richard
lliiiley, Dr. Benjamin Kissam, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Jones, Dr. Nicholas
Roiimino, Dr. Charles McKnight, Dr. James Tillery, and several
ntliers. The whole membership of the Medical Society in 1789
uinouLited to twenty-eight. On the dinner-list appear only the names
of Ura. </harlton, Kissam, and Johnson. Dr. Charlton lived at 100
t Wilaon's "Centennial HlHtoiy of the Diocese of New- York," p. 127.
CL^^n "^ JWtTWs'^
SOCIETY IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THfe EtPUBLIC 101
Broadway, and thus within easy call of Jay's house, aii4')ie may have
been the family physician.' Under one date on the iist;-.the only
guests for dinner are Dr. and Mrs. Charlton, and this little repast,
almost en fam'dle, would
lend support to the theory.
But the name most fre-
quently occurring is that
of Dr. Johnson. Dr. Ben-
jamin Kissam may have
been the father of the ■ aj* -— xap^''
more celebrated Dr. Rich- ^ i^^^i^ -^
ard Sharpe Kissam, who
graduated at Edinburgh
ia 1789 and began prac-
tice in New- York in 1791.
The former resided at 156
Queen (now Pearl) street ;
to judge from the num-
ber — counting above
Hanover Square — the
doctor's house must have ^.^^^^-^t^ff^^Si. ^w-^*- ^Ss'^^.^-.^;^^
been a few blocks above
Franklin Square. It is surprising that some of the greater lights of
the profession — so eminent a surgegn as Dr. Wright Post, for one —
were not found more frequently at the social gatherings of the day.
It would be singular if they appeared elsewhere and were not among
the houored guests at Secretary Jay's.
Prominent upon Mrs. Jay's list are, of course, the names of the old
New- York families — the Bayards, the Beekmans, the Crugers, the De
Peysters, the Livingstons, the Morrises, the Schuylers, the Van Homes,
the Van Corilandts, the Van Eensselaers, the Verplancks, the Wattses.
^Tiile some of these furnished men for high positions in the service
of the nation, the State, or the city, their position in society was
assured, independently of that, by the descent from those who bore
these names with honor from the earliest colonial times, as well as by
the possession of ample wealth and the refinement which several gen-
erations of affluence will naturally bestow. Hence the majority of
the names just mentioned owed their prominence solely to social dis-
tinction. But now that New- York was the capital of the Confederacy,
the social sphere comprised names of honor and fame from other
parts of the country. By the presence of the Congress in the city
some of the most eminent of the statesmen and generals of " the old
102 .■'.,_'■•■ mSTOBY OF NEW- YORK
thirteen " whQ'-Lad helped to vindicate the independence and lay deep
the fouDdi^^^n of the republic, mingled with her sons and daughters.
Among"t^e names of Mrs. Jay's list, therefore, may be found those of
John'tfljigdon and Paine Wingate, from New Hampshire : the former
to bg'the first president of the United States Senate in 1789, biding
^e amval of John Adams ; the latter destined to reach the extraor-
..'•^inary age of ninety-nine years, having been bom in 1739 and dying
-.''in 1838; — Boger Sherman and Benjamin Huntington, of Connecticut;
■ EUas Boudinot and John Cadwallader, of New Jersey ; Robert Morris
and George Bead, of Pennsylvania ; Charles CarroU, of Maryland ;
William Grayson, Theodoric Bland, and James Madison, of Virginia ;
Pierce Butler, Ralph Izard, Daniel Huger, and Thomas Tudor Tucker,
of South Carolina ; and William Few, of Georgia. Truly a brilliant
galaxy of names, well known, just fresh from the political and military
fields of contest, and adding now,
or soon to add, new laurels to their
fame in the more subtle conflicts
which were to construct and per-
petuate a strong federal republic
out of the feeble and incoherent
materials of the Confederation.'
These gentlemen were, in many
cases, accompanied by their fami-
lies, representing in part the higher
circles of New England, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore, and the south.
The letters of the day which have
been preserved, both of Americans
and Frenchmen, allude frequently
to the grace, beauty, and attrac-
tiveness of many women then in
society. Among them were Lady
Mary Watts and Lady Kitty Duer —
in reality, and according to a more
republican nomenclature, Mrs. John Watts and Mrs. William Duer.
They were the daughters of William Alexander, real, or at least
titular, Earl of Stirling; and there was enough of old-time courtli-
ness left in the States to defer to English usage and apply to them
the title of "Lady," as above. So there was also Lady Christiana
Griffin, the wife of Cyrus Griffin of Virginia, the president of the
1 Among the prominent memben of the Conti- Isder, Joha Cleve Sfnunea. and Jodnh Hom-
nenUl CongreM of this period who were well blower, of New Jersey; Colonel John BsyKni,
known in New-Tort Bodety were John H»neock. WllUam Henry, Genend Arthur St. Clair, and
Theodore Sedfnriok, and Rufus KlDg, of Hassachu- Jamec Wilson, of PennsylvAla ; James Monroe
setta ; John L. Lawrene^, Helancthon Smith, and and Richard Henry Iiee. of Virginia, and Charles
Pvter W. YatM. of Naw-York ; Lambert Cadwal- t^nokney, of South Carolina. Editob.
SOCIETY IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE EEPUBLIC
103
Contineutal Congress ; she belonged to a noble Scottish family. Mrs.
Ralph Izard, though from South Carolina, was at home in New-
York society, where she had many relatives, for her maiden name
was Alice De Lancey, and she was the niece of the whilom chief jus-
tice and lieutenantrgovernor. Soon after her marriage her husband
took her to Europe, where he was
engaged to some extent in the
diplomatic service of the Confed-
eration. 3Irs. Alexander Hamil-
ton has already been referred to.
We may mention briefly Mrs.
James Beekman, who was Miss
Janet Keteltas; Mrs. Theodore
Sedgwick, formerly Miss Pamela
Dwight; and Miss Wolcott of
Connecticut, who afterward be-
came Mrs. Chauncey Ooodrich.
To the groups already pre-
sented there must be added one
that formed a very essential ele-
ment of social life in that day,
namely, the small circle of diplo-
mats accredited to the United
States, among whom may be
logically counted also the occa-
sional European travelera who were attracted by the rising greatness
of the young republic, and from whose memoirs may be gathered so
vivid a picture of the social events at which they assisted and the
"society people" whom they met. We are enabled to look in upon
one of these events by means of the dinner-list and of a letter writ-
ten by a lady who was a participant. Mrs. WilHam S. Smith, the
daughter of John Adams, writes to her mother and tells her that
Mrs. Jay gives a dinner to the diplomatic corps on Tuesday evening
of every week. On May 20, 1788, this lady attended one of these
dinners, and on the next day discourses of it in the following style;
"Yesterday we dined at Mrs. Jay's in company with the whole corps
diplomatique. Mr. Jay is a most pleasing man, plain in his manners,
but kind, affectionate, and attentive; benevolence is stamped in every
feature. Mrs. Jay dresses showily, but is very pleasing on a first
acquaintance. The dinner was a la Fran^aise, and exhibited more
of European taste than I expected to find."
1 Colonel John ttjvri wm bom In 1738, uid of tlie Continental CongreBs. He
dl«d in IWT. He dlstiiipulslied himself dnrioR from StUTveBsnt's sister, and w&b the repreaenta-
the BeTolDtlaii, and In ITS3 itm elected b nembeT tive of th« oldest branch of the Bayaid famllr.
104
HISTOBT OF NEW-rOEK
Now let us observe who were actually present at this dinner.
Attention is due first of all to the president of Congress, Cyrus Grif-
fin. On the list he is often merely referred to as President, or
Mr. President, so that, if dates are not watched closely, we are apt to
think of the great Washington. His position in the country, as well
as in society, deserves a moment's consideration. He was undoubt-
edly the first citizen. Brissot de Warville, the stanch French repub-
lican, happy to be in a country where his fond ideals were in actual
operation, says of the office: "A presi-
dent of Congress is far from being sur-
rounded with the splendor of European
monarchs; and so much the better. He
is not durable in his station; and so
much the better. He never forgets that
he is a simple citizen, and will soon
return to the station of one. He does
not give pompous dinners; and so
much the better. He has fewer para-
sites, and less means of eoiTuption."
The vivacious Frenchman might have
added another tant mieitx to the last
item. But although one of these
characteristic comments was attached
to the lack of pompous dinners, still
Mr. Griffin felt called upon to give
dinners of some kind. At one of
these Brissot was present, and he
has recorded that fact with some
circumstantiality. "I should still be wanting in gratitude," he says,
"should I neglect to mention the politeness and attention showed me
by the President of Congress, Mr. Griffin. He is a Virginian, of very
good abilities, of an agreeable figure, arable and polite. ... I re-
marked that his table was freed from many usages observed else-
where; no fatiguing presentations, no toasts, so despairing in a
numerous society. Little wine was drank after the women had re-
tired. These traits will give you an idea of the temperance of this
country : temperance, the leading virtue of republicans."
The president was, of course, accompanied by his lady, sometimes
playfully called the " presidentess" in the correspondence of those
days. Passing now to the American guests before we single out the
diplomats, we notice that, besides Mrs. Colonel Smith and her hus-
band, there are General James Armstrong, the defender of German-
town in 1777; Mr. Arthur Lee, active in diplomatic work abroad
during the Revolution; Mr. and Lady Mary Watts; their son and
MBS. JAWn BECCMAM.
SOCIETY IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 105
daughter-in-law; Mr. William BiDgham, of Philadelphia, reputed the
richest man in Pennsylvania, and celebrated for the magnificent
hospitality dispensed by him and his beautiful wife at their own
home; Mr. Daniel McCormick; and Mr. John Kean, delegate to the
Continental Congress since 1785 from South Carolina, yet voting
against the extension of slavery to the northwestern territory.
First among the diplomats on the list, and presumably at the din-
ner on this 20th of May, appears the minister of France, the Marquis
de Moustier. Eleonore Francois Elie, Marquis de Moustier, was sent
to America in 1787. Throughout his career he was a devoted and
self-sacrificing adherent of the Bourbons, and suffered greatly on that
account. But it led him into the mistake of making himself disa-
greeable in his official capacity here, inasmuch as he gave too much
evidence of despising the republic which his own master had helped
to establish. Yet, whether a welcome guest or not, as a member of the
diplomatic corps he could not well be left out of the invitations.
Quite diflferent was the case with Don Diego de Gardoqui. '* In the
summer of 1785 the Court of Spain appointed practically a resident
minister to the United States, though under the modest title of
encargado de negocios^ with a view to settle the controversy about the
navigation of the Mississippi, which had been guaranteed to the
United States by the treaty of peace; also to arrange a commercial
treaty."* Though representing a more intense despotism, and a
government which had diligently shunned all intercourse with our
country during the war, De Gardoqui became exceedingly popular in
Now- York, and his departure in 1789 was greatly regretted. He re-
sided at No. 1 Broadway, and De Moustier was a near neighbor, his
house also facing the Bowling Green.
The Spanish diplomat seems to have been unaccompanied by a
lady, but with the French minister came his sister, the Marquise
de Brehan ; a near relative of hers must have been the Comte de Bre-
han, who also appears on the list for this date, unless it is in error
about the title ; perhaps the " comte " was really the Marquis de Bre-
han and the brother-in-law of De Moustier; or the marquise was
only a comtesse. Besides the minister, France had a charge d'affaires
to represent her, M. Louis G. Otto. He had come to America in 1779,
and evidently liked republican ways and people, for he married a
Miss Livingston, a relative of Mrs. Jay's. He afterward be<5ame
Count de Mosloy. A sister republic was among the first to recognize
the American commonwealth, and the ink was hardly diy upon the
treaty of 1783 when Francis P. Van Berckel presented his credentials
as minister plenipotentiary from the United Netherlands to the
United States. He was a widower, but the honors of his domestic
1 George Pellew's ** John Jay." p. 232.
106
HiaTOBY OF NEW-YORK
establishment were borne by his daughter, Miss Van Berekel. There
was as yet no minister from England, but the nearest in rank and.
functions to that position was that of consul-general, and Sir John
Temple held that office at this time. He had been lieutenant-governor
of New Hampshire from 1761 to 1774, and, strangely enough, in view
of hia present post, was removed for too gi-eat an "inclination toward
the American cause." He was a native
of this country, and had married a
daughter of Governor James Bow-
doiu, of Massachusetts. They were
both at the dinner of May 20.
Among the distinguished foreigners
on Mrs. Jay's list is found the name
of M. Brissot de "WarviUe, from whose
well-known work on America we have
already quoted more than once. It
was written on his return to Europe;
and while the first volume (in the
English translation) is devoted to an
interesting account of his voyage to
and experiences in this country, the
second treats almost exclusively of
commercial matters. He had come
over especially to make a study of
these, in order to establish, if possible, improved mercantile rela-
tions between France and America. Brissot had been bred to the
profession of the law, but in the stirring times preceding the Revolu-
tion had drifted into journalism. When the outbreak finally occurred
he was on the side of conservative patriotism, and of the party of
the Girondists. He opposed the execution of the king, and in con-
sequence he, together with several other Girondists, was arrested on
October 3, 1793, and guillotined on the 31st. Brissot had brought to
Mr. Jay from La Fayette a letter commending him as a writer on the
side of liberty, and as one of the founders of the society in behalf of
the blacks; for Jay was well known to be an autislavery man. On
September 2, 1788, he dined at the secretary's table.
A marked influence was wrought upon the social world in New-
York by the inauguration of the federal government, and the resi-
dence here of the president of the United States. With the latter^
advent, the prominence of Jay, especially as regards diplomatic eon-
ITheportnit of sir JdhDhu been copied from her grsndsoD, the late Grenville Temple Wln-
ft photograph, made In 1890, of the origliud paliit- tbrop, now in the keeping of Hon. Robert C.
ing In the posseaaion of his gmidsoii, Oie Hod. Wlothrop. These pointing* &re from the huid
Bobert C. WiDthrop, of Boston, Hus. Th»t of of the celebrmted p(>^trai^pftlnM^, Qllbert Stuart.
hadj Temple wu made in like manner from a The death of Sir John occurred In 1798. Ladf
photoicraph of Che original Id Che poaaeulon of Templedied in 1809. See alaanote on p. 124
^(/h^^^^A^.
SOCIETY IN THE EABLY DATS OF THE REPUBLIC
107
Dectious, gave way to the distinctive, as well as distinguished, head
of the republic And from the social standpoint it is interesting to
consider, first of all, the discussion which took place about the title, or
mode of address, proper to the president. Some suggested "Most
Serene Highness," or " Serene Highness," thinking it a safe appella-
tion inasmuch as none of the rulers in Europe bore it. Madison
gave it as his opinion that the chief magistrate should he spoken of
simply as the president. General Muhlenberg, with an eye to the
high-sounding title assumed by the
States General of the Dutch repub-
lic, suggested "High Mightiness";
but "Washington was never quite cer-
tain whether Muhlenberg was in jest
or in earnest. Speaking on the sub-
ject at the president's table, Muhlen-
Ijerg remarked aptly: "If the office
could always be held by men as
large as yourself, it would be appro-
priate; but if by chance a president
as small as my opposite neighbor
were elected [he might have referred
to Hamilton] it would be ridicu-
lous." Bancroft informs us that
wheu the style, "The President of
the United States of America," was
determined on, " the clause that his
title should be ' His Excellency' was
still suffered to linger in the draft."'
This unwritten and therefore extra-constitutional title, however, was
the one finally fixed upon. In the furor of French sympathy excited
by the first outburst of the Revolution, the adherents of the demo-
cratic clubs inveighed against this title.
Their republican wrath rose also to a high pitch of fervor against
the president's receptions, which society, at his own instance, called
" levees," smacking thus most unsavorily of monarchical institutions
in Europe. The stately and majestic president loved these courtly
manners. When he had a message to dehver to Congress, he did not
intrust it to a page or a messenger, but rode to Federal Hall in a
coach and six, with outriders besides. Yet he could be plain in his
own house, as befitting the American Cincinnatus. Mr. Paine Win-
gat* teUs of a dinner the day after Mrs. Washington had arrived in
New- York: "The chief said grace, and dined on boiled leg of mutton.
After dessert, one glass of wine was offered to each guest, and when
^■^//^.
"Hiitory of tlie United States,"
: 312 (ed. 1883).
108 HISTORY or NEW-YOKK
it had been drunk, the President rose and led the way to the drav-
ing-room." The president's "levees" were held on Tuesday after-
noon ; Mrs. Washington received on Friday evening, from eight to ten
o'clock. At the levees, we are told, "there were no places for the
intrusion of the rabble in crowds, or for the mere coarse and boister-
ous partisan, the vulgar electioneerer, or the impudent place-hunter,
with boots, frock-coats, or ronndabouta, or with patched knees and
holes at both elbows. On the contrary, they were select and more
courtly than have been given by any of the President's successors.
None were admitted to the levees but those who had either a right by
official station, or by established merit and character ; and full dress
was required of all."
It need not be said here that President Washington resided at first
in the Franklin house, on the present Franklin Square, corner of
Cherry street. The huge bridge now has one of its piei-s standing on
or near the spot, and the house has disappeared. Later, he occupied
the Macomb house, at 39 Broadway, because the other was inconve-
niently " far out of town." In the appropriate place both of these
houses have been described. And we are fortunate in having a
minute account of the house of one of the cabinet officers, the secre-
tary of war, Major-General Henry Knos, situated at No. 4 Broadway.
It was advertised for sale in 1789, "a four-story brick house on the
west side of Broadway [No. 4 at present is on the east side], 314 feet
wide by 60 feet deep, containing two rooms of thirty feet in length,
one of twenty-six, three of twenty-three feet." Ample opportunity,
therefore, in this generous mansion for the gatherings of the society of
a capital ; for " fashionable society in New-York in 1789," says Thomas
E. V. Smith, " seems to have consisted of about three hundred pei-sons,
as that number attended a ball on the 7th of May, at which Washing-
ton was present." This nmnber bore a fair proportion to the popula-
tion of the city at that period, and at the same time represented, not
simply the society of the State of New-York, but that of her sister
States, in the presence of distinguished statesmen and diplomats,
whose names, already conspicuous in the republic, are now identified
with its important history.
At these gay assemblies the dress worn by ladies and gentlemen
was modeled then, as now, after the fashions prevailing in London
and Paris. Brissot de Warville observes: "If there is a town on the
American continent where the English luxury displays its follies, it is
New- York. You will find here the English fashions. In the dress of
the women you will see the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and bor-
rowed hair. The men have more simplicity in their dress." But that
France also contributed to set the fashion of that day in New- York
we may gather from the " New- York Gazette " of May 15, 1789, de-
SOCIETY IN THE EAELT DAYS OF THE BEPDBLIC 109
scribing several costumes imported from Paris. "One was a plain
celestial blue satin gown with a white satin petticoat. There was
worn with it, on the neck, a very large Italian gauze handkerchief with
satin border stripes. The head-
dress with this costume was a pouf
of gauze in the form of a globe, the
ereneanx or head-piece of which
was made of white satin having a
double wing, in large plaits, aud
trimmed with a large wreath of
artificial roses which fell from the
left at the top to the right at the
bottom in front, and the reverse
behind. The hair was dressed all
over in detached curls, four of
which fell on each side of the neck
and were relieved behind by a float-
ing chignon. . . . The newest cos-
tume consisted of a perriot and
j)etticoat of gray striped silk trim-
med with gauze cut in points. A
large gauze liandkerehief bordered with four satin stripes was worn
with it on the neck, and the head-dress was a plain gauze cap such
as was worn by nuns. Shoes were made of celestial blue satin with
rose colored rosettes."*
As for the gentlemen, they wore very long blue riding-coats, the
buttons of which were of steel, the vest, or waistcoat, being at the
same time of scarlet color, and the knee-breeches yellow. The shoes
were tied with strings, and low; but gaiters were fastened above them,
running up nearly to the knee, and made of polished leather. But for
evening dress the gaiters were omitted, and the legs (more or less
genuine as to shape) were incased in silk stockings. It was not until
toward the end of the century that material modifications in the dress
of gentlemen occurred. The hair was no longer powdered, nor worn
long and tied in a queue at the back. The locks were worn short, or at
a length considered proper to-day. For the close-fitting knee-breeches
and stockings or gaiters upon the legs, loose pantaloons reaching to
the shoe were substituted. "The women in 1800 wore hoops, high-
heeled shoes of black stuffs, with silk or thread stockings, and had
their hair tortured for hours at a sitting to get the curls properly
1 Philip LlvingBon. Uie secimd Lord of the in 1721-49. He mwried Catherine Van Bnigh of
Huior, «M bom >t Albuiy, July 9, 1888. Was Albany, and during the later years of hU life
dcputjr wcTetary of Indian affairs, and afterward entertained with ^reat matcnlflcence. He died in
(in 1722) secretary. Was a memljerof the prorln- New- York city. Febmary 4, 1749. EoiTOii.
dal SMemblj from Albany In 1709, and county clerk I Smith's ■■ New-Yorii in 1789, " p. 95.
110 HI8TOBY OF NEW-YORK
crisped. The hoops were succeeded by ' bishops' stufiFed with horse-
hair. In the early days hidies who kept their coaches often went to
church in check aprons ; and Watson mentions a lady in PbUadelphia
who went to a baU, in full dress, on horseback." ^ About the same
time, dark or black cloth took the place of colored
staffs for the dress of gentlemen.
Perhaps it will be of interest to conclude this re-
view of New- York society with two brief glimpses
into the actual doings of people in high life, one of
a private and familiar nature, the other a celebrated
public occasion. While Mr. Jay was absent in Eng-
land on the special mission, Mrs. Jay wrote to him
as follows: "Last Monday the President went to
Long Island to pass a week there. On Wednesday,
Mrs. Washington called upon me to go with her to
wait upon Miss Van Berckel, and on Thursday morning, agreeable to
invitation, myself and the little girls took an early breakfast with
her, and then went with her and her little grandchildren to breakfast
at General Morris's, Morrisania. We passed together a very agreeable
day, and on our return dined with her, as she would not take a re-
fusal. After which I came home to dress, and she was so polite as
to take coffee with me in the evening." The other picture presents
a fashionable ball given by the French ambassador, the Marquis de
Moustier, at his residence opposite the Bowling Green, on May 14,
1789. Although a despiser of republics in theory, he could not very
well avoid doing the honors of his nation to the great chief of the
American commonwealth, who had been inaugurated two weeks be-
fore, and his manner of doing it was altogether worthy of France.
Elias Boudinoit, of New Jersey, writing of it to a friend, spoke en-
thusiastically of his experiences there ; and as his description has all
the flavor of a contemporary and an eye-witness, we give it as it
appeared in Griswold's "Republican Court":
"After the President came, a company of eight couple formed in the
other room and entered, two by two, and began a most curious dance
called En Ballet. Four of the gentlemen were dressed in French r^-
mentals and four in American uniforms ; four of the ladies with blue
ribbons round their heads and American flowers, and four with red
roses and flowers of France. These danced in a very curious manner,
sometimes two and two, sometimes four couple and four couple, and
then in a moment altogether, which formed great entertainment for
the spectators, to show the happy union between the two nations.
Three rooms were filled, and the fourth was most elegantly set o£F as a
place for refreshment. A long table crossed this room from wall to
1 Mrs. EHet. " Qneeiu of Americsit Sotdetj," p. 149.
SOCIETY IN THE EABLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC
111
He stands in the midst
wall. The whole wall inside was covered with shelves filled with cakes,
oranges, apples, wines of all sorts, ice-creams, etc^ and highly lighted
up. A number of servants from behind the table supplied the guesta
with everything they wanted, from time to time, as they came in to
refresh themselves, which they did as often as a party had done
dancing, and made way for another. We retired about ten o'clock, in
the height of the jollity."
We may properly take leave bf New- York society at a reception, or
levee, at the president's house in Broadway. "
of a brilliant circle of
ladies and gentlemen.
As guests are pre-
sented, he does not
shake hands, but re-
ceives them with a
dignified bow. He is
attired in black velvet
coat and knee-breeches,
a white or pearl-colored
waistcoat showing fine-
ly underneath the dark
and flowing outer gar-
ment. Silver buckles
glitter at the knees and
upon the shoes. A long
sword hangs by his side,
bright, with a finely
wrought steel hUt. It is the mark of the gentleman of the day, and
need not recall the soldier amid these peaceful surroundings. Yellow
gloves adorn the hands that struck so bravely for liberty. With a
hngering look of affection and admiration upon the noblest Ameri-
can that ever breathed, we pass out of the assembly-room, and the
shadowy forms of the past dissolve. The plain present is upon us,
a city huge and magnificent, a society possessing a wealth then never
^ dreamed of, and exhibiting more than princely
y^^CL \.^^CL*^ Uberality in its contributions to philanthropy,
^'y art, science, and learning, — a society in whose ex-
^-^ tending circles are still conspicuous many of the
Dutch, English, and Huguenot names that lent luster to the early days
of the repuhhc, when New- York, as the seat of the national govern-
ment, witnessed the inauguration of Washington and welcomed the
illustrious membeVs of the first Congress.
U2
HISTORY OF NEW-TORK
ZIQHTEEKTH-CBSTtlBT COINB
THR CITV OP NBW-
CHAPTER IV
THE CL08IN0 YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1793-1800
I HE period in the history of the city that now opens is one
that may be designated as "within the memory of men
still living." It was the writer's privilege to be on terms
of intimate friendship for a number of yeai-s with an aged
lady who was born more than a year before the close of Washington's
first term ; she died during Mr, Cleveland's presidency. Again, on the
Sunday preceding the centennial celebration of Washington's inaugu-
ration in New- York city, the writer was introduced to a lady who on
that day attained her one hundredth year. Within the compass of one
such lifetime what vast changes have occurred in the condition of our
city, as in the aspects of the civilized world ! Though apparently so
near in the number of the years, at what a great distance in time do men
seem to be this day from that closing period of the eighteenth century ! "
These aged persons in their infancy were actually nearer to a date
even centuries before their birth than they were to their dying hour,
so far as concerns the mechanical, industrial, and scientific progress
of society. When they were yet children they would have had to
travel the sea by ships under sail, or the land by the lumbering stage
1 Thin Hew wMdmm by an officer of tbePreoch
' dpet. which took refuge Id New-Tork Harbor when
pursued by an Engllah fleet. The bouse whose
roof ia bftrdy seen to rise above the hill on the
Vol. UL— 8. '
left U the Rutgers Mansion, owned by Colonel
Henry Rutgers, and bequeathed to William B.
Crosby, prandsoQ of his siater, Catherine Bedlow.
and tlie father of Dr. Howard Crosby.
114 HLSTOBY OF 5£W'TOKK
or private carriage drawn by horses, jnat as men did at the end of the
seventeenth, and sixteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Their honses
were heated, their homes and the streets of the cities where they and
their contemporaries lived were lighted (if at all), in much the same
way as people had done in the middle ages or in the days of the
Roman republic. It is superflnons to expatiate on the advances in
these simple matters of every-day necessity, made ere these venerable
women had attained their half-centory, their threescore and ten, their
fourscore years. Yet how great an alteration in the very face of the
worid, in the intercourse of nations, in the conduct of business, in the
comforts of existence, have the advances in these matter-of-fact affairs
brought about ! Measured by circumstances and not by years, how
vast the distance, as was said, between the beginning and the end of
one such human lifetime; between the New -York of 1892 and that of
1793 ! It will be our task in this chapter to span that formidable gap,
and seek to reproduce to the imagination conditions in our city of
just a century ago.
The history of the eighteenth century, for the American colonies,
divides itself into five clearly marked periods. The first may be called
that of legislative controversy, of the struggle between royal gov-
ernors and provincial assemblies, which served to deepen the con-
sciousness of the colonists not only that they were possessed of rights,
but that they had it within their power to assert those rights. The
misconduct of one governor of New-York led to a practice on the part
of the assembly of that province which had in it the germ of self-
government. Too late was it seen by the English ministry what was
the significance of granting supplies from year to year and for spe-
cific objects. When they saw it and wished to remedy their mistake,
the representatives of the i)eople, equally alive to its advantages for
themselves, would not abandon it. Then the great English piinciple
of the power of precedent, which is quite as potent as a written con-
stitution, riveted the practice upon the province, and it remained
intact in the face of the most strenuous efforts to overthrow it by
the governors, spurred on by peremptory instructions from king and
ministry. It was but a step from these annual grants for specific
I)urposes to the naming (if it were a salary) of the men who were
to receive the money, and hence the legislature even learned to
encroach upon the executive branch of the government. This contest,
which, as Bancroft remarks, led ultimately to independence, is dated
by him from the first assembly that met Lord Lovelace, Combury's
immediate successor, in 1709.
It lasted with varying success, and with varying degrees of acri-
mony, through all the later colonial administrations. It had taught
the people of this colony (and under similar circumstances the same
THE CLOSING YEABS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBT 115
lesson bad been learned by the colonists generally) to have some very
decided feelings about taxation. Whether they must be accused of
niggardliness, or may be credited with generosity, in the matter of
grants for the support of the French and Indian or other wars, — one
thing is certain, the money given in taxes
was jealously awarded only at the call
of the proper mode of taxation ; it
was to be only by the vote, and
after due deliberation, of their
representatives. When, therefore
the stamp act was passed, and it
was attempted to enforce it, a stoim
of indignation was aroused, and an m
surmountable opposition eucountered.
This is the next marked period of the
eighteenth century. Legislative con-
troversies between governors and assemblies were now succeeded by
popular agitation. The one period or the one movement was but
the logical outcome of the other. From the confined space and the
limited numbers of the assembly-room, the controversy between
popular rights and royal prerogative was carried into the streets,
into public halls crowded by eager citizens of all claHses. It was
dangerous to brave such a tide of antagonism to the ministerial pol-
icy. It would have been wiser to heed the steady remonstrances of
a people who had long studied political principles, and who had an
intelligent conception of the correctness of their political standpoint
in opposing the attempt to tax them without representation. The tax
itself was nothing to them, no more than Hampden's ship-money was
116 HISTOBY OF NEW-TOBK
to him. But they had not so scrapnloiisly guarded their grants of
money through nearly two generations without having acquired a
keen sense of the principles at stake now. The British ministry, how-
ever, persisted with obstinacy in their course, no doubt equally con-
vinced that they were right ; the tide of indignation and agitation was
resisted, with the inevitable result of adding to its force, and precipi-
tating a rupture.
Thus the stamj>act agitation led on to the Revolutionary period.
Political controversy, confined first to legislative chambers, and then
conducted in the presence of the masses or by organized actions of a
civil nature for brief moments and on sx)ecial occasions (as in the case
of non-importation agreements and the boarding of tea-ships), had
now brought both parties to such a heat in their friction against each
other that the flames of war necessarily broke forth. The Revolu-
tionary period occupied but a few years of the century's history, but
they were momentous years. Distress deep and depressing often hung
like a low cloud over all the land, but there was discipline in the
affliction :
In such a forge and such a heat
Were shaped the anchors of her hope.
And there were hours of glory and of pride, which witnessed to the
strength and solidity bom of the days of darkness. Despair could not
possess the heart of a people who could thus suffer and thus triumph,
and victory was theirs at last. The independence which was prophe-
sied in 1709, which was shaping itself unconsciously and gradually
through many colonial administrations, which began to acquire con-
sciousness, albeit even yet with hesitancy and awe, during the stamp-
act agitation, was now declared, fought for, won, and acknowledged.
Out of the brief but fierce struggle the thirteen British colonies came
forth free and independent States.
But they were not as yet a nation; and thus there opened another
period in this eventful eighteenth century which, in the estimation of
thoughtful students of our history, has been denominated "the critical
period" by preeminence. It covered but one year less than that re-
quired for the conduct of the Revolutionary war. The task of yield-
ing to one another was a hard one; the sacrifice of certain individual
rights long enjoyed and exercised while stiQ in the tutelary condition
of colonies, was difficult to make now that they had just attained the
condition of emancipated manhood. So for six years the trial lasted,
and the future remained uncertain amjd the perils of the present —
perils growing out of disunion, jealousies between States, actual
infringements by the stronger upon the rights of the weaker. But at
last light came; the constitution was framed — "the most wonderful
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY 117
work," as Gladstone has said, "ever struck off at a given time by the
brain and purpose of man." It was also the most conspicuous appli-
cation— which the continuance of our repubhc has made but the more
emphatic and illustrious — of the Golden Rule to human government.
It was one State doing to another State what it would have the
other do unto itself. Without this mutual sacrifice of rights and prop-
.31. — ■':.
erty for the common good, without this political loving of one's
neighbor as one's self, federal union, and the strong nation which it
oreated and still perpetuates, would have been impossible. It is at
the exceedingly interesting juncture when this great feat had been
accomplished not only, but when one complete teim of its actual
working under all the appointed forms of its administration — execu-
tive, legislative, and judicial — had been concluded, confirming the
excellence and wisdom of its plan, that this chapter takes up the
current of our city's history. It had been privileg^ to see take place
within its borders the inauguration of President Washington. In the
old City Hall — convOTted into a Federal Hall — the Congress had be-
gun its sessions ; and the Supreme Court of the United States had
not only erected its august bench here, but upon it had been placed
John Jay, one of New-York's noblest sons.
In the same year that Washington was inaugurated, Richard Varick
received the appointment as mayor of New- York from the governor
of the State, He held the position till 1801, and thus his mayoralty
extended throughout the whole of the period now under considera-
tion. He succeeded James Duane, and was therefore the second
mayor under the new order of affairs. As eiurly as 1685 we find
the Rev. Rudolphus Van Variok ministering to the five Dutch con-
gregations of King's County, on Long Island, who then and for many
years after could only unitedly support a preacher. In the course
118
mSTOBI OF NEW-YOEK
of time, and as a result of the Anglicizing influences necessarily pre-
domiuant in the colony, the unmistakahle Dutch prefix, Van, had been
dropped, and the mayor was content with a plain Varick. For some
yeai-s he had occupied the office of recorder, so that he was well
equipped by experience as well as legal knowledge for the place to
which he had been promoted. In the war of the Eevolation he had
risen to the rank of colonel, and had formed part of Washington's
official family, as his private secretary, after Hamilton had somewhat
hastily resigned. He had doubtless shared in the increase of legal
business since the evacuation, Tory
lawyers having been disbarred in
New- York, so that he had accumu-
lated a comfortable fortune. At
least his house in Broadway, where
he resided, is put down on the tax-het
for 1799 as valued at three thousand
pounds, or nearly eight thousand dol-
lars, as the pound then counted.
When his administration began
(1789), the population of the city
reached twenty-three thousand; it
had doubled before the end of his
term. The City Hall, for a short-
season devoted to federal uses and
subjected to important alterations
and embellishments, in order to fit
it for the occupancy of Congress,
had now once more reverted to its ori^nal purposes. Yet, while
ceasing to be the capital of the republic in the autumn of 1790, New.
York continued to be the capital of the State till January, 1798, and
the legislature must have utilized the halls set apart for the upper and
lower houses of the national parhament. But it was not antil early
in the nest century that the third (and present) City HaU was erected ;
so that here, on the spot opposite Brodd street, in Wall, still cen-
tered the direction of the municipal government. And, fortunately,
there can be gained an accurate idea of the extent of the respon-
sibilities that rested on the shoulders of the city officials at this time,
from an estimate of the amount of funds necessary for the support
of the city's institutions for the year 1800. For the almshouse the
1 MrJot James FalrHe was the tioii ol * 'Saw- sitlaiiB, and was a ddJE)'''"! eompanloD : hit
York mercbant. and the (prandson of a Scotch aalllea of wit oft«D cuised outbursts of langh-
mldshipniBii who BetHed In America early In the tcr from General Washlnyton himself. He mar-
eightoentl) century. He became aide to Baron ried a danRhter of Chief JuBtice Yates. Tht-iz
Stenlwn, served wltli that offleer thraivh the daughter Mary waa a favorite with Halleck and
war, and shared hta home on the land grant In Irving, and, like her father, noted for her wit.
western New-Tort He held various pnbUc po- EDrrem.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 119
sum of thirty thousand dollars was required, while for the bridewell
or workhouse five thousand were needed, and for the support — pre-
sumably the subsistence — of the prisoners the amount of three thou-
sand was set apart. The maintenance of a watch, the foreranner of
the metropolitan police force, cost twenty-five thousand dollars. For
streets occurs the item five thousand dollars ; but this is independent
of several other items that would seem to belong properly under this
heading — such as lamps, to cost fifteen thousand dollars for being
kept in order and lighted on nights when there was no " light moon,"
and wells and pumps for fire and domestic uses, which required only
twenty-five hundred dollars. The roads about the city demanded an
outlay of over seventy-five hundred dollars.
Amid these clearly defined particulars, some of them obviously
useful, yet requiring only moderate sums, it is somewhat surprising
to observe two very vague items, yet with large sums opposite to
them: these are "contingencies,'' twenty-nine thousand four hundred
and fifty dollars, and "city contingencies," seventy-five hundred dol-
lars. The question naturally arises. What could these large contin-
gencies have been? Tammany was then in existence; was already
eleven years old, in fact. But it had not developed into the Tam-
many of these later decades of the nineteenth century. If it had, we
should not be at a loss to understand why thirty-seven thousand dol-
lars should have been voted for purposes so curiously unexpressed.
Still, this sum cannot alarm the New- York mind of the present day.
The whole city budget, as just enumerated, reached only one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars. With an addition of but ten or fifteen
thousand to this amount the city to-day maintains one institution —
its pride and boast — the College of the City of New- York.
At the time that is now under notice events of the most exciting
nature had been and were transpiring abroad, — across the Atlantic
Ocean, — which had an influence upon opinions and passions within
our republic so great and powerful as to shake our government to its
very foundations. New- York city shared in these agitations, and
became the scene of many outbreaks of sympathy with or antagonism
against the European nations with whom the republic came most
closely into contact. It will be remembered that the year of the
inauguration of Washington was that also of the beginning of the
French Revolution. In adopting the policy of aiding the American
colonies, the French king and ministry had, figuratively speaking,
unwittingly seized hold of that curious Australasian implement, the
boomerang. Popular rights could not be sustained in America with-
out awaking attention to their reality in principle; and this would
emphasize the glaring lack of their application to the population of
France. No remedy could finally suggest itself to French statesmen
120 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
to allay the distress of their nation but the calling of the States
General of the kingdom, a body which it had not been thought neces-
sary to call together for nearly two hundred years. Less than a week
after Washington's inauguration, or on May 4, 1789, this body met at
Versailles. After this first step events moved with great rapidity;
the Bastille fell on July 14 of this same year, and in the next month
were abolished the unjust exemptions and privileges by which the
nobility and clergy, holding most of the wealth of the nation, escaped
the burdens of taxation and cast their crushing weight upon the poor
and the untitled classes. An avalanche had been set in motion which
no power could stop. Soon came the Reign of TeiTor, and, in Janu-
ary, 1793, or about six weeks before the end of Washington's first
tenn, Louis XVI. was led, like a common felon, to the guillotine.
The republic of France was now a fact, and this filled with ex-
treme delight many people on this side of the Atlantic, who only
remembered that the French armies had aided to establish our own,
and who did not regard what were the fundamental principles of this
new republic as compared with that of the United States. It was
forgotten that license and cruelty and ferocious tyranny of the worst
kind had established the French republic; it was enough that it was
a republic at all. But many here were wiser than this. Washington
and Hamilton and Jay, and men of that stamp, with just as much
gratitude for what France had done for the United States in the
past, could only look with abhorrence upon the wrong she was do-
ing to herself and to the cause of human liberty at present. Unhap-
pily, these sentiments, so diametrically opposed, were now made to
enforce diflferences bitter and radical upon questions of home gov-
ernment. The federalists, the supporters of the administration, being
known to be out of sympathy with the movements in France, the
anti-federalists, or republicans, with the greater zest threw their
sympathies headlong and recklessly on the side of the most violent
red-republicanism.
After the death of the king it became a serious diplomatic question
what should be done about recognizing a minister sent out by the
new government. But, almost while Washington and his cabinet
were considering how to act, Edmond Charles GenSt, the new French
minister, was landing at Charleston, South Carolina. If the presi-
dent and his party were hesitating, their opponents had fully made
up their minds. They hailed "Citizen^ Gen§t, scorning to employ
any other title, with demonstrations of extravagant joy; his progress
from his place of arrival to Philadelphia was that of a conquering
hero. Cavalcades of gentlemen went forth for miles out of the towns
through which he was expected to pass, to escort him. As the min-
ister representing the monarchical regime was duly recalled, and as
THE CL08INO TEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTDBY 121
>-N
there was no government in France except that represented by
GeuSt, there was no objection to receiving his credentials. But the
citizen seemed to look upon this simple and entirely non-committal
act of intei*national comity as a complete siuTender of the Ameri-
can republic to the cause of her sister across the sea; as if a league
offensive and defensive was thereby concluded against all the lafter*s
enemies, which then meant a large
portion of the European world.
Genet proceeded to issue letters of
marque and reprisal for privateers,
and undertook not only to convert
American vessels with their Ameri-
can crews into French vessels of war,
but he forthwith encour^ed attacks
on British vessels actually within
our waters, and claimed them as
prizes of war. When Washington
indignantly objected, the French
minister insolently rephed to his
strictures, and continued his out-
rageous work. He dared to appeal
to the people against their presi-
dent. But now came a reaction.
Misled by the senseless adulation of
himself as the representative of the bleeding republic of France,
Genet had allowed himself to go to the extent of defying Washing-
ton. GenSt's most violent admirers then began to open their eyes
to the falsity of their position. Washington demanded his recall, and
the request was acceded to. But, while Genet the minister was no
more, GenSt the man remained, and settled in New- York. He had
married a daughter of Governor Clinton, who, as a republican, was
of course one of his partizans. As he had been sent out by the
Girondist faction, who in 1794 were exterminated by the Jacobins of
the Mountain, it was not quite safe for him to return to France. In
retirement and obscurity, he passed his days in his adopted country,
residing in this city, and dying here in 1836.
It was to be expected that amid this ferment of feeling, preva-
lent throughout the country, in regard to events in France and the
actions of the French minister in America, some striking episodes
would occur in New- York city, the principal harbor of the Union.
The ship that had conveyed Genfit to these shores, the frigate
L'Ambuscade, left Charleston soon after landing him there, and
proceeded northward. She varied the monotony of her coastwise
passage by chasing British merchant vessels. Entering the Dela-
122
HISTORY OF NEW-YOEK
ware, she found a British ship, the Grange, lying far up the bay,
waiting for a favoi-able wind to put to sea. The Frenchman sent a
solid shot into her rig^ng, which induced the English captain to
strike his colors, and the Grange was taken as a prize to Phila-
delphia. The government promptly ordered her to be restored.
L'Ambuseade, after spending some weeks at Philadelphia, went to
New- York, arriving there in June, 1794. The citizens here had had
no opportunity as yet of manifesting their esteem for Minister
Genet; but now all their pent-up enthusiasm for the French republic
was devoted to a warm reception of Citizen Bompard, the captain
of L'Ambuseade, and hia officers and crew. At the same time it
fanned into fresh flames the antagonism
between the political parties. As the one
became ultra-French in the presence of
the Frenchmen, the other became more
than reasonably excited against the li-
cense of republicanism. "The peace of
the coffee-houses was destroyed," is the
sententious and significant observation
of a recent historian.
At the Tontine Coffee-house in Wall
street, near Water, a liberty-cap made of
crimson silk was displayed, bearing the
inscription " Sacred to Liberty." This in
itself was a sufficiently innocent action ;
but there went a defiance with it. The
"democrats," as the French party called
themselves, dared the "aristocrats" to
take it down ; the aristocrats, by the way,
being such no further than that they upheld the administration, and
wished it continued under the guidance of the "best men," instead
of a Jacobin rabble. This party were not slow to respond with a
declaration that down the cap would have to come. The threat and
the defiance produced no actual altei-cations; but the two parties
closely watched each other, and crowds of men, hundreds at a
time, kept constantly near or in front of the building. Doubtless it
wotdd have taken but a slight spark to ignite the magazine.' In
fact, though violence was avoided in the present instance, the news-
papers of the day record frequent brawls at other occasions and
times. The sailor element of New- York had always been a turbu-
lent one, from the good old days of the "protected" pirates down;
and amid these stirring times they were not likely to be more quiet
than usual. One day, at the Tontine, a British naval officer, who
1 "HUtory o( the Peoi^e of the United Sutes," John B. McHaster, 2: 105, 10«,
HUE. EDMOND C. OEHfrr.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 123
had doubtless taken something stronger than coffee, launched out
into a tirade against the French and their republic. The dignified
merchants, who most did congregate there, took decided umbrage,
and the offending Englishman was "hustled into the street." A
little later, on a Sunday morning, a company of British tars, off on
furlough, encountered a number of French man-of-war's-men, also on
recreation bent. A conflict was inevitable, and there might have been
some fatalities had not the bystanders interfered.
The French frigate L' Ambuscade figures once more in an episode
k that has a great deal of the chivalrous and dashing about it, such as
we naturally associate with men who follow the sea. While she lay
at anchor in the bay, a report came that a man-of-war had come to
an anchorage off Sandy Hook. Ere long the bulletin-boards of the
Tontine Coffee-house bore words of warlike import. The French
republicans, as is well known, then scorned all titles of distinction.
The royal family were now merely Capets. Even " monsieur " or " ma-
dame " was an insult to the perfect equality now established among all
men. The absurdity was canied even into the aimy and navy.
Minister Genet was only Citizen Genet, and Captain Bompard re-
pudiated that distinctive epithet, which one would think almost
indispensable on board ship, and called himself Citizen Bompard.
The practice had been caught up by the enthusiasts of the republi-
can party in the United States, and there were serious discussions as
to what should constitute the feminine counterpart to citizen, as Mr.
and Mrs. were no longer to be tolerated. With fine irony the captain
of the English frigate lying at Sandy Hook, adopting the mode of
address now in vogue, announced that he — neither Captain nor
Citizen, but Subject Courtney — would be glad to meet Citizen Bom-
pard outside the legal limit of three leagues at sea within ten days.
The challenge was, of course, accepted. People flocked to the shores
of Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey to observe the com-
bat, which took place beyond the range of vision, but not beyond
that of hearing. The French frigate remained the victor ; Courtney
was killed, but his vessel, outsailing L' Ambuscade, escaped capture.
It may be imagined that the result highly excited the friends of
France in the city. To add to tlieir enthusiasm, a French fleet of fif-
teen sail entered the harbor while L' Ambuscade was still in pursuit
of her defeated antagonist. Thereupon for many days there were
fSting and the singing of the many stirring patriotic songs of republi-
can France, some of which were now sung also to English words.
International relations at this period furnished another cause for
excitement, agitation, and partizan bitterness. The love of France
involved the hatred of England. That antipathy to the old mother-
country was, of course, a legacy also of the Eevolution ; and it was
124
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
not strange that friction growing out of mutual misunderstanding or
partial violation of treaty obligations should have kept alive hostile
feelings. Yet it is obvious that, in the very nature of things, success
for the government and prosperity for the people lay in the direction
of English methods and English commerce far more than in the
direction of those of France. At heart, essentially, the daughter
could not repudiate her origin and expect to live as a nation. The
friends of strong government, the
federalists, knew this very well;
and whatever dislike of England
may have possessed them, they
were not blind to the advantages
of her political principles, or of a
well-established commercial con-
nection with her. This entirely
consistent position afforded a fine
field for the demagogues, and to
call the federalists the friends of
England was their common cus-
tom, and the easiest as well as
surest way of exciting the anger
of an unthinking multitude against
them. This charge would be espe-
cially calculated to arouse popular
fury in the midst of the excite-
ments produced by the actions of
Minister Gen&t.
Just at this juncture, in the
spring of 1794, President Wash-
ington sent Chief Justice John Jay
as special envoy to England, to
negotiate a treaty of commerce. A
special mission was a necessary expedient, as complete diplomatic
relations with our republic had not yet been assumed on the part
of England. Her official representative in America was still Sir
John Temple, consul-general at New- York.'
iSir John djed In ITSS, uid \ns bnried in St.
Paal'B Church on BmaAvnj, where was tlrnt
erected the monumeDt of vhlch *n illniitrstioii
appcATfi In the text. Bis father was Captain
Robert Temple, of the English anny, who came
to New England in 171T. mairled Mehltobel Vel-
Bon, of Boston, and at hli death In 1754 left three
fu>nft. of whom John was the second. The latter
was bom in BoBton in 1732. became surreyor-
general ot the cuatoma and lientenant-KOveraor
of New HampHhlre, and jnut before the breaUnft
out of the Revolntionary War was recalled be-
cause of his sympathy with the colonists. His
marriage with Governor Bowdoin's daughter has
been noticed in the previous cbapter. In 1TS6 he
succeeded a distant kinsman in the ancient bai^
onetcy of his family. Sir Johh left fonr cliildrvn.
of whom the second. Elisabeth Bowdoin. married
the Hon. Thomas Lindall Wlnthrop. Of her nn-
merona children, the only survivor at present la
the well-known patriot and statesman, Hon. Robert
C. Wtntbrop, of Boston.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 125
The task before Jay was a difficult and delicate one ; it would have
been so under any circumstances, but knowing what was the state
of feeling in his own country, the work intrusted to him was
peculiarly trying. But perhaps no better man could have been
chosen to do it than he; his purity of motive so transparent, his
patriotism so lofty and unselfish, his
judgment so clear and just, his desire
to promote the good of his country so
completely absorbing any meaner or
narrower ambitions of a personal na-
ture, that these qualities irresistibly
impressed even English statesmen with
the con\iction that what he felt to be
just and advantageous for both coun-
tries must in reality be so. Indeed, the marvel was that Jay ob-
tained so many concessions, which were really of more immediate
advantage to the United States, although, in the end, the profit of them
to both countries would become apparent. But the mortal oflEense
had been committed of retaining the friendship of England, of having
conciliated instead of exasperating her by a useless display of impo-
tent anger. France, the ancient ally, had been deserted; and England,
the oppressor and foe, had been courted.
A storm of indignant abuse rewarded the distinguished and high-
minded negotiator for his pains, and met him on his arrival in New-
York in the summer of 1795. He was accused — it was hardly possible
to conceive a man more incorruptible by gold than he — of having sold
his country. He was represented in caricatures, and burned in effigy
at Philadelphia and New- York. In New- York and Boston mass-meet-
ings were held and resolutions passed condemning the treaty before
those presuming to sit in judgment had even had an opportunity to
read it. The mass-meeting in New- York was held in front of the
City Hall, and both Mayor Varick and Secretary Hamilton attempted
to control it, or bring it to reason. Edward Livingston, afterward
mayor, was caUed to preside. When there was offered a motion for
adjournment, the wildest confusion prevailed. Hamilton, who had
never failed to command attention or to sway a crowd by his elo-
quence, attempted to address the people from the front steps of his
own house, on the comer of Wall and Broad streets. But the popu-
lace was too greatly excited to listen to him ; stones began to fly, and
The above is an illustration of a stone found
in di^^n^ a trench alonfc the north wall of the
City Hall, on July 19. 1892. It is about two feet
lonft:. eighteen inches wide, and about one foot
deep. Its sin^ificance is doubtful. The inscrip-
tion *• R. Varick, Esqr.. Mayor. 1796.** cannot l)e
meant for a tombstone, as he did not die till 1831.
Nor was this site even thought of for a City Hall
till after 1801, when he yielded the chair to a suc-
cessor. It may have formed part of a wall of one
of the buildinf^ near this spot, such as the Bride-
well, which was taken down later.
126 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
as one struck the immovable secretary on the forehead, he quietly
observed: *'If you use such striking arguments, I must retire." And
retire he did, the mob also soon hastening away from the spot to the
Bowling Green, where they burned copies of the treaty and unfurled
the French flag. But Hamilton was not so easily overcome; in a
characteristic manner he set himself to the task of arguing down
this senseless opposition. "Publius," once of the "Federalist,'' was
transformed into "Camillus" four days after the unruly mass-meet-
ing; and the essays that came from his powerful brain soon brought
the nation back to reason.
The treaty was ratified by the senate. Then the president was as-
sailed by petitions from all parts of the land not to sign it. Wash-
ington, however, was not to be confused by the noise, nor to be
moved by the violence of this storm of thoughtless opposition, any
more than he was wont to be by the noise and fury of a battle. He
saw the country's good clearly before him; he knew that this treaty,
with whatever imperfections it might be burdened, would certainly
secure that good, and his duty thus standing out undimmed before
him, he was not the man to swerve from it. And reason, too, began
to reassert herself among the people. The merchants of the country,
laying aside political prejudice and perceiving the great advantages
to American commerce which the terms of the treaty secured, every-
where expressed their approval, and their petitions, sent in to the
president, served to oflEset the previous condemnation. The New-
York Chamber of Commerce was among the first to place itself on
record in favor of the measure. A special meeting was called for
July 21, 1795, to consider that "which particularly agitated the public
mind, the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between the
United States and Great Britain." In the minute-book the meeting is
described as "the most respectable ever held in the Chamber of Com-
merce (upwards of seventy members being present). After the treaty
was read, resolutions approving thereof were adopted with only ten
dissenting voices." The president, as is well known, finally signed
the treaty, and its provisions became law, with some important
modifications, and the omission of the article on West India trade.
In the midst of the violent discussions about the treaty, Jay was
nominated and elected governor of the State; this important event
taking place before his return from England. On May 28, 1795, he
arrived in the city, and on July 1 he was duly inaugurated. On July
2, by a breach of senatorial etiquette, or the violation of his oath of
secrecy by one of the senators of the United States, the text of the
treaty was published in the newspapers. But Jay was now secure in
his seat of honor ; and it is doubtful whether the knowledge of the
actual text would have injured him more than the misrepresentations
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128 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
based on mere rumors in regard to its provisions. Perhaps one reason
why the election went against Governor Clinton was the shameful
counting out of Jay in 1792. It is a trite saying that history repeats
itself. Is it of the fall of 1891, or the spring of 1792, that we read :
" At the election it was soon discovered that the votes for Jay outnum-
bered those for Clinton. But a returning board, a joint committee of
the legislature of whom the majority were Clintonians, found the re-
turns from three counties, which notoriously had gone Federalist,
were technically defective''!^ The majority thus secured for Clinton
showed but a paltry figure of one hundred and eight votes. In 1795
Jay's majority over Robert Yates was nearly sixteen hundred; and on
his reelection in 1798 he was victorious over Robert R. Livingston by
nearly twenty-four hundred.
These gubernatorial contests and their results were of much more
consequence to New- York city as a part of its history then than now,
because it was still the State capital. It involved no change of resi-
dence to the governor now elected, therefore, except from one end of
the same street to another. In the directory for 1789, Jay's house is
placed at 133 Broadway, the last or highest number on that thorough-
fare then. As governor he would be obliged to transfer his house-
hold gods to the government mansion opposite the Bowling Green,
whose noble proportions closed the pleasing vista as one looked down
Broadway toward the bay, and from whose windows in turn a view
would be gained up that street, terminated by the green fields and
spreading shade-trees of the common or the park. During the whole
of Jay's first term he occupied this mansion. The headquarters of
the federal government had been removed to Philadelphia toward the
close of 1790, even before this building intended for the use of the
chief of the nation was completed. Therefore the governor and Mrs.
Jay reassumed the leading position in the social life of New-York
which had been theirs while Jay was secretary for foreign affairs under
the Continental Congress, which made him the chief entertainer of
the diplomatic corps. But even the subordinate glory — if it were a
glory — of being the capital city of a State was taken away from
New-York, and in January, 1798, the seat of government was re-
moved to the more centrally located city of Albany.
Some matters enacted by the governor and legislature during this
period are of such profound interest or vital importance that no
apology will be needed for a brief reference to them in this history.
Treating them cumulatively from less to greater, it is to be noted
that the proclamation of a Thanksgiving Day was initiated for this
State by Governor Jay. It was announced as an expression of grati-
tude for the cessation of the yellow-fever plague of 1795, of which
I "John Jay," by Georfre Pellew, p. 276.
THE CLOSING YEABS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY 129
more anon, and appointed for Thursday, November 26. Political
opponents, on the alert for faultfinding, bitterly censured this act of
Jay's. It was deemed of a piece with his aristocratic or federalist
notions of government — much in excess of his prerogatives as an
executive officer. Perhaps it was ; perhaps it is such on the part of
the president from year to year. It may be an infringement upon
the rights of conscience of those who believe in no God. But as long
as we are not a nation of atheists, public sentiment will sustain the
proclamation, though it be extra-constitutional. There is no record
that the political cavil of 1795 interfered with its hearty observance
by the people.
Another singular instance of the repetition of history, even in our
own city, is furnished by the following citation : " The governor in-
curred still further odium by refusing to order the flags to be hoisted
on Governor's Island and the Battery on the anniversary of the Tam-
many Society ; the reason he gave was, that ' if such a compliment be
paid to the Tammany, it ought not to be refused to any other of the
numerous societies in this city and State.' " * Yet Tammany was then
still an American society, insisting upon the display of no foreign
flag. In spite of the federalist governor of 1796, and a Democratic
mayor nearly a hundred years later, the very last St. Patrick's Day
proved the futility of common sense and fairness in the face of influ-
ences that govern votes to-day. In this same year (1796) was built a
penitentiary in this city, on the model of that in Philadelphia ; while,
equally under the directing thoughtfulness of the governor, the idea
was given shape of establishing a safe retreat for sufferers from con-
tagious disease. Bedlow's Island was deemed a favorable spot for
establishing a hospital for such. But what was of a more permanent
influence upon morals and manners — a change was made in the
penal code. Governor Clinton had suggested a reduction in the
number of offenses that were to have the punishment of death at-
tached to them. Jay took up this good work and pushed it to final
action, so that a revision of the code was accomplished.
In the governor's message to the legislature in January, 1796, in
which the building of the penitentiary was recommended, there was
no recommendation of the abolition of slavery. Jay was known,
however, to be in favor of that cause, was identified with men in
France who were agitating abolition, and M. Brissot de WarvUle, the
French patriot and journalist, who was guillotined with a number of
fellow-Girondists in 1793, came to America in 1789, specially com-
mended to Jay as a friend of the blacks (awe des noirs). In the ses-
sion of January, 1796, a bill was introduced by a near friend of the
governor's which called for abolition. It is a remarkable circum-
1 Pellew's ** Jay,** p. 325.
Vol. in.— 9.
130 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
stance that it obtained a tie vote in committee of the whole. The
chairman's casting-vote was against it, and hence it was lost. But in
1799 the subject was revived, and the cause of emancipation in New-
York was carried to success. In April a bill was brought before the
legislature providing that all negro children bom after July 4 ensuing
should be free. They must serve an apprenticeship till a certain age
— twenty-eight in the case of males, and twenty-five in that of females.
Meantime the exportation of slaves from the State was prohibited.
The rock upon which all former efforts of this kind had suffered ship-
wreck had been the difficult and delicate question of compensation
for the dissolution of human chattels with a price into human beings
representing no price. But the scheme of gradual emancipation
avoided this peril and secured the great and noble end.
Washington's first term ended in March, 1793; the close of his
second falls within the limit of this chapter. The election of candi-
dates took place in 1796, and the removal of the great name of Wash-
ington at once wi'ought confusion. The federalist candidates, John
Adams and Thomas Pinckney, failed together to exceed the votes of
the republicans. Adams received only three more votes than Thomas
Jefferson, and Pinckney was left out. Thus John Adams, the fed-
eralist, became president, and Jefferson, the republican, vice-presi-
dent. But in all this New- York city bore no part of special signifi-
cance. It was different with the next presidential election; then
some of her most brilliant citizens wrought mightily to turn the scale
of events within her borders, and city and State became the pivot on
which the results for the nation turned. Now, too, rises itito national
prominence for the first time the name of Aaron Burr. His father
was the Rev. Aaron Burr, president of Princeton College ; his mother
was a daughter of the famous divine. Dr. Jonathan Edwards. But
when scarce three years old death had deprived him of both parents.
Somewhere and somehow a wrong moral twist was given to his edu-
cation. Yet he was a man of brilliant parts and fascinating manners.
He had served with distinction in the Revolution, was for a brief
period a member of Washington's official family, but resigned from
the army in 1779, and devoted himself to the law. He was sent to
the State legislature; he was United States senator from 1791 to 1796;
now in 1800 he comes forward as a presidential candidate.
Jay, the federalist, had secured the election of governor twice, in
1795 and in 1798. But in the latter year the republicans gained largely
in the elections for the legislature, there being a majority of twenty-
eight for their side in the assembly, and having reduced the federalist
majority in the senate to eight. This result was attributed to the
skill and astuteness of Burr. By means of a wide personal acquain-
tance and a shrewd estimate of men, he knew how to use their veiy
THE CLOSINa YEAB8 OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTDBY 131
peculiarities and temperaments for his purposes. The indifferent he
succeeded iu placing at work; to the zealous he gave direction in
their euthusiasm. The republican victory in the spring foreshad-
owed a republican victory on national issues in the autumn, and
if New- York were gained for
the anti-federalists, the federal-
ist candidates were doomed to
failure. Hence Burr was re-
warded for his energetic con-
duet of the State campaign by
being placed in nomination for
the national ofBce of president
or \iee-president. It was at
this time never quite certain
who would become president
and who vice-president. The
intention might be to relegate
a man only to the lower dig-
nity; but if a few more of the
electors had another purpose
in mind, or even another man
for president, the intended vice-
president would be returned
finally as chief magistrate. So real was this danger that Hamilton
was at one time afraid that Adams might be elected in place of
Washington, and his advice to divert a few votes from Adams to
prevent this false step was the ground for the subsequent unhappy
differences between these two great men, involving the final over-
throw of the federalist power.
Burr had his mind set on securing the presidency himself, and to
beat Jefferson, and largely to his efforts, questionable and otherwise,
the success of the republican party was due. Hamilton exerted him-
self to the utmost to counteract these efforts ; but in Burr's line of
action he was more than a match for Hamilton. He was a master of
intrigue and qtiite unscrupulous. Ward politics were bound to play
an important part in an election which was to turn upon the vote of
the State or city of New-York; and in ward politics Hamilton was
helpless and Burr a giant. "Hamilton was no match for his an-
tagonist. . . . With voice and pen Hamilton maintained the conflict.
WILLIAM JACKSOH.l
1 Hra. WlUUm Jackson, h^ EJizkbeUi WUUhk.
wu a sister of Mrv. Bingham, of Philadelphia.
Both ladies were distingulahed for their beaut;
and accompliihnienli. The above picture U
copied from the porti^t by Ollbert Stuart.
Her huflbuid, Uajor Jackson, was born in Edi^
land in 17S9, came to Amarioa ; wu educated in
Charleston, S. C, appointed aide to Oeneral Ben-
jamin Lincoln, and fought on the patriot side in
the Revolution. He wag one of Washington's
aides while president, in New-York ; and Surveyor
of the Port in Philadelphia in 1796. From 1800
till his death he was secretary of the Societr of
132
mSTOBT OF NEW-YORK
OR D E R
OF THE
FUNERAL PROCESSION
The 31ft of Decembbr, 1^9*
By diredUoa of the .Commitee oF. Arrang^nlttt
Officer and
Eight Dragoont*
Sixth Regiment, in PUtooni, by
the left.
Eight pieces of Field Artillery;
CaYaIr/*
Rifle Com'psuiy.
Militia Officers.
Officers of the Navy of the Unked
Sutet.
Officers of the Army pf the United
iStates.
Major Gen«. Hamilton and Suite*
Citizens*
St, Stephen^a Societf*
Tammany Society.
Mechanic Society*
Malbnic jLodges.
Grand Lodge;
Manhattail Company*
New. York (nfurance Company.
United Infurance Company*
Branch Bank.
Bank of Mcw-Toik.
Chamber of Commerce.
Marine Sooicty.
Regents of the Univerfi^.
Truftees of Columbia College*
Prefident and Profeflbrs of ditto.
Phy(ician8 and Surgeons,
Gentlemen of the Bar.
Civil Officers of the Gty.
Civil Officers of the State.
Lieutenant • Governor.
Civil Officers of the United Statee
Gov^ntnent.
His Catholic Majefty's Cooful and
Gentlemen of that Nation.
His Britannic Majefty's Conful and
Gentlemen of that Nation.
Mafic.
Anacreontic and PhilharmoniCySo*
cieties. -
Clergy.
Twenty.fbar Girls, in Whit^ Robes.
Committee of Arrangement.
The Horfe m Moumix^.
Cincinnati as Chief Mourners,
and other Officers of the late var.
Gorpordition of the Gty.
fight Dragoons.
Offltcr.
ALL the Proceffion to man:h
four deep, jezcept the IV^ilitary.
General. HUGHES^ Is charged
With the execution of the above or-
der, fubjed to fuch .further difpo*
fition as he 0ial1 judge expedient.
Jas, M. Huffiesy QulrmaP;! ^
Ehenexer Sstvensy ] ^
facob Morten^ ^'g
famei Furlie^ ] |
fobn Sia^^y j'ttmr, J U
If^tO'Ter^, Decfmker i<t 1709.
^■'U'>t:f^f:^^
THE CLOSING YEABS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 133
His eloquence was unrivaled ; his arguments, written and spoken,
were unanswerable; but Burr had the votes. New- York was lost
to the federalists, and ruin stared them in the face."^
But there was one special circumstance, of which Burr rightly or
wrongly took advantage, whereby Hamilton was made to stultify his
own best eloquence and argument. As a culmination of many years of
personal embitterment between President Adams and General Hamil-
ton, the latter imprudently allowed himself to be goaded into writing
a letter to Adams in which -he severely arraigned the president's
public conduct. It was intended to be privately printed and judi-
ciously circulated, so that the other federalist candidate, Charles C.
Pinckney, might have votes in excess of Adams and thus be made
president. Burr resided at 11 Nassau street, and there three gentle-
men met with him one day to read over together the proof-sheets of a
remarkable production. It had been procured from the printer, so it
is charged, by one of these three, Matthew L. Davis, the friend and con-
fidant and later the biographer of Burr. These four friends carefully
noted the contents, and made extracts from it for the press ; indeed,
according to some authorities, reprinted the whole and sowed it broad-
cast over the land. It was the most effective campaign document in
favor of the republicans that could have been desired. Jeflferson
and Bun* came out of the contest far in advance of the federalist
candidates. They each had 73 votes in the electoral college; Adams
had 65, Pinckney 64, and Jay 1. There was thus a tie between Jeffer-
son and Burr, throwing the election upon the House of Representa-
tives. How this was conducted, and how it resulted in Jefferson being
made president and Burr vice-president, belongs to the story of the
next century.
The only other matter of national import which specially involved
New-York city, was the brief cloud of impending war with France.
After bearing with commendable patience numberless indignities,
after making every effort to preserve the peace, the crisis at last
came, when no more could be borne with honor, and when all parties
agreed that arms must be taken up against the former ally. Then
Washington was called from retirement, made lieutenant-general and
commander-in-chief; and his first thought was to make as a con-
dition of his acceptance that Hamilton be his next in command. Ham-
ilton's genius had already created the treasury of the United States;
he now laid the lines along which must be constructed the navy and
army, the militia system of the country, and their mobilization in the
event of a war. And among the first things which this illustrious citi-
zen of New- York wished to provide for was the fortification of that
seaport. There seemed to be nothing of which his fellow-citizens did
1 Henry Cabot Lodge, "Alexander Hamilton," p. 227.
134
HISTOBY or NEW-YOBK
not deem him capable. Although not quite within his province in the
poBition to which Washington had called him, Hamilton was requested
to draft a plan for these defenses and to superintend their construction.
But the war-cloud blew over ; except for some brilliant achievements
by a few of our men-of-war, no actual hostilities were reached.
Ere the peace was formally restored, the great figure which this
warlike episode had once more bidden to the forefront passed away
from the midst of his fond and admiring countrymen. On December
14, 1799, Washington expired at his
own home, Mount Vernon. The news
of the sudden and unlooked-for de-
mise reached New- York on the 19th,
and everywhere the signs of mourn-
ing became evident. On the day
after Christmas the Chamber of Com-
merce met in special session "to con-
sider of some appropriate mode of
testifying regret for the irreparable
loss sustained by the nation." A
committee of three was appointed
to confer with comraitteea of other
organizations and arrange for a pub-
lic demonstration. This took place
on the last day of the year. An im-
posing procession, the order and
composition of which are indicated
upon the preceding fac-simile of a
broadside of that very day, marched
to the chapel of St. Paul's. The
funeral urn was carried by eight soldiers upon a bier in the form of
a palanquin six feet long by four wide. Bishop Provoost read appro-
priate prayers, and the oration was delivered by Gouvemeur Morris-
It was in St. PanPs that the religious exercises of the inauguration had
been held, and here Washington had taken a pew and regularly wor-
shiped during his stay in the Franklin House. While living in the
Macomb House, near Trinity Church, he attended divine service in
the latter edifice. In February, when President Adams had appointed
a day of devotion and prayer in commemoration of the great life
^^a/f^ '^^7-r-2^'
1 Hary Phillpie Honis wu the vlfe of Bofcer
Morris, who served oDder Generala Braddock md
Loudoun dming the French uid Indiui War.
She tnuried him in 1758, aod shortly after they
occupied the well-knomn Morria or Jumel man-
nion, WiuhlDgtoii'B headqaarten In ITTA. Ab
her husband was a loyalist, this property was
eonflscated. She went irlth ber busbuid to
England, and died there in 182S, at the age of
nlnety-flre. She was the daughter of ("reder-
iek Fhillpse, the seoond lord of the manor.
Mrs. Horris was possessed of great force of
character, aa well as of remarkable beanty of
perwm. Tt haa been said, without much foun-
dation, that Wasbln^on himself was at one
time greatly impressed with her charms. U he
had married her. some think she would hara
made him a loyalist. Bditob.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 135
begun in that month in 1732, all business was suspended in the city.
The corporation and the members of the Cincinnati Society attended
the Dutch Church, and one of the pastors, Dr. William Linn, said to
be the most eloquent preacher in the United States at that time, de-
livered a eulogy on Washington.
And now we are prepared to take a closer look at the city itself.
Having glanced at the world and its agitations during this period —
and it was one of the epoch-making periods of the world's history;
having seen what effects these agitations abroad, and the events
which affected more particularly the republic and the State of which
our city formed a part, produced upon the denizens of the commercial
metropolis; the task must now be to regard the city strictly per se^
and see what were its appearance, its population, its trials, its tri-
umphs, and what its people were doing in their local sphere of action.
In September, 1796, one possessed of the keen sensitiveness of the
artist — not of the pencil, but in music — traveling through the
United States, recorded his impres- ^
sions at the first view of the city in Ui/^ni>A ^yfo ^
this enthusiastic wise: "The city, as ^^;;/^^^^^'^
you approach it from the Jersey shore, ^^
seems like Venice, gradually rising from the sea. The evening was
uncommonly pleasant; the sky perfectly clear and serene, and the
sun in setting with all that vivid warmth of coloring peculiar to
southern latitudes, illuminated some of the most beautiful scenery in
nature, on the North River, and adjacent country. For some min-
utes all my faculties were absorbed in admiration of the surround-
ing objects! I never enjoyed a prospect more enchanting.''^ How-
ever true may have been the comparison of New- York to Venice as
one approaches the city from the bay, the resemblance, of course,
would have ceased as the traveler landed.
The record of another traveler (the Rev. W. Winterbotham) of that
period remains to us, and it is pleasant to look upon the appearance
of things then through these contemporary eyes. Landing at the
southern extremity of the island, the view at once would follow
Whitehall street and Broadway, " the most agreeable and convenient
part of the city." Ere long the pedestrian would behold on his left,
where in former days frowned the fort, an elegant brick building, the
governor's house. Beyond it the walk from the Battery led into the
broad thoroughfare, seventy feet wide, and rising gently to the
north. Besides Trinity Church and Grace Chapel, standing near each
other, this street possessed " a number of elegant private buildings."
Here dwelt cabinet oflScers in the days of Washington, and foreign
embassies had their homes opposite the Bowling Green. In 1794 the
1 *< Tnveli in the United States of America,'' William Priest (London, 1802), p. 150.
136 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
•
City Hotel was in process of building, on the site of the house of
Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey, and it was remarked that the slate
roof upon it was the first in the country. The roofs were in general
tiled, as in the mother-country; but otherwise the Dutch custom of
presenting the gable to the street had given way pretty universally to
the more modern, or the English, mode of construction. The upper
extremity of Broadway was then soon reached. "It terminates, to
the northward, in a triangular area, fronting the bridewell and alms-
house, and commands from any point a view of the bay and narrows."
Beyond the termination of Broadway, possibly beginning at the upper
end of the common, or about the present Chambers street, a street ex-
tended for a few blocks, to near the present Duane or Worth street,
which then was called Great George street. Here on the west side
stood the hospital. Broadway impressed not only the English writer we
have cited; but Rochefoucauld, fresh from the elegant Paris, is also very
enthusiastic in its praise : " There is perhaps in no city of the world
a handsomer street than Broadway. By far the greater number of
houses are of brick, and many extremely fine. Its elevated posi-
tion, and its situation near the river, and the beauty of its propor-
tions, render it a choice dwelling-place for the richest citizens ''; and
of the Battery he says : " This promenade might indeed be kept in
better order, and made more agreeable for the purposes for which it
is set aside, by the planting of some trees ; but even such as it is, its
situation places it above all comparison with any other promenade
whatsoever.'' ^
With almost equal commendation Winterbotham mentions Wall
street, Hanover Square, Dock street (now Pearl), and William street.
This was then the center of the dry-goods trade. Water street and
Pearl (only lately Queen) street are complained of as narrow and low
in situation ; and that which even now lends a flavor of the quaint
and antique to this part of the town, was noted by this writer, — the
irregularity of most of the streets. Yet soon after the peace of 1783
the corporation had begun to plan the system of parallel streets, cross-
ing each other at right angles, which now covers the whole of Manhat-
tan Island. At this period, too, the ravages of the fires of 1776 and
1778 had nearly disappeared from view, those parts of the city being
"almost wholly covered with elegant brick houses." And care had
been taken in grading and paving the streets far beyond previous
days ; they were " raised in the middle under an angle sufficient to
carry oflf the water to the side gutters, and footways of brick made on
each side." Pearl street, however, was too narrow in some places to
permit this convenience.^
1 Vojrage dans les E. U. d'A., 7: 132. « W. Winterbotham, "Historical, Geographical, etc., View
of the United States of America "* (New-Tork, 1796), 2: 314-320.
THE CLOSING TEABS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY 137
As for the buildings which then adorned these streets, niost of them
are familiar to the reader of the previous pages. Trinity's tower
lifted its tall spire above the rest, and the modest Grace Chapel was
almost beneath its shadow. In Garden street the old Dutch Church
still stood, and here the mother-tougue was still employed in the ser-
vices, Dr. GerarduB Kuy-
pars preaching to a stead-
ily decreasing number of
those who clung to the be-
loved tongue. In 1803 even
this arrangement was aban-
doned, the audiences being
too small, and Dr. Kuypers
preached in English there-
after until his death in
1833. It is unnecessary to
remind the reader of the
other Dutch churches — the
New (then called the Middle) on Nassau street, and the North Church
on the comer of William and Tultou streets. Long before this, too, the
Scotch Covenanters had built a church on the south side of Cedar
street, near Broadway, almost in a line, therefore, with the earliest
Presbyterian Church in Wall street. As an outgrowth of the latter
society a new organization was formed which built a church opposite
the common, on the spot occupied now by the "New-York Times"
building. At the lower end this same open ground was graced by the
close proximity of St. Paul's, which, with St. George's in Beekman
street, completed the group of "up-town churches" of those days.''
The population of the city toward the close of this century was
between fifty and sixty thousand. At the close of the previous cen-
tury the number was scarcely forty-five hundred.' In the year 1756
the number of inhabitants had reached over ten thousand; just
before the Revolution {1771) the number was nearly twenty-two
thousand; three years after the evacuation it had increased by only
about two thousand. But then began a rapid increase, so that in
1 For n«siir half > oentory Ckto Alexander kept wbttsb.
a hooae of entertainment on the old BogUin post Men M6
road, about four mllM from the City HaU. It was Women 1,018
the faahionablB out-of-town resort for tbe young Tonng men and boya S64
men of the day. Editob. Touog women and ^rU. 899
1 Tbe paaton of theae ehnrehee are mentioned 3,737
with M>me parUcnlarity In the preceding chapter.
1 Valentine. In the Manual for 1863, plaoea the „
Bgnre in 1700 at 1,200 ; bat it waa more than that, womeii
Wlnterbotham, op. dt., p. 320, lays: It la found Bots and sirta
by a memorandum in one of the old regiatera that
the number of inhabitants in the city, taken by
order of the king in tbe year leeC, wai as toDowa :
138 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
1790 there were over thirty-three thousand; and only ten years later
the figures began to approach sixty thousand. This population was
compacted together into a space not very extensive. The street
farthest up-town was still below Canal street on the west side, and
equally so on the east.
The maintenance of sanitary conditions among so many people
within so limited a space was ill understood at this time, both in
Europe and in America. The better air and less confined conditions
on this side of the Atlantic may have prevented, to some extent,
the encroachments of a general epidemic. Yet, throughout the
eighteenth century, during almost every decade, there was a visita-
tion from that dreadful scourge, the smallpox. If possible, a worse
and more fatal plague was that of the yellow fever; and during
the last decade of the century New- York was more than once vis-
ited by it. It was first present within the city in the year 1791,
and carried oflE General Malcolm and some other prominent citi-
zens; and when Dr. Jame's Tillary described its symptoms to a
number of physicians, they declared that they had never heard of
it or seen anything like it. Yet, while it did not cause much loss
of life, it created sufficient alarm. For when, in 1793, Philadelphia
was visited by the fever, the authorities adopted strenuous mea-
sures of quarantine against that city. Ships coming thence were
forbidden to approach nearer than Bedlow's Island. A day of fast-
ing and prayer was appointed ; the proprietors of the stage-coaches
were requested to cease running. People were warned against en-
tertaining strangers, or buying bedding at auction.
In the year 1795 the scourge came upon the city, with alarming
results. On July 19 the first victim died; he was a cabin-boy
aboard a ship coming from Port au Prince, West Indies. The
surgeon who attended him died; neit the crew of another vessel
was attacked, and then a family living on Water street. There
arose some doubt afterward as to whether the origin of the infec-
tion was to be traced thus; but the fact of its presence was
not to be doubted. By October 6 five hundred and twenty-five
people had died of the dread disease. In November the appear-
ance of frost caused it to cease; and in gratitude for this Gov-
ernor Jay appointed Thursday the 26th for a Thanksgiving Day,
as already noticed. It would seem that the city was not quite
free from the plague, even in the next year, for the musician Wil-
liam Priest, in the book cited above, tells us that, in passing
through New Jersey on his way to New- York, he was warned
about the yellow fever. "But,'' he added, "the disease is chiefly
confined to one part of the city, and is effectually prevented from
spreading at present by the North West wind, which is set in this
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 139
morning (September 18th) with uncommon severity.'' As to the
eflScacy of this wind, he relates a remarkable circumstance occur-
ring while he was at Baltimore during the raging of the same
fever. Under date of October 2, 1794, he writes: "A violent cold
and penetrating North West wind set in, with uncommon sever-
ity, which has entirely stopped the infection." And on October
14: "The inhabitants are returned, and trade is restored to its
usual course.'' It is to be presumed, however, that frost accom-
panied Ihe wind.
But the climax of calamity from yellow fever was reached in 1798.
This was true not only because it raged worse than at any time before
in our own city, but because it simultaneously visited Philadelphia,
Boston, New London, and seventeen other cities along the Atlantic
border, entered Vermont, and infected even the Grand Isles in Lake
Champlain. Philadelphia was called upon to mourn over thirty-five
hundred victims. It began in New York on July 28 or 29, and the
fli'st to succumb was no less a person than the eminent citizen and
politician Melancthon Smith, who led the forces of the anti-constitu-
tional party at the ratification convention at Poughkeepsie just ten
years before, and who had nobly acknowledged that he was convinced
by the arguments of Hamilton. He lived in Front street, near Coen-
ties Slip, on the low made ground which had been rescued from the
river. This was, therefore, an unheal thful region generally, and it was
no wonder that the fever commenced here. Every one that could
fled from the city. Many business men transferred their residences
or shops to higher ground, in William street or Broadway, and even
this slight change proved of benefit. But as people began to die by
the dozen, and two and three dozen, per day, the alarm became wild.
The deaths during August amounted to three hundred and twenty-
nine. On September 1 twenty-three persons died ; on the 19th, sixty-
three funerals were counted ; for the whole month the death-list ran
up to nine hundred and fifty-four. When it was all over, about the
middle of November, fifteen hundred and twenty-four people, out of
a population of about fifty thousand, had died of the fever ; and this
did not include those who died after they fled and were attacked out-
side the borders of city or island.
Out of these evils, however, grew a good : as a result of the scourge
in 1795 a system of underground sewerage was at once proposed and
speedily carried out. Yet the plague of 1798 was worse than the
other, and a yet more frightful visitation was that of 1822. The
causes were hard to determine with exactness. No doubt a bilious
condition, superinduced by a malarial state of the atmosphere in low
places, favored the yellow fever. Hot days, with cool nights and
mornings, were thought to favor the spread of the disease. Sudden
140 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
changes of temperature were deleterious, and these were apt to occur
then as well as in these days. Mr. Priest quotes a statement of Jef-
ferson's: "Our changes from heat to cold are sudden and great. The
mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer has been known to descend
from 92 to 47 in thirteen hours.'' And from a New-York newspaper
in June, 1796, he made this extract : ** Wednesday, the 14th of May,
the mercury in Fahrenheit rose to 91 degrees. The Saturday night
following there was a severe frost. The next Tuesday and Wednes-
day the mercury rose to 85 degrees ; from the 20th to the 26tli it has
been nearly stationary, varying only from 60 to 64."* Professor Mac-
Master, after a minute study of contemporary accounts, has pre-
sented a most vivid picture of the effect of the prevalence of this
epidemic upon the popular mind. Speaking of what was thought a
sovereign remedy or preventive against the fever, a certain "vinegar,"
he remarks : " If the purchaser of the vinegar were a nervous man
and tormented with hourly fear of being stricken with the fever, the
spectacle he presented as he sallied forth to buy was most pitiable.
As he shut his house door he was careful to have a piece of tarred
rope in either hand, a sponge wet with camphor at the nose, and in
his pocket a handkerchief well soaked with the last preventive of
which he had heard. As he hastened along the street he shunned
the foot walk, kept in the middle of the horseway, fled down the
nearest alley at the sight of a carriage, and thought nothing of going
six blocks to avoid passing a house whence a dead body had been
taken the week before. If he were so unhappy as to meet a friend
on the way, neither shook hands, but, exchanging a few words at a
distance, each sought, bowing and scraping, to get to the windward
of the other as he passed. When at last the shop was reached,
1 Willism Priest, "Tratvels." etc, pp. 137, 138.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 141
nothing could induce him to enter while another stood at the counter,
or was seen approaching on the streef^
In a former chapter mention has been made of the connection be-
tween that famous pond or lake, the Collect, and the sanitary condi-
tion of the city. Surely the picture drawn by Captain Rutgers in his
petition to the king was a dreary one ; and when, in 1733, the grant
of it and its adjoining lands was conferred upon him, he doubtless
proceeded to improve its character as a health resort by the proper
drainage, the system of which he had so carefully explained.^ In
1 791 the city purchased whatever title his heirs still claimed to its
possession for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, which does
not seem a large amount after improving the property and holding it
for nearly sixty years. Possibly its reputation for healthfulness had
not improved, in spite of the efforts of Captain Rutgers. Indeed, one
pitiless historian, mentioning this purchase in 1791, goes on to say :
"After becoming an unmitigated nuisance, it was filled up between
the years 1800 and 1810." Thus its life would seem to be nearly con-
terminous with that of the century whose close is under consideration
just now. And this now vanished water, made historic by that wan-
ton tragedy which led to the Indian wars, claims in this last decade
of the eighteenth century a more than passing notice ; for upon its
quiet bosom were performed some of the earliest experiments in
steam navigation.
William Alexander Duer, the grandson on the mother's side of
William Alexander, Lord Stirling, and through her related also to
Chancellor Livingston, destined to figure so prominently in a later
event of a similar nature, in an address before the St. Nicholas Society
on December 1, 1848, gives an interesting account of these experi-
ments, gathered from conversations with eye-witnesses of them. Gen-
eral John Lamb informed him that he saw a trial of a steamboat^
with a screw propeller at the stem, in the year 1795. This must have
been an early construction of a model carried to greater perfection by
John Stevens in 1804. Strange to say, that splendid invention, which
has made ocean navigation by steam possible to a degree so astonish-
ing even to-day, was buried in oblivion until 1837, when the idea was
once more revived, and then later developed into complete prac-
tical eflSciency by John Ericsson. In the years 1796 and 1797, Mr.
Duer learned that John Fitch also appeared upon the scene and navi-
gated the Collect. He had this information from an old mechanical
engineer residing in Williamsburg (Brooklyn). This person was
present in the boat and assisted in working the machinery. He
recollected that Chancellor Livingston as well as Mr. Stevens were
present at the experiments; and also mentioned another gentleman
1 '* History of the People of the United States,'' 2 : 128. a See pa^ 189 of the previous volume.
142 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
whom he supposed to be Robert Fulton ; but, as Mr. Duer properly
observes, this could hardly have been possible, as Fulton at this period
was studying art under Benjamin West in England. Another state-
ment may be received with caution : namely, that Fitch propelled his
boat by means of paddle-wheels at the sides. In some illustrations of
this incident such a device appears in the picture of the little steamer.
But Fitch did not utilize this means of propulsion. His paddles were
huge oars, six on each side, hung upon a cumbersome and lofty frame-
work. At least this was the kind of construction which characterized
the boat in which he made a trial upon the Delaware, opposite Phila-
delphia, at about this same time. Nevertheless, whatever other uncer-
tainties there may be surrounding this subject, the fact seems plain
and indisputable that early essays in steam navigation were made on
our ancient Collect. It was truly a sufficient distinction that it should
have been the scene of such events. First noted in the city's history
by a tale of murder, portending greater woes to come, it was a kind
fate which associated its closing years with an experiment fraught
with such incalculable blessings to humanity, and the final results of
which have led more than aught else alone to place this city at the
pinnacle of commercial prosperity, — to raise it into the magnificent
proportions wherein it now glories.
In the midst of this material prosperity, already beginning, and in
spite of the rise of that commercial spirit of which we sometimes
complain in these days, it is pleasant to observe that the citizens of
New- York toward the close of the preceding centuiy found time for
thinking of the higher needs of man. The countenance given to the
invention just noticed is proof of this. It is manifest also, in another
way, from the number of societies that were formed at this period
for the purpose of advancing the culture of the mind, or the good of
unfortunate fellow-men, as well as for mutual aid and encouragement
in the pursuit of any particular trade. Thus, besides the Tammany
Society, intended to offset the rather aristocratic tendencies of the
Society of the Cincinnati, and originally embracing men of opposite
parties, there were the Marine Society, the General Society of Me-
chanics and Tradesmen, the Manufacturing Society : whose designa-
tions at once explain their scope and purpose. These were, indeed,
closely allied with commerce and trade or the outgrowth of them,
yet they marked a disposition toward neighborly helpfulness which
kept men from too selfish a pursuit of individual gain, and by so far
benefited and ennobled the higher nature. More distinct, however,
was the elevation of tone in the creation of such societies as that
" for promoting useful knowledge." The members met once a month,
and under their auspices numerous lectures were provided on a
great variety of subjects, — scientific, historical, literary, — ^which were
THE CLOSING lEABS OF THE EIOHTEENTH CENTUBT 143
largely attended, and, it was noted, particularly so by ladies. Signif-
icant is also the fact that thus early there existed a " Society for the
Manumission of Slaves and protecting such as have been or may be
liberated." It was organized in 1780, and a few years later added to
its benevolent operations the establishment of a school for the chil-
dren of negroes still slaves who had reached the age of nine years.
John Jay, to whose heart the subject
of abolition was very near, was at one
time president of this society.'
Another benevolent object found
numerous supporters, with which,
however, were mingled again con-
siderations aflEecting the material
progress of the city. In 1794 a so-
ciety was formed for the purpose of
*' affording information and assistance
to persons emigrating from foreign
countries." From this circumstance
it appears that a considerable tide of
emigration had already begun to set
in toward our shores. Young as was
the republic, the oppressed multitudes of overcrowded and agitated
Europe had already learned to direct their eyes hither as the haven
of their hopes, as an asylum of escape from unhappy conditions, and
as an arena for the unfettered exercise of noble faculties and useful
capacities held in check where
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the bouL
Among these emigrants is to be numbered one whose name now is as
widely known as the city to which he came, and whose fortunes
indicate the liberal possibilities that lay before these early adven-
turers. In 1784 John Jacob Astor had come from his little village
in Germany, a young man with the world quite shut up against
him in his native land, but with the world all before him, with
its *' open sesame" to pluck and push and skill, in the republic which
had but enjoyed its peace for one year. In the latter part of the
eighteenth century, or the period of which we now write, he occupied
a store or shop at 81 Queen street. This was about midway between
Cherry and Monroe, on the east side of Pearl street. Here he sold
pianofortes, made by his brother in London, and paid cash for skins
of racoons and muskrats. He also sold furs. Not despising the
nT,"oU., 2i339; T. E. V. Smith, "New-York In 1789," p. 123.
144
mSTOBY OF KEW-YOEK
day of small things, greater came to him, and his bosiness and the
city grew together.
Amid the general interest in intellectual cnlture, it was to be
expected that the ancient Society Library would find a promising
field for the revival of its
operations. Sadly crippled by
the ruthless treatment and
shameless purloining of its
volumes by the British sol-
diery, it resumed its life after
the war by occupying once
more its room in Federal Hall,
serving then, indeed, as a con-
gressional library also. But
in 1795 the association was
enabled to erect a neat and
handsome building of its own
on the comer of Nassau and
Cedar streets. Columbia Col-
lege, showing by its name the
transition in affairs which had
occurred since it was founded
as King's College, was now in
a flourishing condition. One
hundred students attended its
classical curriculum, and there
were fifty medical students about this time. The college faculty con-
sisted of a president and three professors. As a central luminary this
chief educational institution was attended by several schools, the best
among them being the Columbia Grammar School. The Old Dutch
Collegiate Church School was in active operation, and over sixty
names of teachers appear in the directories of those years.
In this connection it is of great importance to observe that New-
York enjoys the honor of having been the place where was published
the first novel of America's earliest romance-writer. In 1796 Charles
Brockden Brown came from his native city of Philadelphia and
settled in New- York. He was perhaps the first American who ven-
tured to adopt literature distinctly as a profession. He married a
daughter of the Rev. Dr. William Linn, of the Collegiate Dutch
Reformed Church, and in 1798 published "Wieland; or, the Trans-
I Matthew Cbtrkson wu identUed with many Bnrfcoyne eumpaigu ; and, after the wax, beeune
notable enterprises of > benevolent oredueationU msJoT-KeDeral of the State militia. At the period
charHCter, as appesra in the course ot the present under consideration he waa a member of the State
Tolume. He enlinted as a private In the war of legislature sitting in New-Tork. EnrrOB.
the Revolution, and served as aide-de-camp In the
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145
formation.'' It is well to remember this fact, in view of the cir-
cmnstance that the commercial metropolis is fast becoming also the
literary, as it is already the publishing, center of the country. A
list of the newspapers issued at this time includes the "New- York
Journal,'' the "Daily Advertiser" (the first daily published in the
city), and the "Daily Gazette," also a daily paper, as its name indi-
cates. A few more had been established in former years, but were
unsuccessful Those that remained did not furnish their limited circle
of readers with more than a series of advertisements of goods in the
shops, or of auction-sales. In the political controversies of the day
letters or treatises would be sent in signed by such fanciful names as
"Publius," "Camillus" (Hamilton's noma deplume)^ or "William Tell";
but the editors themselves would rarely indulge in leading articles.
Just before the beginning of the last decade of the eighteenth
century, Brissot de Warville, the French journalist and traveler, ex-
pressed his view of New- York society and manners in these terms :
"The presence of Congress with the diplomatic body, and the con-
course of strangers, contribute much to extend here the ravages of
luxuiy. The inhabitants are far from complaining at it; they prefer
the splendor of wealth and the show of enjoyment to the simplicity of
manners and the pure pleasures resulting from it."^ Another chapter
deals with the higher movements of society, in consequence of the
attendance of Congress and the establishment of the federal govern-
ment in this city. But it will be of interest to glance at the more
popular amusements of the day. Among these the racing of horses
was a great favorite; and we learn that the place where this pleasure
was indulged was on the Bowery. The "speedway" began at Chat-
ham Square. Unless four horses could be entered, a race would not
be held. Sixteen shillings was the amount of the entrance-money.
The prizes were not in purses, but at one time an elegant saddle and
bridle would be offered, at another some equally useful article appro-
priate to the horse. It is not likely that any other mode of speeding
the horse was then thought of but that of running, the finer and more
difficult qualities of trotting being reserved for a later day.
The hour for the races was invariably one o'clock. When they were
over there would be ample time, before sunset of a summer's day, for
the more Select portion of the spectators to pursue a road leading
to the right from Chatham Square toward the East River, parallel to
the present East Broadway, until they reached the comfortable Bel-
vedere House. This pleasure resort, or club-house, stood on an emi-
nence at about the comer of Montgomery and Cherry streets, or per-
haps in the center of the block bounded by these and Clinton and
Monroe streets. The garden would lead down to the river across the
1 " New Travels,'* etc., 1 : 127.
Vol. m.— 10.
146 HISTORY OP NEW-YORK
space where Water and Front streets have since encroached upon thd
stream. It was owned by several gentlemen (to the number of thirty-
three in 1794), and formed a rural retreat and convenience for small
parties. From its broad veranda the view would sweep over the
Brooklyn Heights, over Governor's to Staten Island, and the glancing
waters of river and bay between; or from the rear the still rural
aspects of Manhattan Island would form a pleasing contrast to the
river view. In the northern direction from the race-course, along the
Bowery road, there would be reached a more popular country resort,
the Vauxhall Garden. Earlier in the century this was near the comer
of the present Warren and Greenwich streets. But at this time it
occupied a spot near where the Astor Library stands, between Lafay-
ette Place and Fourth avenue. This had been a part of the property
of Colonel Nicholas Bayard. Indeed, the old Bayard mansion itself
had been utilized, and with some slight changes had been converted
into a house of entertainment by a Frenchman named Delacroix in
1798.^ It doubtless failed to equal its London namesake.
Theatrical performances had become a fixed feature of the city's
life in the period of which we are treating. For a long time they
had been steadily opposed and denounced by official action and
newspaper criticism. After 1766 and until 1798 the old John street
theater was the only theater in the city. But in the latter year the
Park Theater was opened, standing opposite the common, in the
present Park Row. So far as records industriously compiled show,
there seldom or never was rendered a play by Shakespeare. Sheri-
dan's "Rivals'' and "School for Scandal" were more than once placed
upon the boards ; for the rest, most of the plays were by contempor
rary English playwrights, with an occasional one by an American.
Among these early dramatic authors was William Dunlap, historian
of the American theater as well as of New-York city. We have, alas I
no very favorable account of the behavior of our forefathers at the
theater. " In the theatres at the North it often happened that the
moment a well-dressed man entered the pit, he at once became a
mark for the wit and insolence of the men in the gallery. They
would begin by calling on him to doff his hat in mark of inferiority,
for the custom of wearing hats in the theater was universal. If he
obeyed, he was loudly hissed, and troubled no more. If he refused,
abuse, oaths, and indecent remarks were poured out upon him."*
Surely it could not be a very refined audience where such actions
were habitual. Yet, as the admittance was quite costly for those
days, it could only have been persons of the better class who were
enabled to attend. The common people sought their amusements in
> " Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biog^raphy," 1 : 198.
2 MacMaster's '* History People U. S. ,** 2 : 549.
THE CLOSEHa YEABS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY 147
different quarters. Thus, traveling acrobats would give exhibitions
on the streets or the common. " Philosophers " would perform
chemical and electrical experiments, to the great astonishment of the
unsophisticated. At one time such a show was advertised at Harlem
village, so that a drive thither, or a long healthful walk of seven or
eight miles, would be enhanced by this additional entertainment.
Steadily, slowly as yet, but surely, New-York was meantiine —
amid all the gaieties of society, amid the more solid enjoyments of
her literary circles, with a nascent literatm-e and the noble activities
of philanthropy — advancing toward her destiny. She was to fulfil
the prophecy of her ancient name. She was
to be the new Amsterdam of a new republic,
based on Uberty of government and of con-
science, and enriched by commerce. Like her
namesake and prototype, deprived of the ad-
vantages of being the civil capital of the
Federal Union, she was still destined to be the
commercial capital and the metropolis. In
spite of three or more visitations of the yellow
fever, which discouraged trade and scattered
abroad its residents, many for a permanent
separation, besides carrying thousands to their
gi'aves, yet did this little town thrive aid grow apace, till it ceased to
l>e a town and approached the condition of a metropolis. The un-
rivaled advantages of its geographical and topographical situation
necessarily made it a commercial center. Such was the conviction
of observers who saw it then, before the astonishing results of later
years had arrived to justify their opinion. "This city," says Winter-
botham, " is esteemed the most eligible situation for commerce in the
United States. It almost necessarily commands the trade of one-
half of New Jersey, most of that of Connecticut, and part of that of
Massachusetts, and almost the whole of Vermont, besides the whole
fertile interior country, which is penetrated by one of the largest
rivers in America. This city imports most of the goods consumed
between a line of thirty miles east of Connecticut river and twenty
miles west of the Hudson, which is 130 miles, and between the ocean
and the confines of Canada, about four hundred miles; a considerable
portion of which is the best peopled of any part of the United States,
and the whole territory contains at least eight hundred thousand peo-
ple, or one-fifth of the inhabitants of the Union. Besides, some of the
other States are jmrtially supplied with goods from New- York. . . .
In time of peace New- York will command more commercial business
than any town in the Unit«d States."'
1 "View of V. S.," etc, 2 : 318, 319.
148 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
No wonder, then, that the streets of New- York presented a lively
appearance. There were then no "down-town^ and "up-town,'* as
we have since learned to understand these terms. The attorney, the
merchant, the shopkeeper, carried on their business in the house
that was also their dwelling, and the daily exile from home and fam-
ily in order to attend to business was unnecessary. The parts now
devoted to business only, where homes, except the humblest, are im-
known, were then also the haunts of business, but at the same time
presented the more cheery aspect of ordinary habitation, and betrayed
the dainty and tidy touch of the housewife. While there were not
many shops on Broadway, in William, in Broad, in Wall street, and
others, oflBices and stores and counting-houses were mingled in busy
array. There was then as yet no South street. But Water and Front
streets had advanced into the river since the century began, and had
left Pearl street quite an interior thoroughfare. And here along
Front street the great ships lay at their wharves. The North River
shore was still comparatively deserted ; the wide stretch of the bay
seemed too much like the open sea. So between the Battery and
Peck Slip was all the wharfage ; above this were the ship-yards. In
the year 1794 twenty-three hundred and eighty-nine ships and craft
of various kinds and sizes are recorded as having cleared the port of
New- York. Common sailors commanded good wages — twenty-four
dollars a month at least. Indeed, the business brought into town
by this increasing trade raised all kinds of wages to a comfortable
amount. House-servants, male and female, received from eight to
ten dollars a month. " Hatters, two dollars a day. Carpenters, ten-
pence an hour. Masons, for laying a wall one perch long, one brick
high, and eighteen inches thick, were paid fourpence.'^ Rents, too,
increased as people came crowding into the busy town, and board at
seven dollars a week was considered expensive.
Even then Wall street was the home of the banks. Where now
rises the somewhat antiquated building of the Bank of New- York,
on the corner of Wall and William streets, its humbler predecessor
stood, built in 1798. Before this its business was conducted at 11
Hanover Square, and in 1784 it occupied the famous Walton House.
Even speculation was a thing not then unknown. In 1796 La Roche-
foucauld writes : " I have learned here that the speculations in grain
and in flour have disturbed many mercantile houses, have ruined one
of the principal ones, and will probably ruin some others.**^ Yet
there was enough solid business done to secure the continuance of
prosperity ; and in 1799 the Manhattan Company, with its ingenious
charter, secured by Aaron Burr, began it« career of banking, with
but a very secondary attention to a water-supply. As is well known,
!<• Voyage." etc., 5:128.
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150
mSTORT OF NEW-YOBK
the latter purpose was ostensibly the main one, put forward because
it was feared the federalists would not give banking privileges into
the hands of republicans. The increasing commercial transactions
demanded the operation of these banks. Their hours were from ten
to one, and from three to five, and discounts were made on certain
days in the week. As for the money in use, the federal government
had properly done away with the English currency, and had estab-
lished a national system of its own. But although the dollars and
cents were much more easily calculated than the pounds, shillings,
and pence, the curious persistence of habit is illustrated by the tena-
city wherewith people clung to the older system — "and nothing can
be more complex, as they have not a single coin in circulation of the
real or nominal value of any of them.''*
It wo^ild seem, therefore, as if mercantile affairs involving the
handling of large sums, or even the more ordinary interchanges of
every-day life, would need to be facilitated by the paper of the banks,
or checks drawn upon them. Some of these present a very primitive
appearance, and may have been safe enough for the rightful transfer
of funds in that unsophisticated age, but would not be trusted for a
single moment to-day. But matters were sure to mend as the years
advanced. New-York was not yet the money-center of the western
world, nor yet the queen of American commerce. Nevertheless,
William Priest said of her in 1796: "New- York is a London in minia-
ture— populous streets, hum of business, busy faces, shops in style.**
Let London look to her laurels ! Centuries of undisputed supremacy
have been hers hitherto. Before the nineteenth century shall be quite
over, the little provincial, lately colonial, town across the seas will
be in dangerous proximity to London's greatness, herself vastly in-
creased since the eighteenth century's close.
1 William Priest, '* Tnveli,'' ete., p. 66.
LIST OP HOUSES AND LOTS VALUED AT £2000 AND OVER IN 1799.
Oerard BaDcker, taonse and two lots. Pearl st. . .
£2,aoo
Daniel Penfleld, house and lot, State street . .
.. £2,900
Robert Watte, hoase and lot,
* • • •
2,000
Archibald Kennedy,
<4
Broadway
.. 2,500
Robert Watte.
•<
2,500
John Watts,
• •
.. 2,900
Matthew Clarkeon, "
4t
• • K
2,000
Chancellor Livingston,
t«
.. 9,000
Robert Wilson, house and three lots, Broad st. .
2.800
John Stevens,
tl
.. 2,000
John Bnchanan, house and lot.
t<
2,000
Mary Ellison,
• •
. 9,500
Nicholas Olive,
tl
• • • •
2,000
Henry White,
«t
. 9,600
Benjamin Seixas, *
4<
2.200
Dominiok Lynch,
tt
.. 9,000
Nicholas Cmger. *
• • • *
8,000
Brockholst Livingston,
••
.. 9,000
Peter Delabigarre, *
WhltehaUst...
3,200
William Edgar,
• t
. 4.000
Onlian Ludlow,
•<
2,000
Alexander McComb,
• t
.. 2,000
John Shaw, '
Pearl street....
2.600
Alexander McComb,
• t
.. 9,000
Cary Ludlow, •
State street
2,800
Ann MoAdam,
««
.. s;ooo
James Watson, *
••
4,000
Jacob Morton,
t«
.. 8.0W
James Watson, '
••
2,200
Isaac Clason,
•«
M
.. IJ60
THE CLOBINO YEABS
, UTingium, tuBW and tM, BTDadwa;
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 151
£4.001 Junes DunUp, bonte MUl lot. Water itnct ..
2.MI WUUam H—
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JnuiBBBIvintiton,
t.M»
KobMtJImilrt,
National Bank.
J...1iu»-Waddln)|Wn
Anlhunr L. BlMck«r
J<>luti>nit<r.Jr..
Jolin UcKi'««>n.
S^KO
Entato N. fowenhoT
MW
E.la>«w.niol«.
'WlUUiD lUualeg.
Jnho Taylor.
EstatD Hvorv Kip.
Andre » Ulttliell,
John Thnnii
liDbvn Uuii
John Hanti
UUH (]lllH'rtWi>.>.l!.ull.
3.000 Julin Jni'kMMi,
1.000 Ealate Pettir Bogert,
%00O EHalfl PBier Bagerl.
una Biilwrt\t
VllUam atnet. tM) Bobert W
KLbtie,BU«ReAf'a.
Water itreet .. 2.M0
WUIIani a
Ubortj: at
152
mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK
Robert Hunter, taoote and lot,
Pearl street....
£a.700
Robert L. Bowue,
•<
It
3,100
Est. Lawrence Embree,
1
It
....
2,aoo
Robert Bowne,
tt
It
3,000
Robert Buwne,
•t
tt
3,aoo
Widow Sears,
<•
ti
8,500
John Rogers,
ti
It
• • - •
2,100
Tredwell Jackson,
<•
Front street ...
2.200
Joshua Underbill,
••
Crane wharf...
3.500
Dr. Browor,
•<
Water street...
2,680
Peter Bogert,
<•
Front street . . .
2,000
Elisha and William Colt,
1
Crane wharf ...
2,000
Daniel Cotton,
t<
It
2,200
Robert Hunter,
t«
Water street...
2,000
WiUett Seaman,
<t
tt
2,000
Ebenezer Stevens,
t<
«t
...
2,000
Peter Schennerhom,
tt
It
...
2,400
Margaret Livingston,
tt
It
2,600
Jonathan Lawrence,
tt
It
...
2,200
Thomas Pearsall,
tt
Pearl street....
2,000
John King,
tt
It
....
2,000
Moses Rogers,
It
It
....
3,500
Moses Rogers,
tt
It
....
8,000
Caleb Frost,
tt
11
2,500
Thomas Franklin,
tt
It
....
2,500
Margaret Livingston,
• t
tt
a . . .
4,000
Estate Cromeline,
tt
tt
....
4,000
Willett Seaman,
tt
tt
....
2.800
Jordan Wright,
tt
II
2,150
WiUiam Mintnrn,
tt
11
2,300
Estate Peter Byvanck,
It
II
2,500
Thomas Leggett,
tt
II
....
2,000
John Franklin,
tt
it
2,000
Daniel Dnnscomb, Jr.,
t>
«l
....
2,500
James W. Depeyster,
It
tt
2,000
James Uallet, Jr.,
II
Beekman street
2.000
William Kenyon,
It
II
• . . •
2,000
Peter Schennerhom,
• 1
II
....
2,500
Cornelius Schermcrhorn "
It
«...
2,500
Thomas Burling,
II
It
....
2,800
Peter Middlcmans,
II
It
2,000
Cornelius J. IJogert,
II
tt
....
3.000
Johnson Patten,
• 1
It
2.800
Leffert I^effcrts,
It
tt
2.000
Robert Carter,
It
Nassau street..
2,000
Mrs. Samuel Hay,
It
Fair [Fulton] St
2,400
Robert Robinson,
It
WiUiam street.
2.200
Samuel Silford,
It
II
....
2,500
Samuel Silford,
tt
It
2,000
Estate Jane Moncrief,
tt
It
....
2,200
Medcalf Eden,
tt
Gold street
8,800
Daniel Dunbar,
If
Beekman street
3,000
Eben Haviland,
tt
Pearl street
2,200
Benjamin Ha\ilHnd,
tt
It
2,200
Samuel Franklin,
It
It
2,800
Thomas Eddy,
If
It
2,200
Effingham Embree,
It
•• •
....
2,500
WiUiam Robinson,
tt
tt
....
4.500
Samuel Bowne,
41
It
....
3,000
WiUiam Bowne,
It
«i
2,800
Widow Pell,
II
It
2,800
Edmund Prior,
It
It
....
8.800
James Parsons,
• t
It
....
2,000
Anthony Franklin
tt
It
2,200
Caleb Lawrence,
tt
It
....
2,500
Henry Haydock, 8r., honae
Widow Bleeoker,
WillUun Laight,
Widow Batler,
Thomas Pearsall,
Ttaomaa Pearsall,
Thomas Ash,
John Blagge,
John Seemon,
Jndge Benson,
Judge Tenbrook,
Alexander Hosack,
Robert Benson,
Doick Leiterts,
Thomaa Skinner,
WiUiam Grigg,
Venline Elsworth,
Est. SMnuel Beekman,
WiUiam RuUedge,
WUliam Rutledge,
Lott Merkle,
James Bradley,
James Mallaby,
James Bradley,
Col. Henry Rutgers,
John F. Roorback,
James Murray,
John De Wint,
Capt. James Nicholson,
William TnrnbnU,
Widow Roberts,
Thomas Brasher,
Thomas Gardner,
John McLaren,
Moses Rogers,
WiUiam Delaplaine,
John I. Glover,
Joseph Hopkins,
Lewis Pintard,
WUUam Mintnrn,
Junes R. Smith,
Thomas Pearsall,
John Thompson,
Abraham Duryea,
Peter Clopper,
Nicholas Carmer,
James Walker,
Thomas PhilUps^
David Masterson,
Morgan Lewis,
John A. Wolfe,
Rnfus King,
Richard Harrison,
Abijah Hammond,
WUliam S. Smith,
John FrankUn,
James Roosevelt,
J. M. Haydock,
WiUiam Rhinelander,
Samuel Osgood,
WUliam Walton,
WUUam Thompson,
WUUam Beekman*s est,
WUUam Bedlow,
•Dd lot, Pearl street £4,oa
2.O0I
4,0»
2,80
tt .. 2^
4,00
" John street 2.00
.... 2.00
'* William street. 2,40
«< 4i ^ Jfl
• • • . ^ W
.... 2.50
" Maiden lane.... 2.30
.... 4.O0
.... 2,6fl
.... 2,00
.... 2,00
.... 3,00
.... 2,00
** Gold street 2,50
2,68
•* " 2^
" " 2,00
'* Maiden lane.... 8,00
•• " ]^
... i;00
.... 8,00
.... 8,00
.... 2^
" WUliam sOttet. 8^
.... 2,00
.... i;io
.... 2.»
.... 2J0
" Gold street 23
" Pearl street.... 2,70
.... 8,50
.... 4,00
.... 2,00
.... 2,00
.... 8.00
.... 8,0C
.... 8,50
•« «• j^
.... 8,00
.... 2,4e
" Maiden lane.... 2ju
.... 2^
.... 2.C
•• •• 2,(
It It *
II tl O
•* Broadway 8
l< tt (T
«t <l •
...... «
" Cortlandt Street
" Pearl street....
tt It
It It
" WUliam street.
•* Cherry street..
" Pearl street
" Chatham (Tea
Water Pnmp)
" Cherry street . .
It tt
SUBURBAN RESIDENCES.
Henry Rutgers £2,500
John R. Livingston 4.500
WUliam Lalght 3,000
Belvidere House 2.500
Nicholas Gon vemeur 2.000
WUlism Bancker 2.500
Samuel Jones 2,000
Peter Stny vesant 13.000
Robert Randal 3,000
HoratioGates 4,000
Francis B. Wlntlirop..
James Beekman
Josiah Ogden Hoffman
James Depeyster
Harman Le Roy
Charles W. Apthorp. . .
William Constable
Rem Rapelje
George Clinton
Aaron Burr
CHAPTER V
THE OPSmjO OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY
1801-1807
Jj|C S we contemplate the condition of our city in the opening
days of the nineteenth century, it cannot fail to impress
us that great and striking contrasts appear as we look
either backward or forward, — to the not very distant be-
ginning of the city's history, or to the still nearer period of its present
grandeur. Two hundred years before, in 1601, Manhattan Island was
still lying upon the bosom of
its beautiful bay, a pristine
verdure adorning its fields
and forests, and its atten-
dant islets dotting the sur-
rounding waters. The foot
of civilized man had not yet
trodden its virgin soil; and
if bis eye had lighted upon
its charms and had admired
them for a brief moment, it
was three quarters of a een-
turj' since even such tran-
sient observation bad taken
place, and the civilized world
had foi^tten all about it.
Thus here lay in quiet re-
pose, unmolested, but also
unimproved, possibilities for
human industry, commerce,
habitation, that only the mar-
velous realization of the present day can adequately set forth as then
present. Only the event has proved the matchless prophecy that lay
hid in contour of shores, in depth of channel, in facility of access, in
safety of shelter, in beauty of situation, even then of course apparent,
and which have since made the city and port of New- York the throne
^amtyJTU^tmS
154
HIBTOBY OF NEW-TOBK
of American commerce, the metropolis of a hemiBphere. In 1601
these were still waiting to be seen and appreciated. And fortn-
nately, eight years later, they were thus seen by the reprMientatives
of a nation (in fact, of the two nations) that knew far better than
all others how to make use of these excellent advantages.
Taking our stand in the New- York of 1801, and casting onr 0ance
about the world for its great cities, we shall probably find as vast a
population in Peldn then as now;
certainly it had its millions, if
not so many as to-day, and its
origin is lost in the dim past of
Chinese history. Then London
was already great, covering forty
square miles of habitation, and
counting a population of nearly
nine hundred thousand, with a
history dating anterior to the
birth of Christ. Paris, the Em-
peror Julian's favorite residence
when he was governor of Gaul
from A. D. 355 to 361, was a large
city in 1801 ; Berlin, now with
over a million inhabitants, was
then an important place, and had
been a capital since 1163. Am-
sterdam in 1801 far outnumbered
its former namesake in popula-
tion, but it had grown to its
greatness since the year 1203.
Here then was a city whose very
site was unknown two hundred years before the opening of the
nineteenth century, but destined ere its close to distance beyond
all comparison the greater part of the cities then most important,
to surpass Berlin and Paris, and to become a rival to London itself
for supremacy among the cities of the world.
At the very opening of the century which has witnessed such won-
drous advances in every direction as well as in the condition of our
city, the country was at the height of a most intense political excite-
ment. The fourth presidential election had just taken place in the
regular way then provided by the constitution. The persons receiv-
ing the highest number of votes, without reference to the intentions
of the voters as to who should be president and who vicerpresident,
were Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and Aaron Burr, of New- York.
This method at the preceding election had resulted in giving the
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY 155
nation a president of one party and a vice-president of another.
Now it had led to a tie between two men of one party, and no elec-
tion of a vice-president at all, as that office would fall to the man
who should be second in the constitutional expedient to relieve the
tie vote. This would seem a very simple matter, since both the men
having the highest number of votes were Republicans, or Anti-Fed-
eralists. But complication arose and excitement ran high, because
throughout the whole nation those of that party had a most decided
preference for one as president, and would not tolerate the other
except as vice-president. And yet, by the provisions of the con-
stitution, that judgment or preference might easily be reversed.
Again, the person who was relegated to the secondaiy position in
the wishes of his fellow Republicans had quite as strong a deter-
mination to obtain the chief place ; he was not esteemed to be proof
against sacrificing his party for the sake of the place, and in this cir-
cumstance lay the opportunity for the Federalists to defeat the desires
of their opponents and deprive Jefferson of the presidency.
This was the situation of affairs^ on January 1, 1801, the first day
of the portentous nineteenth century. On December 4 the electoral
colleges had met in their several States, and on or before Christmas
the returns of their votes were known throughout the country. Jef-
ferson and Burr each had seventy-three ; Adams had received sixty-
five, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, sixty-four; John Jay, one. It
now remained for the House of Representatives to decide whether
Jefferson or Burr should be the chief magistrate of the republic, and
the decision was to be had on February 11, or the second Wednesday
of that month. This interval of six or seven weeks was a period of
great anxiety to the serious, and one of great clamor and agitation
on the part of partizans and demagogues. It was the first severe
strain upon the constitution of the republic. Threats were heard of
armed resistance in case of disappointed hopes, even when the
disappointment should be effected along the regular legal lines pre-
scribed by the fundamental law of the United States. "Federal-
ists were plainly told," observes Professor MacMaster,-^ and he bases
his statement upon a thorough search of contemporary newspapers, —
"that if Aaron Burr were made President, the Republicans would
arm, march to Washington, depose the usurper, and put Jefferson
in his place.** ^ It was deliberately calculated what would be the
chances in such a confiict — how far the rather ridiculously insuffi-
cient equipment of the Virginia militia^ would go toward enabling
them to cope with the trained State troops of Massachusetts. There
i<< History of the People of the United States,'' the VirginiA militiameii* for lack of muflkets,
2 : 517. went through the exercises of the manual with
2 It was stated In the Northern newspapers that corn-stalks.
156 mSTOBY OF NEW-IOEK
was some cause for alarm when such discussions were put into print.
But not only hot-headed men in the ranks were aflEected with wild
schemes ; the great leaders of the Republican party, such as Madi-
son, who had done noble work in constructing the constitution,
broached devices for gaining the mastery of the present situation
which would have been subversive of all that this glorious document
had secured.
In this frame of mind were the people of these United States
during the first six weeks of the century. Then another week or so
of culminating intensity of anxiety followed. On February 11 the
electoral votes were counted in the Senate, and Jefferson formally
announced the distress-
ing tie vote, of which the
whole country had long
been aware. Then came
the pai-t for the House
of Representatives to
play. Sixteen States
were at that period rep-
resented there. Each
State had one ballot in
the general vote, and
that ballot was deter-
mined by the majority
in each delegation for
one or the other candi-
date. Nine States — a
majority — were neces-
sary to constitute a decision. "The political composition of the
house was such that the Republicans could not control the choice;
and the Federalists, though of course still more unable to do so, yet
had the power, by holding steadily together, to prevent any election
whatever. Momentous as such a political crime would be, neverthe-
less many influential Federalists soon showed themselves sufficiently
embittered and vindictive to contemplate it."^
The unusual excitement brought a vast concourse of people to the
capital, which was HI prepared to accommodate such a sudden access
of population. But since the difficulties of travel were bravely under-
taken, these interested travelers were not to be frightened by the in-
' Id 1B01 OoTernor Jay's Becood term ended, yraa a part of the original Van Corllandt maoor.
He declined a renomlnatlon, and carried ont reso- Although Mrs. Jay wan permitted the eDJoyment
lutelythe purpose he hadlouKformeiJ.to spend the of this rural retreat for but one year (dting in
remainder of hia lite in retirement Aatictpaling 1802), the governor apeot a happy aud rcKtful old
this, be had built a comfortable country-seat at age here, until 1829, when hia death occurred, at
THE OPENINQ OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
157
conTeniences of hotel or tavern life. Floors were good enough for
beds, and one's own greatcoat was the only bedding to be enjoyed;
hut happy he who could find even a floor to lie upon, wrapped in his
overcoat, traveling-blanket, or shawL
The eventful day having arrived, and the Senate having done its
work, the voting by States began in due form in the House of Repre-
sentatives. On the first ballot, eight
States gave their voice to Jefferson,
six to Burr, while Vermont and Mary-
land reported themselves "divided";
that is, there was a tie vote in their
delegations. There was, therefore, no
election. Six more ballots within a
brief space brought the house no
nearer to a result. After a respite
of scarcely an hour, eight more bal-
lots were taken^ but without an elec-
tion. Thus the suspense lasted until
Monday, February 16, and after the
thirty-sixth ballot the announcement
could at last be made that constitu-
tional methods had been sustained,
and had sufficed to give the country
a president who was the choice of the
majority of the people. In the Mary-
land and Vermont delegations those
who had hitherto voted for Burr so as to make a tie and thus to
divide and lose their vote in the roll of States, now had cast blank
ballots, leaving a majority in each case for Jefferson, and the count
of two more States for him. The one delegate from Delaware, James
Ashton Bayard, a Federalist, but above partizanship, thereupon gave
his vote for Jefferson, adding one more State for him, and the eleven
States together constituted a sufficient vote to give him the presi-
dency. Burr, the New- York politician, whose skill in manipulating
political forces in his own city had brought him so dangerously near
thwarting the wishes of his party, became vice-president. But his
doom was forecast in the moment that this exalted place reached
him. Distrust was now no longer based on the suspicion, but on the
certainty, of his untmstworthiness. From the presidential possibil-
ity he rapidly descended to political nonentity, and to a worse fame
than even this reverse would have fastened upon him.
The account of the presidential election of 1800 and 1801 might
with some reason be suppressed from these pages, although the
connection of New-York with the occurrences at Washington was
158
mSTOBI OF NEW-YORK
too intimate to make the omission altogether permissible. But the
events and the act growing oat of these occurrences, directly and
logically, which caused the final political extinction of Aaron Bnrr,
confront us whenever we turn the pages of the records of this period,
and we cannot avoid them. It began to appear how little credit Burr
had left in his own party when, at the end of four years, it became
time to nominate candidates for the ofQces of president and vice-
president. Jefferson was renominated for the former, but Burr was
not even mentioned for vice-presi-
dent, Governor George Clinton's
name being substituted. At the
same time, in the spring of 1804,
a contest for the governorship of
New- York was at hand, and in this
Burr saw an opportunity to redeem
his political standing, or to test his
power. There being nothing left
for bim in national politics, he set
about to secure a nomination for
governor of New- York. His own
party, under the influence of the
Clinton and Livingston families,
failed to give him this, but nomi-
nated Chief Justice Morgan Lewis,
a brother-in-law of the former chan-
cellor, Bobert R. Livingston. He then hoped to obtain the Federalist
nomination, but was again disappointed, Chancellor Lansing being
named by this party. Burr then'posed as an independent, or self-
nominated candidate, and when Chancellor Lansing declined to run,
felt certain of having a part of the Republican or Democratic vote,
and the bulk of the Federalist, diverted to himself. The result of the
election showed that he had miscalculated. A colossus had risen in
the way of the governorship : the same who had blocked his dubious
progress toward the presidency. James Ashton Bayard, of Delaware,
acting on Hamilton's advice, had ceased to vote for Burr (his one vote
standing for his State) in the House of Representatives ; and, giving
it to Jefferson, had turned the tide and made bis elevation to the
presidency possible. Hamilton now again raised his warning voice
against Burr amid the ranks of the Federalists, and their votes fell off
to Lewis, in whose personal integrity they trusted, however bitterly
opposed on party lines.
Burr was thus left without any ground to stand on, either in the
nation or in his own State. He was desperate, and his unscrupulous,
unbridled temperament easily turned to thoughts of vengeance.
C-^''^l^-rffct>9t.i^<4rtd.
THE OPEHINO OP THE NINETEENTH CENTTJEY
159
Hamilton must be taken out of his way; if he were not, his own
career was a wreck. The dael was his only resort. Should Hamilton
fall. Burr might hope to rise again in the political world. His own
case could scarce be worse than it was now if Hamilton's bullet
should destroy him. Occasion for a quarrel was readily found after a
heated election contest. Words unworthOy overheard by two eaves-
dropping adherents of Burr; an account in the newspapers of a re-
ported conversation at a private table among trusted aesociatee : such
were the materials for a charge by Burr against Hamilton of im-
proper language, requiring explanation or denial. The groundlessneBS
or irrelevance of such a charge, and such a demand based upon it, was
indicated by Hamilton ; but Burr wished to quarrel, not to argue,
and bis peremptory demands left no
opening to avoid the quarrel. The
point of a challenge, aimed at by
Burr, was therefore reached. It was
sent, and could not but be accepted,
as men then thought and felt. As
a recent authority remarks, speak-
ing of Burr's pai-t in this unhappy
transaction: "With cool delibera-
tion he set about forcing a quarrel.
He showed his purpose plainly
enough by selecting a remark at-
tributed to Hamilton at the time of
the caucuses [in a sense, confidential '
gatherings, not to be compared with
the public hustings] held to nomi-
nate candidates for the governor-
ship, which was really applicable to
his general public character, was not
peculiarly severe, and was perfectly
inoffensive compared with many of
the denunciations launched at him by Hamilton only a few years be-
fore. Hamilton had no desire to fight, but it was impossible to avoid
it, if he admitted the force of the code of honor, when Burr was deter-
mined to fix a quarrel upon him."' Upon Hamilton we can fasten no
such stigma of a desire to do harm. He towered too far above Burr
in professional ability and success to entertain any jealousy of him
on that score. He did not oppose Burr's endeavors to secure office
because he himself wished to attain one ; for, with everything within
his reach, Hamilton had deliberately turned aside from public life in
order to improve his fortune, too long neglected while he was serving
t "AlexudcrHuiillton," by Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 247.
..y^^^Mn^.
160
HISTOBY OF NEW-yoBK
bis country. He antagonized Burr, both in 1801 and in 1804, in the
arena of national politics, as in those of the State, purely on grounds
of a public nature. Secession was in the air then, as it was nearly
sixty yeara later, only its latitude was then further north. It was in
the thoughts of the men of New England, and hence we do not find
the matter emphasized much in the history of that time. Hunilton
foresaw or suspected that Burr was entirely capable of disrupting the
Union for the sake of personal ambition ; that he would lead a seces-
sion much rather than shed his last drop of life-blood (as Hamilton
would have done) to prevent it.
The sequel of events has justified
that suspicion. Hence Hamilton,
in 1801, preferred to see Jeffer-
son, the demigod of the Demo-
crats, in the presidential chair,
rather than Burr, pledged to the
Federalists. In 1804 he preferred
Lewis as governor to Burr, even
as a nominee of his (Hamilton's)
own party. In social life he was
Burr's friend. In a moment of
distress he came to his aid with
a loan of ten thousand dollars,
raised with his characteristic en-
ergy among bis own friends and
relatives. It is not clear that this
indebtedness of Burr's was liqui-
dated at the time of the duel, and
it casts a darker shadow upon the
latter's vindictive course. It was on political grounds solely that
the two men were ever opposed ; but Burr allowed this opposition to
awaken within him a personal resentment. " If he could have stifled
his political aspirations," says one who writes of Burr in a friendly
spirit, " and returned to the bar, as Hamilton had done, a brilliant
and honorable career might still have been his; but unfortunately
he could not endure defeat with patience.""
The day set for the duel was July 11, 1804, over a fortnight after
1 Tbeododa Burr vaa the Tice-preBident'H only
child. She wu bom In 1TS3, and wu carefully
eduoted under her father's superrliion, her ac-
qniremeuts even embracing a knowledge of the
claiNilcs. Her native wit and eminent social a(-
t^nments nude her a remarkable figure in the
society of that day. In all of Bdit'h unhappy
rareer, the matnal devotion and sincere admira-
tion of father and daughter the one for the other
afford a pleasant and pathetic relief t« so much
HaA Is disagreeable. On Burr's return fmm his
long-ontinued wanderings in Europe In 1SI3, his
daughter left Charleston in a small sailing-vessel
to meet him In New-York. The ship was never
beard of afterward, and either foundered or fell
into the bands of pirates. Theodoaia bad married
Joseph Alston, wbo became governor of Sontb
Carolina.
' "The Story of New-Tork," by Charles Burr
Todd, p. am.
THE OPENINa OF THE NINETEENTH CENTDEY
161
HAIULTON'S RESIDEKCE, " THE OBAHOE." 1
the challeoge had been accepted. Attentiou is directed by some
writers to the contrast between the respective actions of the antag-
onists during the interval. Barr busied himself in destroying evi-
dences of several amours ; Hamilton in setting in order his affairs, so
that his wife and children and his creditors might suffer as little as
possible from his de-
mise. Burr diligent>-
ly spent hours each
day practising with
a pistol in shooting
at a target. Hamil-
ton was at his of-
fice, attending to the
business of his cli-
ents. The time of
waiting was an anx-
ious one for Hamil-
ton, not because he
was a coward — un-
less, indeed, in so far as he was properly made so by those con-
siderations of home and loved ones which do " make cowards of us
all." The prolongeld interval had no effect upon Burr's cool delibera-
tion to put his antagonist out of the way, or perish in the attempt
Hamilton, in his dying moments, solemnly protested that he bad no
intention of even shooting at all at the first fire, and that he was in
doubt about the second fire, should Burr's murderous intent call for
that. For mere self-defense in that case would have demanded of
Hamilton to protect himself against what would then have too plainly
showed itself to be assassination. With our best endeavors and
strongest desire to remain impartial, it is impossible that these sig-
nificant contrasts before the fatal event should not prejudice us in
favor of Hamilton, and make us feel that the imputations of sinister
motives, whether just to Burr or not, would entirely comport with
these exhibitions of character on his side.
On the morning of July 11, shortly after dawn, two boats might
have been seen crossing the Hudson. For either, the angle of cross-
ing had need to be very oblique. Weehawken, about opposite Forty-
second street, was the objective point of both of them. Burr's party,
1 The cliuteT of trees in tlio ligbt-huid comer
of the illastratlDD repreaeiits the tbirteeD ^oin-
trees (Duned after the thlrMeu ori^tiul States)
plknted by Hunlltou's tnrii huids on the Uwn a
few rods from the honse. about * jetr before his
death. TheaetreoB areBtUlrtandlng.andbftvere-
eentlj been purehaaed with a small plot of ground
by the Hon. Orluido B. Potter, of New- York, with
a rlew to their preset t atlon. In a note to the
Vol. m.— 11.
Editor, he sa^B : " I am hopeful that the elt; will
set apart the whole square, of which my purchase
Is bat part, as Hamilton Park, as a Just memorial
of the greateat dttien whom New-Tork has yet
jriren to the oonntry. 1 am also hopeful that
Hamilton's dwelling, which Is at present removed
and connected with St. Luke's Church near by as
its rector;, may be returned to the place where
Hamilton built and occupied It."
162 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the first to take the journey, left the east shore of the river near the
foot of Charlton street. Hamilton came down from about One Hun-
dred and Forty-first street, where stood his country house of " The
Grange," still to be seen at the corner of One Hundred and Fortj^-
first street and Convent avenue, and now temporarily occupied by
St. Luke's Episcopal Church. The details of the meeting are too well
known to be dwelt on here. It need only be mentioned that the
statement has recently been made, in refutation of the claim that
Hamilton had no intention of shooting Burr, that, just before firing,
Hamilton complained of the light, and took time to adjust his glasses
or spectacles, in order to see better. But there has come to notice
no documentary or printed evidence to corroborate this rather new
version of a familiar story. Be this as it may, at the first fire Hamil-
ton fell, mortally wounded, and Burr stood over the prostrate form
of his victim, unhurt.
A hurried departure from the fatal spot followed. Burr's party
went first. Arrived at Richmond Hill, near the comer of the present
Charlton and Varick streets, he quietly settled himself to reading in
his library. A relative arrived from Connecticut, after an all-night
journey, about seven o'clock. At eight breakfast was served, and
later the guest left to saunter into the city. Until he saw the com-
motion in the streets, and was aecosted by an acquaintance and told
of the tragedy, which has made it a never-to-be-forgotten day in
New-York history. Burr's companion, at his own breakfast-table,
knew nothing of the dark deed whose shadow never left this man's
long subsequent career.^ A few words will suffice to dismiss that
career from these pages; for its incidents — thrilling and sad some;
evil, or suspicious of evil, others — took place at too remote a distance
from this city to warrant minute mention. When an indignant pub-
lic sentiment took shape in an indictment for murder. Burr escaped
from the city. When his term as vice-president was at an end, he
entered upon those mysterious but not clearly traitorous schemes,
involving the suggestion of a Mexican or Central American empire,
which finally brought on the trial at Richmond in 1807. A verdict
of "not proven" left Burr his liberty, but little else. Then came
years of wandering and penury in Europe. On his return the blow
struck him of the loss of Theodosia, shipwrecked or slain by pirates
on her way from Charleston to New-York to join him. Many years
of life, "unknown, unhonored, and unloved," were yet reserved for
him ; near the close, a little more unpleasant notoriety connected with
his marriage of a few months (followed by separation or divorce) with
Madame Jumel ; and then finally, in 1836, came " the last scene of
aU," ending this eminently " strange, eventful history."
1 "Life of Avron Burr.'* by Jamee Parton (New-York, 1864), 2: 13, 14.
THE OPENDia OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUKY
163
But it is time to follow also the other boat leaving Weehawken.
It did not return up the river, but crossed obliquely downward. It
landed at the foot of the present Horatio street, then a part of the
village of Greenwich. William Bayard, a friend of Hamilton, stood
awaiting its arrival. Tlie wounded man, who had recovered con-
sciousness on the way over, was tenderly carried to Bayard's house.
Hither were hastily summoned the devoted wife and the seven yonng
chUdren.' All that loving care, all that the best medical science of
that day, could do, was done to save his life. But it was all in vain :
the tai^t practice in the Richmond Hill garden had been but too
HAUIL-TON-BURB
successful. The adversary's aim had been at the seat of life, and the
bullet had struck fatally near it. All the remainder of that day and
through the night Hamilton suffered greatly ; but on the next morn-
ing the pain abated, while the exhaustion premonitory of death set in.
At two o'clock in the afternoon of July 12, Hamilton died.
And then there was a burst of spontaneous grief from every part
of the young republic, whose strength, and credit, and incipient glory
were largely due to him whose head was now laid low. Federalist
and Republican forgot their political antagonism in the patriotic
sentiment of regret and sorrow at the country's loss. Not only the
Cincinnati, his former companions in arms, and generally of the Fed-
eralist faith, but even the members of the bar, of various political
opinions, took special measures to indicate their feelings. The latter
164
HISTOEX OF NEW-YOBK
resolved to wear mourning badges for several weeks.' On Saturday,
July 14, the funeral took place in Trinity Church. Gouvemeur Mor-
rifi, always Hamilton's friend and admirer, pronounced a funeral ora-
tion worthy of the occasion, simple, eloquent, just. Indeed, a mere
recital of the acts of the man's brief life was the grandest enlogium
that friendship or admiration could possibly have conceived. "Thus
tragically passed from the scene one of the greatest of the great men
of the Revolutionary era. ' The Patriot of Incorruptible Integrity,
the Soldier of Approved Valor, the Statesman of Consummate "Wis-
.. .--.■—_^- -,-.-- --— . dom.' One reads it on
his modest tombstone
in Trinity church-
yard — a truer pane-
gyric than most."*
Yet, even in the fla-
grant "manner of his
taking off," Hamilton
did his country a ser-
vice. In those anxious
days when a presenti-
ment of disaster made
him fear that he would
be torn from his fam-
ily, Hamilton put in
writing his opinion
of dueling: "My reli-
gious and moral princi-
ples are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling, and it would
ever give me pain ^ to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow-
creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws."* When men
read the record of this sentiment against a practice which yet the
writer of it felt bound by public opinion to engage in, that public
opinion received a shock which awakened it to a due sense of its
enormity, and the code of honor henceforth became one of dishonor.
Dueling was doomed in New-Tork and in Northern society.
The glory of New- York city is her public-school system, unrivaled
•odetj') uid Burr wvre both picaeDt Hamilton
mi ukpd to ling hli favorite ballad of "The
Dmm ~ 1 he hesitated, but. In order to create no
■nsplcionaa to the coming event, oonsented. Burr
looked him intentiv In the face irhile he n>ng; it
la hard to tell with what reelings.
; Charief Burr Todd. ■■ Story of Kew-ToA."
p. 390. The pall bearer* were General Matthew
Oarkson, OliTet Wolcoll. Rjehard Harrtion. Abl-
On the coffin were placed Hamilton's
and Bword: his boots and iipurs hung rerereed
acrom the general's gray horse, which was led di-
rectly In front of the coffin by two black servants
dressed in while, with while turbana trimmed
with hiack crape.
> -'LifeofAleiander Hamilton." John T.Morse,
THE OPENIMO OF THE NINETEEMTH CENTUEY
165
for the excellence and the extent of education placed witliin the
reach of the poorest of her citizens. The opening of the nineteenth
century saw the beginning of this good work, the fouudatiou of that
organized, systematic enterprise in this direction, which has ever
since characterized it. The history of the school in New-York dates
l>ack, as has been shown in a
previous volume, to the year
1633 ; and the school then
founded, that of the Dutch
Reformed Church, was in a
flourishing condition at the
period now under discussion,
and is in existence to-day.
Under Lord Combury, much
against that nobleman's wishes,
the assembly legislated on the
subject of schools, and the
matter necessarily attracted
the attention of men awake
to the real interests of city or
province. But the development of this institution was always on a
narrow line. Instruction in secular knowledge must go hand in hand
with that in religious things; and in consequence of this, while the
schools were so largely an appendix of the churches, only the chil-
dren of the churehly families received the benefit of them. There
were many of the " outlying " masses — ehurchless even then, as they
are now — whose children grew up debarred from the advantages of
education. " By that social gravitation which seems to have always
been inseparable from compacted communities," says the historian
of the Public School Society, " the metroiwlis was not exempt from
the characteristic feature of a substratum of wretched, ignorant, and
friendless children, who, even though they had parents, grew up in a
condition of moral and religious orphanage, alike fatal to their tem-
poral and spiritual advancement and elevation."- This sad picture is
drawn of the city when it numbered but little over sixty thousand souls.
Benevolent and far-seeing persons of both sexes perceived the
wrong and the peril of this condition of things, and set about the
methods of remedying it. In the second year of the century an
IN TBIMTT (
1 iDHsription on Hamilton's tomb :
On the Mmth fBC« : To the Hemorj of | Alei-
■nd« Hamilton, | who died Jnly 12th, 1S04, |
AKed*7.
On the north side : To the Memory of | Aleisn-
der Hamilton | The Corporattoii of Trinity Church
StAMsman of Consummate Wisdom | Whote Tal-
ents and Virtues will be Admired | By Grateful
Posterity | Long after thin Harlde shall have
Mouldered Into | Dust | He died July 12, 1S04,
Atted *7.
" HUtory of the Public School Society of the
has erected this | Honument | In Testimony of City of New- York," Williun Oland Bourne, p. 1
their reapect | for 1 The Patriot of Intormpttble (New-York, 1870).
Intefrity | The Soldier of Approved Valour | The
166 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
association of ladies belonging to the Society of Friends, or Quakers,
had contributed of their private means, and established a free school
for the education of gu*ls. This humble but noble endeavor was the
genu of the great metropolitan system of public schools to-day. Con-
fined to one sex only, yet its beneficent effects were clearly apparent,
and the success within its one-sided and necessarily limited sphere
so pronounced that it led naturally to undertakings on a larger and
wider scale. The free school for girls had been three years in opera-
tion when the idea of extending the principle at its foundation took
practical shape. No doubt, as in all such cases, men had talked and
deliberated. The necessity was so pressing, the calamity of ignorance
so appalling, that the problem of removing the crying shame could
not be set aside or postponed. Yet all honor to those who began the
movement. Two gentlemen — let their names be held in bright
remembrance — Thomas Eddy and John Murray, early in the year
1805, issued a call for a meeting of all such as would unite in an
undertaking to provide the means of education for the youth hitherto
neglected. On the day appointed, February 19, 1805, twelve gentle-
men met at the house of Mr. John Murray, situated in Pearl street.
It will need no apology to mention their names, and among them will
be noticed some already familiar in local history. They were, besides
Messrs. Eddy and Murray, who called them together, Samuel Osgood,
Brockholst LiWngston, Samuel Miller, Joseph Constant, Thomas
Pearsall, Thomas Franklin, Matthew Clarkson, Leonard Bleecker,
Samuel Russell, and William Edgar. Besides the passing of a reso-
lution expressive of their conviction of the need and importance of
the work they had at heart, nothing of a practical nature was done,
except to appoint a committ<?e to devise plans for the execution of
their noble design. Less than a week after the first meeting, a second
was called by this committee, who had thus promptly prepared their
report. The main recommendation of this report was that application
be made to the legislature of the State for an act regularly incorpo-
rating a society to be charged with educational interests in the city.
A memorial to that effect was drawn up, signed by one hundred
prominent citizens, and sent to the legislature on February 25. One
passage read as follows: "The enlightened and excellent Government
under which we live is favorable to the general diffusion of know-
ledge ; but the blessings of such a Government can be expected to be
enjoyed no longer than while its citizens continue nrtnous^ and while
the majority of the people, through the advantage of a proper early
education, possess sufficient knowledge to enable them to understand
and pursue their best interests. This sentiment, which must meet
with universal assent, was emphatically urged to his countrymen by
Washington, and has been recently enforced by our present Chief
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
167
Magistrate in his address on the necessity of supporting schools, and
promoting useful knowledge through the State."
The measure commended itself so strongly, and was so entirely
removed above and beyond the plane of party measures, that action
was promptly and energetically taken ; and on April 9, 1805, the
legislature passed "An Act to incorporate the Society instituted in
the City of New York, for the Establishment of a Free School for
the Education of Poor Children who do not belong to, or are not pro-
Wded for by, any religious society." Thirty-seven incorporators were
named iu the bill, the head of
the list being graced with the
name of the mayor, De Witt
Clinton — among the many other
names of note appearing those
of Daniel D. Tompkins and Dr.
Samuel Latham Mitchill. The
provisions of the act, briefly sum-
marized, were: that the yearly
income of the society should
not exceed ten thousand dol-
lai-s; that on the first Monday
of May annually thirteen trus-
tees should be elected from
among the members of the so-
ciety, who should also be resi-
dents of the city ; that the trus-
tees should meet on the second
Monday of every month, seven
or more to constitute a quorum ;
that any person contributing
eight dollars might become a
member of the society ■ that a contribution of twenty-five dollars
should entitle to membership and the privilege of sending one child
to any school of the society; and one of forty dollars, the privilege
of membership and the sending of two children. The act at the same
time constituted De Witt Clinton and the twelve gentlemen present at
the original meeting at Mr. Murray's house the first board of trustees.'
On May 6 these thirteen trustees met for the election of their
ofiScers, when De Witt Clinton was chosen president; John Murray,
vice-president; Leonard Bleecker, treasurer; and Benjamin D. Perkins,
secretary. The next step in the movement was an elaborate appeal
to the public to aid the enterprise by the contribution of the funds re-
quired for the securing of suitable quarters for the school and for the
I Bonrae'i " HiBtorr Public School Sodcty," p. 5.
168 HIBTORY OF NEW-YORK
payment of teachers. The funds did not rapidly accumulate, owing
to various serious impediments, so that fully a year elapsed ere the
work of the school could finally begin. It is of interest to observe
that the subscription list is still preserved among the archives of the
society, and shows the name of De Witt Clinton leading, with the sum
of two hundred dollars opposite to it. As a result of such liberality,
th<5 trustees felt justified in appointing a teacher and renting apart-
ments. The pioneer teacher was William Smith, and the place where
his labors began a house in Madison street, which was then called
Bancker. On May 19, 1806, teacher and scholars met under these
humble auspices. But few were there that first day. After some
days, however, the number had risen to forty-two, and the increase
kept on till larger accommodations became imperative. Even before
the school had initiated its exercises, in April, 1806, Colonel Henry
Rutgers* had given a lot on Henry street for a school building, and
soon after gave the adjoining lot besides, the whole of the property
being valued at $2500. Still, as the work increased, the society felt
cramped for means. An appeal to the legislature was again made in
January, 1807, resulting in an act which set aside a certain portion of
the excise duties for the support of the school. Nor was the corpora-
tion of the city itself slow in coming to its aid. The quarters in
Madisou street having become inadequate, and no funds being as yet
in hand for building a house on the Henry street lots, the "city
fathers'* presented a building adjoining the almshouse, together with
five hundred dollars for putting it into proper shape for this new
purpose. Thus came into existence school No. 1, standing on Chat-
ham street ; it was provided not only with rooms for classes, but also
with dwelling apartments for the teacher's family. On April 28, 1807,
Mr. Smith and his pupils began their sessions here, and before the
year closed the number of children in attendance had risen to one
hundreil and fifty. The further account of this interesting movement
must now be left to a subsequent chapter, and in its more minute
details to another volume.
The first ten or more years of the present century were character-
ized by a noticeable extension in the number of church buildings, or
the improvement and enlargement of those already built. Some of
these events took place within the seven years belonging to the scope
of this chapter. The first church that claims attention is none other
than that in Ganlen street (now Exchange Place), the third edifice of
this kind in the order of erection on this island, but really the earli-
est that can l>e called worthy of the name in point of architecture or
I This «iime irenercms loT^r of iMucmtion Uter known by his* nune. Tb<? Rev. Dr. Howard Crwby.
gave #5000 to QueenV OoUegee at Now Brunswick. for i«everal yvarsi a profesaor in the college, was
K. J., whence that college has ever since been hi* grandnephew.
THE OPENINa OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
proportions. De Vries, the voyager, could find no more exalted term
for the building at 33 Pearl street, erected iu 1633, than that of
"barn," as compared with the neat New England meeting-houees;
and the church in the fort, while of brick or stone, and superior to
the former, was not such as to impress the beholder. Hence the
"old" church in Garden street, built of brick trimmed with stone,
when it was opened for service in 1693, was a conspicuous feature of
the little town, and quite outstripped the earlier structures that occu-
KEW-rOKK AT THI BEOIMNIKa
pied Trinity's site. After undergoing extensive repairs, with some
remodeling, in 1766, and again after the Revolution, the church was
taken down completely, and an entirely new and much finer building
erected on the spot in 1807. This stood until it was swept away by
the great fire in 1835 ; and with a little care in the tracing we may
look upon its ecclesiastical descendants to-day. After the fire the
congregation determined to separate into two societies. One part
built a church iu Murray street; the other went to the corner of
Washington Place, on the east side of Washington Square, adjoining
the New-York University. Its noble proportions, double towers, and
walls cut into embrasures at the top, as if it were a eastle or a fort,
are still to be seen. But denominationally it no longer represents
the ori^nal congregation, as it was sold to the Methodist Episcopal
people. For its denominational representative one has to look to the
church on the comer of Madison Avenue and Thirty-eighth street,
the successor of the Murray street church. Crowded out by the
march of business, this society moved to the comer of Fifth Avenue
and Twenty-first street; but, again pursued by that church-devouring
demon, their handsome edifice there was sold, and the building at
Thirty-seventh street, formerly occupied by a Protestant Episcopal
congregation, purchased.
170
mSTOET OF NEW-YORK
Iq the year 1803 there was held in this church the last regular or
stated service in the Dutch language. The Holland tongue had been
the first to convey to heaven the worship of pioiis hearts in prayer
and praise. In it had been sounded forth the gospel in the ears of
men from the very beginning of colonization in 1626. Even after the
English conquest in 1664, a whole century elapsed before the Dutch
congregation called an English-speaking pastor. But after the Eevo-
lutiou the disappearance
of the Dutch from ver-
nacular usage was very
rapid. Yet in 1789, when
the old Dutch pastors
were too aged to continue
their services, and when
Drs. Livingston and Linn
were preaching eloquent-
ly in the national tongue,
to the delight of auditors
of their own and other
comnianions, it was still
thought expedient, for
the benefit of a certain
portion of the communi-
cants, to caU a pastor who
should dispense the ordi-
nances in Dutch. For
this purpose the Rev.
Gerardus Kuypers (after-
ward D. D.) was called from Paramus, New Jersey, and the ancient
Garden street church set apart for these services. In 1803, however,
the audiences attending them had grown so small that Dutch preach-
ing was abolished, and Dr. Kuypers thenceforth, until his death in
1833, preached in English. Thus ceased public divine worship in a
language which had conveyed pious emotions to the throne of grace
for an unbroken period of one hundred and seventy-seven years.
But in 1866 the generosity of the collegiate church enabled a Dutch
church to be organized for the modern emigrants from Holland who
had made New- York their abode, and hence at this very time regular
worship in the ancient mother-tongue is still conducted upon this
island, whose shores it was the earliest to bless with the beneficent
message of salvation.
As has been already intimated, one of the most striking indications
of local changes induced by the growth of our city, of the invasion of
business houses into the regions of homes, is horded by the history
S. tM j^<Ajvrtp<f^tm
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 171
of many of our church societies. Who would connect the stately tem-
ple, graceful in exterior, beautiful and rich in interior, and thronged
with hearers under the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. Abbot E. Kittredge
— standing on the corner of Madison Avenue and that broad trans-
verse avenue, Fifty-seventh street — with the locality of Franklin
street, near West Broadway t Yet if we take two steps back in its
annals — first to a period of seventeen years of existence (1854-1871)
in Twenty- third street, and then to its origin — we shall reach that
down-town region. And the founding of that church in 1807, it must
not be forgotten, marked an era in church development for the Re-
formed (Dutch) denomination in this city. Hitherto there had been
no congregation of this order, except under the care of that collegiate
organization whose history dated from 1628. The "North West
Church,'' as it was called, in Franklin street, was the first congre-
gation that was independent and separate. Its first pastor was the
Rev. Christian Bork, a unique character. He had come over among
the Geiman mercenary troops hired by England to subdue her colo-
nies. He had concluded to cast in his fortunes with the liberated
country after the war. The rough soldier was converted, entered the
ministry, and became a preacher of great spiritual force, whose labors,
continued through fifteen years, were eminently successful.
Embracing within our view a territory which then seemed entirely
unwarranted to be entitled to consideration as a part of the city, an
account of local events during this period must include the foimding
of two more Reformed churches, one in Greenwich village, the other
at Bloomingdale. In 1803 the dwellers at Greenwich began to think
the journey to the church in Garden street, or to that in Nassau
street, or even to that in Fulton street, rather too long, and accord-
ingly they established a church of their own. The yellow fever panic,
which sent the people by scores into this neighborhood, no doubt
stimulated the enterprise, and may have been the real occasion for it.
But after the panic subsided the church remained, and the curious
observer may look upon its lineal descendant to-day on the comer of
Bleecker and West Tenth streets, now in possession of a colored Bap-
tist congregation. Bloomingdale church^ may also have owed its
origin, in 1805, to the exodus from the city caused by the fear of the
yellow fever, which prevailed in that year and in 1803. A large piece
of ground given for a parsonage by a devoted elder finally became
the means of preserving this society from extinction, when this part
of the city began to assume the attractive appearance it now pre-
1 Bloomingdale in the onoxnatopoetio change from lem was named after the city of Haarlem (its name
the Dutch Bloemendaal. The lower point of the was New Harlem, or Nieuw Haerlem, originally),
island being called after Amsterdam, other poiats A beautiful village near Haarlem, noted for its
in the vicinity received names to correspond with horticultural nurseries, gave the name to Bloe-
the vicinity of the ancient Dutch dty. Thus Har- mendaal, or Bloomingdale.
172
HISTORY OF HEW-TOBK
sente. The tayiog out of the Boulevard demanded the destruction of
the old church ; but the immense value which the elder's gift attained
a few years since has enabled this people to place in the view of New-
York denizens, on the corner of the Boulevard and Sixty-eighth
street, a fine example of church
architecture as the successor of
the humble viUage church of
the fifth year of the century.
During the period now under
consideration the activity in the
way of church-building of de-
nominations other than the
Duteh Reformed and the Epis-
copalian was in abeyance or
suspense— to be revived, how-
ever, almost immediately sub-
sequent to it by the Presbyte-
rians. Notable among Episcopal
churches erected about this time
are St. Stephen's, on the corner
of Broome and Chrystie streets,
built in 1805, following in the
wake of population which went
northward more rapidly on the
east side than on the west ; and
Grace Church, on the corner of Broadway and Eector street, built in
1806, on the site formerly occupied by the Lutheran church. ludeed,
it seems rather surprising that a church of the same order should
thus have been placed beneath the very shadow of Trinity.
Far away from all these churches, clustered and almost crowded
together within so limited an area below Vesey and Beekman streets,
there was erected in 1807 a church which has thus far escaped that
"march of improvement" to which the others have all succumbed.
Grace Church (down-town), St George's in Beekman street, Christ
Church in Ann sti-eet, St. Stephen's in Broome street, are no more
to be found upon the sites that knew them once. Even Trinity is not
what then it was, though it occupies the same historic spot; but,
together with St. Paul's, St John's on Vaiick street stands unim-
paired and unchanged, a monument of earlier times. To a dweller
at Colt^iie, whose unequaled cathedral reared its walls skyward six
hundred years ago, a building eighty-five or one hundred and twenty-
six years old (the ages of St. John's and St. Paul's respectively) may
seem a very recent product. We of New- York, however, are fain to
congratulate ourselves that these edifices still abide, when every
' ' CO-Crz.'-rt^.
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 173
Other church built so loog ago, and many of those erected much
more recently, have disappeared.
Trinity Church farm, once, as is known, that of thrifty Anneke
Jans, stretched along the North River nearly to Thirteenth street.
About half-way between the parent church and the extremity of this
extensive property a site was selected for a new church in 1807. It
seemfd a very unwise selection to many. It added to the surprise
occasioned by placing a structure which it was reported would cost
two hundred thousand dollars so far out of town, that so unwhole-
some a location shoxild have been fixed upon. For there was nothing
but a marsh to cover the space
now occupied by that " palace
of industry," the freight depot
of the New- York Central Eail-
road, — to be thus named, not
indeed for the beauty or re-
finement of its structure or
contents, but for the ceaseless
stir of business and the re-
markable concentration of a
vast traffic. As the beautiful
edifice of the church, with its
pillared portico, rose on the ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^_
one hand, the resoi-t of snakes
and frogs, and possibly mosquitos, was gradually made to assume
the attractive appearance of a carefully laid out park, dimly recalled
now by the generation of middle-aged men and women. In the course
of years the wisdom of the choice of location was vindicated, as the
handsomest residences of the towu crowded around the park. Dingy
and dilapidated as these are in their fallen state to-day, they still
have enough about them to attest their earlier elegance. And far
above the changed surroundings the noble steeple of 8t. John's rears
its graceful, tapering form, showing the flight of time, and sounding
the hours amid the noisy din, as in the past amid the rural quiet.
To enlarge on the frequent visitations of the yellow fever scourge
would constitute a very dreary duty for the historian of the metropo-
lis. In the previous chapter, those of the last decade of the eighteenth
century have been duly noticed. The first decade of the nineteenth
saw their recurrence in many a summer. But that of 1803 deserves
especial mention, because it afforded the gratifying spectacle of the
courage and devotion of the city's chief magistrate, Edward Living-
ston. In 1801, after twelve years of able service, Richard Varick was
removed from the mayor's office as a result of the complete overthrow
of the Federalist forces. The council of appointment placed Edward
174
mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK
Livingston in the chair, the youngest brother of Chancellor Living-
ston, who had begun the practice of the law in New- York city in
1785. The Livingstons had cast in their sympathies with the Repub-
licans, or Democrats, hence upon a member of that family the choice
of the party in power
naturally fell. Fortu-
nately, while polities
often ruled the hour
then, as now, in such
selections, they were
then, as not now, al-
most always worthily
made. In personal
character, in legal and
executive ability, in
social standing and so-
cial fitness, — no small
consideration in those
days, — a better choice
could hardly have been
made. The first event
of note in Mayor Liv-
ingston's term was the
laying of the founda-
tion-stone of the pres-
ent City Hall, in the
park, the historic com-
mon of Revolutionary
times, a more careful
description of which
belongs to a subse-
quent chapter, which
shall record its com-
pletion. In 1803, in
the month of July, the yellow fever struck the city, so very small in
population as compared with that of to-day, but so much less pre-
pared to prevent the spread of an epidemic. Mayor Livingston
conceived it to be his duty to remain at his post, superintending the
methods of relief, and ministering to the poor or iU-provided of his
private means. His visits to hospitals and infected homes at last
brought him down as one of the victims. Daily crowds surged
toward the door of his house, at No. 1 Broadway, to inquire the
progress of the dread malady, to offer assistance, to repay in some
manner the kindness and the courage which had caused him to faU
CHURCH, VABICK STBEET.
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY
175
before the scourge. His life was spared, and a long career of useful-
ness and distinction followed, the threshold to which, however, was
another severe adversity. Duality in office was not forbidden in
those times, and Mayor Livingston was also United States district
attorney. While he was ill a dishonest clerk had made away with
large government funds under his care as attorney. He at ouce sold
all his property to make good the loss ; boldly started out on a new
search after fortune in the territory recently purchased from France
under the advice and by the
negotiation of bis brother, the
former chancellor, then min-
ister to France; gained fame
and wealth in New Orleans by
his distinguished legal talent ;
was sent to Congress, and un-
der President Jackson rose to
be secretary of state.
On the resignation of Mayor
Livingston in 1803, the influ-
ence of the Clinton family
(who, with the Livingstons,
divided the patronage of the
Democratic party) secured the
appointment of De Witt Clin-
ton as his successor. He was
the son of General James Clin-
ton, and thus the nephew of
Governor Clinton. He had
begun public life as private
secretary to the latter, and, although educated for the legal profes-
sion, he preferred politics. He was at the present juncture United
States senator, but resigned his seat, as the office of mayor of New-
York was both more important aud vastly more lucrative than that
of senator. The man has made such a mark in the history of the
city and the State that it is needless to make more extended bio-
graphical mention of him. Every great enterprise for the public
good brings his name to the foreground. We have already indicated
his connection with the founding of the public-school system of the
city. At a brief accessioti of power by the Federalists in 1807, De
Witt Clinton was removed from office. Then the well-known uame
of Marinus Willett for a year figures at the head of the municipal
government. It was most interesting that the descendant of the
earliest mayor of New- York should thus have been invested with the
office exactly one hundred and forty years after the other's retirement.
