'/^, 
 
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 http://archive.org/details/cu31924080796893 
 
All books are subject to recall after two weeks 
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In compliance with cunrent 
 
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 Library produced this 
 
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 C?tKTIIE ,vVX®~^S->''^®" -llEW"^fO)Iil^^ 
 
HISTORY 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE DISOOYEET 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PRESENT DAY, 
 
 WILLIAM K STONE, 
 
 ADTHOR OF "THE LIKE AND TIMES OP SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON, BART."; 
 
 " LIFE AND WRITINGS OP COL. WM. L STONE " ; 
 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 "HUMANI NIHIL ALIENUM." 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 VIRTUE & YORSTON, 
 
 12 DET STREET. 
 
 1872. 
 
Entered according to Act of Cousress, in the year 1872. by 
 
 VIRTUE & TORSTON, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Anderson £^ Katusay, Printers^ z% Fraiik/ort Street, 2\ czv York. 
 
TO 
 
 HORACE GREELEY akd MARSHALL 0. ROBERTS, 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MEN 
 
 NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 AS A SLIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT OP THE MANY COUHTESIES 
 WHICH HB HAS RECEIVED PROM THEM, 
 
 Sljts tJoIttntE 
 
 BT THEIK FEIEND, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Perhaps, in the history of the world, no other city 
 has risen, in the same space of time, to such pre- 
 eminent commercial importance as the city of New 
 York. To the student, the merchant, the philosopher, 
 and the statesman, every incident connected with its 
 rise and progress must be of the greatest interest. 
 Histories of the city of New York have been before 
 this submitted to the public, but it is believed that 
 none of them have met the requirements of a work 
 like the present, — one which, •while it aims to be an 
 authority for the future historian, shall be desirable 
 for general reading. 
 
 In the preparation of this volume, the author 
 has derived very great aid from the unpublished 
 manuscripts of his fither, the author of "Brant" and 
 " Red-Jacket." Many of these consist of conversations 
 
y[ PREFACE. 
 
 and narratives taken down by him from the lips of 
 men who took a prominent part in the public affairs 
 of the city from the period of the American Revo- 
 lution down to the year 1844. Conversations, for 
 example, with Aaron Burr, Chancellor Livingston, 
 Nicholas Bayard, Chief - Justice Yates, John Jay, 
 Robert Morris, Morgan Lewis, William Maxwell, 
 Robert Troup, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Dr. Francis, 
 and others, contain much that is new and especially 
 valuable, not only to the historical scholar, but to 
 the mere lover of curious and entertaining reading. 
 
 In this work will be found, entire, three valuable 
 contributions to the history of the city. These are, 
 first, the narrative of the Grand Erie Canal Cele- 
 bration, written, at the request of the Corporation 
 of the City of New York, by the late Colonel 
 William L. Stone ; second, an account of the Pro- 
 cession IN Honor of the Adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution in 1788, and Washington's Reception 
 and Inauguration Ball, in 1789, by the same author ; 
 and, third, Reminiscences of New York City, by the 
 late Gulian C. Verplanck, first given under the nom 
 de ^j/«;He of " Francis Herbert," in the Talisman for 
 1829-'30. These narratives, alone, should make this 
 work of particular value, since, as is well known to 
 
PREFACE. Vii 
 
 book-collectors, they can only be obtained with diffi- 
 culty and at a high price. 
 
 The writer himself, also, has enjoyed peculiar 
 advantages of a similar kind for gaining accurate and 
 extended knowledge of events which, although of 
 comparatively recent date, are fast fading from the 
 minds of the present generation. Of these may be 
 mentioned the Great Fires op 1811 and 1835, the 
 Reception of General Lab'ayettb in 1824 ; and the 
 " Trinity Church," " Five Points," " Flour," and 
 " Stone-cutters' " Riots — the facts of which were in 
 part communicated to him by one who was an 
 active participant in those scenes, — the late Gabriel 
 P. Disosway, of Staten Island, the well-known anti- 
 quarian and local writer. 
 
 The author has likewise derived much assistance 
 from conversations held with General Prosper M. Wet^ 
 more, Chief-Justice C. P. Daly, the late venerable David 
 T. Valentine, — for many years clerk of the Common 
 Council, — and from the writings of Colonel Thomas 
 F. Devoe, Mr. Asher Taylor, and Miss Mary L. 
 Booth. His thanks are also due to President James 
 B. Angell, of the University of Michigan; Colonel 
 Silas W. Burt, Franklin Burdge, Esq., Dr. Joseph 
 W. Richards, and Manuel C. Jordan, of New Yorli. 
 
7m PREFACE. 
 
 city ; Dr. E. P. Buffett, Lewis A. Brigham, Esq., and 
 B. W. Throckmorton, Esq., of Bergen, N. J. ; Waldo 
 M. Potter, Esq., of Davenport, Iowa ; and Hon. 
 Judge C. S. Laster and Dr. R. L. Allen, of Saratoga 
 Springs, N. Y., for valuable suggestions. Nor must 
 he forget to make special mention of the kindness of 
 Lucien B. Stone, Esq., the well-known Broad-street 
 banker, for assistance in gathering important statistics. 
 In the hope that, whatever defects there may be 
 in his work, he will, at least, be credited with the 
 desire of performing his task conscientiously, the 
 author submits this volume to the kind consideration 
 of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 William L. Stone. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 . CHAPTER I. 
 
 1598—1647. 
 
 Hendrick Hudson not tUe Discoverer of the Island of Manhattan — Topography 
 of New York Island — The Dutch make Manhattan the Depot of the Fur Tradh 
 in America — The States-General encourage Emigration — The Dutch and 
 Iroquois conclude a Treaty of Peace — The New Netlierland, with Thirty 
 Families, arrives at New Amsterdam — Peter Minuit is appointed Director- 
 General of New Netherland — The Inhabitants turn their attention to Ship- 
 building — Minuit returns to Holland — Arrival of Wouter Van Twiller — His 
 Incompetency — The " Staple Kight " granted — Arrival of Governor Kieft — 
 Van Twiller drinks confusion to the English Government — Ferry estab- 
 lished across the East River — The Fur Trade keeps pace with the prosperity 
 of the Town — The Patroon System a failure — Guns and Powder forbidden 
 to be sold to the Indians — Salaries of the early Officials — The Patroons give 
 fresh trouble — The Colonists neglect Agriculture — The Streets begin to be 
 better laid out — Wampum, and a description of it — More attention paid to the 
 English Language — Kise in the price of Beaver Slvins — Interference of New 
 England Adventurers — Kieft becomes involved in an Indian \\'ar — Illicit 
 Trade carried on at Albany — Death ol' Kieft. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1G47— 1674. 
 
 Governor Stuyvcsant arrives at Manhattan— Finds the Colony in a " low con- 
 dition" — Improves the Town — Trade opened to Private Persons — Regu- 
 lation of Taverns — No Person to carry on Business unless he takes the Oath 
 of Allegiance— -Naval War breaks out between England and the United 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 « 
 
 Provinces — Le Moyne discovers Salt at Syracuse — Population of New Am- 
 sterdam in 1656 — Introduction of " The Great Burgher Bight " — Aristocracy 
 of New York 330 years ago — Survey and Map of New Amsterdam made — 
 Restoration of Charles II. — The West India Company invites Emigration — 
 Population of New Netherland increases to 10,000 — England resolves to take 
 Possession of New Amsterdam — Colonel NicoUs anchors before New Am- 
 sterdam — Receives the Surrender of Stuyesant — New Amsterdam changed 
 to New York — Retrospect of the Commercial Prosperity of New Netherland 
 at the time of its Surrender to the English — Beaver Skins the standard of 
 value — The Dutch Company refuse " Specie Payments " — Depreciation in 
 Wampum — Arrival of Governor Lovelace, the first English Governor — The 
 Dutch regain Possession of New Amsterdam, and call it New Orange — 
 Treaty of Peace signed between England and the States-General — New 
 Amsterdam ceded to England — New Orange again becomes New York — Sir 
 Edmund Andros appointed Governor. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 1674. 
 
 Social Manners and Customs of our early Dutch Ancestors — " Quilting," and 
 " Husking " Bees — New Year's Day— Paas or Easter — Santa Claus— " Dinner 
 Parties " unknown— Habits of a Model Housekeeper — A Dutch Parlor— The 
 Sconce— Captain Kidd— The "Betsie" — The Dutch fond of Milk — Rip Van 
 Dam keeps two Cows — Scarcity of Coin — Wild Horses on Manhattan Island 
 
 — Literature of New Amsterdam — Taking up Collections in Church The 
 
 " Koorkser," or Clerk — Marriage Bans — The Dutch Dames love Flowers 
 
 No Bonnets worn by the Ladies— Dress of a Fashionable Gentleman— Walks 
 of Lovers— The Kissing Bridge — Amusing Anecdote — The Dutch leave their 
 impress upon the City and State of New York — Names of City Officials in 
 Dutch. ■' 
 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 1G79. 
 
 Description of New Amsterdam as it appeared in 1661— Situation of the Town 
 iTr, ™®°^"^°'^*''"''™^°* Ilouae" changed bv (Tovernor Dono-an 
 
 to Whitehall '—Maiden Lane— Shoemaker's Land— Vandercliff's Orchard 
 the present John Street— The Commons, the present Park— The Collect— 
 Pearl Street forms the River Bank— Two Main Roads lead out of the City— 
 Visit of the Labadists to New York— Extracts from their Journal— Thev 
 visit Bergen, N. J.— Visit Long Island— Visit Staten Island— They take "a 
 btroll up Broadway— They take some Rum, which they find "everywhere " 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER 11/ 
 
 1674^1738. 
 
 Administration of Governor Andros— Sir Wm. Berkley " thanks God tliere are 
 neither Free Schools nor Printing-Presses in the Colony " — Andros governs 
 with Wisdom and Moderation — The City Gates closed at nine every evening 
 A Native-born Citizen appointed to the Mayoralty — Necessity of Conciliating 
 the Iroquois — The French outstrip the English in Enterprise — Gover- 
 nor Dongan arrives as the Successor of Major Andros — His shrewd 
 Indian Policy — Convention of the Five Nations held in Albany — Dongan 
 brightens the chain of friendship— New York torn by Intestine Commotions — 
 First " Charter of Liberties" granted to the Province — The Assembly divide 
 the Province into twelve Counties — New Police Regulations established — 
 Children forbidden to play in the Streets on the Sabbath — The Dongan 
 Charter granted to the City — The City receives a new Seal from the Home 
 Government — Laying out of Wall Street — William and Mary proclaimed 
 King and Queen in place of James II — Col. Fletcher arrives as Governor — 
 Five Nations meet in Albany — Count Frontenac strikes a blow at the Five 
 Nations — Origin of Trinity Church — The Earl of Belbimont appointed Gov- 
 ernor — His Death — Lord Cornbury sncceeds him— Establishment of a Free 
 Grammar School — Lovelace succeeds Cornbury — And is in turn succeeded by 
 Hunter — A New Market established — Appearance of the City in 1704 — Visit 
 of a Boston Lady to New York — Burnet succeeds Hunter — Beneficial effects 
 of Burnet's Indian Policy — Facetious Anecdote of Burnet — Is succeeded by 
 Colonel ontgomery — His Administration opposed by the Albanians — 
 Establishment of a Line of Stages between New York and Philadelphia- 
 Establishment of a Public Library— Cosby succeeds Mr. Van Dam— Trial of 
 John Peter Zenger for libel — He is declared, " NoT Guilty"- Death of 
 Cosby — George t larke commissioned Lieutenant-Governor — Quarantine es- 
 tablished on Bedloe's Island— Contested Election between Adolphe Philipse 
 and Garret Van Horno. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1738—1743. 
 
 Increasing Political Excitement — Recapitulation of the Administrations of the 
 earlie? English Governors — Their (Jharacter — Judicial Murder of Leislei 
 and Milburn — The Assembly proves refractory— Governor Clarke consults 
 his Privy Council— Only One Year's Supplies granted— The Wheels of Revcv- 
 lution do not roll backward — The Principles of John Hampden take root iu 
 America— Chief- Justice DeLancey abandons Governor Clarke— The celo- 
 brated Neo-ro-Plot— Slaves constitute a portion of the Population of New 
 York— Burning of the Governor's House and Public Buildings— Execution 
 of Hughson and the Romanist Ury— Building of the House No. 1 Broadway, 
 opposite the Bowling Green— Description of its Plan— By whom BuUl— 
 Interesting Reminiscences connected with it. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1743-1753. 
 
 Admiral George Clinton succeeds Clarke as Governor— His arrival in New 
 Vork— Received with Joy— The old Members returned to the Assembly— 
 Chief-Justice DeLancey moves an Address of Thanks— Unreasonableness of 
 the Assembly- The Assembly are stubborn- truggle between the Repub- 
 lican and Monarchical Principle— Clinton resigns— His Cliaiacter— Is suc- 
 ceeded bv Sir Danvers Osborne— Presbyterian Cliurch m Wall Street rebuilt 
 
jjI; contents 
 
 — Ferry Street ceded to tlie City — Moravian Cliapel built in Fulton Street — - 
 First Merchants' Eichange erected at the foot of Broad Street — St. George's 
 Chapel bui[t — Its History — Origin of the yearly Appropriation for the City 
 Manual. 
 
 CHAPTER v.. 
 
 1753—1765. 
 
 Arrival of Sir Danvers Osborne as Governor — James De Lancey commissioned 
 Lieutenant-Governor — Mr. Clinton Insulted — Suicide of Sir Danvers Os- 
 borne — Causes which led to the act — De Lancey assumes the Reins of Gov- 
 ernment — Want of harmony in the General Assembly — The Province of 
 New York divided into two Sects, under the lead of De Lancey and Liv- 
 ingston — The People of New York raise Money with which to Found a 
 College — The majority of the Trustees of the College Episcopalians — 
 Trouble arises on this account— Mr. Livingston writes against the Man- 
 agement of the College in the Independent Reflector — Etforts to prevent 
 the Incorporation of Columbia College fruitless — The granting of its 
 Charter displeases the People — De Lancey endeavors to assuage their 
 Resentment — Urges the passage of several popular Acts — Sir Charles Har- 
 dy arrives as the successor of Clinfrm— Becomes tired of an inactive life, 
 and takes command of tlie Expedition against Lewisburg — Lord Loudon 
 Outrages the citizens of New York — Soldiers billeted upon the people^ 
 Death of Chief-Justice De Lancey — Particulars of his Death— Character 
 of Mr. De Lancey — General Amherst visits New York, and receives an 
 Ovation — City illuminated on the Occasion — Work of improving the City 
 advances rapidlj' — Light-house erected on Sandy Hook— Two Ferries estab- 
 lished — The first Stage starts from New York for Plxiladelphia — Time 
 tliree days — Second Stage advertised for same Route — Stages begin their 
 Trips between >.ew York and Albany — Tlie Line extended to old Fort 
 Schuyler (Utica)— Contrast between that and the Present Day — The Meth- 
 odists first organize in the City — Several new Streets Opened. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1701—1770. 
 
 The Government Devolves on Dr. Colden — Major-General Monckton Appointed 
 Governor — Sails from New York, leaving the Government in the hands of 
 Dr. Colden — I'he Administratiim of Governor Colden — An unfortunate 
 Appointment — " Writs of Assis^tance" — James Otis — His Speech — Living- 
 ston, Scott, and Sniitli do battle for the People — New York follows the 
 wake of her Puritan Neighbor.s — Colden entertains doubts of the Result — 
 Grenville and North devise the Plan of raising a Revenue bv the Sale of 
 Stamps — Troubles in Massacliusetts — The People of New York bitterly 
 oppose the Stamp Act — Organization of tlie Sons of Liberty — Compel the 
 Stamp Distributors to lieHign— Posting of Placards— Colden is terrified — 
 Sluita himself up in the Fort — He and Lord Bute are hung in Effigy — Col- 
 den's Carriage burnt — Arrival of tlie new Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart. 
 — The Corporation offer liiui the Freedom of the City, which he refuses 
 unless on Stamped Paper — Colden retires hi disgust to" his Country-seat — 
 More "Trouble from tlie Sons of Liberty— They compel a Stamp-Distributor 
 to resign — Hold Correspondence witli other Cities — Repeal of the Stamp 
 Act — New York rejoices — Mast erected to George III — Opening Speech 
 of Governor Moore — Troubles in Dutchess County — The Rioters brought to 
 Reason — Methodist Denomination organized — First Medical School organ- 
 ized—New Streets Oiiened— The British Cabinet regret the Repeal of the 
 Stamp Act— New York declines Obedience to the Mutiny Act — The Func- 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 tions of the New York Assembly annulled^Boston sympatliizes with 
 New York— Writs issued for a new Assembly— The Assembly firm iu 
 maintaining its Constitutional Rights— Sir Henry Moore dissolves the 
 Assembly— The new Election hotly contested— Death of Governor Moore 
 — Dr. Coldeu assumes the reins of Government for the third time— Active 
 Measures taken by the Sons of Liberty to oppose the Mutiny Act— Laro-e 
 Assembly in the " Fields" (present City Hall Park)— Hatred between the 
 Soldiers and Sons of Liberty— Battle of Golden Hill— First Blood shed 
 in the American Hevolutiou at Golden Hill. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1770-1788. 
 
 John, Earl of Dunmore, succeeds Sir Henry Moore as Governor — Description of 
 the new Governor in a Letter to Sir William Johnson — Sir William Tryon, 
 Bart., succeeds Dunmore as Governor and Gommander-iu Chief — New York 
 Hospital Founded — -Meeting of the Assembly — The Governor is rendered 
 
 independent of the Colony — The Sons of Liberty hold a Public Meeting 
 
 Tea Commissioners resign — Tryon concedes a little to Public Opinion — 
 The Assembly do not sliare in the Indignation of the People — Tryon's 
 Administration comes to an End — Profound Tranquility prevails — The 
 Storm at length breaks — The Nancy buarded in New York Bay and her 
 Cargo of Tea thrown overboard — New York forms a Provincial Compress — 
 Tryon sails for England — General Condition of Affairs — Washington visits 
 New York — Honors paid to hira — Washington places the City under Com- 
 mand of General Schuyler, and departs for Boston — The Assembly ask the 
 Crown for a Redress of Grievances — Description of the principal Fortifica- 
 tions erected at this time for the Defense of the City — The British Army land 
 on Long Island — Battle of Long Island — The Americans effect a masterly 
 Retreat across the East River to New York Island — Indignation of Wasii- 
 ington — Battle of Harlem — Fort Washington captured — Fort Lee evacu- 
 ated — Washington retreats across New Jersey — The British in Possession 
 of the City — Great Fire — Suspicion of it haviug been caused by Design — 
 Ground covered by the Fire — Trinity' Church and the Lutheran Chapel 
 destroyed — The History of New York City during its Occupation by the 
 British not one that Americans can recall with Pleasure — The old Sugar- 
 house — The Jersey Prison-ship — Prison-pens of the City — Cruelties in- 
 flicted upon the Prisoners — Account by an Eye-witness of the terrible Out- 
 rages perpetrated on the Americans — The British Ollicers and their Wives, 
 meanwhile, pass their time iu Frivolity — View of the interior and Social 
 Life of New York at this time by Mrs. General Kiedesel — Scarcity of Wood 
 — Remarkably cold Winter — \V'all Street lined with Trees — Tlie House 
 No. 1 Broadway, the Head-quarters of the British Officers — The Beekman 
 House (site of tlie present Journal of Commerce Building) the Head-quar- 
 ters of the British Naval Ofiicers — The British evacuate New York — Wash- 
 ington enters the City — The American Flag run up on the Battery. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1725—1787. 
 
 History of the Newspapers published in New York City before and during the 
 Revolution-New York Gazette — New York Weekly Journal — Evening Post 
 New York Mercury — New York Chronicle — New York Journal, or Gen- 
 eral Advertiier — Parker's Gazette — Independent Gazette — Bimngton's New 
 York Gazette — New York Royal Gazette — New York Gazette and Uumer- 
 sal Advertiser — The Press of js'ew York City. 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 THIHD PERIOD 
 
 1T83— IS'T'S. 
 
 OHAPTEE I. 
 
 1783—1788. 
 
 The Position of New York among tlie Colonies — Financial Distress at the clos/? 
 of the War — New York City celebrates with a magnificent Procession the 
 Adoption of the Federal Constitution — Full Description of the Procession- 
 It is dismissed at the Bowling Green with a Salute. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1788—1795. 
 
 Winter Festivities of 1788-1789 succeeded hy matters of a Public Nature — The 
 Senate aud House of Uepresentatives assemble in the City preparatory to 
 Inauguration of Wasliington as President of the United States — The Mem- 
 bers from tlie different States arrive slowly — Arrival of Richard Heury 
 Lee, of Virginia — John Langdou elected President of the Senate pro tern., 
 and Samuel A. Otis, Secretary — A Committee wait on Washington at Mt. 
 Vernon — Washington repairs to New York — His Triumphal Entrance into 
 New York — Honors paid him — The day one of unmingled Joy — Inaugura 
 tion of President Washington — Minute Details — Chancellor Livingston 
 administers the Oath of Office — Washington delivers his Inaugural Address 
 — Feelings of a Gentleman present on the Occasion — Washington issues a 
 Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer — The Day closes by a 
 Display of Fire-works — Description of the Illumination of various Private 
 Kesidences during the Evening — The different Transparencies, &c., &c. — 
 The President occupied for several days in receiving the Congratulatory 
 and Official Calls — Mrs. Washington arrives in New York to attend the 
 Inauguration Ball — She is met by her Husband at Elizabethtown-Point — 
 Full and minute Description of the Ball— The People who attended — The 
 Toilets worn on the Occasion — Mrs. General Knox enters the Ball-room 
 with President Washington and his Wife, with the Intention of being 
 seated on the same Sofa — Meets with Disappointment, as the Sofa is not 
 large enough for three — The French Minister gives a fete in honor of 
 \\'ashington^Dresses of the Ladies on that Occasion — The Levees of 
 Washington far more select than those of his Successors — Dignified Man- 
 ners of Lady Washington — Personal Appearance of Lady Washington — 
 Her Levees close at Nine ! — Late Hours at that time not necessary to Fash- 
 ion — Letter from John Pintard describing Mrs. Washington's first Levee 
 on New-Year's Day, 1790 — Remark of General Washington upon the Pro- 
 priety of keeping up the Old Dutch Custom of New- Year's Day. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1793—1799. 
 
 Tontine Coffee-house built — Formation of the Order of St. Tammany — Origin 
 of the Name St. Tammany — Visit of the Creek Indians to the Tammany 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Wigwam— The Society establislies a Museum— The City visited by the 
 Yellow-fever in 17U5— Destructive Fire— City again visited by Yellow- 
 fever— Country People refuse to bring Produce into the City — Patriotic 
 Incident of the Fever. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1800—1818. 
 
 The opening of the Nineteenth Century finds New York City vastly improved 
 — Population of the City — Reade and Duane Streets laid out — A Canal cut 
 through the present Canal Street — The situation of the Streets at 
 this time — Society and Social Life of the City at this period — The old 
 Theater in John Street — Mount Vernon Gardens — Bayard's Spring — ■ 
 Haunts of a Visitor at that time — The Bar of New York then distinguished 
 for its excellence — Murder of Juliana Elmore Sands — Levi Weeks 
 indicted and tried for the Murder — Hamilton, Burr, and Brockholst 
 Livingston engaged for the Defense — Remarkable anecdote of Burr 
 — De Witt Clinton appointed Mayor — Is succeeded by Colonel Marinus 
 Willett^-The Fire of 1804^-Historical Society founded— Public School 
 Society determined on — Hamilton Killed by Burr in a duel — Steam Navi- 
 gation successfully introduced — Fulton undeserving of praise — His In- 
 competence — To Fitch belongs the honor — The first Steam-boat starts for 
 Albany — Anecdote of Thurlow Weed — His feelings on seeing a Steam-boat 
 for the first time — De Witt Clinton again appointed Mayor — His con- 
 scientious discharge of his official duties — Instrumental in obtaining from 
 the Legislature of the State of New York an Appropriation for the Defense 
 of the Harbor — Trinity Church Riot — Verplanck's part in it — "\\^ar of iyi3 
 — -Noble Conduct of the Citizens of New York — Clinton prevents Riotous 
 Demonstrations — Hard Times — The effect of the announcement of Peace — 
 Delirious joy of the Citizens on the event — Description of il by Francis 
 Wayland, who was in the City at the time — Removal of the Remains of 
 General Montgomery from Quebec to New York — Grand Ball given to 
 Andrew Jackson at the City Hotel — Uniform of tlie Fourteenth Regiment 
 — Severity of the Winter of 1830-'21 — The Bay frozen over, and People 
 Cross to Staten Island on the Ice — Sufferings of the Poor — Subscriptions 
 taken up in the Churches in their behalf. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1819-1835. 
 
 Vellow-fever in the City — Extracts from Letters of Colonel William Ij, Stone 
 describing its ravages — Disappearance of the Fever — The Custom-house 
 and Banks Return to the City — Visit of General Lafayette to the City — 
 Detailed Account of his Reception — Brie Canal Celebration — History of 
 the Enterprise — The New York Commercial Advertiser gives the move- 
 ment powerful aid — Early Struggles of its Projectors — First Canal-boat 
 leaves Buffalo — Colonel Stone writes the Narrative of the Celebration at 
 the request of the Corporation of the City of New York — Description of 
 the Celebration, the Land and Naval Processions, &c. — Governor Clinton 
 mingles the waters of Lake Brie with those of the Ocean — Dr. Mitchell 
 also pours into the Ocean, water from the Ganges, the Nile, Danube, &c.^ 
 Splendid appearance of the Fleet — Interesting Statistics of the Canal — 
 Greek Rebellion — Greeks helped by the Citizens of New York — Efforts of 
 Colonel W. L. Stone in their behalf — Anecdote of Jolm Jacob Astor and 
 Colonel William L. Stone. 
 
jj^- CONTENTS. 
 
 OHAPTEE VI. 
 
 1827-1839. 
 
 Visit of tlie Indian Orator RedJactet and the Indian Chief Brant to New York 
 — RedJacket's Portrait Painted by Weir— Conversations between Dr. 
 Francia and Red-Jacket— Anecdote of Red-Jacket— Completion of the 
 Merchants' Exchange in Wall Street— Masonic Hall, Arcade, and other 
 buUdings erected— Beginning of Modern New York- New Names of_ old 
 Streets— Beaver Street opened on its present line— Interesting Reminis- 
 cences of New York City in 1829, by Gulian C. Verplanck— Habits of 
 Jonathan Edwards— Decline of Cedar Street from its ancient consequence 
 —Billy the Fiddler— The Hewlett Family— Pine Street in " ye olden time" 
 — M. de Singeron, the old Confectioner— Pierre de Landais— Jan Max— 
 Lichenstein— The Doctor's Mob— House built by Chief-Justice Jay— Mons. 
 Albert — Huggins. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1834^1835. 
 
 Election Riots— Colonel Morton ordered out— The City Council tender to him 
 and his Regiment a Vote of Thanks— Death of General Lafayette — The 
 City join in Funeral Obsequies for the Deceased — Stone-cutters' and 
 Masons' Riot during the building of the University — The Five Points Riot 
 — Antagonism between the Irish and Americans — Dr. McCaffery Killed — 
 Destruction of the Don Jon, or " Old Debtors' Prison " — " Poppy Lownds " 
 — Hall of Records established. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1835. 
 
 The Great Fire of 1835 — Account of it by an Eye-witness — Incidents — Burnin,T 
 of the Merchants' Exchange — Mail Matter in the Post-office saved — Statue 
 of Hamilton Destroyed — 'Tontine Coffee-house — Honest John Laing — Ex- 
 tent of tlie Fire — Statement of the Houses and Stores Consumed — Extent 
 of the Burnt District — Line of Sentinels placed around the Ruins — Ex- 
 periences of Asher Taylor and Judge C. P. Daly — Public Meeting of the 
 Citizens called — Names of the Persons appointed on the Committee — 
 Resolutions Passed — Thanks tendered to the Citizens of Philadelphia, 
 Brooklyn, and Newark — New York by no means Crushed by the Calamity 
 — Value of Real and Personal Estate in 1836 and 1871 compared — Riot of 
 Longshore Workmen — Destruction of the Old Shakespeare Tavern — 
 Reminiscences connected with it — Great Resort for the Wits of the Day : 
 Hugh Gaine, Jeremy Cheathem, " Ready-money Provost," Percival, Sands, 
 Stone, Verplanck, John Inman, McDonald Clark, John Hodgkinson — Park 
 Theater. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1836—1837. 
 
 " Great Flour Riot " — Magnitude of the aifair — Scarcity of the Cereal Crops 
 throughout the Country — Saifering among the Laboring Classes — The 
 feeling fanned by the Loco-Foco and Temperance Parties — Indignation 
 Meeting called in the Park — The Rioters Addressed by the Ring-leaders — 
 Attack on Eli Hart's Store — Flour and Grain pitched into the Street — The 
 
CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 Military Called Out— Meech &Co.'s Store Attacked— The Riot Put Down 
 — Description of the Scene at Night, by Colonel William L. Stone — Rioters 
 Indicted and sent to_ Prison— The Price of Flour goes up— The People 
 awake to the necessity of procuring an ample Supply of Water for the 
 City — The Maubaltau Works a Failure — The question of " Water or no 
 Water" Decided in the Aflirmative by a large Majority Vote — Croton 
 Aqueduct Begun — Description of the Route pursued by the Viaduct from 
 Croton Dam to New York City — " High Bridge," Description of — Drive on 
 the " Bloomingdale Road " to the " High Bridge " — Receiving Reservoir 
 in Central Park — Distributing Reservoir on Fifth Avenue— Statistics of the 
 Croton Aqueduct. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1837—1863. 
 
 New York distances all Competitors — Gas introduced — Telegraphic Communi- 
 cation Oj)ened with other Cities — Custom-house (the present Sub-Treasury) 
 Built — University Erected — Stone-cutters' Riot — Croton Aqueduct com- 
 pleted and the Event celebrated by a magnificent Procession — The Bible in 
 the Public Schools — Discussion between Colonel Stone and Archbishop 
 Hughes — Death of Colonel Stone — The Catholic Spirit of New York's 
 Dutch Ancestors Triumph — The Fire of 1845 — The Burnt District — Burn- 
 ing of the Crystal Palace, Barnum's Museum, Academy of Music, the old 
 Irving House, and Winter Garden Theater — Fires generally have proved 
 beneficial to the City — Description of B^ifth Avenue — New York Destitute 
 of Public Monuments — Monument to General Worth — Middle Dutch 
 Church used for a Post-office — History of the Post-oiiice — Interesting In- 
 cidents connected with its early History — Astor-place Riot — Jenny Lind — 
 Amended City Charter — Grinuell Expedition — Exhibition of the World's 
 Fair — Burning of the Crystal Palace and American Institute — Police Riot — 
 Financial Disasters — Bread Riot — Dead-Rabbit Riot — The Dead Removed 
 from the Potters' Field to Ward's Island — Quarantine Riot — Visits of the 
 Japanese and the Prince of Wales. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1863. 
 
 The year 18C3 marked by a Humiliating Event— The Riot of 1863— Details of 
 the Riot — Railroad Tracks Torn up and Telegraph Wires Cut — Bull's Head 
 and Colored Orphan Asylum Burned by the Mob — The Governor issues a 
 Proclamation to the Rioters — The Draft Suspended — Murder of Colonel 
 O'Brien— His Body Mutilated— The Mob still Hold the City— The City and 
 County of New York declared by the Governor to be in a state of Insur- 
 rection — Archbishop Hughes Addresses the Rioters — Colonel Mayer ordered 
 to the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue — Negroes Sub- 
 jected to the most cruel Persecution— Proclamation by Mayor Opdyke, 
 declaring that the Riot was at an End— Major-General Dix Relieved of his 
 Command at Fortress Monroe — A large Force ordered to New York — The 
 Draft takes Place— The Secret History of this affair and the Number Killed 
 will probably never be known — In what respect it differs from other Riots. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1864. 
 
 Substitution of a Paid for a Volunteer Fire Department— Interesting History 
 of the Fire Department, from its origin in the early Dutch period to the 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 present day — A Comparison between the old Volunteer Fire Department 
 and the Metropolitan. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1868. 
 
 Erection of the National Academy of Design— Its History from its first Incep- 
 tion — Trumbull at first its only Artist — Contrast between its past Poverty 
 and its present Wealth — Description of the Building itself— Removal of an 
 Ancient Landmark — The Old Warren Mansion — Its Interesting History 
 — Lack of Reverence in New-Yorkers for Relics of the Past — Removal of 
 the Ashes of the Dead from underneath the Tower of the old North 
 Church to Greenwood— Widening of the Bloomingdale Road into the New 
 Boulevard — The House in which Louis Philippe Taught School is Torn 
 Down. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1869—1870. 
 
 The year 1869 marked by four Events of a distinctive character — The Removal 
 of the Old Hospital — The Blotting-out of St. John's Park by the unsightly 
 H. R. R. R. Freight Depot — The Extension of Church Street to Morris 
 Street, and the Opening of Pearl Street through the grounds of the Old 
 Hospital — The Tearing-down of old Buildings, and the Erection in their 
 places of costly and imposing Business and Private Structures — Removal 
 of the Courts and Civil Offices from the City Hall into the New Court- 
 house — Elegant Business Buildings — Equitable Life, New York Insurance, 
 &c. — Increased Value of Property in Broadway and W'hite Street — Interest- 
 ing Statistics of Old and Modern New York — Building of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association — -History of this Organization — Its Prosperity — 
 Booth's Theater — The Grand Opera-house — The Arcade R. R.— Pneumatic 
 R. R. — The Elevated R, R. — New York receives a New Charter — Its His- 
 tory — Mr. Greeley goes to Albany to Oppose it — The " Old " and " New " 
 Democracy — The " Old " Triumph — Wherein the New Charter differs from 
 the Old. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 1871—1872. 
 
 The year 1871 distinguished for both Painful and Pleasant Memories— The 
 Orange Riot — The Chicago Fire — How the News was received in New 
 York— Noble Action of the Citizens of New York— Nearly Three Millions 
 in Money and Supplies raised and forwarded to the stricken Citv— Public 
 and Private Liberality walk hand in hand— Exposure of the Tammanv 
 Ring Frauds — Appointment of the Committee of Seventy — Thirty-five 
 Hundred Vouchers Stolen— Comptroller Connolly requested bv Mayor 
 Hall to Resign— He peremptorily Refuses- Andrew H. Green appointed 
 Deputy Comptroller— His Character— Action of the Banks— Injunction 
 granted by Judge Barnard— Mayor Hall presented for Indictment — Gover- 
 nor Hoffman waited on by the Committee of Seventy— Advises the Attor- 
 ney-General to take Charles O'Conor as his Associate in Prosecuting the 
 Ring — O'Conor Accepts, and in turn Appoints, as his assistants, William 
 M. Evarts, Wheeler H. Peefcham and Judge Emott— Arrest of 'William 
 M. Tweed and Ex-Comptroller Connolly— Tweed obtains bail and Connolly 
 goes to Ludlow-street Jail— Complete"Overthrow of the Ring— Death of 
 Fisk. 
 
CONTENTS. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1872. 
 
 The History of New York now brought down to a late period — Her Publish- 
 ing Houses — Schools of Art, Painting and Sculpture— Trumbull, Javvis, 
 Henry laman, Church, Blerstadt, Ward, Thompson, &c. — Her Benevolent 
 Institutions— Character of her Merchant Princes — Deaf and Dumb Asy- 
 lum — Dickens' Dinner— Visit of the Russian Duke — Unveiling of the 
 Statue of Franklin — A brief Ketrospective Glance— Extracts from Dr. 
 Osgood's Address before the New York Historical Society— New York 
 Churches— The City viewed in reference to its Extent, Wealth, Popula- 
 tion and Institutions — Banking Capital Invested— The different Life and 
 Fire Insurance Corapanies — The Industrial Army of the City passes in 
 Review before the Reader — Marvelous Growth of Population within 
 Twenty Years^Education of the People. 
 
 APPENDIXES. 
 
 I. Constitution of the Old Tontine Association. 
 II. Richmond Hill, the Country Seat of Aaron Burr. 
 
 III. Inscription on the Monument to General Montgomery. 
 
 IV. History of the Old Post-office. 
 
 V. Reminiscences of McDonald Clark, the "Mad Poet." 
 
 VI. Account of William Kidd, the Pirate. 
 
 VII. The Jddiciaey in the early Dutch Period, by Chief Justice Daly. 
 
 VIII. Letter from Colonel T. Bailey Myers, giving an account of the Origin oi 
 the Firemen's Lyceum. 
 
 IX. History of the Hall Of Records, formerly the Old Debtors' Prison. 
 
 X. History of the National Academy of Design, by T. Addison Richards. 
 
 XI. Speech of Congressman Roosevelt on the TammANY Frauds. 
 
 XII. Act of Incorporation of the Tammany Society. 
 
 XIII. Reminiscences of Hbnky Inman, the Artist, from the MS, Diary of the 
 
 late Mrs. Col. Wm. L. Stone. 
 
 XIV, Statement of the Financial Resources of New York City at the pres- 
 
 ent time, contained in a Special Message of Governor Hotfmau to the 
 Legislature, January, 1873. 
 
XX CONTENTS, 
 
 XV. History of the Schools and Public School Society, by Hon. Hooper 
 C. Van Vorst. 
 
 SVI. New Yoke Society in the Olden Time, by Eight Reverend Bisliop 
 Kip. 
 
 ■XVII. Visit of Genebax Jackson to the City as a guest of Tammaut, in 1819, 
 by General Prosper M. Wetmore. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Engravings on Steel. 
 
 1. Entrance of the American Army into New York, Nov. Z5th, 
 
 1783 Frontispiece 
 
 2. The Inauguration of Washington Vignette 
 
 ,3. Battle of Harlem to face page 233 
 
 4. Destruction of the Gaspe, 1772 239 
 
 5. Portraits of Gov. G. Clinton, Gen. Gates, Gen. Schuyler, Gen. 
 
 Montgomery, Gen. J. Clinton 241 
 
 6. Battle of Lexington 244 
 
 7. Battle of Bunker's Hill 244 
 
 8. Plan showing the position of the American and British Armies, 
 
 August, 1776 246 
 
 g. Portrait of General Washington, after Trumbull 249 
 
 10. Capture of Major Andre 266 
 
 1 1. Reception of President Washington in New York, 23d April, 
 
 1789 272 
 
 12. Portrait of Washington in 1795, after Stuart 291 
 
 13. John Adams, after Copley 303 
 
 14. Portraits of Gen. Steuben, Gen. Pulaski, Gen. Lafayette, Gen. 
 
 Kosciusko, Gen. De Kalb 304 
 
 11;. Portrait of Mrs. Washington, after Woolaston 317 
 
 16. Thomas Jefferson, after Bouch 338 
 
 17. James Monroe, after Stuart 365 
 
 18. James Madison, after Stuart 370 
 
 19. . ^De Witt Clinton 390 
 
 20. Benjamin Franklin, after Duplessis 456 
 
 Wood Engravings, Etc. 
 
 ■^ 1. Hendrick Hudson's Exploring Vessel, the " Half Moon" 10 
 
 \^ 2. First Settlement on the Hudson 1 1 
 
 3. The Swamp '3 
 
 ^4. First Saw-mill on the Hudson 18 
 
 i^ 5. Dutch Mansion and Cottage in New Amsterdam 29 
 
 I'-d. Seals of New Amsterdam and New York 40 
 
 y^ 7. Street View in Ancient Albany 44 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 V 8. Old Dutch Church, Albany 45 
 
 9. View of New Amsterdam 5 ^ 
 
 10. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant 65 
 
 (/ii. Bowling Green in 1861 79 
 
 V 12. Hell Gate 84 
 
 V 13. Turtle Bay and Blackwell's Island 85 
 
 14. Map of New York City, taken in 1728 13° 
 
 .y 15. No. I Broadway, fifty years ago 153 
 
 16. St. George's Chapel 169 
 
 ^17. St. George Building, 1870 i6g 
 
 ^ 18. Old King's College Jj(> 
 
 \/ 19. Columbia College, 1840 1 7^ 
 
 V-'20. Columbia College, 1872 180 
 
 ^ 21. Sandy Hook from the Light-house 185 
 
 22. Parker's Mail Stage 189 
 
 \X23. The Old Walton House ^ ^ Z20 
 
 ■.J- 24. Kip's Bay House 247 
 
 y 25. View from Fort Lee. 249 
 
 ^ 26. Washington Heights 251 
 
 27. Trinity Church 252 
 
 v/ 28. Old Sugar House, Liberty street 253 
 
 ^ 29. The Tombs 271 
 
 ^, 30. Bowling Green in 1783 273 
 
 ^^31. Federal Hall 302 
 
 ^ 32. President Washington's House in New York 316 
 
 y 33. Tontine Coffee-house in 1812 320 
 
 34. Tontine Building in 1872 327 
 
 ^,35. Society Library Building 345 
 
 v/ 36. The Grange — Hamilton's Residence 346 
 
 ^.37. Richmond Hill — Burr's Residence 3A6 
 
 i^ 38. Tomb of Hamilton 3^7 
 
 \^3g. Burr-Hamilton Duelling Ground , , , 347 
 
 sy 40. The Clermont — Fulton's First Steamer 3^1 
 
 L/ 41. Catskill Landing 3f 2 
 
 V ^2. The Thomas Powell Steamer off the Storm King 354 
 
 ^ 43. Fulton Ferry in 1740 357 
 
 v^44. Fort Hamilton 359 
 
 45. Monument to General Montgomery 373 
 
 \yifi- Fort Lafayette 383 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 '1^47- The Navy Yard, Brooklyn 386 
 
 (^48. Sandy Hook ,00 
 
 L^g. Provost or Debtors' Prison 470 
 
 1^50. Merchants' Exchange before the Fire of 1835. 47*5 
 
 t- 5'- after the Fire of 1835 (front) 477 
 
 1^52- (rear) 478 
 
 U--53. Ready-money Provost's Tomb 491 
 
 ■;/54. The Old Bridewell 497 
 
 5 5. Mouth of the Croton 500 
 
 ^^56. Croton Aqueduct 501 
 
 1^ 5 7. Croton Dam 502 
 
 ; x8. High Bridge 502 
 
 1^/59, Bloomingdale Road 503 
 
 1/60. View in Central Park 503 
 
 \y 61. Manhattanville 504 
 
 t_^62. Distributing Reservoir and Rutger's Institute 505 
 
 f 63. Barnum's Museum and St. Paul's Chapel 511 
 
 \y 64. Fifth Avenue Hotel _ 513 
 
 V 65. Union Square - 514 
 
 u 66. Martyr's Monument 515 
 
 l_ 67. Monument to General Worth 515 
 
 I. 68. Middle Dutch Church 517 
 
 ^- 69. Terrace and Mall, Central Park 530 
 
 70. First Fire Engine in New York in 1730 578 
 
 71. Another view 579 
 
 ■^ 72. National Academy of Design 588 
 
 .. 73. The Old Brick Church 591 
 
 74. North Dutch Church 595 
 
 75. Stuyvcsant Pear Tree 5 96 
 
 (Z' 76. Hudson River R. R. Freight Depot 599 
 
 77. New York Life Assurance Building 603 
 
 y/ 78. Equitable Life Assurance Building 604 
 
 \y^ jg. Young Men's Christian Association Building 608 
 
 80. Booth's Theatre 609 
 
 81. Harper & Brothers' Building 635 
 
 82. Virtue & Yorston's Building 636 
 
 X/- 83. Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb 639 
 
 \r^ 84. Bible House, Cooper Union, and Clinton Hall 649 
 
 ^'?>S- St. Mark's Church and Historical Society's Building 656 
 
HISTORY 
 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The history oy mbw tork naturally dfvidbs itself into three 
 PERIODS OP TIME: — First — from its settlement by the dutch to 
 its permanent occupancy by the ENGLISH ; Second — from the Eng- 
 lish CONQUEST TO THE CLOSE OP THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR; AND, TJdrd 
 — FROM ITS EVACUATION BY THE BRITISH DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 FIEST PERIOD. 
 
 lo98-l()74. 
 
 The settlement of New York Island by the Dutch, and its permanent occupancy 
 
 by the English. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is the general belief that the first landing made on 
 New York Island, or the " Island of Manhattan," as it was 
 then called, was by Hendrick Hudson, in 1609. 
 This, however, is not the case ; since the earliest 
 records extant state that as early as 159 8, a few Holland- 
 ers, in the employ of a Greenland Company, were in the 
 habit of resorting to New Netherlands {i. e., New York), 
 not, it is true, with the design of effecting a settlement, but 
 merely to secure shelter during the winter months. With 
 this view they built two small forts to protect themselves 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 against the Indians. Nevertheless, the fact remains un- 
 disputed, that to Hudson belongs the honor of being the 
 first who directed public attention to the Island of Man- 
 hattan as an advantageous point for a trading port in the 
 New AVorld. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1609, the great navigator 
 sailed out of the harbor of Amsterdam, and ' bj 
 twelve of ye clocko" of the 6th he was two leagues off 
 
 1G09. 
 
 THE " HALF-MOON." 
 
 the land. He was iu the employ of the Dutch East India 
 Company, who had commissioned him to seek a passage 
 to the East Indies by the north side of Nova Zembla. 
 Having, however, found the sea at that part full of ice, he 
 turned the prow of his little vessel, the Ilalf-Moon, west- 
 ward, and, after a month's cruise, reached the great Bank 
 of Newfoundland on the 2d of July Thence he sailed 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 11 
 
 southward to the James River, Virginia, and again alter- 
 ing his course — still in pursuit of a new channel to India — ■ 
 
 PtKST SETTLEMENT ON THE HUDSON. 
 
 he coasted along the shores of New Jersey, and on the 2d 
 of September, 1609, cast anchor inside of Sandy Hook. 
 
 The topography of New York Island, as it was first 
 seen by Hudson, was as follows : 
 
 "The lower part of it consisted of wood-crowned hills 
 and beautiful grassy valleys, including a chain of swamps 
 and marshes and a deep pond. Northward, it rose into a 
 rocky, high ground. The sole inhabitants were a tribe 
 of dusky Indians, — an off-shoot from the great nation of 
 the Lenni Lenape, who inhabited the vast territory bounded 
 by the Penobscot and Potomac, the Atlantic and Missis- 
 sippi, — dwelling in the clusters of rude wigwams that 
 dotted here and there the surface of the country. The 
 
12 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 rivers that gird the Island were as yet unstirred hy the 
 keels of ships, and the barli canoes of the native Man- 
 hattans held sole possession of the peaceful waters. 
 
 " The face of the country, more particularly described, 
 was gently undulating, presenting every variety of hill 
 and dale, of brook and rivulet. The upper part of the 
 Island was rocky, and covered by a dense forest ; the lower 
 part grassy, and rich in wild fruits and flowers. Grapes 
 and strawberries grew in abundance in the fields, and nuts 
 of various kinds were plentiful in the forests, which were 
 also filled with abundance of game. The brooks and 
 ponds were swarming with fish, and the soil was of lux- 
 ' uriant fertility. In the vicinity of the present " Tombs " 
 was a deep, clear, and beautiful pond of fresh water (with 
 a picturesque little island in the middle) — so deep, indeed, 
 that it could have floated the largest ship in our navy, — 
 which was for a long time deemed bottomless by its pos- 
 sessors. This was fed by large springs at the bottom, 
 which kept its waters fresh and flowing, and had its out- 
 let in a little stream that flowed into the East River, 
 near the foot of James street. Smaller ponds dotted the 
 Island in various places, two of which, lying near each 
 other, in the vicinity of the present corner of the Bowery 
 and Grand street, collected the waters of the high grounds 
 which surrounded them. To the north-west of the Fresh 
 Water Pond, or "Kolck," as it afterwards came to be 
 called, beginning in the vicinity of the present Hudson 
 River Railroad and Freight Depot (formerly St. John's 
 Park), and extending to the northward over an area of 
 some seventy acres, lay an immense marsh, filled with 
 reeds and brambles, and tenanted with frogs and water- 
 snakes. A little rivulet connected this marsh with the 
 Fresh Water Pond, which was also connected — by the 
 stream which formed its outlet— with another strip of 
 marshy land, covering the region now occupied by James, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 13 
 
 Cherry, and the adjacent streets. An unbroken chain of 
 waters was thus stretched across the Island from James 
 street at the south-east to Canal street at the north-west. 
 An inlet occupied the place of Broad street, a marsh cov- 
 
 THE SWAMP. 
 
 ered the vicinity of Ferry street, Rutgers street formed 
 the center of another marsh, and a long line of meadows 
 and swampy ground stretched to the northward along the 
 eastern shore. 
 
 "The highest line of lands lay along Broadway, from 
 the Battery to the northernmost part of the Island, form- 
 ing its backbone, and sloping gradually to the east and 
 west. On the corner of Grand street and Broadway was 
 a high hill, commanding a view of the whole Island, and 
 falling oiF gradually to the Fresh Water Pond. To the 
 south and west, the country, in the intervals of the 
 marshes, was of great beauty — rolling, grassy, fertile, 
 and well watered. A high range of sand hills traversed 
 a part of the Island, from Varick and Charlton to Eighth 
 and Greene streets. To the north of these lay a valley, 
 through which ran a brook, which formed the outlet of 
 
14 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the springy marshes at Washington Square^ and emptied 
 into the North River at the foot of Hammersly street." * 
 Meanwhile, Hudson, having explored the river that 
 bears his name as far as the present cit}' of Albany, set 
 sail on the 4th of October for Europe, bearing the news 
 of the discovery of a new country — the " opening for a new 
 commerce;" for although his patrons were disappointed in 
 not finding a short road to the land of silks, teas, and 
 spices, still, his great discovery was destined to open in 
 future time mines of wealth, more valuable than all the 
 imagined riches of the Celestial Empire. 
 
 At that period, Holland carried on a lucrative trade 
 with the East Indies and Russia. Every year they dis- 
 patched nearly one hundred ships to Archangel for furs ; 
 but Hudson's glowing accounts of the rich peltry he had 
 seen in the newly-discovered regions, soon turned the 
 attention of the busy Dutch to a country where these 
 articles could be purchased without the taxes of custom- 
 houses and other duties. Accordingly, in the year 1610, 
 a^few merchants dispatched another vessel, under 
 the command of the Half-Moon's former mate. 
 to traffic in furs with the Indians. This venture 
 met with such success, that, two years after, in 1612, 
 the Fortune and the Tiger, commanded, respect- 
 ively, by Hendrick Christiaensen and Adrien Block, sailed 
 on a trading voyage to the "Mauritius River," as the 
 Hudson was first named. The following year, also, three 
 more vessels, commanded by Captains De Witt, Volckert- 
 sen, and Wey, sailed from Amsterdam and Hoven on a 
 similar adventure. These were the beginnings of the 
 important fur trade, which was, ere long, to be a chief 
 source of wealth to Holland and America. It was now 
 determined to open a regular communication with the 
 
 Miss M. L. Bootli's History of New York. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 15 
 
 newly-discovered region, and to make the Island of Man- 
 hattan , the depot of the fur trade in America. It was 
 also resolved to establish permanent agents here for the 
 purchase and collection of skins, while the vessels were 
 on their voyages to and from Holland. Captain Hen- 
 drick Christiaensen became the first agent, and built a 
 redoubt, with four small houses, on ground which, it is 
 said, is now the site of No. 39 Broadway. 
 
 A little navy. was commenced about the same period 
 by Captain Adrien Block, one of the vessels of which 
 was accidentally burned, just on the eve of his departure 
 for Holland. Having abundant materials, however, in 
 the Island of Manhattan, he finished another ; and, in the 
 spring of 1614, launched the first vessel ever built 
 
 1 f I 4- 
 
 in New Amsterdam. She was named th.& Egsilesi, 
 a yacht of sixteen tons — a name prophetic of the ever- 
 busy and future great city. The entire winter passed in 
 building the vessel, the Indians kindly supplying the 
 strangers with food. Such were the earliest movements 
 of commerce in New Netherlands two centuries and a 
 half ago ! 
 
 A few months before Captain Block's return to Hol- 
 land, the States-General of the Netherlands, with a view 
 of encouraging emigration, passed an ordinance granting 
 the discoverers of new countries the exclusive privilege 
 of trading at Manhattan during four years. Accordingly, 
 the merchants who had sent out the first expedition had 
 a map made of all the country between Canada and Vir- 
 ginia, as the whole new region was called, and, claiming 
 to be the original discoverers, petitioned the Government 
 for the promised monopoly. Their petition was granted ; 
 and on the 11th of October, 1614, they obtained a charter 
 for the exclusive right ol trade on the territory within 
 the 4()th and 45th de<j:rees of north latitude. The charter 
 also forbade all other persons to interfere with this mo- 
 
i;5 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 nopoly, in the penalty of confiscating both vessels and 
 cargoes^ with a fine also of 50,000 Dutch ducats for the 
 benefit of the charter's grantees. The new province first 
 formally received the name of New Netherland in this 
 document ; and Dutch merchants, associating themselves 
 under the name of the " United New Netherland Com- 
 pany," straightway prepared to conduct their operations 
 on a more extensive scale. Trading parties to the in- 
 terior hastened to collect furs from the Indians, and de- 
 posit them at Forts Nassau (Albany) and Manhattan. 
 Jacob Eelkins, a shrewd trader, received the appointment 
 of agent at the former place, where the first one, Captain 
 Christiaensen, had been murdered by an Indian. This 
 was the first murder ever recorded in the new province. 
 In the year_1617, a formal treaty of peace and 
 alliance was concluded between the Dutch and 
 the powerful nation of the Iroquois. The pipe of peace 
 was smoked, and the hatchet buried in the earth, on the 
 present site of Albany. This treaty, as may readily be 
 imagined, greatly increased the prosperity of the Dutch 
 traders, who had hitherto occupied Manhattan merely by 
 the sufferance of the Indians. Their agents accordingly 
 at once extended their trips further into the interior, 
 obtaining on each trip valuable furs in exchange for the 
 muskets and ammunition so much coveted by the na- 
 tives. This trade became so profitable, that when the 
 charter of the United New Netherland Company expired, 
 in 1618, they petitioned for a renewal, but failing to ob- 
 tain it, they continued their trade two or three years 
 longer, under a special license. 
 
 Up to this period, the Hollanders had considered 
 Manhattan as a trading post only, and dwelt in mere 
 temporary huts of rude construction. But the British 
 now._explored the American coast, claiming the whole 
 region between Canada and Virginia, from the Atlantic 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 17 
 
 toJJie-Eacific-^Gean, and the Dutch, conseq ueritly. be- 
 gan to realize the importfmccrf jecuring their Ameriean 
 possessions in the new proviiice. The English Puritans, 
 hearing glowing accounts of New Netherland, requested 
 permission to emigrate thither with their ftimilies. But 
 the States-General, having other plans in view, refused 
 the prayers of the Puritans. They thought it better 
 policy to supply the new province with their own coun- 
 trymen, and on the 3d of June, 1621,. granted a 
 charter to the West India Company for twenty **'^'' 
 ySafsp which conferred upon that body the exclusive 
 jurisdiction over New Netherland. It may well be ques- 
 -tioned whether the States-General acted wisely in the 
 course thus pursued. Had they filled the land, as the 
 English were doing, with crowds of hardy, moral emi- 
 grants and pioneers — farmers with their cattle and hus- 
 bandry — the Dutch settlements would have advanced 
 with far greater rapidity. Be this, however, as it may, 
 the West India Company no sooner became possessed of 
 the charter, than it at once became a power in the new 
 country. Having the exclusive right of trade and com- 
 merce in the Atlantic, from the Tropic of Cancer to the 
 Cape of Good Hope upon the Eastern Continent, and from 
 Newfoundland to Magellan Straits on the Western, its 
 influence over this immense territory was almost bound- 
 less in making contracts with the Indians, building forts, 
 administei'ing justice, and appointing public officers. In 
 return, the chartered Company pledged itself to colonize 
 the new territory. The government of this association 
 Vas vested in five separate chambers or boards of manage- 
 ment, in five of the principal Dutch cities, viz: Amsterdam, 
 Middlebuig, Dordrecht, one in North Holland, and one in 
 Frieslaud. The details of its management were intrusted 
 to an executive board of nineteen, commonly called the 
 Assembly of Nineteen. The States-General further promis- 
 3 
 
18 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 cd, on their part, to give the Companj a million of guild 
 ers, and in case of war, to supply ships and men. Mean- 
 while, the Puritans, not disheartened, reached Plymouth 
 Rock, and thus conveyed their faith and traffic to the 
 shores of New England, where they continue to this day. 
 The West India Company now began to colonize the 
 new province with fresh zeal. The Amsterdam Chamber in 
 1623,Jitted out a ship of 250 tons, the New Nether- 
 Jand^in which thirty families embarked for the 
 distant territory whose name she bore. Captain Wey 
 commanded the expedition, having been appointed the 
 
 1623. 
 
 FIEbT SAW-MILL ON THE HUDSON. 
 
 first director of the province. Most of these colonists 
 were Walloons, or French Protestants, from the borders 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 19 
 
 of France and Belgium, who sought in a strange land a 
 refuge from religious persecutions. 
 
 With._the-arrival-of the Nmo- Netherlands a new erain the 
 ^mestic history of the settlement began. Soon saw-mills 
 supplied the necessary timber for comfortable dwellings, 
 in the place of the bark-huts built after the Indian fash- 
 ion. The new buildings were generally one-story high, 
 with two rooms on a floor, and a thatched roof garret. 
 From the want of brick and mortar the chimneys were 
 constructed of wood. The interior was, as a matter of 
 course, very scantily supplied with furniture — the great 
 chest from Fatherland^ with its prized household goods, 
 being the most imposing article. Tables were generally 
 the heads of barrels placed on end ; rough shelves con- 
 stituted the cupboard ; and chairs were logs of wood 
 rough-hewn from the forest. To complete the furniture, 
 there was the well known " Sloa-p Banek" or sleeping- 
 bench — the bedstead — where lay the boast, the pride, the 
 comfort of a Dutch housekeeper, the feather-bed. Around 
 the present Battery and Coenlies Slip and Bowling Green 
 were the houses, a few of which were surrounded by gar- 
 dens. The fruit-trees often excited the thievish propen- 
 sities of the natives ; and one devastating war followed 
 the shooting of au_ Indian girl while stealing peaches 
 from anTorchard on Broadway, near the present Bowling 
 Green. Meanwhile, commerce kept pace with the new 
 houses ; and the staunch ship, the Neto Netherlands re- 
 turned to Holland with a cargo of furs valued at $12,000. 
 
 Anxious to fulfill its part of the agreement, the West 
 India Company^ in 1625, also sent out to Manhat- 
 tan three ships and a yacht, containing a large **^^^- 
 number of families armed with farming implements, and 
 one hundred and three head of cattle. Fearing the 
 cattle might be lost in the surrounding forests, the set- 
 tlers landed them on Nutten's (Governor's) Island, but 
 
20 HISTORY OF NEW TOBK CITY. 
 
 afterward conveyed them to Manhattan. Two more ves- 
 sels sliortly after arrived from Holland, and the settle- 
 ment soon numbered some 2j}04)ersons, and gave promise 
 of permanency. 
 
 In the year 1624, Wey returned to Holland, and was 
 succeeded in the Directorship by William Verhulst. The 
 latter, however, did not long enjoy the emoluments of 
 office, for at the end of a year he also was recalled, and 
 Peter Minuit appointed, in his place, Director-General of 
 New Netherland, with full power to organize a provisional 
 government. He arrived May 4, 1626, in the ship 
 Sea-Mew, Adrian Joris, captain. The first seal was 
 now granted to the province, having for a crest, a beaver, 
 than which, for a coat of arms, nothing could have been 
 more appropriate. It was fitting that the earliest Hol- 
 landers of the " Empire City " should thus honor the 
 animal that was fast enriching them in their newly- 
 adopted home. 
 
 To the credit of Director -Mimiii, be it said, the very 
 first act of his administration was to purchase in an open 
 and honorable manner the Island of Manhattan from the 
 Indians for sixty guilders, or twenjiy-four dollars. The 
 Island itself was estimated to contain 22,000 acres. The 
 price paid, it is true, was a mere trifle, but the purchase 
 itself was lawful and satisfactory to the aboriginal owners 
 — a fact which cannot be truly said in regard to other 
 regions taken from the Indians. 
 
 To assist him in carrying out his instructions, the 
 Director was furnished with an Executive CoiJncil. The 
 latter body was, in turn, assisted by the Koopman, who 
 acted as Secretary to the province and book-keeper of the 
 public warehouse. Last of all, came the Sellout- Fiscal, a 
 civil f ictotum, half sheriff" and attorney-general, executive 
 officer of the Council, and general custom-house official. 
 Thus early had the Dutch an eye to the "main chance," 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 21 
 
 the export of furs that year (1626) amounting to $19,000, 
 and giving promise of a constant increase. 
 
 Some thirty rudely-constructed log-houses at this 
 time extended along the shores of the East River, which, 
 with a block-house, a horse-mill, and the " Company's " 
 thatched stone building, constituted the City of New 
 York two hundred and forty-two years ago. A clergy- 
 man or school-master was as yet unknown in the infant 
 colony. Every settler had his own cabin and cows, tilled 
 his land, or traded with the Indians — all were busy, like 
 their own emblem, the beaver. 
 
 In the year 1629, the " Charter of Privileges 
 and Exemptions "_ was granted in Holland, arid - ' 
 patroons were allowed to settle in the new colony. This 
 important document transplanted the old feudal tenure 
 and burdens of Continental Europe to the' Jree^ soil of 
 America. The proposed Patrooneries were only transcripts 
 of the Seigneuries and Lordships so common at that period, 
 and which the French were, at the same time, establish- 
 ing in Canada, In that province, even at the present 
 day^ the feudal appendages of jurisdiction, pre-emption 
 rights, monopolies of mines, minerals, and waters, with 
 hunting, fishing, and fowling, form a part of the civil law. 
 Pursuing, however, a more liberal policy, the grantees-cf 
 the charter to the .New Netherland joafcoows, secured-the 
 Indian's right to his native soil, at the same time that 
 they enjoined schools and churches. 
 
 Meanwhile, the settlement of New Netherland, con- 
 tinuing to prosper, soon became the principal depot Jor 
 tlie fur and coasting trade of the patroons. The latter 
 were obliged to land all their cargoes at Fort Amsterdam ; 
 and the years 1629-'30, the imports from old 
 Amsterdam amounted to 113,000 guilders, and 
 the exports from Manhattan exceeded 130,000. The 
 Company reserved the exclusive right to the fur trade, 
 
22 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and imposed a duty of five per cent, on all the trade of 
 the patroons. 
 
 The inhabitants, in order not to be idle, turned their 
 attention, with fresh zeal, to shiprbuilding, and with so 
 much success, that as early as 163Jj_New Amster- 
 dani had become the mgtropolis of the New World. 
 The New Netherlands a ship of 800 tons, was built at 
 Manhattan, and dispatched to Holland — an important 
 event of the times, since the vessel was one of the largest 
 merchantmen of the world. It was a very costly experi- 
 ment, however^ and was not soon repeated. Emigrants 
 from all nations now began to flock into the new colony. 
 They were principally induced to come by the liberal offers 
 of the Dutch Company, who transported them in its own 
 vessels at the cheap rate of twelve and a half cents per 
 diem for passage and stores ; giving them, also, as a still 
 further inducement, as much land as they could cultivate. 
 Nor were these the only reasons which caused so many to 
 leave their Fatherland. With a wise and liberal poUcy, 
 totally different from that of its eastern neighbors, the 
 Dutchprovince allowed the fullest religious toleration. 
 The Walloons, Calvinists, Huguenots, Quakers, Catholics, 
 and Jews, found a safe home in New Netherland, and laid 
 the broad and solid foundation of that tolerant character 
 ever since retained by the City of New York In her 
 streets and broad avenues may be seen, on any Sabbath, 
 Jews, Gentiles, and Christians, worshipping God in their 
 sacred temples, "according to the dictates of their own 
 consciences." 
 
 In the meantime the Directors of the West India 
 Company calculated, with the strong aid of the patroons, 
 upon colonizing the new country, and, at the same time, 
 securing the important free trade in their own hands. 
 But they were met, almost at the outset, with serious 
 opposition from that class who, not content with a nega- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 23 
 
 tive policy, took active measures seriously to injure this 
 traffic. From the first, the o bj'ect of the ■patroons had 
 s eemed to, Jje a participation in the .Indian trade, rather" 
 than the_coloiiization of the country; and they had even 
 claimed the privilege of trafficking with the Indians from 
 Florida to Newfoundland, according to their charter of 
 1629. This extensive trade the West India Company 
 justly considered an interference with their vested rights 
 and interests, and no time was lost in presenting their 
 complaints to the States-General. That body thereupon 
 adopted new articles, the effect of which was essentially 
 to limit the privileges already granted to the jmiroons. 
 This misunderstanding had the effect of interrupting, for 
 a time, the efforts making to colonize and advance the 
 new country. At length, in 1632, both parties be- 
 came in a complete state of antagonism as to their 
 privileged charters, and, for a little time, a civil war 
 seemed inevitable. In the same year (1632), Peter Minuit, 
 the Director, it will be remembered, of New Netherland, 
 was suspected of favoring the patroons, and Avas recalled 
 from his Directorship. iHe returned to Holland in the 
 ship Eendragt (which had brought over his dismissal), 
 which carried also a return cargo of 5,000 beaver-skins — 
 an evidence of the colony's commercial prosperity. The 
 vessel, driven by stress of weather, put into the harbor of 
 Plymouth, where she was retained on the ground of hav- 
 ing illegally interfered with English monopolies. This 
 arrest of the Dutch trader led to a correspondence between 
 the rival powers, in which the respective claims of each 
 were distinctly set forth. The Hollanders claimed the 
 province on the following grounds : 1st. Its discovery by 
 them in the year 1609 ; 2d. The return of their people in 
 1610; 3d. The grant of a trading charter in 1614; 4th. 
 The maintenance of a fort, until 1621, when the West 
 India Company was organized ; and, 5th Their purchase 
 
24 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 of the land from the Indians. The English, on the con- 
 trary, defended their right of possession on the ground of 
 the prior discovery by Cabot, and the patent of James I. 
 to the Plymouth Company. The Indians, they argued, as 
 wanderers, were not the bona fide owners of the land, and 
 hence, had no right to dispose of it ; consequently, their 
 titles must be invalid. But England, being at this period 
 just on the eve of a civil war, was in no condition to en- 
 force her claims ; and she, therefore, having released the 
 Eendragt, contented herself with the mere assumption of 
 authority — reserving the accomplishment of her designs 
 until a more convenient season. 
 
 At length, in the month of April, 1633, the 
 ship Souther g reached Manhattan with Wouter 
 Van Twiller, the new Director-General (or Governor) and 
 a military force of one hundred and four soldiers, together 
 with a Spanish caraval, captured on the way. Among the 
 passengers, also, came Dominie Everardus Bogardus and 
 Adam Roelandsen, the first regular clergyman and school- 
 master of New Amsterdam. A church now became indis- 
 pensable ; and the room over the horse-mill, where prayers 
 had been regularly read for seven years, was abandoned for 
 a rude, wooden church, on Pearl, between Whitehall and 
 Broad streets, on the shore of the East River. This was 
 the first Reformed Dutch Church va. the city ; and near 
 by were constructed the parsonage and the Dominie's sta- 
 bles. The grave-yard was laid out on Broadway, in the 
 vicinity of Morris street. 
 
 Van Twiller occupied " Farm No. 1 " of the Company, 
 which extended from Wall to Hudson street. " Farm 
 No. 3," at Greenwich, he appropriated as his tobacco plan- 
 tation. The new (governor and the Dominie did not har- 
 monize. Bogardus haviug interfered in public concerns, 
 which Van Twiller resented, the former, from his pulpit, 
 pronounced the Governor a " Child of Satan." This, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 25 
 
 doubtless, was very true, but the "Child of Satan" became 
 so incensed, that he never entered the church-door again. 
 In 1638, "for slandering the Rev. E. Bogardus," 
 an old record states, "a woman was obliged to 
 appear at the sound of a bell, in the fort, before the Gov- 
 ernor and Council, and say that she knew he was honest 
 and pious, and that she had lied falsely." 
 
 Van Twiller had been promoted from a clerkship in 
 the Company's warehouse, and seems to have been a very 
 incompetent Governor. He probably obtained the place, 
 not from fitness, but from the same means which act in 
 similar cases 9,t the present day, viz., political influence, 
 arising from the fact that he had married the daughter 
 of Killian Van Rensselaer, the wealthy patroon. 
 
 The Company had authorized him to fortify the depots 
 of the fur trade. Accordingly, the fort on the Battery, 
 commenced in the year 1026, was rebuilt, and a guard- 
 house and barracks prepared for the soldiers. Several 
 brick and stone dwellings were erected within the fort, and 
 three wind-mills, used to grind the grain necessary for the 
 garrison, on the southwest bastion of the fort. African 
 slaves were the laborers principally engaged upon these 
 improvements. At a subsequent period, when these slaves 
 had grown old, they petitioned the authorities for their 
 freedom, and recounted their services at the time men- 
 tioned in support of their application, in proof of which 
 they presented a certificate given them by their overseer : 
 " That, during the administration of Van Twiller, he (Ja- 
 cob StofFelsen), as overseer of the Company's negroes, was 
 continually employed with said negroes in the construction 
 of Fort Amsterdam, which was finished in 1635 ; 
 and that the negroes assisted in chopping trees for 
 the big house, making and splitting palisades, and other 
 work." The "big house" here referred to was the Gov- 
 ernor's residence. It was built of brick, and was, no 
 
 4 
 
26 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 doubt, a substantial edifice, as it is found to have f-erved 
 for the residence of successive chiefs of the colony during 
 all the Dutch era, and for a few years subsequent. 
 
 In respect to the walls of the fort, they were in no 
 wise improved by the incompetent Van Twiller, except 
 the northwest bastion, which was faced with stone. The 
 other parts of the walls were simply banks of earth with- 
 out ditches ; nor were they even surrounded by a fence to 
 keep off the goats and other animals running at large in 
 the town. When Governor Kieft arrived in 1638, 
 as Van Twiller's successor, he found the fort in a 
 decayed state, " opening on every side, so that nothing 
 could obstruct going in or coming out, except at the stone 
 point." Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the fort ex- 
 ercised a very salutary influence in keeping the Indians 
 at a respectful distance.* 
 
 In 1633, the commercial importance of New 
 Amsterdam was increased by the grant of the 
 " Staple Right," a sort of feudal privilege similar to the 
 institutions of the Fatherland. By it, all vessels trading 
 along the coast, or sailing on the rivers, were obliged 
 either to discharge their cargoes at the port, or pay cer- 
 tain duties. This soon became a valuable right, as it gave 
 to New Amsterdam the commercial monopoly of the 
 whole Dutch province. 
 
 A short time before the arrival of Governor Van Twil- 
 ler, De Vries, whose little colony at Suaaendael, Delaware, 
 
 * In 1641, an Indian war broke out, and raged for many montlis, resulting 
 in the complete devastation of most of the farms and exposed settlements, even 
 those lying within a stone's-throw of Fort Amsterdam. The frightened settlers 
 fled to the fort ; but the accommodation in the fort not affording them an ade- 
 quate shelter, they established their cottages as close as possible to the protect- 
 ing ramparts. Thus it was that two or tliree new streets were formed around 
 the southern and eastern walls of the fort. After the danger had passed, these 
 buildings were allowed to remain, and grants of land were made to the pos- 
 sessors. Thus was formed that portion of the present Pearl street west of 
 Whitehall street, and also a portion of the latter street. — Valentine's Manual. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YOKK CITY. 27 
 
 had been cut off by the Indians, returned to America on 
 a visit, in the mammoth ship New Netherland. A yacht, 
 about this time, also arrived — the EngHsh ship, William, 
 with Jacob Eelkins, who had been dismissed from his office 
 of supercargo by the Company, in 1632. Enraged by this 
 dismissal, he had entered the service of the English, and 
 had now returned to promote their interests in the fur 
 trade on the Mauritius (Hudson) River. 
 
 This was a bold act, and contrary to the policy of the 
 West India Company, Accordingly, Van Twiller, who, 
 though an inefficient Governor, was a thorough merchant, 
 and understood the important monopoly of the fur trade, 
 refused permission for the vessel to proceed further on its 
 way. Hjs demand upon Eelkins for his commission was 
 refused by the latter, on the ground that he occupied Brit- 
 ish territory, and would sail up the river at the cost, if 
 need be, of his life. Thereupon, the Director, ordering the 
 nitional flag to be hoisted, and three guns fired in honor 
 of the Prince of Orange, forbade him to proceed further. 
 But, far from being daunted by this prohibition, Eelkins 
 answered by running up, in his turn, the British colors, 
 firing a salute for King Charles, and coolly steering up the 
 river in defiance of Fort Amsterdam. The amazement of 
 Van Twiller at the audacity of the ex-Dutch Agent may 
 be easily imagined. Astonished, as he was, at this daring 
 act, the Director, nevertheless, proceeded very philosophi- 
 cally : First, he summoned all the people in front of the 
 fort, now the Bowling Green ; next, he ordered a cask of 
 wine, and another of beer ; then, filling his own glass, he 
 called on all good citizens who loved the Prince of Orange 
 to follow his patriotic example, and drink confusion to the 
 English Government. The people, of course, were not 
 slow in obeying this reasonable request; indeed, what 
 more could they do, for the English ship was now far be- 
 yond all reach, safely pursuing her way up the Hudson. 
 
28 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Still, while they drank his wine, they were deeply morti- 
 fied at the Governor's cowardice. De Vries openly accused 
 him with it, and plainly told him, if it had been his case, 
 he should have sent some " eight-pound beans " after the 
 impudent Englishman, and helped him down the river 
 again; but it being now too late to do this, he should send 
 the Southerg after him, and drive him down the river. 
 The effect of this advice was not lost upon the Governor; 
 for, a few days after, Van TwiUer screwed up his cour- 
 age sufficiently to dispatch an armed force to Fort Orange 
 (Albany), where Eelkins had pitched his tent, and where 
 he was found busily engaged in trading with the Indians. 
 The Dutch soldiers quickly destroyed his canvas store, 
 and, reshipping the goods, brought the vessel back to Fort 
 Amsterdam. Eelkins was then required to give up his 
 peltry ; after which he was sent to sea, with the warning 
 aever again to interfere with the Dutch Government trade. 
 Meanwhile the settlement at Fort Amsterdam — the 
 New York embryo — continued to increase and prosper, 
 men of enterprise and wealth often arriving. Most of 
 these came from the Dutch Netherlands, and thus trans- 
 ferred the domestic economy and habits of Holland and 
 the Rhine to the banks of the Hudson. Ships were loaded 
 with bricks, burnt in Holland ; and at first, every dwell- 
 ing was modeled after those they had left, and with 
 storerooms for trade, Uke those of Amsterdam and other 
 trading towns in Fatherland. Thus, at New Amsterdam 
 and Fort Orange rows of houses could be seen built 
 of imported brick, with thatched roofs, wooden chimneys, 
 and their gable ends always toward the street. Inside 
 were all the neatness, frugality, order, and industry which 
 the inmates brought from their native land. A few of 
 these original, venerable Dutch homes were to be seen, till 
 within a year or two, in this city ; but we do not know of 
 a single one now. Several yet remain in Albany; and it 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 29 
 
 is almost worth a trip there to see these striking relics of 
 "ye olden time." Until the year 1642, city lots and 
 streets were unknown, adventurers and settlers selecting 
 land wherever most convenient for their purpose. Hence 
 the crooked courses of some of our down-town streets.* 
 
 DUTCH MANSION AND COTTAGE IN NEW AMSTBKDAM. 
 