<^^Ji^4^if^J^f^
176 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
In the year 1804 a bill was passed by the legislature of the State
which instituted some important changes in the chartered privileges
of the city. The agitations for such changes had been started two
years before, when letters began to appear in the public prints, calling
attention to some of the defects of the old charter, dating back to
Montgomerie's time, or 1730. It was complained that suffrage was
not suflSciently distributed, that freeholders were allowed to vote, but
without restricting them to any one ward, so that a man owning
small pieces of property in every ward was entitled to vote in each.
From letters in the newspapers, the agitation went on to the calling
of public meetings, several of which were held at Adams's (later
Union) Hotel, or Assembly Rooms, at 68 William street. At these,
other modifications besides the removal of the above grievances were
proposed, the principal (although rejected) being that the mayor's
oflBce be made elective, and salaried, instead of subject to payment
by indefinite fees. As usual, party and faction played their part in
these discussions, and the motives of both promoters and opponents
of the measure were impugned. A committee of citizens waited on
the common council, on January 17, 1803, asking that body to join
in a petition to the legislature to pass a law effecting the desired
changes ; but the council not only rejected the proposal, but sent a
petition asking that the charter be left intact. The citizens then sent
an independent request directly to Albany. A bill was drawn up in
accordance therewith, and passed the assembly on March 16, 1803.
The next year it was taken up again, and now became a law on April
5, 1804. Among its provisions were the following : that the annual
charter election should take place on the third Tuesday of November;
that the voting should be by ballot, instead of viva voce as hereto-
fore; that the election might continue for more than one day, if neces-
sary; that polling-places should be appointed in each ward; and
that no person could vote in any other ward than the one in which he
resided. The election of a mayor by the people was still distant full
thirty years.
As having a very pertinent bearing upon the development of the
commerce of New-York city, it must not be forgotten that during the
very years now under notice the nation's relations with the pirati-
cal Barbary powers of the Mediterranean were being adjusted, and
were finally put into a condition more honorable than that in which
they had been left at the close of the preceding century. It was time
that something should be done to teach these barbaric peoples a
wholesome lesson regarding our power, when it had come to such a
pass that one of these despots sent word to the president that oiu-
payment of tribute meant as much as that we were his servants. On
the strength of this unpalatable but not very unreasonable theory, he
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY 177
had peremptorily sent one of our vessels of war to Constantinople to
bear his country's quota of revenue to the Sublime Porte. In May,
1801, Tripoli's ruler cut down the flag-staff of the United States con-
sulate,— an act equivalent to a declaration of war. Immediately a
squadron of four vessels was despatched to the scene, under the
command of Commodore Richard Dale. A second squadron followed
in February, 1802, composed of six vessels, under Commodore Richard
V. Morris. But neither of these armaments accomplished anything
very decisive. As events progressed the government and the people
became more and more enthusiastic and energetic, and determined to
push hostilities to the point of the complete and final humiliation of
these insolent sea-robber states. In these endeavors many a name
came into prominence, and many a deed was done by our navy of
which our nation was proud. The war gave rise practically to the
American navy. It showed what great possibilities were in existence
for the future of this branch of our service. Another war, close at
hand, and on a more worthy and dignified scale, raised the navy to
the height of fame ; but this little war on pirates was its stepping-
stone and preparation. In 1805 a force of no less than twenty-four
vessels, under Commodore John Rodgers, was present in the Medi-
terranean. Tripoli succumbed, the other " powers " were thoroughly
alarmed, and on June 4, 1805, a treaty was effected which gave secu-
rity to our shipping in these waters, and allowed commerce to repair
the cost of the war and the previous losses by piracy.^
Brief mention may be made of several items which belong to the
local history of this period, and which are of interest, but which will
naturally obtain more extended treatment under appropriate mono-
graphs in another portion of this work. Columbia College continued
to flourish under its republican name and in the republican atmo-
sphere of its present surroundings. In 1801 the Rev. Charles Wharton
was its president, but was succeeded ere its close in this position by
Bishop Moore. In 1807 was organized its now famous adjunct, the
College of Physicians and Surgeons. Originally, however, this insti-
tution was not connected with Columbia, being established as a rival
to its " medical faculty.'' Later the two schools were combined into
one ; but again, subsequently, a separation took place, the College of
Physicians and Surgeons remaining with Columbia. As an out-
growth of the benevolent enterprise which had founded the New-
York Hospital several years before, there was added to its buildings,
in 1807, one for lunatics. Fourteen years later the fine structure for
such patients at Bloomingdale, still under the management of the
hospital, was completed, situated on the ridge overlooking the Hud-
son on one side, and Harlem Plains and the East River on the other.
1 '' Narratiye and Critical History of the United States/' 7:36Sjet8eq,
Vol. ra.— 12.
178 HI8TOBT OF NEW-YORK
^t/u/
y^(^Ji?r^ Juf^i^rtc^
y^^^ ^r^ccc»>€ii;9/^ /^^^9^f^rv<f ^ ircx^ ^ Scr^s^' ^c^t^^rty^ f/^e^u/i^
cu ^am/p7ti:tC£e/^c' Ar^^vM^f^ a^?^>^ T^L^r^ €0 ^a^€^^ ^^ -^^t*^^-
THE OPENING OF THE NTNETEEarTH CENTUBY 179
The laying of the corner-stone of the present City Hall, in 1803,
has already been alluded to. In 1804 was founded the Kew-York
Historical Society, through the enlightened enthusiasm for historical
research ent^riaioed by Judge Egbert Benson and the merchant John
Pintard, whose name stands also honorably associated with the pro-
gress of the New- York Society Library. It was not, however, till the
celebration on an elaborate scale of the two-hundredth anniversary of
the discovery of the Hudson (to be duly noticed in the nest chapter),
that the society attracted any very general attention. Its timely
erection and intelligent work have been of incalculable benefit in the
preservation of the earliest records of the his-
tory of the State aud city. Indeed, its design
embraced even a wider scope, being, as ex-
pressed by the founders, "to collect and pre-
serve whatever may relate to the natural, civil
or ecclesiastical History of the United States
in genera! and of this State in particular." It
may be worth while to call attention also to
the fact that in 1803 the ancient Huguenot
Church — "the Eeformed Church of Prance" —
changed its ecclesiastical order (to comply with if/r/rit/^a.
a condition attached to a generous benevolence)
to that of the " Reformed Church of England," becoming a part of
the Protestant Episcopal communion; but it assumed a French
name, — "L'Eglise du Saint Esprit," — and has continued to worship
in that tongue to this day.
Again, among this medley of items may be inserted that in 1801
was added to the banks and other financial institutions already con-
gregating in Wall street, the Washington Fire Insurance Company.
It was the third organization of this nature, having been preceded by
the Marine Insurance Company and the Mutual Fire Insurance Com-
pany, organized just before the close of the previous century. Of the
seven newspapers that gloried at this time in a daily issue, we notice
two whose names, if not their management, have continued till now —
the "Evening Post" and the "Commercial Advertiser." The "Even-
ing Post," in fact, dates (so far as its designation goes) back to 1746 ;
being the third in order of establishment after Bradford's "Gazette"
(1725) and Zenger's "Journal" (1733). But it was discontinued for
lack of patronage before the Revolution. On November 16, 1801,
came forth the first issue of its present namesake.
A glimpse at the social aspect or condition of the city may serve as
a proper conclusion to this chapter. The Dutch city was now enter-
ing upon its third century of Ufe, yet more than a few vestiges of its
foreign origin remained. The domestic architecture still bore faint
180 HisrroBY of new-yobk
witiiaw to it here and there. Until 1803, as was noted, ererj Sab-
butli day found worshipers in the Garden street chnrch listening to
Uuttfh pntui^hing, and singing heartily the Gregorian chant of Dntch
pttalmody. But after this sign of the past had been done away, still
uiKin the market-places,' where congregated the countrymen from
thoir furmti on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Westchester Coontj-,
oiu» Imd great nt»e(l of a kuowltnige of Dutch to be quite safe in
a biti^:aiu. Thither came the Vanden'eers, and Byders, and Ra-
paljes ; the fiogerta, and Hoppers, and Van Embm^ ; the BlauTclts
and Vftu Houtens, — just as the obserrant New-Yorker of to-day may
still see thos«> names upon the huge farm-wagons crossing by the
ferries in the (>arly hours of morning, or standing all night along
Greeuwioh strt>et, between Washington and Clinton markets. This
"persistenw" of the Dut4'h "type"* also brought about a unique and
■ Tlwnu>rt^v«»lnlHM«w»tlwtan<>«lMC: U lb* cunm looda bj (^^Kain R HalL B.N..~ i> ki»
RiTtwncr BurkM. toot at Ito«Ml MtcM : ^ tW " Ponr Skcttkn in North Amcrin.- ~
BM>r ukrkM. fwX at Vmvt ■tn>M. and ea tii«n- IOJSl !■ iU« o
<H»k. twIvwB VtM? ud PniMB t(Wa PMirl that. tmUn il
idww: 3, 1bi-0<>««««M>ikM.«i)b>UiW Lur. Jthtr fWtj w
Mm P»adn>T : 4. th* Ftr Mwt^at, ooasiMi^c tt wd. thct* ■«
(kw* ni>ukvl-bo«w« Ml MaMM Luc ttvtn F<Mri fr>« Oraavirh V
«U*<rt to t^ KhI RiTvr: ud 3^ Ihr (^kariav tiB*. TW star* •» Oiwnwicb sttmd bm Bkk-
Mwkrt. wilh tvo markM-bouwu. ai *h* taut of *r'> TsTtn tm Will aim. hmuw of Nrw: tkr
(iMkHtB* Mnwt. stkvr m> Tnn Ibt BnlFi B«^ ia tba Bowvrr.
: TW ■burr UhBInti« tvpnwato • «M#<^ anrt* onnohv Ik* Banrr TWMur -rf hwv itan.
wwk is OM to tW (vIt Twn at tW fvalur. TW GiwnwiA fix wm eke Om w abpt niii i
II to twtiwwd ftwM a itlBvl^ aad* " «ilk A* vMnoi ¥t a dour to ibt iw.
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 181
curious feature — the street cries of venders. Any one who has been
in Holland, and has given any attention to the cries — rich in variety
of pitch and volume, if not in melody — heard upon the streets of its
larger cities, may gain some idea of what the long-suffering ears
of the earlier dwellers in New- York had to endure, when, in addition
to the scope in shrieks and calls afforded by the mother-tongue, com-
binations with the imperfectly possessed English furnished a wider
range for this emission of strange sounds.
Passing from such "genre'' or familiar aspects of society to its
more dignified conditions, at the beginning of this century, perhaps
no more concise summary of these can be presented than in the
words of another: "The divisions between the upper, middle, and
lower classes were sharply marked. The old families formed a rather
exclusive circle, and among them the large land-owners still claimed
the lead, though the rich merchants, who were of similar ancestry,
much outnumbered them, and stood practically on the same plane.
But the days of this social and political aristocracy were numbered.
They lost their political power first. . . . The fall of this class, as a
class, was not to be regretted; for its individual members did not
share the general fate unless they themselves deserved to fall. The
descendant of any old family who was worth his salt still had as fair
a chance as any one else to make his way in the world of politics, of
business, or of literature ; and according to our code and standard,
the man who asks more is a craven.'' ^
THE WEEHAWKEN DUELING-GROUND.
Few Btrangers came to New- York fifty years ago without visitmg the celebrated
dueling-ground on the romantic bank of the Hudson, about two miles above the
Hoboken Ferry. It was a grassy ledge, or shelf, about twenty feet above the water,
and only sufficiently large for the fatal encounters that frequently occurred there in
the old dueling days, being about two yards wide, by twelve in length. From this
celebrated spot there was a natural and almost regular flight of steps to the edge of
the rocky shore where a landing was effected. This singularly isolated and secluded
spot was reached by small boats, being inaccessible to foot-passengers along the shore,
except at very low tide. No path led to it from the picturesque heights of Wee-
hawken, whose beauties have been sweetly sung by Halleck, and are familiar to all, or
nearly all, New-Yorkers ; but the ground was sometimes reached from above by ad-
venturous persons who descended the steep, rough, and wooaed declivity.
1 Theodore Roosevelfs "New-York," pp. 166, of an old New- York family, "who is worth his
167. Mr. Booeevelt is himself an illustration of salt,'' in the estimation not only of his native city
how far ability and worth may carry a descendant or State, but also in that of the nation.
182
HIBTOBY or NEW-YOBK
It wu to this spot that the Aery Tybalts resorted for the uettlement of difficulties
aooording to the " code cA honor" prevailiag at tlie begioning of the nineteenth oen-
tniy. These angh combats were, chiefly by reason of the inflamed state of political
feeling, of frequent oeonrrenoe, and very seldom ending withoat bloodshed. Here
oocnrred the meetings referred to by Byroa, when he says :
It !■ ft atrftnge quick Jar npon the ear.
Thkt cocking of a pistol, when joa know
A moment more will bring tbe light to bear
Upon yonr pemn, twelve yards off, or so:
A geDtlemuily distance, not too aon,
If you have got a former Wend or foe ;
But, >fter being llred Kt onoe or twice,
The ear becomes more Irish and leas nice.
HAMILTON MOMtniKirr.
It iras at the Weebawken dneling-ground that Philip Hamilton, at the age of
twenty, vas killed, Kovember 23, 1801, in an " affair of honor," by Geoi^ J. Eaoker,
like his viotim, a promising young lawyer of New- York ; it was liere, in the year fol-
lowing, tliat a Mr. Bird was shot throogh the heart, and,
springing up several feet from the gronnd, fell dead ; here
Benjamin Price was killed by Captain Green, of the British
army ; and it was in this justly celebrated place tliat Alexf
ander Hamilton fell, at seven o'clock on Wednesday morn-
ing, July 11, 1801, on the very spot where his eldest son
had been killed. Several months after the duel, the St.
Andrew's Society of New- York, of which the lamented
patriot had been the preudent, erected npon the ground
a marble monument, and surrounded it with an iron rail-
ing. Every summer thonaauds of strangers visited the
spot. As the years glided past, the railing was torn down
by vandal bands, and the wb(de structure gradually re-
moved, piece by piece, as souvenirs, till at length no ves-
tige of it remained on the ground which it commemorated. Two granite blocks,
inscribed with the names of Burr and Hamilton, deeply cut in the stone, and tbe
former dated 1804, marked the positions where they stood face to face on that bright
but fatal July morning, sixty-five years aigo.
President Nott of Union Collie, in an address on the death of Hamilton, delivered
at the time, thus referred to the dneling-ground : " Ah I ye tia^c shores of Hoboken,
crimsoned with the richest blood, I tremble at the crimes you reoord agunst us, tbe
annual regitilet of murders which you keep and send np to God! Place of inhuman
cruelty 1 beyond the limits of reason, of duty, and of religion, where man a
more barbarous nature, and ceases to be man. What poignant, lingering a
thy lawless combats oooadon to surviving relatives I Ye who have hearts of pity, ye
who have experienced the anguish of dissolving friendship, who have wept, and still
weep, over the mouldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter into this reflection."
A few summers since, the writer Tinted the romantic and secluded spot, in com-
pany with the poet Halleok, who was well acquainted with all the actors in the
tr^edy exc^t General Hamilton, and who pointed out the positions of the principals,
and the old cedar-tree under which Hamilton stood while the seconds, Judge Na-
thaniel Pendleton and mlliam P. Van Ness, a young lawj-er, were arranging the pre-
liminaries, and Dr. David Hosaok. Matthew L. Davis, and the boatmen sal in the
two boats, awaiting the result of the duel which ended so tragicaQy. Periiaps, ance
the world b^an, no hostile meeting in an " affair of honor " ever created greater
THE OPENING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 183
excitement — certainly none that have occurred in this country — than the deadly en-
coonter between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
On a bright May morning of the present year we revisited the ancient dueling-
ground; but, alas, it had been swept out of existence by that ^' villainous alteration
miscalled improvement,''^ Nothing remains to mark the spot but a weather-beaten
stone on which the name Hamilton has been almost obliterated by the winds and
rains of heaven. In place of the narrow ledge, there is now a broad track, over
which the trains of the West Shore railroad will soon be thundering northward to Fort
Lee and farther on to Albany, awakening the echoes from the picturesque Wee-
hawken heights and the lofty Highlands of the Hudson.
*' Let me hope, I pray you,^ wrote Fitz-Greene Halleck to a lady friend at Fort
Lee, a few years ag^, ^' that, while I live, you will not allow any person, whom I
refrain from naming (the same person who entered, of old, the only paradise on earth
to be compared to Fort Lee, in the shape of a rattlesnake, and played the very devil
there), to come, in the shape of a railroad locomotive, screaming his way through
your garden, up to a crystal palace on the top of the Palisades, at the rate of forty
miles an hour.^ The i>oet's prayer was realized ; he did not live to witness this much-
needed modem improvement, and to have his heart saddened by what he would have
deemed a desecration of the fondly cherished scene so indelibly impressed upon his
memory.
The venerable cedar-tree against which Hamilton leaned, as he gazed sadly for
the last time on the distant city which held all that was dear to him in this world, has
been cut down and thrown into the river, and the place changed beyond all recog^tion.
Looking around for the memorials of past days, we at length discovered the granite
block inscribed with the name of Hamilton ; but the other was not to be found, nor
the numerous rocks, which we had seen on our former visit, decorated* with the
names or initials of persons who had made pilgrimages to the place.
A gang of laborers were at work near the spot, and to their foreman we addressed
an inquiry about the granite block inscribed '^ Burr, 1804." The conversation ran as
follows:
Writer. — Have you seen a large stone here similar to this one marked Hamilton f
Foreman. — Yes.
Writer. — Was it marked with the name of Burr, and dated 1804 f
Foreman. — It was.
Writer. — Do you know where it ist
Foreman. — Yes.
Writer. — Can you point it out to met
Foreman. — Well, I guess not, seeing it 's underground. It 's been used as a corer-
ing-stone in a culvert just above here.
Writer. — Could you not have made use of another stone, and allowed the interest-
ing memorial to remain?
Foreman. — Why, yes; and I told the boss he 'd better lay it alongside of t'other
granite block; but he said that Burr was a mean cuss, anyhow, and not of much
account, and he guessed it would be more useful doing duty as a covering-stone than
perpetuating his memory. — The Editor, in '^Appleton's Journal," June, 1869.
CHAPTER VI
BEOINNINO OF STEAM NAVIQATION
1807-1812
j HE great event of the first decade of the century in its
bearing upon the interests of New- York was the success-
ful application of steam to the propulsion of vessels.
Indeed, so great an influence did this exert upon the
city's subsequent growth tliat we feel justified in giving in detail
the sueeessive steps of its development. The problem had engaged
the attention of mechanicians for centuries. Papin, as early as 1690,
in a printed book, had advocated steam as a universal motive-power,
and had given a rough draft of a paddle-wheel steamer. He even went
so far as to construct a model steamboat, which was tried in 1707
upon the river Fulda, near Cassel, but does not seem to have been
successful, as nothing farther was heard of it.
The next attempt of the kind was the "marine engine" of Jona-
than Hulls, 1736, intended for towing ships. This craft was notice-
able for its use of the stem-wheel, still conmion on Western steam-
boats, power being conveyed to it by means of bands. William
Henry, a native of CJhester County, Pennsylvania, moved a model
boat by steam on Conestoga Creek, near its entrance into the Susque-
hanna River, in 1763.
Two years later, in 1765, there was bom of humble parents at Ful-
ton, Pennsylvania, near the scene of this experiment, a boy, Bobert
Fulton, who, combining and improving upon the efforts of all who
had gone before him, invented the first successful steamboat, and
inaugurated a new era of commercial development and prosperity.
Fulton was, no doubt, familiar with the model built and tried by
Henry near his home in 1763. In 1779, at the age of fourteen, he
began his experiments with boats by aflSsing a paddle-wheel to
his fishing-boat, the latter being moved by man-power. At the age
of seventeen, having exhibited fine powers as an artist, he removed
to Philadelphia to' study art, and there gained the friendship of Ben-
jamin Franklin and other important persons, by whom he was en-
couraged to proceed to London and pursue his art studies under the
BEGINNING. OF STEAM NAVIGATION 185
patroaage of BeDJamin West^ the famous American painter. By
West he was introduced to two noblemen — the Duke of Bridgewater
and the Earl of Stanhope; the former owner of extensive coal-mines
at Worstey, to which he had constructed a canal from Manchester;
the latter inventor of the Stanhope printing-press and greatly inter-
ested in mechanics and engineering.
Stanhope' had invented several improvements in canal-locks, and
with the Duke of Bridgewater turned Pulton's attention at this time
to the subject of canals and steam navi-
gation. The latter published during this
period a treatise on canals, and frequent
reference is made in his manuscript to
the subject of steam navigation. Copies
of the treatise were sent to the Presi
dent of the United States, the Seere
tary of the Treasury, and the 0overnoi
of New- York, with a letter calling the
attention of those oflBcials to the advan
tages that canals would confer on the
United States. In his letter to the gov
ernor he pointed out the superiority of
canals over turnpike-roads, then rapidly
being constructed, for the transportation
of freight It was claimed by his bio-
grapher, Mr. Reigart, that Fulton first
conceived the idea of a canal connecting
the head waters of the Hudson with the great lakes, and published it
in a letter to the American government on the subject of a projected
canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Fontchartrain.
In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, and there meeting Joel Barlow, the
American poet, philosopher, and diplomat, was invited by him to take
up his residence in the latter's mansion. Barlow was as much inter-
ested in the development of the steamboat and the canal as Fulton. He
had the acumen early to discern how both, by facilitating speedy and
cheap communication between distant ports, would prove of vital im-
portance to his country, and now entered heartily into Fulton's experi-
ments with the steamboat, advancing the necessary funds. A model
boat was constructed, and soon after Barlow, visiting the national
depot of machines, saw there an exact model of this trial boat, as he
wrote, the Iatt«r, "in all its parts and principles, a very elegant model.
It contains your wheel oars precisely as you have placed them except
that it has four wheels on each side to guide round the endless chain
instead of two. The two upper wheels seem to be only to support the
chain ; perhaps it is an improvement. The model of the steam-engine
186
HISTOBT OF NEW-YOBK
is iu its place, with a wooden boiler, cylinder placed horizontal, every
thing complete. I never saw a neater model. It belongs to a com-
pany at Lyons who got out a patent about three months ago." Mont-
golfier, whom he encountered in the depot, told him that the company
had issued stock to the amouut of two million francs for bailding
boats and navigating the Rhone, and had already spent six hundred
thousand francs in establish-
ing their works at Lyons. The
enterprise, however, proved a
failure.
In one of his letters to Bar-
low, written during this time,
Fulton predicted a speed of
sixteen miles an hour for his
steamboat, to which Barlow
replied, "I see without con-
sulting Parker that you are
mad." In 1805, Mr. Barlow
returned to America and took
up his rosidence at Kalorama,
a beautiful country-seat in
Georgetown, on the outskirts
of Washington. Here Fulton
joined him early in 1807, and
set himself to preparing a
steamboat which should be
successful commercially as
well as mechanically. In pre>
paring this there is little doubt that he made use of the ideas and
mistakes of other inventors who had been at work for years on the
same idea. Bumsey, an American inventor, in 1784 had propelled a
boat by a jet of water forced out of the stem by pumps worked by
steam-power. John Fitch, of Philadelphia, had constructed a steam-
boat in 1787 which made several passages between Philadelphia and
Burlington, at the rate of four miles an hour. But he could find
no capitalists willing to furnish the capital necessary to build the
pioneer boats, and the inventor died at last in the depths of penury.
Nathan Bead constructed in 1789 a steamboat with which he crossed
an arm of the sea at Danvers, Massachusetts. Elijah Ormsbee, a
native of Connecticut, constructed a rude steamboat in 1792, that
plied on the Pawtucket River for several weeks, at a rate of three
or four mites an hour. But he could secure no funds to construct a
larger craft, and, abandoning his idea, went back to his carpenter's
bench. Samuel Morey, of Connecticut, is said to have buUt a steam-
BEonnnNa of steam navigation
187
; cu:ruokt.
boat which made the voyage from Hartford to New- York, and was
examined there by Chancellor Livingstou, Judge Livingston, John
St«vens, and others. In 1797 Morey built a steamboat at BoMen-
town, New Jersey, and ran it
to Philadelphia. It had two
wheels, one on each side, with
a shaft running across the
deck, turned by a crank in
the center. Morey, who died
in 1843, never ceased to claim
that Fulton stole the idea of
the Clermont's propelling ma-
chinery from bim. Nicholas
J. Koosevelt, in a petition to
the legislature of New Jersey,
claimed to be the true and
original inventor and discoverer of steamboats with vertical wheels.
He declared, supporting his statement with an affidavit, that about
1781 or 1782 he constructed a wooden model of a steamboat, the
vertical wheels of which were propelled by springs of hickory or
whalebone acting upon the wheels by a band.'
One other inventor preceding Fulton claims our attention, from
the fact that he proposed to drive his boat by twin screws pro-
pelled by a high-pressure engine; thus inventing the screw forty
years before it came into general use and before the principle of the
paddle had been demonstrated to be successful. This inventor was
Captain John Stevens, of Hoboken ; his boat was fourteen feet wide
by sixty-eight long; its machinery is still preserved in the Stevens
Institute at Hoboken, where the curious reader may study it at leisure.
Many experiments were also made, as we have seen, in England and
on the Continent. That Fulton was familiar with all these devices
is doubtful. How much he borrowed from others is a vexed question;
but this much is certain : he built the first steamboat to make regu-
lar trips, carrying passengers and freight, and proving commercially
so profitable to her owners that fleets of successors and rivals soon
sprang into being. He is, therefore, fairly entitled to be considered,
as he has been called, the father of the steamboat.
Fulton's first successful boat was the Clermont. While in France
he had had the good fortune to meet Robert R. Livingston, then
American minister to the Fi-ench court. This gentleman was a mem-
ber of that Livingston family many times referred to in these pages,
a jurist and statesman of high reputation. Born in the city of New-
York in 1746, he was thirty years of age when the second Continental
1 "Appletona' CydopwdU of American Biognphy/'S: 317.
188 HUflOKT OF SEW'TOBX
(Umffr^rsm nat in Philadfrlphia, and as a member of that body was one
(d the rfomrnittee r>f five to draft the Declaration of Independence.
He wan anavoidahly a(j«ent, however, on the Fonrth of July, 1776,
n(f that h'm name (htisf^ not appear among the signers of that immortal
iriKtniment; but he wa8 active in support of the patriot cause, having
nt^rv^A an a raemb^jr of Congress in 1780, and as secretary for foreign
afTairs from 17H1 t/> 178^}. His services to bis State were as great as
thoM^9 t^i his iifmniry. Ue was a member of the convention that, in
1777, fram^j^J the first State constitution of New-York; and he was
the first chanr^ellor of New-Tork, holding the office until 1801, from
whi^^h cauH«; he is gf5nerally called in history Chancellor Livingston.
In this capa^^ity he will >>e remembered as having administered the
oath of ofHr^5 to Washington at his first inauguration in 1789, the
only Statue official to whom this honor has fallen. He was appointed
Unit49d Stftf^5S minister to Prance in 1801, and retained the posi^on
until 1H04, when he resigned and returned to New-York, having
negotiaUxl, in 18(K{, the [lurchase of the territory of Louisiana from
the French goveniment.
But (Jhancellor Livingston's services as statesman and jurist were
not more valuable, perhaps, to his country than the results attained
by his interest in its material development, especially in the steam-
t><)at and (;unaL '4Te applied himself with uncommon energy and
persnveran(?e, and at great expense, to constructing vessels and
mai^hiiiery for that kind of navigation,'^ says his biographer, Cad-
wallader I). Coldon. "As early as 1798 he believed that he had
ac(H)mplished his object, and represented to the Legislature of
N(^w-York that ho was possessed of a mode of applying the steam-
engine to propel a boat on new and advantageous principles: but
that ho was (h?t<^rrod from carrying it into effect by the uncer-
tainty and hassard of a very expensive experiment unless he could
bo assuro<l of an exclusive advantage from it should it be found
BU(UM»HHful. The Legislature, in March, 1798, passed an act vesting
Mr. Livingston with the exclusive right and privilege of navigat-
ing all kinds of botits which might be propelled by the force of
fire or sUmm on all the waters within the territory or jurisdiction
of tht^ HtaU^ of New- York for the term of twenty years from the
passing of the act : upon condition that he should, within a twelve-
month, build such a lK>at>i the mean of whose progress lAould not be
less than four miles an hour.**
The bill, introduced by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New-York, was
reeeiviHl as a j<>ko by l>oth houses, scarcely a member of which be-
lieveii that stonm could ever l>e made to supersede sails ; and after it
had Ihhmi ridiculiHi and made the subjei*t of numei'ous witticisms, it
was i>ass(Hl, as it would have Ih^u probably had the monopoly been
BEQINNINO OF STEAM NAVIGATION 189
for a thousand yeai's, — the franchise, in the opinion of the legislature,
being without value.
Livingston at once built a steamboat of thirty tons burden, but on
her trial trip she failed to develop the necessary speed, and did not
therefore meet the requirements of the law ; the projector's departure
for France about this time led to the temporary abandonment of the
enterprise. In France, however, Livingston met Fulton and Barlow,
as we have seen, and his interest
iu steam navigation was revived.
After many conferences and ex-
periments, the two former deter-
mined to build a pioneer boat at
their joint expense, Mr. Barlow
finding the necessary funds for
Fulton. In April, 1802, the lat-
ter accompanied Mrs. Barlow to
the famous baths at Plombi^res
as her escort, and there busied
himself by constructing with his
own hands several models of
steamboats. Ou his return to
Paris, in the autumn, the con-
struction of a steamboat was
begun on the Seine, which was
finished in the spring of 1803.
A day had been fixed for the trial, ^^^ J^^^i^^^^i^^^
and a party of friends and scien-
tists was invited to witness it; but, unfortunately, the night before
a gale swept down the Seine where the boat lay moored to the bank,
and the machinery being too heavy for the frame, the boat capsized
and sank, to the disappointment of her constructor.
Fulton, undismayed, at once began the work of raising her, and
within twenty-four hours had the machinery upon the bank very
little injured ; the hull, however, was entirely ruined, so that it had to
be replaced by a new one. Summer was well advanced when this was
accomplished ; but, early in August, Mr. Fulton had the pleasure of
inviting the oflScers of the French National Institute, with other dis-
tinguished citizens of Paris, to witness her trial trip ou the Seine.
The boat was sixty-six feet in length and eight feet in width, and was
moved by paddle-wheels on the sides. The trial proved satisfactory
in every respect, except that she did not develop as much speed as her
builders expected. This Fulton attributed in part to lack of power in
the engines, and in part to a faulty construction of the hull; but with
characteristic energy he at once set about remedying the defects.
190 •HIOTOBY OP NEW-YOEK
The two, Fulton and Livingston, now decided to build a larger and
much stronger boat for the navigation of the Hudson River. The
former at once ordered a larger and more powerful engine from
Messrs. Boulton and Watt, the famous engine-builders of Birming-
ham, England, his contract stipulating that it should be delivered
in America by 1805, although it did not arrive until after Fulton's
return in 1806. The hull they decided to build in New- York. Mr.
Livingston also secured, through the aid of his friends, a renewal of
the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the State by steam
— ^Fulton's name being associated with his in the new grant, the two
being joint grantees. The condition was that they should, within two
years, produce a steamboat of at least twenty tons burden, capable of
moving against the current of the Hudson at a rate of at least four
miles per hour. A lat^r act extended the time to April, 1807.
Mr. Livingston is said by several authorities to have furnished the
funds for building the boat, and Colonel Thomas W. Knox, in his re-
cent excellent life of Fulton, repeats the statement. It is probable,
however, that the funds for the model of the Clermont were contrib-
uted in part by Joel Barlow, and for the large boat by several part-
ners. While Fulton was at Plombi^res in 1802, Joel Barlow wrote
him : " My project would be that you should pass directly over to
England, silent and steady, make Chapman construct an engine of
twelve inches while you are building a boat of proportionate size.
Make the experiments on that scale all quiet and quick. If it answers,
put the machinery on board a vessel and go directly to New-York
(ordering another engine, as large as you please, to follow you), then
secure your patent and begin your operation, first small, and then
large. I think I will find you the funds without any noise for the
first operation in England, and if it promises well you will get as
many funds and friends in America as you want. I should suggest a
small operation first for several reasons: it can be made without
noise; there must be imperfections in the first trial which you can
remedy without disgrace if done without noise ; you can easier find
funds for a small experiment." Livingston returned to America
in 1805, Joel Barlow in July of the same year, Fulton in November,
1806. The latter was then in funds, having from vested funds, as he
wrote Mr. Barlow, **five hundred pounds sterling a year, with a steam-
engine and pictures worth two thousand pounds.**
Fulton, heeding Barlow's advice, bad brought with him a miniature
engine, and hastening to the latter^ country-s^Mit, near Washington,
constructed there a model of the larger Clermont* which the two
friends tried on the quiet watei^ of Rook Creek, which flowed through
the grounds. The trial proving satisfactory, Fulton and Livingston
next began building, at the ship-yaixl of Charles Brown, on the East
BEannnNO of steam navigation 191
River, a la^e full-powered steamboat, 130 feet long, 16i feet wide,
4 feet deep, and of 160 tone burden by the custom-houBe regula-
tions then in force. The wheels were fifteen feet in diameter, with
paddles four feet in lei^h and two feet in dip. The boiler was twenty
feet long, seven feet deep, and eight feet wide. The steam-cylinder
was twenty-four inches in diameter, and bad a stroke of four feet.
It was not until August, 1807, that
she was ready for her preliminary
trip, which was made at an early
hour, from the ship-yard to the Jer-
sey shore. Pew people, except the
crews of vessels at anchor in the ;
harbor, witnessed it; and these,
seeing a vessel moving through the '^""^ *" "'™"«^"'='™-
water without the aid of sails, and, indeed, without masts on which
to spread them, regarded the strange craft with superstitious awe, aa
something uncanny. A few days later her trial trip was made in the
presence of a large company of invited guests, including several
members of the legislature : among them Dr. Mitchill, the gentleman
who had secured the first concession for Mr. Li\ing8ton in 1798.
Of this trial trip Mr. Golden has given the following description :
'* Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who wit-
nessed the experiment. The minds of the most incredulous were
changed in a few minutes. Before the boat had made the progress
of a quarter of a mile, the greatest unbeliever must have been con-
verted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive machine,
thanked his stars that be had more wisdom than to waste his money
on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his features as the
boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed ; his complacent
smile gradually stiffened into an expression of wonder. The jeers of
the ignorant, who had neither sense nor feeling enough to suppress
their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, were silenced for a mo-
ment by a vulgar astonishment, which deprived them of the power of
utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted from the incredulous
multitude, which crowded the shores,. shouts and acclamations of
congratulation and applause."
The trial showed to Fulton a defect in the paddle-wheels, the buck-
ets of which dipped too deeply in the water. This having been reme-
died, a second trial showed great improvement in the speed. The
boat was then advertised to run between New- York and Albany, for
the conveyance of passengers and freight. She was named the Cler-
mont, after Chancellor Livingston's beautiful country-seat on the
Hudson. The day of the first sailing of the Clermont has been vari-
ously given, but it was probably on Monday, August 11, 1807. On
192 ■ mSTOBY OP NEW-YORK
his return from Albany, Mr. Pulton gave, in the "American Citizen"
of New- York, the following official account of the trip :
I arriTed this afternoon, at four o'clock, in the steamboat from Albany. Aa the
aaooess of my experiment ^vea me fpreat hopes that saoh boats may be rendered of
f^reat importance to my country, to prevent erroneous opinions, aod give Bome satis-
faction to the friends of useful improvements, yon will have the goodness to publish
the following facts :
I left New- York on Monday at one o'clock, and arrived at Clermont, the seat of
Chancellor Livingston, at one o'clock on Tuesday : time, twenty-four hoois ; distance,
one hundred and ten miles. On Wednesday I departed from the Chancellor's at nine
in the morning, and arrived at Albany at five in the afternoon : distance, forty miles ;
time, eight hours. The sum is one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours —
equal to near five miles an hour. On Thursday, at nine o'clock in the morning, I left
Albany, and arrived at the Chancellor's at six in the evening. I started from thence
at seven, and arrived at New-York at four in the afternoon : time, thirty hours; space
run through, one hundred and fifty miles — equal to five miles an hour. Throughout
my whole way, both going and returning, the wind was ahead ; no advantage could
be derived from my sails. The whole has, therefore, been performed by the power of
the steam-engine.
To his friend Mr. Bartow he wrote with more freedom and ani-
mation: "My steamboat voyage to Albany and back has tamed out
rather more favorable than I had calculated. ... I overtook many
sloops and schoouers
beating to windward,
and parted with them
as if they had been at
anchor. . . . The morn-
ing I left New York
there were not perhaps
thirty persons in the
city who believed that
the boat would ever
move one mile an hour,
c«aMo«T MAKoa-HoraE. ^^ ^e of the least util-
ity! While we were
putting off from the wharf; which was crowded with spectators,
I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which
ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors.
... It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise
on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other great rivers which are now
laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen; and
although the prospect of personal emolument has been some induce-
ment to me, yet I feel iofinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the
immense advantage my country will derive from the invention."'
■ C. B.Todd."Ufeof J«f4Butow.''p.333: J. F. RdcHt. "Ufvof Robert FnlUD." p. 174.
BEGINNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION 193
An eye-witness of the progress of the Clermont up the Hudson has
given this account of it:
In the early autumn of the year 1807, a knot of villagers was gathered on a high
bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the
appearance of a strange dark-looking craft which was slowly making its way up the
river. Some imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to express
their opinion that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. What seemed strange
in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and strange black smoke-pipes rising from
the deck instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels
navigating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the
walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked
paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose wave
upon wave, added still more to the wonder of the rustics.
This strange-looking craft was the Clermont on her trial trip to Albany; and of
the little knot of villagers above mentioned, the writer, then a boy in his eighth year,
with his parents, formed a part: I well remember the scene, one so Well fitted to
impress a lasting picture upon the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels
that passed up and down the river. The forms of four persons were distinctly visible
on the deck as she passed the bluff — one of whom doubtless was Robert Pulton, who
had on board with him all the cherished hopes of years, the most precious cargo the
wonderful boat could carry. On her return trip the curiosity she excited was scarcely
less intense — the whole country talked of nothing but the sea -monster belching forth
fire and smoke. The fishermen became terrified and rowed homewards; for they saw
nothing but destruction devastating their fishing grounds; while the wreaths of black
\Tipor and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels foaming with the stirred up waters pro-
duced great excitement among the boatmen until the character of that curious boat,
and the nature of the enterprise she was pioneering, had been ascertained.^
Some few alterations and repairs were suggested to Fulton by this
experimental passagfe, such as boarding up the sides, decking over the
boiler and works, furnishing each cabin with twelve berths, and
strengthening many parts of the ironwork. All through the autumn
the Clermont continued to run as a packet, her quick and regular
passages and the novelty of the trip usually attracting a full com-
plement of passengers. This awakened the jealousy of the owners of
sailing vessels, who sued out an injunction restraining Fulton from
making use of the steamboat, on the ground that the navigation of
the river from use immemorial belonged to them. This case, absurd
as it seems, was one of the causes ceUhr^es of the day, Daniel Webster
being retained as counsel for the defendants, who won their case, as
they deserved. Wilful attempts to destroy the vessel by running
afoul of her and in other ways were also made. At last the legisla-
ture was appealed to, and at its session of 1807-8 passed a law add-
ing five years to the exclusive privilege of Fulton and Livingston
for every new boat added, provided the whole term did not exceed
thirty years, and appending a clause declaring that all combinations
to destroy the Clermont or any other steamboat, and all wilful
I Reigaifs "Fulton,'* pp. 175, 176; extract from letter of H. Freeland, dated January 4, 1856.
Vol. m.— 13.
194 HlffTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
attetnpto to injure them, were public crimes, punishable by fine and
impriftoiiment.
The patentoeB were also exposed to untold annoyance and loss bj
attaeltH upon their patent rights, and npon the exclusive privilege of
X>/f/i^ P^tU-t-L, A^O^ AV^i«-V A- **t^-r*<^£.tL^i^^^^Zj^,,^/t.,^^
C^ta'^ft--*-^*'*-^^
'^"^^^^-''feit^^*** (/•'ie**-*^
^^
FA<^*nm,« or lrtu wwmx »t M»nn- mTox.
navigation that had been given them. Men who had lai^^bed at the
)we)v>8terv>us littie craft on the stocks now hastened to secnre pat^its
on the most obvious ii'i-r^v, m, tits, many of them added by Fnlton
himself, and sn^me of them already covered by his patents.' Finan-
<qers wh«^ had scoffed at the {dan of moving boats by st««in, and had
BEGINNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION 195
refused it financial aid, now scented a golden shower, and suddenly
discovered that Fulton's exclusive privilege was a monopoly, resolved
that monopolies were dangerous and illegal, and proceeded to break
this one by establishing rival lines of boats. The two inventors, in-
stead of sitting down to enjoy the fruits of their hard-earned victory,
were engaged in constant lawsuits to preserve what had been won,
precisely as was the case with Morse half a century later.
Fulton's first patent for improvements in moving boats by steam
was dated February 11, 1809. Two years later he secured a second
patent, covering boats and machinery. Others, however, had pre-
ceded him in taking out patents on his own inventions. One of the
most notable of these was a " pendulum-boat," constructed by an
ingenious gentleman of New-York, with paddle-wheels intended to be
moved by the oscillations of a pendulum. While the boat was on the
stocks, and the wheels met only the resistance of the air, this motor
worked to perfection ; but when in the water it was found that the
pendulum could not move the wheels, except by the application to it
of a great power ; and steam being the only thing available, a steam-
engine was introduced, and employed to move the pendulum, which,
in turn, moved the paddle-wheels. For this contrivance the genius
obtained a patent ; and as Fulton had proven the commercial future
of the steamboat, he had no diflSculty in organizing a company to
place boats of this design in commission. Fulton and Livingston
sued in the United States Circuit Court for an injunction, but the
judge decided that he was without jurisdiction, and the case was car-
ried to the State Court of Chancery. The chancellor, however, after
hearing arguments on both sides, refused to grant an injunction.
The plaintiffs then appealed to the Court of Errors, which, for this
case, was composed of the State Senate and the five judges of the
Supreme Court ; and that body, in the winter of 1812, unanimously
reversed the decision of the lower court, and ordered a perpetual in-
junction. To prevent further violation of the laws of this character,
the legislature of 1811 enacted a law providing more stringent penal-
ties for their infringement ; but this could not wholly restrain eager
rivals, and Fulton's last days were embittered, and his end no doubt
hastened, by the struggle to secure for himself a part, at least, of the
fruit of his long years of labor and experiment.
Meantime the Clermont had been improved, and had begun run-
ning as a regular packet between New- York and Albany, making the
round trip in seventy-two hours. As the sloops and schooners, here-
tofore the only packets, were from four to seven days in making the
distance between New- York and Albany, her superiority was mani-
fest^ and the traveling public hastened to patronize her. When one
reflects that for one dollar the passenger may now be transported on
196 HISTOBY OF NEW-YOEK
palatial steamerE iu a single day or night from one city to the other,
the fares seem high enough to have proved remunerative.'
The great achievement was almost unheralded by the press. In the
"Commercial Advertiser," the leading newspaper of New -York at that
time, we do not find a single reference to it, except that PiUton's letter
to the "American Citizen" is reprinted. In the "Gazette" of August
22 is this simple announcement:
" Mr. Fulton's new invented steam-
boat yesterday returned to this city
from Albany, having performed the
passage to and from that place iti
little more than four days." On
October 5, the "Albany Gazette"
said: "Mr. Fulton's new steam-
boat left New- York on the 2d, at
10 A. H., against a very strong tide,
FiBKY TicKKT. ^^^ rough watcr, and a violent
gale from the north. She made a
headway against the most sanguine expectations, and without being
rocked by the waves." The editors of that day seem to have con-
sidered the project too chimerical to be worthy of attention, or per-
haps they thought their readers more interested in the trial of Aaron
Burr, then taking place at Richmond, and in the exciting moves on
the European chessboard then in progress.
Other boats were soon built — the Car of Neptune, a boat of two
hundred and ninety-five tons measurement, in 1808 ; the Paragon in
1811; and others the dates of whose construction have not been pre-
served. The later development of the steamboat, and the fierce com-
petitions to which it gave rise, will be narrated in another chapter.
The history of the invention of the steam ferry-boat, however, prop-
erly belongs to this period.
Up to 1812 the only means of ferriage across the North and East
rivers were " horse-boats," small craft moved by paddle-wheels which
were turned by four horses walking around a shaft on board the boat.
The fare, we read, was four cents. Pulton, in 1811, began the con-
struction of two steam ferry-boats for the North River, and completed
both in 1812. Others soon followed for the East River. Cadwallader
D. Golden, in his life of Fulton, describes them as having been twin
ITheTVWvu foOoirm: Pinm yew-Tort t«V«^ u)f Ot linw. •« foDoin; Npwbnn: (It honnl. 13;
pluMk'* Point, ta; VtM PeinX. C50: Kewtarc. PaoKUuvpiite (IT hooral. M; Empiu |3D hoan).
•3: Pgoxliktvpil*. 13.50 : Hndaon. IS : Albuy.«7. tS; BiMboo iW honrsl. IS.SO: AlbuT |36 faonn).
Paeaaigm otliFr thui tliofF hound to lb« nfmbr |7. Tbls aehrdnir is pnfanci by tlw f<dloiriiiK
l>iidiiMr*«vracluiivtdoi!*doll*rprrtimityml)nL annoanraiwiit: "ThvN'ortb Kth nMmlKttt will
An BdTTrtisnnnt In (hp "Altany f)uFttF''(thr Imtt Panta* Rook on PndaT. 4lh of Sefitember.
mij one we bkn> bMO kblr to flnd in N««-Tork •:<>«. v.. uid tnivr ml Albaoy at 9 in t]ip mt\rr-
«r Albany Joomabl. dated SeptHnhrr I. 1i«>7. noun. Prnvinonii. pMid btttks. and aMaauaod*-
(In* a dlfcuat tMp of fU*. and aho the schcd- tion* are pntrtdfd."
BEOINNINO 0F STEAM NAVIGATION
FJ.A^ of tlie IITT of NEl^ YORK
198 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
boats, each being two complete hulls united by a deck or bridge,
sharp at both ends, so that they could move with equal facility back-
ward or forward, or retrace their course without turning. Fulton
also invented for them the floating or movable dock, and the method
by which the boats were brought to them without shock.
In the "American Medical and Philosophical Register" for Octo-
ber, 1812, Fulton gave a description of these boats, from which we
cite the following : " The boat which I am now constructing will
have some important improvements, particularly in the power of the
engine to overcome strong ebb tides: from which again other im-
provements will be made as in all new inventions. The present boat
crosses the river — ^which is a mile and a half broad — when it is calm,
in fifteen minutes. The average time is twenty minutes. She has
had in her, at one time, eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses,
and one hundred passengers, and could have taken three hundred
persons more." Except in the increased power of her engines, the
modern ferry-boat shows little improvement over the pioneers of 1812.
Fulton's great invention would probably have attracted more atten-
tion but for the unrest and upheavals in the political and business
affairs of the city. The embargo act of December 22, 1807, passed
by Congress, on Jefferson's recommendation, to force the repeal of
the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, and of the British orders
in council, had the same effect as a blockading of American ports.
New- York, being the chief commercial city of the Union, was most
severely crippled by the act. Her immense trade with South and
Central America, and the East and West Indies, was practically inter-
dicted, as well as that with France and England, since any vessel
trading with either was exposed to capture and condemnation. Ware-
houses were closed, clerks discharged, grass grew upon the silent
docks, costly ships that had been the pride of the seas chafed at the
piers, or went to decay in the harbor ; while incomes that had been
sufficient to maintain their possessors in lavish style dwindled to
almost nothing. Farmer and artisan alike were debarred from the
markets of the world.
The Federalists and Republicans were the two chief parties in the
city at this time, although there were many warring factions com-
posed of partizans of the leading families. The Federalists de-
nounced the embargo act without stint, both from self-interest and
because it was a measure of the opposite party. They said it would
not effect the desired end, the purpose of both belligerents being to
force the United States to declare war against one or the other; that
neither nation would suffer seriously from the interdiction; and that
it was therefore as useless as it was mischievous. The Republicans,
on the other hand, maintained that the embargo policy prevented the
B£aiNNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION 199
capture of our vessels, and kept us from being embroiled in the war
then raging between the two nations.
The "American Citizen,'^ the organ of the Clintonians, bitterly op-
posed the measure. A public meeting was held in New-York in 1808,
at which speeches were made denouncing the policy of the party then
in power, and resolutions calling for the repeal of the embargo were
passed. The Clintonian faction triumphed in the local election of
February, 1808, and De Witt Clinton was restored to the mayoralty
of the city. He had been removed in 1807 by the council of appoint-
ment, and Marinus Willett appointed in his place. Pierre Cortlandt
Van Wyck, the former recorder, was also restored to his ofl&ce, the
incumbent, Maturin Livingston, being removed.
In 1809 Jefferson, as one of the last acts of his administration, con-
sented to a repeal of the embargo act except in the case of Great
Britain and France, and the substitution of non-intercourse instead,
and the city's business and prospects improved. Domestic manu-
factures revived, especially the woolen manufacture. There was also
great activity in erecting new fortifications and strengthening old
ones designed for the defense of the city; for England, by her orders
in council leveled against our commerce, and by insisting on her right
to search American vessels and impress all seamen of her nationality,
whether naturalized or not, found on board of them, was becoming
so aggressive that war seemed imminent. In 1807, we read, govern-
ment decided "to enlarge the works on Governor's Island, to erect a
powerful marine battery on the north-west point of that island, ex-
tend the works on Ellis Island, and erect a strong fort with two or
three tiers of guns on the battery."
Madison succeeded Jeflferson as president on March 4, 1809, and
the strife of parties grew less intense, although the war-cloud still
loomed portentous. In the election of 1809 the Federalists carried the
State of New- York, and the new council of appointment chose Jacob
Badcliff mayor in place of De Witt Clinton, and Josiah Ogden Hoff-
man recorder instead of Pierre Cortlandt Van Wyck. At the next
election, however, by a combination of the Clinton and Livingston
factions, the Republican ticket was elected, and Clinton and Van
Wyck were restored to their oflBces.
One of the events of this summer of 1809 was the celebration, by
the New- York Historical Society, of the two-hundredth anniversary
of the discovery of the island of Manhattan by Henry Hudson. This
society had been organized so recently as 1804 by men of the highest
standing in letters, art, and scholarship in New-York, and was already
beginning to make its influence felt by inculcating a love for histori-
cal research, and by its efforts to preserve the annals of the city and
colony. For the anniversary celebration the city fathers tendered the
200
HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
use of the large "front court-room" of the City Hall, where the liter-
ary exercises were held on September 4, 1809, Governor Tompkius, the
mayor and corporation, and a large company of distinguished citi-
zens being present. The chief feature
of the day was a "learned and in-
teresting discourse" by the Rev. Dr.
Samuel Miller, one of the founders
of the society.
After the address the members of
the society and invited guests pro-
ceeded to the City Tavern on Broad-
way, and "at 4 p. M. sat down to an
elegant dinner prepared by Messrs.
Fay and Gibson, consisting of a vari-
ety of shell and other fish with which
our waters abound, wild pigeons and
succotash (Indian com and beans),
the favorite dish of the season, with
the different meats introduced into
this country by the European settlers.^
The toasts proposed at this dinner, pre-
served in the records of the society, are interesting, some as showing
the mode of thought of our forefathers, others as illustrating the
trend of public sentiment at that time. They were:
"ChristopherColiunbus, the discoverer of America. Hia monament is not inscribed
with his name, yet all nations recognize it. Hia fame covers half the globe and its
summit reaches beyond the clouds." "Qaeen Isabella of Spain — The magnanimous
and munificent friend and patron of Columbus." "John and Sebastian Cabot —The
contemporaries of Columbus and the discoverers of North America." "John. Vena-
sano — HiH enterprising genius, and his visit to this part of the country deserve to be
better known." "Henry Hudson — The enterprising and intrepid navigator. Though
disastrous his end yet fortunate his renown, for the majestic river which bears hb
name shall render it immortal." "The Fourth of September, 1609^ The day on which
Hudson landed on our shores." " Wonter Van Twiller— The first Governor of New
Netberland." " Peter StnyveBaat — The last Dutch Governor, an intrepid soldier and
faithful officer." "Bichard Nicolls — The First English Qovemor of the Provinoe of
New- York." "George Clinton — The first Governor of the State of New- York."
"William Smith — The historian of New-York." "Richard Haklnyt and Samuel
Pnrcfaas — May future compilers of historical doooments emulate their diligence and
fidelity." "William Smith, Cadwallader Colden, Samuel Smith, Jeremy Belknap, and
I Mlnntes of tbe New-Tork Hlstorlckl Sodety. vhile Rtill ■ y ountt man wiu raised to tbe bench of
1 : 23. Qie Supreme Court. Therenpon he took up hi«
: Mayor Badeliff wts the bod of William Rad- resldeDce Id New-Tork City ; but eventually re-
cliff, > oaptain of militls at the beginning of tbe signed from tbe beneb and Temmed practice
le to the rank of brigadier
U appointed mayn-, holding tbe poaition
, studied law. and began practice *
h was the oldeet of one year; and again in t^e years ISIG, 1S16, ■
Poughkeepvle. He ms eminently m««e«aful, and during hia mayoralty.
181T. Tbe population of tbe dty reached IW.OOO
BEQINNINO OF STEAM NAVIGATION
201
George itichards Mmot— American historians. They have merited the gratitude of
their coantry." "The United States of America— May our prosperity ever confirm
the belief that the discovery of onr country was a blessing to mankind." " The State
of New-Yoi^ — May it ever be the pleasing task of the historian to record events that
shall evince the wisdom of her Legislature, and display the virtue of her people."
*' The Masaachnsetts Historical Society, which set the honorable example of collect-
ing and preserving what relates to the history of oar country." "Our Forefathers —
To whose enterprise and fortitude uader Providence we owe the blessings we enjoy."
After the governor and mayor had retired,
certain volunteer toasts were offered, as fol-
lows: By William Johnson (the chairman) —
" The Governor of the Stato of New- York."
By John Kntard— "The Mayor and Corpora-
tion of the City of New- York." By Dr. Sam-
uel L. Hitohill — "A speedy termination of our
foreign relatdons." By Simeon De Witt— "May
our successors a century hence celebrate the
same event which we this day commemorate."
By Dr. David Hosack — " The memory of Saint
Nicholas. May the virtuous habits and simple
manners of onr Dutch ancestors be not lost in
the luxuries and reflnetnents of the present
time." By Ju<^e Pendleton —" May the same
virtues and the same industry combine in our
land which have converted an Indian cornfield
into a Botanic Garden." By Josiah Ogden
Hoffman- "Egbert Benson, onr absent and
respected president." By Colonel Curtonius —
" Pierre Van Cortlandt,
Governor of the State o:
Galen, Swedish Consul — " The mouth of the Hudson. May it soon have a sharp set
of teeth to show in its defense." By the recordi:^ secretary (Mr. Pintard)— " The
American Fair, without whose endearing society this western world, the rich inheri-
tance from our enterprising ancestors, would still be a wilderness indeed."
The occasioD proved of great benefit to the infant society, as it
directed public attention to it and greatly increased its prestige.
Among the notable men proposed for membership at this time were
Oliver Wolcott, David B. Ogden, William Paulding, Jr., Washington
Irving, and Richard Riker, later recorder. At the same time Lind-
ley Murray, Noah Webster, Charles Brockden Brown, George Gibbs,
Timothy Alden, Rev. Dr. Jedediah Morse, Rev. Dr. John Elliott, Rev.
Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Rev. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, Dr. Tim-
othy Dwight (president of Yale College), Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith
(president of Princeton College), Josiah Quincy, and Vice-President
CJeorge Clinton were elected honorary members.
Dming this period the present City Hall was built, the corner-stone
having been laid by Edward Livingston in 1803. The front and side
walls were of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, marble, and when finished,
in lftl2, it was pronounced the finest public edifice in the United
By Colonel Curtonius — , — -
idt, the first Lieutenant- (^^c<.<^-t,jrC .^^'tt****^
e of New- York." By Mr. ^
202
UUnOB¥ OF NEW-TORK
Htates. The City Hall Park during this period is described as hav-
ing been a Iteautifut place, the walks and grass-plots being trimly
kept, and ahatled by groves of elm, poplar, willows, and catalpas.
Fronting upon it were some notable edifices — the Park Theater, Dr.
Hpring'H Brick Church, Tammany Hall, the Xew-York Gardens, Me-
chanioB' Hall, and the London HoteL There were also a Shakespeare
gallery and an English and French reading-room. The Park Theater
was then the fasliionable place of amusement Here, in November,
1810, the English actor George Frederic Cooke appeared in "King
Richard III.," and attracted large audiences, the crush being so great
that many ladies and gentlemen gained their boxes by entering an
alley in the rear of the theater.
It was a period of church-building, changes, and removals. The
UpiscopalianB at this time led in the number of church edifices,
having foiuteen, includ-
ing chapels. St. James
Church was erected
some two miles east of
St Michael's, in 1810.
The Rev. Dr. Samuel F.
Jarvis served as rector
of both until he was
appointed Professor of
Biblical Learning in the
New General Theologi-
cal Seminary, in 1818.
Calvary Church was
founded the same yeai-
as St Michael's— 1810—
through the devoted la-
bors of the Rev. Ben-
jamin P. Aydelott The church edifice stood near Corlaer's Hook.
The most notable church in the city in 1810 was Dr. Gardiner
Spring's Brick (Presbyterian) Church, which stood on or near the
present site of the "Times^ building. Dr. Spring was one of the
most celebrated pulpit orators of his day, and served as pastor of
the Brick Church for fifty years, notwithstanding the fact that dur-
ing this period he received invitations to become president of Hamil-
ton and Dartmouth colleges in turn. The Wall Street Presbyterian
Church was rebuilt in 1810, and greatly enlarged. The Orange Street
Chnrefa was fonnded in 1809, and in 1810 the congregation began
1 It nood on the dt» «f th» Nerraml OciU««k^ on l>44 on Lrnoz HilL ronm at Madisoo ATennp
DlZtj^nlnlh MnM. itMir Puk Avroina. Tbr ptm- mid SeTrntT-Ant HH'MI. Bfar thr Lraoi Utmry.
*at aad Ab< St. Juar* Chnrph mM rrrrtvd in EDimB.
ST. JAMES CBUROa, IN
BEGINNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION 203
building a church edifice in Spring street, near Varick. At the same
time the Third Associate Church began building an imposing stone
structure on Murray street, nearly opposite Columbia College. The
latter was completed in 1812, the able and eloquent Dr. John M.
Mason becoming its first pastor. The Methodists and Baptists were
not idle during this period. The former built two new church edi-
fices— the Allen street and the Bedford street churched. The Bap-
tists built the Mulberry Street Church and the North Beriah Church.
Although the embargo act and the rumors of war led to the stagna-
tion of trade, the city continued to grow during this period at a pace
which nothing could retard. Old streets were "regulated," widened,
and paved. New streets were laid out; large tracts of outlying lands
came into the market, were sold, surveyed, divided into city lots, and
covered with shops and residences. The lands of Trinity Church on
the west side were the first to be taken up and settled, that corpora-
tion having generously presented to the city all the lands required for
streets through its property. In 1808 alone it ceded to the city for
this purpose land for Greenwich street from Spring street north to
the limit of its property, for Hudson street from North Moore street
to Vestry street, for Washington street from Christopher street to the
Hudson River, for Varick street from North Moore street to Vestry
street, for Beach street from Hudson to the eastern limit of its prop-
erty, for Laight street from Hudson to its eastern boundary, for
Vestry street from Greenwich street to its eastern boundary, for Des-
brosses street from Greenwich street to the Hudson River, for Le
Roy street from Hudson street to the Hudson River, for King, Charl-
ton, Van Dam, Clarkson, Hamersley, Barrow, and Morton streets, as
far east and west as the church lands extended, for an alley twenty-
five feet wide in the rear of St. John's Church, and for another of the
same width from Beach street to Laight.
At Canal street the engineers were confronted with one of the most
difficult problems encountered in the laying out of the city, and few
urban sites have presented greater obstacles to engineers than the
hills, crags, and swamps of Manhattan Island. The whole course of
the modem Canal street was then low, marshy ground partially over-
flowed in the wet season, — so low indeed that during high tides it was
asserted that the waters of the East River and the Hudson met in the
center of the island. Small brooks, rising at about the present inter-
section of Broadway and Canal, flowed sluggishly, the one east into
the East River, the other west into the Hudson. By 1808 the line of
houses along the Bowery had crept up as far as Bond street. Canal
street had been laid out by various boards of engineers, and as many
plans for opening it had been suggested and discussed, without the
city and the landowners being able to agree upon any. The plan
204
HISTOBY OF NEW-TOBK
that met with most favor was a canal, one foot below low-water mark,
passing from the East River to the Hudson, which could be made to
drain so much of the Collect as had not been filled in, and would also
carry off the waterflow from the slopes on the north and south. Wide
streets were proposed on both sides of the caual.
A petition was at length presented to the legislature, asking that
commissioners might be appointed to regulate and open the street.
Gouvemeur Morris, Simeon De Witt, and John Rutherford, who had
been appointed
by the a«t of
legislature of
April 3, 1807,
" Commissioners
of streets and
roads in the City
of New- York,"
refused to serve
on this commis-
sion, and a spe-
cial commission
was appointed
by the legisla-
ture for the pur-
pose. This body
adopted the plan
of the canal be-
fore proposed, and the street when finally opened showed an open
canal in its center, its banks set with shade-trees, and with a broad
thoroughfare on either side, the whole having a width of one hun-
dred feet. As the city grew this canal was arched over with brick
and became a sewer, the trees were cut down, and the present wide
and busy street was the result. About the same time the Collect,
into which all the surplus material from the grading of streets and
lots had been dumped, was filled up and erased forever from the map
of the city. The region around it, however, remained unsettled and
comparatively valueless for several years.
The commission of 1807, before referred to, did so great a work for
the city that its labors and their results should be described at length.
In its province its powers were practically unlimited, and could have
been safely conferred only on men of the utmost probity and judicial
integrity. The commissioners had "exclusive power to lay out streets,
roads, and public squares of such width, extent, and direction, as to
them shall seem most conducive to the public good, and to shut up
streets not accepted by the Common Council within that part of said
BBOADWAT AT CAKAL BTKBET, ISIS.
BEGHraiNa OP STEAM NATIOATION
city of New-
York to the
northward of a
line comTDenc-
ing at the wharf
of George Clin-
ton on the
Hudson River,
thence running
throughFitzroy
Road, Green-
wich Lane and
Art Street to
the Bowery >
Road, thence o
down Bowery ^
Road to North "
Street, thence n
through North |
Street in its i
present diree- t
tion to the East |
Biver." ' '
between tlie three- and
the Bli-Qiile atone be-
loniclDg t4> the corpora-
tioQ ot the dtjc. The
"Uiddle Rowl" WH
Intended to be one
hundred feet wide, the
othen Biity feet SBch.
EnrTOB.
- PitMoy Road ran
from Fonrtepnth street.
between Seventh and
Eighth BTenuea, north
and north west, nntil
it entered Portr-eee-
ond street, between
Eighth and Ninth ave-
nues. Oreetiwloh I^ne
ran from Hndaon Btver
northeast and eaM
along the preaent lines
oT OanaevooTt Mreet
and Greenwich Avenoe
to AirtOT Place. Art
206 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
The leading streets and avenues were to be at least sixty feet wide.
They could take land needed for streets and squares by right of emi-
nent domain, leaving the question of damages to be settled by com-
missioners, from whose decisions there could be no appeal to the
courts ; and could enter upon lands, cut trees, and do other damage
when necessary in performing their functions. They were to cause
surveys and accurate maps to be made of all lands seized by them,
and provide three copies — one for the secretary of state, to be of
record; one for the clerk of the city and county of New- York; and
one for the mayor and aldermen of the city. They were to be sworn
to the faithful discharge of their duties. The commissioners, in lay-
ing out the city, after much discussion decided to adopt the rectangu-
lar system, chiefly because of "the greater economy and convenience
in building," so that New- York owes her tame and ugly lay-out into
square blocks chiefly to questions of economy and convenience. The
avenues were made one hundred feet wide ; such of them as could be
extended to the village of Harlem were numbered west from First
Avenue, which passed "from the west of Belle vue Hospital to the east
of Harlem Church.'' Twelfth avenue, the last, "ran from the wharf
at Manhattanville along the shore of the Hudson River, in which it
was lost." From First to Second Avenue was 650 feet; from Second
to Third, 610 feet; up to Sixth Avenue the space between each was
920 feet; west of Sixth Avenue, 800 feet. Fifth Avenue was called
Manhattan Avenue or Middle Road. East of First Avenue were four
short avenues, designated A, B, C, and D respectively.
The cross streets were laid out up to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth,
First street running from Avenue B to the Bowery, and One Hun-
dred and Fifty-fifth street from Bussing's Point to the Hudson
River. These streets were laid out sixty feet wide, except Four-
teenth, Twenty-third, Thirty-fourth, Forty-second, Fifty-seventh,
Seventy -second. Seventy- ninth. Eighty-sixth, Ninety-sixth, One
Hundred and Sixth, One Hundred and Sixteenth, One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth, One Hundred and Thirty-fifth, One Hundred
and Forty-fifth, and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth, which were
one hundred feet wide. They reserved ground for a public mar-
ket, 3000 feet long by 800 wide, lying between Tenth and Sev-
enth streets. First Avenue, and the East River; for a reservoir
between Eighty-ninth and Ninety-fourth streets, Fourth and Fifth
avenues; for a parade between Twenty-third and Thirty-second
streets, Third and Seventh avenues (1350 yards long by 1000
wide); and four public squares or parks — Bloomingdale, Man-
hattan, Reservoir (which was to be used for a park until needed
for its special use), and Harlem — modest forerunners of the noble
Central Park which was to follow fifty years later.
BEQINNINO OF STEAM NAVIGATION
207
Accompanying the maps were certain remarks and explanations
by the commissioners, some extracts from which will be interesting
to the reader of to-day: "To some it may seem a matter of suiprise
that the whole island of Manhattan has not been laid out as a city.
To others it may be a subject of merriment that the Commissioners
have provided space for a greater population than is collected at any
spot on this side of China, They have in this been governed by the
shape of the ground. It is not improbable that considerable numbers
may be collected at Harlem before the high hills to the southward of
it shall be built upon as a city, and it is improbable that for centuries
to come the ground north of Harlem flats will be covered by houses.
To have come short of the extent laid out might therefore have de-
feated just expectations, while to have gone further might have fur-
nished materials to the pernicious spirit of speculation." But the
commissioners builded better than they knew. Barely eighty years
have passed since these words were written, yet Harlem flats is a
compact mass of houses, and the city limits have been extended
nearly ten miles beyond — fact thus again distancing the utmost
stretch of fancy.
The State election of April, 1811, was notable for the open revolt of
the Tammany Society against the regular candidate of its party for
lieutenant-governor — De Witt Clinton. On learning of the nomination
of Clinton, the Tammany Society met at once and passed resolutions
with a preamble setting forth that they believed Mr. Clinton to have
208 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
personal and private interests aside from those of the Republican
party, and that he was bent upon ^^establishing in his person a ptiriii-
cious family aristocracy.'' They therefore nominated Colonel Mari-
nus Willett for lieutenant-governor in opposition to Mr. Clinton, and
appointed Dr. Mitchill, Matthew L. Davis (the biographer of Aaron
Burr), John Ferguson, and others a committee to secure his election.
Colonel Nicholas Fish was the nominee of the Federalists. When the
result of the voting was announced, the extent of their labors became
apparent. Fish received in the city two thousand and forty-four
votes, Willett six hundred and seventy-eight, and Clinton but five
hundred and ninety. Had the result depended on the city's vote
alone, Clinton would have been defeated; but his great talents and
eminent services gained him suflScient votes throughout the State
to counterbalance the loss in the city, and he was elected.
A fire occuiTcd in New- York in May, 1811, which for years was
spoken of as "the Great Fire." Between eighty and one hundred
large buildings were burned, and for a time it seemed as though the
whole city would be destroyed. It began on Chatham street, near
Duane, on a Sunday morning, and was fanned by a high wind blow- |
ing at the time. While it was raging the spire of the Brick Church
caught fire from flying embers, and for some moments it seemed to
the spectators that the famous structure was doomed. No ladders or
fire-engines could reach the spot, yet a single hand could have dashed
down the brand and extinguished the flame. A sailor in the crowd,
quick to perceive the situation, gained access to the roof, climbed the
tall steeple by the aid of the lightning-rod, and extinguished tlie
brand by beating it with his hat; while the multitude below cheered
the act lustily as being that of a hero. This done, ho descended to
the gi'ound, and was lost in the crowd; nor could he be induced to
come forward and disclose his identity, although a reward was voted
by the oflScers of the church in gratitude for the timely act.
The project of water communication between the Hudson and the
great lakes divided public interest with the growing certainty of war
with England during the years 1811 and 1812; or, more properly
speaking, the prospect of war with England turned men's attention
more and more to our inland commerce and to its possibilities and
necessities. Christopher Colles, soon after the Revolution, set on foot
certain experiments intended to make the Mohawk a navigable water-
way. General Philip Schuyler had proposed a system of locks to
surmount the cataracts of the Mohawk at Little Falls, and a canal
about two and three-fourth miles long, having five locks, had been
built as early as 1796 to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan. In
1791 the legislature of New- York had appointed commissioners to
survey the region between Wood Creek, which falls into Lake On-
BEODnONa OF 8TEAH NATIOATIOM
209
tario, and the Hudson, and to report as to the cost of making canals
between the two streams. In 1792 the le^slature incorporated the
"Inland Navigation Company," of which General Schuyler was the
first president, and which in 1797 had connected Wood Creek with
the Mohawk, and a few years later had carried its improvements so
far that boats could pass from Schenectady into Oneida Lake.
Gouverneur Morris, so far as we find, was the first to put upon
paper the project of a canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie. After a
journey down the St. Lawrence through Lake Ontario, and by land
to Lake Erie, he wrote
in 1801 to John Parish ^ ~
that a large commerce
would at no distant
period whiten those
inland seas, and that
one tenth of the cost
to Britain of the last
campaigu would have
enabled ships to sail
from Loudon through
the Hudson River to
Lake Erie. This gen-
tleman, in company
with Jesse Hawley and James Geddes, published mauy essays and
communications on the general subject in the State press. The
latter, in 1810, gave the surveyor-general, Simeon De Witt, an ex-
haustive report of a survey he had made on his own responsibility,
which was laid before the legislature, and that body appointed a com-
mission, of which Gouverneur Monis was chairman, " to explore the
whole route for inland navigation from the Hudson Eiver to Lake
Ontario and to Lake Erie."
This commission reported in the spring of 1811 that the survey
had been performed, and that the project was entirely feasible;
whereupon the le^slature passed an act investing the commission-
ers with "power to manage all matters relating to the navigation
between the Hudson and the lakes," and added Chancellor Livingston
and Robert Fulton to the commission. The body was authorized to
apply for aid to Congress and to other States, to negotiate with the
Inland Lock Navigation Company for the purchase of its charter and
property, and to ascertain if a loan of five millions of dollars could
be negotiated. The commission applied to Congress for aid, but met
with a cool reception, although Gouverneur Morris and De Witt
Clinton appeared for it in person. It was admitted that the project
was of national interest and importance, but it was said that nothing
Vol. III.— U.
PIBST FREE SCHOOL BLILDINU
210 HIKTOEY OF SET-XOBK
<v>ulfl be douft for Xew-York that was not done for the other States,
and thft application, without being rejected, was never acted upon.
Thift lukewannnetMi on the part of Congress, and the breaking out of
tlifc war of 1812, with the opposition of many in the State, who re-
gardful the tmtt'Timse as chimerical in the extreme, deferred the com-
pletion of the mighty project until another generation of men had
trtiuus ujMjn the sfteiie.
On Docetiiber 11, 1809, the first free-school building in Xew-Tort
was d()dicate<l. The corporation l)y which it was erected — known as
tho "Free School Society of the City of Xew-Tork" — had been
f<ninded in lfi05, as was shown in the previous chapter. In 1808 the
dmrter was altt-red, the cor[K>ration taking the name of the **Free
School Society of the
City of New-Tork."
The same year, the
school having out-
grown its quarters in
the building near the
almshouse, the edifice
before mentioned was
built on a large lot in
Chatham street, also
given by the city.
This first public-school
building in Xew-York
was of brick, and
rm RiTaKHs MAxsioK. contained one lar^
Bchool-room proper,
cajtablo of accommodating five hundred pupils, a trustees' room,
Hjiartmt'nts for the teacher, and a second and smaller school-room
that would accommodate one hundred and fifty pupils. The feature
of the dwiicatory exercises was an address by De Witt Clinton, in
which he statwl the iibjwt of the society to be, not the founding of a
single Hcaileniy, but the establishment of schools. Colonel Rutgers's
gift (»f two K»t8 on Henrj- street was coupled with the condition "that a
KchiHtl building should be erected on the site donated before June,
1811. Thirteen thousHud dollars were promptly subscribed by the
citizi'us of Kew-York, and the comer-stone of the second structure
was hiid by Colonel Rutg\'r» on N'ovember 11. 1810, in the presence of
a large ci>nii>aiiy. In 1811 the vestry of Trinity Church gave two
largt> lots on the comer of Hudson and Grove streets for a thirl
whtHtl buiUliug. There were sis of these public-school buildings in
the city by It^iTi. and that year the legislature changed the name of
the society f ixmu '* Kr<v Scho*.>l Society " to " Public School Socieiy."
BEGINinNO OF STEAM NAVIGATION
211
At the same time that the public schools were slowly growing into
form, one of those noble charities which have been the pride and
boast of New- York was foimded, the New- York Orphan Asylum
Society. This was the work
of several cultivated and
benevolent ladies, — Mrs.
Isabella Qraham and her
daughter, Mrs. Joanna Be-
thuue, Mrs. Sarah Hoff-
man, Mrs. Alexander Hamil-
ton, and others, — ^who called
a public meeting on the
15th of March, 1806, for
the organizing of the so-
ciety. Its first asylum stood
on an acre of ground in
Bank street, a plain sub-
stantial structure fifty feet
square, erected at a cost of
twenty-five thousand dol-
lars. The society was not
able to meet the entire
amount at the time of
building, but the debt was soon discharged by the donations and
gifts of philanthropic persons. In 1840 the society, by selling its
down-town property at a greatly increased price, and aided by a
generous public, was able to build the noble *nd well-appointed
edifice on the banks of the Hudson, at Seventy-fourth street.
Early in the year 1812 a bill was introduced in the legislature
which convulsed the State, and so stimulated partizan feeling as to
threaten, in the minds of some, the stability of government itself.
The disturbing cause was nothing more terrible than a bill to charter
a Bank of North America in New- York city, with a capital of six
millions of dollars, four hundred thousand of which were to be devoted
to the common-school fund ; one hundred thousand for the support
of acadcTnies and colleges; a hundred thousand more to be paid into
the State treasury after tWenty years, provided the corporation should
be given a monopoly of banking in the State during that time; one
million to be loaned to the State, to be used in the construction of
canals; and an equal sum to manufacturers and farmers throughout
the State for the promotion of manufactures and agriculture — in some
of its features much like the subtreasury scheme of modern enthusi-
asts. The bill was made a party issue at once — the Federalists sup-
porting it with great unanimity, the Republicans as a party opposing
'V'^*''*^*'*'^'^*'^— -'^^^■■2-''»-*t-^_^
205
uiaroBi uF SEW-yoBK
it, altliouglj tUwi-e wbiv mtiuy of tlie wealthi«' uud luort influential
leaduri> wliu wwif opeuly ur Be<;i'«tly iu I'uvui- of it.
Tli*; Kojjublicttufc, led liy (ja<veruui- JJauiel 1). Tomjtkiiifc. }njint«l
tc tLe ixtwei* witjUled iu politiuif by tlif old I'uit^d Btetet £aiik.
wbubt:- tibattei- hud L»ut junt bvuu ubi-u^;«d uft«r u bitter strug^
gle, aud to tbe Maubattau Bauk. created l»y Aaron Burr in 179f»
uudttr the gvas^ of a water wnupauy. aud deiioiineed Be^-atal of tbe
j>i-opy«itiou>; of tbe prebeut bobuuie ae Uaug worse tiiau either. At
an early stage of
tbe «oiite«t it be-
uaiue erideut tiiut
tbe bil] w<iiild jiaB&
many interest*- l>e-
htp martiiiided in
favor of it. aod
Governor Tomi»-
fciiis resort*"! tti
an eiptedieDT of
doabtful utility,
and withont p.K-
cedent, to defeat
■Tf-wo"!^ : it. He used the
power '.-oiifeiTed oq him by
tli« eouwtitutioii of Xew-York, and
pror-^tKHcd tbB lujcinlature for sixty days,
itlli^fiini; in deferiw of bis aetioD that many
of I ltd tiiftmljorH bad been bribed. The
grim(i?»it (ixr;it(tiin>iit utt'snded the reading of
ift govftnior'H mi^Hwifci- diBmissiDg the legis-
l*i|i>rb for eixty il»yn. Orators in favor of the
bauk i;liarg<jd timl TotiipkiiiB hod an nyo on the presidency, and
was uoekiiig to iiiaka tsapital for hirasolf by his heretofore unheard-of
action, tiud to dufeat the uniniiiution of Cliutoii, whose canal schemes
it wati believed doiumitted hint to the support of the bauk. For a
tiuiis the upiHiaiiig iiartitia were at the point of blows; but the legis-
lature was dinsolved, ami on ro»*oiivening on May 21 did what might
have been exjtected — at ontie jtasHed the bill ohartering the Bank of
Ameriea. Oliver Wol«(ttt, late neeivtary of the treasury, became its
first pretiident.
I Oiiring tbe Srot deuule u( theceulury It icu IMTS, u^y*: "Tbe old plxv n«*r Newark, in New
thit )iru]H;rty u( QuuVBrneur KfUitik. aud WK« a Juney. rhritleued 'O^kktft Hall' br Str- Irriiifc.
(STiiritK n-soTt with its yuuD)( uwuer. Ihu IrviogK. wax («ll«l Mouui Pl«uu>t. Thv faoius ns loilt
Paulding, Caplaln Porlur. tatliur <il Ihn lalt> Ad- by Slpholu Oouveraeur. tcmidsoti of Atvaham
■nlral. Henry Breyuort. itud othnrii, whonudu iho lIouTvrDtnir, who married the da<^dit«r «r Jacob
aarlent laaiuluD gajr with their fun aud (ruUc LviHler." EvnoK.
Kemble, In a note to the Editor datvd IVbruary.
BEGINNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION
213
OF
NEW YORK,
FaOM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD TO TBC
END OF THE DUTCH DYNASTY.
COHTAlNfKC
Among mtny Surprising and Curious Mauers« the Unutterable
Ponderiiigs of Walter tkb Doubtsb* the Disastrous
Projects of William tbjc TestYi atid the> Chivatric
Achievments of PfiTAft tub Hbadstronc, the three
Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam i bemg the oKly
Authentic History of the Times that ever hath heen« or ever
wiU be Published.
During the period under consideration, literature had flourished as
never before in the history of the city. In 1807 a young man named
Washington Irving was living with his mother on William street,
writing clever articles for the "Morning Chronicle,'* edited by his
brother, Dr. Peter Irv-
ing, and quite unknown A HISTORY
to fame. Boarding with
his sister, the wife of
William Irving, brother
of Washington Irving,
was a young clerk in the
loan-office, of fine liter-
ary ability — James Kirke
Paulding. The two young
men became fast friends,
and in summer were in
the habit of leaving the
heated city and going
out to the old Gouvem-
eiir mansion on the banks
of the Passaic, a short
distance above the city
of Newark. Here the
plan of a rollicking, half-
humorous, half-satirical
publication, mirroring
the fashions and follies
of the town, was con-
ceived, and the first num-
ber largely written. The
new publication — called
"Salmagundi'* — was is-
sued on January 24, 1807,
and at once took the city
by storm. Its purpose
was announced to be " to
instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate
the age''; and it did this so effectually, yet with so much bonJiomie
and good humor, that it became the talk of polite society, and much
interest was aroused as to the identity of its authors.
The same year Washington Irving, assisted by Dr. Peter Irving,
commenced his immortal work, " Knickerbocker's History of New-
York," in reality a burlesque on the " Picture of New-York " recently
published by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, but written with so much veri-
BV DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCRER.
£^e tiuaiteui me in mitfier (acp,
XHe ftomt mtt ktaartciD sm Den Bdg«
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. n.
POBUSHEO BY IHSKBRP CTflRADrORI*, NEW YORK «
BB/LOFORD t^ IKSREBP, FUILADELPHIA ; WM. M*IL«
JIBNNEYt BOSTON ; COALE ^ 1'HOMASi BALTIMORE;
AKD MORrOROf WILUNOT0N» IX CX>. CKARLP.iTON*.
1809.
214
fUHTOBT OF SEV-TOBK
nmilitnde and appearance of truth as to be accepted tor sober fais-
torj by many intelligeiit readers. Knielerboeker^ History first
appeared in 1809. Its charm is perenniaL It has left its imi»«es
npon the eariy history of the great city. Whatever may be later
FOR PASSAGE A.VD PR^TISig^-S FROM
Sfirits,
said or written, the term,'*Kmekerbocker'' wiU still cling to the early
Datch settlers of Manhattan, and their manners, customs, and charac-
teristics will, in the popular eye, remain snch as were pictured in the
pages of IHedricb Elmckerboeker.
mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK 215
COCKLOFT HALL.
Sixty-six years ago the village of Newark — the Newark of Arohy Gifford's day
— and New- York were connected by a quartette of stages, drawn by four horses;
and in one of the four lumbering vehicles was often seen, on summer Satiirday after-
noons, a party of gay, rollicking young New-Yorkers, who were deposited at the gate
of an old mansion which, with its surrounding twenty or more acres, was then known
as the '* Gouvemeur Place.'^ '* The place," says James K. Paulding, '^ was pleasantly
situated on the banks of a pastoral stream ; not so near town [New- York] as to invite
an inundation of idle acquaintances who came to lounge away an afternoon, nor so
distant as to render it an absolute deed of charity or friendship to perform the jour-
ney." In the year 1795 this property, situated about a mile to the north of Newark,
on the Belleville road, was inherited by Gouvemeur Kemble from his uncle Isaac
Gouvemeur, whose portrait, painted by Stuart, occupies the place of honor in the
dining-hall of Mr. Kemble's residence at Cold Spring, variously designated by his
friend Washington Irving as "Bachelor's Hall," "Bachelor's Nest," "Bachelor's
Elysium." Mr. Kemble, in a letter to the writer, dated February 6, 1872, says : " The
old place near Newark, in New Jersey, christened Cockloft Hall by Mr. Irving, was
caUed Mount Pleasant. The house was built by Nicholas Gouvemeur, grandson of
Abraham Gouvemeur, who married the daughter of Governor Jacob Leisler. At the
death of Nicholas the property passed into the possession of his brother, Isaac Gou-
vemeur, from whom I inherited it, in 1795, and sold it, I think, in 1837 or '38."
The interesting old country-house, which was also loiown as Mount Pleasant, was
a plain two-story building of wood, with wings to the first floor. A honeysuckle
porch met the view from the road, between which and the house was the garden ; on
the opposite side a sloping lawn, studded with apple-trees, extended to the river.
Entering by the east door was " The Chinese Saloon," while from each side doors
opened into the wings, forming a suite of rooms some sixty feet in length. Above
were several quaint chambers respectively known as the " Green Moreen," the "Red
SUk," the " Pink Chintz," and the " Blue Chintz "— all filled with antique fumiture,
and the rooms on the first floor were adorned with family portraits. The only regular
tenants of the venerable mansion at the time of which we are writing were two old
family servants, known as Daddy and Mammy Jacobs, and a negro boy.
The merry blades who made the old mansion gay with their fun and frolic were the
young owner, who was dignified with the title of " the Patroon " ; James K. Paulding,
known as "Billy Taylor"; Henry Brevoort, Jr., as "Nimcle"; Ebenezer Irving, as
" Captain Great Heart " ; " Sinbad " was the title given to David Porter, father of the
present admiral; Richard McCall, familiarly known as Dick McCall, was dubbed
" Ooromdates " ; Henry Ogden was called "the Supercargo"; Peter Irving, "the
Doctor " ; and his brother, Washington, who, having no secondary title, it is believed,
had furnished his companions with aliases. This roystering coterie of jolly young
fellows were variously designated by Peter Irving as the " Nine Worthies," by Wash-
ington as the " Lads of Blilkenny," and by Paulding as the " Ancient and Honorable
Order" and the "Ancient Club of New- York."
In Irving's Life it is stated that "the house was full of antique fumiture, and the
walls were adorned with family portraits. The place was in charge of an old man
and woman, and a negro boy, who were its sole occupants, except when the nine,
under the lead and confident in the hospitality of the Patroon, as they styled its
possessor, would saUy forth from New- York and enliven its solitude by their mad-
cap pranks and juvenile orgies." Paulding's biographer, in writing of the old man-
sion, says: "The Green Moreen [chamber], which occupied the southwestern angle
216
HISTOBY or NEW-YORK
of the seoond story, seems to Iiave been the favorite bachelors' quarters. Fast by
its western window, on the southerly dde of the stoop, ^rew an immense honey-cherry
tree, to the fruit of whioh the birds were extremely partial ; and it is averred that
these lazy dogs of Salma^ndians would lie in bed there and shoot them. Into this
tree ' Billy Taylor ' (Paulding) onoe incautiously climbed, and the rest of the roaring
boys, having detected him there, pilfering, pelted him bitterly before they allowed him
to descend ; and, doubtless, it was a reminiscence of it that suggested one of the finest
papers in the second series of ' Salmagundi.' . . . Many were the rare doings and the
absurd pranks in and about the house, of which the trials at jumping and the games
of leap-frog were of the least." On one ooeajdon a member of the coterie, for some
breach of club law or other social offense, was arraigned before a grand court of in-
quisition and solemnly adjudged to the horse-
pond, the judges promptly carrying out the
sentence in person.
Another interesting feature of Gouver-
neur Place was a summer-house, situat«d in
the orcliard, not far distant from the river.
The author of a pleasant reminiscence ' gives
an agreeable description of it: "The old
man" (who serves the purpose of the nar-
rator) " sighed, and, turning away bis head,
he led the way to a small building stand-
ing not far from the river's brink, and near
an artificial basin or pond, into which, as the
tide was full, the Passaic was pouring some
of its surplus waters through a narrow sluice.
It was octagonal m shape, about eighteen
feet in diameter, containing only one apart-
ment, with a door facing the river on the
east, and bavmg windows opening toward
each of the other three cardinal points. It
was built of stone, and had been originally
weatherboarded ; althoi^h most of the boards
had fallen off. It had evidently been con-
structed with great care, being fully plastered
within and papered, having an ornamental
cornice and chair-board, an arched doorway, and out-stone steps — all indicating a
fastidiousness of finish not ordinarily found elsewhere than in dwellings ; but it was
far gone toward utter ruin, the window-sashes being all out, the door gone, and the
mutilated woodwork showing it to be a resort only of the idle and the vicious. On
looking to my companion for an explanation, he said : ' This, sr, was the Cockloft
summer-house, and this the fish-pond, which Irving mentions when giving the por-
trait of the old proprietor. You may remember the passage : " An odd notion of the
old gentleman was to blow up a large bed of rocks, for the purpose of having a fish-
pond, although the river ran at about one hundred yards distance from the house and
was well stored with fish ; but there was nothing, he said, like having things to one's
self. And he would have a summer-house built on the mat^^ of the fish-pond ; he
would have it surrounded with elms and willows ; and he would have a cellar dug
under it, for some incomprehensible purpose, which remains a secret to this day.'* As
I remember it, in the days of my youth,' continued my aged friend, ' with its window-
seats and lockers, I think it requires no " Will Wizard " to solve the mystery of the
cellar ; but that there the bottles were kept that were wont to surrender their exhilarat*
1 WilUun A. Whitehrad, Ewi-, in Kewuk "AdvertiKr," NoTeDit>er 30. 1S39.
218
HI»rOBT OP NEW-IOBK
Winfleld Heoit pronotmecd tb« glowing enloginiii on Kemble " that be ma the most
perfect gentlemui in the United State*"; and when Washington Irving and Eemble
met tirr the la«t time, at Hnnnxnde, in the mmmer of 18SB, on tetnniing to the parlor,
after partingat the honermckled porch, "his [Irring'B] eyes were filled with tears," says
hi* Mographer, " and he bnnt fortii with a gnsh of feeling : ' That is raj friend of early
life— always unchanged, always like a brother; one of the noblest beings that ever
wera created. Hi* heart Is pure gold.'" — ThzEditob, in " Independent," Uay, 1872.
M nrsTIB ARMS.
ROOSEVELT ARMS.
rCLL ARMS.
CHAPTER VII
NEW-TOBK IN THE SECOND WAE WITH GREAT BRITAIN
1812-1815
yi BEAT BRITAIN, driven to acknowledge the political in-
dependence of the United States, even in the hour of
defeat cherished hopes of a reconciliation, if not a re-
iiion, with a part of her old colonies. In the negotiations
for peace her statesmen had naturally seen the sectional jealousies of
the American commissioners, and discerned in them the germs of dis-
cord which might mature to a disruption of the new western empire —
COKSTITCTION.
a disruption from which she hoped to profit. The British ministry
observed the antagonism of the different sections of the new nation
to each other — an antagonism which had no place or reason under
the colonial system, but was a consequence of their new condition.
220
HISTORY OP NEW-YOBK
If all that was desired could not be wrested from Great Britain, each
section was naturally tenacious of what it held to be vital to itself.
It is interesting to note in this, the dawn of the republic, the slight
dark spot on the horizon which developed into the dark cloud of civil
war — the political struggle between theNortheast and the Southwest;
the one for a conservative limitation, the other for an unrestricted
territorial expansion. In the negotiations themselves Adams alone
represented an immediate vital sectional interest: that of New Eng-
land in the fish-
eries. The com-
munities from
which Franklin
and Jay came
were not direct-
ly concerned
except in the
matter of the
boundary and
frontiers. Nei-
ther of these
wise, patriotic
[ men was gov-
erned by any
narrow or self-
ish considera-
tion. Henry-
Laurens at the
' ~ " "" ■ ' ' close gave a
discordant note in a demand for a clause prohibiting the carrying
away of negroes by the British troops on their evacuation. The
British commissioners were ready to grant the " liberty " of the fish-
eries, but hesitated long before they would concede the " right " on
which Adams insisted. The third article of the "provisional treaty"
secured to the United States this " right " of fishery, as also the liberty
of the coasts of the English banks; the eighth established the Mis-
sissippi River to be forever open to the citizens of both countries.
In the course of the negotiations England had resisted! any inter-
meddhng of France. Lord Sbelbume held it to be the true policy of
Great Britain to settle her differences with her kinsmen without out-
side interference. Pride dictated that such concessions as must be
made should seem voluntary and not forced. The wisdom of this
policy in the removal of any probable cause of friction in her i-elations
NEW-YOBK IN THE SECOND WAE WITH GREAT BRITAIS 221
with New England was later seen. But while Great Britain tardily
and grudgingly acknowledged the political independence of her
former colonies, her policy was set on maintaining her own commer-
cial supremacy. The old restrictions on the trade of the American
continental seaports with the British West India Islands were main-
tained. Her statesmen little dreamed that there were no bounds to
the horizon of American commerce, and that within a little more than
a year from the day when the treaty was signed an American ship
was to carry the flag of the Union to the China seas. The right of
search for British seamen on board
of .\meriean vessels is not men-
tioned in the articles of peace.
The instant need of Great Bri-
tain was tranquillity at home and
abroad, by which her fioances might
be reorganized and the future ex-
pansion of her trade determined.
This great undertaking had fallen
to Pitt, A commercial treaty with
France and a convention with Spain
settletl all standing disputes con-
cerning settlements on the coasts
of America with that power; this,
followed by treaties of alliance with
the United Provinces and with Prus-
sia, secured the peace of Europe,
and left the western powers free to
oppose the ambitious schemes of
Kussia with the aid or connivance of Austria, and establish fii-mly a
balance of power for the mutual security of European states. There
were elements in motion, however, the forces of which were but ill
gauged by the most far-seeing statesmen and philosophers — an in-
ternal convulsion which, in its upheaval, was to destroy the strata
and change the face of modern society. The torch of liberty may
be said to have been lighted in America. It was rekindled in
France in 1789. It became a burning brand when the dissolution
of the monarchy was decreed by the national convention after a
scene of carnage in 1792. In the struggle of principles which fol-
lowed, it was not possible for any of the great- powers of the Old
World either to maintain neutrality or to hold itself aloof. One after
the other they were actively involved. The breaking out of the
1 Mn. Llviogstoa wm ilargaxvt, daughMr of She was the mother of ChaDcellor LirlDgston.
Colonel Henrr Beekmui of DnehesB Couaty. *iiil The vignette is copied from a well-preserved por-
resided on BnMdwsy Dear the BovUnK Green, trait by Qilbert Stuart. Editob.
UBB. BOBEBT B. LtVINQGTOH.l
222 mSTOBY OF new-york
French Eevolution instantly divided England. Fox warmly espoused
the cause of liberty; Burke denounced the summary reversal of the
established orders of government and society. With these great
leaders at variance, there was an irreconcilable schism in the Whig
ranks. Pitt profited by their dissensions, but kept a discreet silence
on the merits of the Eevolution — a cautious reserve in which he was
imitated by his ministers. But when a powerful society sprang up,
under the name of the " Friends of the People ^ (a significant adapta-
tion of the name of the famous French organ ^^DAmi du Peuple%
which included men high in political and literary ranks as well as
members of Parliament, and which organized a movement for reform
in representation; and when still another, the London Corresponding
Society, composed chiefly of tradesmen, demanded universal suffrage
and annual parliaments, Pitt showed his hand by a royal proclama-
tion against the distribution of seditious writings and illegal corre-
spondence. In his defense of the proclamation he took occasion to
denounce the " daring and seditious principles which had been so in-
sidiously propagated amongst the people under the plausible and
delusive appellation of the Rights of Man.''
The decree of the French government opening the navigation of
the Scheldt, in contravention of former agreement, touched England
at her most sensitive point; and although the French ambassadors
sought to convince Pitt that while the decree was irrevocable, it was
not intended to apply to England, the act itself was sufficient. War-
like measures were adopted. The execution of Louis XVI. ended all
hesitation, and the French ambassador was at once ordered to leave
the British dominions. The French replied with a formal declaration
of war. In the long contests of the eighteenth century, France had
always the aid of Spain under the family compact of the house of
Bourbon : an aid of incalculable value on the sea. Now she was to
encounter single-handed the vastly superior naval force of Great
Britain. Yet the great discrepancy of force by no means secured
England and her possessions from the depredations of an innxmier-
able fleet of French privateers.
In this condition of affairs the United States saw her opportunity.
The adoption of the constitution had consolidated the States into a
nation, and there was a universal desire to profit by the advantages
which the change promised. The chain of causes which was to divert
the carrying-trade into the hands of her young marine was complete.
The vast naval superiority of Great Britain compelled France to resort
to privateers. The success of the privateers determined the change
of traffic to a neutral flag. The United States was the only maritime
nation to which neutrality was possible. The change was immediate.
From a total of twenty million dollars value in 1789, the exports from
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAE WITH GREAT BRITAIN 223
the United States to England and France had reached in 1800 the
amount of seventy millions, of which nearly forty-seven millions were
of articles of foreign product. American tonnage was already over
nine hundred thousand tons, and second only to that of Great Britain;
and of this nearly seven hundred thousand tons were eng^ed in the
foreign or oceanic trade. In this department New- York had already
far outstripped all her American rivals, having one sixth of the whole,
and much more thaa Pennsylvania, which was second on the roll.
Neither of the belligerent powers looked with complacency on this
rapid development of the maritime resources of the United States.
France chafed because of what she held to be American ingratitude
in standing aloof from
her in her struggle for
freedom from monarebi-
cal rule; Great Britain,
alanned at the growth of
a new naval power which
threatened her suprem-
acy, had the additional
chagrin of seeing her
late rebellious colonies
taking profit from her
own distresses, and as-
suming the carrying-trade of the world. Lord Nelson, the sailor hero
of Great Britain, foresaw the maritime struggle. It is relate of him
that, after seeing the evolutions of an American squadron in the Bay
of Gibraltar during the Tripoli war, he said: "There was in those
transatlantic ships a nucleus of trouble for the maritime power of
Great Britain. We have nothing to fear from any thing on this side
of the Atlantic; but the manner in which those ships are handled
makes me think that there may be a time when we shall have trouble
from the other."
WhUe the United States was profiting by her mercantile advantages
as a neutral in a material sense, she was forced to submit to many morti-
fications to her national pride. Chief among these was that caused by
the constant impressment of sailors from on board her ships by British
commanders. When Great Britain entered upon the struggle with
France in 1793, she had one hundred and twenty ships of the line and
more than one hundred frigates. When Napoleon controlled the
powers of the Continent the war assumed colossal dimensions, and the
naval armaments of Great Britain increased until it is estimated that
her navy reached one thousand vessels. To maintain the crews of her
WA8HIMGT0N'
224 mSTOBT OF NEW-TOBK
squadrons she had never hesitated to resort to the press-gang j and
desertions were, of coarse, constant and inevitable. Daring the
American war British admirals on the Atlantic stations found it diffi-
cult to maintain force sufficient to handle their ships, and were com-
pelled to personal sacrifice to obtain men. Then their only competition
was from the American privateersmen with their hazardous and
perilous service; but now the
prosperous American merchant-
men outbid them with higher
pay and a more generous treat-
ment. The British admiral has
never owned to a higher law
than that "might makes right."
Necessity no less than conve-
nience led him to execute the law
as he chose to understand it,
and the " right of search " was
sedulously practised. This was,
of course, in gross violation of
American sovereignty. The of-
fense was aggravated when, as
often happened, an American-
bom seaman was taken from
under his own flag on the asser-
tion of a British lieutenant that he had served under the king.
Further, Great Britain claimed that no subject of hers could shift
his allegiance, or take military or naval service with any other
power. The British government, moreover, asserted as the rule of
search that the burden of proof that he was not a British subject
or a British deserter lay upon the sailor claimed by the boarding
officer. Yet the goveroment of the United States submitted to the
practice, and confined its complaints to cases of gross injustice.
The United States asked only to be let atone. Jefferson, who had
no desire for war, formulated this request, but neither of the belli-
gerents was inclined to this rose-colored view. France wanted our
assistance, and, failing to coax. Napoleon sought to drive us to grant-
ing it. England cared nothing for our alliance, bat was jealous of
our prosperity, and wanted our able seamen. France began her dep-
redations on our commerce in 1799 and 1800. Eogland continued
her agressions with occasional intermissions. Jefferson, in his mes-
l This bonse ■was owiunI by Peter Van Bm^cb ton came up from New-York to confer with h&n,
LlTiugiton. It li sitoated Dear Dobbs Ferry, on and with George Clinton, then go-vemor of the
the Hudson. WaabinKton extablisbed bis head- State, on the sabjeet of prisoneni of war. the dis-
<iuarten there towaid the eloae of the BeTotn- pooal or treaboent of loyaliata, and the eracoation
tlon, and In NoT«nber, 1783. General Qny Carie- of the city. Editob.
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 225
sage of 1804, had hopes of more amicable relations ; but his message
of December, 1805, made sad mention of his disappointments : " Our
coasts have been infested and our harbors watched by private armed
vessels, some of them without commissions, others with those of legal
form but committing piratical acts far beyond the authority of their
commissions. They have captm'ed in the very entrance of our har-
bors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends
coming to trade with us, but our own also. They have carried others
off under pretence of legal adjudication ; but not daring to approach a
court of justice they have plundered and sunk theirs by the way, or
in obscure places where no evidence could arise against
them; maltreated the crews and abandoned them in
boats in the open sea, or on desert shores, without
foo<l or covering." In January, 1806, he sent in a
further message, accompanied by "the memorials of ^^^^ ring.i
several bodies of merchants in the United States." In accordance
with his desire. Congress passed a non-importation act, to apply to
certain articles of British manufacture, whether imported directly
from Great Britain or from other places.
On April 25, 1806, less than a month from the passage of the act, a
bolder and more direct outrage was committed in New-York waters.
The British frigate Leander, commanded by Captain Whitby, cruis-
ing off the mouth of the harbor near Sandy Hook, fired into the
American sloop Richard, a coasting- vessel, and killed one of her crew.
The body was brought up to the city of New-York and buried at
public expense. The citizens, excited by this uncalled-for insult, de-
manded reparation. The Leander was ordered from our waters, and
her captain threatened with arrest should he presume to land on our
shores. So also was the British sloop of war Driver. But so little
was Jefferson's proclamation regarded, that the latter vessel, which
carried but eighteen guns, returned the next year to Charleston Har-
bor,- defied the civil authorities, and denounced the president in an
insolent letter, in which her captain demanded water, which was
ignominiously supplied. Captain Whitby was called home to Eng-
land, tried by comi; martial, and acquitted without even a reprimand.
The hollow peace of Amiens of 1802 was of short duration. Within
a few months of its signature the British ambassador left Paris, and
orders were at once issued by the English cabinet for the seizure of
the ships of France and of her allies in British ports. The conti-
1 This ring, containing Washington's hair, was him, the captain wrote a letter, which he dated at
by him presented to Mrs. James Madison, and is *' Rebellion Roads, Charleston." Among other
now the property of Mrs. Edwards Pierrepont of things- he said that ** the proclamation of the Presi-
New-York. Editob. dent would have disgraced even the sanguinary
2 Charleston Harbor seems to have been denomi- Robespierre, or the most miserable petty state in
nated ** Rebellion Roads '* by the English. In an- Barbary." Editob.
Bwer to the proclamation, when it was served upon
Vol. m.— 15.
226 HISTORY OF NEW-TORK
nental struggle assumed vast proportions, and in the duel between
France and England the rights of neutrals were wholly disregarded.
Great Britain again asserted the rule which she had attempted to
establish in 1756, which forbade neutral nations to trade with the
colonies of a belligerent power from which they were excluded in
time of peace. In this Great Britain asserted herself to be the arbiter
of international maritime law. On May 17, 1806, the ministry issued
the first of the famous Orders in CounciL This declared the French
coast to be in a state of blockade. American vessels were admitted
to carry cargoes to certain ports only, these cargoes to be only of
the growth of the United States or of British manufacture. Napo-
leon, whose career of conquest was at its height after the battle of
Jena, on November 28, 1806, issued from Berlin, the conquered capital
of Prussia, the no less famous " Berlin decree," which declared the
British isles in a state of blockade, and forbade all trade with the con-
tinental ports. Both of these documents were to all intents " paper
blockades,'* and by all just conception of international law inoperative
as far as neutrals were concerned. They interfered with but did not
whoUy check American vessels from sailing with cargoes both from
French and English ports, though the ocean voyage through the
British squadrons was hazardous. Gradually American trade was
being narrowed to their own coasting business. Nor was this, as has
been stated, unrestrained. British ships prowled on our coasts and
overhauled the peaceful merchantmen of the United States in quest
of seamen. The United States bill for damages increased rapidly, but
the day of demand was as yet postponed to a more convenient season.
The United States hesitating or failing to resist Napoleon's Berlin
decree, a further and more restrictive order in council was issued by
Great Britain, January 7, 1807, forbidding trade between any two
French ports, or ports of allies to France, which struck directly at the
American carrying-trade. On November 10, 1807, a further order in
council was issued, the avowed purpose of which was to compel all
nations to give up their maritime trade, or accept it through British,
or through vessels under British, license.
In the interval between these orders British insolence went a step
further. On June 22, 1807, the English man-of-war Leopard over-
hauled the American frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Barron
commanding, while cruising off Hampton Boads. An officer of the
Leopard was received on board the Chesapeake, who delivered an order
from Vice- Admiral Berkeley, on the Halifax station, to " search for
deserters." Captain Barron declining to allow such a procedure,
the Leopard opened upon the Chesapeake an entire broadside, killing
three and wounding eighteen men. Captain Barron, totally unpre-
pared, was only able to fire a single gun in reply. The captain of
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 227
the Leopard refused to accept a surrender of the Chesapeake, but sent
on board an officer, who had the crew mustered and took away four
men whom he claimed as deserters. Three of these men were native-
bom American citizens. The fourth had run away from a sloop of
war, and was forthwith hanged at Halifax. The people throughout
the United States were greatly enraged by this high-handed act.
Jefferson said he had not " seen the country in such a state of exasper-
ation since the battle of Lexington.'' Captain Barron was tried by
P H I L AD E L?HlA,i^^^^^y^^iyjy.
SIS,
pAY to^S^^^^^y^ — Efquirc,^^^^/^56^
i^^^y/^.u.^t^^:^ ^-^
for his Wages for cx^J^jt.^^ 4^^#^^i$^Scrvicc m the General
Affcmbly, and /Cc/s^ f^yj^^^^J /^^^^^!^^^^^^
_ for his travelling Charges for £^^^^(„,<^^!!^
/^^
"y^ (J/^^/0a^arz^ P E A K E R.
To DAVID RITTENHOUSE, Efq,
rmxAsuRxiL^
court martial, convicted of neglect of duty in not having his ship pre-
pared for action, and deprived of rank and pay for five years.
The British followed up the January order in council by the bom-
bardment and destruction of Copenhagen and the seizure of the Danish
fleet on July 26, without even the formality of a declaration of war.
This lawless act aroused the indignation of Eussia, and perhaps more
than any other event engaged the sympathy of the lesser powers for
the United States as the only nation which promised relief in the
future from the maritime despotism of the Mistress of the Seas.
Reparation for the Chesapeake outrage was at once demanded, and
became the subject of dilatory negotiation. This question, and infor-
mation from Mr. John Armstrong, the American minister at Paris, of
the strict interpretation of the French and British decrees, caused
President Jefferson to call Congress together on October 26. Al-
though the order in council of January had proclaimed a general
British blockade of continental ports and forbade trade in neutral
1 Beduoed fae-Bimile of the original, in the possession of the Editor.
\
228
HISTORY OF NEW-XOEK
vessels unless they first went into British ports and paid duty on
their cargoes, Jefferson awaited the answer to the demand in the mat-
ter of the Chesapeake outrage before asking any special legislation.
^— . In the second week of December,
the answer of the British gov-
ernment arriving, with informa-
tion that a special envoy would
be sent over, Jefferson sent in a
message with documents, show-
ing, as he stated, "the great and
increasing dangers with which
our vessels, our seamen, and
merchandize are threatened on
the high seas and elsewhere from
the belligerent powers of Europe;
and it being of great importance
to keep in safety these essential
resources, I deem it my duty to
recommend the subject to the
j^// — *— /^^ y^^T* — ' consideration of Congress, who
^^OOe^ ya^^CiU'^^ ^^ll doubtless perceive aU the ad-
vantages which may be expected
from an inhibition of the depai'ture of our vessels from the ports of
the United States."
In response to this direct advice an embargo act was immediately
passed by the Senate and, with but little delay, by the House (Decem-
ber 22, 1807), — in both by large majorities. This measure is now con-
fessed by men of all parties to have been inoperative where it was
intended to act upon foreign nations, and suicidal to American com-
merce. Mr. Armstrong wrote from Paris that it was "not felt,"
and " in England it is forgotten." In the United States its ruinous
effect was instant. Forbidding the export of American products
not only in our own but also in foreign bottoms, it annihilated
American commerce and set adrift the large number of able seamen
who were needed for our own protection. Beyond this, it enhanced
the cost of living by cutting off the supply of fish which entered
largely into the food consumption of our seaboard population. It in-
terfered directly with the business of five millions of people. Amei^
ican ships abroad remained there to escape the embargo. Some
entered into a contraband trade with France, carrying over British
goods under false papers; but such subterfuge did not long escape
the vigilance of Napoleon, who in the spring of 1808 issued the
Bayonne decree authorizing the seizure and confiscation of all Amer-
ican vessels. It mattered not, he said, whether the ships were English
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 229
or American. If English, they were those of an enemy; if American,
they had no business, under the embargo act, out of American waters.
This was a step in advance of the decree he issued from Milan on
December 17, 1807, which had forbidden trading with Great Britain
by any nation, and declared all vessels thus engaged and all submit-
ting to search by a British man-of-war to be lawful prizes.
The eflEect of the legislative blunder of the embargo act was soon
apparent. It divided the United States into two hostile camps, and
commerce came to a standstill. From one hundred and eight million
dollars value in 1807, the exports of the United States fell to twenty-
two millions in 1808 — a single year. Those of New-York fell to less
than six millions. The suflfering caused by such a shrinkage could
not be other than intense. In the commercial cities the strain was
terrible. Three months of the embargo had brought numbers of the
merchants and domestic traders to bankruptcy, and more than five
himdred vessels lay idle at the docks of New- York alone. Of the
triumvirate who ruled the Republican party and controlled the legis-
lation of the United States at that period. President Jeflferson, James
Madison, aud Albert Gallatin, the latter, then secretary of the trea-
sury, alone from the beginning opposed a permanent embargo. Jef-
ferson, inclined to peaceful measures, justified the act as tending to
save our ships and seamen from capture by keeping them at home.
Madison, holding colonial traditions, had faith in the force of a non-
importation act, prohibiting the introduction of the produce of any
nation whose acts were unfriendly while yet at peace with ourselves.
Gallatin held a permanent embargo to be a useless interference with
the rights of individuals, and at best a poor response to that " war
in disguise,^ as he termed it, which Great Britain was unremittingly
waging. Gallatin was the first to decide for war as the only remedy
for American grievances, the only restorative for American honor.
Madison's policy to exclude all British and French ships from
American ports and to prohibit all importation except in American
bottoms, was not acceptable to Congress, and in the spring of 1810
an act was passed excluding only the men-of-war of both nations,
but suspending the non-importation act temporarily, or for three
months. Power was given to the president to reestablish it against
either nation which maintained while the other withdrew its obnox-
ious decrees. The same month Napoleon ordered the confiscation
of all American ships either detained in France or in the southern
ports of the Atlantic and Mediterranean under his control, which
entailed a loss to American merchants in ships and cargoes estimated
at forty millions of dollars. In December, 1810, the American ship
General Eaton, of Portsmouth, N. H., from London and the Downs
for South Carolina, was taken by two French privateers and carried
230
HI8T0BT OF NEW-YOBK
into Calais. Diplomacy grew much confused in tlie passage and re-
peal of the decrees and' counter-decrees abroad, non-importation and
non-intercourse acts at home, until war alone sufficed to cut the
Gordian knot. The non-ijitercourse, act with England, passed by
Congress in the spring of 1811, was the last act of the diplomatic
skinnish, and pointed directly to war.
Immediately after Congress rose in May, another unpremeditated
colUsion between an American and an English man-of-war raised
the pubUc temper to "fighting pitch."
Since the affair of the Chesapeake the
officers of the young navy of the United
States had kept ceaseless watch for an
opportunity to wipe out the disgrace to
the service and the flag. All of our
vessels were held at home, even those
in the Mediterranean being recalled.
The country had now in active ser-
vice twelve vessels, viz. : three forty-
fours, the Constitution, the President,
and the United States; the Essex, of
thirty-two, and the John Adams, of
twenty-eight guns ; the Wasp and the
Hornet, of eighteen; the Argus and
the Siren, of sixteen; the Nautilus, the
Enterprise, and the Vixen, of twelve
guns. Since the reduction of the naval
force in 1801, not a single frigate had been added to the navy ; the
ships of the line authorized in 1799 having been entirely aban-
doned. Jefferson's flotilla of gunboats, never of any use, were not
called into service, and may be disregarded. Their only possible
use might have been to prevent blockades, but even this was not
resorted to. The English increased then- force of cruisers on the
American coast, but kept at a respectful distance from the land, no
longer impressing men or detaining ships. The British government
did not desire open war, and collisions were avoided, their purpose of
intercepting American commerce being served by a constant patrol
of the seas from Halifax to the Bermudas, the line of travel of even-
trader which crossed the Atlantic.
In the spring of 1811, Commodore John Rodgera, the senior officer
of the navy afloat, whose pennant was then flying from the President,
Captain Charles Ludlow, which lay at anchor in Annapolis Bay, was
1 Thu portrait of EbeoeKur Haiftnl. an avcom- pastel hj Dnrlvler. now in the posMssloti of hli
plished author.postiuBBl^rof New-York, andtator son-in-law, the venenible Rev. nr. Thomu E.
poMniMter-piDtral of the United States, ts from a Vermllfe of New-Torli. Editos.
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 231
informed that a man had been impressed from an American brig close
to Sandy Hook, by an English frigate supposed to be the Gueni6re,
of thirty-eight guns, Captain James R. Dacres. The commodore at
once went on board his pwn vessel and passed the capes soon after
May 1, to inquire into this now unusual procedure. On the 10th, a
man-of-war was sighted about six leagues from land, to the southward
of New-York. On nearing each other, shots were exchanged; a
broadside followed from the stranger, which did little damage, and
was answered by a broadside from the President with fatal results.
Satisfied with disabling his enemy, Commodore Rodgers did not push
his conquest. The next morning the vessel was found to be his Bri-
tannic majesty's ship Little Belt, of eighteen guns. There was, as
usual when the British were the suflferers, a dispute as to the ag-
gressor in firing the first shot. A formal court of inquiry justified
Commodore Rodgers in his course.
Before the close of the year 1811 the demand for vigorous measures
grew into a clamor for war with England. The young spirits in Con-
gress, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, were eager and impatient.
Clay represented the assertive, independent, aggressive element.
The control of the Mississippi from its source to its mouth did not
satisfy their ambitious ideas ; nothing less than the invasion and con-
quest of Canada was in their minds, and this they supposed they
could achieve by their own militia. The delay of Great Britain in
the surrender of the western ports, and her constant intrigues with
the Indian tribes on the frontier and covert support of their schemes,
were a natural and constant source of irritation. Their military
ardor and confidence had been heightened by the signal defeat of
the Wabash tribe at Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811, by General
William Henry Harrison, with a party of regulars and Kentucky
militia. Thus, while the seaboard communities dreaded an open
war with England, the whole interior population were eager, even
anxious, for a struggle which they believed would end in the final
establishment of the rule of the United States over the entire terri-
tory of North America. The germ of the conflict of opinion between
the New England States, nearly all maritime, and the West, whose
only maritime interest was for the freedom of the lakes, which came
to the surface in this session of Congress, grew with formidable
rapidity, and later nearly rent the Union in twain.
President Madison, in his message of November 5, 1811, announced
his reasons for calling Congress together (by proclamation of July 24,
1811) before the usual date of assemblage to be "the posture of
foreign affairs,'' and " the probability of further developments of the
policy of the belligerent powers towards this country which might
the more unite the national councils in the measures to be pursued."
.;,././!
1 *rW!*tH. Muil "tl*" -^rrh^p-
\\u-
i».
'ttO) ol
^\\\w<
>,(..
IV U**.»«
.»/.-i r'ti..!i rvUit .!»■.-■• i*.-^**!! niT iniimutr?*;
(■/•^■isr-i/,. v.? *K * ,iv.mftnn Tiwo. iHsar ^-
p-^/-fM ■' "CM '•*'1**T*^ IT*!** pnz iaw oic-re
t'li/tff'f^f* *--i*miT.\<x.^ *Jmaz EriEain. in-
fitii) u<ifUtfitt/<^utf* f4 ^'nfrsA BritaiiL, when
imtii-'f }ty iit'.uiTti\h, inw* markeu shnt
nu_H'uiil flx-ffi Iry \ti:T i:Mi*imj, and the
(''ffilMl HUyU'n wan (fiven to understand
l.lifH III Mif> MKint) t.iriio "a continuance of
lliolr null liitprirfiirtirtn af^t would lead to
tHKiiniih-A iif rolitliiilioii.'* The president
fiillt'il Mtli>i)<inti to ivci'iit -wrongs, and to
llitt "bi'i'iu'W dt'iMKHlory to the dearest of
ttiti' iittlitiiiiil ri)tltt>S inid vexatious to the
y I ii»imlnc »'»mi"«»o »»f our tnuUs" which had
W\A\ \\&\\\\ \vihnv«MHt on our coasts and
UrtiK^i'*, <^\\^. ('*»iio»l»rl.v k> the encounter of
A \'^^w^^U*»^^^^ ^M' ttxo "r^'VTv»;w »«d unexpected
»' M>s^*^ »5^'' nv*.*.-- »■* »V l>.;ti(vi i^ttiT*;.' He an-
■ '►■s.« t>w. »v\vi»,s%«r.vi T*.!*"?^- V .■\'wr,Ti>eT3.">T-:iiSl a
(M. I.*,- \\»- ,v\V\v? :rto wsw*. rhft! rh: lim? rtf wu
-> vi ■•> -K- ^.W'-vw -v A ^^4r»l'v late "l"**! -ffiL-
,>.«v. ^« .V .vvtvv w"^ ■**«: »- »->--*a j'fijisfccinr -t
"■ 'vv'vv ■"• 'K- >x.ii.»i«> Ti» — tijvr \m!. n»a7T*ii-c
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 233
dragged since 1807. Lord Erskine's agreement to settle the affair in
1810 had been repudiated by his chief, Mr. George Canning, the Eng-
lish secretary for foreign affairs, and Francis James Jackson, who
had been sent out to take his place, had been rejected as a persona
non grata by Madison. The act of the Leopard was now disavowed
by the British government.^
In the debate on the military bill which ensued on the message, Mr.
William B. Giles, senator from Virginia, declared that New- York and
New Orleans would be the points attacked by Great Britain, and
called on the Senate to defend New- York with all the judgment and
skill at their command, fill the fortifications with the full complement
of troops amply provided, call on the local militia, "and yet he
should not be surprised if the British should get possession of that
city." In the course of his remarks he said that the English had in
Canada seven to ten thousand regular troops, and twelve to fifteen
thousand well-appointed, well-furnished militia, di*awn from a popu-
lation of nearly three hundred thousand souls, a force which it would
need twenty thousand men to subdue.'- He pointed out that in 1776
we had 46,691 regulars in the field, exclusive of militia.
On December 3, the committee on foreign relations reporting to the
House of Representatives that there were but three alternatives left to
the United States by the belligerents, — viz., "embargo, submission, or
wai*,'' — it was resolved, by a vote of 128 to 62, " that the United States
cannot, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor and independence,
submit to the late Edicts of Great Britain and France." On the 2d,
the Senate resolved " to interdict commercial intercourse between the
United States and Great Britain and France and their dependencies,''
which carried letters of marque and reprisal. The affirmative vote, in
which the senators from New-York joined, was 21 to 12. The same
bill was passed in the House by a vote of 74 to 33, Nicholas, Calhoun,
and Clay voting against the letters of marque. In the course of the
debate Giles charged that JeflEerson had intended and Madison did in-
tend to allow the English to take New Orleans, and trusted to the West
to defend it.
The country now began to pronounce itself. North Carolina was
the first to speak. On December 31, 1811, the general assembly
passed resolutions approving the sentiment contained in the message
of the president, and unanimously pledging cooperation in the eflfec-
tual enforcement of such "measures as may be devised and calculated
to protect the interests and secure the union, liberty, and independence
1 The president also communicated a memorial advantages have an intimate connection with ar-
ofOouvemeur Morris and other commissioners on rangements and exertions for the general secu-
the opening of canal navigation between the rity."
great lakes and the Hudson River, a project of *•! The population of the United States was, by
which he expressed approval because '* some of the the census of 1810, 7,239,903.
234
mSTOBY OF- NEW-YOHK
of the United States." The general assembly of Virginia adopted
resolutions on January 25, which referred only to the wrongs com-
mitted by Great Britain under the orders in council. They de-
clared "that however we value the blessings of peace and however we
deprecate the evils of war, the period has now arrived when peace
as we now have it is disgraceful and war is honorable."
The months of January and February, 1812, passed by, and Madi-
son was still in doubt, hesitating as to the course to pursue. He
gradually yielded to the pressure of the war party, and, fortified by the
_^ declaration of his own
State, on April 1 he
sent to Congress a brief
message recommending
the immediate passage
of an act to impose " a
general embargo on all
vessels now in port or
hereafter for the period
of sixty days." The
measure, passed in secret session, was soon known, and many vessels
got to sea before it was ofBcially promulgated. It was intended as
a note of preparation for war, was so acknowledged to be, and was
so understood. The period was extended to ninety days. The first
congressional district of Pennsylvania adopted resolutions in May,
" approbating the measures of the Government in the preparation
for war." The citizens of Arundel County, Maryland, on June 9,
1812, adopted resolutions i-eeommending "the adoption of such
measures as may place our country in a state of maritime defence
and procure a redress of wrongs from the belligerent nations."
There was a different feeling in New-York and the New England
States. On June 9, Mr. Abraham Smith of New-York presented a pe-
tition of the most important merchants ' of the eity, praying for a
" continuation of the embargo and non-importation acts as a substi-
tute for war with Great Britain."' On June 12 a memorial was
F0BT8 PISH AKD CLIKTOK, 1814.
1 Xt'morlal of ^^fle■ York Mfrekatilii. June 9, 1813.
The Hemoriil of the Bubseribing HerchaEitii and
otbera inhabltaDta of the City of Nev-Tork ru-
speetfull; ahoireth.
That your memorialiatH feel In common with the
rest of their fellow-citizens >>n anilous solicitude
tor the honor and interest of their country tind an
equal determination to assert and maintain ibem.
That your niemorioiiuls believe
n opera
n will
a it prevents the calan
be renewed, but by the repeal of the Orders in
Conneil, the dlatreBa of their merphanta and man-
nfaeturera, &c,, thatr Inability to support their
armiesin Spain and Portugal, will probably compel
them to that measure. Your memorioliata ieit
leave to remark that Buch effects are even now
vlsibli!, and It may bo reasonably hoped that a
continuance of the embargo and non-importation
laws a tew months beyond the fourth day of July
next win effect a complete and bloodiest triumph
of our rights.
Tout memorialiatii, therefore, respectfully soli-
cit of your honorable body the pasaa^ of a lav
continuing the embargo and giving to the Prasi-
deut of the United States power to dlaeontlnue
NEW-YOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 235
presented, together with a resolution of the commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts, which also deprecated war, reading as follows: ^^Besolvedj
As the opinion of this House, that an oflEensive war against Great
Britain under the present circumstances of this country would be in
the highest degree impolitic, unnecessary, and ruinous ; that the great
body of the people of this Commonwealth are decidedly opposed to
this measure, which they do not believe to be demanded by the honor
or interests of our nation.^
The feeling in the New England States generally was opposed to
a declaration of open war, and certainly the administration of Mr.
Madison took no pains to change its current.^ A memorial of five
hundred and thirty-five merchants of Boston, praying for the re-
peal or such modification of the non-importation act as would enable
"them to receive their property now in Great Britain or her de-
pendencies,^ was rejected by the Senate by a vote of 13 to 6, the
legislation asked being judged inexpedient. Ehode Island was more
plain-spoken, and on June 9 instructed her senators "to oppose all
measures which may be brought forward to involve the country in war."
It would be difficult at this distance of time to understand this in-
difference of the maritime section of the countiy to measui*es in de-
fense of their own dearest rights, did we not take into account the
violence of political feeling at this period. The overthrow of the great
Federalist party — the party of Washington, and Adams, and Hamilton
— still rankled in the minds of their followers. This resentment
was aggravated by the radical political opinions held by the con-
verts to the new doctrines of equality formulated in France in the
declaration of the rights of man in 1789. These were heartily
the whole of the restrictive system on the rescind-
ing of the British Orders in CounciL
The conduct of France in burning our ships, in
sequestrating our property, entering her ports,
expecting protection in consequence of the prom-
ised rep^ of the Berlin and Milan decrees, and
the delay in completing a treaty with the Amer-
iean minister, has excited great sensation and we
hope and trust will caU forth from your honorable
body such retaliatory measures as may be best
calculated to procure justice.
John Jacob Astor,
Samuel Adams,
Howland & Qrinnell,
Edward Slosson,
Israel Gibbs,
Isaac Clason,
John Slidell,
John K. Townsend,
Andrew Ogden & Co.,
Thomas Storm,
Amos Butler,
Ebenezer Burrill,
Isaac Heyer,
Ralph Bulkley,
Samuel Bell,
John F. Delaplaine,
Peter Stagg,
David Taylor,
William Adee.
John T. Lawrence,
Joseph W. Totten,
Isaac Schermerhom,
Alexander Ruden,
Joseph Otis,
Lewis Hartman.
Qarret Storm,
George Bement,
Stephen A. Rich,
Abraham Smith,
Thomas H. Smith, Jr.,
Andrew Foster,
Jacob Barker,
William Lovett,
William Edgar, Jr.,
Samuel Stillwell,
Jacob P. Giraud,
John Hone,
John Kane,
Amasa Jackson,
William J. Robinson,
Joseph Strong,
Abraham S. HaUett,
Joshua Jones,
Frederick Giraud, Jr.,
Robert Roberts,
John Crookes,
Hugh McCormick,
John Depeyster,
Gilbert Haight.
James Lovett,
Leffert Lefferts,
Augustus Wynkoop,
John W. Gale,
Thomas Rich,
Samuel MarshaU,
Elbert Herring.
1 Tyler, in his " Parties and Patronage in the
United States" (New-York, 1891), remarks:
''Some idea of the national demoralization oc-
casioned by the acts of the Federalists may be
gained from the fact that the capture and impris-
onment by the English of six thousand of our citi-
zens cost the New England States (among the
first to resist the tyranny of the British in 1775)
not one half the concern that the restrictions of
the embargo did for a single year." Editor.
Axr^//i»MA/ji K/y A^^'^m^ mA *^iuyjrt<^rf fcy ihik <w«a«TaaiiT«- admirers of
^■M iWif.'i^h f'/ff*k^^U*t^i^m^ ti^t: nmu fn^ntr^ ^4 viudbi HaaiuhiQ«i had
fif^tU^} ffff t^f ff^u^ ^t)0^f^. iutert^titMi^ and immrjctal inistmmeiite,
iU^fUali i\^V ^^^< ^''///^AMdU^jflt^ fr<(^^ ri/>lt tyjr any m^aos amOar either
^UiUi »->Mv i¥^o f^%ir4fff$iiu^ iA xSiH I'rjiwi were thus rangiDg them-
^(jy^cii M^^/^rr Umy t/^iiiMrfM //f |^5a/?^? arid </f war^ the great eontroUing
Us\M\^^ ¥^Sf%U^ I'^mmiHuSyM"^ </f N^fW-York and Penn-sylvania were as yet
\\^<*i\\^\\u\i^ ^nSA'MwS^ M%i\ it%\H*A^itxx\i. New- York was divided in sen-
\\\\m\\i S^/wliitrit w^trM IJmj |K;litw;ttl linf;« as strictly drawn as in New-
VorJi ^'JJyi TImi <II vinloriN wiir<j n<it nK;«nt The adoption of the eonsti-
MHlnn ImmI only Iwtitn vwrvM liy tho jMjrsistence of Jay, the magnetism
mC ll«Miilloii| M\\\ IliM iH^r^wmiil lippoals of Washington himself. The
mfiliM nf Ihn KM(l(imliNU hml Immsii hImco recruited from those who
MppMttMil IImi oofiMiliiillon, \w\{\ for th<< logical reason that they repre-
mmkImiI Him MwiHlilUlMMl c^nlnr, Thn luiided proprietors were almost
|m h iimii I'^MdMrnllNlN nnlil ilu^ houHo of Livingston, for some personal
Hl1*hMi)| WMiil nvor with ItH lioHt. of followers to the Republicans. Able
w^ llniuillon WHN UN H loudor, ho found in Governor George Clinton,
WMwhiiiHlouV ninluHlHy in oounoil as in war, an opponent of towering
ftlrohtflhi (ounoloUM nnd Indopondont^us was natural to the Scotch-Irish
^\\\\\ U\>\\\ whloh ho HprunK* ^^^^^ autonomy of the State he had failed
\\\ woon^Hi in tho jH^uOur yt^u*ninir for a nation; its independence he held
ts\A \\\ *rho nmrrlt^t^^ of hi?* ila\i^htor with Oen^t, the French minister,
\\\\\ \\\\\\\^\\ U^ hi** l^^nnor tho ontir^^ FnMioh j^arty. He had no love
l\vv Now IC^^IhiuI^ Uhhi\iw \^ hor t'^iionviohmeuts on what was claimed
Now- Yv^'>K l^^i'i"U\^i\v \\\ \\\^ Uwuj^shir^^ grants — a bone of contention
whiv^h \VH3* H U>iJ^\v v^f tho \HJ\nu<id jH^rkHl* To him must be ascribed
ihvN nM\^I vNit lU\^ lU^UUh l^^u U^ 5i%>|>^niit^ Nte^w England from the rest
sMf <>\N^ ^'>HVs^^ ^>i iW HV*^^Wl4\UHmt v>lf <i Uu^ of mititanr po6ts ak>ng the
HvVi^^H ^^si iW v^^l^*^ sslt l^w t>^>ir5e^ *ekI Ohauoaplain. While the
l^v^* ^N^xNA ssiT ^NV\^^^^^is^k^ tW ii*sU|vuvtiu^ w^' wv'w soandiBg; George
^x^ W^'MK ^^s^ ll!^*^ (iU>!tl v^JT >|;Mfe^*t^ v&nL ^bt^*? yv(5 la oi&i^ afi hfe hoase
^>A \\ ^xfc^iiV^fNvJi!^, v^ - V^^«fit AV l^tiv Hij^ vfeifcUiL w;fc> wpcrtied K> nhte Sedale
s\\ vvx ^\vxisV,^u^ \^^^ \\USi*itt Itwrm Cbfcw$,>oJL aji»i T*o tij* Hoi^^i^ by
v»,vvi^i^^\v ^Vv^a^ vX^-'WcttviWk ^^5v >f«fttttis5^ wvw ii/m/r-a at N^W'-Torfc
v*ii;>i^4^\ .Ki^i. s-aW, v^ttiv '^>^«tKAi ;^f ':iK^ ^*it> rjrikt «iit in •ii* t^ot^ xosi
H;xibJ\iKv V vi>/ '*^Hi ^!>V5V3>> •^^•rtii .'UOf^ni tt Wur >tr»i^a. -viiH!** aa
s,s*^^vs^ %«^x ji,<i\vi^ >> v^i^^?«**»vitr M»>rf**^ >iiinru%?^ -vt^w ±?^l ir^m.
NEW-YORK IM THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 237
Geoi^ Clinton had been Madison's most formidable competitor for
the presidency in 1808. At his death the scepter of his controlUng
influence passed to his nephew, De Witt Clinton, who was at the time
mayor of the city. That gentleman's leanings were, however, toward
the Federal opinions, though,
in reviewing his independent
career, it is difficult to assign
him to any single party ex-
cept that which in the fluctu-
ating politics of New-York
city he himself founded. He
also became a candidate for
the presidential succession; so
was James Monroe, secretary
of state at this period. Both
of these aspiring men were
eager for war, and it has been
said that their rivalry forced
Madison's hand in the de-
claration of war. In the in-
terim between April 1, when
he transmitted his message
recommending an embargo,
and June 1, when he sent in
the message for war, Madison received his second nomination from
the congressional caucus of the Republican party. The period of elec-
tion fell in the autumn of the year 1812.
Madison's war message of June 1 was at the same time an insult
and a defiance to the New England Federalists. Among the causes
for an appeal to arms he included the charge of " a cooperation be-
tween the Eastern Tenth and the British Cabinet" He intimated that
an agent had been sent by the British government to Massachusetts
to intrigue " with the disaffected for the purpose of bringing about
resistance to the laws and eventually, in conceri, with a British force,
of destroying the Union and adding the Eastern States to her Canada
provinces." The Federal party had complete control in the five States
of New England. New-York and New Jersey were rapidly drifting in
the same direction. Under the sharp stimt^us of Clay's oratory, the
war measures were hurried through Congress, and on June 19 Madi-
son issued his formal proclamation of war against Great Britain.
The news of the declaration of war reached New- York at nine
o'clock on the morning of Saturday, June 20, 1812. A private letter
of the 17th brought news that the question had been decided in the
Senate of the United States by a vote of 19 to 12. The same mail
diubt)- )/ltum
'Ml
'iU0JHi ^m ii*^. tAUiftuff^Hi ^A itfai^ IMfa; wirib tlK- aiu&iMmeieBDaBt. and an
t^^ffMm Mffir^i $Kt ti0r ^tma^ tum^ witihi oflfenl iMjike to General
4ff9f4^fU HU^nufi^'^if ^^ufusuiAer fA ibfi trofjp^ and defensa in and
fM^f ft^i^r h/nfU/f </f ?ir^^«r-V^>rl^ irfarj«e bieadqiiafters were at the fort
off Umt tUiiUrry, At tuM-pou^ nine this cffic«r issoed Ids general
ifftUrfn^^ with ih^? ann/jtui^iii^^nkent to the tror>p& Mcflsengers paaeed
Uir//M((h f^Mr fMy hUmi Um ffcAftcli tor the northern frontier and die
^ttmi, (h^wtrnl HU^nntifsUl^ General Ebenezer Stevens, Colonel Jona-
iUitii WMIJMrrm, (>/l//rieI P#?t/5r P, Schuyler, and other militarT ofll-
^<4trM w^ffit ou Umrd the President, Commodore Bodgers's flag-ship, at
UhoUf Mu\ lUh ArtftiH WHH at once put under way.
**ThM iUtlntuinau^ {(fiiiUA by Charles Holt), issaed that after-
hnifti^ itxpri^M^t^l the (general regret that Congress had procrasti-
imUui i\w ihu'Jumtiori until the New-York legislature, which was sit-
iUttt lit Alhany, Mlioiihl have mljoumed, and the express which went
out in I'hn morning <eould hardly reach the State capital in time to
(irnvntit lU diNpdrNion. Their time expired on July 1. " The Colum-
hhui/' In Ihn Name jmhuc^, nia<h^ answer to the slurs cast on New- York
for ** want of pulillc? npirit and ardor in the general defence'*: "The
Hiato of Nnw-Vork, wo venture to declare, has expended more money
on foi'l'liloallonHi nannon, anns, ammunition, and military stores than
all tho otiior HtaioH in the Union in their individual capacities since
tlio adoption of Iho fodoral constitution; and can furnish more of the
IniplonionlH of war of hi^r own property at an hour's notice than all
thu ot lu»r HUUt^K togt^thtM*,** Tlio frigates Congress and United States,
fiHMU Ihuuptou lioadH, and tlio United States brig Argus, from the
holawHhs uudor i^inlorw tvonx the government, arrived the day pre-
vlouH, Tho Hrltinh fingate Holvidora and sloop of war Tartarus, which
Wt^iH^ oruiMlug iU4 tho Fitihiug Itanks, stood off on their appearance.
Th** ut^xt d^y it wa8 known that the legislature of the State had
mljouru^Hl ou tho Kridav i^rtHHHiiug, June li\ the very day of the presi-
d^^utV ^v^^^^Uumtu^u Tht^ *S^Kvang jKHut of the n^otiations" was
M^U'^\ \\\ \\\^ iu^WH|va|H^r^ tv> U^ the (Hv^ti\*e and official declaration
\vf Mi\ l^\v»tvi\* th^^ Uriti^i iwiuiston that ^(Jreat Britain wiH not
v^'UhxI^^w h\n' vxr\Uvw iu wutunl until Prance shall release the whole
m^ %^uu^ iXV iKnunrt^l St^wii^ ixf ih** militia^ communicated to the
V \^^.tMM«a VV>JM>^ UV4NA»4^MWNNMNk \^>lr\'V«^ ^ K^T^tNlt «rf %hi» rMM& J»lWt*0» M T<m kftTV a light
i
KEW-TORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 239
common council General Bloomfield's general order, and added: "I
shall be happy in cooperating with the honorable corporation in
any measnres which appear advisable for the more complete protec-
tion of the city." On Monday, the 22d, the common council en-
larged their committee of defense by adding the recorder, Messrs.
Augustine H. Lawrence, Elisha W. King, and George Wilson, and
Alderman George Buckmaster. The original committee of defense,
appointed December 2, 1811, consisted of Aldermen Nicholas Fish,
John Morse, Peter Mesier, and Thomas Carpenter, and Assistant Alder-
men Samuel Jones, Jr., Peter Hawes,
and John Drake. Their term of
service was that of the body from
which they were drawn, — viz., for
three years, — and expired in Decem-
ber, 1814. There was a strong mili-
tary party in New- York. The So-
ciety of the Cincinnati had about
fifty members of the New- York
State branch resident in the city.
Its oflScers were Colonel Richard
Varick, president, and Colonel Ebe-
nezer Stevens, of the 2d New- York
Continental Artillery (who now com-
manded the artillery of the State
with the commission of major-gen-
eral), vice-president. Among the
members were Colonel Aaron Burr;
Matthew Clarkson, major and aide-
de-camp ; General Benjamin Lincoln ; Philip Van Cortlandt, the colo-
nel of the 2d New- York Continentals; Major Nicholas Fish, of the
Light Infantry ; Colonel Morgan Lewis ; Lieutenant-Colonel Brock-
hoist Livingston; Lieutenant-Colonel Marinus Willett; and on the rolls
the well-known New-York names of Bleeeker, BurraU, Codwise, Duns-
combe, Fowler, Giles, Graham, Hammond, Hutton, Leggett, Pendleton,
Piatt, Popham, Steddiford, Stewart, Swartwout, Troup, and Van Dyck.
The feeling in New- York had been general in opposition to the
declaration of war. The newspapers voiced that opinion, but the die
once cast, their determination to support the administration in-
creased. The RepubUcan general committee, Jonathan Thompson,
chairman, and John L. Broome, secretary, issued a call for a general
meeting in the park. The Federalists in the city, who outnumbered
I The Klnliig BridftB ma dtnated at Flftlsth It. In lB60it flnallf disappeared from among the
nraet and Seeond ATenne, croaalnK ■ nnall creek old landmarks. Drake aiid Halleck celebrated it
or brook. The old Boston Poat Boad pasBod over In vene. Eonoa.
Kissma BBWOB.i
240 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the Republicans, naturally held aloof, while there were dissensions
in the Republican ranks, the Clintonian branch being larger than
the Madisonian. The meeting, by design or inadvertence, was only
partially advertised in the newspapers. The gathering, variously
estimated from seven to fifteen hundred, was small when the gravity
of the situation is considered. It was held in the park at noon on
Wednesday, June 24. Colonel Henry Rutgers was called to the chair,
and Colonel Marin us Willett was named secretary. The act of Con-
gress and the president's proclamation were read, and a preamble and
resolutions, which are said to have been drawn by Colonel Rutgers,
W(»re submitted and unanimously adopted. These declared the neces-
sity and justice of the war, approved the course of the government,
and pledged in support " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor.'* They read as follows :
In ono of tlioso awful and interesting moments with which it has pleased heaven
tliat StatoH and Kingdoms should at times be visited, we consider ourselves now
oonvokod to express ou( calm, decided, and animated opinion on the conduct of our
government.
Peace has ever been considered one of the greatest blessings that an all bountiful
Cnuitor has vouclisafed to man upon earth, while war has ever been designated as the
scourge of nations ; but the same All wise Providence has likewise permitted that in
the events of time such circumstances should accrue to nations as would render it not
only ntcfsmry^ but an absointe dnfy to abandon the comforts and delights of x>eace in
order that by a solemn appeal to arms they may be enabled to secure to themselves
equally* important blessings: that by encountering for a time the disasters and vicis-
situdes of war they may secure to thrmsei€>es and transmit to their posterity those in-
valuable advantages to which by the laws of nature, of nations and of Gk>d they as
indo|Hmdent governments are justly entitled.
When a retro8i>eot is taken of the last Twelve years of our history we find reeorded
there the violation of one Sacred right after another. We behold one continued
serit^ of insults — one long succession of oppressions ; our government with the true
spirit of a republic, patiently sustaining while temporarily remonstrating nntO indig-
nity has iH^n heaped on indignity and injury heaped upon injury. With a rdnctance
conmu>n only to such as duly appreciate the blessings of peace, have they calmly
endiut^d and pen»ev«ringiy negotiated under a pious but vain e^>eetation that reastm
and expostulation would at length bring the nations injuring us to a sense of equity,
and theivby avert the necessity of a resort to those ulterior measures ahrmjra direful
in their operation even to that party which is most successfuL
Our governments mild and peaceful in its very nature, and d^encdess on Hie ocean,
has endeavored* in the v»t spirit of meekness, by eveiy wise and at the same time
soothing expedients to convince \he belligerent nations of the justice of our councils:
of our anient wish to ccmduct in all things agreeaUy to the cstabltsfacd tisages of
nations* and in such a manner as to give them no jost canse of off»iee; but knowing
our maritime w^eakncss in comparison with their strength* they have tnmcd a deaf
ear to the equity of our demands: and with the insolence ccmmon to snpetiar and
artntnunr power* have $«c^ accumulated the catalogne of our vroi^rs* that kager forbear-
ance w\>uM be attended with the ah»4utc prMttation of oar natioiial chander: an
abandonment of the rights of an independent repnb& : and would reader our govenK
ment nnw\>rthy of the con^dence of its own citiiens and of die reispcei of tke wvrid.
NEW-YOBK IM THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 241
Our troveTTunent therefore with all cahn deliberation and with that wiemn ddaj/
that ever attends those who are forced reluctantly from their tranquil and beloved
abodes to laonoh on a perilous and tempestuous ooeao have finally resigned the
peace of the count)? into the hands of the f^feat Dbposer of all events— ~ and under
His banner with a perfect oonviction of the equity of their cause they have declared
this country to be at war with Great Britain.
Therefore Resoicei That we have viewed with pleasure and approbation the increasing
efforts of our government to preserve to our country the blessings of peace; that we
duty appreciate their able negotiations and admire their unwearied patience to pro-
mote so important an end ; and that we consider them standing justified in the eyes
of their fellow citizens in all the restrictive
measures to which they have resorted as
temporary expedients, with the hope of pre-
venting thereby the evils of War.
BexolBed That while solicitous of peace and
ardently attached to its blessings, we believe
that the crisis had arrived when it could
be no longer with honor retained ; that we
therefore hold our government justified in
its appeal to arms against Great Britain and
yield to its decision our unqualified and de-
cided approbation.
Resolred That as our government has now ^^^ ^^^^^^ hq^se, uavekstkaw.i
appealed to the world, it becomes the duty
of all good citizens at such an eventful period to lay aside all party animosity and
private bickering, to rally as becomes brethren equally involved in the welfare of their
common country around the National Standard and to yield to their government an
undivided support.
Besolvtd That in placing our reliance in the Most High and soliciting his benediction
on our just cause we pledge to our government in support of our beloved country our
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Copies of these resolutions were sent to the president and both houses
of Congress, and duly published in the press.
However reluetant the men of property may have felt to undertake
a war with Great Britain, whose enormous resources the continental
wars had developed, and whose navy, since the victory of Nelson at
Trafalgar in 1805, held undisputed sway over both oceans, the war
was hailed with joy by thousands of adventurous spirits and the large
class of seafaring men who now for many years had been without
congenial or profitable occupation. Money and ships were at once
forthcoming, and within four months after the declaration of war
twenty-six privateers were fitted out from the port of New- York,
armed with two hundred and twelve guns, and manned by twenty-
two thousand and thirty-nine men, experienced and daring. From its
earliest history, as these pages have recited, privateering was a favorite
1 At tlie hofue of Joshuft Hett Smith, ton of on the momitig of Augaet 22, 1780. nnd ursnged
WlUlam Smith, the hlatorlui, etudfnn; on what the plan of the surrender of West Point, The
is DOW called Treason Hill, near HaTeTBtnw, on house can be Been from the river. BDitOB.
the Bndsoa, Major Andri met General Arnold,
Vol. in.— 16.
242
HISTOKY OF NEW-YORK
venture of New- York citizens. Their seamen were especially quali-
fied for the management of the fast craft which this service demanded,
and for the handling of light guns usually carried by this class of
vessels. The Sandy Hook pilots brought their seamanship, and the
Long Island whale-boat men of the Revolution retained their tradi-
tions of bold enterpiise. In the colonial days the scions of the best
stock not only fitted out but
themselves sailed privateers
on the Spanish main, and
since the opening of the
China trade a sea voyage to
the distant Orient was not
an unusual preparation for a
merchant CM"eer, — sometimes
maintained for years in their
employment as supercargoes
on the long trading voyages
which were then the habit of
trade. Moreover, the danger-
ous commerce with the West
India Islwids, which swarmed
with buccaneers from every
clime, had familiarized them
with the very kind of action
which was needed. They conld
"hunt with the bounds or run
with the hai'ea'' of the sea. In the It«vo]ution they had not hesitated
to attack men-of-war on the station at Sandy Hook, and to ran large
packets on the reefs was not a singular feat The ardor of New-
York in this direction was kept up by the constant repair of tlie war-
ships of the United States to the anchorage in the lower bay. In the
very first days of the war of 1812, a notable incident enconraged their
belief in their ability to cope with the skilled captains and the trained
tars of Admirals Nelson and Collingwood.
It has been stated already that the young leaders of the war party in
Congress looked to successes on land and territorial conqnest, and had
an indifference to the field which the ocean afforded. And yet the
triumphs of our young fleet in the Revolution, the alarm whidi John
Paul Jones excited in English homes, and, later, the briUifmt achieve-
ments in the Mediterranean, the heroes of which were stiU in the
prime of their service, might have inspired better connaeL Madison's
cabinet were said to have without exception opposed the increase and
use of our navy; indeed, somewhat after Jefferson^ idea in imposing
the embaigo, — to save oar vessels by laying them np. The advice
^..uo
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 243
of Captains Charles Stewart and William Bainbridge, who happened
to be in Washington at the time of the declaration of war, deter-
mined Madison to bring the navy into active service. One of the
chief causes of the war being the impressment of our seamen, it seems
to-day surprising that their ardor in defense of "Free Trade and
Sailors* Rights" — the cry under which our greatest triumphs were
won — should have been either passed by or deprecated.'
The president's proclamation reached Commodore Eodgers at New-
York on the 20th. With it came orders to sail on a cruise against the
enemy. His squadron consisted of his own ship, the President, 44 ;
the United States,
44,Captain Stephen
Decatur; the Con-
gress, 38, Captain
Joseph Smith ; the
Hornet, 18, Captain
James Lawrence ;
and the Argus, 16,
Captain Arthur
Sinclair — in all five
ships, carrying 160
guus. The British
force cruising off
the coast consisted
of eight men-of-
war, carrying 312 guns, with a number of corvettes and sloops: quite
enough to watch American movements and make any concerted ac-
tion or descent either on the Canadian coast or the West India
Islands hazardous if not impracticable. The United States could ill
afford to try the issue of a single naval action with a superior force.
Rodgers was aware that the homeward-bound plate fleet had sailed
from Jamaica on May 20, under convoy of two small vessels carrying
together 44 guns, which he might strike in the Gulf Stream.
Within an hour from the time that he received his instructions,
Commodore Rodgers, who was in entire readiness, put to sea. He
passed Sandy Hook with his squadron on the afternoon of June 21,
and ran southeast. An American sail, spoken that night, reported
having seen the Jamaica ships. The squadron crowded sail. Early
ITbe bewitlfiil American ship of war AlUknce,
whlcb bad been pronounced a perfect fiimte by
the Ugh aathority of the Frencb eonstruetian and
Ii»*al men, waa the last of tbn BeTolntionary
■laTy. and was eold In 1T85. In 1T9i. in i-j>u-
■eaiuenoe of the Algerine Bpoliadons, CoDgress
ordered four frigates of U and two of 36 gam.
Two of the flrat and one of the aecond clan were
built. In 1798, the United States had but three
frigatea, the Constitution, tlie United States, and
the Canatellation. After the affair ot the Chesa-
peake In 1807, Pret^ent Jefferson, with an ap.
parent distroEt of our ships, asked Congreaa for
no more, hut recommended the building ot addi-
tional ^nboata, which carried the number up
to two hundred and fifty-seven. It waa not till
1808 and 1809 that a number of ikew frigates were
ordered and soon after oompleted.
244 HISTOKY OF NEW-IOBK
ill thf! iiioriiiiig of the 23d an enemy's frigate was descried, and a
gitnitral ehase was made. The President, a fast ship, soon distanced
the rest of the squadron. The wind failing, Rodgers, despairing of
overliaiiliiig the frigate, opened with his chase guns. He discharged
thoforooasth* gun himself. This was the first shot fired in the war. The
fourtli firo nxi)loded one of the battery guns, killing and wounding
sixteen men, and throwing into the air the forecastle
de(ik, on which Rodgers was standing. One of the
(ioniniodoro's legs was broken in his fall. The British
commander lightened his ship by throwing overboard
his boats and his water-tanks, and got away. It
proved lator to have been the frigate Belvidera, 36,
Captain Byron. On July 1 the squadron struck the
wak4^ of the Jamaica vessels, which they recognized
by tho tropical debris (fruit, etc.) which floated on the
sea, to the eastward of the Banks of Newfoundland.
jM^^r^ Oil July 9 an English letter of marqne was taken by
^^^^^ tlie Hornet, Captaiu Lawrence, and it was learned that
Bii.i.KT.iiKAit.i jIj^, Jftniaica fleet, eighty-five sail, was seen the night
iH'fiire, mulor convoy of a frigate, a sloop of war, and a brig. The
cIiHsc was aliaiidoncd on the 13th, within a day's sail of the chops of
the riitninel, luut Rcxlgers returned to Boston by way of the Western
Islands and tho Oraiul Banks. The result was meager — seven mer-
chaiitnien taken and one American recaptured. The cruise lasted
seventy days.
The n'jKtrt of the Belvidera caused Captain Sir Philip Bowes Vere
Bn>ke, of the Slianiion, senior officer of the British squadron, to con-
eiMitnile it at ouw. in the hope of intercepting Bodgers*s return. It
hoveriHl off New- York t>arly in July, and made several captures —
among others of the Xautilus, 14, which left the harbor soon after
K(Htg«.*rs in the hoiH> of taking some English ludiaman, fell in with the
British stiuadron the next day, and. uoable to get away, struck to the
i^hannon. This was the first war vessel taken ou either side in this
»H^nt<'st> The Xautihis had made a proud re^'ord in the Tripoli war.
When the w»r ojH>n*Hl. the Essex. 38. was in Xew-York harbor
tindersx>ing r»'i*«ir, She was ordered to sea with an armament of
e«m>«»d<'s only, in spite of the pn.*>sts of Captain David Porter, her
iHxniimndei', and put out of harK«r ou July ^ On her foretopgallant-
niast she I'ame^l a white flag tetterv^l iu blue. ** Free Trade and Sailors'
Kijrftts,' !"»« the Uth she fell in with the Minerva. 32. convoying
s^'wn tr*'H>j>-traus(M'>rts, <\aoh with aK'vut two hundred men on board.
»«» t. yma *tt H<T«tttB- TV" «■» »J»p» ""V *»'' 1*'l— MM » w^ w>wiT«rt tm » pan ai ikr head
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 245
Ou the way from Barbadoes to Quebec, Porter cut out one of the
transports, took out her men, and stood back for a fight. The
Minerva declined an action. Porter's men were thoroughly trained
as boarders, but the short range of his guns did not permit of his
cutting out the Minerva. One of the youngest of the midshipmen of
the Essex on this cruise was David Glasgow Farragut, whose fam^
to-day almost rivals that of England's great admiral. On August 13
the Essex overtook and captured the British sloop of war Alert, which
she disarmed and sent in as a cartel to St. John's. The Essex returned
to New-York on September 7, having made ten prizes containing four
hundred and twenty-three men.
In this month of July, also, the Constitution, 44, Captain Isaac Hull,
returned from a run to Europe, and sailed into the Chesapeake, where
a new crew was shipped, many of whom had never been on board a
vessel of war before. On the 11th she left Annapolis and stood to
the northward. On the 17th she fell in with the Guerriere, Captain
Dacres, which had joined Broke's squadron. The Nautilus had been
taken by them the day before, and was now manned by a British
crew and flying British colors. Only by the exercise of the greatest
ingenuity, by coolness and precision and the steadiness which Hull
had already obtained from his fresh men, was the noble frigate ena-
bled to extricate herself from the formidable net into which she had
fallen. The three days' chase and the escape are historic in the
American navy. Hull had fairly outmanoeuvered Broke and Byron.
Soon after the chase the British squadron separated, and Hull went
into Boston on July 26. On August 2 the Constitution sailed in an
easterly course, but met no enemy. Cruising along the coast of Nova
Scotia from the Bay of Fundy to Newfoundland, she took her station
off Cape Eace. Here she captured two British brigs and recaptured
an American one, but a British sloop of war escaped.
On the 19th, cruising south, Captain Hull heard from a Salem priva-
teer of a British frigate still further to the southward. Standing in
that direction, he found the stranger to be the frigate Guerriere,
Captain Dacres, this time alone. The Englishman hauled up his
courses and took in part of his sail, and made ready to engage.
Hull made his own preparations with the greatest deliberation, cleared
for action, and beat to quarters. At five o'clock in the afternoon the
Guerriere hoisted three English ensigns and opened fire. The Con-
stitution set her colors one at each masthead and one at the miz-
zen-peak. Hull answered the English fire with a few guns as they
bore. The Englishman showing a disposition for a hand-to-hand fight,
yard-arm and yard-arm, the Constitution drew closer, and in a few
minutes, as the ships were side to side, the Guerrifere's mizzenmast
came down, shot away. As the vessels touched, both crews prepared
246
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
to board, but the fire was so hot and the sea so heavy that neither
party succeeded. As the Constitution shot ahead the Guerri^re's
foremast fell, and, carrying with it her mainmast, the proud ship lay
a helpless wreck. As the Constitution returned to deliver a raking
fire, the enemy's colors were lowered. The next morning, the Guer-
ri^re having four feet of water in her hold, Hull sent on board and
took off the prisoners. The wreck was set on fire and soon blew up.
Hull, encumbered with his prisoners, returned to Boston, where he
arrived on the 30th. He brought in two hundred and sixty-seven
prisoners, among whom were ten Americans who had refused to fight
their countrymen. Hull himself brought the intelligence of his vic-
tory. He announced it to the secretary of war by despatch from
" United States frigate Constitution, off Boston Light.** When the
frigate arrived in the harbor she was met by a flotilla of gaily deco-
rated boats, and Hull was greeted on his landing by an immense
assemblage and welcomed to a splendid entertainment by the prin-
cipal citizens of both parties.
From Boston Hull made a progress almost triumphal. He reached
New- York city early in September, where he was received with
equal enthusiasm. Dacres's desire to meet an American frigate was
already known in New- York.* A subscription was raised and swords
purchased by the citizens of New- York and presented to Hull and his
ofiicers. Hull was voted the freedom of the city by the common
council on the 7th, and on the 14th he was requested to sit for his
portrait to be placed in the picture-gallery of the City Hall,^ known
as the Governors' room, where the portraits of the several governors
of the State are preserved, as also those of Washington and other
distinguished persons. From New- York Captain Hull proceeded
1 Three days l)efore the action^ the John Adams,
Captain Fash, from Liverpool, was spoken by
the English frigate. Upon Fash*8 register, which
he deposited in the New- York custom-house, the
following lines were found written : ** Captain
Dacres, commander of his Britannic Mi^esty-s
frigate Guerriftre, of 44 guns, presents his com-
pliments to Commodore Rodgers, of the United
States frigate President, and will be very happy
to meet him or any other American frigate of
equal force to the President, off Sandy Hook, for
the purpose of having a few minutes* tite-^He."
- *' At a Common CouncU, held the 7th day of
September, 1812. the Common Council of the City
of New- York, considering a naval establishment
all important to the protection of our commerce
and to the defence of our country and viewing the
recent capture of the British Frigate Guerriftre by
the American Frigate Constitution as not only il-
lustrating the advantages of a navy, but as reflect-
ing the highest honor on the intrepidity and skill
of Captain Hull, his officers and crew. Esteem it
their duty as the Municipal Government of this
great commereial eity to express their sentiments
on this occasion, and to present the thanks of the
Citizens of New- York to the gallant officers and
seamen who achieved this brilliant victory, and
they
**Bfwlve That the Freedom of the City be pre-
sented to Captain Hull in a golden box witli an
appropriate inscription. And that his Honor, the
Mayor, be requested to forward the same with a
copy of these resolutions."
"At a Common Council held the 14th day of
September, 1812, Ifesolved That as an additional
tribute of respect from this Corporation to Cap-
tain Hull, he be requested to honor them with a
sitting for his portrait to be deposited in the pic-
ture-gallery of the City Hall, and transmitted to
posterity as a memorial of the high sense enter-
tained by this Corporation of the brilliant victory
obtained by the United States Frigate Constita-
tion. under his command, over the British Frig-
ate Guerri^re, Captain Dacres, in his action on
the 19th August. 1812." ** Burghers and Freemen
of New-York," New-York Historieal Society Col-
lections, 1885. pp. 366, 369.