 Cornelis Dircksen owned a farm by tlie present Peck 
 ■ Slip, and ferried passengers across the East Eiver for the 
 small price of three stivers, in wampum. At that time, 
 Pearl street formed the bank of the river— Water, Front, 
 and South streets having all been reclaimed for the pur- 
 pose of increasing trade and commerce. The old wooden, 
 shingled house, one of the last venerable relics of the olden 
 
 * Pearl street^ for instance. 
 
30 HISTOBT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 time, on the corner of Peck Slip, was so near the river 
 that a . stone could easily be thrown into it. Pearl, it is 
 thought, was the first street occupied, the first houses 
 being built there, in 1633. Bridge street came next; and 
 a deed is still in existence for a lot on it, thirty-four by 
 one hundred and ten feet, for the sum of twenty-fomr 
 guilders, or nine dollars and sixty cents. This is the 
 earliest conveyance of city property on record. Whitehall, 
 Stone, Broad, Beaver, and Marketfield streets were opened 
 soon after. In the year 1642, the first grant of a 
 ^^*^' city lot, east of the fort at the Battery, was made 
 to Hendricksen Kip. During the next year, several lots 
 were granted on the lower end of " Heere Straat," as 
 Broadway was then named. Martin Krigier was the first 
 grantee of a lot in this section, opposite the Bowling 
 Green, which contained eighty-six rods. There he built 
 the well-known Krigier's Tavern," which soon became a 
 fashionable resort.* 
 
 Nor during all this time did the fur trade fail to keep 
 pace with the growing local prosperity of the place. Dur- 
 ing the year 1635, the Directors in Holland received 
 returns from the province to the amount of nearly 185,000 
 guilders But the monopoly of the traffic in furs was not 
 the only source of gaiu. A profitable commerce was also 
 carried on._Bdth -New^^England. "TJutcli vessels brought 
 ^Bacco,-salt, h orse s, oxen,._and sheep from Holland to 
 Boston. An old account says they came from the Texel 
 in five weeks and three days, " and lost not one beast or 
 sheep." Potatoes fi'om Bermuda were worth two pence 
 the pound ; a good cow, twenty-five or thirty pounds ; and 
 
 * Upon tlie demolisliment of this building its site was occupied by the 
 " King's Arms' Tavern," wliich, in after years, was the head-quarters of the 
 British General Gage. Subsequently, it became the " Atlantic Garden," No. 9 
 Broadway, where it long remained oue of the striking mementoes of the olden 
 time. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 31 
 
 a pair of oxen readily brought forty pounds. In Virginia, 
 corn rose to twenty shillings the bushel during the year 
 1637; a shepel, or three pecks of rye, brought two guil- 
 ders, or eighty cents ; and a laborer readily earned, during 
 harvest, two guilders per diem. These were high prices for 
 those times, and were probably caused, in a measure, by 
 the sanguinary war which the .^^ew^England-Puritans^ 
 
 ^wera-carfying "orf withjtheirJfndian-neighbors. The Pe- 
 quods, failing to deliver the murderers of Stone, according 
 to treaty, had tendered an atonement of wampum, but Mas- 
 sachusetts demanded " blood for blood ; " and she obtained 
 it in the wars that followed. Winthrop says, " Scarcely a 
 sannup, a woman, a squaw, or a child of the Pequod name 
 survived." It is the fashion to indulge in much panegyric 
 about these ancestral doings, but here can be calmly 
 traced the first attempt of the white race to extirpate the 
 red men, from their ancestraLbirthright to the northern 
 regions of America. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the large prices obtained 
 for its wares, the year 1638 found the condition of 
 New Netherland very unpromising. AJJihough itsy 
 ajffkirs-hadjiQwJbeen administered for fifteen -years by Ihat 
 p9werfu]r4}ody , „the West India Company, still, the country 
 was scarcely removed from its primitive wilderness .state, 
 and, excepting the Indians, it was inhabitedJjyjonLy a-few 
 traders and clerks of a distant corporation. _ Its rich vir- 
 
 -ghr^oil remained almost entirely uncultivated, and the 
 farms did not amount to more than half a dozen. Doubt- 
 less, the Directors of the West India Company governed 
 New Netherland chiefly to promote their own special in- 
 terests — to advance which, large sums had been expended ; 
 
 * Puritans, not Pilgrims. These terms, though generally used synony- 
 mously, refer to two entirely different classes of men. The Pilgrims never 
 practiced religious persecution ; the Puritans did. The Pilgrims came over to 
 the New World some fifteen years earlier than the Puritans. 
 
32 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and, as a natural consequence, no efforts had as yet been 
 raade to introduce, on a large scale, a sound and industri- 
 ous emigration. The patroon system, also, to which refer- 
 ence has already been made, greatly retarded the settle- 
 ment of the colony. A monopoly, its patroons neglected 
 their most important duties as planters, and used their 
 energies and means to compete with the Company in the 
 Indian trade ; consequently, misunderstandings and dis- 
 putes followed, which became almost fatal to the prosperity 
 of the new settlement. 
 
 At this critical moment, William Kieft, the third Di- 
 rector-General and Governor, arrived March, 1638, as the 
 successor of the weak Van Twiller. His first step was to 
 organize a Council, retaining, however, its entu-e control. 
 Dr. Johannes La Montague, a learned Huguenot, was 
 appointed by him a member of this new board ; Cornells 
 Van Tienhoven, from Utrecht^ one of the oldest settlers, 
 was made Colonial Secretary, with a salary of two hun- 
 dred and fifty doUars per annum; while Uhich Leopold 
 continued as Schout-Fiscal, or Sheriff and Attorney-Gen- 
 eral. Adrian Dlrcksen was made Assistant-Commissary^ 
 "because he spoke correctly the language of the Mohawks, 
 and was well versed in the art of trading with them." 
 The Rev. Mr. Bogardus continued the Dominie, and 
 Adam Roelandsen the School-master.* 
 
 The new Governor found the town in an extremely 
 dilapidated condition. The fort had fallen completely 
 into decay; all the guns were off their carriages; and 
 the public buildings, as well as the church, were all out 
 of repair ; only one of the three wind-mills was in opera- 
 
 * La Montagne, as Member of tlie Council, received fourteen dollars a 
 month ; tlie book-keeper, fourteen dollars aud forty cents, witk eighty dollars 
 for Lis yearly board ; the mason, eight dollars ; a joiner, six dollars and forty 
 cents ; a carpenter, seven dollars and fifty cents, and forty dollars a year for 
 board 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 33 
 
 tion ; and the Company's fine farms had no tenants — not 
 even a goat remaining upon them. But the new Governor 
 came charged with more onerous duties than simply the 
 repair of houses ; he was the bearer of a decree that no 
 person in the Dutch Company's employ should trade in 
 peltry, or import any furs, under penalty of losing his 
 wages, and a confiscation of his goods. Abuses also 
 existed in all the departments of the public service, 
 which Kieft vainly attempted to remedy by proclama- 
 tions. Death was threatened against all who should sell 
 guns or powder to the Indians ; after nightfall, all sailors 
 were to remain on board their vessels ; no persons could 
 retail any liquors, " except those who sold wine at a decent 
 price, and in moderate quantities," under penalty of twen- 
 ty-five guilders (ten dollars), and the loss of their stock. 
 Tobacco, then as now, was greatly in demand, the rich 
 virgin soil about New Amsterdam suiting the plant well; 
 consequently, plantations for its cultivation increased so 
 fast, that the plant was now also subjected to excise, and 
 regulations Avere published by the Directory to regulate 
 its mode of culture, and check certain abuses which were 
 injuring " the high name" it had '^gained in foreign coun- 
 tries."* But the new Governor did not confine himself to 
 correcting official abuses solely; he issued proclamations 
 to improve the moral condition of the settlement ; and all 
 persons were seriously enjoined to abstain from " fighting, 
 calumny, and all other immoralities," as the guilty would 
 be punished, and made a terror to evil-doers. Bightly 
 judging, also, that public worship would be a peaceful 
 auxiliary to his labors, und the old wooden church built 
 by Van Twiller having fallen to pieces, he determined to 
 erect a new one inside the fort. Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, 
 Jan Jansen Damen, with Kieft and Captain De Vries, as 
 
 - * Albany Records, 11., 3-12. 
 
34 HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " Kirke Meesters," superintended the new work, and John 
 and Richard Ogden were the masons. The building was 
 of stone, aeventy-two by fifty-two feet, and sixteen high, 
 and cost 2,500 guilders. Its legend, translated from the 
 Dutch, read : "Anno Domini 1642, William Kieft, Direc- 
 tor-General, hath the Commonalty caused to build this 
 temple." New Amsterdam had a town-bell; this was 
 now removed to the belfry of the new church, whence it 
 regulated the city moveu:ents, the time for laborers and 
 the courts. It also pealed the weddings, tolled the funer- 
 als, and called the people to the Lord's House.* 
 
 Hardly, however, had Kieft got his plans for the 
 moral reformation of his people fairly under way, when, 
 as before hinted, the patroons began to give fresh trouble : 
 that class now (1638) demanded "new privileges" — "that 
 they might monopolize more territory, be invested with 
 the largest feudal powers, and enjoy free trade throughout 
 New Netherland." Nor was this all. In their arrogance, 
 they also demanded that all "private persons" and "poor 
 emigrants" should be forbidden to purchase lands from 
 the Indians, and should settle within the colonies under 
 the jurisdiction of the manorial lords — i. e., themselves. 
 
 These grasping demands of the patroons were reserved 
 for future consideration by the States-General ; and it was 
 
 * At this period tlic settlers of New Amsterdam obtained tlieir supplies 
 from the Company's store at fifty per cent, advance on prime cost, a list of 
 prices being placed in a conspicuous position in some place of public resort. 
 Here are some of tlie rates : Indian corn, sixty cents per scliepel of three pecks ; 
 barley, two dollars ; peas, three dollars and twenty-fire cents ; flour, one dol- 
 lar ; pork, five stivers ; fresh meat, five ; butter, eight ; tobacco, seven ; dried 
 fish, twelve (two York shillings) per pound ; hard-bread, fifteen ; rye, five ; 
 wheaten, seven ; cabbage, twelve dollars per hundred ; staves, thirty-two dol- 
 lars per thousand ; a hog, eight dollars ; ordinary wine, thirty-one dollars per 
 hogshead ; Spanish wine, four stivers ; French wine, ten per quart ; sugar, sev- 
 (nteen and twenty- four per pound; flannel, one dollar and twenty cents per 
 ell ; cloth, two dollars ; white linen, eighteen to twenty stivers ; red flannels, 
 one dollar and twenty cents; children's shoes, thirty-six stivers, or six York 
 shiUings a pair of brass kettles, forty cents each. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 35 
 
 determined to try free competition in the internal trade 
 of New Netherland. A notification was accordingly pub- 
 lished by the Amsterdam Chamber, that all the inhabit- 
 ants of the United Provinces, and of friendly countries, 
 might convey to New Netherland, " in the Company's 
 ships," any cattle and merchandise, and might " receive 
 whatever returns they or their agents may be able to 
 obtain in those quarters therefor." A duty of ten per 
 cent, was paid to the Company on all goods exported from 
 New Netherland with the freight. Every emigrant, upon 
 his arrival at New Amsterdam, was to receive " as much 
 land as he and his family could properly cultivate." This 
 liberal system gave a great impulse to the prosperity of 
 New Netherland, by encouraging the emigration of sub- 
 stantial colonists, not only from Holland, but from Vir- 
 ginia and New England. Conscience had ever been free in 
 New Netherland, and now trade and commerce were like- 
 wise made free to all. Political franchise in Massachusetts 
 was limited to church members, and now "many men 
 began to inquire after the southern ports," not from the 
 climate there, or the necessary wants of life, but, in the 
 language of the old chronicler, " to escape their insupport- 
 able government." The only obligation required of emi- 
 grants was an oath of fidelity and allegiance to the colony, 
 the same as imposed upon the Dutch settlers. Both par- 
 ties enjoyed equal privileges. 
 
 This free internal trade, however, produced some irreg- 
 ularities ; and a new proclamation soon became necessary 
 to warn all persons against selling guns or ammunition to 
 the Indians. Still another edict prohibited persons from 
 sailing to Fort Orange (Albany), and the South River 
 (Fort Hope), and returning without a passport. Another 
 very unpopular edict, also, was shortly after issued by 
 Kieft. His extreme anxiety to serve his patrons caused 
 him to " demand some tribute " of maize, furs, or sewant, 
 
36 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 from the neighboring Indians, "whom," he said, "we have 
 thus far defended against their enemiea; " and in case of 
 their refusal, proper measures were to be taken to "remove 
 their reluctance." 
 
 In regard, however, to the Governor's proclamation 
 against selling guns, &c., to the Indians, nothing can be 
 said against it. The case demanded it. Freedom of 
 trade with the savages had, indeed, run into abuses and 
 injurious excesses. 
 
 The colonists neglected agriculture for the quicker 
 gains of traffic; and at times^ by settling "far in the inte- 
 rior of the country," and^ by " great familiarity and treat- 
 ing," brought themselves into contempt with the Indians. 
 Evil consequences, as a matter of course, followed this 
 unwise conduct — the most unfortunate of which was the 
 supplying of the savages with new weapons of war. They 
 considered the gun, at first, " the Devil" and would not even 
 touch it; but, once discovering its fatal use^ eagerly sought 
 the fire-arms of the whites. They would willingly barter 
 twenty beaver-skins for a single musket, and pay ten or 
 twelve guilders for a pound of powder. As no merchan- 
 dise became so valuable to the red men, the West India 
 Company foresaw the evil of arming the s;ivages_, and 
 declared the trade in fiire-arms contraband. It even for- 
 bade the suppl}^ to the New Netherlnnd Indians, under 
 penalty of death. But the prospect of large profits easily 
 nullified this law of prudence and wisdom. 
 
 In 1640, Director Kieft determined upon an- 
 ie4o. . . - 7. 
 
 other unwise measure, viz., the exaction of a con- 
 tribution, or rather a tax, of corn, furs, and loarnpum from 
 the Indians about Fort Amsterdam. This and other im- 
 proper acts entirely estranged them from the settlers, and 
 laid the foundation of a bloody war, which, the next year 
 (1641), desolated New Netherland. Meanwhile, Kieft, 
 continuing stubborn sent sloops to Tappan to levj- con- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 37 
 
 tributions ; but the natives indignantly refused to pay the 
 novel tribute. In their own plain language, they won- 
 dered how the Sachem at the fort dared to exact such 
 things from them He must be, they said, a very shabby 
 fellow ; he had come to live in their land, where they had 
 not invited him, and now came to deprive them of their 
 corn, for no equivalent. They, therefore, refused to pay, 
 adding this unanswerable argument; "If we have ceded 
 to you the country you are living in, we yet remain mas- 
 ters of what we have retained for ourselves ! " 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the many injudicious acts 
 of Governor Kieft, it cannot be denied that, during his 
 administration, the trade of New Amsterdam began to be 
 better regulated. The streets of the town, also, were bet- 
 ter laid out in the lower section of the city.* In 
 1641, Kieft instituted two annual fairs, for the ^'^^^' 
 purpose of encouraging agriculture — one of which was 
 held in October, for cattle ; and the other the next month, 
 for hogs, upon the Bowling Green. The holding of these 
 fairs opened the way for another important addition to 
 the comfort of the town. No tavern, as yet, had been 
 started in the Dutch settlement ; and the numerous vis- 
 itors from the interior and the New England colonies 
 were forced to avail themselves of the Governor's hos- 
 pitalities. The fairs increasing in number, Kieft found 
 them a heavy tax upon his politeness, as well as his 
 larder ; and, in 1642, he erected a large stone 
 tavern, at the Company's expense. It was situ- 
 ated on a commanding spot, near the present Coenties 
 Slip, and was afterward altered into the " iStadt IIui/s/' or 
 City Hall. 
 
 The Governor now succeeded better, not only in en- 
 forcing law and restraining contraband trade, but in check- 
 
 * The i^rice of lots, 30x135 feet, averaged at this period about $14. 
 
38 HISTORY OF NEW TOHK CITY. 
 
 ing the importation of bad wampum, which had become a 
 serious loss to the traders, by reducing its value from four 
 to six beads for a stiver. 
 
 Wampum or sewant, from its close connection with the 
 early trade of New Netherland, requires special notice. 
 This kind of money, or circulating medium, embraced two 
 kinds, the wampum or white, and the Suckanhocksucki, or 
 black sewant The former was made from t'.e periwinkle, 
 and the latter from the purple part of the hard clam. 
 These, rounded into beads and polished, with drilled holes, 
 were strung upon the sinews of animals, and woven into 
 different sized belts. Black beads were twice as valuable 
 as the white, and the latter became, therefore, naturally, 
 the standard of value. A string, a fathom long,* was worth 
 fuur guilders. The best article was manufactured by the 
 Long Island Indians ; and, until a comparatively late 
 period, the Montauks on that island, or rather, their 
 descendants, manufactured this shell-money for the inte- 
 rior tribes. A clerk of John Jacob Astor many yeai-s ago 
 informed the Hon. G. P. Disosway that he had visited 
 Communipaw, and purchased for his employer, from the 
 Dutch, this article by the hushel^ to be used by the great 
 fur dealer in his purchases among the disbint savages. It 
 might, perhaps, be a curious question, how many bushels 
 of wampum are invested, for example, in the hotel which 
 bears the name of the great fur millionaire 1 The New 
 England Indians, imitating theii- whiter-facsd neighbors, 
 made a cheaper wampum^ rough, of inferior quality, and 
 badly strung. Nor was it long before the New England- 
 ers introduced large quantities of their imperfect beads 
 into New Netherland for the Dutchman's goods; next, 
 
 * A " fathom " was estimated at " much as a man could reach with his arms 
 outstretched." The savages, consequently, were shrewd enough (in trading 
 with the whites) to choose their largest and tallest men for measuring sticks 
 or standards. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 39 
 
 beads of porcelain were manufactured in Europe, and cir- 
 culated among the colonists, until the evil finally became 
 so great, that the Council, in 1641, published an ordi- 
 nance, declaring that a large quantity of bad sewant, im- 
 ported from other places, was in circulation, while the 
 good and really fine sewant, usually called " Manhattan 
 Sewant^'' was kept out of sight, or exported — a state of 
 things which must eventually ruin the country. To cure 
 this public evil, the ordinance provided that all coarse 
 sewant, well stringed, should pass for one stiver. This is 
 the first ordinance, on record, to regulate such currency. 
 In the year 1647, they were again reduced from six to 
 eight for a stiver, and thus became the commercial 
 " greenbacks " of the early Dutch. 
 
 About this period, the increasing intercourse and busi- 
 ness with the English settlements made it necessary that 
 more attention should be paid to the English language. 
 Governor Kieft had, it is true, some knowledge of the 
 English tongue ; but his subordinates were generally 
 ignorant of it — a circumstance which often caused great 
 embarrassment. George Baxter was accordingly appointed 
 his English Secretary, with a salary of two hundred dol- 
 lars per annum; and thus, for the first time, the English 
 language was officially recognized in New Amsterdam. 
 
 As the colony grew stronger, the Dutch scattered 
 themselves further into the interior ; established them- 
 selves more firmly at Manhattan; and thus gave to the 
 City of New York its first incorporation two hundred and 
 nineteen years ago. The ferries received early attention 
 from the corporation. No one was permitted to be a 
 ferryman, without a license from the magistrates. The 
 ferryman also was required to provide proper boats and 
 servants, with houses, on both sides of the river, to accom- 
 modate passengers. All officials passed free of toll ; cr, 
 to speak more in accordance with the language of the 
 
40 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 present day, were dead-heads. But the ferryman was not 
 compelled to cross tlie river in a tempest. Foot-pas.«en- 
 gers were charged three stivers each, except Indians, who 
 paid six, unless two or more went over together.* The 
 annual salary of the Biurgomasters was also, at this period, 
 fixed at three hundred and fifty guilders, and the Shepens 
 at two hundred and fifty. A corporate seal was granted 
 to the city, in which the principal object was a beaver, as 
 was also the case, as has been seen, with the seal of New 
 Netherland. 
 
 SEiLS OF 1\E\^ AMSTERDAM aKD NEW YORK, 
 
 The first charter of New Netherland restricted, as we 
 have seen, the commercial privileges of the foiroons ; but 
 in the year 1640 they were extended to "all free colonists," 
 and the stockholders in the Dutch Company. Neverthe- 
 less, the latter body adhered to onerous imports, for its 
 own benefit, and required a duty of ten per cent, on all 
 goods shipped to New Netherland, and five upon return 
 cargoes, excepting peltry, which paid ten at Manhattan, 
 before exported. The prohibition of manufactures within 
 the province was now abolished, and the Company renewed 
 its pi-omise to send over " as many blacks as possible." 
 
 In 1643, the colonists easily obtained goods 
 
 from the Company's warehouse, whither they 
 
 were obliged to bring their fur purchases, before ship- 
 
 * On the 19tli of March, 1658, the New Amsterdam and Long Island Ferry 
 was put up at auction, and leased for three hundred guilders per annum. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 41 
 
 ment to Holland. The furs were then generally sold at 
 Amsterdam, under the supervision of the patroon, whose 
 share, at first, was one-half, but was afterward reduced to 
 one-sixth. Under this system, the price of a beaver's 
 skin, which before 1642 had been six, now rose to ten 
 " fathoms." It was, therefore, considered proper for the 
 colonial authorities to regulate this traffic ; and they, 
 acccordingly, fixed the price at nine " fathoms " of white 
 wampum, at the same time fordidding all persons to 
 " go into the bush to trade." Another proclamation 
 declared that " no inhabitants of the colonies should pre- 
 sume to buy any goods from the residents." It would 
 appear, however, that these ordinances could not be en- 
 forced; for a sloop, soon after arriving with a cargo, the 
 colonists purchased what they wanted. The commissary 
 was then ordered to search the houses for concealed goods.. 
 But the old record naively says : " The Schout gossipped, 
 without making a search." 
 
 In 1644, the ever-busy New Englanders — im- 
 agining that the beavers came from "a great lake 
 in the northwest part" of their patent — began to covet a 
 share in the fur trade on the Delaware. Accordingly, an 
 expedition was dispatched from Boston to " sail up the 
 Delaware, as high as they could go; and some of the 
 company, under the conduct of Mr. William Aspinwall, a 
 good artist, and one who had been in those parts, to pass 
 by small skiffs or canoes up the river, so far as they could." 
 The expedition failing, another bark " was sent out the 
 same year, from Boston, to trade at Delaware." Winter- 
 ing in the bay, during the spring she went to the Mary- 
 land side, and in three weeks obtained five hundred 
 beaver-skins — a " good parcel." But this second Boston 
 trading voyage was ruined by the savages ; for, as the 
 bark was leaving, fifteen Indians came aboard, " as if they 
 would trade again," and suddenly drawing their hatchets 
 
 6 
 
42 HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY 
 
 from under their coats, killed the captain, with three of 
 the crew, and then rifled the vessel of all her goods. 
 
 This continued interference of New England adventur- 
 ers with the Delaware trade, at length became very annoy- 
 ing to Kieft, as well as to Printz, the Swedish Governor 
 of the Delaware colony. The Dutch at New Amsterdam, 
 as the earliest explorers of South River, had seen their 
 trading monopoly there invaded by the Swedes ; but when 
 the New Englanders made their appearance in pursuit of 
 the same prize, the Swedes made common cause with the 
 Dutch to repel the new intruders. The question of sov- 
 ereignty was soon raised abroad by the arrival of two 
 Swedish ships, the Key of Kalmar and the Flame ^ sent 
 home by Printz with large cargoes of tobacco and beaver- 
 skins. Bad weather, and the war which had just arisen 
 between Denmark and Sweden, obliged these vessels to 
 run into the Port of Harlington, in Friesland. There they 
 were seized by the West India Company, which not only 
 claimed sovereignty over all the regions around the South 
 River, but exacted the import duties that their charter 
 granted The Swedish Minister at the Hague protested 
 against these exactions ; and a long correspondence en- 
 sued, which resulted in the vessels being discharged the 
 following summer upon the payment of the import duties. 
 
 During the year 1644, Kieft, headstrong and impru- 
 dent as usual, became involved in a war with the New 
 England Indians. At this juncture of affairs, a ship 
 arrived from Holland with a cargo of goods for Van 
 Rensselaer's patroonerij ; and Kieft, the Dutch forces be- 
 ing in want of clothing, called upon the supercargo to 
 furnish fifty pairs of shoes for the soldiers, offering full 
 payment in silver, beaver, or wampum. The supercargo, 
 however, zealously regarding his patroorHs mercantile inter- 
 ests, refused to comply, whereupon the Governor ordered 
 a levy, and obtained enough shoes to supply as "many sol- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 43 
 
 diers as afterward killed five hundred of the enemy." The 
 Governor, much provoked, next commanded the vessel to 
 be thoroughly searched, when a large lot of guns and am- 
 munition, not in the manifest, were discovered and declared 
 contraband, and the ship and cargo confiscated. Winthrop 
 says that he had on board 4,000 weight of powder and seven 
 hundred guns, with which he proposed to carry on a trade 
 with the natives. For such acts as these, Kieffc seems to 
 have been equally detested by Indians and Dutch, the for- 
 mer desu-ing his removal, and daily crying, " Wouter ! 
 Wouter ! " meaning Wouter Van Twiller, his immediate 
 predecessor. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Indian war continued ; the Dutch set- 
 tlers were in danger of utter destruction ; and the expenses 
 of the soldier'y could not be met. Neither could the West 
 India Company send aid to its, unfortunate colony, as' that 
 JatJdy hadTDeen made banl^rupt byits military operations 
 ih Brazifc--A bm of exchange, drawn by Kieft upon the 
 Amsterdam Chamber, came back protested. The demands 
 for public money were too pressing to await the slow pro- 
 ceedings of an admiralty court ; and accordingly, soon after 
 this, on the 29th of May, 1644, a privateer, the La Garce, 
 Captain Blauvelt, having been commissioned by the Gov- 
 ernor to cruise in the West Indies, returned to Manhattan 
 with two rich Spanish prizes. 
 
 Director Kieft now proposed to replenish the Provis- 
 ional Treasury by an excise on wine, beer, brandy, and 
 beaver-skins. This was opposed by his official advisers, 
 or the so-called " Eight Men," because they thought such 
 an act would be oppressive, and the right of taxation be- 
 longed to sovereignty, and not to an inferior officer in 
 New Netherland. An old account says that the Director 
 was " very much offended," and sharply reprimanded the 
 people's representatives, declaring, " I have more power 
 here than the Company has itself; therefore, T may do 
 
44 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and suffer in this country what I please ; I am my own 
 master." * * * Remaining immovable, however, he 
 three days afterward arbitrarily ordered "that on each 
 barrel of beer tapped, an excise duty of two guilders 
 fchould be paid — one-half by the brewer, and one-half by 
 the publican." But those Burghers who did not retail it 
 were to pay only one-half as much. On every quart of 
 brandy and wine also, four stivers were to be paid, and 
 on every beaver-skin one guilder. Besides the excise on 
 the beer, the brewers were also required to make a return 
 of the quantity they brewed; but upon their sternly 
 refusing to pay the unjust tribute, judgment was obtained 
 against them, and their beer "given as a prize to the 
 soldiers." 
 
 STREET VIEW IN AJSCIENT ALBANY. 
 
 But notwithstanding all the efforts to restrain illicit 
 traffic, it still continued at Rensselaerswyck (Albany), 
 where three or four thousand furs had been carried away 
 by unlicensed traders. Van Rensselaer, " as the first and 
 oldest " patroon on the river, resolved that no one should 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 4.5 
 
 " presume to abuse " his acquired rights, and erected a 
 fort on Beelen Island. A claim of " staple right" was set 
 up, and Nicholas Koorn was appointed " Wacht-Meester," 
 to levy a toll of five guilders upon all vessels passing by, 
 except those of the West India Company, and to make 
 them lower their colors to the merchant patroon's authority. 
 This annoyance soon manifested itself^ for while the Good 
 Hope, a little yacht, Captain Loockermans, was passing 
 down from Fort Orange to Manhattan, " a guA without 
 ball " was fired from the new fort, and Koorn cried out, 
 " Strike thy colors ! " " For whom 1 " demanded the cap- 
 tain of the vessel. " For the staple right of Rensselaer ! '' 
 was the reply. "I strike for nobody but the Prince of 
 Orange, or those by whom I am emploj'ed ! " retorted the 
 testy Dutchman, as he slowly steered on. Several shots 
 followed. "The first," according to the old account, "went 
 through the sail, and broke the ropes and the ladder ; a 
 second shot passed over us ; and the third, fired by a sav- 
 age, perforated our princely colors, about a foot above the 
 head of Loockermans, who kept the colors constantly in 
 his hand." 
 
 
 OLD DUTCH CHrKCH AT ALBANY. 
 
4f,* HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. 
 
 For this daring act Koorn was forthwith called to 
 answer before the Council at Fort Amsterdam, when he 
 pleaded his patroon^s authority. Van der Huyghens, the 
 Schout-Fiscal (SheriflF), also protested against "the law- 
 less transactions" of the patioori's wacht-meester. Still, 
 the patroon's agent tried to justify his course, " inasmuch 
 as this step had been taken to keep tJie canker of free- 
 traders off his colonies." Nevertheless, he was fined, and 
 forbidden to repeat his offense. 
 
 At length the pitiable oondition^-of the New Nether- 
 land colony attracted the attention of the Dutch Govern- 
 ment. Its originators, as before mentioned, had become 
 nearly, if not entirely, bankrupt. To use their own official 
 words, " the long-looked-for profits thence " had never 
 arrived, and they themselves had no means to relieve 
 "the poor inhabitants who^ had left their Fatherland;'''' 
 accordingly, the bankrupt Company urged the " States- 
 General " for a subsidy of 1,000,000 of guilders to place the 
 Dutch province in good, prosperous, and profitable order. 
 
 That body directed an examination to be made into 
 the affairs of New Netherland, and also into the propriety 
 of restricting its internal trade to residents, with the policy 
 of opening a free one between Brazil and Manhattan. 
 Upon making this investigation, it was found that New 
 Netherland, instead of becoming a source of jiommercial 
 profit to the Company, had absolutely cost that body, from 
 tjie_year^l626 to 1644, "over 550,000 guilders, deducting 
 returns received from there." Still, "the Company could 
 not decently or consistently abandon it." The Director's 
 salary, the report continues, should be 3,000 guilders, and 
 the whole civil and military establishment of New Nether- 
 land 20,000 guilders. As many African negroes^it thought, 
 should be brought from Ufazil as the patroons, farmers, and 
 settlers "would be willing to pay for at a fair price." It 
 would thus appear that our Dutch forefathers had some- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 47 
 
 thing to do with the slave trade, as well as the Eastern and 
 Southern colonies. Free grants of land were to be offered 
 tojill_e,migrants-4Dn -Manhattan -Island; a trade allowed .to 
 Brazil and the fisheries ; the manufacture and exportation 
 of salt were to be encouraged, and the duties of the reve- 
 nue officers "sharply attended to." Such was the business 
 condition of New Netherland in the year 1645. The five 
 previous years of Indian wars had hardly known five 
 months of peace and prosperity. Kief t^ -^perceiving his 
 foriner_ errors, concluded- a -treaty-_jof-amity with -the-In- 
 dians, August 30th, 1645. In two years, not less 
 than 1,600 savages had been killed at Manhattan 
 and its neighborhood, and scarcely one hundred could be 
 found besides traders. 
 
 The insufficient condition of the fort as a place of de- 
 fense became the subject of serious consideration aftei 
 this war, and the authorities in Holland, listening to the 
 importunities of the colonists, gave directions for its im- 
 provement, requiring, however, that the people should con- 
 tribute, to some extent, towards the labor and expense 
 involved. In 1647, the subject was discussed in 
 the Council of the Director-General, and a resolu- 
 tion was passed that the fort should be repaired with 
 stone laid in mortar, " by which means alone," it was 
 stated, " a lasting work could be made," inasmuch as the 
 earth to be procured in the neighborhood was entirely 
 unfit to make it stable with sods, unless it were annually 
 renewed, nearly at the same expense ; and, as this pro- 
 ject required a considerable disbursement for labor in 
 carrying the stone, etc., it was found expedient to consult 
 the inhabitants, to learn the extent to which assistance 
 would be afibrded by them. In communicating their resolve 
 to the people, the authorities referred to " this glorious 
 work, which must increase the respect for the Govern- 
 ment as well as afford a safe retreat to the inhabitants in 
 
48 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 case of danger." The suggestion was, that every male 
 inhabitant, between the ages of sixteen and sixty years, 
 should devote, annually, twelve days' labor, or, in lieu 
 thereof, contribute for each day two guilders (eighty 
 cents). But the project was found too expensive for the 
 means at hand, and the completion of the work with 
 stone was abandoned for the time, the work being re- 
 paired with earth as before. Nor does it appear that it 
 was, as yet, protected by any inclosm-e from the inroads 
 of the vagrant cattle, as the Director is found, from time 
 to time, expostulating with the city authorities against 
 permitting swine, goats, and other animals, to run at large 
 in the town, from which great destruction to the works 
 of the fortress ensued.* 
 
 Soon after the peace, in 1647, Kieft, having been re- 
 called, embarked for Holland, carrying with him speci- 
 mens of New Netherland minerals (gathered by the 
 Raritan Indians in the Neversink Hills), and a fortune 
 estimated by his enemies at 400.000 guilders. Dominie 
 Bogardus and Van der Huygens, late Fiscal, were fellow- 
 passengers in the richly-laden vessel. The ship, having 
 been carelessly navigat,ed into the English Channel, was 
 wrecked upon the rugged coast of Wales, and went to 
 pieces. Kieft, with eighty other persons, including Bo- 
 gardus and the ex-Fiscal, were lost; only twenty were 
 saved. Melyn, the patroon of Staten Island, floating on 
 his back, landed on a sand-bank, and thence reached the 
 main-land in safety. 
 
 * This matter came to be considered of so great importance, that, in 1656, 
 Governor Stuyvesant again communicated with the Holland authorities 
 respecting the improvement of the fort, and received from them a favorable 
 response, stating that tliey had no objection to bave the fort surrounded with 
 a stone-wall, and were willing, in tbe ensuing spring, to send " a few good 
 masons and carpenters to assist in the work," enjoining the Governor, in tbe 
 meanwhile, to have the necessary materials prepared and in readiness when 
 ihe mechanics should arrive. — Valentine's Manual. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the, llth of May, 1647, Governor Stuyve- 
 sant, as " Redresser-General " of all the colonial 
 abuses, arrived at Manhattan, to enter upon an adminis- 
 tration which was to last until the end of the Dutch 
 power over New Netherland. Well might the new 
 Governor write home that he " found the colony in a 
 low condition." Disorder and discontent were every- 
 where apparent, the public revenue was in arrears, and 
 smuggliiig had nearly ruined legitimate trade. Such 
 were thd auspices — sufficiently gloomy — under which the 
 last of ihe Dutch Governors entered upon his adminis- 
 tration. Far from despairing, however, the sturdy Dutch- 
 man put his shoulder at once to the wheel. Publicans 
 were restrained from selling liquor before two o'clock 
 on Sundays, "when there is no preaching," and after 
 nine o'clock in the evening ; to the savages none was to 
 be sold. The revenue, greatly defrauded by smuggling 
 furs into New England and Virginia for shipment to Eng- 
 land, was henceforth to be guarded by stringent laws. 
 The introduction of foreign merchandise by vessels run- 
 ning past Fort Amsterdam during the night was also to 
 be stopped ; and all vessels were obliged to anchor under 
 the guns of the fort, near the present Battery. For the 
 purpose of replenishing the treasury, an excise duty was 
 now, for the first time, levied on wines and liquors ; the 
 
 7 
 
50 HISTOKy OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 export duty on peltry was increased ; the unpaid tenths 
 from the impoverished farmers were called in, although a 
 year's grace was allowed for payment, in consequence of 
 losses by the Indian wars ; and, in addition to all this, 
 two of the Company's yachts, still further to increase the 
 revenue, were sent on a cruise to the West Indies, to cap- 
 ture, if possible, some of the richly-laden Spanish vessels 
 returning to Spain. 
 
 Stuyvesant, also, seems to have been the first Gov- 
 ernor who took pride in improving the town itself. He 
 found the infant city very unattractive, with half the 
 houses in a dilapidated condition, cattle running at large, 
 the public ways crooked, and the fences straggling in zig- 
 zag fashion, many of them encroaching on the lines of 
 the streets. All these evils he at once set about to 
 remedy ; and one of his earHest acts was to appoint the 
 first " Surveyors of Buildings," whose duties were to 
 regulate the erection of new houses in New Amsterdam. 
 