NEW-YORK IK THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT RRITAIN 247
to Philadelphia, where the citizens in general meeting voted to him
" a piece of plate of the most elegant workmanship, with appropriate
emblems, devices, and inscriptions," and a like piece of plate to Lieu-
tenant Charles Morris, in the name of the
citizens of Philadelphia.
On bis return to New- York from his south-
ern tour, the ceremony of presentation of the
freedom of the city to Captain Hull took
place in the mayor's office at the City Hall,
on December 28. A committee, consisting
of Aldermen Fish and Mesier, and General
Jacob Morton, introduced the commodore,
when Mayor De Witt Clinton rose and ad-
dressed him. The mayor then presented the
certificate of election to the freedom of the
city, and a gold box finely embossed and
chased, with the scene of the battle engraved in enamel. Hull replied
briefly in a modest manner, and the freeman's oath was administered.
The Constitution, from her wonderful exemption from damage by the
enemy's guns, was already familiarly known as "Old Ironsides."*
I A Btlrring song, now Klmost forgotten, com-
memorstliig tbe victory of the Wup over the
Pmlie, WM mug in public gatheringn and in the
streets', one vene condudlng vith tho linen:
a Fratic."
Mr. Chvte*. k Philadelphia artial, published >
colored carloture, of which tbe above is a re-
dnced f nc-gimlie. Edjtob.
A t a CDnunon CouDcU held the SStb day ot De-
oen)ber,lS12. The Bokrd assembled In tbe Uayor's
OAce. De Witt ClintoD, Mayor. PreHident.
Upon metioti, the Common Council adjourned
to Uietr Chunber, for tbe purpose of conferring
upon Captain IsaM Hull of tbe United States
Frigate Constdtution the Freedom of the CMty,
ai^reeably to a former Resolution.
It being announced that Captain Hull was In
waiting, a Committee, consistiiig of Alderman Pish,
Mr. Lawrence and the Clerk of the Common Coun-
cil, were deputed to Introduce Captain Hnll Into
the Common Council Chamber. This was accord-
ingly done, when bis Honor addressed Captain
Hull as follows;
Id bebalf of tbe Common CoancU I have the
Honor of presenting you with the Freedom of this
City and oommunicaUng their high sense ot the
courage and skill displayed by yonrself , your o(B-
cers, and crew in tbe capture of the British Frigate
Onerri^re.
Deeds of valor and achievements of glory are, at
all times, cherished by panriotism and rewarded by
tme policy, bnt when we consider that our recent
victories on theooean have exhibited the American
n the most interesting light, have cie-
weharacterintbeannala of naval warfare,
and have been the principal means of establishing
our navy on a respectable and permanent basis, it
mu^t be universally admitted Uiat actors In these
scenes of heroism are preeminently entitled to the
gratitude ot their Country.
That Commerce la essential t« our prosperity,
that it cannot flourish without protection, and
that it cannot be protected without a navy, are
truths too evident to be denied, and too impor-
tant not to be appreciated by tbe intelligence and
public spirit of America.
We cannot withhold on this occasion our appro-
bation of your generons and Iwaevolent treatment
of tbe vanquished. It demonstrates the natural
alliance between courage and humanity, and in
mitigating the calamities of war. it reflects honor
on our national character.
The Freeman's oath, as prescribed by Law, was
(hen administered to Captain Hull by the Mayor,
and the certlflcate thereof, enclosed in a superb
Oolden Boi prepared with suitable Emblems, were
delivered 1« him.
Captain Hull expressed the deep sense he felt
St tbe honors thus conferred upon bim. That Boi
and its highly valued contents, be pledged himself
to preserve as an incentive to his lealous and
most strenuous eiertions in the cause of bis conn-'
try wherever future Bood fortune should afford
him an opportunity. To have it believed, he said,
by so highly respectable a body as the Corporation
ot the City of New-Tork, that an action ot bis had
contributed to so desirable an event Be Che esub-
llshment ot a navy on a perioanent Basis, was a
source ot pleasing reflection which would only
cease with life.
After which Captain Hull retii«d. — "Bnr|^ers
and Freemen of New-York," pp. 371-370.
248
HISTORY OF NEW-SORK
The effect of this victory was startling on both sides of the Atlan-
tic. In the twenty years during which Great Britain had been at war
with almost every continental power, and in the course of "about
two hnndred single conflicts," her ships had been defeated but five
times. American ships and American seamanship were spoken of in
contempt. The Constitution had been ridiculed by the British press
as a "bunch of pine boards under a bit of striped bunting." She had
now outsailed England's finest ships and reduced to a wreck one of
her choice frigates. Only a short time before a London newspaper
had said: "There is not a frigate in the
American navy able to cope with the
Guerri^re." On hearing the news of the
action, the London "Times" said: "It
is not merely that a British frigate has
been taken after what, we are free to
confess, may be called a brave resist-
ance, but that it has been taken by a
new enemy, an enemy unaccustomed
to such triumphs and hkely to be .ren-
dered insolent and confident by them.
He must be a weak politician who does
not see how important the first triumph
is in giving a tone and character to the
war. Never before in the history of the
world did an English frigate strike to
an American ; and though we cannot
say that Captain Dacres under all cir-
cumstances is punishable for this act^
yet we do say there are commanders in the English navy who would
a thousand times rather have gone down with their colors flying than
have set their brother officers so fatal an example." Stress has been
here laid upon this memorable contest because it was the first of a
glorious series of naval triumphs which together forever destroyed
the belief, which in England was settled as a religious faith, in Brit-
ish invincibility at sea.
Hull, immediately after his two exploits, gave up his command, in
order that others might reap their share of laurels. At this time
there were a number of gallant officers without a ship to command.
He was succeeded in the Constitution by Captain William Bainbridge,
one of the heroes of the Tripoli war. Raised to the rank of com-
modore, Bainbridge was transferred from the frigate Constellation,
1 Major WiUiun J ^kwiD wh »idB uid AMretejy *Mi«t«r; of the Society of the (^oclaiiatL The
to Wuhtnfttoii during Ub midenee. u pmident. portrait is copied from ■ miuiMure by Chaiira
Id NeV'ToA. Later he was a«*iatant Hcretary WiUson Pralt. His pietnre was alao painted by
of war, and for more than a aoartcr of a eenbuy TnunbuU. ElMVOB.
NEW- YORK m THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 249
38 guns, then fitting for sea at Washington, and placed in command
of a squadron consisting of the Constitution, which was thoroughly
refitted at Boston; the Essex, 32, Captain Porter; and the Hornet,
18, Captain Lawrence. Bainbridge hoisted his pennant on the Con-
stitution on September 15 at Boston harbor, where the Hornet was
also lying. The two ships sailed to the southward on October 26;
Porter, who was with the Essex on the Delaware, receiving orders
to rendezvous at the island San Jago.
Before Commodore Bainbridge was ready for sea, Commodore
Rodgers, whose squadron was also in Boston, left that port on
October 8 with the President, United States, Congress, and Argus,
On October 12 the frigate United States, which, like the President
and the Constitution, carried forty-four guns, separated from the
squadron, — Captain Decatur, who commanded, taking an eastward
course. On October 25 she fell in with the British thirty-eight-
gun frigate Macedonian, Captain John S. Carden. The English ship
was in admirable order: so well manned and armed that when the
news of the capture of the Guerri^re was known in England she
was pronounced to be the one British frigate of a force to cope
with the American forty-fours. Captain Carden, among the brav-
est and ablest of English seamen, believed in her superiority. His
men were in high discipline, and had been constantly engaged in
action before this cruise. Though rating thirty-eight, she carried
forty-nine guns, and was a much faster vessel than the United States.
Notwithstanding these advantages, if not superiority, in an action
the closing incidents of which did not take more than seventeen
minutes, and during which the ships were never close enough for
the effective use of grape or musketry, the Macedonian, by the better
gunnery of the United States, received nearly one hundred shots in
her hull, and, being reduced to a complete wreck, struck her colors.
Eight American seamen were found on her rolls. They had been
compelled to fight, and three were killed. The others joined the
American service, as did also a fine French band which had been
captured from a French frigate and had been duly impressed after
English fashion. So little injury was done the United States that
she was ready for action again in half an hour. The Macedonian was
refitted with jury-masts, was safely brought in through the fleets which
blockaded our coasts, put in to Newport, but soon after joined the
United States, which Decatur took in to New London on December 4.
Following so closely upon the triumph of the Constitution, the joy in
America and the mortification in Great Britain were equally intense.
Canning said in parliament that it was a matter " that could not be
thought too deeply of. . . . The spirit of our [the English] seamen had
been unconquerable, and any diminution of the popular opinion with
250 mSTOBY OF NEW-YOBE
respect to that glorious and triumphant spirit was to his mind a dread-
ful and alarming consideration." The State legislatures of New- York
aud Massachusetts passed resolutions of compliment to Decatur and
his officers. Those of Pennsylvania and Virginia each voted liim a
sword, as did the city of Philadelphia, The city of New- York, from
whose port Decatur had sailed and where fae
was daily expected to arrive with his prize,
was greatly excited, and prepared for him
triumphal honors. The corporation of the
city, as in the case of Hull, tendered him
the freedom of the city in the usual gold
box, ordered his portrait for their gallery,
named a committee — Aldermen Fish, Peter
H. Wendover, and Lawrence — to arrange for
a dinner to all the naval heroes, directed the
display of the national flag from the City
Hall, requested General Morton, the military
commander, to order a national salute, the
captains of vessels in the harbor to hoist
their colors, and that all the bells in the city be rung for one hour.
Nor were the warrant officers forgotten. The corporation voted to
give them and the crew of the United States a dinner on board the
ship, should Commodore Decatur consent.
While the senior officers with the large ships were winning glory,
there occurred otie lesser affair which rivaled either of the more im-
portant actions in dash and seamanship. On October 13 Captain Jacob
Jones sailed from the Delaware in the sloop of war Wasp, 18 gons.
Her object was to overhaul a fleet of fourteen merchantmen which
left the bay of Honduras in September, bound for England, under
convoy of the British sloop Frolic, 19 guns. On the 18th the fleet was
in sight. A sharp action ensued, which ended in the vessels coming
together, when the Wasp's crew boarded the Englishman without op-
position. Of the Frolic's crew of one hundred and nineteen men not
twenty were unhurt. The flag was lowered by Lieutenant Biddle of
the Wasp with his own hand. This was an even contest, and the
success of the Americans was again due to their superior gunnery.
Unfortunately, Captain Jones could not bring his prize into port.
Fallen in with a few hours later by the Poietiers, a British seventy-
foiu", Captain Jones, with the Wasp and her prize, was taken into
Bermuda. The merit of the action was none the less. The officers
were promoted ; Congress voted gold and silver medals to the captain
and officers, and two thousand five hundred dollars prize-money. The
State of Delaware voted Captain Jones a sword and a piece of plate.
The corporation of the city of New-York, on November 3, on the
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 251
motion of Alderman Lawrence, voted him a sword and the freedom
of the city.
Lieutenant Hamilton, son of the secretary of the navy, carried
Decatur's report of his victory to Washington. He reached there on
the evening of a grand ball to the officers of the navy. Commodore
Hull was present, and Captain Stewart of the Constellation. The
ball-room was decorated with the colors of the Guerrifere and the
Alert, which were presented to Mrs. Madison, the wife of the presi-
dent, by Captains Hull and Stewart. The president sent a message
to Congress, which on its receipt voted gold medals to Hull, Decatur,
and Jones, and, in more effective compliment to the navy, authorized
the construction of four ships of the line and six frigates like the
Constitution and United States. The arrival of the United States
and Macedonian in New-York was delayed by the difficult passage of
Hell Gate. The city authorities, impatient of the delay, while the
press of the country was ringing the praises of the victors, induced
Decatur to leave his vessels in Long Island Sound and come up to
the city on Tuesday, December 29, 1812, to the entertainment pre-
pared. This banquet was given at the City Hotel, which stood at
the comer of Broadway and Thames street, on the site of the Old
Province and State Arms, and was now kept by Gibson. Hull, who
had received the freedom of the city the day before, was also present.
At five o'clock five hundred gentlemen sat down. The mayor pre-
sided. The room was decorated as a " marine palace.'' It was " col-
onnaded round with the masts of ships entwined with laurels and
bearing the national fiags of all the world. Every table had on it a
ship in miniature with the American flag displayed. In front, where
the president sat with the officers of the navy and other guests, and
which was raised about three feet, there appeared an area of about
three feet by ten covered with green sward, and in the midst of it
was a lake of real water in which floated a miniature frigate. Back
of all this hung the main-sail of a ship twenty-three feet by sixteen
feet." Decatur and Hull sat respectively on the right and left of the
president. At the toast " To our Navy " the great mainsail was un-
furled, and displayed an immense transparency representing the
three recent naval victories in honor of which the magnificent
dinner was given.
The Macedonian was brought into port on January 1, 1813, where
the citizens greeted her with great joy as a New Year's gift. New
Year's was always the whitest of white days in the calendar of the
New-Yorker of earlier days. On Thursday, January 7, the corpo-
ration of the city entertained the crew of the United States in the
same banquet-room, the decorations of which had been retained.
This interesting feast was directed by Aldermen John Vanderbilt,
252
HIHTOUY OF NEW-TOBK
Buckmaster, and King. Alderman Vanderbilt delivered the address
of wL'lcome Ut the sailors, of whom there were about four hundred
present. They had marched to the hotel in a sort of popular tri-
uiuph. After ilinner Decatur brought in an invitation to attend the
theater. The drop-<>urtain represented the fight of the United States
and the Macedonian ; the orchestra played national airs, and a band
of (ihildren bore transparencies with the letters of the alphabet which,
grouped, formi4 the names of Hull, Jones, and Decatur.'
Yi't another was to be added to the glories of this opening of what
is sometimes called the second war of American independence.
Commodore Biiiubridge, in the Constitution, accompanied by Law-
rence ill the Hornet, sailed from Boston on October 20. Leaving the
Hornet ofF Ban Balvador to lie in wait for the British sloop of war
Boune Citoyoiine, which was about to sail for England with a large
freight of specie, — one half million pounds, — Commodore Bainbridge,
on the 29th, fell in with the British frigate Java, .38 guns, bound for the
East Indies with a number of
officers. A hot action en-
sued, which lasted nearly two
hours — an action of manoeu-
ver within musketry range,
in which the Constitution,
suffering little herself, delib-
erately silenced all of the en-
emy's guns by her own su-
perior handling and gunnery.
At the end of the action the
Java was "a riddled and en-
tirely dismasted hulk." Ow-
ing to his loug distance from port and the badly disabled state of
the prize, Bainbridge destroyed the Java on January 3, and, first
making San Salvador, where he landed and paroled his prisoners,
sailed ou January 6, 1813, and reached Boston on February 23. At
San Salvador he left Lawrence in the Hornet That gallant officer
had sent a I'halleuge to the British commander of the Bonne Cito-
yenne, pledging non-interference, with the fight he proposed, by the
Constitution. But the oombat was declined.
Lawrence continued the blockade until the arrival of the British
man-of-war Montagu on January 24 drove him into port As night
oame on he wore ship and stood out unmolested into the open sea,
taking prizes. On February 24, off the mouth of the Demerara Kiver,
he fell iu with two British brigs of war — the Espi^e. IS guns, at
BKOADWAT.
1 The MbswIihumb w
I pl>u«d uwtw the sommaiut ot CkpWa Jobm. vhilB Mall muiiiT t&s ontm
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAS WITH GBEAT BBTTAIN 253
anchor; the Peacock, 24 guus. Colors were hoisted ou both sides,
and a hot fire was begun by broadsides at half pistol-shot and
musketry from the tops. In just fourteen minutes the Peacock
surrendered, hoisting her ensign union down as her mainmast went
by the board. Lieutenaut WiUiam B. Shubrick, sent on board, re-
ported her sinking. A second boat's crew from the Hornet endea-
vored to save the vessel, but
she suddenly settled and sank,
carrying with her some of her
hands who were rummaging
below. The Hornet's victory
again was due to the superior
handling of the guns. The
Espi^gle lay in sight, but did
not come out, and Captain
Lawrence, crowded with his
prisoners and short of water, henby eckfordb house.
stood for home, and anchored in Holmes' Hole at Martha's Vineyard
on March 19. It may here be said that the oflRcers of the Peacock, on
their arrival in New- York, published a card of thanks to the officers of
the Hornet. In every one of these four victories the conquered Eng-
lishmen bore testimony to the courteous consideration of their captors.
The same honors paid to their predecessors in victory were voted
to Bainbridge and Lawrence. On the arrival of the Constitution,
Captain Bainbridge, on February 15, was received with tumultuous
applause by the citizens of Boston. Rodgers and Hull accompanied
him in the procession to the Exchange Coffee House. Thanks were
voted by the legislature, then in session, and a grand banquet given
on March 2 at the Exchange Coffee House. March 1, 1813, the com-
mon council of New- York presented to Commodore Bainbridge the
freedom of the city and ordered his portrait for their gallery, and on
March 29 paid the same honors to Captain Lawrence. Other States
joined in these demonstrations, and Congress voted thanks, medals,
and prize-money because of the necessary destruction of the prizes.
During all this period the harbor of New- York was closely block-
aded by the British men-of-war; even our frigates could not i-un the
gauntlet, availing themselves of the narrow and dangerous strait of
Hell Gate to the Sound. Once in the open sea beyond Montauk, they
had opportunities to find or force an offing. It was fortunate for the
administration of Mr. Madison that these naval successes occurred at
the beginning of the contest. They inspirited the war party in the
'Henrj Elckford was u eminent ship-builder, other literary men were freqaent guests during
at whose house In Love Lane, near the present the second dee*de of the eentiuy. Drake married
Twentr-flrst street I>e Kay, Drake, Halleck. and Hr. Ecltfont'a daughter. EDrron.
254 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
very places which Madison's cabinet and the Western politicians had
ignored, disregarded, and even insulted in their declarations. The
ships they proposed to shut up in port as unable to defend them-
selves had humbled British pride, while the land forces had made
but a soiTy beginning in the proposed conquest of Canada. In the
first six months of the war there had been as many encounters with
British cruisers, in every one of which the United States were the
victors. Moreover, over three hundred British merchantmen had
been captured and brought into port, including those taken by
New- York and other American privateei-s.
The Veteran Corps of Artillery was the first organization to volun-
teer in New- York. They were commanded by John Delamater, who
had served in the militia during the Revolution. They were invited
by notice to meet at the new arsenal in Hubert street, and to take
their station at the North Battery at the foot of that street. They
assembled and took possession of the fort, by permission of General
Bloomfield. The uniformed corps of militia, in April, 1812, consisted
of ten regiments in two brigades, one battalion of riflemen, three
regiments of artillery, one squadron of cavalry, one company of fly-
ing artillery, and the company of veteran artillery already mentioned
— in all about three thousand men. The population of the city was
about ninety-eight thousand persons, of whom fifteen hundred were
slaves. The number subject to military duty was about twelve
thousand men. The two brigades were commanded by General
Peter P. Van Zandt and Gteneral Gerard Steddiford; the artilleiy,
by General Morton — all three veterans of the Revolution. Major
James Warner commanded the city cavalry, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Francis McClure the riflemen. On April 21, 1812, Gk)vemor Tomp-
kins issued his orders for the State military formation from his
headquarters in New- York city.
There were four arsenals in the city in 1812 — the State arsenal,
comer of Elm and Franklin streets; the United States arsenal on
Bridge street near the South Battery; the United States magazine
and arsenal at the foot of West Twelfth street; and the United
States arsenal on the Parade, now Madison Square, at the jimction
of the old Boston Road and the Middle Road. These buildings were
two or three stories high, of stone and brick, well constructed, and
inclosed by high waUs. There were two forts, one about one him-
dred yards in front of the Parade at the Battery, connected with it by
a drawbridge. OflScially known as the Southwest Battery, it was
called, after the war. Castle Clinton. It was built about the year
1811, on the plans of Lieutenant Joseph G. Totten, of the United
States Engineers. This was the military headquarters. Off Hu-
bert street, in the Hudson, was the North Battery, about two hun-
MEW-YOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 255
dred yards from the shore, to which there was a drawbridge thirty
feet wide. It could carry twenty heavy guns in one tier. Its fire
crossed with that of the Southwest Battery. Later it was called
the "Eed Port"
Outside of the city were several works — Castle Williams, on Gov-
ernor's Island (on its westward projection); Fort Columbus, on the
middle of the island; Fort Wood, on Bedlow's Island (a mortar-bat-
tery); on Ellis or Oyster Island, a circular battery mounting four-
teen heavy guns. On
the eastern shore of
Staten Island there
were three batteries
ready for garrison —
Fort Richmond, Fort
Morton, and Fort Hud-
son. All three would
be later commanded
by Fort Tompkins, not
yet above the founda-
tion. These works had
all been built by Col-
onel Jonathan Wil-
liams, of the Second
United States Artil-
lery, and chief engineer
of the United States.
Together they carried two hundred and eighty-four guns, and re-
quired a force of three thousand seven hundred gunners. The forts
in the harbor were under command of Colonel Heni-y Burbeck, and
the navy-yard and flotilla were commanded by Captain Isaac Chaun-
cey. On July 12, 1812, the common council received a report from
the governor of the State and the secretary of war favoring further
fortifications. On June 27 the governor directed General Stevens, by
division orders, to require General Morton to order out such part
of the artillery not already called for upon the requisition of Gen-
eral Bloomfield. In this order the governor says: "His Excellency
confidently hopes that the General [Stevens] will exert his talents,
his influence, and his official authority to produce a vigorous prose-
cution of the war."
The Fourth of July was celebrated with " a degree of splendor,"
says the " Columbian," " never witnessed at any former period on the
occasion." There was a review before noon by Generals Bloomfield,
Stevens, and Morton, and a parade on the Battery, followed by an
address in the evening by John Anthon, before the Washington and
256
HISTOEY OF NEW-TOBK
Hamilton societies at Washington Hall. On July 8 arriTed news of
Napoleon's decree from St. Cloud, April 26, 1812, declaring '* the de-
crees of Berlin and Milan are definitely (from the first of November
last) considered as no longer in force as far iis regards American
vessels," destroying the last cause of
complaint against France, and the
one strong ailment of the Federal-
ists against the war with Great Bri-
tain as one of the aggressors on
American rights.
It is curious to read in the " Co-
lumbian" of July 9 a proposal by
"one of 16^ to place cannon on
every wharf within a covered way
protected by cotton-bales, the device ,
abandoned by Jackson at the close
of the war. July 3 was observed as
a day of fasting and prayer by
recommendation of Governor Tomp-
kins. In August the first double
steamboat was put on the Powles
Hook ferry, and excited great ad-
miration. On August 14 there was
artillery practice in the harbor, the
tai^t being a hulk provided by Governor Tompkins. The practice
showed that 254 out of 314 shot took effect, the hulk being fired by
hot shot from one of the militia commands. On the same day Gen-
eral Bloomfield was relieved from the command at New-York by the
secretary of war, and General John Armstrong appointed to the post.
Notwithstanding the blockade of New- York by a British squadron
of five vessels carrying two hundred and ten guns, besides many
smaller armed craft, there arrived between April 6 and August 22,
1812, no less than one hundred and forty-two ships, eighty-four
brigs, and forty schooners, some with British licenses. The first
privateer, the Bunker Hill, left the port on July 6, 1812. Before the
middle of October, twenty-six privateers, carrying two hundred and
twelve guns and two thousand two hundred and eighty-nine men,
had left the port, taking their course through Long Island Sound
towani the British cruisers. Of these the lai^st was the General
Armstrong, which carrieti eighteen long nines and a twelve-pounder,
and was manned by one hundred and fifty men. These vessels were
ohiefiy built in New- York, where there were three large ship-yards :
that of Adam and Noah Brown, on the East River at Houston street;
that of Christian Bergb, on the East River near Gonvemenr^ Slip,
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 257
where the President was built ; and that of Henry Eckf ord, on the
East River near that of Bergh, who built the fleet on the lakes.
The Oneida, Commodore Chauncey's flag-ship, was also built by him.
Napoleon greatly assisted the privateers by an order that all prizes
taken by Americans should be received in French ports on the same
terms as though captured by French vessels. Soon the British
Channel swarmed with American privateers, who had a close shelter
in the French ports near by. There were numerous militia reviews
during the year, the most notable of which was on the anniversary
of the evacuation of the city by the British. There was a general
parade, and in the evening a large company, including Governor
Tompkins, Generals Armstrong, Morton, and Paulding, dined at
Mechanics' Hall, comer of Park Place and Broadway.
When Congress met on November 2, 1812, in conformity with the
act passed at the preceding session providing the time for the next
meeting. President Madison sent in a message which gave but sorry
satisfaction to the hopes of the military party. He announced that
prior to the declaration of war a force had been sent to the Michigan
territoiy " to intercept the hostile influences of Great Britain over the
savages and obtain the command of the Lake in that part of the
Canada borders.'' This force, under command of William Hull, Gov-
ernor of the Territory of Michigan, who had been made a brigadier-
general, consisted of regulars and volunteers, in number about two
thousand men. By some blunder in the war department the decla-
ration of war was nearly two weeks on the way to him, and was
known in Canada some days earlier. His orders to. take possession
of Maiden, fifteen miles below Detroit on the Canada side of the
river, reached him at Detroit on July 9. He crossed on the 12th
and issued a proclamation to the Canadians, which was of no effect.
Being without artillery, the capture was decided to be too hazardous
an undertaking, and he recrossed the river on August 7. The enemy
had already anticipated his attempt at invasion by the seizure of the
American post at Mackinaw, commanding the strait between Lakes
Huron and Michigan, which capitulated on July 10 : an aflfair doubly
important because of its influence on the Indian tribes. The British
colonel, Henry A. Proctor, receiving reinforcements, and joined by
the savages, defeated Hull's detachments, and Hull, disheartened, re-
treated to Detroit. Meanwhile Fort Dearborn, which stood at the
mouth of the Chicago River, on ground which is now within the
limits of the city of Chicago, was abandoned by Hull's orders, and
the captain commanding the small garrison was on his retreat when
his force was ambushed by the Indians and compelled to surrender,
many of the women and children being mercilessly scalped, and the
savage trophies carried to Colonel Proctor, who had offered a pre-
voL. m.— 17.
258 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
mium for American scalps. On August 15, the British general, Isaac
Brock, who had assumed command at Fort Maiden, with his force,
in which were six hundred savages under the lead of Tecumseh, the
famous Indian chieftain, marched on Detroit. On Brock's arrival
before the fort the white flag was hung out, and Hull surrendered
the fort and garrison and the whole Territory of Michigan, of which
he was governor. This occurred on August 16, and terminated the
miserable campaign. Three days later the naval commander of the
Constitution redeemed the honor of the flag and the name of Hull,
which had otherwise become a byword in American history for in-
competency or cowardice.
Tecumseh, who seems to have followed the example of Pontiac
in an endeavor to unite all the neighboring tribes to recover their
hunting-grounds on the northwestern territory, flushed with the suc-
cesses before the forts at Mackinaw, the Chicago River, and Detroit,
planned desultory attacks on the other frontier posts. In August a
force of Kentuckians, raised to reinforce Hull, had been placed under
command of General Hamson, the victor of Tippecanoe. On the fall
of Detroit it was marched through the Ohio wilderness to the relief
of Fort Wayne, where Captain Aaron Bhae was closely beset by a joint
force of British and Indians. This was the scene of Josiah Harmar^s
defeat in the Miami campaign of 1790. On the approach of Harrison's
relieving force the besiegers withdrew. Fort Harrison, which stood on
the Wabash River on the site of the present city of Terre Haute, was
held by Captain Zachary Taylor with a small force. Invested by the
savages and the blockhouse set on fire, the post was stoutly held, and,
after a hot struggle, the attempt to capture it was foiled. This oc-
curred on September 3. Fort Madison, which stood on the bank of the
Mississippi near the site of the city of St. Louis, was attacked on Sep-
tember 5 by a force of two hundred Winnebago Indians. It was
ably defended by Lieutenant Hamilton, and on the 8th the savages
withdrew. Besides these concerted attacks there were sundry skir-
mishes with the Indians, the most noted of which was that of Colonel
Ball with a mounted command on the bank of the Sandusky, in which
the chiefs f elL This chastisement insured the quiet of the settlements
for many years.
The invasion of Canada was not abandoned because of HulPs sur-
render. On the night of September 20 Captain Benjamin Forsyth
took a party of Americans from Cape Vincent by water to the village
of Gananoqui, where, after a skirmish in which he defeated the oppos-
ing force, he burned the military storehouse and returned to the
American shore. On October 2 the Canadians replied with a much
more formidable expedition against Ogdensburg. They crossed the
river from Prescott opposite, in forty boats, under the escort of two
GANSETOOBT — " THE OLD WHITE TOKT."
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GKEAT BRITAIN 259
guuboatiS ; the movement being covered by the fire of the British bat-
teries at Prescott. General Jacob Brown, who commanded at Ogdens-
burg, with the American battery and a company of riflemen received
the flotilla so warmly that it returned to Prescott without having
made a landing.
The force with which General Brock took Detroit included two
British war vessels. To these the surrender added the American
brig of war Adams, which the British named the Detroit. This
leaving the United States with-
out any force on the upper
lakes, Lieutenant Jesse D. El-
liott of the navy was sent to
Buffalo to organize a flotilla,
and a detachment of men was
ordered up from New- York
city, where seamen were abun-
dant. In October the Detroit and a smaller vessel, the Caledonia,
which had done service at the capture of Mackinaw, came down Lake
Erie and anchored off Fort Erie. On the night of the 8th they were
surprised by Lieutenant Elliott. The Caledonia was run ashore and
secured, the Detroit captured. Elliott fought the British batteries
from the captured vessel, but finding he could not tow her out of
their reach, and the vessel drifting ashore on Squam Island, he aban-
doned her, carrying off his prisoners. Boarded by a British party,
they were driven off by the American batteries, and she was thus the
point of fire for both sides. In the night she was again boarded by
the Americans and burned.
After the capture of Detroit the British force employed was with-
drawn to the Niagara River, which became the scene of the autumn
campaign. General Stephen Van Rensselaer, in command of the
American forces, planned an expedition to capture Queenstown, which
commanded the end of the portage between Ontario and the upper
lakes. The American force was six thousand men — regulars, militia,
and volunteers. On October 13, after some previous blunders and
one unsuccessful attempt, a crossing was made. Two hundred regu-
lars under Lieutenant-Colonel John Chrystie, and the same number
of militia under Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, were to cross before
daybreak and storm the heights. Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott
placed a battery on Lewiston Heights to protect the crossing. The
regulars and a few of the militia had crossed, when they were met at
the landing by a force of the enemy. Pushing on, line was formed
by Captain John E. Wool at the foot of the heights, when they were
attocked in front and on flank. Though without artillery. Wool stood
his ground. Van Rensselaer's militia on the left were less severely
260 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
treated. Both Wool and Van Rensselaer were badly wounded. The
Americans fell back to the river to reform, and were reinforced. By
a skilful movement Wool turned the British battery, which he cap-
tured so suddenly that General Brock, who was standing near, had
not time to mount his horse, and at sunrise the American flag was
flying over the works.
Brock ordered up reinforcements from Fort George, but without
waiting their aiTival took the lead of the defeated troops and moved
up the slope to recapture the works. They were repulsed by a charge
of bayonets. As Brock rallied his men for a second assault, he fell,
mortally wouuded. All attempts to avenge his death were in vain.
Soon after Scott and General William Wadsworth arrived with re-
inforcements. Wool, weak with loss of blood, turned over the com-
mand to Scott. The British general Roger H.
Sheaffe brought up the reinforcements from Fort
George, but General Van Rensselaer could not
persuade the militia to cross the river to Scott's
support. Scott held his ground against a flank
attack by the Indians, who were under command
of John Brant, son of the famous Mohawk chief
Thayendanegea (or Joseph Brant), which he re-
c LARKsoN ARMS. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ bayouet. General Sheaffe bringing
up his whole force, Scott was compelled to retreat, but finding escape cut
off, all the boats haying been allowed to float down the river, or to be
taken by the enemy, he surrendered his force, carrying the flag of truce
thi'ough the Indian line in person. Thus ended the battle of Queens-
town, where, as with Francis the First at Pavia, "all was lost but honor.**
The stoppage of trade was not the only grievance to the merchants
of New- York. This was imavoidable in a state of war; but their
property was seized also under what were in many cases wholly
innocent breaches of the law. Mr. Madison, in his message of No-
vember 4, 1812, called attention to this subject : "A number of Ameri-
can vessels which were in England when the revocation of the orders
in council took place, were laden with British manufactures, under an
on'oneous impression that the non-importation act would immediately
cease to operate, and had arrived in the United States.** The for-
feitures incurred under the act were not remitted by the officers of
the government, and Mr. Madison asked Congress to consider the
subject in the light of equity and the public interest. Madison accom-
panied his message with petitions for remission from the leading
merchants of New- York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Haven, Rich-
mond, and Albany. The New-York memorial was plain-spoken:
" Tlie citizens of New-York had no idea that under the hard circum-
stances of their case their own government would either forfeit their
HEW-YOEK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BKITAIN 261
property or mulct them when they intended no violation of the laws
of the country." The memorial was accompanied by aflSdavits.'
The congressional committee reported that it appeared that the
orders in council were revoked by Great Britain June 23, 1812, and
that the declaration of war only reached England on July 30. There-
upon a tempwrary embargo had been laid on American vessels, but
the next day they were permitted to con-
tinue to take cargoes of British merchan-
dise consigned to the United States, being
provided for that purpose with " licenses
protecting them, notwithstanding the ex-
isting hostilities, against capture by Brit-
ish cruisers." The time of obtaining li-
censes was limited to September 15, 1812.
Congress declined to legislate, and turned
the matter over to Albert Gallatin, the
secretary of the treasury. Gallatin, in
reply, recommended that the one half of
the forfeitures that would fall to the
share of the collectors should be re-
mitted, but that the United States should
benefit by the extra profit secured on
their importations and retain at least so
much of its half of the fines. Among
the New-York merchants examined by
the congressional committee were John G. Coster, John Mason, Wil-
liam Irving, and Abram R. Lawrence. Mr. Irving testified that
for some of the English goods there was "a ravenous demand,"
army contractors bidding one over another. Mr. Coster had imported
to the amount of £20,000 sterling. But while, notwithstanding these
grievances, New- York sustained the war with patriotic enthusiasm,
Mr. Madison bad to report "that Massachusetts and Connecticut
refused to furnish their required contingents towards the defence of
the maritime frontier."
It is a question whether Great Britain ever during this contest
entertained any purpose of general conquest or of subjugating any of
the parts of the United States. Her designs on New Orleans were
I AfltdrnvltB In matter at forfeiture before com-
mittee of Congreaa, November, 1S12 : CbarleH Os-
borne, ComellDi Beyer, H. Van Wagenen, John
StoDlenbnrKh, Willlun Irring. Nathaniel Rleh-
arda, John Dodgeon, John Howatt. Jr.. Eljphalet
WfIllaIn^ Bobert C. Cornell. John B. Dash, Ben-
luDin W. Dwlgbt, John R. WUlis. Isaac Car;,
Jowpb Cornell. Wllliun W. Hott, James JeoklnB,
Franola B. Wlnthrop. Jr., Hoaes Judah, Garret
B. AbeeL Edward hji«, Qeorge Newbold, Sea-
buiy Tredwell. Leonard Kip, James J. Rooserelt,
Cbarles Smith, Jr., Bobert I>ee, Ebeuezer Irving,
Jameg S. Bailey, Joseph Cortla, Henry King.
2 Colonel WlUUm Stephens Smith, a native of
New- York city, married the only daughter of
John Adams. He vas ^de-de-camp to Washing*
ton, and in 1813-15 waa a member of Congress.
For many years he was president of the State
Society ot the Cincinnati. The portndt is copied
from die painting by StnarU Editob.
262 HKfTOBY OF NEW-YQBK
ev\fip(j)t later, and there was no donbt a v£^^e bnt nndfielared hope
that by a starvation proeess she might isolate New F.ngJATiH from lie
CTnion and perhapi9 attach her to her Canadian dominiona. To the
union of the 8tat;e« New- York was, by her position^ irrevoeably com-
mitted, and she early rer^ognized the vast amount of terrilory it en-
abled her to r»ommand for her trade. The old Anti-Federalist idea of
autonomy had been long abandoned by her.
The faihire of the two Canadian campaigns of 1912 bron^t New-
York far»e to face with the problems of the lake defenses. En^and
precedf*d uh in a naval force on these great inland seas. In 1808,
nnfler the general authority to construct gnnboats, the president had
empowered Lieutenant Melanchton T. Woolsey to contract for two
vf^HwelR on Lake CTiamplain and one on Lake Ontario. The latt^*, a
regular brig of war, was armed in the spring of 1809 with sixteen
twf^nty-four pounders. A temporary arrangement being made with
Rngland, however, the vessel, which was named the Oneida, was not
put on the lake till the next year. The British had several vessels,
of which the Royal George, of twenty-two guns, was the largest. In
July, 1H12^ the British fleet had made an attempt to take the Oneida
at Hackett^s Harbor, but Commander Woolsey, taking position with
her at the entrance to the harbor, easily drove the enemy off. In
Oct/>^>er, 1812, Captain Isaac Chauncey took up from New-York a
tfrroA of officers, seamen, and ship-carpenters, and a quantity of naval
stoTf!S. He purchased and fitted a number of schooners, which, with
the Oneida, carried forty guns and four hundred and thirty men.
Before winter set in he chased the Boyal George into Kingston,
attai^ked the batteries, and cut out two small prizes, and about the
same time an expedition crossed from Black Bock, and assaulted and
mpUmu] tho batteries at the head of Niagara River.
The (^losing of the harbors by the ice put a stop to all active oi)era-
tions) but tmtnorous vf^ssels were built, and when navigation opened
in the spring of 1813, General Henry Dearborn, commanding the
land forcns, and Commodore Chauncey were ready for fresh oper-
ations. A joint military and naval expedition undertook the capture
Iff York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, where the Brit-
ish, iindor (Hinunand of Oeneral Shoaffe, had one large vessel, the
lioyal (loorge, and wore building another. It sailed, fourteen vessels,
on April ilR. T\w town was captured on the 27th, after an action in
whh'h Major Benjamin Forsyth, with the American riflemen, distin-
gulshotl hltnsolf, and Oonoral Zebulon M. Pike, commanding the
foives, WHS mortally wounded. The British military stores were de-
stniyod, and tho vossel on the stocks set fire to by Sheaffe. The
g\>vennnoni bttiUlings won> burnoii by the Americans — an unfor-
tutrnlo priHHHlonU Tho Uoyal Gei>rge had sailed two days before.
MEW-YOEK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 263
The capture of Fort George, on the western side of the Niagara
River, two miles from its mouth, was theu undertakeu by Dearborn.
The American troops were commanded by General John P. Boyd,
who succeeded General Pike. Major Forsyth commanded the rifle-
men, Colonel Alexander Macomb the artillery, Colonel Moses Porter
the light artillery, Commodore Chauncey, who had brought down
supplies and a reinforcement from Sackett's Harbor, directed the
fleet, and Captain Oliver Hazard Perry had hurried to the scene
from Lake Erie to take part in the
action. The troops were landed
on the 27th. Colonel Scott, sup-
ported by the light artillery, car-
ried the heights, and, the first
man to enter Fort George, he
hauled down the colors with his
own hand. In the absence of the
American force at the western end
of Lake Ontario, the British gen- ^^^^^^ _ .^^^^
eral Proctor and Sir James Yeo, ^^^^^^B^a^^^^^ . '^
who commanded the fleet (four
war vessels, a brig, two schooners,
and two gunboats), attempted a
surprise of Sackett's Harbor at
the eastern end. The enemy ap-
peared off the harbor on May 28,
1813, captured twelve of nineteen
boats which were bringing up re-
inforcements to the Americans from Oswego, and landed on the 29th.
The day was nearly lost when General Brown retrieved its fortunes,
and the British took to their boats. Fortunately the Americans had
themselves set fire to their stores and vessels.
Other minor actions followed in the course of the summer: A night
aflfair at Stony Creek, where, in an indescribable confusion, both the
American brigade commanders were made prisoners, and the British
general lost his way in the woods. The American troops, however,
made a safe retreat to Fort George. An attempt to surprise the British
depot of supplies at Beaver Dam, seven miles from Queenstown, re-
sulted in an ambush from which the lieutenant-colonel commanding
extricated himself with skill, only to fall into a ridiculous snare. Duped
by a trick, he surrendered to an insignificant force, and had the mor-
tification to see his men, in spite of the terms of capitulation, stripped
of their clothing by the savages. The country was indignant at this
261
mSTOEY OF NEW-YORK
disgrace, and General Dearborn, who commanded the northern de-
partment, was removed.'
The third affair was an attack on Black Rock, near Buffalo, where
the Americans had a dockyard and storehouses. The surprise, led by
the British lieutenant-colonel Bisshop, was complete; the buildings
were fired, guns spiked, and the spoliation nearly complete when an
American force, hastily gathered by General Robert B. Porter, put
an end to their operations and drove them in disorder to their boats.
Commodore Chauncey, during this summer, repeatedly tried, in vain,
to bring Sir James Yeo to a decisive naval encounter. This officer
declined invariably, seeking refuge under the guns of the British fort
On October 8, Chauncey caught a squadron of seven gunboats used
by the enemy as transports, of which he took and brought in five
with their cargoes of troops. The cam-
paign closed with Lake Ontario essentially
in American possession.
Meanwhile a memorable naval en-
counter had given the United States
similar command of Lake Erie. In the
winter of 1812-13, two large brigs, to
mount twenty guns each were laid down
at Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania),
where there is a fine harbor; a force of
ship-carpenters was sent up from New-
York city, and several schooners and
gunboats were there constructed. The
timber was felled from neighboring woods
and used green. All the other material,
. iron and naval stores, was transported by
i^^,^A^*\^»ctKZZZ^ land, chiefly from New- York, on wagons.
A low-wat«r bar protected the harbor, and
prevented the entrance of the British cruisers which held the Lake
and hung off the port. Captain Perry, who was then in command of
the flotilla of gunboats at Newport, Rhode Island, seeing no chance
of getting to sea in a sloop of war, volunteered for the lake service,
and was ordered to take command on Lake Erie. He arrived at
Buffalo in March, 1813, with a nimiber of officers and a few men. He
aided Commodore Chauncey in the disembarkation which captured
Fort George. The fall of this post brought ou that of Fort Erie,
and left the Niagara frontier in control of the American army.
Perry now repaired to his own command, and by June 12 had gotten
I Heuy Dearborn «u a dlstingruiahed oSoer ot decided tbe bkttle of Stillwater (or Santo^). He
the Bevolntlon, It was the rorps o( bayonets on- wu Jeffereon'a seeretuy of war through his two
der hla commaiid which, with Morxaii'i rlllemeD, admiiilstratkms.
KEW-TORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GBEAT BRITAIN 265
the vessels detained on the Niagara River past the enemy's batteries.
These vessels consisted of four schooners (cue a prize) and a sloop. A
few days after, he sailed from the outlet of the lake for the harbor of
Presque Isle, sUpping by the British fleet, which were in the offing,
unobserved uutil it was too late to intercept him. The two brigs laid
down at Presque Isle in the winter and launched in May were now
nearly ready for sea. They were
the Lawrence, on which Perry
hoisted his flag, and the Ni^ara.
The schooners also were in the
water. The bar, hitherto a pro-
tection, was now a serious ob-
stacle to getting out the brigs.
It had but seven feet of water,
and was half a mile outside the
harbor. The Lawrence, lifted
over by an ingenious contriv-
ance, received her armament out-
side, and her guns were instantly
trained broadside on the enemy.
The Niagara was taken over
with less difficulty, the schooners
passed easily, and when the Brit-
ish fleet appeared on the morning
of Monday, August 5, Perry had nine vessels, carrying fifty-five guns
and four hundred men. Hardly was his squadron in the water when
Captain Robert H. Barclay, who commanded the British fleet, — six
vessels, carrying sixty-five guns and about the same number of men
as the Americans, his flag-ship being the Detroit, of 19 guns, — sailed
up the lake. Perry followed in pursuit, and after cruising several
days, went into Put-in Bay, where he drilled his men with muffied
oars for a boat attack.
On September 10, the British squadron was seen and signals given
by Perry to get under way. This time the enemy formed into line.
Perry did the same, and, as he approached, displayed a blue flt^ on
which was the legend, " Dont give up the ship." Action having begun,
the enemy's heaviest ships concentrated their fire on the Lawrence, dis-
abling her, and killing so many of her men that she dropped out of the
fight, and Perry transferred his flag to the Niagara — Captain Elliott,
her commander, passing down the line of the American vessels in a
small boat with Perry's order to close up to half pistol-range, and
taking command himself of one of the last vessels. A confusion in a
manoeuver of the English vessels gave Perry the opportunity to sail
through the enemy's line, delivering broadsides from both sides. A
266
HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
close action ensued, and the British colors were shortly struck. Perry
at ouue seut to G-oneral Harrison, who commanded the noriihwestem
army, a despatch announcing his victory : " We have met the enemy,
atid they are ours : two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."
In this sanguinary encounter, a number of Perry's men were negroes.
Congress voted gold medals to both Perry and Elliott, whose great
aorvices P(>rry generously acknowledged in his official report.
On October 23, Perry's squadron trans-
ported General Harrison's army to Buf-
falo, and on the 25th Perry resigned the
command of the upper lakes to Captain
Elliott and returned to the seaboard,
where he was commissioned captain, his
commission dating the day of his vic-
tory, and soon after appointed to the
command of the Java, a new frigate fit-
ting out at Baltimore. By the capture
of the British fleet the waters of the
lakes on the New- York border were en-
tirely cleared of the enemy, and the re-
joicings in the city were great. The
common council, on October 4, tendered
Commodore Perry the freedom of the
city in a gold box, and requested him to
sit for his portrait Mayor Clinton, in
<^^.
T^^n.^^ _-.-^%i*^ transmitting the resolutions to the com-
^ modore at Newport, alluded to the battle
of Lake Erie as "an event without parallel in the annals of our
country, which gives you distinguished rank among the celebrated
lueu that reflect lustre on the American uame, and which has dis-
{tensed the blessings of security and tranquillity to a most important
and e:ctensive portion of the United States."
At the time of Perrj-'s victory General Harrison had completed his
plan of eam{taigu. Governor Isaac Shelby, the old hero of the Revo-
lution, was on the march in person with eleven regiments of Kentacky
luouutetl volunte^^rs, who had flocked to his standard when they heaid
of the battle of Lake Erie. Pressing on. he reached the lake on
SeptemWr 14, in time to meet a part of Perry's squadron ; the re-
1 Anoay ik* atmmvr* of A* jrw IMS nay b* U ikiitr dars be had dgalnj^"* tvi
WMtlk«*<llW>aaaf tbr Arirwk.Bwitbrd(uks( Mwvbwitwn. ^t the «*d o< ihst tii
UnttWMBI WitSaM H. AUnl ntMMMifiBC her. bM the Prtku of Uw Briiitk narr
TW Arvw W« X»w-Y«* ua Jita* IS. nuT^iiMe 1*M- U >»>» »>"»• mmIm <luck .
M Ptukw. Kh»iKa( Briuik nntisH-f. ihr saRwiv- Hr «»• h«ui«<] M Ptvasvik vith wOitarr boBon.
dADra
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 267
mainder of the army arriving on the 15th and 16th. The embar-
kation began on the 20th. On the 25th five thousand men were
encamped upon the Middle Sister Island. On the 27th Harrison's
address to the men was read on each vessel, and the fleet of sixteen
armed men-of-war and one hundred boats moved up into the Detroit
River. Perry commanded the water movements, Harrison those of
the army. Landing a few miles below Maiden, the army marched on
that town, Governor Shelby in advance. The town was evacuated,
and the public buildings were in flames. Colonel Richard M. Johnson
with his mounted regiment reached Detroit shortly after, and crossed
to Sandwich. A land march in chase of the flying British was agreed
upon, while Perry sent a part of his squadron in pursuit of the
vessels which had taken the artillery and baggage up Lake St. Clair.
Perry followed in person to the mouth of the Thames, and, landing,
found General Harrison. General Proctor, constantly flying, to the
disgust of Tecumseh, at last made a stand on the river Thames, and
awaited the approach of the Americans in battle order on the morn-
ing of October 5. Harrison, accompanied by Commodore Perry and
Colonel Lewis Cass, took a post on the right of the American army
near the river. At the call of a bugle the advance moved forward.
The cavalry dashed into and broke the first and second British lines,
and, wheeling right and left, attacked the rear. Proctor's army sur-
rendered as fast as they could throw down their arms. Proctor him-
self fled in his carriage. The bugle ordering the attack on the right
was answered by a bugle on the left, and Colonel Johnson led his
mounted men against Tecumseh's savages. There was a hand-to-hand
fight, but, reinforcements coming up, the Indians broke for the forest.
Tecumseh, the last great Indian chief, was slain — tradition says by
Johnson's own hand.
This total annihilation of the British army west of Ontario, added to
the victory on Lake Erie, by which all that Hull surrendered was recov-
ered and the honor of the flag restored, was hailed with delight every-
where. Not the least of its consequences was the total breaking up
of the Indiati confederacy of the Northwest, desertion of their British
allies, and kinder feelings to the Americans because of their humane
treatment by Harrison. In New- York, on October 23, the new City
Hall was splendidly illuminated, as also Tammany, Washington, and
Mechanics' Halls, the theater, and numerous private residences. On
one of the windows of the City Hall was a transparency with " Don't
give up the Ship.'' In front of Tammany were a portrait of Harrison
receiving hostages from the Indians aifd a representation of the battle
of Lake Erie. The expedition for which Harrison's troops were em-
barked on their return by Commodore Perry was intended against
the British at Burlington Heights, on the west side of Lake Ontario,
268 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
but the purposes of the war department changing, they were moved
in November to Sackett's Harbor, after which General Harrison joined
his family at Cincinnati.
The military operations of 1813 were not to close without a bitter
disappointment to the country and fresh alarm to the State of New-
York. General Armstrong, a veteran of the Revolution and at the
time secretary of war, planned in February, 1813, a campaign for
the conquest of Lower Canada by the capture of Montreal The
northern army was in two wings: the left at Sackett's Harbor, under
command of General James Wilkinson, a Revolutionary officer who had
seen much service ; the right at Plattsburg, under command of Gen-
eral Wade Hampton. Wilkinson, an old personal friend and compan-
ion in arms of Secretary Armstrong, was to lead the invading force,
and Hampton was expected to support the movement. Unfortunately
there was no good feeling between the commanders, Hampton main-
taining that his was an independent command. The consequences
were naturally disastrous.
Wilkinson, assembling the troops from Fort George on the Nia-
gara, gathered his forces at Grenadier Island, near the outlet of the
lake into the St. Lawrence. Hampton was to march to the north-
ward and join forces with him at the mouth of the Chateaugay, when
together they were to move on Montreal. On October 5 Wilkinson
moved his force down the St. Lawrence. The line of boats was five
miles long. The British batteries at Prescott were run by night, but
others being met with posted along the bank. Colonel Ma<K>mb,
with a picked corps, supported by Forsyth's riflemen, the cavalry,
and General Brown's brigade, crossed the river to clear the bank.
They were constantly engaged. Soon the Americans' rear was dis-
turbed by a force from Kingston which Commodore Chaunoey had
failed to prevent leaving that harbor. On the 10th the expedition
reached the Long Rapid, where it was disembarked. The British con-
centration was now complete in the rear, and was supported by gun-
boats. A battle was inevitable. General Wilkinson being too ill to
leave his bed. General Boyd took command. The British advance
was attacked and routed by General Robert Swartwout's brigade,
which then fell on the British right, and General Leonard Covington
on the British left. The day was raw; the ground, rough and heavy,
was fought over back and forth. General Covington fell, mortally
wounded. After an engagement of two hours the American reserves
were brought up, and the British making no further demonstration,
the Americans retired to their t)oats.
Although not a defeat, this affair, which is called the battle of Wil-
liamsburg or Chrystler's Field, was not a victory. On this field Lieu-
tenant William J. Worth, later a hero of the Mexican war, was
NEW-TOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN
distinguished Without further regard to the danger to his rear, Wil-
kinson resumed his movements and passed down the Grand Rapids.
At Cornwall he received despatches from General Hampton with
word from that officer that he would not join the expedition or take
any farther part in the invasion of Canada. Hampton had heen
ignominiously repulsed in a forward movement down the Chateaa-
gay. Ou receipt of these despatches, it was decided by Wilkinson
in a council of war to ascend Salmon River and go into winter quar-
ters. This ended the elaborate but ill-judged campaign.
The British general Gordon Drummond took immediate advantage
of the situation which the weakening of the force in Fort George
and in the Niagara River afforded
him. Recalling the troops which
Wilkinson's stoppage of opera-
tions released, he moved on Fort
George, which the American gen-
eral MeClure immediately aban-
doned, firing the village of New-
ark on his retreat. The term of
the militia had expired on Decem
ber 9, and MeClure's force was
reduced to sixty men. Drum
mend, taking possession of the
but partially destroyed village,
where he found tents, artillery,
and abundant ammunition uu
injured, on the night of Decem
ber 18 crossed the Niagara River,
surprised Fort Niagara, marching
in through the open gate, and bayoneted the gamson in their sleep.
The same day the British general Phineas Riall came from Queens-
town to Lewiston, which he sacked and burned; the savages commit-
ting their usual atrocities. Prom Lewiston Riall marched through
the villages of Youngstown, Tusearora, and Manchester {now Niagara
Falls), all of which be destroyed, driving the inhabitants houseless
into the woods in the cold, inclement season. Checked, however, by
the destruction of the bridge over Tonawanda Creek, Riall retraced
his march and crossed back to Canada.
General Amos Hall, of the New-York militia, hurried to Buffalo,
which was in wild alarm. A force gathered of about two thousand
men, but partly armed and almost undisciplined. On December 29
General Riall, sent over by Drummond, attacked the American camp
WABHINOTOK S CHAIB.1
270 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
with a body of regulars and Indians. General Hall's militia fought
well, but, their center being broken, became disheartened and could
not be rallied even to defend the village and bring away the women
and children. Lieutenant David Riddle, of the United States r^u-
lars, with eighty men, being refused aid by Hall, redeemed the honor
of the United States army by going in unsupported and saving the
arsenal stores. Buffalo and Black Bock were sacked and burned, and
the inhabitants massacred without mercy. The gains of the year
were all lost save the Territory of Michigan, which Harrison had
retrieved at the battle of the Thames. The cost of these northern
campaigns was enormous. "It was estimated that the conveyance
of each cannon to Sackett's Harbor had cost a thousand dollars.
The flour for Harrison's army, by the time it reached the troops,
had cost a hundred dollars a barrel." This is not surprising when
it is remembered that through the vast unsettled country of New-
York and Ohio the supplies were all carried on packhorses, while
the forage to feed them was carried on other horses.
The year 1813 was, in its history, as checkered on the ocean as on
the land. It could hardly be expected that the career of triumph of
1812 would be continued without interruption. One of its disasters
came home to the hearts of the people of New- York. Captain Law-
rence, on his return from his dashing cruise in the Hornet, which
he made by Holmes' Hole and through Long Island Sound to New-
York without meeting an enemy, was transferred to the frigate Ches-
apeake. This vessel had just returned from a long cruise, and was
lying in Boston harbor, where the blockade was but loosely main-
tained, the President and Congress having both gotten an offing
without interference; and it seemed as though the officers of the
British frigates Shannon, 38, and Tenedos, 38, which were on the
station, did not desire a meeting. When the Chesapeake was ready
to sail, however, the Shannon, Captain Broke, appeared in the off-
ing. He had that day sent a challenge to Captain Lawrence to
meet him at some latitude and longitude to be agreed upon, — a mes-
sage which Lawrence did not receive, else he might have fought un-
der other conditions. On the forenoon of June 1, 1813, the Shannon
appeared in the bay. The Chesapeake was then lying in President
Boads. Her crew was somewhat disaffected because of unpaid prize-
money. At noon she lifted anchor and stood out. Lawrence, be-
cause of the state of his crew, to whom he was a stranger, having
joined his ship only a few days before, reluctantly ordered his decks
cleared for action. As the first gun was fired the excitement in Boston
was intense, the population of the city thronging to the housetops.*
1 The mother of the writer of these iMges, then a girl of fourteen, related to him that from the
roof of her father's hoose on Fort Hill she heard the guns and saw the smoke of the action.
HEW-YOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 271
After a short and sangaiuary conflict, which closed with the boarders
of the SbanDOD passing through the Chesapeake from stem to fore-
castle without serious resistance, — Lawrence having fallen mortally
wounded at the critical moment when the ships fouled, and all his
officers being incapacitated, — the Chesapeake surrendered. The last
orders of Lawrence as he was carried below, shot a second time and
through the body, were "Tell the men to fire faster and not give up
the ship. Fight her till she sinks." As soon as the action was over
both ships made sail for Halifax. Cap-
tain Lawrence died of his wounds on June
6. His lieutenant, Ludlow, also died of his
wounds, a few days later.
The withdrawtd of the British cruisers
from the blockade of Boston harbor, whOe
New- York and the Chesapeake were so
effectually closed that it was impossible
even for the frigates to get out, excited
an uneasy and Jealous feeling in these
ports. In December, 1813, President
Madison informing Congress that a con-
traband trade was carried on at Boston
and that the British frigates when off the
coast had been supplied from the shore, a ^^ ^y
fresh embargo was laid on the exportation /Z^-^^-t^ .^i*^^,,,^-*^
of goods of any character, produce, live- /y
stock, and specie. The balance of the naval account for the year 1813
was, however, greatly to the credit of the United States. The Ameri-
cans had taken twenty-sis British men-of-war of five hundred and
sixty guns. The British had taken seven American men-of-war of
one hundred and nineteen guns.
But few British ships of war were on the northern Atlantic coast
in 1812, but in January, 1813, an English squadron, under Admiral
Sir John Borlase Warren, was reported off Sandy Hook. The United
States flotilla of gunboats, under command of Commodore Jacob
Lewis, was unable to get from the station on the East Biver to the
lower bay because of the ice. On January 22 the enemy's ships were
seen off the lighthouse at Sandy Hook, and the city was in alarm.
The forts were ready, except the new construction not yet finished.
The volunteer regiments accepted by the government for defense of
the harbor and city were enlisted for one year for that service only.
There were several independent companies: one of infantry, the
" Iron Grays," ' of seventy men, commanded by Captain Samuel Swart^
I AmonK the iMt torvlTon of i
mired uid f MhloDsble corps ireie Plti-are<me Hal-
leek,— who edebnted It In am
Blbby, Stephen Cembrelltig. Dr. Edwvd DelaAf Id,
HickeoD W. Field, James W. Oenrd, and Ocneral
Charles W. Saodford. Editob.
272 HI8TOBY OF NEW-YOBK
wout ; one of cavalry, the New- York Hussars, commanded by Cap-
tain William Craig. In these companies were enrolled many promi-
nent citizens. On March 13 a veteran corps of artillery was organized
under Captain John McLean. A marine corps was formed by the
shipmasters and mariners. On March 15, by Governor Tompkins's
report, there were about thirty-five thousand troops in actual service.
He stated that twelve thousand men were needed for a defense of the
city and harbor.
On March 20 signals announced the approach of a fleet of ships.
The batteries were manned, the flotilla ready for sailing, and the new
fort at Saudy Hook, with some heavy guns mounted, was in charge
of five hundred Jersey Blues
who encamped near by. The
vessels proved to be merchant-
men. The Sea Fencibles, com-
posed of mariners, sailors and
boatmen, commanded by Cap-
tain Lewis, with the nominal
title of commodore, by the spring
of 1813 had increased to one
thousand men. General Arm-
strong, who from August, 1812,
had commanded in New- York,
was appointed secretary of war
TOMB OP CAPTAIN LAWH«,cK. JauoaTy 13, 1813. The com-
mand then fell to Colonel Bur-
beck of the United States Artillery. He was an able officer of the
Revolution from the beginning to the close, and had later seen service
on the western frontier. In February the recruiting service of the
United States in New- York city was placed under the direction of Col-
onel Jonas Simonds and Colonel Macomb, who was later transferred to
frontier service in the Niagara district. Colonel Simonds commanded
the Sixth United States Infantry, Colonel Macomb the Third Unit«d
States Artillery. Many of their officers were of New- York. On
March 20, General George Izard of South Carolina was assigned by
President Madison to the command of New- York city, and made his
headquarters at Castle Clinton, later Castle Garden. Breastworks
were erected on the water-line about the Battery Parade. There was
at this time a public garden in the Battery Park. State street and
the lower end of Broadway were the site of fine private residences.
In February, 1813, De Witt Clinton was reappointed mayor of the
city by the council of appointment, which was then Federalist. Clin-
ton's leanings were in that direction, but both parties, Federalists and
Republicans, were content with his management of public afiEairs.
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GBEAT BBTTAIN 273
The disastrous result of the Bussian campaign freeing a large
number of British ships from the continental service, the enforcement
of the blockade of the United States became closer, and fears of in-
vasion were entertained at all of the large seaports. The fortifica-
tions about New- York were strengthened in May. At the close of
the month the British blockading vessels were ordered to admit no
more neutral or licensed trading vessels by the passage of Long
Island Sound. On May 24, Alderman Fish, from the committee on
defense, presented a draft of a memorial to the general government
inviting their attention to the inadequate number of United States
troops in the forts. The memorial was adopted, and Alderman
Mesier and Assistant Alderman King were appointed a committee to
present it to the president and Congress. It read as follows :
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Bepresentativea of the Congress of the United
States.
The Common Council of the City of New-York, in behalf of the people of the city,
most respectfully represent that having made application to different constituted
authorities for the protection of this city, and still finding it in a very critical and
exx>osed situation, they consider it their solemn and indispensable duty to make this
representation as the last resort to the constitutional guardians of the common
defence and general welfare. When the Constitution of the United States guarantees
each State against invasion it undoubtedly declares that all the means or the .
powers of the National Government shall be used for the purpose of defence. In
calling upon the Senate and House of Representatives to perform the guarantee en-
joined by the federal compact we wish to be explicitly understood that we solicit no
X>artial indulgence or particular favor.
The great portion of the revenue which is collected in this city; the valuable com-
merce which is here carried on ; the immense wealth which is here accumulated, and
the extensive and severe distress which might be produced in this part of the Union,
must render it an object of the first importance to the policy as well as the cupidity
of the enemy to make a successful attack upon this place, and when it is consid-
ered that hostile ships of war are at this moment cruising within twenty-five miles of
this city and that with a favorable wind ships of the line can come up to our wharves
in two hours from the ocean, it must be admitted that there is as great if not greater
reason to apprehend danger here than at those places on the waters of the Delaware
and Chesapeake which have been menaced by the approach of the enemy.
With full confidence in the commanding officer assigned to this place, and without
the most distant intention of criminating any branch of the government, we still deem
it our duty to state in the most explicit manner that we are now in a more dangerous
situation than we have been in for a number of years. The number of men stationed
in the different forts is wholly inadequate, and no call has been made on the Militia to
supply the deficiency. In this last respect we are peculiarly situated, for while less
exposed places in other parts of the United States are garrisoned at the expense of
the United States, we are deprived of this mode of defence ; and while we readily
admit that larg^ expenditures have been made for the erection of fortifications in this
port, yet we are at the same time constrained to state that the important works at
Hendrick's Reef, on the adjoining heights of Long Island, at Sandy Hook, at the
Battery on this island, and at Fort Gansevoort are in a very imperfect state ; and the
pass to this City by the Sound is entirely undefended, and it is well understood that a
Vol. ra.— 18.
274 mSTOEY OF new-yobk
ship of the line oan approach us in diat direction with very inconsideTable risk as to
the navigation.
To enter into a more detailed account of our sitnation would be unnecessary aud
perhaps improper, but as we consider the object of this memorial of the highest im-
portanc« to the prosperity of this City and the extensive Country with which it is con-
nected by commerce and the ties of mutual interests, we have authorized a committee
of this board to repair with it to the seat of government, and to make such other re-
spectful representations as the emei^enoy of the case and our very critical situation
imperiously require, and they will be specially chargeable to state to your honorable
body that every measure in the power of your memorialists will be promptly adopted
to promote the means of defence presented by the General Government, and we are
fully persuaded that our fellow citizens will also cheerfully and unanimously cooperate.
The new Congress met on this day (May 24). New- York was
represented by Egbert Benson and Jotham Post, Jr., both Federal-
ists. The platform on which they were elected was " Liberty, Peace
and Commerce."
The State was
the Senate by
Bufus King and
Obadiah German.
Governor Tomp-
kins was reelect-
ed for three years
in April, and on
May 31, without
waiting for action
by Congress, he,
by general orders,
directed all commanders of brigades to fix places of rendezvous in
ease of invasion, and report to General Stewart, whose orders were
to be " implicitly obeyed by all militia officers within the southeni
district." In consequence there was an immediate thorough oi-gan-
ization of the several commands, and regulations were devised and
published to meet all probable contingencies.
All parties celebrated the Fourth of July, but there was little har-
mony on the occasion. The 4th falling on Sunday, the celebration
was held on Monday, the 5th. General Morton's brigade, and Major
James Homer's squadron of cavalry paraded early in the day, inde-
pendently. Marching to the Parade on the Battery, they were there
dismissed. The Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, was active in
its demonstration, but the numbers were reported as small. They
had abandoned their old badges and wore no buck-tails on their hats.
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 275
The atrocities of the Indians on the frontier made it politic for them to
discard the Indian costume which they usually wore on this day. The
Federalist organizations, the Washington, Benevolent, and Hamilton
societies, were in full force. The Veteran Corps of Artillery wore
V)adges of mourning on their swords in respect to the memory of
General Pike and Captain Lawrence, the latest victims of the war.
This was the only military body which took part in either of the
civic processions. It marched with Tammany at the call of Captain
McLean. Both celebrations ended with a grand dinner. The Federals
dined at Washington Hall, where about three thousand people were
assembled. The Rev. Dr. John Mason of the Presbyterian Church
opened the proceedings with prayer, and the address was by Gouver-
neur Morris, Federalist in tone but thoroughly patriotic in spirit.
The first notice of the declaration of blockade came from Thomas
Barclay, late British consul, now British agent for the exchange of
prisoners. On July 2 he notified John G. Bogert, the Russian vice-
consul, of the proclamation of Admiral Warren, in accordance with
the Regent's orders of May 26, declaring the " ports of New- York,
Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah and the River Mississippi to be in
a state of strict and vigorous blockade ; and that the blockade will
be enforced by his Majesty's ships of war in Long Island Sound, off
Sandy Hook, and elsewhere." At the end of July the British had on
our coast eighty vessels of war. Robert Fulton had invented tor-
pedoes for the destruction of vessels, and Congress had in March
authorized the payment of the value of any English vessel thus de-
stroyed by individuals not in the United States service. In June a
schooner, the Eagle, was fitted out with explosives of another char-
acter. Sailing up the Soimd, she was designedly allowed to fall iuto
the hands of the boats of the British frigate Ramillies, and being
brought alongside the man-of-war, blew up, killing an officer and ten
men. Sir Thomas Hardy, commander of the Ramillies, was indig-
nant, and threatened dire vengeance against every American vessel
that should fall into his hands. Repeated attempts to destroy the
Ramillies kept the Commodore in constant motion, and in August he
threatened to fire the towns on the coast of the Sound. There was
a constant petty trade going on with the British ships off Gardiner's
Bay blockading New London, by which they were supplied with fresh
provisions: an abuse which caused the secretary of the navy to issue
a stringent order on July 20.
In view of the many disasters of the campaign. President Madison,
in August, designated September 9 as a day of "humiliation, fasting
and prayer." In accordance with the proclamation, the common
council requested the citizens to desist from labor and business on
that day. The day precedifag, the mayor and common council went
276 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
in a small boat to review the flotilla of gunboats under Commodore
William Lewis, stationed at Spermaceti Cove, below Sandy Hook, and
to inspect the fortifications. While the review was in progress news
came that the British ships were approaching New-York by way of
the Sound, and a frigate and sloop of war had anchored off Eye
Neck, ten miles east of New Rochelle. The flotilla instantly em-
barked their field-pieces and, twenty-six in number, stood up the bay.
Passing through Hell Gate in the night, they came within range of
the nearest British frigate about noon. The man-of-war sailed toward
the flotilla and fired a number of shots. The range was too long for
the artillery of the gimboats to do any execution. The British then
stood away to the eastward, and the flotilla returned to Sandy Hook.
On the morning of September 13, the bodies of Lawrence and Lud-
low arrived at Harlem overland from Salem. They were taken by
water and placed on board the Alert, lying off the navy-yard. The
colors in the harbor were all displayed at half-mast. The common
council, on the 14th, ordered a funeral procession, the details of which
were announced in the newspapers in black-bordered columns. The
original route was designated to be from the Battery through State,
Whitehall, Pearl, and Wall streets to Trinity Church; but in view of
the great number of societies who applied for place in line, the route
was changed to be from the Battery through Greenwich street to
Chambers street and Broadway to Trinity Church. The line was
formed at ten o'clock in the morning, but, says the " Columbian'' (the
evening paper), "so unusual was the concourse which assembled to
pay the last public tribute of respect to our gallant countrymen and
follow their remains to their final repose, that the solemn duties were
not yet performed nor the line of march completed when our paper
went to press." Twenty to thirty thousand people are said to have
gathered along the line of march, the weather being exceptionally
fine. The burial services were conducted by Bishop John Henry
Hobart. Among the marines in the procession were part of the crew
of the Hornet when the Peacock struck to Lawrence. The proces-
sion was estimated to have included six thousand persons marching
four abreast. On this sad occasion the rival Federalist and Republican
societies hushed their discords.
On October 20 General Dearborn superseded General Lsard in
command of the military district of New-York. That day the British
ships again appeared in the Sound, near the city, and committed some
petty depredations, and again Commodore Lewis took up his flotilla
from the bay. The British had already withdrawn on his arrival.
Evacuation Day was celebrated this year with unusual animation,
the veterans taking a leading part. They dined, after performing
the duties of the day, at the old Revolutionary hostelry, Fraunces'
NEW-IOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BBITAIN 277
Tavern, This was the last military parade of the year. General
Morton's brigade and Major Warner's squadron were reviewed ou the
Battery by Generals Dearborn, Stevens, and Morton. There was a
public dinner by the common council, and subscription dinners at
Tammany Hall and Washington Hall.
General Harrison arrived in the city after his successful campaign
ou November 28. When, in October, resolutions were introduced in
the common council for the gift of a sword and the presentation
of the freedom of
the city to Gene-
ral Harrisou, they
were defeated by
the Federalists, by
a vote of twelve
to five, for some
political reason
not now easy to
understand. An
election had since
taken place, which
had resulted in an
equal division of
the board of alder-
men and assist-
ants between the Federalists and RepubUcans. Mayor Clinton had a
casting-vote, and, as has been stated, was a Federalist. So was Re-
corder Josiah Ogden Hoffman. Governor Tompkins received General
Harrison with great distinction. The State Eepublieau committee en-
tertained him with a grand dinner at Tammany Hall. Colonel Rutgers
presided. The military dignitaries were present, but the mayor was
not. The FederaUsts, not to be outdone, gave a dinner to Commodore
Bainbridge, in honor of his victory in the Constitution over the
Java. General Stevens gave the first volunteer toast, " The President
and Congress at sea. May the message and reports from them be in
the spirit of the Constitution."- The Republicans retorted with a
dinner to Commodore Perry on January 14, 1814. The board was
not, however, graced by high officials, civil or military. Governor
Tompkins was busy at Albany, and the army officers were convened
there also for the court martial of General Hull,
In December, 1813, Don Thomas Stoughton, Spanish consul at New-
1 Used by Oeneral WuhiogtoD tn Federal Hsil, petrBt«d a pun, the point o( which lay in the fact
Wall street, and now to be seen in the Governors that the Prraident and Congress were the re-
Room, City Hall, New-York. Editor. spectire nunee of two United States frigate*
-It nuiy be aa well to note hurt that Qenenl which had mcceeded in miming the blockade,
Stevens, In offering this toast, intentionally per- See page 2T0. Editob.
PBEBIDENT WASHINGTON'S
278 HISTORY OF SEW-YOEK
York, received official notice that Admiral Warren had, on December
2, declared that after the 6tb no vessels should be pennitted to leave
Long Island Sound. The bays and ports on the Long Island shore
of the Sound were all occupied, but no molestation was given to the
inhabitants. This ended the career of the New- York privateers. As
New- York depended on this coastwise trade for supplies in food and
clothing, the close blockade, at a time of year when land transportation
was difficult, was excessively annoying.
Governor Tompkins, who had presided over the affairs of New-York
since 1807, arranged at Albany, during the winter of 1813-1814, with
Colonel Winfield Scott the plans of a campaign for the relief of the
border in the spring of 1814. Scott was
made brigadier-general in the United
States army. Taking command of the
troops at Plattsburg, Scott moved to the
Niagara, while General Brown went to
Sackett's Harbor. Western New- York
was then a wilderness. Arrived at Buf-
falo, Scott formed a eamp of instruction.
Toward the end of June, General Brown
arrived at Buffalo, and a plan being con-
certed, the troops crossed the Niagara
River from Black Bock on July 3, and,
landing in two columns, one below and
one above Fort Erie, invested the place,
which at once surrendered. On the 4th
^/z/'CA,^ c-^ ,..*?C^ ' Scott marched on Chippewa. General
"^"^^ Eiall did not await his arrival, but, tak-
ing the initiative, moved his army forward and attacked the Ameri-
cans on the plain of Chippewa early in the morning of July 5. By
able generalship and a skilful tactical movement at the critical
moment, Scott gained a complete victory, the British retreating across
the river.
On the 7th the American army crossed Chippewa Creek and marched
on Fort George. This place General Brown found too strong for re-
duction, except by siege-guns, and marched his forces back to Queens-
town. On the 25th, learning that the enemy had sent a force across to
LewistoD, Scott was sent forward on the road to the falls to threaten
the forts and force their return. Not far from Table Rock, British
officers were seen on horseback, and soon after the enemy was met
in Lundy's Lane in superior force. Scott held his ground, capturing
General Riall and his staff, until he was reinforced at dusk by General
Brown. Notwithstanding the darkness, the action continued hotly.
Generals Brown and Scott both being wounded, Gleneral Eleazar W.
NEW-XOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BEITAIN 279
Ripley took the command, repulsing every assault until the British
with(h«w, and an hour later he was at Chippewa with the entire
American force and all the wounded. Soon after he withdrew to
Buffalo, and the troops were posted at Fort Erie. General Drummond
now took command of the British troops, and, after busy preparation,
marched on Fort Erie, which he attempted to storm. The assaulting
columns were all repulsed with heavy loss. A siege was then begun
by regular approaches, but the works were surprised by a sortie of
the Americans, the guns dismounted,
and the magazine exploded after a
sanguinary struggle. On September
21, General Drummond raised the
siege and withdrew beyond the line
of the Chippewa. In October Fort
Erie was dismantled, and the Ameri-
cans recrossed the Niagara to the
United States side.
Meanwhile, interesting events had
occurred at the eastern end of the
American line. In February, Gen-
eral James "Wilkinson, whose army
lay at French Mills, moved it to
Plattsburg on Lake Champlain,
whence, on March 3, he marched into
Canada with four thousand men. Ho
found his progress blocked by a small force strongly posted on the
Sorel in a stone mill and blockhouse. Finding it impossible to dis-
lodge them except by heavy guns, which the condition of the roads
prevented his bringing up, General Wilkinson abandoned the expe-
dition and returned to Plattsburg. This aggressive movement was
replied to by a series of petty attacks. InMay Sir James Yeo, with his
fleet, and General Drummond made a concerted movement on the
dilapidated works at Oswego. The fort was gallantly defended, but
at last abandoned. The British, finding that the strength of the
village of Oswego on the opposite shore of the river was not what
they had expected, withdrew. A few days after a British squadron
threatened Charlotte, at the mouth of the Genesee Eiver. General
Porter removed the women and children and called in the militia,
whereupon the ships bombarded the town, after which they withdrew.
In May also two British gunboats, attempting to capture a flotilla
oL which were the guns destined for a new war vessel building in
Sackett's Harbor, fell into a snare and were captured, and the guns
safely taken in. They were for the Mohawk, which, launched on
June 11, 1814, brought up the number of Chauncey's squadron to
^^A-<-i,i*.-^
280
HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
nine vessels, carrying two hundred and fifty-one guns. In August
General Izard, who had succeeded Wilkinson in command, marched
from Plattsburg to the Niagara River, which he crossed with about
eight thousand men to
attack General Dnun-
mond on the Chippewa.
After a skirmish Drum-
mond withdrew to Fort
Geoi^e and Burlington
Heights, and Izard, un-
enterprising, retired on
Black Rock.
The British govern-
ment inNovember, 1813,
driven to the wall by
the second offer of me-
diation by their great
ally, the Emperor of
Russia, made proposals
to James Monroe, then
secretary of state, to
treat directly with the United States, and commissioners were ap-
pointed to meet the American commissioners at Ghent. There seems
little doubt that these negotiations were retarded on the British side,
while one great effort was made to rectify their Canadian frontier
by the conquest of that strip of land which Clinton had secured for
the State of New- York, and which lay along the waters of Champlain.
The British plan of operations was essentially that pursued by Bur-
goyne in 1777 (then known as the king's plan). The British army in
Canada was reinforced by veterans of the Peninsular war, and Sir
George Prevost was ordered to pursue Burgoyne's route. Taking ad-
vantage of the absence of Izard on his Niagara exi)edition, Prevost
issued a proclamation to the American settlers near Lake Champlain,
calling on them to renounce allegiance to the United States; and on
September 1 he crossed the border on what has been called the sec-
ond invasion of New- York. Like Burgoyne, he found his march im-
peded by felled trees, choked streams, and broken bridges. Moving
rULTON THE FlBST.l
I Notable among the defenseB proTided for the
city WM > Btoam wfti^vaasel, planned by Hohert
Fulton, *Dd called Pulton the Finit. Her keel was
bdd In June, ISU, and she was lannched irith
gnM, public reJolelDga on October 29. Her ma-
cblneiy was then put aboard, under Pnlton's peiv
sonal dlreetioDS, and It was aa a result of over-
nertion in oonneotion with this labor that tlie
Inventor died in February, ISIS. In Hay the
mMhiiiery was tested, and on July i a snceeas-
(ul trip was made to the ocean and back. Not tJD
Septomber. however, was her armament oom-
pleted, and then war had long ceased. She was a
structure reatluK upon two boats and keels, sepa-
rated from end to end by a channel fifteen feet wide
and siity-aii feet lan)r- One of these boata eoo-
t^ned the boiler, the other the machinery. The
paddle-wiieel was placed In the space between.
With her full armament on board, ahe attained •
speed of Bve and a half miles in bonr. KtttWM.
£>ii{'liift:;.-,-i-'
NEW-YORK IK THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 281
1 ''
282
mSTORT OF NEW- YORK
slowly, while waiting the arrival of the fleet on Lake Champlain,
under Commodore George Downie, he reached Platt8hm*g on the 6th.
Plattsburg was held by General Macomb with a force of fifteen hun-
dred men. The fleet arrived on the 11th at the foot of the lake, and
eight thousand men advanced to the assault. The attempt to ford
was made at three places, but repulsed at each. The success of the
American resistance was, however, determined by a naval battle, one
of the most celebrated in our history, and curious in the annals of
marine encounters from its peculiar features.
The fleet which Commodore Downie brought to enter the bay was
materially greater than that of Captain Thomas McDonough, who
*-^, ^ commanded the American squad-
ron. Downie's chief reliance was
on bis flag-ship, the Confiance,
which carried a frigate armament
of thirty long twenty-fours on a
heavy-gun deck. The British flo-
tilla consisted of sixteen vessels,
with ninety-five guns, and one
thousand and fifty men ; the
American, of fourteen vessels, with
eighty-six guns, and eight hundi"ed
and fifty men. McDonough had
determined to fight at anchor, and
so placed his ships that the British
could only win a passage by forcing
it under a broadside fire. His flag-
ship, the Saratoga, he ingeniously
arranged so that, by a kedge-anchor
and hawsers on the quarters, he
could bring her broadside to bear
in any desired direction while her
bow remained stationary. The English advanced in steady line, and
a terrible broadside fire was opened on either side, that of the Con-
fiance sweeping the Saratoga's deck, and for a moment checking her
response till the dead and wounded were sent below. McDonough's
ingenious arrangement enabled him to cripple his heavier antagonist,
the Confiance, who clung closely to him until, after a fight of over two
hours, the British colors came down. Commodore Downie bad fallen
early in the action. The victory was complete. General Prevost gave
up his plan of campaign, and returned hastily to Canada. Thus ended
I Colonel Tobias Lear, who died In 1816. waa for matic podtlons. Bis portrait is copied (rom a
■erenl years private secretary to Waahinf^D in miniature in (lie pOHSeBrian ot a ^TanddaDgbter.
New-Yorlc and elsevhere. and filled various diplo- He was related to Mrs. Wasbiogtoo. Edftob.
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 283
the second invasion of New- York State. Her northern frontier was
once more secure, nor was it again disturbed during this war.
The city of New- York, which had been anxious since the beginning
of the year, began to breathe again more freely. The common
council tendered to Captain McDonough the usual honors of the free-
dom of the city and the addition of his portrait to their gallery ; on
September 26, and on October 10, complimented General Brown in
the same manner for his victory on the Chippewa; and on November
21 extended similar honors to General Macomb for his services on
the frontier in command " of a small army acting in concert with a
body of militia hastily assembled from the State and Vermont.''
Privateering, as has been stated, was always a favorite profession
in the city of New- York. Of the two hundred and fifty-one commis-
sions in the entire war. New- York sent out fifty-five, — a number only,
and that but slightly, exceeded by Baltimore. They were similar if
not alike in size and armament, fast sailers, and earned an eighteen-
pound gun mounted in swivel on deck. The most celebrated of those
which sailed from New- York were the Governor Tompkins, which
took the Mary Ann off the Madeira Islands with a cargo valued at
sixty thousand dollars. Soon after this capture she chased a large
vessel, which proved to be a British frigate. The little vessel was
severely handled, but by the use of her sweeps got away. A still
more notable affair was the capture, by the General Armstrong of
New- York, of the Queen, armed with sixteen guns, and carrying a
cargo valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. On an-
other occasion the Armstrong engaged, off Surinam, what she sup-
posed to be an English privateer, but turned out to be an English
frigate carrying twenty guns. After an action of three quarters of an
hour, the Armstrong got away. In July, the Yankee, a fishing-smack,
was fitted out in New- York harbor to capture the British sloop of
war Eagle. A calf, a sheep, a goose, and three fishermen were placed
on deck, while below lay forty men with muskets. Overhauled by
the Eagle, and ordered to report to the commodore, at the signal-
word ^^ Lawrence!^ the men concealed rose together, fired, and at one
volley killed three of the enemy, and drove the rest below. The sloop
of war struck without firing a gun, and was taken up to New- York,
where the people were crowded on the Battery celebrating inde-
pendence. Little wonder that the British people, exasperated to
madness, demanded the annihilation of the American navy, and that
English newspapers urged that American merchantmen should be
compelled to exhibit in large letters on their mainsails : " Licensed
to carry guns pursuant to a British act of Parliament " ; and this only
to protect them against the pirates of the Mediterranean or the la-
drones of China.
284
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The declaration of war found the city of New- York in a poor state
of defense, notwithstanding the efforts of the general government.
In the year 1798, when war was daily expected with France, the sub-
ject of the fortifications received careful study. The opinions of the
old officers were obtained and compared. Aaron Burr favored a system
of martello towers, but Mangin's plans were essentially adopted. A
military command was appointed, with Hamilton at its head. G-ov-
emor Jay called a special meeting of the legislature at Albany, which
provided the means, and the mayor and citizens of New- York aided in
the raising of funds in accordance with the provisions. The war
scare over, the same apathy prevailed imtil the affair of the Leander
caused a temporary alarm. In 1807 the city was defenseless, the
Narrows and the Hell Gate passage being without a fortification. In
the spring of that year the general government, alarmed at the drift of
our foreign relations, began a systematic work of harbor fortification,
but it had dragged slowly. As the blockade which the British now
established became more rigid, the citizens took alarm. In May, 1813,
Senator Ruf us King presented a memorial from the New- York com-
mon council praying that measures might be adopted for their greater
security and protection. This petition was referred to the secretary
of war. General Armstrong. The common council, in the summer of
1814, issued a public call to a general public meeting to concert mea-
sures of defense.
In pursuance of this call, the citizens gathered in the park in front of
the City Hall on August 11, 1814. Colonel Eutgers was chosen chair-
man, and Oliver Wolcott, Adams's secretary of the treasury, secretary.
A committee was appointed, consisting of Drs. Samuel L. Mitchill and
William J. McNevin, with Messrs. Wolcott, Eichard Eiker, Anthony
Bleecker, and William Sampson, to draft resolutions. Colonel Willett
made a spirited address, at the close of which Eiker presented the
resolutions, which were unanimously agreed to. They pledged union
in arms, a defense to the last extremity, and urged all classes to en-,
roll in the militia or the naval service, and to aid in the prosecution
of the public works.*
1 New-Tork ResolnHons, Aagost 11, 1814 :
BeMlvedy That the dtisens here assembled will,
to the last extremity, defend their city. Resolvedy
That we will unite ourselves in arms with our
brethren of the coimtry, and on the first approach
of the enemy, make it a common oausb. Mesolvedt
That humbly confiding in the favor of the Almighty,
we hope to prove ourselves not unworthy of that
freedom won by the heroes of the Revolution ; and
trust that the enemy they vanquished will receive
from us a similar defeat. Resolved^ That we highly
approve of the measures for pubUe defence which
have been devised by the government of the United
States, by his excellency the governor of the
State, and by the corporation of this City ; and that
we will cooperate in carrying the same into eifec-
tual execution. Resolved^ That it be recommended
to the dtisens generally, to meet, as soon as may
be practicable with convenience, in their respec-
tive wards, for the purpose of electing discreet
and efficient committees to promote the execution
of the following objects. 1. To complete the vol-
untary enrollment of persons exempted by law
from military service. 2. To encourage the en-
rollment of seafaring citizens for service in the
harbor or as artillerists ; and 3. The enrollment
of citisens for voluntary labor on the public works.
B^Mlved, That it be the special duties of the ward
committees to provide, under the direction of the
corporation of the City, for the relief and protec-
NEW-YORK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN 285
•
In August, 1814, a committee of young gentlemen issued an address
to the spirited and patriotic young men for the organization of the
militia. It was signed by Isaac Merrick, David Ludlow, Stephen
Keen, John M. Elliott, George Lovejoy, and S. B. Brega. The purpose
was to raise a battalion of volunteer infantry. A part of the plan is
curious. "A cheap, neat and becoming uniform is fixed upon, calcu-
lated rather to give a soldierly appearance than to attract and please
the eye of childhood. It is simply as follows: A blue broadcloth round-
about, narrow rolling collar, single-breasted, buttoned in front with
bell buttons, a row on each side the collar — will cost about fifteen
dollars. Beaver of a straight crown, about nine inches high, helmet
front, diminishing gradually towards the back, leaving there only half
an inch brim ; a waving red plume, the staff of which is supported by a
stripe of broad gold lace running from the base or rim of the hat
and forming a cockade near the top with a narrow band of lace —
will cost at the utmost not more than ten dollars. Cartouch box
covered with red morocco, secured round the waist by a belt of the
same to which the bayonet's scabbard will be affixed — will cost five
dollars''; — the total cost of the outfit so far being thirty dollars. Yel-
low nankeen pantaloons, black handkerchief, boots, together with a
musket, completed the equipment. The roll was in the hands of Mr.
George Asbridge at No. 9 William street, corner of Beaver street.
A reference to Longworth's directory shows that this Asbridge was
a printer.
The resolution adopted for the enrolment of voluntary labor to
complete the defenses was responded to with enthusiasm. The me-
chanics, who from the days of the Stamp Act had been ardently
patriotic, turned out in organized bodies to aid in digging and con-
structing the fortifications. Militia companies were raised, and offices
for the enlistment of sailors opened. Castle Clinton — later well known
as Castle Garden, because applied to purposes of popular amuse-
ment— was built at the southwest point of the island. A battery,
which was named the North Battery, was thrown up at the foot of
Hubert street, and Fort Gansevoort at the foot of Gansevoort street.
Fort Columbus was built on Governor's Island, where General Stevens
had erected the earthwork and barracks in 1798 ; and Castle Williams
on the same island. On Bedlow's Island a strong star fort was
erected (now the site of Bartholdi's noble and gigantic statue of
Liberty), and on Ellis Island a circular battery. The Staten Island
tion of the families of such persons as may be mote concord, and will discoantenance all attempts
absent on public daty, and also, to provide in the to weaken the patriotic eif orts of good citisens.
best manner practicable, for the protection of Hesdved, That we will endeavor to discover and
such helpless persons and their property, as in subject to the animadversion of the laws, all per-
case of alarm may be desirous of moving into the sons who shall be concerned in any illicit com-
country. Hesolvedf That we will endeavor to pro- merce or improper intercourse with the enemy.
HI8T0BY OP NEW-YOBK
IM
«
■^^
#
shore was commanded by Fort Eichmond,
a strong construction of stone on the high
ground ; Fort Tompkins, on a still greater
elevation in the rear; and Fort Hudson,
nearly on the shore-line below. As the
passage at the Narrows is very short, as
the name implies, and the channel draws
close under the Staten Island highland,
these afforded an almost sure defense.
On the opposite side, in the upper bay,
was Fort Diamond, later Fort Lafayette, a
still stronger work built on made ground
and commanding the water-line. To-
gether these mounted five hundred guns,
and amply protected the entrance against
any floating armament of the period.
The entrance from the East River to the
Sound just west of Hell Gate was com-
manded by Fort Stevens on the Long
Island shore at Hallett's Point, named
after General Stevens, who superintended
its construction, and whose country-seat
was at Mount Bonaparte, the old Hallett
farm being at Hallett's Cove near by.
This low stone battery was again com-
manded by a round tower on high ground
in the rear; opposite, across the stream,
whose rapid waters, surging around numer-
ous rocks, rendered passage dangerous ex-
cept to skilled pilots, was a similar work
at Benson's Point. Strong works guarded
McGowan's Pass on the Harlem road and
the pass on the western side of the island
on the Bloomingdale road, a Une of block-
houses being thrown up between.
In August a requisition was made by
Congress for twenty thousand men to be
stationed in and about the city. The cor-
poration of New-York raised the neces-
sary funds, under pledge of reimbursement
Fao-simlle of ft portion ot an origlnkl deed In the hand-
wrltinfc at the Rev. John Livingiton of AnomiD. at Luutrk.
June 27, 1624. Be was the father of Bobert LiiTioggtan.
founder of the famous New-York family. This ancient and
Interetiting document la among tbe archlvei of Coliinm House.
SttrlingBhire, Scotland. Editob.
NEW-YORK m THE SECOND WAB WITH GREAT BRITAIN 287
by the United States. Enlistment proceeded with such speed that by-
September 1 all the artillery and infantry of the city and county
were consolidated and mustered into the United States service, under
their own oflScers, their pay, rations, and regulations being those of
the regulars. Governor Tompkins and General Morgan Lewis were
the post commanders. The entire detachgd division was placed
under the command of General Stevens.^ The seamen enrolled were
placed under command of Commodore Decatur, who, on the transfer
of Commodore Rodgers to the Guerri^re in the spring of 1814, had
been assigned to the command of the President, — the United States
(his old ship), and the Macedonian, his prize, having been removed up
the Thames above New London in April of that year and dismantled.
Here he had been joined by Captain James Biddle, who brought
down the Hornet from New London, passing the close blockade with
consummate skill and safety.
The idea was general that New- York would soon be attacked by a
powerful expedition of land and sea forces, and a descent was daily
expected. The cruise of the President was therefore countermanded,
and Decatur was ordered to remain in the city and take entire charge
of the naval defense. Advantage was taken of Decatur's presence in
the city to confer on him the municipal honors voted to him by the
common council. On November 14 a committee, consisting of Alder-
men Peter Mesier and John Munson, introduced him to the common
council at the City Hall. Mayor Clinton, in his address to him, said that
" the city looked to him as one of her most efficient protectors in the
hour of peril ^ ; and, alluding to the many successes at sea, said : " Sir,
during the Revolutionary War, our contest with France and the Bar-
bary powers, and in the present war with Great Britain, the gallantry
and skill of our seamen have been constantly gaining upon the admira-
tion of mankind. Wherever they have approached an Enemy victory
has almost invariably attended the American flag. The Great Lakes,
the Mediterranean Sea, the British Channel, the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, bear witness to their illustrious exploits, and they have ele-
vated America to the pinnacle of naval glory.'' When Decatur left
the hall he was saluted by the citizens who had " assembled to wit-
ness the honors paid to their gallant countryman." The number of
men enrolled for the force under his orders, including man-of-war's-
men on the ships and gunboats, and the Sea Fencibles, — a kind of
naval militia, — exceeded five thousand. These Decatur thoroughly
1 This officer had served in the Continental army
from Banker Hill to Torktown. He entered New-
Tork on the day the British evacaated the city,
as lieutenant-colonel of the Second Continental
Artillery, which was essentially a New-Tork re-
giment. Entering into hnxiness, he was at this
time one of the leading merchants of the city.
After the death of Hamilton, he was the acknow-
ledged head of the veteran Revolutionary element
of the city. While not partisan, his sympathies
were with the Republican party. He had been
Lafayette's chief of artillery, and his house was
the rendezvous of many French officers and gen-
tlemen who visited New-York.
( I I
. V-'. iJilJi
..1! 'j: •Li»e erew of the President
-. .-' :'?u in person. His squadron
.. -:--Mj.n. 'yl guns; the new sluop
. - • \:»i:i?. Destined tor the East
. ...• •» r J :i»v bay, closely blo(.*kaded by
.. ...i.-;.rp' irilled several hours a day,
rw, tuf regiments onee a week, the
-ii»-i if t '^:evens, who was a strict disci-
., -vMf -Sired them in parade three or
-ii iipre months' serv^ice. In a grand
...iviii> at the close of the cami^aign,
Miiv-riiree thousand men, — all, exccjit
;;.LiicU>, being volunteers. The army of
I tie frontier of the State, but New-
. ^i>k:ii and amply able to defend her
• iiu war De Witt Clinton held the office
m* war in the beginning, and in fact the
,, . i iie Republican party in 1812, against
> - u> • « »r« iial and patriotic in his supi)ort of all
'. . fit Ivepublican party was divided into two
. .^, viiv> had their headquarters in Tammany
.-^IlI: and the Clintonians, or Martling-men,
;'uUi ..»i: meeting at Martling's Long Room."
.^ llni^iuud as to the propriety and policy of
. vi -ciii, caused distrust in AVashington as to
•iv'ii, which in its turn caused apprehension in
iv -i 'iie conditions of peace they might be left
• .i> Britain. A committee of the Massachusetts
.. . iic sttite of public affairs, suggested that the
. -iost'cution of the war should be retained for
. oi expended elsewhere. A (convention from
.. > vii.> recommended, to provide "some mode of
ir«*umstanc(*s and exigencies of those States.'*
. :•: at 'U^irates from every New England State met
. .. . 'Ai'K'V \.\ 1S14. The sessions were held with closed
.. ..arm throughout the country. The convention
:, 'iiaiiary 5, and made a report which, ill-judged
ua.-s, wont no further than to propose amend-
. .. i.uiiioIh Hiid tho in ISIO. and thou only by ont» stTrion of the «lonii-
^jud thf mayor- imnt oriranizatiou. The FtiltTalists .>»tfailily tlf-
olintMl aftrr x\w iva***.*. their Wst oU'mt*nt !*up|»orT-
I- ;uIoj«IihI l>y the ill;: Do Witt Clinton in the >*iilise4Uent polirioal
iw . h:uler eUvtion stnijnrles in the city ami State.
NEW-rOBK IN THE SECOND WAR WITH GKEAT BRITAIN 289
ments to the Constitution of the United States restricting the powers
of Congress and of the executive to declare and make war, etc. The
evils which this separatist movement might have caused were hap-
pily averted by the signing of the peace. New- York, thoroughly
loyal to the Union although the greatest sufferer by the war, cut off
as she was from the contraband trade, was profoundly disturbed by
this agitation on her eastern border.
BESIDEKCE OF THE AMESICAK COMHIBSIONEItS
From the beginning of the war the support of the treasury of the
United States came chiefly from the Middle States. Of the loan of
sixteen millions authorized by Congress in December, 1812, New- York
took $5,720,000, Pennsylvania $6,a')8,400, Maryland $2,393,300, while
New England subscribed for but $486,700, and the Southern States
$541,000, together but little over one million dollars. The extremely
small subscription in New England (Boston taking but $75,300) can
only be explained by a fixed detei-mination not to support the war,
based on a belief in the dissolution of the Union. The influence of
Mr. Ghtllatin saved the loan, David Parish and Stephen Girard in
Vol. m.— 19.
ilL-jTuKl" wf yEW-rOHK
i jnd Brooklyn Ferry.
■ ill! .im:.'>i> A^t'.r ill Xew-York, all personal friends
XV. ;Lkiuu; '<v._t ten millions for themselves and
:ir';f <>L i]ini>^. mou were foreign-boru. Tliis was
iiiitui:iui miasactiou. Between June 1, 1811, and
if-i-* in -Ik' Massacliusietts banks increased from
..HHi iu til:.' lutter year. Of the $41,010,000 sui»-
i!i'-in in various ways from the beginning of the
;;,. ..[L'i ■■! the year 1814, — the Eastern States con-
■-.:•■ Middle States :fa5,790,000, the Southwesteni
ii.i. ^:i'>p*'iVfi-. four fifths of the floating debt on
i> '.if\<\ ^'^^ the eilies of New- York, Philadeljihia,
; |;>;irii*t 111' (.\»himbia. An application of the text,
"Where your treasure is, there will
your Iieart be also," seems not inap-
propriate ill a review of this selfish
public policy. The capture of Wash-
ington by the British in August, 1814,
[irwipitated a generaV suspeusiim cif
the banks of the United States, in-
I'luding those of New- York city. Tlie
depression of the currency in New-
,- y. :hB swm F«Tr)L-BoK, York was from seven to ten per cent.
K ,-b.knbm, -iM «e luihori- (much less than the average of that
"yRtjE Hicits, BnwkijB, i" otfaer cities). The price of couimod-
L.HN MNrARD.s2wdt-«. jties increased one half. The banks
Vvia^u!" $10 00 of New England, continuing their
*"*"''* 6iD. *" policy, within a little over a year drew
to their vaults over eight millions of
.'lu- hidf the entire stock of the United States.
.s undertaken in England for peace had not ))eeii
iluiuks to the vigorous defense of New- York ten-itory,
LU'sts wliivh'(ii"eat Britain might pretend to claim under
' .'i' tlif nil possidetis (hold what you possess) — a claim
:idviiiiceil by Loi-d Batlmrst, the American commission-
vniiipunily ivfused to admit. Upon this Lord Liverpool
(I «'U ;i vijjorous prosecution of the war with the ti-oops now
ill Kurope, when "Wellington frankly told him that the
■M ii.> u-iritory in the United States in other than temporary
I. 'I'lu' news of the burning of Washington did not diseour-
sinii^ilii-ni'd the American commissiouei-s in their deter-
I.' -.unviiiler nothing. The treaty of Ghent was signed on
, il;i_\. 1S14, on the Imsis of the American instructions, viz.,
'fiio iiiilc bclliun. Neither eountiy gained or gave up any-
;<.>il)in){ was said of the employment of the savages, nothing
•s).^'
■ipl.
»EW-YOBK IN THE SECOND WAB WITH GBEAT BRITAIN 291
conceded as to the
impressment of sea-
men; no concession
CD the other hand as
to the navigation of
the Mississippi, or
the fisheries. Yet the
United States had
received another les-
son as to the impor-
tance of union, and
England had learned
to respect the flag
which now floated
over her conquered
frigates. The lesson
taught her regulars
at the battle of the
Chippewa was re-
peated at New Orle-
ans by General An-
drew Jackson sev-
eral days after the
peace was signed. It
was fortunate, as it
completed the asser-
tion of the sover-
eignty of the United
States over every
inch of its territory,
not by agreement
in articles, but by
the supreme arbitra-
ment of arms.
The glorious news
of the battle of
New Orleans reached
New- York city on
February 6, 1815. In
the midst of the
rejoicings for this
satisfaction for the
burning of "Washing-
ton, the still more
292 HIBTOBY OP NEW-YORK
satisfactory news of the signing of the treaty of Ghent was received
in the city on the night of Saturday, February 14, 1815. The treaty
itself reached the city by express in twenty-six hours from Washing-
ton on the 25th. There were universal rejoicings. There were din-
ners by all the societies and a grand public dinner on Washington's
birthday, the committee upon which comprised such men as Au-
gustus M. Lawrence, John A. Bang, Jonathan Goodhue, Philip Hone,
Dominick Lynch, George BrinckerhoflE and William Neilson, Jr. And
on the same appropriate day a general illumination was ordered by
the common council and universally obeyed by the citizens. The war
wafi over. Discord was hushed, and an era of peace and good will
was entered upon.
LAWRENCE AND LUDLOW.
So far as known, the last survivor of the famous engagement between the Shannon
and Chesapeake in Boston Harbor, seventy-eight years ago, is Sir Provo William
Parry WalHs, G. C. B., who, since the death of Sir Q^orge Sartorius in 1885, has been
the senior admiral of the British navy. He has just completed a century of existence,
having been bom in Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 12, 1791. As he was entered on the
books of the navy in May 1, 1795, he has been in the naval service for ninety-six years!
Sir Provo may be said to have been the actual captor of the always unfortunate Chesa-
peake, the first lieutenant of the Shannon having been killed and Captain Broke seri-
ously wounded, so that the command devolved upon WaUis, the second lieutenant, who
carried his own frigate and her prize, the Chesapeake, into Halifax, where, among the
thousands awaiting their arrival, was his own father, then chief clerk in the navy-yard.
For young Ludlow, the second officer of the American frigate, who was mortally
wounded in the engagement, Wallis did everything in his power, and he was among
tlic* chiol! mourners at his funeral in Halifax.
lu a letter addressed to the writer, dated February 18, 1890, from his estate in the
south of Kngland, Sir Provo says : '^ I regret to state that I cannot give you any ac-
count of C'ttptaiu James Lawrence more than to say that we on the Shannon thought
him a galiaut fellow, who brought the Chesapeake into action in first-rate style, who
was mortally wounded, and I never saw him alive. Lieutenant Ludlow lived for about
ten days after our arrival at Halifax, but died, to the great regret of all of us. He
was a fine, gentleman-like fellow, and they are both deserving of being kept in mem-
ory by their countrymen.''
WaUis was a midshipman on the Cleopatra when captured after a long action, in
ItiOo, by the French frigate ViUe de Milan. For his gallantry and good conduct in the
affair in Huston Harbor, June 1, 1813, although only twenty-two, he was made a com-
maiitit^r, recHilviHl the thanks of the British government, and was soon after given the
ciiuiUiHud of a Mtnall ship of war, the youngest officer of the British navy then enjoy-
ing tiiat (iistluotion* All this, it should be remembered, happened before the battle of
Wuturlud was fought, and but a few yeiurs later than the death of Lord Nelson at Tra-
falgar* lu IH47 Wallis was appointed aide-de-camp to the queen. Four years later
bu wa^ mailti an admiral, and in 1857 was sent out as commander-in-chief on the At-
li^utic aof^si ot AmoiioAf hoisting his flag on board the line-of-battle-ship Cumberland.
NEW-XORE: in the second WAB with great BRITAIN 293
In 1860 the admiral wu created a K. C. B., soon afterward a 0. C. B., and in 1863 ar-
rived at toll flag rank as admiral of the fleet. As already mentioned, Sir Provo has
been for the last six years the father of the British navy. Until a very recent date
he was one of the dock commissioners of Southampton, and the venerable sailor is
still in the enjoyment of a fair measure of health and strength for a man who is almost
as old as the Constitntion of the United States, and who was a sturdy lad of nearly
nine when Oeoige Washington died in the last month of the year 1799.
Among the many souvenirs of his long life of a century there is, perh^s, none
that Sir Provo appreciates and values so highly as a beautiful sword presented to him
fay the commander of the Shannon for his gallantry in
the action with the Chesapeake. A few lines concerning
this gallant officer and good friend of Sir Provo's will
perhaps form a snitable pendant to this brief notice of
the aged admiral.
Philip Bowes Vere Broke was bom at Broke Hall,
near Ipswich, September 9, 1776. He was bred to the
sea, from the age of twelve, and, after passii^ through
all the intermediate grades, was promoted to a captaincy
in 1801. He was placed in command of the Shannon six
years later, and sailed for Halifax in August, 1811. On
the flrst day of June, 1813, after having sent a challenge
to Captain Lawrence, which he never received, and while ^ -
cruising off Boston, he fell in with the Chesapeake. A ,-*^o<ie^fc.
severe engagement ensued, during which Lawrence was ^
twice wounded. Broke, at the head of fifty or sixty men, boarded the American
frigate, and sncceoded in driving the survivors of the crew below, but was himself
disabled for life by a blow on the head from the butt-end of a musket. For this vic-
tory, which greatly elated the enemy, several of whose frigates we had recently cap-
tured, Broke was knighted, and the Tower of London guns were fired. Sir Philip
never went to sea again, but hved for nearly three decades the life of an English
country gentleman at Broke Hall, and died in Loudon, January 2, 1841.
James Lawrence, who possessed what old Fuller quaintly calls " a handsome man
case," and was one of the most gallant ofQcers of the war of 1812, was bom at
Burlington, N. J., October 1, 1781, being five years younger than Broke. He entered
the navy in 1798, and in 1811 attained to the rank of captain. Early in the second
war with England, when in command of the Hornet, he won a great victory over the
Peacock. After this success, Lawrence was given command of the frigate Chesa-
peake. A few days after his arrival in Boston the Shannon appeared in the offlng,
and the Chesapeake immediately went out to meet her. After exchanging a few
broadsides, the Chesapeake fouled the Shannon; Lawrence fell mortally wounded,
and was carried below, saying, "Don't give up the ship." Captain Broke saw his
opportunity and boarded the Chesapeake, whose flag was soon after hauled down.
Several incidents of the action show that the crew of the Chesapeake were lacking in
discipline. They were for the most part newly shipped and imperfectly tromed, while
the Shannon was noted for excellent gunnery practice, and her oapt^n had supplied
sights for the guns at his own expense. In size and armament there was not much
disparity between the ships. Neither was seriously injured during the action, but the
loss of the Chesapeake was forty-four killed and ninety-nine wounded, while the
Shannon's total loss was only eighty-five. The remains of Lawrence and Ludlow
were restored to their conntty, by whom they were received with public honors and
buried in state in Trinity churchyard. New- York city. The bitter disappointment
that was oanaed by the loss of the Chesapeake might have led the public to criticize
the eonduot of Lawrence in accepting a contest for wliich he was so poorly prepared,
294
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
had it not been for his trag^o fate and his dying injnnctioni ''Don't give np the
ship.'' K he erred in admitting chivabrio traditions into modem warfare, it must not
be forgotten that he associated with them both courtesy and humanity in the very
highest degree.
When Lawrence fell, there being no first officer on board the Chesapeake, the com-
mand devolved upon Augustus C. Ludlow, the second lieutenant, who was almost
immediately mortally wounded, as were also Lieutenant James Broome, U. S. M. C, and
Courtlandt Livingston, a midshipman. Ludlow, after the surrender of the frigate,
was removed to the Shannon, where he became an object of solicitude to Second
Lieutenant Wallis, who left nothing undone to save the life of the young sailor of only
twenty-one, Ludlow being but a few months his junior. He was bom in Orange
County, N. Y., and came of a fighting family, being the youngest of four brothers,
all holding commissions in the United States navy. He was with Lawrence in the
Hornet when the great victory was gained over the Peacock, and he now shares the
same grave with the hero in Trinity churchyard. Justice Story, in his glowing
eulogy on Lawrence and Ludlow, well says: ''Nor can we forget the gay, the gallant,
and nobJe-hearted Ludlow. Though the history of his life be short, yet it can never
be uninteresting to those whose hearts beat high with the love of their country.
Scarcely was he twenty-one years of age, when, like the blooming Euryalus, he accom-
panied his beloved commander to battle. Never could it have been more truly said:
** His amor unus erat, pariterque in bella raebant.
" He was, indeed, worthy of the confidence and friendship of Lawrence. His soul
was formed for deeds of active valor and martial enterprise. . . . The bodies of
these heroes may molder away and become indistinguishable from the common mass
of mortality, but their spirits, we trust, shall repose in the bosom of heaven, and their
fame, their spotless fame, shall perish but with the country of their birth." — The
Editor, in "Illustrated American," June, 1891.
MOBBIS ARMS.
CHAUKCEY ARMS.
LAWRENCE ARMS.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RETUBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF THE ERIE CANAL
1815-1825
J HE conduct of New -York city during the war of 1812, in
^'iew of the severe blow she had received to her com-
mercial prosperity, was no shght proof of patriotism ; for
many of her citizens who, at the beginning of the war,
were rich, found themselves, when the treaty of peace was signed on
December 24, 1814, ruined. The condition in which New -York was
at the close of the war, as well as the
extravagant demonstrations of joy
with which the news of the termina-
tion of hostilities was received, is
thus graphically described by the lat«
Francis Wayland, president of Brown
University, who was an eye-witness of
the scene :
" It so chanced that, at the close of
the last war with Great Britain, I was
temporarily a resident of the city of
New- York. The prospects of the na-
tion were shrouded in gloom. We had
been, for two or three years, at war
with the mightiest nation on earth,
and as she had now concluded a peace
with the continent of Europe, we were
obliged to cope with her single-handed.
Our harbors were blockaded ; communications coastwise between our
ports were cut off ; our ships were rotting in every creek and cove
where they could find a place of security ; our immense annual pro-
ducts were mouldering in our warehouses ; the sources of profitable
labor were dried up; our currency was reduced to irredeemable
paper ; the extreme portions of our country were becoming hostile
to each other; and differences of political opinion were embittering
the peace of every household ; the credit of the Government was
296
mSTOBT OF NEW-yORK
exhaoBted ; do one could predict when the contest would tenninate,
or discern the means by which it conld much longer be protracted. '
" It happened that, on a Sunday afternoon in February, 1815, a
ship was discerned in the offing, which was supposed to be a cartel,
bringing home our Commissioners at Ghent from their nnsnccessful
mission. The sun had set gloomily before any intelligence had
reached the city. Expectation became painfully intense, as the
hours of darkness drew on. At length, a boat reached the wharf,
announcing the fact that a treaty of peace had been signed, and was
waiting for -nothing but the action of our Government to become a
law. The men on whose ears these words first fell, rushed in breath-
less hast« into the city,
to repeat them to their
friends, shouting, as
they ran through the
streets, ' Peace ! Peace !
Peace!' Every one who
heard the sound re-
peated it. From house
to house, from street to
street, the news spread
with electric rapidity.
The whole city was in commotion. Men, bearing lighted torches,
were flying to and fro, shouting like madmen, 'Peace! Peace!' When
the rapture had partially subsided, one idea occupied every mind.
But few men slept that night. In groups they were gathered in
the streets, and by the fireside, beguiling the hours of midnight by
reminding each other that the agony of war was over, and that a
worn out and distracted country was about to enter again upon its
wonted career of prosperity."
At the time that the news of peace was received, Samuel G. GK)od-
rich happened also to be in the city. Speaking of the joyful effect
produced, he adds similar testimony to that of President Wayland.
" I had gone in the eveniug," he writes, " to a concert at the City
Hotel. While listening to the music, the door of the concert-room
HEDAL COUMXHOBATINO PEACK.
1 The following lines, entitled "Hard Tiroea." *re
quoted fnun > Neir-Tork nempaper. pabliahed In
New-York dtj at the close of the war of 1S12 :
"No buBlneaa stirring, all things at a stand,
People complain they have no cuh in hand.
'Dull times' re-ecboea now from every quarter,
Even from father to the son and danghleT.
Herchanta ciy out. ■ No mone; to he had,'
OrocKTS say tiie ' times are very bad ' ;
Mechanics work, but they can get no pay,
Beaux dress genteel, and ladies, too, are gay.
Cash very scarce, dancing twice a week —
Buslneu dull — amusemeuts still we seek.
Some live ifwhlle, and then, perhaps, dieyfail,
While many run in debt and go to Jail.
The females must have ribbons, gause. and lare.
And paint besides, to smooth a wrinkled &»:
The beaux will dress, go to the ball and play,
Sit up all night, and Uy in bed all day.
Bmsh np an empty pato, look smart and prim.
Follow each trifling fashion or odd whim.
Five shillings will buy a good fat gooae.
While turkeys, too, are offered Bt for ass.
Are those bad times, when persons will profess
To follow fashions, and delight In dren t
No ! times are good, bat people are to blame.
Who spend toomuch,Bnd}nitIy merit shame.'
BETDBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 297
was thrown open, and in rashed a man breathless with escitement.
He mounted on a table, and swinging a white handkerchief aloft,
cried out, ' Peace I Peace ! Peace I ' The music ceased ; the hall
was speedily vacated. I rushed into the street, and oh, what a
scene ! In a few minutes, thousands and
tens of thousands of people were march-
ing about with candles, lamps, torches,
making the jubilant street appear like a
gay and gorgeoxis procession. The whole
night Broadway sang its song of peace.
We were all Democrats, all FederaUsts!
Old enemies rushed into eaeh other's arms;
every house was in a revel; every heart
seemed melted by a joy which banished
all evil thought and feeling. On Monday
morning I set out for Connecticut. All
along the road the people saluted us with
swinginif hats and cries of rejoicing. At
", ° . ,, , " . , MSB. JOHN MOBTOK.l
one place, m rather a lonesome part of the
road, a schoolmaster came out with the whole school at his heels to
ask us if the news were true. "We told him it was; whereupon he
tied his bandanna handkerchief to a broom, swung it aloft, and the
entire school hosannaed, ' Peace ! Peace ! ' "
Nor were the effects of the peace confined merely to natural oul^
bursts of delirious delight or to sentimental gushes of feeling. An
increased material prosperity was at once apparent. Under the
changed condition of affairs every industry, as if touched by the wand
of an enchanter, awoke to new life and vigor. Instead of "ships
rotting in every creek and cove," as so graphically described by Dr.
Wayland, the different ship-yards of the city resounded from morning
till night with the blow of the hammer, as keel after keel of new
vessels was daily laid; in place of our "immense annual products
mouldering in our warehouses," vessels could not be built or chartered
fast enough to convey these products to foreign consumers; and in
lieu of the "sources of profitable industry being dried up," the streets
were filled with artisans plying their several vocations, and with
laborers going to and from their daily toil. In the counting-houses,
where a short time previous a few clerks yawned languidly over their
desks, all was bustle and animation, as, briskly engaged with foreign
correspondence, their faces beamed with satisfaction at the prospect
of services being well requited. New buildings, public and private,
1 Mrs. Harla Sophia Horton, motber of Qeoeral aged ninety-four years. Prom a pih-tnit made by
Horton. who died ■! the hou*e of her soD-iD-law, Cliarlea Balthazar Julien F^rre de St. H6mlD in
Preddent Qulney ot Harvard Universlt;, In 1832, New-Tork in IT97. Editos.
298
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
sprang up in different sections of the city with marvelous celerity;
and the wharves, no longer green with mold, and tenanted solely by
the water-rat, were lined with ships waiting only for favoring gales to
whiten the ocean with their sails, and bear the flag of the United
States into ports where for so long it had been unseen and almost
totally forgotten. The city, no longer a "de-
rJ^ "" Je^^cc-*/ ^ serted village," presented the appearance of an
ex ' ^""^^ immense hive teeming with human bees, in
which no drones were either known or allowed. Squalor had given
place to splendor, poverty to affluence; a full tide of prosperity had
set in, and shrewd speculators, who knew how to take advantage of
its flood, were making rapid fortunes.
In short, notwithstanding the terrible drain upon the financial
resources to which she had been subjected during the war, and the
crippling of her commerce. New- York bore the strain nobly. In this
same year (1815) Mr. Isaac Bronson, in a pamphlet entitled "An
Appeal to the Public," stated the active capital of the banks of the
city to be $13,515,000. It may also be truly said of the New-York
banks at this period, as well as in 1839, 1857, and the late civil war,
that they spared no effort to keep the country on a specie basis, and
to avert the calamities which have fallen upon it from excessive issues
of paper — a disaster to which the old quotation may fitly be applied:
. f aoilis descensus Avemi ;
Sed revocare gradmn,
Hoc opus, hie labor est.
No sooner was the treaty of peace signed than the great continental
powers hastened to stretch forth a helping hand to the republic; and
every nation in Europe was anxious to solicit her trade. Great Britain
alone, chafing under her defeat, remained for a long time sullen, and
by unfriendly legislation endeavored to cripple the commerce of the
United States in general, and that of New -York city in particular.
Indeed, almost ruined as the city had been by the war, such were
her internal resources that she recovered rapidly. On March 26, 1819,
1 The influential political opponents of De Witt
Clinton succeeded, in 1815, in displacing him as
mayor and haying John Ferguson, who was grand
sachem of the Tammany Society, appointed in his
place. This was done with the understanding that
Ferguson was shortly to resign, be made surveyor
of the port, and that Jacob Radcliff was to be
named as mayor. Accordingly Ferguson occu-
pied the position only from March to June. Rad-
cliff, who had been mayor in 1810, continued in
the office till 1818, when Cadwallader David Golden
reeeived the aopointment. He was the grandson
of the lieutenant-governor, and was bom at the
family seat near Flushing, L. I. The grandfather,
and David Golden, the father, were lojralists, the
latter removing to Ehigland in 1784. The grrand-
son, however, returned, practising law in New-
Tork city, and about 1796 was appointed district
attorney. In the war of 1812 he served actively
as a colonel of volunteers. Upon relinquishing
the mayoralty he was elected a member of Con-
gress. He cordially encouraged all movements
for the promotion of educational or industrial ob-
jects, published a memoir of the Erie Canal, was
superintendent of the Morris Canal, and wrote the
life of Robert Fulton, to whom he had given sub-
stantial support when so many ridiculed his great
invention. Mr. Golden married Maria, youngest
daughter of Bishop Provoost, and died in 1834.
Editor.
BETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 299
the first savings-bank was incorporated. Its name was the "Bank
for Savings of the City of New-Tork," and its plan was devised by
John Pintard, to whose sagacity New- York owes so many of its most
useful and thriving institutions. The deposits of this savings-bank
from July 3 to December 27, 1819, reached the sum of $153,378,
representing 1527 depositors. Three years after (1822) the first life
insurance was also es-
tablished in the city, ^^HH^I^HJ^HHHB^CV^ \
under the name of the ^^^^^^^^HBBS^^V^ ^^ .-i'-^]
"Mechanics' Life Insur-
ance and Coal Com-
pany." Its act of incor-
poration, which bears
date February 28 of
that year, carried with
it the "power to make
insurance upon lives, to
grant annuities, and to
open, find out, discover,
and work coal beds
within this State." A
further example, moreover, of the rapidity with which the city, as
well as the United States generally, recovered from the baneful effects
of the war may be found in the fact that the amount of revenue
collected by the United States government rose from $4,415,362 in
1814, to $37,695,625 in 1815, of which $16,000,000 was derived from
the port of New- York alone.* In 1816, also, the famous "Blaek-Ball
Line" of packets to Liverpool was established, and in 1824 the line
to Havre, the latter employing twelve ships; in addition to which
there were weekly lines to Savannah, Charleston, Mobile, and New
Orleans. The average time tfdien by the "Black-Ball" packets out-
ward was twenty-two days, and the homeward voyage twenty-nine
days. Steam, however, was in a very short time to change the en-
tire mode of ocean navigation, as well as that of land travel.
The winter of 1817 was unusually severe. As late as February 15
the Hudson River was frozen over from the city to the New Jersey
I Hn. Murray was the wife of Robert Hnrrsy,
and mother of Lindlef Huiray, tbe srammarlan.
Her husband wu one of the toremost Quakers in
eommercla] circles in the city. His conntry-seat
(reprtaeuted above) was Dear Fourth Arenue and
Thirty-seventh street, amid spacious ftround*. —
the present Grand Cential Station oocupyinft
what was then one of his oom-flelds. It waa here
that the chief British offlcers were so charmingly
entertained by Hra. Hurray for two hours, while
General Putnam with a large detachment of the
Continental army. reD'eating in fcreat haute be-
fore a superior force, successfully reached the
main bod; at Harlem Heights. The section of the
city from Thirty-fourth to Forty-second streets
and from Leiin^n to Sixth avenues is generally
known as Murray Hill. Editob.
2 In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, the
total amount of the revenue from cnitoms for the
United States was n5T.I6T,722, of which (IM.SOT,-
786 was received from the port of New-York —
more than two thirds of the total amount
300
HI8T0BT OF NEW-YOBK
side, SO that people crossed on the ice from shore to shore. "Several
gentlemen," records the "Evening Post" for February, "set out for a
sieigh-ride on the ice from Flushing to Riker's Island, where they
arrived in safety. This was the first
^j ^--.,^Mfc sleigh that was ever known to visit
i*''*-*x.73^ the island, and, as it passed down
the bay, it di-ew forth numbers of
i Hj^'" TliiMML people on the shore to view so
r ™ a^P^ singular an event." ' The succeed-
ing year (1818) also witnessed the
same intensity of cold. Long Island
Sound being entirely closed by ice
between Cold Spring and the Con-
necticut shore. The Hudson like-
wise was again frozen so firmly that
heavy teams crossed to the Jersey
side. Many persons, like the Cana-
'^f^^^W^~~ T dians when the ice-pont forms on
the St. Lawrence between Quebec
and Point Levi, sought to make gain
' .^^MtTT-^t^ **"*" **^ ^^^ unusual circumstance.
^" Accordingly, they erected tents on the
ice, and sold in them liquor, roasted clams and oysters. An attempt
was also made to roast an ox, but the experiment failed, on account of
the ice becoming weak near the furnaces where the cooking was done.*
In the same year (1818) the legislature of New-York — De Witt
Qinton, Governor — ordered the remains of General Montgomery to
be removed from Canada to New-York city.* This was in accordance
I Id this oODDectton H will be reooUed that in would be eoodder«d reni&rlubl; ehekp. The tol-
the winter of 1780-81 Qie cold wks ao IntaiuM u lowing are quotations taken by the wiitar ftom
to freece the b*y solid from New-Tork city lo the " Colnmbiui " of December S, ISIB :
Staten Island— thnj enkbUng Sir Senry Clinton Beat beef, per lb 134e.
to bring up heavy artillery from Staten Island to " " " ewt tTtofli
New-York. Pork, per lb lOe.
* An smurfng aneodoto was told at this time of " " owt (8
a certain Jeremlali Batman, aroimd whose t«nt the Veal, per lb 10c
Ice bad become quite tbln from the effects of the Mutton, " 8e.
stove and several days of mild weather. One of Turkeys (good), apiece $1.56
bis customers, happening to Bt«p apon a weak Fowls, perp^r , .Sfe
spot ontidde the tent, broke through, and was Qeese, apieee 90c to S6c
struggling In the water, whAi a friend pat bis Butter, fresh 33c
head tndde of Batman's tent, saying; "Jerry, " In Brkins 23cta26c
there is a man gone down yonr »llar1" "Is It Potatoes, per bbl SGc
sol" asked Jerry. " Then it is about time for me Turnips, ■' ■' 31&
to leave these premises. " The man, however, was CabbMjee, per 1000 W to<T
finally extrleatod, the tent struck, and all were Wood, oak, per load tS.2i
safely taken to the New-Tork shore on a sled. •' walnut, " aSO
On account of this severe winter provtsions " pine, " 1.G2U
were considered very dear. At the present day. > A correspondent of the New-Tork ■' Conuner-
however,— and let the reader notice in any news- clal Advertiser " of July 7, 1818, writing from
paper the daily prices ohtalning In Waahlikgton Quebec, and referring to this event, says; "Aftw
Market, for instance, — the prices that then ruled resting In peace for forty-two years within the
BETDKN OF PEA.OE, AND COMPLETION OF EEIE CANAL 301
with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in 1776, had
voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands in the
front (or rather the rear ' ) wall of St. Paul's Church in Broadway.
When the funeral cortege reached Whitehall, N, Y., the fleet stationed
there received it with appropriate honors; and on Saturday, July 4,
they arrived in Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sun-
day, the remains were taken to New- York, and on Wednesday, July
8, deposited, with military honors, in their final resting-place at St
Paul's. Governor Clinton, with that deUcaey for which he was
always remarkable, had informed Mrs. Montgomery when the steam-
boat Eichmond, with the body of her
husband, would pass her mansion on the
North River. At her own request, she
stood alone on the portico at the mo-
ment that the boat passed. It was now
more than forty years since she had
parted from her husband, and they had
been married only two years; yet she
had remained as faithful to the memory
of her "soldier" (as she always called
him) as if alive. The steamboat halted before the mansion, the band
played the " Dead March," a salute was fired, and the ashes of the
venerated hero and the departed husband passed on. The attendants
of the Spartan widow now appeared, but, overcome by the tender
emotions of the moment, she had swooned and fallen to the fioor.*
The gallant dead, though surrounded by the turmoil of a busy city,
TAN COBTLAJIDT BUOAB-HOUBB.a
walls uid ooder the sod of this gurlson, the
akeleton of Oecenl MoD^:oiiieT7 wu on Saturday
Ikit raised from its place of depoait, and took Its
departure for New- York, where it ia desCiiied to
a more distlD^ished place of intermeDt in tlie
Church of St. Paul of that city."
t It is really the rrar wall of St. Paul's, dnee
the church waa intended when built to /nm/ on
the HudBon River.
I The Van Cortlandt suiw-house waa used aa
m prison durlot; the KeTolution. It stood adjoin.
Ing the northweat vmer of Trinity churchyard.
Of the three snf^ar-houses which became historic
by reaaon of this usatce, Livingston's, on Liberty
street, was destroyed in 1840 ; Van Cortlandt's was
demoliahed in 1852; and Rhinelander's, aa noted
in the preceding Tolnme, waa not torn down dll
the present year — 1892. EDITOR.
) Janet Livingston, the sister of the distin-
guished Chancellor Llvingaton, and the wife of
General Montgomery, met the latter when he waa
a captain In the Britisb army, on his way to a dis-
tant fronder post. The meeting left mutual
tender ImpresaliHis. Returning to England soon
after. Montgomery disposed of bis commisHlon,
and, emigrating to New-York, married the object
of hll attachment. But their vlslona of an tldpated
happlnesa. upon a farm at IQilnebeck-on-the-
HudsoQ, were soon ended. He waa caUed npon to
serve as one of the eight brigadier-generals In the
Continental army. He accepted sadly and with
misgivings, declaring that "the wiU of an op-
preMed people, compelled to choose between lib-
erty and slavery, must be obeyed." His eicellent
wife made no opposition; and. accompanying him
as far as Saratoga (now Schuylerville, N. Y.), re-
ceived hla last asHnrance. "You shall never liave
cause to blush for your Montgomery." Nor did
she ; for he (ell brevely at Quebec. In person
General Montgomery was tall, graceful, and of
manly address. At the time of bis death be was
only thirty-nine years of age. Shortly after the
occnrrence narrmled in the teit Mrs. Montgomery
wrote to a niece as follows r " However gratUylng
to my feelings, every pang I felt was renewed.
Tbe pomp with whkb the funeral was conducted
added to my woe. When the steamboat passed
with slow and solemn movement, stopping before
my house, the troops under arms, the dead march
from the muJBed drum, the mournful music, the
splendid coffin canopied with crape and crowned
with plumes — you may conceive my anguish, I
cannot describe it. Such voluntary honors were
never before paid to an individual by a Republic,
and to Governor Clinton's monlfleence much la
owing."
302
HI8T0RT OF NEW-YORK
is still (1892) permitted to rest beneath the turf made radiant by the
unsullied blossoms of early spring. The brave Wolfe, who fell on
nearly the same spot sixteen years previons, sleeps within the splen-
did mausoleum of Westminster Abbey. Bat as we stand over the
unpretentious grave of Montgomery, we recall the quaint and beau-
tiful language of Ob-
/^ ~~\ borne "He that lieth
under the herse of
heavenne is convert-
ible into sweet herbs
and flowers, that maye
rest m bosoms that
wolde shrink from the
ugly bugs which may
be found crawling in
the magnificent tomb
of Henry the VII."
On February 22,
1819, a grand ball was
given by theFourteenth
Regiment, in honor
of General Andrew
Jackson, at the City
Hotel.* The ball was attended by tlie general in person, and was
far ahead, in elegance and brilliancy, of anything of the kind before
known in the city. The large dining-room of the hotel was crowded,
and the toast "To General Jackson; so long as the Mississippi rolls
its waters to the ocean, so long may his great name and glorious
I The Shkkespeue TsTem stood on the comer ot
Fulton ind Naswu streela, where, until lately, wu
■Ituated the " CommerclAl Advertlaer " buildlDg.
recently deBtro;ed b; fire. "It WKS origizuJlf a
low. old-faahioned, niaaslve edifice, built of smMl.
yellow biick«, two etoriea high, with dormer-wln-
dowa on the roof. . . . The building wns erected
mmny years before fbe BerolutloD, but in 1822 a
modern extensloa on FnlloD street, three stories
Ugh, was added. Thomas Hadgldnwin, whose
brother John was at one time manager of the Old
Park Theater, bonght the boose In 1808, and
under >i<'" It soon became and long continued a
great reeort tor the wits of the day. . . . The
' Shakespeare Tavern.' in fact, wss to New-York
what the 'Hermald' was to London in the days
of Shakespeare, or later the ' St. James Ck>(ree-
honae,' and the 'Turk's Head,' in the time of
Reynolds, Qanick, and Goldsmith. . . . Here
De Witt Clinton was wont to discuss his pet pro-
ject, the Erie Canal-, here PItitOreene Halleck,
and Sands, and Pendval, and Paulding, and
Willis Gaylord Clark met in soolal conTerse, and
pMMd many a merry Jest and brilliant repartee.
, . . Henceforth let no one say that New- York has
DO memories save those of the temples of the
money-changer." (History of New-York City, by
William L. Stone, Jr., pp. 4SS-490.) The Shake-
speare TaTem, upon (the death of Hodgklnaon.
passed Into the hands of his relatlTe, James C.
Stoneall, "by whom the Interior was remodeled
and modernized, and It couttnued to maintain its
wonderful reputation and popularity until the
building was demolished in 1836. For more than
a quarter of ■ centory the Shakespeare Tavern
was a favorite place of resort of the flrM dUzens
of the dtf , and was dlstlngulBhed for the superior
character of ita refreshments and the quiet com-
fort which pervaded the entire estAbliahment.
Merohants, politicians, and artlBta of distinction
gathered, by day and by night, beneath its hospi-
table roof, and it was ttie acknowledged mtlitaj?
headqaartcrs ot all the leading organiaatlotu in
the city" (History of Che Seventh Begiment of
Naw-York, by Colonel Emmons Clark). £]>noB.
1 The City Hotel, the principal pnblle hovse in
the city, and called before and during the Bevo-
lutlon the City Tavon, belonged to the De I^n-
RETURN OF PEACE, AND CX)MPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 303
deeds be remembered,'' was replied to by the general, who proposed
^ De Witt Clinton, Governor of the great and patriotic State of New-
York,'' to the utter confusion of the " Buckt&ils," who regarded Clin-
ton as their bit- jf n ^
terest foe. Gen- ^^y^^ ^ (f -^x^-e^^ ^ut^^^^pth Ajr^
eralJackson,per- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
fectly independ- V^^^-^^^-^^^^x^b^/l^^ ;^ (jy^fy^ ^^^t^C^
ent of all parties, >
had conceived a great admiration for Mr. Clinton, although he was
at that time personally unacquainted with him — hence the toast.
Upon this toast being given, the greatest confusion ensued, amid
which the general left the room.*
Nor was this ball the only compliment paid to Jackson. On his
first arrival in the city he was received with great 6clat by the muni-
cipal authorities, and with well-deserved honors at the hands of the
people. A military review was given him on the Battery, and the
freedom of the city in a gold box in the park. He was afterward
escorted by a regiment of cavalry to visit the venerable General Ebe-
nezer Stevens, then living, at an advanced age, on Long Island, near
Hell Gate. Stevens had commanded the American artillery during
the battles preceding the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and
Jackson had defeated Sir Edward Packenham and a greatly superior
force at New Orleans. More than half a century had elapsed between
the two great events, and the visit of the young and popular general
was a graceful compliment paid to the venerable warrior of another age.
eey estate, and was Bitnatod on the west side of (the editor of which was Fitz-Greene Halleck, the
Broadway, occupying the present site between celebrated "quix" and satirist of that day). In
Cedar and Thames streets. It is said that John • the first number of the '* Croaker " appeared the
Adams, when a delegate to the first Continental following lines by Drake:
Conpe.^ stopped here on W« way through New- „ j ,^ ^j^ „, q^^^^ J«jk»on'8 toast;
l!^ ^^^^^ »^S!.° ^r 4 ^ CmuU« "« """'Kht to me ;
" The Bmich of Grapes" During the Berolution- ^„, ^^ j ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^
«y war it wa« also known by the name ofj' Buba- ^^^^ ^, j^^^ ^ „
let 8," and was a great and favorite resort of the
military. In 1784 It passed into the hands of Halleck, also, took his full share in the fun. One
John Cape, and was called in his advertisements ^f j^jg earliest contributions to the " Croaker," en-
the " State Arms of New-York." The house had titled " The Freedom of the City in a gold box to
a large ball-room where dancing assemblies were ^ gj^nt General," is in his happiest vein. One
held, as were also subscription balls under the gtama from another of his productions on the
direotion of managers. The assemblies were re- ^am^ topic is here given. The poem is entitled
newed at the close of the Revolution, the first *«The Secret Mine, sprung at a late supper."
being held on the evening of Thursday, December
18, 1783. The celebrated loyalist editor, James " The songs were good, for Mead and Hawkins
Bivington, in announcing this ball, stated that he sung 'em,
bad "for sale a supply of white dancing ^oves The wine went round, 'twas laughter all and joke;
for gentlemen, sUk stockings, dress swords and When crack ! the General sprung a mine among
elegant London cocked hate." It was sarcasti- 'em,
cally remarked at the time that these " were prob- And beat a safe retreat amid the smoke,
ably the stock of the outgoing officers of the As fall the sticks of rockets when you fire 'em,
British army." So fell the Bucktails at that toast accurst,
1 Conversations by the writer with the late Looking like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,
General Prosper M. Wetmore. This ball called When the firm earth beneath their footsteps
forth several squibs andcritidsms from '* Croaker" burst."
304 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
The following year (1820) witnessed the burning of the old Park
Theater (on Park Row, near Ann Street)/ which occurred on May 25
of that year ; and such was the fierceness of the fire that scarcely an
article of the wardrobe or the scenery was saved. The flames were
so brilliant as to illuminate the entire city, causing the tall spires of
Trinity and St. Paulas to stand out in bold relief against the sky. In
a very few minutes after the alarm was first given, thousands of the
citizens had gathered 4ipon the housetops gazing mournfully upon
the scene. The fire department, conscious of the numerous witnesses
of its efforts, exerted itself nobly, but to no avail, and the following
morning showed nothing but charred ruins. Nor was the sadness
with which this calamity was received unreasonable. No spot at
that time was surrounded by such hallowed associations, nor cpnse-
crated by so many endeared recollections, as the old Park Theater.
Here had Prospero and Caliban, summoned by the wild fancy of
Shakespeare, hushed the assembled multitude to silence; or, again,
Dogberry convulsed them with laughter. It was at this place that
that curious scheme of a "Beefsteak Society" — modeled after its
celebrated prototype in London — was first devised by the witty
harlequin Rich. Here were held the adjourned meetings of the
"Shakespeare Tavern," and the "Belvedere Club,"^ and, in "ye olden
tyme," were seen on its boards, Kemble, Babcock, Ludlow, Seton,
Hoffman, Kean, Mathews, and the elder Booth. Upon its stage,
also, were performed for the first time in America many of the plays
of the most distinguished writers whose names were then, as they
are now, household words. Sheridan's " School for Scandal," Gold-
smith's " She Stoops to Conquer," and Charles Lamb's most witty
productions were here first introduced to an American audience.
Within its walls, also, diplomatists, authors, scholars, and men cele-
brated in every department of life had come to pass away a leisure
hour, and while doing so had gleaned many hints that have contrib-
uted greatly to their success. That its loss was greatly deplored is
evident from the tone of the newspaper press after the event. " But
why," said a New- York newspaper in commenting upon and apos-
trophizing its loss the day after, "dwell longer upon the event t
Thy shrine, around which poets, statesmen and philosophers have
loved to linger — the home of the muses, the delight of the gay — no
longer meets and cheers our vision. Thy sacred walls, within which
have so often been gathered the choicest spirits of the time, have
crumbled beneath the hand of the destroyer. No longer shall our
1 Opened on January 29, 1798. which there was a beautifal view of the East
2 Erected in 1792. at the comer of Cherry River and Long Island. Attached to the house
and Montgomery streets. The club building com- were bowling-alleys with gravel walks and shrub-
prised a ball-room with a music-gallery, bar-room bery elegantly laid out and cared for. It was a
and bedrooms, and had a large balcony from fashionable and popular resort.
EETUBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 305
citizens be permitted to drink from thy classic fountains the sparkling
intellectual draughts which thou, a second Ganymede, wast wont to
serve; nor shall they ever again gaze upon thy Ionic portals. Yet,
it was something noble ; it was in harmony with thy character to
perish thus gloriously. Time, with his mouldering fingers, was not
allowed to pollute thee with his touch, nor yet to wither thy unfad
ing laurels Think not that thou shalt be forgotten ! Thy site i"*
clas'dc ginuud ' Everj stone of thee is im
mortal Like the Dragon's teeth of old,
V th> ruins t>hall n o instinct wath life,
proclaiming thy und\ ing
=T-*^,A^^^ fame Thou shalt be
~ ^ -5:?^ ^ fl. household
"word which children "^hall lisp around
the health and fireside and as sue
ceeding ages shall roll awiiv and the
ivy clings to th\ mouldeiing toweis m
shall the ramd'* of mm clm^ t*) th\ iuemor\ "iS(^
and embalm thee in their heart of hearts "
The writer's prophecy was not, however, destined to be fulfilled, for
the ivy of which he so feelingly speaks had not even time to take
root — much less to cling to its "mouldering towers" — before a new
theater arose, the succeeding year, upon its site, the builders of
which were John Jacob Astor and John K. Beekman.' On account,
however, of the yellow fever, it was soon afterward closed, and so
remained until the autumn of 1822, when it was again opened by the
appearance of the justly distinguished actor Mathews. In com-
menting upon this event, the New-Tork "Commercial Advertiser" of
November 8, 1822, says : " We last night paid our dollar to witness
this gentleman's far-famed exhibitions, and confess that we do not
regret the time or the money spent. The house was so crowded that
1 Mr. Beekman and Mr, Astar were joint proprletora of the Park Theater. The former, from
Ub lore of theatricalB, wa« famillariy known as " Theater Jack." EnrroK.
Vol. m.— 20.
306
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
it was with great difficulty we could procure a seat, and amidst so
large an audience we could not discover even a whisper of disappro-
bation. Mr. Mathews played * Goldfinch^ in the ^Road to Ruin.' The
popular farce of * Monsieur Tonson ' was performed for the first time,
^^ and Mr. Mathews supported the
--Z^^S^ /^J^^^Tz. ..y^k^s^ principal Character with great
jf ^c-c-^^i.-^ eclat. His comic songs and
^ imitations were the best we
ever heard ; and in consequence of his variations, on being encored,
the audience seemed disposed to sit all night and enjoy this species
of entertainment." ^ See picture on the opposite page.
The winter of 1820-21, like that of 1817-18, was one of excep-
tional severity. Indeed, for many years previous such intense and
steady cold weather had not been known — even within the memory
of that mythical individual, "the oldest inhabitant A New-York
newspaper of that day, — the "American'' for January 22, 1821, —
speaking of this, says : " The weather, after twenty-one days of steady
cold, began to moderate on Saturday afternoon (the 20th). On Satur-
day morning^ Long Island Sound was crossed upon the ice from
Sands' Point to the opposite shore, a distance of eight miles. The
price of oak wood was up to five dollars a load, Saturday." • Three
days afterward the same paper states : " The cold still continues in-
tense: both the North and East Rivers were crossed on the ice; and
the bay is nearly filled with floating ice, which will probably be closed
by another cold night, and our harbor shut up for the first time in
forty years," * On the next day : " The North River continues to be
crossed with safety on the ice ; the distance between the two shores
has been measured and found to be a mile from [the foot of] Cort-
landt street to Bowie's Hook [Paulus Hook, Jersey City].* The Ho-
1 The mayor at this time was Stephen Allen,
who held the place in 1821 and 1822. He began
life as a sailmaker, engaged later in mercantile
pursuits, and having acquired considerable wealth,
was thenceforth identifted with financial enter-
prises. After he ceased to be mayor he was
elected State senator, serying many years, and
making himself especially useful as a member
of the Court of Errors, although without profes-
sional legal training. "The natural talent of
Mr. Allen was such as at once to give him clear
and distinct views of the most subtle questions
brought before the court.'' At the age of eighty
years he died, in 1852, having enjoyed for some
years retirement from both business and political
life, years chiefly spent at his beautiful country-
seat at Hyde Park on the Hudson. Editob.
s There is at the present time (1892) a water-
color painting in the possession of the New- York
Historical Society which is of local historical
value. The reproduction on the opposite page is
accompanied by a key. All of the audience are in-
tended for likenesses ; and among them are Dr.
and Mrs. Samuel L. Mitdhill, WUUam Baymrd,
Henry Brevoort, James Eirke Paulding, and other
prominent New-Torkers. Fits-Greene Halleck« a
great lover of the theater, is omitted from the
picture, owing to his absence in Europe at the
time it was taken. Editob.
s Compare this with previous note (p. 900), where
oak wood is quoted at 12.25 a load.
4 Referring to the last time (1781) when, as men-
tioned in a previous note, the bay was fhwen from
the Battery to Staten Island, allowing Sir Henry
Clinton to bring up on the ioe from that Island to
the city his heavy artillery. Still, it should be re-
membered that often since then our harbor and
river would have been closed were it not for our
ferry-boats day and night constantly passing from
shore to shore, and thus breaking up the ice.
^ Since then, Jersey City has been filled in for two
blocks from the original Paulus Hook to the pres-
ent Hudson street. Hence the width of the river,
from ferry to ferry, is, perhaps, five hundred feet
less than a mile.
BETDBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 307
boken ferry-boat, with fifty-seven peraons and twenty-three horses on
board, drifted, on Wednesday evening, below Governor's Island, and
was enclosed in the ice, where she now remains. The people suffered
mach from the cold during the night, although none were frozen."
The same paper, also, on January 27 says : " More than a thousand
persons crossed the North River on the ice ; produce of every kind
was taken over in sleds ; and hun-
dreds were seen skating in the
middle of the river. There came
up, also, yesterday, from Staten
Island, on the ice, a boat and
seven men, viz. : John Vanderbilt,'
A. Laurence,William Drake, Lewis
Farnham, Robert Davis, and Mr.
Wainwright. The mail for Staten
Island was yesterday taken down
over the ice by Daniel Simonson
and Joseph Seguine. Many per-
sons at the same time walked from
Long Island to Staten Island, —
such a circumstance has not been
witnessed before since the winter
of 1780-81, when heavy ordnance
were conveyed on the ice from
Staten Island to New- York." This protracted cold weather caused
much suffering among the poor, and led to the establishment of soup-
houses, through the generosity of many of the butchers. Collections
were also taken up in the churches for the benefit of the suffering,
one of which is noticed in a newspaper as amounting to the very
handsome sum of $2106.46.''
In the successive years of its existence, the city of New- York had
been visited by war, and fire, and famine ; and now the scourge of
pestilence was to be added. In 1819 the city was visited by yellow
fever, which shortly disappeared, only to return with increased vio-
lence in the fall of 1822. J. Hardie, in his account of the fever at
this time, writes: "Saturday, the 24th of August, our city presented
the appearance of a town besieged. From daybreak till night one
line of carts, containing boxes, merchandise, and effects, were seen
moving towards 'Greenwich Village' and the upper parts of the city.
Carriages and hacks, wagons and horsemen, were scouring the streets
and filling the roads; persons, with anxiety marked on their coun-
tenances, and with hurried gait, were hustling through the 'streets.
Temporary stores and offices were erecting, and even on the ensuing
I The tMher of the l>t« Cornelioa VuiderUh. i "The Hutet Book," by ThoniH P. Devoe.
308
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
day (Sunday) carts were in motion, and the saw and hammer busily
at work. Within a few days thereafter, the custom-house, the post-
office, the banks, the insurance offices, and the printers of news-
papers located themselves in the village, or in the upper part of
Broadway, where they were free from the impending danger ; and
these places almost instantaneously became the seat of the immense
business usually carried on in the great metropolis."^ "You cannot
conceive," writes Colonel William L, Stone, at that time editor of the
New-York "Commercial Advertiser," under date of September 26,
1822, to his wife, then at Saratoga Springs, " the distressing situation
we are in, and also the whole town. The fever is worse every hour.
I saw the hearse pass the office an hour ago with seven sick in it.
Thus the dead are carried to the grave, and the sick out of town — to
die — on the same melancholy carriages." And again, about a month
after, he writes, under date of October 10, to his wife as follows:
"As to the fever, my dear Susan, I cannot say that it is any better.
On the contrary, it rages sadly, and grows worse every hour. There
are many sick and dying, especially in the lower part of the city, who
would not move, and the physicians will not visit them. I know
several who have died without a physician. Old Mr. Taylor, for in-
stance (soap and candles. Maiden Lane), would not move, and is now
in his grave." On the nineteenth of the same month, he writes
again to his wife : " I believe I told you in my last letter that I did
not think the fever was any better. The result has proved the cor-
rectness of what I wrote. The disease rages with fresh violence, as
you will perceive by the reports in the * Commercial' which I send to
you by this same mail. When it will please heaven to cause it to
abate, is more than mortal can tell. A severe, nipping frost, I have
no doubt, will check it, and yet I hope that we shall be able to re-
move back [i. e.j from Greenwich Village] by the first of next month."
The cold weather of 1822 and 1823, however, did not, as the writer
hoped, check the disease ; and during the succeeding summer its rav-
ages became so frightful that all who could fled the city. Colonel
Stone, however, remained at his post, and fortunately escaped the
disease. During this dread time, however, business was entirely sus-
pended ; and, like the time of the plague in London (so graphically
described by De Foe), the city presented the appearance literally of a
deserted city — with no sounds save the rumbling of the hearses, as.
1 The visits of the yellow fever in 1798, 1799,
mad 1805 tended much to increase the formation
of a village near the Spring street market and
one, also, near the State prison; hut the fever
of 1822 built up many streets with numerous
wooden buildings, for the use of the merchants,
banks (from which Bank street took its name),
offices, etc ; and the celerity of putting up those
buildings is better told by the Rev. Mr. Marcellos,
who informed me that ''he saw com growing
on the present comer of Hammond and Fourth
streets, on a Saturday morning, and on the follow-
ing Monday ' Sykes & Niblo* had a house erected
capable of accommodating three hundred board-
ers." Even the Brooklyn ferry-boats ran up here
daily. *' The Market Book," by Thomas F. Devoe.
BETUBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 309
at the dead of night, they passed through the empty streets to collect
the tribute of the grave. By November 2, 1823, however, the fever
had disappeared ; the inhabitants again returned to their homes ; the
banks and the custom-house, which had been removed during the
fever to Greenwich Village, ' on the outskirts of the city, moved back
to their customary places ; and businesB and social intercourse once
more flowed in their accustomed channels.
The two following years (1824, 1825) were to witness two august
celebrations in New-Tork city. The first was in the summer of 1824, ■
on the occasion of the second visit of General Lafayette to the United
States, in his sixty-eighth year; and the second was in honor of the
completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, by which the waters of Lake
Erie were connected with those of the Atlantic.
On Sunday, August 15, General Lafayette, accompanied by his sou,
George Washington Lafayette, and his secretary, Auguste Le Vas-
seur, arrived in New-Tork bay in the ship Cadmus. As the ship
passed through the Narrows a salute was fired from Port Lafayette,
and the national flag was immediately hoisted and displayed during
the day on all the public buildings in the city. On landing at Staten
Island, the august guest was conducted to the country residence of
Daniel D. Tompkins, Vice-President of the United States, where he
spent the day receiving calls.
Lafayette had no idea, not even a suspicion, of the welcome which
awaited him on this side of the Atlantic. At least, such is the infer-
ence, not only from the statement of Lafayette to my father, the late
William L. Stone, but from an incident told by one of the actors in it
to Mayne Reid, by whom, in turn, it was narrated to the writer.
Lafayette had left France after nearly half a century's absence from
the United States, and without any intimation that he was to have a
310
HraTOBY OP HEW-YOEK
public reception in America. The gentleman who gave the narration
to Captain Eeid — a well-known Boston merchant — chanced to be a
fellow-passenger on the voyage, which was made in a packet-ship
sailing from the port of Havre.'
While crossing the Atlantic, this gentleman had many opportuni-
ties of conversing with the French marquis and his son Washington.
AH on board know that our old ally, though a nobleman, was not
rich; and, in his conversations with
his fellow-passengers, he showed him-
self very solicitous as to his pecuniary
means, making many inquiries about
the prices of living and traveling in
America, and seemed very anxious on
this account, as if fearing that his
purse might not be sufficient for a
very extended tour of travel through
the Unit«d States. Indeed, the Ameri-
cans who were on board the packet,
having been long absent from their
country, had themselves no idea of
the grand honors in store for their
. distinguished fellow-passenger. The
A/h^f^^^^^*^ gQii^l^^^Dt '° tis subsequent conversa-
tion with Captain Eeid, admitted that
he himself had no conception of what was to happen, and did occur,
on this side. Feeling an interest in Lafayette, he had invited him
and his son, in the eveut of their visiting Boston, to make his house
their home. In due time the French packet came in sight of the
American coast, and lay to at Sandy Hook, waiting for a favorable
wind to enter the bay of New- York. Near the Narrows she was ap-
proached by a rowboat, in which were two gentlemen in plain civil-
ian dress, who, after holding a private conference with the captain,
reentered their small boat and put off. No one on board the packet,
except the skipper himself, knew to what the conference related.
After passing through the Narrows and coming alongside of Staten
Island, the French ship cast anchor. This was a surprise to the pas-
sengers, who supposed they were going directly to the city. They
were consequently chagrined at being thus delayed after their long
sea voyage, and many were heard to murmur at it. While in this
mood they observed a long line of vessels coming down the bay.
1 The CoD^reM of the UnfMd States, some should be held In r«)Mlinesa for his conTcjaiicc
monthK bpfore. upon leuninK that it was the in- vhenoTer it Hfaoiild suit his conTenleDce to em-
tention of Lafayette to visit this country, had baric This honon however, the marqoii ia-
onanimonsly passed a resolatloD tovltinfi blm to alined, and took passage from Havre to Knr-
onr sbOTM, and direoting that a national ship York on July 13, 1B21.
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 311
BAYARD PUNCH-BOWL. A
There were steamboats and sailing craft of all kinds, forming a
considerable fleet. They were following one another, with manned
yards, and flags flying, and bands of music (entirely impromptu), as
if upon some gala procession. The passengers on board the French
packet were surprised — Lafayette not the
least. "What does it meanf^ asked the mar-
quis. No one could make answer. "Some
grand anniversary of your Republic, mes-
sieurs^^ was the conjecture of Lafayette. Fi-
nally, about noon, the gaily decked vessels ap-
proached; and it was seen that they were all making for the French
ship, around which they soon gathered. Presently one of the steam-
boats came alongside, and a number of gentlemen dressed in official
costume stepped on board the Cadmus. Among them were General
Jacob Morton, William Paulding, the mayor of the city,^ and several
members of the common council. Not until they had been some
time on the deck of the packet and her captain had introduced them
to Lafayette, did the modest old soldier know that a grand ceremo-
nial was preparing for himself. The tears fell fast from his eyes as
he received their congratulations; and, on shaking hands with his
fellow-passenger — the Boston merchant and the narrator of this to
Mayne Reid — at parting, he said: ^^ Monsieur: I shall love New-
York so well that I may never be able to get away from it to
pay you a visit in Boston. Pardieu! This grand B^piiblique — this
great people I '*'
. The object of this early call upon the marquis — before he had
landed — was to exchange greetings, and to communicate to him in-
formally the plan that had been made for his reception on the next
day. The following arrangements were published in the New- York
morning papers of Monday: "Arrangements of the Corporation for
the Reception of the Marquis de Lafayette: The Committee of Ar-
rangements of the Corporation have the pleasure to announce to their
fellow-citizens the arrival of the distinguished guest of their country,
i This beautiful punch-bowl, belonging to CoL
John Bayard, and now in the posseesion of his
descendant, Mrs. Jas, Grant Wilson, was fre-
quently used in entertaining Washington, Lafay-
ette, and other Revolutionary worthies. It is in
perfect preservation. Editor.
2 William Paulding received his first appoint-
ment as mayor in the year 1823. He ser\'ed also
during 1824, and again in the years 1826 and 1827.
He was a nephew of that John Paulding of Tarry-
town who made himself famous by the capture of
Major Andr^, and the refusal of the great bribe
which the latter offered for his release. Mayor
Paulding was bom at Tarrjrtown, came to New-
Tork about 1796, engaging in the profession of the
law, and soon established a lucrative practice.
Early in the present century he married a daugh-
ter of Philip Rhinelander. During the war of
1812, Mr. Paulding was earnest in his efforts to
awaken a military spirit among the citizens, and
he rose to the rank of brigadier-general of militia.
He was elected to Congress in 1811, but his mili-
tary duties prevented him from attending the last
session. He resided in one of the finest blocks in
the city, known as Paulding's row, in Jay street,
on the comer of Greenwich. In his old age he re-
tired to his country-seat on the Hudson, near Tar-
rytown. where he died in 1854. EnrroR.
3 It is pleasant to know, as a sequel to this,
that when Lafayette visited Boston, he was a
guest at dinner with his old friend the *' Boa-
ton merchant."
312
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the Marquis de Lafayette. The following are the arrangements made
for his reception in the City. The Committee of Arrangements of the
Corporation, the GJenerals, and other officers of the United States
Army, the officers of the Navy, the Major-Generals and the Briga-
dier-Generals of the Militia, the President of the Chamber of Com-
merce, and the committee from the Society of the Cincinnati, will
proceed, at nine o'clock this
mommg, the 16th, to Staten
Island, where the Marquis is
lodged, and escort him to the
City. They wiU be accompanied
to the Battery by the steam-
boats, all with decorations ; ex-
cept that in which the Marquis
is embarked, which will only
have the flag of the United States
and the State flag of New- York,
bands of music being on each.
The embarkation of the Mar-
quis will be annoanced by a
saluto from Fort Lafayette and
the steam-ship Robert Fulton.
The forts in the harbor will
also s^ute as the boats pass.
The masters of vessels are re-
Sc^Jy\^ quested to hoist their flags at
mast-head, and, when conve-
nient^ to dress their vessels. The bells of the city will be rung from
twelve to one o'clock. The committee request that no carriages or
horses, excepting those attached to the military and the procession,
appear south of Chambers on Broadway, Marketfleld Street or White-
ball Street, between the hours of eleven and two. The portrait-rooin
in the City Hall is appolDted to the use of the Marquis, where, dur-
ing his stay, he will, after this day, between the hours of twelve and
two, receive the visits of such of the citizens as are desirous of pay-
ing their respects to him."
In accordance with this programme, about half-past twelve o'clock,
the entire naval procession got under way, and proceeded to the city.
The embarkation at Staten Island was annoanced by a salute from
the shore, which was responded to by Fort Lafayette, and by the
steamship Robert Fulton. The beauty and interest of the scene
which the vessels afforded to the thousands of spectators, who were
viewing it from the Battery, can be bettei; imagined than described.