 The Dutch Company " now resolved to open to private 
 persons the trade which it had exclusively carried on with 
 New Netherland, the Virginia, the Swedish, English, and 
 French colonies, or other places thereabout ;" and the new 
 Director and Council were ordered to be vigilant in en- 
 forcing all colonial custom-house regulations. All car- 
 goes to New Netherland were to be examined, on arrival, 
 by the custom-house ofl&cers, and all who were homeward- 
 bound were to give bonds for the payment of duties in 
 Holland. Nor was it long before Stuyvesant had an op- 
 portunity of showing his zeal. The St. Benicio, an Am- 
 sterdam ship, was found trading at New Haven without 
 the license of the West India Company ; but the owners 
 of the cargo applied for permission to trade at Manhattan, 
 upon the payment of the proper duties. This permit 
 obtained, Stuyvesant learned that the ship was about to 
 sail directly to Virginia, without having paid duties. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 51 
 
 as well as without a manifest. The case having thus 
 assumed an open violation of the colonial revenue laws, 
 the Governor embarked a company of soldiers, who, sail- 
 ing up the Sound, captured the smuggler in New Haven 
 harbor. This bold act naturally produced a great sensa- 
 tion ; and Eaton, the Governor of the New Haven colony, 
 protested against Stuyvesant, as a disturber of the peace. 
 In reply, Stuyvesant claimed all the region from Cape 
 Henlopen to Cape Cod as a part of New Netherland, 
 with the right to levy duty upon all Dutch vessels trad- 
 ing at New Haven. A sharp correspondence ensued be- 
 tween the "State Right" parties, which resulted in the 
 Dutch Governor issuing a proclamation, declaring, " If any 
 person, noble or ignoble, freeman or slave, debtor or creditor 
 — yea, to the lowest prisoner included, run away from New 
 Haven, or seek refuge in our limits, he shall remain free, 
 under our protection, on taking the oath of allegiance." 
 The Dutch colonists, however, objected to this unwise 
 measure as tending to change their province into a 
 refuge for vagabonds from the neighboring English settle- 
 ments, and the obnoxious proclamation was thereupon 
 revoked. 
 
 About this period, 1648, it became necessary to regu- 
 late the taverns, as about one-fourth part of the 
 town of New Amsterdam had become houses for 
 the sale of brandy, tobacco, or beer. No new taverns, 
 it was ordained, should be licensed, except by the unani- 
 mous consent of the Director and his Council ; and those 
 established might continue four years longer, if their 
 owners would abstain from selling to the savages, report 
 all brawls, and occupy decent houses — " to adorn the 
 town of New Amsterdam." Notwithstanding, however, 
 all these precautions, the Indians were daily seen " run- 
 ning about drunk through the Manhattans." New York, 
 now the metropolitan city, witnesses every day and 
 
52 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 night crowds of such drunken savages in her streets ; and 
 it would ahnost seem that our wise legislators have not 
 wisdom or strength enough to frame laws to subdue or 
 prevent this great public evil. Finally, at New Amster- 
 dam, in addition to all the former penalties, offenders 
 against the temperance' laws were "to be arbitrarily 
 punished without any dissimulation." 
 
 In the year 1648, no person was allowed to carry on 
 busmess, except he was a permanent resident and had 
 taken the oath of allegiance, was worth from two thou- 
 sand to three thousand guilders at least, and intended to 
 " keep fire and light in the province." This was an 
 early expression of permanent residence in the Dutch 
 province. Old residents, however, not possessing the 
 full trading qualifications, were allowed the same privi- 
 lege, provided they remained in the province, and used 
 only the weights and measures of " Old Amsterdam, to 
 which we owe our name." Scotch merchants and ped- 
 dlers were not forgotten in these business arrangements, 
 for it was also ordained that " all Scotch merchants and 
 small dealers, who come over from their own country 
 with the intention of trading here," should " not be per- 
 mitted to carry on any trade in the land" until they had 
 resided there three years. They were also required to 
 build a " decent, habitable tenement" one year after their 
 arrival. Every. Monday was to be a mai-ket-day, and, in 
 imitation of Fatherland, an annual " keemis," or fair, for 
 ten days, was established, commencing on Monday after 
 St. Bartholomew's Day, at which all persons could sell 
 goods from their tents. The trade on the North and the 
 South River was reserved for citizens having the re- 
 quisite qualifications. It was declared, however, that the 
 East River should be " free and open to any one, no 
 matter to what nation he may belong.". All vessels 
 under fifty tons were to anchor between the Capsey 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 53 
 
 " Hoeck " (which divided the East and North Rivers) and 
 the " Hand," or guide-board, near the present Battery. 
 No freight was to be landed, nor any boats to leave the 
 vessels, from sunset to sunrise. Those regulations were 
 strictly enforced, and the high custom or duties exacted 
 from the colonists amounted to almost thirty per cent., 
 " besides waste." " The avidity of the Director to con- 
 fiscate," says an old account, " was a vulture, destroying 
 the property of New Netherland, diverting its trade, and 
 making the people discontented." This '''bad report" 
 spread among the English, north and south, and even 
 reached the West India and Caribbean Islands. Boston 
 traders declared that more than twenty-five vessels would 
 every year reach Manhattan from those islands, " if the 
 owners were not fearful of confiscation." Not a ship 
 now dared come from those places. Difficulties constantly 
 arising between the authorities of the Fatherland and New 
 Netherland, the " Presiding Chamber " plainly perceived 
 that they must make concessions, or lose all control over 
 their distant colony. Accordingly, the " Commonalty of 
 Manhattan" was informed that the Amsterdam Di- 
 rectors had determined to abolish the export duty on 
 tobacco, to reduce the price of the same, and to allow the 
 colonists to purchase negroes from Africa — all this being 
 designed to show their "good intentions." They also 
 informed Governor Stuyvesant of their assent to a 
 " burgher government" in Manhattan, which should ap- 
 proach as nearly as possible to the custom of "the 
 metropolis of Holland." At the time that the colonists 
 had obtained this concession (1652) of the long- ^^^^ 
 desired burgher government, New Amsterdam 
 numbered a population of seven hundred or eight hun- 
 dred souls. 
 
 At last, a naval war, long brewing, broke out between 
 Eno-land and the United Provinces,. and, without warning. 
 
54 HISTOHY OF NEW TOEK CITi: 
 
 Dutch ships were arrested in English ports, and the crews 
 impressed. Martin Harpertsen Tromp commanded the 
 Dutch fleet. His name has no prej&x of- " Van," as many 
 writers insist. Bancroft and Brodhead are among the 
 few who have not adopted the common error. The Dutch 
 Admiral was no more " Van Tromp " than the Enghsh 
 was " Van Blake," or our brave American " Van Farra- 
 gut," Tromp, in a few days, met the British fleet, under 
 Admiral Blake, in Dover Straits, and a bloody but inde- 
 cisive fight followed. Brilliant naval engagements ensued, 
 in which Tromp and De Ruyter, with Blake and Ayscue, 
 immortalized themselves. But the first year of hostili- 
 ties closing with a victory for the Dutch, Blake sought 
 refuge for his vessels in the Thames River, when 
 the Dutch commander placed a broom at his mast- 
 head — an emblem or token that he had swept the 
 British Channel free from British ships. These hos- 
 tilities between Holland and England encouraged pirates 
 and robbers to infest the shores of the East River, and 
 perpetrate excesses on Long Island and the neighborhood 
 of New Amsterdam. Several yachts were immediately 
 commissioned to act against the pirates. A reward of one 
 hundred thalers was ofiered for each of the outlaws, and 
 a proclamation issued prohibiting all persons from har- 
 boring them, under the penalty of banishment and the 
 confiscation of their goods. Forces had even been col- 
 lected to act against New Netherland, but the joyful in- 
 telligence of peace sent them to dislodge the French from 
 the coast of Maine ; and thus, for ten years longer, the 
 coveted Dutch-American province continued under the 
 sway of Holland. The peace was published " in 
 the ringing of bell" from the City Hall, and the 
 12th of August, 1654, appointed, piously by Stuyvesant, as 
 a day of general thanksgiving. 
 
 During the same month, 1654, Le Moyne, a Jesuit 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 55 
 
 father and missionary to tlie Indians, immortalized his 
 name by a discovery which afterward formed one of the 
 largest sources of wealth in our State. Reaching the en- 
 trance of a small lake, filled with salmon-trout and other 
 fish, he tasted the water of a spring, which his Indian 
 guides were afraid to drink, saying that there was a demon 
 in it which rendered it oflensive. But the Jesuit had dis- 
 covered " a fountain._oi'. salt water," from which he actu- 
 ally made salt as natural as that of the sea. Taking a 
 sample, he descended the Oneida, passed over Ontario and 
 the St Lawr-ence, and safely reached Quebec with the in- 
 telligence of his wonderful discovery. To the State of 
 New York it has been more valuable than a mine of silver 
 or gold. 
 
 During the year 1654, the Swedish and the Casimir 
 colonists on the Delaware took the Dutch fort on that 
 river ; and soon after, Stuy vesant avenged himself by cap- 
 turing the Golden Shark, a Swedish ship, bound to South 
 River, which, by mistake, had entered Sandy Hook and 
 anchored behind Siaten Island. The captain, having dis- 
 covered his error, sent a boat to Manhattan for a pilot, 
 when the Governor ordered the crew to the guard-house, 
 and dispatched soldiers to seize the vessel. The Sharlt's 
 cargo was removed to the Company's magazine, until a 
 reciprocal restitution should be made. The Swedish agent 
 sent a long protest to Governor Stuyvesant, complaining 
 of his conduct. 
 
 In the year 1656, there were in New Amsterdam one 
 hundred and twenty houses and one thousand 
 souls. A proclamation, issued at this time, forbade 
 the removal of any corps in the town or colony, until the 
 Company's tithes had been paid. The authorities of Rens- 
 selaerswick refusing to publish tbis notice, the tapsters 
 were sent down to New Amsterdam^, pleading that they 
 acted under the orders of their feudal officers. This 
 
56 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 defense was overruled, and one person was fined two 
 hundred pounds, and another, eight hundred guilders. 
 
 The cities of Holland, for a long time, had enjoyed cer- 
 tain municipal privileges called " great " and " small " 
 burgher rights. In Amsterdam, all who paid five hundred 
 guilders were enrolled " great burghers," and they monop- 
 olized all the offices, and were also exempt from attainder 
 and confiscation of goods. The "small burghers" paid 
 filty guilders for the honors, and had the freedom of trade 
 only. This burghership became hereditary in Holland, 
 and could pass by marriage, and be acquired by females 
 as well as by males. Foreigners, after a year's probation, 
 could also become burghers ; and the burghers were gen- 
 erally the merchants and tradesmen. The various trades 
 and professions formed separate associations, or '■'■guilds" 
 and their members were bound to assist each other in 
 distress or danger. In Fatherland, each guild generally 
 inhabited a separate quarter of the town, was organized 
 as a military company, and fought under its own stand- 
 ard, having its own "dekken," or dean. 
 
 In the year 1657, "in conformity to the laudable cus- 
 tom of the city of Amsterdam in Europe," this great 
 burgher right was introduced into New Amsterdam. 
 This was an absurd imitation of an invidious policy, 
 and the mother city herself was sqon obliged to abandon 
 it, notwithstanding Governor Stuyvesant attempted to 
 establish in New Amsterdam this most oflFensive of all 
 distinctions — an aristocracy founded on a. class, or mere 
 wealth. 
 
 In Mr. Paulding's " Affairs and Men of New Amster- 
 dam in the Time of Governor Peter Stuyvesant," there is 
 a list of the recorded Great CrTiZENSHip, in the year 1657. 
 As a rare matter of the olden time, it is here given entire : 
 
 " Job. La Montagne, Junior ; Jan Gillesen Van Burggh, 
 Hendricksen Kip, De Heere General Stuyvesant, Domine 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 57 
 
 Megapolensis, Jacob Gerritsen Strycker, Jan Virge, The' 
 wife of Cornells Van Tienhoven, Hendrick Van Dyck, 
 Kip Hendrick, Junior ; Captain Martin Krigier, Karl Van 
 Burggh, Jacob Van Couwenhoven, Laurisen Cornelisen, 
 Van Wyek, Johannes Pietersen, Van Burggh, Cornelis Steen- 
 wyck, Wilb. Bogardus, Daniel Litschoe, Pieter Van Cou- 
 wenhoven." These twenty names composed the aristoc- 
 racy of New York two hundred and thirteen years ago, 
 when umbi-ellas and carriages were unknown. 
 
 We have also before us the names of the "small" citi- 
 zenship, which number two hundred and sixteen. In a 
 few short years it was found that this division of the citi- 
 zens into two classes produced great inconvenience^ in 
 consequence of the very small number of great burghers 
 who were eligible to office. It became necessary for the 
 Government to change this unpopular order. The heavy 
 fee to obtain it frightened most foreigners, so that it was 
 purchased but once during a period of sixteen years. In 
 the year 1668, the difference between " great " and 
 "small" burghers was abolished, when every burgher be- 
 came legally entitled to all burgher privileges. 
 
 During the year 1659, it was discovered that the Dutch 
 colony had as yet produced no returns, and was already 
 seven thousand guilders in arrears. It was there- 
 fore determined that, to prevent further loss, such 
 colonists only as had left Holland before December, 1658, 
 should be supplied with provisions. Goods were to be 
 sold only for cash, and exemptions from tithes and taxes 
 were to cease several years before the original stipulated 
 period, and merchandise thereafter was to be consigned to 
 the city of Amsterdam exclusively. The colonists remon- 
 strated against this new restriction of trade, which had the 
 appearance of gross slavery, and of fettering the free pros- 
 pects of a worthy people. This remonstrance was well 
 timed, and the City Council consented that all the traders 
 
 8 
 
58 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 on the South River might export all goods, except peltry, 
 ' - any place they wished. 
 
 In the year 1660, a second survey and map of New 
 Amsterdam was made by Jacques Cortelyou, and the city 
 was found to contain three hundred and fifty 
 *"*"'* houses. It was sent to the Amsterdam Chamber, 
 in case it should be thought " good to make it more pub- 
 lic by having it engraved." This early map has probably 
 been lost. 
 
 The restoration of Charles the Second, in 1661, did 
 not produce in England more friendly feelings towards 
 the Dutch ; and the two nations now became com- 
 mercial rivals. The Act of Navigation had already 
 closed the ports of New England, Virginia, and Maryland 
 against Holland and its colony of New Netherland ; and 
 such at that time was the narrow spirit of British states- 
 men, that many Independents and Dissenters desired to 
 seek new homes, where they would be alike free from 
 monarchy, prelacy, and British rule. 
 
 Nor were these considerations overlooked in Holland. 
 The West India Company now determined to invite 
 emigration to New Netherland by larger inducements ; 
 accordingly, a new charter was drawn up, which granted 
 to " all such people as shall be disposed to take up their 
 abode in those parts," fifteen leagues of land along the 
 sea-coast, " and as far in depth in the continent as any 
 plantation hath, or may be, settled in New Netherland." 
 Emigrants were also to have " high, middle, and low 
 jm-isdiction," "freedom from head-money" for twenty 
 years, property in mines, freedom for ten years from 
 taxes, the right to use their own ships, and freedom in 
 the fishing trade. " Therefore," added the Company, 
 " if any of the English, good Christians, who may be 
 assured of the advantage to mankind of plantations in 
 these latitudes to others more southerly, and shall ration- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 59 
 
 ally be disposed to transport themselves to the said place, 
 under the conduct of the United Provinces, they shall 
 have full liberty to live in the fear of the Lord, upon the 
 aforesaid good conditions, and shall be likewise court- 
 eously used." A proper act, under the seal of the Com- 
 pany, was issued at the Hague, which granted to " all 
 Christian people of tender conscience in England or else- 
 where oppressed, full liberty to erect a colony in the 
 West Indies, between New England and Virginia, in Amer- 
 ica, now within the jurisdiction of Peter Stuyvesant, the 
 States-General Governor for the West India Company." 
 How many " Christian people of tender conscience " 
 availed themselves of these advantageous offers, does not 
 appear; but the metropolis prospered. A better cur- 
 rency was now found to be indispensable, and the burgo- 
 masters wrote to Holland for authority to establish a 
 mint for the coinage of silver, and to constitute wampum 
 (needed for trade with the savages) an article of sale. 
 But the Amsterdam Directors refused to grant this 
 improvement of the colonial currency. 
 
 A number of breweries, brick-kilns, and other manu- 
 factories, carried on a successful business; and the pot- 
 teries on Long Island some persons esteemed equal to 
 those of Delft. Difck De Wolf having obtained from 
 the Amsterdam Chamber, in 1661, the exclusive privi- 
 lege of making salt for seven years in New Netherland, 
 began its manufacture upon Coney Island ; but the Graves- 
 end settlers, who claimed the spot, arrested the enter- 
 prise; and this, too, notwithstanding Governor Stuyve- 
 sant sent a military guard to protect him. 
 
 In the year 1664, the population of New Netherland 
 had increased to "full ten thousand," and New Amster- 
 dam contained one thousand five hundred, and 
 
 ■n -,. 1 1664- 
 
 wore an appearance of great prosperity. Enghsh 
 jealousy evidently increased with the augmenting com- 
 
60 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 merce of the Dutch. James, Duke of York, was the 
 King's brother, and also Governor of the African Com- 
 pany, and he denounced the Dutch West India Company, 
 which had endeavored to secure the territory on the 
 Gold Coast from English speculators and intruders. Eng- 
 land now resolved to march a step further, and, at one 
 blow, to rob Holland of her American province. The 
 King granted a sealed patent to the Duke of York for a 
 large territory in America, including Long Island, and 
 all lauds and rivers from the west side of the Connecti- 
 cut to the east side of Delaware Bay. This sweeping 
 grant embraced the whole of New Netherland. 
 
 The Duke of York, that he might lose no time in 
 securing his patent, dispatched Captain Scott, with one 
 hundred and fifty followers, to visit the Island of Man- 
 hattan, the value of which was now estimated at three 
 thousand pounds. On the 11th of January, 1664, the 
 valorous Scott made his appearance at "Breukelen" Ferry 
 Landing, and, with a great flourish of trumpets, demanded 
 submission to the English flag. Governor Stuyvesant, 
 despatching his Secretary, politely asked Captain Scott, 
 "Will you come across the river?" and the reply was, 
 " No ; let Stuyvesant come over with one hundred sol- 
 diers; I will wait for him here!" " What for?" demanded 
 the Secretiiry. " I would run him through the body !" 
 was the Captain's courteous answer. " That would not 
 be a friendly act," replied the Governor's Deputy. Thus 
 they parted ; Scott retiring to Midwout (Flatbush) with 
 his forces, with drums beatmg and colors flying, while the 
 people "looked on with wonder, not knowing what it 
 meant." Scott told them that they must abandon their 
 allegiance to the Dutch, and promised to confer with 
 Governor Stuyvesant. But when he reached the river, 
 on his way to New Amsterdam for this 'purpose, he de- 
 clined crossing it. Still he felt very brave, threatening 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. g] 
 
 to go over, proclaim the English King at the Manhattans, 
 and "rip the guts, and cut the feet from under any man 
 who says, ' This is not the King's land.' " This was, cer- 
 tainly, very bloodthirsty ; but the good people of Man- 
 hattan all escaped with whole feet and bowels. The 
 valiant Captain then marched to New Utrecht, ordered 
 the only gun of which the block-house boasted to be fired 
 in the King's honor, and then continued his triumphant 
 march to Amersfort, for another bloodless victory. 
 
 Governor Stuyvesant now ordered a new commission 
 to confer with Captain Scott, at Jamaica, and Cornells 
 Steenwyck* — one of the fathers of New Amsterdam, 
 residing on his farm at Harlem — was one of the commis- 
 sion. It was here agreed that the English Captain should 
 desist from disturbing the Dutch towns. The latter, 
 however, insisted that the basis of future negotiations 
 should recognize Long Island as belonging to Great 
 Britain. He also hinted that the Duke of York intended 
 to reduce, in time, the whole province of New Nether- 
 land — a -declaration which was to prove true sooner than 
 the Dutch Governor anticipated. 
 
 In September of the same year (1664), Colonel Nic- 
 oUs anchored before New Amsterdam with a fleet and 
 soldiers. His imperious message to Governor Stuyvesant 
 was : " I shall come with ships and soldiers, raise the 
 white flag of peace at the fort, and then something may 
 be considered. The Dutch colony was entirely unprepared 
 for such a warlike visit, and capitulated at eight o'clock 
 on the morning of September 8th, 1664. Stuyvesant, at 
 the head of the garrison, marched out of the fort with the 
 honors of war, pursuant to the terms of the surrender. 
 His soldiers were immediately led down the " Bever's 
 
 * There is a portrait of Mr. Steenwycli: in the collection of the N. Y. 
 Historical Society. 
 
g2 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Paatje,'' or Beaver Lane, to the shore of the North River, 
 where they embarked for Holland. An English "corpo- 
 ral's guard " immediately entered and took possession of 
 the fort, over which the English flag was at once hoisted. 
 Its name, Fort Amsterdam, was then changed to " Fort 
 James," and New Amsterdam was henceforth known as 
 " New York." This was a violent and treacherous seiz- 
 ure of territory at a time of profotmd peace — a breach of 
 private justice and public faith ; and by it, a great State 
 had imposed on it a name which is unknown in history, 
 save as it is connected with bigotry and tyranny, and 
 which has ever been an enemy of political and religious 
 hberty.* 
 
 Before following further the course of events, a brief 
 retrospect of the commercial prosperity of New Nether- 
 land seems desirable. At the period when Governor Stuy- 
 vesant's administration was so suddenly terminated b}'^ the 
 arrival of the Duke of York's forces, the population of 
 New Netherland was established at " full ten thousand." 
 When New Amsterdam was first surveyed, in 1656, it 
 contained one hundred and twenty houses and one thou- 
 sand souls, which increased to fifteen hundred in 1664. 
 Not quite two hundred and fifty of these were male 
 
 * As the surrender of Fort Amsterdam involved tlielcss of the entire Dutch 
 possessions in New Netherland, the conduct of Governor Stuyvesant, in not 
 maintaining its defense, was severely criticised by hia superiors in Holland. In 
 his justification, he explained that the fort was encompassed only by a slight 
 wall, two to three feet in thickness, backed by coarse gravel, not above eight, 
 nine, and ten feet high, in some places ; in others, higher, according to the rise 
 and fall of the ground. It was for the most part crowded all around with build- 
 ings, and better adapted for a citadel than for defense against an open enemy. 
 The houses were, in many places, higher than the walls and bastions, and ren- 
 dered those wholly exposed. Most of the houses had cellars not eight rods 
 distant from the wall of the fort ; in some places not two or three feet dis- 
 tant; and at one point scarce a rod from the wall, — so that whoever should be 
 master of the city, could readily approach with scaling-ladders from the adja- 
 cent houses, and mount the walla, which had neither a wet nor a dry ditch. — 
 Valentine's Maniuil. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 63 
 
 adults ; and the rest women and children below eighteen 
 years of age. The same city now numbers about a 
 million of people ! New York, on an average, has about 
 doubled its population every twenty-three years. Be it 
 remembered that trade and commerce became the great 
 stimulus of population, and their regulation of the utmost 
 importance. The damages incurred by the West India 
 Company during 1645-'6, in Brazil, and estimated at one 
 hundred tons of gold, rendered some measures necessary to 
 retrieve its condition. Trade with that country was there- 
 fore opened in the year 16 18 to the New Netherlanders, who 
 were permitted to send thither their produce, and return 
 with African slaves, whose subsequent exportation from 
 the Dutch Province was forbidden. Four years afterward, 
 the province obtained the privilege of trading to Africa for 
 slaves and other articles. In the same year, the monopoly 
 of the carrying trade between Holland and this country 
 (before in the hands of the Amsterdam Chamber) was 
 abolished ; " for the first time," private vessels were now 
 entered at Amsterdam ; and, in 1659, the privilege of ex- 
 porting produce to France, Spain, Italy, and the Carib- 
 bean Islands, was obtained. Thus, the markets of the 
 world, except those of the East, were opened to New Ncth- 
 erland ships. From this regulation, however, furs alone 
 were an exception, ks these were to be sent exclusively to 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 The duties were fixed by the tariff of 1648, at ten per 
 cent, on imported, and fifteen upon exported goods ; but 
 some difference existed in favor of English colonial but- 
 tons, causing them first to be sent to New England, and 
 thence imported into New Netherland at a low rate. To 
 obviate this, in 1651, the duties on such goods were raised 
 to sixteen per cent., tobacco excepted, its eight per cent, 
 tax being taken off. In the year 1655, the duties on im- 
 ports again were reduced to ten per cent, and, in 1659, 
 
64 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 owing to the demand for lead to be used in windoAv- 
 frames, this article was placed on the free-list. As we 
 have noticed, the industry of the Dutch colonists was 
 early manifested in ship-building. At the close of Stuy- 
 vesant's administration, a number of distilleries, breweries, 
 and potasheries, were in operation, with several manufac- 
 tories of tiles, bricks, and earthenware. An attempt was 
 also made, in 1657, to introduce the silk culture; two 
 years after, mulberry-trees were exported to Curacoa; 
 and, as before stated, the making of salt was attempted ; 
 but the inhabitants of Gravesend, claiming Coney Island 
 under their patent, destroyed the houses and improve- 
 ments, burnt the fences, and threatened to throw the 
 workmen into the flames. 
 
 Although wampum, or "zeawan" had become almost the 
 exclusive currency of New Netherlands (1664), still, beaver 
 remained the standard of value. During the years 1651—2, 
 Director Stuyvesant tried to introduce a specie currency, 
 and applied to Holland for twenty-five thousand guilders 
 in Dutch shillings and four-penny pieces, but the Di- 
 rectors there disapproved of his project. The people 
 were thus entirely dependent on wampum, as we are now 
 upon " greenbacks," and the value of wages, property, 
 and every commodity, was, in consequence, seriously 
 disturbed. So it is in this day, and ever will be, with an 
 ■ irredeemable currency, whether of clam-shells, thin paper, 
 or any thing else, not equal to specie. At first, wampum 
 passed at the rate of four black beads for one stiver ; next, 
 it was lowered to six ; .again, in 1657, to eight; and then 
 it was ordered to be considered a tender for gold and 
 silver. But Stuyvesant wisely objected, as it would bring 
 the value of property to naught. In the year 1650, the 
 white wampum was next reduced from twelve to sixteen, 
 and the black from six to eight for a stiver. What was 
 the result? The holder was obliged to give more wampum 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 65 
 
 for any article he purchased of the trader, who, in return, 
 allowed the natives a large quantity of it for their beavers 
 and skins; and, to use the plain record of the day, "little 
 or no benefit accrued." Nominally,, prices advanced, 
 when beavers which had been sold for twelve or fourteen 
 guilders rose. to twenty-two and twenty-four, bread from 
 fourteen to twenty-two stivers (eight-pound loaves) beef 
 nine to ten stivers per pound, pork fifteen to twenty 
 stivers, shoes from three and a half guilders to twelve a 
 pair, and wrought-iron from eighteen U) twenty stivers 
 the pound. Beavers and specie remained all the while of 
 equal value ; but the difference between these and wam- 
 pum was fifty per cent. The effect on wages was almost 
 ruinous. An old record says: " The poor farmer, laborer, 
 and public officer, being paid in zemvan, are almost re- 
 duced to the necessity of living on alms." 
 
 Those in the employ of the Dutch Company asked 
 that their salaries might be paid in beavers, but this was 
 refused ; as well might public officers in our day desire to 
 receive gold and silver for their services. This deprecia- 
 tion of the currency, and the consequent disturbance of 
 prices, caused much popular clamor, and various expe- 
 dients were adopted to amend the unfortunate state of 
 things. The Directors of New Netherland would have 
 the colonists consider wampum as " bullion," but would 
 only receive beavers in payment of duties and taxes. We 
 adopt something of the same theory in our Custom- House 
 payments. Governor Stuyvesant raised the 'value of 
 specie in the country twenty to twenty-five per cent, " to 
 prevent its exportation." Finally, however, the price of 
 beaver in 1663 fell from eight guilders (specie) to four 
 and a half, white wampum from sixteen to eight, and 
 black from eight to four for a stiver. What a fall ! This 
 was the state of the public finances when the English 
 came in possession of New Netherland. Some persons 
 
66 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 are met with at the present time who fear a similar 
 financial crash sooner or later in our enlightened land 
 with its hundreds and millions in paper-money operations 
 and promises. 
 
 The pubUc revenue in New Netherland embraced two 
 descriptions, provincial and municipal: the former con- 
 sisting of the export duty on furs, the impost on Euro- 
 pean goods, with the tenths of agricultural produce, 
 butter, cheese, etc. ; the latter of an excise duty on 
 liquors and slaughtered cattle. In the year 1655, the 
 duty on exported futs is stated at twenty-two thousand 
 guilders. The expenses of the Government became very 
 large, especially from the Indian wars, which also cut off 
 the suppUes of furs ; so that by the close of Stuy vesant's 
 administration, there was a deficit of fifty thousand 
 florins, or twenty thousand dollars. The municipal rev- 
 enue arising from the liquor excise was of two kinds, the 
 tapsters and the burghers — the first paying a duty of 
 four florins a ton on home-brewed, and six on foreign 
 beer; eight florins a hogshead on French; and four on 
 Spanish wine, brandy, or other spirits. These rates were 
 doubled in 1662. The income of New Amsterdam from 
 these sources was estimated at twenty-five thousand 
 guilders. The Company in Holland had now expended 
 twelve tons of gold in the settlement of New Netherland, 
 and now (1664), when some return was expected for this 
 large outlay, foreigners seized and possessed themselves of 
 all the benefits resulting from such expenditures. 
 
 We again resume the thread of our narrative. The 
 war which broke out in 1672 between the English and 
 the Dutch, and which was chiefly carried on by 
 the navies of the two powers, occasioned appre- 
 hensions for the safety of the province of New York ; and 
 Governor Lovelace, the successor of NicoUs, the first 
 English Governor, made preparations for a demonstra- 
 
 iGT2. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. gy 
 
 tion of that character on the part of the Dutch. Nor 
 were his fears unfounded ; although, some months elaps- 
 ing without any appearance of the enemy, he allowed 
 himself to fall into a fatal sense of security, and accord- 
 ingly disbanded the levies, while he himself departed on 
 a visit to the Eastern colonies, leaving the Fort in charge 
 of Captain John Manning. The Dutch, however, were 
 not asleep ; nor had they relinquished their design. De- 
 termined to regain New Amsterdam at all hazards, they 
 fitted out a fleet of five ships, commanded by Admirals 
 Benckes and Evertsen, with Captains Colve, Boes, and 
 Van Zye. On the 29th of July, 1673, they appeared 
 off Sandy Hook ; and quietly sailing up the bay, 
 and anchoring before Staten Island, soon appeared oppo- 
 site the Battery. The fleet then opened a heavy cannon- 
 ade upon the city, at the same time that Captain Colve, 
 landing with six hundred men, drew up in order of battle 
 on the Commons, ready to march into the city. At a 
 given signal the men marched down Broadway, where- 
 upon Captain Manning surrendered the fort, on condition 
 that its garrison should march out with all the honors of 
 war. This condition having been granted, the Dutch 
 troops again possessed the fort and city. New York re- 
 ceived the name of New Orange, and the fort itself the 
 name of Fort William Hendrick. Governor Lovelace, 
 who, meanwhile had hastened back from his pleasure 
 tour, was allowed to return with the Dutch Admiral. He 
 received from the English Government a severe repri- 
 mand for cowardice and treachery, and his estates were 
 confiscated to the Duke of York. 
 
 Captain Colve, now in command of the Province of 
 New Netherland, received a commission from Benckes and 
 Evertsen to govern the new territory. His rule, though 
 brief, was energetic. He at once took measures to im- 
 prove the defenses of the fort; and, in October, 1673, we 
 
68 HISTORY OF NEW YORK OITY. 
 
 find it stated in one of his orders, that the fortifications 
 had then, at great expense and labor to the citizens and 
 inhabitants, been brought "to perfection." Anthony De 
 Milt was appointed Schout, with three bxu-gomasters and 
 five schepens. The entire city assumed the appearance 
 of a military post, the Commons (the present Park) be- 
 coming the parade-ground. A wall or palisade was placed 
 around it, running from Trinity Church along Wall Street 
 — hence its name — and block-houses protected the set^ 
 tlement on every side. Every day the Schout reviewed 
 the military, before the "Stadt Huys," at the head of 
 Coenties Slip. At six in the evening he received the city 
 keys, and with a guard of six men locked the public gates, 
 and stationed the sentinels. He unlocked the gates at 
 sunrise. The city at this period numbered three hxmdred 
 and twenty houses. 
 
 But the second administration of the Dutch was des- 
 tined to be of short duration. On the 9th of February, 
 1674, the treaty of peace between England and the 
 States-General was signed at Westminster ; and 
 the Dutch, having discovered and possessed the beautiful 
 country of New Netherland for almost sixty years, were 
 now, once and forever, dispossessed of it. On that day 
 the old fort became " Fort James," having surrendered to 
 Sir Edmund Andros, who had been appointed Governor 
 by the Duke of York. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Before closing this section, and bidding farewell en- 
 tirely to New York under the Batch rule, it seems fitting 
 to glance somewhat minutely at the social manners and 
 customs of our early Dutch ancestors. 
 
 The Dutch of New Amsterdam were distinguished for 
 their good nature, love of home, and cordial hospitality. 
 Fast young men, late hours, and fashionable dissipation 
 were unknown There was, nevertheless^ plenty of oppor- 
 tunity for healthful recreation. Holidays were abundant, 
 each family having some of its own, such as birth-days, 
 christenings, and marriage anniversaries. Each season, 
 too, introduced its own peculiar and social festivals — the 
 " Quilting," " Apple-Raising," and " Husking Bees." The 
 work on such occasions was soon finished, after which the 
 guests sat down to a supper, well supplied with chocolate 
 and waffles — the evening terminating with a merry dance. 
 Dancing was a favorite amusement. The slaves danced 
 to the music of their rude instruments, in the markets; 
 while the maidens and youths practiced the same amuse- 
 ment at their social parties, and around the annual May- 
 Pole on the Bowling Green. 
 
 Besides such holidays, five public or national festivals 
 were observed. These were — Kerstrydt, or Christmas ; 
 Nieuw Jar, or New Year ; Paas, or Passover ; Pinxier, 
 Whitsuntide ; and Santa Glaus, St. Nicholas, or Christ-Kin- 
 
70 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 
 
 kle Day. The morn of the Nativity was hailed m ith uni- 
 versal salutations of a " Merry Christmas " — a good old 
 Knickerbocker custom which has descended unimpaired to 
 us. Next, in the day's programme, came " Turkey Shoot- 
 ing " — the young men repairing either to the " Beekman 
 Swamp," or on the Common (Park), for this amusement. 
 Each man paid a few stivers* for a "chance," when the 
 best shot obtained the prize. The day was also commem- 
 orated, as it is at the present time, by family dinners, and 
 closed with domestic gayety and cheerfulness. 
 
 New-Year's Day was devoted to the universal inter- 
 change of visits. Every door in New Amsterdam was 
 thrown wide open, and a warm welcome extended to the 
 stranger as well as the friend. It was considered a breach 
 of established etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these 
 annual calls, by which old friendships were renewed, fam- 
 ily differences settled, and broken or neglected intimacies 
 restored. This is another of the excellent customs of the 
 olden times that still continues among New Yorkers ; and 
 its origin, like many others, is thus traced exclusively to 
 the earliest Hollanders. 
 
 Paas, or Easter, was a famous festival among the 
 Dutch, but is now almost forgotten, except by the chil- 
 dren, who still take considerable interest in coloring eggs 
 in honor of the day. The eggs were found then on every 
 table. This old festival, however, is rapidly passing away, 
 and, like Pinxter, will soon be forgotten. 
 
 Santa Claus, however, was the day of all others with 
 the little Dutch folk, for it was sacred to St. Nicholas — 
 t*ie tutelar divinity of New Amsterdam — who had presided 
 at the figure-head of the first emigrant ship that reached 
 her shores. The first church erected within her fort was 
 
 * A stiver was equal to nearly two cents iu United States money. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 7x 
 
 also named after St. Nicholas. He was, to the imagina- 
 tion of the little people, a jolly, rosy-cheeked, httle old 
 man, with a slouched hat, large Flemish nose, and a very 
 long pipe. His sleigh, loaded with all sorts of Christmas 
 gifts, was drawn by swift reindeer ; and, as he drove rap- 
 idly over the roofs of the houses, he would pause at the 
 chimneys to leave presents in the stockings of the good 
 children ; if had, they might expect nothing but a switch 
 or leather-strap. In this way the young Knickerbockers 
 became models of good behavior and propriety. They 
 used to sing a suitable hymn on the occasion, one verse 
 of which is here given, for the benefit of those readers 
 who may wish to know how it sounded in Dutch : 
 
 " Sint Nicliolaas, myn g-oden vriend, 
 Ik heb u altyd wel gediend ; 
 Als gy my nu wot wilt geben, 
 Zal ik dienen als myn leven." 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 " Saint Nicholas, my dear, good friend, 
 
 To serve you ever was my end ; 
 
 If you me now something will give, 
 
 Serve you, I will, as'long as I live." 
 
 " Dinner parties " in these primitive days were un- 
 known; but this seeming lack of social intercourse was 
 more than made up by the well-known and numerous tea 
 parties. To " take tea out" was a Dutch institution, and 
 one of great importance. The matrons arrayed in their 
 best petticoats and linsey jackets, " home spun " by their 
 own wheels, would proceed on the intended afternoon 
 visit. They wore capacious pockets, with scissors, pin- 
 cusliion, and keys hanging Irorn their girdle, outside of 
 their dress ; and, reaching the neighbor's house, the 
 visitors industriously used knitting-needles and tongues 
 at the same time. The village gossip was talked over, 
 neighbors' affairs settled, and the stockings finished by 
 tea-time, when the important meal appeared on the table 
 
72 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 precisely at six o'clock. This was always the occasion 
 for the display of the family plate, with the Lilliputian 
 cups, of rare old family china, out of which the guests 
 sipped the fragrant herb. A large lump of loaf-sugar 
 invariably accompanied each cup, on a little plate, and 
 the delightful beverage was sweetened by an occasional 
 nibble, amid the more solid articles of waffles and Dutch 
 doughnuts. The pleasant visit finished, the visitors, don- 
 ning cloaks and hoods — as bonnets were unknown — 
 proceeded homeward in time for milking and other neces- 
 sary household duties. The kitchen fire-places were of 
 immense size, large enough to . roast a sheep or whole 
 hog; and the hooks and trammels sustained large iron 
 pots and kettles. In the spacious chimney-corners the 
 children and negroes gathered — telling stories and crack- 
 ing nuts by the light of the blazing pine-knots, while the 
 industrious vrows turned the merry spinning-wheel, and 
 their lords, the worthy burghers — mayhap just returned 
 from an Indian scrimmage — quietly smoked their long 
 pipes, as they sat watching the -wreaths curling above 
 their heads. At length, the clock, with its brazen tongue, 
 having proclaimed the hour of nine, family prayers were 
 said, and all retired, to rise with the d^wn. 
 
 A model housekeeper rose at cock-crowing, break- 
 fasted with the dawn, and proceeded to the duties of the 
 day ; and when the sun reached the meridian or " noon 
 mark," dinner, which was strictly a family meal, was on 
 the table. This domestic time-piece answered every pur- 
 pose, so regular were the hours and lives of the people. 
 At one time there were not more than half a dozen clocks 
 in New Amsterdam, with about the same number of 
 watches. But they were strikingly peculiar in one re- 
 spect : they were scarcely ever known to go, and hence 
 were of very little practical utility. No watch-maker 
 had yet found it profitable to visit the settlement ; and 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 73 
 
 this was a period two centuries before the invention of 
 Yankee clocks. For a long while, time was marked by 
 hour-glasses and sun-dials. 
 
 We have already seen the interior of the kitchen, and 
 will now go up stairs into the parlor of the early Dutch 
 dwellings. Stoves were never dreamed of ; but instead of 
 them was the cheerful fire-place, sometimes in the corner, 
 but more generally reaching nearly across the back of 
 the room, with its huge gum back-log and glowing fire of 
 hickory. The shovel and tongs occupied each corner of 
 the fire-place, keeping guard, as it were, over the family 
 brass-mounted andirons which supported the blazing 
 wood. Marble mantles had not yet been invented ; but 
 chimney-jambs, inlaid with party colors, imported Hol- 
 land tiles, representing all kinds of Scriptural stories, 
 were quite ornamental as well as instructive. Many a 
 youngster has received categorical instruction from these 
 silent venerable teachers. 
 
 In one corner of the room always stood the huge 
 oaken iron-bound chest, brimful of household linen, spun 
 by the ladies of the family, who delighted to display 
 these domestic riches to their visitors. Later, this plain 
 wardrobe gave place to the " chest of drawers" one drawer 
 placed upon the other, until the pile reached the ceiling, 
 with its shining brass rings and key-holes. The book- 
 case, too, with its complicated writing-desk, mysterious 
 secret-drawers and pigeon-holes, came into use about the 
 same period, though both were unknown to the early 
 Knickerbockers. Sideboards were not introduced into 
 New Amsterdam until after the American Revolution, 
 and were entirely of English origin. The round tea-table 
 also occupied a place in the corner of the parlor, while 
 the large square dining-table stood in the kitchen for 
 daily use. In another corner stood the well-known Hol- 
 land cupboard, with glass doors, conspicuously displaying 
 10 
 
74 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the family plate and porcelain. Little looking-glasses in 
 narrow black frames, were in common use ; two or three 
 only of the wealthiest burghers possessing larger mirrors, 
 elaborately ornamented with gilding and flowers. About 
 1730, the sconce came in fashion — a hanging or projecting 
 candlestick, with a mirror to reflect the rays This was 
 a very showy article, giving a fine light to the rooms* 
 After this period pier and mantel glasses came into 
 fashion. Pictures, such as they were, abounded; but 
 they were, for the most part, poor engravings of Dutch 
 cities and naval engagements. Chintz calico of inferior 
 quality formed the only window-curtains, without any 
 cornices. There were no carpets among the early Dutch, 
 nor any in general use among the New Yorkers until up 
 to the period of the Revolution. The famous Captain 
 Kidd, it is said, owned the first modern carpet in his best 
 room, and the pirate's house was the best furnished in the 
 city. It was made of Turkey work, at a cost of twenty- 
 five dollars, and resembled a large rug. The custom of 
 sanding the floor of the principal room, or parlor, was 
 universal, and much taste was displayed in the many 
 fanciful devices and figures made in the sand with the 
 brooms of the smart Dutch matrons and daughters. Our 
 Dutch ancestors knew nothing of lounges or sofas, or 
 even of that comfortable A.merican invention, the rock- 
 ing-chair. Their best chairs were straight and high- 
 backed, covered with Russia leather, and elaborately orna- 
 mented with double and triple rows of brass nails. In 
 addition to these, the parlor was decorated with one or 
 two chairs having embroidered seats and backs, the 
 
 * Two of these quaint fixtures, a hundred and fifty years old. bung, until 
 a year or two since, in the parlor of the Union Hall, at Saratoga Springs, X. Y. 
 Old visitors will readily recall them. They now adorn the parlors of Mrs. 
 Washington Putnam, of Saratoga Springs, the widow of the late Washington 
 Putnam, for many years the genial host and owner of the " Union." 
 
HI8T0RT OF NEW YORK CITY 75 
 
 handiwork of the daughters. Some of the oldest families 
 also displayed in their best rooms two chairs with cush- 
 ions of tapestry, or velvet, trimmed with lace. About 
 the year 1700, cane seats became fashionable, and thirty 
 years after came the leather cliairs, worth from five to 
 ten dollars each. These led the fashion about thirty 
 years more, when mahogany and black walnut chairs, 
 with their crimson damask cushions, appeared. 
 
 But the most ornamental piece of furniture in the par- 
 lor was the bed, with its heav}' curtains and valance of 
 camlet. No mattresses then, but a substantial bed of live 
 geese feathers, with a very light one of down for the cov- 
 ering. These beds were the boast and pride of the most 
 respectable Dutch matrons, and, with their well-filled 
 chests of home-made linen, supplied their claims to skill 
 in housekeeping. A check covering cased the bed and 
 pillows ; the sheets were made of homespun linen ; and 
 over the whole was thrown a bed-quilt of patchwork, 
 wrought into every conceivable shape and pattern. 
 
 The '■^betste'" (bedstead) was at this period a part of 
 the house. It was constructed something like a cupboard, 
 with closing doors, so that by day, when unoccupied, the 
 apartment could be used for a sitting-room. In more 
 humble houses, the " sloap hanck" or " bunk," was the 
 sleeping-place. In Dutch taverns, the good vroiv or her 
 maid opened the doors of the "betste" for the traveler, 
 and, like a kind mother, bade him " mel te rusten " — " good- 
 night," and always, as an old friend, '■'■hoo-y rees" — "good- 
 by." To this day, in Holland, travelers meet similar 
 receptions at the taverns ; and all the guests, assembling 
 in one room, eat, drink, and smoke. 
 
 Our Dutch forefathers were fond of pure, good milk — 
 a luxury unknown to their unfortunate descendants. It 
 was the common practice for all who could afford stable 
 room, to keep their own cows, and thus furnish their fami- 
 
76 HISTORY OF NEW YORK C-ITY. 
 
 lies with milk and butter. Rip Van Dam, in 1748, kept 
 two cows ; and Abraham De Puyster, one of the wealthi- 
 est merchants, owned the same number. Good pasturage, 
 too, surrounded the town, no further off than the present 
 Park. A man with a bell came along early in the morn- 
 ing for the cows, driving them through Wall to the city- 
 gate, at the corner of that street and Water ; thence to 
 the fields about the Collect, where the Tombs now stands ; 
 in the evening, he brought them back to their owners. 
 
 In the earlier period of New Amsterdam, the gTain 
 was made into flour by pestle and mortar, every family 
 adopting this method. Coin then as now was exceedingly 
 scarce ; nor was there even any paper currency. Hence, 
 grain became as much the circulating medium as " green- 
 backs " are at the present day with us. From this cir- 
 cumstance, the pestle and mortar constituted the real 
 mints of the people ; the pounded grain passing current 
 for goods and labor, like bank-notes. 
 
 The horses of those days were bred wild in the woods 
 and pastures which covered the upper part of Manhattan 
 Island. Thousands of them ran at large, their owners, at 
 certain seasons, branding them with their names, when 
 they were turned loose again, until winter rendered a 
 shelter for them necessary. Such was their great increase, 
 that it is said the Island was overrun by the animals, now 
 become as wild and dangerous as the buffaloes of the prai- 
 ries ; the breed was, consequently, inferior, the price of a 
 horse ranging from ten dollars to forty dollars, according to 
 the strength, and not the speed, of the animal. This great 
 plenty of horse-flesh, however, afforded ample opportunity 
 for the fair Dutch dames to indulge their favorite pastime 
 — riding on horseback. The ladies, at this period, how- 
 ever, did not ride on horseback alone, as is now the fash- 
 ion, but were mounted upon a pillion, or padded cushion, 
 placed behind the gentleman's saddle (or a servant's), upon 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 77 
 
 whose support they depended. This was the common 
 custom, as the roads were unbroken, being, in fact, Uttle 
 better than bridle-paths. Early in the eighteenth century 
 side-saddles came into partial use. The gentlemen's hous- 
 ings were made of bright-colored cloths or velvet, often 
 trimmed with silver lace ; holsters were common. 
 
 The literature of New Amsterdam was entirely differ- 
 ent from that of modern times In the place of the nov- 
 els, magazines, and light reading which now fill the cen- 
 ter-tables, there was to be found little else than Bibles, 
 Testaments, and hymn-books. The matrons' church books 
 were generally costly bound, with silver clasps and edg- 
 ings, and sometimes of gold. These were suspended to 
 the girdle by silver and gold chains, and distinguished the 
 style of the families using them, on the Sabbath days. 
 
 The Sundays in New Amsterdam were, moreover, bet- 
 ter observed by its inhabitants than at the present day. 
 All classes, arrayed in their best^ then attended the pub- 
 lic services of religion ; and the people, almost exclusively 
 Calvinists, attended the Dutch Reformed Church. The 
 ^'- Koeck" or bell-ringer and sexton, was an important 
 personage on the Sabbath. He not only summoned the 
 congregation by the sound of the church-going bell, but 
 formed a procession of himself and his assistants to carry 
 the cushions of the burgomasters and schepens from the 
 City Hall to the pews appropriated to these officials. At 
 the same time, the Schout went his rounds, to see that 
 quiet was kept in the streets during Divine worship, and 
 also to stop the games of the negro slaves and Indians — 
 to whom the Sabbath was allowed as a day of recreation, 
 except during church hours. 
 
 Small pieces of wampum were obtained by the deacons, 
 and sold at great value to the heads of the Dutch families. 
 These, having been distributed among the different mem- 
 bers of families, were then taken to church, and deposited 
 
78 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in the collection-bags, which were attached to lon}>; poles. 
 Such was the custom a long while ; nOr, in some Of the in- 
 terior Dutch settlements, has it been entirely abandoned at 
 the present day. Formerly, a small bell was attached to 
 the bottom of the bags, to remind the drowsy of the col- 
 lection. The deacons, being thus prepared to receive the 
 benefactions of the congregation, presented themselves in 
 front of the pulpit, when, the Dominie having addressed a 
 few appropriate words to them, they forthwith proceeded 
 to collect the contributions. At that day, also, the " Koor- 
 leser^' or Clerk, occupied a little pew in front of the pul- 
 pit, holding in his hand a rod, on the end of which all 
 notices were placed, and thus passed up to the Dominie. 
 The moment the minister reached the pulpit stairs, he 
 offered a private prayer, holding his hat before his face, 
 until, having sought the aid of the Lord and Master, he 
 ascended the sacred desk. 
 
 It was also at this time the custom to publish from the 
 pulpit the bans three times before a marriage could be 
 solemnized. 
 
 The Dutch Church was, at this period, within the fort, 
 at the Battery ; and the present Bowling Green, an open 
 field, exhibited many country wagons, arranged in regular 
 order, while their horse.-s were allowed to graze on the 
 green slopes that led down to the Hudson River. And 
 here, in the old Church of >S'^. Nicholas, for half a century, 
 from 1642 to 1693, the early Dutch worshipped God in 
 His Holy Temple. 
 
 Every house in New Amsterdam was surrounded by a 
 garden, sufl&cientl}^ large to accommodate a horse, a cow^ 
 two pigs, fowls, a patch of cabbages, and a tulip-bed. In- 
 deed, the love of flowers seems to have been inherent 
 in the Dutch dames. While the head of a family care- 
 fully watched the growth of some ancient household tree, 
 planted, in accordance with a universal custom in New 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 79 
 
 Amsterdam, directly before the door-way, the matron 
 might have been seen with her large calash over her 
 shoulders, and her little painted basket of seeds in her 
 hand, going to the labors of the garden. Nor is this figu- 
 rative. It was the universal custom for a Dutch lady in 
 independent circumstances, gentle of form and manner, to 
 sow, plant, and cultivate. These fair gardeners were also 
 good florists. Where have there ever been found choicer 
 
 TUB tsowIjING GKEByr IN 1861. 
 
 hyacinths and tulips than among the Hollanders'? In- 
 deed, all New Yorkers may well feel proud of their great- 
 great-great grandmothers from Holland. They were fair 
 and unblemished religious dames, with great grasp of 
 mind, and of exemplary industry. The important task 
 of religious instruction chiefly devolved upon them ; and 
 the essentials, especially the ceremonials of piety, were 
 
80 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 instilled upon the minds of their children. Hence moth- 
 ers among the early Dutch were always regarded with 
 peculiar reverence. 
 
 The Dutch ladies wore no bonnets, as is still the 
 fashion with some of the German emigrants who now 
 arrive at Castle Garden. At New Amsterdam the fash- 
 ionable dress was a colored petticoat, rather short (for 
 ease in walking), waist jacket, colored hose of homespun 
 woolen, and high-heeled shoes, suitable to a city desti- 
 tute of pavements or sidewalks of any kind. The Dutch 
 burghers wore long-waisted coats, with skirts reaching 
 almost to their ankles, and adorned with large silver but- 
 tons. The wardrobe of a prominent burgomaster at the 
 transfer of New Amsterdam to the British, was as fol- 
 lows: A cloth coat, with silver buttons, worth fifteen 
 dollars; a stuff coat, ten dollars; cloth breeches, ten 
 shillings; a cloth coat, with gimp buttons, seven dol- 
 lars and fifty cents ; a black cloth coat, seven dollars ; 
 a black velvet coat, fifteen dollars ; a sUk coat, breeches, 
 and doublet, six dollars; a silver cloth breeches and 
 doublet, five dollars ; a velvet waistcoat, with silver lace, 
 five dollars ; a buff coat and silk sleeves, five dollars ; 
 three grass-green cloaks, six dollars each; besides several 
 old suits. To these also must be added linen, hose, shoes 
 with silver buckles, a cane with an ivory head, and a 
 hat. It may be doubted if our present Mayors, with all 
 their cloths and cassimeres, possess even one tithe of 
 such an assortment of coats, pants, and vests, as this 
 official Dutchman, their predecessor, in " ye olden time."* 
 
 In the good old Dutch times respectable tradesmen 
 
 * A little later, in 1690, we find among a fashionable gentleman's apparel, 
 etc., green silk breeches, fluted with silver and gold ; sUver gauze-breeches, 
 scarlet and blue silk utockings, laced shirt, a blue cloth stuff and frieze coat, a 
 gun and a pair of pistols, a silver-hilted sword, a silver spoon and fork, a lacka 
 hat, a campaign, shut-bob, old-bob wigs, and periwigs. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. gl 
 
 worked hard; none were drones or mere lookers-on. 
 There existed but little competition among trades- 
 men, as with us. No tempting display of goods in 
 show-windows attracted the attention and excited 
 the desire of passers-by to go beyond their means. 
 Content to sell their goods at a fair profit, they 
 secured both good customers and a reputation for 
 probity and fair dealing. It was the English who 
 first introduced display, fashion, and extravagance. It 
 was they who first introduced the custom of keeping 
 the shops open at night — a needless and expensive fash- 
 ion, and greatly injurious to the health and morals of the 
 clerks. In these early days, however, the diligent closed 
 their stores and shops at an early hour. All classes 
 went on foot; for carriages and wheeled vehicles were 
 very scarce. Even physicians paid all their visits on 
 foot ; and, in another respect, they differed widely from 
 the doctors of the present day — their charges were very 
 moderate. 
 
 At funerals, it was the custom to give hot wine in 
 winter, and wine-sangaree in summer. Ladies generally 
 attended on such mournful occasions, especially if the 
 deceased was a female, when burnt wine was served in 
 silver tankards. At a later era, on the death of Mrs. 
 Daniel Phoenix, the wife of the City Treasurer, all the 
 pall-bearers were ladies. 
 
 The working man always wore his leather apron, no 
 matter what his employment. Tradesmen were accus- 
 tomed to saw their own wood ; and a most healthful ex- 
 ercise it was. Nor did any man in middle circumstances 
 fear to carry home his "one hundredweight" of meal 
 from market. On the contrary, it would have been con- 
 sidered a disgrace to have avoided such a burden. 
 
 A greater change, however, in the habits of the peo- 
 ple, cannot be named than in that of hired servants or 
 11 
 
82 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " help." The female servants formerly wore short gowns 
 of green baize, with petticoats of linsej-woolsey; receiv- 
 ing only half a dollar a week for their wages. Now they 
 demand from eight to fourteen dollars a month, and dress 
 like fashionable ladies, displaying all their pride and 
 show. 
 
 In these primitive days, also, when a man " set up 
 business," he invariably took down his own shutters, 
 opened the door, swept the store, and dusted the goods 
 himself by the gray dawn. Then men grew rich by 
 early rising, economy, and industry, and by attending to 
 their own business themselves, and not leaving their inter- 
 est in the charge of boys, agents, or clerks. The only 
 capital of most young men then were industry and punc- 
 tuality ; and labor and honesty were as fashionable at 
 this early day as stylish young men, defaulting cashiers, 
 fast living, and fast horses are now. Neither would any 
 sensible matron permit her daughter to encourage the 
 attention of any young man who was not his own servant. 
 
 Shortly before the cession of New Amsterdam to the 
 British rule, the settlement was celebrated for its num- 
 ber of young people, as the children of the early immi- 
 grants had then reached adult age. Several daughters of 
 the wealthy burghers were married to young English- 
 men whose visits were only of a temporary character. 
 Many romantic rural spots, everywhere surrounding the 
 settlements at New Netherland, were naturally favorable 
 to the important business of courtship, and there were 
 several places of pleasant resort famed for this business, 
 even at that early day. The Locust-Trees was one, upon 
 a bluff on the shore of the North River, a little back of 
 the present Trinity Church-yard. From this command- 
 ing and shady eminence, the eye could wander over an 
 extensive vista of river, bay, islands, and the bold, distant 
 hills of New Jersey. Here, too, was the We.st India 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. §3 
 
 Company's beautiful garden, on the site of the present 
 Trinity Church, with its rich flowers and vegetable pro- 
 ductions. A little beyond the town was Maiden's Valley, 
 now Maiden Lane, a rural, shady walk, with a charming 
 litte rivulet meandering through it. The original name of 
 this rustic walk was T' Maagde Paatje, or the " Maiden's 
 Path." South of this lane stretched the Clover Watie, or 
 " Pasture Field ; " and from the present Gold street, hid- 
 den in the foliage, a little stream, fed by a living spring, 
 came tumbling down the rocks. From John, near Gold, 
 a longer walk led to the enchanting lakelet, the Kolck, or 
 " Collect," nestling within a circle of forest hills. Like 
 many such ponds in the vicinity of old .villages, this, 
 traditionally, had no bottom, and was said to be haunted 
 by the spirits of some old native sachems, the paddles of 
 whose canoes could be heard at night, though nothing 
 was seen visibly to disturb the crystal waters. All these 
 spots were famous trysting-places of the youthful New 
 Nether landers. But how changed the scene! Where 
 those sparkling and beautiful waters once flowed, and the 
 morning carols of the birds were heard, the dark, sorrow- 
 ful and .simple abodes of the " Five Points " now stand in 
 close proximity to the gloomy prison cells of the " Tombs." 
 But although New York City, two hundred years ago, 
 passed over to British rule, still the inhabitants remained 
 Dutch in their manners, customs, modes of thought, and 
 religious ideas, for many subsequent years. Sleighing 
 was a fashionable amusement ; and a ride to Harlem be- 
 came the longest drive among the " city folk." Parties, 
 however, often turned aside to visit " Hell Gate," in- 
 fluenced, doubtless, by the fact that on this road, over 
 the Tamkill (a little stream emptying into the East ' 
 River, opposite Blackwell's Island), was the Kissinif 
 Bridge, so laid down on the old maps, and named from 
 the old Dutch custom of the gentlemen saluting their 
 
84 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 lad}' companions whenever they crossed the bridge. 
 That was the day also of the " cocked hats " and " cues," 
 which stuck out from behind the head " stiflFas a poker."' 
 The most fashionable gentleman made his appearance be- 
 fore the fair one who was to be his companion in the ride, in 
 a hirge camlet cloak, with a very large cape, snuff-colored 
 coat, small clothes and thick stockings drawn over the 
 
 VIEW NEAR HELLrGATE. 
 
 shoes to keep out the snow. In addition, a woolen tip- 
 pet warmly protected his neck, and domestic-knit mittens 
 his hands. People then showed their good sense by 
 dressing according to the weather. 
 
 An old chronicle tells us that an Ethiopian, named 
 Caesar, had great fame as a driver, fiddler, and waiter. The 
 ladies, once upon a time, appeared in linsey-woolsey, with 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 85 
 
 hoods of immense size ; and at noon away went the party 
 in high glee, to the jingle of sleigh-bells, to take a cup of 
 tea and a dance at Harlem. Reaching there, Cse.sar tuned 
 his three-stringed fiddle ; when the gentlemen appeared 
 in their snare-toed shoe.«, and the ladies in peak-toed, 
 high-heeled slippers. Dancing and skipping the " light, 
 fantastic toe" immediately begun, and continued until 
 
 TUETLE BAY AND BLACKWELL'S ISLAKD. 
 
 etffht o'clock in the evening, when they again hastened 
 back to the city ; for " to he out " after nine, on common 
 occasions, was considered a certain sign of bad morals. 
 
 The earliest Dutch emigrants to New York left their 
 deep impress upon the city and upon the State. Far- 
 reaching commerce, which immortalized Old Amsterdam 
 
gg HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in the seventeenth century, soon provoked the envy of 
 New Amsterdam's neighbors, and in the end made our city 
 the emporium of the Western World. Our ancestors left 
 children and children's children, who were well fitted to 
 act important parts in the great work of opening the 
 American continent to European Christian civilization. 
 They brought with them honest maxims, industry, and 
 the liberal ideas of their Fatherland — their school-masters, 
 their dominies^ and their Bibles. In the course of events, 
 however, New Netherland passed over to British rule, 
 when new customs, new relationships, and new habits of 
 thought, were introduced.* 
 
 * It may be amusing to many of tlie present generation, so little accustomed 
 to the old Dutcli names, to read some titles once very familiar in New Amster- 
 dam and New York, but now so seldom thoaglit of or understood ; 
 
 De Herr — Officer ; or Soofdt-Schout, High-Sheriff. 
 
 De FiscoU — Attorney-General. 
 
 Oroot Bingenecht, and Klein Bingenecht, the Great and Small Citizenship, 
 early marking the two orders of society. 
 
 The Schout (Sheriff), Burgomeesters, and Schepens, then ruled the city, " as 
 in all cities of the FatherlanA." 
 
 Geheim Schuyner — Recorder of Secrets. 
 
 Wees-Meesters — Guardians of Orphans. 
 
 Roy-Meeiter — Regulator of Fences. 
 
 Eyck-Meester — The Weigh-Master. 
 
 The word Boss, still in use, a century ago was written " Baa^," and literally 
 means " master." 
 
SECOND PEEIOD. 
 1674-1783. 
 
 From tbe EDglish Conquest to tlie Revolutionary War and the Termination of 
 
 British Rule. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Before entering upon the history of this period, it 
 seems desirable to take a ramble about the limits of New 
 Amsterdam, and see for ourselves how it appeared at the 
 time that the Dutch surrendered it to the English. In 
 our walk we will take as our guide a map of the " Towne 
 of Wambados, or New Amsterdam^ as it was in Sep- 
 tember^ 1601," a copy of which now lies before us. 
 This is, so far as known, the only plan of the city executed 
 in the early Dutch times, and was found a few years 
 since in the British Museum. 
 
 The town wind-mill stood on a bluff, within our pres- 
 ent Battery, opposite Greenwich Street. On Water, be- 
 tween Whitehall and Moore Streets, was the " Government 
 House," built, by Stuyvesant, of stone, and the best edifice 
 in the town. When Governor Dongan became its owner 
 he changed its name from the " Government House " to 
 " Whitehall," and hence the name of the street. It was 
 surrounded by a large inclosure, one side of which, with 
 
gg HISTORY OF KEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the garden, was washed by the river. A little dock for 
 pleasure-boats ran into the stream at this point. Here, 
 also, was located the Governor's house, between which and 
 the canal in Broad street was the present Pearl Street, 
 then the great center of trade — known as the " Water- 
 side," and sometimes as the "Strand." Near the Gov- 
 ernor's house was the " Way-house," or Weigh-house, at 
 the head of the pubHc wharf at the foot of the present 
 Moore Street. A very short distance off, and parallel with 
 PearL, ran the Brugh Straat the present Bridge Street), 
 so named from the fact of its leadmg to the bridge across 
 the canal in Broad. There was a small passage-way run- 
 ning through this block and along the side of the " Old 
 Church," for convenient access to a row of houses laid 
 down on the map. These, five in number, belonged to the 
 Company, and were built of stone. In front of them was 
 a beautiful sloping green. The canal in Broad Street was, 
 in truth, but a narrow stream, running toward Wall 
 Street for a quarter of a mile. Both sides were dyked 
 with posts, in the fashion of Fatherland, at the distance of 
 twelve feet from the houses. On each side, as houses line 
 a canal in Holland, stood a row of buildings in the ultra- 
 Dutch style, low, high-peaked, and very neat, with their 
 gables toward the street. Each had its stoop, a vane or 
 weather-cock, and its dormer-window. From the roof of 
 one, a little iron crane projected, with a small boat at its 
 end, as a sign of this being the " Ferry-house." The 
 landing was at the head of the canal, in Broad Street, at 
 the point where Garden united with it. This canal or lit- 
 tle stream originally went up to " Verlettenberg Hill " 
 (Exchange Place), afterward corrupted into " Flotten- 
 banck." This was the head of tide-water ; and here the 
 country people from Brookl3m, Gowanus, and Bergen 
 brought their marketing to the center of the city. Many 
 of the market-boats were rowed by stout women, without 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. §9 
 
 hats or bonnets, but wearing in their place close caps, 
 There were generally two rowers to each craft. 
 
 Further along the East River, or " water-side," a build- 
 ing of considerable pretension appeared — the Stadt Huys, 
 or City Hall, first erected as a tavern, but afterward taken 
 by the municipal government. In front of the Stadt Buys 
 was placed a battery of three guns. Proceeding along the 
 river-shore, we pass Hanover Square, where two boats are 
 lying, and approach the " City Gate," at the foot of Wall 
 Street, sometimes called the " Water Gate," to distinguish 
 it from the " Land Gate " at the end of the road on the 
 Sheera Straat (Broadway). The Water Gate seems to 
 have been quite an imposing structm-e, doubtless because 
 Pearl Street was the great thoroughfare and main entrance 
 to the town. Most of the strangers or visitors to New 
 Amsterdam came from Long Island. 
 
 Continuing our walk toward Long Island Ferry, or 
 " Passage Place," and passing by Maagde Paatje (Maiden 
 Lane), we come to another public way leading to " Shoe- 
 makers' Land " and " Vanderclifi's Orchard," both places 
 of noted resort. This was the present John Street, from 
 Pearl to Clifi: 
 
 At a very early day the tanneries in Broad Street were 
 declared a nuisance, and their owners ordered to remove 
 beyond the city limits. This they did, and established 
 themselves along Maiden Lane, then a marshy valley.* 
 
 * When tlie Maagde Paatje, or Maiden Lane, was continued through to the 
 river, and widened below Pearl Street for the slip called " Countess's Slip," in 
 compliment (for some " slip " of hers?) to the lady of the Governor, Lord Bella- 
 mont, a market was built there, known as the Yly Market, the " Market in the 
 Marsh," corrupted to the Fly Market. Hence, when in subsequent years there 
 arose a sharp contest between a New-Yorker and a Philacielphian on the all-im- 
 portant question, In which of their cities was the best fare, the New-Yorker 
 would boast of his fish, their variety, scores of kinds, their freshness, some even 
 alive and gasping in the market. This fact was not to be denied ; but to avoid 
 the effect of a triumph, the Phihidelphian would only, significantly, remind him, 
 that however fresh his fish might be, the flesh he ate during the summer months 
 13 
 
90 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Four of the number, shoemakers by trade, purchased a 
 tract of land bounded by Broadway, Ann, WiUiam, and 
 Gold Streets, and here commenced their business. This 
 region was thenceforth known as the Shoemakers' Land, a 
 name which it retained so late as 1696, when it was divided 
 into town-lots. The tanners were next driven from this 
 locality into what is even now known as the " Swamp." The 
 Vanderdiff's Orchard vfSiS bounded by the East River, Shoe- 
 makers' Land, and Maiden Lane. Its original owner was 
 Hendrick Ryker, who sold it in 1680 to Dirck Vandercliff. 
 During the Revolution this tract received the more pleas- 
 ant-sounding name of Golden Hill, so named, it is said, 
 from the fine wheat grown on it. Cliff Street yet pre- 
 serves a part of the old title. Proceeding past Golden 
 Hill we come to a large edifice, close to the present site 
 of Fulton Market, and marked on the map as " Alderton's 
 Buildings," smrounded by a fence. This is supposed to 
 be the store-house of Isaac AUerton, who resided at New 
 Amsterdam and carried on an extensive trade with the 
 New-England colonies. He was one of the emigrants in 
 the 3fa,// Flower, and a notable character in our early his- 
 tory. His business was the importation of tobacco from 
 Virginia, and this edifice was probably his great tobacco 
 depot. 
 
 Continuing our tour, we reach the " Passage Place," the 
 present Peck Slip, known for a long time as the " Old 
 Ferry." This was the earliest Brooklyn ferry; and its 
 rates were regulated by the city authorities, in 1654, at 
 three stivers for foot passengers, except Indians, who paid 
 six, unless there were two or more. Here Cornells Dirck- 
 
 was not quite free from taint. Since, from tlie swarms of the insect in tlie prin- 
 cipal market, it was called emphatically the Fly Market. The poor New- 
 Yorker, ignorant of the Dutch language and of the etymologies from it, and 
 hence knowing no better than that it was the true name of the market, left 
 without a reply ; left to experience what no one can know who has not expe- 
 rienced how provoking it is to be obliged in a disputation to give up the point. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 91 
 
 sen, the ferryman, who owned a farm near by, at the sound 
 of a horn hanging on the tree ferried the passengers over 
 in his little skiff. Still further on there was a little stream, 
 on the bank of which stood a water-mill. This brook ran 
 into Walphafs Meadow, which covered the present Roose- 
 velt street and vicinity. This stream, known as " Old 
 Wreck Brook," ran from the meadow into the Kolck 
 (Collect), a bridge crossing it on the highway in Chatham 
 near Pearl. 
 
 The " Commons " (the present Park) was a well-known 
 spot in early New York. Through it passed the post-road 
 to Boston, the present Chatham Street, and for many years 
 this was the place for public executions. North of the 
 Commons or the Vlackte (the " Flat "), lay the Fresh-Water 
 Pond (to which allusion has already been made) with its 
 neighboring district Kolck Hook, or Collect, below the Com- 
 mons.* Near the Collect rose Potter's Hill. At its foot 
 followed the " Owl's Kill," leading the waters of that pond 
 through the marshes of " Wolfert's Valley " to the East 
 River. Toward the river was the Swamp, the present 
 Ferry Street and neighborhood, a low marshy place, cov- 
 ered with bushes and briars.t 
 
 * As the city gradually extended its limits, the powder-house, at first built 
 on the Commons, was considered unsafe, and a new magazine was built in 1728 
 upon a secluded little island in the Fresh-Water Pond. ISlot far from this place, 
 in the course of the following year, Noe Willey, of London, gave to his three 
 sons in New York the ground for a Jewish cemetery. It was bounded by 
 Chatham, Catharine and Oliver Streets, and was to be held forever as a burial 
 place for the Israelites. But the wishes of the old Hebrew have been violated 
 long since, for Chatham Street now runs through the sacred inclosure, and 
 Mammon has erected a bank and stores upon the spot. Some tomb-stones, 
 however, still stand, like grim sentinels, to keep guard over this once hallowed 
 and venerable grave-yard. 
 
 • f In 1744, this tract was sold for £200 to Jacobus Roosevelt, who divided it 
 into fifty lots and established on them several tanneries. This indicated its 
 future destiny, and ever since it has been the center of the large leather trade 
 of the city. More immense fortunes have been made about that region than 
 any other of the same extent in the city. It was originally called Beekman's 
 Swamp, and leased to Rip Van Dam, a member of the Council, for twenly-one 
 years, at a yearly rent of twenty shillings. 
 
92 HISTOBT OF NEW YORE: CITY. 
 
 The city-wall, called the " Lingel" or ramparts, was 
 a row of palisades, with embankments nine feet high and 
 four wide, on which several canon were mounted on bas- 
 tions. Two large stone points were afterward added — 
 one on the corner of Broadway and Wall, called " Hollan- 
 dia" and the other on the north-west corner of Wall and 
 William, known as " ZealandiaP These completely com- 
 manded the whole front of the city-wall. 
 
 Retracing our steps into town, we have now leisure 
 to examine more carefully the canal, which is laid down 
 as running through the entire length of Broad Street. 
 Thirty years later this canal was filled up. It had a little 
 branch running toward the west through Beaver Street. 
 The Steeregraftj or main canal, appears to have been 
 crossed by two principal bridges, one at Bridge and the 
 other at Stone Street, with smaller ones, evidently de- 
 signed for foot-passengers. Near Beaver Street, small 
 boats or canoes lay moored in the canal. 
 
 Pearl Street then, and many years afterward, formed 
 the river bank. Water and South Streets have both been 
 reclaimed from the water. On the west side of Broad- 
 way, above the grave-yard, at the present Morris Street, 
 were the country-seats of Messrs. Vandergrist and Van 
 Dyck. On Whitehall Street stood the parsonage of the 
 Dutch Dominie, with its garden of beautiful tulips and 
 hyacinths, and its paths of cedar and clipped box. Close 
 at hand stood the bakery, brewery, and warehouse of the 
 Company. In William, near Pearl, was the old horse- 
 mill, erected, it will be remembered, by Director Minuit, 
 and which did good service until superseded by the three 
 wind-mills of Van Twiller. One of these stood on State 
 Street, and was the most prominent object seen on ap- 
 proaching the city from the bay. The old fort itself was 
 bounded by Bridge, Whitehall, and State Streets, and the 
 Bowlinsr Green. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 93 
 
 Two main roads led from the fort at the Battery 
 toward the northern part of the island. One of these, 
 afterward the " Boston, or the old Post Road," followed 
 Broadway to the Park, and then extended through Chat- 
 ham, Duane, William, and Pearl Streets to the Bowery.* 
 Along the Bowery road lay " Steenwyck's " and " Heer- 
 man's" orchards, with the well-known Stuyvesant's 
 " Bowerie " (farm), whence the name. Near the last, 
 and in the neighborhood of Gramercy Park, came 
 " Crummashie Hill," while beyond were the " Zantberg " 
 hills, with " Minetta " brook, which found its way through 
 a marshy valley into the North River. Still further 
 toward the north, near Thirty-Sixth street and Fourth 
 Avenue, rose the " Incleherg''^ or "Beacon Hill," the Mur- 
 ray Hill of later times. From" this latter point there 
 was a commanding view of the whole island. The other 
 main road also started from the fort, and passing through 
 Stone Street to Hanover Square, led along the East River 
 to the Brooklyn ferry. 
 
 Thus much for the outward appearance of New York 
 at this time. In regard to its manners and interior life 
 we are enabled — thanks to the late researches of the 
 Hon, Henry C. Murphy, the Foreign Corresponding Sec- 
 retary of the Long Island Historical Society — to speak 
 even more definitely. Toward the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century a peculiar religious sect existed in West- 
 phalia. They were known as Labadists, and professed a 
 kind of mysticism, holding, nevertheless, to the tenets of 
 the Dutch Reformed Church. In the summer of 
 1679 two of their number were sent over to 
 America, with the view of ascertaining the nature of the 
 
 * In the year 1696 the first hackney^ioach was introduced upon the Bowery 
 road. Previous to this time, with the exception of the Governor's, private 
 coaches were unknown. 
 