The steamboat Chancellor Livingston, with her venerable and
J ot,.i-^»--vT, 6^3^:*
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 313
honored passenger, was escorted up the bay by the splendid steam-
ship Robert Fulton, manned by two hundred United States sailors
from the Navy-yard, and the steamboats Oliver Ellsworth, Connecti-
eut, Olive Branch, and Nautilus, each haying on board a large party
of ladies and gentlemen and a band of music — the whole forming, as
they approached the city, one of the most imposing and splendid of
aquatic spectacles. The lofty appearance of the steamship Robert
Pulton, as she proudly " walked the waters," leading the van of the
procession, — her yards manned by sailors, and elegantly dressed from
the water to the tops of her masts with the flags and signals of all
nations, — presented a sight which not only was never forgotten by
those who witnessed it, but which has never been excelled nor even
approached (with the single exception of that of the Erie Canal) by
any aquatic procession since.* The ship Cadmus, towed by the
steamboats, brought up the rear, her towering spars decorated in the
most elegant and fanciful manner with flags and signals. She moved
majestically, as if conscious of the veneration which was being testi-
fied for the noble patriot she had conveyed to our shores. As the pro-
cession passed Governor's Island an appropriate salute was fired from
the guns of Castle Williams.
On arriving in the city, the marquis landed at Castle Garden on
carpeted stairs prepared for the occasion, and under an arch richly
decorated with flags and wreaths of laurel. On stepping ashore,
a major-general's salute was fired from a battery of field artillery, a
national salute from the revenue-cutter and from the United States
brig Shark, at anchor ofif the Battery, and one from Fort Columbus.
Upon entering Castle Garden, the marquis was greeted with loud and
prolonged cheers from the assembled thousands, and salutations from
a large number of the friends of his youth; thence he proceeded
with the committee and the military and naval oflScers to review the
troops drawn up in line under the command of Major-General James
Benedict. The muster was, on this occasion, unusually full and splen-
did, the corps vjdng with one another in paying a tribute of respect to
the soldier of the Revolution — the friend and companion of Washing-
ton. After the review the marquis entered a barouche, drawn by four
horses, and was driven up Broadway to the City Hall. The houses to
the roofs all along the line, on both sides of that street, were filled
with spectators, and the sidewalks were also occupied by a dense
crowd ; and to the incessant huzzas of the multitude, graceful females
signified their welcome by the silent, but not less grateful and affect-
ing testimony of the waving of handkerchiefs. Never on any pre-
vious occasion had there been witnessed such a spontaneous outburst
> This statement is entirely within bcmnds — the spectacle on the occasion of the centennial of
Washington's inauguration, and the Columhus eelehration of 1892, not excepted.
314 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
of respect and affection, nor such a universal assemblage of the
heanty, fashion, and splendor of the city.'
Upon arriving at the City Hall, the marquis was conducted to the
common-council chamber, where the corporation of the city were
assembled. The members rose at hie entrance, and their chairman.
Alderman George Zabriskie, introduced him to the mayor, who weU
comed the city's guest in an appro-
priate speech. At its conclusion La-
fayette responded as follows:
8ib: While I am ho affectionately recraved
by the citizens of New- York and their worthy
repreaentativea, I feel myeelt orerbni-dened
with inexpressible emotions. The si^t of the
American shore, after so long an absence ; the
recollection of the m&ny respected friends and
dear companions no more to be fonnd on this
..>,..■.» r.«-™» « land; the pleasure to reoognize those who sor-
Vive; this immense conoonrse of a free Bepab-
lioau population who so kindly welcome me; the admirable appearaaoe of the tvoops;
the presence of a corps of the national navy, — have excited sentiments to irtdeh no
human language can be adequate. You have been pleased, sir, to allnde to the hap-
piest times, to the unalloyed enjoyments of my public life; it is the pride of my life to
have been one of the eorUest adopted sons of America. I am proud, also, to odd that,
upward of forty years ago, I have been particulaiiy honored with the freedom of this
city. I beg you, Ur. Mayor, I b^ yon, gentiemen, to aooept yourselves, and to tana-
mtt to the citizens of New-Tork, the homage of my everiastin^r gratitude, devotion,
and respect.
At the conclusion of this address, which was received with the most
enthusiastic demonstrations, the marquis, attended by the mayor and
common council, retired from the council-chamber to a platform in
front of the City Hall, where they received a marching salute fipom the
troops. The common council then accompanied their guest to the
City Hotel (where rooms had been fitted up for his reception), and
partook of a sumptuous dinner. What must have been the feelings
which warmed the bosoms of his entertainers when they reflected to
whom these honors were given ! — that it was to a man who, in his
youth, had devoted his life and fortune to the cause of their country ;
who willingly and most cheerfully had shed his blood in the acquire-
ment of its independence, and, through all the desponding scenes of
the Revolution, never forsook the side of his and their country's
father, the beloved Washington !
I The only other occBaioDB vhen this demon- > The two BUiff-lloiw representAd above were
Btrmtion was nearl; — though oot qnite — equaled made (Tom the oak of the frigate CouBtitnlkni.
In the dty of New-York, were those of the cele- when she was flrst rebuilt, after the war of 1SI2.
bration of the opening of the Croton aqaeduct. They were formerly the property of tlie hero
■nd the fonernls of Presldeat WilliBm Henry Commodore Hull, and are now in the poiiiiiiiiiiliiii
Harrison and of Vloe-Prealdent Henry Wilaon. of the Editor of tbla work.
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 315
In the evening, the fronts of the City Hall, the City Hotel, and other
public and private buildings were brilliantly illuminated; the theaters
and public gardens displayed transparencies and fireworks; rockets
blazed from the different housetops; and an immense balloon was
sent up from Castle Garden, representing the famous horee Eclipse
mounted by an ancient knight in armor. Hilarity reigned supreme.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 18th, General Lafayette, accom-
panied by his son, visited the Navy-yard — dining with the comman-
dant and a few invited guests; and, in the evening of the same day,
went to the rooms of the New- York Historical Society. A large
number of distinguished citizens had collected at the latter place to
meet him, and, on his entrance into the room, he was conducted by
Doctor David Hosack and General Philip Van Cortlandt to the chair
that had once been the seat of the unfortunate Louis XVI- Over the
chair, and decorated with Revolutionary emblems, was hung the por-
trait of Lafayette, painted for General Stevens in 1784. Thus was an
opportunity afforded the audience of gazing at the same time upon the
young and chivalrous warrior of the Revolution, and upon the same
man who, by forty years' hard service since, had ripened into an old
age full of wisdom and honors, without having tarnished the blight
escutcheon of his justly deserved fame by a single act.
As soon as Lafayette had taken his seat. Doctor Hosack, in a grace-
l Tlw UlnstntioD in the text 1b kfler one of tbe
view* KiTenin J. Hllborf ■ " PleturewiDe Sketches
tn AmeiicK," published In Pftrls In 1826. There
is Uttle donbt that intereat Id Fnnoe In such
iketehM WM (timnlAWd by the MVDunts ot the
reception which had been recenll; uxorded to
LsfBTBtte, Provoost utreet Is now Frankbn street,
■nd Chapel street is named Church. Editoii.
2 Presented to the New-York Historical Sodetr
by QoDvemeor Morris.
316
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ful address, tendered him his election as an honorary member of the
society ; to which the general responded in the following words :
Sir: With the most lively gratitude, I receive the honor which the Historical
Society of New- York has conferred in electing me one of its members. Permit me,
also, thankfully to acknowledge the flattering manner in which you are pleased to
announce this mark of their benevolence. The United States, Sir, are the first nation
in the records of history who have founded their Constitution upon an honest investi-
gation and clear definition of their national and social rights. Nor can we doubt
that, notwithstanding the combinations made elsewhere by despotism and aristocracy
against those sacred rights of mankind, immense majorities in other countries shall
not in vain observe the happiness and prosperity of a free, virtuous, and enlightened
people.
The next day was spent in visiting the Academy, of Arts, and in
receiving the calls of the members of the bar, the French residents of
the city, and all citizens who desired to pay their respects.
At an early hour on the following morning, the city again presented
a scene of bustle and activity, preparatory to the departure of La-
fayette and suite for Boston. At seven o'clock, the horse-artillery,
commanded by Colonel Arcularius, paraded in Broadway in front of
Washington Hall, and, at eight o'clock, took up their line of march to
Harlem, in order to precede the escort which was to accompany the
marquis to that village. This escort consisted of a squadron of cavalry,
the corporation in carriages, and a number of citizens mounted. The
general breakfasted with Mayor Paulding, at half-past seven, and
repaired immediately after to the City Hotel, whence the entire cav-
alcade, under the command of General Prosper M. Wetmore, as bri-
gade-major, moved up Broadway to Bond street, and thence up Third
Avenue.^ The streets were thronged with people, and the general
rode uncovered, and repeatedly returned their expressions of kindness
and attachment by bowing. " Thus, for the present,'' said the " Com-
mercial Advertiser," " have closed the attentions of our citizens to
this excellent man. The arrangements of our civil and military
officers were judicious and well executed; and we are told that the
General has not only been highly gratified, but happily disappointed,
in the reception with which he has met. The General's journey will
be rapid, as he intends being at Harvard Commencement on Tuesday
next. His stay at the eastward must also be short, as he has engaged
to be in Baltimore on the 15th proximo."^ On his passage through the
^ Conversations of the writer with the late Gen-
eral Wetmore.
2 At this time there was a great rivalry between
Philadelphia and New- York as to which city
should receive the marquis more splendidly. A
correspondent, writing to the "Commercial Adver-
tiser " at this time, says : " The great object here
seems to be to rival the reception given to the
General in New-Tork ; and, so far as it respects
the military parade, the display of paintings, ban-
ners, arches, Ac, they will succeed ; for the very
good reason that we had but 'twenty-four hours to
make our preparations, and they have had more
than thirty-four days. But nothing that can be got
up here can equal, or come anywhere near, die
naval fits in the harbor of New-Tork.
'* There are many splendid triumphal and civic
arches erected here, and the streets through which
RETUBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 317
city on September 10, on his way south, he was given a grand con-
cert of sacred music at St. Paul's.
" Such," writes Colonel Stone, in closing an account of the ovation,
"is a faint outline of the proceedings of the last few days, which shine
proudly in the annals of our country, — proceedings which were more
brilliant than any that had ever been witneBsed
in America, and which will rarely, if ever, he
equaled. They were proud days for the cause
of enlightened and liberal principles. No ful-
some adulation was here extorted by the power or splendor of royalty,
but every feeling and every movement were the spontaneous bursts
of admiration and gratitude for the character and eervices of a great
benefactor of the whole civilized world, come among us in a private
capacity, and in the unaffected -attire of republican simplicity."'
Uie Qeneral ta to pass »re lined witfa apectktora.
The wtndoiTR of the hcnuea are tilled, anil there are
UiDiuBDda of speetatora Id the boiea, or Mmponry
atagea. which have been erected for the purposen
of private ■eeommodatioQ and priTate (tain- There
■eate are let at from twenty -five to fifty cents each,
and not for three or four dollars as haa been re-
ported in Nev-York. And they are not weU filled,
notwilhetaiidliig the trifling expense. There are
many soeietiea out to-day, handaomely dreBsed.
aod the proceaaian will be much lai^er than haa
erer been vltDeeiied In America.
" It is nippoeed that the Qeneral will arrlTO at
tiie Ball of the Declantton of Independence [In-
dependence Sail] at about four o'elook. Here he
win be rMeived by the Corporation, and presented
(o the principal citiiens, who have the good for-
tone to he gueeta. AlW which he will return to
hU lodginga at IlK Handon House. To-morrow
the General dines with the Corporation. On Sat-
urday he attends a Hasonio festival. On Monday
eveninif he attends a Grand Civic Ball, and departs
for the South on Tuesday."
1 Colonel Stone here speaks feellnBly, havinft be-
come a great personal admirer of the marquis dur-
ing his visit to the United States. Together with
Thnrlow Weed, he aoeompanled Lafayette on bis
tour through New- York State; and It was while
Lafayette was stopping at Saratoga Springs that
the following Incident occurred. It chanced that
the day before the marqaia's depsrtare from Sar-
atoga, be was on the piaua of the United States
Hotel, surrounded by a group eonslBtlng of Mrs.
Bush, of Pblladelpbla; Mrs. Harrison OrayOUs,
of Boston ; Madame Jumel, of New- York ; Thur-
low Weed, and Colonel Stone, As the company
was about to break up, l>afayette, shaking bands
with Colonel Stone and Mr. Weed, aaked them if
318
HISTOBy OF NEW-YOBK
The project of a gi-and canal conDecting the great lakes of the in-
terior with tide-water was the first thought of the eity after the peace.
General Washington and Governor George Clinton, as early as the
summer of 1783, on their trip to Saratoga Springs and through the
Mohawk Valley, had considered the feasibility of a canal from Os-
wego, by way of Wood Creek, to Albany. Two years later (1785)
Christopher Colles, an ingenious mechanician, had memorialized the
legislature of New- York for the establishment of a canal to connect
the Mohawk with the Hudson; and, in 1792, a company was char-
tered which in five years opened the passage from Schenectady to
Oneida, intending to continue it
to Lake Ontario, for which exten-
sion the route had been surveyed
in 1791. But it was not until 1810
that the canal project fonnd its
great advocate in De Witt Clin-
ton, whose memorial on the sub-
ject, signed by many prominent
men of the city, gave a fresh im-
petus to the movement
It was, accordingly, most fitting
that the city which had not only
originated but had so nobly sup-
ported the project of the Erie
Canal from its beginning, should
take the chief part in the cere-
monies attending its realization.
Probahly no project of internal
rt'tk. C^^^^n. C^'n^^ improvement ever met with such
bitter and malignant opposition as
that of the Erie Canal ; and, great as was the assistance given to the
canal project by the act of the New- York legislature of April, 1811, the
ohstacles in the way of its successful completion were by no means
removed. The same incredulity as to the practicability of the canal,
and the same apprehensions as to the capacity of the State to famish
the means to complete it, continued to raise a fierce opposition in the
legislature against any appropriation for carrying out the work which
fStc
he could be of sorrico to diem In return for th^
■ttention to him.
" All that Mr. Weed and myself dealrB," repUed
Crionel Stone, "is s lock of yoor hair."
"You shall hftve it. gentlemen," answered the
fteneral; "but aa I have made a vow that man
Shalt never cot m; hair more, I Burrender myself,
my dear madame, Into your hands."
As he said Oila he took the edssors from Colonel
Stone and gnwefnllyBaTe them to Mn. Rush.
He then ndsed his wig, and Hrn. Bnali, cnttlnc
off three locks of the anowy-whlta hair, kept Ona
herself and handed the other two to Colonel Stone
and Mr. Weed. The scene made ■ lastln{[ impres-
sion on all who witnessed It This lock nA hair I
still have, and treasure it as a most predons idle.
> From a painting in the poeaesslon of her
grandson De Witt Clinton Jones, Esq. . to whom I
am indebted for several other family portraits.
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 319
it had itself authorized. Mauy attempts were accordingly made to
arrest, or at least to curtail, the project ; and often, during the pro-
gress of the undertaking, it seemed as if it would be completely aban-
doned. Party spirit at that time ran high, and the greatest effort on
the part of its supporters was required to persuade the people of the
State to give it their support at the polls. In accomplishing this re-
sult, the New- York "Commercial Advertiser,^ the oldest newspaper
of New- York city,^ gave powerful aid. That paper, which had al-
ways been the organ of the Federalists, became, upon Colonel Stone
assuming its managemeuit in 1820, a stanch advoisate of the Clinton-
ians. A strong personal friendship for Governor De Witt Clinton on
the part of its editor, together with a firm conviction of the necessity
for a canal through the interior of New- York State, led to the posi-
tion thus assumed. The trials and rebuffs experienced by Clinton and
his supporters in pushing the canal project, and the energy which
fought it through to a triumphant end, are matters of history.
The Erie Canal was completed in the fall of 1825. At ten o'clock
on the morning of October 26 of that year the first canal-boat, the
Seneca Chief, left Buffalo, having on board Governor Clinton, Joshua
Foreman, Colonel Stone, Chancellor Livingston, Thurlow Weed, and
General Stephen Van Rensselaer ; and the booming of cannon, placed
at intervals of a few miles — within hearing distance — along the en-
tire line of the canal from Buffalo to Albany, and thence along the
banks of the Hudson to Sandy Hook, announced the successful ter-
mination of the enterprise — the final union of the great lakes with
the Atlantic, and the presage of the power and wealth of New- York
city as the great gateway of the western hemisphere.^
In New- York city, especially, this event was celebrated by extra-
ordinary civic and military ceremonies ; and the citizens gave them-
selves up to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Nor was this joy
ill-timed or excessive. " For a single State to achieve such a victory,
not only over the doubts and fears of the wary, but over the obstacles
of nature, causing miles of massive rocks at the mountain-ridge to
yield to its power, turning the current of error as well as that of the
Tonawanda, piling up the waters of the mighty Niagara as well as
those of the beautiful Hudson; — in short, causing a navigable river
to flow with gentle current down the steepy mount of Lockport ; to
leap the river of Genesee ; to encircle the brow of Irondequoit as with
the laurePs wreath ; to march through the rich fields of Palmyra and
of Lyons ; to wend its way through the quicksands of the morass at
the Cayuga; to pass unheeded the delicious licks at Onondja; to
smile through Oneida's verdant landscape ; to hang upon the arm of
1 The oldest, that is, then in existence.
2 The time taken for the sound to come from Buffalo to Sandy Hook was one hour and a half.
mSTOBY OP NEW- YORK
the ancient Mohawk, and, with her, after gayly, stepping down the
cadence of the Little Falls and the Cohoee, to rush to the embrace of
the sparkling Hudson — and all in the space of eight short years —
was a work of which the oldest and richest nations of Christendom
might be proud." Colonel Stone, as one of the most zealous cham-
pions of the Erie Canal, was appointed to write the "Narrative of the
Erie Canal Celebration," receiving a
silver medal and a box (made out of
the timber of the Seneca Chief) from
the common council of New-York
cit^, together with the thanks of that
body.'
The naval and land processions in
the city on this occasion were unique,
and, withal, were projected and car-
ried out on a truly magnificent scale.
The grand fleet arrived by a precon-
certed plan in the waters of New-
York bay before daylight on Novem-
ber 4, 1825; and the roar of cannon
from different points and the peals of
numerous church bells greeted the
y ushering in of sunrise. Shortly aft«r-
"^^^ ward signals were hoisted by the flag-
ship of the squadron, in response to which the new and superb steam-
boat Washington bore proudly down to welcome the fleet. She tbd
alongside the Chancellor, and a committee of the corporation of the
city, with the officers of the governor's guard, came on board to
tender his Excellency Governor Clinton their congratulations on his
arrival in New- York waters from those of Lake Erie. At half-past
eight the corporation and their guests proceeded to the steamboats
Washington, Fulton, and Providence, stationed at the foot of White-
hall street. At the same place was also stationed the Commerce, with
Sis/aymy^ u'iy^^<^
< Colonel Stone's narrative of tfae celebration,
from which the above citation is rasde. wae pub-
lished by the cominoD muncll ander the title
of the "Grand Erie Caoal Celebration, " aecom-
panied by a memoir of the ureal work by Cad-
wallBder D. Golden. In connection with the Erie
Canal, and ite Influence in building up the Interior
towns of the State, Colonel Stone waa wont to
relate the following anecdote : In 1820 he visited
Syraciue witb Joshua ForMnan, the founder of
that city, and one of the earliest and most lealous
friends of the Erie Canal. "I lodged for the
ntebt." says Colonel Stone, "at a miserable tav-
ern, thronged by a company of salt-boilers (Tom
Salina, forming a group of about as rough-look-
ing specimens of humanity as I had ever seen.
Thdr wild visages, beards thick and long, and
matted hair, even now rise np In dark, distant,
and pietnreaque effect before me. It was in Oe-
tober, and a flnrry of snow dorlng the night had
rendered tbe morning aspect of the country more
dreary than the evening Ijetore. The few hoium,
standing npon low and nkarshy ground, and mr-
rounded by trees and tangled thickets, presented
a very uninvltiiig scene. 'Hr. Foreman.' said L
' do yon call this a village t It would make an owl
weep to fly over itP 'Never mind,' said he, bi
reply, 'you will live to see It a city yetl"* Colooel
Stone did, indeed, live to see It a city, when he
wrote the above in 1B40, with a mayor and aldel^
men, and a population of more than twelve tboo-
sand souls, Editok.
t From a painting In the possession of bis de-
scendant William E. Ver Pbook, E^., of fiahkilL
BETUBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 321
the elegant safety-barge Lady Clinton. This barge, with the Lady
Van Rensselaer, had been set apart by the corporation for the recep-
tion of the invited ladies and their attendants. The Lady Clinton
was decorated with a degree of taste and elegance that was equally
delightful and surprising. From stem ^^ d jl, Cl^^a^
to stern she was ornamented with ever- ^^'^^^^ ^b
greens hung in festoons and intertwined with roses of various hues,
China asters, and many other flowers alike beautiful. In one of the
niches below the upper deck was the bust of Clinton, the brow being
encircled with a wreath of laurel and roses. Mrs. Clinton and many
other distinguished ladies were on board of the barge, which, though
the party was select, was crowded. Captain Seymour, however, paid
every attention to his beautiful charge; every countenance beamed
with satisfaction, and every eye sparkled with delight.
Meanwhile, as if ^olus and Neptune had entered into a compact to
make this occasion as joyous as possible, the sea was as tranquil and
smooth as a summer lake; and the mist which came on between
seven and eight in the morning having partially floated away, the
sun shone bright and beautiful. As the naval procession filed past
the Battery it was saluted by the military, the revenue cutter, and
Castle Williams on Governor's Island; and, on passing the Narrows, it
was also saluted by Forts Lafayette and Tompkins.^ It then pro-
ceeded to the United States schooner Porpoise, Captain John P. Zant-
zinger, moored within Sandy Hook, at the point where the grand
ceremony was to be performed. A deputation, composed of Aldermen
Elisha W. King, Davis, and Jacob B. Taylor, was then sent on board
the steamboat Chancellor Livingston, to accompany his Excellency
the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, and the several committees
from Buffalo, Utica, Albany, and other places, on board the steam-
boat Washington.
The boats were thereupon formed in a circle around the schooner,
preparatory to the ceremony; when Charles Ehind, addressing the
governor, remarked " that he had a request to make which he was
confident it would afford his Excellency gi-eat pleasure to grant. He
was desirous of preserving a portion of the water used on this memo-
rable occasion, in order to send it to our distinguished friend and late
illustrious visitor, Major-General Lafayette; and for that purpose
Dummer and Co. had prepared some bottles of American fabric for
the occasion, and they were to be conveyed to the general in a box
made by D. Phybe from a log of cedar brought from Erie in the canal-
boat Seneca Chief." The governor replied that a more pleasing task
could not have been imposed upon him, and expressed his acknow-
ledgment to Mr. Rhind for having suggested the measure.
1 Since changed to Fort Wadsworth.
Vol. III.— 21.
322 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
His Excellency De Witt Clinton then proceeded to perform the
ceremony of commingling the waters of the lake with the ocean, by
pouring a keg of those of Lake Erie into the Atlantic; upon which he
delivered the following address: " This solemnity, at this place, on the
first arrival of vessels from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and
commemorate the navigable communication which has been accom-
plished between our Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean in
about eight years, to the extent of more than four hundred and
twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the
people of the State of New York; and may the God of the Heavens
and the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and render it sub-
servient to the best interests of the human race ! ^
Dr. Mitchill, whose extensive correspondence with every part of
the world enabled him to fill his cabinet with articles rare and
curious, then completed the ceremony by pouring into the briny
deep bottles of water from the Ganges and Indus of Asia ; the Nile
and the Gambia of Africa; the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, and
the Danube of Europe ; the Mississippi and Columbia of North, and
the Orinoco, La Plata, and Amazon of South America. Cadwallader
D. Golden then came forward and presented to the mayor an able me-
moir upon the subject of canals and inland navigation in general
Indeed, as Stone, in his narrative, says : " Never before was there
such a fleet collected, and so superbly decorated ; and it is very pos-
sible that a display so grand, so beautiful, and we even add so sub-
lime, will never be witnessed again.* We know of nothing with which
it can be compared. The naval fete given by the Prince Eegent of
England, upon the Thames, during the visit of the allied sovereigns
of Europe to London, after the dethronement of Napoleon, has been
spoken of as exceeding everything of the kind ever witnessed in
Europe. But gentlemen who had an opportunity of witnessing both,
have declared that the spectacle in the waters of New-York so far
transcended that in the metropolis of England as scarcely to admit of
a comparison. The day, as we have before remarked, was uncom-
monly fine. No winds agitated the surface of the mighty deep ; and
during the performance of the ceremonies, the boats, with their gay
decorations, lay motionless in beauty. The orb of day darted his
genial rays upon the bosom of the waters, where they played as tran-
quilly ^as upon the natural mirror of a secluded lake. Indeed, the
elements seemed to repose, as if to gaze upon each other, and par-
ticipate in the beauty and grandeur of the sublime spectacle. Every
object appeared to pause, as if to invite reflection and prepare the
mind for deep impressions — impressions which, while we feel them
stealing upon the soul, impart a consciousness of their durability.
1 Up to the present time the writer's conjecture has been proved correct.
BETtTBN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 323
It was one of those few bright visions whose evanescent glory is
allowed to light ap the path of human life — which, as they are pass-
ing, we feel can never return ; and which, in diffusing a sensation of
pleasing melancholy, consecrate, as it were, all smrounding objects,
even to the atmosphere we inhale."
Another circumstance connected with these demonstrations of good
feeling must not be omitted : On boai*d of the Swallow an elegant
breakfast was given, in honor of the occasion, by her commander,
Lieutenant Baldock, to a numerous company of ladies and gentlemen,
on which occasion was tastefully displayed a series of elegant and
appropiiate drawings in water
colors, representing Britannia, Columbia, the Eagle, the Lion, and an
English and an American sailor, Neptune, Liberty, and the flags and
shields of both nations, all classically arranged, denoting good feeling,
fellowship, and union of sentiment. There were also round one of
the devices for a tower two designs of canal-basins, with double
locks — one as coming through Welsh mountains, the other as
through American mountains of granite; and on their basements
were conspicuously inscribed " Clinton and Bridgewater," in honor of
men whose pursuits in each country were so similar. The whole was
designed by John R. Smith, and executed by him and an assistant.'
Meanwhile, the head of the land procession, under General Augustus
Fleming, marshal of the day, assisted by Colonels King and 'Jones,
Major John Low,' and Mr. Van Winkle, had already arrived on the Bat^
tery, where it was designed the whole should pass in review before
I It wcmld be eitrenielj Interesting if one could venir— to be preSBTTed h> long u New- York dty
know where tbcH wrtor^olor paintings »re now Bhall endnra u » city — they wonld be simply
to be found : for tbey most, of coniwi, bave been prieeless.
d<>poritcd In K>me public inBtitntioQ. I have, i Tbe bwiker, and father of Hr. Able! A. Low,
bowcver, ssArohed for tbem iji yaln. As a son- the eminent Eaat India merehftnt.
324 HISTORY OF NEW-YOEK
the corporation and their guests, and the spectators on board of the
other boats, which lay to near the shore to afiford an opportunity of
witnessing the cars, and banners, and other decorations of the several
societies, professions, and callings which had turned out in the city in
honor of the event commemorated. The Washington and Chancellor
Livingston touched at Pier No. 1, in the East Eiver, disembarking the
corporation and their friends at the proper time for them to fall into
line in the rear of the procession. The fleet then dispersed, each vessel
repairing to its own moorings; and thus, without a single accident to
alloy the festivities of the day, ended an agreeable fete^ unrivaled in
beauty and magnificence in the annals of the United States, and
perhaps of the world. Indeed, the magnificence of this naval pageant
is worth dwelling upon, since, in all of the different land and aquatic
processions of recent years, the palm, by universal consent, has in-
variably been awarded to those upon the land.
The civic procession was composed of the several benevolent and
mechanical societies of New- York city, the fire department, the offi-
cers of the State artillery and infantry in uniform, the literary and
scientific institutions, the members of the bar, the members of many
occupations and callings not formally organized into societies, ac-
companied by fine bands of music, exclusive of the corporation, their
associate committees and distinguished guests, who fell into line in
the rear of the procession, as before mentioned, at the Battery, This
procession, the largest of the kind ever witnessed in America, began
forming, six abreast, in Greenwich street, near the Battery, and ex-
tended to the distance of more than a mile and a half. The line
of march was taken up at half-past ten. Its first movement was
a countermarch of the whole column upon the right wing. By this
manoeuver every society and division was brought into such close
proximity to each other as to afford every individual a distinct view
of the whole. The procession moved from Greenwich street through
Canal street into Broadway, up Broadway to Broome street, across
Broome street to the Bowery, down the Bowery to Pearl street,
down Pearl street to the Battery, over the Battery to Broadway,
and thence to the City Hall. Along the whole extensive line of
march the spectacle was of a most imposing and animating de-
scription. The various societies and occupations seemed to have been
engaged in a laudable strife, regardless of expense, to excel each other
in the richness of their banners and the beauty and taste exhibited
in their badges and other decorations. Nor had the money of the
societies been expended, or the skill of the artists of our city exer-
cised, in vain. For never did a more imposing array of banners of
exquisite design and magnificent appearance stream and flutter in the
breeze. Many of the societies, likewise, had furnished themselves
BETUBM OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 325
326 mSTOBY OF new-york
with cars of gigantic structure, upon which their respective artisans
were busily engaged in their several occupations. The ornaments
of many of these cars were curiously wrought, and they were other-
wise beautifully and splendidly decorated. The richest Turkey or
Brussels carpets covered the floors of some, whilst the costly gild-
ing of others reflected the golden rays of the sun with dazzling eflful-
gence. The eye of beauty, too, gazed with delight upon the passing
scene; for every window was thronged, and the myriads of hand-
kerchiefs which fluttered in the air were only rivaled in whiteness
by the delicate hands which suspended them; while the glowing
cheeks, the ingenuous smiles of loveliness and innocence, and the
intelligence which beamed brightly from many a sparkling eye, pro-
claimed their possessors worthy of being the wives, mothers, and
daughters of free men.
The festivities of the day were closed in the evening by illumina-
tions of the public buildings and the principal hotels, upon many of
which appropriate transparencies were exhibited. The illumination
of the City Hotel contributed largely to the brilliant appearance of
Broadway. Great taste was also displayed in the illumination of the
New-York Coffee House. The front in Sloat Lane presented a bril-
liant wreath encircling the letter "C." The front in William street
displayed the words "Grand Canal" in large and glowing capitals.
We do not remember to have seen a more original and beautiful
method of illuminating than that adopted at this establishment.
Peale's Museum presented a beautiful transparency — rays of glory,
containing a motto illustrative of the dependence of the fine arts
upon the success of commerce. Scudder's Museum, Ukewise, was
brilliantly illuminated, and a very large and beautiful transparency
was exhibited in front. The Park Theater was illuminated, and also
exhibited appropriate transparencies without; while within an inter-
lude, composed for the occasion by Mr. Noah,^ with scenery specially
prepared for the occasion, was received with great applause. A simi-
lar production, from the pen of Samuel Woodworth,^ was played at the
Chatham Theater, and was likewise well received. The house of Moses
B. Seixas, in Broadway, was illuminated, and an appropriate transpar-
ency, representing Fortune embarking on board of a canal-boat
loaded with bags of money, and several appropriate emblematical
devices were exhibited. At "The Lunch'' a transparency was shown,
representing the canal-boat Seneca Chief receiving on board his Ex-
cellency the Governor, the Buffalo deputation, Indian chiefs, etc.,
preparatory to her passage from Lake Erie into the canal. But the
City Hall was the grand point of attraction, and too much praise
cannot be given to our corporation for the great exertions which
1 Mordecai M. Noah, tho author and journalist. 2 The author of '' The Old Oaken Bucket/'
RETDBN OF PEACE, AMD COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 327
it made to contribute to the enjoyment and festivities of the day.
The City Hall, under its direction, was superbly illuminated, the
front presenting a very magnificent transparency, on which were
painted interesting views of the canal, columns with the names of
worthies, figures emblematical of the occasion, etc.' The fireworks,
prepared by Mr. Wilcox, far exceeded the public expectation, and
were unrivaled of the kind. Such
rockets were never before seen in
New- York. They were uncommon-
ly large. Now they shot forth al-
ternately showers of fiery serpents
and dragons, gorgous and hydras,
and chimeras dire; and now they
burst forth and rained down show-
ers of stars, floating in the atmo-
sphere like balls of liquid silver.^
The volcanic eruption of fire-balls
and rockets, with which this exhi-
bition was concluded, afforded a
spectacle of vast beauty and sub-
limity. They were sent up appar-
ently from the rear of the hall to
a great height, diverged like rays
from a common center, then, float-
ing like meteors of the brightest
light, they fell in graceful curves,
presenting a scene magnificent and
enchanting. The park was filled to overflowing; not less than ten
thousand admiring spectators having collected in it to view the
splendid display.
" Thus passed," says Stone, " a day so glorious to the State and
city, and so deeply interesting to the countless thousands who were
permitted to behold and mingle in its exhibitions. We have before
said that aH attempts at description must be utterly in vain. Others
can comprehend the greatness of the occasion. The Grand Canal is
^^^y^fce^"
I The aty HaD waa iUuminated with 1542 wu
ondlM. 4M lamps, and 310 variegated lamps,
total 2306. To eelipae tbia great effusion of liftbt
was not within the power of ordinary flreworks.
hmee eitraordlnaiy means were employed, con-
slstlDg of 13 eompoanded verbea, each contaiDlDg
5B pounds of brUllant Chinese and. diamond flres,
which changed »lt«rnately. These flres were sup-
ported by a background of spur Are, which pro-
jected 1500 brllUaat start, InterKctloe each other
la fanciful directions. During the evening were
projected 320 foor-pound rockets, 30 nine-pound
and 21 twenty-poand roekela, total 374; supple-
mented by a great variety of minor amusing
pieces, I'hI« page 32B. Editob.
3 It would seem as If our pteMut Areworks,
splendid as they are, are in no wise superior to
those of seventy years since.
) Dr. John Nellson Abecl, D. D.. was bom in
the city of New- York in 1T69, and was the son of
Colonel James Abeel, who served throuch the
Revolutionary war on Waahlngton'n staff. He
was appointed one of the ministers of the Col-
legiate Church in 1795, remaining in that office
until his death ; and he was one of the founders
of the New-Tork Historical Society. Editor.
das HISTORY OP NEW-YORK
completed ; and the waters of Lake Erie have been borne upon its
surface, and mingled with the ocean. But it is only those who were
present and beheld the brilliant scenes of the day, that can form any
adequate idea of their grandeur, and of the joyous feelings which
pervaded all ranks of the community. Never before had been pre-
sented to the sight a fleet so beautiful as that which then graced our
waters. The numerous array of steamboats and barges proudly
breasting the billows, and dashing on their way regardless ot oppos-
ing winds and tides; the flags of all nations, and banners of every
hue, streaming splendidly in the breeze; the dense columns of black
smoke ever and anon sent up from the boats, now partially obscuring
the view, and now spreading widely over the sky and softening down
the glare of light and color ; the
roar of cannon from the various
forts, accompanied by heavy vol-
umes of white smoke, contrast-
ing finely with the dark smoke
of the steamboats; the crowds
of happy beings who thronged
the decks, and the voice of
whose joy was mingled with the
sound of music, and not unfre-
quentiy drowned by the hissing
of the steam : all these, and a thousand other circumstances, awak-
ened an interest so intense that the eye could not be satisfied with
seeing, nor the ear with hearing. We rejoiced, and all who were
there rejoiced; although, as we looked upon the countless throng,
we could not but remember the exclamation of Xerxes, and feel that
'a hundred years hence not one of all that vast multitude will be
alive.' The splendor of beauty and the triumph of art serve to ex-
cite, to dazzle, and often to improve the condition and promote the
welfare of mankind; but the 'fashion of this world passeth away';
beauty and art, with all their triumphs and splendors, endure but
for a season; and earth itself, with all its lakes and oceans, is only
as the small dust of the balance in the sight of Him who dwells
beyond the everlasting hills."'
On Monday evening, November 7, the festivities of the city were
appropriately concluded by a ball, which was given in the Lafayette
Amphitheater, in Laurens street, by the officers of the militia, asso-
iThU remark Is brought home to ufl continually our ferry-boBta snd see the cniwda ranraing to
In oar own eiperipnoe. Ag the writer mys, prob- Bud fro, give t, tbonsbt to the fact that of aO
ably no one who witnessed this celebration — an- these human beings a few short years will see
lees it was tlie babo in arms carried by some them in their Rraves, Indeed, as Grmy has well
mother who herself wished to view the procea- said in Ms Immortal elegy, neither "storied nm"
^n — now lives. It is, of coarse, a melanehoiy nor "animated bust" can call back the fleeting
thought; and yet how many who d^y cross on bnath, nor the flattery of inseripttons, deMrrcd
1LAKHA.TTAH RESERVOIR, CHAMBERS STREET.
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 329
eiated with a committee of citizens. The circus building, compris-
ing a spacious stage used for dramatic representations, was enlarged
by the addition of an edifice in the rear, which had been used for a
riding-school. These were connected in such a manner as to form an
area of much greater extent than that of any other ball-room in the
United States, being nearly two hundred feet in length, and varying
from sixty to about one hundred feet in width. The usual entrance to
the circus from Laurens street was closed up, and new entrances opened
from Thompson street, in the rear, through the riding-school. The
front was brilliantly illuminated, presenting in large letters, formed
by bright lamps extending over the doors across the building, the
words " The Grand Canal." The whole area within was newly floored
for the occasion, and arranged in three compartments by the original
divisions of the audience part of the circus, the stage, and the addi-
tional building on Thompson street. Of these we shall speak in
order, but briefly. The two tiers of boxes were reserved, and deco-
rated for the accommodation of that part of the company which chose
to retire and be spectators of the busy assemblage below. Access
was obtained to them through a flight of steps in the middle of the
boxes, of which the center one had been removed. The dome in this
part of the hall was ornamented with green wreaths, which were
appropriately festooned with beautiful and various flowers, sweeping
gracefully to the pillars which supported the boxes, terminating at
and around them. Above the proscenium were the names of the
engineers who had been employed in the construction of the canal,
viz.: Briggs, White, James Geddes, Benjamin Wright, David Thomas.
Opposite these, and in the center of the circle of boxes, was a bust of
Washington, surrounded with evergreens, and around were inscribed
the names of the canal commissioners : Eli Hart, William C. Bouck,*
Myron Holley, Simeon De Witt, William North, Robert R. Livingston,
Robert Fulton, De Witt Clinton, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Gouverneur
Morris, Thomas Eddy, Samuel Young, Henry Seymour, Peter B.
Porter, and Joseph EUicott.
** From the roof," says Stone, "splendid chandeliers added their blaze
of light to the numberless lamps which hung nearly parallel to the
upper boxes. Passing into the upper apartment, the eye was met by
a scene of equal splendor. One side of this room, which is the stage
of the theater, was formed by a beautiful piece of scenery represent-
or undeserved, '^soothe the dull, cold ear of
death *" ; and it is also a sad, a melancholy reflec-
tion, how very short a period do nearly all the
memorials reared to the memory of the dead by
the hand of surviving friendship and affection
endure ! A few, a very few brief years, and the
heiMistone has sunk, the slab is broken, the short
column or pyramid overturned; and yet, while
they do remain, they are often mementos of
interesting incidents or endearing recollections.
For a letter from Colonel Stone to Dr. Hosack
upon the legislative proceedings of 1816-17, in
regard to the Erie Canal, see Hosack^s '* Memoir
of De Witt Clinton."
1 Afterward governor of New- York State, hav-
ing been elected in 1843.
*>0 mSTOKT OF NEW-TOBK
iiig the interior of an elegant chamber, with proper doors, hand-
somely ornamented. The other side was occupied by a band of music,
placed behind a species of turret, od the face of which arches were
skillfully painted, and in the distance of which landscapes were repre-
sented. Here was also hung the painting, spoken of near the b^in-
ning of this narrative, from the cabin
of the canal-boat, faithfully represent-
ing the whole arrangement in that
f~^^----^^^ifif^.^;z-.i place. The music of the band, which
SJ^d^^^a/Tj^^r-^ was placed here, was excellent, and we
i-i>,' luTi^jju , ■■' a^l/h..,,. discovered that the bugle-notes were
those of "WiUis of West-Pomt Our
national stripes were suspended from
the center and tastefnlly looped up
from the extremities of the ceiling, forming a complete circumference
of regular semicircles, meeting in a common center. Here, also, were
lamps and chandeliers, and wreaths of flowers, and garlands of roses.
But it was to the third apartment that the exertions of the committee
were directed. Imagine in a large hall, collected and displayed in one
grand view, the flags and emblems and costly decorations, which, in
a continued procession, called forth such enthusiasm of admiration.
Imagine them presented in one overwhelmiug view blazing with light,
and bright with reflected beauty; and when a proper idea is formed
of the complete enchantment of the scene, add to this, in one pro-
digious mirror, the whole reflected back in trebled brilliancy, doubling
the immense area, including the thousand lights in tenfold greater
^lendor. Floods of light were poured forth from every point, which
were glanced back by the glittering array of the military, and a
thousand other objects of brilliant reflection.
" But entrancing, above all other enchantments of the scene, was
the living enchantment of beauty — the trance which wraps the senses
in the presence of loveliness, when woman walks the halls of fancy —
magnificence herself — the brightest object in the midst of brightness
and beauty. A thousand faces were there, bright in intelligence and
radiant with beauty, looking joy and cougratulation to each other, and
spreading around the spells which the Loves and the Graces bind on
the heart of the sterner sex.
"It only remains to speak of the ladies' supper-room, which was
separated from the large apartment by flags elegantly festooned, and
raised at the given signal. Mirrors, and splendid lights, and emblems,
and statues, and devices, beyond the writer's abilities to describe, or-
namented this part of the house in common with the rest. Upon the
supper-table was placed, floating in its proper element (the waters of
Lake Erie), a miniature canal-boat, made entirely of maple-sugar, and
betuhn of peace, and completion of ebie canal 331
presented to Governor Clinton by Coloael Hinman of Utica. The re-
freshments were excellent; and, considering the vast number who
were to partake of them, very plentifully provided. At a seasonable
hour the company retired, with memories --— ^^ ._
stored with the events, and decorations, and
splendors of the Grand Canal Ball."
That this joyous and amazing demonstra-
tion was commensurate to, and fully war-
ranted by, the occasion which had called it
forth, the steady increase of the productive-
ness of the State affords conclusive proof.
Many of the supporters of the "Big Ditch,"
who at the time were regarded aa enthusi-
astic and visionary, have lived to see their
most sanguine predictions more than real-
ized, as well as the complete refutation of
the opinion which one of our greatest
, statesmen, whose zeal for internal improve-
ments could not be questioned, was known
to have expressed, that this enterprise had
been undertaken a hundred years too soon,
and that, until the lapse of another century, the strength of our popula-
tion and of our resources would be inadequate to snch a gigantic work.
While, however. New- York city was thus vindicating her claim to
a place in the van of internal improvements, she did not hesitate to
take the lead, also, in extending aid to a nation at that time strug-
gling for its release from the thraldom of an oppressor. Greece was
at this period writhing under the heel of the sultan. In the first
three years of the war that nation had received no material aid, either
in men or money. This arose, probably, from the fact that at this
time the Greeks were in no need of assistance. Fighting with en-
thusiasm and upon their own soil, they had beaten off the Turkish
hordes, and cleared most of the country of their oppressors. In this
year, however, affairs wore a different aspect. Byron, their great
friend and champion, had died the year before, and the dark days of
the revolution had begun. The Egyptian vizier had responded to
the appeals of the sultan, and his son, Ibrahim Pasha, landing an
organized and regular army on the Peloponnesus, swept everything
before him. In less than two years the Greeks were driven from the
plains and all the open country to the caves and recesses of the moun-
tains, retaining only here and there a fortress. As it was a war with-
out quarter, every one fled; for surrender was death to every man
LEGOETT H0DSE.1
332 mSTOBY OF NEW-YOEK
and dishonor to every woman. Two seasons brought them to the
point of starvation. Their vines had been pulled up, their olive-trees
burned, their fields desolated, their flocks slain and eaten. Snails and
sorrel were their only food; and the only alternative left, on the part
of the Greeks, was starvation or submission. Guerrilla bands alone
hovered around the flanks and rear of the invading hosts. At this
point Dr. Samuel Or. Howe, urged by a pure philanthropy, set out for
Greece. After experiencing many vicissitudes and languishing for
several months in a Prussian dungeon, he at length landed upon the
Peloponnesus alone, from an Austrian vessel going to Smyrna. As
there was, however, no organization
among the Greeks, he could do no-
thing; and he accordingly returned
to the United States to obtain aid.
On his arrival at Boston, he found
that Greek committees, under the
lead of Edward Everett and Daniel
Webster, were already formed ; and^
after doing what he could to organ-
ize efforts for raising supplies, be
. came to New- York, at the solicita-
tion of Colonel Stone, with whom he
had been for a long time in corre-
spondence, with a view to this end.
Colonel Stone now threw himself
heartily into the good work. He
roused his fellow-citizens through
his paper, the " Commercial Advertifler," issued stirring appeals for
aid, depicted in vivid colore the sufferings of the Greeks, and got up
private meetings composed of the wealthy men of New-Tork city, at
which large amounts of money were obtained. After doing all that
could be done in the city, he accompanied Dr. Howe upon a tour up
the Hudson River and through the western towns of the State,
preaching a sort of crusade for the relief of the Greeks.
The general results are well known. Through the efforts of those
persons who have been mentioned, the citizens of New-Tork city and
State contributed most liberally; ships were purchased, and large
amounts of grain, flour, clothing, and money were obtained, for-
warded, and distributed among the starving people of Greece, which,
by the immediate relief thus brought, and by the moral support thus
given at the most critical period of the Greek revolution, helped
materially to aid their cause.
In closing the history of this year, it only remains to say that in
May the first gas-pipes were laid by the New-York Gas-light Company,
RETUBN OF PEACE, AKD COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 333
which had been incorporated in 1823. No system for lighting the
streets was introduced until 1697, when the aldermen were charged
with enforcing the duty that "every
seventh householder, in the dark time
of the moon, should cause a lauthorn
and candle to be hung out of his
window on a pole — the expense of
which to be divided among the seven
families." At a later period the prin-
cipal streets of the city were lighted
with oil-lamps. The firat gas-pipe in-
novation extended on either side of
Broadway, from Canal street to the
Battery, and soon grew into public
favor, so that, in 1830, the Manhattan
GJas-light Company was incorporated
with a capital of $500,000— an im-
mense sum in those times — to supply
the upper part of the island.*
Ughta, one of the audleooe, a prominent Democnt,
strucli one of tbe new nilpbuT locofoco matcliea
■nd lighted the gas. A wag. irho had observed the
oecurrence, aftemard called the paHy Lotofoeo —
which name adhered, (or many years, to the
Demoeratlo party, eepeelally in New-York State.
t The BiBt Roman Catholic church built in
New-York dty, situated in Barclaj' Htreet. on
tbe comer of Church. Editok.
It la perhaps worth while
calling attention to the origin of the name Loeafoat
■aappliedtothsDenacratlcparty. InHammond's
'■Politieal History of New-York" It will be seen
tliat the loeofooo matehea gave the name to the
Demoeratie party. The ease was this : Upon the
introduction of gas into the city, tbe old Park
Theater being lighted for the flrat time, and a dif-
ficulty experienced in lighting the stage (gas)
•plAn. SuuKjUc UcUMft. /xmi^ Mtjti^t^
AUTOQBAPHB OP 1
! CANAL CELEBRATION,
CHAPTER IX
THE BEGINNING OF NEW- YORK'S COMMERCIAL GREATNESS
1825-1837
HE meeting-place of the merchants had been, since 1792,
the Tontine Coffee House, erected under their auspices in
that year. In 1825 the corner-stone of a new edifice was
laid in Wall street. It was opened for business in May,
1827, having cost two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The post-
oflSce was in this building. The Chamber of Commerce had its
rooms here, and there were numerous offices for brokers on the base-
ment floor. The merchants occupied offices in the galleries. The prin-
cipal room or exchange was of oval form, in the center of the building.
Here were posted the various notices which interested the merchants
generally : such as the arrival and departure of vessels, signaled by
a telegraph which received and replied to signals from the station at
the Narrows.
At this, the beginning of the second quarter of the century, New-
York was the principal mart for the products and manufactures of a
large part of the Eastern States, of New- York State, and New Jersey,
and of the Southern section of the Union. The city soon began to
feel the enormous stimulus to her trade caused by the operation of
the Erie Canal. This great work of internal improvement was for-
mally opened, as noticed in the preceding chapter, on October 26,
1825. It brought to her the control of the trade of the great lakes,
and the vast and prolific regions which bordered upon them, as well
as that of the valleys of the Ohio and of the Mississippi. The
Champlain Canal, finished in 1823, was the outlet for the produce of
a large section of country bordering on Lake Champlain. It began
at Whitehall, at the head of sloop navigation on that large body of
water. These two waterways, connecting with the Hudson, consti-
tuted an extent of navigation of seven hundred and eight miles (Hud-
son and Champlain, 345 miles ; Erie, 363 miles). Besides, there was the
great chain of lakes, with which communication was now established,
affording a navigation of sixteen hundred and twenty-five miles, of
which over eleven hundred miles were within the limits of the State
334
THE BEGINNINO OF NEW-YOBK'S COMMEBOIAL GBEATNESS 335
of whicli New- York city was the only ocean outlet. It is not difficult
to uudci-stand the exultant joy of the citizens of New- York at the final
completion of these magnificent monuments to the genius of the states-
men and the enterprise of the people of the great commonwealth. It
definitely assured the ^^^y_...__..^„_. - ^
supremacy of the city ^^CHH^^P^^ ^ -^
as the commercial em- J^H^^^SIfc .^ B "^
porium of the western
continent. Becoming
the outlet of a vast ter-
ritory, it followed nat-
urally that New- York
should become also the
point at which the sup-
plies for that territory
would be obtained, as
well as the financial cen-
ter of exchange for do-
mestic as well as foreign
commcTce. The amount of tonnage wliich the Erie was capable of
transporting with locks all double was estimated at 3,024,000, iuclnd-
iug botli descending and ascending trips. In 1826 the toll on imports
on the Erie and Champlain canals was $762,000; in 1827, $859,000.
The value of the merchandise laden and unladen at the port of
New- York at this period (1825-28) was seventy to one hxmdred mil-
lions of <lollars, and the number of merchant vessels in port varied
from five to seven hundred in busy seasons, besides fifty steamboats.
The number of arrivals from foreign ports averaged fourteen hun-
dred, and of coasting vessels four thousand, per annum. Goodrich,
in his " Picture of New- York " (1828), estimated '* the anivals at and
departures of steamboats from this port during the year, or season
of about forty weeks, supposing each boat to make but two trips a
week both ways, to amount to six thousand four hundred ; and if an
average of fifty passengers is allowed per trip, the number will be
320,000." He considered this to be a low estimate, as during the sum-
mer travel the Hudson River steamboats frequently carried from
two hundred to three hundred passengers. Great numbers were con-
stantly arriving also by coasting vessels and from foreign ports ; " the
aggregate of the latter description during the last twelve months is
22,00(); those by ships, sloops and coasters, generally from southern
aud eastern ports, and the river craft, amount to an immense number."
The port was admirably adapted to this mode of communication.
There was an ample depth of water at every wharf. The line of ship-
ping ran from the Battery to Corla«r's Hook on the East River, and
mSTOBT OF NEW-YORK
to the North Battery (foot of Hubert street) on the Hudson, an extent
on the two water-frontB of three miles. The principal slips were Coen-
ties, Old Coffee House (at the foot of Wall street), Beekman, and Peck
slips. South street was the site of the wharves for the large shipping.
The provision-boats from Long Island lay off Pulton, and those from
New Jersey off Washington, Market.
Not till 1825 did New- York recover from the depression of the em-
bargo period and the war of 1812-15. In the decade from 1796 to 1806,
the most prosperous years, nearly one quarter of the total exports of
the United States were from this port. The exports of 1806 were not
again equaled in amount until 1825. In
1827 fourteen hundred and fourteen ves-
sels arrived from foreign ports, of which
three hundred and eighty-six were ships,
six hundred and nine brigs, and three
hundred and eighty-one schooners. In
1827 the tonnage of vessels built in New-
York amounted to twenty-nine thousand
one hundred and thirty-seven, divided
among twenty-three ships, three brigs,
and twelve steamboats. The cotton trade
of the South for Europe, and that of
the New England manufacturing States,
passed through this city. In 1827 there
were received 215,705 bales, of which
191,626 were exported, and 24,000 taken
by manufacturers. The value of the im-
ports for New- York in the year 1825 was
$50,024,973, of which over $48,000,000 came in American vessels; that
of the exports was $34,032,279, of which over $19,000,000 in American
vessels, — in all a total foreign trade of $84,057,252, of which over
$67,000,000 in American vessels. Goodrich gives an interesting his-
torical comparison of the trade at this period : " In the three years
preceding the celebrated embargo of Mr. Jefferson's administration
the exports of New- York averaged $23,869,250 per annum ; and in
those years preceding the last war, $14,030,035 ; and during the years
1825-6-7 the average has been $26,000,000."
The most striking changes in the physical features of the lower part
of New- York city — that below the park — date from the beginning of
the second quarter of the century. Gulian C. Verplanek, to whom
New- York is indebted for many curious and interesting reminiscences,
returning from a long absence in 1829, noted the changes which had
taken place in his time, in two letters published in the " TaUsman "
(1829-30), under the nom de plume of Francis Herbert :
^X-viv^c*,^^JU
THE BEGDJHIHG OF NEW-YORK'S COMMERCIAL QBEATNESS 337
Pine street [he writoe] is sow full of blockx of tall maaBive buildings which over-
shadow the narrow passage between and make it one of the gloomiest streets ia New-
York. The very brieks there look of a darker hue than in any other part of the city.
The rays of the sun seem to come through a yellower and thicker atmosphere ; and the
shadows thrown there by moonlight seem of a blacker and more solid darkness than
olaewhere . . . Itwaanotthusthirtyorfortyyearsago. Shops were on each side of the
way — low oheerfol-lookii^ two-story buildings of light colored brick or wood painted
white or yellow, and which scarcely seemed a hindrance to the air and sunshine.
There were maDy and important changes in the municipal economy
of the city at this period. Besides the Merchants' Exchange, the
foundations of which were laid in Wall street in 1825, a new
Presbyterian church waa
the same year built in
Bleecker street, which
sufficiently shows the
rapid trend of the popu-
lation upward on the
island. A new building
was also erected for the
savings-bank in Cham-
bers street. The city was
this year divided into
twelve wards. The free-
school system was altered
to that of public schools
which took pay from
scholars at the rate of
twenty-five cents to one
dollar each quarter. In ■
January, 1825, Philip
Hone was appointed
mayor. This gentleman, well known in public life as a Whig leader,
the companion of Daniel Webster, and in private intercourse as an
elegant host and leader of fashion, has left a charming diary of his life
and times. Mayor Hone was a native of this city, his father having a
mercantile business in John street. Early in life he engaged in the
auctioneer business, in partnership with his brother John. They each
amassed a considerable fortune, which was employed by Philip Hone
in the encouragement of many enterprises of a benevolent or educa-
tional character. The Mercantile Library, founded in 1820, owed
much to his liberality in the erection of its building on Astor Place, in
the year 1830. He held the office of mayor for only one year. Under
Pivsident Zachary Taylor, Mr. Hone was appointed naval officer of
the port of New- York, a post in which he continued till his death, in
1851, at his house, comer of Broadway and Great Jones street.
Voi_III.— 22.
mSTOEY OF NEW-YOBK
The immediate successor of Mr. Hone in the mayoralty was William
Paulding, who had already been mayor in the years 1823 and 1824, as
before noticed, aad who now occupied the position for the years 1826
and 1827. In 1828, Walter Bowne was appointed, and he was annually
reappointed until 1833. He was a descendant of the well-known and
highly estimable Quaker family of tbe Bownes, of Flushing, Long
Island. At the age of maturity he left
the paternal farm and engaged in the
hardware business in New- York, meet-
ing with great success. His store was
located at the comer of Burling Slip
and Water street. In politics Mr.
Bowne was a Democrat, and before his
appointment as mayor had represented
the city as State senator for three suc-
cessive terms. He died in 1846, at the
age of seventy-six. During his term
the population of New-York reached
the figure of two hundred thousand.
The last mayor to be appointed to
the position was Gideon Lee, who
served only during the year 1833. He
was bom at Amherst, Massachusetts,
in 1778. Left an orphan, he began life on an uncle's farm, and after
a checkered career with greatly varying fortunes, he at last estab-
lished a profitable leather business in New- York. In 1822 he entered
upon public life as a member of the State legislature. Retiring from
business in 1836, he was soon after elected to Congress, and died in
1841, at Geneva, New- York, where he had purchased a country-seat,
which continued in the possession of his family till a recent period.
His business is still carried on in the "Swamp" by his youngest son,
who succeeded his brother-in-law, Charles M. Leupp.
In 1832 New- York was visited for tbe first time by the Asiatic
cholera. It made its appearance in a house in Cherry street, near
James street, on June 25, 1832. By July 3 public alarm was excited
to such a degree that the Board of Health
appointed a special medical council to de-
vise proper measures in the emergency.
This council consisted of Dr. Alexander
H. Stevens, president ; Drs. Joseph Bayley,
Gilbert Smith, John Neilson, William J. McNeven, Hugh McLean,
Richard K. Hoffman, to whom after a few days was added Dr. Anthony
L. Anderson. Their acknowledged skill quieted public apprehension,
and they continued to superintend the public medical arrangements
i^a-^^d^i^ti^e
THE BEGINNINa OF N£W-lCOBK*B COHMEBCIAL aBEATNESS 339
THE NBW-TORK HOSPITAL.
until the decline of the epidemic. Within a week four large public
hospitals were organized, to which a fifth was later added. Duriog
the nine weeks from July 1 to September 1, there were treated iu these
2030 patients, of which 852 died, fiesides these, there was a medical
station established in each ward, where prompt attention was assured
to every applicant. The total number of cases in the city, including
those in the hospitals as well as those reported to the Board of Health,
was 5835, aud of deaths 2996. It was at its height on Jidy 21, three
weeks after its appearance. This is a much greater mortality than
appears, as it must be remembered that this was the summer season,
when a lai^e number of the
penuanent population left the
city for the seaside or the vil-
lages of the interior above the
Highlands. The condutit of
the gentlemen of the city iu
this time of distress was be-
yond all praise. The New-
York Hospital, which then oc-
cupied its beautiful grounds
on Broadway between Keade and Duane streets, opposite the opening
of Pearl street, was under the management of a board of goi'emors,
to belong to which was one of the most esteemed honors of a New-
Yorker. Daily throughout this ^ason they attended personally to
their voluntary duties, and by their steadfastness greatly encouraged
the suffering citizens.
In 1834 the city was visited by a calamity of another character.
So many were the disturbances of the peace that this has received
the name of the " year of riots." It was the first year in which the
election of mayor was effected by the popular vote. The candidates
were Guhan C. Verplanck on an independent ticket, and Cornelius
W. Lawrence on that of Tammany. There was a serious split in the
Democratic ranks, a large number of whose members supported the
independent ticket. The elections in that day were conducted after
the old fashion, the polls being held open for three successive days.
This, at a period of great popular excitement, gave ample opportunity
for the development of street brawls and organized attacks by the
more violent partizans. Toward noon of April 10, 1834, the distur-
bances in the Sixth Ward, always the home of a motley population,
took an alarming form. There being no registration of votes, the
polls were at the mercy of an audacious mob. Party feeling ran
exceedingly h^h at this period, because of the opposition to Jack-
son's financial policy, which had little favor with the conservative
element of New- York, but was ardently supported by the Tammany
340
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
party. In the Sixth Ward the tumult rose to the wildest pitch ; a num-
ber of the Jackson Democrats seized the polls, destroyed the ballots,
and sacked the room where the polling was held. During the day
raids were made on the gun-shops in Broadway. An alarm spread-
ing that the mob was about to attack the State arsenal, which stood
on the block between Centre, Elm, Franklin, and White
streets, the better class, fearful of the inefficiency of the
police, rallied for its protection, and prevailed upon
the mayor to call in the aid of the military.
In the evening the Whigs, determined to maintain
their rights, gathered in large and resolute force (esti-
mated at from four to five thousand men) at Masonic*
Hall, and voted to meet early the next day "and re-
pair to the Sixth Ward poll for the purpose of keeping
it open to all voters until such time as the official au-
thorities may procure a sufficient number of special con-
stables to keep the peace.^ Other meetings were held in
the fourteen wards, and the next morning all the polls
were guarded by large bodies of well-disposed citizens.
The morning of the third day displayed the determina-
tion of the rough element of the city to do mischief.
Some sailors, in the Whig interest, parading the city
with a miniature of the frigate Constitution in full rig, were fallen
upon and beaten in Broadway opposite Masonic Hall. The mayor,
intervening, was personally injured, several of the city watch were
badly hurt, and the hall was forced. Hearing of this outrage, the
Whig inhabitants issued from their quarters, and as crowds kept
gathering, the mayor held a consultation, and it was resolved to
declare the city in a state of insurrection and to call on the military
for aid. The United States authorities in the forts and on the station
declining to interfere. General Jacob Morton directed General Charles
W. Sandford to call out the city militia.
Order being established, the election proceeded, resulting in the
choice of Mr. Lawrence * by a small majority. Later it was an-
nounced that the Whigs had elected the common council. Says the
historian of the great riots of New- York: "As the news passed
through the immense concourse, a shout went up that shook Wall
street from Broadway to the East River. It rolled back and forth
like redoubled thunder." The Twenty-seventh Regiment,^ under
Colonel John Stevens, had early taken possession of the arsenal, and
VERPLANCK
CREST.
1 The mayor's full name was Cornelius Van
Wyck Lawrence. He was bom in 1791, and at-
tained the ag^ of seventy years. Previous to his
election as mayor, he was a member of Cons^ss,
and under President Polk was appointed collector
of this port. For twenty years he was president
of the Bank of the State of New- York. He mar-
ried Lydia A., his cousin, daughter of Judge
Ef&ngham Lawrence. Editor.
2 Now the famouK Seventh Regiment, its nu-
merical designation having been changed in 1847.
Editor.
THE BEaismNO OF new-yobk'h cuhmekcial okbatness 341
relieved the independent collection of citizens. This is said to have
estahlished the confidence of the good people of New- York in the
power and wiUingneBS of the National Guard to protect the property
and lives of the citizens and to secure the public peace. The com-
mon council passed a vote of thanks to "the individuals who thus
nobly sustained their reputation as citizen soldiers, and proved the
importance and the necessity to the city of a well-disciplined militia
in time of peace, as well as in time of war." General Morton, in
his general orders, added: "The Major-general doubts not that the
corps will still continue to perform
their duties ; they will be sustained
by their fellow-citizens, who will see
in them, not the array of an uncon-
trolled force, but a power directed
by the venerable majesty of the
laws in the persons of the magis-
trates." This riot, for many reasons
famous, is generally known as the
"election riot."
The Abolitionists, a small and in-
considerable body, were beginning,
in the agitation of poUtics, to attract
public attention to their opinions
and purposes. Attempts had been
made by the friends of William
Lloyd Garrison, in the autumn of
1833, to promote an antislavery
i^tation by public meetings and
addresses. There was a large business class in New- York city di-
rectly concerned in trade with the Southern States, and naturally
opposed to any exciting discussion of this subject; and, moreover,
the sympathies of the great body of Democrats were with the strict
constructionists of the constitution, who held slavery to be beyond
the pale of any jurisdiction, except that of State sovereignty. In the
unruly element of this, as of all large cities, there were always men to
be found ready for violent measures, especially in any cause that had
the support of popular favor. An attempt to break up an abolition
meeting in October, 1833, had resulted in the summary dispersal of
the small attendance. In July, 1834, an assemblage of colored per-
sons gathered at Chatham street chapel to listen to a sermon from a
negro preacher. They were ordered from the building, but, having
o^^-^'^
1 Dr. PrmsciB wu k celebTkted phf dcl&n, and
nun of wide ealtara. His " Old New-York." >
jlome of cbknniDK nmlnlNeDces of the lint
itlity yearn of tlie <
and containa a mei
T. Tuckermaii
fflSTOBY OF NEW-TOEK
paid their rent, refased, and, resisting ejectment, the church was
cleared by an excited crowd. Lewis Tappan, who was present at the
chapel, was followed to his home in Rose street with hooting and
threats, and bis house was stoned. His name had been attached to
the call for the meeting in the autumn preceding. The blacks,
alarmed for their personal safety, dispersed.
. The next evening the mob broke open
^ the chapel door, held an extempore meet-
ing, and on its breaking up proceeded
with shouts to the Bowery Theater, whose
stage manager was obnoxious to them
because an Englishman and accused of
remarks uncomplimentary to America on
THB PROVOST JAIL I ^^^ subjoct of sUivery, — Great Britain be-
ing the headquarters of the antislaverj'
movement. Forcing the dooi"s, the excited mob took -possession of
the theater. Interfered with by the arrival of the police, and eager
for some object on which to vent tbeir excitement, they rushed to the
house of Nathan Tappan, a brother of Lewis, in Rose street, which
they broke into and sacked. After a fight with the city watchmen,
they made a bonfire of the dilapidated furniture. Other petty riots
followed, with similar scenes of destniction of the property of Abo-
litionists, until Mayor Lawrence issued a proclamation calling on all
good citizens to aid in maintaining the peace. Large bodies of troops
were gathered at the arsenal, City Hall, and other public buildings.
On the night of July 11, the mounted patrol having failed to disperse
the roving mob which had attacked the churches of the Rev. Dr.
Samuel H.,Cox, in Laight street, and of the Rev. Henry Q. Ludlow, io
Spriog street, the military were called upon, and the Twenty-seventh
Regiment of the National Guard, under Colonel Stevens (the same
which had been called upon in the election riots), marched upon the
tioters. The latter bad thrown up double barricades, which were
stormed and carried, the obstructions scattered, and as the militia
moved to the word "Forward" in solid column, the mob broke in every
direction. Meanwhile there was another great gathering at the Five
Points, where the mob committed depredations and burned buildings
indiscriminately. During the night the rioters were reported to have
concerted risings, and in the morning the mayor issued a second
1 The ProvoBt Jail is now the Hmll o( Reconim
IM wkIIs reidftinlDS kh the; were, but ita front
and rear haTing been adorned with cnloniiBdea in
the Btyl^ of a Qreek lemple. It wax built In
ITBS. Deton- sod after the Revolution it was
oied H4 a debtoni' prison. I>urlDK the Revolu-
tion prlsonom of war were conflned here, and ral>-
Jeeted to the erueme<i of ProvoHt Haishal WilUam
CunninKham. In 1S30 it Oeased to be oiied aa a
ptiaon. the procera oF rveonBtruction beioK then
begriD. but not tilt 1835 was It ready tor Its new
purpoKS. At the time of the RerolutioD. "it
had two lobblpa. with strong burteadea between
the external and internal one. A ffr^ted door was
at the bottom of the M&lr* leading to the aenmd
and third floora." EbtlOH.
THE BEaiNNINO OF NEW-YOBK'S COMMERCIAL GREATNESS 343
proclamation to the citizens to report to him for organizatioii into
companies to aid the police. The volunteer military companies and
the fire companies tendering their assistance, the backbone of the
riot was broken, and a hundred and fifty of the ringleaders were
lodged In jail.
One of the most Interesting public events of this year was the pro-
cession on Jnne 26, in respect to the memory of .General Lafayette,
the last general officer of the Revolution. General Lafayette was no
stranger to the people
of New- York. There
were some of his com-
panions in arms still
living, who had wel-
comed his arrival here
in 1784, when he re-
ceived the freedom of
the city; and it was
just ten years since his
last visit, when he was
again the guest of the
city. His death in
France, on May 20, was
announced by General
Morton in division orders on June 21. The common council ordered
the ceremonial proceedings. The city buildings and numerous public
and private houses were draped with mourning insignia. A proces-
sion, in which the military was specially distinguished for its admir-
able tenue, moved from the City Hall to the Castle Garden; in it were
carried the urn and the eagle which formed a part of the decorations
at the funeral of Washington. At Castle Garden an address was
delivered by Frederick A. Tallmadge, and in the evening the urn
was remov^ by torch-light, attended by a solemn civic and military
procession.
Still another riot disturbed the peace 6f the city. This,known as the
CHATEAU I>A
I From u orfgilMl diBwing In the pouendon of
th« Editor, who la Indebted to Mrs. Jnlla Clinton
Jonea fot the following nnpnbliahed letter ad-
dressed to her nnde Cbariea Clinton. eiprewtDg
sympathr (or the death of his father, De Witt
Clinton:
" Pabib, Uareh 30, 183R.
"Ut Dkab Sib: Tour partlcQlM' and friendl;
attentions to me, make 70U the natural orj^n of
the melancholj and adecUonate feelings, which I
wish to be conveyed to the family of your la-
mented father. I re^cret the mournful and un-
expected event, as an immeose }o»» to the public
and a ^rsat personaJ eaoae of grief to me. Bound
as I was to the memory of roy two b^oreai
Revolutionary eompanions. your grandtatber and
granduncle, I had found a peculiar gratiflcatioD
in the eminent lalenia and services of their son
and nephew, and in his bind and liberal corre-
spondence, until personal and grateful acquain-
tance bad impressed me with all the feelings of a
more intimate frieodahip. I beg you to be to your
afflicted family the interpreter of my deep sym-
pathies, and to believe me forever,
" Your most sincere friend,
"Lafavmtb.
" Colonel CHABI.KS Cijnton,
"p. S.— My son and 1* Vassaur beg to be
moomfully remembered."
344 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
** Five Points riot,'' broke out in the summer of 1835. It was an. out-
come of the election brawls of the two sections of the Democratic party
and the fierce antagonism between the Irish and Americans. The an-
nouncement that an Irish regiment, under the name of the O'Connell
Guards, was to be organized in the city, aroused the native American
spirit to indignation. On Sunday, June 21, rioting began simultane-
ously in several parts of the city, the principal scene of action being
the Sixth Ward, in Pearl street, near Chatham. Many prominent
citizens were badly injured in their attempts to keep the peace, but
order was at last restored by the police without the aid of the military,
to which there had been more recourse latterly than augured well
for civil government. The "stone-cutters' riot," which happened in
August, 1834, was caused by the employment of the State prisoners
at Sing Sing to hew marble with which to construct buildings in this
city by the contractors for the University building. The mob was
dispersed by the Twenty-seventh Regiment, which for four days and
nights lay under arms in Washington parade-ground.
At the spring election of 1835 a most serious question was sub-
mitted to the decision of the people. New- York had never enjoyed
any proper and reasonably assured water-supply for a population of
her extent and promise. The tea-water works, which were put up in
1786 at the Collect pond, or Fresh Water, had supplied the city by
casks until 1799, when the Manhattan Company was chartered to bring
a supply from the Bronx River. A pump was built near the Collect and
wooden pipes laid through the streets, but the Manhattan Company
never tapped the waters of the Bronx, and the city was forced to con-
tent itself with the old Collect supply, with the additional convenience
of the wooden pipes and the street pumps, which were not infrequent.
It was now decided by popular vote, by a large majority, to construct
an aqueduct from the Croton River, an undertaking of great magni-
tude in those days, considering that the distance the water had to be
conveyed was forty miles. This project had been carried through the
common council by the persistent energy of Samuel Stevens, for
many years a representative of the Second Ward as alderman and
assistant alderman. His name appears first among those of the com-
missioners on the tablet set up at the Forty-second street reservoir
in 1842, on the completion of that colossal enterprise.
In 1835 the city was visited by one of the most terrible calamities
in her history. A fire broke out on the night of December 16 of
that year, which raged fiercely for two nights, and was not extin-
guished till the third day. In its course along Wall street, the line
of the East River, and returning to William and Wall streets, it em-
braced a large irregular triangle of ground, an area of thirteen acres,
covered by six hundred and ninety-three houses and stores, with
THE BEOHnnNG OF NEW-YORK's COMMEBCIAIi GREATNESS 345
property valued at eighteen millioas of dollars.' Among the huild-
ings was the fine marble Exchange in Wall street, and the South
Dutch Church in Garden street. The stores were mostly wholesale.
The fire-insurance companies of the city, al-
most without exception, went down under
the blow. The weather was intensely cold;
the insufficient supply of water froze in the
pipes and hose, thus paralyzing the labors
of the citizens. The horrors and sufferings
of this night exceed description. The gen-
tlemen of the city were all on the ground,
and the properties of the Wall street insti-
tutions were moved and moved again before
final safety was secured. Yet, as in previ-
ous periods of distress, the energy of the
citizens was equal to the emergency ; and
New-Tork, within an incredibly short period, rose from its ashes
i-ttbuilt and vastly improved. The buildings erected were of a supe-
rior character, and the streets themselves were somewhat changed
for the better.
In 1837 the city added another to its series of riots. Various
causes had occasioned a short supply and high prices for flour and
wheat at this period. A short crop, followed by a speculation in part
occasioned by the abnormal condition of the currency, had brought
up the price of flour from seven to twelve dollars per barrel. News
was circulated of a short crop in Virginia, and of an immediate
short supply in New- York. The price of meat went up next, and
t!oal advanced to ten dollars a ton. A public meeting was called to
consider the situation, but it was one of those problems that no
public meeting can solve. The news that the commission-houses in
Washington street were holding back and increasing their stocks
caused a bad feeling in the laboring classes. On February 10, 1837,
a placard reading, " Bread, Meat, Rent, Fuel ! The voice of the
people shall be heard and prevail," summoned a foeeting at the City
Hall park at four o'clock in the afternoon. The placard was signed
I Mr. Gabriel P. Diaosmy, ku eys-witneM of tbis
terrible evnit, and wbo hu left on record an ex-
tended and mhmte deBciiptloa of It, fumlahm the
following statement of the exact number of houeee
bomed on tbe TarlonB atreets:
W»U rtreet 38
South " 76
l^ont " ... BO
Water " 76
Pearl ■■ 79
BicbaDge alley 31
WilUam street U
Old Slip 33
Stone street 40
Hill (now S. WilUam) street 3H
Beaver street 23
Hanover " 16
CoentleB Slip 16
Hanover Square 3
Curler's alley 20
If^-,JC
■,..■.■/■•, ■^rf.',-t''*\riv. '''' ^t^C^.txyt. aiui applicable to make ^ood any
.'.>^:>Y ■!• 'Iff 'rf fM'ilnn: Th^ oM»)*t rmnk in rhe city, the Bank of
'■. f/ V'.rl' fTHP (»r"«fKl«l '.v*-r r-fjr Comrfina Heyer as president, and
^.(.n.'.f./ ('. Mrtk^y «« ''Wfhi*^. Anwm(f its riireetora were Gardner G.
If', '/l/.(('), C'tT K'-tp^trm'Th^-ni, ClhArl** M*TEver!>, John Oothont. Hol>-
( (t Mnitlftri'l, (l"itry (t«'"k«mri, ^>lw«rd R-Jones, and Robert Bensoo.
It. .ncKftl //iirt <ltfMt,m)U. Tli'i Bank of America was presidetl over
I.,' Mciitf*" Nc*)i(.l(l. (U Unipfl C)f clirfw^irs were George Griswold.
Illi'tilii'ti Wliihii-v, .lotinMifiri (U>rn\hn(\, Benjamin L. Swan, Peter
t ,, t.iliti \V fi»nv)M, hihI Hiimii«-I M. Fox. The capital was
I It. > tMIIUiil IMililM
THE BEGINNING OF NEW-YOBX'S COMMEBCIAL GBEATNESS 347
^1,000,000. Mr. Newbold was an autocrat among the bank presidents,
and had matters much his own way until the establishment of the
Bank of Commerce, in 1839, which gi-adually took the lead, and after
his death, by its great strength, and the ready availability of its funds
through a system of short discounts, served as a kind of check upon
the banking system of the city.
The Bank of the State of New- York was under the management of
Cornelius W. Lawrence, with Eeuben Withers as cashier, and in the
board were Isaac Townsend, John Stewart, Charles A. Davis, Charles
Deuison, Henry W. Hicks, and Ferdinand Suydam. In the City Bank
were Thomas Bloodgood, president, and among the directors Richard
M. Lawrence, Benjamin Corlies, Joseph Foulke, David Parish, Abra-
ham Bell, Henry Delafield, and John P. Stagg. The Manhattan
Company was presided over by Robert Gelston, and in the board
were found the names of John G. Coster, Jonathan Thompson, James
McBride, David S. Kennedy, William B. Crosby, William Paulding,
Thomas Suffem, James Brown, and Recorder Richard Riker. The
Mechanics' Bank had John Fleming for president, and for directors
Jacob Lorillard, Gabriel Furman, Henry C. Dedham, George Arcula-
rius, and Shepard Enapp. The Merchants' was managed by John T.
Palmer, president, and Walter Mead, cashier, with Henry I. Wyck-
oflf, James Heard, David Lydig, Peter T. Nevins, Benjamin Lyman,
and John D. Wolfe. The National Bank was managed by Albert
Gallatin, Jefferson's and Madison's secretary of the treasury, whose
financial ability was supreme, and of world-wide fame from his mas-
terly management of the national finances. In his board were Wil-
liam B. Astor, Seth Grosvenor, Dudley Selden, and Elisha Riggs. The
Phenix Bank had Henry Cary for president, and John Delafield as
cashier. Among the directors were Henry Parish, James W. Otis,
Garrett Storm, Moses H. Grinnell, and Robert Ray. The Union Bank
had Abraham G. Thompson for president, and Samuel I. Howland,
Morris Ketchum, and Mortimer Livingston in the management. All
of these banks were in Wall street. The names here given are those
of the men who were at the head of the great commercial and finan-
cial enterprises of the djy — every one representative, and familiar as
the alphabet to every New-Yorker of the passing generation. The
Chemical Bank, a private institution, almost a family strong box, was
managed by John Mason, president, in person, with his kinsman Isaac
Jones, Gideon Tucker, and Thomas W. Thome at the green table
where discounts were made and high finance discussed by a select
few. Owing to the fact that the country was developing its material
resources in great measure with capital borrowed from Eui-ope, — the
balance of trade setting against the United States at this period,
yearly increasing our indebtedness abroad, — New- York Was at any
348 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
time liable to a demand for gold from Europe. The value of the
strong institutions was then seen, as well as the wisdom of separat-
ing the earnings of the laboring class from the general fund.
Mention, therefore, must not be omitted of the several savings-
banks which, with their conservative management, played an im-
portant part in those days of financial fluctuations. The New-York
Bank for Savings, the first in New- York and in the United States,
founded in 1819, was still directed by John Pintard, one of its original
projectors, with Peter Augustus Jay and Philip Hone as first and sec-
ond vice-presidents, and a board of the highest ability, experience, and
respectability. There were in this year (1837) 26,427 open accounts,
entitled to $3,533,716.88. David Cotheal was the president of the
Bowery Savings Bank, George Suckley of the Greenwich, Benjamin
Strong of the Seamen's, with Pelatiah Perit as one of the vice-presi-
dents and Caleb Barstow as the secretary. The fire-insurance com-
panies were twenty-six in number, most of them badly crippled by
the losses of 1835, and some lately reorganized by assessments or
contributions to stock. The Farmers' Fire Insurance Company was
the only trust company in the city, no others having been organized
at that time. It is now better kAown as the Farmers' Loan and
Trust Company.
The national election of 1832 turned, in a great measure, upon the
question of free trade. The condition of the national finances was
favorable to a dispassionate discussion of the principle. The national
debt was nearly extinguished. The rapid growth of the country had
so increased its revenues that the secretaries of the treasury who fol-
lowed Albert Gallatin, adhering to his lines of policy and administra-
tion, had been able to extinguish the last remains of the extraordinary
expenditure occasioned by the war of 1812. Louis McLane, Secre-
tary of the Treasury, in his report of December, 1832, on the finances,
announced that the dividends derived from the bank shares held by
the United States were more than were required to pay the interest,
and that the debt of the United States might therefore be considered
as substantially extinguished after January 1, 1833. Mr. Gallatin,
the advocate of this policy of extinction, wljich seems to have been
since accepted by our financial ministers irrespective of party, was
now a resident of New- York. Soon after his return from his last
mission to England he settled permanently in the city, taking a house
in Bleecker street in 1829. Here he became one of the leading figures
of interest. His long exi)erience of public men and public affairs on
the two continents of Europe and America rendered his conversation
instructive, and his counsel was eagerly sought on a large variety of
subjects, — financial, scientific, literary, and even political, though he
had withdrawn from active interest in this direction.
BEOINNINO OF NEW-TORK'S COHMEKCIAL GBEATNESS .
BRIDBWKLI,, CITT HALL PASK.
In advocatlDg the policy of extiDctiou of the national debt and of
a corresponding economy in the national expenditure, Mr. Gallatin's
purpose was a reduction of the revenue by a lowering of the tariff.
As the election of 1832 approached, and parties began to formulate
their platforms, the advocates of a protective tariff, with a consequent
national expenditure for internal improvements, and of a tariff for
revenue only, drew their lines more closely. Ou September 3, 1831, a
convention of the advocates of free trade, without distinction of party,
met in Philadelphia. Two hundred and twelve delegates appeared.
New- York was represented by Albert Gallatin, Preserved Fish, John
Constable, John A. Stevens, Jonathan Goodhue, James Boorman, and
Jacob LoriUard. GaUatin was
the soul of the convention,
and was chairman of the com-
mittee of fourteen, one from
each State represented, which
drafted the "Memorial to the l^lHtlri^^l^l^yi^V'^'i^
People." Its conclusions were
that a tariff of twenty-live per
cent, was ample, as experience
had proved, for all the legiti-
mate purposes of government. The nou-partizan nature of this con-
vention appears from the presence of Gw>dhue and Stevens, of New-
York, both of whom were faithful adherents to the great fundamental
principles of the Whig party. The recent attempt to make unbelief
in or support of an economic doctrine a condition of party fealty had
not then been formulated.
In 1832 Mr. GaUatin accepted the presidency of a bank in New-
York, the subscription to the stock of which (amounting to seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars) was completed by Mr. John Jacob
Astor under stipulation that Mr. Gallatin should supervise its man-
agement. This was the National Bank of New- York. The idea of this
arrangement was to secui'e to New- York the benefit of Mr. Gallatin's
great experience and intimate connection with financiers abi-oad. New-
York was rapidly becoming the financial center of the commercial
system of the United States, and the financial system of the republic
was now about to imdergo a radical change. In December, 1833,
Roger B. Taney, Secretary of the Treasury, reported to Congress that
he had directed the removal of the deposits of the government from
the Bank of the United States and placed them in banks designated
by himself. In his annual report, Taney named as one of the reasons
for this removal that the bank had used its money for electioneering
purposes, and that he "had always regarded the result of the last
election of President of the United States as the declaration of a
350 HISTORY OF NEW-XOBK
majority of the people that the charter ought not to be renewed.'
That election had reelected Jackson to the presidency. Taney said
further that "a corporation of that description was not necessary
either for the fiscal operations of the government or the general con-
venience of the people." Mr. Gallatin, on the other hand, had always
been a steadfast friend of the Bank of the United States. He had
only recently, in a masterly paper published in 1830 in the "American
■' ' ' * ^ - ■ ^
A*
y
•-»-v '^
ai a NATURES I
Quarterly Review," shown that from the year 1791 the operations of
the treasury had, without interruption, been carried on through the
Bank of the United States without loss, except in the years 1811 to
1814, when the mismanagement of the State banks had brought on
the financial disaster of the latter year, and compelled the re-charter
of the semi-governmental institution. There was no such thing, how-
ever, as resistance to Jackson's views. In December, 1835, Levi
Woodbury, Taney's successor in the treasury department, reported
" an unprecedented spectacle presented to the world of a government
virtually without any debts and without any direct taxation." But
the conservative instrument by which this happy condition had been
attained was now stripped of its influence. Moreover, the surplus
THE BEaunnNO of new-yobk's commercial obeatness 351
revenues of the United States, about thirty-seven millions of doUars,
iiad been distributed among the several States.
On the expiration of its charter in March, 1836, the renewal of
which Jackson had imperatively refused, the Bank of the United
States accepted a charter from the State of Pennsylvania. It was still
the one great financial institution of
the coantry, but its management was
no longer the same. It had the power
for evil, and no longer the influence
for good, in general affairs. In the
same manner as in 1811, after the
withdrawal of the control of the
Bank of the United States, the State
banks ran a wild career of specula-
tion. Prom 1830 to 1837, three hun-
dred new banks sprang up, with an
additional capital of one hundred and
forty-five millions of dollars — doub-
ling, as twenty years before, the
banking capital of the country. The
Bank of the United States, of Penn-
sylvania, under the direction of Nich-
olas Biddle, was swept along in the
resistless tide. As one scheme after another of industrial or laud
speculation was floated, this institutiou found itself compelled to
dangerous financial expedients. Abandoning its le^timate business
of discount and deposit, it sent an agent to New Orleans to buy up
the cotton crop of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as a basis for
foreign exchange. The Barings, alarmed for the supply of the Eug-
lish cotton manufacturers, sent to New Orleans John A. Stevens of
New- York. With the superior facilities of their great credit, Mr.
Stevens had no difficulty in securing the choice of the market, and,
moreover, righting the ratio of exchange by the purchase of the best
Northern and Western notes ; the difference in exchange between New
York and New Orleaas ranging as high as twenty-seven per cent., —
a condition of things impossible in the days of the old Bank of the
United States with its established branches.
The volume of the general banking circulation of the country was
still further swelled by the deposits of the revenues of the United
lOxJUux^vy./a
oc^^
1 Judge ivj, Bon at Chief Juntlce Jay. bom June
16, 17R9 : died October 14. 1858. He vu a <Il«tln-
gQiBhed jurist and author, and took active part in
antislaTery labon. Horace Qreeley said of him:
"To Judge William Jay the future wiU (jlve the
credit of having been one of the earliest advooat«s
of the modem antislaveiy movemcDta. which at
this moment influence k> radlfally the religion
and the philanthropy o( the oountry, and of hav-
inu guided by his writinga. In a large meanure.
Ihe direotion which a cause so Important and so
conBervative of the best and moat precious righta
of the people should take." Enrroit.
352 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
States. Secretary Woodbury became alarmed for their safety. In
December, 1836, he reported the paper currency of the country to
have increased since the removal of the deposits from the Bank of
the United States from eighty millions to one hundred and twenty
millions of dollars, or forty millions in eighteen months ; and the bank
capital in the same period to have increased from two hundred to
three hundred millions of dollars. The flush times were at the flood.
Importations augmented. Suddenly a check came. . The balance of
trade turned against the United States to a sum of one hundred and
fifty millions, and coin was shipped abroad to liquidate the account.
But as the entire amount of specie in the country did not exceed the
sum of seventy-three millions, the reaction was sharp. The contrac-
tion which set in was still further heightened by the withdrawal by
Mr. Woodbury of the government deposits from the selected deposi-
taries, or "pet banks,^ as they were termed. Had there been any
government debt to attract a foreign investment, the situation might
have been tempered. It must not be forgotten that at
^j^ this period the United States was not a specie-produc-
ing country. It accumulated only as the result of a sound financial
policy. It could not be retained when demanded by Europe, except
by a general suspension. The result was unavoidable.
On May 10, 1837, the New- York banks suspended. Mr. Gullatin's
bank went down with the rest. It is idle to suppose that any single
bank can maintain itself against a general suspension. It may liqui-
date, become a bank of deposit, paying out in the currency it re-
ceives, but it cannot maintain itself on a specie basis when gold is at
a premium, or hold its relations with its sister institutions except on
a basis of common accord. A general suspension of all the banks of
the United States followed. It was under these circumstances and
at this period that Mr. Woodbury devised the United States sub-
treasury, which he recommended to Congress as a plan of "keeping
the public money under new legislative provisions without using
the banks at all as fiscal agents.'' This has been described as "a
new departure in treasury management and a further evolution in
American finance." Its advantages have been incalculable. In fact,
it was the only alternative to a national bank under government
control, after the general plan of the great European government
institutions.
Mr. Gallatin, unable to prevent the suspension, immediately set
himself to work to bring about a partial liquidation and an early
resumption. He had the hearty cooperation of the able men who
then controlled the banks of the city. On August 15, 1837, the
officers of the New- York banks, in general meeting, appointed a
committee to call a convention of the principal banks to agree
THE BEOINNINO OP SEW-XOEK'S COMMERCIAL GREATNESS 353
upon a time for a resumption of specie payments. This commit-
tee, on August 18, addressed a cii-cular to the principal banks in
the United States, inviting the expression of theii' wishes as to
the time and place for a convention, suggesting New-Tork as the
place, and October, 1837, as the time. The law of the State of
New- York dissolving any bank as a legal corporation in ease of
its suspension for one year, it was imperative that resumption in
New- York must take place before
March 1, 1838. In the circular the
New- York banks committed them-
selves to no definite plan nor to
any specified day, but expressed the
opinion that the fall in the rate of
exchange indicated an early return
of specie to par, when resumption
could be effected without danger.
In fact, the collapse of the vast pa-
per fabric had been so sudden that
it carried with it in its fall the entire
scheme of land speculations, which
was the particular craze of this
exciting period.
The banks of Philadelphia, no
doubt infiuenced by the tottering
Bank of the United States, of Penn-
sylvania, whose transactions affected
the entire State, on August 29 de-
cided, in general meeting, that it was inexpedient to appoint dele-
gates to the New- York convention. Understanding this condition,
the New- York committee invited a meeting of delegates on Novem-
ber 27, 1837, in New- York. Delegates from banks of seventeen
States and the District of Columbia appeared. On the 30th a reso-
lution was brought in recommending a general resumption on July
1, 1838, with privilege to any banks that felt it to be necessary to
resume earUer. This was to cover the New- York condition. The
Pennsylvania banks rephed, condemning the idea of immediate rei
sumption as impracticable and, in the absence of delegates from
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, as unwise. It has
been seen that the entire southwestern system of banking and cur-
rency had descended to the Bank of the United States, of Pennsyl-
vania, from the old bank. The convention met again on December 2,
when an adjouniment was carried to April 11, 1838, when delegates
1 nahop Benjamin Hoore. of die Protestant Episcopal Churrh, mirceeded Blahop Provooat in
1801. Ha VMalM president of Colnmbla College from 1801 to 1811. Editok.
Vol. nL— 23.
"r-
354 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
from the banks not represented were invited to attend. As in all
cases where such conventions are controlled by numbers, the weaker
institutions for a time protracted the debate, dreading the conse-
quence of a resumption, which is as
severe upon the weak as suspension
is upon the strong. It was evident
that Mr. Biddle had the power of
postponement. The Boston banks
had joined forces with those under
Biddle's influence. Meanwhile ex-
change on London, the true par of
which was 109J, had fallen from
' ^"^^ "^'^^^ 121 to 111, a rate about 2J per
cent, below specie par, New- York bank paper being at a discount of
5 per cent. The export of specie had ceased.
High authority in Pennsylvania giving the opinion that the banks
of that State were in a condition to resume, Mr. Gallatin's committee
made a general report on December 15. On February 28, a further
report from the same source showed that the liabilities of the New-
York banks had been reduced more than twelve and one half mil-
lions, or fifty per cent., and that, with the support of the community
and the State authorities, they could resume on May 10, 1838. A
general meeting of citizens joyfully ratified this decision. On April
11, the general convention again met in New- York, the Philadelphia
banks once more declining to attend. A letter from Secretary Wood-
bury engaged the support of the United States treasury. A com-
mittee of one from each State recommended the first Monday in
October as the earliest day, but the general body could not be
brought to a date so early, and finally fixed upon January 1, 1839.
The New- York banks would have accepted July 1, 1838, as a day for
general resumption, and would have postponed it till then if that
date had been set; but this being refused they resumed alone on
May 10, 1838. The banks of the country were compelled, by the
force of public opinion, to resume on July 1. The terrible contrac-
tion was fatal to the Bank of the United States, of Pennsylvania,
which, after desperate struggles to redeem itself from the meshes,
closed its doors in October, 1839, carrying with it the entire banking
system of the southern and southwestern States. With it ended the
last hope of the friends of a United States bank as a fiscal agent of
the government.
With the failure of this hope came the desire for a powerful insti-
tution in New- York to serve as a check on the banks, — an institution
with a large capital, controlled by men removed somewhat from the
temptations of active business, which should hold a large reserve,
THE BEGINmNO OF NEW-YOBK's COlfMEBCIAL QKEATNESS 355
confine itself to short discounts, and consider absolute safety rather
than profit as the purpose of the bank. Mr. Samuel B. Enggles, by
his active exertions at Albany, secured the passage of a free banking
law in 1838, under which the Bank of Commerce went into opera^
tion in that year. The presidency of this bank was tendered to Mr.
Gallatin, but he declined. He had already resolved to withdraw from
active business, and in fact resigned the presidency of the National
Bank of New- York in June, 1839. Samuel Ward was chosen
president of the
Bank of Commerce
This gentleman '
died in the first
year of office, and
John A. Stevens
■was chosen in his
place. Mr. Stevens
conducted the bank
with eminent sue
cess until after the
close of the civil
war, holdiag m
that critical period
of oar national
finances the most intimate relations with Salmon P Chase, the worthy
successor of Hamilton and Gallatin in the department of the treasury
of the United States.
Mr. Jefferson, in his message of 1806, recommended a national
university for education in the higher sciences, but Mr. Gallatin, then
a member of his cabinet, thought the time little propitious and the
scheme not likely to find popular favor. An old companion of Galla-
tin in Geneva had even conceived the idea of transporting the entire
University of Geneva to the United States, and had broached this
in letters to Jefferson and Adams. But as the country developed
Gallatin thought the plan, often referred to in his conversation and
correspondence with the " Sage of Mouticello," not impossible of
attainment. This was, to use his own words, *' the establishment of
a general system of rational and practical education fitted for all and
gratuitously open to all." New- York, already a great and a rapidly
growing city, offered the most promising field for a gi-and national
university on a broad and liberal scale. There was much difficulty
in obtaining teachers in the lowest branches of education in the
public schools. Great learning and the teaching faculty are not
always, nor indeed often, found in the same person. Governor Enos
T. Throop, in his message to the legislature of the State of New- York
CITr HOTEL TRINITT CBUBCH AND
356 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
in 1830, called attention to this deficiency, but recommended no
remedy. It was evident, however, that if such an institution were to
be formed, it must be by private enterprise. From the colleges eon-
trolled by religious prejudice neither aid nor sympathy was to be
expected. The colonial jealousies of Church of England men and
Presbyterians were still strong, and, moreover, there was a distmst
of scientific investigation as tending to undermine belief in the
accepted letter of scriptural faith.
To Mr. Gallatin's personal appeals for support abundant subscrip-
tions of money and scientific material were instantly forthcoming.
The literary societies all over the United States were enthusiastic at
the proposal. In October, 1830, a convention of more than one hun-
dred literary and scientific gentlemen arrived in the city, delegates
from every section of the country. The result of their conference,
which was held in the common-council chamber at the City Hall,
was the foundation of the New-York University. Mr. Gallatin was
the president of the first council, but finding that, as in Columbia
College, the clergy had obtained control of the new institution, be
abandoned the idea he had conceived of endowing the city of New-
York with a great American Sorbonne.
The upper class of society was clustered at this time in the streets
which surrounded the academic block, on which old King's College
was first built. Barclay and Murray streets. Church street and Col-
lege Place were the confines, which extended as high as Chambers on
the north, and on the blocks between Greenwich street and Broad-
way as far as the Battery. There were residences outside these limits,
but this was the best-inhabited section. There was a charming liter-
ary coterie at this time in New- York, of which Columbia College was
the center. The fame of one of these societies or gatherings, '*Th^
Club,'' has almost disappeared. An account of it, written by Dr. John
Augustine Smith in the letter of invitation to Mr. Gallatin to join the
company, November 2, 1829, deserves to be recorded among the
memorials of this city :
Nearly two years ago some of the literary gentlemen of the city, feeling severely
the almost total want of intercourse among themselves, determined to establish an
association which should bring them more frequently into contact. Accordingly they
founded the '^ Club/' as it is commonly called, and which I believe I mentioned to you
when I had the pleasure of seeing you in Bond street. Into this "Club" twelve
persons only are admitted, and there are at present three gentlemen of the bar, Chan-
cellor Kent, Messrs. Johnston and Jay ; three professors of Columbia College, Messrs.
McVickar, Moore, and Renwick; the Rev. Drs. Wainwright and Mathews, the former
of the Episcopal, the latter of the Presb3rterian Church; two merchants, Messrs.
Bosworth and Goodhue ; and I have the honor to represent the medical faculty. Our
twelfth associate was Mr. Morse of the National Academy of Design, of which he was
president, and his departure for Europe has caused a vacancy. For agreeableness of
THE BEOINNINa OF NEW-YORK's COMMERCIAL GREATNESS 357
converaaitioii there is nothing in New- York at all comparable to our institution. We
meet once a week, no officers, no formalities ; invitations when in case of intfiUigent
and distingoiahed strangers, and after a light repast, retire aboat eleven o'clock.
Cliaucellor Kent had been the one center of attraction at these
meetings, but Mr. dallatin brought in a more varied conversation.
Indeed, in this art he is said to have had no rival on this side of the
Atlantic, and Talleyrand alone on the other. Naturally the member-
ship of the elub changed. About the year 1837 it numbered Professor
Henry J. Anderson, John A. Stevens, Gallatin's countryman Henry
C. De Bham, the Swiss consul, John Wells, Samuel Ward, Gulian C.
Verplanck, and Charles King. New-York has not seen a literary
symposium more de-
lightful, more instruc-
tive, more dignified
than the gathering at
these meetings. The
old-time simplicity
was maintained in
elegant surroundings.
The elub met at the
housetf of the mem-
bers on winter even-
ings. Supper was at
nine o'clock. The rule
was absolute that only
one hot dish should
be served; but the
ladies managed to
evade the regulation
by sundry subter-
fuges. Nor did they alisolutely submit to exclu-
sion. On one occasion Miss Sarah Moore, the sister
of Professor J^athaniel F, Moore, of the college, surprised the com-
pany with an impromptu dish sent into the house of her friend with
an elaborate effusion on the matter of the intruding delicacy, which
was found sufficient apology. On another this ingenious and admir-
able lady met the withdrawing guests with an impromptu of another
character — this time in the form of four Italian trovatori, with their
national instruments, posted at the door.
New- York was the favorite refuge of the political exiles of every
laud. In 1834 there came quite a number of Poles, among whom was
£tsko, a nephew of Kosciusko. A committee was formed to collect
funds, and the exiles were quartered on the willing inhabitants.
Among the papers of Mr. Gallatin, who was the chairman of the
THE BEOINNINa OF new-yokk's commebcial gbeatness 359
committee, preserved in the New- York Historioal Society, there is a
list of names ending in ski; to each is affixeil a, number and an allot-
ment No. 182, one Szelesegynski, was taken by Mr. Gallatin himself
to look after horses. From their temporary homes these uufortiuiatos
were sent into the interior as fast as places could be found for them.
All were provided for in this manner except fourteen boys, for whom
a subscription was taken up, Cougress assigned n tract of land in
Qlinois to these exiles from oppression.
Warren street has been named as about the upper limit of ultra-
fashionable residence before 1837. Two houses built of marble on
Chambers street about this period were considered foolish extrava-
gances, because too high up-town. The
Sunday walk of the ladies was from the
south corner of Warren street down
Broadway to Grace Church, below Triu-
ity, and return. Children were taken
each morning to play and to enjoy the
fresh air on the Battery, then as lovely
a spot as heart could desire. There was
a colony about St. John's Park, and in
the neighborhood of Varick and Laight
streets; but it was considered remote.
The New-Yorker of that day, whether
of Holland stock or not, had the lethar-
gic traits of that old race. A walk from
the park to the sycamoi"es which stood
on the west side of Broadway at about
Twenty-sixth street was considered to be a feat of pedestrianlsm
suited only to athletic youths. Hot corn and ice-cream were carried
about the streets on summer evenings, and eagerly purchased by the
citizens, who not infrequently took the evening breeze on their front-
door steps. Nor was it considered below the diguity of a gentleman
to drink a dranght, or, taking off his hat, to cool his hea<l of a seeth-
ing day, at the town pumps. Fires were numerous, and one of the ,
chief pleasures of the New-Yorker was to "run with the engine." It
was considered a privilege to bo pennitted to take a hand at the
hose on some great " washout " between rival engines. The assemblies
or subscription balls were dignified affairs, and the waltz was as yet
unknown ; but the highest in name and fashion did not disdain to
take the broidered scarf and display the graces of her motions in the
dance of the bayadere.
' Chrlntopher Collc^ who U nienrioned In pre-
rloiu ehmpten of thin Tulaint. i1li>d la tblH r.lty
In 1821. The vignette U copied from a painting
the piwsciwioii of tlir Ncw-York Gi>D.Ml..gical
.1 Biojrrupliii^iil S-H^lfty. Hi- i« still n-|.n.-wiited
re by <lvsreuilaiitti. Kuitiim.
HISTORY OF NEW-YOKK
The Caf6 FranQais, in Warren street, was the resort of the wits of
the city. Here the poets Halleck and Hoffman were daily visitors,
and many are the legends of this famous spot. It was here also that
the Siamese twins took up their abode on their first visit to New-
York. This quiet room was
favored only by the chosen
gentler spirits. The gayer
bloods, who loved ^are and
glitter and the noise of Broad-
way, patronized the Cafe de
Mille Colonnes, where music
was had with the coffee or
juleps or ices of the period-
It was at this time also that
Delmonieo started on his suc-
cessful career. He had the
favor of Gallatin at once as
his compatriot and as a lover
of good cheer, of which he
had shared the best, if not an
epicure in the narrow sense of
the word. Never had caterer
such a field for his art, with
the product of every zone
cheap and in bountiful profusion close at hand. And never did ca-
terer better improve his opportunities, teaching the inhabitants of
this new world the culinary habits of the old, and revolutionizing
the processes of the old by the devices suggested by the various and
admirable customs of hospitable citizens of old New-Tork.
Among the schools of the period most in vogue was the grammar-
school for boys. This stood in Murray street, on the college block,
and was presided over by Professor Charles Anthon, of Columbia Col-
lege, better known to literary fame as the translator of Lempri^re's
*' Classical Dictionary," which, with the " Gradus ad Pamassum," was
a favorite study of lovers of Roman and Grecian history and legend,
and of easy quotations in the Latin vernacular. Professor Anthon,
with his pearl-colored, tight-fitting cloth trousers, and his light cane,
was an admired and dreaded character. To reach the fit of the one
was the ambition of the youthful postulant, as much as the descent
of the other was his dread. There was a legend current about this
schoolmaster, that he breakfasted daily on twelve hMxi-boiled eggs,
and that his morning exercise was taken on the bodies of the gram-
mar-school boys. He may have been rough, but he was not brutal,
and no one was ever seriously damaged in these morning exercises.
COHTOIT'8 garden, BROADWAY, 1880.
THE BEOINNINQ OF NIIW-YOBE'S COMMERCIAL GREATNESS 361
Befiides this there was the French Institate in Back street, kept by
the brothers Louis and Hyacinth Peuquet No young gentleman
was considered to have completed his preliminary education until he
had mastered the French language. The Peuquets were well-bred
gentlemen. Louis, the elder, carried a ball received at the battle of
Waterloo, which made him an unpleasant master of a wet day.
Hyacinth was an excellent mathematician, and no youth left his
school without a thorough traiuing in the science of "fractions."
There were two equally celebrated schools for the education of
young ladies. Before 1837 Mrs. Mary OkiU, a lady of refinement, the
daughter of Sir James Jay,
had her institution in Bar-
clay street. Here almost every
young miss of distinction in
the city had her first train-
ing, and many completed their
education under her guidance.
But there were other families
who preferred that the finish-
ing touches should be acquired
by attendance at a French
school. Of these there were
two of social renown, that of
Madame Fulgence Chegaray,
and that of Mr. Charles Cauda.
Mr. Cauda also was a soldier
of the empire, and was fond
of relating his terrible experi-
ence on the return from Mos-
cow. The scions of this fam-
ily are well-known citizens of
New- York, and one of the
beat-remembered and saddest episodes of New-York life was the
death and funeral of the accomphshed daughter of Mr. Canda, killed
by Ijeiug thrown from her carriage on her return from an evening
entertainment. Both sexes were taught dancing by Monsieur Charu-
aud, whose method was thorough in the training of the body, as
well as in grace of motion. Traditions of his amiability and skill
remain with three generations of New-Yorkers, whom the veteran
taught up to the age of fourscore. Others trod in the footsteps of
these admirable instructors, but New- York has never seen institutions
of a higher character than those which marked this interesting decade.
CANDA HUNUMENT.l
362 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY AS A MARK OF HONOR.
The bestowal of this mark of esteem is so frequently mentioned in the preceding
chapters, that it seems proper to collect some account of the practice and its signifi-
cance, and to give a list of those threescore persons who have thus been honored from
the time of Lord Combury, the first to whom it was given, to the present time —
January, 1893 — a period of nearly two centuries.
I. Of the freedom of the city, Chancellor James Kent says : " The 20th and 21st
sections of the Montgomerie Charter gave to the Mayor and four or more Aldermen
the power to make free citizens of the City, on payment of a fee not exceeding £5. to the
use of the corporation. This was only a repetition of the power conferred by Governor
Dongan's charter. . . . This chartered power has ceased [Kent wrote in 1836] to be
of any importance, and is used only as a testimonial of respect or gratitude, on the
part of the corporation, towards persons in high station, or who may have entitled
themselves to the honor by personal merit, or some distinguished service. There are
many instances in the annals of the corporation of this mode of reward. But the ad-
mission to the freedom of the city was, at the date of the charter, not only a token of
honor, but a g^nt of substantial benefit. By making a person a freeman of the city,
he became entitled to all its municipal privileges ; and, among others, to the right of
voting for, and of being voted to, corporate offices, which right belonged only to corpo-
rate freemen and to freeholders, until the Charter was altered by statute, in 1804.^
("The Charter of the City of New- York, with notes," New- York, 1836, pp. 152, ei seq.)
II. The following oath was required of those who acquired the privileges of free-
men : ** I, , do swear. That I, as a Freeman of the city of New- York, will be
obeisant and obedient to the Mayor, and other Ministers or Peace Officers of the said
city ; the franchises and customs thereof I will maintain, and keep the said city harm-
less as much as in me lieth. I will know of no unlawful gatherings, assemblies, or
meetings, or of any conspiracies against the peace of the people of the State of New-
York, but I will warn the Mayor, or other Magistrate thereof, or hinder it to the ut-
most of my power. All these points and articles I will well and truly maintain, and
keep according to the laws and customs of the said city. So help me God." (" New-
York Historical Society Collections," 1885, p. 240.)
m. On pages 246, 247 of this volume there have been given in foot-notes the ad-
dress and proceedings at the presentation of the freedom of the city to Captain Isaac
Hull, of the Constitution, in recognition of his victory over the Guerri^re. It will be of
interest, also, as a specimen of similar documents delivered to other x>ersons, to present
the certificate of the grant to George Washington :
'^ By James Duane Esquire, Mayor, and the Recorder and Aldermen of the City of
New-York. To all to whom these Presents shall come or may concern. Greeting.
*^ Whereas His Excellency George Washington, late Commander in Chief of the
Armies of the United States of America, by a series of the most illustrious Services is
entitled to the Respect, Gratitude, and Applause of every Heart which is truly Ameri-
can 'y And as none can have greater Reason to cherish the most honorable and affec-
tionate Sentiments towards him than the Citizens of the State of New- York ; So we
have the fullest Confidence that there is no State in which they are more generally
and emphatically felt. Flattering ourselves that, convinced of this Truth, His Excel-
lency may be pleased to have his name enrolled among the Citizens of a Metropolis for the
Recovery of which so much of his Care and Solicitude have been employed : Now there-
fore know ye that we, considering that Effusions of public Esteem are the most welcome
Tribute to a patriot mind, have admitted and received, and by these Presents Do ad-
mit and receive, his said Excellency to be a Freeman and Citizen of the said City.
THE
:4MMiii
iM OF THE CITY AS A MAKK OF HONOR 363
'' To hold, exeroise, and enjoy all the Rights, Privileges and Immunities to the Free-
dom and Citizenship of the said City incident and appertaining as a permanent Proof
of the admiration we feel for his exalted Virtues, for the Wisdom, Fortitude and
Magnanimity which he has so gloriously displayed thro' all the Vicissitudes and Em-
barrassments, thro* all the alternate Scenes of prosperous and adverse Fortune, pro-
duced in the Progress of an arduous and difficult War. And finally for that patriotic
Heroism which, after having been an essential instrument in giving by the Divine
Blessing Liberty and Independence to the thirteen Republicks, hath led him to retire
with Chearf ulness from the Head of a victorious Army to the modest Station of a
private Citizen.
^' In Testimony of these Truths and to perpetuate them to our remotest Posterity,
we the said Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen have caused these Presents to be entered
on our pubhc Records, and our common Seal of the said City, enclosed in a golden
Box, to be hereunto affixed. Witness James Duane Esq'', Mayor of the said City, this
2d Day of December in the Year of our Lord 1784, and of the Independence of the
State the ninth." (" At a Common Council held the 2d Day of December, 1784," from
the Records at the City Hall. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1885, pp. 267, 268.)
The letter which Washington wrote in acknowledging the receipt of this certificate
and the gold box containing it, appears in facsimile on pages 23 and 24 of this volume.
IV. A list of the names of those upon whom the freedom of the city has been be-
stowed, together with the dates, is here given :
Viacount Combury Dec. 1,
Earl Lovelace March 1,
Ctovemor William Hunter June 16,
Governor William Burnet Sept. 26,
Captain Peter Solgardi Aug. 6,
Captain Coril MayneS Oct. 16,
Governor William Coeby Aug. 9,
Lord Augustus Fits Boy Oct. 23,
Mi^or Alexander Cosby s Aug. 27,
Thomas Freeman' **
Captain Matthew Norris Nov. 4,
Captain Robert Long **
Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia. . Sept. 29,
Daniel Horsmanden Jan. 17,
Governor Gteorge Clinton Sept 30,
Captain John Burglss^ June 28,
Honorable William Shirley Aug. 11,
Sir Danvers Osbom Oct. 10,
Sir Charles Hardy Sept. 10,
General Jeffrey Amherst Nov. 27,
Governor Robert Monckton Oct. 31,
Governor Henry Moore Nov. 21,
William Davis5 June 10,
The Earl of Dunmore Nov. 13,
Governor WUliam Tryon July 18,
General Thomas Gage June 7,
Marquis de La Fayette Sept. 14,
George Clinton Sept. 22,
John Jay Oct, 4,
Baron Steuben Oct. 11,
1702.
1709.
1710.
1720.
1723.
1728.
1732.
1732.
1733.
t«
1734.
1735.
1736.
1743.
1748.
1748.
1753.
1755.
1760.
1761.
1765.
1766.
1770.
1771.
1773.
1784.
1784.
1784.
1784.
George Washington Dec. 2, 1784.
Pierre Charles I'Enfant « Oct. 12, 1789.
Horatio Gates Feb. 25, 1791.
Alexander Hamilton Mar. 16, 1795.
Robert Pulton Aug. 10, 1812.
Isaac Hull Sept. 7, 1812.
Jacob Jones Nov. 30, 1812.
Stephen Decatur Dec. 17, 1812.
William Bainbridge Mar. 1, 1813.
James Lawrence Mar. 29, 1813.
OUver H. Perry Oct. 4, 1813.
Thomas McDonough Sept 26, 1814.
Jacob Brown Oct 10, 1814.
Alexander Macomb Nov. 21, 1814.
Charles Stewart June 5, 1815.
Andrew Jackson Feb. 23, 1819.
George Washington de La Fayette. .Aug. 18, 1824.
Martin Van Buren Mar. 23, 1829.
Daniel T. Paterson June 27, 1832.
Winfleld Scott April 23, 1847.
Zachary Taylor '• "
Matthew C. Perry July 24, 1848.
Frederick Jerome ^ Sept 18, 1848.
David Cook Jan. 4. 1850.
Robert Creightou Jan. 19, 1854.
Edwin J. Low 8 **
Robert Anderson April 22, 1861.
Thurlow Weed July 7, 1862.
David G. Farragut Aug. 17, 1864.
Andrew Johnson Aug. 27, 1866.
Editob.
1 For capturing a pirate vessel.
- For driving away pirates from New England
waters.
3 Freeman was the son-in-law of Governor Cosby.
4 For capturing a privateer.
5 For having presented a portrait of William
Pitt to the common council.
^ An engineer ofHoer who came to this country
with Lafayette and served with distinction in the
army, afterward drawing the plan of the city of
Washington.
7 A common seaman who had displayed great
heroism during a shipwreck, and had saved many
lives.
8 This and the two preceding persons were cap-
tains of vessels, who had been the means of res-
cuing hundreds of shipwrecked people at sea, at
great risk to themselves.
CHAPTER X
TEN YEABS OP MimiCIPAL YIGOR
1837-1847
^ N Mareh 4, 1837, beneath a cloudless sky, President Van
Buren read his inaugural address to the thousands assem-
bled before the Capitol at Washington. On the 15th of
the same month, Daniel Webster visited the city of New-
Tork, to receive an ovation from the Whigs of the metropolis for his
opposition to the principles which had again tiiuniphed in Martin
Van Buren's election. Webster traveled from Philadelphia to Perth
Amboy by the newly
opened Camden and Am-
boy Railway. A commit-
tee of New- York's most
prominent Whigs, appoint-
ed to make arrangementp
for his reception, met him
on his arrival at Perth Am-
boy, where bo was taken
on board the steamer ehar-
^W "^^ 1 "^^I'^^^^'^w -^-B- tered by the committee and
__^;^*^ -^ jV ^rTtf^ conveyed to New- York city.
■•r^t^j V -^1 "^ ^lli' -^^ immense concourse of
.'^ / / 'llljl pfiopl* assembled at the
tM ^' ^ _^r ~^\ iW^ Battery to greet the "De-
\^ ^ ^f ^ ''^ fender of the Constitution."
F Upon landing he was placed
" in a barouche with DaWd
B. Ogden, Philip Hone, and
Peter Sta^, and driven to
the American Hotel, amid
the cheers of the throngs which lined his route from the Battery to
the hotel. In the evening between four thousand and five thousand
persons, chiefly Whigs, were gathered in Niblo's Saloon to hear the
great orator upon the issues of the time — the National Bank and the
W^']
TEN YEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIOOB
365
methods of Jackson and of hie successor. On the following day a
public reception was tendered him in the City Hall.
The city which Webster visited in 1837 had few of the features of
the metropolis of to-day. It had then a population of about 300,000,
the census taken by the mayor's marshals in 1835 showing upward
of 270,000. Near the Battery, at which the great Whig statesman
disembarked, stood Castle Garden, then situated upon an insular
moimd of earth, ap-
proached from the Bat^
tery by a bridge. This
historic structure, on-
ginaUy Castle Clinton,
had in 1822 been ceded
by the United States to
the city, at which date
it received its present
name. For years after
the cession it was rented
as a place of amuse-
ment, and distinguished
singers, among whom
may be enumerated
Madame Malibran and
Madame Grisi, have here
delighted thousands of
old New-Yorkers. As he
rode up Broadway, the visitor may have had pomted out to him
the house, long since razed, where Sir Henry Chnton had his
headquarters during the Revolutionary War, but at this time the
home of Edward Prime, of the banking-house of Prime, Ward &
King, whom Webster doubtless met, and whose firm was destined to
play an important part in the impending financial crisis of 1837.
Nor could the successful advocate in the great case of Gibbons v.
Ogden have failed to notice the adjoining house, once the borne of
Robert Fulton, with whose invention one of his most brilliant legal
triumphs was associated. In the brick row then fronting Bowling
Green lived Stephen Whitney, perhaps the wealthiest man of the
city, and Jacob Hone, who, with his brother Philip, had amassed a
fortune as an auctioneer. The house where Washington Ir\ing once
> Bunker's Mantdon House, a famous botel. was
situated at No. 39 Broadway, aad was a large
double 'brick house, erected In ITSC hy O^iteral
Alexander Macomb as a residence for himself. It
was s most eonif ortaWe and weU-conducled hotel,
and was patronixed lar^ly by Southern families.
Bunker, who was noted for Us affabillt;' to bis
grew rich rapidly, and eventually sold
Ibe property and retired from bijainess. Moulton.
In his ■■ History of New-York," nays, according to
tradition, that thU bouse xtood on the site of the
first erection of any kind by the Dutch on Man-
hattan Island. This consisted of a small redoubt,
built In 16IS. Editor.
366
HI8T0ET OF NEW- YORK
resided was within sight, near the corner of State and Bridge streete,
while No. 17 Whitehall street was still the home of bis brother-in-law,
the distinguished author of " The Backwoodsman," James K. Paul-
ding, soon to be called to a place in Van Buren's cabinet as secretary
of the navy. Numerous private residences were to be found upon
Broadway below and above Wall street. About this marvelous thor-
oughfare— for such Broadway was even then — banks were not more
thickly clustered than churches. Grace Church stood on the comer
of Rector street and Broadway;
and at No. 11 Wail street, the old
Presbyterian church, in which wor-
shiped the society that, in 1844,
built the church on Fifth Avenue,
between Eleventh and Twelfth
streets. Near Grace Church stood
Trinity, but not the Trinity fa-
miliar to the present generation.
The Trinity of 1837, which was not
the oiiginal edifice, but the third
church upon this site, was com-
pleted in 1788, and was now near-
ing its end. In 1839 it was taken
down, and it was replaced in 1846
by the present noble structure. As the mention of the second temple
would to the Jew have suggested the more splendid glory of the de-
parted temple of Solomon, so the second Trinity recalls the former
church, built in 1696, as the old historian records it, " very pleasantly
upon the banks of the Hudson River," for the beach upon which the
waters of the river once broke is now covered by gravestones. In
Wall street, upon the site of the old Federal H^ were reared the
outlines of an unfinished structure, designed for the custom-house,
and for many years occupied as such, but now the subtreasnry. The
old Merchants' Exchange, erected between 1825 and 1827 by the Mer-
chants' Exchange Company, which was incorporated in 1823, with a
capital of $1,000,000, had been destroyed in the great fire of Decem-
ber, 1835, together with Ball Hughes's celebrated statue of Hamilton,
which stood in the rotunda, and to save which most heroic efforts
were made. The present Merchants' Exchange was begun in 1836, but
was not finished until 1842. Upon a later visit, in 1842, Mr. Webster
found it still incomplete. On the east side of Nassau street, between
Cedar and Liberty, stooil the Middle Dutch Church, an object familiar
1 The Garden Street Cbnrch (■Jterw*Td called
the Sonth Chiir«h) waa built in 1693, in Garden
atreet, now EzchftDfce Place. The original edifice
was of wood, and '
1TT6, and in 1807
Id the aboTe
TEN YEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR 367
until 1882. Erected in 1729, it was for many years consecrated to the
service of the Gkxi for the privilege of worshiping whom the Puritans
of Holland so long and triumphantly withstood the armies of Alva
and his son. The transfer of the government of Peter Stuyvesant's
city to the Duke of York produced no change in its sacred character;
bat, during the Revolutionary days, it was used by the British as a
place for the confinement of American soldiers.* Peace being restored,
religious worship was resumed and continued until 1845, when the
building was leased to the United States and convert6d into a post-
oflBce ; for the merchants of that day had successfully objected to a
post-office as far up-town as the City Hall. The old South Dutch
Church had been consumed in the great fire of 1835, but the North
Dutch Church, erected upon the northwest corner of Fulton and Wil-
liam streets, was, like St. George's Chapel in Beekman street, a famil-
iar object until within a few years past.
The city, in 1837, and for several years afterward, was in a state
of chaos, owing to the extent of building operations. New structures
of brick or stone were replacing the old wooden architecture, or
rising from the ruins caused by the fire of 1835. As the " Mirror ^
said, it reminded the observer of the famous city of Dido, where ^neas
witnessed the incessant activity of the masons and architects of Tyre.
The exodus of the wealthy from the lower parts of the city, within a
few years to become general, had hardly yet commenced. Park
Place, Murray, Warren, Chambers, Franklin, and White streets, and
upon the east side East Broadway, were, besides Broadway, the chief
abodes of fashion. A few elegant mansions had been built about
University Square, or in lower Fifth Avenue. The City Park em-
braced the land upon which the post-office now stands, and was cov-
ered with ample shade-trees. To the west of the City Hall, then
considered one of the finest public buildings in New-York, was the
old jail or bridewell. The new City Hall, the brown stone building
to the east of the present county court-house, was at this time, and
for many years afterward, occupied by the justices of the United
States District and Circuit Courts, and by the justices of the Marine
Court and Common Pleas. The Hall of Records has been so many
times altered that our modem busy man forgets its transformations,
although he deplores its ugliness ; but the old building merits atten-
tion, not only for the records it contains, but for the record of which
it is the witness. At one time the headquarters of the infamous Cun-
ningham, in which so many gallant patriots were confined during the
occupation of the city by the British, the building in 1830 became the
1 It was in this church that the semi-centennial oc<;asion was the venerable John Quincy Adams,
celebration of Washin^rton's inaugniration took then seventy-two years of age. The ceremonies
place on April 30, 1839, under the auspices of the at the church were followed by a grand dinner at
New-York ffistorical Society. The orator of the the City Hotel.
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
depository of the county records, and in the year 1832 was used as
a cholera hospital. Later again it was renovated and remodeled, a
new facade with Ionic columns erected, and in the days of which we
write it was one of the landmarks of the city.
New- York was at this time deficient in public parks. Bowling
Green was an inclosure sacred to the aristocrats who dwelt near it;
St John's Park, or Hudson Square, with its fiue trees, was also main-
tained in trim state for the exclusive use of the occupants of the sur-
rounding mansions. The houses about this park were English in
their architecture, usually double, and of two stories in height, with
fronts of yellowish brick, contrasted with brownstone porticos antl
trimmings. An air of elegant uniformity pervaded this neighbor-
hood, and **the continuous long
lines of iron palisades both ai'ound
the square and before the area of
every house, and up the several
door-steps," said a writer of the
time, "give a peculiar aspect of
European style and magnificence."
With the exception of Vauxhall
Park, . the Battery was the only
popular pleasure-ground. Vauxhall
Gardens, the " favorite resort of
the democratic masses," occupied a
large part of the block bounded by
Fourth Avenue, Fourth street, La-
fayette Place, and Astor Place, in-
cluding the site of the Astor Li-
braiy. Washington Square was then
the parade-ground, upon which the
militia was reviewed. It had pre-
viously been used as the Potter's Field. Union Square was well out
of town. Gramerey Park, which owes its existence to the munificence
of the late Samuel B. Buggies, although designed before 1837, was not
laid out or improved until about 1840. One of the attractions of this
square, in its early days, was a fountain erected at a cost of $3000.
Washiugton Hall, erected by the Federalists in their palmy days,
was situated where the Stewart marble building now stands. Stew-
art's Chambers-street store was not opened until 1845. On the east
side of Broadway was the Masonic Hall, long deemed, next to the
Merchants' Exchange, the finest stmeture in the city. Columbia Col-
lege was then in College Place, and the University of the City of New-
York had not yet removed to its new building upon Washington Square.
The New- York Society Library occupied rooms in the Mechanics'
TEN YEAKS OP MUNICIPAL VIGOB
Society building in Chambers street, awaiting the completion of its
new home on the comer of Broadway and Leonard street. The
Mercantile Library was at Clinton Hall, which was then situated on
the southwest comer of Nas-
sau and Beekman streets, the
site lately occupied by the
Nassau Bank, now by Temple
Court, In this hall at that
day, and for several years
later, the young National
Academy of Design exhibited
the pictures of Allston, log-
ham, Morse, and West, while
at the more ample galleries
of the American Art Union,
at No. 497 Broadway, might
have been seen about this period "The Passing of a Summer
Shower" by Durand, or Leutze's "Landing of Columbus.*
The hotels of the city were few in number, and, considering its size,
the accommodations which the town could furnish to travelers were
far from adequate. The City Hotel — according to Dayton, "without
an equal in the United States" — held the first place; but the recently
erected Astor House soon rose to a position of primacy, and here were
given many great dinners, notably those to the Prince de Joinville and
Lord Ashburton. The Irving House was on the comer of Chambers
street and Broadway; the American House at 135 Fulton street; in
Broad street was the Exchange Hotel ; in Park Row, Love joy's; inNas-
sau street, Tammany Hall, although then the headquarters of the Loco-
focos, as the Whigs of the time were fond of styling all Democrats,
dispensed hospitality upon the European plan. The elder Delmonico
THB BETBRLT BOBINSOH HOUSE.!
1 The BeTeil; Boblason House vim Blta>t«d on
thv east bank of the Hodaon, nearly opposite West
Pcdnt, and mu erecled about 1T50 b; Colonel
Beverly Bobinaon, whose father, John Kobinson,
waa prealdeiit of the colony of VirginiA after the
retirement of Oovemor Ooocb. Itn groundB,
eomprialng a thonsand acreB. came to hiiu thron^th
his Tnarrlam^th Susanna, daughter of Frederick
PhlHpae, the seeoad proprietor of the manor, and
giiter of Mn. Roger Morris. Colonel Robinson
■erred with dlatinctlon as a m^or In the British
army, nnder Wolfe, at the slorminft of QQehec.
Opposed to the separation of the colonies from
Enftland, he removed to New-York, raised the
Loyal American ReKlment. and hecamnitA colonel-
He played a consplcaous part in behalf of the
royalists in many important matters, and his
home on the Hadson wan Arnold's headqnarters
while planning his treachery with Andr*. In which
Colonel Bobintiou was concerned. At the close
of the war, his large eatatea, Including ■' Beverly,"
Vol. m.— 24.
were conflscat«d and sold. The old mansion was
replete with memories of colonial days. Wash-
ington made use of it continually ; Piitnani had
hia headquarters there also, as did other generals
of the Ameriean army. It was for a long time in
the possession of the Arden family, and was pur-
chased about 1B73 by Hamilton Pish, who pre-
served it unaltered until its destruction by flre,
March IT, 1S92. For many years the old mansion
was the residence of a member of his family. It
was pleasantly situated near the foot of Sngar-
Loaf Mountain, named by the first Duteh settlers
Siiikfr Urood lirrg, also the property of Mr. Piab.
who writps to the Editor, under date of August 2,
1892: "The name is of ancient data, derived, as
I have long since understood, from its shape, pre-
senting on approach from the south by the river
the point«d shape of the old-fashioned loaves of
9uga.T. more familiar to those who (Hke me) num-
ber their years at eighty-four, than to the younger
generation."
370 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
and his rival, Guerin, — now but a name, — had just settled in the city;
but the famous restaurant-keeper was Windust, whose basement in
Park Row, not far from the Park Theater, was the resort of literary
and theatrical people, among whom Thomas A. Cooper, Edmund Eean,
Junius Brutus Booth, the Wallacks, and the Eembles were the most
noted. After the curtain had fallen for the evening, hosts of auditors
visited Windust's to catch a nearer glimpse of the celebrities of the
stage. Before 1837, Windust, having become rich in the humble
basement where wits and players long assembled, moved to more am-
bitious quarters, and opened the famous Athenaeum, at the comer
of Broadway and Leonard street, in the very heart of
fashion. But the patronage which reminds us of the
London coflfee-houses in the days of Johnson and Goldsmith, and
which had made Windust rich and famous, did not follow him in
his new venture, and before many years the AthensBum was closed.
" Last week,'' said the " Mirror " in September, 1837, " was a memora-
ble one, for it was the first occasion in Gotham when eight theaters
were in operation at the same time." Among the theaters of the day
the Park easily held the first place, and was the ** old Drury ^ of New-
York. Its site was at No. 21 Park Row. Here, during this decade,
could have been heard Ellen Tree (who visited America in 1836), Mr.
and Mrs. Keeley, Charles Kemble, the Keans, Tyrone Power, Conway,
Macready, and the Ravel family. Here was first publicly sung
Payne's "Home, Sweet Home." Fannie Elssler, who visited New-
York in 1840, here acquainted the staid Knickerbockers with the
ballet, and her dancing in " la Tarentule " and in " la Sylphide " capti-
vated audiences little accustomed to the pas seul. Henry Clay, upon
one of his visits to the city, is said to have enjoyed one of these ballets.
At the National,* Charles Kean played Hamlet, Macbeth, and Claude
Melnotte ; and Forrest, Lear and Richelieu, besides whom were other
histrionic celebrities at the Franklin, the Broadway, or Euterpeau
Hall. The dramatic taste of the metropolis was never purer, nor
the acting superior.
One of the most famous theaters of the time — famous not so much
as a dramatic success as because of its site — was Richmond Hill,
located on the comer of Varick and Charlton streets. The theater
consisted of the old mansion-house of Aaron Burr with the addition
of a building constructed in its rear, and at its opening a prize was
offered for the best dedicatory poem. The judges assembled in one
of the old rooms where in Butt's days had gathered Talleyrand, the
philosopher Volney, and other celebrities of the time. Gulian C.
I The National, ori^nally desired for an opera- beinf? in September, 1839, the sooond in May. 1841.
house, was at Church and Leonard Rtrcets. It * Its manaf^r. Jamefl W. Wallack, was a well-known
was twice consumed by fire, the first occasion personage in the society of that day.
TEN XEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOE
371
Verplanck read the Buceessf ul poem and broke the seal of the envelope
containing the name of the Buceessfnl competitor — Fitz-Greene Eal-
ieck. But Richmond Hill was too far out of town for those days ; its
fall was inevitable, and it was closed in 1842.
In the whole history of the Park Theater it never held a wealthier
or more fashionable assemblage than on the evening of St. Valentine's
day^ in 1842, when the leading society people of New- York held a
ball in honor of Charles Dickens.
The "Boz" ball was the talk of the
town during January and February.
On the evening of January 26, at a
meeting at the Astor House, resolu-
tions to arrange for a public ball in
the novelist's honor were passed, and
a committee appointed, including
among its members Robert H. Mor-
ris, Philip Hone, James Watson
Webb, Justice Thomas J. Oakley,
John W. Edmonds, Alexander W.
Bradford, Charles W. Sandford, and
William H. Appleton, who, not long
previously, fafid opened in London,
England, a branch establishment of
the firm of D. Appleton & Co. Ex-
Mayor Hone was selected to address the letter of invitation to Mr.
Dickens, who was then at Boston. The committee recommended that
the ball should be given at the Park, the inside of which should be so
transformed as to represent a magnificent saloon ; the auditorium to
be decorated with flowers, garlands, draperies, and trophies emblemati-
cal of the different States of the Union ; the floor to extend from the
front of the boxes to the rear of the house, where, on an elevated
stage, were to be represented in tableaux various interesting scenes
from Dickens's works. The programme of the committee was strictly
carried out. The decorations and ornaments were all, as Mr. Hone
said, " Pickwickian." Before a temporary stage was hung a drop-
curtain upon which Pickwick and his friends and Sam Weller were
depicted. Behind this curtain were represented groups of persons
illustrating incidents in " Pickwick," " Nicholas Nickleby," " Oliver
I " within the last tew years the obsf rvance of
this festlT&l [SI. V&leiitlii«' a daj-] has been eiteitil-
Ing In New- York, and It baa now become quite
■ nbowy sifalr; forty thouwnd valentlneB pass
tfaroucb the coarse of the day. To-night [February
14, IftU] aclub o( bachelors, according to annual
eaatom, give the ladies a ball at the Antor House."
Letters from Kew-York, by Lydia Haria Child.
2 Samuel Jones was bom July 26. IT^M. He
studied law wl tb Judfce WliUaiu Smith, and became
recorder of New- York In ITS!). Dr. David Hosaek
sud of him; "Common consent has Indeed as-
signed him the bigfaeHt attainments In jurispru-
dence, and the appellation of father of (he New-
York bar." He was tlie father of the chancellor,
and died November 21, 1819. Eh>iTOB-
372 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Twist,'^ " The Old Curiosity Shop/' " Barnaby Rudge,'' and others of
Dickens's then published works. The intervals of the dancing were
enlivened with the tableaux and with refreshments. The guests, who
numbered nearly twenty-five hundred, were the exponents of the
wealth and aristocracy of the town. Had it been possible to raise
the curtain of futurity and to add to the stage tableaux the pictures
of New- York life shortly to be presented in "Martin Chuzzlewit," *
there would have been a speedy end to the honors shown the guest
of the evening. A few days later a dinner to the novelist, attended
^^. ^ CH—— ^^ niore than two hundred ladies and gentle-
/^<kr;L. t/^d^^ir' men, was given at the City Hotel. It is an
interesting fact that Washington Irving, who with other authors of
the day was present on this occasion, was almost as much of a " lion ^
as Dickens. To Irving's aflBuent literary honors had recently been
added his appointment as minister to Spain, upon the nomination of
President Tyler.-
At few of the many brilliant entertainments for which these years
were notable was gas, which was a recent introduction, used to illu-
minate the drawing-rooms. The New-York Gas-light Company had
been incorporated in 1823, with permission to lay its pipes below
Canal and Grand streets, at which time the business and residential
parts of the city were south of this line. In 1830 the Manhattan Gas-
light Company was organized to supply the illuminant to the upper
wards, but for many years lamps supplied with sperm-oil, or candles,
were employed, especially in the more democratic households.
It was estimated that New- York then had about one hundred and
fifty churches, of which not more than six were Boman Catholic.
Before 1850 the churches had increased in number to two hundred
and thirty-nine, and the number of Roman Catholic churches had
been trebled. In the early part of this decade most of the churches
were far down-town. Their migration up-town at this period is
significant of the change then occurring in the center of popula-
tion. Besides those already enumerated, the chief churches were St.
George's Chapel in Beekman street, St. Paul's and St. John's chapels,
Christ Church in Ann street, and the old Brick Church, which, with
its adjoining grounds, occupied the site upon which the "Times "and
the Potter buildings now stand.
It was an era in which clubs were formed. There were the Hone
Club, which held its weekly feasts at the homes of its different mem-
bers, usually Whigs, and at which both Webster and Clay, upon dif-
1 In his "American Notes," Dickens was more always most hospitable. . . . The ladies are
just to New- York. " The tone of the best society sinnnilarly beautiful."
in this city is like that of Boston ; here and there. 2 This appointment, which was universally ap-
it may be, with a greater infusion of the mercan- proved, was made at the instance of Webster/tfaoi
tile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and secretary of state. EJditob.
TEN YEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOB
373
ferent occasions, were honored guests ; the Kent Club, so called in
honor of ex-Chaneellor Kent, comprising some of the most eminent
lawyers of the city, as Samuel Jones, John Duer (afterward a judge
of the Superior Court, and brother of William A. Duer, then president
of Columbia College), John Anthon, Ogden Hoffman, Peter A. Jay,
the then rising Charles O'Conor, and Francis B. Catting. The
Union Club was formed in 1836. " It was," says Lossing, " the repi-e-
sentative organization of members of old families, the remnants of
the Knickerbocker race, who clung with
tenacity to the idea and the traditions
of family aristocracy they had so long
enjoyed." "Their names appear in the
list of Daembership,** says Fairfield, whom
Lossing quotes, "with a sort of aristo-
cratic monotony of that Knickerbocker-
ism which earned for them the epithet of
the Boorbons of New- York." There were
still extant the Sketch Club, formed by
Morse and other artists in 1827, the mem-
bers of which used to meet fortnightly
at the old Washington Hotel, comer of
Broadway and Chambers street, and the
famous Bread and Cheese Club, whose
membership was more distinctively liter-
ary and scientific, and at whose meetings
might be seen Dr. Francis, author and physician, the naturalist De-
Kay, and his friend the author of "Alnwick Castle" and "Marco
Bozzaris," the Duer brothers, Gulian C. Verplanck, the legislator and
writer, Professor Renwick, and Charles King,' afterward the able
president of Columbia College.
The "Augustan age of American literature " existed here in the
period now under notice. New England literature was yet in its in-
fancy. Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne were just rising into
prominence. Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales" were first published
in New-York, and were welcomed by Lewis Gaylord Clark in the
"Knickerbocker Magazine." "Morton's Hope" was brought out
anonymously by the Harpers, and to many gave little promise of
such splendid compositions as "The Dutch Republic" or "The United
Ketherlands." The "Knickerbocker," like the "Mirror," was in the
meridian of its splendor, with a roll of illustrious contributors, both
foreign and American. Southey, Bulwer, Guizot, Longfellow, Haw-
I CbarlM and jBme« O. KIdk were aons of tbe vrith Barr, in the tatt«' part of Ihe past ccntuiy.
Ffil»!r»UBlRu(oiiKliig,wborepn'Benl*dNew-York KIdk also served in the «mie body between the
in the United States Senate, contemponneoDBl]' jrears 1813 and 1A23. Editor.
374 HISTORy OF new-yobk
thorne, Whittier, Bryant, Cooper, Irving, Percival, Paulding, William
L. Stone, Charles Fenno Hoffman, Halleck, N. P. Willis, Theodore S.
Pay, John Inman, and Park Benjamin contributed to its columns.
The Harpers, the veteran publishers of the city, were then* issuing
Bulwer^s tales, Lockhart's Life of the lately deceased Sir Walter
Scott, Mrs. Shelley's " Faulkner,^ Matthew Davis's " Life of Burr," and
Sergeant Talfourd's "Life and Letters '^ of the inimitable Charles
Lamb. In the same era came Poe's " Narrative of A. Gordon Pym,''
peerless of its kind after "Gulliver's Travels '*; Longfellow's "Hy-
perion"; "The Pathfinder," "The Water-Witch," and "The Deer-
^ slayer," by Cooper; "The Adventures of Cap-
'-2Aty,,c^.^ tain Bonneville" and "Astoria" by the veteran
Irving ; Carlyle's " Sartor Eesartus," and the works of Dumas, I^Is-
raeli, Dickens, and Humboldt.' There was indeed admirable read-
ing to be had in those days, nor was the lyceum much behind, with
lectures by Jared Sparks, Verplanck, President Duer, and the author
of the " Yellowplush Papers."
The pioneer of the penny press, and the firat newspaper to substi-
tute steam-presses for the old machines turned by crank, was the
New- York " Sun," which first appeared in 1835. Steam-presses and
cheap journalism revolutionized the press of the city. The " Herald "
was also begun in 1835, but the " Times," the " Tribune," and the
" World " were of later origin. The " World " was the offspring of the
"Courier and Enquirer," which, edited by James Watson Webb,
was the Whig organ of this period. Before the days of ocean
steamers or telegraphs, Webb initiated the "pony express," main-
taining a fleet of small vessels outside of Sandy Hook to hail each
incoming packet for the latest news from abroad. Webb's transient
monopoly was soon contested by the "Journal of Commerce" and
other papers of the day, but with the advent of the steamships
Sirius and Great Western this method of preempting the latest
information speedily became obsolete. In 1840, Horace Greeley, un-
der the auspices of Thurlow Weed, started a campaign sheet known
as the "Log Cabin," the embryo from which the "Tribune" was after-
ward developed. The "Log Cabin" was devoted to the cause of Har-
rison and Tyler. Log cabins, typical of the early home of the Whig
candidate, were erected all over the city, and hard cider flowed in
abundant streams, in rhythmic unison with the cry of " Tippecanoe
and Tyler too." Little more than a month after liis inauguration the
log-eabin hero was summoned from the White House to the grave,
when the people of New- York, without distinction of party, united
in expressions of profound grief. It was the flrst time that such a
calamity as the death of its chief magistrate in office had befallen
1 " Cosmos " was written in 1842 and 18i3. when Humboldt was upward of seventy-two years of afce.
376
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
remains), one of the notable
suburban resorts ; and Pros-
pect Hall, upon its summit,
was in its day a place as
attractive as the Murray
Hill or the Park Avenue of
to-day. The road was firat
opened through the tunnel
on October 26, 1837, and
like all the new enterprises
its completion was cele-
brated with 6clat. The
"Mirror" of the following
week, speaking of the
work, remarks: "Philadel-
phia and Boston are both
famous for their lions, their
Pairmount Water-works,
and their Mount Auburn
Cemetery, but they must
~ now hide their diminished
i heads for a while until they
^ can get up something to
beat the tunnel on Fourth
Avenue. . . . Certes, we
know of nothing in any city
of the Union to compare
with the magnificent view
that opens upon you, when
emerging from the upper
end of the artificial ravine
that has been cloven down
some seventy feet through
the solid i*ock6 of Mount
Prospect." The cars at this
time ran at intervals of fif-
teen minutes; the fare was
twenty-five cents. Subse-
quently the road was ex-
tended down the Bowery to
its present terminus at the
City Hall Park.
To the Dutch of New Am-
sterdam had succeeded the
378
HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
Whigs in nearly all the city and State elections, and this led to
what was termed the ** Native American^ movement. Cornelius W.
Lawrence, the first elected mayor of the city, was a Democrat. He
was elected in 1834, and twice reelected, with the aid of the Irish vote.
After the panic of 1837, owing to the reaction
^ against Van Buren and the defection of the
^^^^^^ Locofocos from Tammany Hall, the Whigs
experienced a temporary success, electing their candidate, Aaron Clark,
for two successive terms ; but in 1839 the Democrats regained control,
electing Isaac L. Varian mayor. In 1841, Eobert H. Morris, the Tam-
many candidate, was reelected, by a meager ma- J^^^t^^ ^y^
jority (less than 400 out of a vote of over 36,000). ^/^^/>7!^
He was reelected in 1842 by a majority of 2,000, d^
In April, 1843, Morris, who was again the Democratic candidate,
received 25,398 votes, while Smith, the Whig candidate, received only
19,517. That the great majority of the Democrats was evidently se-
cured by the assistance of the whole foreign vote was at once proven
by the action of the successful party in giving a large proportion of
the local offices to foreign-born citizens. This date emphatically marks
a turning-point in the city's political existence, the native and intelli-
1 The Democrats were suocessful in the charter
election of 1839, and their candidate, Isaac L.
Varian, became mayor. They also elected a ma-
jority of the aldermen and assistant aldermen.
Varian was a member of a family of note in New-
York city. The Varian farm, well known to all
lawyers, covered several acres, fronting on the
Bloomingdale Road between Twenty-sixth and
Twenty-ninth streets, and the present Qilsey
House standsupon a portion of the farm. In the
old farm-house both the mayor and his brother
George W. were bom. Varian was a member of
the Volunteer Fire Department in the days when
the companies enrolled some of the most con-
spicuous personages in the metropolis. ''Seven
mayors of the dty — Walter Bowne, Cornelius
W. Lawrence, Stephen Allen, Isaac L. Varian,
Daniel F. Tiemann, C. Godfrey Gunther. and Wil-
liam H. Wickham— were 'fire-laddies,' and prob-
ably owed their election to that circumstance,''
says Sheldon, in bis "History of the Volunteer
Fire Department of New- York City." Varian was
twice elected, even so bitter an opponent of De-
mocracy as Hone admitting that he was an excel-
lent man. The vote for mayor was as follows:
Varian. 21.030; (Hark, 20,027 ; scattering, .36. In the
spring of 1840, Varian was rejected, and the Dem-
ocrats again obtained a majority in the city
council. The vote was, Varian. 21.242 ; J. Phillips
Phirnix. 19,022 ; scattering. .^. The mayor's salary
was three thousand dollars a year.
2 Robert Hunter Morris was bom in New- York
city, February 15, 1802. He came of Revolution-
ary ancestry, his family having been long settled
in Morrisania. Westchester County. His father,
Robert Morris, a New- York merchant, was the
son of Richard Morris, the second chief Justice of
the Supreme Court of this State. Soon after his
birth his father retired from business, and removed
to a farm at Claverack, Columbia County, where
young Morris was educated. He subsequently
entered the office of Elisha Williams, then leader
of the Columbia County bar. He commenced the
practice of law at Johnstown in that county, but
in 1827 removed to New-York. Shortly after-
ward he held the post of assistant to James A.
Hamilton, then U. S. district attorney in the
southern district of New York, and he also served
as member of the Assembly in 1833 and 1834. In
1838 Governor Marcy appointed him recorder of
the dty of New-York, which office he held until
his removal by Governor Seward in 1841. caused
by the famous Glentworth conspiracy. Just prior
to the presidential election of 1840, Glentworth
organised a plot to send a number of workmen
from Pennsylvaniik to New-York, ostensibly for
the purpose of laying Croton pipes in the city, but
in reality to vote for Harrison. Tho recorder and
the district attorney, fearing that documentary
evidence of the plot might be destroyed before it
could be laid before the grand jury, went in per-
son, with Mayor Varian, to the house of the cus-
todian of the documents, and demanded their
surrender, when they were given up. The papers
appeared to Implicate many prominent Whigs, but
no trial was ever had. Governor Seward removed
the recorder for his participation in the seizure,
and his removal undoubtedly led to his election to
the mayoralty, for which office he was the candi-
date of the Democratic partv in the election held
April 13, 1841. his Whig opponent being J. PhUlips
Phflpnlx. The Native Americans this year first
380
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
abolitioDist agitators and their followers, preferred to vote for their
candidate, James G. Birney. In consequence of their defection, the
Whigs deserted the Native Americans in the local elections held in the
y — ^ ensuing spring. Harper, a candidate for re-
/y^^v^r^ election, received 17,485 votes, while William F.
yf^^^^'"^'^^^^^ Havemeyer,^ the Democratic candidate, polled
O^ ^ 24,307, and the Whig candidate, Selden, 7032, or
nearly 2000 more votes than the Whigs had cast for their mayoral can-
didate of the preceding year. Efforts to lengthen the term of naturali-
zation proving unsuccessful, the opposition to foreign-bom citizens
gradually died out. The riots which had attended the development
of the Native American sentiment had re-
acted upon their followers, and in a few
years the party had no existence. In the spring of 1846 the Demo-
crats were again successful, electing their candidate, Andrew H.
Mickle ; * but in 1847 the Whigs gained the ascendancy, and placed
William V. Brady in the mayor's chair.
As we have just seen, the mayor's office had recently been made
elective. Under the Montgomerie Charter the governor, with the ad-
vice of the provincial council, annually, on the feast-day of St. Michael,
appointed the mayor, the sheriff, and the coroner of the corporation.
1 William F. Havemeyer was thrice elected
mayor of the city— in 1845, 1848, and 1872. He was
bom of German parentage in New-York city, Feb-
ruary 12, 1804, exactly five years before Abraham
Lincoln and Charles Darwin, who were bom Feb-
ruary 12, 1809. He was a graduate of Columbia
College, as was also Abram S. Hewitt, one of his
successors in the mayor's chair. Mr. Havemeyer
entered his father's sugar-refinery, after gradua-
tion, but severed his active connection with the
business in 1842 and became interested in political
affairs. In the spring of 1845, there were five
mayoral candidates in the field, but the Democrats
were successful, electing their candidate and fif-
teen aldermen and assistants. The vote was as
follows : Havemeyer (Democratic), 24,307 ; James
Harper (Native American), 17,485 ; Dudley Selden
(Whig), 7032; Ransom Smith (National Reform),
124 ; Arthur TapjMui (Abolition), 74 ; and scatter-
ing, 28.
2 Andrew Hutchins Mickle came of an ancient
Scotch family, the name as formerly spelled being
Muckle, Meikle, or, in its Saxon form, Mucel or
Micel, meaning great, powerful, or mighty. The
family of the poet William Julius Mickle, whose
ballad " Cumnor Hall " suggested to Scott the ro-
mance of ** Kenilworth," was descended from the
same original stock. Andrew H. was bom October
25, 1805, being the second son of James Mickle and
Janet Campbell of the Campbells of Ardentenny,
one of whose immediate kin was the John Camp-
bell who in 1704, at Boston, founded the ''News
Letter," the first newspaper published in the coun-
try, and who was also postmaster of the town of
Boston. Elarly in life he associated himself with
the firm of George B. MiUer & Co., tobaooo-mer-
chants, well known in this city half b century aga
Through his business ability he eventually became
a partner, and married the daughter of Mr. Miller.
While in the midst of a prosperous business career
he was tendered the Democratie 'nomination for
mayor, his chief opponents being Robert Tftylor
(Whig) and William B. Cosisens (Reform). Mr.
Mickle' s vote was nearly as large as the combined
votes of his opponents, the total ballots cast (April
14, 1846) being 46,719, of which Mickle received
22,328; Robert Taylor (Whig), 15,256; William B.
Cozzens (Native American), S372; Ransom Smith
(National Reform), 712; scattering, 51. The Demo-
crats carried fifteen *of the eighteen wards, and
had a large majority in the city council. He was
offered a renomination, which he declined. He
was not a professional politician; to him public
office was a public trust. Retiring from the
mayoralty, he again assumed charge of his busi-
ness, which in his later years was conducted under
the firm name of A. H. Mickle & Co. His position
in the mercantile world was very high, and he
possessed the esteem and confidence of the mer-
chants and financial men of the city. He died
January 25, 1863, leaving a widow ; one son, Oeorge
B. Mickle, now deceased; three daughters, chil-
dren of his first wife, and three daughters, issue of
his second marriage. One of his g^ndsons, a son
of George B., bears his grandfather's name. Mr.
Mickle's second wife was Mary N., daughter of
Judge Effingham Lawrence ; she was a cousin and
sister-in-law of (^melius W. Lawrence, mayor of
the dty from 1834 to 1837. Editor.
TEN YEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR 381
The "freemea of the city" and freeholders or landholders voted
annually for aldermen, assistant aldermen, assessors, and constables
in their respective wards. When the State government was formed
in 1777, the powers exercised by the royal governor, in conjunction
with the provincial council, passed to the eouDcil of appointment,
which consisted
of the governor
of the State and
four senators
selected by the
assembly from
each of the four
great senatorial
districts into
which the State
was divided un-
derthe first con-
stitution. This
council pos-
sessed as ample
powers of re-
moval as of ap-
pointment. So far as concerned the election of its chief municipal
officer, New- York city, from 1777 to 1822, was ruled at Albany. In
all the history of the State there has never been another appointing
body possessed of such vast prerogatives, and this small junto of
pohticians controlled all appointments throughout the State.
The council of appointment having been abolished by the consti-
tution of 1822, a part of its functions devolved upon the governor
and senate; but instead of giving to the executive and the upper
house the right to appoint the mayors of cities, the new constitution
provided for their appointment by the common councils of their re-
spective cities. From 1822 to 1834 the board of aldermen and assis-
tant aldermen of the city of New-York appointed its mayors. In the
latter year, by an amendment to the State constitution, limited in its
operation to the metropolis, the mayoralty was made an elective
office. But while, in 1826, by amendment to the constitution, the
suffrage had been extended in State and national elections so as to
amount, except in ease of colored citizens, to manhood suffrage, only
such citizens as were qualified to vote for other charter offices at
1 Joseph FouIke'H tormer residPUW i« at the foot Mr. Foult* , who wm bom in 1763, wm Bn eit*nsive
of Etghty-nlath (treet. on an eminence overlook- ehip-owner ; he nisrried, in Our>i;os. Ch»rlotle
tnjc'the E»»t Biver. adjoinint; the estate of John Brion. whose brother Admiral Brion wm General
Jacob Astor. Intfaeimmediato neUhborhood were Bolirsr'n chief imval commander in oljlaining
the nunmer reaidenceB of the BayBrds, Rhine- Colombia's independence in 1810-11. Mr. Foulke
laikdeTS, Schermerhonu, and other old familiea. died in Nev-York In 1853. Ecitok.
382 HISTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
charter elections were allowed to vote for mayor, — in other words, a
restriction upon the suffrage still prevailed at city elections. This
limitation dates back to colonial times. Under the Montgomerie
Charter only persons enjoying the freedom of tho city and free-
holders could vote. The qualifications of voters at charter elections
were not changed at the formation of the State government.
In 1804 the legislature enlarged the suffrage, in accordance mth
the demands of democracy. Property qualificatiouB were still re-
tained, but all male citizens of full age who had resided in the city
for the space of six months before election, renting
a tenement of the yearly value of twenty-five dol-
lars, and paying taxes, were given the right to vote
at general elections. No further removal of reetrio-
tione was made until 1842, when all property quaU-
fieations for city voters were swept away. As a
consequence of this change, the Whigs, as we have
seen, united with the Native Americans to regain
their control over the city. With the modification
as to suffrage made in 1804, the Montgomerie
Charter continued unaltered until 1830. In 1S29
a city convention was chosen by the city electors, for the purpose of
revising and proposing amendments to the city charter. Five dele-
gates were selected in each of the thirteen wards, and the conven-
tion, representing the intelligence of the old town, met in June, 1829,
The convention prepared and submitted to the people a series of
amendments to the charter, all of which were duly ratified at a
popular election. The legislature approved the work of the conven-
tion and of the people, and the amendments became a part of the
city's charter. One of these amendments fixed the date for charter
elections as the second Tuesday of ApriL Charter elections con-
tinued to take place upon this and succeeding days until 1840, in
which year the legislature, at the instance of the Whigs, passed a
registry law for the city. Besides providing a larger number of elec-
tion districts in each ward, the act required the enrolment of voters
before election in their different wards, somewhat as do our modem
registration laws. It also removed the last property restrictions at
charter elections, and confined an election to one day — the second
Tuesday of April — in each year. When the bill embodying these pro-
visions was bef or(? Governor Seward, he hesitated at approving it lest
it might be unconstitutional in providing different qualifications for
electors in the city from those which prevailed generally throughout
the State. But at the instance of the leading Whigs of the capital
and of the city, he concluded to sign the bill. The salutary nature of
the lepslation was evident. Polling-places had previously been so
TES YBABS OF MUNICIPAL YIOOB
few that a full vote could not be polled in one day, and as a conse-
qaence elections extended over several days, and were sometimes
accompanied with rioting, repeating, and other frauds. Two years
later the wholesome provisions as to regis-
tration were repealed.
No change was made in the date for
charter elections until 1849, when, in pur-
suance of the amended charter submitted
to the people by the city convention held
in the summer of that year, it was en-
acted that charter elections should there-
after take place on the same day as gen-
era elections. Of late years reformers of
city government have shown a marked
disposition to separate city from State
and national elections. It is at least in-
teresting to observe that the argumentfi
which they employ in advocacy of this
change are similar to those which con-
trolled the city convention of 1830, and it
is likewise interesting to observe that the city convention of 1846 re-
ported that the separation had not accomplished the desired end. The
best citizens.were found apathetic in the spring, and the only method
of securing a full vote upon an important municipal topic was by hold-
ing the municipal election at the same time with the general election.
Under the second constitution of the State, which was then in
operation, the commonwealth was divided into eight senatorial dis-
trict's. New- York city contained but one district. Large senatorial
districts have ordinarily been found certain to bring into the service
of the community, in the State senate, men of prominence and char-
acter; and BO great of late years has been seen to be the advantage
which former legislatures enjoyed in the personnel of their members,
that an effort was made by the State convention of 1867 to return to
the former system. Unhappily, the amendment adopted upon this
subject, like all the proposed amendments of this convention, except
that to the judiciary article, was defeated at the polls. County rep-
resentation then prevailed in the assembly, and it brought to the
front men recognized throughout the city for their equipment for
legislative life. Even in municipal elections, although these were
■ Dr. Ebeaezer Crosby wm bom September 30,
1753, and th Hie aon of Jadge Joseph Crosby, ot
Brsfntree (now Quincj'). Mass., his birthplace.
Educated at Harrard and the Univenity of Penn-
•ylvaoia, he settled iD Nnw-York cit; after the
var. and was plrct^d, in 1T85, Professor of Ob-
Mettiea in Colombia CoUsge, and. In 17ST, one
was previously surgeon to
GeDeral Washington's body-Kuard. Dr. Crosby
died.rulylG.178S,Btthe residence of Oolouel Henry
Rutfcers, In Wall street, whose niece he had mar-
ried. He was the father of WUliam B, Crosby of
this city. Editor.
384 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
couducted on ward lines, the spirit which regulated State nomina-
tions also prevailed, at least until the period when the suffrage was
enlarged. Aldermen, assistant aldermen, delegates to city conven-
tions, and other municipal officers were men of distinction in mercan-
tile or professional pursuits. The highest type of judges then sat in
our courts. In the chancellorship there was Reuben H. Walworth, a
worthy successor to Robert R. Livingston and James Kent ; and as
vice-chancellors, Murray Hoffman, Lewis Sandford, and McCoun.
Upon the Supreme Court bench were Samuel Nelson, afterward one
of the justices of the Federal Supreme Court, Greene C. Bronson, and
Esek Cowen, and in the Circuit Court, Ogden Edwards. In the re-
cently created Superior Court the judges in the thirties and forties were
Samuel Jones, Thomas J. Oakley, and John Duer; in the Common
Pleas, a recent outgrowth of the old mayor's court, John T. Irving, a
brother of Washington Irving, and an author of no mean pretensions,
presided up to his death in 1838. The standai*d of the New-York^
judiciary has generally been high, but at no period in the history oP
the State has the ermine been worn by abler or purer men than those
in the long and brilliant roll of judges who were appointed to the
various courts from 1822 to 1847. The wisdom of the change wrought
by the constitution of 1847 in providing for the elec-
^^^^Txnf^ tion of judges for specified terms, although at times
^ since debated, haa never been successfully challenged
at the polls; but it has been observed by writers upon State con-
stitutions that other States which, after New-York's change in 1847,
were induced to adopt the elective system, have since returned to the
appointive plan, while few, if any. States which did not yield to the
popvilar impulse of that time, have since adopted the elective system.
In recurring to the annals of these days, one cannot but lament the
deplorable change which has taken place in respect to the indepen-
dence of the city government. To-day the city's charter is amended,
or a new charter is enacted, whenever the legislature may desire, but
in the olden times a charter amendment without the people's consent
was a thing unheard of. The constitutions of 1777 and 1822 expressly
recognized and confirmed the ancient Dongan and Montgomerie
charters. The expediency of amending the city charter was decided
by the voters of the city in 1829. They elected a convention of their
own citizens to undertake the task of revision ; the work of that con-
vention was submitted to the people of the city at the polls, and was
ratified by them before it was submitted to the legislature. The city
convention, called in 1846, was summoned by the votes of the people
of the city, and the act of the legislature providing for the election of
delegates to the convention directed that its work should be sub-
mitted for approval to the citizens. The charter reported by the con-
/^^
TEN TEAB8 OF MUNICIPAL TIGOR
385
vention was ratified at the polls, aud tben, by legislative enactment,
in 1849, became the new charter of the city. Never before 1857 was
an attempt made to provide a charter or government for New- York
without tie express approbation of its citizens at the polls. So firmly
was the city's right to control
its own aSairs recognized, that
no important legislation exclu-
sively affecting the municipal-
ity was undertaken without its
express consent. Twice during
this decade was the free-school
question submitted to popular
vote; the act establishing the
municipal police was also voted
upon by the people; sanction
of citizens at the polls was in
like manner obtained to the con-
struction of the Croton aque-
duct* and the question of the
establishment of the Free Acad-
emy was submitted to the elec-
tors of the city, who, by a large
vote, declared themselves un-
qualifiedly in favor of free higher education for the boys erf the city
schools. The benefits which have already resulted from the establish-
ment of this admirable institution have been very great, and with the
creation of the Normal College for girls, it is to be hoped that free
higher education in New- York has been permanently guaranteed to
the youth of the metropolis.
The charter of 1830 provided that the executive business of the
corporation should be performed by distinct departments, to be or-
ganized and appointed by the common council. One of the amend-
ments made in 1849 was the creation of executive departments alto-
gether independent of the common council, the heads of which, in
accordance with the prevailing spirit of the time, were, with the
exception of the Croton aqueduct board, to be elected by the people.
Several of these departments had their origin during the decade
which ended with 1850. The police department and the Croton
aqueduct department were created in this era, which marks also the
organization of the first Board of Education.
The Knickerbockers of the early thirties, in matters of police, had
1 St. Patrick's Csthedrftl wu dedicated May 4, try." It wax the second Roman Catholic cburcb
1B15. Biahop PIcoeIs of Quebec, who was in New- in New-York, and atanda at the comer of H ott and
York in that year, speaks of the new cathedral as Prince BtreetB. A flra destroyed the Bpire.
"at the extremity of the city towardB the coun- EorroB.
8T, PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. 1
386 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
not advanced much, if any, beyond the burgomasters and schepens
of New Amsterdam. There was no day police force. Civil processes
were executed by the marshals attached to the courts; public order
was maintained by the constabulary, except upon occasions of unu-
sual public excitement or during riots, actual or apprehended, when,
under laws for the time in vogue, a mayor possessed the power of
appointing special constables. As in the Dutch times, the city watch
began shortly after sunset and continued until dawn. In the early
BLuickerbocker days the watch was a small force, but before 1840 it
had increased to a corps of nearly one thousand men. Watchmen
were drawn from all avocations. The stevedore, truckman, or car-
/P /P2 P^^ter who was dissatisfied with his wages, or anxious for
l^f Ufit^ a larger income, was eligible to serve as watchman by
night. There were divisions of the watch, with hours for relief.
Watchmen wore no particular uniform except the old varnished fire-
man's hat, from which the front helmet-piece was removed, and the
wearing of which gave rise to the sobriquet of " Leatherheads,'* which
long continued to be applied to these public servants. The old round
of duties, known for nearly two centuries, was still maintained: wat<?h-
men were to call the hours of the night, give alarms of fire, cry out the
street in which the fire was raging, ring the watchmen's bell, and hang
out a lantern upon a pole to indicate the site of the conflagration.*
Legislation and city ordinances in this period upon the subject of
watchmen show that the city was then conscious that it had outgrown
this antiquated system. As New- York advanced in wealth and popu-
lation her criminal classes increased also, and there developed a baser
and more reckless order of wrong-doers, requiring a curbing power
more constantly and rationally applied. Crimes were committed both
by day and night. Gangs of hardened felons superseded the sportive
young bloods whose pranks were the worst evils which the old Bjiick-
erbocker watchmen had to encounter.
At first improvement was attempted by the creation of additional
police justices, the mayor and the recorder, then the famous Richard
Riker, celebrated by Halleck in the " Petition ^ commencing.
My dear Recorder, you and I
Have floated down lifers stream together,
having previously exercised the functions of these officials ; then by
the enlargement of the watch, and the enactment of more stringent
penalties for neglect of duty; afterward by the creation of special
marshals or constables by appointment of the mayor, to be sum-
^ The old watchmen were notorious for sleeping "And every song, whose dear, delightful theme
on their posts. In " Fanny," Halleck, in describ- Is ' Love still Love,' had oft till midnight tried
ing his heroine's vocal efforts, thus satirizes the Her finest, loftiest, ' pigeon wings ' of sound,
watchmen's failing : Waking the very watchmen far around."
TEN YEARS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR
387
moned to aid the usual constabulary force in special emergencies, and
by the formation of the first detective squad ever known in the city.
The continued development of the city, the accessions to its crimi-
nal classes, the numerous election riots, the Abolition riot in July,
1834, the Bread and Flour riot in February, 1837, and other dis-
turbances, the enlargement of the city's commerce and increasing
complications in police duties, rendered it evident that the old watch
system was an obstacle to the city's progress. In 1844 the legislature
enacted the Municipal Police Act, but,
with the commendable humility of the
legislators of those times, the act was to
be left unexecuted until the city, by ap-
propriate ordinances, should put it in
operation. The common council, not be-
ing in political accord with the legis-
lature, was xmwilling to give the act
vitality, and it therefore by ordinance
established a municipal police of its own.
By the new ordinance, the force was of
a treble character : there were the watch,
the municipal police, and the police
proper, each owing its appointment to a
different source. The duties of the sev-
eral classes were ill defined. So compli-
cated a system, designed evidently to preserve to each appointing
interest its share of patronage, could result only in lack of disci-
pline and utility on the part of the force and conflicts among the
appointive powers. Under the ordinance the mayor, with the consent
of the aldermen, appointed men to the municipal police, and pre-
scribed their dress. Mayor Harper appointed the first uniformed
police corps, a body of two hundred men. This force was indiscrimi-
nately called " Harper's Police " and " M. Ps." After a year's trial the
ordinance was repealed, and the act of 1844 was put into execution,
terminating the old watch system. It swept out of existence a variety
of sub-officers, such as marshals, street inspectors, health-wardens,
fire-wardens, dock-masters, lamplighters, inspectors of pawnbrokers
and junk-shops, and officers specially charged to attend election polls;
and it provided for a day and night police force not to exceed eight
hundred men, under the control of police captains and assistant cap-
tains in the several district headquarters. The act established also a
chief of police, to be appointed by the mayor and nominated by the
common council. In addition to their other functions, policemen
were obliged to light lamps, ring alarm-bells, attend fires, report sus-
picious persons, disorderly houses, receiving-shops, gaming-houses.
388 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
and all places where idlers, tipplers, gamblers, and other disorderly or
suspicious persons might congregate; and to administer proper caution
to unwary strangers, to whom also they were, if necessarj', to act ae
guides. The municipal police continued to be the locally constituted
guardians of the city until, in 1857, the legislature, departing from
all traditions that had previously governed its action upon city
matters, without the consent of the
metropolis, created the metropolitan
police.
Even the most brief account of the
ante-police era seems incomplete with-
out allusion to the office of high con-
stable and its last incumbent, Jac^b
Hays. Edward Livingston, while
mayor of the city, appointed Hays to
this office, which was somewhat anal-
ogous to that of chief of police ; and
so well did Hays dischai^e his duties
that he was reappointed by each suc-
ceeding mayor up to the time of his
death in his seventy-eighth year. As
^ that event occurred after the repeal of
^^^e^^.^^ the watch system, the office of high
^ constable terminated with his life.
Hays seems to have possessed detective qualities of a high order,
and he was certainly able to inspire a wholesome dread of punish-
ment in the criminals of the day. Of large and powerful phy-
sique, representing admirably the majesty of the law, it frequently
needed nothing more than his presence to disperse street brawlers
or stop riotous proceedings. " Whenever," says Costello,' "the high
constable was made aware that a street brawl was assuming threaten-
ing proportions, he at once repaired to the scene of disturbance, and
without a moment's hesitation mingled in the throng of excited
wranglers. His great strength was then exerted towards separating
the combatants and in driving back the crowd. He did not crack the
heads of the brawlers; he usually knocked off their hats with his
staff, and while they were in the act of stooping to pick them up he
would shove them forward and throw them down; their prostrate
bodies generally served as s barrier to keep others back. He would
then deal with the principals, and by the time be was reinforced by
his men, the greater part of the trouble was generally over." His
treatment of a mob, while rough, was not brutal, and he rarely inspired
hatred, but was uniformly liked. As a detective he was singularly
I "Oiir Police Protectorti." Ii;- Aufnutiue E, Costello. New-Tork, 1885.
TEN YEARS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOB 389
successful, and it was the common opinion of the time that no offender
could long remain undiscovered if old Hays was set upon him.
In a recent work entitled " The Pm-itan in Holland, England and
America," Douglas Campbell has admirably shown the amplitude of
our indebtedness to the people of the Netherlands for the ideas under-
l}ing our system of government. Holland having, in the midst of a
struggle for self-preservation, founded the cele-
brated University of Leyden, it is not surprising C^^t:^^'"^^^^-^^^
that in its colonies it should have evinced an interest in popular
education. To the Dutch, and not to our English ancestors, are we
indebted for the germ of our public-school system. The cause of edu-
43ation languished after the cession of New- York to the English, and it
"was not until peace was made with Great Britain that the State actively
manifested a sense of the importance of the education of its people.
In 1784, Governor Clinton invited the attention of the legislature
to this subject, and the legislature, in response, established a board of
regents for the University of New-York, and changed the name of
King's College to Columbia, which by this act was also erected into a
university. The members of the board of regents were patrons of
learning, and they, in turn, persistently advocated the organization of
a common-school system. In 1789 the State took the first real step
toward the establishment of education upon a substantial founda-
tion. The legislation of that year was followed, in 1795, by an act
appropriating annually for five years, out of the public revenues of
the State, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, to encourage and main-
tain common schools in the several cities and towns of the State, and
requiring supervisors to raise by tax in each town a sum equal to one
half of its proportion of the moneys appropriated by the State, and
commissioners and trustees were directed to be appointed, and were
required to make annual reports to the secretary of state. This legis-
lation expiring in 1800, Governor Morgan Lewis again brought up the
subject in his message to the legislature of 1805. A law was there-
upon enacted by which the proceeds of 500,000 acres of public land
were to be erected into a fund to be accumulated until its annual in-
come should attain the sum of fifty thousand dollars, when the income
was to be applied to the support of the schools. This fund was en-
larged by various appropriations, and in 1819 it had reached the sum
of $1,200,000. By the constitution of 1822 the common-school fund
was rendered inviolable and directed to be devoted in perpetuity to
the advancement of common schools. By degrees the productive
capital of the fund was augmented, so that by the year 1842 it
amounted to $10,000,000.
It was incumbent upon the State superintendent to apportion
among the school districts of the State the income of the school fund.
390
mSTOBT OF NEW-YOBE
The moneys so apportiooed to each district were to be paid by the
State comptroller, upon the superinteudent's certificate, to the proper
fiscal officer of each county, who, in turn, was charged with the obliga-
tion of distributing to the school commissioners of each town the pro-
portion of the fund to which the several school districts in the town
were entitled. The town commissioners were to receive the fund and,
after dividing their towns into districts, to subdivide it among such
of the districts as had maintained a school for at least three months
of the year. Inspectors were
elected to ascertain the quali-
fications of teachers. School-
district meetings were to be
held annually by tax-paying
inhabitants in their several
districts, for the election of
school trustees and the raising
of moneys for school sites and
district libraries. All funds
I'equisite for the maintenance
of the schools not raised by
taxation or provided from the
district's share of the school
fund, were to be defrayed by
means of the rate-bill, which
was a tuition fee charged to
parents or guardians of children in attendance at the schools. Thos
three sources were provided for the maintenance of the schools — the
school fund of the State, the fund raised by taxation, and the rate-bilL
From the time of the creation of the school fund, a share of it was
assigned to the city of New- York. But the public-school systan
which prevailed in the rest of the State did not extend to the city.
The New-York city school system was of private foundation. In
1805, the legislature chartered the Public School Society, a private
corporation, organized by a number of sagacious and far-seeing resi-
dents of the city, prominent among whom was De Witt Clinton. The
society was by law allowed a share of the State fund. The supervi-
sors were required to raise an equivalent sum by taxation, but the
residue of its moneys the society obtained from voluntary donations
and a slight tuition fee, analogous to the rate-bill in the country dis-
trict schools. The schools of the society rapidly increased in number
— - -^
1 L'^kHh' da St. Eaprit the flrst ohunh Id the
city wh«re the Berrieei were conducted in French,
w*H built by the Huiruenots Id ITU, In Pine street.
In IfOl they Mild this building and erect«d the
white Duu-ble church, shown atwTe. mt the comer
of Church ftsd FninUin «treeta. In IBM the eon-
KregmtloD adopted the ritual of the ProteMant
Episcopal Churcli ; and tbsJr prpaeot attractive
church building Ib situated In West Twenty-second
street, near Fifth Avenne. Editor.
TEN XEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR
391
and in importance. Side by side with them sectarian schools also
furnished instruction, but to none of these was allotted any portion
of the State fund. Not being under the supervision of the State, as
were the district schools outside of the city, the Public School Society
had supreme control of its share of the public fund. During the
Knickerbocker days its schools imparted practically all the education
furnished to city children. With the changes in urban population
which came with increased immi-
gration between 1830 and 1840,
parochial schools were founded
under the superintendence of the
Koman Catholic clergy, and these
demanded a share of the com-
mon-school fund. They were met
with the response that sectarian
schools were not allowed to par-
ticipate in it, and that the schools
of the Public School Society were
open to all the children of the me-
tropolis. The reply of the Catho-
lics was that these schools were
in reality sectarian, that they em-
ployed a Protestant Bible, and in-
culcated religious tenets not ac-
cordant with Catholic teaching,
and that the funds of the State
were perverted in their hands.
The Public School Society refuted these charges, and remonstrated
against any participation in the fund on the part of the Catholic
schools. The press, the public, and particularly the Protestant clergy
of the city were aroused by the demands of the Romanists. The a^ta-
tion was contemporaneous with the Native American movement, which
doubtless intensified the general opposition to the Catholic claims.
The controversy was carried into the city council, where able advo-
cates, both lay and professional, appeared for both causes, and from
the city chamber to the State capital. Here, much to the surprise
and chagrin of the Whig and Native American element, G-ovemor
Seward was discovered to be an advocate of the justice of the Ro-
manists' view. In his message to the legislature at the opening of
the session of 1840, the governor recommended the establishment of
separate schools for the children of foreigners, in which they might
"be instructed by teachers speaking the same language as theraRelves,
and professing the same faith." He renewed his arguments at the
opening of the ensuing session. " There are," he said, " thirty thou-
lUtS. HARRIET BATASD VAH BENSSBLAEK.
HISTORY OF SEW-YOBK
sand children in this State growing up in ignorance. By their reli-
gious training they are practically escluded from the excellent scbook
of the Public School Society." The legislature still remaining inac-
tive, he renewed the subject in his message in January, 1842. " It
will," he said, " be shown to you, in the proper report, that twenty
thousand childi-en in the city of New- York of suitable age are not in-
structed in the public schools, while the whole amount in the residue
of the State not taught in the common schools does not exceed nine
thousand." While conceding the great importance of the work per-
formed by the Public School Society, the governor nevertheless ar-
gued that it had failed
to command the confi-
dence "reposed in the
general system of the
Stat«, and indispensable
to every scheme of uni-
versal education." He
therefore suggested "the
expediency of restoring
to the people of the city
of New-York — what I
am sure the people of
no other part of the
State would, upon any
consideration, relinquish — the education of their children. For
this purpose it is only necessary to vest the control of the common
schools in a board to be composed of commissioners elected by the
people, which board shall apportion the school moneys among all the
schools, including those now existing, which shall be organized and
conducted in conformity to its general regulations and the laws of
the State, in the proportion of the number of pupils instructed."
Under the influence of this message, the legislature passed the law
of 1842, and it met with the governor's approval. This act, for the
first time, extended the common-school system of the State to the
city of New- York. Treating each ward of the city as analogous to a
town, the act gave each ward two school commissioners, two inspec-
tors, and five trustees, to be elected by ballot at a special election to
be held on the first Monday in June of each year. The commission-
ers were to constitute a Board of Education with the powers and
duties of commissioners of common schools throughout the State.
Schools of the Public School Society were permitted to continue side
by side with the new ward schools, and to share with the latt«r in the
TEN YEARS OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR * 393
common-school fund, but participation in this fund was denied to any
and every school in which any religious or sectarian doctrine was in-
culcated or taught. This legislation was a compromise and a disap-
IH)intment to both of the contending parties. Neither had sought for
it, and neither expected it. But its wisdom is palpable. The gover-
nor's action for a time alienated many of his earnest supporters.
Great as was this innovation, the act accomplished an even greater
boon. It rendered the schools of the city absolutely free. For the
future no rates were to be exacted from any pa-
rent or guardian. The act authorized the commis- c^y/^y4,y^^/7y^
sioners to raise by tax from the inhabitants of the
county a sum equal to its share of the State school fund, and also
a further sum equal to one twentieth of the value of the real and
personal property within the city subject to assessment. In terms it
expressly forbade the imposition of any tax upon parents or guar-
dians for school privileges. Subsequent amendments reduced the
number of commissioners, inspectors, and trustees, and changed their
term of office, but no substantial departure from the principle of this
legislation has since been made. The schools of the Public School
Society and the new ward schools existed together for more than ten
years. Gradually the Romanist opposition to the ward schools sub-
sided, and the trustees of the Public School Society soon learned to
appreciate the advantages of the new system. In 1853 the society
was dissolved by act of the legislature, some of its trustees taking
places in the Board of Education, and its schools and their furniture
and apparatus were conveyed to the city. During the existence of
this admirable institution it had educated six hundred thousand chil-
dren, and at the time of its dissolution and consolidation with the
ward schools, the property which it transferred to the city was worth
upward of $600,000.
"There is not perhaps in the Union,^ says a book published in
1837, " a city more destitute of the blessing of good water than New-
York.^ The chief sources of water supply at this time were the old
" Tea-water Pump ^ ; ^ the town pumps, which then ganaished nearly
every block ; the Manhattan Company ; and Knapp's Spring, which
furnished the supply to the upper part of the city. The mains of the
Manhattan Company were distributed through the lower part of the
island, and its fluid, like the gas of more recent days, was dispensed
for a price. The water from Knapp's Spring was carted about in
hogsheads and sold at a penny a gallon. The town pumps wore ixi>K\
1 "The famons * Tea-water Pump/*' 8ay« De- ** I found the once celebrated 'Tea- watt^r l*\um»*
voe, in his History of the Markets of New- York, a^in in use, but unknown, in the liquor Ht»»r*» uf
**wa8 a line flowing spring in a well, which, no a Mr. Fa^n. 126 Chatham street. I drank tdf it
doubt originaDy assisted in forming the 'Fresh- to revive recollection." Watson'H •• AniiuU ulf
water' or 'Kolch Pond.'" It was " near the north- New- York " (1846).
east comer of Orange and Chatham streets."
394
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
All the water used in the city was, and had always been, drawn from
the island itself. The earliest projected reservoir was to have been
placed on Broadway, between Pearl and White streets, on lands pur.
chased from the Van Cortlandts in 1774; but the Revolutionary
struggle prevented its construction. For a number of years after
the Revolution, various plans for increasing the city's supply were
suggested, but no unanimity of opinion seems to have prevailed, ex-
cept upon the one theme of the impropriety of granting any exclusive
water franchise to individuals or private companies. Even in those
early days the purity of the water from the Collect and the city's
wells was questioned by eminent physicians, many of whom thought
that the Bronx River would be a more wholesome source of supply
than springs beneath the sands of the city, into which all manner of
impurities percolated. The objection to private water franchises
seems shortly to have vanished, for in 1799 Burr obtained from the
legislature the charter of the Manhattan Company. This company
was incorporated ostensibly to furnish water, but in
reality to do a banking business. The only banks
previously chartered were controlled by Federal-
ists' capital, and Burr's friends, who were largely
Republican (i. e.^ Democratic), could never have obtained a banking
franchise from their political enemies had their designs been plainly
announced. Under a clause shrewdly incorporated in its charter,
permitting it to use its surplus capital in any enterprise not inconsis-
tent with the laws of the State or of the Union, the Manhattan Com-
pany obtained full warrant for engaging in banking. But for many
years it actually furnished the city's chief water supply, pumping its
waters from the Collect,^ or from its well at Cross and Duane streets,
into hollow log pipes distributed underground through the lower
portions of the town. The monopoly enjoyed by this company was
not seriously disputed until after the close of the second war with
England, when, with the extension of the city and the increase of its
population, several new water companies were organized. The pro-
moters of these incorporations were fertile in schemes: they had
plans for obtaining water from the Rye Ponds, from the Housatonic
River by an open canal, from Sharon, Connecticut, by the same
means, and from artesian wells, which it was proposed to bore at dif-
ferent places in the city. Public sentiment, however, still insisted
^y was i
I The CoUect was filled in before 1838 ; in that
year the Tombs, erected upon its site, was com-
pleted. Dickens, in his ^'American Notes/' styles
the architecture of this building, so generally ad-
mired at the time, *' bastard Egyptian." The
cupola of the Tombs was destroyed by fire on the
day set for the execution of John C. Colt, who had
murdered the printer Samuel Adams in his office
at the Irving House. Colt's case excited great
sympathy, but Gk>Yemor Seward refused to par^
don him. That Colt actually committed suicide
during the fire was the opinion of Lewis Gaylord
Clarke. (See ''Account of Colt's Suicide, by L. G.
Clarke," in note to " Remarkable TriAls.** Diosij
& Co., 1863.) Although Clarke produced conTine*
ing evidence of the suicide, the popular belief tbtt
Colt escaped from prison has never been folly
dispelled.
TEN YBABS OF MU»IOIFAL VIOOB 395
"that water should be furuifilied by the city corporatioD, and that no
■privilege should be accorded to private capital. But practical ob-
stacles, the rivalries of these companies, and the apathy of the people
frustrated all efforts to increase
the city's supply. Circumstances
irere soon to happen which would
rudely awaken the city to the ne-
>essit^ of prompt and energetic
LCtioQ.
In 1828 the city was visited by
% disastrous fire, which consumed
Dver six hundred thousand dol-
lars' worth of property, and this
calamity renewed interest in the
effoi-ts to give the city purer and
more abundant water. Besolu
tions were presented at meetings
of the common council, by which
a committee was appointed to eon- yp
sider and report. The committee i:;^;;^.:^ ^Jt-
ni^^ the construction of a well
and reservoir at TLirteenth street and the Bowery, the laying of iron
pipes throughout the city, the erection of steam pumps to force the
water into the reservoir, and of hydrants at the various street cor-
ners. One reason which the committee sagaciously advanced for the
laying of the pipes, was that whenever the long-desired object of
supplying the city with water for domestic purposes should be carried
into effect, these same pipes would be found serviceable. The im-
mediate purpose of their introduction was to furnish water for use
at fires. The report was reluctantly approved by the city council, the
well and reservoir constructed, and the pipes laid.
" From this feeble and economical beginning," says Charles King,
in his " Memoir of the Aqueduct," " sprang our noble Croton Aque-
duct; for the immense and immediate advantage in cases of fire de-
rived from the reservoir impressed more vividly upon the public
mind the far greater advantages that would result from having a river
at command," But these measures neither increased nor improved
the supply for domestic and commercial uses, although from time to
time fresh projects were broached — among others, for bringing the
water from the Croton by open canal or pipes ; for taking the waters
I Lmn Keene wu bom In Englud In 1820, aod pealed In Boxton, Philadelphia, and other cltleB.
■t mn early Kge STinced a tute far the Bt»ge, >p- her best delineatlonB beinjc in cooiedy. She
peving flrnt aoder Madmme Vestrls at the L7- openeil a theater of her own iu New- York shortlf
eeum Theater in London. On October 30, 1SS2, she after her return, in 1S5d, from Australia; or-
made her flnt appearance in this country at Wal- ganited a traveling company, and died In Hont-
IicIe'h Theater, acoriDg a gaoceag which waa re- olair, N. J., November 4, 1BT3, Editor.
396
HISTOBT OF NEW-TOBK
\
of the Passaic above the Paterson Falls, and conveying them in pipes
under the Hudson River. In all these progressive measures a worthy
champion was found in the board of aldermen in Samuel Stevens^
who was afterward a member of the first board of water commission —
ers. In January, 1831, he urged that a memorial should be presented.
to the legislature asking a repeal of the privileges of the Manhattan a
Company, the vesting of all power for supplying water in the corpo
ration of the city, and authority to the corporation to raise by loan a-^m
sum not exceeding two millions of dollars for introducing a supply of^BI
pure, wholesome water. Investigations made about this time by ami _-
nent chemists and physicians em i>
phasized the need of prompt mea — _«-
sures. A report was presented toc^^o
the board of aldermen from the^>«e
Lyceum of Natural History, pro— ajo-
pared, it was assumed, by Dr. De — ^^ae-
Kay. This report set forth witbd-oh
startling clearness the menace toc:> Jto
the city's health from the eon — *:«•
tiimed use of water impregnatedfc»"*^
with the discharges entering into*:*^^
the soil. In the most populous^***
neighborhoods, and in the vicin ■*"
ity of the numerous graveyards, .-^
whichwere then scattered through -*^
the town, the water was found by '^-^
test to be dangerously impure. —
The graveyards communicated " a
ropy appearance to the water," and in warm weather the water itself
was found to become offensive in a few hours. The noted coolness
of the pump waters, then so highly prized by the community, might
disguise these impurities, but could not eliminate the noxious ele-
ments. Until within the last few years the water on the elevated
ground in Broadway was considered to be the best in the city, but in
the progress of improvement this had become more and more un-
palatable. " Indeed," continues the writer of the report, " we know
of families living above Broome street, in Broadway, who are now
supplied throughout the year by water-carts from the country ; and
in the direction of Laurens street, we have been informed that this
foreign supply is required still further to the north of Broome street
■ Robert LlTJngsUn Stevens, a M>n of John wftlklng-beam. sUll in use. He ioTented the T-nil,
Stevens, vbs bom in New-Tork, October IS, 1787. which is genenlly need in ttiia eountiy and in
koil died April 20, 1S56. ABaDen^naeer lie stood at Europe; a sneeeaafulpercaBSion-ahelljeiidlmllttbe
the head of his profemion ; and he invented num- famous ironclMi known as the StevoDS Battcrv.
berless improvementa in ateam-veBseU, notably the ElHrok.
TEN TEABS OF MUNICIPAL VIOOB 397
Into the sand-baDk underlying the city are daily deposited quantities
of excrementitious matter to an extent, were it not susceptible of
demonstration, which woidd be assumed to be incredible." '
" If," contluues this report, " the above facts be well founded, we
must naturally anticipate a deterioration of our water pari passu with
the increase of the city." The report, in closing, expressed in terse but
strong language the conviction that no adequate
supply of good or wholesome water could be
obtained on the island for the wants of a grow-
ing commimity like New-York. In the face of
such startling facts, confirmed by various other
analyses, the subject could not be abandoned.
These analyses demonstrated the futility of
all efforts to secure a pure or copious supply
from the springs of the island. But the advo-
cates of economy at once sought less expensive oabdinee abms
sources than the Croton River. Various pro-
jects were discussed both within and outside of tbe city council, and
the idea of utilizing the Bronx Biver was again urged with great
persistency. The chief argument in favor of the waters of this river
was their cheapness when compared with the gigantic entei-prise
contemplated by the friends of tbe Croton plan. The waters of this
stream, in point of purity, matched those of the Croton, but it is
amusing now to read that tbe promoters of this plan could not hope
for a greater maximum daily supply than nine millions of gallons.
This, they argued, would, with an allowance of twenty gallons per
head, suffice for all the requirements of a city of 450,000 population.
The consumption of the city within a few years reached 18,000,000
gallons, and before its population had much more than doubled the
consumption was more than five times as great. But, commended by
its comparative cheapness, the Bronx Biver scheme found friends in
the city council, and they drafted a bill empowering the council to
borrow two million dollars to be devoted to tbe procurement of
these waters ; but the legislature refused to pass the bill. The coun-
cil then decided to employ Colonel De Witt Clinton to report his
opinion as to the best mode of bringing the waters of the Croton
to the city, and the probable expense of their introduction, if he
IS 1798:
"The Collect behlod the ' Tea-water Pump' Is a nnusestiiig ; and the larger the city grows, the
ahockiDR hole, where all impure thin^ centre to- worse the evil will be. Already It has been whi«-
irethei- and engender the worst of unwholesome pered by some Tifrtlant travelers throngh onr city
produefioDS, . . . Some affect to say that the wa- that the New-Yorkers are like thedogln theman-
ler is very cool and refreshing. Everybody known ger — they will not provide aqueducts themselves,
trom eiperieoee the water gets warm Id a few nor let others do it." Public sentiment in that day
hour«. and, Hometimea. almost before it is drawn was hostile to grants of franchises to iudlviduals
from the carter's hogaheada. Can you bear to drink or private corporations.
398 msTOBT or new-york
should conclude that the city should look for its supply to thi ^
^urce. This distinguished engineer made a most careful examio^^
tion of the various proposed sources of water supply, and reportty:^^
strongly in favor of the use of the Croton. The waters of thia riv^ .,.,^
he declared to be the purest and most copious, and amply abunda^
for any possible future population
the city. The elevation of their l"^^^
would give them a sufficient head 7^
convey them to the distributing re«t«,.
voir in the city at a height suffici-^^ *
for the supply of the loftiest dwelli:jj^
and the extinguishment of fires, ^jj
plan contemplated an open canal fti)ti3-
which could be excluded the wash <t0^
the soil and rains, and upon which, br"^
the construction of a narrow and deep ■^'
channel, the winter's cold could have *
no serious eflEect The cost of the whole
work would not exceed two milhoa
dollars.
Colonel Clinton's report soon bore
^L^y ^^ vi^*^' ^^ fruit. The conflicting plans did not
Z/.*#^2^^y e^:€^c*4.^-^i^r^ ^^^ jjf ^ unanimous expression m
favor of either, but as all parties were agreed that definite action was
necessary, the common council requested the legislature to authorize
the appointment of five commissioners, with ample powers to examiiie
all plans, make actual surveys, estimate the probable expense, and
generally to do whatever might be necessary. This led to the enact-
ment of the law of 1833, under which Governor Marcy, with the con-
sent of the Senate, appointed Stephen Allen, Benjamin M. Brown,
Samuel Dusenbeny, Saul Alley, and "William W. Fox commissioners.
They were armed with plenary powers, and were to hold office for
one year.
Upon one of the heights in Greenwood Cemetery, not far from its
entrance, may be seen an imposing monument reared in memory of
the engineer who, in 1838, designed and laid out that beautiful city
of the dead. That magnificent achievement was the work of David
B. Douglass, and he it was whom the newly appointed water com-
missioners engaged to make their surveys and report upon the differ-
ent plans. For this work Major Douglass was admirably equipped
by long preparation and experience in scientific and mathematical
pursuits. He had held both mathematical and philosophical chairs at
West Point, and had been the chief engineer of the Morris Canal.
To him the city of New- York is also indebted for the design of the
400 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
voters of the city at the charter election of 1835, and upon its ratifica-
tion by the people the council were authorized to issue interest-bearinj
water stock of the city not exceeding two and a half millions of doUars^^
in amount. The same commissioners were appointed as before, and
they retained their engineer. Their report to the common council in
February, 1835, shows how profoundly they were impressed with the
magnitude and seriousness of their task and the importance of ener-
getic but conservative action. A full hearing was again accord<
to the friends of other projects, and the availability of the domestic —z^-C
supply was again examined, with the conclusion, in the language of3t^f
the report, that " nothing less than a river distributed through thou jmr
sands of channels and brought to the premises of every householder-:^: ^r
will be commensurate to the wants of a popula -»-
f tion such as the city of New- York contains and
will contain.'' That river was the Croton. Its
waters were to be taken near its mouth and con-
veyed to the city in an aqueduct declining fifteen
inches in a mile, and were to be delivered in a
reservoir on Murray Hill. In the dry seasons
this river could supply at least thirty millions of
sTURGis ARMS. gallous pcr day, and ordinarily more than fifty
million gallons. Later experience has demonstrated that this was
by no means its maximum capacity. The expense of conveying the
water in a close aqueduct of masonry was estimated at $4,250,000,
and this figure, like estimates almost contemporaneously given to
the legislature for improvements in the Erie Canal, and for the con-
struction of lateral waterways through the State, fell far below the
actual cost. The common council approved the report, and sub-
mitted the question for decision at the polls. As no provision had
been made by law for the distribution of ballots, the public might
have been deprived of an opportunity of authorizing this noble work
but for the munificence of several large property-holders of the city,
who, sagaciously appreciating the importance of abundant water, con-
tributed the necessary funds for the printing and distribution of bal-
lots. The vote, which was held on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of April,
1835, was overwhelmingly favorable, being 17,330 for, to 5963 against,
the prosecution of the undertaking upon the commissioners' plan.
The work was at once begun with great earnestness. The area that
was to comprise the Croton Lake was first staked out, and afterward
the entire land from the dam to the Harlem River was determined.
Difficulties having arisen between Major Douglass and the chairman
of the board of commissioners, the chief engineer was retired, and
John B. Jervis, an engineer and inventor of distinction, who had as-
sisted in the construction of the Erie Canal, was substituted in his
TEN YEAES OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR
40X
stead ; bnt no sabstantial departure was made from the plans adopted
by Major Douglass. Section after section of the work was completed,
ihe legblature meanwhile authorizing the expenditure of additional
;ums to defray its cost. En^neeriug
jbstacles of great difficulty were en-
Mjnntered at almost every step: there
were deep ravines to be crossed by em-
t>ankment or bridge, and lofty hills to
be pierced by tunnels. To these for-
midable natural obstacles were added
the construction of the dam across the
Croton River, the aqueduct bridge over
the valley of Sing Sing, and finally the
problems attendant upon the crossing of
the Harlem. The execution of this part
of the work gave rise to serious contro-
versy. Two plans had been advocated:
one, initiated by Douglass, contemplated
a bridge on elevated
piers so constructed as ■
aot to interfere with navigation ; the other, involving the use of iron
pipes, requiring less expenditure and shorter time for construction,
was approved by the new engineer and the board. Major Douglass's
plan of a bridge at the level of the aqueduct wfis generally popular,
was sustained in the board of assistant aldermen, and was eventually
enforced by the State legislature.
In 1840 the commissioners who had so admirably conducted the
work were removed, and the execution of their trust turned over to a
new board, the president of which was Samuel Stevens, who, while a
1 Catherine Janes, tlie Becond wife of De Witt
Clinton, was the daughter ol Dr. Thomu Jones,
•on of a Welah phyaiclui. Dr. Eran Jodsb, who
aettled in Junaica. L. I., lnlT28, aadwhoBofuully
waa made known to New-Yorkers of fifty years ago
Ihronmh the historical addresBea of Dr. J. W. Fran-
ds and Dr. William A. Duer. Dr. John Jones,
brother of Tbomaa. attained eminence ua surgeon,
and waa one of the two original founders of the
Sew-York Hospital — Dr. Samuel Bard being the
othCT— in 1771. He was honored by the confldence
and frieiidship of both Washington and Franklin.
Mrs. Thomas Jones, Mrs. Clinton's mother, was
ihe daughter of Philip Livingston, one of the
^ignersof the Declaration of Independence, n prom-
inent merchant of New- York, and a loyal patriot
St the epoch of Ihe Revolntion. Mrs. Clinton was
a woman of marked character and energy, and was
devotedly attached to the memory of her husband.
She was an admirable hostess and faithful friend, an
her itroDg sense of mind and conversation. In
eaiiy life and middle age handsome, she retained
Vol. ni.— 2«.
her dignified appearance and presence up to the
time of her death, July 2. IB55, at theageixf seven-
ty-two years. The following letter, written flfteen
years after Clinton's death, is of interest :
■■ TivoLi, Aug. 8, 1843.
"Sib; Icaimot appreciate your motive In sending
me a number of the ' New World ' conttdnlng an
article o( which you are the author, purporting to
be a review of Hammond's political bistory of New-
York, Notwithstanding the opinion of Chancellor
Kent and Mr. Hone, I think the article very offen-
sive. Charles Clinton has spoken to me several
times of thes« papers. Tint in truth I never took
the trouble to read a Une of fheni. My late Illus-
trious husband's character (thank heaven) stands
on too Arm a basis to be at all injured by the po-
litical writinzB of such men as Hammond or his
puerile commentators. Hay I beg you will never
take the trouble of sending me any more of these
papers, and should you t>e at a loss for something
to Insert lu the next, pray publish this letter under
its proper signature of Cathskikb J. Clinton."
402
mSTORT OF NEW-TOBK
member of the board of aldermen, had worked long and ardently for
increased water facilities. The other members of the new board were
Benjamin Birdsall, John D. Ward, and Samuel B. Childfi. No change
was made in the staff of engineers. Every effort was made to finish
the aqueduct by the summer of 1842, but difficulties in obtaining rock
foundation for the Harlem bridge prevented its completion at that
time, and in order that the entrance of water into the distributing
reservoir might not be delayed beyond this date, resort was tempora-
rily had to the system of inverted siphons or iron pipes for carrying
it over the Harlem Kiver. In June, 1842, the commissioners and
CROTOH WATER PROOGBSIOH
their engineers made a journey through the aqueduct on foot, when
examinations were made to test the perfection of the structure. On
June 22 the water was for the first time introduced, when the Croton
Maid, a little craft designed especially for the purpose, and capable of
accommodating four persons, was placed in the aqueduct to begin her
novel voyage to the Harlem. On June 27, the water was admitted
into the receiving reservoir at Yorkville, with appropriate ceremonies,
in the presence of the mayor, common council, the governor, and the
members of the court for the correction of errors, then the highest
appellate tribunal in the State. "With similar impressive ceremonies
it was, on July 4, introduced into the distributing reservoir at Fifth
Avenue and Forty-second street.
On October 14, 1842, the advent of the water was duly celebrated
by the entire populace. The fine weather, which had continued
TEN TEAES OF MUNICIPAL VIGOR
■uninterruptedly for more than three weeks, like the splendid days
of the Columbian celebration of the present autumn of 1892, " held
oat," as Mayor Hone said, " one day longer to smile upon the great
pageant" The city was justly proud. The victim but a few years
earlier of a desolating conflagration, upon which closely followed
a crisis that, for a time, crippled her commercial and financial in-
terests, she had, nevertheless,
unmded, completed a work of
the greatest magnitude, and had
voluntarily incurred in its exe-
cution a debt of twelve mil-
lions of dollars; and this, too,
at an epoch when many States
and communities were shame-
lessly repudiating their obliga-
tions. The celebration was
worthy of the city; it surpassed
the great demonstration which
attended the opening of the
Eiie Canal in 1825. President
Tyler was among the invited
goests, but, to the intense sat-
isfaction of the Whigs of the
metropolis, he responded that
ciroumstanees would deny him
the pleasure of attending. In
June of the following year he
made a visit to the city, in conjunction with his son and several cab-
inet officers, while on his way to attend the great Bunker Hill cele-
bration and to hear Webster's magnificent oration, when a public
reception, chiefly attended by the Democrats, was held in his honor.
But to the water celebration there came the governor, various other
State officials, members of Congress and of the State legislature,
foreign consuls, and mayors from other cities of the State, among
whom was Henry C. Murphy, then mayor of the recently incorpo-
rated city of Brooklyn. In the morning of the day, there was pre-
sented to the Fire Department,' which was now to receive a powerful
auxiliary in the Croton, a banner covered with appropriate deWces
symbolizing the heroic services of our firemen, and old Father Nep-
tune exulting in his new triumph over the demon of fire. Then
followed a parade, unrivaled by any military or civic demonstration
ever before witnessed in the city. The procession contained repre-
sentatives of all the leading societies, arts, and professions. The gov-
1 This w&i the Volunteer Fire Department, irbich wan disbanded in 1866.
/^c^ CT. ^i^c-c-j;Mp'
404
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ernor and other invited guests of distiaction, the water commission-
ers, and members of the Croton aqueduct board, and Mayor Morris,
rode in barouches, followed by the militaiy, the firemen both of this
city and of Philadelphia, the representatives of various literary, sci-
entific, and benevolent institutions, the Chamber of Commerce, the
Board of Trade, the numerous temperance oi^anizations, which had
CITY BALL PABK, H
found a new ally in the Croton, and mechanics and printers. In the
midst of the division in which the printers marched was a vehicle
transporting the old press with which Benjamin Franklin had once
worked in London, while from a new press upon the same cart were
printed and distributed to the assembled crowds copies of the com-
memorative ode written by George P. Morris, then, in conjunction
with Theodore S. Fay and Nathaniel P. Willis, editing the " Mirror."
Pipe, symbolic of the Croton conduits, and the implements of the
workmen, were carried or drawn by others in the procession.
" There was," says the " New-York Express," " a multitude pi-esent
that no man could number, and the devices presented an idmost end-
less variety. We could neither number the one nor the other. The
procession was two hours and ten minutes in passing the ' Express'
office on Broadway. The ranks were from two to ten deep. Every
rank, every age, and every profession was represented. . . . The
church-bells mingled their merriest peals, and the cannon spoke out
morning, noon and night in their most vociferous tones of power."
At the City Hall, in the presence of a vast throng, President Stevens
made formal transfer of the water-works to the city authorities, and a
TEN TEABS OF MCNICIPAl VIGOR
405
speech of acceptance was made by John L. Lawrence, president of the
Ooton aqueduct board. The Sacred Music Society then sang Morris's
ode. The collation, which was dispensed at the City Hall, was' in
admirable keeping with the other festivities. It was a veritable water
day ; no wine or spirits of any kind were served. There was an ad-
dress by the mayor, and a speech by the governor, in which he urged
the comptetiou by the State of the enlargement of the Erie Canal,
which had- been recently suspended because the expense of its execu-
tion was discovered to be greater than had at first been anticipated.
With a fair at Niblo's, and an illumination at the Astor House, a day
of great rejoicing closed. No riot or disorder marred its serenity.
The newly erected fountains in the
City Hall Park and Union Square,
for many years after the delight
of foreign visitors, had all day
long been shooting their lofty jets
into the air, to the joy and aston-
ishment of assembled multitudes.'
With the completion of the
aqnednct, with the private im-
provements which could be wit-
nessed on every hand^ with the in-
crease and decoration of public
squares, the initiation of ndlroad
enterprises, the construction and
equipment of steam vessels for
use upon the Sound and the Hud-
son, and the regular arrival and
departure of ocean packets (which
in this decade first came to the
port), with the increasing wealth of the merchants and the growing
diversity and magnitude of the commercial and industrial operations
of the city, it was evident that it had outgrown the old lethargic
methods of the Knickerbockers and was becoming a metropolis in
reality. Nature had given it a safe and capacious harbor, the Erie
Canal and the railroads were opening the markets of the West, and
ocean packets and river steamers were securing outlets and inlets for
its commerce. The sharp contrasts of riches and poverty now began
■ "If I most live in a city, the fountains alone mond*." The fountain In Ibis park "coniiists of
vould determine my choice in favor of New- a larse central pipe with eighteen subordlDBte Jets
York." (Letten from New-York by LvdIaH. Child.) in a basin one hundred feet broad. By BhifttoB
Tlie same aatboren «ayR that the Old World has the plate ot the conduit pipe, the Fonntains can be
nothing to equal the ma^fleenee otthe fonntidn made toawunie vaiioua Bbapett: The Maid of the
ia City HbH Park. " There in such a head of water Mist; the Croton Plume; tbe Vase; the Dome;
that it thrown tbe eolnniD sixty feet into the air, the Bouquet; tbe Sheaf of Wheat; the Weeping
■Dd drops It into the basin In a shower of dia- Willow,"
HAXHATTAN BBSBBVOIB, ISU.
406 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
to assert themselves, but these were partly tempered by the character
of our institutions and by the active and growing spirit of benevo-
lence which the wealth of a free and enlightened people is sure to
evoke. Nor had civic spirit begun to abate, for the affairs of the city
still occupied the attention of large numbers of its best citizens, who
did not hesitate to devote their time to its interests.
Fashionable New-York was rapidly making its escape from its old
abodes. The erection of Grace Church on Broadway near Tenth
street, and the new Church of the Messiah, in which Dr. Dewey regu-
larly officiated, and where could occasionally have been heard the elo-
quence of Dr. Chanoing, exhibit this tendency. Washington Square,
rWaverly Place, Astor Place, Bond
^^^ street, the lower part of Fifth Ave-
^^P^^^y, Que, and East Broadway were the
■-■^■hfc •^■- neighborhoods to which the wealth
of the day aspii*ed. Here preten-
tious mansions were built at a cost
which would have shocked the old
residents about Bowling Green or in
"Wall street. Says Valentine, in his
invaluable " Manual of the Corpora-
tion," a few years later: "The dwell-
ings now generally in course of con-
struction by our wealthy inhabitants
for their private residences are among
the most splendid and costly city
dwelling-houses in the world. . . .
^^ /"^fClQ ^^® hundred thousand dollars for
^a,^Xry.>72^^^ the cost of a single city lot, free-
stone house and furniture, is not an infrequent expenditure." " Rapid
approximation to the European style of living," wrote Lydia Maria
Child, in 1842, " is more and more observable in this city. The num-
ber of servants in livery visibly increases every season. Foreign ar-
tistic upholsterers assert that there will soon be more houses in New-
Tork furnished according to the taste and fashion of noblemen, than
there are even in Paris or London " ; and she adds that " furniture
for a single room is often ordered at a cost of ten thousand dollars,"
These luxuries came with the steam packet, which first made ocean
voydges popular. When a trip to Europe could be made in sixteen
days in the Sinus, the Great Western, the Britannia, or the Arcadia,
there was no longer a bar to elegant travel. In 1839 James W. Wal-
lack made the round trip within six weeks from the day of his fare-
well benefit at the National. Steam navigation brought accessions of
noted strangers, some to be fSted and honored, as Dickens, Marryat,
TEN TEAKS OF MDHICIPAL TIOOK
407
Lord Morpeth^ or the Prince de JoinviUe;' others, like Louis Napoleon,
or the ex-King of Spain, to escape for a time from an atmosphere of
insecurity. The Orontes had begun to flow into the Tiber, in a double
sense : not only was America becomii^ the asylum of Europe, but the
luxury and fashion of Paris were
also commencing to pervade New-
York. We are fast approaching
the days of Mrs. Crcesns and
Mrs. Potiphar, and the life which
Ik Marvel satirizes in the "Lor-
gnette."
The prraidential campaign of
the year 1844 may, we think,
be r^arded, next to 1860, as
the most important canvass in
our history. Controversies about
banks and tariffs were fast hur-
ried to the bacl^TOund before the
onset of the slavery question.
Houston at San Jacinto in 1836
had made Texas independent of
Mexico, bat the " Lone Star " was
courted by the South, and one of
the last acts of the Tyler adminis-
tration was the proposed treaty with the republic of Texas for
its annexation to the Union. The resolution of Calhoun and the
South to acquire the full area of this new repubhc for additional
slave territory prevented Van Buren's renomination at Baltimore, and
secured the nomination of Polk and Silas Wright ; but the Kangaroo
ticket, as it was immediately dubbed,^ did not long continue in the
field. Wright, who was then a senator from New- York at Washing-
ton, immediately telegraphed to the convention his refusal to accept
the proffered honor. History records that the convention disdained
to believe that the news of the nomination had been conveyed to
Washington, and that a veritable declination had been sent from that
city, within an hour after the nomination. The explanation of this
incredulity lies in the fact that the proceedings of this convention
constituted the first public news ever transmitted over telegraphic
wires. The skeptical convention adjourned to the following day before
acting upon Wright's declination, meanwhile despatching a com-
l The Prince de JoinviUe c&me to tbis port in Valentine Hott and his wife fcuve ■ ball, at ttaeir
the historic frigate La Belle PotUe, which had residence in Bleecker street. In honor of the
neently conveyed Napoleon's remains from St. Prince. t« whom on the following day the city
Belena to Prance, and which In the fall and win- fathers gave a grand dinner at the Astor House.
erof 18*1 ctrald have been seen oB the Battery. S "The ticket," said a leading Democrat, "is
'with her tricolor flying." In November, 1841, Dr. like a kangaroo — it goes upon Its hind legs."
<2-^7^»-a'^*-'=*^<=»^^^*^g^2f
408
HI8T0BY OF NEW-YORK
mittee to "Washington, to ascertain the nominee's decision. When it
was discovered that Morse's invention was no chimera, but a veritable
working machine, the city was as much astonished at this intelligence
as at the unexpected nomination of Polk.
After years of disappointment and privation Morse had at lasfc.
been permitted to demonstrate the possibility of employing electro^^
magnetism for the instantaneous transmission of news. Although b>^'
profession an artist ,
this pupil of Washing
ton Allston had froii
his college days at Yal^r^
been profoundly inter
ested in science, an(^e=:
had patented many in
ventions. The idea o^Mt
an electromagnetic re
cording telegraph had^H
first si^igested itself toi^"
him while he was on a. ^
voyage from Havre to—
New-York in 1832. Re—
' turning to bis professional work in the university, he spent years in.
perfecting his invention, and was at last able to demonstrate its per-
fect utility to a company of gentlemen assembled in the Geological
Cabinet of the imiversity in 1838. Patents were granted to him hy
the United States, but for many years no means of enabling him to
test the invention were put at his disposal England refused him a
patent. Arago, the aged Humboldt, and other scientists at home
and abroad were convinced of the value of the Morse system ; but
Congress, busied with problems of polities and finance, refused any
appropriation for testing its value imtil 1843. At the very close of
the session (on the third of March) of this year. Congress passed a
bill authorizing an appropriation for a trial line between Baltimore
and Washington. This bill was not passed without keen and scom*
ful opposition. One member of the House wished an amendment
adding a provision that part of the money should be expended in
researches upon animal magnetism, a subject then engaging the
scientific and popular mind; and blunt Sam Houston, conceiving
Morse to be a visionary enthusiast, worthy of enrolment with " Sec-
ond Advent" Miller, suggested that "Millerism"* should receive a
flEHERAL worth's RESIDKNCB.l
■Qeneral William J. Wortli'H residence com muids
one of the flnest tIbwb on the Hndson River. The
hooBe is k itrife square building, with a hroad
portico and loaic columnB eitendlne ■ctobb its
entire front, while the ^ronnds In which It standa
ue shaded with nugiilfloent old trees. Editor.
- "Mlllerism" found votaries In the citj. Miller
Oied Octol>er 22, 1844. for the end of the vrorld.
Stones and brlckhats were thrown at the speakers
at the Hi1ierlt« meetiuga, and eraoken and torpe-
does were exploded onder their feet Finallj- Uie
nutfor, with an array of constables, was obHgpd
410 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
our soldiers were victorious. Polk at once addressed Congress, and
the famous vote was taken which declared that war already existed
" by act of Mexico.'' It is not our province to narrate the history of
that war, the triumphs of Taylor, or our own Worth and Wool, Scott's
entry into the city of Montezuma in 1847, or the resulting contro-
versy over the attempted exclusion of slavery from the vast territory
purchased from Mexico under the guise of a treaty of peace ; but the
part which New- York took in the conflict merits brief notice.
The history of the events which led up to the war, of the war itself,
and of its effects, would form a most absorbing book. The war was
waged for the dismemberment of Mexico. The military honors are
unquestionably due to Taylor and Scott and their brilliant subor-
dinates ; but the policy which added California, Utah, and New Mex-
ico to the territory of the United States had its origin largely in the
minds of Marcy and Bancroft, and they found men capable of execut-
ing their bold designs. It was Commodore John Drake Sloat, a na-
tive of this city, a hero of the war of 1812, who stole, under cover of
darkness, in his ship, the Savannah, from the harbor of Mazatlan, and,
reaching Monterey, California, in advance of the British admiral, com-
pelled its surrender, and raised the American flag in the old Mexican
capital. Under instructions from Marcy, General Stephen Watts
Kearny led a force of sixteen hundred men a thousand miles through
the desert to seize Santa F6 and hold New Mexico. His brilliant
nephew, Philip, also a native of this city, was the flrst soldier to enter
the gates of the city of Mexico. In attempting to follow the Mexicans
into their capital after their defeat at Churubusco, he received a shot
which necessitated the amputation of his left arm. Of him General
Scott said, " He was the bravest man I ever knew, and the most per-
fect soldier." In this war other New-Yorkers either won their spurs
or gained fresh laurels. General Worth, whose statue was subse-
quently erected in Madison Square, was in the thick of the fi^ht at
Monterey, at Vera Cruz, at Cerro Gordo, at Chapultepec, and at the
capture of Mexico. The energetic and indomitable spirit of General
Wool enabled him to raise and equip a volunteer force of twelve
thousand men in less than six weeks, and as a veteran he displayed
equal energy during our late civil war in saving Washington from
Confederate troops. Among others who won distinction or lost their
lives in this struggle were descendants of the Hamiltons, the Schuy-
lers, the Morrises, and others of New- York's leading families.
During the exciting and bloody drama of the last years of this
decade New-York city steadily continued her development. No seri-
ous calamity occurred except the fire of July 19, 1845, the third great
conflagration in the city's history, which broke out about dawn of a
calm midsummer morning. As there was little wind, and an ample
412 mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK
GOTHAM AS APPLIED TO NEW-YORK.
Gotham derives its origin from Goth, one of an ancient tribe of barbftriaxiB who
overran the Roman Empire, and signifies a rude, ignorant person. It was also the
name of a parish in Nottinghamshire, England, where x>eople were noted for their sim-
pUcity and stupidity, which gained for them the satirical appellation of the ^' wise men
of Gotham." As a popular name for the city of New -York, it was first used by Irving
and Paulding in ^^ Salmagundi," because the inhabitants were such wiseaores. In. that
humorous volume is quaintly recited the '' Chronicles of the Renowned and Antient
City of Gotham," and its invasion and final capture by the Hoppingtots, a race noted
for '' an unaccountable and unparalleled aptitude for huge and unmatchable feats of
the leg. Led by two chiefs, Pirouet and Rigadoon, who ordered each man *^ to arm
himself with a certain pestilent little weapon called a fiddle ; to pack up in his knap-
sack a pair of silk breeches, the like of ruffles, a cocked hat of the form of a half -moon,
a bundle of catgut," and '^ a bunch of right merchantable onions," they swooped down
upon the devoted Gotham. The appearance of this host, capering and grimacing,
filled the citizens with alarm, followed by despondency, as fresh onslaughts to the
sound of screeching fiddles were made day after day by the enemy. And the wise
men of the town implored the dancing men and women to '^ make heel against the in-
vaders, and to put themselves upon such gallant defence, such glorious array, and
such sturdy evolution, elevation, and transposition of the foot as might incontinently
impester the legs of the Hoppingtots, and produce their complete discomfiture.^ Finally
the two chiefs, marshaling their entire force, made a general attack on the whole line
of fortifications by a grand ball. The garrison had previously been corrupted " by a
most insidious and pestilent dance called the waltz. ... By it were the heads of the
simple Gothamites most seriously turned"; the ladies of the city had been already cap-
tivated by the besiegers, and the defenders themselves were wavering. Rigadoon made
a short address to his companions, and without more ado ^' leaped into the air about a
fiight-shot, crossed his feet six times, after the manner of the Hoi^ingtots, gave a
short partridge-run, and with mighty vigor and swiftness did bolt outright over the
walls with a somerset. The whole army of Hoppingtots danced in after their valiant
chieftain with an enormous squeaking of fiddles, and a horrific blasting and brattling
of horns ; insomuch that the dogs did howl in the streets, so hideously were their ears
assailed." The city was shortly won, and the captors immediately put the citizens in
charge of certain professors of the Hoppingtots, '^ who did put them under most igno-
minious durance for the space of a long time, until they had learned to turn out their
toes and fiourish their legs after the manner of their conquerors." All ages, sexes,
and conditions were put to the fiddle and the dance without mercy, so that ** in pro-
cess of time they have waxed to be most flagrant, outrageous, and abandoned dancers;
they do ponder on naughte but how to gallantize it at balls, routs, and fandangoes ; in-
somuch that the like was in no time or place ever observed before." This sad ohronide
closes as follows : " And to conclude, their young folk, who whilome did bestow a mo-
dicum of leisure upon the head, have of late utterly abandoned this hopeful task, and
have quietly, as it were, settled themselves down into mere machines, wound up by a
tune, and set in motion by a fiddlestick ! " Gothamite is now occasionally used to
denote an inhabitant of New-York city. Edftob.
CHAPTER XI
TELEGRAPHS AND RAILKOADS, AMD THEIR IMPULSE TO COMMERCE
1847-1855
1 HIS period was marked by a wonderful commercial
development, due in part to the rapid expansion of rail-
way, steamboat, and telegraph interests, in part to the
C'hina and East India trade, no little also to the Cali-
fornia trade consequent upon the discovery of gold in that State in
1848. The telegraph, which had come fairly into use by 1847, revolu-
tionized the methods of business. Heretofore it had been the custom
of the merchants of Pittsburg, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and all
the larger interior towns to visit New-York once a year, usually in
the spring, spend a month, and select their stock of goods for the
coming year. Now all this was changed. The development of the
railroad and telegraph made it possible for merchants in the interior
to order any particular goods wanted, and to receive them within a
day or two, so that the great wholesale houses, instead of carrying a
large and miscellaneous stock of goods, began to limit themselves to
a single line, and their customers in ordering would divide their orders
among perhaps a dozen houses.
Dealings in stocks, bonds, and produce between the exchanges of
the various cities were also changed by the advent of the new agent,
for now the brokers could know the state of the market, and operate
414
mSTORT OF NEW-TOEK
at the same time in New -York, Philadelphia, Cineinnati, Charleston,
or New Orleans. The first telegraph-line in practical operation was
finished in 1844, as has been narrated. In June, 1846, the line be-
tween Philadelphia and Washington was completed and opened for
business. The line between New-York and Philadelphia had been
opened on January 26, 1846. The
receipts of the new line from Jan-
uary 27, 1846, to June 30 of the same
year, as appears from the old books
of the company, now in the iHJsses-
sion of the "Western Union Company,
were for January, $108.75; for Feb-
ruary (no record) ; for March, $202.58 ;
for April, $120.97; for May, $362.25;
for June, after the opening of the
through line, $731.32. Total for the
six months, $1525.87.
From this time on telegraph-lines
were extended throughout the United
States with great rapidity. There were
the New -York and Boston Telegraph
Company; the New -York, Albany and
Buffalo Company, owned by the great
stage-line proprietors, Foxton and But-
terfield; the New -York and Albany
Company, owned by Morse's partners; the St. Louis Company, owned
by Henry O'Reilly, to which Morse and his partners gave a license so
loosely worded as to locality that it produced later much contention
and some lawsuits; the Washington Company, owned by Morse's agent,
Amos Kendal; the New -York and Mississippi Valley Printing Com-
pany, which operated under the Key printing device of Eoyal House;
and scores of others. In seven years there were over fifty separate
telegraph companies doing business in the United States, nearly all of
them in open competition and rivalry. This rivalry occasioned many
evils and imperfections. It necessitated copying and retransmitting,
with the attendant loss of time ; and together with the delays, inac-
curacies, and various tariffs, the result was such that in 1851 a move-
ment was begun to effect a consolidation of the various interests. On
March 30, 1854, the New -York and Mississippi Valley Printing Com-
1 Jamea Henry Hackett, actor, vaa bom in New-
York city. March IS, IBOO. He studied lav at
Columbia College, went into mercantile life, and
Boon married Katherine Lee-Sugg, an KtresB and
the daughter of an English ventriloquist Fail-
ing In busineas, he essayed the stage, meeting
with great aucoeaa. Hb Falstaff was for years the
beat on the Amertoui stage. In 1654 he brongbt
Qrisi and Mario to this counliy, and made a
handsome fortnne. Hackett numbered among bii
personal frlenda Cooper, Halleck, Inlng, Paul-
ding, and other prominent men. He died Decem-
ber 28, 1891. BDirOB.
416 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
property or persons by the power of steam, or of animals, or by any
other power" or combination of the above. The capital stock was
limited to ten millions of dollars, and the charter was to expire after
fifty years. In the list of oflBcers and incorporators were many names
powerful " on 'change ^ fifty years ago.'
During this summer (1832) a preliminary survey was made by
Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., mider authority of the national govern-
ment, and his report was so favorable that a complete and accurate
instrumental survey was decided upon. By 1833 one million dollars
of the capital stock had been subscribed, and in August officers and
directors were appointed. The legislature of 1834 made an appropria-
tion for a survey of the route under State authority, and Governor
Marcy appointed Judge Benjamin Wright to conduct it. He began
operations May 23, 1834, dividing the work into two grand divisions
or sections — the eastern extending from the Hudson River to Bing-
hamton, under the direction of James Seymour, and the western
from Binghamton to Lake Erie, conducted by Charles EUet, Jr.
Judge Wright reported on January 20, 1835, that the survey had been
finished, and that the complete maps, profiles, and estimates had been
deposited with the secretary of state. The whole route from Pier-
mont on the Hudson to Dunkirk on Lake Erie was four hundred and
eighty-three miles in length (subsequently reduced to four hundred
and forty-six). In his report the engineer spoke of the vast and
acknowledged benefits of the Erie Canal to its commercial emporium,
and that in selecting the route of the railroad he had considered
economy of construction, passenger traffic, cheapness of transporta-
tion, connection with lateral branches, accommodation of the in-
habitants, and development of resources. The report aroused much
opposition to the proposed road in the legislature. The project was
denounced as "chimerical, impracticable, and useless.'^ It was said
that the road could never be constructed, and if it could, would never
be used, as the southern counties were sterile, mountainous, and
thinly populated, yielding but few marketable products, which could
1 They were: President, James Q.King; Vice- James Pnmpelly, Charles Pamx>ell7y John R.
President, Eleazar Lord ; Directors, John Duer, Drake, Jonathan Piatt, Luther Qere, Francis A.
Goold Hoyt, Michael Bumham, Peter Q. Stuy- Bloodgood, Jeremiah S. Beehe, Ebeneser Mack,
vesant, Elihu Townsend, Samuel B. Ruggles, Ansel St. John, Andrew De Witt Bruyn, Stephen
James Boorman, Stephen Whitney, John Rath- Tuttlo, Lyman Covell, Robert CoTell, John Amett.
bone, Jr., J. Green Pearson, John G. Coster, J. H. John Magee, William McKay, William S. Hubbell,
Pierson, of Rockland County, George D. Wick- WilliamBonham,ArthurH.Erwin, Henry Brother,
ham, of Orange County, Joshua Whitney of Philip Church, Samuel King, Walter Bowne, Hot-
Broome County: Incorporators, Samuel Swart- gan Lewis, William Paulding, Peter LoT^and, Isaac
wout, Stephen Wbitney, Robert White, Cornelius Lawrence, Jeromus Johnson, John Steward, Jr.,
Harsen, Eleazar Lord, Daniel Le Roy, William C. Henry I. Wyckoff, Richard M. Lawrence, Gideon
Redfleld, Cornelius J. Blauvelt. Jeremiah H. Pier- Lee, John P. Stagg, Nathaniel Weed, Hubert Van
son, William Townsend, Egbert Jansen, Charles Wagenen, David Rodgers, John Hone, John G.
Borland, Abraham M. Smith, Alpheus Dimmick, Coster, Gk>old Hoyt, Peter P. Nevius, Robert Bu-
Randal S. Street. John P. Jones, George D. Wick- loid, Thomas A. Ronalds, John Haggerty, EUsha
ham, Joseph Curtis, John L. Gorham, Joshua Riggs, Benjamin L. Swan, Grant B. Baldwin,
Whitney, Christopher Eldridge, James McKinney, William Maxwell, and Darius Bentley.
418 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
York Tribune^ of Friday, April 25, said on its editorial page, "The
iron track from Piermont to Dunkirk is at length completed, and the
first train passed over the road on Tuesday. The directors left this
city on Monday, stopped for the night at Elmira, and arrived at
Dunkirk about six o'clock on Tuesday evening, amid the rejoicings of
thousands who had gathered to witness the advent of the first train
of cars from the banks of the Hudson. The company remained at
Dunkirk Tuesday night, and on Wednesday afternoon started on
their return to this city," — and closed its account with the query,
" Should not the completion of this mighty undertaking be commemo-
rated by our citizens f " "Step by step," said a New -York publication
of 1855, " mile by mile, over mountains, across valleys, on airy via-
ducts, from the river to the great lakes the work was at length ac-
complished, and immediately, as if a magic wand had touched the
great West, roads connecting with it sprang into existence, leading to
y ^^^^^./? y oi ©very State in the Union north of the Ohio
and Mississippi, and the wealth of the great
Northwest was poured into the lap of New -York. St. Louis formerly
bought goods at New Orleans, now it comes to us. Illinois bought at
St. Louis, now it purchases on the Atlantic coast. Ohio went bodily
to Cincinnati for its supplies. Cincinnati itself now seeks them in
the metropolis of the Empire State.^
During the year ending September 30, 1854, 1,125,123 passengers
were transported, with 743,250 tons of freight. The road then owned
183 locomotives, and 2935 cars. The cost of the road and equipment
was $33,439,431.10, and its earnings for that year $5,359,958.68, or
nearly one sixth of its total cost. The company fell into evil hands,
however, and in 1859 its road and property were placed in the hands
of a receiver for non-payment of interest on its funded debt. A re-
organization was effected under the name of the Erie Eailway Com-
pany in June,* 1861. In May, 1875, the road and property were again
placed in the hands of a receiver in default of payment of interest on
its bonds, and its affairs were by him administered until April 24,
1878, when the road, franchise, and property were sold under a fore-
closure of the mortgage bonds, and a second reorganization was
effected under the title of the New -York, Lake Erie, and Western
Railroad Company, the articles of association being filed on the
27th of the same month. Since then the affairs of the great corpo«
ration have been in a much more prosperous condition.^
It is worthy of mention that none of the other great trunk-lines
1 Caleb S. WoodhuU was elected mayor by the miles of line. Its total earnings for that year
Whigs in 1849, and served one term. It was dur- were $30,090,699.51. It carried I3,756»292 passen-
ing his administration that the Astor Place riot gers, and 24,911,699 tons of freight. It then had
occurred. Editob. 870 locomotives, 703 passenger-cars, and 40y58<^
2 In 1891 it was operating a total of 1696.59 freight^ars. Its capital stock is $£^,951,100.
420 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the city, was formed by the consolidation, in June, 1871, of the ori-
ginal Pennsylvania Railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburg (first
opened February 15, 1854) with the United Railroads of NeW Jersey,
which had at that date absorbed the various independent railroad
^^ companies of New Jersey, and controlled and
(>:;^^:^^^yj.^^^;i^i^* operated a through line £o Philadelphia. These
^ independent companies were the Delaware and
Baritan Canal Company, the Camden and Amboy, the New Jersey,
and the Philadelphia and Trenton railroad companies.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, by the ex-
tension of its lines to Buffalo and to Oswego on Lake Ontario, is en-
titled to be considered as one of the trunk-lines and feeders of the
metropolis. It was organized December 10, 1853, by the consoli-
dation of the Lackawanna and Western, which had been chartered
March 14, 1849, and the Delaware and Cobbs Gap Railroad (chartered
December 26, 1850). In 1868, by its lease of the Morris and Essex
Railroad (chartered 1835), it gained an entrance to Jersey City and
New -York, and made connection with the Hudson. On October 2,
1882, it leased the New- York, Delaware and Lackawanna Sailroad,
running from Binghamton to the International Bridge, New -York,
with a branch line to the city of Buffalo, and thus became a trunk-
line and a rival of the Erie. The Delaware, Lackawanna and West-
ern was originally organized as a coal road, its line extending from
Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the Delaware River, and it is now one of
the greatest coal-carrying companies entering New-York.^
The West Shore Railroad, although now leased by the New-York
Central and Hudson River system, was built for a through line be-
tween New-York and the West, in opposition to the last-named com-
pany. It extends from Weehawken, New Jersey, opposite New -York
city, to Buffalo, New-York, a distance of four hundred and twenty-
six miles, with branches to Albany and Schenectady. The company
was formed on the 14th of June, 1881, by the consolidation of the
North River Railroad Company and the first New-York, West Shore
and Buffalo Railroad Company, which had been organized February
18, 1880, to build a trunk-line from New -York to Buffalo. The road
was opened to Syracuse on October 1, 1883, and to Buffalo on Janu-
ary 1, 1884. The New -York Central and Hudson River Railroad,
whose line it paralleled, at once reduced rates on its lines, and the
West Shore, being unable to compete, was thrown into the hands of
1291 passenger-cars, and 36,141 freight-cars. It 2 The total number of miles of road operated on
carried, in 1891, 44,810,727 passengers, and moved January 1, 1891, was 788.29. The oompuiy then
66,500.209 tons of freight Its total earnings were owned 564 locomotives, 386 passenger-ears, and
$67,026,666.63. Its capital stock is $126,771,200. 34,065 freight-cars. Its capital stock was |a6y200,-
1 The Whigs were again successful in 1851, elect- 000. It carried 11,475,878 passengers, and moved
ing Ambrose C. Eingsland to the office of mayor. 11,383,567 tons of freight Its total *»M^««gt
Editob. $22,011,820.90.
TELEOBAFHB AITD BAILBOAJ)S, THEIB IMPULSE TO COMUEBGE 421
receivers in June, 1884, and sold under foreclosure in November, 1885.
A new company was organized December 5, 1885, by whom the road
was leased to the New -York Central for four hundred and seventy-
five years, dating from January 1, 1886.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the last of the great trunk-lineB
to enter New- York, reaches the city by means of its Philadelphia
<31visioD to Philadelphia, and then by the Philadelphia and Beading
Sailroad, and Central Railroad of New Jersey, to New- York. This ar-
Tangement was consummated in December,
1886, and the first through train was run to
New- York on December 15 of that year.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey is one
of the great coal roads centering at Jersey
City, with extensive coal docks at Port
Johnston and Elizabethport. It was formed
by the consolidation, February 22, 1849, of
the Elizabeth and Somerville, and Somer-
ville and Eastern Raih'oad companies. It
was opened to Phillipsburg in July, 1852,
and its line extended to Jersey City in 1864.
It was leased in May, 188.% with all its
leased and branch lines, to the Philadelphia
and Reading Railroad, which wished to use
it as a through line to New- York; but the
lease was declared void by the chaucellor of New Jersey, and the
road was placed in the hands of receivers on January 1, 1887.
In his annual message to Coiigi-ess in December, 1848, President
Polk announced the discovery of gold in California. A man named
Marshall, while digging a mill-race for a Captain Sutter on the Amer-
ican Pork of the Sacramento River, hud discovered the precious metal
in large quantities ; other rich deposits were soon discovered by eager
adventurers. The news, traveling slowly overland, reached New- York
in September, 1848, and stirred the pulses of men to fever-heat. On
'change, in the streets, in the drawing-rooms, little was talked of but
the new El Dorado and the fortunes to be washed from its golden
sands. Men settled their affairs, sold their property, left their fami-
lies, and set out for the land of promise, some by sea around Cape
Horn, some overland, some by water to Vera Cruz, and thence across
Mexico to Acapulco, or Panama, on the Pacific, where they took
ship for California. During the year 1849 it was estimated that
twenty-seven thousand emigrants went by water to California, and
IJohnVcniDKiru born June 13,1802. He studird 1H46, anil was elMUd. In July, 1819. he waa ap-
l«ir,aiid went to the leglaUtura Id lN32;wBB elected pointed asBistaot tressiirerof tbo United StatKeia
loCon«TesslnIft3fl;aBalnlDlS40andlnl8U. He Now -York city, where he died, April 23, 1S52.
TeeidTed tbe Whig tumlnation for govemor In Editob.
422 mSTOBY OF new-yobe
Dearly as many more by land. A little later the favorite route was by
the fine steamships of the Pacific Mail Company to Aspinwall, on the
Isthmus of Panama, thence by rail across the isthmus to Panama,
where the company's steamers were taken for San FranciBCO. In
three years California became a State with a population of 250,000
souls. Commodities of all kinds for its people were supplied largely
by New- York and Boston. A short time before, the tea porta of China
had been thrown open to American commerce, and our merchants
now sent their ships full-laden to San Francisco, and
then despatched them in ballast to Canton for tea,
thus obtaining profitable return cargoes for at least
half the distance.
The demands of this China and California trade for
despatch (tea deteriorating greatly in flavor if long at
sea) ushered in the era of the clipper ship, by far the
most honorable and satisfactory period in the history
of American shipping. The clippers superseded the
packets, which were first built in 1816 to meet the demands tji the
rapidly increasing trade with Europe, as well as to give Enropeui
travelers swifter service and better and more luxurious acoommoda-
tions. The clippers, according to Frederick C. Sanford of Nantucket,
an authority on American ships and shipping, originated in Baltimore
about 1840, but the building and sailing of them were quickly trana-
ferred to New- York. A clipper was constructed primarily for speed, at
whatever sacrifice of her carrying capacity. Her lines were sharper
and she was longer and narrower than were her predecessors — the
packets and cai^o-carriers. The first clippers {1843 to 1850) were com-
paratively small craft of from 750 to 940 tons. The Rainbow, the first
clipper, built in 1843 by Smith and Dimon for William H. Aspinwall,
was of the first-named figure, and the Samuel Russell, built by Brown
and Bell for A. A. Low and Brother, one of the most famous of her
class for speed and beauty, was of the latter tonnage (940 tons). But
it was soon found that these were too small to be profitable ; besides,
they were liable to be so strained in rough weather that the cost of
repairs became a serious item. The California trade also required
lai^er ships. Accordingly, in 1851, William H. Webb, one of the
noted ship-builders of that day, designed four vessels of this class,
with special reference to the demands of the merchaots for speed,
strength, and capacity. They were the Challenge, of about 2000 tons;
the Invincible, of 2150 tons; the Comet, of 1209 tons; and the Sword-
Fish, of 1150 tons — perhaps the swiftest, most beautiful and graceful
sailing craft ever produced, or that ever will be produced. These,
with others like them, carried the American flag and the fame of the
American genius to the remotest ports. They were epistles that the
TELEaRAPHS AND RAILBOAI^, THEIB IHPUI£E TO COHHEBCE 423
most illiterate could read. New-Tork was proud of them. One may
2Bave ocular proof of it in the head-lines of the newspapers of that
■day. "The Contest of the Clippers," "Race Round the World,"
"**QnickeBt Trip on Record," " Shortest Passage to San Francisco,"
*'A Clipper as is a Clipper," " Extraordinary Dispatch," " The Quickest
Voyage to China," were some of the more striking. The swiftness of
-some of these sea-birds was almost incredible. The Comet, for in-
stance, sailed to San Francisco, around the Horn, — 16,308 miles, — and
returned in seven months and nine days, her homeward voyage hav-
ing been performed in seventy-six days, the shortest time on record.
The Sword-Fish made the voyage from Shanghai to San Francisco iu
thirty-one days, at the average rate of 240 miles a day — a record
which, if we mistake not, has never been broken. The Surprise, built
in East Boston and owned by A. A. Low and Brother of New- York,
once sailed to San Francisco in ninety-six days, carrying 1800 tons
of cargo of an estimated value of $200,000. Her greatest run in a
day of twenty-four hours was 284 miles; she made the entire distance
of 16,308 miles without once furling her topsails. From San Fran-
cisco she sailed to Canton, took on board a cargo of tea, and pi-o-
ceeded to London, her freight-money earned since leaving New-Tork
, funmu clipper of
^r overtook her witb
• fatrvind. SlM VM Wit In 1863 for Edwin D.
UOTgan, Captain Sanmela, and othera. and waa
umcd after tbe (Unoti* veaael in Nelium'i squad-
ror. On her ftrrt retnrn trip froin Liverpool In
Februar;, 1854. ahe beat the steamer Canada.
reaching Sandy Hook before the Ciuiarder aniyed
at Bofrton, altboagh the latter left LiTerpool one
day earlier. EnnoB.
424
mSTOEY OF NEW-TOBK
\
having paid her cost and ruDuing expenses, and cleared her owners ^
net profit of $50,000. The Surprise was paid two and three ponnd ^
sterling more a ton for freights at Canton than were the clumsie-!^!
English vessels, because of her superior sailing quaUties. In 185:^ m%
there entered at the port of San Francisco 157 vessels, of which 7^~"0
were clippers. The impetus thus given to commerce is shown by th» .ae
fact that in 1853 the value of th» _^e
tea imported into New- York rir — iir
ceeded eight millions of dollars. ^=.
The regatta of the RoyalTacli.«^znt
Squadron at Cowes, England, iwr -in
1851, attracted extraordinary at:*" -t-
tention, owing to the fact that i S: it
was the year of the first grea-^^*
exhibition, or World's Fair, an(^-*^"
an unusual number of yacht«-:^**
wei-e expected to be present fot*^^^
the races. Early in the year ^^^"^^
famous ship-builders James B-^^
and George Steers, of New-York,* ^**r'
launched a fine schooner yacht^ *^
of 170 tons, which was named ^'^
the America. She was designed fc***
by GJeorge St«ers, and built by ^■^^
his firm from a model made by "^^
him. Her owners were Commo- ■ — *
doreJohn C. Stevens (founder ~*^
of the New-York Yacht Club in 1844), Edwin A. Stevens, Hamilton *
Wilkes, J. Beekman Finlay, and George L. Schuyler, and tbeir object --
in building her was to make a match in English waters, and, if pos-
sible, defeat any boat that could be brought against her. The
America proceeded to Havre, France, with Commodore Stevens and
his party and the designer on board. Here she underwent some tri-
fling alterations, and was put into proper racing condition. Leav-
ing Havre, she soon met a boat which proved to be the cutter
Laverock, sent out to try the speed of the stranger, and aft«r some j
manoeuvering, to quote Commodore Stevens, " the America worked 1
quickly and surely ahead and to windward of her wake. As a con- I
sequence, not many hours after anchoring at Cowes, it was well uu- I
derstood, from the known capacity of the Laverock, that certainly ]
no schooner, and probably no cutter, of the Royal Yacht Squadron
could beat the America in sailing to windward in a moderate breeze."
■ Upon arriving in Cowes, Commodore Stevens posted a challenge
offering to race any English yacht, for any sum from one to ten
^.x$=^^=^.
TBLEOKAFHS AND RAILBOADS, THEIB IMPULSE TO GOMMEBCE 425
thousand guineas, the only Btipulation being that there should be
not less than a six-knot breeze. This challenge was not accepted,
and it was determined to return to New-Tork, but, yielding to pres-
eare from friends who desired to see the America's racing qualities,
the commodore decided to enter in the regatta of the Royal Yacht
Squadron, which was open to all nations. The day set for the
event was August 22, and the conditions were as follows : " No allow-
ance of time for tonnage; yachts to start at 10 A. M. from Oowes, and
sail around the Isle of Wight; no time prescribed for accomplishing
the distance, so that the Cup might be won in a tempest or a drift —
with entries ranging from 392 to 47 tons."' An immense fleet of
steamers, tugs, and sailing boats of every description was congre-
gated in the harbor to see the race.
There were fifteen starters, comprising seven schooners (includ-
ing the three-master Brilliant of 392 tons) and eight cutters. The
America, though slow in getting off upon the firing of the starting-
gun, passed her competitors rapidly in the light breeze prevailing;
and, as the wind freshened, left them all astern, finishiug the course
and winning the cup by about eight miles. In passing the royal steam-
yacht Victoria and Albert, upon which were the queen and prince
consort, near the finish-line. Commodore Stevens, although still ra-
42C
HISTOBY OF 5EV-T(»K
f-iDg, iostantlT lowered his ensign, whUe be and his crew remained
with ODfrovered beads for some minntes. The n^tt day the America
tmiled from Cowes to Osborne, npon invitation of the queen, who
desired to inspect tfae wonderful yacht. She was received by Com-
modore Stevens and his friends, and
spent half an hour on board, express-
ing great admiration for the general
arrangements of the famous schooner'
The demands of the packet and
clipper service created in New-York
as large and able a body of ship-
boilders as the annals of any poit
can show. The years 1840-60 weW
the golden days of the craft "Ne"*;
York," said a newspaper of 1852, *'*'*
one of the great shipyards of t-'^"'
world. Onr clippers astonish dist^t-'*''
nations with their neat and beaoti^^
appearance, and oof steam^s hfu '^^
successfully competed with the swi^^*^
est-going mail packets of Great BrrX^*^
ain. In the farthest comers of tf^''*
earth the stars and stripes wave ov>^ '^
New-York built vessels." The com^^ ®
of Seammel and Water streets, nefc!^*'
the present site of the Grand stret-^'"
ferry-houses, was a center of the ic^^^^*"',
dustry. Christian Bergh, father <*^^^
Henry Bergh, had his office on th» -^^
northeast comer of Seammel anr^
"Water streets. "Below him," says ^^^ *
recent writer,* "at the foot of Hont — "^'
THE AUBKICA'a CCP.- , . j.!. 1. • J ^1^ "t
gomery street, was the shipyard o^^-
Thorii and Williams, and lower still, near the foot of Clinton street, ^^
the shipyard of Carpenter and Bishop. Ficket and Thoms's yard ^^
1 Mr. Scbuyler, the lut survivor o( the yacht
party, who died on boftrd tbe Electm in tfae sum-
mer of IS91, wu fond ot relating tbe Inddent of
Her Majesty appearing on the deck of the Victoria
ftnd Albert vh«n It ^as annoiiDced that tbe leader
o( the race was In eight, and saying to the captain.
" Whifh of our yachts la tfaatt " To whieb he re-
pUed, "Uadam, that Is the Amerisa." "Which
is second!" " Your Majesty. thereiBnoseoond."
answered tbe English captain. EtmoB.
2 This prize, which is erroneously deri)tnaled as
the " Queen's Cup," should properly be called the
*'AmeTl(m'sCnp," aslt became the property of her
owners after winning It in the regatta of the Bi^ai
Yacht Sqnadron. As this event waa open to aU
nations, the famous cup falHy representa tlie
yachting snpremacy of the woiid. Seven un-
successful attempto have been made since by
BrlliBh yacht-owners to recover the cyiveted prise,
the last nee for the cup in 1S89 being between tbe
Volunteer and the Scotch cutter Thinle, and prov-
ing an easy victory for the American boat. An-
o^er contest for Uie cup is expected to take place
In the Bummer of 1893. Editdb.
a Mr. OeoTge W. Sbeldon, in " Harper's Kaga-
TELEOBAPHS AND RAIIEOADS, THEIR IMPULSE TO COMMERCE 427
(afterward at the foot of Houston street) adjoined it, and, farther
south, James Morgan and Son had built a bark at the foot of Rut-
gers street, and Joseph Martin the brig Mary Jane at the foot of
Jefferson street, and the ship General Page at the foot of Pike
street. Above Mr. Bergh was a series of yards extending along the
East Eiver as high up as Thirteenth street: Sneden and Lawrence's
yard, near the foot of Oorlears street ; Samuel Hamard's yard, near
the foot of Grand street; Brown and Bell's yard, from Stanton to
THK AUBBIOAM
Houston Streets, which was formerly occupied partly by Henry Eck-
ford, and partly by Adam and Noah Brown; Smith and Dimon's
yard, from iFourth to Fifth streets; Webb and Allen's yard (after-
ward William H. Webb's), from Fifth to Seventh streets; Bishop and
Simonson's yard (afterward Westervelt and Mackay's), from Seventh
to Eighth streets; James R. and George Steers' yard, William H,
Brown's yard, and Thomas Collyer's yard, higher still. Many other
builders or repairers of ships occupied the same interesting shore of
the East River at about the same time or later: Mr. George Thor-
bum, a well-known spar-maker, who now uses a part of the old yard
of Sneden and Lawrence, counted, the other day, not le^ than thirty-
three of them, whose yards resounded with the axes and hammers of
iTheabore cartoon appeiired In Landi>D"Piii]oh"
tor September. ISSl, irlth the legend " Look en ' *
Sqiulli I " followed bj the senteDce : '
428
HISTOBY OF NEW- YOKE
8UKNY8IDE,
busy American ship-carpenters, calkers, blacksmiths, and joiners. . . __
Momiug, noon, and evening Lewis street was almost filled with the^3
multitude of mechanics going to work in the shipyards or returning -35
thence; the sidewalks were not wide enough to hold them.
" The stranger sailing down the East Eiver and viewing the busy "■
yards that lined the New- York shore, the noble vessels on the stocks,
the thousands
of busy work-
men, and the
huge collections
of timber —
white oak, hack-
matack, and lo-
cust for the ribs
of the ships,
yellow pine for
the keelsons and
ceiling timbers,
white pine for
the floors, live-oak for the 'aprons' — might have been pardoned for
supposing that Manhattan Island was the headquarters of the ship-
building of the world ; for such indeed it wag."
Meantime events of great local interest, if not so far-reaching in
character, had been happening which require notice at our hands.
Early in the year 1847, the Century, one of the oldest and best-
known of the many clubs of the city, was organized.' It was founded
along the lines of the Artists' Sketch Club, which had been reorgan-
ized in 1844 by the leading artists and literary men of the city. At a
meeting of this club late in 1846, John G. Chapman, a well-known
artist of the city, proposed the forming of a society of artists and
authors, the membership of which should be restricted to one hun-
dred. The proposal met with marked favor, and a circular letter,
bearing the signatures of John G. Chapman, Aeher B. Durand,
Charles C. Ingham, Abram M. Cozzens, Francis W. Edmonds, and
Henry T. Tuekerman, was sent to about one hundred gentlemen resi-
dent in the city, and who were either artists, authors, or interested in
the fine arts, inviting them to meet on January 13, 1847, in the ro-
tunda in the New- York Gallery of Fine Arts, in the City Hall Park.
I The New-Yorli Sketch Clab originated In 1B27. CTub were MIbb Buds, the riBtar of RotMirt C
uid was often known as "The XXI.," being Sands, In whose honse In Haboken they often
originaUr limited to that Dumber, and including met, and the onlj lady member; and the artists
Verplanck, Bryant, Morse, Hilihousa, Ingham, Asher B. Durand, Profeasor Robert W. Writ, and
Hatleck, and Cole. It was at a meeUng of thU John G. Chapman. The last meeting of its mem-
clab, held at Charles M. Leupp'a in Amity street, ben was held at Bryant's residence. Ho. 24 West
that the "Century" was orgauiied, the list ot Sixteenth street, in IHGfl, to meet hii Mend and
names being headed by that ol Oulian C. Vei^ former pastor. Dr. OrriUe Dewey, then restdinf
planck. Among the latest surriron of the Sket^ at ShefBeld, Ua«s. Boiros.
TELEQBAPHS AND RAILROADS, THEIR IMPULSE TO COMMERCE 429
Most of the gentlemen invited responded. David C. Golden was
elected chairman. Mr. Chapman presented the draft of a constitntion,
which was adopted. The society was organized, and was, on motion
of Edward S. Van Winkle, called the Century, because its member-
ship was restricted to one hundred persons. A committee of manage-
ment was appointed, composed of Gulian C. Verplanck, John L.
Stephens, Asher B. Durand, John G. Chapman, David C. Colden, and
Charles M. Leupp. Daniel Seymour was appointed secretary, and
Thomas S. Cummings treasurer.^
The managers first secured rooms at No. 495 Broadway for the
meetings of the club. These were well attended. A journal filled
with contributions from the members s a
was read once a month, a reading-room ^^45»-#^»t--«^ uCola-^/u.^^^^
and the nucleus of a library were es- C/
tablished. Receptions were also given to men who had distinguished
themselves in art, letters, statesmanship, and science. The later his-
tory of the club will be found on subsequent pages.
One of the most important events of this period was the passage by
the legislature, on April 2, 1849, of an amended charter for the city,
which was to take effect on the first day of June following. The
amended instrument provided that the mayor and aldermen should
hold offlice for two years instead of one, and that the charter election
should be held on the first Tuesday in November, the same date as the
State election. Its most important provision, however, was the estab-
Ushment of nine executive departments, the heads of which were to
act as the constitutional advisers of the mayor, after the federal plan
of government. The nine departments thus created were :
I. The Police Department, under the especial care of the mayor,
with a bureau, the head of which was to be called the chief of police.
II. The Department of Finance, under control of the comptroller of
1 The original members of the Century were:
WiniAm G. Bryant, Rev. Henry W. Bellows,
Henry K. Brown, John G. Chapman, Abram M.
CoExens, Dayid G. Golden, John D. Campbell,
Lewis Gteylord dark, Thomas S. Cummings,
Asher B. Durand, Ber. Orville Dewey. Francis
W. Edmonds, Charles L. Elliott, Thomas Addis
Emmet, Dudley B. Fuller, Thomas H. Faile,
George Folsom, Alban GK>ldsmith, John H. Gour-
lie, Henry Peters Gray, Daniel Huntington,
Ogden Haggerty, William J. Hoppin, Charles G.
Ingham, Gouvemeur Eemble, William Kemble,
Shepherd E!napp, Robert EeUy, Charles M. Leupp,
Samuel E. Lyon, Christian Mayr, Dr. William J.
MaeNeven, Eleazer Parmly, Thomas P. Rossiter,
Daniel Seymour, Jonathan Sturges, John L.
Stephens, Joseph Trench, Henry T. Tuckerman,
Henry P. Tappan, Gulian G. Verplanck, and Ed-
gar S. Van Winkle. Mr. Cummings, Mr. Hoppin,
and Mr. Huntington are believed to be the only
imriyors. Editor.
2 James Harper, founder of the firm of Harper
and Brothers, publishers, was bom April 13, 1795,
and was the son of Joseph Harper, a farmer at
Newtown, L. I. Haying, with his three brothers
John, Wesley, and Fletcher, established a printing
business in New-Tork, they soon began publish-
ing, issuing first ''Locke on the Human Under-
standing,'' in 1818. The present firm — sons and
grandsons of the four brothers — continue the
business in Franklin Square, in buildings cover-
ing half an acre of ground, absolutely fire-proof,
having all the operations necessary to the mechan-
ical production of a book carried on under one roof,
and giving employment to about one thousand
persons. Mr. ELarper was elected mayor of the
city, in 1844, by the Native American party — the
only occasion upon which that organization was
successful; he was thrown from his carriage
while driving in Fifth Avenue, and died a few
days afterward at St. Luke's Hospital, New- York.
March 27, 1869. Edftob.
^ih HKTOET OF XEV-X<WX
tf*f ihr. Ij* tttTBe defarmieiDE w*rf to be preaded ovw by the re
««iv«r <^ Ux&K, «oOre<e«OT- «f tbe city rer^nneE, and oty ebamberlain^Ki
EIL A Street iM^aattof^t, i« be preaded orer bv an official called A
the eMomimoDer fA iftnetA. and to hare rvo bareans, die heads of "^
vfaich Tere to be known as the col- —
lertor of aeeessments and snpenn* -
tendent of wharveB.
TV. Department (tf Repair iwd
So^tiee, jwedded over by a com-
miseioner of rqiairs and supplies.
Tbe beads of its fonr bnreaus were
to be known as superintendents of
roads, of repairs to public boildings,
of permits, and chief engineer of
the Fire Department.
V. Department of Streets and
Lamps,, nnder a commissioner with
three bareaas, presided over by
superintendents, respectively, of
s ( — N. lamps and gas, of streets, and of
/^ /^ j^j^j'.ilL. ™a^^ets.
i>^s«-. c/' <L^jaf^*^t^^^^ Yi The Croton Aqueduct Board,
under a president, engineer, and
asBistant commissioner, with one bureau, the head of which was to
be known as the water roister.
VII. Department of the City Inspector, to be presided over by an
officer of that name.
VTII. Almshouse Department, the chief officials to be known as
governors of the almshouse.
IX. Law Department, its chief officer to be called the counsel for
tbe corporation, with one bureau, to be administered by the corpora-
tion attorney,
The heads of the various departments, with the exception of the
Aqueduct Board, were to be elected by the people, and were to hold
office for the term of three years. They were all under the legislative
authority of the common council.
New-York suffered two visitations in the summer and autumn of
1849, from either of which it might well have prayed to be delivered —
the Astor Place riot and the Asiatic cholera. The riot startled the
city by showing what dangerous and explosive elements were shel-
tered in its bosom. It was caused primarily by the ill feeling existing
between two well-known and talented actors — Edwin Forrest, an
American, and William Charles Macready, an Englishman ; but later.
TELEOBAFHS AND BAILBOADS, TTTF.TR IMPULSE TO C0MM3EBCE 431
national prejudices were invoked. Forrest had made the tour of the
English play-houses a short time previously, where he had been the
rival of Macready for popular favor. The latter, Forrest charged and
believed, visited the theater in London where he was playing, and
publicly hissed him; and the fact, having been made known in
America, caused great indignation among the friends of Forrest, who
were numerous and influential. Unaware of this feeling, Macready
returned to New -York in September, 1848, and appeared in tragedy
at the Astor Place opera-house, which had been erected the year be-
fore by subscription, with John Sefton as manager. After filling his
engagement Macready went to other
cities, but returned for a farewell ap-
pearance early in May, 1849. Forrest
was then playing "Macbeth" at "Wal-
lack's Broadway theater, and the two
rivals were soon advertised on the
bill-boards to appear on the same
night, in the same play, "Macbeth."
This was taken as a gage of defiance
thrown down by Macready, and great-
ly incensed the friends of the Amer-
ican actor. They determined that
Macready should not play. On the
night in question, a typical New-York crowd gathered before the
opera-house in Astor Place an hour before the doors were opened.
There were laborers from the streets and public works, hoodlums,
respectable mechanics, and fashionably dressed gentlemen and ladies.
Some were in tattered garb, some in their shirtsleeves, some in
evening dress. When the doors were thrown open, the motley crowd,
which had been supplied with tickets, poured in and quickly filled the
pretty interior. Soon the curtain rose upon a weird scene — the three
witches on the blasted heath performing their incantations in "light-
ning, thunder, and in rain." The scene awed the populace, and it re-
mained silent until Macbeth appeared and entered upon his role, when
it at once drowned his voice in hisses, cat-calls, and every manner
of boisterous disapproval. Macready became angry, but continued
through the act, although not a word that he said could be heard amid
the tumult. Lady Macbeth {Mrs. Pope) then came upon the stage, but
was received with such ribaldry and abuse that she fied to her dress-
ing-room. Macbeth again appeared, and was met by such a shower of
1 John James Aadabon. the eminent naturalist, The htniae Is now Included In the tract knovo
whoee work on "The Birds ot America" forma as Aadubon Park, ttmugh which a thoroughfare
tach B noble monDment (« Its anthor, redded in to be known as Audabon Avenue will soon be
tbe mldat of a beantitDl grove of trees sitaat«d opened. This park formed a part of the sceue ot
Jut above One Hundred and PUly-efth street, the batUe of Harlem Helghu. EorroB.
432
HI8TOBY OF NEW-XOBK
addled eggs and still more dangerous missiles that, belieTing hii m^
to be in jeopardy, he fled behind the curtain. The play was snapendei,
whereupon the disturbers, having accomplished their task, qoiet^l
withdrew. Macready proposed to his managers to throw up hig ^-S^
gagement ; but on this becoming known, the better class of citiucf^^
feeling that the city had been disgraced by the affair, and would ' ^
still more deeply dishonored were the actor prevented from filling "[^r"
engagement, addressed to the latter an open letter,' regretting the ci ^
cumstance, promising protection if he woold again appear, asking hi^E-i
not to yield to the spirit of lawlessness so suddenly and unexpectedlX-
developed, and begging that he would grant the city an oppcrtnnitTiS
to wipe out the disgrace inflicted upon its character. Macready r^M*
sponded favorably, and name-^^
Thursday, May 10, as the datizj
for his appearance in the samv^
play. When the announc^k
ment was made, placards bilZ
ing Forrest for the same play
on the same night at tbe
Broadway were posted beside
the Macready bills; at the
same time a handbill appeared
on every prominent point in
the city, bearing this appeal :
" Workingmen I Shall Ameri-
cans or Englishmen rule in this country I The crews of the British
steamers have threatened all Americans who shall dare appear this
night at the English aristocratic Opera House. Workingmen ! free-
ST. JAKIS LUTHBBAN CHtTBCH.^'
I Niw-TOKK, Wednewlar, Kxj 9, 1849.
WitHam C. Xaerrady, Etq. .-
Deu Sir: The aDdersigned, having heud that
the outrage at tha Aator Place Opera Uoiue OD
HoDdar flveDlcg la likely to have Uie effect of
preventing you from continuing your perform-
ances and from concluding your intended faie-
lU Blage. take thia
public nietbod of requesting yoa to t«coualder
jonr decision, and of auorlng you that the good
■eniie and respect for order prei-alllog in this
eommnnity will luitaln you on the mhaequent
night* of your performBnces.
Ambrose L. Jordan. Weuell 8. Smith,
EMward Sandfofd,
WilllaHaU,
JameH FoBter. Jr.,
Duncan C. Pell.
Ogden Hoffman.
Howard Henderson,
Samuel B. Buggies, i
Jamea Collia.
Edward S. Qonld.
William Kent,
John W. Francis.
William M. PrlBhard.
Benjamin D. SiUlman.
David Austin,
Mordeeai M. Noah,
Francis R. TiUou,
Henry J. Raymond,
Charles A. Darla,
Pierre H. Irving,
Hosea H. Grlnnell,
Henry A. Stone,
Qeorge Brace,
Waahlngton Irving,
Frands B. Cutting,
Joseph L. White,
Uat^ew Morgan,
David C. C«lden,
Ogden P. Bdvarda.
John K. Bartlctt,
Richard Grant White,
Evert A. Duyekinck,
J. Prescott Hall,
Robert J. Dillon.
Ralph Liockwood,
So f ar aa known, Hr. SilUmaa Is the airfe sac
vivor among tbe forty-eight gentlemen wbt
signed tbe above letter. Edtio.
: The flrst Lutheran church in New-Toik wm
buOt in 1T0S, at Rvctor Btivet and Broadvay. and
waa destroyed by fir« In 1TT6. In 17B7 the build
Ing reproduced above waa erected at the romrr
of Frankfort and William streela, and was knows
as the Swamp Chnreh. The praaent St. James
Lutheran Charch is a handsome stone edifln
erected in ISEIl at the oomer of Hadlaon Avmat
and East Seventy-tblrd street. Bditob.
William C. Barrett,
David Qraham.
Edward Curtla,
James Brooka,
James E. De Kay,
Jacob Little,
Hlckson W. Field.
J. Beekman F^lay,
Denning Duer.
Simeon Draper.
Herman Melville.
Comelina Hatliewi.
TELEGRAPHS AND RAILBOADS, THEIB IMPULSE TO COMMEBCE 433
men ! stand up to your lawful rights I ^ This incendiary appeal was
taken as presaging violence. The friends of Macready appealed to
the chief of police, who promised to detail a large force to preserve
order, while two regiments of the city militia were ordered to be
ready to march at the word of command. To keep out the adher-
ents of Forrest, tickets were sold only to those known to be in
sympathy with Macready.
Early on the evening of the 10th, three hundred policemen were
placed inside and outside the opera-house, while, as on the previous
night, a large and niotley crowd gathered outside. When the doors
were opened the police allowed only those having tickets to enter,
and as soon as these were within, the doors were closed and barred,
the windows having previously been secured by nailing planks across
them. Doors and windows were assailed by the mob with paving-
stones which were piled in heaps along the street preparatory to
being laid, and with chips from a
neighboring marble-yard; but the
rioters were repulsed by the police.
The curtain rose, and Macready appeared. Notwithstanding all
precautions, however, many lawless persons had penetrated the play-
house, and were about to rush forward by preconcerted action and
seize Macready, when, at a signal, the police, who had learned their
plans, rushed in and soon overpowered them. The ringleaders were
secured inside, and the others were ejected. When this became
known without, the mob attacked the police, and had nearly over-
powered them when the famous Seventh Regiment, under Colonel
Abram Duryee, appeared, having marched up Broadway, under orders,
from its armory near Centre Market, preceded by its troop of horse.
The latter was ordered to charge the mob, and did so, spurring down
upon them from Broadway, but was met with such a shower of mis-
siles, that it retreated toward Third Avenue, leaving quite a number
bleeding on the street. Evidently the mob was in earnest, and re-
quired to be met in the same spirit. Colonel Duryee now ordered his
men to load with ball-cartridge. Finding that he could not move in
column because of the density of the crowd, he led his men in file un-
der shelter of the rear wall of the opera-house, and thus gained the
front. They were met with stones, yells, and execrations from the
mob. Many of the soldiers were wounded, and nearly forty stand of
muskets were battered in their hands.
Recorder Frederick A. Tallmadge, who represented the city authori-
ties in the absence of Mayor WoodhuU, was told that unless the men
were allowed to fire a retreat would be ordered. He addressed the
iJaeob A. Westervelt was chosen mayor by the Democratic party in 1853, succeeding Mayor Eingsland.
He was a shipbuilder, and constructed the United States steam-frigate Brooklyn. Editor.
Vol. ra.— 28.
434
KKTOBT OP NEW-IOBK
mob, begging it to retire, but without result. Finally, after coneiilt^
tion with the division couimander, General Charles W.Sandford, Sheriff
John J. V. Westervelt, the highest civil officer present, gave the or^
to fire, but to aim at the dead wall of a house opposite, over the heg^
of the crowd. This, instead of it^.
timidatiug the mob, only excited it>
contempt. The leaders argued th^^
the authorities were afraid to fl,^^
upon them, and defied them to ^^^
so, responding to the harmless fir^^
volley with a shower of missile^^
By order of General Hall, a aeeont^*
volley, aimed low, immediately fol-J-'
lowed the first, killiog andwoundinfi^
many of the rioters, and causing th^
mob to retreat in haste. The soldiers^f
pursuing, soon cleared the neighbor— -
hood of the opera-house and provi-j
siou was made against a return o^
ments at each end of Astor Place.
Another attack on the regiment was made by a portion of the rioter^
who had rallied their forces in Third Avenue, and who, advancing from
that direction toward Astor Place, injured several of the members
of the Seventh by throwing stones and bricks. This assault was met
by a third volley, which proved fatal to the mob, and it was dispersed.
One hundred and forty-one members of the Seventh were wounded,
including Colonel Duryee and Captains Henry C. Shnmway and Wil-
liam A. Pond ; Generals Sandford and William Hall and Lientenant-
Colonel Andrew B. BrinckerhofE also were hurt. Thirty-four of the
mob were killed and many wounded. Meantime all was excitement and
alarm within the opera-house. Until the troops arrived it was feared
that the rioters would tear the building to pieces. The play, however,
was performed, with the exception of the after-piece, which was omitted.
Macready was then assisted to escape by oue of the rear exits, and,
after being secreted in a private house for two days, was driven in
a carriage in disguise to Boston, whence he sailed for England.
The affair caused great excitement in the city when, next morning;
the full extent of the occurrence became generally known. Early in
1 AniiBCDnHointtwmetheilaugbteTofSMinid died In IgSl. dtv msTrted WUlLna P. Ritchie in
GoDTenieur Ogdea, > New-Tork merchant. In IKii. She wbb the mnthor of " Twin Bobps." " The
1S41 she gave readlngB in New-York mi BostoD ; Clergymui'a Wife uid other Sketche*,'' "Peiaro,*
wrote pUya : and on June 13, 184S, appeared aa andaereralother popular •rorka; freqnentl;ailn(
Pauline In the "Imdj of Lfons" at the Puk the pen-name of "Helen BerUe;." Mra. Ritehle
Tliealer. Her huaband, Jamei Howatt, having died In 1S70, aged Bftr^oe. El>tT<w.
TELEGRAPHS AND RAILBOADS, THEIR IMPULSE TO COMMERCE 435
the morning posters were scattered throughout the city, calling upon
all opposed to the destruction of human life to assemble in the park
at six o^clock that evening, " to express public opinion upon the lamen-
table occurrence of last night.'' A great multitude assembled at the
hour appointed, speeches were made denouncing the city authorities
for their efforts to maintain order, although no word of condemnation
was uttered against those who had broken the law and led their
fellows to riot and destruction. Eesolu-
tions of censure having been passed, the
meeting quietly adjourned without at-
tempting any hostile demonstration, and
although the Seventh remained on guard duty during the 11th and
12th, no further call was made upon their steadiness and bravery.
The mob spirit was quelled for the time.
The first case of cholera during the visitation of 1849 appeared on
May 14 in the Five Points, then one of the pest-holes of the city. A
sanitary commission, composed of James Kelly, Robert T. Hawes,
Alexander H. Schultz, Charles Webb, George H. Franklin, Edwin
D. Morgan, Robert A. Sands, Jacob F. Oakley, and Oscar W. Stur-
tevant, was at once appointed by the Health Department, and every
effort made to hold the dreaded scourge at bay. The commission was
invested with the full powers of the Board of Health, and had the ad-
vice of three eminent surgeons, Drs. John B. Beck, Joseph M. Smith,
and Samuel W. Moore, who were officially connected with it as medi-
cal counselorSo A large three-story building on the corner of Monroe
and Pearl streets was secured, and soon transformed into a hospital
to which all cholera patients were transferred. About the same time
the board published in all the city papers an address to the people
stating that Asiatic cholera was present in the city as an epidemic,
and warning all that cleanliness of streets, dwellings, and persons was
imperative to secure immunity from it. It was then held that cholera
was not contagious, but was communicated through the atmosphere.
As the epidemic spread, the Board of Health proposed using the
public-school buildings for hospitals. There was much opposition
from the Board of Education and from the citizens ; public meetings
were held to protest against taking such action ; but in the end the
buildings were thus appropriated, and did good service. To these hos-
pitals 1901 patients were admitted, of whom 1021 died. How many
perished in their own homes was never known, but it was estimated
that three thousand persons died in New-York from the malady.
While the city was thus growing in wealth and population, certain
philanthropic and charitable organizations and institutions were
founded, whose beneficent influence on the city's life and character can-
not be overestimated. John Jacob Astor, the richest merchant of the
436
mSTOBT OF SEW-XOBK
city, died on March 29, 1848, and by will left tbe sum of four hoodred
thonsand dollars for the establishment of a free paUie library is the
city of New- York. The library was incorporated Juiiuuy 13, 1849,
the first board of trustees comprising Washington Irving, Fitz-Greew
Halleck, James G. King, Samuel Ward^ Samuel B. Buggies, Danid
Lord, Joseph G. Cogswell, William B. Astor, son of the founder, his
grandson Charles Ajstor Bristed, and the chancellor of the State and
the mayor of the city ex officiis. Dr. C<^weU, then editor of the
"New- York Beview," was appointed
superintendent of the library, aod
visited all the Utenuy centers of
Europe, selecting books for the
various departments of the nev
library. The institntiou was first
opened to the public early in Feb-
ruary, 1854.'
The New -York Association for
Improving the Condition of the
Poor was incorporated in 1848,
having been organized in 1843. Its
first president was James Brovn,
the banker. Its vice-presidents
jwere Horatio Allen, John 6. GreeOi
" James Lenox, Apollos R. Wetmore,
and John David Wolfe; the record-
ing secretary, Joseph B. Collins ; the corresponding secretary, Kobert
M. Hartley; the treasurer, Robert B. Mintum. The board of messt^
gers comprised Jonathan Sturges, Stewart Brown, George Griswdi
and Erastus C, Benedict. In 1851 the New-York Juvenile Asylnto
was incorporated chiefly through the efforts of Robert M. Hartley,
Benjamin F. Butler, Luther Bradish, Horatio Allen, Apollos R. Wet-
more, Thomas Denny, Joseph B. Collins, and Dr. John Dennison
Russ, secretary of the Prison Association, the latter becoming its
first superintendent.
The Five Points Mission was founded during this period throi^
tbe efforts of devoted Methodist women, and has wholly transformed
the appearance and character of a locality which was once one of the
city's vilest slums. The Five Points is an open area of about one
t The Uter and more oomplete hUtoiy at tb« with Henry Breroort's dMigbter, and wrote mas;
Astor Library will be given by Frederick Saunders artinlea for the magaiiiuiB, over the pen-name oF
in a monograph in the conoludlntc volume. " Cni Benson." He wm one of the original tnw-
Editob. tees of the Aator Library, and the snthor of "tV
i Cbsrlei Astor Brleted was bom In New-Tork. Upper Ten Tbonsand," sketches of New-Tork m-
October 6, 1820, and was the son of the Rev. John ' olety life, " Five Tears In >n EngUsh DnlTerrity,"
Bristed, who married a daughter of John Jacob and other works. He died to WsBhIngton, D. Ch
Astor. He traveled Id Europe after his muiiage Juinuy IS, 1S74. Bmtob.
^
^^%^.
TGLEGRAFHS AND RAILBOADS, THEEB TUBXJLSE lO COHUERCE 437
acre of ground at the interseetioii of Mulberry, Orange, Anthony,
Cross, and Little Water streets. Charles Dickens, who visited it in
1841 under protection of the police, has given a vivid description of it
AS it then existed and continued to be up to 1850-51:
These narrow vays diverging to the right and left and reeking everywhere with
<lirt and fllth. . . . Debaaohery has made the very houses prematurely old, . , .
Nearly every house is a low tavern. . . . Here are lanes and alleys paved with mud
^ee-deep ; nndergroond chambers where they dance and game ; . . . ruined houses
open to the street, whence through wide gaps in the walls other ruins loom upon the
eye ; . . . hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder : all
that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.
This place the New-York Ladies' Home Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church began in 1850 to cleanse and reform.
At their request the New-York Con-
ference detailed the Eev. Lewis M.
Pease as a missionary to the Five
Points, and a mission was opened in
& little room, about twenty by forty
feet in size, at the coraer of Little
Water and Cross streets, which would
accommodate about two hundred per-
sons. The ladies began their efforts
by organizing a Sunday-school of
about seventy pupils. Soon after a
day-school was opened, for it was
quickly found that the children, run-
ning wild during the week, forgot all
the lessons of self-restraint, cleanli- "^^'^ ""•'" fobbest's ca8tle.i
ness, and moraUty taught them on the Sabbath. Next, the old brew-
ery, a huge dilapidated structure standing in the midst of the square,
a haunt of vice for generations, was purchased and fitted up as a
mission-house. This soon became the stronghold of the reformatory
movement. An employment bureau was established. The pledge
was circulated, drunkenness being the besetting sin of the neigh-
borhood ; and on each recurring Thanksgiving Day a notable dinner
was given the children of the mission. By December, 1852, the
society thought itself strong enough to build a new mission-house,
and the old brewery was demolished to make room for it. The cor-
ner-stone of the new mission was laid on the 27th of January, 1853,
the address of the day being delivered by the Rev. Dr. Thomas De
I Font Hill, a mtle knd > hail below Tonken, on snd trom the highest of ItB six towers miperb
the banki of the Hndson. was the former home of views were obtained. It wu eventually sold to,
EdwiD Forrest, tlie Amerloan tragedian. From and is now otiinpied by, the Convent and Academy
iti araliiteetuTe it was known a* Forrest's Caotle, of Mount St. Vincent. Editob.
^1h wBTrmi o¥ yxw-WMX. I zi
Wivi *A xiMT fS^i^/rtuM l^m^ ^liis;*^ amid a %Darf iuamiy «rfiAfr4yg>-
iMrt^ vf- hunt ^ Iei'ft-'!2iv>^Xi3x:i : tbe fiadTatftOiOi «otf imosKariaiD iea& s§ "Met | ai
^(:t«(d Ji^ rs^rr^ 2iii4 tbfT^r viH be a ehapel in Iftie «i£&«-; ami aft S£B-
yfjfiOLl }A^h^.i4^ will }>er an objer:!. benr will be acduamfiitekaiii fer
tb^ ^vrk aii/i utihAyS^ Tber bniMing was dedieatel on tiit l&tik«Qtf Jik.
t^/^ — a larg^ bri/rk edifkre, fronting Sfe^enrr-fire f««i cot dbe- sbM.
f//rty-fivff f^:!<(^t in d^b, and fire stories hi^li. On dit srooDii Amt
w^r^ )!i^;b<^>br(X/mi^ and in the upper st««i€s model tenitf^wBtii for ■ A
twenty families, who paid no rent on condition of keefUMg tfe WU- I B
ini^ ^rlean. There wa^ a chapel seating fire hnndivd pcEsoifi, and | ^
BAynniim; it a dwelling-hoase for the mifisionary. Tbe «o6t of die
oriipnal building, which has been largely added to witiiin rHcnt
yearK, wai« $3f>,WXX | -^
The efforts of these ladies, and of others working toward a sBoSm
end^ r|uickly transformed the character of the Rve P<Mnts and it^
neighlxirhorxL As a leading journal remarked at flie time of tbe
demolition of the old brewery, ** What no legal ^laetment, what ^
mar.'hinery of municipal government could effect. Christian wiOf^
have brought about quietly, but thoroughly and triumphantly. * -
The gr^'at problem of how to remove the Five Points had engaged ^
att'ention of both the legislative and executive branches of the €^^*
government, and both had abandoned the task in despair. It i^
the erc^Jit of the Methodist Episcopal Church that it was the firstT
entcir the then unpromising field, and it will be an imperishable hoi^^^,
to the Jjadies* Home Missionary Society of that chuit;h that "^^^^^^^
them the idea originated, and by them has been so successftL^^^^
carried out.^ .^he
The Five Points House of Industry is an institution having t:^^^^^
same object as the mission, but working on somewhat different lin^ ^pA
It was founded by the Rev. L. M. Pease, who was, as we have state^^' '
the first missionary appointed to the Five Points. This gentlem^^ ^^te
differed with the promoters of the movement as to the best method ^^^T
of gaining the desired result, and, severing his connection with tl^^^^^*^^
LodioH' Mission, founded an institution in which he could put his ovf^^"^
th(^ori(^H into practicie. His theory was, that the wretched outcasts ^
the Five Points were most of them so from necessity, and not fror^^^
choi(Hs and that they should be aided to help themselves, while, at Hc^-^^
same time, their spiritual and moral instiniction should not be neflpp-'^?'
lected. He first hired two houses in the locality, and with his famil^^^
e
>BAPHS AND BAILB0AD8, THEIB IMPULSE 0:0 GOHMEBGE
□P his residence ia them. He opened a school; he became a
facturer, and gave the wretched women of the locality work and
! at making shirts. In a short time both school and mission were
under the patronage of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the
ision. By May, 1851, the mission comprised eight houses, with
imodations for one hundred
wenty souls, and had become
rer for good in that benighted
borhood. It was incorporated
154, the first trustees being
es Ely, Henry E. Gemsen,
i^e Bird, Edward G. Bradbury,
ibald Russell, Thomas L.
, Charles B. Tatham, William
aruell, and George C. Waters.
le year 1856 a building well
ied to the purposes of a mis-
louse was erected on Worth
; near Centre, and there the
icent work of the society is
carried on.
January, 1849, the New- York
Academy, which was later
ided into tho present Univer-
.f the City of New- York, first
td its doors to the youth of the city. The school building was a
JUS structure of brick, four stories high, with a peaked roof and
er-windows, situated on the comer of Lexington Avenue and
ty-third street. To enter this excellent institution the candidate
be fourteen years of age, a resident of the city, have attended
f the city grammar-schools for at least twelve months, and must
an examination in the branches taught in these schools. The
Academy had its inception in an application of the Board of
ition to the legislature of 1847 for a law authorizing the estab-
ent of a free college or academy in the city for those pupils who
een educated iu the common schools. The act was passed May
7, with the proviso that it should be submitted to the electors
I city for acceptance or rejection. On being submitted on June
7, 19,404 votes were recorded in favor of, to 3,409 against the
ire, and the act became a law.
?jB-W<*<-^^
lam Aii|ru)rtus Mnhlenbenc, D. D.. waa
PhiUdelphiB in 1796, and wu ordained a
■ of the Episcopal Church in 1817, preaeh-
UladelphU and later in Lancaster, Pa. He
St.P»]l'iSohoolat Flushing, Long Island,
u its head nntU 18M, wben h?
anaumed the rectorship of the Chareh of the Holy
Communion in New-York. Dr. Muhlenberg nroto
a number of Rell-known hymns, including "1
would not live alway " and "Shout the glad
tidings," and was the author of many books, tracta,
and essays. He died in 1877. Editob.
440
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
In 1853 the Children's Aid Society, an organization that has doj^-^DM
great work for the homeless and friendless street children of New-Yoi — tV
was organized, chiefly through the efforts of Charles L. Brace, wlM"^ho
was made its first secretary and chief executive officer. The socier^stj-
was non-sectarian in "hnmrti — ■ rr
both in patrons and beneficiari^^»«s.
Its first effort was to establish . a
workshop inWooster street, whe~ -rre
the boys could earn an hone^^st
penny at useful work; but tb^M>~^
proved a failure, owing to thrr:*^
competition of private firms ■^■-'*
the same business. It next tumt*-i'
its attention to the newsboys c ^-^
the city, an uncared-for, home
less, reckless, jolly band of iittC
Ishmaelites, but shrewd, euer
getic, persevering, and not de-
void of instincts of honor anc
manliness. Mr. Brace first
cured a loft in the old " Sun ^
building, and fitted it up as em^
dormitory for the boys, chai^n^
them six cents for a bed, six^
cents for breakfast, and five cents for tea, with a bath gratis. From
this small beginning in March, 1854, grew the present Newsboys*
Lodging-house, one of the institutions of the city. An industrial
school for girls, evening schools, Sunday meetings, girls' lodging-
houses, and the placing of children in good homes in the West, are
other forms of labor of this most excellent society.
In this same year (1854) the corner-stone of the present St. Luke's
Hospital was laid with appropriate ceremonies. This admirable in-
stitution, which is soon to be removed to Westchester County, had
been projected as early as 1846 by the Eev. Dr. William A. Muhlen-
berg, rector of the Church of the Holy Communion, and had been
incorporated in 1850, with Dr. Muhlenberg as its pastor and superin-
tendent. Another excellent charity was established in 1851 — the
Demilt Dispensary, whose building on the corner of Second Avenue
and Twenty-third street is one of the charitable landmarks of the city.
At a meeting held in March, 1851, and attended by a number of
benevolent people, it was resolved to provide a medical dispensary for
1 Jenny Lind, from whom the orininal of the ception given in London to Mr. and Urs. S. C.
kbore portreit vu received, alwaya cherished Hall.thereDomiedringeFspakeof theenthuaiAgtic
pleuant recollecdons of her visit to New-York, welcome eit«iided to her in out dly, ui4 she re-
WlMn I saw her for the last time &t ■ funous re- called man; Amerioan (rienda. Editob.
TELEOBAFHS AND RAHJtOADS, THEIB HIFULSE TO GOMMEBCE 441
the northeastern section of the city, and a committee was appointed
to carry the resolution into effect.
Two years before there had died in New- York two unmavried sis-
ters, named Sarah and Elizabeth Demilt, who had bequeathed $20,000
to the three dispensaries then existing in the city. The residuary
legatee of the two ladies, George T. Trimble, now came to the com-
mittee and offered to give from what he had received of the estate
$5,000 to the proposed dispensary, provided it should be called the
Demilt Dispensary. This was
agreed to, and the dispensary
was accordingly established and
named. The substantial build-
ing was finished in March, 1853.
, In 1852 the Young Men's
Christian Association was
formed in New York, in imita-
tion of that already existing in
London. At the meeting for
organization, the Rev. Gregory
T. Bedell, then rector of the
Church of the Ascension, and
later Bishop of Ohio, presided,
and the Bev. Isaac Ferris,
D. D., pastor of the Dutch Re-
formed Church in Market street,
delivered an address. A large
number of members were at
once enrolled, among them Hon. Henry Arnoux, Dr. Howard Crosby,
Alfred S. Barnes, William E. Dodge, Professor Elie Charlier, Theodore
Dwight, Morris K. Jesup, D. Willis James, and many other equally
well-known citizens.
New- York society was pleasantly moved in September, 1850, by the
arrival of Jenny Lind, the Swedish songstress, who appeared in Cas-
tle Garden under the management of Phineas T. Bamum. . A large
and brilliant audience greeted her there, and sat spellbound under
the magic of her voice. Afterward she made a triumphal progress
through the principal cities of the United States. Castle Garden, the
fortress of Revolutionary times, had been some years before turned
1 Thta portndt repreaenU tte venerable Hun-
g>ri>ii ot pa«t foaracore and ten. an ho nppeared at
the period of hiaviait to New-York; for, like Irring,
heprefera to be represented in earl; or middle life.
Writing under date of October 17, 1B92, KoBaiith
uya; "Aa youmaj- imagine, 1 have no particular
wiiih to see the rulua of my eartlily frame conveyed
In your pages." He continueB: " I am sorry to
hear that Mayor Kltigaland and Jtidge HeCordy
have passed away ; we are
iJl travelling in th
aame directiou, and my wish
Is that my friend
should KMh the end of their
journey less diaap.
pointed in the object of their
when my hour comes and I
"hall pass away, ai
. I still remembei
vividly William 11. Seward.
nd everything con
l«resla me."
Editor.
442 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
iiito a summer gardeu and used for the reception of distinguished
visitors. Lafayette had been received there in 1824, President Jack —
son in 1832, President Tyler in 1843, and Louis Kossuth, the eloquent^
and devoted Hungarian patriot, there met in December, 1851, hisR
first generous and heartfelt welcome to America. A public receptiom.
was tendered him upon his arrival; immense throngs cheered hin^
again and again, and he was escorted by all the local troops to th^
City Hall, where they passed in review before him. A few days af^
terward, on the 16th, the interior of Castle Garden witnessed a re-
markable scene — that of the great Kossuth meeting — when the EMrsfc
Division of the National Guard, in full uniform, with side-arms, ap —
peared there, together with an excited multitude of citizens. Th^^
spacious building was elaborately decorated, and Kossuth's appear —
ance on the stage was the signal for a wild burst of enthusiasm ; so^
deeply did the American people sympathize with him and his coun-
try's wrongs. Having a thorough knowledge of American history^
and being singularly gifted as an orator, his theme, which was a pleiu
for substantial aid for Hungary, and a picture of her sufferings, as
well as an appeal for the interference of the United States in her be-
half, met with extravagant applause. Resolutions of sympathy for
Hungary were adopted by the meeting, and a committee was named
to solicit subscriptions for the relief of that country. Castle Garden
was later made a concert-hall, and in 1855 was changed into a depot
for the reception of immigrants. In 1891 the depot was removed to
EUls Island, which was purchased from the State in 1808 for $10,000.
The year before Jenny Lind's arrival, the old Park Theater, one of
the landmarks of the American stage, took fire (December, 1848), and
was totally consumed. Just before the doors were opened a file of
play-bills hanging near the stage was blown against a gas-jet, and,
taking fire, communicated the flames to the stage scenery; and in a
few hours the leading theater of New- York, for half a century the
pride of its citizens and a fountain of many happy memories, was a
mass of smoking ruins. It was opened in January, 1798, and nearly
all the prominent actors from that date to 1848 had appeared upon its
boards. George Vandenhoff, John Brougham, Mrs. Brougham, Ma-
cready, Forrest, Ole Bull, the Seguins, Charles Kean, and Anna Cora
Mowatt were among those who had made the old Park famous.
In May, 1850, the attention of the citizens was directed to arctic
exploration by the fitting out of an exploring expedition by a New-
York merchant — Heniy Grinnell — to go in search of Sir John
Franklin and his party. Sir John had left England in May, 1845, in
two vessels, the Erebus and the Terror, to seek a northwest passage to
the Pacific; and after having been spoken in Baffin's Bay some two
months later, had never been heard of since. The British government
TELEORAI^S AND RAILBOADS, THEIB IMPULSE TO COMMERCE 443
and Lady Franklin had seat out rescuiDg expeditions which retarned
without tidings. Mr. G-rinnell now proposed to assume the quest,
and incidentally to prosecute discoveries in the neighborhood of the
north pole. He offered two of his vessels, hap-
pily named the Advance and the Eescue, to
the government for the search. The latter ac-
cepted the gift, and the Navy Department ap-
pointed Lieutenant Edwin J. De Haven, U. S. N^
to the command. The expedition left New-
York on May 22, 1850, and returned September
30, 1851, having been nearly a year and a half
in the frozen soHtudes. No traces of Sir John
or of his men were found, but important ad-
ditions to the world's knowledge of the arctic /^^v^^^^^ — '~*^C_
regions were made; Grinnell Land, the large "^^
body of land separated from Greenland by Smith's Sound, having
been discovered, named, and placed on the chart.
A second search expedition was fitted out by Mr. Grinnell and
George Peabody in 1853 in the Advance, under Dr. EHsha Kent Kane,
which did not succeed in its main object {the fate of the unfortunate
explorer and of his men still remaining one of the mysteries of the
north), but it accomplished more than years of previous arctic explo-
ration had done in securing the first trustworthy evidence that an
open sea existed around the pole, and mapping out its coast-line. It
also explored the interior of many unknown lands. These discov-
eries awakened such interest in the pubUc mind that the American
Geographical Society was shortly organized in New-York, with
the object of "collecting and diffusing geogi-aphical and statistical
information."' It is among the most prosperous societies of the city.
During the period under consideration the project of a pleasure
park worthy of the city was conceived and well advanced toward
completion. The matter was first broached by Andrew Downing, the
celebrated landscape-gardener, in a letter to the "Horticulturist,'*
written from London in the autumn of 1850. In this letter Mr.
Downing described the extensive parks of London, enlarging upon
their beauty and utility, and calling the attention of the citizens of
New- York to the fact that the metropolis could not then boast of a
single park worthy of the name. The letter provoked a great deal of
quiet discussion among all classes of citizens, and at length Mayor
Kingslaud, on May 5, 1851, sent a message to the common council,
1 This nociety wks Incorporated in 1RS4. the cor- Dudley Bean, Hiram Barney. Alexander I. Cotbeal.
pormtora being George Buicroft, Henry Grinnell, Luther B. Wyroan, John Jay, Alexander W.
Prancis L. Hawks, John C. Zimmerman. Arcbl- Bradford, Edmund Blunt, Cambridge LivlngBton,
bald HuaneU, Joahna Loavitt, William C. H. Wad- Henry V. Poor, and J. CalTln Smith. George
dctl, Ridley Watts, S. De Witt Bloodgood, M. Bancroft waa elected the first preiidont.
444
mSTOEI OF NEW-YORK
ur^Dg that suitable provision for the health and pleasure of the citi-
zens should be made by establishing a spacious public park in the up-
per wards of the city. The common council acted promptly on the
recommendatioD. Securing authority from the State l^islature, it
purchased nearly all the ground now included in the Central Park.
Commissioners to purchase the land, examine titles, and adjust con-
flicting interests were appointed by the Supreme Court in the autumn
of 1853, those so appointed being William Kent, Michael Ulshoeffer,
Luther Bradieh, Warren Brady, and Jeremiah Towle. These gentle-
men were engaged on their delicate task for nearly two years, but
early in 1856 forwarded their completed report to the Supreme Conrt,
which accepted it. The comptroller then advised the common coun-
cil (February 5, 1856) that since by law the awards to the owners of
the land, and the expenses of the commissioners, must be made imme-
diately on the acceptance of their report, it was necessary for the
common council to make an appropriation to meet such expenditure.
The sum of $5,028,844.10 was accordingly appropriated. The later
history of the park will be given in subsequent chapters.
On July 4, 1853, the first World's Fair ever held in America was
opened in New-York by President Franklin Pierce with imposing
ceremonies. The exhibition was held in the famous Crystal Palace,
a beautiful edifice constructed wholly of iron and glass, emciform in
shape, and with a lofty translucent dome rising from its center.
Thirty-nine thousand square feet of glass and 1250 tons of iron were
used in its construction. It stood in the open space between the dis-
tributing reservoir and Sixth Avenue. In this beautiful gallery the
largest and most notable collection of paintings and sculpture ever
TELEGRAPHS AND RAILBOADS, THEIR lUPlILBE TO COMUEBCE 445
seen in New- York was exhibited in connection with the fair. The
exhibition remained open for several months, and was visited daily
by throngs of interested people from aU parts of the Union, as well
as from foreign countries. The palace was reopened as a permanent
exhibition on May 14, 1854, but the exhibition was not successful.
In 1853, the Clearing House Association, one of the most important
financial institutions of the city, was formed, and on October 11 of
that year opened its doors for bnsiness
at No. 14 Wall street. It had a mem-
bership of fifty-two banks, representing
a capital of $46,721,262.
During this period, the growth of
New-York city in population, wealth,
commerce, and territorial expansion
was steady and rapid. Her population
in 1840 was 312,700, her foreign com-
merce a Httle over $100,000,000. In
1850 her population was 515,547, an
increase of 202,847 daring the decade.
By 1855 it had risen to nearly 630,000.
Her foreign commerce in 1850 was
$260,000,000, an increase of $160,000,-
000 over 1840. By 1855 it had grown
to $323,000,000. To accommodate the
sbipping engaged in this vast trade and
m internal commerce, it had one hun-
dred and thirteen piers stretched along a water-front of some thirteen
miles, fifty-five on the Hudson River front, and fifty-eight on the East
River. Sixteen hundred and eighteen buildings were erected in 1849.
Fifteen public markets supplied the citizens with food at this time,
distributed as follows : Catharine, foot of Catharine street, founded in
1786 ; Washington, in Washington street, between Fulton and Vesey ;
Gouvemeur, corner of Gouvernear and Water j and Greenwich, cor-
ner of Christopher and West streets, — all opened in 1812 ; Centre, in
Centre street, between Grand and Broome, opened in 1817 ; Essex, in
Grand, between Essex and Ludlow, 1818 ; Fulton, at the foot of Ful-
ton street, and Franklin, at Old Slip, both opened in 1821 ; Clinton,
filling the square between Washington, West, Spring, and Canal
streets, and Manhattan, in Houston, corner of First, both opened in
1821 ; Chelsea, on Ninth Avenue at Eighteenth street, and Tompkins,
on Third Avenue between Sixth and Seventh, founded in 1828; Jef-
1 This bandsome monnmfiit of broim freestone Amerlcui pstriotB who died in British prisons In
was erected in tbe ebarcbyanl by the veshy of New- York eitydarini^ the BevolutloDaTy war. It
Trlnitr pariah in 1S52. in consoaaace with k gen- (aces Broadway, and Is placed directly opposite
era) desire of the citliena to commemorate the Pine street. Editob.
446
mSTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
ferson, on Sixth Avenue, comer of Greenwich Avenue, 1832 ; Union,
jonction of Houston and Second streets, 1836; and Monroe, juuction
of Monroe and Grand sti-eets, opened in 1836.'
New- York at this period had also become a great manufacturing
center, the census of 1850 giving her a total of 3387 manufactori«>fi
COI^ONNAOK BOW, IN LAPATITTE PLACE.
employing 83,620 persons, producing manufactured articles to the
value of $105,218,308, and employing a capital of $34,232,822. The
city at this date extended to Thirty-fourth street on the north, and
from river to river, although there were many open spaces. Bloom-
ingdale, Manhattanville, and Torkville were then isolated villages in
a rough, sparsely settled quarter. Bond street, Washington Square,
and East Broadway constituted the fashionable quarter of the city.
1 For further details of muketo, the reader sboutd conanlt ThomM F. Devoe'n ''Harkft Book."
CHAPTER Xn
FBEMONinONS OF THE CTVIL WAB
1855-1860
5 E\'ER had New-York seemed more peaceful or more pros-
perous than in the opening of the year 1856. It had not
yot attained the metropoUtan greatness of the present
time : it was still a provincial city, compared to the chief
European capitals, London and Paris. Some unseen cause weighed
upon its progress and kept it in a kind of vassalage to Europe. Yet
its growth had heen comparatively rapid ; its population in 1856 was
about 630,000 ;• its commerce flourished with unusual vigor ; its fine
ships and able seamen contended almost equally with those of Eng-
land for the mastery of the seas. The city had grown rapidly from
its early limits below Canal street to the once rural district from
Fourteenth to Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth streets. Some fine
houses had been bidlt on Fifth Avenue, and instead of the red brick
and the London style that had been used until now on Broadway and
around St. John's Park and Washington Square, brownstone was in-
troduced to give an air of gloomy dignity to the streets of New- York.
It was to become a city of brownstone. In 1856 we should miss
many of the conveniences that smround us to-day. The slow stage
still traveled its weary way along Wall street and Broadway; the
street-cars were just coming into use. No vision of rapid transit, no
dream of an elevated railway, had yet dawned upon our patient citi-
zens : a trolley-road in those happy days would have seemed a mira-
cle, and a telephone a gift from above. Who could have fancied, in
1856, that he Tnight one day converse at ease with his friends in Bos-
ton, or send his messages by telegraph around the world ; that he
could speak to his antipodes in China, and bargain with the merchants
of Australia from his ofl&ce in New- York !
In 1856 the suburbs of the city still retained many of their rare at-
■ The following curious esUmate of the popula- elty recently pubUshed, tlie progress of popuIatlOD
tion of NeW'Tork. made by Hr. John Pintard at for the Unt five years appears to be at the rate of
(h« opening of the centiu?, f onrecore and [«n 26 per cent. Should our city continue to Increase
T«an> ago. Mnnot fail to be read with iuterest : in tlie Mune proportion during the present ceo-
" By the enumeration of the Inliabltanta of this tury, the aggregate number, at ita cloae, will far
448
HISTORT OF NEW-YORK
tractions. Bloomingdale was still not unworthy of its name, auf*^^^
where now great blocks of houses eover the lan<l, gardens bloomeM-.^
and fair landscapes of river and shore opened from Bumham's an* ^^. *
Claremont. Harlem was a quiet country town, shut off by a long nd^L^ j^*'
or sail from its ruling center; there was yet no city beyond the HaJ"-^^
lem River — only country-seats, ai^r^^j'
scenery of rare beauty." In those ear"— ^
days each citizen lived in his oi^-^^^
home, and not in an apartment ; tei»(,_^^
ment -houses had begun their odioui '^^.,
career, but the great blocks of apart- "Zt
ments that now form the chief trait of
New- York's domestic life were wholly
unkno\Tn. The flat or apartment-house
was the invention of the Roman com-
mons : it was revived in Edinbui^h
and Paris, and has within twenty years
covered New- York with a crowded pop-
- ulation. It cannot be said that our city
ry^ j^ /S^^ifTK.^^^ ^^ l^^*" ^"-^ ^ model of neatness; in
*- fact, its odors and its malaria might
rival those of a medieval capital. Its politicians paid little attention
to the comfort and health of the people. The mayor was Fernando
Wood; the aldermen were no longer reputable; political influence
often shielded gi-eat criminals ; bribery was common ; the worst class
of the population often carried the elections of New- York. Fortu-
nately, the State was in the hands of a liigher order of politicians ; a
King or a Clark was governor. A metropolitan police was provided
for New- York and Brooklyn, and Mayor Wood, who had garrisoned
the City Hall and attempted rebellion, was forced to obey the law.
The Central Park was scarcely begun ; the Battery Park was neg-
lected, and lay for many years a repulsive waste. Our streets were
exceed that at any other city In the old world,
Pekin DOt excepted ; as will appear from the fol-
lowing table,
PrOgreM of Pooulation In the Hty of New-York,
computed at the rsl« of 2S per cent,
every flTe years.
180S
75,770
855
705,650
1810
«,715
860
883,062
1813
110.390
865
1,102,577
1820
147.9S7
870
1,378.221
1825
184.003
873
1,722,776
1830
231.228
880
2,153.470
1835
289.035
885
2.691.837
1840
361,293
890
3,384.796
1845
451,616
1893
4,305.995
1850
564.530
900
5,257,493
" From this table It appears that the population
of this city, silly years heooe. will considerably
exceed tlie reputed popnlatlan of the cdtle* of
Paris and London. Cities and DMioas. hoire*er.
like individuals, experience their rise, progress.
and decUne. It is hardly probable that Kew-Tod
will be so highly (avourei] as to prove an eicep-
tioD, Wars, pestilence, and political convnlaions
must be our lot, and be taken
Willi every allowance, however, for the '
Ills which life Is heir lo," from
maritime sltnation, and the Increase of agrlcn]-
ture and commerce, our numbers will in all prob-
ability, at the end of this oentnry, exc«ed those of
anir oilier city In the world. Pekln alone excepted.
" Prom the data here furnished, the politician,
tlosjicier, and above all the speculator In town
lots (a subject to our shame be it spoken, which
abMirbs every generous passion), may dr«w rarlous
PBEMONrnONS OF THE CIVIL WAE 449
noted for their uneleanness and bad pavement ; our public buildings
were mean and poor ; the police was inefficient, the city unhealthy,
its death-rate high, and life and property insecure. But already New-
York was assuming the position of a metropolitan city, and had
drawn in nearly all the commerce of the Union. The California
mines contributed to its prosperity; the decay of Charleston and
Norfolk sent their ships t» its harbor: it had no longer a rival. Yet,
more than ever, as it rose to comparative supremacy, did it become
dependent upon the strength and prosperity of the whole Union. It
was the offspring of union, the seaport of a united nation, the center
and source of its politi-
cal life. President Pierce,
in his messages, had
drawn a pleasing picture
of the general advance
of the country. "It is
a matter of congratula-
tion,'' he said in one,
''that the republic is ad-
vancing in a career of
prosperity and peace."
New- York reflected the
general improvement.
One proof of its blind-
ness to any political
danger at this time was ,„ ^„^ ^^^ cottaoe-i
the celebration of New
Year's day, 1856. "Never," wo are assmred by a contemporary, "had
the venerable custom of New Year's calls been so generally observed."
The streets were filled with visitors ; the houses thrown open with gen-
erous hospitality; in whole blocks there was not a parlor that did not
blaze with light, nor a family that did not receive its New Year's
guests. The city was all mirth and rejoicing, and one who, in our less
fortunate time, wanders through our silent streets on New Year's day,
will miss the graceful hospitality that has forever passed away.
Yet the winter of 1856 opened cold and severe upon the city. The
snow lay for many weeks upon the ground, until the people grew
weary of the sleigh-bells and the impassable streets ; the rivers were
frozen hard, the means of communication with the interior were still
imperfect, and many suffered. All over the country the same rigor-
ous weather prevailed. Far away in Kansas the chill winter opened
1 HadisoD Cottage was Bltaated on the north- It woe & wayside resort kept b; Corporal Thomp-
Wert corner of Fifth Avenue and Br<»dwsy, on gon, and from 1850 to 1855 was the principal bolld-
tlie ipot now oeeupied by the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Intc In that immediate nelgbborhood. Editok.
Vol. m.— 29.
450 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
upon. the settlers with unexampled severity; the boundless prairies
were covered with a thick veil of snow, the thermometer sank to
twenty degrees below zero, and the people in their imperfect cabins
shivered and froze in the unusual cold, New-York gave liberally to
their aid. From Kansas too came often reports of the violence of the
opposing factions and the raids from Missouri; yet no one saw the
cloud gathering in the West, or fancied that anything could check
the rapid progress of our metropolitan city.
In this period the Central Park, the origin of which has been referred
to in the preceding chapter, was gradually transformed from a wild and
rocky tract of land to a beautiful pleasure-ground. Its accomplished de-
signers prepared a plan that was carried out with rare taste and discre-
tion. Over the bare rocks vines were cast and sheets of flowers ; in the
valleys the lakes were formed, and swans black and white gUded over
them in stately grace. The ramble, one of the earliest of its attractions,
soon glittered with running streams and was covered with early flowers.
The mall, the terrace over the lake, the long Une of trees, the fine
walks and drives, the wild scenery of the upper park, completed its
early charm. And since then, year by year, the Central Park has added
a thousand beauties to its earlier grace ; its walks, once nearly bare,
are now overshadowed by lofty trees and a fine foliage ; its meadows
are green, its rocks and hills clothed in flowers ; the admirable taste
of its landscape-gardeners has been proved in the gradual perfection of
their plans. No city has so fair a park ; none a more valuable and
useful ornament. It had long been the desire of the leading citizens
of New-York to provide a pubUc park for the use of all the people.
Very early in the century it was proposed to .encircle with a fine or-
namental garden the lake or pond that then covered all the grounds
where now stand the Tombs and its uncleanly neighbors. The lake was
then known as the " Fresh-water Pond,^ and its marshy environs were
never healthy, and often covered the city with fogs and malaria. It
would have been fortunate if the plan could have been carried out.
We should then have had a fine sheet of water in the midst of the city,
where now are some of its least reputable districts, and should have
lost the "Five Points,^ and the marshy site of the Tombs and the
new mimicipal building. But the design was never perfected. GFouver-
neur Morris, as Miss Booth tells us, when he laid out a plan for the
upper part of the city, proposed to form a park of three hundred acres
reaching from Twenty-third to Thirty-fourth streets, and from the Thu-d
to the Eighth avenues. This too was almost certain to be rejected. It
would have made the center of the city a scene of beauty, and given
health and recreation to millions. Possibly Madison Square is a
poor remnant of the more extensive project. We lost the fine im-
provement of the Fresh Pond, the park above Twenty-third street, and
BAPTIST CHUKCH.l
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAB 451
had left in 1856 only a few squares, scattered over the city, little at-
tended to and of less use to the people. In nothing had oiu" rulers
been so inattentive to the wants of the city as in providing for it a
successioh of public pleasure-grounds. They might have been carried
all the way from the Battery to the Harlem,
and given New- York, like imperial Eome, or
even London or Paris, a breathing-spot in the
midst of its densest quarters. The opportu-
nity was neglected, and our city will not in
many years recover its loss. Our crowded
quarters are still our disgrace. But a succes-
sion of small parks may yet be provided on
the east and west sides of Broadway, by eome
future friends of humanity.
It was at first proposed in 1851 to purchase Jones' Wood, a fine tract
of land on the Elast River and bounded by the Third Avenue and Sixty-
sixth and Sixty-seventh streets. The site was attractive ; it was cov-
ered with trees, and the views over the water were fine and varied.
Mayor Kingsland had made a report to the board of aldermen, April
5, 1851, as previously stated, recommending the purchase of some land
for a new park. A committee of the aldermen decided in favor of
Jones' Wood; the common council confirmed their report, and the
legislature authorized the purchase of the land. But it was easily seen
that, however attractive might be the situation, Jones' Wood was too
far away from the center of the town to be easily reached by the
majority of its people. Much opposition at once arose to the pro-
posed site. The board of aldermen appointed a new commission to
select one more accessible; they carefully studied the wants of the
city, and decided at last upon the present site. At first the park was
to reach only to One Hundred and Sixth street, and was bounded by
the Fifth and Eighth avenues ; but in 1859 it was extended to One
Hundred and Tenth street. A consulting committee, with Washington
Irving and George Bancroft at its head, acted in concert with the
commissioners. On the finance committee were Charles H. Russell
and Andrew H. Green ; and to no one is the park more indebted than
to Mr. Green, who has so long watched over its interests. Thirty-three
plans for its construction and decoration were sent in anonymously
to the commissioners; that marked "Greensward" was selected, and
proved to be the one ofEered by Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux, whose taste
and skill have since never ceased to add to the attractions of the park.
I The engravliig represents tbe building known Henry streets ; rebuilt in 1800 and I8I9 ; and, it
u the Pajrette Street Bsptiat Church, where wor- having been Uestrojed by Are in 1843, a bftndsome
ship began in 1731; the name waa changed to the hricit edillcc was erected the tollowin? year, ThU
Oliver Street Church in IS21. In 1795 the conicre- church, with its increasing uumbera and larger
gitioii built a ohonli at the oonter of Oliver and buildingi, lierame very prosperoos. Editok.
452 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
An ordinance passed by the common council, May 19, 1856, ap-
pointed the mayor and the street commissioner as commissioners of
the Central Park. A number of private citizens of known taste and
literary ability were invited to attend the meetings ; they wdire known
as the consulting board. They met for the first time May 29, 1856,
and chose Washington Irving as their president. As yet no money
had been appropriated for the laying out and decoration of the
grounds ; they were yet a bare and rocky waste. But, fortunately,
the rare abilities and artistic taste of Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux were
at once recognized, and the plans offered by them were approved,
money for the completion of the park was liberally provided by the
issue of stock, the new land on One Hundred and Tenth street was
purchased, Manhattan Square was added in 1864, and the Central Park
now embraces a little more than 862 acres — a public garden laid out
with singular beauty, the resort of the people. Here they come in
summer, with wives, children, nurses, to sit under the cool shade, listen
at times to the music of the band, or walk or drive through the endless
paths and roads that invite them to almost rural pleasures. It is, and
must always remain, the people's park.
But one excellent trait of the Central Park is that it has been the
example and the model to many cities. It has, in fact, reformed and
improved the whole system of building and caring for them. No one
of our chief towns is now or will long remain without its series of
parks, its open squares, its playgrounds for the young and old.
Brooklyn soon followed its sister city, and laid out its Prospect Park,
whose wonderful woodlands and boimdless views of the ocean and
the harbor are unrivaled of their kind. Philadelphia planned its
park on the banks of the Schuylkill, the most extensive and, in rural
scenery, the most beautiful of all. Chicago is a city of parks ; San
Francisco is richly adorned with them. We may attribute even the
Yellowstone Park to the early suggestion of the Central. But its
success and its rare value are evidently best felt in our own city, and
here the new parks that have been laid out for future generations will
always own as their true parents the first foimders and promoters of
the Central Park. They are, in fact, the natural expansion of its plan.
Its chief fault is its narrow limit between the two avenues, and its
division into two parks by the reservoirs in its midst. As Clarence
Cooke has suggested in "Johnson's Cyclopedia," it should have been
extended on both sides and made less formal and confined. It is two
and one haK nules long, and only half a mile wide. The reservoirs
embrace one hundred and fifty acres, and yet one would hardly wish
them away ; they form cool lakes in summer that are always pleasant
to see, and in winter sheets of ice that glitter in our gay simlight. In
spite of its narrowness, our park has endless scenes of beauty. The
KtEMONmONB OF THE CTVIL WAE 453
finest of its vieira is the wild-wood around the upper pond. The walks
through the woodland shade to the Harlem Mere ai-e always charm-
ing. The waterfalls, the cleai' brooks, the yellow leaves of autumn,
the birds, the quiet shade, lead one to forget the city and all its toils
and splendor. One may bo as much lost here as in some rural soli-
tude. The lower park has been too much subjected to a taste for
building and display. The terrace is well done, its view over the lake
pleasing, its carved stonework of American birds, flowers, fruits, and
liarvests instructive and entertaining; one
loay spend many days in their study. The
mail, with its fine row of elms, its green-
sward, its statues and busts, its graceful out-
line, and its closing view over the terrace, is
better than anything in London or Paris.
The ramble, with its well-wooded heights, its
cave, its streams, its walks along the lake,
its belvedere and graceful landscapes, will ■
always please. In spring tlie lilac-clad drives,
the rocks covered with pink and gold, the
fresh greeu leaves, and the waters of the
lakes gleaming through the trees, arc all
traits of rare beauty. But the park has yet been too often the prey
of the spoiler ; corrupt politicians and tasteless rulers have inflicted
upon it painful wounds. It is the duty of the people of New- York to
save it from their hands and greater disaster. In the future it is
capable of endless improvement ; it may open the way to that wide
system of pleasure-grounds and places of ret^reation for the people
that is to extend over the Harlem River to the limits of the city. It
should be left chiefly to the hand of nature and to a natural growth.
It is already too artificial. Let its trees grow until they rival the
oaks of Kensington G-ardens, its gi-eensward bo sown with violets
and pausies, tike . that of the Bois : its wild beauties forming a
pleasing contrast with the angry waves of life without.
The later additions to the park of the Metropolitan Museum, the
Museum of Natural History, the Menagerie, and the skating-pond, the
restaurants, and the cottages, have increased its attractions, and made
it the joy of thousands. Still, it may be doubted whether these ex-
tensive buildings should have been allowed to encroach upon its al-
ready narrow limit. They might have been placed on the avenues at
its side, and left its greensward and its woodlands in their natural
state. But while the Central Park was thus advancing, the Battery
Park, the finest seaside resort possessed by any city, was left to neg-
lect and decay. It was to have been filled out to its present limit, and
properly cared for and enlarged. Once it had been the fairest and
454
HISTORY OP NEW-YORK
favorite resort of all our citizens. It was now, in 1858, become a foul
and noxious waste, where the filling in of its new area was composed of
the least desirable materials. It had fallen into the haads of corrupt
officials. Mayor Daniel M. Tiemann, in his message, said : " In con-
sequence of the imperfect manner in which the work is done, the de-
posits thrown in are washed away by the tide, and the East River,
between Diamond Eeef and the Battery, is shoaling rapidly." The
unfinished work he thinks " a disgrace to the city." It was long be-
fore the Battery was tolerably cared for,
and it is still a neglected spot that might
easily be made the chief attraction of
New- York. Its sea view and sea air are
unrivaled. A skilful artist — an Olmsted
or a Vaux — woiild convert it into a
scene of unsurpassed beauty.
Among the noted events of the year
1856 were the removal of the Brick
Church from Beekman street, and the
erection of the "Times" building on its
site. The church had long been famous
as the scene of the ministrations of the
Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, an eminent
Presbyterian clei^yman. The last ser-
vices were held iu it on May 25, 1856. In
its place rose the scene of a still larger
influence, and of the editorial toils of
Henry J. Raymond, one of the leading editors of the day. Soon after
the city was aroused to an unusual excitement by the assault upon
Charles Sumner in the senate-chamber at Washington. An immense
meeting was gathered in the Broadway Tabernacle — the largest, it is
said, ever held in that once famous hall. George Griswold presided,
and many noted citizens were chosen as vice-presidents. The speak-
ers denounced the brutal act with proper severity, and expressed
their sympathy with Mr. Sumner. At this time, too, the first statue
was erected in New- York since the fall of that of George m. on
the Bowling Green. It was that of Washington on Union Square.
Since then the niunber has grown with unprecedented rapidity.
Another statue and monument was authorized by the common
council, to be raised to the memory of General William J. Worth,
a hero of the Mexican war. It was placed farther up-town, on the
western aide of Madison Square. Brooklyn now began the con-
struction of its Ridgewood waterworks. As the year passed on,
the excitement of a presidential election filled the city with anima-
tion. The chief newspapers of the day were the " Tribune," " Times,"
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR 455
^* Herald,^ " Courier and Enquirer," " Sun," " World," " Express,"
^^ Commercial," and " Evening Post." As the editor of the " Tribune,"
.»nd leader of the Republican party, Horace Greeley showed his rare
-%rersatility and mental strength. The editors formed a conspicuous
^olass of our citizens. 'Bryant, poet and thinker, gave the " Evening
iPost " its wide renown. Webb of the " Courier," the Brooks brothers
-4Df the " Express," Raymond, Bennett, Hale, and their associates, each
^marked by his individual traits of intellect the journal he directed.
^They have all passed away, but they have left behind them influences
that never pass away. The printing-press of New- York at this time
was giving forth some of the fairest fruits of American genius. Bry-
ant, Whittier, Longfellow, Willis were the poets of the day; Bancroft,
Motley, Prescott, the historians.
An extraordinary prevalence of crime marked the opening of the
year 1857, and the records of the courts show a startling succession of
famous causes. One, the Cunningham or Bm*dell case, filled the pa-
pers with its shocking details. On the morning of Saturday, January
31, Dr. Harvey Burdell, a dentist, was found murdered in his room
— stabbed in fifteen places — on the second floor of his residence at
-31 Bond street. In the house with him lived a Mrs. Cunningham, her
two daughters, and two young sons, a man named Eckel, a young
man named Snodgrass, and Daniel Ullmann, a noted politician. Bur-
dell seems to have been passionate, violent in anger, immoral ; Mrs.
Cunningham, who was of respectable connections, was of indifferent
-character, the widow of a distiller, and kept the house for boarders. No
Booner had the news of the murder spread over the city, than hun-
-dreds of persons crowded into Bond street to look at the fatal house.
A coroner's jury sat on the victim. No case ever in New- York at-
Iracted so wide an interest. The jury brought in a verdict that the
murder had been committed by Mrs. Cunningham and Eckel, with the
knowledge of Snodgrass and the daughters. To add to the interest of
the case, Mrs. Cunningham produced a certificate showing that she had
been married to Dr. Burdell on October 28, declared her innocence,
and claimed her share in the estate. The case now came up in the
Surrogate's court, before the Hon. Alexander W. Bradford. It was
contested with rare vigor. Again the newspapers were filled with
the details, and crowds surrounded the court-room. But the surro-
gate evidently did not believe the maniage was a real one, and the
estate was placed in the hands of the public administrator. It was
beUeved that some one had personated Bm^dell at the ceremony, and
that it formed a part of the plot to obtain his estate. The grand
jury indicted Mrs. Cunningham and Eckel for murder, and held Snod-
grass, who was of weak intellect, as an accessory. The daughters
yiere held innocent. One is reminded in this fearful tragedy of some
456 mSTOBY OF new-yobk
of the worst crimes of imperial Rome, or of several of the most fa-
mous trials defended by Cicero. New-York watched with ceaseless
interest the progress of the case as it passed through the courts. At
the final trial neither of the accused was convicted^ and the mystery
that hung over the famous case has never been dissipated.
The diflBculty of governing the various elements that now made up
the people of New-York had long been felt by its wisest citizens. Yet
in a great measure the city had been allowed to grow up under its
ancient charters, and with little care from its uncultivated rulers. It
began to assimie all the vices and all the least creditable traits of a Euro-
pean capital. Many of its districts, chiefly on the east side, were the
haunts of a crowded and degraded foreign population. Here the poor
and the vicioiLs, thieves, beggars, the dissolute, were herded together.
The "Five Points" and its neighborhood was one of the most noto-
rious of these districts; it was so lawless and dangerous that few
honest citizens cared to pass through it even in midday. Our police
was held in check by the thieves, or often was in collusion with them;
our oflScials were sometimes unscrupulous politicians. On the west
side of the city, Church street had almost as evil a reputation as the
"Five Points"; and these haunts of vice, infamy, and lawlessness
were rapidly overspreading New- York. It had long been api>arent
that some change in our police system was necessary; the example of
the improved metropolitan police of London was urged on our legis-
lators; and in 1857 the State legislature passed several bills amend-
ing the charter of New- York. Separate days were provided for the
State and municipal elections. The controller and the corporation
counsel, like the mayor, were to be chosen by the people. Seventeen
aldermen were to be elected from as many districts, to hold office for
two years. Twenty-four coimcilmen were chosen annually. The
management of Central Park was placed in the hands of a conunis-
sion appointed by the State. But the chief and most valuable of
these reforms was the creation of the new metropolitan police. A
district was formed composed of the counties of New-York, Kings,
Westchester, and Richmond, and a board of five commissioners was
appointed to insure the peace of the city, and provide for its sanitary
reform. The first members were Simeon Draper, James W. Nye, and
Jacob Caldwell of New- York, James S. T. Stranahan of Kings, and
James Bowers of Westchester County, and the mayors of New- York
and Brooklyn ex officiis.