94 HISTORY OP NEW YOKE CITY. 
 
 country and government, and selecting a suitable place 
 for the establishment of a colony of the religious com- 
 munity to which they belonged. The journal which 
 they kept during their stay in America is of great m- 
 terest, particularly that portion having reference to their 
 visit to New York; for, aside from the quaintness and 
 originality of the narrative, it is of peculiar value, as 
 giving an inside view of the people of New Amsterdam 
 at this time. As there were but a very small number of 
 copies printed, and the circulation is therefore extremely 
 limited, we shall take the .liberty of quoting somewhat 
 extensively from the work itself * 
 
 " Having then fortunately arrived, by tlie blessing of tlie Lord, before tlie 
 City of New York, on Saturday, the 23d day of September, we stepped asiore 
 about four o'clock in tlie afternoon, in company with Gerrit, our fellow-passen- 
 ger, who would conduct us in this strange place. He had lived here a long 
 time, and had married his wife here, although she and his children were living 
 at present at Zwolle. We went along with him, but as he met many of his old 
 acquaintances on the way, we were constantly stopped. He first took us to the 
 house of one of his friends, who welcomed him and us, and offered us some of 
 the fruit of the country, very fine peaches and full-grown apples, which filled 
 our hearts with thankfulness to God. This fruit was exceedingly fair and 
 good, and pleasant to the taste ; much beiter than that in Holland or elsewhere, 
 though I believe our long fasting and craving of food made it so agreeable. 
 After taking a glass of Madeira, we proceeded on to Qerrit's father-in-law's, a 
 very old man, half lame, and unable either to walk or stand, who fell upon the 
 neck of his son-in-law, welcoming him with tears of joy. The old woman was 
 also very glad. This good man was born in Vlissingen, and was named Jacob 
 Swart. He had been formerly a master-carpenter at Amsterdam, but had lived 
 in this country upwards of forty-five years. After we had been here a little 
 while, we left our traveling-bag, and went out to take a walk in the fields. It 
 was strange to us to feel such stability under us, although it seemed as if the 
 earth itself moved under our feet like the ship had done for three months past, 
 and our body also still swayed after the manner of the rolling of the sea ; but 
 this sensation gradually passed off in the course of a few days. As we walked 
 along we saw in different gardens trees full of apples of various kinds, and so 
 laden with peaches and other fruit that one might doubt whether there were 
 more leaves or fruit on them. I have never seen in Europe, in the best sea- 
 sons, such an overflowing abundance. When we had finished our tour and 
 
 * This journal was found in manuscript, a few years since, in Holland, by 
 Mr. Murphy, who, perceiving its value, presented it to the Long Island Histori- 
 cal Society, by whom a few copies were printed for the members in 1867. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 95 
 
 given our guide several letters to deliver, we returned to his father-in-law's, 
 who regaled us in the evening with milk, which refreshed us much. We had 
 so many peaches set before us that we were timid about eating them, though 
 we experienced no ill effects from them. We remained there to sleep, which 
 was the first time in nine or ten weeks that we had lain down upon a bed un- 
 dressed, and able to yield ourselves to sleep without apprehension of danger. 
 
 "34th, Sunday. We rested well through the night. I was surprised on 
 waking up to find my comrade had already dressed himself and breakfasted upon 
 peaches. We walked out awhile in the fine, pure morning air, along the mar- 
 gin of the clear running water of the sea, which is driven up this river at every 
 tide. As it was Sunday, in order to avoid scandal and for other reasons, we 
 did not wish to absent ourselves from church. We therefore went, and found 
 there truly a wild, worldly world. I say wild, not only because the people are 
 wild, as they call it in Europe, but because most all the people who go there 
 to live, or who are born there, partake somewhat of the nature of the coun- 
 try, that is, peculiar to the land where they live. We heard a minister preach 
 who had come from the up-river country, from Fort Orange, where liis residence 
 is, an old man named Domiue Schaats, of Amsterdam. * * * " This Schaats 
 then preached. He had a defect in the left eye, and used such strange gestures 
 and language that I think I never in all my life heard anything more miser- 
 able ; indeed, I can compare him with no one better than with one Do. Yan Ecke, 
 lately the minister at Armuyden, in Zeelaud, more in life, conversation, and ges- 
 tures than in person. As it is not strange in tliese countries to have men as min- 
 isters who drink, we could imagine nothing else than that he had been drinking 
 a little this morning. His text was, Come unto me all ye, &c., but he was so 
 rough that even the roughest and most godless of our sailors were astonished. 
 
 " The church being in the fort, we had an opportunity to look through the 
 latter, as we had come too early for preaching. It is not large ; it has four 
 points or batteries ; it has no moat outside, but is inclosed witli a double row 
 of palisades. It is built from the foundation with quarry stone. The parapet 
 is of earth. It is well provided with cannon, for the most part of iron, though 
 tliere were some small brass pieces, all bearing the mark or arms of the Neth- 
 erlanders. The garrison is small. There is a well of fine water dug in the 
 fort by the English, contrary to the opinion of the Dutch, who supposed the 
 fort was built upon rock, and had, therefore, never attempted any such thing. 
 There is, indeed, some indication of stone there, for along the edge of the water 
 below the fort there is a very large rock extending apparently under the fort, 
 which is built upon the point formed by the two rivers, namely, the East River, 
 which is the water running between the Manhattans and Long Island, and the 
 North River, which runs straight up to Fort Orange. In front of the fort, on 
 the Long Island side, there is a small island called Noten Island (Nut Island), 
 around the point of which vessels must go in sailing out or in, whereby they 
 are compelled to pass close by the point of the fort, where they can be flanked 
 by several of the batteries. It has only one gate, and that is on the land side, 
 opening upon a broad plane or street, called the Broadway or Beaverway. Over 
 this gate are the arms of the Duke of York. During the time of the Dutch 
 there were two gates, namely, another on the water side ; but the English have 
 closed it and made a battery there, with a false gate. In front of the church is 
 inscribed the name of Governor Kyft, who caused the same to be built in the 
 
96 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 year 1643 It has a sliingled roof, and upon the gable towards the water there 
 is a small wooden tower with a bell in it, but no clock. There is a sun-dial on 
 three sides. The front of the fort stretches east and west, and consequently 
 the sides run north and south. . . 
 
 •' After we had returned to the house and dined, my companion, not wishing 
 to go to church, set about writing letters, as there was a ship, of which Andrfi 
 Bon was master, about to leave in a few days for London ; but in order we 
 should not be both absent from church, and as the usual minister was to preach 
 in the afternoon, I went alone to hear him. He was a thick, corpulent person, 
 with a red and bloated face, and of very slabbering speech.* Hia text was ' The 
 elders who serve well,' &c., because the elders and deacons were that day 
 renewed, and I saw them admitted. After preaching, the good old people with 
 whom we lodged, who, indeed, if they were not the best on all the Manhattan, 
 were at least among the best, especially the wife, begged we would go with 
 their son Gerrit to one of their daughters, who lived in a delightful place, and 
 kept a tavern, where we would be able to taste the beer of New Netherland, 
 inasmuch as it was also a brewery. Some of their friends passing by requested 
 Gerrit and us to accompany them, and so we went for the purpose of seeing 
 what was to be seen ; but when we arrived there, we found ourselves much 
 deceived. On account of its being to some extent- a pleasant spot, it was 
 resorted on Sundays by all sorts of revelers, and was a low pot-house. Our 
 company immediately found acquaintances there and joined them, but it being 
 repugnant to our feelings to be there, we walked into the orchard to seek 
 pleasure in contemplating the innocent objects of nature. Among other trees 
 we observed a mulberry-tree, the leaves of which were as large as a plate. 
 The wife showed us pears larger than the fist, picked from a three years' graft 
 which had borne forty of them. A great storm of rain coming up in the ev& 
 ning compelled us to go into the house, where we did not remain long with the 
 others, but took our leave of them against their wishes. We retraced our steps 
 in the dark, exploring a way over which we had gone only once in our life, 
 through a x>aley (salt meadow) and over water upon the trunk of a tree. We 
 nevertheless reached home, having left the others in their revels. While in 
 their company we conversed with the first male born of Europeans in New 
 Netherland, named Jean Vign6. His parents were from Valenciennes, and he 
 was now about sixty-five years of age. He "was a brewer and a neighbor of 
 our old people." 
 
 "25th, Monday. We went on board the ship this morning in order to 
 obtain our traveling bag and clothes for the purpose of having them washed, 
 but when we came on board wc could not get ashore again before the after- 
 noon, when the passengers' goods were to be delivered. All our goods which 
 were between-decks were taken ashore and carried to the public store-house, 
 where they had to be examined, but some time elapsed before it was done, in 
 consequence of the examiners being elsewhere. At length, however, one 
 Abraham Lennoy, a good fellow apparently, befriended us. He examined our 
 chest only, without touching our bedding or any thing else. I showed him a list 
 of the tin which we had in the upper part of our chest, and he examined it and 
 
 * The minister here referred to was the Rev. 'William Nieaenhnieen. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 97 
 
 also tlie tin, and turned up a little more what was in the chest, and with that left 
 off, without looking at it closely. He demanded four English shillings for the 
 tin, remarking at the same time that he had observed some other small arti- 
 cles, but would not examine them closely, though he had not seen either the 
 box or the pieces of linen. This being finished, we sent our goods in a cart to 
 our lodgings, paying for the two heavy chests and straw beds and other goods 
 from the public store-house to the Smit's valey, sixteen stivers of zeawan, equal 
 to three stivers and a half in the money of Holland. This finished the day, 
 and we retired to rest. 
 
 " 36th, Tuesday. We remained at home for the purpose of writing, but in 
 the afternoon, finding that many goods had been discharged from the ship, we 
 went to look after our little package, which also came. I declared it and it 
 was examined. I had to pay twenty-four guilders in zeawan, or five guilders 
 in the coin of Holland. I brought it to the house and looked the things all 
 over, rejoicing that we were finally rid of that miserable set and the ship, the 
 freight only remaining to be paid, which was fixed at four guilders in coin. 
 We went first to Margaret in relation to the freight, who said she had nothing 
 . more to do with it, and that we must speak to her husband about it, which it 
 was not convenient to do that evening, and we therefore let it go, waiting for 
 an opportunity to speak to her and her husband with the captain, and perhaps 
 also Mr. Jan. 
 . ********** 
 
 " As soon as we had dined we sent off our letters, and this being all accom- 
 plished, we started at two o clock for Long Island. This island is called Long 
 Island, not so much because it is longer than it is broad, but particularly be- 
 cause it is the longest island in this region, or even along the whole coast of 
 New Netherland, Virginia, and New England. It is one hundred and forty- 
 four miles in length, and from twenty -four to twenty-eight miles wide, though 
 there are several bays and points along it, and consequently it is much broader 
 in some places than others. On the west is Stateu Island, from which it is 
 separated about a mile, and the great bay over which you see the Nemsincke. 
 With Staten Island it makes the passage through which all vessels pass in 
 sailing from or to the Mahatans, although they can go through the Kil Van 
 Kol, which is on the other side of Staten Island. The ends of these islands 
 opposite each other are quite high land, and they are therefore called the 
 Hoofden (Headlands), from a comparison with the Hoofden of the channel 
 between England and France in Europe. On the north is the island of Ma- 
 hatans and a part of the mainland. On the east is the sea, which shoots up to 
 New England, and in which there are various islands. On the south is the 
 great ocean. The outer shore of this island has before it several small islands 
 and broken land, such as Coney Island,* a low, sandy island of about three 
 hours' circuit, its westerly point forming mth Sandy Hook on the other side 
 the entrance from the sea. It is oblong in shape, and is grown over with 
 bushes. Nobody lives upon it, but it is used in winter for keeping cattle, 
 horses, oxen, hogs and others, which are able to obtain there sufficient to eat 
 the whole winter, and to shelter themselves from the cold in the thickets. 
 This island is not so cold as Long Island of the Mahatans, or others, like some 
 
 • '« Conijnen Eytant, Babbit's Island. 
 13 
 
98 HISTORF OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 islands on the coast, In consequence of their having more sea-breeze and of 
 the saltness of the sea breaking upon the shoals, rocks, and reefs with which 
 the coast is beset. There is also the Bear's Island * and others, separated from 
 Long Island by creeks and marshes overflown at high water. There are also 
 on this sea-coast various miry places like the Vlaeckf and others, as well as 
 some sand bays and hard and rocky shores. Long Island stretches mto the 
 sea for the most part east by south and east-south-east. None of its land is 
 very high, for you must be nearly opposite Sandy Hook before yon can see it. 
 There is a hill or ridge running lengthwise through the island, nearest the 
 north side and west end of the island. The south side and east end are more 
 fiat. The water by which it is separated from the MafrntaTU is improperly 
 called the East River, for it is nothing else than an arm of the sea, beginning 
 in the bay on the west and ending in the sea on the east. After forming in 
 this passage several islands, this water is as broad before the city as the Y 
 before Amsterdam, but the ebb and flood tides are stronger. There is a ferry 
 for the purpose of crossing over it which is farmed out by the year and yields 
 a good income, as it is a considerable thoroughfare, this island being one of 
 the most populous places in this vicinity. A considerable number of Indians 
 live upon it, who gain their subsistence by hunting and fishing, and they, as 
 well as others, must carry their articles to market over this ferry or boat them 
 over, as it is free to every one to use his own boat, if he have one, or to borrow 
 or hire one for the purpose. The fare over the ferry is three stivers i in 
 zeawan for each person. 
 
 " Here we three crossed over, my comrade Qerrit, our guide, and myself, in 
 a row-boat, as it happened, which, in good weather and tide, carries a sail. 
 When we came over we found there Jan Teunissen, our fellow-passenger, who 
 had promised us so much good. He was going over to the city to deliver his 
 letters and transact other business. He told us he would return home in the 
 evening and we would find him there. We went on up the hill along open roads 
 and a little woods, through the first village, called. Breukelen, which has a 
 small and ugly little church standing in the middle of the road.g Having 
 passed through here. We struck off to the right in order to go to Gouanes. 
 We went up on several plantations, where Gerrit was acquainted with most all 
 of the people, who made us very welcome, sharing with us bountifully what- 
 ever they had, whether it was milk, cider, fruit, or tobacco, and especially and 
 first and most of all, miserable rum or brandy which had been brought from 
 Barbadoes and other islands, and which is called by the Dutch " kiH-devil." All 
 these people are very fond of it, and most of them extravagantly so, although 
 
 * 'i Beeren Eylant. Now called Bnrren Island. 
 
 + The Wierin*en shoals in the Zuvder Zee are probably meant. 
 
 X Less than half a cent in our money. 
 
 § Breukelen, now Brooklyn, v.as so called from the village of that name in the province of 
 CTtrecht. The chnrch here referred to was built in 1666, and was the first one in Brooklyn. 
 When it was taken down does not appear. " A second church," says Furman, in his N0U9 
 relating to Brooldyn^ 76.* *' was erected, on the site of that built in 16H6, which second church 
 continued standing until about 1810, whenanewand substantial chnrch was erected on Joral- 
 emon street, and the old one taken down. This old church was a very gloomy-looking build- 
 ing, with small windows, and stood in the middle of the highway, about a mile from Brook- 
 lyn ferry." Of this secoud church a view is given in the BrotiMyn Manual of 1863. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 99 
 
 it is very dear and has a bad taste. It is impossible to tell hovr many peach- 
 trees we passed, all laden witli fruit to breaking down, and many of them 
 actually broken down. We came to "a place surrounded with such trees, from 
 which so many had fallen off that the ground could not be discerned, and you 
 could not put your foot down without trampling them, and notwithstanding 
 such large quantities had fallen off, the trees still were a's full as they could 
 bear. The hogs and other animals mostly feed on them. This place belongs 
 to the oldest European woman in the country. We went Immediately into 
 her house, where she lived with her children. We found her sitting by the 
 fire, smoking tobacco incessantly, one pipe after another. We inquired after 
 her age, which the children told us was a hundred years. She was from Luyck 
 (Liege), and still spoke good Waalsche (old French) with us. She could reason 
 very well sometimes, and at other times she could not. She showed us several 
 large apples, as good fruit of that country, and different from that of Europe. 
 She had been about fifty years now in the country, and had above seventy chil- 
 dren and grandchildren. She saw the third generation after her. Her mother had 
 attended women in childbed in her one hundred and sixth year, and was one 
 hundred and eleven or twelve years old when she died. We tasted here, for 
 the first time, smoked twaelft * (twelfth), a fish so called because it is caught in 
 season next after the elftj (eleventh). It was salted a little and then smoked, 
 and although it wag now a year old, it was still perfectly good, and in flavor not 
 inferior to smoked salmon. We drank here, also, the first new cider, which was 
 very fine. 
 
 " We proceeded on to Gouanes, a place so called, where we arrived in the 
 evening at one of the best friends of Qerrit, named Symon. He was very glad 
 to see us, and so was his wife. He took us into the house, and entertained us 
 exceedingly well. We found a good fire, half-way up the chimnej-, of clear oak 
 and hickory, of which they made not the least scruple of burning profusely. 
 We let it penetrate us thoroughly. There had been already thrown upon it, 
 to be roasted, a pail-full of Gouanes oysters, which are the best in the country. 
 They are fully as good as those of England, and better than those we eat at 
 Falmouth. I had to try some of them raw. They are large and full, some of 
 them not less than a foot long, and they grow sometimes ten, twelve, and six- 
 teen together, and are then like a piece of rock. Others are young and small. 
 In consequence of the great quantities of them, everybody keeps the shells for 
 the purpose of burning them into lime. They pickle the oysters in small casks, 
 and send them to Barbadoes and the other islands. We had for supper a roasted 
 haunch of venison, ^vhich he had bought of the Indians for three guilders' and 
 a half of seeioant, that is, fifteen stuivers of Dutch money (fifteen cents), and 
 which weighed thirty pounds. The meat was exceedingly tender and good, and 
 also quite fat. It had a slight spicy flavor. We were also served with wild 
 turkey, which was also fat and of a good flavor ; and a wild goose, but that was 
 rather dry. Every thing we had was the natural production of the country. 
 Wt- saw here, lying in a heap, a whole hill of watermelons, wliich were as large 
 as pumpkins, and which Symon was going to take to the city to sell. They 
 were very good, though there is a difference between them and those of the 
 
 • The striped bas5. 
 t The ehad 
 
100 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Caribly islands ; but this may be owing to its being late in the season, as these 
 were the last pulling. It was very late at night when we went to rest m a 
 Kermis bed, as it is called, in the comer of the hearth, alongside of a good fire. 
 " SOth, Saturday. Early this morning the husband and wife set oflf for the 
 city with 'their marketing; and we, having explored the land in the vicinity, 
 left after breakfast. We went a part of the way through a woods and fine, new- 
 made land, and so along the shore to the west end of the island, called Najack* 
 As we proceeded along the shore, we found, among other curiosities, a Hghly- 
 marbled stone, very hard, in which we saw Muscovy glass lying in layers between 
 the clefts, and how it was struck or cut out. We broke off a small piece with 
 some difficulty, and picked out a little glass in the splits. Continuing onward 
 from there, we came to the plantation of the Najack Indians, which was planted 
 with maize, or Turkish wheat. We soon heard a noise of pounding, like thrash- 
 ing, and went to the place whence it proceeded, and found there an old Indian 
 woman busily employed beating Turkish beans out of the pods by means of a 
 stick, which she did with astonishing force and dexterity. (lerrit inquired of her, 
 in the Indian language, which he spoke perfectly well, how old she was, and she 
 answered eio-hty years; at which we were still more astonished that so old a 
 woman should still have so much strength and courage to work as she did. We 
 went from thence to her habitation, where we found the whole troop together, 
 consisting of seven or eight families, and twenty or twenty-two persons, I should 
 think. Their house was low and long, about sixty feet long and fourteen or 
 fifteen feet wide. The bottom was earth, the sides and roof were made of 
 reed and the bark of chestnut-trees ; the posts, or columns, were limbs of trees 
 stuck in the ground, and all fastened together. The top, or ridge of the roof, 
 was open about half a foot wide, from one end to the other, in order to let the 
 smoke escape, in place of a chimney. On the sides, or walls of the house, the 
 roof was so low that you could hardly stand under it. The entrances, or doors, 
 wMch were at both ends, were so small that they had to stoop down and squeeze 
 themselves to get through them. The doors were made of reed, or flat bark. 
 In the whole building there was no lime, stone, iron, or lead. They build their 
 fire in the middle of the floor, according to the number of families which live in 
 it, so that from one end to the other each of them boils its own pot, and eats 
 when it likes, not only the families by themselves, but each Indian alone, accord- 
 ing as he is hungry, at all hours, morning, noon, and night. By each fire are 
 the cooking utensils, consisting of a pot, a bowl, or calabash, and a spoon also 
 made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats, 
 with their feet towards the fire on each side of it. They do not sit much upon 
 any thing raised up, but, for the most part, sit on the ground, or squat on their 
 ankles. Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water, out of 
 which they drink, a small basket in which to carry and keep their maize and 
 small beans, and a knife. The implements are, for tillage, a small, sharp stone, 
 and nothing more ; for hunting, a gun and pouch for powder and lead ; for fish- 
 ing, a canoe without mast or sail, and without a nail in any part of it, though 
 it is sometimes full forty feet in length, fish-hooks and lines, and scoop to pad- 
 dle with in place of oars. I do not know whether there are not some others 
 of a trifling nature. All who live in one house are generally of one stock or de- 
 
 * Fort Hamilton, which is surrounded, in a great measure, by a marsh, and hence is here 
 
 called au island. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. IQl 
 
 Bcent, as father and motlier, with their ofFspring. Their bread is maize, pounded 
 in a block by a stone, but not fine. This is mixed with water, and made into a 
 cake, which they bake under the hot ashes. They gave us a smaU piece when 
 we entered, and although the grains were not ripe, and it was half-baked and 
 coarse grains, we nevertheless had to cat it, or, at least, not throw it away before 
 them, which they would have regarded as a great sin, or a great affront. We 
 chewed a little of it icith long teeth, and managed to hide it bo they did not see 
 it. We had also to drink out of their calabashes the water which was their 
 drink, and which was very good. We saw here the Indians who came on board 
 the ship when we arrived. They were all very joyful at the visit of our Gerrit, 
 who was an old acquaintance of theirs, and had heretofore long resided there. 
 W^e presented them with two jews-harps, which much pleased them, and the}' 
 immediately commenced to play upon them, which they could do tolerably 
 well. Some of their patroons (chiefs), some of whom spoke good Dutch, and are 
 also their medicine-men and surgeons as well as their teachers, were busy mak- ' 
 ing shoes of deer-leather, which they understand how to make soft by continu- 
 ally working it in their hands. They had dogs, fowls, and hogs, which they 
 learn by degrees from the Kuropeans how to manage better. They had, also, 
 peach-trees, which were well laden. Towards the last, we asked them for some 
 peaches, and they answered : ' Go and pick them,' which showed their polite- 
 ness. However, in order not to offend them, we went off and pulled some. 
 Although they are such a poor, miserable people, they are, nevertheless, licen- 
 tious and proud, and given to knavery and scoffing. Seeing a very old woman 
 among them, we inquired how old she was, when some young fellows, laughing 
 and jeering, answered twenty years, while it was evident to ua she was not less 
 than a hundred. We observed here the manner in which they travel with their 
 children, a woman having one which she carried on her back. The little thing 
 clung tight around her neck like a cat, where it was kept secure by means of a 
 piece of daffels, their usual garment. Its head, back, and buttocks, were en- 
 tirely Hat. How that happened to be eo we will relate hereafter, as we now 
 only make mention of what we saw. 
 
 " 4th, Wednesday. We slept for the night in our old place. In the morn- 
 ing the horses were harnessed to the wagon for the purpose of carrying us to 
 the city, and bringing back some medicines which had arrived for him (Jaques) 
 from Holland in our ship. We breakfasted to our full, and rode first to the 
 bay, where we had left our traveling-bag. Seeing there was nothing to be 
 accomplislied with our Jan Theunissen, all his great promises having vanished 
 without the least result, though they had cost us dearly enough, we let that 
 rest quiet, and taliing our leave, rode on to 't Vlacke Bos, a village situated 
 about an hour and a half's distance from there, upon the same plain, which is 
 very large. This village seems to have better farms than the bay, and yields 
 full as much revenue. Riding through it, we came to tlie woods and liills, 
 which are very stony and uncomfortable to ride over. We rode over them, 
 and passed through the village of Breukelen to the ferry, and leaving the 
 wagon there, we crossed over the river and arrived at home at noon, where we 
 were able to rest a little, and where our old people were glad to see us. We sent 
 back to Jaques half of our tincture calimanaris, and half of our balsam sulphur- 
 
102 HISTOEY OF XEW YORK CITT. 
 
 eous, and some other things. He had been of service to ns in several respects, 
 as he promised to be, and that vrith perfect willingness. 
 
 ********** 
 
 " 6th, Friday. We remained in the house during the forenoon, but after 
 having dined we went out about two o'clock to explore the island of Manathans. 
 This island runs east and west, or somewhat more northerly ; on the north side of 
 it is the North River, by which it is separated from the main-land on the north ; 
 on the east end it is separated from the main-land by a creek, or rather a 
 branch of the North River, emptying itself into the East River. They can go 
 over this creek at dead low water, upon rocks and reefs, at the place called 
 Spyt den duycel. This creek coming into the East Kiver forms with it the two 
 Barents islands.' At the west end of these two running waters, that is, where 
 they come together to the east of these islands, they make, with the rocks and 
 reefs, such a frightful eddy and whirlpool that it is exceedingly dangerous to 
 pass through them, especially with small boats, of which there are some lost 
 every now and then, and the persons in them drowned ; but experience has 
 taught men the way of passing through them with less danger. Large 
 vessels have always less danger, because they are not capable of being 
 carried along quickly. There are two places where such whirling of the 
 stream occurs, which are on account of the .danger and frightfulness 
 called the Great and Little Hellgate. After these two streams are united, 
 the island of Manathans is separated on the south from Long Island by 
 the East River, which, beginning at the bay before New Tork, runs east- 
 wardly, after forming several islands, again into the sea. This island is about 
 seven hours' distance in length, but it is not a full hour broad. The sides are 
 indented with bays, coves, and creeks. It is almost entirely taken up, that is, 
 the land is held by private owners, but not half of it is cultivated. Much of 
 it is good woodland. The west end, on which the city lies, is entirely cleared 
 for more than an hour's distance, though that is the poorest ground ; the best 
 being on the east and north side. There are many brooks of fresh water running 
 through it, pleasant and proper for man and beast to drink, as well as agree- 
 able to behold, affording cool and pleasant resting-places, but especially suita- 
 ble places for the construction of mills, for although there is no overflow of 
 water, yet it can be shut off and bo used. A little eastward of Nieu Haerlem 
 there are two ridges of very high rocks, with a considerable space between 
 them, displapng themselves very majestically, and inviting all men to acknowl- 
 edge in them the majesty, grandeur, power, and glory of the Creator, who has 
 impressed such marks upon them. Between them runs the road to Spyt den 
 duyvel. The one to the north is most apparent ; the south ridge is covered 
 with earth on its north side, but it can be seen from the water or from the 
 main-land beyond to the south. The soil between these ridges is very good, 
 though a little hilly and stony, and would be very suitable, in my opinion, for 
 planting vineyards, in consequence of its being shut off on both sides from the 
 winds which would most injure them, and is very warm. We found blue 
 grapes along the road, which were very good and sweet, and as good as any I 
 have tasted in the Fatherland. 
 
 We went from the city, following the Broadway, over the naley, or the 
 
 * Now called Great and Little Barn Islands. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 103 
 
 fresh water. Upon both sides of this way were many habitations of negroes, 
 mulattoes, and whites. These negroes were formerly the proper slaves of the 
 West India Company, but, in consequence of the frequent changes and con- 
 quests of the country, they have obtained their freedom and settled them- 
 selves down where they have thought proper, and thus on this road, where 
 they have ground enough to 1 ve on with their families. We left the village 
 called the Bouwerij, lying on the right hand, and went through the woods to 
 New Harlem, a tolerably large village situated on the south side of the island, 
 directly opposite to the place where the north-east creek and the East River 
 come together, situated about three hours' journey from New Amsterdam, like 
 as old Harlem in Europe is situated about three hours' distance from old Am- 
 sterdam. As our guide, Gerrit, had some business liere, und found many 
 acquaintances, we remained over night at the house of one Oere,soli>eert* 
 scoup (sheriff or constable) of the old place, who had formerly lived in Brazil, 
 and whose heart was still full of it. This house was constantly filled with peo- 
 ple all the time drinking for the most part that execrable rum. He had also 
 the best cider we have tasted. Among the crowd we found a person of quality, 
 an Englishman, named Captain Carteret, whose father is in great favor with 
 the king, and he himself had assisted in several exploits in the king's service. 
 He was administrator or captain-general of the English forces which went, in 
 1660, to retake St. Kitts, which the French had entirely conquered, and were 
 repulsed. He had also filled some high office in the ship of the Duke of 
 Y^ork, with two hundred infantry under his command. The king has given to 
 his father. Sir George Carteret, the entire government of the lands west of the 
 North River, in New Netherland, with power to appoint as governor whom he 
 pleased ; and at this present time there is a governor over it by his appoint- 
 ment, another Carteret, his nephew, I believe, who resides at Elizabcthtown, 
 in New Jersey.f From this Carteret in England the Quakers have purchased 
 the privilege of a government of their own over a large tract of territory 
 which they have bought and settled within his dominion ; and it is but little 
 different from their having bought the entire right of government of the whole 
 of liis land. This son is a very profligate person. He married a merchant's 
 daughter here, and has so lived with his wife that her father has been com- 
 pelled to take her home again. He runs about among the farmers, and stays 
 where he can find most to drink, and sleeps in barns on the straw. If he 
 conducted himself properly, he could be, not only governor here, but hold 
 higher positions, for he has studied the moralities, and seems to have been of 
 a good understanding ; but that is all now drowned. His father, who will not 
 acknowledge him as his son, as before, allows him yearly as much only as is 
 necessary for him to live on. 
 
 " 7th, Saturday. This morning, about half-past sis, we set out from the vil 
 lage in order to go to the end of the island ; but before we left we did not omit 
 
 * Hesolvedy a Christian tame. 
 
 + Philip Carteret, the brother, not the nephew, of Sir George, is the person here meant. 
 He was appointed governor of Hew Jersey, nnder the joint proprietorehip of Lord Berkeley 
 and Sir George Carteret, in 1664, and of East Jersey in 1674, under the sole grant of Sir 
 George. He resigned in 1682. and died in December of that year, in this i-.oantry, leaving a 
 widow, the daughter of Richard Smith, Smlthtown, on Long Island. — WhitetiexuVs East 
 Jersey under the Propnewrs, 36, 84. 
 
104 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Bupplytng ourselves with peaches, whicli grew in an orotiard along the road. 
 The whole ground was covered with them and with apples, lying upon the new 
 grain with which the orchard was planted. The peaches were the most deli- 
 cious we had yet eaten. "We proceeded on our way, and when we were not far 
 from the point of Spyt den duyml we could see on our left hand the rocky cliffs 
 of the main-land on the other side of the North River, these cliffs standing 
 straight up and down, with the grain, just as if they were antimony. We 
 crossed over the Spyt den duyod in a canoe, and paid nine etuivers fare for us 
 three, which was very dear. We followed the opposite side of the land, and 
 came to the house of one VcUentyr), a great acquaintance with our Gerrit. He 
 had gone to the city, hut his wife, though she did not know Gerrit or us, was 
 so much rejoiced to see Hollanders that she hardly knew what to do for us. She 
 set hefore us what she had. We left after breakfasting there. Her son showed 
 us the way, and we came to a road entirely covered with peaches. We asked the 
 boy why they left them to lie there and they did not let the hogs eat them. He 
 answered, " We do not know what to do with them, there were so many ; the 
 hogs are satiated with them, and will not eat any more." From this we may 
 judge of the quantity of them. We pursued our way now a small distance 
 through the woods and over the hills, then hack again along the shore to a 
 point, where one Webblingh, an Englishman, lived, who was standing ready to 
 cross over. He carried us over with liim, and refused to take any pay for our 
 passage, offering us at the same time some of his rum, a liquor which is every- 
 where. We were now again at New Harlem, and dined with Ocrosolveert, at 
 whose house we slept the night before, and who made us welcome. It was 
 now two o'clock ; and leaving there we crossed over the island, which takes 
 about three-quarters of an hour to do, and came to the North River, which we 
 followed a little within the woods, to Sappokanikke* Gerrit having a sister 
 and friends there, we rested ourselves, and drank some good beer, which 
 refreshed us. We continued along the shore to the city, where we arrived in 
 an hour in the evening, very much fatigued, having walked this day about 
 forty miles. I must add, in passing through this island we sometimes encoun- 
 tered such a sweet smell in the air that we stood still, because we did not know 
 what it was we were meeting." 
 
 ********** 
 
 " 14th, Saturday. Being under sail, as I have said, it was so entirely calm 
 that we could only float with the stream until we came to SchvMers island, where 
 we obtained the tide again. It was now about four o'clock. In order to pro- 
 tect ourselves from the air, which was very cold and piercing, we crept under 
 the sail, which was very old and full of holes. The tide having run out by 
 daylight we came under sail again, with a good wind, which brought us to the 
 city at about eight o'clock, for which we were glad, and returning thanks to 
 God, betook ourselves to rest. 
 
 " 15th, Sunday. We went at noon to-day to hear the English minister, 
 whose services took place after tlie Dutch church was out. There were not 
 above twenty-five or thirty people in the church. The first thing that occurred 
 was the reading of all their prayers and ceremonies out of the prayer-book, as 
 
 * Accordin/y to Judge Benson this was the Indian name of the point, afterward known as 
 Greonwich, on the north side of the dtj.—New York BUtorical CollectUms, second series, 84. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 105 
 
 is done in all Episcopal churclies. A young man then went into tlie pulpit and 
 commenced preaching, who thought he was performing wonders ; but he had 
 a little hook in his hand out of which he read his sermon, which was about a 
 quarter of an hour or half an hour long.-|- With this the aervicea were con- 
 cluded, at which we could not be gufRciently astonished. This was all that 
 happened with us to-day." 
 
 t The only English minister in the whole province at this time was attached to the garri- 
 son at the City of New York. This was the Rev. Charles Wooley, a graduate of Emanuel 
 College, Cambridge, in 1(577. He came to New York in August, 1678, and left there for Eng- 
 land in July, 1680. He was the author of a small volume with the title of A Two Years' Jour- 
 nal in New York^ elc.^ published in 1701, and recently republished, with notes by Dr. E. B. 
 O'Callaghan, in Mr. Gowan's interesting series of early works on the colonies. 
 
 14. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The new regime in New York, under Edmund Andross, 
 as her first Governor, dates from the year 1674. An- 
 dross was a public officer of ability, but well 
 known for his imperious and despotic disposition. 
 The people immediately petitioned their royal master, 
 the Duke of York, for an Assembly of Representatives ; 
 but James, who I'egarded popular bodies as dangerous, 
 refused their prayer, with the question : " What do they 
 want with Assemblies'? They have the Court of Ses- 
 sions presided over by the Governor; or, if this is not 
 enough, they can appeal to me !" Such was the English 
 spirit of oppression a century before it was resisted in 
 blood at Golden and Bunker Hills. Upon learning of 
 this reply of Andross, Sir William Berkley, Governor of 
 "Virginia, " thanked God that there were neither free- 
 schools nor printing-presses in the colony," fervently 
 adding, " God keep us from both 1" 
 
 Governor Andross, however — much as he may in after 
 years have merited from the people of the Eastern Colo- 
 nies the title of the " Tyrant of New England" — governed 
 New York with wisdom and moderation. Desirous of 
 establishing himself on a popular basis with the people, 
 one of his first official acts was to appoint, in 1676, a 
 native Hollander — Nicholas Meyer — Mayor of the city. 
 The selection was a good one. Meyer was one of the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 107 
 
 most enterprising of traders, and, withal, a most respect- 
 able burgher; and although the duties of his office could 
 not have been particularly onerous at a time when only 
 three hundred and one names were recorded upon the list 
 of tax-payers, yet what little he did was done honestly 
 and well. Nor did Andros strive to be popular alone. 
 Aware that no government can be a stable one unless 
 placed on a basis of sound morality, he at once estab- 
 lished ordinances for regulating the public morals and 
 promoting the welftire of the city. " The city-gates were 
 ordered to be closed at night at nine o'clock, and to be 
 opened at daylight. The citizens were required to keep 
 watch by turns, and were fined for absence or neglect of 
 duty ; and all profanity and drunkenness were strictly 
 forbidden. Every citizen was ordered to provide himself 
 with a good musket or firelocli, with at least six charges of 
 powder and ball, and to appear with good arms before 
 the Captain's colors, at the first beating of the drum." 
 
 In 1677 the first native-born Mayor was appointed 
 to the Mayoralty. This was Stephanus Van Cortlandt, a 
 large property-holder, and after whom Cortlandt 
 street is named. Under his administration seven 
 public wells were placed in different parts of the city, 
 chiefly as a protection against fires. 
 
 Meanwhile the necessity of conciliating the Iroquois — 
 the most powerful Indian confederacy, at that time, in 
 America — had received little or no attention from the 
 people of New York or their Government. The first 
 three English Governors of the colony, or rather lieutenants 
 of the Duke of York — viz., Colonels NichoUs, Lovelace, 
 
 and Major, afterward Sir Edmund Andros bestowed 
 
 but inconsiderable attention upon the Five Nations, not 
 seeming to appreciate either the importance of their trade 
 or of their liiendship. Still, the moral hatred they had 
 borne for the French inclined them rather to prefer the 
 
108 HISTORY OF NEW YOEK CITY. 
 
 friendship of the English. But the Duke of York, in his 
 affection for the Church of Rome, shutting his eyes to 
 what unquestionably should have been the true policy of 
 the English toward the Indians, had conceived the idea 
 of handing the Confederates over to the Holy See, as con- 
 verts to its forms, if not to its faith. Hence the eflforts to 
 mediate the peace between the Iroquois and the French 
 of 1667, which were followed by invitations to the Jesuit 
 missionaries from the English, to settle among the Con- 
 federates, and by persuasions to the latter to receive 
 them. The Mohawks were either too wise, or too bitter 
 in spirit toward the French, to listen to the proposal. 
 But not so with the other nations of the alliance ; and 
 the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas opened 
 their eyes to the strangers in holy garb, causing infi- 
 nite mischief in after years, as will appear in the sequel. 
 