The new police commissioners were at once met and defied by the
mayor, Fernando Wood. He had opposed the new system in the
legislature; he now pronoimced it imconstitutional, and refused to
obey the law. He gathered around him the old police force, refused
to suri'ender the property of the department, and threatened with vio-
FBEHONinONS OF THE CIVIL WAB
457
t.
ft
a
I those who attempted to get the offices in their control. When
nmor John Alsop King appointed Daniel D. Conover a street
nissioner, Wood drove him from the City Hall. A strange scene
oocurred: the commissioner obtained one warrant for the arrest
ayor Wood on the charge of inciting a riot, and another for vio-
I offered to his person. Armed with these, and followed by fifty
le new metropolitan police, he returned to the City Hall, but
d it closed against him. It was filled with armed policemen, who
iked the new-comers, the
without aided the for
and an affray followed in
h many of the pohce were
rely woimded. The worst
of the population, eagei
plunder, gathered around
or Wood, and for a time
city seemed about to fall
their hands. Fortunately
lis moment, the Seventh
ment was passing down
4way, on a visit to Bos
by the evening boat, it
stopped on its way and
d upon to quiet the dis
ftuee. General Sandford
itened to use force unless the mayor submitted to the service
le writs; the mayor, alai-med, obeyed. The Seventh Regiment
proceeded on its way to Boston, but so great was the exeite-
t in the city that nine of the city regiments were ordered to
an under arms. Soon the Court of Appeals decided against
ar Wood's plea, and the metropolitan police took the place of the
orce. But the change was not completed before a succession of
irkable riots and disorders had proved the dangerous nature
e political excitement aroused by the example of the mayor. A
g of the worst class of the populace took place, that had neai'ly
d in scenes not unlike those of the Paris commune, or the draft
of 1863. There was, in fact, a strong resemblance — an anticipa^
of these later crimes. The mob rose in revolt in the "Five
ts" district on July 3, and two factions began a fierce fight* One
I of ruflSans attacked the other in Bayard street; men, women,
children were hurt in the fray; the few pohce were beaten off,
ided, or perhaps fled not unwillingly. The riotei-s next seized
L trucks, drays, and various articles to build barricades, and
led about to hold complete control of the city. The police were
458 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
believed to be in lea-gue with them; the mayor was distrusted;
panic spread among the citizens such as bad never been known be?^
fore, and all the horroi-s of a Parisian rising seemed to threaten New^
York. But once more the Seventh Regiment, summoned from Bostoi^^
appeared on the scene, and several other regiments joined it. J^^
mercy was shown to the bands of thieves and ruffians who were gatl|. -
ered in their vile haunts to defy the law; they either fled or were
shot down. Six were killed, a hundred wounded, and the riot seemed
suppressed. It broke out the next day in a disturbance in Anthony
and Centre streets, but the militia soon checked it. The rioters are
said to have been chiefly Irish, but later, on
"P^i^f^^w^ July 13 and 14, another disturbance arose
' among the Germans of the Seventeenth Ward,
which was suppressed by the new police. From this time the metro-
politan police has ruled over its extensive domain, and has proved
itself usually capable of maintaining good order.
Soon after, in the midst of apparent prosperity, a commercial panic
fell upon the city and country, almost wholly unlooked for. In the
summer of 1857, business was active, the harvests were exceUent, and
every one looked forward to a long period of active progress. Credit
was extended, new projects of speculation were formed, every one
seemed full of employment and hope, when suddenly there fell upon
the country an almost unprecedented disaster. Some of us may re*
member the swiftness of the fall of our whole commercial system. It
began with the failure in August of the Ohio Life and Trust Company,
long supposed to be one of our wealthiest and most trustworthy insti-
tutions. It was found to have been badly managed, was wholly bank-
rupt, and failed, owing seven millions of dollars. Soon the Philadelphia
banks suspended. A panic ran over the land. Merchants failed ; per-
sons of high reputation were found to be insolvent. A run upon the
banks in Wall street was begun, and the eager crowds who pressed for
tlieir money in that once busy thoroughfare were in marked contrast
to its usual occupants; men and women, young and old, filled
the narrow street. At last the legislature authorized the banks to
suspend specie payment for one year. The Massachusetts banks
also suspended, and Europe and America were plunged in a common
ruin. Many factories were closed, work ceased, destitution fell upon
the laboring classes; unemployed workmen in crowds were every-
where clamoring for bread, and New -York, as the winter came on, was
full of soiTOw and distress. Families who had once been wealthy
were reduced to want ; homes of splendor and ease were abandoned
for privation and poverty; many of the strongest business houses,
long known for probity and good faith, yielded to the financial storm.
The peculiarity of this commercial panic was its suddenness. In vain
PKEM(WTnONS OF THE CIVIL WAE
459
the newspapers of the city ui-ged calmness and forbearance ; all con-
fidence was lost. In Philadelphia, where the banks first suspended,
the wildest excitement prevailed; the streets were filled with eager
crowds; people from the country
flocked into the city to save, if
possible, something of their lost
fortunes. The New -York banks
for some time longer main-
twned their solvency. "The
city banks," said the " Tiibune,"
October 5, " have no thought of
suspending." But now on all
sides the greatest mercantile
firms fell before the panic. The
Bowery Bank gave way. Then,
on Tuesday, October 13, the
fiercest excitement ever known
in Wall street began. The
crowds who filled the sidewalks
and pressed into the banking-
houses for their money; the
varying passions that filled the
multitude; the news of failure
after failure of the largest
houses, the gloom, the despair, made this the most sorrowful day in
the annals of New -York. The banks paid out nearly all their coin,
and were at last obliged to suspend. Boston was equaUy unfortu-
nate. "The towering fabric of our mercantile credit," wrote the
" Tribune," " lies in ruins."
A fearful shipwreck this autumn added to the general gloom. The
steamer Central America (once the George Law), with five hundred
and seventy-five passengers and $1,500,000 in specie, sank in a hur-
ricane on her way from Havana to New-Yoi'k. The newspapers of
the time are filled with the sad tales of the survivors. More than
three hundred persons went down with the wreck ; one hundred and
seventy were saved by passing ships. It is said that the vessel was
unseaworthy. Meantime, when the winter came on, the sufferings of
the poor deepened as the cold advanced. Never were the charitable
feelings of the people of New -York more deeply stirred, or their lib-
erality more conspicuous; each one gave as he was able. Soup-
kitchens were established ; work was given by the corporation to the
unemployed workmen on the Centi-al Park and other public improve-
ments; but still many perished slowly of cold and starvation; others
rose in riotous assemblies, threatening to break open the flour and pro-
Cc&jOAj c/f-^e^
460 HISTORY OF NEW-TOBK
vision stores, and were only repressed by the vigor of the law. The har-
vests had been abundant^ the com was stored in the granaries of the
West; but the want of money and of confidence prevented it from
being brought to New-York, The poor starved in the midst of
abundance because the public credit was gone.
Thus, in various fortunes, through " sunlight and shade," our city
passed on with unequal step ; but it still advanced. One of the dis-
appointments of the year had been the failure of the Atlantic cable.
For a brief period the connection seemed
ready to be formed between the Old World
and the New, but now we were told that
the current had ceased to flow; the cable
was broken. "What caused the break of
the cablet" asks the "Tribune" on Au-
gust 29 ; and it suggests the weakness of
the coil of wire. It is not discouraged,
and the promoters of the undertaking at
once set themselves to renew the effort
that was so nearly successful. But eight
yeara laden with strange events were to
pass before Cyrus W. Field and his asso-
ciates attained their end. As the suffer-
ings of the community deepened, religious
^^^^^j^^^^S*— -*^ impulses became powerful : the Fulton
^^* street prayer-meeting in the Noi'th Dutch
Chur<:h began its useful career ; crowds filled the lecture-room, and a
general religious interest spread over the city. Various changes had
meanwhile taken place in different parts of the town. Columbia
College was removed to Forty-ninth street and Madison Avenue, and
its pleasant grounds in College Place were sold for business purposes.
The public cemetery, or Potter's Field, was taken to Ward's Island ; its
site was given by the city to the State Woman's Hospital. The Broad-
way Tabernacle, long known as the scene of religious anniversaries
and various public meetings, the most convenient hall in the city, was
now sold, and its congregation removed soon after to their new biiild-
ing on the comer of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street. In 1857
was laid the comer-stone of the Roman Catholic cathedral on Fifth
Avenue, with appropriate ceremonies, by Archbishop Hughes. All
these changes show the gradual advance of the business wants of the
city, and the activity of its trade. Fine stores were built on the site
of Columbia College; the price of land along Broadway and in its
neighborhood became excessive ; luxury and extravagance marked
the new mercantile buildings, and the plainer habits of our ancestors,
who often hved over their stores, were laid aside forever. Slowly the
PBEMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR 461
city and the country began to recover from their alarm and depression,
and soon again prosperity returned to New -York. It is quite remark-
able how swiftly the change was effected; yet the country still
labored under many disadvantages. An intolerable cuiTency com-
posed of bank-notes of every variety in value; a system of banks
whose solvency was always in doubt ; a wide use of credit, and an
excessive speculation, gave to the mercantile transactions of the period
a general uncertainty. The money used in 1857-58 was of a kind
that might well astonish a modern broker. It came often from the
wildest regions of the West ; it bore a large discount ; it was never
safe; even the bank-bills of the neighboring States were often dis-
credited, and no one but an experienced hand could form a tolerable
opinion as to their value. New-York was filled with uncurrent
money; and the working-classes chiefly suffered because they were
not able to complain. We who have a currency that is never doubt-
ful can scarcely conceive of the perils of the unlucky holders of un-
current bills. Besides this, the credit system prevailed in all branches
of trade. Prices were made to anticipate losses, and scarcely any one
paid in ready money. Few mercantile houses knew what were their
real profits and losses. It was a game of chance for every merchant ;
he relied on the solvency of his customers. But such were the vigor
and enterprise of the trading-classes that the panic soon passed over.
The New -York banks suddenly, to the surprise of the community,
resumed specie payment on December 14. The Boston and New
Haven banks followed their example ; and so complete was the re-
turn of public confidence that no one seemed to care for gold. The
wild scene of excitement that had only two months before filled the
city with a strange alarm was now perfectly subdued. The only trace
of the recent calamity was the sale of great quantities of dry-goods at
retail, at low prices, by the largest wholesale houses ; and the clam-
orous meetings of the unemployed workmen in Tompkins Square.
They were evidently not in want of food, for when a German baker
passed by with a tray filled with loaves of bread, they threw him down
and pelted one another with the loaves. It was a period of crime and
disorder. In one day, five or six murders and deeds of violence oc-
curred ; a suicide, a mutiny on shipboard, and robberies in the public
streets. On one occasion, the "Dead Rabbits,'' as they were called,
took possession of the City Hall for an hour, nearly beat to death one
of theu' opponents in front of the mayor's oflSce, and filled the courts
of justice with their shouts and execrations. Mayor Wood was obliged
to call upon the police to protect him from his friends and drive them
ofl!. It was plain to all good citizens that some change must be made
in the government of the city, if its good name was to be preserved.
A citizens' party was formed ; great meetings were held of the op-
462 HISTORY OF NEW-TOBK
ponents of Mayor Wood and his followers ; the growth of cidme and
disorder brought out even the indifferent and the impartial. At the
immense gathering at the Merchants' Exchange, November 20, we read
the names of Havemeyer, Sturges, Barker, Field, Hunt, Lee, and a
long list of persons of all parties. The city election came on De-
cember 1, and at its close Daniel F. Tiemann, " a worthy man,'* was
found to have a majority of the votes. It was thought an enormous
number when above ninety thousand votes in all were polled ; now,
New -York city has more than three himdred thousand voters. Mayor
Wood, it was asserted, had enlarged his constituency by unfair prac-
tices. He passed from office, soon to rettum to
it again in the year of civil convulsion. At
this time, England and France were swept by
a commercial panic; the Bank of England's charter was suspended;
great firms and banks failed in both countries ; the working-classes
suffered, and the sad cry of the unemployed was heard in many lands.
The year 1858 began with a rapid revival of the various interests of
the city. One of its most pleasing events was the enlargement of the
Astor Library, an institution founded by John Jacob Astor, at the
suggestion of Washington Irving and other literary men, and which
had already proved its usefulness. Scholars, scientific men, and me-
chanics had begun to profit by its extensive collections. It was now
nearly doubled in size, and made more accessible to the student. The
liberality of William B. Astor enabled the trustees to complete the
earlier plan of the building. It has since been still further enlarged.
But New- York still needs a library equal in size and excellence to
those of the European capitals, and its students are too often driven
into exile to London or Berlin to complete their researches. We want
the best means of acquiring knowledge. Another excellent institution
for the encoiu-agement of art New-York owed at this time to Peter
Cooper. His liberal gift and prudent management founded the
Cooper Institute, a school of art and science. Here free lectures were
given, classes formed for yoxmg men and women to study, with good
models and careful instruction. Cooper Institute has enabled many
to earn a living by their talents, who, but for its free tuition, must
have lingered in poverty. Its plain brownstone building, at the cor-
ner of Eighth street and Fourth Avenue, has long been a noted seat
of intelligence; its free library and reading-room have benefited thou-
sands. New- York, in the winter of 1858, was full of intellectual en-
tertainments. At the New- York Historical Society great crowds filled
the lecture-room when Dr. Francis L. Hawks, Rembrandt Peale, and
George W. Curtis read their addresses ; even the aisles were thronged?
and Dr. Hawks was induced to recite his paper on Washington's pe-
riod a second time to an equally large and delighted audience. Ed-
PBEMONinONB OF THE CIVIL WAB
463
ward Everett, the most refined of orators, gave his address on " Char-
ity," at the request of many of the noted men and women of the city,
the names of Mrs. Bancroft and Mrs. King, Washington Ix-ving, and
Charles King leading the list of those who invited him ; and it marks
■the good taste of our citizens that his audiences were always large,
^nd never weary of listening. Mrs. Fanny Kemble read " Bomeo and
Juliet" and other plays to lai-ge assemblies at Dodworth's Rooms on
Broadway, where she was re-
ceived with intense interest
and applause. At Wallack's
Theater the "Vicar of Wake-
field" was performed, and gen-
erally the plays of the tmie
were not without literary
merit. At the Central Park
large numbers of workmen
■were employed; the wintei
■was mild, and they did good
■work. Mr. Olmsted instituted
among them a sick fund so
ciety that was generallj pop-
ular, nearly every woikman
giving ten cents weekly to the
cause. The religious interest
continued to spread from the
city to the country. The
papers wore filled with the
accounts of meetings, revivals,
and crowded churches, — all de-
nominations joining in the general progress. A very unfortunate in-
cident was the ■withdrawal of the Collins Line of steamers from the
Liverpool trade, and the complete success of theii- rival, the Cunard
Line. Two of the Collins steamers had been lost ; the others proved
unprofitable. One of the ti-aits of the mild winter was the great
number of charitable entertainments, which were attended by many
prominent people. Mayor Tiemaun always conspicuous among them.
He was also employed in many less pleasing duties. It was foimd that
peculation and public robbeiy had invaded nearly all the civic depart-
ments; and we fear the "good old times" were not quite as honest as our
Q-wn. Crime and public robbery still flourished vigorously in the city.
1 Oak clialr made from Qie timbers of " the fint Idence, sod was much compUiued of for " going
pntstdential msDElon"laFraoltUDSituare,BhouBe so far oat of town." The chslr was made for
erected in 1770 by the rich Quaker merchant WbI- Benjamin R. -Winthrop, and by him presented to
ter Franklin. Waablngton, who was iwom into the New-York HlMorieal Society, Korember 3,
«flloe April 30, 1789, aeleeted thli house tor hie rea- 1867. Editor.
WASHINQTON CHAIK.l
464 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
A cloud in the West still hung over the political future of New-
York, but no one seemed to think it of any real importance. The dis-
pute of the rival factions in Kansas had already produced a destruc-
tion of the old political parties, and a more dangerous, because more
radical, difference in the new. The question was whether the vast
territory extending from the Mississippi to the Pacific should be occu-
pied by slaves and their masters, or whether it should be thrown open
freely to the farmers of Em'ope and America. But slavery had al-
ready reduced the eastern side of the continent to poverty and decay.
Virginia was sunk into ruin ; her sister States were fast following her ;
when, therefore, the effort was made to carry slavery into Kansas,
eveiy reasonable man saw that the success of the movement would be
fatal to the welfare of the country and of mankind. The Republican
party arose and swaUowed up all the other parties in opposition : its aun
was to secure the whole West to free labor. In the Democratic party,
both in the South and North, there were many who were equally op-
posed to the spread of slavery. It would be impossible here to review
the various accounts of the history of the settlement of Kansas. We
may merely notice that the violent political agitation that had arisen
in the West was now fully reflected in the politics of New-York.
Many of the leading citizens were engaged to support the Free-soil
party; large meetings were held, at which earnest and vigorous
speeches were made, and resolutions adopted ; slavery, always odious
and repulsive to the principles of democracy, was painted in severe
colors ; the threats of the violent politicians in the South were looked
upon as idle and unmeaning, and no one in New-York in 1858 looked
forward to civil war. Its people, as a new prosperity dawned upon
them, were engaged in other thoughts. To them the wild deeds of
the border ruflians seemed only the natural results of an uncultivated
and lawless society; they fancied that the cloud would soon pass
away. Business was active ; the city filled with new hope. The mer-
cantile class cared little for the strife of politics and the rage of fac-
tions ; yet it is worthy of notice that many of the most prominent
merchants of New- York were the strongest opponents of slavery, and
made great sacrifices, and gave largely in support of freedom and an
entirely free West.
A contemporary gives an interesting picture of the Broadway of
1858. Once the seat of pleasant residences, shaded with trees and
famous for its drives and walks, it was now become a street of shops,
oflBces, hotels, and theaters. The business houses in the retail trade
reached far up-town ; the finer dwelling-houses were above Fourteenth
street and around Union and Madison squares. " Broadway in 1858,''
says the "Crayon" of that year, "has become not unlike the Strand in
London and a Paris boulevard. Early in the morning the street be-
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR 465
gins to fill with carts and vehicles bringing supplies from the country
to the market. From all the by-streets which connect Broadway with
the river crowds of men, women, and wagons and horses emerge from
the Brooklyn, Hoboken, Williamsbm'gh, Staten Island, and New Jersey
ferries. It is still very eaily in the morning; the shops are still closed;
only here and there an omnibus makes its reluctant appearance, its
driver and horses not having yet shaken off the sloth of the night.
There are also some carriages stopping before the Astor House, St.
Nicholas, Metropolitan and other hotels, with a
load of travelers just coming in from the east,
west, north, or from European and California
steamers. At this early hour Broadway looks
thoroughly respectable, like a big ball-room."
The wiiter then goes on to paint its various
changes: "Soon after a crowd of clerks and
business men rush down the famous thorough-
fare. Then comes later the stream of fair women pierrepont arms.
shoppers from the upper part of the town, filling the sidewalks; next,
in the afternoon, the tide of business men inishes back along the same
thoroughfare ; and in the evening the street is again crowded with
persons going to theaters and the various amusements of the night."
In the later hours the street was no longer "respectable": it was filled
with disreputable and noisy revelers; now the police and watchmen
were on the alert, and the noise of wild songs and gi'oss revelry dis-
turbed the peace of Broadway. Later it sank into dull silence as the
chimes of Trinity told the early hours of the morning. Such was our
favorite Broadway thirty-five years ago. How different now ! The
theaters are gone; the retail shops are moved up-town; a stately
range of oflSce buildings and wholesale stores lines the street, and but
a few of the old hotels stUl linger on their early sites. In the day no
market-carts, no omnibuses, no crowds of fair women, no gallant
pedestrians fill Broadway; at night no cries of revelry. It is silent
and abandoned after eight o'clock. One is almost startled by its soli-
tude. Broadway has become the business center of the continent —
perhaps of the world.
As the summer came on a new excitement passed over the city and
the country, but seemed chiefly to extend over the North. The labors
of Cyrus W. Field and his associates had apparently ended in perfect
success. The Atlantic cable fixed the attention of the world. In June
it had broken, and disappointment and doubt seemed to follow it.
Eminent engineers declared the plan impracticable; no current of
electricity, they said, could be carried to so long a distance ; the iron
and the copper were certain to produce corrosion at the bed of the
sea. But again in July the Niagara and the Agamemnon met in mid-
VoL. m.— 30.
466 HISTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
ocean, joined their wires, and set sail over the uncertain waves ; and
again news came to New- York that the cable was broken. Even the
most ardent in favor of the project were now filled with doubt. "Sup-
pose,'' said the "Tribune," July 14, "the attempted laying of the At-
lantic cable should prove a failure, is there not a land route? '^ and the
London "Times" advocated one. In the midst of these fears and dis-
appointments, on August 6 came a despatch
from Mr. Field that filled the country with
wonder and strange joy. The ships had again
met, had sailed over the ocean, and the cable
was already in use. "The electric signals," said
the ardent projector, August 5, 1858, " sent and
received through the whole cable are perfect."
To President Buchanan he said, "Queen Vic-
toria will send you a message." It is quite im-
%a^%j^aa ^^i^r^tAM^* possible for us to conceive of the enthusiastic
^ ^ joy of the moment — we who have been so long
famiUar with the cables and telegraphs that
encircle the globe. It was an electric shock that seemed to promise
peace and good will to man. From cities and towns, from the wild
West and the far East, from Europe and the Islands, came congratula-
tions and expressions of sincere joy that the New World and the Old
could now speak to each other, though far away; a new era had
come; it was the finest thing done for America since its discovery.
Salutes of a hundred guns were fired ; towns and cities were illumi-
nated; Rochester, Syracuse, Newport, and Boston replied to New- York;
Newark also was illuminated. But the people of our city resolved to
wait until the queen's message arrived before giving its grand cele-
bration of the wonderful event. In the mean time, Mr. Field was the
hero of the hour, and the telegraph drove out all other thoughts.
Kansas and its trials, and the political dangers of the moment, were
forgotten. The City Hall was illuminated, and fireworks set off in the
park. A banquet was given to Mr. Field; a Te Deum was sung in
Trinity Church; a salute of a hundred guns was fired; and Mr. Field
spoke with rare eloquence. Still the message from the queen was mys-
teriously delayed, and it was not until August 17 that a part of it
aiTived. "Her Majesty," it said, "desires to congratulate the President
on the successful completion of this great international work, in which
the Queen has taken the deepest interest." The president replied Id
suitable terms; and the success of the great undertaking seemed
assured. Then New-York prepared to give one of those great celebra-
tions for which it has always shown a hereditary fondness — borrowed,
perhaps, from its Flemish and Dutch ancestors of Ghent, Bruges, and
Amsterdam. It could not hang its streets with cloth of gold, or rival
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR 467
the splendors of a Flemish cortege, but it had often shone with ban-
ners, crowds, processions, and rare illuminations. In 1788, at the adop-
tion of the constitution; in 1789, at the reception of Washington; in
1815, at the news of peace; in 1825, when the Erie Canal had joined
trhe ocean and the lakes — New- York had given up its streets to rejoi-
cing crowds of spectators and countless visitors. But, according to a
eontemporary, this last was "the grandest celebration ever seen in the
eity of New- York.'' The bells rang, cannon were fired, the Crystal
Palace was crowded; splendid fireworks and an illumination followed
in the evening; the vessels in the harbor were covered with flags;
speeches, addi'esses of congratulation, a torch-light procession, and fifty
or a hundred thousand strangers from across the rivers made up the
unprecedented display. One may compare the number of visitors in
1858 with the millions who came in recently to assist at the Columbus
celebration. All over the country the rejoicings continued. Nashville
answered to Syracuse, Chicago to Boston. The Richmond papers
alone, probably occupied with deeper thoughts, scoffed at the excite-
ment of the North and West. It is painful to remember how soon the
revulsion came. For many days the people waited to hear the news
from abroad ; within three weeks, they were assured, the cable would
be open to the public. But days and weeks passed on, and the promise
was not fulfilled. The queen's message was completed, the president's
given in full; but a strange rumor spread that they had not been carried
by the cable. The telegi*aph was silent. On September 25 some weak
movements were felt ; then the cun-ent failed. De Sauty telegraphed
to Peter Cooper, September 28, from Trinity Bay: "There were no sig-
nals from Valentia to-day"; and soon it was known that the cable was
broken, and lay, a costly and apparently useless A\dre, on the bed of the
sea. It had cost £365,000 sterling, — about $1,800,000, — and was a
complete loss to its projectors. All the opponents of the plan, all who
favored other routes, now joined in declaring it hopeless; the faUm^e
of the cable laid in the Red Sea, about the same time, was a new proof,
they thought, of the impossibility of using a wire two thousand miles
long. A writer in Blackwood's magazine denied the existence of the
telegraphic plateau, and asserted that the bed of the ocean was no
more level than the surface of England and Wales. It was proposed
to carry a cable from the Orkneys to Iceland, to Greenland, and thence
to Labrador. Sir Leopold McClintock lent his approval to the plan.
But, in the mean time, Messrs. Field, Cooper, and their English and
American associates never faltered in resolution, and only awaited a
favorable time for once more testing the telegraphic plateau.
On the night of the great celebration, while New-York was lost in
festivity and rejoicing, a strange scene was witnessed across the bay,
on Staten Island. The quarantine station had long been an object
468 mSTOEY OF new-york
of dislike aud dread to its murmuring people. They fancied that it
bi*ought disease and death among them ; they knew that it injured
their property, and kept away many who would have been glad to
settle upon their lands. A quarantine is always an unpleasant neigh-
bor, and the people were, no doubt, right. After many vain efforts to
remove it by legal means, they resolved to use force. A party esti-
mated at one thousand men gathered around the buildings and set
them on fire ; they persisted in their aim, in defiance of the legal offi-
cials, and the military who were sent to subdue them, and at last suc-
ceeded. The quarantine was taken to the lower bay, and the islanders
became once more orderly and obedient citizens. It was the error of
the State government, in not yielding to the reasonable demands of
the people, that drove them to des-
perate measures. At once Stateu
Island became a favorite summer re-
treat for our citizens, and was soon
covered with cottages and villas. Oae
noted event of the late autimin was
the burning of the Crystal Palace
while occupied by the fair of the
American Institute. The various ar-
ticles on exhibition represented a loss
of $2,000,000, but fortunately the two
thousand persons who were in the
building at the time escaped injurj'.
The palace had been the theater of many notable occurrences ; it wae
here the banquet to Mr. Field was given, on the completion of the
Atlantic cable ; it was the scene of JuUen's concerts, of balls and
dinners, of children's Sunday-school gatherings, and of public mee1>
ings, until at last its unfortunate career closed with a disastrous fire.
A strange feature of these not very distant times was the revival
of the slave-trade. Near the extremity of Long Island, off Montauk,
a small vessel was found scuttled and sunk, and her crew, well sup-
plied with Spanish gold, was observed wandering from town to town,
in separate parties, spending their doubloons freely. It was at once
suspected that these men had belonged to a slaver, and they were ar-
rested. It was soon discovered that the sunken vessel was the " Hai-
dee," that had sailed to the coast of Africa from the port of New- York,
apparently with the connivance of the custom-house officials. She
had brought back nine hundred slaves, landed them at Cardenas.
1 The Second John Street Hethodist Charcti. suy of the eBtabUahmeDt of Americu Methodism
erected OD the site o! the Fiiat or Old John Street was celebrated, October 30, 1S92, aevenl bubopg
balldlng. wu dedicated January 4, 1S18. The taking pMt In the Bervices. Nnmeroiu memorial
church shown in the enKTsvlng was taken down lablets and relies of early HeUiodiam are pre-
in 1841, and rebuilt as the First Hethodisi Epis- serred in the present church. Bmiob.
copal Chnrcb, and in this edifice the last annlTer-
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR 469
Cuba, aud was then sunk off Montauk. A small, sharp, swift schoo-
ner, built at Providence, Rhode Island, the nature 6f her cargo when
she set sail from New-York, and the provision made for the confine-
ment of her unhappy passengers, might easily have shown to the
United States officials of the port the object of her voyage. Two
slavers, the Wanderer and the Echo, were also
known to have landed their cargoes on the coast
of Georgia or South Carolina; but the Southern
jui-ymen refused to convict the officers and crews.
*' The revival of the slave-trade,'^ said the " New-
York Times," December 28, 1858, "is the practical
issue for 1860, if these men have their way.'' It
knew little of the real meaning of these leaders
in secession. All through the summer of 1858 Rutherford arms.
the building of the Great Eastern, "Brunei's Folly," the largest vessel
ever built by man, had constantly engaged the attention of New-
York. The great ship was now approaching its completion. The
illustrated papers of the time are filled with the accounts of its vast
dimensions, its powerful engines, its indestructible covering of iron.
Every intelligent intellect was interested in this unusual experiment,
and the pictures of its progi-ess at Mill wall, in the " Illustrated Lon-
don News," were eagerly sought for, and studied in eveiy American
town and city. At last the monster steamship was nearly ready and
was about to sail for New- York.
The year 1859 opened with new prospects of prosperity, of ease and
peace, to close with the deep shadows of political strife. Trade was
active, population increased, and the city was full of energy and
hope. Yet the New- York of 1859 was still provincial and submissive
to foreign fashions and opinions. Its government was still imperfect,
and the "Times," January 27, complains that its health was little
eared for, and its death-rate far above that of London. Its quaran-
tine was still unsettled. New Jersey refused to permit its shores to
become a lazaretto. Coney Island and Long Island were equally re-
bellious; and the State authorities proposed to use ships anchored
in the lower bay. " Tinily," said the editors, " we are in a poor way
about our quarantine." The unpleasant odors of factories, sewers,
gas, and slaughter-houses, the uncleanly streets and careless officials,
are often complained of. There were peculation and bribery abroad.
The manners of om* working-classes of foreign origin were still rude,
and riots- and strife were frequent. Among the wealthier classes there
were a pleasant grace of manner, hospitality, and often an excess of
conviviality. At weddings and large parties wine and liquors were
used more freely than to-day. High prices in land had not yet been
reached. A house and lot on the Fifth Avenue, No. 102, thirty-six
470 mSTOBT OF NEW-YOBK
feet wide and eighty deep, brought $31,200; another lot, vacant, ov^
Fifty-fourth street, uear Sixth avenue, $1100. The chief topics ot
conversation at the time were the poems of Tennyson, the histori^^«
of Prescott and Macaulay ; in poUtics, the struggle in Kansas, or tk:ae
threatening cloud of war in Em'ope. Napoleon was about to invac^e
Italy, and his armies drive out the Austrians.
Tlie Great Eastern, still unfinished, was watched with constant L — u-
terest. The mail from California came slowly over the plains throuj^^l
a wilderness : the Pacific Railway was only talked of as yet. Of eoui ^
the Suez Canal was unknown. Our people were fond of oratory m — ^
good public speaking. Henry Ward Beecher, George W. Curtis, ai _i(
Dr. Francis L. Hawks were always sure of an intelligent audience. 4
natm'al orator. Dr. Hawks was the popular preacher of the time. Le^^k^
tures on various subjects were always well attended; and Emerson sm^d
Beecher were heard with delight. The Sickles trial filled the new"^-
papers ; Morphy came back from Europe, and was received with q^
much attention as a martial conqueror. A banquet was given him in
Boston, a supper and a costly testimonial in New- York. At last the
fearful war in Europe began to overshadow all other subjects of in-
terest. The news came of dreadful battles and heaps of slain. At
Magenta twenty-seven thousand Austrians were killed and wounded ;
Solf erino added to the frightful news, and few could fancy that within
two years Magenta and Solf erino would be surpassed in horrors on our
own soil. "Harper's Weekly," always a picture of the times, gave
striking illustrations of the battle-scenes in Italy. Napoleon, the con-
queror, seemed the master of the destinies of Europeans ; he fancied,
of America. Peace came soon, and the next subject of conversation
was the Great Eastern. Would it come to New- York? Was the chan-
nel deep enough to admit so large a ship f The " New-York Times *
argued that the steamer might easily enter our harbor ; it had a trial
trip, with great success, on the Thames, and was to sail for New- York on
September 17. " The coming, whenever it may take place,'' it was said,
" will be one of the most interesting and important events of the age.'*
But soon news came that a frightful explosion had occurred on the
great steamer, twelve persons were killed and wounded, the splendid
saloon was torn to pieces, and the day of sailing was postponed. So
calmly and prosperously the year passed on that it afl!ords few events
to history. The movement of trade had continued to drive the homes
of the citizens before it. Fifth Avenue had become a street of fine
brownstone houses, and was already invaded by several shops. The
private dwellings of the people had grown in convenience, if not in
grace ; Init the public buildings were still as they are now — mean and
poor. The United States government had never sought to decorate
New- York ^ith fine architectural ornaments. Its buildings were in-
PBEMONITIONS OP THE CIVIL WAE 471
ferior to those of Washington and other cities. Its post-office was a
decayed church ; its assay-office a low Btructure on Wall street ; its
custom-house was removed at last to the former Merchants' Ex-
change, a building dark, damp, unhealthy; its subtreasury ia a
finer but even less convenient
one. No one seemed to care
for the architectural improve-
ment of New-York. The city
government had left its only
fine building, the City Hall, in
a condition of ruinous neglect
since the cable celebration, when
it bad suffered from fire. Its
front was blackened with smoke,
its windows closed up with boards, its whole appearance saddening
and repulsive. The Battery was unchanged; the Central Park, slowly
advancing, was already the joy of the city, and when Dodworth's
band played on the mall in the summer days, crowds filled the
walks, and rejoiced in their new possession.
But in the midst of its ease and progress came suddenly one of the
premonitions of civil war, that for a moment roused the city from its
delusion. On October 18 came the news of a rising of the negroes
in Vii^nia. They had seized upon Harper's Ferry, with all its muni-
tions of war; they had visited the estate of a Mr. Washington, in its
neighborhood, set free his slaves, and ill-treated his family. Then it
was said that a Captain Brown was at the head of the insurrection;
and next came iutelhgence of his defeat and capture, and of the ven-
geance that was to fall upon all concerned in the invasion. The stoi-y
of John Brown is too well known to need repetition. Fanatic and
martyi', his trial and his death filled the columns of the newspapers
for months, and touched the hearts of many who scarcely shared his
peculiar principles. To New- York came for the first time a sense of
the political dangers of the hour, and of the intensity of the feeling
that separated the political parties. Yet soon again, as the year 1860
opened upon it, the city sank back into a sense of perfect security.
Disunion seemed a kind of madness that could never last long. No
Southern State, it was asserted, would be so unwise as to secede ; and
the city, prosperous and advancing in strength and greatness, gave
itself up to its delusions. At the election in December, 1859, Fer-
nando Wood had been chosen mayor through the di\'ision of his op-
ponents, and the reforms they hoped for were laid aside. It was a
summer of festivity and careless prosperity that now opened upon
New- York — the last for many years, the close of the period of its pro-
vincialism, the beginning of a new existence. Its first excitement was
472 HISTOBT OF NEW-YOBS
the arrival in June of the Japanese Embassy, the first of that pecoliu'
and yet unknown people to visit New- York. They were made the
gae^tii of the 4.-ity, ami entertained, at great expense, with a baD, ilh-
minatious, and a serenade, and shown alt the wonders of Western civ-
ilization. <^ur aldermen were the hosts, and were liberal in th«r
outlay. But the
occasion wu
one of real im-
portance, since
it tended to
open commer-
cial relations be-
tween Japffli
and New-Yoit
Next came the
Great Eastern in
July, after long
delay, and was
received with
generous hospi-
tality. Crowds
visited the great
ship as it lay off
the dock in the North River, and were amazed at its vastness. The
high piice charged for admission kept many from visiting it, but
thousands sailed around the steamer, and looked at it from a distauca
Some mismanagement always followed the wonderful vessel, and
when, on August 2, it made an excursion to Cape May and back, the
passengers complaiiied that they could find no place to sleep in, and
were starved for want of food. A remarkable meteor, that passed
over New- York and seemed to fall into Long Island Sound on July 20,
was studied with attention by the scientific, and startled the people
Its light was like that of the moon. Among the guests of the city
were Lady FrankUn, who came to thank its people for their liber^
aid in the search for her husband, Sir John, and for the sympathy
they showed for her in her desire to know his fate. She was received
with respect and many attentions. The Prince de Joinville was an-
other visitor to our city, and Garibaldi was greeted by his many ad-
mirers. But to none did our people give so generous and enthusiastic
a reception as to the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, young, fair,
good-humored, who had come over to visit America. He was known as
Baron Renfrew, and with his party passed through Canada and some
of the Western and Southern States before he reached New- York.
Little could he have foreseen that the city he looked upon, anrayed
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAK 473
in all its fairest colors, eager with chUdish expectation, was soon to
be covered with mourning and almost lost in despair. Its harbor was
filled with ships, steamers, boats, all gay with flags and banners, to
welcome a young prince, the first of his line who had entered New-
York since the Revolution. At Castle Garden, amidst an immense
crowd, he was introduced to the city magistrates. He passed up
Broadway through such throngs of people, such an array of flags,
luuiners, and emblems of welcome as might have almost persuaded
him that he was about to assume his ancesti'al sway over his faithful
subjects. A ball was given him, where diamonds glittered on every
side, and fair women sought his attentions. He was taken to see the
few objects of interest in
the city — its university,
Cooper Institute, the City
Hall, and Trinity Church —
and then passed away. It
was the last of our peace-
ful spectacles. Meantime
the fierce excitement of a
presidential election, the
most important in its re-
sults ever held, was mov-
ing over the land. New-
York felt the impulse, and
night after night its peo-
ple listened to the speeches on either side in great assemblies. As
the autumnal months came on the contest deepened, and something
stem and earnest in the style of its oratory might have warned men
of the great events that were near. We have nothing like it now.
Our political discussions are tame and spiritless compared to those
rare and almost matchless speeches, when every orator seemed to bear
in his soul and on his tongue the welfare of all futurity. Seward,
Sumner, Greeley, Chase, Doolittle, and Beecher spoke to immense
audiences on the noblest of human themes — the story of humane
progress. On the other side, Wood, Tilden, Sejonour, and others de-
fended the administration. Few who heard those great debates can
fail to remember the deep awe that fell upon the assembhes as they
listened to the story of Kansas, or heard in Cooper Institute the low
refrain of a campaign song, " For Lincoln and Hamlin we '11 conquer
or die"; and many from the assembly, still all unconscious, went out
to the battle-field to fulfil their pledge. Yet the perfect confidence
of the leaders of opinion at the North in the security of the Union
seems now almost inexplicable. In July the " Times " had said : " 11
the South had the slightest desire for dissension, that [John Brown's
474 HISTORY OF NEW-rOBK
raid] was their opportuuity — one of their States was invaded; . . .
nothing shows more clearly that the Southern people are utterij
and uufiouquei-ably averse to disunion"; and the "Tribune," as late
as October 11, after the Republican success In many elections, said:
" G^ladness beams from a million eyes, and joy glows in the popular
heart, for it is felt that our peaceful convnlsioii
bodes simply the replacement of the bad by
the better." Meantime drought and famine liad
brought intense suffering to the people of E^-
sas. No rain had fallen for mouths; no crops
were raised in many districts; the people on«
more appealed to the generosity of the East, av^
New- York gave with its usual liberality. It is
computed that several hundred thousand dolLfirs
were sent to the famished settlers. The city was well able to l^^n^
aid from growing resources. Its population had risen from 630,*D(W
in 1856, to 814,000 in 1860. This may seem a small number »
us, accustomed to reckon by millions. It is even less than the p— — op-
ulation of Brooklyn to-day; but it still showed a great incre^^^sf.
The wealth of New- York was proved in the constant growth of its
mercantile palaces, and in the extravagance of the time. It was^ b
period of singular deference to the fashions and manners of the ^SIu-
ropean courts. Our fair women walked abroad in the enormc^^M
skirts of steel or whalebone that were enforced at the imperial ree^Sp-
tions of Paris, and our young men too often borrowed the vices a-.JDrf
the crimes of their foreign models. Despotism and reaction ruled in
Europe, and republican austerity was a conception that seemed f<w-
ever to have passed away. It is quite impossible for us who live in a
republican era to conceive of the extreme peril that in 1860 hung over
all free institutions. With us slavery ruled over half the nation, and
was about to seize upon the Territories. In Europe, France, triumph-
ant from its war with Austria, with its apparently invincible ar-
mies and its astute ruler, was again the master spirit among nations,
the center of European politics. The influence of Paris upon New-
York in 1860 cannot be measured by any modem scale ; it was
excessive; the corrupt ambition of the imperial court threatened
everywhere the destruction of freedom. It was at this moment that
the power of American literature was felt in its new strength, and the
songs of the poets, and the labors of the scholar, awoke again republi-
can virtue. Whittier sang his Tyrttean odes, and called men back to
truth and honor ; Longfellow told the sorrows of the hunted slave b
musical hues; the fine speakei-s of the time painted to New- York
audiences the horrors of despotism and slavery. Never had the iii-
tellect of our city been so intensely active. In November the election
PREMONITIONS OF THE CIVIL WAB 475
of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency was not at first supposed to
threaten the peace of the nation. It was received with general joy
hy a large majority at the North, as the opening of a new period of
human progress. Bella were nmg, cannon were fired, and congratu-
lations exchanged. The city was still full of business prosperity, its
hotels crowded with strangers, and the factories of the Noi-th every-
where employed. Yet many indications of the approaching danger
might have been noticed by more experienced eyes. On October 26
the " Times " had printed an account of a plot that had been prepared
at Washington to promote disunion. The discontented States, it was
said, would refuse to submit to the rule of
Lincoln, would seek protection from France
and England, and submit even to a vassalage
to the foreign powers, rather than yield. The
disunionists wore already a black cockade.
South Carohna would lead in the revolt. Thi'
rumor of a plot made little impression on our
people. It was thought too extravagant for
belief. But, when the election was decided,
the report of warlike preparations at the
South, and the activity of the disunionists,
the timidity of the government, and the trea-
son of its officials, spread doubt and alarm, "^^^'obty-skcomdotbeet-i
It was found that large quantities of arras had been piirchased by the
governors of Southern States in the Northern cities, and that the
shops of New- York were almost bare of guns and pistols. A report
was brought of a large body of cavalry in camp near Richmond, that
was soon to seize upon Washington. South Carolina began its prep-
arations for civil war, was aiming, and had called together its con-
vention to declare its independence. Other States, imitating its
leadership, were soon to follow it. A new nation was thus about
to be brought to life, founded upon slavery. At once the certainty of
some great civil convulsion fell upon New- York, and a commercial
panic spread over its business circles with unequaled rapidity. Gold
disappeared, credit was no longer given, the banks came forwai-d
bravely to assist the merchants and each other ; but the eCEort could
not long be successful. South Carolina on December 20 declared
itself out of the Union. Its editors spoke of the Northern States as
foreign countries. At New Orleans, when the news of the action of
South Carolina arrived, a hundred guns were fired, and the city was
given up to rejoicing. Mobile followed its example. The cotton
1 The engnving Indicates the incoDvenient Bitu- through the BoUd rock. The ■hove la a vleir ot &
Ulon Id which man; homeholderB were left la houseoaSecond Avenue, near Fortj-necood street;
TarlODs parts of the c)t7, after new street*, cod- other houses siiDilarly situated are still to be seen.
foradDgto the eMaUiahed grade, had been opened EorKR.
476
HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
States soon showed that tliey were prepared for disunion, and every
one felt, as the "New- York Times" had said already, "If we have
disunion, we shall have war." Yet the people of the North and Presi-
dent Buchanan seemed equally unprepared to meet the pressing dan-
ger, and all was hesitation and doubt. Compromises were talked of,
hopeless projects of conciliation offered. The president, undecided,
seemed in league with the disunionists ; the members of his cabinet
were open traitors. The first trait of energy shown by the people of
the North was when the citizens of
Pittsburg assembled to prevent the
transfer of seventy-eight cannon t«
the South, where they must have fallen
into the hands of the disnniouists.
They were ordered by Secretary Floyd
to be sent to Ship Island, at the mouth
of the Mississippi. Heavily the month
of December, 1860, passed on, laden
with the fate of centuries. It was be-
lieved that a proper decision on the
part of the administration would have
( he<'ked disunion, and given courage
to its opponents in the South ; but the
government did nothing. Its enemies
were active, and the people of our city
looked on in helpless alarm, while the
country was amused with
vain attempts at com-
promise, and the gun-
shops of New- York and Hartford were freely supplying the ar-
senals and mihtary companies of disunion. The days and weeks
passed over New- York full of eager interest and expectation. Aii
intense sorrow was the first emotion of our people when they saw
that the real meaning of the conspiracy was the d^truction of tie
nation. They watched every movement at the South with hope or
fear ; not that they ever thought that the disunionists could be suc-
cessful. They felt that the people were against separation. The news,
the telegrams, and the Washington letters of the close of 1860 are full
of intense interest, aud even to-day no one can read them without
sharing it. At last came the startling news that Fort Moultrie had
been evacuated by the government ti-oops, the guns spiked, the stores
removed, and the small garrison of less than sixty men transferred to
Fort Sumter. New- York felt the sudden shock; the business of the
city paused, and all was expectation. " This," cried the '* Charleston
Mercury " insolently, " is war." The mad infatuation of the conspira-
//^
PBEMONITIONS OF THE dVIL WAR
477
O
tors increased. They assailed the government with reproaches be-
cause it had feared to trust to the Charleston mob. Floyd resigned.
Yet the sanguine in the North still hoped for peace, while all the
Southern States were drDling their young men,
and gathering munitions of war. New- York, \ Q O
meantime, remained still incredulous, still hope-
ful, stiU amazed at the madness of the hour.
Its trade had received what seemed a fatal
blow. The disorder in the government finances
had affected the credit of the country; its
men of action and of thought felt the inde-
cision of the administration, and condemned
it ; but New-York, confident in its strength, did not fear the result of
a contest. It only waited for events, when it should have led them.
How nobly New-York bore itself in the war that followed; how it
lavished its wealth and its youth in the defense of the nation ; how
its ships and its seamen guarded the seas; how
j^^V^y^ ^^./^ ^^ soldiers were famous on every battle-field;
V —
GALLATIN ARMS.
with what patriotic liberality its bankers and its
financiers managed the immense money trans-
actions of the country, will be told by other writers in the succeeding
chapters. But it must be remarked that the close of the contest made
a perfect change in its condition and destiny. It was no longer a
provincial city ; it rose at once to be the metropolis of a mighty na-
tion. It has advanced, in population, wealth, and general ease, beyond
any other city; with the growth of knowledge it may be made the
happiest and most peaceful of all.
CHAPTER Xni
NEW-YORK IN THE WAB FOR THE UNION
1861-1865
■ P the city of New- York was conspicuous as the center of
operations during the war to establish the unity and in*
dependence of the colonies, it was no less prominent as
the principal base of supplies in the struggle to preserve
the Union. An ancient writer has said, "It sufBceth not to the
strength of the armes to have flesh, blood and bones, unless they
have also ainewes, to stretch out and puU in for the defence of the
body ; so it suflBceth not in an army to have Victuals, for the main-
tenance of it ; Armour and Weapons for the defence of it ; unless it
have Money also, the Sinewes of Warre."' The financial records of
the time bear convincing testimony to the effective manner in which
the merchants and bankers of the Empire City supplied the feder^
government with the " sinewes " needed " to stretch out and pull in for
the defence of the body" of the nation in its great peril. Before a
shot had been fired, two important expeditions, designed to succor be-
leaguered garrisons, were fitted out at this port ; after the capture of
Sumter a movement to the front of men and means furnished by New-
York began, and did not end until the suiTender at Appomattox.'
It 19 a notable fact that whenever the country has been threatened
with danger to its form of govemment, the city of New- York has de-
clared its position only after due reflection and careful considera-
tion of the question involved. It was this tendency that delayed ite
final decision to take up arms against the mother-country at the open-
ing of the Revolution ; it was this feeling that induced some of its
leadiag citizens to join in an effort to dissuade the South from seces-
sion. Some of the most conservative men of the community even
contemplated the possibility that New -York might become a free city
1 Ward's " AnlnuidTergiDns ot Wure," London, among moneyed men, Ineloding niHiy whoaesyn-
163% pathies have heretofore been with the South. If
2 "Upon Xew-York will devolve the chief burden the Goveroment prove true to thecooittry, it need
of providing ivayB and means for the war; otir not feel any uneastnew abont money." "Ntv-
flnancial commanity accept the duty, and will York Herald," April 16, 186L
perFonn it. This view we find to be universal
480
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
days after the new cabinet minister had entered upon his duties, he
sent a special agent to New Orleans, Mobile, and Galveston to save, if
possible, the revenue cutters stationed at these ports. On January 29
Secretary Dix was advised by wire that the commanding officer of the
McClelland at New Orleans refused to obey his orders. Immediately
on receipt of this information, and without consultation with any
one, he penned the order which has become historic, and which
(through the courtesy of his son, the Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D.) is here
published in fac-simile. Although the secretary's action was decided
upon without a moment's hesitation as to its spirit, the language re-
ceived due consideration, as we are told* in a letter from General Dix
to a friend long after the occurrence :
Not a word was altered ; but the original was handed to the clerk charged with
the custody of my telegraphic despatches, copied by him, and the copy signed by me
and sent to its destination. Before I sent it, however, a question of military etiquette
arose in my mind in regard to the arrest of Captain Breshwood, and I took a carriage
and drove to the lodgings of Lieutenant-General Scott, to consult him in regard to it.
Mr. Stanton was then Attorney-General. My relations with him were of the most in-
timate character; and as he resided near General Scott's lodgings I drove to his house
ftrst, and showed the despatch to him. He approved of it, and made some remark
expressing his gratification at the tone of the order. General Scott said I was right
on the question of etiquette, and I think expressed his gratification that I had taken a
decided stand against Southern invasions of the authority of the government. I im-
mediately returned to the department and sent the despatch. General Seott, Mr.
Stanton, and the clerk who copied it were the only persons who saw it. . . .
I decided when I wrote the order to say nothing to the President about it. I was
satisfied that, if he was consulted, he would not permit it to be sent. Though indig-
nant at the course of the Southern States, and the men about him who had betrayed his
confidence, — Cobb, Floyd, and others, — one leading idea had taken possession of his
mind, — that in the civil contest which threatened to break out, the North must not shed
the first drop of blood. This idea is the key to his submission to much which should
have been met with prompt and vigorous resistance. During the seven weeks I was
with him he rarely failed to come to my room about ten o'clock, and converse with me
for about an hour on the great questions of the day before going to his own room. I
was strongly impressed with his conscientiousness. But he was timid and credulous.
His confidence was easily gained, and it was not difficult for an artful man to deceive
him. But I remember no instance in my unreserved intercourse with him in which I
had reason to doubt his uprightness.
Tuesdays and Fridays were Cabinet days. The members met, without notice, at
or, failing in this, until we can bring the majority
of our fellow-citizens in the North to co5perate
with us, as we do not doubt they will, in the proper
measures of redress. We do not despair of secur-
ing from those to whose hands the reins of gov-
ernment are about to be intrusted a recognition
of your rights in reg^ard to the surrender of fugi-
tive slaves and equality in the Territories. We
know that great changes of opinion have already
taken place among their most intelligent and in-
fluential men — that a reaction has commenced, .
which is not likely to be stayed — that errors and
prejudices which in the heat of the canvass were
inaccessible to reason and persuasion have been
on cool reflection renounced: nay, more, that
many whose opinions have undergone no change
are willing, in a praiseworthy spirit of patriotism,
to make on questions which are not fundamental
in our system of government, but merely aooea-
sory to our social condition, the conoessions neces-
sary to preserve the Union in its integrity, and to
save us from the fatal alternative of dismember-
ment into two or more empires, jealous of each
other, and embittered by the remembrance of dif-
ferences which we had not the justice or the mag-
nanimity to compose.'*
1 *' Memoirs of John A. Dix,** by Bev. Morgan
Dix, D. D., New-York, 1884.
A:^
^(k/iJ^^i^
^^liUif'^tc44€^'4,,^
PINE STREET HBGTINO SIONATlTREa.l
1 The hUtorlc Pine street meeUugwaa railed b;
■ prtTBte letter sddreBaed to prominent men, Irrn-
Bpeetive of party, throughout the State of Nev-
York ; and the lepUea received were ao numerouB
and taTOisble, thai It was found neceasary to en-
ga^ two huildingB in Pine street to accommodate
the large representation anticipated. The fac-
aimile Hbown almve glvee the «lgnatUTe<i of the
chairman and Becrelarieir of the meeting, and also
ibose of the iilgnera of the address or letter ac-
companying the reaolutloiiH passed. The com-
mittee appointed to visit the Sonth a bearers of
the address (part of which is given on the oppo^te
pagel comprised ei-FresideDt Fillmore, Greene
C. Bronaon, and Richard Lathers. Mr. PUlmore
warmly Indorsed the objects of the meeting,
although unable to attend It, and was, as stated,
made chairman of the committee ti
the Southern leaders and people the
the city and State of New-York at this great crisis
in the life of the nation. The meeting was held
December 15, IB60. EdiTob.
NEW-YOBK IK THE WAS FOB THE UNION
481
,he Presidents house in the morning. My order was given, as has been stated, on
ruesday evening. I said nothing to the President in regard to it, thongh he was with
ne every evening, until Friday, when the members of the Cabinet were all assembled,
ind the President was about to call our attention to the business of the day. I said
to him, *^ Mr. President, I fear
we have lost some more of
our revenue cutters." '*Ah !"
said he, *^how is that?" I
then told him what had oc-
curred down to the receipt of
the despatch from Mr. Jones
informing me that Captain
Breshwood refused to obey
my order. " Well," said he,
''what did you dot" I then
repeated to him, slowly and
iistinctly, the order I had
sent. When I came to the
words, "shoot him on the
spot," he started up sudden-
ly, and said, with a good deal
of emotion, "Did you write
that?" " No, sir," I said ; "I
did not write it, but I tele-
graphed it." He made no an-
swer ; nor do I remember that
he ever referred to it after-
ward. It was manifest, as I
have presupposed, that the
order would never have been
given if I had consulted him.
It only remains for me to
say that the order was not the
result of any premeditation —
scarcely of any thought. A
conviction of the right course
to be taken was as instantane-
ous as a flash of light; and I did
not think, when I seized the
nearest pen (a very bad one, as the fac-simile shows) and wrote the order in as little
time as it would take to read it, that I was doing anything specially worthy of remem-
brance. It touched the public mind and heart strongly, no doubt, because the blood of
all patriotic men was boiling with indignation at the humiliation which we were en-
during; and I claim no other merit than that of having thought rightly, and of having
expressed strongly what I felt in common with the great body of my countr3nnen.
" Such is the history of the famous despatch. In concluding it I
quote my father's words by way of explanation and justification of
his language. He says, in his report to Congress : ' It may be proper
to add, in reference to the closing period of the foregoing despatch,
that as the flag of the Union since 1777, when it was devised and
adopted by the founders of the Republic, had never until a recent day
Vol. m.— 31.
^4^>^i^ 4^^J^UUf.
</
R£DUGED FAC-SDCILE OF THE DESPATCH.
482
HISTOBX OF NEW-TOBK
been hauled down, except by honorable hands in manly conflict, bo
hesitation was felt in attempting to uphold It at any cost against an
act of treachery, as the ensign of the public authority and the em.
blem of unnumbered victories by land and sea.'"'
For many yeara the geueral-in-chief of the army had his personal
residence and official headquarters in the city of New- York. Althon^
increasing infirmities warned General Scott that his days of active set*
vice were well nigh spent, yet ie
failed not, before relinquishing hig
office, to call the attention of Prea-
dent Buchanan, as early as October,
1860, to the unprotected state of
certain fortifications on the souft— -^
em coast, expressing his "solenn^
conviction that there is some dan- "
ger of au early act of rashness pre- '
liminary to secession," and urging
their prompt occupation by suitable
garrisons.- But the bewildered
politician hesitated, and the oppor-
tunity was lost. As we recur in
memory to that dark period of!3
national histoi-y, we find it illn —
mined by one ray of light, incpea»^
ing in brilliancy as the years roll
on, In striking contrast to the
vacillation and timidity of the ex.
ecutive, and the divided
opinions of the cabinet,
, appear the firmness, sdm-
ff Jf h P ^ / J plicity, and patriotism of
V ^'AJ.C. ^ "^ *^ Robert Anderson. Believ-
/ing that the South had
been unjustly treated, hav-
ing reason to think that
J/l^Lx^ X# "' govemmmt had aban-
f doned him, beset with temp-
0 tations of kinship and
friendship, surrounded with enemies ready to destroy him, the tem-
pered steel of his nature was equal to the test. His duty, according
C^'.C^l/d<
Lrll-h^
1 Memoirf of John A. Dii. 1 : 373.
> "From a knowledge of our Southern popult-
tloD ll is my HOlemii conTictloo that there is aome
duifcer ot so early act of rashness preliminary
to Heceaslon. viz., the seizure of some or all of the
IoUowId^ poets; . ■ . Forts Pickens md McRea.
Pensacola Harbor; Porta Moultrip and Somter.
Charleston Harbor. All these woib should be tm-
mptliately so inrrlsoned as to make any attempt
to take any one of them, by mrprise or teup it
mn in, ridiculous." 8oott'«"Slemoirs." New-Yotk,
1864.
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION
483
to his simple code of morals, was plain : like the Roman sentinel, he
might be forgotten, but he would never voluntarily abandon his post.
How unselfishly and gallantly Major Anderson and his little band of
regulars acquitted themselves is a matter of ujidying fame. One mem-
ber of the Buchanan cabinet — Secretary Black — wrote of Ander-
son's military movement from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, that "he
has saved the country, I solemnly believe, when its day was darkest
and its peril most extreme. He has done everything that mortal man
could do to repair the fatal error which the administration has com-
mitted in not sending down troops enough to hold all the forts." *
With the change of administration the reins of government slipped
from the nerveless hands of one president into the firmer if somewhat
unskilful grasp of another. It cannot be said that order promptly
emerged from chaos. The task before Mr. Lincoln was too colossal,
and the means at his disposal too crude, to cause the machinery of
government to work effectively at once. So, in the early attempt to
provision Sumter and reinforce Pickens, the functions of cabinet
officers and captains of the staff were curiously intermingled. The
spectacle of a military engineer and a military secretary to the com-
manding general working in haste and secrecy, under the personal
supervision of a secretary of state, to arrange the details of an im-
portant movement of the land and naval forces, without the know-
ledge of the ministers of war or navy ; the perfunctory reference of
their work to the general-in-chief for his official signature, and its
final transfer by the president to the juniors aforesaid with carte
blanche as to its execution, were hardly calculated to produce that
" good order and military discipline " which were to prove essential
factors in the restoration of the Union. The president, however, find-
ing that his effort to execute the laws by ignoring regulations and
"cutting knots ^ resulted in confusion, returned to the system of
making each department of the government responsible for details
pertaining to it ; and, thereafter, he generally observed this rule.
When Anderson's famous telegram announcing the fall of Sumter
was published, the effect upon the people of New- York was instanta-
neous. Politicians were silent in the face of the unanimity with
which men of all parties were roused to action. As was well said:
" The incidents of the last two days will live in histoiy. Not for fifty
1 A New Sono of Sixpence.
Sing a song of Sumter,
A fort in Charleston Bay ;
Eigbt-and-sixty brave men
Watch there night and day.
Those brave men to succor
Still no aid is sent ;
Is n*t James Buchanan
A pretty President !
James is in his Cabinet
Doubting and debating ;
Anderson 's in Sumter,
Very tired of waiting.
Pickens is in Charleston,
Blustering of blows ;
Thank goodness, March the Fourth is near
To nip Secession's nose.
" Vanity Pair."
484
mSTOBY OF NEW-YOBK
years has such a spectacle been seen as that glorious uprising of
American loyalty which greeted the news that open war had been
commenced upon the Constitution and Government of the United
States. The great heart of the American people beat with one high
pulsation of courage, and of fervid love and devotion to the great
Republic. Party dissensions were instantly hushed ; political differ-
ences disappeared and were as thoroughly forgotten as if they had
never existed ; men ceased to think of themselves or their parties —
they thought only of their country and of the dangers which menace
its existence. Nothing for years has brought the hearts of all the
people so close together, or so inspired them all with common hopes,
and common fears, and a common aim, as the bombardment and
surrender of an American fortress.''^
President Lincoln^s first call for aid was instantly responded to by
the legislature of New-York with an appropriation of $3,000,000;
the militia regiments of the city and vicinity hastened to offer their
services ; recruiting rendezvous were opened for new organizations ;
the Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions pledging substantial
aid to the government, and urging the prompt blockade of Southern
ports f and a great wave of popular enthusiasm swept over the city.
The municipality of New-York, in close sympathy with Tam-
many Hall, promptly passed the following resolutions, drafted by
one who afterward distinguished himself on many bloody fields —
Daniel E. Sickles.
Besolved, That we invoke in this crisis the unselfish patriotism and the unfaltering
loyalty which have been uniformly manifested in all periods of national peril by the
population of the City of New-York ; and while we reiterate our undiminished affec-
tion for the friends of the Union who have gallantly and faithfully labored in the
Southern States for the preservation of peace and the restoration of fraternal rela-
tions among the people, and our readiness to cooperate with them in all honorable
measures of reconciliation, yet we only give expression to the convictions of our con-
stituents when we declare it to be their unalterable purpose, as it is their solemn duty,
to do all in their power to uphold and defend the integrity of the Unions and to vin(h-
cate the honor of our flag, and to crush the power of those who are enemies in war,
as in peace they were friends.
Itesolr>€d, That a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolutions be transmitted to
the President of the United States, and to the Governor of the State of New- York.
In a recent address, General Sickles said: "I well remember the
words of President Lincoln when he referred to this action of our
1 "New-York Times," April 16, 1861.
2 Resolved : That this Chamber, alive to the
perils which have been gathering around our
cherished form of government and menacing its
overthrow, has witnessed with lively satisfaction
the determination of the President to maintain
the Constitution and vindicate the supremacy of
government and law at every hazard. . . .
That the United States Government be recom-
mended and urged to blockade the ports of such
States, or any other State that shall Join them, and
that this measure is demanded for defence in war.
as also for the protection to the commerce of the
United States against these so-called ''privateers'*
invited to enroll under the authority of such
States. Resolutions, New-Tork Chamber of Com-
merce, April 19, 1861.
NEW-YORK IN THE WAS FOR THE UNION
485
I.y.BALTIC^OFF lAHOr HOOK APK;EICHrrciiTM.TEN nURTY n.u. «vi»
rflftTitOimor FAC'TNIKIT mOlt HOVMXUIirili TMC AUiMTERt WCNC tH
rmCliY PMMCD TRS. MMS CAICt OCSTVDVCO VT flRCiTflK CORCE' »Aa.ft
nariYomu • .HomtWmtmiMony smcr^fi/at* wasnhi HAvmcocFxtiocD
5
fmiOUSlT IMIIIIICO^TNK MACMCllfC SURRQUMOCO BY FUUlIt AND iri
OOOH CUMIO rUMTNC CFFCCT* .OT MCA« •FOU* BARREWLt AND^TMRC
1
cimiDcn Of roaoai only kinc availapli ami no pjtoviiiowst
■ I
INJHS MT Hamuli ACCCfTtO TCRMt OP CyACUATlOU OfFCRCO wf,
I
ccauAL
:iN&ikON SAMC OFFCRCO BT ftlM M THC CUV
city government, a few days afterward, when I called upon him for
instructions touching the command I had undertaken to raise on the
invitation of Governor Morgan. He said : ' Sickles, I have here on
my table the resolu-
tions passed by your
common council ap-
propriating a million
of dollars toward i*ais-
ing men for this war,
and promising to do all
in the power of your
authoriL to support
the government. When
these resolutions were
brought to me by Alder-
man Frank Boole and
his associates of the
committee, I felt my
burden lighter. I felt
that when men broke
through party lines
and took this patriotic
stand for the govern-
ment and the Union,
all must come out well
in the end. When you see them, tell them for me, they made my
heart glad, and I can only say, God bless them.' ^ r
The march of the first New England troops through the city, to the
defense of the capital, is graphically described by the Eev. Dr. Dix.'
They came in at night ; and it was understood that, after breakfasting at the Astor
House, the march would be resumed. By nine o'clock in the morning an immense
crowd had assembled about the hotel : Broadway, from Barclay to Pulton street, and
the lower end of Park Row, were occupied by a dense mass of human beings, all
watching the front entrance, at which the regiment was to file out. From side to side,
from wall to wall, extended that innumerable host, silent as the grave, expectant,
something unspeakable in the faces. It was the dead, deep hush before the thunder-
storm. At last a low murmur was heard *, it sounded somewhat like a gasp of men in
suspense ; and the cause was, that the soldiers had appeared, their leading files de-
EM|B.llUT.PMiai TQaTNI Cn— iUBCMlNf OT NO«TIL|TU« ANO MARCKftO
•»T or ?wr ro«T wnoav ArntNooM p« rpwrnwHrn iMftr^viTH
eotjai«.riYi«c.Aao.anMs «B«(rfM.,«RiNciNC am^comfany aro
FNivAic raorcfiTY A«o tAuvTiaunv fuwC -vinr rirtv cmt* romri!
ARDortoff.iiAjpii piRtriMniuti .cowmnoinl* ^
1 The original despatch was printed by Morse's
telegraph, and the ribbon-like strips were pasted
on a sheet of paper in order to be more convenient
and for better preservation. The above illustra-
tion is made from a photograph of the original in
the possession of Gfeneral E. D. Townsend, U. S. A.
Editor.
2 The common council of the city of New- York
** do ordain that the sum of one million dollars is
hereby appropriated for the purpose of procuring
the necessary equipment and outfit of the military
force of the City of New- York, now engaged, or
which may hereafter be engaged, in the service of
the State of New- York in pursuance of the requisi-
tion of the President of the United States, and to
provide for the aid and support of the families of
such of the officers and men so engaged as may
require the same," to be disbursed by the Union
Defense Committee.
3 Memoirs of John A. Dix, II : 10.
HISTOBY OF NEW-TORK
scending the steps. By the twisMe of their bayoneta above the heads of the ami
their conrse coold be traced out into the open street in front. Formed, at lut.ig
oolunm, they stood, the band at the head ; and the word was g:iTeD, " March ! " ^
dead silenoe prevailed.. Then the drums rolled out the time — the regiment wu -^
motion. And then the bud
buretiag into fnS voliug,
struck up— whatothcTttta
could the Massaohiuetta tn
have chosen t — " Tsuk^
Doodle." loaughtabouihn
bars and a half of tlu olA
music, not more ; for iq.
stantly there arose a loiuiA'
such as many a man nere^^
heard in all his lif«, snc^V
never vill hear ; such u i^^
never heard more than onep^
in a lifetime. Not more aw- '
fol is the thnnder of hesren ■*
as.witbsuddenpeal.itsmttes *
into silence all lesaersoonds, ,
and, rolling through the vaolt •
above us, fills earth and sky --
with the shock of its terriUee
voice. One terrific roar bonkL
from the multitude, leaving
nothii^ audible save its owq
reverberation. We saw the heads of armed men, the gleam of their weapons, the
rejnmental colors, all moving on, pageant-like ; but nanght could we hear save thaf
hoarse, heavy surge — one general acclaim, one wild shout of joy and hope, one end-
less cheer, roUii^ up and down, from dde to side, above, below, to right, to left : tba
voice of approval, of consent, of unity in act and will. No one who saw and heard
oonld donbt how New- York was going.
The reaistance to the passage of the Sixth Massachusetts throogh
Baltimore, on the 19th of April, fanned the public excitement to the
verge of madness. The news that descendants of freemen who fell
at Lexington had been slain, on the anniversary of that memorable
fight, while marching to the defense of the capital, sent a thrill of in-
digoation through the North. The following call had already re-
ceived the signatures of leading men without regard to polities :
Fellow-Citizens : The darkest period in our nation's history has arrived ; we are
passing through the first fearful ordeal to which our experiment of popular institutions
has ever been subjected. Our patriot sires struggled through a long and bloody con-
flict to secure for their children the blessings we have enjoyed, and labored to frame
ALEXAMDEa T. STEWART'S BESIDENCE.l
1 This miperb muiBloii. on the narthweBt <wmer
of Fifth Avenoe and Thirty-ronrlh utroet, M the
foot of Murrey Hill, was erected by Aleiander T.
St«wart, thP mUHnnalre Npw-Tork merchant. It
|g hullt of whitp marble, and U tnclOHed by a heavy
north Bide waa used ■■ a pletnm-galleTy. Tin
stalrr«ees are also of luarble, and the oriUogi arc
very lofty. At the time of ila ereetion it wuttieail-
est private reddence in the country. Mr. j^t«war1
lived here until his death, April 10, ISTfi, and the
NEW-TOBK IN THE WAE FOB THE UNION
487
a goyemment that would protect the rights and foster healthy progress; they provided
for frequent elections and a legal method of amending the Constitation, thereby ren-
dering resistance to the laws, or revolution against the Government, not only unne-
cessary, but morally and legally criminal. Notwithstanding this wise and equitable
method of correcting mistakes in policy, improving the laws, or altering the compact
by peaceful means, misguided men have fomented passion and prejudice to such a de-
gree that it has ripened into treason and rebellion, so that our once prosperous nation
trembles to its center. The delusion, dream, and empty hope that the war clouds that
skirted the southern horizon might pass away has failed, and the dreaded catastrophe
of an armed conflict is upon us. The time has come when political differences should
give way to a jMttriotism which knows no i>arty but our country, recognizes no revolu-
tion but through the ballot-box, and acknowledges no man as brother who refuses
allegiance to the Gx>vemment. All good citizens who prize liberty with order, over
usurpation and anarchy, are invited to assemble in mass convention, to give expres-
sion to the views of the City of New- York in the present emergency.
That the government was fully altve to the gravity of the situation
may be seen from the language of Mr. Stanton in a letter to General
Dix : " If there be any remedy, — any shadow of hope to preserve this
government from utter and hopeless extinction, — it must come from
New-York without delay.''
On Saturday, April 20, at three o'clock p. m., with the peril of
the nation fresh in their minds, more than one hundred thousand
people assembled in "mass convention" at Union Square. The meet-
ing was presided over by the Hon. John A. Dix, with eighty-seven vice-
presidents selected from the solid men of the community.^ Burning
words by great orators sank deep into the hearts of the people. The
heroes of Sumter appeared for a moment at each of the several stands,
and were received with shouts of welcome. Among those who exhorted
1 Vic&i>re8ident3 of the mass meeting y April 20, 1861 :
Peter Cooper
W. M. Evarts
Oeorge Bancroft
Stewart Brown
Henry Grinnell
W. E. Dodge
L. G. B. Cannon
Frederick Bronson
D. H. Arnold
R. H. M'Curdy
Wyllis Blackstone
Chaa. H. Bosaell
John C. Jones
Isaac N. Phelps
James A. Briggs
Henry S. VaU
W. Z. Maday
George Folsom
Isaac Ferris
D. R. Martin
William Bryce
Peter LioriUard
J. Smith Homans
George A. Vogel
S. Livingston
W. W. DeForest
Daniel Leroy
Charles Christmas
Charles A. Secor
Luther Bradish
Morris Ketchum
Greene C. Bronson
W. C. Bryant
John A. King
John J. Phelps
Moses Taylor
Watts Sherman
John D. Wolfe
P. A. Conkling
Edwin Dobbs
Joseph W. Alsop
Nathaniel Hayden
Robert Ray
David Headley
James Low
John D. Jones
A. B. Baylis
Frederick Kapp
Andrew Carrigan
J. Auchincloss
William Chauncey
A. S. Hewitt
Erastus Brooks
W. H. Osbom
Anson Herrick
S. L. Mitchill
J. B. Vamum
John T. Hoffman
Fernando Wood
Jonathan Sturgis
William B. Astor
Pelatiah Perit
James Boorman
R. B. Mintum
O. D. F. Grant
Edwin Croswell
Seth B. Hunt
A. T. Williamson
Secretaries :
Sheppard Gaudy Charles B. Norton
J. T. Johnson C. H. Marshall, Jr.
John Bigelow Fletcher Westray
Joseph Stuart
E. D. Morgan
John Lloyd
Benjamin L. Swan
Robert J. Taylor
John Ewen
William C. Bryce
Elnathan Thome
Alexander Duncan
A. C. Kingsland
M. Franklin
H. B. Claflin
S. B. Althause
Joseph Seligman
A. A. Vanderpool
Theodore Fowler
Augustus ScheU
William HaU
Hamilton Fish
A. T. Stewart
John J. Astor
James G. DeForest
Daniel D. Lord
488
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the people to gird up their loins for the coining struggle was a sena-
tor from the Pacific coast, whose eloquence was only equaled by his
fame as a soldier. The gallant Baker — the Patrick Henry of his day
— spoke as one who had the courage of his convictions. He had led
a New-York regiment to the gates of the city of Mexico, and within
a few weeks was destined to fall in action upon the bloody and disas-
trous field of Ball's Bluflf. But in 1861 there was but little thought
of the morrow. Every other man was about to become a soldier, with
a soldier's light-heartedness, satisfaction with the present, and hope-
fulness for the future. And so the " darling Seventh," the " steady
Twelfth," the " gay Seventy-first," " the Highlanders," and " the rol-
licking Sixty-ninth" marched down Broadway, amid volleys of
applause and miles of waving flags, to save the country.
If the impending calamity of civil war found the government of the
United States in a state of transition as regarded its personnel, it was
met by New- York with all the firmness and ability of a substantial
State administration and the strength of a patriotic majority in the
city. At Albany that sterling citizen. Governor Edwin D. Morgan,
stood ready to second the new president ; he was aided in matters of
detail by an efficient staflf, of which Chester A. Arthur — the future
chief magistrate — was an excellent type. In the metropolis municipal
affairs were directed partly by officials who could not grasp great na-
tional issues, but contented themselves with the preservation of local
order.^ The men of power and influence in the community, with true
public spirit and patriotic impulse, rose en masses and, exercising a
characteristic American talent for organization, put themselves di-
rectly in touch with the federal executive. Through the channels of
trade, manufactures, and the learned professions, popular subscrip-
tions were made to a fund for the equipment and temporary subsis-
tence of troops hastening to the defense of the capital. In an incon-
ceivably short time an immense sum of money was placed at the
government's disposal, and the tramp of the Union legions was heard
from Maine to California.- Among individuals who devoted them-
1 Mayor's Offiob, Nbw-York, April 15, 1861.
To the People of the City of yew- York : As Chief
Msg^istrate, representing the whole people, I feel
compelled at this crisis to call upon them to
avoid excitement and turbulence. Whatever may
be or may have been individual positions or opin-
ion on questions of public policy, let us remember
thafc our country now trembles upon the brink of
a precipice, and that it requires a patriotic and
honest effort to prevent its final destruction. Let
us igrnore the past, rising superior to partizan
considerations, and rally to the restoration of the
Constitution and the Union as they existed in the
days and in the spirit of our fathers. Whether
this is to be accomplished by fratricidal warfare
or by concession, conciliation, and sacrifice, men
may differ, but all will admit that here at least
harmony and peace should preraiL Thus may
we, under the guidance of Divine Providenee,
set an example of peace and good will throughout
our extended country. In this spirit and with
this view, I call upon the people of New-York,
irrespective of all other considerations or preju-
dices, to unite in obedience to the laws, in sup-
port of the public peace, in the preservation of
order, and in the protection of property.
(Signed) Fernando Wood, Mayor,
2 The '' New-York Herald,'' April 29, 1861, makes
up a table of voluntary contributions by cities,
counties, and individuals in the North, *'all $1000
or over, which sum up to $11,230,000, of which
New-York city gives $2,155,000, and the New-Yoik
NEW-YORK IN THE WAB FOE THE UNION
selves faithfully to the Union cause was the well-known Thurlow
Weed. Famous as a political leader, he now came to the front as a
philanthropist and counselor. He has left behind him int-eresting
memoirs of the war time, which show how important were the ser-
vices of men like Weed, Simeon Draper, and Henry W. Bellows,
who, without glittering insignia or martial title, labored early and
late for the cause, furnishing "Vic-
tuals," "Armour," and the "Sinewes
of Warre." An example may here
be related. Mr.Weed was summoned
to the White House from New-York
by a telegram dated February 18,
1863. On the following day he called
on President Lincoln, who said: "Mr.
Weed, we are in a tight place. Money
for legitimate purposes is needed im-
mediately; but there is no appropria-
tion from which it can be lawfully
taken. I did n't know how to raise
it, and so I sent for you." "How
much is required I " asked Mr. Weed. ^ ^ ^w .
"Fifteen thousand dollars," said the ^—^^it.^a' "^ -^^^(Pt^
President. " Can you get it I " "If ^"^^ ^
you must have it at once, give me two lines to that effect." Mr.
Lincoln turned to his desk and wrote a few lines on a slip of paper.
Handing it to Mr.Weed, he said, "Will that dof " "It will," said Mr.
Weed; " the money will be at your disposal to-morrow morning." On
the next train Mr. Weed left Washington, and before five o'clock that
Stete leKislstare t3,DW,0OO more. And all this
luB 'been mbacribed since the flf teentli of April.
"Of nUDB belowa thoasuid doUsrs aubBcrlbedby
private indlTldiiRli, and of whicb no mentloD la
made In this statement, it Is no eiagKeration to
act down the aggregate at #5,000,000. If we take
the average ezpenditare of each volunteer of the
SSO.OOO men who are now drilling and under arms
in the free States at tlO. It will ttive us a foitber
BDHHintof 12,500,000. Bealdea these suing we mftf
pat down •5.000,000 more for the contrlbutionB
made by [amiliea toward the more comfortable
outfit and equipment of such of their members as
have taken up anas in defense of the natiotial
ilag, and of eaaoal sums given on the spur of
the moment to applicants needing aid, in rifles,
monef. or clothing, and of which no notice baa
been taken, tbe total la probably not far short of
another (5,000.000. These different sums foot np :
Contributions of (lOOO and upward, (11,230,000;
raintributiona below (1000, »5,000,000; eipenditure
of voloDteere (tlO each). (2,500,000; coutributionB
of families to ontflt, (5,000,000; casual contribu-
tions in money and clethhig, (5,000,000; total.
(28,730,000, making an aggregate of nearly (39,-
000,000 spontaneoualy donated to the govemment
in less than a fortnight.
"Thirteen banks of the city of New-Tork con-
tributed nearly half a mlllioD of dollars for the de-
fense of the government. Added to the previons
sabserlption of (250.000 by the Broadway Bank,
these contributions amount, thus far, to (715,000,
divided aa follows ; Bank of Commerce, T. A.
Stevena, president, (100,000 ; Xew-York Exchange
Bank, S. Van Duzer, president, (10,000; Mechan-
ics' Bank, 8. Enapp, president. (^,000; National
Bank, J. OallaUn, president. (25,000 ; Merchants'
Bank. A. E. Silliman, president. (25.000; Man-
hattan Bank, J. M. Morrison, president, K5,000 ;
Bank ol tbe Republic, E. H. Lowry, cashier.
(60.000; PhcBuii Bank, H. P. Bryson, cashier,
(25,000; Bank of New-York. A. P. Halsey, presi-
dent. (50,000; Bank of North America, J. Sey-
mour, preaident. (20,000 ; Bank of America, J.
Punnell. president, (50,000; Bank of the Stete
of New-Tork, R. Withers, president, (25,000;
Shoe and Leather Bank, A. V. Stone, president,
(25,000; Broadway Bank, (250,000; total, (715,000."
490
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
afternoon the slip of paper which he carried in his pocket presented
this appearance :
Washington, February 19, 1863.
Mr. Weed — The matters I spoke to you about are important. I hope you wiD not
neglect them. Truly yours, A, Lincoln.
Charles Knapp $1000.
Marshall 0. Roberts 1000.
Alexander T. Stewart 1000.
Isaac BeU 1000.
William H. AspinwaU 1000.
Cornelius Vanderbilt 1000.
James Mitchell 1000.
H. B.CromweU 1000.
Novelty Iron Works, Horace Allen,
Pres't 1000.
James I. Sanf ord 1000.
Spofford & TUeston 1000.
John F. Winslow 1000.
Secor & Co 1000.
P. S. Forbes 1000.
RusseUSturgisandH.W.Hubbell. 1000.
One of the most important and immediate results of the i)opular
agitation following the fall of Sumter was the organization of the
"Union Defense Committee of the City of New-York." It comprised
some of the most prominent men in trade and the learned profes-
sions.^ It became the almoner of the municipality for the emergency,
and a veritable Aladdin's lamp through which, at a touch, regiments
were armed, equipped, and transported to the nearest rendezvous;
steamers of the largest size were chartered as transports, or, in some
cases, as additions to the naval forces of the United States. The local
facilities, the business training, and the unlimited credit of the com-
mittee, combined with a loyal enthusiasm, accomplished wonders. Nor
was this patriotic zeal without its embarrassments. The committee,
having turned on the stream of aid and comfort, undertook, in some
cases, to direct the war department in its use, to urge the president
to greater haste in crushing the rebellion, and inadvertently to usurp
the executive functions of the governor. The federal authorities de-
clined to move with undue haste, but their determination was con-
veyed to the committee in a way to strengthen rather than to impair
the good feeling which it was important to maintain between the
Union people and the government. Thenceforward their relations
were mutually satisfactory.^ The Union Defense Committee was or-
1 The original members of the Union Defense
Committee were : John A. Dix, chairman ; Simeon
Draper, vice-chairman ; William M. Eyarts, secre-
tary; Theodore Dehon, treasurer; Moses Taylor,
Richard M. Blatchf ord, Edwards Pierrepont, Alex-
ander T. Stewart, Samuel Sloan, John Jacob As-
tor, John J. Cisco, James S. Wadsworth, Isaac
Bell, James Boormao, Charles H. Marshal], Robert
H. M'Curdy, Moses H. Grinnell, Rojtd Phelps,
William E. Dodge, Greene C« Bronson, Hamilton
Fish, William P. Havemeyer, Charles H. Russell,
James T. Brady, Rudolph A. Witthaus, Abiel A.
Low, Prosper M. Wetmore, A. C. Richards; the
Mayor, the Comptroller, the Presidents of the
Boards of Aldermen and Councilmen.
2 "With a generous frankness, which confers
honor upon the stations which they fill, the chief
executive officers of the national government and
the distinguished commanding general of the
army have been pleased to say that the safety of
the national capital and the preservation of the
archives of the government at a moment when
both were seriously menaced, may f aiiiy be attrib-
uted to the prompt and efficient action of the
State and City of New-York, united with the vig-
orous efforts of the noble Commonwealth of Mas-
sachusetts, devoted to the same patriotic objects.**
Report of Simeon Drai>er to Union Defense Com-
mittee.
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 491
ganized April 22, 1861, and adjourned sine die April 30, 1862. During
that period it disburscjd more than a million dollars for the benefit of
New- York volunteers and the support of soldiers^ widows and orphans.
Soon after General Scott's retirement from active service, a delega-
tion from the Union Defense Committee, headed by the Hon. Hamil-
ton Fish, called upon the old hero at the Brevoort House to present
an address embodying the sentiments of love and respect which all
Americans, and especially the citizens of New-York, entertained for
Mm. Judge Edwards Pierrepont also made appropriate remarks,
comprising this extract : " The advents of true patriots and great
men are always separated by long intervals of years ; but few have
ever appeared ; and in the whole circuit of the sun, scarce one who
had the courage to resign his power until death called for his crown,
his scepter, or his sword. It will be the crowning glory of your hon-
ored life, that after remaining at the soldier's post until all imminent
danger was over, . . . you had the wisdom from on high to retire
at the fitting hour, and thus to make the glories of your setting sun
ineflEably more bright for the radiant luster which they shed upon the
young and dawning hope of your beloved land. . . . ''
On the seventeenth of April, Major-General Sandf ord, commanding
the First Division N. G. S. N. Y., received orders from Albany "to de-
tail one regiment of eight hundred men, or two regiments amounting
1k) the same number, for immediate service." The detail fell to the
Seventh Regiment, and on Friday, the nineteenth, at 3 p. m., it
marched down Broadway with nine hundred and ninety-one men,
bound for the capital of the nation. More than three months pre-
viously the regimental board of officers had " resolved that, should
the exigency arise, we feel confident in having the Commandant ex-
press to the Governor of the State the desire of this regiment to
perform such duty as he may prescribe." ^
The march to Cortlandt street was in the nature of a triumphal
pageant. The entire city was present to wish the first regiment of
the first city in the land God-speed. One who marched with the
Seventh that day- afterward wrote, " Was there ever such an ovation f
When Trajan returned conqueror, dragging barbaric kings at his
chariot wheels, Eome vomited its people into the streets, and that
glorious column that will ever be immortal was raised. But what
greeted the Emperor at his outset f The marble walls of Broadway
were never before rent with such cheers as greeted us when we
passed. The facades of the buildings were so thick with people that
1 QenefnX Scott wrote from Washin^irton, Jan- cinity. If there be an exception, it is the Seventh
nary 19, 1861, to Major-General Sandford, with Infantry of the City of New- York, which has be-
regard to this reeolutioD : ** Perhaps no regiment come somewhat national, and is held, deservedly,
or company can be brought here f^m a distance in the highest respect.*'
without producing hurtful jealousies in this vi- 2 Fitz-James O'Brien.
492
mSTOBY OF NEW-YORK
it seemed as if an army of black ants were marching, after their re-
sistless fashion, through the city, and had scaled the houses. Hand-
kerchiefs fluttered in the air like myriads of white butterflies. An
avenue of brave, honest faces smiled upon us as we passed, and sent
a sunshine into our hearts that lives there still."
If in these days of militia reform the Seventh maintains ite su-
premacy, in those times of local train-bands, when mihtary efficiency
,-- - -^ of State troops was the exception,
the regiment was, indeed, first in
war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of its countrymen. Ita suc-
cessful movement to the defense
of Washington, by way of Anna-
polis, under the wise leadership of
Colonel Lefferts, is a matter of
history. It will, perhaps, never
be known how much those *'one
thousand of the flower of the city
of New-Tork" contributed by their
presence to save the capital from
hostile occupation. It was suffi-
cient that President Lincoln could
announce that " the Seventh Regi-
ment and the Massachusetts Begi-
There was great need of re-enforce-
ments, but Washington may be considered safe for the country and
the Constitution." '
While the Seventh was setting out on its mission of succor, other
regiments were busily engaged in preparation for the march. The
next day th^ Sixth, Twelfth, and Seventy-first regiments of the militia
embarked for Fortress Monroe, and on April 23, the Eighth, Thirteenth,
Twenty-eighth, and Sixty-ninth* took up the route for Washington.
ment are now in Washington.
1 Wab Dspabtusht, a. Q. O. ,
S. O. 36: Washinotoh, Hb^ 30. 1861.
The comniuidiQg officer of tbe Seventh Regi-
ment of New-York Mjlitiii will proceed with
his regiment to the rlty of New-Tork, where It
will be mnatei-ed out of the service of the United
St&teR by Lieutenant MlltoD Cogswell, Eigbtli
Infuitiy. It is the desire of the War Departs
ment, in relinquishing the services of this gallant
regiment, to make known the BatlsfBcUaa that la
felt at the prompt and patriotic manner in which
it responded to the call for men to defend the
Capital when it was believed to have been in peril,
and to acknowledge the impoiisnt service it ren-
dered bf appearing here in an honr of dark and
trying necessity. The time for which it had en-
gaged to serve has now expired. The service which
it was expected to perform has been handsomely
BOcompUahed. and its members may return to their
native dty with tbe aasoranoe that lla aerviceis are
gratefully appreciated by all good and lojat ctti-
lens. while the Government is equally eoofidenl
that when the country again calls upon them, its
appeal will not be made in vain to the young men
of Mew- York. By order, L. TROKas,
AdjutantrOeneraL
To Couaynh Lutebtb,
Commanding Ttb Begt, 0un)> Cameron.
: " The N. Y. Siitynjntta (Irish) regiment, forre-
fosing to turn ont on the occaston of tbe visit of
the Prince of Wales, was deprived of Its coJon.
Though never actually disbanded, it bad not dnee
been doing duty. While oeoupled in getting other
regiments off. Colonel Michael Corooran bronght
me a letter of intFOdnctioa from ArchUshop
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION
493
All were escorted to the transports by throngs of excited citizens,
many of whom were sending their sons to battle for the right as they
saw it. Everywhere in the North there was a grim determination to
uphold " the old flag ^ and support the president to that end. Never-
theless, the course of the federal authorities in not at once opening
the usual route, by way of Baltimore, brought out an indignant re-
monstrance from certain impatient patriots. Their views were set
forth in an " open letter ^ addressed to the president and signed by
George Law, a wealthy contractor and ship-owner. It read as follows:
The public mind is already excited to the highest point that this state of affairs
has been so long tolerated; and the x>eople are determined that free and nninter-
rapted communication with the seat of government shall be immediately estab-
lished, not by circuitous routes, but by the direct lines of commimication that they
have heretofore traveled over, and it is demanded of the government that they at
once take measures to open and establish those lines of commimication, and that they
protect and preserve them from any further interruption. Unless this is done, the
people will be compelled to take it into their own hands, let the consequences be what
they may, and let them fall where they will. It is certainly most desirable that this
be done through the regularly constituted authorities at Washington ; and the gov-
ernment is earnestly requested to act without delay.
The Union Defense Committee also advised the president (April
21) that — " On behaH of the Committee of the Citizens charged with
the due attention to public interests, and invested with this power by
the mass meeting of Saturday, we take leave respectfully to represent
to the Government at Washington that intense solicitude prevails
here for the safety of the city of Washington, and that there is an
earnest demand that a safe and speedy communication should be
kept open between the seat of government and the loyal States.
Whatever force of men or supply of means is needed to occupy and
control the necessary points in the State of Maryland can be fur-
nished from or through New- York. The energy, the enthusiasm, the
power in every form of our people it is impossible to overrate. But
their demands upon the action of all the public authorities are pro-
portionate. The absolute obliteration of all party lines among our
whole population, and their perfect union in enthusiastic patriotism,
make it in our judgment highly expedient that there should be pres-
ent in this city persons who can, in case of emergency, represent the
Hughes. The Colonel said that the murder of
Massachusetts men in the streets of Baltimore had
greatly excited his men, and if the colors of the
Sixty-ninth were restored and the services of the
regiment accepted, he would he ready to march,
with one thousand rank and file, in twenty-four
hours. I informed Governor Morgan, at Albany,
by telegraph, that the Sixty-ninth regiment, if re-
stored to its former statuis, would immediately take
the field. A few hours brought me a despatch
accepting the services of the Sixty-ninth, and
warmly thanking Colonel Corcoran, his officers
and meUf for their promptitude and patriotism.
The Governor's despatch was read in the evening
to the regiment, and received with great enthu-
siasm. True to his promise. Colonel Corcoran
marched through Broadway, amid enthusiastic
acclamations, on the following day to embark for
Annapolis." Thurlow Weed, in " The GWaxy.''
IX. 834.
494 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
War, Navy, and Treasury departments in giving the authority of the
Government to movements of troops and vessels, the stoppage of
steamers, the provision of arms, and the many steps which may need
to be taken without an opportunity of communicating with Washing-
ton. We feel to-day that our Government and the city of Washing-
ton are in a hostile country, with communication embarrassed and in
danger of being wholly cut off. If disaster happens from this cause,
the excitement of our people may lead them into strong expressions
of discontent, and the present happy state of public sentiment in uni-
versal support of the administration may be succeeded by a reaction
of feeling greatly to be deplored.'^
The great capitalist and steamship proprietor, Cornelius Vander-
bilt, placed some of his finest vessels at the disposal of the govern-
ment. When the terrible Merrimac threatened to destroy the Union
fleet in the James River, the commodore fitted out his largest and
strongest steamer, the Vanderbilt, to operate against the Confederate
ram, and presented her to the government. In remembrance of this
princely gift, Congress subsequently voted a gold medal to the donor.
Closely following the Union Square meeting of the men of New-
York came the action of her noble women. A circular addressed " to
the Women of New- York, and especially to those already engaged in
preparing against the time of Wounds and Sickness in the Army,''
was published. It set forth the importance of system and concentra-
tion to effect the best results in that field.^ It was the germ of the
most important auxiliary to the medical department of the Union
armies which the war created — the Sanitary Commission.
Out of this conference grew the " Woman's Central Association of
1 To the Women ofNew-Tork, and especittUy to those Committee, with power to organise the benevo-
already engaged in preparing against the time of lent purposes of all into a common movement
Wounds and Sickness in the Army : (Signed) Mesdames J. A. Dix, H. Fish, L. C.
The importance of systematizing and concen- Jones, E. Robinson, W. Eirkland, W. H. Aspin-
trating the spontaneous and earnest efforts now wall, B. Mintum, J. B. Johnson, J. J. Roosevelt, A.
making by the women of New-York for the supply Bininger, W. C. Bryant, R. L. Sttlart, D. D. Fields
of richer medical aid to our army through its pres- William Astor, Jr., M. Grinnell, H. B. Smith, R.
ent campaign, must be obvious to all reflecting Hitchcock, F. F. Marbury, S. F. B. Morse, C. P.
persons. Numerous societies, working without Daly, C. Swords, G. Holbrooke, D. Adams, H.
concert, organization, or head — without any direct Baylis, H. W. Bellows, Stewart Brown, John D.
understanding with the official authorities — with- Wolfe, A. Potter, E. Fish, G. A. Seward, S. Osgood,
out any positive instructions as to the immediate J. Sherwood, E. Bayard, J. Jones, J. Betts, W.
or future wants of the army — are liable to waste Ward, H. E. Eaton, W. M. Evarts, G. L. Schuyler,
their enthusiasm in disproportionate efforts, to P. Cooper, T. Tileston, F. S. Wiley, H. Webster,
overlook some claims and overdo others, while S. J. Baker, R. Grade, M. C«tlin, B. R. Winthrop,
they give unnecessary trouble in official quarters, G. Stuyvesant, G. Curtis, A. R. Eno, W. F. Carey,
by the variety and irregularity of their proffers of A. Hewitt, R. Campbell, H. E. Bogart, C. Butler,
help or their inquiries for guidance. As no exist- C. E. Lane, M. D. Swett, R. M. Blatchf ord, L. W.
ing organization has a right to claim precedence Bridgham, A. W. Bradford, W. H. Lee, P. Godwin,
over any other, or could properly assume to lead H. J. Raymond, S. L. M. Barlow, J. Auchindoss,
in this noble cause, where all desire to be first, it M. Trimble, S. B. Collins, R. H. Bowne, B. R. Moll-
is proposed by the undersigned, members of the vaine, N. Lawrence, J. Reid, C. Newbold, J. R
various circles now actively engaged in this work, Collins, J. C. Smith, P. Spofford, Cjrrus W. Fidd,
that the women of New- York should meet in the P. Townsend, L. Baker, ^ Lewis M. Rutherfurd,
Cooper Institute on Monday next, at 11 o'clock Charles I^ing, Miss Marquand, Miss Mintum, and
A. M., to confer together, and to appoint a General others.
NEW-TORK IN THE WAB FOR THE XJNION 495
Relief." Upon the advice of the Rev. Dr. Bellows, a committee pro-
ceeded to Washington to confer with the war department as to the
needs of the service, and the best method of supplying them. This
committee represented the Woman's Central Association of Relief for
the Sick and Wounded of the Army, the advisory committee of the
Boards of Physicians and Surgeons of the Hospitals of New- York,
and the New-York Medical Associa-
tion for furnishing Hospital Supplies
in aid of the Army. Out of their
suggestions arose that wonderful in-
stitution for alleviating the horrors
of war, known as the " United States
Sanitary Commission."
" If pure benevolence was ever or-
ganized and utilized into beneficence,
the name of the institution is the
Sanitary Commission. It is a stand-
ing answer to Samson's riddle : ' Out
of the strong came forth sweetness.'
Out of the very depths of the agony
of this cruel and bloody war springs
this beautiful system, built of the
noblest and divinest attributes of the ^*.»t±^^ /^ /-^">^fr ^
human soul. Amidst all the daring fe£:_- XL-' ^^5««='
and enduring which this war has developed, amidst all the magna-
nimity of which it has shown the race capable, the daring, the endur-
ance, the greatness of soul, which have been discovered among the men
and women who have given their lives to this work, shine as brightly
as any on the battle-field — in some respects even more brightly. . . .
Glimpses of this agency are familiar to our people: but not till the
history of its inception, progress, and results is calmly and adequately
written out and spread before the public, will any idea be formed of
the magnitude and importance of the work which it has done. Nor
even then. Never until every soldier whose flickering life it has gen-
tly steadied into continuance, whose waning reason it has softly
lolled into quiet, whose chilled blood it has warmed into healthful
play, whose failing frame it has nourished into strength, whose faints
ing heart it has comforted with sympathy, — never, until every full
soul has poured out its story of gratitude and thanksgiving, will the
record be complete: but long before that time . . . comes the Blessed
Voice, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' An approximate estimate
has been made from which it can be stated that the gifts of the
women of the country, made through the Sanitary Commission, ex-
496
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ceed in value the sum of $7,000,000, and the total cash received by
its treasurer to October 1, 1863, was $857,715.33."
The promptness and determination with which New- York took her
stand in the great trouble surprised and disappointed the South
which had counted upon at least a negative course by reason of
mutual commercial interests. No longer resting under that delusioiL
the Southern press poured forth vials of wrath after this fashion:
" The insane fury of New-York arises from purely mercenary motiveg.
She is concerned about the golden eggs which are laid for her by the
Southern goose with the sword. Let us assure her we have more fear
of her smiles than of her frowns. New- York will be remembered
with especial hatred by the South to the end of time. Boston we
have always known where to find ; but this New- York, which has
never turned against us till the hour of trial, and is now monng
heaven and earth for our destruction, shall be a marked city to the
end of time. " Even before the great clash of arms, the newspapers
of both sections had opened fire with the most bitter word-weapons
and the most startling war inimors conceivable.* It was to be their
harvest-time — to reap while others sowed.
1 ** Wab and Rumors of War. — A gentleman
of Richmond^ Va., was in New- York. The scenes
which he witnessed in the streets reminded him
of the descriptions of the Reign of Terror in Paris.
Nothing was wanting but the bloody guillotine
to make the two pictures identical. The violent
and diabolical temper everywhere conspicuous
showed but too clearly whither all things are
tending in the commercial metropolis. A spirit
is cooked which can only be laid in blood. The
desperadoes of that great city are now in the as-
cendant. At present they are animated by very
bloody designs against the South. They have
been persuaded or urged by hunger to believe
that by enlisting for the war they will win bread
and honor and riches. By-and-by they may come
to reflect there is an abundance of meat and bread
and inexhaustible supplies of money all around
them — in the banks, the palatial residences, in
the flre-proof safes of the princely merchants.
They may consider that all this meat and bread
and money may be won with fewer risks of
cracked pates and bloody noses than the meager,
unsavory food of the poor South. That they
have only to demand to have it. That they have
as much right as men and Christians to call for it
and help themselves as to be compelled to travel
five or six hundred miles to plunder a poor people
who never did them any harm. . . . We do
not know that their quick wits have yet compre-
hended all the advantages of their position. But
they will not be very slow in finding that they
are masters of the situation. They have only, in
swaggering along Broadway and looking into some
of the magnificent stores that grace that vaunted
street, or stepping into one of the banks, or look-
ing over the list of the recipients of specie by the
last steamer from California, or the names of the
subscribers to the last Government loan, the Grin-
nells, King's Sons, &c., to be convinced that a mili-
tary contribution on New- York would yield a huih
dred-fold more than they could hope to realise io
ten bloody and desperate campaigns in the South "
" Richmond Whig," April 22, 1861.
** Washington, April 27.— A gentleman fron
Richmond this morning gives some infonnatioo
of the feeling prevalent there. He repreaenti it
as a perfect reign of terror, and an excitement
that he never saw paralleled The troope in the
city he thinks a fine, hardy body of men, but ig.
norant beyond belief. It is upon the ignorance
of these men that the leaders play. Some of the
statements he heard made would hardly be cred-
ited as the assertions of sane men. He listened
to one man who publicly stated that the Seventh
Regiment had been cut to pieces in the streets of
Annapolis, and th€U he hifntelf saw more tban one
hundred of their dead bodies lying in the streets
of that city. Another man he heard assure the
crowd that the Massachusetts vagabonds [\m
glorious volunteers) had been quartered in the
Capitol at Washington, and had amused them-
selves by running their bayonets through the
pictures which adorned it, and that the rich
hangings of the different rooms have been pulled
down and made into blankets and wrappers for
the use of the troops. Another man, who waa
organizing a corps of infantry, told them they
had nothing to do but to march to glory and
wealth. * What,* said he, * could a Northern army
do on our sterile hills ? They would starve to
death. But you,' he continued, *have but to
march to Washington, and lay that in ashes;
then to Philadelphia, which is rich in all kinds at
wealth ; from that through aU the North ; there
is a village every five miles, and every viUaf^e
has a bank, and every bank has a vault of specie,
and you have but to help yoursAlves.' " '* N. Y.
Times," May 1, 1861.
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 497
The severe strain to which republican institutions were about to be
exposed in America became the subject of great interest to our Euro-
pean neighbors, and the leading British newspapers did not fail to
appreciate its value. Therefore a new order of Bohemian made its ap-
pearance, simultaneously, in New-York, Washington, and Eichmond.
As a rule, the foreign war correspondent wrote with comparative
impartiality. Now and then a superior sort of person, like "Bull
Run Russell,^ appeared upon the scene and essayed to make his
portfolio carry weight with the credentials of an envoy extraordi-
nary, but, lacking ordinary tact, contrived to have himself recalled
early in the strife. A more discreet ambassador was, apparently, the
representative of the " Illustrated London News.^ It is interesting,
after many years, to see ourselves as an intelligent stranger saw us
then. Writing in the last days of May, 1861, he says :
I could easily believe myself to be in Paris, or some other city devoted to military
display, instead of New- York, the commercial emporium of the North. From morn-
ing to night nothing is heard but the sound of the drum or the martial strains from
trumpet and bugle, as regiment after regiment passes on its way to the seat of war
through streets crowded with a maddened population. All trade is at a standstill.
Store after store down Broadway has been turned into the headquarters of An-
derson's Zouaves, Wilson's Boys, the Empire City Guard, and hosts of corps too
numerous or too eccentric in their names for me to recollect. Verily, a cosmopolitan
army is assembled here. As one walks he is jostled by soldiers dressed in the uni-
forms of the Zouaves de la Garde, the Chasseurs k Pied, Infanterie de la Ligne, and
other French regiments — so g^reat apparently is the admiration of our cousins for
everything Gallic. I must confess I should like to see more nationality. In justice,
however, to the men, I cannot do otherwise than express my unqualified approval of the
material out of which the North is to make her patriot army. Many of those I have
seen marching through the streets appear already to have served in the field, so ad-
mirably do they bear themselves in their new r61es. The very children have become
tainted with the military epidemic, and Httle, toddling Zouaves, three and four years
old, strut, armed to the teeth, at their nurses' apron strings. As I write I have a corps
of chasseurs, composed of all the small boys in the hotel, exercising and skirmishing
in the corridor outside my room. . . . There is not a house that does not display
Union colours of some kind ; there is not a steeple ever so lofty that is not surmoimted
by a star-spangled banner ; there is not a man nor woman in the city that does not
wear a patriotic badge of some kind. It is a mighty uprising of a united people
determined to protect their flag to the last.^
" Early in the summer of 1861, when things were rapidly developing
toward the rebellion, a new power, not hitherto exercised in this coun-
try, was exerted for the public safety. Persons were arbitrarily ar-
rested and confined under military guard on evidence satisfactory to
the general government that they were guilty of acts of a disloyal and
dangerous character. It devolved upon the secretary of state in the
first instance to indicate who should be thus put in confinement. He
made the arrests through his marshals, and they were turned over to
1 ** niustrated London News/' June, 1861.
Vol. ra.— 32,
498
mSTOBY OF NEW-TOBK
JlljliiMiULlJ^Q^aL ^
^n'Mt^
General Scott, who held them at Fort Lafayette in New- York harbor."'
Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Burke, U. 8. army, was assigned, July jg
1861, to command Forts Hamilton and Lafayette. He was of the Ro-
man centurion type of soldier, who obeyed orders implicitly, taking
but little thought as to their legality, and serving his country in the
clear conviction that the king could do no wrong.*
One of the earliest duties devolving upon the president ^as to
counteract, as far as practicable, the strong influences brought to bear
by the South upon
the governments of
Great Britain and
France to recognize
the Confederacy, or
at least to break
oflf the friendly re-
lations with the
United Stateswhich
existed at the out-
break of seces-
sion. He determined to ask three eminent citizens — Archbishop John
Hughes of New- York, Bishop Charles P. McHvaine of Ohio, and Lieu-
tenant-General Winfield Scott, then abroad — to represent the general
government. Archbishop Hughes accepted the invitation of the pres-
ident, with the condition that his friend Thurlow Weed should be in-
cluded in the commission, in an advisory capacity. Thus the powerful
combination of church and state, of war and diplomacy, made it an
ideal embassy. These wise men established themselves alternately at
London and Paris, mingled with the leaders of the people, and culti-
vated the society of the royal and imperial premiers. They happened
to be in the right place when the irritating episode of the Trent
occun*ed, and war between England, France, and America seemed
imminent. It was averted by only a hair's-breadth, and in the light
of later developments as to the inside history of the rebellion, it would
seem that the American people owe President Lincoln's peace com-
mission a heavy debt of gratitude.
The third year of the civil war was marked in the city of New-
PORT LATAYETTE, 1861-60.
1 *• Aiiecdot€i8 of the Civil War,'* E. D. Towns-
end, New-York, 1884.
2 *' General Scott, when ho sought to enforce
discipline in sport or seriousness, seldom failed to
cite the name of Martin Burke as a supreme exem-
plar of obedience. * If,' said he, * I were to order
Captain Burke to brini? me the head of the Presi-
dent of the United States, he would proceed to
execute the order with as much unconcern as he
would send a drunken soldier to the pruard-houstt.'
The ortler of his commanding officer had the effect
to clear the mind of Captain Martin Burke of all
fears and apprehenstonsy and if directed br hli
chief to lead a forlorn hope, or to kill a citizen, not
a nerve of his body would have moved. On the
other hand, his dread of civil tribunals and the
mandates of courts overwhelmed him. Once.whtn
he was summoned as a witness in a simple ctow
which affected him not, ho would fain have fled
the jurisdiction. When outside the chain of mh-
tinels he always had a scared look, and he rogirded
a camp or fort as a refuge of sweet repose and
security." "Fifty Years' Observationfl. etc."
Keyes. New-York, 1884.
NEW-YORK m THE WAR FOR THE UNION 499
York by the most protracted and bloody riot in her history. The
Northern States had responded nobly to the president's various calls
for volunteers, but as the great straggle continued, voluntary food
for powder became scarce, and the government was forced to resort
to compulsory enlistment. In most of the States there was little diffi-
culty in enforcing the draft. In New-York there was hesitation on
the pdrt of Governor Seymour to aid in a measure extremely unpopu-
lar among a certain class in the community. His reluctance to co-
operate with the general government encouraged the worst elements
in the city to open rebellion. The merits of the question are clearly
set forth in a work by the (then) provost-marshal-general of the
United States.^ From this and other reliable sources, it appears that
on July 2, 1862, the president issued a call for 300,000 volunteers —
his final effort to suppress the rebellion by voluntary military service.
On the 4th of August following he called for 300,000 nine-months
militia. In September the war department issued instructions under
which some of the governors commenced a draft.
In a letter dated August 4, 1862, to Count de Gasparin, President
Lincoln said : " Our great army has dwindled rapidly, bringing the
necessity for a new call earlier than was anticipated. We shall easily
obtain the new levy, however. Be not alarmed if you shall learn that
we have resorted to a draft for part of this. It seems strange even to
me, but it is true, that the Government is now pressed to this course
by a popular demand.^ Thousands who wish not to personally enter
the service are nevertheless anxious to pay and send substitutes, pro-
vided that they can have assurance that unwilling persons similarly
situated will be compelled to do likewise.^
In his annual report dated December 31, 1862, Adjutant-General
Hillhouse said : " There was nothing of that eagerness to enter the
service which had been manifested at various periods, and it appeared
as if the people had fallen into an apathy from which only an extra-
ordinary effort could arouse them.'^ He further said that the State
was deficient 28,517 men in volunteers furnished since July 2, 1862,
and of these 18,523 belonged to the city of New -York, adding that
" the credit to the city and county of New- York is based on the actual
returns filed in this office, but it is believed that it is less than the
volunteers furnished.^ The necessity for a general conscription was
set forth in the public utterances of War Democrats and Eepublicans
1 *• New -York and the Conscription," James B. add anythinf< to our e£9ciency in the field, the raw
Pry, New -York, 1885. recruits ought to be collected at camps of instruc-
2 "There is only one way to remedy our fatal tion, in healthy localities east and west, where,
error: that is for the President at once to establish under the direction of West Point graduates, they
a system of conscription, by which, instead of should be drilled and disciplined. From thence
300,000, iU Ucist 500,000 men should be called under as they are fit for active service they should be
arms. . . . Instead of levying new regiments com- furnished to the army, to be incorporated into the
manded by inexperienced officers of their own old regiments.'' Augrust Belmont to Thurlow
choosing, and who, for a year to come, would barely Weed, July 20, 1862.
500 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
alike. " Senator MeDougal (Democrat) said : * Now in regard to the
conscription question, I will say for myself that I regretted much, when
this war was first organized, that the conscription rule did not obtaiu.
I went from the extreme east to the extreme west of the loyal States.
I found some districts where some bold leaders brought out all the
young men, and sent them or led them to the field. In other districts,
and they were the most numerous, the people made no movement
toward the maintenance of the war; there were whole towns and
cities, I may say, where no one volunteered to shoulder a musket, ami
no one offered to lead them into the service. The whole business hag
been unequal and wrong from the first. The rule of conscription
should have been the rule to bring out men of all classes, and make it
equal throughout the country ; and therein the North has failed.'"'
General Fry, the provost-marshal-general, said : " It was of great
importance to the people of the State as well as to the general Gov-
ernment that a correct enrolment should be made. The Adjutant-
General of New -York, when speaking, in his rei)ort of December 31,
1862, of the principle of compulsory service, said to the Governor:
' Nor is it less a matter of interest to the States. Whatever mav be
the plan adopted, the force required must be drawn from their popu.
lation liable to military duty, on which the 1,000,000 of volunteers
hitherto sent to the field has already made serious inroads. They
have, moreover, a common interest with the general Government in
such an application of their military resources as will render them
most effective for the purposes in view with the least possible waste,
and with as little hardship as possible to the community.*
" The Enrolment Act was approved March 3, 1863. Section 9 re-
quired that the enrollers ^immediately proceed to enroP and report the
result *on or before the first day of April' to the Board of Enrolment,
and the Board was required by the Act to consolidate the names into
one list and transmit the same to the Provost-Marshal-General * on
or before the first day of May.* There was, it is true, a proviso that
if these duties could not be done in the time specified, they should be
performed as soon thereafter as practicable ; but neither the intention
of the law, nor the manifest necessity under which it was enacted,
permitted delay, or, as President Lincoln expressed it in his letter to
Governor Seymour, dated August 7, 1863, * We could not waste time
to reexperiment with the volunteer system, already deemed by Con-
gress, and palpably in fact, so far exhausted as to be inadequate ; and
then more time to obtain a correct decision as to whether a law is
constitutional which requires a part of those not now in the ser\ice
to go to the aid of those who are already in it ; and still more time to
determine with absolute certainty that we get those who are to go
1 *• New- York and the Conscription."
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 501
in the precisely legal proportion to those who are not to go.' *My
purpose,* the president added, * is to be in my actions just and con-
stitutional, and yet practical in performing the important duty with
which I am charged, of maintaining the unity and the free principles
of our common country.' ^
The political campaign of 1862 in New -York was hardly less exciting
than the military operations in Virginia. The Republican standard-
bearer was that gallant soldier and unselfish patriot, James S. Wads-
worth ; his Democratic opponent, the eminent lawyer Horatio Sey-
mour. The first stood on a radical platform — one of its planks being
the prosecution of the war by " all the means that the God of Battles
has placed in the power of the Government." The other candidate
was put forth by a more conservative constituency, favoring " all le-
gitimate means to suppress the Rebellion,'' and leaning to a milder
policy. Seymour was elected by a majority of 10,752. " On the 1st
of January, 1863, the outgoing administration of Governor Morgan
turned over to the incoming administration of Governor Seymour tlie
revised State Enrolment, the Government's order to draft the militia,
and the deficiency of New- York heretofore mentioned." *
Preparations for the proposed draft were rapidly pushed forward
by the war department. Those affecting the city comprised the
appointment of a provost-marshal for each congressional district,^
and an .assistant provost-marshal-general to supervise their work,
for the cities of New -York and Brooklyn ; this officer was Colonel
Robert Nugent, Sixty-ninth New -York Volunteers, a gallant soldier,
a discreet officer, an Irishman, and a Democrat. As early as April 24,
1862, Governor Seymour and Mayor Opdyke were informed of this.
The first order for making a draft in the State under the Enrolment
Act was issued July 1. Notwithstanding the knowledge, which the
municipal authorities possessed, that an unpopular public measure
was about to be put into execution within the city limits, it does not
appear that any unusual precaution was taken to preserve the peace.
Indeed, the force available for that purpose, outside of the police,
was limited to a handful of regulars in the harbor garrisons, and a few
disabled men of the Invalid Corps. The local militia regiments had
been summoned to repel the threatened invasion of a neighboring
State in cooperation with the armies in the field, leaving their own
homes open to an enemy in the rear more to be dreaded than the
soldiers of Lee. Nevertheless, the police department comprised
numerous resolute, experienced, and able officers, especially its presi-
dent, Thomas Acton, and its superintendent, John A. Kennedy.
1 •* New -York and the Conscription." 7th Congressional District, Frederick C. Wagner ;
2 Provost-Marshals : 4th Congressional District, 8th Congressional District, Benjamin F. Manierre ;
Joel B. Erhardt ; 5th Congressional District, John 9th Congressional District, Charles E. Jenkins.
Duffy ; 6th Congressional District, James B. Fan*;
502 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The morning of Saturday, July 11, had been selected for the com-
mencement of the draft in the city, and the day passed without much
interference with the officers charged with its supervision ; and the
local authorities felt encouraged to think that the remainder of the
work would be completed without serious opposition. The follow.
ing day, being Sunday, was undoubtedly seized by those intent upon
obstructing the provost-marshals in the discharge of their duty to
foment trouble among the ignorant or reckless element that abouudg
in every large city. On Monday morning a few policemen were sent
to the enroUing-offices at 677 Third Avenue and at 1190 Broadway.
At the last-named place the mystic wheel was set in motion, and the
drawing of names was continued without interruption until noon,
when the provost-marshals suspended operations as a measure of
precaution. Up to ten o'clock in the morning the city had been com-
paratively quiet. At that hour Superintendent Kennedy, while upon
a tour of inspection, without escort, and in plain clothes, was attacked
by a mob at the comer of Forty-sixth street and Lexington Avenue
and, after being severely beaten, barely escaped with his life through
the intervention of an influential friend. He was disabled for some
days, and the immediate command of the police devolved upon Mr.
Acton. That officer established himself at i)olice headquarters in
Mulberry street, and, with the advantage of a complete telegraphic
system centering there, practically directed the operation^ of the
campaign which ensued. The entire police force of the city had now
been assembled at its respective station-houses, and for the neit
three days was constantly employed in stamping out the sparks of
insurrection which were flying about and at times breaking out into
sheets of flame that threatened the existence of the city. From the
Cooper Institute to Forty-sixth street. Third Avenue was black with
human beings, who hung over the eaves of the buildings, filled the
doors and windows, and packed the street from curb to curb. Small
bodies of police were driven away or trampled under foot, houses
were fired, stores looted, and a very carnival of crime inaugurated.
Negroes became especially obnoxious, and neither age nor sex was
regarded by the white brutes in slaking their thirst for blood : from
every lamp-post were suspended the victims of their blind fury.
With one accord several thousand rioters swooped down upon the
Colored Orphan Asylum, then occupying the space from Forty-third
to Forty-fourth street on Fifth Avenue. The two hundred helpless
children were hurriedly removed by a rear door while the mob rushed
in at the front ; the torch was applied in twenty places at once, and
despite the heroic efforts of Chief Engineer Decker and other firemen
to save the structure, it was burned to the ground. Emboldened by
the progi'ess they had made in lawlessness, the principal body of the
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 503
rioters, numbering some five thousand men, moved upon the citadel
of the oppressor, as they considered the central oflfice of the police
in Mulberry street.
To meet this threatening demonstration President Acton detailed
Sergeant (afterward Inspector) Daniel Carpenter, a man of great
courage and ability, and placed under his command about two hun-
dred policemen who had been held in reserve at that point. It was
a duty of supreme importance, and well was it executed. Without
unnecessary delay. Carpenter moved his column down Bleecker street
to Broadway, at the same time sending a detachment up the nearest
parallel streets to the east and west, to strike
the flanks of the infuriated mass bearing
down upon his front. At the proper moment
a combined charge utterly demoralized the undisciplined horde, which,
sinking under the well-planted blows of the police, fled in every direc-
tion. The street looked like a battle-field, broken heads were count-
less, and the spoils of war included the stars and stripes and a banner
inscribed " No Draft.''
As the night closed in, it became evident that the disturbance was
too wide-spread and deep-seated to be controlled by clubs, and that
reinforcements must be called for. To this end Mayor Opdyke called
for troops upon General Wool, commanding the Department of the
East, and General Sandford, commanding the National Guard. Gen-
eral Wool directed Brevet Brigadier-General Harvey Brown, Colonel
Fifth U. S. Artillery, commanding the troops in the harbor, to report
with his available force to Major-General Sandford of the State militia
for duty. General Brown declined to obey what he considered an
illegal order, but finally yielded to the solicitations of certain promi-
nent citizens, and agreed to waive a part of the question in dispute,
stipulating that he should personally direct the operations of the
troops drawn from the military posts under his command, according
to his previous assignment by the war department.'^
General Brown established his headquarters at the central oflBce,
1 George Opdyke waa bom in Hunterdon County, 1872-75, of the New- York Chamber of Commerce
N. J., in 1805. When a young man he went West, from 1858 to 1880, and it* vice-president in 1867-75.
and afterward to New Oirleans, returning to New- Mr. Opdyke was the author of a ''Treatise on Po-
York in 1832, where he subsequently established litical Economy," a ** Report on the Currency,"
the banking-house of George Opdyke & Co. He and a volume of '* Official Documents, Addresses,
served in the legislature in 1858, faithfully pro- etc.'* He died in New- York city, June 12, 1880.
tecting the franchises of New- York city from Editor.
spoliation. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Na- - Wab Depabtment.
tional Republican Convention, and was instru- (G. O. 36.) Adjutant-General's Office,
mental in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. Washington, April 7. 1863.
He was mayor of New-York in 1862-63, was a pa- 6. . . . The duties of military commanders above
triotic sustainer of the national government, an defined will devolve, in the City of New- York and
energetic worker in raising and equipping troops, the military posts in tliat vicinity, on Brevet Briga-
and exercised a strong influence in preventing dier-General H. Brown, Colonel Fifth U. S. Artil-
eommercial panics. He was a member of the lery. By order of the Secretary of War.
New-York Constitutional Convention in 1867-68, (Signed)
of the New-York Constitutional Commission in L. Thomas, Adjutant-GeneraL
504 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
remaining there, in active cooperation with the police board, during
the continuance of the riot. General Sandford did not attempt to
control the operations of the regular troops, but, at the head of some
seven hundred men of the militia, temporarily absent from their regi.
ments, proceeded to occupy the State Arsenal at Seventh Avenue and
Thirty-fifth street.
The second and third days were marked by fresh outbursts and
much bloodshed: bayonets and bullets were substituted for police,
men's billies. The territory of the disturbance had extended to
Harlem, and westward beyond Sixth Avenue. Evidences of able
leadership among the bands of marauders were visible. The roofs of
houses became vantage-ground from which stones were hurled and
shots fired at the police and troops in sight. Detachments composed
of mixed civil and military forces were sent out from Mulberry street
to disperse the more formidable bodies of law-breakers. In cue of
these encounters Colonel O'Brien of the 11th New -York Volunteers
(then on recruiting service in the city), although hot assigned to duty
with the troops, was conspicuous in opposing the mob near the con
ner of Second Avenue and Thirty-second street. With a disregard
of ordinary prudence, he ventured shortly after, alone and in imifonn,
to return to the same locality. With fiendish glee the roughs seized
him, and, after beating him unmercifully, dragged him up and down
the street, and finally, after subjecting him to every conceivable abuse,
tossed him, covered with filth, into his own back yard, where he ex-
pired after lingering without relief for several hours. Among his most
cruel persecutors were women who emulated the worst deeds of the
most brutal Indian squaw. Although the insurgents received some
salutary checks during the second day, the disorder was far from los-
ing strength. Driven from one section, it quickly made its appear-
ance in another. It gradually crept over to the North River. Public
buildings were threatened. The " Tribune " building received a large
share of sinister attention, and the residences of the mayor and other
obnoxious citizens were often in peril. In the mean time the general
government had taken precaution in the way of placing gunboats at
various points in the waters surrounding the city, and at the Navy-
yard, to cooperate with the weak land force available. Orders were
issued to the Seventh and other city regiments to return home, and
quite a large force was under orders in the Army of the Potomac and
at Washington to move on New -York at a moment's notice. But the
admirable arrangements of General Brown and President Acton, and
the excellent discipline of the force under their direction, finally pre-
vailed against the unorganized army of anarchy and misrule, and by
midnight of the third day the wires reported " all quiet.^ The back-
bone of the beast was broken, but nevertheless all good citizens drew
MBW-yOBE IN THE WAE FOB THE UNION
505
ath of relief when, shortly after, it was known that the Seventh
etamed to aid in defending home and fireside.
the fourth day proclamations were issued by the governor and
<T — the cue setting forth
irevalenee of inaurreetion,
ther announcing the prac-
close of hostilitiea. It
oe necessary during the
» break up two or three
erously inclined bands,
succumbed only to a free
t canister. In these affairs
uns Franklin and Putnam'
Lieutenant Wood of the
distinguished themselves,
was announced by the
r that the draft had been
mded, while the common
al appropriated $2,500,000
■d paying $600 each for
itutes for the poor who
t be drafted. In the after-
the 65th and 152d New-
Volunteers arrived and
i the force at police head-
ers in Mulberry street.
rlr on the tDoruing after the bftttle of Bull
t>rt«d TJth wine, fruit, and other artlclea
a the eondiHon of invkllda, and visited the
t hoapitalB about WashiDgtoa. rellevlDg as
eoold the wounded of our own State. As
KTing the hoB[iital at Georgetown, the aur-
rited me to see a patient who had ahown
linarj' endurance. I found a young man
:ot. The Burgeon T«inoved some lint from
it-ball wound. He then asked the young
nitK himself, so that, while reaClng upon
w, I saw that tbe ball bad passed througb
% avoiding any vital spot. The patient, tbe
informed me, had, after being tbe last to
le Beld, reformed the thinned ranks of bis
y and marched at tbeir bead from tbe
gton, and then reported himself as a
d officer. Notvithslanding this tearful
hewas calm and hopeful. He came, as he
d me, from HlnnesotA. and was In com-
' a company Id a Minnesota regiment. He
) his name, and I left, strongly impressed
B Idea that, if his life was spurd. he was
I tor fntnre usefulnesa. I went direetly
(eeretary of War, who directed a commis-
be iBsoed for my protigi. I went from
Secretary Cameron to President Lincoln, who not
only cheerfully approved the commission, but was
only prevented by pressing duties from taking it
hours after I left him, Captain Putnam, of the
Minnesota Volunteers, found blmselt designated
as Captain Putnam of the United States army. . . .
During the sanguinary riots of July. 1863, 1 was in
New- York. , . . When sitting at Police Headquar-
ters a U. S. officer came in who had been directed
to disperse tbe rioters who hsd murdered Colonel
O'Brien. Onr recognition was mntnal, as was the
surprise and the gratiflcatiun. . . . Captain Put-
nam, as I learned from the Commissioners, con-
tinued active and vigilant, making thorough work
wherever he went, until the riots were over."
Thurlow Weed, in " Qaluiy," IX. 837.
a The old Brick Church was situated on the cor-
ner of Nasun and Beekmon streets, where it was
erected in 1767. The present Brick Church,
erected In 185A on the comer of Fifth Avenue
and Thirty-seventh street, is very similar in gen-
eral style to its down-town predecessor, but Is
larger and more imposing. The history of this
church is notable for the long paatorate of Dr.
Gardiner Spring, who. called to the position in
1810, remained in oSce sixty-two years,
Editob.
506
mSTOBY OF NEW- YORK
One of the most satisfactory features of the terrible experience
through which the city passed at this time was the mutual respect
and confidence which existed between the regular troops and the
police force combined to preserve law and order. In the final report
of the police commissioners, a grateful tribute was paid the soldiei^i
and General Brown, in relinquishing his command to General Caubv
said that " having during the present insurrection been in immediate
and constant cooperation with the Police Department of this city, he
desires the privilege of expressing his unbounded admiration of it
Never in civil or military life has he seen such untiring devotion and
such eflScient service."
Order having been restored, the draft was resumed and completed
without further interruption, — Governor Seymour having issued a
proclamation warning the people against disorders, and saying: **I
again repeat to you the warning which I gave to you during the
riotous proceedings of last month, that the only opposition to the con-
scription which can be allowed is an appeal to the courts." General
Dix, commanding the Department of the East, in a letter to the gov-
emor at this time said: " The recent riots in this city, coupled as they
were with the most atrocious and revolting crimes, have cast a shadow
over it for the moment. But the promptitude with which the majesty
of the law was vindicated, and the fearlessness with which a high
judicial functionary is pronouncing judgment upon the guilty, have
done and are doing much to efface what, under a different course of
action, might have been an indelible stain upon the reputation of the
city. It remains only for the people to vindicate themselves from re-
proach in the eyes of the country and the world by a cheerful ac-
quiescence in the law. That it has defects is generally conceded.
That it will evolve cases of personal hardship is not disputed. War,
when waged for self-defence, for the maintenance of great principles,
and for the national life, is not exempt from the sufferings insep-
arable from all conflicts which are decided by the shock of armies,
1 '*The military forces in command of Brevet
Brigadier-General Harvey Brown reported at the
Central Department, and there General Brown
estahlished his headquarters, and from there ex-
peditions, combined of police and military force,
were sent out that in all cases conquered, defeated,
or dispersed the mob force, and subjected them to
severe chastisement. In no instance did these de-
tachments from the Central Department, whether
of police alone or police and military combined,
meet with defeat or serious check. Durinf? the
whole of those anxious days and nif<hts, Brigadier-
General Brown remained at the Central Depart-
ment, ordering the movements of the military in
carefully considered combinations with the police
force, and throughout the strufrglo. and until its
clone, commanded the admiration and gratitude of
tiie Police Department and all who witnessed his
firm intelligence and soldierly conduct. It is un-
derstood that he had at no time under his imme.
diate command more than three hundred troopfl.
but they were of the highest order, and were Mm-
manded by officers of courage and ability. Thej
cordially acted with, supported, and were rap-
ported by the police, and victory in every conteK
against fearful odds was the result of brave fight-
ing and intelligent command. In the judgment of
this Board, the escape of the city from the power
of an infuriated mob is due to the aid fumislied
the police by Brigadier-General Brown and tlM
small military force under his command. No oda
can doubt., who saw him, as we did. that during
those anxious and eventful days and nights Brif>
adier-General Harvey Brown was equal to tte
situation, and was the right man in the rigbt
place. We avail ourselves of this occasion to Vnr
der him, in the most earnest and pablic maniMT,
the thanks of the department and our own.**
NEW-YOBK IN THE WAR FOB THE UNION
507
and it is by our firmness and our patriotism in meeting all the calls
of the country upon us, that we achieve the victory and prove our-
selves worthy of it and the cause in which we toil and suffer.^ General
Fry thus tersely sums up the situation : " The real cause of the riot
was that in a community where a considerable political element was
active in opposition to the way the war was conducted, if not to the
war itself, and where there was a strong opinion adverse to the
principles of compulsory service, certain lawless men preferred fight-
ing the Government at home, when it made the issue of forcing them
by lot to fight its enemies in the field."
Among the sensational incidents of the spring of 1864 may here be
noted the despicable attempt to use the misfortunes of the country
for st/Ock-jobbing purposes. It was just after the bloody afifair of
Cold Harbor, when Grant and Lee, having locked horns in the Wilder-
ness, were taking a breathing spell, and the public suspense was at
its height. It was very early in the morning of May 18, 1864, and
" steamer-day " in the city, when an unknown messeuger appeared at
the door of the press-room of the "Journal of Commerce^ with what
purported to be the telegraphic "copy" of a proclamation by the
president.^ A similar document was handed in to the men in charge
of the offices of all the other principal papers. It was an hour cal-
culated to favor the designs of the reckless promoter, but the fraud
lA Day of Fastinq Rkoomhended. — Call fob
FouB Hundred Thousand Troops.
ExxounvB Mansion, May 17, 1864.
Ftttcw-^vsens of the United States :
Id aU seasoiiB of exigency it becomes a nation
carefully to scrutinize its line of conduct, humbly
to approach the Throne of Grace, and meekly to
implore forgiveness, wisdom, and guidance.
For reasons known only to Him, it has been
decreed that this country should be the scene of un-
paralleled outrage, and this nation the monumental
sufferer of the nineteenth century. With a heavy
heart, but an undiminished confidence in our
cause, I approach the performance of a duty ren-
dered imperative by my sense of weakness before
the Almighty and of justice to the people. It
is not necessary that I should tell you that the
first Virginia campaign under Lieutenant-Oeneral
Grant, in whom I have every confidence, and
whose courage and fidelity the people do well to
honor, is virtually closed. He has conducted his
great enterprise with discreet ability. He has crip-
pled their strength and defeated their plans. In
view, however, of the situation in Virginia, the
disasters at Red Biver. the delay at Charleston,
and the general state of the country, I, Abraham
Lincoln, do hereby recommend that Thursday, the
twenty-sixth day of May, A. D. 1864, be solemnly
set aiMurt throughout these United States as a day
of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.
Deeming, furthermore, that the present condi-
tion of public affairs presents an extraordinary
occasion, and in view of the pending expiration of
the service of (100,000) one hundred thousand of
our troops, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, by virtue of the power vested in me
by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit
to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the citizens
of the United States between the ages of (18)
eighteen and (45) forty-five years, to the aggregate
number of (400,000) four hundred thousand, in
order to suppress the existing rebellious combina-
tions, and to cause the due execution of the laws.
And furthermore, in case any State or number
of States shall fail to furnish by the fifteenth day
of June next their assigned quota, it is hereby
ordered that the same be raised by an immediate
and peremptory draft.
The detidls for this object will be communicated
to the State authorities through the War Depart-
ment.
I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate,
and aid this effort to maintain the power, the in-
tegprity, and the existence of our National Union,
and the perpetuity of popular Government.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my
hand and caused the seal of the United States to
be af^ed.
Done at the City of Washington, this seven-
teenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the
Independence of the United States the eighty-
eighth.
(Signed) Abraham Lincoln.
By the President.
Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State.
508 HIBTOEY OF NEW-YOEK
was discovered iu time by all except the "Journal of Commerce "and
the " World." Immediate wid strenuous efforts were made to disooTw
the author of the forgery. The war department ordered the arregt
of the editors of the two newspapers mentioued — although upon due
representation of Uie
facts by General Dir
commanding the Depart,
meut of the East, the
order was promptly k-
Toked. The final dig.
position of the matter
is stated in a report
made by General I^l
HkAIXJUASTEBS, DePART](E\i
OF THE East,
New-Y OKK City, May 20, IgJi.
Hon. E. M. Slanbm,
SeereUtryofWar:
I have BTTested and an
Bending to Fort Lafa^tttt
Joseph Howard, the authoi of
the foiled Proclamation. He
is a newspaper reporter, and
is known as *' Howard, of tlte
Times." He has been very frank in bis confessions — says it wss a stock-jobbing oper-
ation, and that no person connected with the Press had any agency in the tranaanion
exoept another reporter who manifolded and distributed the Proclamation \o ttu
newspapers, and whose arrest I have ordered. He exonerates the Independent Tele-
graphio Line, and says that the pabhoation on a steamer-day was aoeideatal. Hii
statement, in all essential partiouhirs, is corroboiated by other t«stimODy.
John A. Diz, Major-Genend.
An event of great local importance opened the year 1864. It ttbs
the Metropolitan Fair in aid of the United States Sanitary Commis-
sion. Like the fairs in other latge cities, it was a recognition of the
labors of those disinterested men and women who had already sacri-
ficed health and substance iu the Union cause by the bedside of siek
and wounded soldiers. Large buildings iu Fourteenth street and on
Union Square were filled to overflowing with the rich treasures of
art, science, literature, and the varied industries represented in the
metropolis, tastefully arranged and classified, and offered for sale to
1 The brautlful mpmoriftl >rcb here shoWD wu nf that ereiit h&TlnB lieett net k fiw lUyn iMi
dedicated Id Brooklyn, October 21. 1893. to the than that of New-York, Id order that the Impoilit
Mldlen and sailow who foMRht between the yearn upectaele pn-nented by each rity might bt Mfa
1861 anil IMGj. The ceremonies were held tmmp- The arch wu denlitiieil by .Tohn H. Dancan. tie
diately after the j»ra.le In honor of the toor-huti- architect of theOniitniODamentnowbehKemttd
dredth annlvemary of the diwoverj of Amerlea on Rlvendde drive. Etoltoa.
by Columbus, the date of the Brooklyn eeleliratioD
NEW-YORK IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 509
those who, prevented by circumstances from serving in the field,
might in this way render aid and comfort to the great cause. The
ceremonies of inauguration were impressive, and comprised a parade
of all the troops in the city, regular, volunteer, and militia, — more
than ten thousand men, — headed by Generals Dix and Sandford. The
main building in Fourteenth ^^ ^ ^^
street was thrown open to an o^-^^u^-^ ^^tA^u^r^^ ^t^^^tyt^^ — '^
immense throng on the evening ^^
of April 4, 1864, with an address by Joseph H, Choate, and an "Army
Hymn" by Oliver Wendell Holmes, The hymn was sung by a chorus
composed of the members of the principal church choirs of the city,
O Lord of Hosts, Almiglity King/
Behold the sacrifice we bring :
To every arm Thy strength impart,
Thy spirit shed through every heart.
Wake in our breasts the hving fires,
The holy faith that warmed our sires ;
Thy power has made our nation free -
To die for her is serving Thee.
Be Tbou a pillared fiame to show
The midnight snare, the silent foe ;
And when the battle thunders loud.
Still guide us in its moving cloud.
God of all nations. Sovereign Lord,
In Thy dread name we draw the sword,
We lift the starry fiag on high
That fills with life our stormy sky.
No more its flaming emblems wave
To bar from hope the trembling slave ;
No more its radiant glories shine
To blast with woe one child of Thine !
From treason's rent, from murder's stain.
Guard Thou its folds till peace shall reign ;
Till fort and field, till shore and sea
Join our loud anthem. Praise to Thee.
For three weeks a stream of humanity poured through the entrances
to the fair, leaving the rich man's gold and the widow's mite to swell
the generous tribute of the Empire City toward the restoration of the
Union, The receipts from the Sanitary Fair at Chicago were $60,000 ;
1 The above signature is taken from the official called him Ulysses S. Grant ; and, as he failed to
record at West Point, signed by all the cadets who obtain a correction of the mistake, Grant accepted
enter the United States Military Academy. The the new designation. An abridged signature also
representative who gave Grant the appointment appears in the hotel register. Editor.
510 BISTOKT OF NEW-TO:^
from the fair at Boston, $140,000 ; from the fair at Cincinnati, $250,000-
and the doors of the Fourteenth street and Union Square bazar olosej
upon a military chest of more than a million dollars.
In the month of April, 1865, bright with the promise of the season
and the achievements of our arms, came that terrible shock, like a
thunderbolt out of a clear sky, the assassination of President Liueok
For the third time in the history of the country, a day in April had
dawned on the citizens of New-Tork with news of dread import. Lq.
ington — Baltimore — Washington I On the morning of the 15th tW
people swarmed into the streets, and by common consent sought tbe
government business center in WaB
street. An immense crowd gath-
ered in front of the custom-house-
the greatest agitation prevailed:
grief at the national loss struggled
with indignation at tbe assassiu.
The collector of the port, Simeon
Draper, with much forethought, and
in the interests of law and order
organized an impromptu mass meet-
ing, and several speakers addressed
the people. It is an interesting remi-
niscence that among those who thug
gave expression to the emotions of
the hour was one who in after years,
^^^^i^z:^ -p '^r^ ' ^^^ holding the same great office,
C^-^^^^^i^^T-^^ ^^ ^^-n^c^' ^^g ^^ f^ll ^ yi^jjj^ ^^ tjjg assassin's
bullet — James A. Garfield. "Well
did he express the universal feeling of his auditors : " The spirit of
rebellion, goaded to its last madness, has recklessly done itself a
mortal injury, striking down with treacherous blow the kindest, gen-
tlest, tenderest friend tbe people of the South could find among the
rulers of the nation." All business was by common consent sus-
pended. The newspaper and telegraph offices were surrounded by
thousands eager for details of the tragedy which threatened to invoh-e
the lives of three oflQcers of the govemment. The governor and the
mayor issued proclamations; the bishop of the diocese directed special
1 PrestoD King WM born October 14. 1606, aod was nrnt to the United State* Snute In ISK-O.
waaKTW)uated*tUDionlDlS37,Kttcrw&ntBtudflnK His tprtn end^d. Mr. King renuined tbe pnclin
law uid praetltdnK In St. Lmrence County. N. Y, of his profesdon in New-York eitj, »nd nt ip.
He t<Dtei«d poUticB early ta life, and establiiibed pointed collector of the port hj PnnAdtai liiit
the " St. Lawrence Republican " at OsdeDNburgh aon, whose Domination to the viee-preiudeDFT Ik
in 1830 in support of Andrew JaokRon. He was had done much to secure. Responsibilltjea of et-
pOHtmBHter, and afterward a member of the lee- Ice and Bnanelal worrioB unsettled his mind, mi
rved for eJicbt years as a repre- be ended hiH lifebyJumplnBfrom aHudHmRiia
feiry-bost, November 12, ISK. Eunoi.
NEW-YORK IN THE WAB FOR THE UNION
511
services to be held in the Episcopal churches. The day (April 20)
which had been set apart by the executive of the State for rejoicing
over recent victories, was designated as a time " to acknowledge our
dependence on Him who has brought sudden darkness on the land in
the very hour of its restoration to Union, Peace, and Liberty."
On the morning of the 21st the funeral cortege started from the
Capitol on its sorrowful journey of nearly two thousand miles to the
tomb of our countiy's greatest martyr. After lying in state for a day
in historic Independence Hall, the body of the late president was
borne to New-York, where it was received with the deepest solemnity
and the most sincere demonstration of love and grief. The arrange-
ments for the lying in state at the City Hall were of the most com-
plete character, and for twenty-four hours a continuous procession
of men and women, gentle and humble, side by side, passed sadly by
the bier. On the second day a pageant of
enormous extent attended the transfer of ^^^
the mortal remains of the "savior of his O-^^^^^J^^^viSii^'X^^
country'' to the train waiting to convey
them to their final resting-place. More than sixty thousand soldiers
and citizens formed the escort, and more than a million people lined
the route. Nothing before or since transpiring in the city can be
compared to the universal and personal sorrow manifested by every
soul of that mighty host.
One of the brightest pages in the history of the city and State of
New- York is that on which are inscribed the names and deeds of their
sons and daughters during the war for the Union. A passing refer-
ence to a few of the quarter of a million of those who fought for their
principles is all that is possible here. First of all, perhaps, stood the
noble Wadsworth. His patiiotism was unimpeachable ; he had vast
wealth, high social position, ripeness of yeai's, and gallant sons to rep-
resent him in the field. Yet he spared not of his abimdance, used his
influence to raise and equip troops, led them to battle, and at the head
of his division laid down his life in the service of his country. That
1 Charles Godfrey Gunther was bom in New-
York city, February 7, 1822. His father, Chris-
tLan G. Ganther. was a furrier, a rival of John
Jacob Astor, and took Charles G. into the firm
upon his reaching manhood, under the name of
C. G. Gunther & Co. As a Democrat he was ac-
tive in politics, and in 1856 was elected a sachem
of the Tammany Society. In 1861 he was a can-
didate for mayor, but was defeated by George
Opdyke, Republican. In 1863 he was again a can-
didate for mayor, being brought forward by the
Jefferson Democracy, an independent organiza-
tion led by John McKeon. He was opposed by
F. I. A. Boole, then city inspector and the local
Democratic leader, who received the nomination
from both of the rival Democratic organizations —
Tammany and Mozart Hall. Boole, who was sup-
posed to have an assured success, was beaten by
over 7000 votes, became insane, and died shortly
thereafter. When Mr. Gunther's term expired, he
withdrew from politics, not being in sympathy
with the Tweed Ring, which then controlled po-
litical preferment. He was a member of the old
Volunteer Fire Department, and for several years
president of the Veteran Firemen's Association.
Foreseeing that Coney Island was destined to be-
come a papular summer resort, owing to its nat-
ural advantages and proximity to the metroiwlis,
he built the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island
Railroad,'known as " Gunther*s Road," and a hotel
at Locust Grove on Gravesend Bay. He died in
New-York city, January 22, 1885. Editor.
512 HISTOBT OF NEW-YOBK
his worth was appreciated the following extract from resolutioug
adopted hy the Union Defense Committee fully testifies :
That when we connder that, from the very banning of this war, General Wtiu
worth, ft wealthy, cultured, and honored gentleman, impelled by a high sense of dqh
and of right, left his home of beauty, of luxury, of afFection, and of love, to amitt
every pleasure, to devote hia every hour, to spend the weary winter in the trtmott
eamp, to soothe and cheer the homeeiok dying soldier, to waste mach of his piiriK
fortune, to imperil hia own he^th, and finally to offer up his willing life in hii cou).
try'B oanse, we oaa find on the roll of history no record of a braver, tmer man, or nf (
more devoted patriot
At the Buggostion of General Dis, the secretary of war was asked to
have one of the forts in the harhor named " Wadsworth " in honor of
«jfa^ " one eminently endeared to the people of this
^f' State." The fort at the Narrows called Port
■ft^ Tompkins was eventually designated hy the
W >r' war depai'tment as Fort Wadsworth.
V /s Among other sacrifices ou the altar of the
Constitution and the Union, we recall the gen-
tle and scholarly Winthrop, the dashing Cor-
coran, the. Highlander Cameron, the youthful,
fearless Ellsworth, and Mrs. Caroline M. Eirk-
land. This charming woman and gifted writer,
^. At-. •<Va-»^AtO ty her tireless and sincere devotion to the woA
of the Sanitary Fair, gave up her life to the cause of her couDtrj- ag
completely as the soldier who fell at the cannon's mouth.
Another great New-Yorker, worthy of a place by the side of "Wads-
worth, has been frequently mentioned in this chapter. None during
the serious time of the civil war performed his part with greater
resolution, sterner justice, truer dignity, and more unblemished honor
than John Adams Dix. The civic robe and the army uniform ahke
became him.
Those were the days of *' diamonds in the rough," of unfledgi-d
heroes, of soldiers by instinct. Of this type was Thomas Deviu,' a
modest mechanic, who found his opportunity and his true sphere iu
" war's rude alarm." How he led a troop of volunteer horse to the
1 "I wu ucoBtod on the iteps of the Astor od hia way to the front. Captain Derln imiiH.
Houie by ■ stnnger, wbo Informed ne that he de- dlately attracted the attention of bin aapRw
Blrpd to raise a companj' ot cavalrf. irhlrh. If he olflFerB. not lew bv the elBcienc; and diaeipUiuif
could obtain the authority, should be organised bla men than by fals own gallantry In bsHlc. Rr
■Dd readf to marrli in three days, i was so fa- fouglit bravely through the whole war, ruin: hy
vorably impresari with hlx bearing and manner merit, flmt to the eommand of a reglmenl, nd
that I immedialelytelpgraphed Governor Morgan, then of a brigade: and obtained the nnk ol
Kamuatly asking his authority for Thomas C. brevet majofgeneral at the ronclurion of then-
Derin to organiio a cavalry corps. Captaiii Devin hellion. On the reduction of the army-myfrimi
remained at my roam until a favorable renponse DevinwaHretainedaslleutenant-eolonelofaUnitrf
from the governor, two hours afterward, wan re- StaUm cavalry regiment." Tbnrlow We«d.in "Od-
eeived ; and he also was faithful to hia promise, for aiy," IX. 834.
tn three days, with a fnll eompany of men. he waa
NEW-TOBK Df THE WAB FOB THE DKION 513
field in 1861, and how he returned to his home in 1865 with two stars
glittering upon his Bhoulder, has been duly attested. Long after
Appomattox he lived to reap the substantial fruit of his achieve-
ments as the "Old War-horse.** The names must be recalled of
Sickles, the leader of the Third Corps at Gettysburg; of Meagher, of
the Irish Brigade ; of Barlow, scarred with wounds received in " the
Wilderness"; of Butterfield, the veteran chief of staff; of Davies, the
beau-sabreur who was with Sheridan at Winchester; of Upton and
Webb, ably representing the regular army; of hundreds of others
who served as faithfully, if less conspicuously, and since the close of
the war have won distinction in the paths of peace. Nor must we
omit mention of some of the gallant spirits of the sister service who
reflected equal glory upon the navy, such as Gushing, who destroyed
the Albemarle; the gallant Gorringe, who later brought over the
obelisk ; the courtly Le Roy, the brave Livingston, the heroic Nichol-
son, and modest Worden of the Monitor.
From the brief sketch given here it will be seen that the Empire
CSty sent forth the last appeal for a peaceful solution of the sectional
problem in 1861 ; that from her gates was sent the first relief for be-
leaguered federal forts ; that at the first alarm, her best household
regiment marched, with her neighbors of New England, to defend
the national capital; and that to those troops, exclusively, was as-
signed the duty of protecting the White House — the Ark of the Cov-
enant— from threatened danger. Her money was lavishly given, her
best blood freely shed ; her noblest women hourly strove to restore the
Union to its original strength and power ; and now, after many years
of peace, prosperity, and unity throughout the land, it may truly be
said that her labor was not in vain.
I AT W1KCHE8TEB.
BI8T0BY OF NEW-YOBK
CavtOry.- regimente, l£t,2d,4th,6tli,6th,8th,9th, Uth, 12tb, 13tb, I4th, lAh, ISti,,
23d, 25tli, iBt Htd. Bifles, 2d Veteran.
ArtiUenf : regimente (A, B, C, D, E, F, I), 3d j battery B (new), 3d ; 4th, 5th. ftl.
11th, 13th, ISth, IGtii, Marine; battaliona, 1^ and 2d ; independent batteries, 2*1.134,1
4th,s 5th,a eth," 9th,a lOth^ (new), 13th,2 20th, 28th.
Engineers; regiments, 1st and 15th.
Infantry: regiments, Ist," 3d, 4th,a 5th,a 5th Veteran, 6th,3 7th, 7th Veteran, 8tL>
9th, 10th, nth," 12th, 15th, 17tb, 17th Vete«in,a 20th, 25th,'" 29th,'' 31st, 33d, Mth, 38i1l
37th, 38th, 39th,'J40th, list, 42d,''43d, 45th, = 4atli,a 47th, 48th, 51»t,3 52d,>53d, ^ft
55th,a 57th, 58th,a 59th, Slst, 63d, 65th, 66th, 68th, 89th, 70th, Tlst, 72d, 73d, 74th, 78a]
79th,2 82d,3 83d, 87th, 88th, 90th, 94th, 99th, lOlat, 102d, 103d, 119th, 127th, 131gt, 133d,
133d, 145th, 155th, 156th, 158tb, 162d,a 163d, 161th, 165th, 168th, 170th, 173d, 174th."
175th, 176th, 178th, 162d,'> 166th, 190th,'' 191st, 192d ; independent corps Ugbt infuti;.!
B^^Tm-
A
c
...
1
U,
13.
u.
37.
a>.
i\.
IB.
M.
4S.
M
IDS.
u««.«
,»™*
^.«^-
.™^~^
JaclEKOu Hone
LL-CoLT. C. DeTlii-,
CapL G. W. Bauer . .
Capt J. M. Varian...
CoL W. D. TeUer . . . .
CoL C. Bohworzwolder
CoL J. a Plnckney .
CoL M. LeIIfertB
CoL Q. Ljona
CoL J. Maldhoff
CoL D. Buttarflem ...
CoLJ. Miuu™
CoLC. Boome
July as
June 18
lata..
■"="■
Oct 3
Not. 3
11!*"
"£"
Jnno 8.
Sept IB,
".&.'■
-a,"
'ft"
Howwra
WaBblOKtonRrayB
AIM vitb nil Ben.
Inr-NiUftbiiML
Heavy Arttllary . .
JuneI9,Jnly
MayM.Bept
June 18, July
Jnn'e S. July
Tune m July
31. IMS...
Oovemor'B Gvaid
HaUDDalOuard...
VaRUlugtoD Greyt
VaaUogton BlOea
...
...
luneu.Jnlyx^im
Bee taa 'Rent. Ynli.
June 30, July aiw.
May «, June e.im.
CoL M. Corcoran . ..
C0LA.8. ToshuTKh...
[fOY. IB
1§H..
May^^Bept.
al»oJiilyfcO«.l.ti
Iulyl7-M.l»3.
SMSItthRegtVolL
OoL F. A. Conkllng .
CoLW.&W.Cbamliera
CoLJo. Ma&ouey .
CoLJ.N.WUwy , .
"X'-
July 30
Aim. 0
Auk. «.
Nov. i
IBM..
Nov. 13
July 11 Oct
I The Bnrt organization to leave the State 11
The approzfmRte number of men who were enUMd
theTth militia, which left April 19, IN61; tbeflrHt in New-Tork city for -nryiHK lengths or M
■o-yeara orKsniiation to
e Slate wu the during the late civil war, ia eitlmated by ColoMl
the 82d and 84th regiments, which left May 18. 1861. t Entirely recruited In New-Yoil Oninty.
HEW-YOBK m THE WAR FOB THE UNION 515
VOLDl
[TB Harrl* Cur-
Beoond Ira Har-
rJaOnaTd
SootCB Ktne
BundrMl.. .
Third Ira Han
sermour i.lglit
Corolntf iigbt.
Mounted Biflea
Heavj (Vel.) --
laekooD Heavy.
CoL T. C.
Iri«h Brt^de . . .
Gennan Heavy .
Blenker'BBatt..
Brrrell'B Arlll-
Plret Excelsior .
AntlioD'i Bat-
Anthouv L A.
(Vtfteranl .
(VeteranJ .
N. Y. Bappera
and Mloera
Julf-Aug., '
AOK.-Oat., '
Ailg.-Nov.. '61 .
-Oft., '61 ..
Sept.-Ofll.. '81 . . .
Deo., ■81, May, 'i:
I. Feb., -a
I, Mar,, 'a-
July-Dtc., 'et .
July, 'SI. ee|it.,'G:
■61, Feb.. '63
AprU. 'sa
Oct -Deo,
'(I1,Adb.,'S9
Aag,-Hept,, 'Bl
, Jdue 71, 'B
Inly 18, ■«!
Bopt. SO.'d
July 19, '«
BepL (W, 'SI
July IB. -Bl
Auk, 13, 'GO..
M%t-T.OT*BU
Lt.-Col, A,
!apt. T. P.
Mott , -
:a_pl. J, E.
Bmlth
^apt. £. D.
■fan
3apt. T. W.
BnntiiMr .
jMt. J. T,
capt. ' 'i:.
BtUDipteU
tt^B. J.
HoMnlion
apt. B. F.
' tf'c ii
^mard . . "
iapt. O. Die-
l&oh
Capt.A.Voe-
Cpiknleiiii
CoL E. W.
ol, C. G.
Colgata . . .
ol. W. H.
Allen .. .
ol, A. W.
Oet.-l>ec„ -ei
ConiwilldBted
nitli iGtb
Regt,
/ ftfterw'd
1 Utb and
1l,a.''^'
. . Jbly B, '« .
. , July M, ■(
, . Feh. *, ■«
. . July 31. '(
. . July 81, 'BB, ,
Aug. 13, ;ei..
.. Oct. Vi,''M ■ ■
. July U '"
Oct., 'SI, Feb
ApriUMay. -l
.. JuneSfi, '63..
.. MayM.'ss, ..
. May IE, '83.
516
HI8T0BT OF SBW-TOBK
VOLUSTEEBB (Cettttmitd).
Bleakei'8 RtBea.
HawkiiiH-H Zou-
HcCbennpy
Weiitfluwtiir
UqIod KangErs.
Alitor Blfles..
FlntCtilltonila
Vols .
WMblnffton
Garibaldi Gturd
D« Kolb BcRl-
Howe'B BlfloH. . .
Fl^ODt Rifle
WaabLnston
Bhenurd Rifle*.
Slsel KitlcB ...
lyElilneLillZoa-
NatloDol Ouard
BlflM
PDltfh Legion,
Re(ft
saeodK
CiiTDi'Tan RlBeii.
Pint KeiCt
Ir1»U Brigade
First Eirptfilor.
CoL A. Dnr-
Colfc-Wint
w.' va-
CoL J.' E.'
Bendli
CoL Q.W.Van
Col, L. Blon-
ker
CoL R, C.
aawUi
CoL W. ...
HoOhMuer
CoL E. E.
Col. M. Weber
ol. J. E
Kerrlgau
C0LC.H.I11-
■Hi)
Oct., -M
Aprll-MaT' 'c:
ApriUSp'W. .
Hareli-Aag., '61.
Mo? t, '«1 .
MBf-Jane, '1
May 31, 'SI . . . .
Jnnc-Jnlj', 'Bl . .
Jane -s, 'ei
. . June-July, 'SI .
CoL
R. Rom. Ii
Moore St
Col. E. For-
Col. F. Primli
-oi. L. J.
d'EplDeall
oL Ir. de
Trobrland.
Col. a. K.
Col. W. Kry-
UDOWaU.
!ol. W. L
TIdbaU . .
M. S. W.
w. J. i.,
RIker
tol. B. C.
Col. '
"f
-_ R. J.
CoLXnu-
S^"d E
BloUoB ..'..
Gal. n. L.
Ang.-Sov., ■*]
Aug. 38, '81 . , .
AUg.-UOT., '61
Sm..-ti
Aug.-Oot., '81
Bapt,-H0T., ■«:
jDDO-JUl;. "8]
8eiit.-Nov., 'fl
Nov. 4, '61 ....
Aug., '01
9epl.-Nov.. '6
. Jnoe to, 'Dl. ..
Jane-July, 'b:
April 13, '63 .
May X,'ts.
June M. 'G3. .
JnuB W, '6
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NEW-YOBK IN THE WAE FOB THE UNION 517
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CHAPTER XIV
BECOVERr FBOM WAB — TWEED RING — SPECULATION AND REACTIOS
1865-1878
n HE civil war ended, the city of New-York, in common with
the rest of the country, turned to the arts of peace. The
iinmense national army, no inconsiderable part of whicb
it bad itself furnished, was quietly disbanded, notwith-
standing the forebodings of prophets from abroad, who feared lest
the men wlio had swept throT]^b the Shenandoah with Sheridan, or
foraged across Georgia with Sherman, and the l^ons led by Grant
and Meade through the Wilderness, would never take kindly again to
peaceful trades. New- York, which should have been the chief suf-
ferer, had any one suffered at all in this regard, had continued evi-
dence that the men who sacked her houses in 1863, and not those
who defended them, were the only dangerous element in the city's
population. The town, which Southern authorities were fond of rep-
resenting as in the throes of dissolution, with idle ships rotting at
her docks, and grass growing knee-deep in her streets, bad never
really felt the burden of the war, or at any rate had never realized
that she was feeling it.
But though New-York bad not gone backward during the war, she
had failed to advance. There was no grass in her streets, but the
grass and trees of the immediate suburbs had not given place to pave
ments and brick walls to any great extent Before the war the bet-
ter class of dwellings — those adapted for the occupancy of well-to^o
families — had been increasing at the rate of 500 to 800 a year; dur-
ing 1861-1865 not more than one tenth of this number had been buitt
annually, on an average. The population of the city had actually de-
creased, or at least had appeared to do so. The demand for vacant
lots subsided to almost nothing, and the prices charged for houses in-
creased proportionately — a natural result of the high price of labor.
The consequence was that at liie close of the war there was a direct
inducement to building enterprises; and as soon as the country had
finished the gigantic task which it had for four years been struggling
to accomplish, capital was not slow to find its way into such channels.
BECOVEBY FBOM WAB — TWEED STSQ
519
The city stretched her limbs anew, and began that progress which,
in a quarter of a century more, transformed her from a straggling
provincial town into a metropolis. Three potent factors in that
transformation were the introduction of the electric light, the use of
elevators, and the achievement of rapid transit, or rather the con-
tinued struggles toward rapid transit, the desired end receding as the
means for attaining it proved successively intwiequate. In order fully
to appreciate the power of these factors, all of which made their full
influence felt within the period covered
by this chapter, we have first to remem-
ber what the New-York of 1865 was.
Above Forty-second street it could
scarcely be said to exist, being only a
dreary waste of unpaved and ungraded
streets, diversified by rocky eminences
crowned with squatters' shanties. Rail-
way passengers from the north still
left their trains at Twenty-seventh and
Thirtieth streets. Street I'ailways were
comparatively few, and there was no
speedy and comfortable way of getting
from one end of the city to the other.