 This peace of 1667 continued several years, during 
 
 which time both the English and French prosecuted their 
 
 trade with the Indians to a great and profitable 
 
 166T 
 
 extent. The French, especially, evinced a degree 
 of energy, and a spirit of enterprise, almost unexampled 
 in the history of colonization — planting their trading- 
 posts, under the lead of the adventurous La Salle, at all 
 the commanding points of the great lakes, and across the 
 country of the Illinois to the Mississippi ; and stealing 
 the hearts of the Indians by means of the ministers of the 
 order of Jesus, whom they sprinkled among the principal 
 nations over the whole country of the exploration. By 
 these bold advances deep into the interior, and the energy 
 which everywhere characterized their movements, the 
 French acquired a decided advantage over the English 
 colonists in the fur trade, which it was evidently their 
 design exclusively to engross ; while the direct tendency 
 of the Duke of York's policy, originating in blindness and 
 bigotry, was to produce exactly the same result. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 109 
 
 The error was soon perceived by Governor Dongan, 
 who arrived in the colony as the successor of Major An- 
 dross, in 1683. Though his religious faith was in 
 harmony with that of his royal master, he never- *^®'' 
 theless possessed an enlarged understanding, with a dis- 
 position, as a Civil Governor, to look more closely after 
 the interests of the crown than those of the crosier. He 
 had not been long at the head of the colony before he 
 perceived the mistakes of his predecessors in the conduct 
 of its Indian relations. In fighting-men, the Five Nations 
 at that time numbered ten times more than they did half 
 a century afterward ;* and the Governor saw at once their 
 importance as a wall of separation between the English 
 colonies and the French. He saw, also, the importance 
 of their trade, which the Jesuit priests were largely influ- 
 ential in diverting to Canada. He saw that M. de Cour- 
 celles had erected a fort at Cadaraqui, within the territory 
 of the Iroquois, on the north side of Lake Ontario,! and 
 that La Salle had built a bark of ten tons upon that lake, 
 and another of fifty upon Lake Erie, planting also a stock- 
 ade at Niagara. He saw that the French were intercept- 
 ing the trade of the English upon the lakes, and that the 
 priests had succeeded in seducing numbers of the Mohawks 
 and river Indians away from their own country, and plant- 
 ing their colonies upon the banks of the St. Lawrence, in 
 the neighborhood of Montreal, through whose agency an 
 illicit trade had been established with the City of Albany, 
 by reason of which, Montreal, instead of Albany, was be- 
 coming the principal depot of the Indian trade. He saw, 
 in a word, that the followers of Ignatius Loyola were 
 rapidly alienating the affections of the Confederates from 
 the English and transferring them to the French, and 
 
 * Memoir of Dr. Golden, concerning the fur trade, presented to Governor 
 Burnet in 1734. 
 
 f The site of Kingston, Canada West. 
 
no 
 
 HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 that unless the policy respecting them were changed, the 
 influence of the English would, at no distant day, be at an 
 end with them. Nor had the priests confined their efforts 
 simply to moral suasion ; but, as though aiming to sepa- 
 rate the Confederates from the English at a blow, and by 
 a gulf so wide and deep as to be impassable, they had 
 instigated them to commit positive hostilities upon the 
 frontier settlements of Maryland and Virginia. 
 
 Having made himself thoroughly acquainted with 
 these matters. Colonel Dongan lost no time in seeking to 
 countervail the influence of the French, and bring back 
 the Indians to a cordial understanding with his own peo- 
 ple. His instructions from home were to encourage the 
 Jesuit missionaries. These he not only disregarded, but 
 he ordered the missionaries away, and forbade the Five 
 Nations to entertain them. It is true this order was 
 never enforced to the letter, the priests, some of them at 
 least, maintaining a foot-hold at several points of the Con- 
 federacy — dubious at times, certainly — but yet maintain- 
 ing it for three-quarters of a century afterward. Still, 
 the measures of conciliation adopted by Colonel Dongan 
 made a strong and favorable impression upon the Indians. 
 Availing himself of the difficulty between the Con- 
 federates and Virginia, consequent upon the outrages just 
 adverted to as having been instigated by the priests, 
 Colonel Dongan was instrumental in procuring a conven- 
 tion of the Five Nations, at Albany, in 1684, to 
 meet Lord Howard, of Effingham, Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, at which he (Dongan) was likewise present. This 
 meeting, or council, was attended by the happiest results. 
 The difficulties with Virginia were adjusted, and a cove- 
 nant made with Lord Howard for preventing further dep- 
 redations.* But what was of yet greater importance. 
 
 * Smith's WMory of New York. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. m 
 
 Colonel Dongan succeeded in completely gaining the af- 
 fections of the Indians, who conceived for him the warm- 
 est esteem. They even asked that the arms of the Duke 
 of York might be put upon their castles, a request which 
 it need not be said was most readily complied with, since, 
 should it afterward become necessary, the Governor might 
 find it convenient to construe it into an act of at least 
 partial submission to English authority, although it has 
 been asserted that the Indians themselves looked upon 
 the ducal insignia as a sort of charm that might protect 
 them against the French.* 
 
 There was likewi.«!e another fortunate occurrence of 
 events just at that time, which revived all the ancient 
 animosity between the Iroquois and the French. While 
 the conferences between Lord Howard and the Indians 
 were yet in progress, a message was received from M. de 
 la Barre, the Governor of Canada, complaining of the con- 
 duct of the Senecas in prosecuting hostilities against the 
 Miamies and other western nations in alliance with the 
 French, and thus interrupting their trade. Colonel Don- 
 gan communicated the message to the Iroquois chiefs, who 
 retorted by charging the French with supplying their 
 enemies with all their munitions of war. . " Onontio t 
 calls us children," said they, " and at the same time sends 
 powder to our enemies to kill us !" This collision resulted 
 in open war between the Iroquois and the French, the 
 latter sending to France for powerful reinforcements, with 
 the design of an entire subjugation of the former in the 
 ensuing year. Meantime the French Catholics continued 
 to procure letters from the Duke of York to his lieutenant 
 commanding him to lay no obstacles in the way of the 
 invaders. But these commands were again disregarded. 
 
 * Colden's History of the Five Nations. 
 
 \ The name by wliich tlie Iroquois were wont to speak of the French Gov- 
 ernors of Canada. 
 
112 HISTOKY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 Dongan apprised ^he Iroquois of the designs of the French, 
 not only to march against them with a strong army, but 
 simultaneously to bring down upon them the western 
 Indians in their interest. 
 
 Thus, by the wisdom and strong sense of justice of 
 
 Colonel Dongan, was the chain of friendship between the 
 
 English and the Five Nations brightened and the 
 
 most amicable relations re-established. Yet for 
 
 the course he. had taken, he fell under the displeasure of 
 
 his bigoted master on his accession to the throne in 1685. 
 
 It is not, of course, within the purpose of this history 
 to trace the progress of the long and cruel wars that suc- 
 ceeded the negotiations between Colonel Dongan and the 
 Confederates. Briefly,' it maybe said, in respect to the 
 expedition of M. de la Barre, that it failed by reason of 
 sickness in his army at Cadaraqui, before crossing the 
 lake. He was succeeded in the government of Canada by 
 the Marquis Denonville, who invaded the Seneca 
 country in 1687 with a powerful force, gaining, 
 however, such a victory over the Indians in the Genesee 
 Valley as led to an inglorious retreat. This invasion was 
 speedily recompensed by the Confederates, who descended 
 upon the French settlements of the St. Lawrence like a 
 tempest, and struck a blow of terrible vengeance upon 
 Montreal itself. 
 
 New York was at this time torn by the intestine 
 commotions incident to the revolution which drove the 
 Stuarts from the English throne and ended the power of 
 the Catholics in the colony. It was a consequence of 
 these divisions that the English could aiford the Indians 
 no assistance in their invasion of Canada at that time, 
 else that country would then doubtless have been wrested 
 from the Crown of France. But the achievements of the 
 Indians were, nevertheless, most important for the colony 
 of New York, the subjugation of which was at that pre- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 113 
 
 cise conjuncture meditated by France, and a combined 
 expedition, by land and sea, was undertaken for that pur- 
 pose — Admiral Caffniere commanding the ships which 
 sailed from Rochefort for New York, and the Count de 
 Frontenac, who had succeeded Denonville, being the 
 General of the land forces. On his arrival at Quebec, 
 however, the Count beheld his province reduced to a field 
 of devastation, and he was therefore constrained to aban- 
 don the enterprise. 
 
 Nor was Governor Dongan's administration in the 
 government of the colony itself characterized by less wis- 
 dom than his dealings with the Indians. He was highly 
 respected as Governor — being upright, discreet, and of 
 accomplished manners, added to which his firm and judi- 
 cious policy, and his steadfast integrity, soon won for him 
 " the affections of his people, and made him one of the 
 most popular of the Royal Governors." Two years pre- 
 vious to his arrival, the aldermen of New York, and the 
 justices of the peace of the Court of Assize, in conse- 
 quence of the tyranny of Andros, had petitioned the 
 Duko that the people might be allowed to participate in 
 the affairs of the government by the construction of a 
 General Assembly, in which they might be represented. 
 Through the interposition of William Penn, who enjoyed 
 the favor both of the King and the Duke, the point was 
 yielded, and Colonel Dongan was instructed to allow the 
 people fi voice in the government. Greatly, therefore, to 
 the joy of the inhabitants, who had become turbulent, 
 if not disaffected, under the rule of Andros, writs 
 were issued to the sheriffs summoning the freehold- 
 ers to choose representatives to meet the new Gover- 
 nor in Assembly. He thus gave the colony its first 
 legislative Assembly, which, meeting for the 
 fir»t time in the city of New York, on the 
 17th of October, 1683, consisted of the Governor, ten 
 
 15 
 
114 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY 
 
 councilors, and seventeen representatives elected by the 
 people. Henceforth, and up to the period of the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, the history of New York city as the 
 legislative capital of the province, consists, for the most 
 part, in a series of bitter scenes between the Assembly 
 and the Royal Governors. The first act of the Assembly 
 was to give to the province its first " Charter of Liber- 
 ties," by which it was ordained " that supreme legislative 
 power should forever reside in the Governor, Council, 
 and people met in General Assembly; that every free- 
 holder and freeman might vote for representatives with- 
 out restraint ; that no freeman should suffer but by judg- 
 ment of his peers, and that all trials should be by a jury 
 of twelve men ; that ho tax should be assessed • on any 
 pretense whatever but by the consent of the Assembly ; 
 that no seaman or soldier should be quartered on the 
 inhabitants against their will ; that no martial law should 
 exist; and that no person professing faith in God, by 
 Jesus Christ, should at any time be in any way dis- 
 quieted or questioned for any difference of opinion in 
 matters of religion." Three assemblies, at least, were to 
 be held every year ; and should any seat become vacant, 
 a new election was to be at once ordered by the Gov- 
 ernor. One of the first acts of the Assembly was to divide 
 the Province into twelve counties — New York, Rich- 
 mond, Kings, Queens, Suffolk, Orange, Ulster, Albany, 
 Westchester, Dutchess, Dukes, and Cornwall — all of which 
 names, with the exception of the last two, still remain at 
 the present day. 
 
 The Assembly, also, lost no time in bettering the con- 
 dition of the city itself. " New police regulations were 
 at once established. Sunday laws were enacted ; tavern- 
 keepers were forbidden to sell liquor except to travellers, 
 citizens to work, children to play in the streets, and In- 
 dians and negroes to assemble on the Sabbath. Twenty 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. II5 
 
 cartmen Avere licensed by the municipal authorities, on 
 condition that they should repair the highways gratis 
 whenever called on by the Mayor, and cart the dirt from 
 the streets (which the inhabitants were required to sweep 
 together every Saturday afternoon) beyond the precincts 
 of the city> The rate of cartage was fixed at three pence 
 per load to any place within the bounds of the city ; 
 beyond which the price was doubled. The cartmen, 
 however, soon proved refractory, and a few weeks after 
 the license system was abandoned, and all persons, with 
 the exception of slaves, were allowed to act as cartmen. 
 
 " On the 8th of December, 1683, the city was divided 
 into six wards. The First or South Ward, beginning at 
 the river, extended along the west side of Broad to 
 Beaver Street; thence westward along Beaver Street to 
 the Bowling Green ; thence southward by the fort to 
 Pearl Street ; and thence westward along the river-shore 
 to the place of starting. The Second or Dock Ward, also 
 beginning at the river at the south-east corner of Pearl 
 and Broad street, extended along the shore to Hanover 
 Square ; thence northward through William to Beaver 
 Street; thence along Beaver to Broad Street; thence 
 back through Broad Street to the river-shore. The 
 Third or East Ward formed a sort of triangle, begin- 
 ning at the corner of Pearl and Hanover Square, and 
 extending along the shore to the Half-Moon Fort at the 
 foot of Wall Street ; thence stretching along Wall to the 
 corner of William, and thence returning along the east 
 side of William to the river. The Fourth or North 
 Ward, beginning at the northwest corner of William and 
 Beaver Streets, extended through the former to the corner 
 of Wall ; thence westerly along the palisades to a line a 
 little beyond Nassau Street; thence southerly to Beaver 
 Street ; thence easterly along Beaver to the first-named 
 point. The Fifth or West Ward, beginning at the June- 
 
IIQ HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tion of the Fourth Ward with Beaver Street, extended 
 northerly along the boundary line of the latter to Wall 
 Street; thence along the palisades to Broadway; thence 
 southerly to Beaver Street ; thence easterly to the point 
 of starting. The Sixth or Out Ward comprised all the 
 farms and plantations outside the city walls, including 
 the town of Harlem. Each of these wards was author- 
 ized to elect an alderman and councilman annually to 
 represent them in the city government. The Governor 
 and Council retained the appointment of the Mayor in 
 their own hands ; it was not, indeed, until long after the 
 Revolution that this office was made elective by the 
 
 people. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " In 1686 the Dongan Charter was granted to the 
 city. This instrument, which still forms the basis of the 
 municipal rights and privileges of New York, con- 
 firmed the franchises before enjoyed by the cor- 
 poration, and placed the city government on a definite 
 footing. The Governor retained the appointment of the 
 mayor, recorder, sheriff, coroner, high-constable, town- 
 clerk, and clerk of the market in his own hands ; leaving 
 the aldermen, assistants, and petty constables to be 
 chosen by the people at the annual election on St. 
 Michael's Day. This charter, which was dated April 22, 
 1686, declared that New York city should thenceforth 
 comprise the entire island of Manhattan, extending to 
 the low-water mark of the bays and rivers surrounding it. 
 
 " In the same year the city received a new seal from 
 the home government. This still preserved the beaver of 
 the Dutch, with the addition of a flour-barrel and the 
 arms of a wind-mill, in token of the prevailing commerce 
 of the city. The whole was supported by two Indian 
 chiefs and encircled with a wreath of laurel, with the 
 
 motto, SiGILLUM ClVlTATIS NoVI EboRACI. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY Hy 
 
 " In 1687, Stephanus Van Cortlandt was again ap- 
 pointed Mayor, During his Mayoralty, it was determined 
 to enlarge the city by building a new street in the 
 river along the line of Water Street, between White- ' *'^'' 
 hall and Old Slip, and water-lots were sold by the corpo- 
 ration on condition that the purchasers should make the 
 street toward the water, and protect it by a substantial 
 wharf from the washing of the tide, in imitation of Waal 
 (or sheet-pile) Street, extending along the line of Pearl 
 street, from Broad to William Street, in front of the City 
 Hall. It was not, however, until some years after, that 
 this scheme was carried into effect, and the projected 
 street rescued from the waters. 
 
 " Measures were also taken to enlarge the city still 
 further by placing the fortifications further out, and lay- 
 ing out Wall Street thirty-six feet wide. The fortifica 
 tions, indeed, were now worse than useless. The palisades 
 which had been erected in 1653 along the line of Wall 
 Street had fallen down, the works were in ruins, the guns 
 had disappeared from the artillery-mounts, and the ditches 
 and stockades were in a ruinous condition. Their imme- 
 diate removal was determined on and ordered, but was 
 delayed by the revolution which followed soon after. 
 When war broke out between France and England in 
 1693, they were again repaired to be in readiness for the 
 expected French invasion, and it was not until 1699 that 
 their demolition was finally accomplished. Wall Street, 
 however, was laid out immediately, and it was not long 
 before it became one of the most important thoroughfares 
 in the city. During the same year, a valuation was made 
 of the city property, which was estimated on the assessor's 
 books at J&78,231."* 
 
 Many other municipal regulations concerning huck- 
 
 * Miss Mary L. Booth's History of New York. 
 
118 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 sters, bakers, butchers, and others, were established — then 
 esteemed of vital importance, but a repetition of which 
 would only weary. A single item, however, deserves no- 
 tice, as iUustrating the punishments' practiced in olden 
 times. A pillory, cage, whipping-post,t and ducking- 
 stool were set up in the vicinity of the City Hall, and 
 hither were brought all vagrants, slanderers, pilferers, and 
 truant children, to be exposed to the public gaze, and to 
 receive such chastisement as then- offenses might warrant. 
 Meanwhile, William and Mary had been proclaimed 
 King and Queen of England in place of James II, who, 
 having abdicated the throne, had become a wanderer on 
 the Continent. This change in the home government from 
 a Catholic to a Protestant one, necessitated a correspond- 
 ing change in the Governor at New York. Colonel Slough- 
 ter was, accordingl}^, commissioned to the government of 
 New York in January, 1689, but did not arrive until the 
 19th of March, 1691. The selection of Slough- 
 ter was not fortunate. According to Smith, he was 
 utterly destitute of every qualification for government: 
 licentious in his morals, avaricious, and base. Leisler, 
 who had administered the government after a fashion, 
 since the departure of Dongan, intoxicated with power, 
 refused to surrender the government to Sloughter, and 
 attempted to defend the fort, in which he had taken 
 refuge. Finding it expedient, however, very soon to 
 abandon the fort, he was arrested, and, with his son-in- 
 law, Milburne^ tried and executed for treason. Still, on 
 the whole, the conduct of Leisler during the revolution had 
 been considered patriotic, and his sentence was deemed 
 very unjust and cruel. Indeed, his enemies could not pre- 
 vail upon Sloughter to sign the warrant for his execution 
 until, for that purpose, they got him intoxicated. It was 
 
 * A whipping-post, put up in 1630, is still standing on the Village Green, iu 
 Fairfield, Connecticut, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. Ug 
 
 a murderous affair. Sloughter's administration was short 
 and turbulent. He died July 23d, 1691. 
 
 On the death of Sloughter, Richard Ingoldsby, the 
 captain of an independent company, was made president 
 of the council, to the exclusion of Joseph Dudley, who, 
 but for his absence in Boston, would have had the right 
 to preside, and upon whom the government would have 
 devolved. But although Dudley very soon returned to 
 New York, he did not contest the authority of Ingoldsby, 
 who administered the government until the arrival of 
 Colonel Fletcher, with a commission as governor, in 
 August, 1692, In the preceding month of June, 
 Ingoldsby met the Five Nations in council at Alba- 
 ny, on which occasion they declared their enmity to the 
 French in the strongest possible terms. Their expressions 
 of friendship for the English were also renewed. " Brother 
 Corlaer," said the sachem, " we are all the subjects of one 
 great king and queen ; we have one head, one heart, one 
 interest, and are all engaged in the same war." Thej 
 nevertheless condemned the English for their inactivity, 
 " telling them that the destruction of Canada would not 
 rnake one summer's work, against their united strength, 
 if ingeniously exerted." 
 
 In conducting the Indian affairs of the colony, Colonel 
 Fletcher took Major Schuyler into his councils, and was 
 guided by his opinions. "No man understood those affairs 
 better than he ; and his influence over the Indians was so 
 great, that whatever Quider,* as they called him, either 
 recommended or disapproved, had the force of a law. This 
 power over thein was supported, as it had been obtained, 
 by repeated offices of kindness, and his single bravery and 
 activity in the defense of his country." f Through the in- 
 
 * Quider, the Iroquois pronunciation of Peter. Having no labials in their 
 language, they could not say Peter, 
 f Smith's History of New York. 
 
120 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 fluence of Quider, therefore, Colonel Fletcher was placed 
 upon the best footing with the Indians, by whom was 
 conferred upon him the name of Cayenguinago, or " The 
 Great Swift Arrow," as a compliment for a remarkably 
 rapid journey made by him from New York to Schenec- 
 tady on a sudden emergency * 
 
 Despairing, at length, of accomplishing a peace with 
 the Five Nations, Count Frontenac determined to strike a 
 blow upon the Mohawks in their own country — which pur- 
 pose was securely executed in the month of February, 
 1693, For once this vigilant race of warriors were taken 
 by surprise, two of their castles being entered and cap- 
 tured without much resistance — the warriors of both hav- 
 ing been mostly absent at Schenectady. On assailing the 
 third or upper castle, however, the invaders met with a 
 different reception. The warriors within, to the number 
 of forty, were engaged in a war-dance, preparatory to some 
 military expedition upon which they were about entering ; 
 and though inferior in force, yet they yielded not without 
 a struggle, nor until thirty of the assailants had been slain. 
 About three hundred of the Mohawks were taken prison- 
 ers in this invasion, in respect to which the people of 
 Schenectady have been charged with bad conduct. They 
 neither aided their neighbors, nor even apprised them of 
 the approach of danger, although informed of the fiict in 
 due season themselves. But Qaider, the fist friend of the 
 Indians, took the field at the head of the militia of Albany, 
 immediately on hearing of the invasion, and harassed the 
 enemy sharply during their retreat. Indeed, but for the 
 protection of a snow-storm, and the accidental resting of 
 a cake of ice upon the river, forming a bridge for their 
 escape, the invaders would have been cut off. 
 
 Fletcher was by profession a soldier, a man of strong 
 
 * Colden's Six Nations. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 121 
 
 passions and inconsiderable talents ; very active, and 
 equally avaricious. His administration was so energetic 
 and successful the first year, that he received large sup- 
 plies, and a vote of special thanks from the Assembly. He 
 was a bigot, however, to the Episcopal form of church 
 government, and labored hard to introduce into the prov- 
 ince the English language, to encourage English churches 
 and schools. On this account he was soon involved in a 
 violent controversy with the Assembly, who were at first 
 inclined rather to favor the Dutch churches. But 
 in 1693 an Assembly was found who, more pliant, 
 passed an act " Providing for the building of a church 
 in the city of New York, in which was to be settled a 
 Protestant minister" — the word Protestant being tacitly 
 understood to mean Episcopal. This was the origin of 
 Trinity Church,* which was forthwith begun in 
 1696, and finished and opened for public worship, 
 Februai'y, 1697, under the auspices of Rev. William 
 Vesey. The church itself, which was a very insig- 
 nificant building, resembled its present namesake 
 on the same site in nothing save in having a very tall 
 spire. Certainly it did not resemble the present Trinity 
 in having set apart in it (as it did) a pew for the Mayor 
 and Common Council, to whom a sermon was annually 
 preached, on the day of the city election. 
 
 Fletcher was succeeded by Richard, Earl of Bella- 
 mont, who was appointed Governor of New York, Massa- 
 chusetts, and New Hampshire, in May, 1695, but 
 did not arrive in New York until May, 1698. He 
 was appointed by King William with a special view to 
 the suppression of piracy in the American seas — New 
 York, at that time, having been a commercial depot of 
 
 * Tkis cliurch was destroyed by fire in 1776, and lay in ruins until 1788, 
 when it was rebuilt. In 1839 it was torn down to build the present edifice, 
 whict was opened in 1846. 
 16 
 
122 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the pinites, with whom Fletcher and other officers in the 
 colony had a good understanding. Kidd was fitted out 
 with a ship by Bellamont, Robert Livingstone, and others, 
 including several English noblemen. Turning pirate him- 
 self, Kidd was afterward arrested in Boston by the Earl, 
 and sent home for trial. The Earl was a nobleman of 
 polite manners, a great favorite of King William, and 
 very popular among the people both of New York 
 and Boston. He had been dissipated in his youth, 
 but afterward became penitent and devout. He died in 
 New York in March, 1701. 
 
 On the death of Earl Bellamont, the government 
 
 devolved upon Mr. Nanfan, the Lieutenant-Governor, 
 
 until the appointment of Lord Cornbury in 1702. 
 
 1702. . . . . . . 
 
 A public dinner was given in honor of his arrival; 
 he was presented with the freedom of the city, in a gold 
 box ; and a congratulatory address was tendered him by 
 the city authorities. It was not long, however, before 
 his true character appeared. He was a very tyrannical, 
 base, and profligate man, and was appointed to the 
 government of New York by King William as a reward 
 for his desertion of King James, in whose army he was 
 an officer. He was a savage bigot and an ungentlemanly 
 tyrant He imprisoned several clergymen who were 
 dissenters, and robbed the Rev. M. Hubbard, of Jamaica, 
 of his house and glebe. He was wont to dress himself 
 in women's clothes, and thus patrol the fort. His avarice 
 was insatiable, and his disposition that of a savage. 
 
 The only things worthy of note during his adminis- 
 tration are : First, the establishment by the corporation of 
 the city of a free grammar-school ; and, second, the rag- 
 ing of a malignant epidemic, which strongly resembled 
 the yellow-fever. The terror-stricken citizens fled to the 
 sliores of New Jersey and Staten Island; and Lord 
 Cornbury, with his council, took up his quarters at Ja- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 123 
 
 maica, Long Island. But the inhabitants of New York 
 had a worse plague than even the pestilence, in Corn- 
 bury ; who, at length, becoming an object of uni- 
 versal abhorrence and detestation, was superseded 
 by Queen Anne, who, in the autumn of 1708, appointed 
 John, Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurley, in his place. 
 
 Lovelace, however, did not long enjoy either the cares 
 or pleasures of office. He died on the 5th of May in 
 the next year, of a disorder contracted in crossing the 
 ferry on his first arrival in New York. On the death of 
 his lordship, the government once more devolved 
 upon Richard Ingoldsby, the Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the colony, until the arrival of Governor Hunter, in 
 the summer of 1710. 
 
 Hunter was a Scotchman, and when a boy, an ap- 
 prentice to an apothecary. Leaving his master, he 
 entered the army, and, being a man of wit and beauty, 
 gained promotion, and also the hand of Lady Hay. In 
 1707, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, 
 but being captured by the French on his voyage out, on 
 his return to England he was appointed to the govern- 
 ment of New York and New Jersey, then united in the 
 same jurisdiction. Governor Hunter was the man who 
 brought over the three thousand Palatines from Germany, 
 by whom the German settlements in the interior of New 
 York and Pennsylvania were founded. He administered 
 the government of the colony " well and wisely," as was 
 said to him in an affectionate parting address by 
 the General Assembly, until the summer of 1719, 
 when he returned to England on leave of absence, as well 
 on account of his health iis to look after his private 
 affairs. lie intimated, upon his departure, that he might 
 return to the government again, but did not. The chief 
 command on his departure devolved on the lion. Peter 
 Schuyler, as the oldest member of the council, but only 
 
124 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 for a brief period. He, however, held a treaty with the 
 Six Nations at Albany, which was considered satisfactory ; 
 yet it would have been more so had his efforts to induce 
 the Confederates to drive Joncaire, the agent of the 
 French, out of their country, been successful. This Jesuit 
 emissary had resided among the Senecas from the begin- 
 ning of Queen Anne's reign. He had been adopted by 
 them, and was greatly beloved by the Onondagas. He 
 was incessant in his intrigues in behalf of the French, 
 facilitating the missionaries in their progress through the 
 country, and contributing greatly to the vacillating course 
 of the Indians toward the English. Schuyler was aware 
 of all this ; but, notwithstanding his own great influence 
 over the Six Nations, he could not prevail upon them to 
 discard their favorite. In other respects the government of 
 Schuyler was marked by moderation, wisdom, and integrity. 
 About this period a " new market; was established at 
 the upper end of Broad Street, between the City Hall and 
 Exchange Place, and permission was given to the resi- 
 dents of the vicinity to erect stalls and sheds to suit their 
 convenience, under the direction of the Clerk of the 
 Market. Country people were also permitted to sell 
 meat at wholesale or retail, as they pleased, subject to 
 the same supervision ; and bakers were required to brand 
 their loaves with their initials, under penalty of forfeit- 
 ure of the bread. In the spring of the same year (1711), 
 it was resolved that a meeting of the Common Council 
 should be held at the City Hall on the first Friday of 
 every month ; and the treasurer was also ordered to pur- 
 chase eighteen rush-hottomed chairs and an oval table for 
 their accommodation. 
 
 In regard to the appearance of the city itself at this 
 
 1704. ^™*^ ^^ ^^'*^ ^'^^ ^^^^ entirely to conjectiu-e. In the 
 
 month of October 1704, Miss Sarah Knight, a 
 
 Boston lady of considerable shrewdness and observa- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 125 
 
 tion, and who was connected with some of the old New- 
 J]ngland families, traveled on horseback from Boston to 
 New York, on a visit to some of her friends. During her 
 journey she kept a journal, in which she jotted down her 
 experiences of men and things noted by the way. This 
 journal, which has recently been printed for private cir- 
 culation, contains the following quaint passage, descriptive 
 of the city at this period : 
 
 " The Citie of New York is a pleasant well compacted place, situated on a 
 commodious River, wch is a fine harbour for shipping. The Buildino; Brick 
 Generaly very stately and high, though not altogether like ours in Boston. 
 The Bricks in some of the Houses are of divers CouUers and laid in Checkers, 
 being glazed, look very agreeable. The inside of them are neat to admira- 
 tion, the wooden work, for only the walla are plastered, and the Sumers and 
 Gist * are plained and kept very white soowr'd as so is all the partitions made 
 of Bords. The fire-places have no Jambs (as ours have) But the Backs run 
 flush with the walls, and the Hearth is of Tyles and is as farr out into the 
 Room at the Ends as before the fire, wch is Generally Five foot in the Low'r 
 rooms, and the peice over where the mantle tree should be is made as ours 
 with Joyners work, and as I suppose is fasten'd to iron rodda inside. The 
 House where the Vendue was, had Chimney Corners like ours, and they and 
 the Hearth were laid wth the finest tile that I ever see, and the stair cases 
 laid all with white tile which is ever clean,f and so are the wfiUs of the 
 Kitchen, whch had a Brick floor. They were making Great preparations to 
 Receive their Governor, Lord CORNBURY from the Jerseys, and for that End 
 raised the militia to Gard him on shore to the fort. | 
 
 " They are Generaly of the Church of England and have a New-England 
 Gentleman! for their Minister, and a vjry fine church set out with all Cus- 
 tomary requisites. There are also a Dutch 1 and Divers Conventicles, as they 
 
 * Summers and joist. The Summer, a word now not in very common use, was a central 
 beam supporting the joist, sucli as is now sometimes called the bearing beam. 
 
 t The tiles were set into the wall, forming, as it were, a continuous border or row of the 
 width o( one tile (or perhaps sometimes of more) close to the upper line of staircase. The 
 Coeymans house, standing on the bank of the Hudson, just north of the village of Coey- 
 maiis, still shows most of these peculiarities of building mentioned by Mme. Knight ; the 
 staircase laid with tiles, no plaster except on the walls, and heavy floor-timbers, strengthened 
 at tlie ends by solid knees, planed and "kept very white scoured." 
 
 :t On the block bcween Bowling Green, Whitehall, Bridge, and State Slreets.— Valentine's 
 Histcrry of New York, 28. 
 
 § William Vesey, previously "a dissenting preacher on Long Island He had received 
 his education in Harvard under that rigid Independent, Increase Mather, and was sent 
 thence by him to confirm the minds of those who had removed for their convenienee from 
 New England to this Province. « » * But Col. Fletcher, who saw into his design, took 
 off Mr. Vesey by an invitation to this living; * * * and Mr. Vesey returned from Eng- 
 land in Priest's orders.''"— Documentary History of New Yorlc., HI. 438. 
 
 1 The Reformed Dutch Church, bnilt in 1693, in what is now E-ichange Place.— Orfen/ea/'e 
 History rf N. T. Churches, 11. 
 
126 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 call them, viz.: Baptist* Quakers.f &c. Tliey are not stnct in keeping the 
 ^bbath a in Boston and other place, where I had bin. Bat seem to deal with 
 gSat exactness as farr as I see or Deall with. They are ---^^l^ *« °- 
 Lther and Curteos and Civill to strangers and fare well in their houses The 
 English go very fashernable in their Dress. But the Dutch, especially the 
 middlincr sort, differ from our women, in ther hahitt go loose, were French 
 muches wch are like a Capp and a head band in one, leaving their ears bare, 
 which are sett out wth Jewells of a large size and many in number And their 
 fingers hoop't with rings, some with large stones in them of many CouUers as 
 were their pendants in their ears, which Tou should see very old womens wear 
 
 as well as Young. . 
 
 " They have Vendues very frequently, and make their earnings very well by 
 them for they treat with good Liquor Liberally, and the customers Drink as 
 Liberally, and Generally pay for-t as well, by paj-ing for that which they Bidd 
 up Briskly for after the sack has gone plentifully about, tho' sometimes good 
 penny worths are got there. Their Diversions in the Winter is Riding Sleys 
 about three or four Miles out of Town, where they have Houses of entertain- 
 ment at a place called the Bowery, J and some go to friends' Houses, who 
 handsomely treat them. Mr. BuRiiOUGHS carrr'd his spouse and Daughter 
 and myself out to one Madame DOWES, a Gentlewoman that lived at a farm 
 House, who gave as a handsome entertainment of five or six Dishes and choice 
 Beer and metheglin. Cyder, &c., all which she said was the produce of her 
 farm. I believe we mett fifty or sixty slays that day ; they fly with great 
 swiftness, and some are so furious that they'll turn out of the path for none 
 except a Loadea Cart. Nor do they spare for any diversion the place affords 
 and sociable to a degree, they'r Tables being as free to their Naybours as tc 
 themselves." 
 
 William Burnet, son of the celebrated prelate of that 
 name, who flourished in the reign of William and Mary, 
 succeeded Hunter in the government of the colony, in 
 the year 1720 ; and of all the colonial Governors 
 of New York, with the exception of Colonel Don- 
 gan, his Indian and colonial policy was marked by the 
 most prudent forecast and the greatest wisdom. Imme- 
 diately after the peace of Utrecht a brisk trade in goods 
 for the Indian market was revived between Albany and 
 
 ♦ Greenleaf, however, g;iveyl799 as the first Bapti.-^t preaching— that of Wickenden. A 
 petition of Nicholas Eyres slates that in 1715 his house was registered for an Anabaptist 
 msQiing-houfe.— Documentary History of New York, III, 480. 
 
 t The first Friends' Meeting-house— a small frame building, standing on Little Green 
 Street— is said to have been erected in 1696 or VlOa.— GreenUnf. 116. 
 
 * *• A small tavern stood on ihe banks of the Harlem River. This tavern was the occa- 
 sional point of excursion for riding parties from the city, and was known as the 'Wedding- 
 place,' One or two small taverns \\ ere on the road between the town and the Bowery.'^ — 
 Valerdine" li Ristory of Xeic York, 69. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 127 
 
 Montreal, the Caughnawaga tribe of the Muhawks resid- 
 ing near Montreal serving as carriers. The chiefs of the 
 Six Nations foresaw the evil and inevitable consequences 
 to result from allowing that trade to pass round in that 
 direction, inasmuch as the Indians would of course be 
 drawn exclusively to Montreal for their supplies, to be 
 received immediately at the hands of the French, and 
 they cautioned the English authorities against it. Mr. 
 Hunter had indeed called the attention of the General 
 Assembly to the subject at an antecedent period ; but no 
 action was had thereon until after Mr. Burnet had as- 
 sumed the direction of the colonial administration. The 
 policy of the latter was at once to cut off an intercourse so 
 unwise and dangerous with Montreal, and bring the entire 
 Indian trade within the limits and control of New York. 
 To this end an act was passed, at his suggestion, subjecting 
 the traders with Montreal to a forfeiture of their goods, 
 and a penaltv of one hundred pounds for each infraction 
 of the law. It likewise entered into the policy of Mr. 
 Burnet to win the confidence of the Caughnawagas, and 
 reunite them with their kindred in their native valley. 
 But the ties by which the Roman priesthood had bound 
 them to the interests of the French were too strong, and 
 the efforts of the Governor were unsuccessful. 
 
 In furtherance of the design to grasp the Indian trade, 
 not only of the Six Nations, but likewise that of the re- 
 moter nations of the upper lakes, a trading-post was 
 established at Oswego in 1722. A trusty agent was 
 also appointed to reside at the great council-fire of 
 the Onondagas, the central nation of the Confederates. 
 A congress of several of the colonies was held at Albany 
 to meet the Six Nations, during the same year, which, 
 among other distinguished men, was attended by Gov- 
 ernor Spottswood, of Virginia, Sir William Keith, of Penn- 
 sylvania, and by Governor Burnet. At this council the 
 
128 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 chiefs stipulated that in their Southern war expeditions 
 they would not cross the Potomac ; and in their marches 
 against their Southern enemies, their path was to lie 
 westward of the great mountains, meaning the Allegha- 
 nies. Mr. Burnet again brightened the chain of friend- 
 ship with them on the part of New York, notwithstand- 
 ing the adverse influences exerted by the Chevalier Jon- 
 caire, the Jesuit agent residing alternately among the 
 Senecas and Onondagas. 
 
 The beneficial effects of Mr. Burnet's policy were soon 
 apparent. In the course of a single year more than forty 
 young men plunged boldly into the Indian country as 
 traders, acquired their language, and strengthened the 
 precarious friendship existing between the English and 
 . the more distant nations ; while tribes of the latter pre- 
 viously unknown to the colonists, even from beyond the 
 Michilimackinac, visited Albany for purposes of traffic. 
 