Below Eighty-sixth street there were, in
1865, 25,261 vacant lots. The grading of
Madisou Avenue was still in progress, and the state of the city as
regards transit facilities is set forth in a striking way by the hopefid
language in which a pamphlet of that day speaks of the new street
as likely to " prepare the way for an extension of the Fourth Avenue
railroad," and thus give new access to the park. Unable to get any-
where on Manhattan Island, people sought the suburbs, and rapidly
built up southern Connecticut and eastern New Jersey, with Long Isl-
and and Staten Island. In 1866 Dr. Samuel Osgood, in an address
before the New- York Historical Society, said : " The city is distressed
by prosperity, and is like an overgrown boy whose clothes are too
small for his limbs, and who waits in half-nakedness for his fitting
garments. . . . The scarcity of houses, and the costs of rent, living,
and taxation, are grievous, and driving a large portion of our middling
class into the country."
The rapid spread of the city, which now began, was in some in-
I Dr. Peter Wilson was 1)orD Id Sootlnd, No-
vember 33. 1T46, and was educated at the Univer-
sity of Abenleen. Removing to New- York city in
1763. he 1>ecanie prloclpal of an academy at Hack-
ensack, N. J., where his house Is still to be seen.
In 1TT5, he entered into polities with great interest,
■erring aix years in the legiBlHtnre o( New Jersey,
and lieing selected to revise the laws of that State.
Id ITStl he became professor of Greek and Latin at
Columbia College, remaining until 1930. when he
was retired with a pension. He was the author ot
several teit-books on Qreelt and Latin prosody,
and edited Sallust. Longinus. and the Greek Testa-
ment. Hisdeath occnrredAug- 1, I8S5. Editob.
520 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
stances attended with lack of judgment. Early in 1867 St. John's
Park, in the lower part of the city, was sold to the Hudson Riva
Railroad, which buUt thereon a huge freight-station; and, by the
same short-sighted policy, part of the City Hall Park was given up
three years later for the new post-office. After that time, however,
popular feeling against blocking up the city's breathing-spaces — even
now lamentably few — grew so strong that the demolition of houses to
make a new park became much more probable than the occupation
of a park by a building. St. John's Park, with its noble trees, bad
formed a part of the celebrated Anneke Jans estate, and but a few
years before its disappearance was a fashionable residence quarter.
Some of the old inhabitants, notably the great engineer John Erics-
son, retained their homes there long after the ramble and biistle of
countless freight-trains
had replaced green grass
and gravel walks. An-
other spot of greenery,
the yard of the old New-
York Hospital, at Broad-
way and Pearl Street,
whose elms had stood
since the place was far
out in the country, not
long afterward met tbe
same fate. But the^e
numerous changes were only instances of the wonderful mania for
buildingwhich was now under full headway, and which has continued,
with now and then a short pause, ever since, making fortunes over
and over again, and changing the character of whole districts more
than once in a few decades. This mania was doubtless aided by the
reckless speculations of the Tweed Ring, which was just then coming
into power, and the story of whose deeds will soon follow in this
chapter. But it had its roots deeper than this. Its cause must be
sought in the natural growth of a great commercial metropolis, which,
though it may seem almost uncanny in its rapidity, yet has nothing
of the mushroom about it, but is most solid and substantial.
Accompanying this activity in real estate, there was a like activity
in all kinds of speculation. Swindling became rife, and the exchanges
raug with the contests of rival speculators for the control of whole
1 VauiUsIl 0»rden wns founded in 1799 liy a Hummer eveninga. refresbment-tobles were rap-
Frenchman n»med DelacroU, and waa situated just plied, and buildinpi in which dramatis ent(T-
eautotBTOadway.betwecnFourthstreetand Astor tainmenta were given. Pireworka and bdlooD
Place. It was an eiteoBivo garden, laid out with Baoensians were added to the attnetjona of tV
much taste ; handsoiDe gravel walks abounded. garden, and it renvained a popular summer resort
adorned with trees and shrubs, buats and atatues. until 1828, when Lafayette Place, Damed after Uw
An orchestra furniabed agreeable music In the French marquis, was opened through tt. Blinoi.
TAUXHALL OARDEH.
EECOVEBY FBOM WAR — TWEED RING 521
railroad systems, to obtain possession of which they did not scruple
to use as their tools the venal politicians and corrupt judges who
were just then coming into prominence. The politicians, on the other
hand, were not slow to turn the speculative fever to account for their
own purposes. The corrupt ring which then controlled the city gov-
ernment planned improvements on a vast scale, that increased mu-
nicipal expenditures might give them greater opportunity for plun-
der. In many cases these were of great benefit to the city, though
attained at a huge cost not only in money, but in the loss of munici-
pal honor. Among other public works, the Boulevard was laid out
from the southwest comer of Central Park to Tubby Hook, St. Nich-
olas Avenue was created. Seventh Avenue broadened, and Broadway
widened from Thirty-fourth street to the park. After the height of
the speculative fever, which was reached about 1869, it declined till
the panic of 1873, which must be treated of subsequently.
The new streets thus added monthly to the city were in general
improperly paved, — a fault which has been rectified slowly where it
has been rectified at all, — and they were also inadequately policed and
lighted. Mention has been made of the electric light as a potent
factor in changing the character of the city. It was not introduced
till a decade later than the period of which we write. How gi-eat its
influence has been, however, can scarcely be realized. Some faint idea
of how much the city owes to it can perhaps be obtained by reference
to the following extract from a magazine writer of this period, de-
scribing "The Bowery at Night." ^ "One night, for instance, in the
merry month of May of this year, a gang of about a dozen armed
ruffians boarded a Third Avenue horse-car somewhere in these lati-
tudes, knocked down the conductor with a slung-shot, robbed and
otherwise maltreated several of the passengers, and got clear away
before the first policeman had made his appearance. Such incidents
are by no means uncommon in the Bowery and its purlieus at night."
When one realizes that such a crime would be impossible in a street
with an electric light at every shop-front, he cannot help thinking of
Macaulay's picture of the changes wrought in London since the days
of the link-boy, and wondering what will be the next advance toward
turning night into day, and pursuing crime and criminals still further
into outer darkness. '
Striking as the spread of the city toward all sides was at this time,
its growth upward was still more surprising. The New- York of 1865
was a low city. Houses of three and four stories were spread over
square miles of its territory. The Astor House was pointed out as a
mammoth structure, and a six-story building was a towering wonder.
Trinity steeple, as viewed from the water-front, seemed to soar above
1 Charles Dawson Shanly, " The Atlantic Monthly," November, 1887.
mSTOBY OF NEW'YOBK
tile vity, where now it is almoat uunoticeable amid vast structures of
tHU, twelve, and even eighteen stories. The overcrowding in the lower
«>t)d of Manhattan Island soon made land so expensive that it became
clieatwr to build up into the air than to spread over the ground. The
<>ti]Mj!jite conditions are well shown in Philadelphia, where the exis-
t4?uce of unlimited room for growth on all sides has made growth into
the air uiineuessary. On Ihe other hand, the influence of even a slight
barrier in this direction is exemplified in
Chicago, where a narrow river on two sides
of the business portion of the town, and
Lake Michigan on the third, have caused the
erection of buildings that seem almost ab-
surdly as well as dangerously high.
This growth skyward, however, ine\'itable
as it seems to have been, could never have
taken place bad it not been for the invention
and development of the elevator, — the verti-
cal railway, as it has been called, — which has
made the tenth story as accessible as the sec-
ond. One of the first elevators in the city,
that in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, was in effect a
nut on a liuge screw, whose revolution sent it
slowly uj» or down. From this to the modern swift service was a long
step, but it was quickly made, and no doubt the need for tall buildings
ill the overcrowded city acted in its turn as a stimulus to invention in
this line. To the same causes must be attributed the wide adoption iu
New-York of the continental custom of living in apartments or flats,
which began about the same time. In 1865, the author of an anony-
mous tMunphlet on the advantages of New- York as a place of resi-
deuco wrote that "the Parisian plan of dividing a large building into
iiiiiny suites of apartments is now receiving attention." The first of
those, which were known as French flats, were opened on the west
side at this time; but the first large apartment-houses were the two
Stuyvesant buildings, one of which, on Eighteenth street, was opened
in the autumn of 1870, and the other, on Thirteenth street, in the
spriug of 1871. The plan grew rapidly in favor, and as soon after
Ci)l*fBB HOUBB.l
1 111 1TU0 thv Toutine Association was orfcanlied
t.j ilu- luuruhitnts ot New-York, with the object of
intividiii^ Eiuitablo qij&ri4?rs for a coTumercial center
iir i'M'h»iiKfc Ab an outconio of this action, the
't'liiir.Liii' t,'ufftv House, situated ou the comer of
v^'ull uiul Walt^ Hti'««ts. was begun In 1792, opened
111 ITW, aiid Ini-orporafed the Banie yenT. The
-luiiv« were (300 each : and the privilege wasjfiven
ii> iik-\k ^ulnvrlber to name a person for each sh&re
Ill-Ill 1i> hliu, duriOK whoHe lifetime he or she was
li> in: I'uUtlvd to receive a pro-rata proportion of
the net proflts from the inveatment of the fund.
It was also atlpulateil that when the number of
nominees should be reiiuced to scTeii lij- dt»i!i.
the property was (o be conveyed to the surrlv.iM
in fee simple. In accordance with this aprvement
the property was divided In 1H76, the siirvivinf
nominees lielnn William Bayard. Goiiv^meur
Komble, Robert Heiiaon. Jr.. Daniel HoffnuD.
Eorstio a. Stevens. Mis. John A. Klnt;. and .Mr»
William P. CampbelL Editob.
BECOVEET FROM WAB — TWEED RING 523
this as 1873 the building bureau issued on an averi^e fifteen permits
a month for the building of apartmeut-houses or the remodeling of
old houses to serve their purpose. Qreat piles of buildings sprang
up on every side. The mania for living in suites of rooms was re-
garded by many as a faehion likely to be short-lived, and financial
ruin was predicted for those who had invested their money in apart-
meut-houses ; but the event showed that the demand was founded on
& real need springing from the situation and surroundings of the city,
as is shown again by the almost entire absence of apartment-houses in
neighboring towns, or by the failure of those that have been erected.
But this growth upward could not take the place of a growth out-
ward, tbough it could modify it in a measure, and the city had soon
outstripped its primitive means of
transportation. That the citizens of
New- York were not ignorant of lier
needs was shown by the great number
of schemes for better communication
which early began to take form. The
winter of 1866-7 will long be remem-
bered as one of the coldest in the his-
tory of New- York, Ice of such thick-
ness formed on the East River that
hundreds of persons crossed between
Brooklyn and New- York, and the ob-
struction to ferry traffic was so marked
that a great impetus was given to pro-
jects for bridging this important water-
way. The legislature of 1866-7, with
a view of having enough, passed no less than three East River bridge
bills ; the public attention, owing in part no doubt to the fact just
mentioned, being fixed at first rather on the necessity for better con-
nection with Long Island than on its own upper districts. Of these
bills, the one incorporating the New- York Bridge Company was passed
on April 16, 1867, and in the autumn of the same year a chief engineer
was chosen in the person of John A. Roebling, who bad just demon-
strated anew the practicability of the suspension-bridge on a large
scale by building the great Cincinnati and Cohiugton bridge, and who
had previously built the Niagara bridge — the first of its type capable
of bearing the weight of railway trains. He at once drew plans for
the largest suspension-bridge in the world, which, ou March 3, 1869,
was declared by Congress to be a lawful structure, and on June 21
was approved by the secretary of war. The first caisson to be used
in building was contracted for in November following, launched on
March 19, 1870, and towed to Brooklyn in May. The engineer did
524 HISTOBT OF NEW-YORK
not live to see the beginuing of his work; his death — the result of an
accidental injury sustained while he was making observations —oc-
curring on July 22, 1869. The work was continued by his son, Wash-
ington A. Boebling, who carried it forward to completion. The first
stone was laid on June 15, but the first tower was not completed till
five years later. The history of the structure belongs to a later
period, but it should not be forgotten that its inception was the first
practical step toward better communication between New- York and
its suburbs. In 1875, by an act of the legislature authorizing the
cities of New-York and Brooklyn to raise $8,000,000 for its comple-
tion, the bridge became a public structui*e.
It should be noted that the elder Boebling had suggested a plan for
an East Biver bridge as early as 1857, on the general lines of the one
finally built, and that nearly half a century before, in 1811, one
Thomas Pope, an architect, proposed to build between the two cities
what he called a " flying pendant lever bridge,^ with a single span of
1800 feet, which was pronounced perfectly feasible by seventeen
leading ship-builders of that period.
In 1867 a curious adjunct to rapid transit made its appearance, in
the shape of the once celebrated but short-lived Loew bridge across
Broadway at Fulton street, — so named from its sponsor. Alderman
Charles E. Loew. It was hailed, on its completion in May of that year,
as the first step toward relief for the crowded lower streets of the
island; but pedestrians preferred to struggle on the ground rather
than mount to the air, and in the following year it was taken down.
Meanwhile tentative efforts toward rapid transit had begun. Be-
tween 1868 and 1870 two underground roads were chartered, but
neither was built, though one of them, the so-called Beach pneu-
matic road, constructed a sample section which was opened for pub-
lic exhibition on April 26, 1870. The tunnel, which extended beneath
Broadway from Warren street nearly to Murray street, had been
excavated by a shield forced forward by hydraulic rams, on a prin-
ciple similar to that adopted years afterward by the underground
electric lines in London. It was eight feet in diameter, and the car,
which fitted in it as a piston in its cylinder, was literally blown along
by the action of powerful fans. The trial car seated eighteen persons,
but the company promised, on the completion of its line, which was
to run from the Battery to Harlem, to build cars one himdred feet long.
Crowds of people visited the tunnel, but the road advanced no farther,
and was finally abandoned.
Another more ambitious scheme was the arcade railway, to run in
a long arcade, forming virtually a street with shops and sidewalks,
just beneath the surface of the ground, the length of Broadway. Thia
seemed at one time very likely to be built, but it succumbed to the
RECOVEBY FROM WAB — TWEED KINO 525
two enemies which every rapid-transit scheme has met — the expense
of construction, and the determined opposition of property-holders
along the proposed route. The same ohstacles were fatal to the pro-
jected viaduct railway, which it was proposed to build through private
property, crossing the streets on maipsive bridges.
However, the germ of the future elevated-railway system had been
built, and was modestly demonstrating the feasibility of rapid transit,
though the lesson it taught bore uo fruit for a decade. The much-
derided Greenwich street elevated
road was begun in 1866, and put
in operation on July 2, 1867. It
had but one track, and ran from
Battery Place, through Greenwich
street and Ninth Avenue, to Thir-
tieth street. At first it was oper-
ated by a cable, which was soon
abandoned in favor of steam loco-
motives. With all its disadvan-
tages, it was uo wonder that it
did not become popular, and it
remained chiefly a curiosity and
the butt of good-natured ridicule till it was sold out by the sheriff in
1871. Its new management made a strong effort to push it northward,
but legal obstacles beset them on all sides, thrown in their way by the
strenuous opposition of the horse-railroads and of property-owners.
In the legislative session of 1871-2, two new roads were chartered,
one of which, the Gilbert road (named from its projector, Dr. Eufus
H. Gilbert), proposed to erect a pneumatic tube suspended from lofty
arches, to be operated on the principle of the Beach road, mentioned
above, and thus to be practically noiseless and completely out of sight.
This being found impracticable, the company decided to build their
proposed tube without a top, and construct a steam road in the trough
thus left, whose sides would cut off the trains from the view of resi-
dents and passers-by. Finally the trough was abandoned, and the
plan became a project for a simple elevated steam road like that in
Greenwich street. This change of plan was the cause of much op-
position and renewed litigation.
Meanwhile, in 1875, the legislature passed the act known as the
Husted Act, for the appointment of a commission to decide in the first
1 The Nktional Autdemj of the Arts of Deaifrn 186fi, when ita present edifice at the comer at
ma orgmnized Januarr 18, 1826, with Samuel F. B. Pounh Avenue ud Twenty-third street wu corn-
Horse M its preoident. Its flrat eihibltian was in plet«d. The architecture is Venetian Gothic ; the
May, 1836, on the second floor of a building at the material j^ay and white marble and hluestane, and
oorner of Reade street and Broadway, when one the cost of the site and building (237,000. It was
hnndred and eeTenty-sii pictures by hving artists biiiltby popular subscription. Two exhibitions are
were azMblted. It occupied various rooms until held yearly, and instruction is free. Editob.
526 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
place as to the necessity of a system of rapid transit for New- York,
and, if they should find such necessity to exist, to fix upon proper
routes. On July 1 of that year the commission was formed Ijy ap.
pointment of the mayor, consisting of Joseph Seligman, Lewis B,
Brown, Cornelius H. Delamater, Jordan L. Mott, and Charles J. Canda.
Its first meeting was held on July 13, and after deliberating through
the summer, it decided " that elevated steam railways are not only more
likely than any other steam railwaj-g
to be actually constructed in thii
city, but are the best for the pur.
pose in view." On December 11 they
reported that their work was at an
end, and that the task of building the
roads upon the assigned streets—
namely, Ninth, Sixth, Third, ami
Second avenues — had been assigned
to the Gilbert road and to the New.
York road, the corporation then
operating the little elevated road
on Greenwich street. Construction
and litigation were now renewei
J j^ jkf ^^---a> y. In 1876 the New- York company
^^:^^ny?^yy^^^^^^^^—' had extended its road to Fifty-ninth
/ street, and, in the words of its pub-
lished announcements, was running "40 through trains each day." In
the spring of the following year a controlling interest in it was par.
chased by Cyrus W. Field, who thenceforward showed the same tire-
less energy and zeal in pushing it to completion that had characteriz«i
his connection with the Atlantic telegraph-cable. In September,
1877, by unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, the charters of
both roads were declared constitutional, and all injunctions dissolved.
Work was at once pushed on both lines, and on June 5, 1878, the one
on Sixth Avenue was opened from Rector street to the park. It had
by this time passed out of Dr. Gilbert's control, and its name had been
changed to the Metropolitan Elevated Road. On August 26 the Third
Avenue route was opened as far as Forty-second street, and in 1880
the Second Avenue road was opened to Sixty-seventh street. In the
same year the lines on both sides of the city had reached Harlem.
The two companies bad been consolidated in 1879, under the title of
the Manhattan Railway Company, and thus the close of the decade
' Caroline I* Boy, daughter of Herman T^e Roy, hia correspondence, and her good judgment wd
was bom In Neve- York city, where her father re- iliacretion were of Invaluable aid lo him in nuaj
sided Bt No. 7 Broadway. In 1«20 she married important affairs, notably whan he was seeieluT
Daniel Wtbster, who was then a widower with o( state under Tyler aud Fillmore. The Le B<?
children. She accompanied him on hiH various family have been residents of New- York dty tot
tours In this country and abroad, awUled him in nearly two hundred years. EIditdb,
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 527
saw New-York in possession of as full a share of rapid transit as she
was destined to enjoy for many years. It seemed ample at first, but
the growth of the city soon overtook the capacity of the roads, and at
the present writing it is conceded by all that the problem has not yet
been permanently solved.
In this brief sketch of the progress toward its solution, which for
tfee sake of the connected narrative has necessarily run far ahead of
the general history of the city, no mention has yet been made of
what was really the first practical gain in the way of rapid transit.
Until 1871 the Hudson River, New- York and New Haven, and Harlem
railroads had their termini in what was fast growing to be the cen-
tral district of the city, — ^the first-named at Thirtieth street and Ninth
Avenue, the two others at Madison and Fourth Avenues, and Twenty-
sixth and Twenty-seventh streets. To reach these points trains were
obliged to run slowly, and even then accidents were frequent. On
October 9, 1871, the Grand Central Station at Forty-second street,
forming a joint terminus for all three of these roads, was opened, and
the summer of 1875 saw the completion of the great engineering work
that separated the street and railroad gi*ades from that point to the
Harlem River. For four miles and a half the tracks run through
tunnels or open cuts, or over a stone viaduct. The cost was $6,000,000,
of which half was paid by the roads and half by the city. This im-
provement saved many human lives annually, and added to the avail-
able space of the city by opening upper Fourth Avenue for residence
sites, but it also made rapid transit an assured fact between Forty-
second street and Harlem by making possible the nmning of frequent
trains, with stops at short intervals, at a reasonably high rate of speed.
Before the realization of any of these schemes, however, the city had
already grown not only in population, but in area, so as to make their
ultimate extension imperative. In 1873 part of Westchester County,
including the villages of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge,
were incorporated with the city, pushing its northern boundary as far
as the city of Yonkers, and making its greatest length sixteen miles.
By this annexation the area of the city was nearly doubled, being in-
creased from 14,000 acres to about 27,000 acres. Transit facilities in
this district were provided for by extensions and connections of the
existing roads on both sides of the city, and portions of its territory
were reserved for public parks, which bid fair to rank in the future
among the most attractive features of the city.
An event which, though it was not connected with the internal
growth of the city, profoundly affected its relations with the great
world across the sea, may fitly be noticed here. On July 13, 1866, the
steamer Great Eastern set sail in a final effort to connect this country
with England by telegi-aph-cable. She had renewed her efforts, aban-
528 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
doned since the brief triumph of 1858, on July 23 of the previous
year, but the cable had snapped 1200 miles from shore. This time,
however, the success was complete. Not only was the new cable
laid, but the lost one was picked up and spliced, and telegraphic com.
munication between the two continents has never been interrupted
since that time. The event was celebrated by a banquet given by the
Chamber of Commerce on November 15, and Cyrus W. Field wag
again the hero of the hour. He was presented by Congress with a
gold medal, and the prime minister of England declared that had he
been a citizen of Great Britain, he would have received the highest
honors in the power of that nation to bestow. John Bright cr)^8tal.
lized the feeling of the time in the saying that Field was " the Colum-
bus of modern times, who by his cable had moored the new world
alongside the old.'* In the following year he received the grand
medal of the Paris Exposition. Though these events belong properly
to the general history of the country, they were of peculiar interest to
New-York, not only because of the unique benefits she received from
the establishment of cable communication, on account of her com-
mercial preeminence, but also because the success of the enterprise
was due to the energy, and the refusal to succumb under defeat,
shown by one of her own citizens. A grateful memory of his servioes
to the two nations has ever been cherished on both sides of the ocean,
as was amply proved by the comments of the press at his death, more
than a quarter of a century afterward.
In July, 1866, Congress passed a law creating the grade of admiral,
which had never hitherto existed in the navy, the office being at once
conferred upon David Glasgow Farragut, the hero of so many naval
battles; and in 1867 he was placed in command of the squadron which
was to sail for European waters. The vessel selected for the admiral's
flag-ship was the Franklin, 39 guns, a noble frigate of four thousand
tons, carrying a complement of seven himdred and fifty men. The
date set for the departure of the fleet from New- York was June 28;
and a few days previously, on the 17th, the admiral gave a grand
reception on board the flag-ship, which was attended by President
Andrew Johnson and his cabinet, and many of the most distinguished
people in the city, including several hundred ladies. The president
was received with all the honors, the French and American men-of-
war in the harbor saluting with twenty-one guns and manning their
yards. After a most successful cruise in foreign waters, where Far-
ragut was received with the greatest honor and attention by the
crowned heads of Europe, the Franklin returned to New-York, No-
vember 10, 1868. An interesting journal of the cruise was published
in 1869 by the admiral's secretary.^
1 ** The Cruise of the Franklin," by James E. Montgomery. New- York.
BECOVERT FEOM WAB — TWEED MNQ
529
Among events that betokened the entry of the city on a broader
life were the reorganization of some of its departments, and the crea-
tion of new ones. First of all came the organization of a paid fire
iepartment. On May 2, 1865, in pursuance of an act passed by the
egisLature in March previous, the old volunteer department gave way
o the present system, and at the same time the old hand-engines
vere replaced by modern steam appliances. The old volunteer force '
ffae corrupt and unreliable. Its engine-houses were frequented by
nany idle, vicious young men, and citizens were aroused at all hours
)f the night by the noisy clatter of some fire-company running to
CENTEtAL PARK.
tnswer what was as likely to be a false alarm as a true one. The
ihange was attended with friction similar, in a smaller way, to that
vbich hindered the establishment of the new police system nearly a
leeade before. The new commissioners were loudly denounced as
mconstitutional, and some of the volunteers refused to give up the
)roperty of the department; but an affirmative decision from the
jourt of Appeals soon effected the change. When the effort to
}revent the change had proved vain, there was an attempt to punish
be citizens by disbanding the volunteer department, lea\-ing the city
irithout protection against fire; but many of the volunteers would not
loin in such a movement, and as there were numerous old firemen
imong the metropolitan police force, vacancies were quickly filled, so
ihat from July to November, 1865, 3810 volunteers were quietly re-
530 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
lieved. The department thus established has always held high rank
for efficiency among the world's fire-brigades, and has enjoyed the
distinction among the city departments of being the only one never
interfered with by politicians to its detriment. In the same year an
act of the legislature authorized the organization of the Fire-insur-
ance Patrol, which has rendered very efficient aid to the department,
not in the extinguishing of fires, but in removing goods from burning
buildings and in the protection of their contents from injury by water.
Having thus provided the means of fighting fire, the city authori-
ties were, a few months later, obliged to cope with a more insidious
adversary, and devise means
_'=-*%u- -,.:"^.Tj--.. for keeping it at bay. In
f- J^' ' '■'. , November, 1865, the steam-
. ■ A ship Atlanta arrived in port
the approach of winter.
Fears lest an outbreak of
cholera should take place in the following spring, however, led to
the passage of an act by the legislature on Februaiy 26, 1866, creating
a metropolitan sanitary district and establishing a Board of Health,
consisting of four commissioners appointed by the governor, together
with the health-officer, the police board, and other ex-officio members.
The first commissioners appointed by the governor were Dr. James
Crane, Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. John O. Stone, and Jackson S.
Schultz, and the board organized, with the last-named gentleman as
chairman. It immediately began to clean and purify the territory
under its jurisdiction, which included the counties of New- York,
Kings, Richmond, and a portion of Westchester. In view of the ar-
rival of infected vessels at other ports, the governor granted the
board extraordinary powers, but its efforts to provide proper quaran-
tine facilities, even, if necessary, by force, failed through the violeDt
opposition of the dwellers near all available points. Meanwhile, on
April 18, the steamer Virginia from Liverpool arrived in the harbor
with malignant cholera on board, and on May 1 the disease broke
out in the city itself. In August it had reached its height, and it
then declined till the autumn, when it had practically ceased. The
BECOVERT FROM WAK — TWEED RING
531
efforts of the new health board, hampered as it was, in all probability
saved the city from a scourge. Though the cholera was eoufiued to
the unsanitary parts of the town, and to the institations on the isl-
ands in the East River, there were 1205 deaths, of which 460 were in
the city proper, including the shipping in the harbor. Small as the
number of deaths was in comparison with that in other parts of the
country, especially in western cities, it has never been exceeded
since, owing, in no small degree, to
the efficiency of this board and its
competent successors.
During this same summer there was
a determined effort to resist the en-
forcement of a recently passed excise
law whose provisions were regarded
as unduly severe by liquor-dealers.
So strong was the feeling that the
authorities suspended its execution,
and in July the governor issued a
proclamation calling an extra session
of the Supreme Court especially to
test its constitutionality. The court,
in an important decision, sustained
the right of the legislature to regidate
the traffic, and affirmed that in doing
so it did not "interfere or restrain
any one of his liberty or property."
The claim of the dealers that a license granted previous to the pas-
sage of the law was a contract whose obligation could not be impaired,
was also expressly denied in the just decision.
In 1870 a separate department was organized to take charge of the
docks of the city. It consisted of three commissioners nominated by
the mayor for a term of six years. They at once began to carry out
a system which contemplates the suiTOunding of the city with a stone
bulkhead wall, at a uniform depth of 20 to 25 feet of water. The ac-
quisition of the water-line, however, proceeded very slowly, and in-
volved tedious litigation; and the water-front of New- York is not yet
in keeping with her unexampled facilities, and her position as a great
commercial and maritime city.
The years 1870 and 1871 were marked by disturbances of the pub-
lic peace, which, though in themselves insignificant, especially when
contrasted with the days of mob rule in 1863, involved events of
much importance. The right of a peaceable body of men to parade
the streets quietly was then officially called in question, and practi-
cally established on so firm a basis that it is doubtful if a second at-
fft^f-c^,^ Ct^u.-C^
532
mSTOBI OF NEW-YORK
tempt will ever be made to interfere with it. On July 12, 1870, s
party of Orangemen held a picnic at Elm Park, on Eighth Avenue
near Ninety-second street, in one of their annual celebrations of the
battle of the Boyne. As they marched up the avenue the band that led
them played some tunes which roused the anger of a gang of ialwrerg
— Roman Catholic Irishmen — on the new Boulevard near by. The
laborers promptly attacked the procession with stones, and the
Orangemen resisted. Shots were fired on both sides, killing thi^
persons, and wounding others, some of whom died afterward, x
strong police force restored order for the time, but the recollectiou of
the affray remained,
and as July of t]i«
following year ap.
proached, it became
evident that notiiing
short of the severest
measures could avert
a serious riot.
The Orangfitien
were determined to
parade, while thiar
rivals were just as
determined to break
up the parade should
one be attempted. In
this crisis the city au-
thorities took what
seemed to them to be
the simplest course,
which in this case, as
in so many others,
was both weak and unjust. On the day before that appointed for
the parade, the superintendent of police, James J. Kelso, issued au
order, either by command or with the approval of the mayor, A. Oakey
Hall, prohibiting it. But public opinion was well on the side of
the Orangemen. Provoking as their public appearance might be iu
reminding their adversaries of an ancient defeat, it was clearly sceu
that this constituted no reason for arraying the civil authorities on
the side of their assailants — an action which was much like meetiug
the well-known dislike of bulls for red by a stiict prohibition of red
dresses, instead of by shutting up the bulls.
The iK)lice order was the signal for a general outbreak of indigna*
tiou. Among other indications of public sentiment, there was a mass
meeting at the Produce Exchange, which denounced the course of the
THE FEUALE
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 533
city authorities. The latter were quick to see that they had made
a blunder in transforming the Orangemen from an inconspicuous
faction into a body representative of the whole public. Governor
Hoffman was telegraphed for, and on his arrival from Albany a con-
sultation was held, resulting in the revocation of the objectionable
order and the issuance of a proclamation calling on all citizens to
keep the peace, and declaring that the full power of the State — civil
and military — would be used to protect the paraders in their un-
doubted rights. This act of the governor was hailed by the public as
a sign that he was determined to have his own way, though it seems
doubtful whether it was anything more than a tardy acknowledgment
of the sovereignty of public opinion. The "Nation,'' in an editorial
article, gave the governor a somewhat doubtful compliment by calling
the act "a totally unlooked-for display of energy and independence."
But be that as it may, there is no doubt of its important results. Its
wisdom is still called in question by some, but however unwise it
may be to allow factions to inflame each other's passions publicly, it
would certainly be far more unwise for the city to identify itself
wholly with one faction. The fact that the mayor, wearing the in-
signia of the Eibbonmeu, had headed the last St. Patrick's day pro-
cession, could not fail to be commented upon in this connection.
Just before the time appointed for the parade to start, the appear-
ance of police headquarters reminded the onlookers forcibly of the
days of the draft riots. Information was constantly being received
that armed bands of men were preparing to oppose the procession,
and bodies of police were massed in different parts of the city to re-
ceive them. About noon the first demonstration was made in the
form of a determined attack on the Fenian armory in Avenue A, but
the assailants were beaten off by the police.
On hearing of the order forbidding the parade, most of the Orange
lodges had arranged to spend the day outside the city, so that when
the procession set out the escort of military and police almost hid
from view those they were to accompany and protect. The parade
consisted of the Eighty-fourth, Twenty-second, Sixth, Seventh, and
Ninth regiments, and the Gideon Lodge of Orangemen (numbering
less than 100 men). The streets were lined with spectators, but there
was sign of neither applause nor disapproval till the parade reached
a spot on Eighth Avenue, between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth
streets. Here a shot was fired from a tenement-house, and in a mo-
ment there was a general assault, stones and other missiles being
thrown from the neighboring buildings, and more shots being fired
from the crowd. These attacks brought several volleys from the
Ninth and Eighty-fourth regiments, which created deadly havoc
among the mob ; and although the firing by these two organizations
534
mSTORT OF NEW-YORK
was unauthorized, it was felt by the public to be justifiable, and of
inestimable service, as tending to crush the outbreak at its very Ixj-
ginning. It was a matter of regret that innocent persons, attracted
by the excitement of the hour, lost their lives by being among the
disturbers of the peace at the time of the shooting, but this was an
unavoidable sequence to the occasion. The total number of killed
and mortally wounded in this brief contest was fifty-four, including
three members of the Ninth regiment, while many of the soldiers re-
ceived sUght injuries. The Orangemen were escorted as far as the
Seventh Regiment armory, then situated over Tompkins market, and
the several regiments were ordered to clear the adjacent streets.
This being done, the Orangemen divested themselves of their regalia,
and slipped away quietly, one by one, to their homes, and the trouble
was ended. When the news of the assault and its repulse had spread
through the city, business was at once suspended, and the citizens,
with a shuddering remembrance of the atrocities of 1863, feared that
the end was not yet; but the mob had received a severe lesson, and
soon disappeared. Governor Hoffman, however, summoned addi-
tional regiments from Brooklyn to be ready, and prepared to dh'ect
their movements in person.
As is usual in such cases, public opinion on the contest was some-
what divided, and there was much condemnation of the military for
precipitancy, heightened by the knowledge that they had fired without
specific orders. In some quarters indignation against them ran high.
On the whole, however, it was felt that the soldiers who were killed
in the affair had lost their lives not only in defense of a principle
dear to all, but in vindicating the right of the decent people of the
city not to be dictated to by ruflSans. The dead men were buried on
the following Sunday, with elaborate ceremony. In strong contrast
to the popular sentiment in regard to them was the feeling of mingled
amusement and disgust with which the city heard of the desertion of
the colonel of the Ninth Eegiment, the notorious James Fisk, the
partner of Gould,* at the beginning of the affray. Fearing, doubtless,
lest he should be a target for the bullets of the mob, he prudently
1 " To treat the late Jay Gould, as some of our
contemporaries have done, as a man who achieved
his notoriety, and acquired the enormous power
which he wielded in the financial world, under or-
dinary conditions, is to do our civilization great
injustice He was in reality as much the product
of anarchy as Napoleon — to whom he is often
compared — or Rosas, or the Greek Had^-Stavros.
He saw his opportunities, and made his beginning,
in a state of things in which all the institutions of
a civilized society — the Legislature, the Judiciary,
the Exchanges, the means of carrying on com-
merce and even currency — were made to take
part in the semi-military contest of two sx>ecula-
tors for the possession of a railroad, and in which
a Boss, and not a Buccaneer, was preparing to
take possession of a great city and loot the tret-
sury, not on the Spanish Main, but in a Cliristian
Protestant Anglo-Saxon State. One of Goald't
own earliest exploits was storming with an armed
force a tannery which was defended by bis ban-
ness rivals with another armed force, in refsrolsr
twelfth-century fashion. In short, the community
was, between 1865 and 1873, in that revolutionary
condition in which Tweeds.Pisks,andGoulds surely
appear, apparently in obedience to a law of social
development. As you sow so shall you reap, say
the Scriptures. Thom-trees produce thorns and
fig-trees figs, and to stand round Gould's grave
now, and treat his career as something wonderful,
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING
535
slipped away, and perhaps saved his life. Two years later he was
shot dead by a rival in a quarrel about a worthless woman.
A word should be said here of John T. Hoflfman, whose determined
action was the cause of these exciting events. He had already been
mayor of the city in 1866. Mr. Hoffman, who was then in his forty-
second year, was a native of Sing Sing, a grad- ^-7-^
uate of Union College, and active in politics ^^^^^^^^jf^^^^^^
from early manhood. At the time of his elec- ""^ '
tion as mayor, he was best known for the severe sentences he had
delivered, while recorder of the city, against persons engaged in the
draft riots; but he is perhaps chiefly remembered for his action in re-
lation to the riot just described.
In April, 1866, was founded the first of the societies whicli — all
arising within a decade — have for their object the aiding of the city
authorities in the enforcement of the law, and the assumption of
responsibility for the prosecution of law-breakers in those thousands
of cases where investigation is the business of everybody, and there-
fore of nobody. This first, however, differed from all the others in
that it had first to secure the passage of the laws which it undertook
to enforce, and then to create a public sentiment favorable to their
enforcement — all in the face of indifference, opposition, and ridicule.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
was the creation of a single man, Henry Bergh. Mr. Bergli was the
son of Christian Bergh, a ship-builder of German descent, from whom
he inherited a competence. In 1862 he was appointed secretary of
legation and vice-consul at St. Petersburg, but in 1864 he resigned,
and devoted himself to travel. While abroad, the cruelties that he
saw inflicted upon dumb animals determined him to devote the rest of
his life to bettering theii* condition. On his return, having interested
citizens in his project, he procured by his personal exertions a charter
for his proposed society, together with the passage of a law, drawn up
by himself, for the proper protection of animals. From that time till
his death he labored incessantly — on the lecture platform, in the
court-room, and in the street — in his chosen pursuit, and succeeded
is to misunderstand the moral goyemment of the
world. Every great modem city — as we have
said in speaiking of Tammany — swarms with
men capable of making very good Goulds, Fisks,
Tweeds, Kellys, and Crokers, under favoring so-
cial conditions. Create the needed environment,
and you can have them anywhere by the dozen —
keen, alert, courageous, resourceful, unscrupu-
lous, ready to use, for either rule or ruin, every
weapon which the law and the meanness or greed
of their feUow-men put into their hands. It is a
sorrowful thing to have to give up whole pages of
a newspaper to a chronicle of the exploits of such
men. They ought properly to be recorded only in
popular medieval ballads. They are sad anachro-
nisms in the days of ** public opinion " and a free
press. But the sorrow they cause has its crown
when they pass their later years in tranquil pros-
perity, and go down to the grave with more or less
of the admiration of the generation which comes
after them, and which has only a vague, if any,
memory of the way in which they began their
struggle, and sees how far success has gone to
palliate or condone their enormous offenses against
civil society. Their type is to-day the worst ene-
my with which democracy has to contend — the
enemy which, if the great experiment fails, will be
the cause of the failure." ** The Nation," Decem-
ber 8, 1692.
536 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
in making himself respected and even Loved where he was at first
derided and slandered. The fact that duly appoint«d special ageuts
of the society are peace officers throughout the State gives them a
power that no one can afford to despise, and the brute who would
otherwise overwork or torture his horse has been taught that there is
a practical power in humanity that he may not dare to oppose.
The efforts of Mr. Bergh to put a stop to
scientific observation by vivisection brought
down on him the wrath of the medical pro-
fession, and his attempted interference with
the shooting of trapped pigeons made him uu-
popular with many sportsmen ; but before he
died he had won the approval of the entire
respectable portion of the community, and
the society that he founded is recognized as
one of the most beneficent influences in the
city. It has become the parent of kindred
organizations throughout the country, and
has also powerfully influenced legislation on
the subject of cruelty to animals. At the
beginning of its work no State or Territory of the Union had among
its statutes any law for the protection of dumb animals; in 1893
almost all the States and Territories had passed such laws, based iu
most oases on the original statute framed by him.
The second of the societies above mentioned — the Society for the
Suppression of Vice — had its origin in a movement of the Young Men's ^
Christian Association against obscene literature. It was incorporated^
in 1873, under the leadership of Anthony Comstock, who oecupie<^^
in relation to it much the same position as that held by Mr, Bergta^
toward the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He ha*
already secured the passage of State and national laws against tl*^
dissemination of obscene literature, and the society proceeded di^^;
gently to enforce them, seizing tons of books, stereotype plates, a^:^
photographs. Soon it extended its province and attacked swindl^^j^
of all kinds, including bogus medical institutions, gambling-hous^
lotteries, and the like. In one year the society seized twenty-foiy.
tons of obscene matter and six tons of gambling implements, Qnj
added $118,656 to the public funds throngh the imposition of fines
and the forfeiture of bail bonds.
The third society, that for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,
was organized in 1874, and incorporated in 1875 under a general State
law providing for the formation of such societies. It owes its origin
to the first-mentioned society, the attention of one of whose members
was called to the need of such an organization by the rescue, by Mr.
BECOYEBT FBOM WAB — TWEED BING 537
Bergh, of a Uttle girl from inhuman treatment. Mr. Gerry, a grand-
son of Vice-President Elbridge Gerry, was born in New -York in 1837,
and has won reputation as a lawyer, placing his personal services at
the disposal of the society of which he is the head. This society has
done a good work in promoting the health of the tenement-house
children, rescuing and caring for many little ones cruelly maltreated
by drunken parents or guardians, and seeing to it that children are
not employed, as on the stage, to make money for others at the ex-
pense of their own health and morals.
The list of these associations is closed by the Society for the Pre-
vention of Crime, formed in 1876, with objects similar to those of
Mr. Comstock's society, but especially with a view to the enforcement
of the excise laws and the suppression of disorderly houses. Its head,
from its foundation to his death, was the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby.
. Dr. Crosby, who was born in New-York in 1826, was, ^^ ^ ^
at the time of its foundation, chancellor of the Uni- /^^77Zie<Y^w^^n^
versity of New- York, and pastor of the Fourth Av- ^
enue Presbyterian Church. Throughout his connection with the
society he was prominent as an advocate of temperance as dis-
tinguished from total abstinence, and of high license as opposed to
prohibition, and did much to influence legislation in this regard.
All these four societies have had much in common, both in method
and in the degree of popular esteem in which they are held. They have
made mistakes occasionally, and have often carried their enthusiasm
almost to the verge of absurdity, yet no one of them could be spared,
and their inception marks out the decade just following the civil war
as something more than an era of financial speculation and political
corruption.
About this time New- York had occasion to show her hospitality to
two foreign princes. In 1869 Prince Arthur, afterward Duke of Con-
naught, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, visited this country, and
was received with cordial demonstrations of regard. Two years later
the young Grand Duke Alexis of Russia was the recipient of even
more distinguished attentions. He arrived in the city on November
19, and on the 21st was given a public reception. On his retm^n to
New- York, after visiting Washington and Annapolis, he was given
a ball at the Brooklyn Navy-yard on the 28th, and another at the
Academy of Music on the 29th. On December 2, he was presented at
the Academy of Design with Page's picture of Admiral Farragut in
the battle of Mobile Bay. These courtesies did much to strengthen
the feelings of friendship which have always existed between this
1 Thomas Coman, who was a printer and a mem- term of John T. Hoffman, who had held the office,
her of the board of aldermen, served as mayor but had just been elected governor of the State,
during December, 1868, to finish the unexpired Editor.
538
mSTOBX OF BEW-YOEK
country and BuBsla, and they were rendered a pleasure to those who
extended them by the personality of the young Grand Duke, who
won many friends wherever he went.
But a short time hefore these festivities New- York was called upon
to lend a helping hand to a sister city in distress, and the mention of
her noble response may
fittingly close this recurd
of a decade's progress in
material welfare. On Oc-
tober 6, the great fire be-
gan that laid half of the
city of Chicago in ashes,
destroyed pi-operty worth
$200,000,000, covered five
square miles with ruiug,
and rendered 100, 000 p»}o.
pie homeless. On the tvo
days while the fire was
raging very little busi.
ness was done in New-
York, and immediately
afterward public meet-
ings were held in aid of
the sufferei-s, and citizeus
vied with each other in
liberality. In less than
two weeks nearly $3,000,000 in money and material was sent to
Chicago as the contribution of New- York. Not all the iniquities of
the Tweed Ring, which must be now unfolded at length, can cause
such a philanthropic deed as this to be foi^tten.
The events now to be recorded are such as to bring a blush to the
cheek of every honest lover of his country, involving, as they do, the
plundering of its greatest city by a gang of thieves in the guise of
municipal oflieers, while the citizens looked supinely on. The causes
which conspired to bring about such a state of things were various.
In the first place, the concentration of Federal and State power at
Washington and Albany respectively had long tended to make New-
York the tool of politicians who regarded it as a mine to be worked
for their own benefit. The city, instead of being the leader of the
State, was only its creature. It was governed by commissions and
Church (1T69) formed one pvlah, all undn- Um
COLLEOIATE EEPOBMED CHURCH.l
1 The CoUejdate Reformed Protestant Dutch
CbarPh wm the tint eceleaiaiitlcal ormniution Iji
New- York rity. hnviiiR betn founded in IBSS. The
flrat church buildtng vitB erected in Broad street in
1633. The Garden street fhurfh (16931, the Old
Middle nuteh Church (1?29). and the North Dutch
noHhweflt comer of Fifth Avenne and Fortr-
eightli Btraet, la a handsome utructmg of K«inrli
sandstone, and was designed bj W. Wheeler Smith.
It was dedicated in 1ST!. EDtiok.
BECOTEBY FROM WAB — TWEED KING
539
■ds appointed at Albany, ostensibly non-partizan, but often really
oly in the sense that they acknowledged no party but themselves.
government was made more easy by the existence of two sets of
iala — one for the city and one for the county, whose limits were
game. The State legislature, too, which should have acted as a
k on the governing bodies it had created, too often shut its eyes
heir misdeeds, or gave good reason for believing that it was
ally in collusion with them.^
le war had withdrawn from the city and from the State many of
r best men, and those who were left were so occupied with the
ing events of the national struggle that they had no eyes for the
ily growing corruption of the municipal govemmeut. New- York
teeming with the
■ worat elements
he country, and
e were thrown in-
rominence in the
icils of the local
Locratic party
ngh the feeling
hopeless apathy
sh kept the more
;hy leaders iu the
:ground. Through
x>rt of New- York
le gateway to the
irican continent
ad poured for
s thousands upon
.sands of emi-
its from every
•ter of the globe, no small proportion of whom had remained in
city — often by no means the more desirable part.
lis is not the place to discuss the causes that led so large a uum-
df these to cast in their lot with the Democratic party. Suffice it
ay that the Tammany Society had long served as the means by
■h the local leaders had accustomed this element to submit to the
ipline of political organization. It was so first used by Aaron
r, and had attained so great power that, once in the control of the
r faction, nothing could stay the progress of that corruption to
ih in the hands of the better element it would have been an
(■iteteof thlDgSp while it reached iU height Halne; "The wu- has corrupted everybody uid
■r-Torlc, we by no meaiis confloed to this everything In the United SUtes. Tbftnic God, my
Id 18S9 Senator QrinieB,RepubIiun. or Iowa, political career ended with the beginning of this
note to bll friend Senator Fessenden of eormpt political era."
LAXE, CENTRAL PASK.
540 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
effectual check. The government of the city by a mob of newly im-
ported emigrants, in f act, was the cause of that reaction which handed
over the control of municipal affairs to the Albany commissions.
At the close of the war all these evil influences were at their height.
The tremendous national issues which called for settlement divided the
respectable citizens into hostile camps, and the corruptionists, who
always act as a unit, had things their own way. The increasing demor-
alization was aided not a little by the resort of great corporations to
bribery to carry their schemes through the State and municipal legis-
lative bodies. Stock-jobbing began to grow more prevalent, the mania
for speculation, already described, was rife, and all seemed to be en-
gaged in one great game of grab.
A good opportunity for the plunder of the city by its officials had
existed for many years ; indeed, it had long been taken advantage of
on a small scale, and had the plunderers been content with thousands
instead of millions, their misdeeds perhaps had never been heard
of. The root of the whole trouble lay in the board of supervisors, a
body created in embryo as early as 1787. In that year the mayor,
recorder, and aldenuen were constituted supervisors of the city and
county, with power to apportion and raise the State tax. In 1857 this
board was reorganized by the legislature, and made the goveniiDg
body of the county, consisting of twelve members, six from each po-
litical party. This non-partizan provision was made in the interest
of reform, but its influence was in the other direction, for by its means
unscrupulous members of both parties were enabled to combine into
a ring, and thus hold the city at their mercy.
Here was the germ of the great municipal ring, whose future leader,
William M. Tweed, was one of the Democratic members of this first
" reformed ^ board of supervisors. Tweed was then thirty-four years
old, having been born in New -York in 1823. After receiving an ordi-
nary common-school education, he learned his father's trade of chair-
making ; but from an early age he seems to have developed a liking
for anything but honest labor, and devoted most of his time to the
volunteer fire department, becoming foreman of the " Big Six," or
Americus Engine Company. Here he utilized the popularity which
he always had power to gain, and which he never failed to make
use of, by organizing voters and becoming a ward " boss.'* In 1850
he was elected to the common council, then popularly known as " The
Forty Thieves," where he was not outdone by his associates in the
furtherance of lucrative jobs, some of which put money in his pocket,
while others gained him new friends or bound old ones more firmly to
him. His aldermanic career was appropriately closed by his aiTest
with his fellow-councilmen for contempt of court in ha\'ing granted a
street-car franchise in disobedience to an injunction.
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 541
Tweed escaped imprisonment, and by this time had gained enough
political influence to send him to Congress. Here he made no im-
pression, though, by that faculty which he retained through life, he
gained hosts of friends, — generally, it is true, but by no means always,
in the lower strata of society. After a single term of service he re-
turned to New- York a poor man, and we next find him a member of
the board of supervisors, as has already been mentioned. Of this
board he was four times president, and here he built up his infamous
system of public plunder. But, successful as he was, Tweed seems
irever to have originated a great scheme ; he only elaborated the ideas
of others. He was no gi'eat organizer of men, had no financial genius,
and was remarkable chiefly for his enormous
fund of self-confidence and self-assertion, which .^^yy'^C^^iJ^:^^^
easily gave him the lead among those of much
greater intellect. His power had been enormously increased by
his election as grand sachem of the Tammany Society — a result
made possible by the condition into which that organization had then
fallen. Badly shaken by factional fights, its control had been allowed
to fall into the hands of the lower class of politicians after the elec-
tion of Fernando Wood as mavor. In 1863 Tweed was raised to its
head, and from this time forward he began to cumulate offices, being
immediately made deputy street commissioner in addition to the
supervisorship.
The first act to which the histoiy of the ring can be directly traced
was when Tweed and two other Democratic supervisors bribed one of
their Republican colleagues to stay away on a day when the board
was to appoint inspectors of elections. This corrupt bargain opened
the way for others, and soon a scheme for money-making was devised
and carried out. A percentage was levied on all bills presented to the
board for audit, as the price of the support of Tweed and his two col-
leagues, who were usually able to carry affairs as they wished. In
1864, however, another supervisor was taken into the ring, and from
that time on others were added as it seemed necessary or expedient.
So far the thievery of the ring was of an old and hackneyed char-
acter— a mere adaptation of the clumsy methods of the old common
council But now brains were added to the combination by the acces-
sion of Peter B. Sweeny — already a power in Tammany, and one of
the leaders of that revolution that had set Tweed at the head of the
organization. This man essayed the role of the power behind the
throne, and by throwing an air of mystery about himself and keeping
aloof from the vulgar crowd, he succeeded in impressing every one
with the idea that he possessed great. intellectual force, as is shown
by his nickname of " Brains " Sweeny. Yet he was only a lawyer of
mediocre ability, the son of an Irish liquor-dealer, and of such know-
542
HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
ledge of men as a considerable experience in the lobby at Albany
could give him. He had been in the ofBce of James T. Brady, and
had risen by his own exertions to the post of district attorney iu
1858, but broke down on the trial of his first ease from lack of self-
possession. He was invited into the ring for his known abilities as a
schemer, and seems to have taken a malign pleasure in cloaking its
doings, so far as he was able, under the forms of law. It is said that
he had a profound admiration for Louis Napoleon, and in similar cir-
cumstances might have carried his admiration to the point of imita-
tion ; but in New-York he had to content himself with his share of
the plunder, and with his wide reputation as a dark, dangerous, and
most consummate schemer.
To complete the ring, a financier was required, and one was ready
in the person of Richard D. Connolly, popularly called "Slippery
Dick." Connolly had been brought in his youth to this country from
Ireland by an elder brother, and soon began to dabble in polities. He
was elected county clerk before he was naturalized, but, justifying bis
pseudonym by breaking the promises that he had made to his friends
before his election, he was obliged to retire for several years into ob-
scurity. Finally lie obtained a nomination to the State senate, and
secured his seat by dint of the frauds iu which he was an adept. Af-
terward he served as an accountant in a national bank, which gave
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 543
him considerable knowledge of money matters. Connolly seems to
have had neither the shrewdness of Sweeny nor the impudence of
Tweed ; but he was smooth, oily, and insinuating, and ready enough
to follow in the lead of his bolder associates.
The method by which these men succeeded in their scheme of plun-
der was by forming wheels within wheels — by a system of subordinate
rings, each dependent in some way on its fellows, so that the whole
municipal government was tangled up in a network of corruption. Of
these subordinate rings the most baneful was that which included
part of the State judiciary. The justices whose names will go down
to history as the " ring judges ^ were George G. Barnard, Albert Car-
dozo, and John H. McCunn. Barnard was corrupt, insolent, and
overbearing, and though he had indomitable will, he obeyed the be-
hests of his masters of the ring implicitly. Curiously enough, this
man had posed as a reformer in 1866, denouncing the corruption of
the municipal government before the grand jury, and issuing injunc-
tions against fraudulent acts of the common council. For a time his
praise was sounded on all sides by the public and in the press. The
best citizens joined with him in urging the legislature to pass a bill
giving to a judge of the first department of the Supreme Court (New-
York city) the exclusive right of holding special term in chambers,
and, the bill having become law. Governor Reuben E. Fenton was
asked to designate Barnard as such judge. The governor, however,
on private information, refused, and Barnard, throwing off the mask,
dissolved his injunctions, and ordered the comptroller to pay the
money for all the contested " jobs.''
Cardozo, the second ring judge, was a different man altogether.
Hard-working, learned in the law, perfect in his demeanor on the
bench, and controlling his temper with wonderful equanimity, he
seemed a model of a judge and of a gentleman ; yet his career was
marked by an utter disregard of law and equity. He is said to have
sold justice "as a gi-ocer might have sold sugar." He is reported to
have had in view a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the
United States, and it is by no means certain that his abilities would
have been unequal to the position, for he undoubtedly possessed one
of the best legal minds on the bench of the State.
Of the third ring judge, McCunn, little can be said, save that he was
as corrupt as his associates, and had less legal knowledge — employ-
ing eleven lawyers to write his opinions for him. Besides these men,
whose corruption was demonstrated by their impeachment in after
years, there were doubtless others as venal, who succeeded in keeping
their evil deeds secret. In fact, the world will never know how many
men, accounted respectable, were connected, directly or indirectly,
with the great system of rings to which all had to pay tribute.
544 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The demoralization of the city press was one of the most alarming
features of ring rule. Many of its editors were associates of the eity
oflScials, some reporters were given lucrative municipal posts, while
others were bought outright, and still others were given "tips'* which
enabled them to make money by speculating in Wall street, or by
investing in city property in districts soon to be improved. Finally,
the press derived a large income from advertising contracts, which it
was in the power of the ring to bestow. Those papers that were not
in ring pay, abused it generally on political principles, and the pub-
lie, used to political mud-throwing, took what it heard from tht^m
with more than a grain of salt. As will appear later, however, though
the press must be held responsible for its connivance at this state of
things, still to the press was largely due the deliverance of the city
from it. And yet the "Times," which successfully led the opposition
to the ring, had itself narrowly escaped coming under its control.
Being thrown into the market by the death of Henry J. Raymond, it
was just about to be pm'chased by the ring for $300,000, when friends
of the reform party, bidding $50,000 higher, secured it in the nick of
time, thereby saving its valuable services to the cause of municipal
honesty. As soon as this one voice was heard clearly in behalf of
common decency and honesty, others followed, and the public soon
began to awaken from the curious lethargy into which it seemed to
have fallen. At the time of which we are now speaking, however,
a false sense of satisfaction and security obtained everywhere. If a
few suspected the truth, they appear to have been overwhelmal with
a sense of the utter hopelessness of their position.
The mode of procedure of the ring cannot be better shown tliaii
by a detailed account of the building of the New- York County Court-
house. The original law authorizing it had stipulated that it
should cost not more than $250,000. When work was begun in 1862
$1,000,000 was appropriated, and in 1864 a further sum of $800,000
was authorized. Similar sums were authorized year by year, till in
1872 no less than $6,000,000 had been expended on the building, which
is by no means particularly large or imposing. Besides this, the
ring, as will be shown, took without legislative permission more than
as much again, so that, with interest, the building cost the taxpayers
of the city more than $14,000,000.
As has been intimated, while Tweed manipulated these robberies,
the plans were originated and matured by Sweeny. In the spring of
1867 a contractor named Andrew H. Garvey was ordered by the board
of supervisors to furnish the new court-house. By aiTangement with
Tweed he raised the amount of each bill fifteen per cent., and paid the
extra monev first to Tweed, and afterward to the clerk of the board
of supervisors. The amount by which the bills were raised was in-
BECOTERY FROM WAE — TWEED BTKO
545
Bed successively to forty, forty-five, fifty-five, and finally to sixty-
per cent. This, however, became possible only in 1868, after
eny had been made city chamberlain and Connolly comptroller,
the entire finances of the city were in the hands of Tweed and
lumerous dependents and followers.
I this same year John T. HofEman, then mayor, was elected gover-
of the State. He had been an unsuccessful candidate in 1866, but
le mean time the
had conquered ,:• , \ ... ,;.#
imany and forti- -,"..',.
itself in power, ■ ,- ' ■ '
was ready for an ' " ■ , ■ ■ .
ult on the State
Ifew-York. The
to gain control
seemed to be to
; Hoffman gover-
for the ring as-
ed, from its ex-
3nce of him while
or, that, while
onally honest, he
Id not interfere
its financial
mes. To gain
r purpose, Tweed
his associates
mitted hitherto
aard-of elective
ds in New-York
In this year
12 aliens were naturalized — more than four times the previous
lal average. It need hardly be said that this enormous increase
largely fraudulent. The ante-election tactics of the ring, how-
, were outdone by what oceiurred on election day. Thousands of
fhs who, thanks to Tweed, were drawing pay from the city in one
icity or another, were drilled as squads of repeaters, and carried
d and falsification to a science. Judges Barnard and McCunn,
ng till late at night to consider applications for citizenship, out-
the record. Barnard packed his court-room with professional
and witnesses, and turned out reporters and spectators. To cap
climax, the sheriff appointed two thousand special deputies to
8t any one who might attempt to hinder voting. By these means
vote of New- York city was made to exceed the number of the
Vol. IU.-36,
546 mSTOEY OF new-yobk
voting population by about eight per cent^ and the Democratic can-
didate was elected.
Immediately on Hoffman's resignation of the mayoralty to assume
the duties of his higher office, opposition to the ring broke out into
open rebellion. The citizens had for years known, or at least strongly
suspected, the corrup-
tion of the city govern-
ment. Only the year
before, Judge Barnard
had been exposed most
savagely in a pamphlet
by Thomas G. Shear-
man, which subaequeot
Events showed to have
told no more than the
truth. Millions had al-
ready been spent on the
unfinished court-faouse.
But the ring was strong
in its position, and, as
has been said, had al-
ready succeeded in getting control of the metropolitan press, by
wheedling, bullying, bribing, deceit, or blackmail, as opportnnit;
offered. It was even astute enough to encourage the appearance o!
opposition, that it might seem the stronger. All the revolts from its
control, whether led by dissatisfied politicians or by highly respect-
able citizens anxious for reform, seemed to outsiders mere struggles
between the "ins" and the "outs," and served to confuse good and
substantial citizens of both parties.
Thus It was iu the present instance. The opposition to the ring
nominated John Kelly for mayor, and Abraham R. Lawrence for eor.
poration counsel — both clean men ; but they were hopelessly defeated
by A. Oakey Hall, the ring candidate, then district attorney. Hall
was a strange man to find in such company. A native New-Yorker
of good family, and a man of remarkable versatility, he essayed dur-
ing his remarkable career the parts of lawyer, litterateur, journalist,
politician, dramatist, lecturer, and actor — all with a certain degree of
success. He had been successively a Republican and a Know-no-
thing, and then passed through various wings of the Democratic party,
ending in Tammany Hall. His connection with the Tweed Ring hat
never been definitely made out. He was acquitted in court of the
charges brought against liim on the final overthrow of the ring, and
while there liave not been wanting those who class him as a coad-
jutor with Tweed, Sweeny, and Connolly, as a member of the very
RECOVEBY FEOM WAB — TWEED BING 547
innermost circle, even his enemies have acknowledged that he was
influenced by ambition, not by greed.
■ On January 1, 1869, the ring found itself in complete control of the
city, a position which, in spite of the power it had gained, it could
not before be certain that it held. Hoffman, who at least was not its
enemy, was governor of the Stata Hall was mayor of New- York ;
Sweeny, city chamberlain; Tweed, street commissioner; and Con-
nolly, comptroller. Its three judges were secure on the bench. It
might be supposed that it would now rest on its laurels, yet one more
thing remained to be accomplished ; the city was still governed largely
from Albany, and the ring was certain only of its own city. Munici-
pal autonomy therefore became the rallying cry. In order that he
might direct his own forces on the field of battle, Tweed was sent to
Albany as State senator. Here he found himself in contact with
those who were quite as well versed in the arts of corruption as him-
self. The speculators who had plundered the Erie Railway, as well as
the engineers of countless other jobs, had found bribery necessary for
their end, and their efforts had raised the price of votes so that, al-
though they gladly received Tweed as an associate, and willingly
joined forces with him, nothing could be done without vast sums of
money. It thus became necessary to devise new schemes of plunder
in New- York city, and these were soon put into operation.
The plea by which the conspirators sought to justify themselves
may be learned from the subsequent testimony of their subordinate,
548 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Elbert A. Woodward. "As I understood it," said he, "Mr. Tweed had
to pay the money [to bribe the legislature], and I thought it right
and proper for him to reimburse himself." In Tweed^s own worck:
" I found it was impossible to do anything there [in the State senate]
without paying for it, and money had to be raised for the passage of
bills up there. That was the way the ring first became organized — to
pay for bills to protect ourselves in the city."
From this time the system of " reimbursement " was carried on like
clockwork, an exact account being kept of all transactions, under the
title "County Liabilities," and the profits divided daily. Much of the
mythical work on the county court-house was contracted for by a
friend of Tweed's named James H. Ingersoll, who sent in bills for la-
bor done by himself or sublet to others. He obtained for carpeting
alone the sum of $4,829,426.26, — enough to have carpeted Union
Square several times over, — and in the name of George S. Miller he
drew additional waiTants for $1,404,307.99. Garvey, the contractor
already mentioned, sent in bills for acres of plastering, for which he
was paid $3,495,626.26, and to a plumber named John H. Keyser was
given $1,508,410.89.
The ring was now assailed on all sides, not only by opponents
who were clamorous merely for their share of the spoils, but also by
leading citizens anxious for reform. Among other acts of the ring, its
espousal of the cause of the Roman Catholics in the school question,
then for the first time coming to the front, had made it unpopular
with Protestants, and had involved it in a struggle with the Board of
Education. By the aid of the legislature, and especially through the
efforts of Sweeny, the board was abolished, an act which increased
opposition to the schemers. When, after the election of 1869, the
Democrats obtained majorities in both branches of the legislature,
the reform branch of the party, which called itself the Young Democ-
racy, set about the task of legislating Tweed and his associates out of
oflSce ; and when they failed in this they tried to depose Tweed from
the general committee of the party ; but here they were equally un-
successful, owing to the fact that the ring controlled the use of Tam-
many Hall, and hence forced their opponents to appear as ** strikers'*
and "irregulars." In the successful efforts of the ring to retain their
hold on the regular meeting-place of the party, they were seconded
by eight hundred of the metropolitan police.
On the very night of this barring out, Tweed introduced for the
second time the celebrated Tweed-Frear city charter, which had al-
ready been unanimously disapproved. The efforts of the Young De-
mocracy to pass a charter of their own had been defeated by Tweed
in his committee on cities, and now he brought up his discredited
measure, this time backed by a huge corruption fund, which he used
RECOVEBY FBOM WAR — TWEED RING 549
"iWO STOktTHi ftoFLtSMqXiT'f-OO TILL
'TWAS Hm.
550 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
SO well that the charter passed the senate with only two dissenting
votes, one from each party. This charter abolished all control of the
city from Albany, and placed its government in the hands of commis-
sioners appointed by the mayor, and holding office beyond his term.
He was also given the appointment of the comptroller and corpora-
tion counsel. Finally, the salaries of all the officers were made de-
pendent on his will, and therefore, in the end, on that of the Tweed
Ring. As the "Times^ expressed it, the change was "substantially
one from the intervention of Albany to the tender mercies of Tam-
many.^ Yet, strange to say, this charter^ intended by its advocates
only as a means of concentrating power in their own hands, was
really, in many of its elements, a reform measure. After being
changed and amended for ten years, it finally, in 1884, was restored
on substantially the old basis, — namely, the placing of responsibility
for the government of the city in the hands of only one set of officials,
instead of so distributing it that it could easily be shifted, by bestow-
ing great executive power on the mayor, and by making the heads of
departments responsible to him alone. Thus, Tweed and his fellows
builded better than they knew, but to them it seemed only that they
had at last made themselves perfectly secure in power.
The charter became a law on April 5, 1870, and then Tweed took
up the bills abolishing the board of supervisors, which had been
drawn up by his enemies and pigeonholed by him in his committee,
and allowed them to pass. Finally, on April 26, the last county tax
levy was passed, the county and city having been consolidated by the
Tweed charter. By the charter, all liabilities against the county in-
curred previous to its passage were referred for audit to a committee
composed of Mayor Hall, Connolly, and Tweed. It may readily be
imagined that the opportunity thus obtained was not lost sight of,
and, in fact, the city was soon $6,000,000 the poorer in consequence.
Much, if not all, of this money went to meet the enormous expendi-
tures that had been found necessary to secure by wholesale bribery
the passage of the charter.
The ring now seemed to have triumphed over all its enemies. No
one had access to Comptroller Connolly's books, and legislature,
mayor, and governor were all either favorably disposed toward the
ring, or inclined to shut their eyes to its peculations. The most re-
markable feature of the affair is the success with which the conspira-
tors hoodwinked even those citizens who were really opposed to
them. Doubtless this was due largely to the fact that ever>^ one
recognized the real elements of reform in the new charter, and felt
how great an improvement it was on the method of rule by iiTespon-
sible commissions. Be this as it may, a remarkable influence seems to
have blinded the eyes of the reputable element in the city. Samuel J.
BECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING
551
Tilden, then chairmaD of the State Democratic Committee and the
ring's bitter enemy, thought that its overthrow could be accomplished
only through the success of the opposing or so-called "Apollo Hall"
faction of the party; but the citizens, distrusting this as well as the
ring, were content to bear the ills that then afflicted them, rather than
fly to those that were
new and unknown. Be-
sides this, it was well
known that the Tweed
charter had been passed
through the legislature
by the votes of both par-
ties ; it was hence re-
garded as a Don-parti-
zan measure, and so as
worthy of public confi-
dence and support.
The Young Democracy
endeavored to obtain re-
cognition at the Eoches-
ter Convention of 1870 as
the regular party organi-
zation; but a gang of
roughs, furnished with
free passes by Tweed's
allies, the officials of the
Erie road, intimidated
the convention and en-
abled Tammany to control it. An article in the "New- York Herald"
(written probably by either Hall or Sweeny, or at their suggestion)
said of this convention that it "was the greatest success ever achieved
by the 'ins' at the expense of the 'outs.'"
The interest in New- York city now centered in the mayoralty con-
test, in which Hall was again the Tammany candidate, and Thomas A.
Ledwith that of the Young Democracy. As the election approached,
opposition to the ring, newly aroused by the charges of its opponents,
increased, especially when demands for Connolly's overdue report were
disregarded. Although under former laws the comptroller ought to
have published his report in January, Connolly had waited till Octo-
ber, 1870, before issuing that for 1869, aud then falsified his accounts
for the preceding twenty-one months, besides gathering together
nine out of the twenty-one millions accounted for under the conve-
nient heading "for general purposes." People began to doubt the
solvency of the city, as the annual assessment for taxes — less than
552 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ten millions in 1860 — had risen to over twenty-three millions in 1870,
while the valuation for taxation had barely doubled in those tcD
years. The city debt had before the war amounted to but nineteen
millions; at the close of 1870 it exceeded seventy-three millions, of
which twenty-five millions had been added in that year. It was im-
portant to conceal this fact, for not only were the assessment laws
heaviest on the landowners, but the per-capita valuation of 1.800 Id
1870 meant a heavier burden on the taxpayers than that of .700 iu
1860, on account of the increased proletariat which voted for the
Tweed Iting, and were
fed by it, but did not
payauytaxes. In 1840
the annual tax levy
averaged less than one
haK of one per cent,
on the valuation, while
in 1846 it had reachwl
one per cent. This rate
was doubled in 1861,
and in 1872 the rate
equaled 2.25 per cent.
In 1840 the annual tax
levy averaged only
$4.33 to an inhabitant;
in 1850 it was but
$6.27; in 1860 it was
$11.99, while in 1870 it
was $25.11. Yet in spite
of this enormous in-
crease, the proportion
of debt to the inhabi-
tant had during these
last ten years grown
from $23.21 to $77.87.
It may bo biiefly said that during the years 1867-70 inclusive, the
average taxation of New- York city had amounted to twenty-flve dol-
lars annually to each inhabitant, while the city debt had at the same
time annually increased at the rate of twelve cents to each inhabitant.
In other words, the city revenue covered only about two thirds of the
city's expenses. There was a giowing suspicion that something was
wrong with the city's finances, and this hail been so well utilized by
the Young Democracy that Sweeny felt the need of counteracting in-
fluences on the coming election. He resorted to a master-stroke of
strategy by haWug Cpnnolly invite a committee of most substantial,
RECOYERY FBOM WAR — TWEED RING 553
respected, and shrewd business men and landowners to examine his
books. These gentlemen spent a few hours in Connolly's office, and
on November 5, just before election, when it was impossible to con-
tradict their reports, issued the following card over their names:
" We have come to the conclusion and certify that the financial affairs
of the city under the charge of the Comptroller are administered in a
correct and faithful manner.'' In addition it was stated that the city's
debt amounted to only $48,644,487, and that by Connolly's arrange-
ment it would be extinguished in less than twelve years.
This was not the sole example of the complacence with which many
of the substantial citizens of New-York looked upon, or rather over-
looked, the doings of the ring. Tweed had become one of the largest
landowners in the city, and his gains, ill-gotten as they were, had
begun to bring him recognition. After the fashion of the outlaws of
old, who restored to the poor a fraction of what they had taken from
the rich, Tweed gave freely to charity and good works, so that it was
actually proposed to erect his statue in the Plaza as a public bene-
factor. At the wedding of his daughter, which occurred about this
time, the bride received many costly presents from citizens of wealth
and position, and gentlemen not without standing in the best society
invited him to their tables.
At the election the ring, as usual, triumphed. Hall and Hoffman
were both reelected, and the thieves seemed finner than ever in their
position; yet the forces that were shortly to overthrow them were
steadily at work. Public distrust had by no means been allayed.
The opposition press, notably the ^' Times " and " Harper's Weekly," —
the latter chiefly by means of Thomas Nast's telling cartoons, — never
ceased to attack the ring, and hold up its members to public scorn.
The power of such caricatures as Nast's at this time can scarcely be
overrated. "I don't care what people write," Tweed is reported to
have said in regard to them, "for my people can't read. But they
have eyes, and they can see as well as other folks."
It was not long before the public had something tangible to justify
their suspicions. W. S. Copeland, a henchman of Sheriff James
O'Brien, had been given, at his friend's request, a position in the office
of the county auditor. His suspicions were aroused by the enor-
mous amounts of the vouchers it was his duty to pass. He took the
opportunity to investigate, and speedily learned the truth, which he
at once communicated to O'Brien. This information O'Brien kept to
himself for some time, intending to use it to blackmail the ring into
paying a claim of his own. In January, 1871, he threatened to make
the accounts public if his demands were not complied with Tweed
and Sweeny, feeling that nothing could now dislodge them, and that
any concession made to O'Brien would lead to further trouble with
554 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
him, refused point-blank, and the sheriflE left, " looking,'' as a bystander
remarked, " like a man who meant mischief.'' That afternoon, how-
ever, appalled by the possible consequences of their act, the ring
decided to submit, and James Watson, one of the inner circle, made
an appointment to meet O'Brien at a hotel in the suburbs.
Before this meeting could take place, Watson was thrown from his
sleigh and seriously injured. The wounded man was helped by O'Brien
to his house in Forty-second street, where one of the most remarkable
scenes in the drama of the ring was to be enacted, Watson, who was
one of the few men that the leaders felt they could trust implicitly,
had been burdened with stolen property, transferred to him for safe
keeping from all sides. The ring, fearful lest he should not be able to
transfer this back into the hands of the original plunderers, and afraid
also of damaging confessions, literally took possession of the wounded
man's house, not allowing any of his family to approach him, and
denying him even the ministrations of a priest. Watson never re-
gained consciousness, but the chagrin of his companions at not being
able to get back their plunder was more than oflEset by their relief to
have him out of the way, for Watson had acted as the ring's general
go-between and confidential agent, and probably no one man was so
thoroughly familiar with all their doings. No one was more relieved
than Connolly, who, the day after the imprisoned Watson's death,
burned the dead man's account-books and papers, thus putting out of
the way much damaging evidence.
Meanwhile, negotiations between O'Brien and the ring were re-
sumed, but came to nothing, owing chiefly to Sweeny, between whom
and the sheriff there was bitter enmity. By this time, however, the
opposition to the ring had at last borne tangible fruit in the forma-
tion of the Association of the Bar of New- York, which was intended
as a banding together of the leading lawyers of the city to oppose ju-
dicial corruption. Though it was not successful in some of its first
efforts, it did its part toward the formation of a healthy public opin-
ion, so that soon the ring was no longer apologized for by respectable
citizens, but only tolerated, and the time was not far distant when
even toleration was to be no longer accorded to it. This progress
continued to be aided by the editorials in the " Times," and by Nast's
pitiless cartoons. The attacked party tried its usual tactics in vain.
They endeavored to buy the stock of the papers that held them up to
public scorn ; then the ring corporation counsel, at his master's bid-
ding, tried to dispossess the "Times" on a flagrantly insuflScient
ground, and finally Connolly offered $5,000,000 to George Jones, the
proprietor of the "Times," and free trips to Europe to its editor, Louis
J. Jennings, and to Mr. Nast, while the latter was promised a fine
dwelling-house and all his expenses paid if he would cease his attacks.
BECOVEBI FBOM WAB — TWEED RING
555
Not dismayed by defeat, and encouraged by signs of popular approval
which began to appear, the Young Democracy returned to the fight
with vigor after election, and, hearing of Copeland's transcripts of the
ring accounts, redoubled their efforts. Isolated attempts in the same
direction now began to be made on this hand and on that. Many of
these were failures, yet they showed, among other things, that the fa-
vorable report of the committee of business men on the city's finances
was not justified
by facts, and that
the enormous muni-
cipal debt was still
increasing. Soon af-
terward, a clerk in
the comptroller's of-
fice, turning traitor,
published an ac-
count of the armory
frauds, — a small
chapter in the his-
tory of the ring rob-
beries,— but it ap-
peared theday before
the Orange riots, and
its effect was there-
fore lost.
Only a few days
before this, Tweed
had delivered a
Fourth of July ora^
tion, which would
be amusing reading
were its political
platitudes less exas-
perating, "We propose," he announced, "if possible, to wrest the
government from the hands of those who, in our opinion, are be-
traying it, from those who are trying to crush out all principles of
equality, liberty, and toleration. We propose to recognize the right
of the governed to choose who shall be their governor." Among the
other principles laid down by this champion of the good, the true, and
the beautiful, was the recognition of "the right of those who elect
persons to high official stations, to call them to personal account for
the manner in which they have conducted themselves and performed
their duties." This right the people of New- York were speedily to
exercise, though it would seem that they had forgotten its existence.
NEW-YORK POST-OFFICE.
556 mSTOBY OF new-york
The Orange riot, which has abready been described, did its part
toward exasperating the pubUc against the ring, showing, as it did,
how completely the city had fallen into the hands of its baser ele-
ments. On July 18, Sheriff O'Brien, while the excitement about the
riot was still at fever-heat, determined to strike his blow, and, after
a vain attempt to find Charles A. Dana of the " Sun,** carried the ring
accounts to Mr. Jones of the " Times,'' and with the words, " There
are all the figures — you can do with them what you please," left the
oflBce without sitting down. Beginning with July 20, a batch of
the accounts was published by the " Times " every morning, and on
the 29th it was made clear to all that the ring had actually stolen
more than six million dollars.
These facts, in effect at least, were already known to everybody, but
their formal and authoritative publication was the signal for a imited
effort against the ring. The " Staats-Zeitung," by aiding the " Times,**
served to indicate the non-partizan character of the movement, and
the fact that the ringsters were for the first time driven to the defen-
sive shows that they realized their position. Mayor Hall talked
freely, protesting that though he had signed all the vouchei-s, he had
done so only " ministerially," and had not been obliged even to read
them over. Tweed kept silence, trusting in his mob of voters and his
stolen millions to caiTy him through. Connolly inspired disgust by his
cowardice, and his companions, who thought every one as mercenary
as themselves, and saw nothing in the reform movement but a black-
mailing scheme, were afraid that he would go over to the enemy's
camp. Sweeny was brazenly impudent, posed as a reformer, and
in a published interview said of his associates that "they had a
corpse to bury with which he had no concern." Considering that hosts
of contractors were at that moment regularly paying him his share of
the plunder, and that his telltale books were then in Connolly's pos-
session, his effrontery almost evokes admiration.
The doings of the ring had now been fully unmasked, but it was
one thing to convince the public of their true character, and another
to dislodge the wrong-doers from their position. After consultation
a mass meeting was called for September 4 by William F. Havemeyer,
Samuel J. Tilden, Joseph H. Choate, and others; and meanwhile, dur-
ing August, an attempt was made to tie the public purse-strings by
obtaining an injunction against Connolly, which the ring judge, Bar-
nard, after consultation with Sweeny, decided to grant. In the inter-
val before the mass meeting, rendered necessary by the summer
absence of so many people from the city, the ring tried its old tactics
by endeavoring to capture or control the reform movement, but in
this it was unsuccessful. The meeting was held, accompanied by
ovei-flow meetings in the parks, and was attended by earnest and en-
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 557
thusiastic crowds of citizens. For the purpose of carrying on the
struggle it appointed a committee of seventy, which was led by Tilden,
Oswald Ottendorfer, and Havemeyer, and was made up of influential
merchants, professional men, bankers, and journalists.
The members of the ring, seeing that at last a storm had arisen
that might not blow over as others had done, began to look about to
see how they might save themselves. It was first proposed to sacri-
fice Tweed and Connolly, sending the former to Europe, and having the
latter indicted and tried as a scapegoat. They thus hoped to pose as
friends of reform and keep the city government in their hands. It
was soon seen, however, that Tweed's personal following was too large
for this, and the programme was amended by agreeing to sacrifice
Connolly alone. The press was therefore turned loose on the unfor-
tunate comptroller, who was pilloried as if he, and he alone, had
robbed the city and received the plunder. Connolly, though fright-
ened, had pluck enough to cling to his office. Judge Barnard, in fur-
therance of the ring's policy, granted the injunction that has already
been mentioned, and on September 15 made it permanent, though it
was afterward practically dissolved when such a course was thought
necessary. On the 10th the comptroller's office was entered, and a
large number of vouchers were stolen. This act, which aroused great
public indignation, was used against Connolly by his former asso-
ciates, though they all profited equally by the destruction of evidence
against them. In fact, all were now busy destroying bills, receipts,
and public records, many of them of gi*eat value.
On September 12 Mayor Hall wrote to Connolly a characteristic let-
ter, as follows : " With great personal reluctance, I officially reach the
conclusion that the emergency requires your retirement from the head
of the Finance Department. I cannot suspend any head of a depart-
ment, not even pending an investigation. I can only prefer charges
to the Common Pleas, who alone can remove after a considerable time
for trial. I am compelled to throw myself therefore as Mayor upon
your magnanimity, and ask under the circumstances for your resig-
nation." Connolly replied that he was unable to sacrifice himself to
satisfy "the hungry appetite of adversaries for a victim." Finally,
on the 15th he went to see Mr. Tilden, and asked him for advice. The
latter, having found a provision in the city charter by which the
comptroller could appoint a deputy with full powers to act during his
absence, saw at once how the purposes of the ring could be foiled,
and having secured from Connolly the necessary papers, sent him
abroad. By this clever move Andrew H. Green was installed as
deputy comptroller, and the very stronghold of the ring was thus oc-
cupied. The mayor at once endeavored, by removing Connolly, to
invalidate Green's title, and appointed to the post General George B.
558
mSTOBT OF NEW-YORK
"what ABE YOU LAUOHINO
TO THE VICTOR BELONG TBE BPOII.8.''
MeCIellan, who at once declined. For a time the fear of violence at
the hands of roughs in the service of the ring led to the placing
of armed guards in the comptroller's office, but Charles 0*Conor in a
published opinion upheld Mr. Green's title, and it was concluded that
he had better not be interfered with. Mr. Green at once stopped
all payments to public officials, who had overdrawn their salaries, and
nipped in the bud many lucrative jobs then just developing. Besides
this, he enabled Mr. Tilden to expose the ling's system for the division
of plunder, showing that Tweed had received twenty-four per cent^
Connolly twenty per cent., Sweeny tea per cent., and Watson and
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 559
Woodward five per cent, each. This additional proof bore particularly
hard upon Sweeny, who had hitherto been able to maintain his inno-
cence with some show of justice. Many of the lesser thieves now fol-
lowed Connolly to Europe, — in one case (that of Garvey) after
threats of murder had been made to prevent further confessions.
But the ring, even in its last gasp, was yet strong enough to control
a political convention, and the reformers met their first defeat on Oc-
tober 5, at Rochester, where the Democrats, while refusing admittance
to both the contesting New- York delegations, favored Tweed's ticket.
It had been Mr. Tilden's ambition to kill the ring by having it dis-
owned by the party, but this hope, as he afterward confessed, had
been somewhat chimerical. In Mr. Tilden's own words : " It is but
fair to admit that what I asked the convention to do was more than
any party was ever found able to venture upon. It was to totally
cut oflE and cast out from party association a local organization which
held the influence growing out of the employment of twelve thousand
persons and the disbursement of thirty millions a year, which had
XK>S8ession of all the machinery of local government, dominated the
judiciary and police, and swayed the officers of election."
The reformers realized that they had received a stunning blow.
The sway of the ring, in the words of the "Nation,'' seemed as firmly
established as that of a European dynasty. Tweed had lost none of
his confidence in his own power, and in November gave vent to the
insolent challenge, "What are you going to do about it?" which has
become historical. But the Germans and the better class of Irish,
disgusted by the recent disclosures, seemed likely to desert the old
party organization, and the reformers, by skilful nominations, suc-
ceeded in capturing them all. The election was felt by all to be a
crisis in the history of the city. Although Election Day was then not
a legal holiday, business was stopped, while several regiments were
put under arms to forestall a possible riot. But no riot was at-
tempted, for the ring was certain of victory. Victory, indeed, perched
on its banner in one district, where Tweed, by his old tactics, gained
his election to the State senate by a majority of 10,000, but every-
where else the reformers were signally successful, gaining 23,000
votes in the city, and nearly 52,000 in the State. The change was
so great as to amount to a political revolution. Sweeny at last gave
up the contest and fled to Canada, and Tweed dared not take the seat
in the legislature to which he had been fraudulently chosen.
In October civil actions had been begun against Tweed, Woodward,
IngersoU, and Garvey, — this course being adopted, in the words of
Charles O'Conor, because "of the strictly local character cf criminal
proceedings and the servility of the local judiciary." Tweed was re-
leased on a bail of one million dollars. Judge Cardozo allowing the
560 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
prisoner's son, to whom his father had transferred his property, to
become bail for him. The adherents of the ring now brought nomi-
nal suits against Hall, Tweed, and Connolly through their corjiora-
tion counsel, and tried to bring their cases into court first, but were
foiled in this attempt. There were numerous delays, however, and a
year had passed since the exciting disclosures of 1871 before any of
the thieves whose schemes were then unveiled seemed likely to be
punished. Connolly was arrested and admitted to bail in Januarj^
1872, but the district attorney, a partizan of the ring, managed to
nol. pros, the indictments against Sweeny and his relatives. Tweedy
after suffering from lack of money, and being obliged to sell houses
and lands, was arrested on December 16, 1871, on a criminal indict-
ment, by Sheriff Owen Brennan, who took his former companion
before Judge Gunning S. Bedford, through a crowd which gi-eeted
the prisoner with both hisses and cheers. The judge refused bail,
and committed Tweed to the Tombs, but he was at once released on a
writ of habeas corpus by Judge Barnard, and brought into court be-
fore his old friend and creature, where, curiously enough, the ex-boss
sat immediately in front of a life-size portrait of himself, which faced
the judge's bench. Barnard promptly released him on the absurdly
small bail of $5000. On December 29, however, Tweed was forced by
public opinion to resign his office of commissioner of public works,
and shortly afterward he was made to retire from the grand sachem-
ship of the Tammany Society, Augustus Schell being chosen in his
place by acclamation. The committee of seventy petitioned the
State senate to expel Tweed from that body, but no action was taken,
and he was still nominally a member when serving as a convict on
Blackwell's Island. In the following February the Bar Association
asked the legislature to investigate the New- York bench, which was
done searchingly, the doings of the ring judges being thoroughly
ventilated. Barnard appeared before the committee in person, and
materially injured his cause by demonstrating the truth of the
charges of unseemly behavior on the bench, and by showing his
hearers how low an opinion of his functions it is possible for a magis-
trate to have. "I deserve to be remembered," said he, "if only to
show to what consequences the words of Hammond and Marcy led.
. . . The judge who holds the chambers owns the patronage ; it be-
longs to him, and he selects whom he pleases, regardless of any sug-
gestion of counsel or dictation from them. ... I have succeeded in
life by aiding my friends, and not my enemies.'* As a result of this
inquiry, Barnard and McCunn were removed from office, and Cardozo
came near the same fate ; but even at this time his influence was feared
sufficiently to cause the acceptance of his resignation, and the appeals
of his friends, added to his own, prevented his disbarment. He prom-
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING 561
ised to go to the West, but broke his word, and resumed practice in
New-York, where his disgrace soon broke him down.
Hall, Sweeny, Connolly, and Tweed had now all been indicted, but
only the first had been tried, his trial resulting, on Christmas Day,
1872, in his acquittal. It had been found necessary to re-indict
Tweed, and after a great deal of legal skirmishing he was brought
to trial in January, 1873, before Judge Noah Davis, on two hundred
separate counts, in the very court-house whose erection had served
as a foil for his vast peculations. The trial ended in a disagreement
of the jury, but after more vexatious delay another was begun in
November following. The prisoner and his friends were confident of
speedy acquittal, and the adherents of the ring had exerted them-
selves to the utmost to this end. After an hour's delay, however, the
jury returned from deliberation to ask for further instructions, and
fourteen hours later brought in a verdict of guilty on fifty out of
fifty-five charges, two hundred and four counts in all. Judge Davis
gave the prisoner the highest cumulative sentence in his power —
twelve years' imprisonment, and a fine of $3000.
On November 22, two years after his defeat at the polls, Tweed put
on the convict's garb, but he wore it little more than a year, being re-
leased in June, 1875, by the Court of Appeals, on the ground that the
cumulative sentence imposed was illegal. He was immediately ar-
rested again on civil suits for more than $6,000,000, and held to bail
in the sum of $3,000,000. Being unable to command this sum, he
was confined in Ludlow street jail, but his old friends still had power
enough to see that he was lodged comfortably, and on December 4,
1875, while taking an airing, he was allowed to visit his home, and
there to eflEect his escape. After many adventures he succeeded in
reaching Cuba, and thence went to Vigo, Spain, where he is said to
h^ve been recognized by his resemblance to Nast's famous carica-
tures. His oflEense was not covered by the extradition treaty be-
tween Spain and the United States, but the Spanish government
arrested and returned him as an act of courtesy. November, 1876,
saw him again in Ludlow street jail, and on March 8 a verdict was
rendered against him for $6,537,117.38. He lingered in prison till
April 12, 1878, when he died. In 1877 he had testified on ring frauds
before a committee of the board of aldermen, hoping thereby to se-
cure his release, and his disappointment at finding that this result
did not follow is said to have hastened his death.
Of all the ring thieves, Tweed was the only one who suffered actual
punishment at the hands of the law. Of the others, many, after
spending more or less time abroad, were allowed to return unmolested
and to live at home in obscurity. Of the thirty millions which were
stolen during the supremacy of the ring, the city recovered only a
Vol. m.— 36.
562 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
little more than one million, of which $558,000 was regained from the
estate of Watson, $151,779 was refunded by Woodward, and $406,562
by Sweeny, nominally from the estate of his deceased brother.
The revolt against the ring showed plainly that though the citizens
of New- York are capable of bearing a great deal of misgovemment,
they stop short at open peculation, and it is hardly possible that the
experience of these disgraceful years will ever be repeated. Although
the victory of the reformers was won by the aid of an element not far
removed from the one that had been robbing the city, — the employ-
ment of Sheriff O'Brien against his former associates being notably
an instance of "fighting the devil with fire,'' — yet when all circum-
stances are taken into account, history cannot but acknowledge that
the service done the city by such men as Tilden, O'Conor, Ottendor-
fer, and Havemeyer was second to none. So long as New-York'g
population is recruited daily from the slums of Europe, and so long as
the eyes of her respectable citizens are turned ever toward commerce
rather than politics, it is perhaps too much to hope that her mimici-
pal government will ever be ideally perfect, but at least she should
never suffer from another Tweed Ring.*
Among the objects which the committee of seventy had striven
to attain was the amendment of the Tweed charter of 1870. As has
been said, though this was in itself far from objectionable, the pur-
pose for which it had been obtained, and the uses that had beeu
made of it, had caused the citizens of New-York to regard it as the
corner-stone of ring rule. Every one looked toward the creation of a
new charter as likely to be one of the most beneficent results of the
reform victory of 1871. The object of its framers, according to the
"Times," was "so to reduce the profits of office-holding that the pro-
fessional politicians and place-hunters will be forced to abandon
their corrupt and corrupting avocation. ... So far as possible, all
fees should be abolished, and wherever they are collected they should
be promptly turned over to the city treasury. As for the subordinate
offices, ... it would be well if they could be made permanent and in-
dependent of political changes." In accordance with these ideas, the
committee framed a charter, one of whose features was a board of
aldermen of forty-five members, who should be elected by the system
of cumulative voting, thus insuring minority representation. This
part of the reform, however, was not destined to be adopted, for the
charter was vetoed by the governor. In 1873, however, a charter
was passed which embodied many of the features of the first, abolish-
ing the board of assistant aldermen, which had been substituted for
1 The author of this chapter is much indebted to ** The Life and Letters of William M. Tweed." by
Dr. John M. Gitterman, of this city, for valuable William Edelsten, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, will,
data connected with the history of the Tweed Ring, it is expected, be issued daring 1893. Editor.
KECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED BING
TO WHOM IT MAT CONCEBK.
the old councilmen by the Tweed charter, and vesting all legislative
powers in a new common council of twenty-one aldermen. It pro-
vided also that the State and charter elections should take place on
564 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the same day. They had hitherto been held on different days, and
it is noticeable that the change, instead of proving a measure of re-
form, has generally been deplored, serving as it does to confuse
national and municipal issues, and give opportunities for "deak^
and the trading of votes.
The first election luider the amended charter took place in Novem-
ber, 1874, when William H. Wickham was elected to the mayoralty.
His predecessor, William F. Havemeyer, who had taken a conspicuous
part in the overthrow of the Tweed Bing, and who had been the first
mayor chosen after its downfall, did not live to complete his term of
office, being stricken down with apoplexy on November 30, 1874.
No sooner had the city begun to recover from the excitement due
to the overthrow of the ring, than the years of extravagant specula-
tion and inflated values which are described in this chapter bore
their fruit in one of the gi'eatest financial panics in the history of
New- York. It was not wholly unexpected by thoughtful men, for
there had been indications for some time of the unsettled financial
condition of the country. Among these had been the great strike of
1872 in New- York city, which, beginning among the house-painters in
an effort to have the working-day reduced to eight hours, spread to
the carpenters and bricklayers, and finally included nearly every class
of workmen in the city. It is estimated that 40,000 men ceased to
work, and that $5,760,000 was lost directly or indirectly through the
strike. It was unsuccessful, all the men ultimately returning to work
under the old conditions.
But the crisis of 1873, like the great one of 1857, was chiefly, or
at any rate largely, due to the too rapid development of railways
throughout the country. For several years previous the country had
been spending from four to five hundred millions in railway con-
struction, of which sum at least four fifths were borrowed. That this
state of affairs could not go on forever had for some time been quite
apparent to thoughtful observers. The first mutterings of the com-
ing storm came in May, 1873, in an utter failure to place an issue of
bonds on the European market, the fact being that there was no
more available money in Europe for such purposes. It now became
only too evident that the great unfinished railways, which must yet
absorb vast sums before they could begin to yield any return, must
go down, can'ving with them, as is inevitable in such a crash, a long
train of dependent concerns. The first to go to protest was the Mid-
land of New- York, but its bankers, the Messrs. Opdyke, kept their
heads above water, and the general public had as yet no idea of what
was almost immediately coming.
Early in September the Western wheat crop began its usual call
for Eastern money; stringency began; railroad acceptances became
RECOYERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING
565
unsalable; and on the ITth, 18th, and 19th, the Canada Southern, the
Northern Pacific, and the Chesapeake and Ohio went down, carrying
with them the great banking-houses of Eobinson, Cox & Co., Jay
Cooke & Co., and Fisk and Hatch. No houses had stood higher in the
esteem of the public, who had rightly trusted them as conducted with
caution and sagacity. It was at once realized,
therefore, that a great crisis was at hand. The
next great failure was that of the Union Trust Company, and by the
20th thirty-five firms, including many of the most prominent mem-
bers of the Stock Exchange, had suspended.
Public distrust was now at its height. No one dared to bid for
stocks, and the governing committee, fearing that more failures might
follow, promptly closed the exchange. Meanwhile, the national banks,
which had been accustomed to begin the autumn with $50,000,000 to
$65,000,000 reserve, had found themselves with only $38,000,000, owing
to the growth of the country and the demand in the South and West
for legal-tender notes. By the middle of September this had been
reduced to $25,000,000. On September 21, President Grant met a
notable assembly of bankers in New- York, and was urged to place at
the disposal of the banks the legal-tender reserve of the national
government, amounting to $44,000,000. This he declined to do, owing
to legal obstacles; but he directed the assistant treasurer to buy
United States bonds, when offered, till $12,000,000 had been disbursed.
This sum was thus paid out during the ensuing week, but its payment
did not operate to relieve the banks, whose reserve by the 27th had
been reduced to $12,000,000. Greenbacks began to be hoarded ; the
banks refused to pay them out, and soon they commanded a premium
of three to five per cent. The city banks, many of which were sus-
pected of lax administration, at first began to struggle with one an-
other, the strong ones striving to shake off the burden of the weak,
but they finally combined to help the merchants. There was a gen-
eral disposition to hold the stock speculators responsible for the
panic, and it was thought by many that the banks, while discounting
legitimate business paper, should refuse to lend to stock-brokers.
The Stock Exchange remained closed for more than a week, from
September 22 to September 30, during which time a thriving business
* William H. WieUiam was bom in Smithtown,
L. L, and at the beg^inning of this century his an-
cestors had been prominent in affairs in New-Tork
dty for over a hundred years. Mr. Wickham was
for two years president of the Volunteer Fire
Department of New-York, was director and vice-
president in the Mercantile Library Association,
and was one of the citizens* committee of seventy
that ousted the Tweed Ring from power. He served
as mayor in 1875-77, to which position he was
elected by the Democrats. His administration was
notable for the high class of the appointments to
heads of departments made by him, including such
men as William C. Whitney, Allan Campbell, Gen-
eral Pitz-John Porter, General William F. Smith,
Joel B. Erhardt, Stephen A. Walker, Charles J.
Cauda, and Dr. EdwaM G. Janeway. At the close of
his term he was tendered a banquet by the leading
citizens, regardless of party, at which the president
of the Chamber of Commerce presided, — a com-
pliment never before or since paid to an outgoing
mayor in the city of New- York. Editor.
566
mSTORY OP NEW-TORK
was done on the street by outside brokers, the laws of the exehauge
prohibiting its members from buying or selling elsewhere than on
'change or in their own offices. The determination of the brokers to
keep their credit, at
whatever cost, threw
a large quantity of
stock on the market,
and it was eagerly
snappetl up by peo-
ple who thronged to
thecitytoseoure bar-
gains. A short-lived
" ludependeut Ex-
change"was opened,
and though it was
iu existence for only
a week, it was the
scene of enormous
transactions, and the
foundations of large
fortunes were laid
in it.
The regular ex*
change opened agaiu
on September 30.
For the first three
days the rules were
suspended so that no
contracts could l>e
enforced, but at the
same time a commit-
tee was apiK)inted to
see that creditors
should be made se-
cure by money or
securities depositee!
witli it. The ex-
change was crowdeil
with those who had
come to buy in a
cheap market, and
they found manifold opportunities. When the rules of the exchange
were once more enforced at the close of the three days, however,
only one house — G. Bird Grinnell and Co. — was unable to respond to
RECOVERY FROM WAR — TWEED RING
567
its contracts. During the panic it is probable that millions of securi-
ties passed out of Wall street ; for when, on October 2, the banks began
to call in their loans, thus tending to increase the stringency of money,
rates declined, notwithstanding, from one quarter of one per cent, a
day to seven per cent, per annum, so rapidly had the demand for
money decreased. The demand for investments continued large,
while the stocks for sale were few; but the difficulty of yg ^
obtaining loans checked all tendency to speculation, and -4 ^ ^^ i
orders to buy were usually declined by brokers, unless ^
accompanied by the necessary cash. Thus, business began again in
the most conservative manner, but public confidence was not re-
stored, and, indeed, the stagnation of business continued largely for
several years following.
The celebration of the hundredth anniversary of American inde-
pendence, which occurred during this period of depression, came at an
opportune time to aid in restoring business to its proper basis, bring-
ing, as it did, into the country new ideas of all kinds, and opening up
markets in all directions. At first, tlie proposal to make an interna-
tional exposition at Philadelphia the principal feature of this celebra-
tion was somewhat belittled by New-Yorkers. The criticism was
freely made that an exhibition of the world's products was quite un-
suited to the occasion. These carpings, however, soon gave way to a
spirit of general helpfulness, and New- York did her part toward mak-
ing the celebration a success, reaping in return her full share of the
benefits which accrued thereby to the country at large. The exhibi-
tion was a great educator, and from it dates a greater improvement in
public taste, in more directions than one, than many people are willing
to acknowledge. Since 1876 the architecture of New- York has been
distinctly of a higher class ; her statues, instead of being disgraces to
the city, as are many of those erected previous to this year, have
shown a higher public standard of art ; new industries have sprung
up, directly traceable to the influence of the exposition — in fact, it
was an era to be remembered in many ways. Especially should it be
kept in mind that in this year was given the first successful demon-
stration of the possibility of communication by telephone, so that
from this time dates the development of that remarkable instrument.
1 Smith Ely, Jr., was mayor of New-York in
1877-79. As a youth he studied law in the office
of Frederic de Peyster, but did not practise his
profession, early embarking in the leather business
in the " Swamp/* In 1857, Mr. Ely was elected to
the State senate, where he made an excellent rec-
ord, and in 1860 was elected one of the county su-
pervisors. During his tenure of this latter office,
the Tweed Ring was formed, and Mr. Ely was one
of its bitterest foes in opposing the twelve-million-
dollar expenditure for the new court-house. Upon
the expiration of his term he was reelected, and,
although a Democrat, received the powerful sup-
port of Horace Greeley. In 1870 and 1874, he was
sent to Congress, and in 1876, while still there,
was elected mayor of the city over General John
A. Dix, the Republican nominee. Before leaving
the mayor's office, where he had made an enviable
record, Mr. Ely was offered the congressional
nomination, and was also tendered the comptroller-
ship, both of which he declined, preferring to re-
turn to private life. Editor.
568 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
That the French people were fully sensible of the interest that they
properly had in the anniversary at hand was shown by two gifts —
one, the bronze statue of Lafayette, by Bartholdi, that now stands at
the southern border of Union Square, given by the French residents
of the city ; the other, the noble statue of Liberty Enlightening tlie
World, by the same sculptor, now such a conspicuous object in the
harbor. Though the latter was not completed and set in place till
many years afterward, the gift was announced at this time, and the
arm of the figure, with its uplifted torch, was set up in the exhibition
grounds at Philadelphia, and afterward in Madison Square, New-
York, as a reminder to the public of what was to follow.
During this same year the Emperor and Empress of Brazil visiteil
New- York — the first reigning sovereigns, save King Kalakaua of the
Hawaiian Islands, who came in 1875, to set foot on American soil.
The emperor soon became a public favorite by his simple and demo-
cratic demeanor, and by the evidence he gave that he had come to this
country to see for himself, and to learn all that could be learned by
diligent observation. In July, before returning to Brazil, he deliv-
ered an address at Chickering Hall before the Geographical Society.
In the November election of the centennial year, Smith Ely was
chosen mayor, serving the city acceptably till 1878. The latter year
found New- York just taking breath again after the new crises through
which it had passed. Tweed had just died in jail, such of his com-
panions as were known in their true characters were in exile or in
hiding, and the memory of this gang of municipal bandits was fast
fading away. The period of depression consequent on the panic of
1873 was almost at an end, and the next year (1879) was to witness a
revival of trade. Thus, the close of the period covered by this chap-
ter found the city on the highroad to recovery from its financial and
governmental troubles, even as at the beginning of the period it was
looking forward to new growth after the stagnation caused by the
civil war. Of the two periods, that of the Tweed Ring, with its
accompanying excessive speculation and the subsequent panic and
commercial depression, undoubtedly was more injurious in its effects
than the former. The ravages of the war period were far away from
the city, while the corruption and financial disaster of the Tweed
period were within its very doors. Yet even as the brightest feature
of a great war, with all its horrors and its appeal to men's baser in-
stincts, is the heroism and sacrifice that attend it, so, too, in the suc-
ceeding struggle with coiTuption and fraud, the efforts of those who
successfully opposed it, winning the victory when victory seemed
most improbable, and when the plunderers seemed most strongly in-
trenched, shine out all the more brightly for the sordidness and
public apathy that surrounded them. There was no waving of
RECOVERT FROM WAR:— TWEED RING
569
plumes and blare of martial mUBio about their triumph, yet their
struggles in the dusty law-courts and in the devious paths of muni-
cipal diplomacy were just as real as those of the heroes of 1861-65 on
bloody battle-fields, and they saved the city of Kew-York just as
truly as these others saved the Union.
F
i. dAAi.^
CHAPTER XV
KEW-YOKK DURING THE LAST FOUKTEiat TEABB
1879-1892
j HIS chapter closes the eontimious narrative'with the period
from 1879 to the present year, 1892, inclusive. FamiHar
l^rouiul, it may ho thouglit, to residents aurt readers.
What, that they liave not known or seen of it personally,
have the newspaper and its ubiquitous reporter left untoKl T But iu
such a eity of bustle and movement, where one day scai-eely quiets
down before the milkman and market-wagon are abroad beginning
another, and where business after its kind is so absorbing, what ephe-
mera are events, how quickly thrust out of mind! The incomiiifr
wave leaves as much of writing in the sand, and itself soon ebbs ami
is swallowed up by the next. Moreover, in thirty years and to a new
generation, tliis familiar present, if it is such, will bo history — as is
already our civil war. Characteristic events must, therefore, at onee
be eaged where the future can find them, before they take wing and
are lost. And what writer — in any department — can tell precisely
the line, the sentence, the incident, which iu the future may have in-
terest or be turned to account 1 In 166.1 there occurred in the north-
em parts of the continent, and especially in Canada, a great earthquake
or upheaval, which lasted six months. It probably altered the whole
geography of the Saguenay, and was accompanied by tei-rific and
extraordinary meteoric phenomena. Yet to Domiiie Selyns alone
among the colonists are wo in<lebted for the slightest allusion to it ;
and that iu a single line of one of his many fugitive pieces — a poem
on "the mai-riage of the rector of the Latin school."' To the writer
and tho rect4>r and his bride, now for two hundred years under gn)uu<l,
that line and tliat allusion, perliaps, seemed of less valiu- than some
others in the poem, which are no longt-r of any interest.
It is to bo remem))ei-ed, also, that the present of the city, even the
short period with which we are busy, is itself a development, merely
the point we have i*eaehed; that already since it began changes have
NEW-YOBK DUEING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEABS
571
appeared, if only as bubbles
upon the surface, which yet
indicate intrinsic movements
or some stir of thought by
which the future will be af-
fected for good or ill; and
that to note, relate, and col-
late, not events and things
alone, but these in their
meaniug and connections, is
the legitimate work of his-
tory. Standing upon the
Brooklyn bridge, and taking
it for an illustration, how
much it gives us to think
about, past, present, and fu-
ture! Two hundred years
ago, a small wherry, strug-
gling slowly across at the g I
summons of a horn, was
enough for the existing traf-
fic. Even a rainbow span-
ning the stream from shore
to shore would never have
suggested such a thought as 5 I
that a bridge might some
day do the same. It was an
idea too colossal, that it ever
could be needed or possible.
But as the little polyp of the
south builds up the coral
reef, first one species at a
depth of water adapted to
its nature, and then another
and another species in suc-
cession till the whole reef is
completed, so upon the op-
posite shores, and by the
gradual accretion of peoples
and wealth, grew the cities
which are the real founda-
tion of that bridge. In 1867,
by official statement, the
Union Ferry Company was
MFI 1
^
Wi' >
Ml
f
f
W
Imi
M" ■.
572
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
transporting upon its boats (besides wagons and teams), forty millions
of people a year from city to city. Already, however, — twenty-five
years ago, — tlie rush was growing too great to be handled with safety,
and to business men delay, even of minutes, meant money. In fact,
as still the question, our own time has before it no greater physical
need or line of development than that of locomotion, of movement
from place to place, of rapid transit, of the practical reduction of time
and space, of distances. Therefore should historj' recognize the genius
of John A. Koebling, who, as narrated in the preceding chapter, de-
signed the Brooklyn bridge, — who showed that to be feasible which
thus far had never been attempted. When completed, it would be.
he declared, " the
greatest bridge iu
existence, the great
engineering work of
this continent and
of the age." He did
not live to see it
completed, or even
practically com-
menced. In 1869 his
son, Washington A.
Roebling, took up
his work and carried
it through. Never-
theless, the plan of
this vast atrliieve-
ment was in his head, and all the more important details committal
to paper, before a stone was laid. And what immense problems con-
fronted him at every step of that plan, — problems as to the liver-bed
and foundations for the towers; problems relating to the great arch
(1595 feet 6 inches in length, 135 feet from center to high water)
whicli was to be the main span of the river; problems of weight,
and strength, and material; problems of oscillations and resistance to
storms, gales, hurricanes; with otlier problems, numerous and great,
relating to the supporting cables, to anchorages, approaches, and (by
no means the least) to probable cost and utility and revenue! Take
but the one item of those four giant cables, which, cast from tower to
tower and anchored upon the shore, were to be the supporting muscle
of the bridge, and what anxious tliought and computations they re-
quired, as to size, weight, length, and ultimate enduring power, from
the first wii-e of galvanized steel, weighing a pound in every eleven
feet, up to a total burden-bearing strength of 12,200 tons for each
cable! Sforeover, with the plan perfected, what a work yet remained.
EAST BIVER
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS 573
was yet to be begun ! First, to sound the river's bed, obtain a foun-
dation, and locate the towers which were to be, at the high-water
line, one hundred and forty feet by fifty, and two hundred and sev-
enty-two feet in height. It took the whole summer of 1869. Whilst
busy at this work on the Brooklyn side, the elder Roebling lost his life,
and by means of a ferry-boat. It struck the float on which he was
standing, and crushed his foot, an injury resulting in lockjaw, and fol-
lowed, after sixteen days of suffering, by his death. His son, how-
ever, immediately took up the task where he had dropped it — search-
ing for a foundation. It was found at forty-five feet below high
water mark; on the New-York side at seventy-eight feet. But from
the quality of the formation it required a timber base to the ma-
sonry; and for that timber — indestructible in salt water — there was
yet a danger, small but insidious, powerful, and not to be neg-
lected. What would the most consummate labor and skill above
water be worth, with the teredo boring and paring away the timbers
below ! As old among nature's agencies as the coral, whilst the one
builds, it is the mission of the other to destroy. The shells of the
teredo which were taken from fossil wood about Brussels, it was re-
marked, had a strong scent of the ocean; but that ocean belonged to
the Eocene era — the dawn, as it were, of existing creatures, and to
none nearer. This little bivalve still plies its trade, making up by
numbers what it lacks in size. One pile which Mr. Eoebling took out
from the ferry pier, and which had been of sixteen inches diameter,
was found eaten away to a thin stem of three inches between the
mud and the low-water line. And so it was decided that the timber,
solidified with concrete, was safe in its place below the mud surface
for all time. Yet how massive the structure which must sustain a
tower above it weighing seventy thousand tons, and a permanent
pressure of five tons to the square foot!
One more primal difficulty remained for ingenuity to overcome —
the caisson. The actual construction was begun January 3, 1870.
We cannot describe it, or Mr. Roebling's many shifting contrivances
to meet emergencies. To get it down, as itself the main part of that
timber foundation, inch by inch through boulders and an almost im-
penetrable soil ; working meanwhile in compressed air, where, if a
candle were blown out it would. relight itself; where work too long
continued in such an abnormal increase of oxygen created danger of
paralysis ; and where the accident of fire might at any time imperil
the whole structure; — all this required the highest qualities of patience
and skill. Of one such fire, caused by an empty candle-box, a man's
dinner, and a candle held too near the roof of the lowermost chamber,
it took months to repair the damage. Through such difficulties have
we obtained the Brooklyn bridge ! It was finished, and opened to the
574
HJBTOET OF NEW-YORK
public, May 24, 1883, at a total cost of $15,000,000. Has it fulfilled its
purpose I With an average present railway transit of about one Iiuu-
dred and thirty-five thousand passengers a day, on October V2, 1892
(the Columbian celebration in New- York), the cable-road on the bridge
carried 223,625; and, in addition, about 200,000 foot passengers crossed
the bridge ! There were 2954 single-ear round trips made over a
distance of two miles and an
eighth. But have we even yet
reached the climax of achieve-
ment in this direction f It has
merely solved problems in the
way of progress and develi»p-
ment. Already two more great
bridges are in contemplation
for other localities along the
East River. The city has
passed the Harlem, lias pop-
ulous streets where once were
outlying manors, and demands bridges; and perhaps the time only
lags a little when the Hudson will be spanned to the Jersey shore.
Meanwhile, another scheme awaits, perhaps, a little more bridging —
to expand by swallowing Brooklyn, and making of the two a single
city. So does the snake sometimes take a frog by the hind legs, with
a view to similar self-expansion and unification. Occasionally, how-
over, a large and lively frog, preferring its own individuality and the
management of its own concerns, bolts the intended absorption oven
in mid process. In the case of the cities a fine thing it "would be, no
doubt, for the dominant political power — the undivided sway of snch
masses, offices, and revenues ; and for him who, though neither mayor
nor elected by the people, governs with greater power under the simple
name of " the Boss." But herein, what a danger for the State !
One more engineering feat of great importance to the cMy, and
connected with the river itself, should not be passed by. "We refer
to the opening of Hell Gate, or, as originally written, Hellegat, — the
word signifying (according to Judge Benson) "beautiful pass," but
applied to the whole of what is now the East River. As the Dutch
soon foxuid, however, what looked so " beautiful " when seen from the
shore, was something quite different when they undertook to navigate
through it. Engineering has already greatly reduced its worst fea-
tures; but as portrayed by Cooper, in his vivid narrative of the chase
of the Water-witch, the reader can almost replace the past. Nor is
Irving's humorous description at all out of the way, where he speaks
of the compressed current as shouldered off from this promontory
and that, and horribly perplexed by rocks and shoals; taking these
NEW-YOBK DURIKG THE LAST FOURTEEN TEAES
575
impedimeuts iu "mighty dudgeon"; at half-tide roaring with might
and main, " like a bull bellowing for more drink," but when the tide
is full sleeping "as soundly as an alderman after dinner"; in fact,
resembling " a quarrelsome toper, who is a peaceable fellow enough
when he has no liquor at all or has a skinfull, but who, when half-
seas over, plays the very devil ! " At the east, in mid-channel, lay
Pot Rock, broadside to the current for one hundred and thirty feet,
and only eight feet below the surface at low water. Next, and where
the stream rounded into the river, Hallett's Point protruded three
hundred feet, and in such a way as to throw the stream over upon the
"Gridiron" with tremendous violence; to escape which, vessels had
almost to shave the Point if they would get round into the eastern
channel. Or if, turning
to the northern side of
the stream, they essayed
the middle or the main
ship-channel over to the
New- York side, there
again confronted them,
within nine feet of the
surface, the dangerous
Fryiiig-Pan Ledge, with
other rocks and ledges
beyond — " treacherous
reefs," " intricate pas-
sages," and " a thousand
dizzying eddies " ! The
scene of this great aqueous disturbance, always dreaded by seamen, is
the narrow strait lying between Manhattan and Ward's Islands and
the Long Island shore ; yet within it, before the improvements were
made, one thousand vessels a year were wi-ecked or seriously damaged.
Up to 1845 Hell Gate had not even been sui-veyed. In that year
David Hall induced other merchants to join with him iu petitioning
Congress in the matter. The first survey was made for the Coast
Survey Office by Lieutenant (since Admiral) Charles H. Davis, in
1848 ; and a second, the same year, by Lieutenant (since Admiral)
David D. Porter. Still, nothing was done to the purpose beyond the
making of a chart in 1851. So far the only plan proposed was that of
Lieutenant Davis (reaffirmed by Porter) to blast and dock, and in this
way get rid of the most serious dangers. During that year M. Maille-
fert, a French engineer, proposed to the Chamber of Commerce the
plan of blowing up Pot Rock, the" Frying-Pan, and "Way's Reef by
gunpowder discharged upon the tops, as had been done in Nassau
harbor and elsewhere. He offered to do the work for $15,000, and
AT HALLETT'e POINT
576
HISTORY OF NEW-TOBK
this was subscribed by Henry Griunell ($5000) and others. The ex-
periment lasted a year, and came to an end after only partial success.
Nor was work resumed until 1866, when General John Newton took
charge of operatious. Meanwhile commerce was suffering to tbt-
amount of nearly $2,500,000 a year; but yet Congress was chary an<l
slow about giving. Not until 1868 could it be induced to make its
first large appropriation, $85,000. In 1869, however, it was $178,200.
Then General Newton really began his great and successful labor.
The removal of individual rocks from mid-stream he determined to
leave till later, and to commence with that great outcropping bat-
ter>-, — 720 feet in width, and projecting 300 feet into the stream, —
H^lett's Point. But any attack from the water side was, under the
conditions, impracticable. Therefore, like Grant at Vicksburg, he
went inland, threw up a coffer-dam between himself and low water,
and for a series of years sat down "over against" his stubborn objec-
tive, Hallett's Point. Henceforth it was a work of patient under-
mining, and for his men of perpetual night and day drill, gallery
following gallery out to the verge of the reef, and under a roof of
rock whose old seams or cracks or rottenness might at any tinie pour
down upou them a deluge. Not till Sunday, September 24, 1876, was
everything ready for the great explosion, which was to be the end
of the Hallett's Point obstructions. The supporting piers were all
charged with explosives in groups, every eighth group having its own
battery, all of thorn connected with one finger-key on shore. The gal-
leries were then flooded, and at high tide the explosion took place.
It lasted three seconds. A column of water was thrown up more
than fifty feet ; yet, though fifty-two thousand pounds of explosives
were used, no damage to property was done. In Astoria, a pitcher of
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS
577
water standing on the ground close to the same strata of rock was
not even shaken. The cost of the whole work was $1,717,000 — not
so much as the bridge, nor so original a piece of engineering, but in
its way, perhaps, as important.
When, during the progress of these operations at Hell Gate, it be-
came evident that time and money and good engineering would pre-
vail over the obstructions, the East Side Association especially had
charming and golden visions of a not distant time when Harlem, the
original " out ward " of the city, would be the center of its foreign
commerce. That day is not yet, but it may come. The swift-footed
THE HjUtLBU BITEB
Grecian nymph Atalanta (it is said) promised to marry whichever one
of her suitors should surpass her in running; but a certain bright
youth threw golden apples before her, which she stopped to pick up,
and so lost the race I Our swift-footed city picks up and pockets all
the apples without stopping, and is at this date far beyond the " out
ward." This rapid advance itself gives something like substance to
what were in 1874 mere speculative anticipations as to the future of
that region. But a forward step in another direction has been taken,
which may have important results.- It is but eight miles across from
the Hudson to the East River by the line of the Harlem River and the
Spuyten Duyvil creek. A channel-way through, of sufficient depth,
Vol. m.— 37.
578
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
would shorten the usual passage round by way of the Battery to the
extent of twenty miles, and avoid the delays, expense, and dangers
thereto incident. "With this in view, so early as 1874 Congress passe-l
an act for deepening the Harlem River, with General Newton in chai^
as engineer. His preliminary surveys were made during that year;
but for years thereafter farther progress was obstructed by legal oV
stacles. Not till January, 1888, was the work recommeuced. Nor is
it a simple work of dredging and removing obstructions. Passing
from the Hudson through Spnyten Duyvil creek, it contemplates a
Hk
m
;;^ - -
^M
m
[ mVEB lUPROVEHEllTB,
WEST FBOH KIKOSBRUiaE BO AD.
cut from three hundred and seventy-five to four hundred feet wide
through Dyekman's meadows, involving that width of solid rock.
Already three quarters of a million have been spent upon it by Col-
onel George L. Gillespie, of the corps of engineers, who is in charge
of the work. ^Vhen completed, the result will be a channel for ves-
sels drawing at mean low water eight feet. At an immense sa\ing
of time, it will place the traffic of the Hudson in a direct line witli
Long Island Sound. Such progress has been made, during our period,
upon the waterways surrounding the eity.
From tho bridge and engineering as a feature of our period, we
may pass to house and city building, as a striking illustration of
NEW-TOBK DURING THE I.AST POUBTEEN TEABS 579
the general development. After a long sleep of some three huudi-ed
years, architecture has had a gi'eat revival during the last forty or
fifty years. Only of late, however, has there been any marked ac-
tivity or progress in this country. "Ai-chitecture and eloquence,"
says Emerson, *' are mixed arts, whose end is sometimes beauty and
sometimes use." To build is an instinct older than the first rude
hut; the beginning of architecture was an awakened sense of pro-
portion and of beauty expressed in ornamentation. Therefore may
the progress and culture of a people or an era be measured, in some
degree, by the grandeur and beauty of its buildings. These, in so far
as they can claim to be artistic, always express something, some idea
or end "of beauty or of use." Eev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, the venerable
THE YANPERBILT BESIDENCES.
president of Union College, knew something of architecture when,
having been invited to admire a quite costly new church, he asked
(pointing to the wooden corbels overhead) : "And what do those repre-
sent I " " Oh, nothing," was the answer. " Then," he replied, " why
are they there T" Artistically, they were simply a permanent and un-
sightly blot. The copious ornamentation by Hiram of the temple in
Jerusalem was beautiful, — lilies, lions, oxen, pomegranates, and palm-
trees, with cedar-wood and fir-wood and gold of Parvaim and Ophir, —
because it all meant something, and was in place. Our own later
580
mSTOBT OF KEW-YOBK
BATTERT PARK, AND GOVERNOE'S ISLAHD.
architects have profited greatly by a better and more critical study of
fine old models, — Norman, Lombard, aod Italian, — of the principles in-
volved in each, and the reasons for this and that. The leading ones are
compai-atively, or quite, young men. And with their own progress has
been connected a better education of the people through travel and
observation abroad,
a greater apprecia-
tion of and demand
for the beautiful
This, with grow-
ing wealth, private
and corporate, bae
changed our city.
The massiveDess
and beauty in mold-
ing and tracery
which were once
confined to cathe-
drals and princely
palaces, may now
be found even in pri-
vate residences. It would seem, at first, as if to design a dotnrway
were a very simple thing, without much scope for artistic effect. Yet
it is part of one larger whole. Let any one trace a series of doorways
from Dutch plainness, the half-door and stoop, in colonial timee,
through periods of uniformity and general ugliness, down to the finer
specimens of these latest years, and the difference will appear.
Nevertheless, as usual, necessity has principally caused the recent
great change in our city, just as in England climate required the
use of glass in her cathedral windows, which
her architects speedily turned into a means
of adoraraeut. The great cost of land in the '
lower business districts sot our architects to work, the problem being,
in general, economy of space in favor of business uses and a good
rental. Hence the mauy-storied office-buildings, in which the inge-
nuity displayed may justly be called American. Strong they must be,
but without the encroachment of masses of masonry upon valuable
floor-space, especially in the lower stories. Hence the scientific de\ice
of iron and steel in a skeleton framework infolded by the concealing
and protecting masonry. Of what avail, however, the oflSces, high in
1 Edward Cooper was born in New-York cily. raeniber was his father, Peter Cooper, the philan
October 2li, 1H24. attended tbe public schoolu and throptirt. He hu been a prominent Democnu:. and
Colunibin Collef-e, and tiiereaftf r spent aoino time was mayor (rom 1879 to 1881. At the time of the
in foreign travel. I'pon his returo, he became, Tweed Ring's power, he wfts one of the committee
with hi" brother-ia-law. Ahram S. Hewitt, apartner of Seventy whose efforts completed its OTerthrow.
in llie flnu of Cooper. Hcwlll & Co.. whose senior Editor.
NEW-YORK DTTRINO THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS
581
the wr, without that other truly American product, the " passenger
elevator" — that rapid-transit contrivance indoors, without which
much of the present life of the city would come to a standstill, as if
stricken with heart-failure I It has made possible those lofty and
elegant apartment- houses which, during the decade, have become
such a feature up town, as have the offlce-buildings down-town.
What an enrichment in the way of living, if one can do so, to have
your own apartments complete and ample upon a single fioor; in a
building really fire-proof, as are a few of them, with stone and con-
crete and iron; where the fifth floor or the tenth is as accessible as the
first, and vastly more desirable ; where, above roofs and street noises,
HIOB BBmOE AKD WASHIHOTON BKIDOB.
the resident can loot off upon distant shores or the bay, and down, at
evening, upon a thousand lights of the city ; where, if he so chooses,
he can turn the key, deposit it in the office, and go to Europe without
a care; — in a word, to delegate to others the usual annoyances and
cares of city housekeeping, — the cooperative plan, as applied to living,
in its perfection ! With many gradations, it is true, from the crowded
and unwholesome tenement-house of three or four stories, and an in-
tervening variety of apartment-houses more or less desirable, yet such
is the nature or tendency and extent of the present and most recent
development in building. Not, however, that change has confined
itself to these high structures. The old uniformity in residences,
whole blocks alike, — the " brownstone fronts," for instance, of certain
582 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
sections and a somewhat earlier period, — has given place to an opposite
diversity in style. If at times sensational or excessive — an advertise-
ment (and what efforts and exhibitions of genius are advertisements
nowadays ! ), it at least indicates the drift of thought and desire in the
direction of supposed beauty. But, given a lot of eighteen or twenty
feet front in a block more or less complete, to build thereon the
usual three or four stories in height ; to make a house roomy, attrac-
tive, and accoutred with conveniences within, whilst without it is
individual in style and yet coherent and beautiful; to do this with
the windows and dooi'way and bow-windows and roof-line as the ex-
tent of his scope in the way of diversity, surely it is a problem to test
an architect ! " Picturesque " he may make it, — Egyptian, eclectic, or
something else, — but probably at the expense, as is so often seen, of
distortion somewhere. Having broken the shackles of uniformity^
and in such a period of rapid city development, we are to expect ex-
travaganzas from freer thought in architecture, as in other things.
The subject is too large to admit of detail. We close it with one
more reference. It is to the present up-town movement of institu-
tions which might have been expected to remain located for at least
a lifetime. We may compare it to the flight of some larger birds
northward for greater facilities in nesting. There are those still liv-
ing who have seen one church (Rev. Dr. John Hall's) remove from
Cedai' street, from Duane street, and from Nineteenth to Fifty-fifth
street, and another cross the city from Rutgers street to Madison
Avenue, and again recently to a spot far up the Boulevard; who
have trodden the classic halls of old Columbia in College Place, two
miles from its present location in Forty-ninth street ; and who saw
the New -York University erected on Washington Square. In that
university building, as a part of its history. Professor Samuel F. B.
Morse painted, and experimented upon the telegraph till by his al-
phabet he made of a wire a new highway of thought and mutual com-
munication. Tears ago the writer met him in Paris. Representatives
of European governments were there in session to decide upon some
suitable acknowledgment in money of its usefulness to them. After
several propositions, made and rejected, he himself proposed — simply
one year's saving to them resulting from its use ! They took a fort-
night to investigate, and then said it was impossible ; no government
could do it, the amount was so large. Finally, they decided upon
400,000 francs ($80,000). " I never expect to die rich,^ said the pro-
fessor; "at home they keep me so constantly in law''; nor, in fact, as
the result of a lawsuit by his company, was he permitted to retain
the whole of that foreign douceur. Other distinguished men have
also had a place in that building, such as Chancellor Theodore Fre-
linghuyseii, Chancellor Howard Crosby, the late Professor John W.
NEW-YORK DTJBING THE I.A8T rOtJBTEEN TEARS 583
Draper, and Professor Tayler Lewis' — the latter a scholar as pro-
found as he was various in his knowledge ; an expert in many lan-
guages; a poet, a skilled musician; a mathematician capable of
original problems ; versed in jurisprudence and public questions ; a
theologian, an eminent Bible student and commentator; a writer keen.
forceful, versatile, whose pen seldom slept ; in short, abler than a
specialist, a foremost product of American scholarship.
But, forsaking the seat of an honorable history, the university, and
likewise Columbia, have yielded to removal. The latter comprehends
in too scanty quarters its growing School of Mines. As showing
the trend and development of thought, this most conservative institu-
1 At the time of hU death, M»7 11, 1877, a pro-
tessor in Union College, Schenec^f . N. Y.
! The eomer-etone o( the e>thedi«l wbb laid on
December 27, 1SS2, St John the EvanpliBt'B day,
vith solemn ud Impreeiive oeremonies. and In
the pretence of tataj notable eccleaiaatical and
Other dlgnltariea, the BUhop of Albany deltv-ering
the BermOD rai the occadon. One Hundred and
Tenth street, which fonns the principal approach
to the cathedral, la under^ng widening:, and will
be called Cathedral Parkway ; it will unite Cen-
tral, HamingBide. and Blverslde parks in one con-
tinuous and nnonrpasaed driveway. EDirOB.
584 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
tion has lately, in a conservative way, opened its facilities of learning
to the "higher education" of woman. It contemplates greater ex-
pansion und advancement, for which it certainly has the means. The
history of its revenues is itself an illustration of the march of build-
ing and its results. It is this : Early in the century Union College
(Schenectady) was deriving a revenue from a so-called "literary
fund," the product of State lotteries. These had not at the time the
ill repute which time and experience of their evil have fastened upon
them. Dr. Nott, the president, an inventor (whose hall stove was
formerly in every house), contrived a scheme intended to secure the
most perfect fairness — never in use, since one model was burned with
^^^^ the patent office, and the remaining one he later on
,^^^^;f'^ destroyed. But these lotteries and a State "fund"
""^ were jealously regarded as giving Union an unfair
advantage over Columbia (King's) College. Therefore (1816), Rev.
Dr. Mason, its provost, was sent to Albany in its behalf. Fortu-
nately, the Dr.Hosack botanical garden in New- York, which the State
had bought, was not proving useful property ; and, as fortunately in
the end, this piece of property Dr. Mason was induced to accept,
leaving to Union College the lotteries. Comprising about twenty
acres, it lay between the present Fifth and Sixth avenues, and be-
tween Forty-seventh and Fifty-first streets, — for Columbia the germ
of its present wealth.
Our city may almost be called fluid. Even its largest buildings
yield to waves of motion. They go up and come down, and are
carried to great distances. Both of these institutions will soon be
found more finely located, miles away : Columbia, upon Morningside
Heights, and the University at University Heights. The New- York
Historical Society has secured a new up-town site ; St. Luke's Hospi-
tal is going, having selected a Bloomingdale location ; the Leake and
Watts Asylum (One Hundred and Tenth street) has already gone.
Elbow-room, chest-expansion room, is the general necessity imposed
upon them by activity and the pressure from behind. Upon the site
of the Leake and Watts Asylum, at a cost of $850,000 for the ground,
has already been begun the Episcopal cathedral of St. John the Di-
vine,— to be, when finished, five hundred and twenty feet in length;
to cost, it is estimated, about ten millions, and requiring a great in-
come to maintain. The bishop's church, it is, in idea, the building
of a reservoir which shall concentrate within itself the energies and
purposes of the Episcopal system, and dispense them with greater
1 William R. Grace was bom in Ireland, came to Grace & Co., which is engaged in the South
New-York when a lad of fourteen, became a mer- American trade. Mr. Grace, who is a Democrat,
chant's clerk, and later started in the commission occupied the mayor's chair in 1881 - 82, filling the
and shipping business on his own account. He position with judgment and discretion ; in 1884 he
has been a successful and prosperous merchant, was again elected to the same office, senring for
and is now the head of the firm of Willilim R. the years 1885 - 86. EIditob.
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS
585
power. It is au advance of ideas within that church, for which do
previous decade was ready or could control the means. As a build-
ing, it may be taken as a specimen of what our architects are capable.
Its designers (Heius and La Farge) are young men. They have made
it the round-arched Gothic, but not as servile copyists. On the con-
trary, whilst obedient to the laws inherent in the Gothic, they have
exercised a freedom required by the purposes of its interior; and
in deference to cli-
mate— our own icy
and variable climate,
which disintegrates
even stone — they
have thrown the
protecting shelter of
the roof over the
usually exposed fly-
ing buttresses. In
addition to a ground
elevation above the
river of about one
hundred feet, the
dome and its spire
will reach a height
of four hundred and
fifty feet.
But (passing from
the cathedral and its thus far undeveloped purposes), on the other
hand, the great Methodist Book Concern, recently built, is a center
of widely radiating influences — perhaps quite the denominational
hub. And, in token of present progress, the old system of a single
minister in each church is yielding to newer necessities and develop-
ment. Each church is becoming more of a center, in its way, whose
outspreading tentacles are mission buildings, and efforts direct upon
the growing and needy community. Development, expansion, — it is
everywhere; seen in great stores and multiplying factories. Even
our immense post-office, first occupied in 1877, has outgrown itself
and is querulous for more room. Will the time ever come, in a near
or remote future, when New- York may be called builtl Or will it
continue to pull down, in order to enlarge its habitations and its
places of industry T
With greater brevity we may refer to what has been and is both
cause and eflEect of the preceding, — viz., better means of transit. But
one lingering relic survives of the old omnipresent omnibus. It is
the Fifth Avenue line of stages, — a survivor, but without the dash,
586
HISTORT OF NEW-YORK
the wide-awake pursuit of a fare, the skill in meandering tliroagh
crowds, which characterized the old keenly competing lines; a sur-
vivor, not as a " moving creature that hath life," but as it were one
of the "creeping things" mentioned in Genesis. The system is out
of date for our hurrying multitudes. It is not so, thus far, however,
with the horse as a locomotive for the street-car. To judge of big
place in the city, one
has only to recall the
effects of a " tie-up," or
the seriouB epizootic
within the decade ; dur-
ing the latter of which
business was interrupt-
ed and sermons were
preached on the reli-
gious aspects of such a
visitation, — a visitation
more widely felt in its
results than would have
been cases of cholera oc-
curring here and there!
And what an industry
the horae has created—
what with his own short
life in service (about
four years), the grain
and hay consumed, and
the army of men depen-
dent upon him ! But
horse-flesh and muscle
must now, in turn, yield
to the traction company
and the cable as, for long distances and speed, a better competitor with
the "elevated," which also belongs to this period, having been opened
for service in 1878.' The quicker the transit, the larger the vohirae
of travel for both. The telephone has not interfered with the tele-
graph, nor that, nor both of them, with the mail service. Each creates
a new necessity for the other. Certainly all this is progress, and to be
noted as a feature of the day. The very removal of the huge horse-
£LECTB10 SUBWAY MAU-UOLE.
I Chm-les T. Hanrey, now of Nyack, N. J., was
unquentiouBbly the oriffinfttor of the elevated
mad. the first of its kind in the world's hUtory.
Id IBGT he eihihited bis models and plana to the
State Senate, and wan authorized to complete
Bovcral times smtained his elaimii, the last tiioe
by hllJ of March 10. 1892. Yet after tirenty-flTe
years o( eBorte to obtain justice, whilst othen
have been rsAplne the rich frulta of his idesfi. Mr.
Harvey has received no remiineration wbaleTer.
NEW-TOBK DUBISa THE loAST FOUBTEEN lEAKS 587
car stable, with its malodorousnesB, what a difference it will make to
immense parcels of property! Nor, since it relates to rapid transit
should another happy change be omitted. The unsightly poles loaded
with telephone, telegraph, and electric-light wires have to a great
extent disappeared from the streets — a very important riddance, es-
pecially in ease of fires. It is probable, however, that few know the
amount of labor, care, and cost required to subway city wires; begin-
ning, first of all, with the hard, concrete trench, three or five feet
deep, along which are to run, from man-hole to man-hole (two hundred
and fifty feet), a series of prepared iron pipes or "ducts" in isolated
tiers, secured in concrete, immovable, and topped with creosoted
planks — this whole "conduit" being made capable of withstanding,
in safety, a pressure of five hundred pounds to the square inch ; and
then, to complete the system, must be added the roomy and conve-
nient iron or brick man-boles, out of which are fed into the different
iron ducts the many-wired cables which are to traverse the conduit.
A cable of one hundred telephone wires can pass through a single
duct, which may be, perhaps, two and a half or three inches in diam-
eter. The capacity of all the ducts — say twenty in number — may
readily be seen : surely an improvement to have safely underground,
in solitary confinement as it were, those dangerous "volts" which
a high wind or an accidental crossing of the wires might render mur-
derous,— has made so indeed to more than one unfortunate lineman!
In 1888 occurred a (happily) rare event which, for a few days, ren-
dered locomotion of any kind almost impossible. Our contrivances
588
HISTORY or NEW-YORK
cannot outwit or secure us against nature and Providence. It was
merely a fall of sdow and a wind — the so-called " blizzard." But with
wires down, and streets blocked against traffic and travel, there were
those who were cut off from even the necessaries of life. It was a
" boycott " on a great scale, which perforce deprived dealers of their
trade, and families of their milk and coal and food, Strangely
enough, there was a child boi-n during that tremendous night of the
storm, which finished its little career during the most fearful electrical
phenomena, lasting nearly all night, in August, 1892. On the other
hand — as among its melancholy results, through a cold then caught
— the blizzard of 1888 caused the death of a brilliant man ; one who
had once had prominence and power in both the State and the nation;
one to whom President Grant had offered the chief-justiceship; and
who, at the time of his death, had a great law practice in the city —
ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling. These circumstances give him a place
in this history. A distinguished senator of the after war times has
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS 589
said that in the Senate of that day there were a dozen who might
be ranked with the traditional orators of England. The nnmber
alone is striking. America has had not a few such orators scattered
along her history. Mr. Conkling was one of that dozen ; not a Web-'
ster nor a Clay, but in the debates always a commanding figure, essen-
tially an orator ; whose great memory made all his resources at once
available; whose command of language, strong, striking, and pun-
gent, was something marvelous ; whose voice, form, and manner were
fine and imposing ; yet who sometimes spoiled his effect, even in sar-
casm, by a superabundant rhetoric, a style too showy, ornate, and
merely oratorical — he could not resist it, it was the style of the man.
A striking and conspicuous personality always and everywhere, in
the law-courts as much as in the senate, a man of acknowledged abil-
ities, not yet old, his death, owing to a persistent attempt to stem the
blizzard, made the storm notably disastrous.^
Our appliances for locomotion are not yet perfect, not beyond the
recurrence of "blocks^ and other accidents. Put together the accidents
upon the elevated, in the Fourth Avenue tunnel, and elsewhere within
the city limits during the few years past, and they are many. Iron
and steel and machinery are themselves fallible ; and, then, who shall
guarantee the switchman or the engineer I How long can a switch-
man's brain endure the monotony of switching, coupled with the re-
sponsibility and strain of always doing it right? It may here be
mentioned that years ago President Franklin Pierce was passing over
the Boston and Maine Railroad, on his way to Washington to be in-
augurated. An accident occurred, and his son was killed. It was at
a switch over which many trains passed, and tended by a faithful and
experienced man who had been there for years. That night that man
went to bed and dreamed that he had set the switch wrong ; in a dazed
condition rushed down and turned it wrong ; and in five minutes the
express-train bearing the president came along ! In his fright he ran
away, and of course was held responsible and ruined. Some time
afterward, the writer asked a night switchman on the New- York Cen-
tral how long he had been at that switch — it was thirteen years ; how
many trains passed over it at night — the number was very large ;
and then, if he ever dreamed of switches f His answer was that his
wife said so — he was always talking in his sleep of trains and
switches. In a word, his brain was telling him to move on to some
other switch. Were a minister to repeat the ten commandments
thirty or forty times a day for thirteen years, with no other employ-
ment and a penalty for doing it wrong, his mind would in time
1 President Fillmore once said that if Clay, Cal- Conkling: and some other statesmen, could they
honn, and Webster could only have agreed which have composed their antagonisms. Such things
should come first, th^y might all have been presi- may pull down climbing ambition just when it
dent. Perhaps it might have been so with Mr. reaches for the topmost apple.
590 HISTOBT OF NEW-TORK
grow confused, his memory fail to giip the smooth-worn phrase. V
is not always careleesness — though a jury may say so — that
an accident (and some poor man's ruiu), but the steady strain on <
hand and eye and braiu too long continued. Switchmen hare
vacations to break the circuit of
their ideas, and keep them fro&
mentally muddling the switdwL
Thus far, without attemptia^
detail, we have had in view
material side of New- York,
would be impossible, iu the
of a single chapter, to give
specifications of the developnunl
in that direction. "We pass tO
matters and things representing
not the actually necessary or Um
strictly useful, but the ideaL "We
refer to events whose object wu
commemorative, and to things in-
teuded to express ideas. The ad-
vance in such things over the past ^
has been marked, and the growtih j
and expansion not all one-sided.
It has been almost a new era. In \
a spectacular form we have
cultivating ideas — cultivating par-
triotism and the artistic. We have
found in our history something to
celebrate, and worthy of celebTa»'
tion, besides the Fourth of JrOj.
The statue of Liberty, erected in
1886, stands in our harbor, the
bodiment of an idea as grand as the statue itself — that, after
trial of a hundred years, here is indeed liberty. Its broad and mi
sive foundations, with the material of its colossal form, indicate
manency; whilst, to all who come honestly — come, perhaps, with a
sigh of relief— to our shores, its torch is an invitation and a wel-
come; honestly and with good purpose, for liberty, as represented .r
in that grand and noble fomi, is not anarchy, not lawlessness, not *
merely the individual will and pleasure ; it is draped in robes of d^ fc
corum and law. Will it ever become a mere memento of what has tt
been? It represents, it cannot defend or secure, liberty. Will it *
ever represent a failure f That depends upon the people, who mnst
first ostracize the virtues which make it not an ideal in bronze, but
UOLUHBUS NOMVXBNT.
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS 593
a liviDg reality. Yet history has some disagreeable lessons. Nations
are not cast iu bronze. They change with their development, and are
not always what they were.
In 1889 was celebrated the inauguration of Washington, with the
scene, to a certain extent, revived ; that is, with President Benjamin
Harrison landing at the same spot (the foot of Wall street) and in
the same way, by boat, and passing thence with the great procession
to the place indicated by history — the present location of the statue of
Washington. So far historical ; but what a representation of our own
day! The naval parade, the great procession through dense mul-
titudes compacted into one citizenship from many nations ; a pro-
cession comprehending governors of States, an immense militarj'
display, scenes typical and imposing, a tableau holding the eye for
hours, yet which found its culmination of interest in the splendid
marching of hundreds of children from the public schools 1 Fittingly
the occasion has itself been commemorated in more lasting form by
the erection of the fine marble arch on Washington Square. The
same magnitude of design, the same allegory and pageant, has also
characterized the late celebration — October 12, 1892 — of the landing
of Columbus ; duiing which, also, a statue of the celebrated navigator
was unveiled at the southwestern entrance to the Central Park, and,
in the absence of the mayor, accepted by the editor of this work on
behalf of the city. Moreover, what a spectacle was the funeral of
General Grant, in 1885, at which the two ablest living generals of the
war (Sherman and Johnston), once well-matched opponents, rode
peacefully together in mutual tribute to the great silent soldier. And
we are building his monument and tomb, to be always before the eye
of the future and to recall his historic deeds. These have been the
grand commemorations of the period. But more than ever before, as
Vol. m.— 38.
594
HI8T0BT OP NEW-YORK
an indication of advanced thought, we have been adorning our streets
and parks with works of art representative of men and events worthy
to be remembered. Above all, as permanent " eye-teaching," and a
permanent monument of the period, of its taste, its munificence iu
both collecting and giving for public uses, we have the admirable
Metropolitan Museum, opened in 1882.
There is always another side. Civilization does not advance equally
all along the line. The grand army has its ignoble and cowardly
camp-followers. It must be
an unusually healthy tree in
the forest that has no with-
ered leaves to shed, no dead
branches, no parasitical fun-
gus at the root. If our streets
and parks show growth in the
direction of the ideal, in statu-
ary and ornamentation, there
is to be seen in them statuarj-
of another kind far from or-
namental. Especially in City
Hall Park, the very focus of
city life and activity, close by
Printing House Square with
its night and day acti\ities,
with Franklin and Horace
Greeley in full view to set
them thinking, and many a
newsboy earning his own
decent living, there they sit
upon the benches, almost as
permanent as statues, and the
more remarkable for the con-
trast they present! From the park to the poorhouse in winter;
from the bench to the saloon, the lodging-house, or to beg ; such is
their life. They are the " dead-beats " of the community, and its
parasites. To this they have come, illustrating nature's law of de-
generation alongside of activity, growth, and development. To this
their nature is now limited. Like the hermit-crab in its shell, they
live in the cast-off clothes of other people. Tailors' bills, grocers'
bills, homes of their own, duties, they have none to trouble them.
They are simply parasites; they feed on others. Begged and given
a ticket for a lunch, a few pennies for a drink, something for a va-
grants' lodging-house, and such like, and the day's sum total is made
up. Laziness and filth have become their normal condition. A worn-
NEW-YORK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEARS
595
out, broken-down horse is respectable ; he has worked for his living,
and borne the cuts bad fortune has bestowed upon him with patient
endeavor. When he dies there will remain something useful besides
his bones. As to these others, nothing, not even their shoes. It is
the other side of the picture of progress, not ideal but actual.
As now pertaining to actual life in the city, and its development on
the better side, during the period before us, we turn to the subject of
schools and education. There has been a noticeable change since
1879. It will probably not interfere with anything written in previous
chapters to refer to the past and its schooling. There are some yet
remaining who went to school in Ex-
change Place, in Pine street, in Cedar, /J^
or in Nassau, where now stands the \^>y vJTy^/^^^^^-^-^^a ^
Equitable building; and, later on, in ^
Murray street, at Anthon's famous gram- ^
mar-school, which for so many was the gateway into Columbia College.
No private schools now linger in those lower regions, which once
were to school-boys regions of pains and penalties. In the younger
days of the century, about 1815, there were several Irishmen in the
city who had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin, had been con-
cerned with the Emmets in the proceedings of the United Irishmen,
and as exiles had taken up teaching for a living. Their vocation was
drill, especially in the classics, at the time the essential part of schol-
arship. And, certainly, they made scholars well grounded and capable
in the classics and such other branches as they taught. It is to be said,
however, that they did not confine themselves to drill as a means of
implanting* solid and correct knowledge. They kneaded it in with
their hands, and faithfully used " physical culture ^ by means of the
strap, the favorite implement of that day. Nor was it gentle culture,
as of tender juvenile vines ; on the contrary, and frequently, a good
top-dressing at their hands was harrowing. A Philadelphia lad, who
had left school with the blood running down his back, made a vow.
Returning forty years afterward, a man of wealth and standing, he
hunted up his old teacher. Times had changed with him, and the
vow was superfluous. But such were — not with these only, but in
general — the methods of teaching early in the century. The largest
and most successful of these schools, we may add, was that of Joseph
1 Abram S. Hewitt was born July 31, 1822, re-
ceived his education at Columbia College, practised
law in New- York, and later became a partner in
the Arm of Cooper, Hewitt & Co. For twenty-five
years he has, as secretary of the board of trustees,
directed the educational and financial affairs of the
Cooper Union. In politics a Democrat, he was one
of the orgaxdzers of the County Democracy in
1879. Elected to Congress in 1874, he served con-
tinuously, with the exception of one term, until
1886, when he was elected mayor, receiving 90,552
votes, against 68,110 for Henry George, and 60,435
for Theodore Roosevelt His administration was
noted for a rigid enforcement of the laws. In 1876
he was chairman of the Democratic National Com-
mittee, and the same year was elected president
of the American Institute of Mining Engineers.
His report on " Iron and Steel " at the Paris Ex-
hibition in 1867 met with approval, and was re-
published at home and abroad. Editok.
596
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Nelson, known as the " blind teacher," and on that account worthy of
special mention. His eyesight had failed him as a student at Co-
lumbia College. Nevertheless, he was already able to understand any
Latin or Greek book by simply bearing it, and his sisters were likewise
classical scholars, who could read to him. Therefore he determined
to teach.' His own department was the classical, the other branches
he left to assistants and a monitor.^ And teacher Nelson, like the
rest, was wondrous good at drill and flogging, made excellent scholars,
some of them after-
ward well-known
men. Blind as be
was, he never misBe<l
the right one, but
would spring out,
collar, and flog hiin;
flog for a false quan-
tity— making no er-
rorsof his own in tbe
matter of quantity!
His rule seemed to
be: to sharpen the
wits of a boy, strap
him on the legs ! Of
course, they eagerly
watched his finger as he felt along for the hour-hand on his silver
watch — there might be time for one or two more floggings ! But he
was as precise about the hour as he was about tbe grammar. After-
ward appointed a professor at Rutgers College, New Jersey, his por-
trait is there, with his finger stiU on the watch.
No school of the past, however, has had the repute of Anthon's
grammar-school. It was what its name imported — a school of rudi-
mentary drill, but one of a higher grade and more comprehensive
scope than any of the preceding. Although educated for the bar,
Professor Anthon was by nature and aptness of mind a linguist and
teacher. A college professor at twenty-three, incessantly at work on
dictionaries, grammars, and critical editions of classical works (ulti-
mately to the number of over fifty volumes), in 1830 he added to his
labors this school, in which he was both rector and the teacher of its
highest linguistic department — the first Latin. Our review concerns
I Bcpn how much a blind man might do! — spparrati;.
II hod, takioK the moon by his teeth, and an attempt
regu- more til Uie purpose if nikde on level gi^uiid !
avail- 2 Rev, Dr, Thomas E.Vennilye, the still bring
. and senior pa«lor of the Colle^te Reformed Chnrcb,
show was one of Nelson's boy mooitora.
FOUETBESTH STREET,
FBOU UNION StltJARE.
> A remarhably ener^tic blind man war
by the writer in 18«0. Piloted by his wife an.
he wan uoinic over a Swiss pass, uot by the
lar, even road, but by short cuts wherever
ahle. His object wan to reach Cliatnouny.
moke the ascent of Mont Blanc, in order to
NEW-YOBK DmUNG THE LAST FOUBTEEN YEABS
597
principally methods and advances in teaching. But Professor Anthon
was, personally, the motive lever of bis school. Up, himself, at four in
the morning, and busy with his bcwks and exact criticism, he insisted
upon industry and thoroughness in his pupils. He gave instruction,
but insisted upon education. Nor was be satisfied with a grammar
knowledge of words, sentences, and their construction, but in transla^
tion it must be the best word and an elegant translation. By means
of Latin and Greek he thus shaped the thought, the mental habits,
and English style of many a small boy, whose individual proficiency,
moreover, decided his daily place in the class, up or down, and the
weekly report to his parents. Such was his method, and his eye was
everywhere. That itself was a
stimulus. Dr. Anthon greatly ad-
mired the celebrated Dr. Rich-
ard Busby, of England, who had
educated more men eminent in
church and state than any teacher
of his time, who refused to pay
deference to the Prince of Wales
in the presence of his pupils be-
cause before them he could ac-
knowledge no superior, and whoso
panacea for all delinquencies was
the rod I' And assuredly, in his
own domain, Dr. Anthon had no
superior. There, with his elegant
and athletic form, his fine head
and imperial manner, he was a
veritable Jupiter on his mountain,
or a Taurus in his constellation — a
teacher whom grown men recall
with a certain gratitude, if they
feared him as boys. For Dr. Anthon, like the others, believed in the
rod: with this only change, from the crude and hard ferule and strap to
the more genteel and limber ratan ! He had his favorites, the always
diligent and good boys, who escaped — like the present distinguished
dean of Columbia College, Dr. Drisler. But for the dull, the careless,
or the lazy there was no escape. For all such the ratan was as con-
ducive to education as pepsin to digestion. Not so easy or pleasant to
take ! With certain figures marked upon a slip of paper, which the
stalwart and jocose professor of mathematics down-stairs well under-
stood, and which he was to count upon the fingers of the boy; to
march into the midst of thirty other boys as audience and spectators;
1 nr. Biubf'l portrait to Included in the BarTkrd College collection.
a4)CASB OABDEN.
598 mSTOKY OF new-yobk
to be grasped by the wrist and stand with extended palm ; to rise on
the tiptoe of expectation, whilst the professor playfully dallied; to
take impi'omptu steps which were not the stately minuet, whilst the
mobile countenance bore witness to the correctness of the professor^
advancing coimt; and then to return with tingling fingers and the
receipt for a flogging 1 There was but one of the parties concerned
who enjoyed it — the stalwart and jocose professor. It refreshed him
as a beautiful piece of applied mathematics ; it was his lunch for the
day. Such were the educational processes of the largest and best
grammar-school of the city fifty years ago.
To come now to our assigned period. Learning, it is certain, has
dropped from her list of stimulants the exhilarating ratan. Her hook
A
is baited, the rather, with glittering prizes. On the other hand, the
curriculum is larger and more ambitious. The modem languages and
other subjects dispute for the hours and the place once, by common
consent, assigned to Latin and Greek. Moreover, to "fit for college"
(male or female), and in the shortest possible time, has become with
schools an important aim ; it affects their grade and numbers. And
this requires more books, more paf^es to be read at a lesson, more
huiTy, with less time to he devoted to drill and the rudiments. A few
questions put to pnpils of different schools will show this. Is it an
advance over the past t There is, indeed, a demand for " higher ednea-
NEW-YOBK DURING THE LAST FOURTEEN YEABS 599
tion," But " higher education," like a house, must begin at the bottom,
with the fouDdations, the rudiments, and proceed with equal care to
the top. Professor Agassiz was wont to give a beginner a lobster,
which he was to study minutely, with glass in hand, for six months.
Chancellor Kent in
his old age said to
the writer that what-
ever reputation he
had gained in life he
owed to the fact that
when he studied law
he had but one book.
That book wasBlack-
atone's Commenta^
ries ; and having no
other, he studied it
thoroughly and un-
til he had mastered
the principles of law.
It was in 1782, when
there were no American law books and no reports of American deci-
sions, and when law itself, as applicable to American institutions, had
not been shaped. Those first studies, afterward buUt upon, enabled
him to bring order out of confusion in the State Supreme Court, and
later, as chancellor, in the Court of Chancery ; so that when, after
nine years, he retired, they likened him to Lord Nottingham, who had
founded the equity system of England, and was "enabled in the
course of nine years to build a system of jurisprudence and jurisdic-
tion upon wise and rational foundations." '
"We must recognize the fact that the day and its conditions are dif-
ferent; that under any method the larger part will only make fair
progress ; that eminence is the attainment of but few ; but that even
a peep into knowledge may be helpful. There are schools and schools
in the city, from the thorough to the " fashionable " ; the latter, or at
least some of them, as like to the former as is the bird Taurus (the
"hollow-sounding bittern" of Goldsmith), all legs and wings and
feathers, to the noble ox whose lowing it was thought to imitate.
Whatever is desired can be had. And for " higher education " there
is increased provision. For instance, Columbia College has many de-
partments besides (in the freshman and sophomore years) a regular
college course. Gradually these are thrown open to the student as
t The chancellor h*d just received ■ bust o( JudtfS William Kent, in preceding him down the
UqiBelf. He did notlilie it. "It makes me look loDg etepa into tbe yard, took a leap over the rail-
HO croas. and I am not cross." be said. In Fact, bia lag. "Ob, I can da that too," odd the chancellor;
old age was genial, acttve, and plAyfUL His son, and over he went himjcif
600 HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK
" elective " studies. In the senior year everything is " elective." And
thus at an earlier date than formerly the student may get down to the
specialty he may wish to pursue, with every advantage of apparatus
and instruction at hand. He is not marked from day to day as for-
merly, but must study, or bear the penalties incident to a report as
"deficient." Such is the change
of method at Columbia — an iu-
stance merely of tbe changes
through which the university, like
Columbia and other colleges, is
passing. So far as it marks an
advance in study, it must react
•upon the schools. On tbe femi-
nine side, Barnard College, char-
tered in 1S89, is and is not a de-
partment of Columbia. It is not
supported by its funds. Its reci-
tations are separate but on paral-
lel lines, which, upon completion,
entitle the graduate to a Columbia
diploma; and thereafter, if she so
chooses, to the privilege of at-
'^1 'y</f/^' s tendance upon certain of its" elec-
^ky^f/^^^-ri^'J^^ ^i^g„ studies. The number of
students is as yet not large ; and still smaller the number of those
who avail themselves of what may be called an educational aftermath
or after-grass. It has to compete with such popular institutions as
Bryu Mawr, and Smith, and Wellesley, or Vassar and Wells. In a
city whose first educational impulses came from Holland, among
whose earliest and best scholars were women, it is but still following
the example of three out of four of the Dutch universities — of Leyden,
Utrecht, and Amsterdam — to throw open doors of learning to women,
some of whom, as in the past, may prove great proficients.
In a city history it is impossible to overlook the public schools.
They reach the largest numbers, especially the poor, in all parts of the
city ; and if the present compulsory law does not actually secure an
education to all, it is at least fairly well enforced. Our period, from
1879, covers the incumbency of John Jasper as city superintendent
of schools, and has certainly been one of advance. Of this one evi-
dence is patent enough in the gradual consolidation of smaller schools,
till lately in crowded and inconvenient buildings, and placing them
in those newer ones planned to accommodate from two thousand to
three thousand pupils, and provided with the best sanitation and con-
veniences. Even with this consolidation, and with whatever ineffi-
NEW-YORK DDBING THE LAST FOURTEEN TEARS 601
ciency iu the action of the compulsory law, the namber of grammar
and primary schools, or separate departments, has grown, since 1879,
so as to require seven hundred more teachers, or 3496 in all, for an
average daily attendance of 137,819 pupils. These schools, again, have
been supplemented by evening schools having two grades of junior
and senior, with elective studies in the latter for pupils not under
sixteen years of age, whilst in the junior or regular department the
ages may range from thirteen to eighteen years. These, in 1892,
had 28,537 registered pupils, and a nightly average of 9376 ; and, in
addition, are four evening high schools, with an average of nearly
3000. Moreover, whilst it is evident that the eflSciency of a school
must depend much
upon the teaching
or executive power
of both principal
and teachers, there
has been steady pro-
gress in school work
since 1879. What-
ever change has
been fairly tested
and proved advan-
tageous has been
adopted. Of espe-
cial importance has
proved the introduc-
tion, first of man-
ual-training schools, and then, in 1890, the introduction into all the
schools of the course of study therein found so useful. This edu-
cational course begins at the lowest primary grad'e, and goes through
to the highest grammar grade; goes from the kindergarten, with its
"eye-teaching" for the least, up to the high school. In all it is re-
garded as a living principle of education, to be applied wherever prac-
ticable. And, indeed, among such a population, so circumstanced,
what can be more efl&cient than a course of instruction which includes
the body as well as the mind! How excellent, again, the law of the
State which requires iu its common schools attention to such subjects
as physiology and hygiene ! For this, also, provision is made, through
talks by the principals, outside of the regular studies. That the stan-
dard of scholarship among the teachers must be good, is evident. In-
deed, to secure a requisite proficiency, the standard of licenses has
been raised in 1892 from seventy-five to eighty-five per cent. But
with a Normal School of 2000 pupils to draw upon, to secure the best
for the purpose should be no difficulty.
602 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
During this period has also been tried the experiment — an experi-
ment in this city — of having female members upon the Board of
Education. Since of the three chosen to the ofl&ce none has been re-
appointed by the mayor, it must, for the present at least, be deemed
a failure. The number suited by tact, temperament, and training to
the position is necessarily small, and, whether in the board as a legis-
lative body or in the schools, it may easily become
J^ >/? X) ' a trying and unpleasant one in view of the many
cauAyuJ^cKjd.^-u^ subjects which may arise and distract opinion. It
stands an experiment discontinued by the will and judgment of the
appointing power, the mayor, although it brought into service upon
the board women of well-known character and capacity, and experi-
ence in various phases of city work.
How well approved, upon examination, is the work of the public
schools, a late incident may show. Let it here first be said that they are
intended in their various districts to reach even the poorest and all
nationalities. It is a notable fact that the best scholars are Jews, both
in deportment and learning; their parents require of them profi-
ciency in such matters. The next are Germans, whilst the Irish, with
different traits, have produced from these schools bright specimens of
what, with education, they may become. Even some of the poorest
among them, seeing what the schools have done, entertain for their
children this greatest desire — an education! The incident is, that
one who knows this work and has attained wealth through a large
clientage among the poor, and desires to return them something of
what he has received, has arranged a plan by which twelve pupils
now pass yearly from the public schools into the city college, and
will do so till the full number of sixty is reached. That number is
to be maintained, and will cost him the sum (for which he has al-
ready provided) of $20,000 annually in perpetuity. His one condi-
tion is that they shall be poor, capable, and desirous of an education.
K one is disposed to do good, even a penny paper may furnish the
abundant means.
This beneficent act brings us naturally to the subject of charities.
The public schools are not charities. They are a tax for the good of
the whole, by which the state seeks to protect itself against the dan-
gers of ignorance and vice. It recognizes them as its best means of
self-preservation. Charities, on the other hand, are, or are mainly,
1 Franklin Edson was bom in Chester, Vt., April and devoted much attention to the tran^portatioii
5, 1832, and comes of Puritan stock. Mr. Edson's and grading of grain, and labored assiduoualv to
early days were spent on his father's farm, and he secure the reduction and abolishing of the canal
obtained his education at the Chest^^r Academy, tolls, a result finally accomplished. Always a Dem-
Settling in Albany in 1852. he entered into business ocrat, Mr. Edson served as mayor of New-York
with his brother, remaining in that city for four- in 1883-84, and infused new thought and life into
teen years In 1866 he removed to New- York, be- all branches of the municipal government. He if
came a commission merchant, was elect«»d three a director of the Bank of New- York, and has oc-
times to the presidency of the Produce Exchange, cupied other offices of importance. Editor.
NEW-YOBK DURING THE lAST FOURTEEN TEARS d03
voluntary organizations for different humane and Christian purposes.
New- York has over a hundred of such. They represent not the
riches of the rich alone, but vastly more that cannot be computed in
money — the time and devoted labors of an army of workers, some of
whom give, in proportion to means, veritably the "widow's mite."
Churches, Sunday-schools, family training, and a diverse multitude
of Christian influences all contribute to this charitable work. If there
is evil in the city, there is also immense good done. More than fifty
of these charities are devoted to children. We can only indicate by a
few examples to what this work has grown. Some are temporary and
specific in their object. When, eighteen years ago Mr. Bergh aided
in establishing a society for the prevention of cruelty to children, who
would have supposed that its scope could be large t City life, how-
ever, has its cruelties as well as its misfortunes, and these not from
strangers or guardians alone, but from parents. During that period
this society has rescued from abuse — and even, in instances, from
mutilation — and placed in suitable homes or in institutions, more than
25,000 children, and at the reception-rooms (opened twelve years ago)
over six thousand have been sheltered, clothed, and fed ! Some, again,
are asylums, such as the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum and the Ju-
venile Asylum. The latter can accommodate a thousand inmates. It
takes truant and disobedient children of from seven to fourteen years
old, or such as have parents unfit to rear them. These it takes in and
educates, or sends to permanent homes elsewhere. Broader yet in its
sphere of action is the Children's Aid Society. It comprehends all
children of the poor. Although established earlier, its particular line
of usefulness began in 1861 with William A. Booth as its president,
and Charles L. Brace as its superintendent — men admirably adapted
to work together in such a field. Mr. Booth has just retired, in his
eighty-eighth year, with the abundant and increasing fruits of the
society visible. Mr. Brace died three years since. In 1861 there
was at the top of the "Sun " building a large room used for homing
604
HISTORY OP NEW-YORK
pigeoDs. There they started a lodging for newsboys and other such
waifs and gamins of the streets, and gathered in from forty to sev-
enty. It witnessed some remarkable scenes, and was for that class
truly a " morning san." It was the original of the newsboys' down-
town lodging-house, among whom, also, a Sunday evening meeting
soon became an institution, conducted for seventeen years by Mr.
Booth and Mr. Brace alternately, and since, in other houses, by sach
actively engaged business men as Howard Potter, D. Willis James,
the late Judge Van Vorst, and Theodore Roosevelt. Of these lodging,
houses, which are also industrial schools, the society to-day has sis or
seven. A bad neighborhood — the worst — is selected, some liberal
donor is found, and the house is built. One for girls of from twelve
to twenty was opened in Twelfth street iu September, 1892. Its cost
was a donation of $70,000. And there they learn — the girls, cooking,
laundering, dressmaking, type-writing, and other piu^uits; the boys,
printing, wood-earving, olay-molding, drawing, carpentering, and
similar employments. Epidemic or contagious diseases there have
been none. They have gymnasiums, savings-banks, night schools,
loan-societies, a shoe-fund, drying-rooms. Is it to be wondered at
that such a house, established iu a neighborhood, should have its
effect upon the children who otherwise would grow into "gangs'*
and the "dangerous classes"? Upon one evening three judges of
distinction upon the bench told the oliildren their youthfn! experi-
ences,— not entirely different from their own. It was in "Macker-
elville," where once a respectable man could hardly walk by day in
NEW-rOBK DURING THE LAST FOUBTEEN TEABS
605
safety; but what the police could not do has been done by this society.
Moreover, it has a health home at Coney Island, where, in 1891, 7498
children were cared for ; at Bath, Long Island, a summer home, where
were 4000 children j a sick children's mission from which are supplied
at their homes nursing, aud medicines, and medical advice free ; and a
flower mission of importance in its work. In its lodging-houses were
6600 different boys and girls during the year ; there were twenty-one
day schools and twelve evening schools, and 11,638 regular or tran-
sient pupils, and it furnished 579,552 meals. At a cost of twenty
dollars each, it last year sent to homes in Kansas aud Nebraska 2600
children, and in thirty-two years has sent to such homes 92,000. And
its income, which in 1861 was $20,000, was this year $376,324. What
does not the city owe to such workers in such charities I What to
Mr. Brace, the energetic superintendent and organizing manager of
this especial charity !
Other societies and agencies are doing good work in their own way.
The aggregate of their efforts is enormous. To prevent slipshod
giving aud waste, several of them will soon be located together in a
building just erected on Fourth Avenue between Twenty-second and
Twenty-third sti-eets, a sort of charity exchange. But evidently those
that reach down to the children, that break in upon their environ-
ment— the overcrowded tenement-house from which they take them,
the street, the saloon — and replace these with lifting iafluences, — those
are doing a work almost beyond computation, A few years since the
Prison Association published a chart of a single family in Ulster
606 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
County. Its history went back a hundred years, to a Revolutionary
soldier and a vagrant girl of sixteen, since known as " Margaret the
mother of criminals,^ and her four sisters. In six generations their
descendants have numbered twelve hundred ! Living among some
inland lakes of the county, isolated, poor, ignorant, and vicious, with
lunacy, idiocy, and epilepsy among them, the result of such lives,—
with very few exceptions, male or female, they have shown the nat-
ural effects of such a heredity and such an environment — they have
been criminals and bad. Heredity alone is not
omnipotent. Ninety per cent, of those removed
%y the Children's Aid Society have had intem-
perate parents, yet have not become intemperate
themselves. But the environment, to correct it
early, in that is hope; and, as we have already
indicated, to that work the charities of our day are very largely turn-
ing their faces ; yet not, certainly, to the neglect of the older poor.
The health or sickness of the body may be judged by the tempera-
ture, the pulse, or some eruptive symptom ; but every eruption does
not imply general and radical impairment. It may be local or tem-
porary. The same may be said of a great city. A case of cholera
here and there, or typhus, should not be reported as an epidemic. It
would not properly describe the condition of the city. Walking
through our streets at any time during the last dozen years, one
might easily imagine them in a perpetual fever and unable to lie still,
throwing off their cover of pavements only to have them put on again.
What an upturning and unearthing! Contractors' jobs, certainly,
some of them, and other people's money. Nevertheless, what a weight
and wear of traflSc it indicates, the supplies and business of a great city!
How many of the conveniences of our life lie underground — water,
sewage, gas — in mains that must be kept in repair ! What new appli-
ances for motion, heating, living, growth itself requires! All this
means progress, but progress in frequent collision with public conve-
nience. Doubtless the " cable-road " means progress ; but meanwhile
a great avenue remains " paved with good intentions."
Among the people, also, what signs of fever and unrest! Haste
and hurry may be habit or temperament, or the press of good busi-
ness. Multitudes are thus in motion, with a daily strain that requires
shorter hours of work, or (as has become the case) more frequent breaks
and holidays. Yet do people seem to be more migratory. Houses
are now closed for months, where formerly a few weeks' absence suf-
i Hugh J. Grant was bom in New-York in 1852. mayor in 1888, he was elected, pollinj; 114,111
He was graduated from Columbia College Law votes, af^nst Joel B. Erhardt 73,037, and Abram
School ; was elected alderman in 1882, and was S. Hewitt 71,979. He was reelected to the oiBce
again reelected. In 1884, he was nominated by in 1890, defeating Francis M. Scott by 23,357 votes,
Tammany Hall for mayor, but was defeated; and and was succeeded in 1893 by Thomas P. Gilroy.
in 1885 he was elected sheriff. Renominated for Editor.
NEW-YORK DUEINO THE LAST FOUBTEEN YEABS 607
fic«d; due in part, undoubtedly, to the behests of fashion, in accor-
dance with which, when the season opens, in May or June, multitudes
flit and bustle here and there, all together, like a bevy of sparrows in the
street. Bnt it is also due, undoubtedly, to the opening of pleasurable
routes, to increased conveniences of travel, and to the fact that so many
are able to maintain for themselves a home in the country. For a sear
son or permanently I'apid transit permits multitudes to maintain such
homes ; and to the student of city problems the hope is that increased
facilities over those so far attained may enable other multitudes, of
608
HISTOKT OF NEW-YOBK
the poorer class, to cool the fever of city living with the fresh air df
the country. What we have said, however, does not cover the sub-
ject. There are a fever and unrest which characterize the period.
"Were we to choose an image of a condition, it might be, at one end
of the city, a fashionable woman whose unending rounds of teas, din-
ners, visitings, receptions, cai-d-parties, dances, and operas indicate
and make a feverish life ; or, at the other end, none better than the
wandering " fakir," the personification of business unrest, prosperous
to-day, to-morrow down ; whose life, like the tape of the " ticker," is
a continuous record of ups and down and fluctuations, of fever and
chills, till the waste-
basket receives the
used-up scroll. We
have had during the
period one notable
failure and panic—
the failure, in 1884,
of Grant and Ward;
whereby our patriot
soldier, who in the
morning thought
himself worth a mil-
lion, at night found
himself with less
than nothing. How
wonderful bis spirit
of endurance, so great that, notwithstanding this influx of calamity,
added to the anguish of disease, he could yet begin and fini.sh his ad-
mirable "Memoir"! We have had during the period bank-wrecking
aud failures, lunacy, "corners" and dishonesty, the outcome of a
feverish, daring, or grasping spirit, with results bad enough or de-
served enough to those concerned ; but as incidents involving indi-
viduals, not the generality, not tlie majority, and not even peculiar
to the period in review. We have bad in this year a cholera scare, —
a healthy scare, in so far as it led to a stricter quarantine, and to in-
creased efforts at sanitation and cleanliness. Some localities, at least,
have felt the chill of an unusual exposure from being unusually clean;
a cleanliness remedied on some streets (it is said) as soon as the Wsiou
of carts and sweepei-s had passed ! There are always those ignorant
or vicious or reckless enough to defy precaution for themselves or
others; they must be ruled by an active police and an eflBcient,
non-politieal health department. In 1832, during the first cholera
season, in a house from which fifteen bad already been carried, an
eye-witness saw the two remaining inmates eating clams from
NEW-YORK ODBma THE LAST FOURTEEN TEARS
609
a pail, aud eating them raw, and using language not to be re-
peated! Such classes we have always, awaiting disease; they are
themselves a permanent disease. But, separate from all these things,
the decade has been full of unrest, restlessness, even fever. No
one cause can be claimed for it. It relates to no one special sub-
ject or class of subjects. It is mental
unrest,- not affecting the city alone, but
the country. Just as at certain sea-
sous meteors in unusual abundance
enter our atmosphere, and burn and
blaze across the horizon, so have new
ideas entered, — new ideas to be tried
or old ones to be readjusted, by ex-
periment, by discussion, by friction,
by strife. The air holds them in com-
bustion. Whether ignorautly, cmdely,
or intelligently, people are thinking.
Prom the kitchen to the top story of
life there is friction of ideas. Among
the laboring classes high wages, plenty
of work, and unusual savings-bank ac-
counts as indices of prosperity, do not
affect it. They have their ideas to be
tried, something yet to be changed in
ways of their own. During this dec-
ade, as at other epochs, the "labor
question" has given frequent trouble.
In 1889 there was a great strike of
horse-ear drivers, upon a questioD of
hours or wages; whilst in several later
strikes the issue has been the employ-
ment or non-employment of non-union
men (even down to one man) by some
concern here or there, or the discharge t'
of a union man. We have even seen '
regiments during this year called" out
upon hard and unexpected duty at Buffalo by a strike of switchmen,
few in number, but who held the key of a public roadway, and could
thus interrupt the business of thousands. Certainly, a crude and ig-
norant way of solving the labor problem. A costly, but good result,
if repeated trial has brought us nearer to something else. Even with
1 A memarial to Audubon, Che natursUst, will Runic croBB embellished with birds Bad animsls
be unveiled esrly in 1993. It covere Uh gmve, and »ppropriftlely inscribed. The cross is made of
aud stands at the bead of Audubon Avenue. In North River limestone, Is twenty-five feet high.
Trinity cemetery. It is in the form of a Celto- and cost about 410,000. EDITOR.
Vol. m.— 39.
610 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
real grievances to be redressed, it is organizing private war for pri-
vate ends, and making the many suffer for the sake of a few ; it is an
attempt of parties or trades, forming themselves into unions, to obtain
their ends, say in wages, by force and coercion, — a method which, if
generally adopted, would tear business to pieces. With the car-driv-
ers, who threatened and drove others away, it was an attempt at a
monopoly of driving upon that line, at their own prices, and with the
company's horses and equipment as their capitaL It is monopoly
and tyranny of the worst kind which claims exclusive rights in a
trade, and which, to prevent a fellow-craftsman, or even an appren-
^j^ y*> y^ ' ^^'^^> from pursuing it, stops private
J%^. J^' ^.oA.^^ ?w^i'^/''IwJ°'^'*' and all fims
^ /^ that deal with the concern that em-
^ ploys him. It is, in the extreme, de-
moralizing to the workman, who finds his work to depend, not on
its merits, but on the mere coercive power of his organization. It is
a method of force which, doubtless, had to be tried ; but, may we
not hope, only as a rough stepping-stone to some better outcome
and development!
In putting the outlook of the period together, the question is. What
are the forces at work, and to what do they tend T They are good
and evil. On the evil side we have, to begin with, the fact of num-
bers— the thousands imported every year to swell the already start-
ling sum total of ignorance, vice, degradation, and finally crime.
Their environment is poverty, the overcrowded tenement-house with
its inevitable degradation, the liquor-saloon, the street. Separately,
which is the worst f But, with all these huddled together, what a
force for evil ! The number alone of homeless and vagrant youths in
the city during each year is estimated to be about thirty thousand;
and they are born and bred in just such neighborhoods and places.
As they grow they constitute the " dangerous classes,'^ always ripe
and ready for crime. A distinguished writer, Hon. Andrew D. White,
during the summer delivered an address at Chautauqua on the "miu*-
der problem " ; as if murder had grown (and it has) to. the size of a
problem, something to be studied and solved! Vain as are these
youths, quarrelsome, ambitious in the only way known to them, viz.,
to have repute among their fellows as ^'toughs,'' as "nervy,'' as "kill-
ers''; still more than this, to have their pictures and biographies in
the newspapers day after day, — to achieve such glory is to some of
them well worth the chance of a hanging ; for chance it has become,
the chance which a soldier takes in battle. These youths are the
" heelers" and "repeaters" of ward politicians, of men with a "pull."
And now come in the law with its delays, the criminal lawyer with
his devices, and ultimately the chance of a pardon, a commutation.
NEW-rOBK DUBING THE LAST FOUBTEEN YEABS 611
612 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
or an escape. Surely, in some of its features, a condition of hopeless
evil, an unchangeable sore ! Add to all this a coiTupt politics, the
kind of men chosen to govern, the firm grip of the liquor interest, and
the dependence of all upon these classes, together with the many of
better antecedents who do not care; and the complexion of things,
for the good side, is painful and discouraging. The numbers and
the governing influences are against it.
On the other hand is something to be said. There are houses in
the city so apparently ingrained with fever that to remove it is im-
possible,— houses that cannot be reformed. They must be left as they
are, a resort for the vilest, or be pulled down. Neither can the health
authorities, nor hospitals, nor physicians, though armed with the best
appliances of science, cure all the maladies even of a district. They
can mitigate, can remove some, can isolate and quarantine others,
and in cases cure; but the inevitable result must come to many.
The same must be said of moral agencies — our public schools, our
grand charities, our churches, our educating and reforming organiza-
tions : they cannot remove all the ignorance and other evils of the
city. Nor can they, like the bees when an intruder too large to be
removed threatens hann to the hive, seal it up by itself in a dense
coffin of propolis. But they are persistent agencies, and we may rea-
son from what they have already done to a broader future beyond.
There are fires where, from the first, the only hope of the fireman is
to save adjoining buildings that have not yet caught. These agencies,
as we have seen, venture into the worst to save what they can. They
have planted themselves, as engines of good, in some of the worst
districts of the city ; and already with success that opens a future.
Twelve thousand vagrant children come yearly under the influence
of the Childi'en's Aid Society alone. Even the older element, as they
have proved, is not beyond the reach of influence. There are "trea-
sures hid in the sand," like Jeriy McAuley and others of his class,
where one would hardly expect to find them — men and women whose
only schooling has been that of ignorance and vice. If, on the one
hand, that which in its opening is a flower may in its culmination
prove a thistle; on the other hand, the lotus, the most beautiful
flower of India, grows in the mud!
Certainly, when we look only at the seething mass concentrated in
our city from all nations, to educate, elevate, and assimilate it may
seem too great a task. Of two things, however, we never should de-
spair. They are education and the Christian religion as lifting forces.
Their failure in this country would mean our doom. But it has been
proved that the amount of electricity which would charge a thunder-
cloud is not enough to decompose — that is, to t^ar apart the two
gases that compose — a drop of water. Such restriction has God laid
NEW-YOBK DUKIHa THE LAST FOTJRTEEN YEABS
613
upon the cloud. Big and dangerous as it may sometimes seem or be,
it cannot destroy the blessing which, as a "wandering cistern," it was
intended to convey. Such force of resistance has God given to the
raindrop, in its accumulated streams the life of nature and all being.
Like the two gases which compose the raindrop, education and reli-
gion must combine; and, combined, they are in the world a permanent,
ever active, and efficient power, if slow yet sure. We should remem-
ber that in the twelfth century the people of England were sunk in
brutal ignorance; that what little knowledge existed was possessed by
a studious few ; that they were Norman and Saxon, victor and van-
RtTERSIDE DBIVB.l
quished, separated by caste and hatred ; that their only religion was
a debasing superstition ; and that it has taken seven centuries to de-
velop from this beginning the England of to-day. It needs time. But
our circumstances are different. It will not need so much time to
work up the dissimilar and perplexing material. As this appears to-
1 Ab Sir Walter Scott's Edinburgh mortiiment Seine, nised Co the memoiy ot the hero of Ant-
la the finest yet ndsed anTwhere on earth to the terllti and Harengo. The sltuatloD of the poet'a
memoir of a man ot lettert. BO it la believed that or the emperor's monnmeDt cannot (or a mo-
the tomb ot Ontnt, now bnllding on Huihatton ment be compared to the magnitlcent site of the
laland, will be the grandest yet erected in the American soldier's tomb, on the banks of the
wide world to a soldier, anrpaasing even that Hudson, among the (trandeat rivers In the world
noble one which stands near the banks of the — perhaps the very grandest. EctTOB.
614 mSTORT OF NEW-TOBK
day, crowding so much of our city, much of it may seem but rubbish
and refuse fit for the ash-barrel or the dust-heap. Bom in great num-
bers, these people pick up a day's living without a thought beyond,
struggle, suffer, and die. Over 60,000 of them cannot write their own
names. What is their use or purpose in lifeT Are they merely a
part of nature's fecundity! Undoubtedly, many of them may die,
must die, as they are ; and so in each generation. Yet the problem
is not, after all, a hopeless one for the city. Crowded already, in
parts overcrowded, with more than can find work, emigration must
take a turn. Education and religion are pushing upon their envir-
onment ; and, in time, out of the present ignorance and degradation
will come something better. The races will mingle and Americanize.
The influences at work all look to something better. The hybridizing
bee dips its legs in the pollen of a flower; goes to another, and, behold,
a better variety ! The cosmos is but a weed to begin with, but un-
der cultivation it is already becoming a marketable flower of the fall ;
whilst the chrysanthemum, the favorite of the day, and which is a
union of the Japanese, Chinese, and American varieties, has this year
produced a Columbus variety in color, and another which is the very
perfection of form. Such, we may hope, will be the march of im-
provement in our city on the moral and human side, to equal that
upon the material side. An English statesman, at the close of a long
life in the public service, was asked if what he saw and had seen made
him gloomy. He had seen the ups and down of parties; had seen
his country prosperous, and again apparently the reverse. He had
seen that a country might be going too fast, and needed, as some-
times in the spring the season needs, a check. There was much at
the time of his retirement that looked discouraging, but his reply
was that he did not feel gloomy; that he had often found what he
thought a disastrous retrogression to be "merely "the ebb of the advan-
cing wave." "No," he said, "I do not feel discouraged; Hannibal
peto pacem — ^I, Hannibal, seek peace'; that is all!" Personally he
was tired. The historian of the future, beginning at 1893 where this
volume closes, may have much to tell of progress and fruitage where
we see only germs; to tell of better times, when the heads of its
present writers will lie among the "mournful marbles."
CHAPTER XVI
CONSTITUTIONAL AMD LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
IjlC NY outline of the constitutional history of New-York in
the nineteenth century involves primarily the considera-
tion of several great public movements, culminating in
tlie constitutional conventions of 1821 and 1846. Each
of the constitutions presented by these several conventions led to
very radical changes in the substantive law or procedure of the
State. The constitution of 1821 was followed by a notable revision
of the fundamental law of New- York, which exercised much influence
also on the laws of other States ; while the constitution of 1846 was
followed by the overthrow of the ancient judicial establishment of
New- York, and by drastic reforms of the inherited and antiquated
procedure in use for several centuries in the courts of justice of New-
York. Both constitutions were in the direction of more liberal insti-
tutions, and were intended to confer upon the people of the State
greater political powers and privileges than had ever before been
granted to them.
In the preceding volume some of the defects apparent in the con-
stitution of 1777 were noticed ; two of these led to the constitutional
couvention elected in the year 1801. The constitution of 1777 had
omitted all directions for its amendment; but, on the theory that all
political authority emanated from the people, the legislature in 1801,
by a referendum act, recommended a convention to consider two
changes. One of these was made necessary by the embarrassing ratio
in which the senate and assembly were augmenting with the popula-
tion, and the other by a notorious conflict which had arisen between
the governor and the other members of the council of appointment
concerning the governor's exclusive right of nominating to certain
public offices under the provisions of the constitution of 1777.
The delegates accordingly elected by the suffragists met at Albany,
October 13, 1801, and chose Aaron Burr, a delegate for Orange
County, chairman. The ultimate number of members of assembly was
for the future restricted to one hundred and fifty, and the number of
616 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
senators to thirty-two. The right to nominate to office under the
23d section of the constitution of 1777 was declared to be vested
concurrently in the governor and in each of the members of the
council of appointment. The change made in the appointing power
by this construction of the constitution deprived the office of gov-
ernor of the State of much of its existing influence, and led to a per-
petual struggle of the politicians, for the control of the council of
appointment. It introduced no real reform, and led only to the con-
viction that the appointing power was more safely lodged in the
hands of the executive than in the hands of a council or committee.
In reading the accepted version of the political history of the State
of New- York, one might infer that the entire period between 1777
and 1821, the date of the second constitution, was devoted to a con-
stant and petty struggle for political place, and that no lofty pubhc
measures received or demanded the attention of the leaders of the
political parties of the State. Yet such an inference is not wholly
verifiable. During this entire period there was great popular dissatis-
faction with those provisions of the State constitution of 1777 which
related to the property qualifications for electors, and with other pro-
visions which vested such transcendent political powers in the judges
of the great courts of record. The precise nature of such pro\"isioiis
has been adverted to in the preceding volume.* The popular dissat-
isfaction for some time took the usual form of protests in the news-
papers of the day. But in August, 1820, Tammany Hall, as the
organized representative of the dissatisfied element of the population,
initiated a movement for a convention to amend the State constitu-
tion. The subsequent legislative bill providing for the convention
promptly met with the disapprobation of a majority of the council of
revision, who vetoed it. Chancellor Kent writing the opinion of the
council with all the conservatism of a trained lawyer. No veto in
the history of the State has met with greater censure than this action
of the council of revision. The council was openly accused of wish-
ing to defeat the will of the people, and of conspiring to retain the
State in the hands of the lawyers and landholders who, from its
foundation, had carefully guided its political fortunes. The report of
Michael Ulshoeffer, chairman of the select committee of the assembly,
combated the logic of the veto with great vigor, and is regarded as
the abler State paper of the two.- A bill was finally so drawn in
March, 1821, as to meet the main objection of the veto by the council
of revision. It submitted the question of holding a constitutional
convention to the decision of the electors of the State. The electors
having decided in the affirmative by a vote of 109,346 to 34,901, dele-
gates were next chosen, who met at Albany in August, 1821. Before
1 Chapter XIV, Vol. II, of this work. 2 See this paper in Street's "N. Y. Council of Revision, " 455.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HI8T0BY OF NEW- YORK 617
considering the changes accomplished by the convention, it will be in
order to survey the forms to which some of the leading institutions
bad then attained.
The judicial establishment of New- York was never more efficient
than in the first twenty-one years of the present century. It was
still substantially the provincial establishment erected by the Eng-
lish, and continued by virtue of the recognition accorded to it in
the first State constitution, adopted in 1777. Under this constitu-
tion the Supreme Court
of Judicature, as origi-
nally established in 1691,
continued on its ancient
footing. But the iuflu-
ence of the court in-
creased much with the
growth of population and
affairs, and this was fol-
lowed naturally by the
publication of a regular
series of printed law re-
ports. The elevation of
James Kent to the Su-
preme Court bench in
1798, and his interest in
the law reports, did much
to place this ancient
court on a more influ-
ential basis. Under the
judgeships of three great judges — Kent, Thompson, and Ambrose
Spencer — the court was very excellently administered, and many legal
principles were settled ; while fluctuating theories gave place to deter-
minate and known rules of law, reported in the famous series of lead-
ing eases by Caine and Johnson, the official Supreme Court reporters
The Supreme Court justices still went the circuit when the regular
terms of the court in banc were not in session in Albany, Utica, or
New- York. As a law court the Supreme Court of New-York may
have been surpassed by several of the law courts of other States,
whose influence on American law has been, no doubt, more profound.
But it was otherwise in respect of the Court of Chancery.
■^T^iaffn.
I Smith ThompBOn Wks bom In Stanfard.
Dnchpss County, N.Y.,Jftiiu>ry IT, 1768. erndUBted
■t Princeton, and vbb admitted to the bar in 1792,
praetiBing in Troy and Pouehkeepale. He went
to the legUUtore In 1800; from 1W)2 to 1814 he
was aasoetate juatlce of the State Supreme Court,
meaiiThile declining the mayoralty of New-York
city, and in the latter year he wu made chief
Justice, an ofBce he held until his appointment ■>
secretary of the navy in 1818. by President Manroe.
He wan elevated to the United Slates Supreme
Court bench in 1823, remaining there until hia
death, December 18, IS43. The portnit U from
the original painting by Durand. EpiraB.
618 HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK
In the year 1814, James Kent was translated from the chief-jus-
ticeship of the Supreme Court to the Court of Chancery. From a
commonrlaw judgeship he passed to the " throne of equity." In the
same year, Johnson, the Supreme Court reporter, was directed by the
legislature to report the decisions of the chancellor. With this event
begins the most brilliant period of the New- York Court of Chancery.
Livingston, the first chancellor under the State government, had
been an able judge, a great diplomat, and a sagacious figure in pohti-
cal life, but his judicial work is not known, as his opinions have re-
mained unpublished. Only his legal opinions in the council of
revision, and a few rules of court, as yet mark his term of oflSce as
chancellor. Of Chancellor Lansing's administration more is known,
for he promulgated seventy-four chancery rules, or standing orders
in chancery, which are called by jurists the equivalents of edicts or
direct legislation, and are recognized as powerful factors in the ad-
ministration of government. Some of these rules were an improve-
ment on the contemporary English equity practice. Chancellor
Lansing's career also labors under the disadvantage of having had
no reporter. But with Lansing's successor, Chancellor Kent, it is
otherwise: from the very beginning of his judicial life he was at-
tended by the reporters, and the precise value of his labors to the
State and nation is approximately ascertainable. Chancellor Kent
had, at the threshold of his career, perceived that to an American
lawyer of his day two great and living problems were presented for
solution : the relations of the common law of the older country to the
new republic, and the relations of the judicature branch of government
to the legislative and executive branches in a composite or federal
state. In 1794, as professor of law in Columbia College, he had ad-
dressed himself tentatively to the latter proposition. In 1795 he pulj-
lished a small volume of dissertations preliminary to a proposo<i
course of lectures on the common law. But the lectures failed to at-
tract hearers, and were discontinued. At a long subsequent period,
and in his retirement, he gave to the public his " Comment^ies on
American Law," which throughout the United States became a recog-
nized institutional treatise, as celebrated in its way as Blackstone's
"Commentaries on the Laws of England" had been in its way. In
the New-York Court of Chancery, Kent found an instrument which
he at least knew how to use. He was profoundly impressed with the
traditions and dignity of the ancient prototype of his court, the High
Court of Chancery in England. No one could be more mindful of the
fact that in England the chancellors had exercised legislative func-
tions similar to those which the Roman pretors discharged in the
development of the civil law. But Kent had no disposition to inno-
vate. His was an eminently practical mind, and in the year follow-
CX)NSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK 619
ing his elevation to the chancery he stated that he would follow the
English chancellors' conceptions of equity, and would undertake no
innovations, which he regarded as very dangerous/ In thus limit-
ing his extended judicial powers, he, perhaps, denied himself an
opportunity of expressing his own conceptions of equity, and of
taking an original place in the very front rank of English-speaking
chancellors. He was content to serve as an expounder and com-
mentator of Anglo-American law: thus he contributed little that
was original to those fundamental canons of English equity which
comprise the perpetual edict of that system, and which were prac-
tically completed in England by his contemporaiy. Lord Eldon. In
this respect Kent's present influence differs from the influence, for
example, of such an American jurist as Marshall, who possessed an
original and creative intellect of the highest order, and whose judg-
ments must always be sensible on this continent in the region of
political law and philosophy. In thus treading in the footsteps of
the English chancellors, Kent did not, as we shall see, escape the re-
sponsibilities which the anomalies incident in New-York to his oflBce
made inevitable; for the recipient of such great political powers could
not hope to elude criticism under a republican form of government.
Nor can it be said that those who, in the convention of 1821, criticized
the abnonnal power intrusted to a chancellor of this State, were
wholly without justification. In addition to exercising the law pow-
ers of a chancellor under the former English system, the chancellor
of New- York, by virtue of his office, sat in the court of last resort, and,
though he could not vote, might argue in support of his own judg-
ment below. He was also one of those who possessed in the council
of revision a qualified veto on all legislation under the first constitu-
tion. This was an abnormal and tremendous power for a judge.
These powers, which it is proper to say Kent had not sought, nor
even helped to confer, he exercised without fear, in the old-fashioned
federal and professional manner, veiy exasperating to the newer
school of republican lawyers, who would not defer so profoundly to
the legal system of England. Thus, toward the year 1821, Kent, in
the minds of his opponents, was the leading representative of the
hated and influential survival of what they believed ought to have
been purely ante-revolutionary traditions, having little application to
the conditions of American life under the republic. His opponents
deprecated the chancery conceptions of a "throne of equity." Indeed,
the whole idea of a chancellor, they said, was associated with a king-
ship: a chancellor without a king was almost as inconsistent as a
king without a chancellor. The entire chancery establishment came
in for condemnation because it fostered a class of officials and prac-
1 1 Johnson's Cbanceiy, 530.
620 mSTOBY OF KEW-YORK
titioners whose exclusiveness was distasteful to the population of the
newer and growing parts of the State. Thus, side by side with Chan-
cellor Kent's practical, conservative, and just administration of the
Court of Chancer}', were growing up the seeds of discontent in the
minds of the more independent and emancipated political thinkers.
This discontent culminated in the constitutional convention of 1821,
when Kent had been only seven years chancellor of New-York.
In addition to the great courts mentioned, there were in the year
1821 the Court of Errors and the Court of Probates, already noticed.
The Court of Errors, it will be recalled, consisted of the senators, the
chancellor, and the judges of the Supreme Court,^ In 1787 a minis-
terial part of the jurisdiction of the Court of Probates had, by an act
of the legislature,*- devolved upon certain officers termed surrogates.
The Court of Admiralty had expired when the admiralty jurisdiction
had been called into being by the federal constitution of the general
government. The minor courts of the State remained in 1821 sub-
stantially as before the Revolution.
Before noticing the changes wrought by the new constitution, let
us glance again at the condition of the State of New-York about the
time of the convention of 1821. In 1808 the number of freeholders
entitled to vote for senator and governor was 36,500, and in 1820,
despite the increase in population, the number of freeholders qualified
to vote for the great officers of the State had not increased in a like
ratio with the population. This was felt to be a grievance by the
I>eople at large. In 1820 the major part of the inhabitants were still
engaged in agriculture, and the rural districts were increasing in
population at a greater ratio than the urban communities. In 1812,
twelve new counties had been carved out of the one great county
theretofore lyiug west of Seneca Lake. In 1820 the sixteen counties in
the State of the year 1790 had become fifty-five counties, embracing
(ivo incorporated cities and six hundred and sixty-two boroughs
or towns.' After the peace with England in 1783 the western terri-
tory, or that great country west of the 80th meridian, had attracted
large numbers of settlers. One of the routes to the Ohio country
from New England was through central New- York, and many men
of New England birth either stopped on their way to the far West,
or settled in New-York, finding certain advantages or attractions
in the then wild parts of this State. Thus, central, western, and
northern New- York soon began to have the political tone of New
England.^ These men of New England entertained very different
conceptions of government from those embodied in the State consti-
tution of 1777 by the old land-owning and lawyer classes of the prov-
i Chapter XIV, Volume IL 2 Chapter 38. 8 Spofford'g " Gazetteer,'' p. ®L
4 •* Gazetteer of Western Continent for 1810 : " title, " New-YoriL"
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 621
ince of New- York. Thus it happened that the exponents of* the new
parts of the State — men of the old-fashioned Puritan names — were,
in the constitutional convention of 1821, as a rule, found in the party
of reform, and not in the ranks of the more conservative and native
element of the State.
As late as 1820 the more populous districts of the State existed in the
two oblongs anciently settled, — extending, the one down Long Island
and the other up the Hudson River, — and there the inhabitants were
mainly of the old provincial type. In Kings, Ulster, Albany, and parts
of Orange County might stiU be heard the Low Dutch of the seven-
teenth century, although, from the want of Dutch schools and the
preponderance of people of English stock, the use of the language
of the first European settlers had greatly diminished. But in the an-
cient districts Dutch and English names were still found in most
families curiously combined, denoting that the social condition had
followed the political transitions of the province, and that the race
of the conqueror had blended with that of the conquered. The pop-
ulation in these districts was still largely native. Franklin pointed
out that even at the time of the war of independence the inhabitants
of all the American colonies were largely natives, and descended from
those who had emigrated from Europe prior to the year 1700. The
fact that the population of New-York State was largely native in 1820
is corroborated by the statistics of the city of New- York in 1820, when,
out of a total population of 123,706, but 5390 of the inhabitants of
that city appear to be classed as unnaturalized foreigners. Indeed, in
1820 the population of the whole State was mainly composed of na-
tive Americans, and, as stated, the major part were engaged in agri-
cultural pursuits.
The great city which now stands rather for North America than for
the State of New-York, and which is fast outgrowing its traditions as
an ancient capital of an ancient province, had increased from 80,000
inhabitants in 1808 to 123,706 in 1820. From the year 1756 to the year
1790 the general progress of the city in population and resources was
much like that of other American cities. But after 1790 it became
evident that New- York was, for a long time at least, to lead other
American cities.^ Yet for some years after the constitutional con-
vention of 1821 the affairs of this city were conducted mainly under
the royal charter known as the Montgomerie Charter of 1730.^ As
late as 1827 General Dix noticed the fact that in New- York city " the
Dutch families by which the first settlement was formed were still
represented in their descendants, who constituted a considerable pro-
portion of the whole number of inhabitants,^^ but he admitted "that
1 Dix'8 '* Resources of the aty of New- York in 1827." 2 See Chapter VI, Volume II.
3 " Resources of the City of New- York," p. 38.
622
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
the descendants of the English families who established themeejveg
during its eolouial dependence on Great Britain" were then much
more numerous.
Such, then, were some of the conditions prevailing in New-Tork
at the time of the constitutional convention of 1821 — a population
composed largely of native AmerieaQs
whose pursuits were in the main agri.
cultural. No body of aliens had yet be-
come so formidable or consolidated as to
constitute a known and separate political
organization, generaied and led by pro-
fessional political headmen of their own
race. The conditions of commerce were
stiU largely primitive in character: the
Erie Canal had not been completed; steam
navigation was yet in its infancy; the
telegraph and the railroad were unknown;
while postal circuits were made over the
common turnpikes and waterways of the
State. Yet the material conditions of lite
were relatively those of a highly civilized
State, and not very dissimilar to the conditions in the civilized States
of the older world. New- York had already been settled for two cen-
turies.
When the constitutional convention met at Albany, August 28, 1821,
the delegates were fairly representative of both the reformers and the
conservative party in the State. The older counties sent their most
distinguished lawyers and the landholders representing their tradi-
tions. From Albany and the older counties came Chancellor Kent,
the Jays, and the Livingstons ; from New-York County came, among
others, Nathan Sandford^ Ogden Edwards, Henry "Wheaton, and Jacob
Radcliff. From the newer counties were sent such men as Jarvis Pike,
Nathan Carver, Victory Birdseye, Micah Brooks, Jason Penton, and
General Erastus Root. Among the other notable members of the
convention were Daniel D. Tompkins and Martin Van Buren. From
the fact that Daniel D. Tompkins, " the favorite fanner's son," as he
was then called, was elected ohairman of the convention, it was soon
evident that the Democrats were in the majority, and that the new
constitution was to be made more democratic in principle than the
lAnJrew Klrkpatrick waa bom Fpbniary 17,
1756, and (rrfxliiated at PrinceMD. He studied law,
va* Bdniiti«d to the bar in 1785. and practlwd suc-
cessfully. In 1797 he wan » member ot the New
Jersey legialahins, booh resijniinif to become judge
of the Slate Supreine Court. In 1803 he was mode
chief justice of the Stale, which offlc* be held
for twenty-one years. He Burried Jane. elUi'it
daughter of Colonel John Bayard, and died in
New Brunswick, N. J.. January 7, 1831. ( Vidt a
priyately printed address on the chief justice, by
Genersa Wilson, Now-Tork, 1870.) EnrroB.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 623
old one had been. The debates in the convention show clearly that
the primacy of the old judicial establishment, with its abnormal polit-
ical power and the qualified electoral franchise erected on a basis of
landed interest, in conformity to the former Anglican institutions of
the province, were the main points of attack by the reformers. In-
cidentally the justices of the Supreme Court, and even the distin-
guished chancellor, were virtually put on trial by the convention.
They were made the manifest victims of an organization which had
confused the coordinate departments of government, and their ex-
planations in convention were generally prefaced by apologetic and
painful explanations due to their unfortunate position. In this re-
gard the spectacle of the convention was a triumph of democracy
over the upholders of mncient institutions. Sometimes the debates
became virulent. The chancellor was likened to " the Bohun Upas of
Java, that destroyed whatever sought for shelter or protection in its
shade.'' Even his reporter, Johnson, with his " big and little ^ books,
was ridiculed. Chief Justice Spencer, in some respects the ablest
common-law judge in the State, was contemptuously told "that he
might have been a Holt or a Mansfield had he kept from the political
arena." It was evident that the people were impatient with the veto
power vested in the council of revision, which, it will be remembered,
consisted of the governor, the judges of the Supreme Court, and the
chancellor. The judiciary had thus been dragged into every political
measure of importance, and the consequent torrent of popular de-
nunciation had much diminished then* usefulness. Thus, Kent and
Spencer, whom we now regard as the high priests of the ancient sys-
tem of law, were at the end of their judicial careers made the victims
of the Anglican institutions of a former century, of which they were
the stoutest upholders. It may well be doubted whether the chan-
cellor and the judges were wise in attending the convention as dele-
gates. They knew that their power was to be broken; they were
there making stately defenses of their past, and to save the remnant
of former institutions, when neither needed extenuation. The con-
vention finally decided to make a new constitution, as the old was
deemed past amending. The council of revision was abandoned, and
after the fullest deliberation a limited veto power was transferred to
the governor. The council of appointment, which then appointed
709 officers in the city of New-York alone, next shared the fate of the
council of revision. A great number of minor offices were made
elective.* Justices of the peace were to be appointed by the boards
of supervisors and the county judges.^ The appointment of the
higher judicial officers was vested in the governor, with the consent
1 Constitution of 1821, Art. IV.
2 In 1826 an amendment made the justices elective.
624
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
of the senate.^ The appointment of secretary of state>, comptroller
treasurer, attorney-general,- surveyor-general, and commiasary was
vested in the senate and assembly on joint ballot. All officers hold-
ing their offices during good behavior might be removed by joint
resolution of the two houses of the legislature. The term of oflBce of
governor having been invested with some part of the former powers
of the several coimcils of revision and appointment, was abridged
from three to two years in order to insure a greater responsibility to
the electors.
The debates in the convention on the electoral franchise were
spirited, exhaustiv^e, and really instructive. With the most advanced
thinkers on this subject stood Peter R. Livingston of Duchess
County. He allied himself to the tenant-fanners, who were largely
for reform, and opposed General Van Rensselaer and Chancellor Kent,
who stood openly by the ancient traditions of a superior lauded
interest, and who were at least for the survival of an upper legislative
house which should represent the more exclusive body of freeholders.
All recognized that some extension of the franchise was ineWtable,
and the more conservative fought to retain the pro\isions of the old
constitution which divided the electors into two classes according to
property interest. The debates afford curious evidences of the sur-
vival of ancient institutions, and the frequent use of such words as
" yeomanry ^ and " landed interest " denotes that the legacies and tra-
ditions of a former century were hard to extinguish even under the
republic. General Van Rensselaer placed his objections to universal
suffrage on the ground that the influence of the city of New- York
would be augmented at the expense of the ancient and long-settled
i-ural districts. Other opponents placed them on the more subtle
ground of experience, which they affirmed had demonstrated that uni-
versal suffi'age gave an undue control to the plutocracy of wealthy
manufacturers and other employers of labor. The convention finally
enlarged the basis of the franchise. Freeholds no longer qualified.
Every white male resident taxpayer, militiaman, fireman, and la])orer
on the public highways, of full age, was to have a vote for all elective
officers.^ Men of color only were disfranchised, unless they were free-
holders and for three years citizens of the State. Singularly enough,
the most radical upholders of universal suffrage appear to have been
the opponents of the negroes, whose true friends were found in the
ranks of the old land-holding and legal aristocracy of the State.
1 Constitution of 1821. Art. TV. Sec. 7.
2 Under an act of February 12, 171»6, seven as-
sistant attorney-generals were appointed by the
governor and council of appointment during
pleasure. The attorney-general oflflciated per-
sonaUy in New- York (^ounty. The office of district
attorney was created April 4, 1801. By a law
passed April 21, 1818, each county was erected into
a separate district. Under the second constitution
the district attorneys were appointed by the
Court of General Sessions in each county. S««
Volume II, Chapter XIV, of this work.
3 In 1826 most barriers were removed, and white
manhood suffrage made practically universal
CONSTITXjnONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 625
The most interesting chapter in the history of the convention
relates .to the judicial establishment, which we have seen owed its
existence to the former royal government, and its continuance to the
conservatism of those who had framed the constitution of 1777. In
the year 1821, the Supreme Court of Judicature consisted of Chief
Justice Spencer and three associate justices, who were, as we see them
now, all able common-law lawyers, but perhaps not free from the
peculiar formalism of the old English law administered by them.
Their political attitude and their labors in the council of revision
had undoubtedly made them very obnoxious to the people, and had
brought even their judicial work, which was of the highest order,
into great and unmerited disrepute. The new constitution vacated
all judicial offices after December 1, 1822, and thus assured a new
common-law judiciary. Various proposals were made in convention
to transfer the entire equity powers of the chancellor to the Supreme
Court, and to render the court more popular and accessible ; but this
reform was postponed.
The changes effected in the judicial establishment were not great.
The powers of the judges of the great courts were somewhat circum-
scribed, and the judges themselves were removed out of the imme-
diate realm of polities by the destruction of the council of revision.
They were retained as members of the old Court of Errors, consisting
of the senators and the higher judiciary, as before, though the senate
was rendered much more democratic by the practical abolition of the
former property qualification required of the electors for senators.
Some slight change was made in the procedure of the court when
sitting as a court for the trial of impeachments. The powers of the
Supreme Court justices were further circumscribed, as it was sup-
posed, by taking away from them the duty of going the circuit, which
it was asserted had been often made a political tour whereby the
authority and majesty of the law had been perverted to partizan uses.
The circuit and chamber duty of Supreme Court justices was trans-
ferred to a new class of circuit judges, who might also be invested by
the legislature with an original equity jurisdiction.* Thus relieved of
circuit duties, the Supreme Court was reduced to three justices, con-
sisting of a chief justice and two associates, who were to hold office, as
before, during good behavior or until sixty years of age, though they
might be removed by joint resolution of the two houses of the legis-
lature. Although the Court of Chancery was not destroyed. Chan-
cellor Kent's term of office was not extended, and was left to expire in
a few months, or when he reached sixty years of age,^ which hap-
1 Constitution of 1821, Art. V. through the senile infirmities of Chief Justice
2 The same limitation was contained in the Horsmanden, one of the last of the crown judges,
constitution of 1777. It was inserted at the in- and for some thirty years on the bench.
stance of the lawyers, who had been plagued
Vol. m.— 40.
626
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
pened in a short space/ It was proposed in the convention to
abolish this court and transfer its powers to the law courts, but the
time was not deemed opportune. Under the authority of the consti-
tution, which authorized the legislature to vest equity powers in the
common-law judges,^ very considerable changes in the organizatioa
of the court were, however, soon introduced in practice. It was
thought that this measure would lessen or popularize the power of
the chancellors. But the chancellors soon demonstrated the fallacy
of this opinion,^ claiming that their judicial powers were beyond the
control of the legislature. The measure, however, did demonstrate
the feasibility of merging legal and equitable powers in the same
judicial officer, and under the succeeding constitution it led to very
extended reforms of a like nature.
The new constitution of 1821^ made a slight alteration in the
declaration concerning the future law of the State. The original
constitution had continued a part of the statute law of Englaml as
the law of New-York. The legislature, having consolidate! all the
English statute law in a general revision, had repealed in 1788 the
residue, and so the new constitution, unlike the first, made no
reference to the English statutes, but declared "such parts of the
Common Law and of the acts of the legislature of the Colony of
New- York as together did form the law of the said Colony on the
19th day of April, 1775, and the resolutions of the Congress of the
Colony and of the Convention of the State of New- York in force
on the 20th day of April, 1777,- which had not since expired, or
been repealed, or altered, and such acts of the legislature of this
State as were then in force, should be and continue the law of this
State, subject to such alteration as the legislature should make con-
cerning the same.'' All parts repugnant to the new constitution were
excepted.
The other changes wrought by the constitution of 1821 were in the
main subordinate to those indicated. The Bill of Rights sections were
amplified in conformity to the amendments to the federal constitu-
tion. One section, growing out of a famous case, was, however, en-
tirely new.* It provided that, in all prosecutions for libel, the truth
might be given in evidence; and if it should appear to the jury that
the matter charged as libelous was true, and published with good
motive and for justifiable ends, the party should be acquitted. The
1 When Chancellor Kent left the bench he was
overwhelmed with attention by the bar, and va-
rious memorials and tributes were addressed to
him. He had been a faithful, learned, and diligent
judge, and reflected great honor on the State. But
he was not in strict accord with the more ad-
vanced democratic notions of popular govern-
ment ; and when he refused even to sign in the
convention so moderate a reform as the constitu-
tion of 1821, he was consistent.
2 Art. V, Sec. 5. 3 2 Paige, 95.
* The constitution of 1821 came into full forre
and effect on the 1st day of January, 1823, bat the
convention was chosen in 1821, and entered upon
its duties in August of that year.
5 Art. VII, Sec. 8.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEOAL HISTORY OF NEW-YOEK 627
jury were to have the right to determine the law and the fact in such
cases. The history of this section was intimately associated with the
trial of Crosswell, indicted in 1803 for libeling Thomas Jefferson, then
president of the United States. On the trial, Chief Justice Lewis had
charged the jury that they were to pass only on the publication of
the libel and the truth of the innuendoes, other questions being re-
served to the court. Alexander Hamilton, in the motion in arrest of
judgment, was said to have made the great-
est argument of his life, thus vividly recall-
ing the trial of Zenger, and the argument
by another great advocate of the same
name, in the same court, in the year 1735.
The court in banc being divided in Cross-
well's case, a bill was introduced in the
legislature in 1805, by William "W". Van Ness,
settling the law on this point. The pur-
port of this act was now thought important
enough to be fixed more securely by consti-
tutional enactment.
In January, 1822, the people ratified the
new constitution by a vote of 75,422 to
41,497 for the constitution, and in favor of
a change in the nature of the original State
government of New- York. By the con-
temporaries of this measure it was esteemed a revolution; but as we
see it now it was but a conservative step forward in the march of
more democratical institutions. The changes thus really wrought in
the political fabric may be briefly summarized as follows : The mode
of exercising the veto power was reformed by transferring a qualified
negative to the governor alone. A more democratic method of exer-
cising the appointing power was adopted, while complete democracy
was attained in respect of many minor offices made elective. The
suffrage was so extended as to constitute practically white manhood
suffrage, .few persons without property, except those of African
descent, being disqualified to vote." The senate having been thus
1 William PatersoD was bom in IT15, and his
parenta, who were Irish, brought htm to this conn-
trf when he was two years old. He wu gradiutod
at PrlDcetOD, studied law, and was admitted to the
bar in 1769. In 1TT6, he was & member of the New
Jersey State Cooatitatioiul Conventloii, and the
same year became attorney-funeral. He was a
delegate to the Continentil ConRTeM In 1780-81
and to the National ConHtttutional Conrention in
1787, and In 1789 was elected to the United States
Seoato, which then met in this city. He became
governor of New Jersey in 1791, and two years lat«r
was appointed by Wa^ilngton a justice of the Su-
preme Court of the United States, an office he held
until his death. In 1806. His daughter Cornelia
married General Stephen Van Rensselaer. ( Vidi,
'• New-York Genealogical and Biographical Record
Dt 1892," for an address oti the Judge by hia gnoid-
-Bon WllUam Patarson ol Perth Amboy. )
EbrroB.
£ It was not until 18S6 that citizenship, man-
hood, and residence became the avowed basis
of the electoral franchise (Constttutional Amend-
ment of 1826) for the white part of the population,
negroes being required until 1870 to be freeholders
paying tax before they were entitled to vote.
628 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
popularized, the Court of Errors, then constituted in the senate, wag
brought nearer to the great body of the people. The original courts
of justice of New-York, the Chancery and the Supreme Court, were
left in such a condition that the chancellor and the Supreme Court
justices were no longer officers of State, but were to exercise judicial
functions only, of which they might be largely shorn by the power
reserved to the legislature, and affecting their several jurisdictions.
The defect in the original constitution, which made no provision for
its future amendments, was remedied by Article VIII of the new in-
strument, prescribing the formalities, including a vote of the electors,
to attend future amendments. This amendment was taken from a
similar provision in the constitution of Massachusetts, and obviated
the necessity of a convention upon each change proposed thereafter.
In several respects the new constitution still reflected ancient class
prejudices: the governor must be chosen from the body of free-
holders, and must be a native citizen of the United States. Neither
the possession of personal estate nor naturalization was sufficient to
qualify a non-freeholder and an alien born for this office. The ex-
periment of voting by ballot, having been provided for in the first
constitution and having proved successful, was, in the new constitu-
tion, made imperative on the future.
The first legislature under the new constitution was overwhelmingly
Democratic, not a single senator being of the other political party.
Governor Clinton met the legislature when it convened, and delivered
a speech to them, which was met with a motion for a committee to
consider the propriety of answering it. This committee made a re-
port animadverting in terms of severity upon the governor, and pro-
nounced the practice of delivering a speech instead of a message "a
remnant of royalty ^ which ought not to be tolerated. This incident
serves only to indicate the jealous deprecation of the ancient customs
of New -York, and that with the new constitution the people intended
more fully to break with the past and to enter upon a genuine era of
republican government.
In April, 1823,^ the legislature, pursuant to the new constitution,
divided the State into circuits for the purpose of organizing the new
Circuit Coiu-ts carved out of the old Supreme Court, and substituted
for the old nisi prius or itinerant sessions. By the same act, the
new circuit judges, who possessed the powers of the old justices of
the Supreme Court in chambers and on circuit, were required to reside
within the circuit for which they were appointed. This last provision
for prudential reasons had not been thrust on the convention, as it
might have alienated the votes of those who were believed to be can-
didates ; but the idea was nevertheless very influential in animating
Chapter 182.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 629
some persons who regarded the old courts as centralized institutions
and too closely connected in their traditions with ante-revolutionary
times. This school of thought desired a local judiciary of first in-
stance, rather than one whose domicile and inspiration were to be
found at the seat of government. This was the beginning of that re-
form in the judicial establishment of New -York which consists in
decentralizing or rather localizing all the courts of first instance,
thus constituting them county rather than State tribunals.
In 1823 an act was passed authorizing the circuit judges to hold
Courts of Equity; it was soon repealed and the power restored to
the chancellor, but the circuit judges were to act as viee-chanceUors
within their circuits. In the year 1826, in the first district, embracing
the city of New -York, equity jurisdiction was conferred on a legal
oflScer termed the vice-chancellor; for in this district the volume of
litigation demanded an increase in the number of judges. From time
to time other coadjutors were in like maoner appointed. By an act
of 1823/ the Court of Probates, founded in 1778, was abolished, and its
original probate jurisdiction was transferred to the surrogates of the
various counties, but subject to an appeal to the chancellor, who was
invested with the residuum of the jurisdiction of the Court of Pro-
bates not otherwise delegated.
We come next to one of the most important reforms instituted ui^der
the second constitution — the Revised Statutes. Before treating of
this celebrated work, let us review for a moment the prior revisions
of the statute law Qf the State. In the chapter on the laws of the
preceding centuiy some account was given of the first revision by
Messrs. Jones and Varick. The second revision of the acts of the
State legislature was undertaken as a private or commercial venture
by Thomas Greenleaf . The second edition of Greenleaf s work brought
the revision of the State laws to a period nine years later than that
of Messrs. Jones and Varick, and as it was recognized by the courts as
a faithful work, it received a judicial sanction, accorded to no other
private edition of laws, excepting perhaps the Webster publications
from 1802 to 1812 inclusivCo The next revision of the laws was under-
taken by Justices Kent and Radcliff, pursuant to an act of the legis-
lature;" this soon became the corrected version of the public and
private acts of the State. This revision simply omits the laws or parts
of laws abrogated, and pursues a chronological arrangement of the
first volume and a subject arrangement of the second. The new re-
vised laws of 1813 next superseded Kent and RadcliflPs revision. By
an act of the legislature,^ William P. Van Ness and John Woodworth
were directed to arrange the laws of a general and permanent nature
1 Chapter 70. Chapter 190, Laws of 1801. 3 Chapter 150, Laws of 1811 ;
Chapter 195, N. R. L. of 1813.
630 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Bystematieally in divisions under proper heads, with such margins]
notes as appeared to be best calculated for public information. Aa
the revision of Jones and Varick was the first of the State revisions
in point of time, so that of Van Ness and Woodworth was facik
princeps in point of method and arrangement ; the marginal notes,
prepared by John V. N. Yates, and in-
eluded in the revision of 1813, are
among the most valuable expositions
of the laws of this State ; they often.
times, by enumerating the variona
English and colonial acts which con-
tained like provisions, embrace a sue-
cinct history of the statutes to which
they refer. Even at the present day
the history of many legislative mea-
sures may be more easily gathered
from this revision than from any
other single work, and it remains a
profound example of faithful profes-
sional service.*
The revisers of 1813, imitating the
example of Messrs. Jones and Varick,
idid not include in their revision the
^ colonial acts which remained in force
under the 35th section of the State constitution. Printed as an
appendix to the revision of 1813, are to be found several acts of the
colonial assembly which the revisers thought would be useful to the
profession. Among these is the "Charter of Libertys" enacted by
the first regular legislature of New-York in 1683; the Ordinances of
Lord Bellomont and Viscount Corubury — continuing the Supreme
Court of New -York after the act of the legislature passed in 1691 had
expired by limitation — are also included in such appendix. As illus-
trating several questions concerning the former provincial law of
inheritances, which long retained some elements of the Dutch juris-
prudence, the reHsers appended also the Articles of Capitulation
between the Dutch and English, signed in 1664. They might, with
a Ijom Detpmlwr 17,
IT'Ja, and wu a lii
well un hh iiiother'a sidu.
academy at lIudMni, N. Y.
law with Manin Van Buren. then practining in
that town, and eventually bwame bis partner. In
1'>'21 -24 ho was district attomej-of Albany County.
and wftK appointed une of the thrco commigsionpre
to revise the staMiteX of New-Tork. In 1H28 he
was a member of the lettiBlatun. ; Id 18S3. the
commisiioner for the SUte of New- York to adjust
the N'ew Jersey boundary line | and the same year
President Jackson appointed him attomey-fra-
nt or (JLiver Crom- cral of the United States. In IS37 he beame tbt
He attended the chief professor oflaw inthel'niTermty of IheOiy
afterward studied of New-York. Jlr. Butler waa a Democrat until
then practising in the panxapce of Che Kansas- Nehruka biU aboUih-
inn the Missouri Compromise, when be joined tit
Republican party. He died in Paris. Prance,
November a, 1«58. EdiTok.
■■: See. however, the eoranientarj on the nrv
rion of 1813 by Samuel Jones, co-author of Joan
and Varick's Revision (N. Y. HUtoricat Sodety-i
.. mi.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTOBY OF NEW-YORK 631
equal propriety, have included in the appendix the definitive treaty of
peace between Great Britain and the United States in 1783, for it
was, with unusual particularity, made a fundamental part of the State
law by an act of the legislatm'e, passed in 1788,^ repealing all acts and
parts of acts which conflicted with the treaty in question.
To recur to the revision under the second constitution of the State.
In the year 1823, and again in 1824, Governor Yates directed the
attention of the legislature to the condition of the statute-book of
the State, and recommended a revision on account of the changes
made in the law by the constitution of 1821-3, and the very confused
and scattered situation of the statutes.^ Obedient to the governor's
suggestion, an act was passed, at the following session of the legis-
lature,^ for the purposes indicated. This act of 1824, though soon re-
pealed, is important as the precursor of the Revised Statutes. The
revisers designated by it were of very different types of thought.
Chancellor Kent was selected as the exponent of the traditional school
of law ; Erastus Root, the lieutenant-governor, as the most radical of
the reforming lawyers. Benjamin F. Butler, then a young lawyer
associated with Martin Van Buren, was the third reviser under this
act. By the act of 1824, the revisers were authoiized and directed,
among other things, to collect and to reduce into proper form all acts
of the legislature then in force, omitting all the acts repealed, and re-
ducing the various acts upon the same subject to acts of one chapter
each ; they were also to report to the legislature the defects in the
existing laws. Two years were allowed for the contemplated revision,
which, like its predecessors of 1802 and 1813, was to be little more
than an orderly arrangement of the statutes then in force, with a
proper index for more convenient use.
Chancellor Kent, for reasons easily perceived from the reports of
the constitutional convention of 1823, refused to act with any one
else ; and the governor designated, in his stead, John Duer. There
seems to have been little or no sympathy existing between General
Root and his associates, Messrs. Duer and Butler, who, quite inde-
pendently of their colleague, submitted the plan of the revision which
they deemed to be the most suitable.^ Meanwhile General Root had
been proceeding on his own account with the revision of the laws re-
lating to taxation and highways.
During the legislative consideration of Messrs. Duer and Butler's
proposed amended bill giving larger scope to the revisers, the name
of Henry Wheaton was substituted for that of Erastus Root. The
senate non-concuning in this particular amendment, a compromise
was attained by directing compensation to be given to General Root
1 Chapter 41. 2 " Assembly Journal." 1824, p. 9. 3 Chapter 336, Laws of 1824.
4 See Appendix D, *' Journal of Assembly," 1825.
632 mSTOBY OF new-york
for his services in the matter.^ The amended bill then became a law.'-
In their suggestions to induce the legislature to enlarge the scope of
the revision, Messrs. Butler and Duer stated, among other things, that
they conceived that not only a reduction of all the laws on the same
subject into chapters was necessary, but also an entire new arrange-
ment of the existing statutes. This they thought would reduce the
statutes then in force to half their extent ; it would render them so
concise, simple, and perspicuous as to be intelligible not only to pro-
fessional men, but to persons of every capacity ; it would relieve the
statutes from obscurities, lead to an easy reference by proper indexes,
and greatly facilitate the acquisition of the law as a science. Lastly,
it would supersede the necessity of all future revisions, aud prepare
the way for a scientific codification of the law. Utopian as the scheme
then seemed, it nevertheless led to what may be called the most
brilUant achievement ever then performed upon the text of the
English common law. It is even highly probable that future revi-
sions might long have been dispensed with, had the revisers' plan
been carried out, and had each new act, as passed, been assigned to
its appropriate chapter, by some persons or persons whose duty it
was to prepare the session laws for publication. That the revision
led to codification may well be believed, for even Jeremy Bentham,
in a letter to Livingston of Louisiana, approved of the work.
But to follow the inception of this great revision. The act of 1825,*
thus amending the original act of 1824, reappointed Mr. Butler, added
the governor's appointee, Mr. Duer, and substituted Mr. Wheaton,
afterward the distinguished publicist, for General Root in the corps
of revisers. That the substitution of Mr. Wheaton added much to the
philosophic conception and character of the work ought not to be
doubted ; but greater praise is due to the other revisers, for they, with
Mr. Spencer, completed the whole work with a lucidity and a felicity
of expression at that time unparalleled in the history of statutes com-
posed in the English tongue.
The act of 1825 empowered and directed the revisers to collect all
public acts in force at the end of the forty-eighth session (1825), and
to reduce and consolidate into one act all the different acts relating to
the same subject, distributing them under such titles, divisions, and
sections as they thought proper, but omitting all acts and parts of
acts repealed or expired by limitation. In every other respect the
revisers were to complete the revision in such a manner as to them
seemed most useful and proper to render the revised acts more plain
and easy to be understood.- From time to time they were to report
the revision to the legislature, to be reenacted if that body saw fit An
important feature of the act of 1825 was the advisory power it con-
1 ♦♦ Assembly Journal," 1825, p. 1173. 2 Chapter 324, Laws of 1825. 3 Chapter 324.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL mSTOBT OF NEW-YOEK
ferred on the revisers, who were to suggest to the legislature all such
changes as they deemed expedient in the statute law of the State.
Two years were allowed by the act to complete the revision.
In the year 1826, the revisei-s, Messrs. Butler, Duer, and Wheaton,
mapped out more completely the plan of the revision, and classified
the statutes to be revised. They
finally determined upon dividing
the work into five principal divi-
sions, as follows: The first part to
contain those acts which related to
the territory, the political division,
the ei'\'il polity, and the internal
administration bf the State ; the
second part, those acts which re-
lated to real and personal property,
the domestic relations, and to all
matters generally connected with
private rights; the third part to
contain the statutes relating to the
judicature branch of government
and to the procedure in civil cases \ ^ ,^ \
the fourth part to be concerned ,,^^-^' <^^^^c-»-^ ^'^^^^^«-»-««':t^
with the statutes relating to crimes, ^
punishments, and to the mode of procedure in criminal cases, and to
prison discipline ; and the fifth part with the laws relating to cities,
villages, and other corporations.
The first and fifth parts of the Revised Statutes, relating to the ter-
ritory, the political divisions, the civil polity, and the internal admin-
istration of the State, are of the least interest in a purely juristic or
scientific phase of the revision ; but they were of great utility.
There is little doubt that the general and comprehensive plan of the
whole revision of 1829 had the valuable cooperation of Mr. Wheaton.^
The first part of the Revised Statutes was the work of Mr. "Wheaton,
Mr. Butler, and Mr. Duer ; but before this part of the revision was
acted on by the legislature, Mr. Wheaton was sent abroad in a diplo-
matic capacity, and Mr. John C. Spencer took his place. After Mr.
Spencei-'s appointment considerable additional labor was bestowed on
the part already prepared ; and it may be said, therefore, that the first
1 Josiah Ogden Hoftman was a diitinguiahed
lanyer. and was tlie father al Murray Hoffman.
the juris! aod author ot several works on chan-
cerj and sccl^siaslical law; of Ogden Hoffman,
the gifted orator and lawyer, wlio was counsel in
almoBtevery prominent criminal case in New- York
dty for twenty-flvB years, and who had been a
member of Congress, U. S. diatrlct attorney, and
State attamey-Keneral ; and of Charles Fenno
Hoffman, the accomplished man of letters. Hr.
Hoffman was a warm friend of Washington
Irrlnf;, vho studied law in his office. It was to
his daitRhter Matilda that Irving was pn((aged.
When he died, her Bible, containing a lock of her
hair, was found under his pillow. EnnvB.
3 "Senato Journal," 1827, p. 32.
634
HISTOBT OF NEW-YORK
part of the Revised Statutes was the work of four revisers, and not
of three, as originally contemplated/
While the revisers in their general aiTangement mainly adopted the
system employed in Blackstone's Commentaries, and took the titles of
the various chapters of the revision from that celebrated work, yet
they made disciiminating changes and avoided some erroi^s made hy
Blackstone himself, notably his division of the jiis privatum into
" rights of persons and rights of things,'' criticized by Austin, — things
being incapable of rights and a mistranslation of the phrase of the
civilians, ^^jus rerum.^ No opponent of Blackstone has ever denied
that his arrangement was eminently practical. The revisers could
not, therefore, have taken a plan more familiar to lawyers than this,
and it added to the success of the work.
If we except the Statute 12, Car. II., ch. 24, converting most of the
feudal tenures in England into free and common socage, and sound-
ing the knell of the entire feudal system. Part 11 of the Revised
Statutes of New- York embodied the most important reforms ever
made by a single statute in the historic land law of an English-speak-
ing people."
1 See Senate Journal, 1827, p. 32 ; Bevisers' Re-
ports to the Leginlature with chapters 9 and 19 of
the first part.
2 The better to note some of the more important
changes introduced in the land law of New- York
by the revisers, in the second part of their revi-
sion (the first three chapters of which are devoted
to this subject), we may briefly recall the condi-
tion of this branch of our jurisprudence prior to
this revision. Charles II., with what right pre-
viously inquired, granted the territory occupied
by the Dutch of New Netherland, and much more
adjacent, to the Duke of York by letters patent,
dated March 12, 1664, and subsequently by letters
confirmatory, dated in 1674. By both these patents
the tenure of the province was ** as our Manor of
East Greenwich in our county of Kent, in free
and common socage, and not in capite, nor by
knight's service." At the date of the first patent,
the Statute 12, Car. II.. ch. 24. had already swept
away most of the burdens of feudal tenures in
England. The socage tenure in 1664 remained
subject only to the feudal incidents of relief, rent,
fealty, and escheats. As thus modified, the socage
tenure was introduced in New- York. The rent in-
cident to it was a quit -rent of trifling value (some-
times, in New- York, a bushel to the hundred acres,
but in 1732 the surveyor-general's report puts it at
2j». 6d. for the same quantity) ; the relief payable
by the heirs on the ancestor's death was the equiv-
alent of a year's quit-rent, while the oath of fealty
was commonly never exacted, and escheats were
no more bunleiisome, in practice, than at the pres-
ent time. After the English conquest the former
Dutch inhabitants generally renewed the titles to
their lands by taking out new patents, which re-
cited the Dutch ground-brief and confirmed the
possession of their lands, to be held of the ducal
proprietor in free and common socage. The new
inhabitants took out their patents from the duke'g
agents in one of the prescribed forms of convey-
ance. Subsequent to 1664 the modified socage ten-
ure alone existed in New- York. It will be recalled
that, on the Duke of York's accession to the throne,
his private estate in the province was merged
in the crown, and he became seized thereof jurt
eoronoR. On the abdication of James II., the prov-
ince of New- York pursued the line of devolution
prescribed by the act of settlement, the crown pofi-
sessions and the crown being etmeomituntia. The
duke's estate before he ascended the throne was
in the nature of a feudatory principality ; after the
merger it became a royal province, transmitted
8ecutidum jus .coroncBf and .thus it rwnained imtil
the war of independence.
Comparatively recently it was made a debatable
question whether the statute quia emptcres^ prohib-
iting subinfeudation, was in force in the province
of New- York ; and the revisers seem erroneously to
have thought not (see 3 R. S., 565, 2d ed.. Rev.
Notes), and the Court of Appeals, in the case of De
Peyster v. Michael (6 N. Y., 503), assumed the same
thing. But in a later case (People r. Van Rensselaer,
9 N. Y., 338) Judge Denio doubted the correctneu
of the c4)nclusion, and in the still later ease of Van
Rensselaer v. Hayes (19 N. Y., 74) he demonstrated
the absurdity of the conclusion that the statute was
not generally in force in the province of New- York.
The fact is one of considerable importance; for if
this statute was not in force, a necessary conse-
quence was that the feudal system flourished here
during the entire English dominion, and for ten
years subsequent (or until the statute was enacted
in Jones and Varick's revision), with a vigor en-
tirely unknown to contemporary Enj^land. The
obvious error that this statute was not in force
.seems to have arisen by reason of not distinguish-
ing between the manors and the residue of the
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW- YORK 635
Although the law of real property remained a diflScult branch of
legal science, yet the revisers of 1829 did much to rid it of many
subtleties which had been fused on it by the political and social pro-
cesses through which the common law had passed. The reform in
question was accomplished not so much by the introduction of new
rules of law, as by the judicious selection and application of the
wisest of the old rules, and by the total repeal of mere scholastic
subtleties.
The cardinal reform of the Revised Statutes concerning lands did
not consist so much in shortening the period during which the power
lands in the province. The erroneous presump-
tion was that, because manors existed here, the
statute was not in force, whereas by the common
law, non obstante the statute, the king might grant
the right to his tenants to alienate lands to be
holden of the tenant, and thus create a manor,
where the lands were not in tenure prior to 18
Edw. I. The lands in New -York not embraced
in the manor grants were within the statute, and
could not be aliened to be held of other lord or
person than the king. In short, every sub-aUena-
tion of those lands in New- York, not situated
within the manors, placed the new tenant in the
same position toward the king, the lord para-
mount, as that occupied by the grantor.
During the entire colonial or provincial period,
lands in New- York were theoretically subject to
the same laws as socage lands in the royal manor
of East Greenwich, in the county of Kent, in Eng-
land. In point of fact, such lands were almost en-
tirely exempt from the nominal rents on which
they were holden of the crown. It must not be
forgotten that formerly no such thing as an abso-
lute ownership of socage lands was known ; the
tenant had only an estate in them. This estate,
without alluding to the more subtle distinctions,
was either an estate for years, for life, an estate
tail, or in fee simple, the latter being far from ab-
solute in the eyes of the feudalists. The method
of transmitting title to socage lands in New- York
was, until some time subsequent to the war of in-
dependence, in accord with the method in vogue
in England, whether by descent (the law of pri-
mogeniture being in force here until the year 1782);
by purchase, in its generic sense as well as in
its Umited sense ; by deeds of feoffment with liv-
ery of seizin, by lease, by exchange at common
law, by partition, by releases, by defeasance, by
devise, and all conveyances operating by virtue of
the statute of uses. In addition to these modes,
alienations by matters of record, such as fines and
recoveries, until the abolition of estates tail in
1782, and even subsequent (see 2 J. and V., p. 84;
c. ^0, Laws of 1827), were not unknown in New-
York, as is shown by Mr. Wyche's work on the
** Theory and Practice of Fines," one of the first
law books written and published in New- York. (It
was published in 1794.) Of the conveyances by
force of the statute of uses, that kind termed lease
and re-lease was most commonly employed in New-
York prior to the revision of the English statutes
by Jones and Varick in 1788, when the mode
termed bargain and sale became most prevalent,
and so continued until the Revised Statutes in
1830. Alienation of lands by devise, attested un-
der the statute Car. II., was commonly em-
ployed in New- York from the very foundation of
the English government of the province. Among
the earliest English laws of New- York we find
distinct recognition of wills. The adoption of the
English law of wills introduced the intricate com-
mon-law rules relating to executory de\'ises. Yet
of all the intricacies relating to the common law,
those concerning executory devises were among
the most rational, for they arose out of a most
candid effort to effectuate the intentions of devi-
sors. Therefore, when the revisers of the statutes,
appointed after the second constitution, came to
select rules relating to certain future interests in
lands, they gave the preference to those rules and
principles of the common law which were applied
to executory devises, rather than to those relating
to future uses and contingent remainders.
The establishment of the State government in
1777 made but formal changes in the tenures of
New-York and in the law of real property. In-
deed, it may be said that until the Revised Statutes
the changes effected in the provincial jurispru-
dence relating to land were but slight in compari-
son to those then introduced. Among the more
marked changes effected before the Revised Stat-
utes were the following: A resolve of the pro-
vincial convention transferred the seigniory and
escheats and all lands, together with the quit-rents
due to the crown, to the State eo tiomine. This
statute was further confirmed by an act of the
legislature recognizing the people, passed in 1779
(14, IJ. & v., p. 44; 56 N. Y., 503). In 1782 the
first of the statutes affecting the antecedent law
of real property was passed (ch. 2, Laws of 1782).
Estates tail were altered into estates in fee sim-
ple, the law of primogeniture was abolished, and
the canon of descents was made to conform to the
more democratical institutions. In 1786 the stat-
ute abolishing entails and changing the course of
descents was re^nacted, but with this difference :
estates tail were converted into estates in fee sim-
ple absolute, thus avoiding any question as to
whether the statute of 1782 had not intended sim-
ply to change estates in fee tail into conditional
fees, as they had existed in England prior to the
statute de donis. It is sometimes supposed that
when that portion of the statute law of England
which extended to New- York was revised by
Jones and Varick, some new principles affecting
the law of real property were introduced. This
636
HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
of alienation might be suspended, as in the repeal of purely arbitrary
technicalities and in substituting therefor uniform and rational pro-
visions. Under the Revised Statutes almost any limitation, artificial
or inartificial, was valid if it did not contravene some well-known
principle of public policy, or the new rule against perpetuities ; a fee
might be mounted on a fee as freely by deed as by executory devise ;
a freehold estate might be created to commence at a future day ; an
estate for life might be created in a term of years, and a valid re-
mainder limited thereon; a remainder of freehold might be created
expectant on the determination of a term of years, provided only
that such limitation in no way transcended the rule against perpe-
supposition. however, is incorrect; no new prin-
ciples affecting this branch of jurisprudence were
enacted, and all that Jones and Varick did was to
select the English statutes which they deemed in
force in New- York after the adoption of the first
constitution. The legislature, then, in order to
reduce a doubtful question to certainty, repealed
the residue not so selected for reenactment, by de-
claring their force to be at an end (2 J. & V., 282).
The statute abolishing entails was not a reform
of such great importance as it is sometimes es-
teemed, for entails might be broken and lands ren-
dered alienable by the tenant of the freehold's
suffering a fine, or common recovery, thus barring
the entail, reversion, or remainder, and converting
the estate into one in fee simple. The force of
the New-York statutes converting estates tail into
estates in fee simple, like all statutes attempting
reforms without complete reference to collateral
results, was greatly circumscribed by the evident
desire of the courts to support the limitations
over, in some cases of wills, as an executory devise,
so as not to defeat the remainder. In this effort
the courts made a distinct departure from the for-
mer common law ; and in order not to effectuate
the statute to its literal extent, they held that cer-
tain words, before creating an estate tail, did not
now create an estate tail, which would have been
converted into a fee in the first taker, and, there-
fore, that the limitation over on the death of the
first taker, without issue, was good as an execu-
tory devise. (1 Johns., 440 ; 3 id., 292 ; 11 id., 337 ;
16 id., 382, Medcef Eden's case.)
Prior to the Revised Statutes socage lands might
be rendered inalienable for an uncertain period by
vesting the title to them on contingencies after
the creation of a short precedent estate. By an
ingenious invention of the conveyancers, through
the medium of trustees, to support contingent
remainders, the contingent interests could not
thereafter be barred as formerly. Contingent
remainders might be created by any mode of
conveyance. The methods of rendering lands
inalienable were by the technical methods styled
secondary, springing, shifting, or future uses and
executory devises, and those known to the chan-
cery bar as express trusts in lands. Under the
extremely technical rules employed, limitations
mii;bt be valid in one instrument, and invalid if
put in another. The wliole learning was occult,
and historically denoted the contest in England
between the great landowners who desired to per-
petuate their estates, and the commons who de>
sired to render real property merchantable) and
alienable and to avoid perpetuities. In the course
of this conflict, whenever Parliament passed a n>
medial act. the twhUsse de la robe of England,
with the assistance of the AristoteliAn logic and
the Court of Chancery, invariably defeated the
full extent of the remedy. Covered with scholia,
and known to only the most intellectual members
of the bar, the English law of real property wm
in practice a very labyrinth delightful only to its
guardians, although it had become by 1^26 very
systematic and greatly improved. In this ye«r
the New- York law of real property had theoreti-
cally attained to the same advanced sri^^e of de-
velopment as that of England. It was capable of
becoming a horrible burden for the new State,
and when the young revisers approached their
task, the black-letter lawyers, who had learned a
recent lesson in the constitutional convention of
1821, made little or no effectual outcry against the
reforms proposed.
Having very briefly and inadequately intimated
the condition of the land law of New- York when
the revisers approached it, we may now assume
that it was substantially the English law relative
to the English tenure in free and common socage
as modified by a few statutes of the province
which had become singularly inaccessible, or had
fallen into disuse. Premising that the revisers
procured the repeal of all the province statutes
(Subdivision 4, Sec. 554, c 21, Laws of 1828). the
Revised Statutes declared that the people of the
State, in their right of sovereignty, possessed
the original and ultimate property in and to idl
lands within the jurisdiction of the State. Eii-
cheats were made to follow this ultimate proprie-
torship, though all lands were declared allodiad. It
has been argued by very learned lawyers that, as
long as escheats survived, this change effected no
siibstantial reform, and that the very terminology
of the Revised Statutes involved the entire ante-
cedent law relating to the socage tenure. Although
this is logically true, the real changes effected miti-
gated the rigor of the common law of escheat by
pro\iding that escheated lands should be subject
to the same trusts and encumbrances which they
would have been subject to had such lands not es-
cheated. The revisers retained the rights, pow-
ers, and duties of socage guardians, but vested
them in a different class of persons, wisely chang-
ing the common-law rule that the guardianship
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTOBY OF NEW-YOBK 637
tuities. Even contingencies double, treble, or manifold, probable or
improbable, might, if they did not cause a perpetuity, be the basis of
limitations.
Other changes in the antecedent law were made by Article 1 of
Title 2, Chapter 1 of Part 11/
Enough has been said to indicate the scope of the change effected
by the revisers. While the work as a whole purported to be a re-
vision of existing laws, the term " revision ^ covered a multitude of
reforms, and modified large parts of the common law declared to be
part of the law of the State by the constitutions of 1777 and 1821.
The modifications which the revisers made in legal estates in lands
shall belong to the next of kin to whom the inher-
itance could not by any possibility descend, so as to
enable near relations to become guardians of the in-
fant possessors of lands. The wisdom of the com-
mon-law rule had been impeached long before by
Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. In Article 2 of Part
II of the Revised Statutes, the revisers saw fit to
perpetuate the rule of the common law, founded
entirely on feudal reasons, that only citizens
should hold lands within the State, though they
modified the rigor of the rule somewhat in favor
of persons about to become citizens. The wisdom
of retaining any part of the disability in question
may be doubted at this day, when land has be-
come merchantable property, and the duties of its
owners to the State do not differ from those of the
owners of personalty.
The second title of Chapter II introduced the
most considerable changes in the law of real prop-
erty. The revisers, however, retained the estab-
lished terms defining the quantity of interest
persons might have in immovable property, al-
though in some instances they converted particu-
lar terms from species to gei\era : the force of the
term remainders was extended so as to include
future and contingent uses, as well as contingent
remainders. Notwithstanding the abolition of ten-
ures, every estate of inheritance continued to be
designated either a fee simple, or a fee simple ab-
solute, thus preserving the former distinction be-
tween limited or conditional fees and fees absolute
at common law. The statute, first passed in 1782,
converting estates tail into fee simple, was reSn-
acted, but the revisers remedied the hardship of
the original statute by which a remainder limited
upon an estate tail was cut off, even though the
first taker or tenant in tail died without issue
living at his death.
One of the most considerable changes in the
antecedent law effected by the Revised Statutes,
related to the period during which the power of
alienation might be suspended. The common-law
period was reduced from any number of lives in
being, and an absolute term of twenty-one years,
and a fraction for gestation, to two lives in being ;
but the Revised Statutes permitted a valid contin-
gent remainder, to take effect in case this second
life die before attaining majority, or the estate
was determined in any other way before the ma-
jority of the second life. This reform, though
apparently slight, was really a considerable inno-
vation; lives alone became the standard of sus-
pension, and no absolute term, not even a day or
an hour, might intervene. The new period of sus-
pension now amounted to the longest of two lives
in being, and, in a single case of actual Infancy,
the period of minority in addition. At a subse-
quent judicial interpretation of this new rule in
which they took part, the revisers do not seem to
have been entirely clear as to what the exact ob-
ject of the statute really was. In the leading case
of Coster v. Lorillard, they argued that the new
rule ought to be applied to executory limitations
of a contingent character only, and not to vested
remainders which did not suspend the power of
alienation. The court of last resort, as it was then
composed, had a good proportion of laymen, and
the new rule was ultimately applied to all future
estates in lands, vested and contingent alike. It
is difficult to perceive how the court could have
decided otherwise, in view of the section which
provides for the acceleration of remainders, in
all cases where the estate is limited on more than
two successive estates for Uf e, to persons in being
at the creation of the estate. Yet the other con-
struction was stoutly contended for by some per-
sons eminent in the legal profession. (See V.-Ch.
McCoun's opinion, 5 Paige, 179-198.)
1 The famous common-law rule now associated
only with Shelly's case was abrogated, and, ac-
cording to the real intention of the donor when
the remainder was limited to the heirs of a person
to whom a life estate in the same premises was
given, the heirs, by the Revised Statutes, took as
purchasers. The rule in Shelly's case had origi-
nal reference in England to the political struggle
against perpetuities, and its longer existence was
now rendered unnecessary in New- York by reason
of the very clear rule on the subject of perpetu-
ities. The accumulation of the profits of lands
was controlled so as not to permit a repetition of
, Thelluson's case (4Vesey, 221 ; 11 id., 112) ; and as
the New- York law was not, of course, affected by
the British acts 39 and 40 George III., an en-
tirely new provision was introduced : the revisers
confined the accumulation of the profits of lands
to the single case of an infant owner or beneficiary,
and tolerated it in no other case. Many other
minor provisions, confirming the general scheme
of the statute, were revised and incorporated by
the revisers in the revision ; but in a general com-
mentary on the subject it is imx)Ossible to refer
to all of them.
638 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
having been noticed, we may point out some of the changes which
they instituted relative to uses and trusts, cognizable in the Courts
of Equity of New- York from the inception of the English rule.
Although prior to the Revised Statutes the exigencies of society here,
as fortunes were then more limited, had not made any very great de-
mands on the English law of trusts, yet by reason of the constitu-
tional definition of the fundamental law of New-York, the English
law of uses and trusts was assumed to be in full force and vigor
in the State. It was in consequence open to like objections, which
prior to the Re^dsed Statutes had been very fully discussed in Eng-
land by an advanced thinker, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Hum-
phreys, who had outlined a scheme of reform of the socage tenure,
and made some very practical suggestions. Our revisers certainly
had the benefit of Jiis scheme, though they did not always follow it
to its logical conclusion, with diverse opinions as to the result. The
law of uses and trusts had grown up in England from a species of in-
direct legislation, sometimes called the English jiis honorarium from
its likeness to the pretorian legislation of Rome. The reforms in the
branch of the New- York law contemplated by the revisers were
materially assisted by the popular hostility to the extended judicial
power of the chancery, already noticed. The Statute of Frauds ^ had
put an end to secret trusts, and required all trusts in lands to be in
writing; and subsequent to this the learning on this subject had be-
come fairly systematic. The Revised Statutes abolished all charitable
and pious uses and all simple or passive trusts, and saved only four
classes of active or special trusts, called " the statutory trusts.'' * Most
of the former active trusts, however, survived the revision as i)Owers
in trust, while some former trust powers were enumerated as express
trusts.*
The scheme of the reform intended was the abolition of all passive
trusts in lands, the restriction of the lawful special trusts to fewer
purposes, the abolition of secret resulting trusts in favor of persons
paying the consideration, and lastly to cause the legal title to devolve
according to the canon of descents in a greater number of instances
than formerly. In the application of the revisers' scheme to the ac-
tual work of revision, many minor sections contribute to the result. In
the abolition of former trusts several things were to be accomplished,
such as the consistent devolution of the legal title in cases where
formal or other unlawful trusts were attempted to be created or then
* existed. Every avenue for a continuance of formal trusts was skil-
fully closed by the revisers, and in cases where the special trust pur-
pose was converted into a statutory power, it was provided that the
legal title, as it was not a necessary adjunct, should pursue that line
129 Car. n. «2N. Y.,307. S12N. Y.,403.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 639
of devolution it would have pursued had there been no "power''
affecting it. For abundant caution all executed uses in possession
were confirmed so that the revised statutes of uses and trusts should
not be retroactive. The adjective law of trusts was not affected by
this article of the revision ; it naturally belonged to a more extensive
work, which should include procedure.
The revisers had not only to effect the reforms mentioned, but they
had to harmonize the revised laws of uses and trusts with the revised
laws concerning legai estates; for the revision preserved those distinct
conceptions of property which the antinomy of the English juridical
system had introduced here *
The revisers had to some extent contemplated the destruction of
the former analogy between legal and equitable estates in lands.
They provided that the cestui que trust should no longer take an
estate in lands, and converted his right into an equitable interest
enforceable in chancery. This was, however, a verbal rather than a
substantial change; but in view of that clause of the Revised Statutes
preventing anticipation by the beneficiary interested in a trust for the
receipt of the rents and profits of lands, it certainly seemed logical to
term such a beneficiary right an " interest,'' and not an " estate"; for a
right that is not assignable bears little similarity to an estate which
is nomen collectivum, including the right to dispose of it. In some other
respects there is no longer a perfect analogy between the natures of
legal and equitable estates in lands. Legal life estates must be lim-
ited to persons in being, but trusts will inure to the benefit of per-
sons not in being when the trust is created.-
Whether on the whole any great reform in the former law of trusts
has been produced by the Revised Statutes, is an open question. A
new learning of trusts, founded on the revision, has certainly arisen.
1 In English jurisprudence the distinct concep-
tions of legal and equitable interests in property
were soon discovered to be artificial, and a ten-
dency to assimilate the two distinct interests be-
gan. This reactionary tendency ultimately pro-
duced striking analogies between legal and
equitable estates. An equitable tenant in tail
could even alien hia equitable interest by fine,
and the courts talked gravely about the seizin
and deseizin of equitable estates. Subsequent to
the Revised Statutes some attempts to revive the
former analogy between legal and equitable
estates were made. Why, it was reasonably
asked, should the rule concerning the limitation of
legal estates now diifer from the rules cx>nceming
equitable estates or Interests in lands f In cases
where a remainder in a legal estate was limited
on more than two lives in being, such remainder,
by the section accelerating remainders, was pre-
served. Why should this not be the rule where a
perpetuity by way of trust was created antece-
dent to the remainder ? But the courts intimated
that the Revised Statutes had destroyed any anal-
ogy between legal and equitable estates in land.
Limitations beyond the legal trust period were
now vitiated by statute. 9 N. Y., 403.
2 As the Revised Statutes restricted anticipa-
tion, many difftcult questions involving the jus
disponendi of an equitable estate («. flf., 8 N. Y., 9)
ceased, although others, perhaps as dif&cult, have
succeeded them. Attempts to reach what is obvi-
ously a property right — the interest of a cestui
que trust in a permanent trust for the receipt of
the rents and profits of lands — have from time
to time been attended with many embarrassments,
owing to the change in the law (31 N. Y., 9 ; 35 id.,
361; 70 id., 270).
The estate which the trustee took in all cases of
valid express trusts — though apparently enlarged
by the Revised Statutes, which declare that the
trustee shall be vested with the whole estate, in
law and in equity, subject only to the execution
of the trust — was in reality not extended at all.
As before the Revised Statutes, the trustee's legal
estate was commensurate with the trust duty to be
performed; and when the duty was performed,
640
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
and the present law of uses and trusts, now as formerly, is to be
found in reported cases rather than in a statutory form. In the hands
of skiHul conveyancers, real property continued susceptible to very
subtle modifications and limitations. Whether this is a healthy con-
dition of the laws of real property, it is for the hustings and for our
statesmen to determine. Any of us is entitled to the opinion that it
were better had the revisers gone farther. It is not an interference
with the rights of property to abridge a power of testamentary dis-
position, and to destroy the power of accumulating overgrown or
ill-gotten fortunes by means of trusts. But on the whole the reforms
in the land law of New- York conduced to simplicity and were a soimd
reform. They have created a new learning founded on the statute,
but a learning much simpler than the old, yet on the whole still
susceptible of great improvement in the future. Such obscurities as
those relating to lineal and collateral warranties ceased by their abo-
lition. Landed property was rendered easily subject to the payment
of debts. The canon of descents, and many other matters relating
to real .estate, were modernized and improved. Among the more im-
portant reforms embodied in Part II of the Revised Statutes, were
those concerning the law of wills, which the revisers reduced to much
simplicity. The laws relating to marriage in New- York were in great
confusion prior to the Revised Statutes. This evil was also corrected,
and the law made plain and certain *
Part III of the revision, relating to the courts of justice, was
generally declaratory, and, while of great practical utility, introduced
fewer novelties than the other parts by reason of the limitations im-
posed by the constitutions on this subject. Part IV, relating to
eo itutunti, the trustee's estate ceased (3 N. Y.,
525; 43 id., 363), and oftezitimes, by virtue of
the statute, instantly devolved upon the person
entitled to the next estate (3 N. Y., 535; 7 id.,
571 ; 10 id., 268 ; 34 id., 555), though in some cases
a trustee might still be compelled to execute con-
veyances to the next eventual owner, just as the
donee of a power in trust might be. {In arguendo,
24N. Y., 15.)
The revisers made a radical change in the devo-
lution of the legal estate on the death of trustees.
Prior to the Revised Statutes the trustees might de-
vise the legal estate, or it might descend to their
heirs cloaked in the trust. But this inconvenient
rule was wisely changed so that on the death of a
trustee the legal estate, in all cases, x>assed to the
appropriate court of judicature, possessing chan-
cery jurisdiction. (44 N. Y., 249.) This canon of
descents, if it may be so termed, had, however, no
application to trusts ex mc^^efino. (14 Wend., 176.)
The Revised Statutes made no change in the
equity power of the chancellor to remove trustees
for cause. The peculiar distinction between equi-
table and legal interests in property not having
been abolished, — even if its abolition were pos-
ijilble, — the courts have been obliged to continue
to recognize such distinct interests, notwithstand-
ing the subsequent abolition of the distinction
between the remedies correlated to these distinct
rights.
1 There has been some discussion concerning
the principal authorship of the first three chapters
of Part II, involving the leading changes made in
the land law of the State; but the general opinion
of those most familiar with the subject — an opin-
ion borne out by the journals and legislative rec-
ords— is that Messrs. Spencer and Duer, in the or-
der named, were the responsible authors of these
great changes. But they did not stop here. We
know that Mr. Si>encer carefully considered the
scope of the entire revision ; for with his own hand
he wrote a commentary for the ** Ontario Messen-
ger,^ pointing out the principal alterations made
by the revisers in the common and statute law of
the State. As Mr. Duer was the oldest of the re-
visers, being forty-three years of age, while Mr.
Spencer was thirty-seven and Mr. Butler twenty-
nine, the presumption, in the absence of proof
positive, is in accord with trsulition and the indi-
cations of the public documents, which are cor-
roborative.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 641
<5rimiiial law, including a whole scheme of punishment and prison dis-
cipline, was very comprehensive in its character. While most of the
provisions of the criminal code were taken from the former statutes
of the State, some suggestions touching the penal law were adopted
from Livingston's justly celebrated "System of Penal Law for Loui-
siana,'' and some from the newer English reformatory acts introduced
by Mr. Peel, but never in force in New- York. That portion of Part
IV which relates to prison discipline may be said to have introduced
too few of the humane reforms which had even then been recom-
mended by Edward Livingston of Louisiana, who was much impressed
with the suggestions of Jeremy Bentham, the great master of the
philosophy of legislation. The revisers announced themselves as
quite satisfied with the old system, and evidently were not impressed
by the advanced speculations of the theoretical writers. In this sin-
gle respect the Revised Statutes of New- York were notably faulty.
Several notes to the text, containing a brief outline of the changes
wrought by the Revised Statutes, have been inserted because such re-
vision constitutes an epoch in the law-making of the State. While
they purported to be a revision of old laws, they were more. After
they were enacted, all the former laws of the old province made part
of the fundamental law of the State by the constitutions of 1777 and
1821 were also repealed. Thenceforth the corpus juris of New- York
consisted only of the statute law of the State (the English statutes
having been previously recast and the residue repealed), and the
common law of England, as previously received and interpreted under
the province and State governments ; but even this was declared by
the constitution to be subject to such alterations as the legislature
should make in it. That the legislative power to alter included the
most sovereign power of change was not doubted. What the Revised
Statutes best demonstrated was, that the common law of English-
speaking States and origin was susceptible of important statutory
modifications without the destruction of those essential principles of
growth which had been unfolded in the course of the history of the
English nation, and that such changes could be made by the ordinary
legislative machinery without a catastrophe to the body politic. Thus
the revision destroyed the fetish of the common law, while it showed
that the law itself was not elusive; and it pointed the way, followed
in many other States, to important changes in the private jural rela-
tions of America. Through it subsequent changes, not yet foreseen,
were involved and made easy, while the dead law of the past was
rendered the servant and not the master of the State. Though per-
haps too frequently and often unskilfully amended, the Revised
Statutes of 1829 may be said to be still the chief source of the statute
law of the State.
Vol. in.— 41.
642
HISTORY OF NEW-YOEK
While the constitution of 1821 declared that the common law i^
force in the colony on April 19, 1775, should continue to be tbe Uir
of the State, it did not abrogate the small residuum of the ancieQj
Dutch law left standing by that postulate of the common law whjeii
gives effect to the laws of the conquered until abrogated.' Yet tliis
portion of the ancient Dutch law wag
very slender and rather a rule of prop-
erty : the burden of proof was on tht
proponent to show the particular insti-
tute of the Dutch law in force, as the
presumption was that tbe common law
controlled in the absence of such proot.-
The adjudged cases give evidence of the
extent of this slight survival of Dutch
law. For example, in 1830, in the canal
cases, eminent counsel, including the
attorney-general, coutended that the
Dutch law still determined the right of
certain riparian owners.' In 1817 even
Chancellor Kent, who, in a desire to in-
voke the entire ready-made system of
Euglish law, often ignored the differ-
ences observed in the province of New- York,* held that by the Dutch
law a gi'ant to the inhabitants of Hempstead constituted them a i-or-
poration.' Still later cases, such as Dunham v. Williams," have given
effect to a particular rule of the ancient Dutch law. But the great
foundation of the unwritten or non-statute law, under the constitution
of 1821 as before, continued to be the common law receive<l in the
province, as altered by the statutes of the State. What indeed was
technically meant by the use of the term "common law" — a term
ambiguous enough to denote at times either the jus non scriptiim or
the eutire particular jurispinidence of England — has occasioned much
consideration by the more subtle-minded among the lawyers. On the
whole, the general and vague definition in Morgan v. King," to the
effect that it meant the rationale rather than a particular institute of
English jurisprudence, is the most satisfactory. Yet so vague a defi-
nition could not be otherwise than an unsatisfactory basis for the
common law of a great State.'
We have already noticed some of the changes effected by the con-
I See Chapter XIV, Vol. I. p. 559 ; rhspter XIV,
Vol. II. p. 593. : PaDsl Cues, 5 Wendell. 446.
:iS Wendell, 4315; 17 WendcH. 571.
*SwIheUtoB, P.Buller'n "Oiitlioeof tbe Cod-
Htitutkonal HiHtory of New- York.*' fMxaim.
B Denton r. Jackwn, 2 Jobns. Chancery, 320.
• 37N. Y..2JI.
'30 Barb.. 14; rererwd on another point. £
N. v., 4o4.
BThere la in existence m old English book fbIIhI
"Tomlin's Repertcriiun Jartdioum," which, uiit
U remombered.conlaiDsalistotBll Eni^lixh dwi-
sions down lo the date of tbe battle of L>eiinpon.
when the En);Usb caaea ceaaed to be anthorliatiT*
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 643
stitution of 1821 in the greater among the ancient courts of New-
York. With the exceptions indicated, they continued substantially
as before/ but the chancellor and judges under the new constitution
owed their oflBice to the appointment of the governor with the consent
of the senate, instead of, as formerly, to the council of appointment,
which this constitution abolished. In order to prevent a repetition
of the odium fastened on the judges by their State functions under
the first constitution, the new constitution provided that neither the
chancellor nor the judges should hold any other office or place of
public trust during their term of office. The Revised Statutes did
not attempt to define the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery of
New- York, which had never been very precisely defined. The act
of 1683, which has the credit of its erection,- gave it general equity
powers. The Revised Statutes declared the powers of the court to
be vested in the chancellor. How far the Court of Chauceiy of New-
York was vested with the ancient jurisdiction of the English court
was discussed in the year 1810, in the most interesting case of Yates
V. People,^ which involved a conflict between the chancellor and the
Supreme Court, and where it was held that the New-York Chancery
possessed only those common-law powers of the court which in Eng-
land were exercised in the officina justiticBj or that part from which
writs issued ex debito justitice^ and that the chancellor of New-York
possessed the powers exercised by the lord chancellor in that branch
of the English court called the Court of Equity in Chancery.
Under the constitution of 1821 the powers of the Supreme Court
continued substantially as under the crown,^ and the Revised Statutes
declared this to be the fact. The jurisdiction of the minor courts of
the justices of the peace was, however, fixed by the Revised Statutes,
though the courts themselves were anciently in the province. The
county courts for common pleas also were ancient institutions, and
were only reorganized by the Revised Statutes. In some of the cities
of the State the common-law jurisdiction of the justices and county
courts have in this century for convenience been distributed among
municipal courts, such as the Courts of Common Pleas in New- York
city, or the Marine Court of the city of New- York, which had also
jurisdiction of civil actions brought by seamen. The Court of Com-
mon Pleas in the city of New-York is one of the most ancient of the
tribunals of the State.^ The Superior Court of the city of New-York
was erected in 1828, to have cognizance of local actions.® It owed its
establishment to the long-protracted conspiracy cases which grew out
here, and our own courts took up the ampliflca- * Graham's " Courts of New-York,** p. 141 (edi-
tion of the common law. tion of 1839).
1 Chapter XIV, Vol. II. « See Chapter XIV, Vol. I, p. 551 ; Chapter XIV,
21 Hoffman's "New-York Chancery Practice," VoL 11, p. 595.
Chapter 1. « Laws of 1828, p. 141, c. 137 ; 3 Reyised Statutes,
36 Johns., 337. 261.
644 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
of the heavy bank failure in the city of New- York in 1826, and clogged
the calendars of the Court of Common Pleas. Its jurisdiction was
statutory, and, unlike that of most of the other courts of New- York,
was not dej&ned by a cross-reference to some established jurisdiction
of a common-law court of England. Under the second constitution,
as under the first, the court for the trial of impeachments and cor-
rection of errors, constituted in the upper legislative house, like the
old Court of Appeals in the province of New-York, had supreme
appellate jurisdiction in both law and equity.
Under the constitution of 1821 the practice in all the courts, both
in law and in equity, remained substantially that of England, but with
many local variations which had grown up under the crown govern-
ment of New- York, and which, if separately studied, proved very
interesting phenomena. Singularly enough, under the State govern-
ment there was a tendency among the judges to obliterate these dis-
tinctions which had grown up in the province, for to follow ancient
precedents is easier than to follow innovation. The Revised Statutes
did not reform the practice : they systematized many of the old statutes
of New-York relative to jeofail practice and proceedings, and embodied
some new provisions relative to the limitations of actions in the courts
of justice, but no great reform in practice was eflFected until after the
constitution of 1846. The changes made in the judicial establishment
by the constitution of 1821 were not sufficient to accomplish much
good. In the course of a few years the complaints concerning the
delay and expense in legal proceedings became so general as to serve
as influential reasons for the reforms instituted by the succeeding
convention, called in 1846. The new circuit judgeships, created by
the constitution of 1821, proved in the end unsatisfactory to the peo-
ple, because of the disposition evinced by suitors to review all their
decisions before the Supreme Court in banc.
After so great a change in the form of the law as that involved in
the Revised Statutes, the statute-books of the State for some years
showed a cessation of legislative activity. Some few rigid rules of
the common law, relative to the non-assignability of certain rights of
action or to commercial paper, were modernized. In 1831, however,
the arrest and detention of the debtor's body in civil actions was
abolished by the Stilwell Act, although this monstrous remedy had
been retained in 1829 by the revisers of the statutes. The material
development of the State, the founding of cities, banks, schools, turn-
pike and industrial companies, occupied the larger share of the atten-
tion of the law-makers for some years after the Revised Statutes.
This was not unnatural, for between the years 1830 and 1845 the popu-
lation of the State had increased from 1,918,608 to nearly 2,700,000.
The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 had altered the relation
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW- YORK 645
of the State to the commerce of the great West; and by 1831 the con-
struction of steam railways had added new forces to the civilization
and development of the State.
From 1821 to 1846 the constitution of the State underwent few
organic changes or amendments. In 1826 the oflBice of justices of the
peace had been made elective. In 1833 the franchise for elective
officers was conferred on all white male citizens inhabiting the Stat«
one year preceding ah election. The disability of those of African
descent continued as before. In 1835 and 1837 the office of mayor
in all the cities of the State was made elective, and ceased to be
appointive. With these exceptions, the constitution of 1821 stood
unaffected by change until the year 1846.
Between the years 1821 and 1846 immigration had already intro-
duced into this commonwealth a very large number of persons of
foreign birth. While such constant migrations of strangers into a
cultivated and industrious community was reciprocally highly advan-
tageous from an economic point of view, it no doubt temporarily
complicated civil government to some extent. The new-comers, easily
transmuted by naturalization into citizens, and having abandoned the
restraints of their old homes, were attracted by those political doctrines
which were most novel to them, and which savored of the most abso-
lute equality, being opposed to centralization and privilege, or in
short to the older institutions perpetuated to some extent by the
State constitutions of 1777 and 1821. Thus the foreign element of
the population of New-York swelled the ranks of those of our citizens
who were opposed to the State constitution as it existed down to the
year 1845. By 1845 the balance of political power had about shifted
from the rural districts to the growing towns, and the political dis-
content was promoted by those in the cities who favored a redistribu-
tion of representation. Yet the persons so opposed to the ancient
order of things were, perhaps independently of those of foreign birth,
in the majority. Many causes had contributed to this disaffection;
notably the permanent judicial establishment including the Court of
Chancery, the nature of the land laws of the State, and the loose con-
dition of the State debt and finances occasioned by the great public
works undertaken. The indiscriminate grants of lands already noticed
as taking place, both before and after the establishment of the State
government, were now producing their legitimate results — agrarian,
social, and political disturbances. At different periods in the history
of New- York similar disturbances had arisen. It will be recalled that
the landlords of the vast grants of lands in the interior of the State
had, in accordance with the English land law of the province, made
perpetual teases instead of granting estates in fee. Sometimes the
leases were on condition of rent, services, or of produce to be rendered
646 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
in kind. The landlords bad generally resei-ved, also, mines and water-
power, and, to preserve the character of their estates, had restrained,^
the tenants from assigning their interests except on payment to th^
landlords of some portion of the consideration received by the tenant^
The leases were full of subtle and ingenious covenants of distrair^^^
in favor of the landlord. The great grants had been protected by ilx^
State constitutions of 1777 and 1821. As early as 1811 the legislatUi^
had appointed Ambrose Spencer, John Woodworth, and William P.
Van Ness to examine the laws of New-York on this subject, and to
report what reforms in the land law could be instituted without im-
pairing vested rights. A bill was accordingly introduced into the
Senate, but failed to become a law. About this same time the tenants
on the Clarke estate in various western counties memorialized the
legislature to investigate the title of their landlord, and the whole
subject was referred to a committee of which General Root was chair-
man. Subsequently the manor of Livingston underwent legislative
investigation. In 1813 the sheriff of Columbia County was murdered
by the "anti-renters,'' as the uprising tenants were called. In 1837
the settlers in many counties, occupying the lands of the Holland
Company, and holding certain contracts of sale with forfeiture clauses,
destroyed papers in the land office in Chautauqua County, and an
armed multitude of them collected in Batavia, but were dispersed by
the military. After the death of the patroon in 1839, it became neces-
sary to attempt to collect unpaid rents on the manor of Rensselaer-
wyck. This process, being resisted, led to the employment of the
militia and a proclamation by Governor Seward, when the tenants
consented to refer their grievances to the legislature. A policy of
delay and official red tape led to the deplorable scenes of 1844-5,
when the turbulent tenants, arrayed as Indians, committed various
agrarian outrages and disturbances. Anti-rent newspapers and poli-
ticians sprang up to play an important part in the presidential canvass
of 1844, while in some counties civil government was entirely para-
lyzed. In the midst of these serious disturbances the legislature took
steps for a constitutional convention. Meanwhile the civil authorities
acted with great propriety in their efforts to maintain law and order,
and acts of assembly were passed enabling the governor to declare
martial law in disturbed counties, and making it felony to rescue
prisoners, to resist legal j)rocess, or to appear disguised. Withal,
there was a feeling prevalent in the minds of many disinterested per-
sons that the lands of New- York had been grossly mismanaged from
the foundation of the English government in 1664, and that the
present successors of the early land speculators were now really pay-
ing off the moral debts of their predecessors. The agrarian difficulties
and the natural growth of democratical doctrines served to increase
CONSTITUTIONiL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK 647
/9>.::C-^
the dissatisfactioD with the nature of the government under the con-
stitution of 1821, and in 1844 and 1845 steps were taken toward a
constitutional convention.
In the year 1845, the mandates of the constitution of 1821 providing
for its amendment having been per-
formed,' the question of " constitutional
convention " or " no convention " was
submitted to the electors, and decided
in the aflirraative by a vote of 213,257
to 33,860.
On June 1, 1846, the convention,
elected pursuaut to law in April pre-
cedin'g, assembled at the capitol. It
embraced many distinguished citizens,
including some of the leading lawyers
of the State, notably Charles O'Conor,
Charchill Cambreling, John K. Porter,
Levi Chatfield, Samuel Nelson, Samuel
J. Tilden, Henry Nicotl, Ambrose L.
Jordan, Ezekiel Bacon, Nathan "Wil-
liams, and others. For the first time in
the history of political movements of New-York, the gi-eat landhold-
ers of the ancient parts of the State seem to have been ignored by
the voters. The old regime had obviously lost control, and new coun-
sels were thenceforth to prevail in the State, founded on the enlarged
suffrage and on more democratic and enlightened principles, or at least
on those freer from purely Anglican traditions and customs inherited
or transmitted by the constitution of 1777. It was ob\'ious that a
large share of the rural population were no longer to be obligated
by such ridiculous restraints and covenants in farm leases as "that
they should go to the gi-antor's mill only," or that they should not
entertain strangers over one day, or that they should set out trees to
the number of , keeping them replaced ivinter or summer.
The new constitution was formulated in fourteen articles, much
discussed, and adopted with one exception by large majorities. Space
will permit a glance only at their purport. The preamble repeated its
emanation from the people of the State, while the first article con-
tained certain general limitations of the powers of goverament in the
shape of a bill of rights aud privileges, every sentence of which again
bore evidences of the historic struggle for liberty by the English-
speaking peoples in the old and new worlds. Most of these limita-
• tions had been contained in the earlier constitutions. Trial by jury,
religious liberty, the writ of habeas corpus, bail for accused persons,
I New-York Law^ 1S4S, c. 252.
648 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
the exercise of eminent domain, freedom of speech, were each pro.
tected by appropriate clauses. Some old statutes reenacted in the
Revised Statutes of 1829, regarding tenures of real estate, were incor-
porated in the first article of the constitution, against the general
protest of the lawyers, who thought them supererogatory. All feudal
tenures were again declared abolished, saving, however, all rents and
services. So all lands were again declared allodial, but subject to
escheat. All fines, quarter sales, or other restraints upon alienation
were again made void. Leases of agricultural lands for longer than
twelve years were made void for the future. All these provisions,
in so far as they affected vested rights, were known to be quite in-
operative, and the only really new provision of importance was di-
rected against long farm leases in the future. The old farm leases
which were valid in their inception had to be dealt with by very
different modes from a constitutional referendum. For this reason
some of the lawyers thought that these clauses of the constitution
betokened insincerity. The provisions as to the land law, however,
had the effect of making the policy of the State, in the future, very
clear, and of prohibiting thenceforth long leases of farm lands*
Even these clauses of the constitution might not, however, have
proved effectual had not the new methods of transportation acted as
auxiliaries and made better and cheaper lands more accessible to the
agriculturist; so that the tenure of large districts of farm lands of
New- York had to be revised by the consent of the proprietors them-
selves, thi-ough commutations and compromises, which naturally fol-
lowed the new economic rather than the new constitutional conditions.
Article II carefully regulated the right of suffrage, conferring the bal-
lot on all white male citizens, in conformity to the amendment of
1826, already noticed. Negroes, unless freeholders, were still excluded
from the suffrage, and so remained until the adoption of the fifteenth
amendment to the federal constitution, the electors of the State hav-
ing refused in the years 1846, 1860, and 1869 to reheve them of this
disability. In 1874, by constitutional amendment, the electors, how-
ever, removed the ban. Slavery after the year 1827 had been abol-
ished by a statute of 1817, while all persons were by statute bom free
in this State after July 4, 1799. By Article III of the constitution the
legislative power, vested, as theretofore, in the assembly, was regu-
lated. The senate was reduced to thirty-two members and the legis-
lature to one hundred and twenty-eight.
As space forbids following minutely the extensive alterations of
the fundamental law by the convention of 1846, attention must be
directed to the important features only of the new organic law. By
Article IV it was provided that a candidate for governor might be a
naturalized citizen, and he was no longer required to be even a free-
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 649
holder. This provision well indicated the very serious change which
public sentiment had undergone in the preceding twenty years. The
time when property was regarded as the easiest test of a man's capa-
city or respectability had passed away; so naturalized foreigners
were no longer, as a body, to be deprived for that reason of the su-
preme honors of the State. Such changes were no doubt reason-
able, as the electors at large might be depended on, without artificial
restrictions, to choose the great State officers wisely. In other arti-
cles of the constitution the general power of appointment to public
office, vested by the constitution of 1821 in the governor or in the
senate and assembly, was given directly to the people. Even judicial
offices were made elective without any formidable protest in the con-
vention. This feature was not so novel as it might seem, for a major-
ity of the members of the old Coui*t of Errors (the senators) had been
elective since the foundation of the State government, and the Court
of Errors had, on the whole, in the past proved more satisfactory to
the people at large than the other courts of record where the judges
were appointed. It was well understood by the convention of 1846
that the people desired an elective judiciary, and were dissatisfied
with the ancient appointive system. Many plans were suggested in
the convention, but nearly all favored a judiciary partly or wholly
elective. The judiciary article of the constitution of 1846 made great
changes in the judicial organization of the State, and was cai'ried by
a small majority. A new appellate court of last resort in cases civil
and criminal was created, to be called the Court of Appeals, and with
its erection the old Court of Errors was to disappear. Four of the
justices of the new Court of Appeals were to be elected for a term
of four years, and another four were to be selected from the justices
of the Supreme Court. Instead of the old Supreme Court and Court of
Chancery a new Supreme Court was established, having general origi-
nal jurisdiction in law and equity. In order to prevent centralization
of judicial authority at the capitol, this new court was divided into
eight districts, of which the city of New- York was one. The judges
were to be elected in the districts. Thus the great court of original
jurisdiction was in this way constituted on the basis of county rather
than of State lines; the evident object being to diffuse and not to
centralize judicial influence and responsibility. With an elective
judiciary the district plan for courts of original jurisdiction was
inevitable.
One of the objects of the convention being to reform the laws rela-
tive to the debt, finances, and property of the State, most minute
directions were contained in the new constitution, and very consider-
able limitations were imposed, in this respect, on the powers of the
legislature. No compromises with certain debtors of the State were
650 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
to be tolerated; sinking funds were to be created; the State salt,
mines and canals were not to be sold ; the State credit was not to be
loaned. Time has justifiied the wisdom of all these limitations. The
subject of franchises to corporations also received attention, and it
was provided that private corporations could not be formed iu the
future except under general laws, subject to alteration at the legisla-
tive will. In conformity with the popular demand, the stockholders
in such corporations were made personally liable for debts in proper
cases. Certain banking principles looking to the security of note-
holders were fixed in the constitution itself. Many other minute
provisions, some of which may be noticed hereafter, were contained
in the constitution. Thus the policy of the State, touching certain
spheres of legislative action, was so fixed by the people as to be beyond
the control of the ordinary legislative body. This course was then
more novel than it has since become in this country. On November
3, 1846, the new constitution was adopted by a vote of 221,528 to
92,436. In confonnity to the terms of the instrument which made
future amendments more easy than did that of 1821, the constitution
of 1846 has been since amended in several particulars, but its general
features remain undisturbed. The policy of these amendments has
been to reserve more of the legislative power to the people, and
further to limit the powers of the legislature. In 1874 the term of oflBce
of the governor was extended from two to three years ; his powers a8
chief magistrate under the constitution of 1846, as amended, remained
substantially as under the former constitution, being, however, some-
what more prescribed with each organic change. In the j'ear 1858, a
proposition for a new constitutional convention was defeated l)y the
people ; but in 1866, steps were taken, as directed by the constitution,
toward a convention, and on April 23, 1867, delegates wore chosen
who convened at Albany, June 4, 1867. Among them were many per-
sons of distinction and attainment. Notwithstanding that the popu-
lation of the State had increased from 1,372,111 in 1820 to nearly
3,000,000 in 1846, the people evinced greater satisfaction with the con-
stitution of 1846 than many had expected. The constitution framed
by the convention of 1867 was, with the exception of the judiciary
article, defeated by a vote of 290,456 against, to 223,935 for, its adop-
tion. By the particular amendment then adopted, some of the city
courts were made constitutional courts, and thus freed from legisla-
tive interference. The other changes were not extensive. The general
policy of the constitution of 1846 in making the great courts of general
original jurisdiction decentralized or local courts, was, in 1867, and
again in 1880, confirmed by provisions compelling the Supreme Court
justices to reside within their districts, although any Supreme Court
justice might, if designated, sit in any county of the State. In the
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OP NEW-YORK 651
year 1873 the people rejected au amendment looking to the future
appoiutmeut to office of the justices of the Court of Appeals and the
Supreme Court In 1874, and again in 1884, the powers of counties,
cities, towns, and villages to incur indebtedness were restricted by an
amendment to this end. In 1882 the canals of the State were made
free by constitutional amendment. In 1874 two new articles were
added to the constitution of 1846 : one of these was directed against
bribery of public officials, and the other provided that all amend-
ments to the constitution should be in force from the first day of
January sueceediug the election at which the same were adopted.
Of all the changes instituted by the
constitution of 1846, those creating a new
judicial establishment, elective and di-
rectly responsible to the people, were the
most profound. Next in importance were
those provisions concerning the codifica-
tion of the law and the further direction
to the legislature to appoint commission-
ers to revise, simplify, and abridge the
practice, forms, and proceedings in all the
courts of justice of the State. Up to this
time the courts in the State and their
practice and proceedings had been sur-
vivals, and antedated in whole or in part
the war of independence. It was very
obvious, from the articles of the new con-
stitution, that the people desired a revolu-
tion in these ancient institutions — an inference further emphasized
by its permission to the legislature to erect new courts of conciliation.
Such new tribunals were the first English courts contemplated in
New- York which were not patterned after the law-courts in England.
The scope of the political revolution intended by the people was fur-
ther shown by the innovation which permitted a naturalized citizen
to become governor, and which took away from the executive the
appointing power. A policy of governmental decentralization was
disclosed also by those provisions which permitted the legislature to
vest a share of the legislative power in boards of supervisors of
counties. This constitution provided that senators were to be
chosen for two years instead of for four years, and by smaller dis-
tricts, thus enlarging their direct responsibility to the people. Mem-
bers of the lower house were to be chosen by single districts, and
no longer by the counties as a whole. This single-district system
was an innovation, and had a tendency to do away with the old
county as a political unit. The argument for it was that in large
/&&*-y^i^
652 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
communities, such as cities, the district system provided for a more
direct and responsible representation. It was provided ako that
these districts were to be reapportioned from time to time so as to
provide for more equal representation, as populations were shift^Kl
or augmented. While the argument in favor of this single-district
system was no doubt sincere, it has met with great opposition and
censure from many who, while ardently attached to representative
institutions, have believed the ancient county a more dignified and
proper political unit than a district. In the city of New-York the
single-district plan at first met with no favor, and it may be doubted
whether the opinion of the more thoughtful has had reason to change
the earlier opinion.
In addition to the organic changes tending to do away with a cen-
tralized State government, and to reserve greater power, judicial,
legislative, and executive, to the people, should be noted that article
of the new constitution which provided for its future amendment.
Under the constitution of 1821, a majority of the first and two thirds
of a second legislature must favor the change before a proposed
amendment could be submitted to the people. By the constitution of
1846, a bare majority vote of approval sufficed to cause such submis-
sion. The constitution of 1846 directed thau in the year 1866, and in
each twentieth year thereafter, and at such other times as the legisla-
ture provided, the question of holding a constitutional convention
must be submitted to a direct vote of the people. To many these last
provisions furnish the greatest evidence of change in the nature of
the State government as first established. The system constructed
by the earlier constitutions may be said to have been one by which
the government was delegated to certain officers, executive, legisla-
tive, and judicial, who were invested with general and more or less
permanent powers. These officers were the law-makers and adminis-
trators of the system. But by the new constitution such delegation
was not only more limited in scope, but greater power was reserved
to the people themselves to act more frequently by constitutional en-
actment on a large class of questions. The student of institutions has
detected in this constant reference of important laws to the people ^
themselves, an advance in the nature of popular institutions — the
referendum being the greatest height to which popular government
can obtain among largo masses of people. Such legislation by the
people themselves was not contemplated by the founders of the State
government, either when they created their permanent judicial estab-
lishment or invested their executive with the magisterial and legisla-
tive powers of the former crown governors. Nor did the founders of
the State government dream that the investment of the legislature
with the entire legislative power — an achievement which then re-
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK 653
fleeted the success of the Ee volution — would some day have to be
guarded by reservations from the legislature itself.
The constitution of the State government formulated by the con-
vention of 1846 was adopted by a vote of 221,528 in its favor to 92,-
436 against it. This new organic law went into effect on January 1,
1847, and with few modifications it still remains in force. The
nature of the judicial establishment created by this constitution was
in substance as follows : A court of final appellate jurisdiction, known
as the Court of Appeals, and already described, was substituted for
the old Court of Errors constituted in the* upper legislative house,
attended by the great common-law judges and the chancellor. It
should be said that in the whole history of the commonwealth of
New- York from the time when final appeals lay to great tribunals in
Europe down to the present, no other appellate court connected with
New- York has given greater general satisfaction to the people than
the Coui-t of Appeals erected under the constitution of 1846 and con-
tinued and reestablished by constitutional amendment. The courts
of original jurisdiction created under the frame of government estab-
lished in 1846 have generally preserved the historical continuity.
The new Supreme Court, for example, which is the great court of
original jurisdiction, preserved the jurisdiction of the former Su-
preme Court of Judicature of the State and province, but added to it
that of the Court of Chancery. In other words, the two former courts
have been merged into one great court, whose judges possess sub
modo the jurisdictions of the old chancellor and of the supreme jus-
ticiars of the State, who in turn had the power of the chancellor and
of the justices of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Court of Ex-
chequer in England.^ The proceedings of the new supreme court of
general jmisdiction were soon much simplified by the adoption of a
uniform system of pleading, evidence, and trial in all actions in the
new court, whether such actions were formerly denominated legal or
equitable. Without such auxiliary provisions the fusion of the former
courts of law and equity in one court would have been more difficult.
As the nature of this fusion possesses great historical importance, it
will be again noticed below. In addition to the new Supreme Court,
the courts of record provided for under the constitution of 1846, or
created by the legislature pursuant to such constitution, are, as for-
merly, of several orders. There are minor civil courts for the dif-
ferent counties, which are known, as formerly, as county courts,
and there are likewise civil courts for cities, generally styled city
courts, or superior courts. In addition to these are the several crimi-
nal courts for counties and municipalities, such as courts of sessions
and recorders' courts. The jurisdictions of all these courts are pre-
1 Section 217, Code of Civil Procedure.
654
HISTOBT OF NEW-YORK
scribed by law, and sometimes have cross or remote references to the
jurisdictions of the courts of the province of New- York which pre-
ceded them. Where the jurisdiction of any of. the present courts
is fixed by the constitution itself, it is beyond legislative interference;
but when such court is one created by the legislature, its jurisdietiou
is subject to alteration by the legislature. In addition to the county
and municipal courts are certain civil courts, not of record, intended
for the trial of small or speedy causes. In the counties these court*,
are generally styled the courts of the justices of the peace; but in th^
cities, district courts. In addition to these small courts not of reconj
there have been created under the eoostj.
tution of 1846 certain criminal courts of
lesser jurisdiction, with power to tn
minor offenses, or to bind offenders over
to keep the peace. These courts are
known generally as police or justices'
courts. The jurisdictions of all the lowtr
courts in the State may be styletl statu-
tory. The Supreme Court, under the con-
stitution, alone possesses a common-law
jurisdiction, or one defined most largelv
by reference to judicatories having their
rise and origin in the common law of
England, as it stood before the British
occupation of this commonwealth. In this respect the Supreme
Court possesses a certain historic significance not possessed by
even the appellate court. It also affords the gateway to the pro-
fession of the law, as it licenses for all courts of the State all at-
torneys and counsel, who by the new constitution may be any male
citizen of the age of twenty-one years, of good moral character, and
proper attainment. In addition to the courts denoted, the constitu-
tion of 1846 provided expressly for courts having jurisdiction of
wills, testaments, cases of intestacy, and probate matters generally, in
counties possessing a population of over forty thousand inhabitants.
In smaller oouuties the county judges, who had a probate jurisdiction
conferred by the constitution itself, were to act exclusively as surro-
gates. Surrogates' courts have now been generally created for all the
counties of the State. Occasional courts of impeachment were also
THOHAS J. OAKLEY.'
t TbonitH J. Oaklfy was bom In 1T8
Isw in Poufthkwpsle. N-Y-; ser\-ecl ■
u a Fedenilist, from 1813 to 1815,
tomev-Kpneral of New- York Stale
1S2T he went to ConicreBB as ■ Clinto:
resigDin^ Id 1828 tolreromea jiidicein tbeSuperii
Court ot New-York city. Upoii the I'oiirt'H re-
orguiiuition iu 1846 he was elected chief Justice,
; practised flllinB (be office until hin death. May 12, 1857. H»
I ConsTpss, possessed remarkable mental powers, waa cool and
ind was BI- imperturbable even in tbe heat of debat«. reason.
1 ISIO. In Ing clearly and lo^cally; and bia cautioD and
Democrat. jiidKiuent made bim an admirable part; leader.
~ iH highly esteemed as a judge of luumlbed
COXSTlTUTlOyAL AND LEGAL HISTORT OF NEW-YORK 655
created and limited by the constitution of 1846, as by all preceding
constitutions of the State, Such is the outline of the present judicial
establishment of the State under the existing constitution. The State
courts possess complete and entire jurisdiction throughout the
State, and, except as modified by the federal constitution and acts of
Congress conferring exclusive jurisdiction of certain prescribed cases
on the federal establishment, the range of the jurisdiction of tlie State
courts covers the entire field of judicial inquiry. The jurisdiction of
the lesser courts is confined to certain cities and counties, and their
process cannot run beyond the limits prescribeil.
The constitution of 1846 is also notable for its effort to confer upon
the j>eople a system of laws which should not afford such persistent
evidence of the former colonial subordination. Although the con-
stitution elsewhere declared that such parts of the common law as
did form the law of the colony on April 19, 1775, and not since abro-
gated, should remain in force (together with such acts of the colonial
legislature, of the congress of the colony, and of the former legisla-
tures of the State), but subject to future legislative alteration, yet it
directed the first legislature of the State thereafter to appoint three
commissioners, whose duty it should be to reduce into a written
and systematic code the whole body of the law of the State, or so
much thereof as to the commissioners seemed practicable and expe-
dient. To many persons this was a welcome announcement that
the State had entered a more complete phase of independence, and
that it was preparing to make its laws of purely domestic origin, and
to avoid the necessity of constant reference to the laws of England.
From the context of the constitution it was exceedingly plain that
the people of the State demanded the codification of their laws. The
judiciary article of the constitution of 1846 contained also some pro-
visions obligatory upon the proceedings in the new courts, such as
that "the testimony in equity cases shall be taken in like manner as
in cases at law''; but there was considerable ambiguity about the pro-
visions concerning the Supreme Court, which induced some of the
older school of lawyers to hope that the practice in the new Supreme
Court might still continue to reflect the former antinomy between law
and equity in some such manner as now prevails in the federal courts
of this country. In January, 1847, David Dudley Field of New- York
published a tentative treatise entitled "What shall be done with the
practice of the courts! Shall it be wholly reformed! Questions
addressed to lawyers." A memorial followed, largely signed by law-
yers of the State, urging the legislature to abolish the old forms of
action, and to provide for a uniform course of proceedings in all cases,
whether of legal or equitable cognizance. On the 8th of April, 1847,
the legislature passed an act appointing Arphaxed Loomis, David
656 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Graham, and Nicholas Hill commissioners on practice and pleadings.
Mr. Hill resigned in September following, and Mr. David Dudley
Field was appointed in Mr. Hill's place by a resolution of the two
houses of legislature on September 29, 1847. On February 29, 1848,
the first instalment of a code of civil procedure was enacted, to take
effect July 1 following. The completed code of civil procedure was
reported December 31, 1849, but its adoption was delayed. On the
same day the code of criminal procedure was reported, but it was not
adopted at that time. That instalment of the code of civil procedure
which was enacted abolished all distinction between actions at law
and suits in equity, and substituted one form of action for the pro-
tection of private rights, or the redress of private wrongs. At this
time this single reform was the gi'eatest ever accomplished in the
'remedial law of an English-speaking people. Its design and accom-
plishment were largely if not exclusively due to the efforts of Mr.
Field, one of the most lucid of all legislative draftsmen, as well as
one of the most powerful and original thinkers ever seen in the ranks
of English-speaking lawyers. Unfortunately, the symmetry and ex-
cellence of Mr. Field's legislative work have been much man-ed either
by the action of the legislature, or by its failure to adopt the entire
scheme of reform as reported by the codifiers. Not until April 6,
1857, were efforts to continue the reform contemplated by the consti-
tution of 1846 successful. In that year an act was passed revising a
former code commission. The earlier commission had failed to codify
the whole body of the law of the State, or to perform any part of the
task assigned to them by the legislature.* The act of 1857 - appointed
David Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes, and Alexander Bradford
commissioners to codify so much of the law as was not included in
the reports of the commissioners on pleading and practice reported
to the legislature in 1850. On April 10, 1860, a political code was
accordingly reported to the legislature. On March 30, 1861, a book
of forms adapted to the necessities of the practice code was reported,
but not adopted. The penal code was reported in December, 1864,
and the civil code on February 13, 1865.
The civil, criminal, penal, and political codes, together with the book
of forms, would have completed the entire scheme of reform contem-
plated by the constitution of 1846. But of these great works only the
penal and criminal codes have passed into laws.^ The civil and polit-
ical codes have up to this time failed of enactment. For whatever
reason these completed codes have failed to become laws, it cannot
be doubted that their enactment would have relieved the jurispru-
dence of the State from many anomalies and archaisms peculiar to
that part of the law of England which we have seen to be the law of
1 Chapter 49, Laws of 1847 ; Chapter 289. id. ; Chapter 312, Laws of 1849. « Chapter 286i
3 Chapters 442 and 676, Laws of 1881.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-TORK 657
the former proviDce of New- York. The whole body of the law of the
State would then have been reduced to a written form, with the effect,
as many believed, of permitting the energies of the bar to be directed
to a higher and more philosophical exposition of principles than is
permissible when the text of the
law is unwritten and deduced only
from cases and precedents.
As the law stands, — several of
the codes not having been enacts
ed, — the private jural relations of
all the citizens of the State are now
determined either by certain inhi-
bitions contained in the written
constitutions of government re-
lated to private law, or by the acts
of the legislature of New- York, in-
cluding the Revised Statutes (fre-
quently amended by later legisla-
tures of the State), or lastly by the ,
common law of the province of '
New- York, as it stood on the date
of the battle of Lexington, in the year 1775, and as since altered by
legislation. The constitution of 1846, adopting the phraseology of the
constitution of 1821, provided also that the acta of the old assembly
of the province, and the resolutions of the congress and of the con-
vention of the State in force April 20, 1777, and not since repealed or
altered, should also form part of the fundamental law ; but as a mat-
ter of fact the acts of the provincial assemblies were all repealed in
the year 1828, while those acts of the convention and the resolutions
of the congress of any permanent effect had by the year 1846 been re-
vised by statutes of the State, so that the common law and the legisla-
tive acts of the State government may be roughly said to constitute
the entire body of the substantive law of the State in force since 1846.
The common law so in force has of late years received so much ju-
dicial interpretation that almost all its leading institutes appear in
the printed reports of the adjudications of the State courts. That
such a form for the great body of law of the State is now at all what
was contemplated by the constitution of 1846, cannot be pretended.
Yet, that the contents and substance of the law as it actually exists are
adequate at present to all the exigencies of a highly civilized State,
experience affirms. To indicate more fully the nature of the institutes
of this great body of private law would require greater technical pre-
cision than the limits of this outline permit. By force of the constitu-
tional definition of the law of the State, the remnant of the old
Vol. III.— 4a.
658 HISTORY OF NEW- YORK
Dutch law which had become a part of the common law of the prov-
ince, still remains, in very limited instances, a rule of particular prop-
erty held under Dutch ground-briefs, or by Dutch subjects under the
articles of capitulation of 1664. Otherwise the law of New Nether-
land has been repealed, abrogated, or wholly displaced. In many in-
stances the common law of the province of New-York, referred to by
the constitution of 1846 as continuing in effect under that constitu-
tion, has until a comparatively late period regulated wholly many of
the domestic relations in this State, such as husband and wife, parent
and child, guardian and ward, and master and servafnt. But of late
years the common law has been modified by such statutes as the mar-
ried women's property acts, and other acts in conformity with the
trend of modern thought and opinion. On March 2, 1870,* efforts
were again made to accomplish the work directed by the constitution
of 1846, and remaining unperformed. The new commissioners, of
whom Mr. Field was not one, were directed to incorporate into and
make part of their revision the proposed codes reported to the legis-
lature by the earlier commissions. The last commission proceede^l
to revise the early code of procedure : the other portions of their task
have remained unfulfilled. Thus, up to the present time, the com-
plete codification contemplated by the constitution of 1846 has not
been accomplished.
Having now outlined the form of the public and private law of the
State as it exists at the present day, a word of application may be
made to the status of a citizen of the city of New- York. The com-
mon law of the State is the same in all parts of the territoiy under
the jurisdiction of the State, there being no portion subject to a dif-
ferent common law from the rest. Of the statutes of the State some
are general in application, while others, by limitation, apply to specific
communities, such as the city of New- York. Thus, those inhabiting
the city of New- York are, as a rule, subject to a common law of uni-
versal application throughout the State, and to a statute law which
may or may not be general in operation. Of the statutes of the State
not everywhere operative, the municipal charters of the city of New-
York afford good examples ; for these charters contain not only fran-
chises to the city as a corporation, but also occasional rules for the
government of the citizens within the jurisdiction of such municipal
corporation. In the preceding volumes* the Dongan and Mont-
gomerie charters were noticed. At the adoption of the first consti-
tution of the State, the Montgomerie Charter of 1730 was in full force,
and both the State constitutions of the present century have pro-
vided that nothing therein contained should annul any charters to
bodies politic and corporate made prior to the 14th of October, 1775.
Until the year 1830 the Montgomerie Charter, as somewhat modified
1 (liapter 33. 2 Chapter XIV, Vols. I and II.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HISTORY OF NEW-YOBK 659
by statute, remained the fundamental charter of the city. In that
year an amended charter was adopted. In June, 1829, the common
council had recommended the citizens to choose delegates to a con-
vention for the purpose of amending and revising the ancient char-
ter. Steps were accordingly taken under the advice of Ex-Chancellor
Kent, and on the 7th day of April, 1830, at the request of a majority
of the citizens, the legislature passed an act "to amend the Charter of
the City of New- York." * In this act the old charter is recognized as
subsisting, in so far as it is not inconsistent with the new act's own
provisions. On April 2, 1849, July 11, 1851, April 10, 1852, April 11,
1853, and at other times, further amendments were made to the char-
ter. But on April 4, 1857, most of the more recent amendments were
repealed, and chapter 446 of the laws of 1857 was substituted for
them. It was, however, still provided that the provisions of the royal
charters should continue in force where not abrogated or inconsistent
with chapter 446 of the laws of 1857.
In the year 1873 ^ an act was passed " to reorganize the local gov-
ernment of the City of New- York," which made extensive changes in
the administrative part of the city charter, repealing various amend-
ments enacted in the present century, but still continuing in force
those provisions of the ancient royal charters then operative and not
inconsistent with its provisions. In 1874 the city's boundaries were
much enlarged,^ and the power of the separate county government
was transferred to the city authorities.^ In the years 1879 and 1880,
the legislature authorized a revision of the special and local laws af-
fecting New- York city, and made such revision presumptive evidence
in the New- York courts of justice of all special or local laws in force
in the city of New-York.^ In 1881,® most of the local acts affecting
New- York city passed subsequent to 1784 being contained in the re-
vision mentioned, were otherwise repealed. In 1882 all the laws af-
fecting public interests in the city of New- York, having been revised,
were consolidated in one act known as the " consolidation act," ^ and
it was thought that all future laws affecting the city of New-York
should refer to this act. But such has not been the case, and various
acts affecting the city have been since passed without any special ref-
erence to the consolidation act of 1882. Curiously enough, the an-
cient royal charter known as the Montgomerie Charter of 1730, in so
far as it has not been swept away by inconsistent legislative enact-
ment, remains in force, having never been expressly repealed. Thus,
though the nature of the city government in most of its administra-
tive features has completely changed, that feature of the Dongan
Charter which, in the year 1686, vested the powers of local government
1 Chapter 122, Laws of 1830. 5 Chapters 594 and 595, Laws of 1880.
2 Chapter 335, Laws of New-York. « Chapter 537.
3 Chapter 411. 7 Chapter 410, Laws of 1882.
4 Chapter 304.
660 HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
in a mayor, alderman, and commonalty, exists at the present time.
Notwithstanding the many changes introduced by the legislature in
the present century, the skeleton of the city government possesses
a very considerable antiquity. To give in detail the nature of the
changes actually instituted would exceed the limits prescribed for a
mere outline, and has not been attempted.
lu conclusion, it may be remarked that in the State of New-York
popular sovereignty, which attained its highest phase under the State
constitution of 1846, has been developed somewhat differently from
that in the other original States, where it was often observable, even
before the war of independence, in town and city governments.
But in the city of New- York, down to the war of independence, the
crown government exercised unusual influence and authority. After
the American Revolution the State government succeeded to this
power over the city government. Not until 1834 were the mayors
of this city elected by the inhabitants of the city. At the present
time the old legislative powers of the municipal authorities have
almost dwindled into insignificance, having been largely assumed
by the legislature of the State, so that the measure of freedom now
enjoyed by the inhabitants of this city is determined, not by the
history and the laws of the city itself, but by those of the State,
although the history of the city long antedates that of the State.
Hy a change instituted in the State constitution of 1846, restoring
to the clergy eligibility for public oflSce, and by the fifteenth amend-
ment to the federal constitution, forbidding any State to abridge
the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude, the political equality of all citizens of the State is abso-
lute. Notwithstanding the annual introduction into the State and
city of a large number of persons of foreign birth, wise naturaliza-
tion laws have incorporated most of them into the very heart of the
body politic, so that they too are amenable to the same laws and
X>ossess the same rights as the descendants of the original settlers,
thus avoiding many complications peculiar to those mixed States
w here extensive consular jurisdictions are recognized. By the four-
teenth amendment to the federal constitution the children of for-
eigners, if born in the United States, are citizens of the State where
they reside. Thus most of the inhabitants of the city of New- York
are citizens, and all citizens possess precisely the same rights and are
subject to the same law. Under such conditions there is happily no
excuse for political discontent. The object of the founders of the
State has been in this respect fully consummated. Yet to assert that
the condition of the law and the constitution is perfect would be an
exaggeration ; but the assertion that there has been and is, on the
whole, a steady and healthy growth of law and liberty here, would
be one which few will deny.
TABLE OF DATES IN NEW- YORK HISTORY
1784 - February 7, James Duane appointed Mayor. First American
city government organized. Chamber of Commerce (founded
in 1768) incorporated. Custom-house established. Congress
removed from Philadelphia to New- York.
1785 General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen established.
Philanthropic and other societies organized, including the
Society for the Manumission of Slaves. Petition to legisla-
ture to regulate trade.
1786 Rebuilding of the city pushed rapidly.
1787 Mutual Fire Assurance Company organized. October 27, first
number of the " Federalist^ papers published.
1788 -April 13, Doctors' riot. Procession in honor of adoption of
Constitution by ten States. August 21, corner-stone laid of
new Trinity Church building.
1789 - February 2, Corporation authorized to raise ten thousand
pounds by taxation, for the poor, the street improvements,
the bridewell, watchmen, and street lamps. March 4, First
Congress assembled in New- York. April 30, Washington's
inauguration as first President of the United States, at
Federal Hall. New Federal Constitution ratified. May 13,
first meeting of the Tammany Society.
1790 - July 5, grand celebration of Independence Day.
1791 - March 21, Bank of New- York incorporated.
1792 - October 12, celebration of the third centenary of the discovery
of America. Contest between Clinton and Jay for governor-
ship. Tontine Coffee House built.
1793 - December 9, first issue of the " Commercial Advertiser,^ then
called " The Minerva."
1795 Visitation of yellow fever. The Park Theater erected. Society
Library opens its first building.
1798 State capital removed to Albany. Second visitation of yellow
fever. The Park Theater opened.
1799 Slaves set free. Manhattan Company chartered to supply
water to the city.
1801 - November 16, New- York " Evening Post " first issued.
681
662 TABLE OF DATES IN NEW-YOBK HISTOBT
1803 CornerHstone laid of the present City HalL
1804 Hackney-coaches first licensed. July 11, Hamilton-Burr duel
November 20, New-York Historical Society founded.
1806 - March 15, New- York Orphan Asylum Society organized. May
19, first Free School opened.
1807 College of Physicians and Surgeons organized. August 11,
Fulton's steamboat Clermont makes first trip to Albany in
thirty-two hours, returning in thirty hours. City surveyed
and laid out by Gouverneur Morris, DeWitt Clinton, and
others. December, the Embargo Act passed.
1808 American Academy of Fine Arts incorporated.
1809 New- York Historical Society celebrated the two-hundredth an-
niversary of the discovery of Manhattan Island by Henry
Hudson. First woolen-mills established in New-York.
1811 - May 19, nearly one hundred buildings destroyed by fire.
1812 War with England declared. Present City Hall completed.
First steam ferry to Jersey City. New- York blockaded by a
British fleet, 1812-14.
1814 Suspension of specie payments, continuing until July, 1817.
1815 - February 14, news of the signing of the treaty of peace at
Ghent (December 24, 1814) reaches New- York.
1816 American Bible Society formed.
1817 - February, intense cold ; Hudson Eiver frozen over, and people
crossed to New Jersey on the ice.
1818 Another severe winter ; Long Island Sound entirely closed by
ice. July 8, General Montgomery's remains reach New- York,
and are deposited in St. Paul's Church.
1820 -May 25, burning of the old Park Theater. Apprentices'
Library founded.
1821 Mercantile Library founded.
1822 - August, visitation of yellow fever. Castle Q-arden ceded to the
city by the United States.
1824 - August, General Lafayette revisits the city.
1825 Gas first introduced. November 4, celebration of completion
of the Erie Canal.
1830 First stage line begins, from Bowling Green to Bleecker street
Manhattan Gas-light Company organized.
1831 University of City of New- York founded. The Leake and
Watts Orphan Asylum established.
1832 First horse-railroad in the world (the New- York and Harlem
Eailroad Company's) opened to travel. University of New-
York organized. First appearance of Asiatic cholera.
1833 New- York " Sun " established by Benjamin H. Day. June 12,
President Jackson visits the city, and is publicly received.
TABLE OF DATES IN NEW-YORK HISTORY 663
1834 - April 10, Election riot. July, Abolition riot. Mayoralty made
an elective office.
1835 -June, Five Points riot. August, Stone-cutters' riot. "New-
York Herald ^ established by James Gordon Bennett. De-
cember, great fire, lasting nearly three days.
1836 Union Club formed. Union Theological Seminary founded.
1837 - February 10, Bread and Flour riot. Great financial panic
throughout the countiy. May 10, suspension of all the New-
York city banks.* October 24, Fourth Avenue Tunnel opened.
1838 -May 10, city banks resume specie payments. The Bank of
Commerce established.
1840 The "New-York Tribune" founded by Horace Greeley.
1842 All property qualifications for city voters abolished. October
14, celebration of the completion of the Croton Aqueduct.
Common-school system of the State extended to New- York
city by legislative act.
1844 Municipal Police Act passed by legislature. Anti-rent riot.
1845 - July 19, disastrous fire ; 300 buildings destroyed.
1848 The Astor Library founded by John Jacob Astor.
1849 - May 10, the Astor Place riot.
1851 The " New- York Times " founded by Henry J. Raymond. The
Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, visits New- York. The Erie
Railway opened from this city to Dunkirk. The Nicaragua
route opened between New- York and San Francisco.
1853 World's Fair held in the Ciystal Palace (site of Bryant Park),
Sixth Avenue and Forty-Second street. Children's Aid So-
ciety founded. Yellow fever in the city.
1856 Site of Central Park purchased for about five and a half mil-
lions of dollars.
1857 Metropolitan Police Act passed. October 14-15, financial cri-
sis ; banks suspend. December 12 -14, banks resume specie
payments.
1858 Atlantic cable laid. Corner-stone of St. Patrick's Cathedral
laid.
1860 Japanese Embassy arrives. New- York " World " founded by
Manton Marble. June 28, steamship Great Eastern reaches
the city. Prince of Wales visits New- York. South Carolina
secedes from the Union.
1861 - April 12-13, bombardment of Fort Sumter. April 19, depar-
ture of Seventh Regiment for Washington. The banks of the
city suspend specie payments.
1863 - July 13-15, anti-draft riots in the city ; violent attacks on the
negroes ; many rioters killed. October, corner-stone laid of
New- York Academy of Design.
664 TABLE OF DATES IN NEW- YORK HI8T0BY
1864 New-York Sanitary Commission's Fair held, realizing over a
million dollars. July 16, gold reaches highest premium, viz^
284 per cent.
1865 - April 9, surrender of General Lee. April 14, assassination of
President Lincoln at Washington.
1866 Atlantic cable successfully completed. Queen Emma of the
Sandwich Islands visits the city.
1869 - September 24 (" Black Friday"), disastrous financial panic.
1870 - September 30, funeral of Admiral Farragut.
1871 - July 12, the Orange riot. Visit of Grand Duke Alexis.
1872 Tweed Ring broken up and the leaders imprisoned.
1876 - July 4, celebration of the Centennial of American Indei)en-
dence. September 24, Hallett's Point obstructions at Hell
Gate blown up. Visit of Emperor of Brazil.
1877 - May 16, unveiling in Central Park of a bronze statue of Fitz-
Greene Halleck, the first erected in the New World to a poet.
July 23 - 27, labor riots and railroad strikes.
1878 The Chinese Embassy visits the city. December 17, gold sold
at par, the first time since 1862.
1883 - May 24, the East River Bridge opened for travel.
1884 Panic in Wall street. Suspension of Marine Bank. Greely
relief steamers Bear and Thetis leave New- York.
1885 Special-delivery system inaugurated in the post-office. Flood
Eock blown up. August 8, funeral of General Grant.
1886 Senate passes bill appropriating $250,000 toward erecting the
Grant monument at Riverside. Bartholdi statue unveiled
in New- York Harbor.
1889 - April 30, celebration in New- York city of the one-hundredth
anniversary of Washington's presidential inauguration.
1890 - February 4, one-hundredth anniversary of the United States
Supreme Court celebrated in the city.
1891 - January 29, sudden death of William Windom, United States
Secretary of the Treasury, at a banquet at Delmonico's.
February 19, Funeral of General Sherman.
1892 - October 10, 11, and 12, grand Columbian celebration in New-
York city, in honor of four-hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. December
27, corner-stone laid of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral
of St. John the Divine, with impressive ceremonial.
A carefully prepared index to the complete work will appear in the fourth volume.
END OF VOLUME m.
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT
OF
The Memorial History of the City of New- York,
From the earliest settlements on Manhattan Island to the year 1892,
inclusive, the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America
by Columbus, edited by Gen. James Grant Wilson, assisted on the
cooperative plan by a corps of able writers who prepare chapters on
periods or departments in the history and life of the city to which
they have given special study. To be illustrated by portraits and
autographs of prominent personages, also by fac-similes of important
and rare documents, and by maps, views of historic scenes and
houses, tombs, statues and monuments, executed in the handsomest
manner, and numbering more than one thousand, including several
hundred vignettes by Jacques Reich, the accomplished artist who
contributed above a thousand portraits to General Wilson's " Cyclo-
paedia of American Biography ^ and other valuable works.
No time seems more appropriate than the present for placing before
the American public a work like this, which shall utilize the abundant
original material bearing on the histoiy of the metropolis that has
come to light since the last important history of the city was pub-
lished in 1878, and which combines the united researches of several
writers in their chosen and lifelong fields of inquiry. It is for this
reason that the publishers do not hesitate to commend the present
work to the scholar and to the general reader as a trustworthy source
for the latest and most accurate historical information.
The Memorial History of the City of New- York will be completed
in four volumes, royal octavo, of above 600 pages each. The first
volume was published in the autumn of 1891; the second volume
appeared in the summer of 1892, and the third volume in February,
1893; the entire work to be completed by the publication of the
fourth volume in May, 1893.
Volume I
Embraces the events falling within the seventeenth century, beginning
with the discovery of Manhattan Island and its earliest colonization
by the Dutch.
Volume H
Covers the events of the eighteenth century down to the year 1783,
thus including the momentous period of the Revolution, during the
whole course of which the position of our metropolis was a unique
and trying one. This has been fully set forth by the military writer
on this period, and has also been most copiously illustrated.
Volume in
Takes up the history of the city when it became a part of a free
Republic, and treats of the nineteenth century, bringing the account
down to our own day, and telling the story of the city's marvelous
progress and rapid growth until it has reached the magnificent
metropolitan proportions of the memorial year of 1892.
Volume IV
Will contain exhaustive monographs and interesting accounts of
special departments, such as Arts and Sciences, Hospitals and other
Charities, Churches, Commercial and Literary Associations and So-
cieties, Libraries, Seats of Learning, Clubs, Theaters, Museums,
Music, Magazines and Newspapers, Coins and Currency, Central
Park, Q-ovemor's Island, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and other suburbs.
Statues and Monuments, the Military, Navy-yard, Shipping, Yachts,
Notes on Portraits and other Illustrations, Bibliography, and an
extended article by the Editor on the Authors of New- York, pro-
fusely illustrated with beautiful vignette portraits.
THE NEW-YOEK HISTOEY COMPANY,
132 Nassau Street, New- York.
PEESS AND PRIVATE INDORSEMENTS
The reception accorded the " Memorial History of the City of New-York'*
by the press has been highly flattering. It has been universally commended
for its historical accuracy, literary excellence, artistic illustrations, and general
mechanical execution. The following commendatory expressions from leading
journals and personages are but a few of the many the work has evoked :
" We can cordially recommend these volmnes to all lovers of history." — Chicago Herald,
**No history of an American city has ever embraced nearly so much valuable
material." — Brooklyn Eagle,
"An elaborate and valuable work, superbly prepared. It will be a permanent
Hterary treasure." — The Observer,
" A comprehensive and scholarly history of the city by well-known historians and
antiquarians." — Publishers^ Weekly.
** A literary gem of high order, by eminent scholars and historical writers, that to
our knowledge has not its peer upon American soil." — Christian Union,
** We are at last to have a narrative of the origin and growth of the American
meti'opolis worthy of the theme in respect of exhaustive, luminous and trustworthy
treatment." — Literary News,
" A magnificent work. . . . The world owes a debt of gratitude to the pains-
taking editor of these volumes for putting in such interesting form all these valuable
materials." — Christian at Work.
** It has been reserved for Gen. Wilson to prepare, with the aid of experienced
writers and specialists, what is Ukely to survive as the only standard and compre-
hensive history of New- York City." — Jewish Messetiger,
" This history exhibits the story of New- York in the light of the latest researches.
The pages bristle with dates and foot-notes, and everywhere the reader finds evidence
that all the reliable sources have been thoroughly ransacked." — The Churchman,
"The local importance alone of this superb undertaking lifts it above the ordinary
field of mere * book notices.' . . . It is as perfect as the printer, artist, and engraver
can make it, and a credit and honor to the city of New- York." — New- York Advertiser,
" The leading city of the Union is to have a history worthy its preeminence, . . .
being supplied in this monumental work. It is of a high hterary as well as historical
merit, and cannot fail to be of surpassing value and interest." — Chnstian Intelligencer,
" Everything pertaining to the history of New- York is chronicled in these voliunes.
. . . Gen. Wilson has displayed remarkable tact in the management of this immense
work. It will be welcomed by the citizens of the country generally." — New-York World,
^^ The plan of making a continuous history of essays on successive periods and
epochs will be cordially approved by such readers as desire history instead of mere
annals. . . . All New-Yorkers with any local pride in them will want to own this
work." — New- York Herald,
" Many scarce and early portraits, maps, and views, never before pubUshed, have
been engraved for this work, and it has been beautifully printed from large type on a
fine quahty of paper. The care which the contributors have taken is obvious and
commendable." — New- York Times.
^^ Among the publications this season the palm for real value must be given to the
work edited by Gen. James Grant Wilson. ... No New- Yorker with any affection
for his native town or the city of his adoption should fail to subscribe for this master-
work." — The American Hebrew.
PRESS AND PRIVATE INDORSEMENTS
'' The city that carries the keys of the continent at her g^irdle, has her seat on the
site most favored of nature within the bounds of the Republic, and withal numbers
more years than make a quarter of a millennium, is having her annals fitly costumed
by masters of the * art preservative.' " — The CriHc.
" After a careful reading we unhesitatingly pronounce it in every respect a superior
work and a valuable addition to American history. In wealth of illustrations, in ac-
curacy of its historical statements, and in the high standard of literary excellence main-
tained throughout, it is unequaled by any publication of its kind." — National Mct^azine,
'' Nothing has been neglected to produce a book of the greatest beauty and sub-
stantial usefulness. . . . We note a valuable historic series of original documents
recently obtained in Holland, and which appear in fac-simile in the present volume.
The illustrative merits of these volumes are very striking. They will be as useful as a
museum of well-chosen and systematic illustrations." — The Independent.
" The history of New- York during the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Constitutional
periods must always have an interest for Americans who would understand aright the
genesis and growth of the Republic, and especially for citizens of the Western States,
in view of the marked influence exerted by our City and State upon their legislative,
constitutional, and judicial progress. Perhaps no city of its age, ancient or modem,
conveys lessons of higher example or of graver warning; and this memorial work
justifies Carlyle's remark that ^ history is the essence of innumerable biographies, . . .
philosophy teaching by experience.' " — John Jay.
" Of the books called forth by the approaching celebration of the discovery of the
New World, none will commend itself more strongly than the * Memorial History of
the City of New-York.' There has been during the present century, and even in
recent years, no lack of attempts to describe the origin and growth of the American
metropolis, but none has been made upon a scale commensurate with the importance
of the subject, nor have the methods and results of inquiry conformed to the high
standards of modem historical research. The work planned and edited by Gen. James
Grant Wilson was undertaken on the cooperative system, which has been applied so
successfully by Mr. Justin Winsor to the general history of the North American
continent. That is to say, the exposition of particular branches of the subject has
been confided to men specially qualified by their studies to speak with authority.'' —
(Extract from a six-column review in the New-York Sun, written by Mr. M. W.
Haseltine.)
" No pains or expense have been spared in the preparation of this work. It is
printed on heavy paper in large type, and is illustrated with fine steel full-page en-
gravings, hundreds of woodcuts in the text, and a large number of fac-similes, maps,
and plans. Many of these fac-similes, and many also of the historical documents
which appear in the work, are now published for the first time. The archives of
Holland have been ransacked to furnish new material for the history of the Dutch
occupation. ... At such a distance in time, and after so many laborious inquests as
have been made into the beginnings of New- York, it might be thought that the last
word must have been said on every really important event and question. But this is
not the case. The researches of General Wilson and his contributors have resulted in
the discovery of much new evidence materially affecting the conclusions to be drawn
in several matters of consequence, so that an element of novelty enters into this historj*
which differentiates it from all its predecessors. ... In short, the Memorial HistorN*
has been written and made mechanically in the most careful and thorough manner,
and it gives conclusive evidence that it is to be a monumental work, and standard." —
NetC'York Inbune.
« Jr
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