 The establishment of an English post at Oswego was 
 a cause of high displeasure to the French, who, in order 
 to intercept the trade from the upper lakes that would 
 otherwise be drawn thither, and thus be diverted from 
 Montreal, determined to repossess themselves of Niagara, 
 rebuild the trading-house at that point, and repair their 
 dilapidated fort. The assent of the Onondagas to this meas- 
 ure was obtained by the Baron de Longueil, who visited 
 their country for that purpose, through the influence of 
 Joncaire and his Jesuit associates. But the other mem- 
 bers of the Confederacy, disapproving of the movement, 
 declared the permission given to be void, and dispatched 
 messengers to Niagara to arrest the procedure. With a 
 just appreciation of the importance of such an encroach- 
 ment upon their territory, the Confederates met Mr. 
 Burnet in council upon the subject at Albany 
 in 1727. " We come to you howling," said the 
 chiefs ; " and this is the reason why we howl, that the 
 
HiSTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 129 
 
 Governor of Canada encroaches upon our land and builds 
 thereon." Governor Burnet made them a speech on the 
 occasion, beautifully expressed in their own figurative 
 language, which gave them great satisfaction.* The 
 chiefs, declaring themselves unable to resist this invasion 
 of the French, entreated the English for succor, and for- 
 mally surrendered their country to the great king, " to be 
 protected by him for their use," as heretofore stated. 
 But Governor Burnet, being at that period involved in 
 political difficulties with an Assembly too short-sighted 
 or too factious to appreciate the importance of preserv- 
 ing so able a head to the colonial government, was 
 enabled to do nothing more for the protection of the In- 
 dians than to erect a small military defense at Oswego ; 
 and even this work of necessity he was obliged to per- 
 form at his own private expense. Meantime the French 
 c impleted and secured their works at Niagara without 
 molestation. 
 
 In the course of the same year, having been thwarted 
 in his enlarged and patriotic views by several successive 
 assemblies, Mr. Burnet, one of the ablest and wisest of the 
 colonial administrators, retired from the government of 
 New York, and accepted that of Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire. His departure, personally, was univeri^ally 
 regretted. He was not only a man of letters, but of wit — 
 a believer in the Christian religion, yet not a serious pro- 
 fessor. A variety of amusing anecdotes has been related 
 of him. When on his way from New York to assume the 
 government at Boston, one of the committee who went 
 from that town to meet him on the borders of Rhode 
 Island was the facetious Colonel Tailer. Burnet com- 
 plained of the long graces that were said before meals by 
 clergymen on the road, and asked when they would 
 
 * Smith's History of 2<few York. 
 17 
 
130 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 shorten. Tailer answered : " The graces will increase in 
 length till you come to Boston; after that they will 
 shorten till you come to your government of New Hamp- 
 shire, where your excellency will find no grace at all." 
 
 Colonel John Montgomery succeeded Mr. Burnet in the 
 government of the colonies of New York and New Jersey 
 in the month of April, 1728. He was a Scotchman, 
 and bred a soldier. But quitting the profession of 
 arms, he went into Parliament, serving, also, for a time, 
 as groom of the bed-chamber to his majesty George II, 
 before his accession to the throne. He was a man of 
 moderate abilities and slender literary attainments. He 
 was too good-natured a man to excite enmities; and his 
 administration was one of tranquil inaction. He was an 
 indolent man, and had not character enough to inspire 
 opposition. 
 
 The French, perceiving this, and enraged at the erec- 
 tion of a fort at Oswego, were now menacing that post. 
 The new Governor thereupon met the Six Nations in 
 council at Albany, to renew the covenant chain, and en- 
 gage them in the defense .of that important station. 
 Large presents were distributed among them, and they 
 declared their willingness to join the reinforcements 
 detached from the independent companies for that service. 
 Being apprised of these preparations, the French desisted 
 from their threatened invasion. 
 
 Much of the opposition to the administration of Gov- 
 ernor Burnet had been fomented and kept alive by the 
 Albanians, who, by the shrewdness of his Indian policy, 
 and the vigorous measures by which he had enforced it, 
 had been interrupted in their illicit trade in Indian goods 
 with Montreal, and also by the importers of those goods 
 residing in the city of New York. Sustained, however, 
 by his council-board, and by the very able memoir of 
 Dr. Golden upon that subject, Mr. Burnet, as the reader 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 13] 
 
 has already been apprised, had succeeded in giving a new 
 and more advantageous character to the inland trade, 
 while the Indian relations of the colony had been placed 
 upon a better footing, in so far, at least, as the opportuni- 
 ties of the French to tamper with them had been measur- 
 ably cut off. But in December of the succeeding year, 
 owing to some intrigues that were never clearly under- 
 stood, all these advantages were suddenly relinquished by 
 an act of the Crown repealing the measures of Mr. Bur- 
 net ; reviving, in effect, the execrable trade of the Alba- 
 nians, and thus at once re-opening the door of intrigue 
 between the French and the Six Nations, which had been 
 so wisely closed. 
 
 The three principal events, however, ol Montgomery's 
 administration affecting the city itself, were the grant of 
 an amended city charter in 1730, by which the 
 jurisdiction of the city was fixed to begin at 
 King's Bridge, the establishment of a line of stages to run 
 between New York and Philadelphia once a fortnight 
 during the winter months, and the founding of the first 
 public library. 
 
 For more than a century there had been no public 
 library in the city; but in the year 1729 some sixteen 
 hundred and twenty-two volumes were bequeathed by the 
 Rev. John Millington, rector of Newington, England, to 
 the " Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts," by whom the books were in turn imme- 
 diately presented to the city. To this number also was 
 added another collection, the gift of the Rev. John Sharp, 
 chaplain to Lord Bellamont, when both collections, now one, 
 were opened to the public as the '' Corporation Library." 
 The librarian dying soon after, the books were neglected 
 until 1754, when a few public-spirited citizens founded 
 the Societij Library^ at the same time adding the Corpo- 
 ration collection and depositing the whole in the City 
 
132 
 
 HISTOET OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 Hall. The undertaking prospered, and in 1772 George III 
 granted it a charter. During the Revolutionary struggle 
 the library was neglected ; but when peace was restored 
 in 1783, the society revived their charter and again set 
 themselves to work collecting those volumes that had been 
 scattered and replacing those irretrievably lost by new 
 ones. Their efforts were so far successful as to warrant 
 them in erecting a library building on Nassau Street, 
 opposite the Dutch church, a building that for a long time 
 was considered one of the finest specimens of architecture 
 of which the city could boast. Thence it was removed to 
 the Mechanics' Society building on Chambers Street, where 
 it remained until the completion of their new and fine 
 edifice in 1840 on the corner of Broadway and Leonard 
 Street. This spot was next vacated and quarters were 
 obtained for it in the new Bible House, Astor Place, 
 whence, in 1857, it once more removed to its beautiful 
 edifice in University Place, between Twelfth and Thir- 
 teenth Streets. Such is a short sketch of the first public 
 library of New York, commenced one hundred and thirty- 
 nine years ago. 
 
 On the decease of Colonel Montgomery, in 1731, the 
 duties of the colonial executive were for a brief period 
 exercised by Mr. Rip Van Dam, as President of 
 the Council.* His administration was signalized 
 by the memorable infraction of the treaty of Utrecht by 
 the French, who then invaded the clearly-defined territory 
 of New York, and built the fortress of St. Frederick, at 
 Crown Pointy a work which gave them the command of 
 Lake Champlain — the highway between the English and 
 French colonies. The pusillanimity evinced by the gov- 
 ernment of New York on the occasion of that flagrant 
 
 * Mr. Van Dam was an eminent merchant in tlie city of New York, " of a 
 fair estate," says Smith, the historian, " though distinguished more for the in- 
 tegrity of his heart than his capacity to hold the reins of government." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 133 
 
 encroachment upon its domains, excites the amazement 
 of the retrospective reviewer. Massachusetts, alarmed at 
 this advance of the rivals, if not natural enemies, of the 
 English upon the settlement of the latter, first called the 
 attention of the authorities of New York to the subject ; 
 but the information was received with the most provoking 
 indifference. There was a regular military force in the 
 colony abundantly sufficient, by a prompt movement, to 
 repel the aggression, yet not even a remonstrance was 
 uttered against it. With the exception of this infringe- 
 ment upon the territory of New York, nothing 
 worthy of special mention occurred during the ad- 
 ministration of Mr. Van Dam. In August, 1732, Colonel 
 William Cosby arrived in New York as his successor. 
 The first act of the new Governor was one which, 
 having its rise at first in a mere personal quarrel, was des- 
 tined to establish, for all time in America, the question of 
 the liberty of the press. The act of the Governor here 
 alluded to was the institution of proceedings against Rip 
 Van Dam to recover half of the salary which the latter 
 had received during his occupation of the Governor's 
 chair. The suit was decided against Van Dam, who was 
 consequently suspended from the exercise of his functions 
 as President of the Council. This unfair decision natu- 
 rally aroused the indignation of the people, who gave vent 
 to their feelings in squibs and lampoons hurled without 
 mercy at the Governor and his party. These were, in 
 turn, answered by the New York Gazette^ a paper published 
 by William Bradford in the interest of the Government ; 
 and the controversy finally grew so bitter that John Peter 
 Zenger, a printer by trade, was induced, under the patron- 
 age, as was supposed, of Rip Van Dam, to start a new 
 paper, the New York Weekly Journal — the columns of which 
 were to be devoted to opposing the colonial administration 
 of Governor Cosby. The columns of the new paper teemed 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 with able and spicy articles assailing the acts of the Gov- 
 ernor — written, probably, by William Smith and James 
 Alexander, the two prominent lawyers of New York. The 
 Governor, and those members of his council who were his 
 satellites, were not long in bringing themselves into the 
 behef that these articles were actionable ; and thus it hap- 
 pened that the first great libel suit tried in this city was insti- 
 tuted by the Government, in 1734, against Zenger. 
 ' ''^*" The latter, in a pamphlet which he wrote afterward 
 upon his trial, quaintly says:* "As there was but one 
 Printer in the Province of New York that printed a public 
 News Paper, I was in Hopes, if I undertook to publish an- 
 other, I might make it worth my while, and I soon found 
 that my Hopes were not groundless. My first paper was 
 printed November 15th, 1733, and I continued printing 
 and publishing of them (I thought to the satisfaction of 
 every body) till the January following, when the Chief 
 Justice was pleased to animadvert upon the Doctrine of 
 Libels in a long charge given in that term to the Grand 
 Jury." 
 
 Zenger was thereupon imprisoned on Sunday, the 17th 
 of November, 1734, by virtue of a warrant from the Gov- 
 ernor and Council; and a concurrence of the House of 
 Representatives in the prosecution Avas requested. The 
 House, however, declined by laying the request of the 
 Council upon the table. The Governor and Council then 
 ordered the libelous papers to be burned by the common 
 hangman or whipper, near the pillory. But both the com- 
 mon whipper and the common hangman were officers of 
 the Corporation, not of the Crown, and they declined 
 officiating at the illumination. The papers were therefore 
 
 * This pamplilet, whick is excedingly rare, is a large 8vo (5J^x9Ji^ inches) 
 of 39 pages. It is entitled : A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John 
 Peter Zenger, Printer of tlie New York WeeMy Journal : — New York Printed : 
 Lancaster re-printed, and sold by W. Dunlap, at tlie New Printing Offices, Queen 
 Street, 1736. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 135 
 
 burned by the Sheriff's negro servant at the order of the 
 Governor* An ineffectual attempt Avas next made to 
 procure an indictment against Zenger, but the Grand Jury 
 refused to find a bill. The Attorney-General was then 
 directed to file no information against him for printing the 
 libels, and he was consequently kept in prison until 
 another term. His counsel offered exceptions to the com- 
 missions of the judges, which the latter not only refused 
 to hear, but excluded his counsel, Messrs. Smith and Alex- 
 ander, from the bar. Zenger then obtained other counsel 
 — John Chambers of New York, and Andrew Hamilton 
 of Philadelphia. The trial at length came on and excited 
 great interest. The truth, under the old English law of 
 libel, could never be given in evidence, and was of course 
 excluded on the present trial. Hamilton, nevertheless, 
 tried the case with consummate ability. He showed the 
 jury that they were the judges as well of the law as the 
 fact, and Zenger was acquitted. " The jury," says Zenger 
 in relating the result of the trial, " withdrew, and in a 
 small time returned, and being asked by the clerk whether 
 tliey were agreed upon their verdict and whether John 
 
 '* In tlie pamphlet before alluded to, Zenger gives the following account of 
 this proceeding -. 
 
 " At a council held at Fort George in New York the 2d of November, 1734, 
 present, His Excellency William Cosby, Captain-General and Qovernor-in-Chief , 
 &c., r. Clark, Mr. Harrison, Dr. Golden " [a note says Dr. Golden was that day 
 at Esopus, ninety miles away], " Mr. Livingston, Mr. Kennedy, the Chief Jus- 
 tice, Mr. Cortlandt, Mr. Lane, Mr. Horsmanden : 
 
 " Whereas, By an order of the Board of this day, some of John Peter Zen- 
 ger's journals, entitled the New York Weekly Journal, Nos. 7, 47, 48, 49, were 
 ordered to be burned by the hands of the common hangman or whipper, near 
 the pillory of this city, on Wednesday, the 6th inst., between the hours of eleven 
 and twelve. It is therefore ordered that the Mayor and Magistrates of this city 
 do attend at the burning of the several papers or journals aforesaid, numbered 
 as above-mentioned. Feed. Mokkis, D. Gl. Con. 
 
 " To Robert Luktinc, Esq., Mayor of the City of New York, &c." 
 
 (The Aldermen protested vigorously against the execution of this order, 
 and refused to instruct the Sheriif to execute it. The Sheriff burned the papers, 
 however, or " delivered them into the Imnds of his own negro, and ordered Mm 
 to put them into the fire, which lie did.") 
 
136 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Peter Zenger was guilty of printing and publishing the 
 libels in the information mentioned, they answered by 
 Thomas Hunt, their foreman, not guilty, upon which 
 there were three huzzas in the hall, which was crowded 
 with people, and the next day I was discharged from 
 imprisonment." 
 
 Immediately after the trial the Corporation voted the 
 freedom of the city in a magnificent gold box * to Andrew 
 Hamilton, " for the remarkable service done to this' city 
 and colony, by his defense of the rights of mankind and 
 the liberty of the press." 
 
 Twenty years afterward, however, the Government 
 organ itself fell under the displeasure of the reigning 
 powers. Upon the relinquishment of his paper in 1743, 
 it was resumed by James Parker under the double title of 
 the New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy. In 1753, ten 
 years afterward, Parker took a partner by the name of 
 William Wayman. But neither of the partners, nor both 
 of them together, possessed the indomitable spirit of John 
 Peter Zenger. Having in March, 1756, published an 
 article reflecting upon the people of Ulster and Orange 
 counties, the Assembly, entertaining a high regard for 
 the majesty of the people, took ofiense thereat, and both 
 the editors were taken into custody by the sergeant-at- 
 arms. What the precise nature of the insult upon the 
 sovereign people of those counties was, does not appear. 
 But the editors behaved in a craven manner. They ac- 
 knowledged their fault, begged pardon of the House, and 
 paid the costs of the proceedings, in addition to all which 
 
 * This gold box waa five ounces and a lialf in weigiit and inclosed the sea] 
 of the said Freedom. On its lid were engraved the arms of the City of New 
 York and these mottoes : On the outer part of the lid, Demehsjb Leges — 
 TiMEFACTA LiBERTAS — H^c Tandem Emergunt. Ou the inner side of the 
 lid, NON NuMMis — ViKTUTE Paratdr. On the front of the rim, Ita Cuiqub 
 EvENiAT tJT DE RepubliCa Mbruit. " WMch freedom and box," naively 
 adds Zenger, " was presented in the manner that had been directed, and grate- 
 fully accepted by the said Andrew Hamilton, Esquire." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 137 
 
 they gave up the name of the author. He proved to be 
 none other than the Rev. Hezekiah Watkins, a missionary 
 to the County of Ulster, residing at Newburg. The 
 reverend gentleman was accordingly arrested, brought to 
 New York, and voted guilty of a high misdemeanor and 
 contempt of the authority of the House. Of what per- 
 suasion was this Mr. Watkins does not appear. But 
 neither Luther, nor Calvin, nor Hugh Latimer would have 
 betrayed the right of free discussion as he did by begging 
 the pardon of the House, standing to receive a reprimand, 
 paying the fees, and promising to be more circumspect in 
 future — for the purpose of obtaining his discharge. This 
 case affords the most singular instance of the exercise of 
 the doubtful power of punishing for what are called con- 
 tempts on record. A court has unquestionably a right 
 to protect itself from indignity while in session, and so 
 has a legislative body, although the power of punishing 
 for such an offense without trial by jury is now gravely 
 questioned. But for a legislative body to extend the 
 mantle of its protection over its constituency in such a 
 matter is an exercise of power of which, even in the 
 annals of the Star Chamber, when presided over by 
 Archbishop Laud, it is difficult to find a parallel. Sure it 
 is that a people, then or now, who would elect such mem- 
 bers to the Legislature deserve nothing else than con- 
 tempt. From the establishment, however, of the inde- 
 pendence of the country until the present day there has 
 been no attempt to fetter the press by censors or by law ; 
 while the old English law of libel, which prevailed until 
 the beginning of the present century, has been so modi- 
 fied as to allow the truth in all cases to be given in 
 evidence. For the attainment of this great end the 
 country is indebted, more than to all other men, to the 
 early and bosom friend of the late venerable Dr. Nott — 
 Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 18 
 
1743. 
 
 138 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 At length the incessant quarrels of the weak and 
 avaricious Cosby with the people and their representa- 
 tives was suddenly terminated by his death in 
 "^*'' March, 1736. On his decease, Mr. George Clarke, 
 long a member of the Council, after a brief struggle 
 with Mr. Van Dam for the presidency, succeeded to the 
 direction of the government, and, being shortly after- 
 ward commissioned as Lieutenant-Governor, continued at 
 the head of the colonial administration from the autumn 
 of 1736 to that of 1743. Mr. Clarke was remotely 
 connected by marriage with the family of Lord 
 Clarendon, having been sent over as Secretary of the 
 colony in the reign of Queen Anne. Being, moreover, a 
 man of strong common sense and of uncommon tact, and. 
 by reason of his long residence in the colony and the 
 several official stations he had held, well acquainted with 
 its affairs, his administration — certainly until toward its 
 close — was comparatively popular, and, all circumstances 
 considered, eminently successful. In the brief struggle 
 for power between himself and Mr. Van Dam, the latter 
 had been sustained by the popular party, while the 
 oflB.cers of the Cro'wn and the partisans of Cosby, with 
 few, if any, exceptions, adhered to Mr. Clarke. This 
 difficulty, however, had been speedily ended by a royal 
 confirmation of the somewhat doubtful authority assumed 
 by Mr. Clarke. His own course, moreover, on taking 
 the seals of office, was conciliatory. In his first speech 
 to the General Assembly, he referred in temperate lan- 
 guage to the unhappy divisions which had of late dis- 
 turbed the colony, and which he thought it was then a 
 favorable moment to heal. The English flour -market 
 having been overstocked by large supplies furnished from 
 the other colonies, the attention of the Assembly was 
 directed to the expediency of encouraging domestic man- 
 ufactures in various departments of industry. To the 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 139 
 
 Indian affairs of the colony Mr. Clarke invited the spe- 
 cial attention of the Assembly. The military works of 
 Fort Hunter being in a dilapidated condition, and the 
 object of affording protection to the Christian settlements 
 through the Mohawk Valley having been accomplished, 
 the Lieutenant-Governor suggested the erection of a new 
 fort at the carrying-place between the Mohawk River 
 and Wood Creek* leading into the Oneida Lake, and 
 thence through the Oswego River into Lake Ontario ; 
 and the transfer of the garrison from Fort Hunter to this 
 new and commanding position. He likewise recommended 
 the repairing of the block-house at Oswego, and the send- 
 ing of smiths and other artificers into the Indian country, 
 especially among the Senecas.t 
 
 During the greater part of the year 1738 — if we ex- 
 cept the establishing of a quarantine on Bedloe's Island 
 and the opening of Rector Street — but little at- 
 tention was paid to local affairs, the principal 
 historical incident of that year being the memorable con- 
 
 * Tlie site, afterward, of Fort Stauwix, now the opulent town of Rome. 
 
 ■f In the course of this Session of the General Assembly, Chief Justice De 
 Lancey, Speaker of the Legislative Council, announced that his duties in the 
 Supreme Court would render it impossible for him to act as Speaker through 
 the session. It was therefore ordered that the oldest Councilor present 
 should thenceforward act as Speaker. Under this order. Dr. Golden first 
 came to the chair. 
 
 On the 26th of October, the Council resolved that they would hold their 
 sittings in the Common Council chamber of the City Hall. The House imme- 
 diately returned a message that they were holding their sessions, and should 
 contiQue to hold them, in that chamber; and that it was conformable to the 
 constitution that the Council, in its legislative capacity, should sit as a distinct 
 and separate body. During the same session, also, the Council having sent a 
 message to the House by the hand of a deputy-clerk, a message was trans- 
 mitted back, signifying that the House considered such a course disrespectful. 
 Until that time messages had been conveyed between the Houses, with bills, 
 resolutions, &c., by the hands of their members respectively. The House 
 considered the sending of a clerk an innovation upon their privileges ; and 
 Colonel Phillipse, Mr. Verplank, and Mr. Johnson were appointed a committee 
 to wait upon the Council and demand satisfaction. The Council healed the 
 matter by a conciliatory resolution, declaring that no disrespect had been 
 intended. 
 
140 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tested election between Adolphe Phillipse and Gerrit "Van 
 Horne, in connection with which, owing to the extraor- 
 dinary skill and eloquence of Mr. Smith, father of the 
 historian and counsel for Van Horne, the Hebrew free- 
 holders of the City of New York, from which place both 
 parties claimed to have been returned to the Assembly, 
 were most unjustly disfranchised, on the ground of their 
 religious creed, and their votes rejected. The colony 
 was greatly excited by this question, and the persuasive 
 powers exerted by Mr. Smith are represented to have 
 been wonderful — equaling, probably, if not surpassing, 
 those of Andrew Hamilton, four years previously, in the 
 great libel case of Zenger — and possibly not excelled 
 even by Patrick Henry a few years afterward, when 
 he dethroned the reason of the court, and led captive 
 the jury, in the great tobacco case in Virginia. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The years 1738 and 1739, were marked by increasing 
 political excitement; and the dividing line of parties, in- 
 volving the great principles of civil liberty on the itss. 
 one side and the prerogatives of the Crown on the it39. 
 other, were more distinctly drawn, perhaps, than at any 
 antecedent period. The administrations of the earlier 
 English Governors, Nicholls and Lovelace, were benevolent 
 and almost parental. Andros, it is true, was a tyrant ; 
 and during his administration parties were formed, as in 
 England, upon the mixed questions of politics and religion, 
 which dethroned the last and most bigoted of the Stuarts, 
 and brought William and Mary upon the throne. Dongan, 
 however, the last of the Stuart Governors in New York, 
 although a Roman Catholic, was nevertheless mild in the 
 administration of the government, and a gentleman in his 
 feelings and manners. It was upon his arrival, in the 
 autumn of 1683, that the freeholders of the colony, as we 
 have seen, were invested with the right of choosing repre- 
 sentatives to meet the Governor in General Assembly. 
 For nearly twenty years subsequent to the revolution of 
 1689, the colony was torn by personal, rather than politi- 
 cal, factions, having their origin in the controversy which 
 compassed the judicial murder of the unhappy Leisler and 
 his son-in-law, Milburn. These factions dying out in the 
 lapse of years, other questions arose, the principal of whicb 
 
142 HISTORY OP NEW TORE; CITY. 
 
 was that important one which always, sooner or later, 
 springs up in every English colony— involving, on the one 
 hand, as I have already remarked, the rights of the peo- 
 ple, and on the other the claims of the Crown. Invaria- 
 bly, almost, if not quite, the struggle is originated upon 
 some questions of revenue— either in the levying thereof, 
 or in its disposition, or both. Thus in the origin of those 
 political parties in New York, which continued with 
 greater or less acrimony until the separation from the 
 parent country, Sloughter and Fletcher had both endeav- 
 ored to obtain grants of revenue to the Crown for life, but 
 had failed. Subsequently, grants had been occasionally 
 made to the officers of the Crown for a term of years ; but 
 latterlj^, especially during the administration of Governor 
 Cosby, the General Assembly had grown more refractory 
 upon the subject — pertinaciously insisting that they would 
 vote the salaries for the officers of the Crown only with 
 the annual supplies. This was a principle Avhich the Gov- 
 ernors, as the representatives of the Crown, felt bound to 
 resist, as being an infringement of the royal prerogative. 
 Henceforward, therefore, until the colony cast off its alle- 
 giance, the struggle in regard to the revenue and its dis- 
 position was almost perpetually before the people, in one 
 form or another ; and in some years, owing to the obsti- 
 nacy of the representatives of the Crown on one side, and 
 the inflexibility of the representatives of the people on 
 the other, supplies were not granted at all. Mr. Clarke, 
 although he had the address to throw off, or to evade, the 
 difficulty, for the space of two years, was nevertheless 
 doomed soon to encounter it. Accordingly, in his speech 
 to the Assembly at the autumnal session of 1738, he 
 complained that another year had elapsed without any 
 provision being made for the support of his Majesty's gov- 
 ernment in the province — the neglect having occurred 
 by reason of " a practice not warranted by the usage of 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 143 
 
 any former General Assemblies." He therefore insisted 
 strongly upon the adoption of measures for the payment 
 of salaries, for the payment of public creditors, and for the 
 general security of the public credit by the creation of a 
 sinking-fund for the redemption of the bills of the colony. 
 
 The Assembly was refractory. Instead of complying 
 with the demands of the Lieutenant-Governor, the House 
 resolved unanimously that they would grant no supplies 
 upon that principle ; and in regard to a sinking-fund for 
 the redemption of the bills of credit afloat, they refused 
 any other measure than a continuance of the existing 
 excise. These spirited and peremptory resolu lions gave 
 high oflfense to the representative of the Crown ; and on 
 the day following their adoption, the Assembly was sum- 
 moned to the fort, and dissolved by a speech, declaring the 
 said resolutions "to be such presumptuous, daring, and 
 unprecedented steps that he could not look upon them but 
 with astonishment, nor could he with honor suffer their 
 authors to sit any longer." 
 
 The temper of the new Assembly, summoned in the 
 spring of the succeeding year, 1739, was no more in uni- 
 son with the desires of the Lieutenant-Governor than that 
 of the former. The demand for a permanent supply-bill 
 was urged at several successive sessions, only to be met 
 with obstinate refusals. The second session, held in the 
 autumn, was interrupted in October by a prorogation of 
 several days, for the express purpose of affording thp 
 members leisure "to reflect seriously" upon the line of 
 duty required of them by the exigencies of the country ; 
 for, not only was the Assembly resolutely persisting in the 
 determination to make only annual grants of supplies, but 
 they were preparing to trench yet further upon the royal 
 prerogative by insisting upon specific applications of the 
 revenue, to be inserted in the bill itself Meantime, on 
 the 13th of October, the Lieutenant-Governor brought the 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 subject of his differences with the Assembly formally 
 before his privy council. In regard to the new popular 
 movement of this Assembly, insisting upon a particular 
 application of the revenues to be granted in the body of 
 the act for the support of the Government, the Lieutenant- 
 Governor said they had been moved to that determination 
 by the example of New Jersey^ where an act of that nature 
 had lately been passed. He was unwilling to allow any 
 encroachment upon the rights of the Crown. Yet, in con- 
 sideration of the defenseless situation of the colony, he felt 
 uneasy at such a turn of affairs, and not being disposed to 
 revive old animosities, or to create new ones by another 
 summary dissolution, he asked the advice of the council. 
 The subject was referred to a committee, of which the 
 Hon. Daniel Horsmanden, an old member of the coimcil, 
 was chairman. This gentleman was one of the most 
 sturdy supporters of the royal prerogative ; but, in conse- 
 quence of the existing posture of affairs, and the necessity 
 of a speedy provision for the public safety, the committee 
 reported unanimously against a dissolution. They be- 
 lieved, also, that the Assembly, and the people whom they 
 represented, had the disputed point so much at heart that 
 it would be impossible to do business with them unless it 
 was conceded ; and, besides, it was argued, should a disso- 
 lution take place, there was no reason for supposing that 
 the next Assembly would be less tenacious in asserting 
 the offensive principle. Since, moreover, the Governor of 
 New Jersey had yielded the point, the committee advised 
 the same course in New York.* The point was conceded ; 
 
 * See the old minutes of the executive or privy council, in manuscript, in 
 the Secretary-of-State's office in Albany. To avoid confusion hereafter, it may 
 be well to state, in this connection, that the council acted in a twofold capacity : 
 first, as advisory ; second, as legislative. " In tho first," says Smith, in his 
 chapter entitled Political State, " they are a privy council to the Governor." 
 When thus acting they are often called the executive or majesty's council. 
 Hence, privy council and executive council are synonymous. During the ses 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 145 
 
 and the effect, for the moment, was to produce a better 
 state of feeling in the Assembly. Supplies were granted, 
 but only for the year ; and various appropriations were 
 made for placing the city and colony in a posture of 
 defense. 
 
 But it is seldom that the wheels of revolution roll 
 backward, and the concession which allowed the General 
 Assembly to prescribe the application or disposition of 
 the supplies they voted, ever before claimed as the legal 
 and known prerogative of the Crown, appeased the popu- 
 lar party only for a very short time. Indeed, nothing is 
 more certain, whether in monarchies or republics, than 
 that the governed are never satisfied with concessions, 
 while each successful demand only increases the popular 
 clamor for more. Thus it was in the experience of Mr. 
 Clarke. It is true, indeed, that the year 1740 passed 
 without any direct collision upon the question of 
 prerogative ; although at the second short session of that 
 year, the speech alleged the entire exhaustion of the rev- 
 enue, and again demanded an ample appropriation for a 
 term of years. But the controversy was re-opened at the 
 spring session of the foUomng year — 1741 — on 
 which occasion the Lieutenant-Governor delivered 
 a speech, long beyond precedent, and enumerating the 
 grievances of the Crown by reason of the continued en- 
 croachments of the General Assembly, The speech began 
 by an elaborate review of the origin and progress of the ■ 
 difficulties that had existed between the representatives 
 of the Crown and the Assembly, in respect to the grant- 
 ting of supplies, evincing — such, indeed, is the inference 
 
 sion of the legrislature, however, the same council sat (without tlie presence of 
 the Governor) as a legislative council ; and in such capacity exercised the same 
 functions as the Senate of the present day — so far as regards the passing of 
 laws. The journals of this last or legislative council have recently been pub- 
 lished by the State of New York under admirable editorship and the supervis- 
 ion of Dr. B. B. O'Callaghan. 
 19 
 
146 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 —a want of gratitude on the part of the latter, in view 
 of the blessings which the colony had enjoyed under the 
 paternal care of the Government since the revolution of 
 1688. But it was not in connection with the supplies 
 only that the Assembly had invaded the rights of the 
 Crown. It was the undoubted prerogative of the Crown 
 to appoint the Treasurer. Yet the Assembly had de- 
 manded the election of that officer. Not satisfied with 
 that concession, they had next claimed the right of choos- 
 ing the Auditor-General. Failing in that demand, they 
 had sought to accomplish their object by withholding the 
 salary from that officer. These encroachments, he said, 
 had been gradually increasing from year to year, until 
 apprehensions had been seriously awakened in England 
 " that the plantations are not without thoughts of throw- 
 ing off" their dependence on the Crown." He, therefore, 
 admonished the Assembly to do away with such an im- 
 pression " by giving to his Majesty such a revenue, and 
 in such a manner, as will enable him to pay his own 
 officers and servants," as had been done from the Revolu- 
 tion down to the year 1709 — during which period the 
 colony was far less able to bear the burden than now.* 
 
 Thus early and deeply were those principles striking 
 root in America which John Hampden had asserted and 
 poured out his blood to defend in the great ship-money 
 contest with Charles I — which brought that unhappy 
 monarch to the block, and which, fulfilling the appre- 
 hensions of Mr. Clarke, thirty-five years afterward, sepa- 
 rated the colonies from the British Crown — although in 
 the answer of the House to the " insinuation of a suspi- 
 cion " of a desire for independence, with real or affected 
 
 * Vide Journals of the Colonial Assembly, vol. 1, Hugh Gain's edition. This 
 (1741) was the year in which the chapel, barracks. Secretary's office, &c, at 
 Fort George (the Battery) were burned, and the speech referred to in the text 
 asked an appropriation for their rebaildinsr — but without success. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. J4J 
 
 gravity, they " vouched that not a single person in the 
 colony had any such thoughts;" adding, " for under what 
 government can we be better protected, or our liberties or 
 properties so well secured'?" 
 
 Bat the popularity of Mr. Clarke wa,s rapidly on the 
 wane. Chief-Justice De Lancey, the master-spirit of the 
 council, having rather abandoned him, and attached him- 
 self to the popular party, managed to preserve a consid- 
 erate coolness on the part of that body toward their execu- 
 tive head, while the house heeded but little his recom- 
 mendations. 
 
 The only object of local excitement, however, during 
 the year 1741, was the celebrated plot (supposed to have 
 been discovered), on the part of the negroes, to murder 
 the inhabitants of New York, and ravage and burn the 
 city — an affair which reflects little credit either upon the 
 discernment or the humanity of that generation. 
 
 African slavery had existed from an early period in 
 New Netherland. It was encouraged as the most certain 
 and economical way of introducing slavery in a new 
 country, where there was no surplus population. The 
 slave-trade was brought into the Dutch colony by the 
 Dutch West India Company, and, shortly after its intro- 
 duction, became a considerable and profitable branch of 
 its shipping interest. A "prime slave" was valued from 
 one hundred and twenty dollars to one hundred and fifty 
 dollars, and below this price he could not profitably be 
 purchased from Africa or the West Indies. In 1702, there 
 were imported one hundred and sixty-five African slaves ; 
 in 1718, five hundred and seventeen. After that year, 
 however, the traffic began to fall off, the natural increase 
 being large.* 
 
 * Almost every family in the colony owned one or more negro servants ; 
 and among the richer classes their number was considered a certain evidence 
 of their master's easy circumstances. About the year 1703 — a period of pros- 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 A.S far back as 1628, slaves constituted a portion of 
 the population of New Amsterdam; and to such an 
 extent had the traffic in them reached that, in 1709, 
 a slave-market was erected at the foot of Wall Street, 
 where all negroes who were to be hired or sold, stood 
 in readiness for bidders. Their introduction into the 
 colony was hastened by the colonial establishment of 
 the Dutch in Brazil and upon the coast of Guinea, 
 and also by the capture of Spanish and Portuguese 
 prizes with Africans on board. The boere-knechts, or 
 servants, whom the settlers brought over with them 
 from Holland, soon deserted their field-work for the fur 
 traffic, thus causing European laborers to become scarce 
 and high ; and, as a natural result, slaves, by their cheap- 
 ness, became one of the staples of the new country. In 
 1652, the Directors at Amsterdam removed the export 
 duty of eight per cent., which had been hitherto paid 
 by the colonists on tobacco. The passage-money to New 
 Netherland was also lessened from fifty to thirty guilders ; 
 and, besides trading to the Brazils, the settlers were al- 
 lowed "to sail to the coast of Angola and Africa to 
 procure as many negroes as they might be willing to 
 employ."* 
 
 Several outbreaks had already happened among the 
 negroes of New Amsterdam; and the whites lived in 
 constant anticipation of trouble and danger from them. 
 Rumors of an intended insurrection, real or imaginary, 
 would circulate (as in the negro plot of 1712) and the 
 
 purity in wealtli and social refinement witli tlie Dutck of New Amsterdam — 
 tlie widow Van Cortlandt held five male slaves, two female, and two cliil- 
 dren ; Colonel De Peyster had the same number ; William Beekman, two ; 
 Rip Van Dam, six; Mrs. Stuyvesant, five; Mrs. Kip, seven; David Pro- 
 vooiit, three, &c. 
 
 * In the year 1755 a census of slaves was taken in all the colonies except 
 Albany, New York, and Suffolk — Borough numbered 91 ; Manor of Polham, 
 24 ; Westchester, 73 : Bushwick, 43 ; Flatbush, 35 ; New Utrecht, 67 ; New- 
 town, 87 ; Oyster-Bay, 97, &c., &c. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 149 
 
 whole city be thrown into a state of alarm. Whether 
 there was any real danger on these occasions cannot be 
 known, but the result was always the same, viz. : the 
 slaves always sufiered, many dying by the fagot or the 
 gallows. 
 
 The "Negro Plot" of 1741, however, forms a serious 
 and bloody chapter in the history of New York. At this 
 distance of time it is hard to discover the truth amid the 
 fears and prejudices which attended that public calamity. 
 The city then contained some ten thousand inhabitants, 
 about one-fifth of whom were African slaves, called the 
 " black seed of Cain." Many of the laws for their govern- 
 ment were most unjust and oppressive. Whenever three 
 of them were found together they were liable to be pun- 
 ished by forty lashes on the bare back, and the same 
 penalty followed their walking with a club outside of their 
 master's grounds without a permit. Two justices could 
 inflict any punishment, except amputation or death, for 
 any blow or assault by a slave upon a Christian or a Jew. 
 Such was the outrageous law. New York swarmed with 
 negroes, and her leading merchants were engaged in the 
 slave-trade, at that time regarded fair and honorable. 
 New York then resembled a Southern city, with its cala- 
 boose on the Park Commons and its slave-market at the 
 foot of Wall Street. 
 
 The burning of the public buildings, comprising the 
 Governor's residence, the Secretary's office, the chapel, and 
 barracks, in March, 1741, was first announced to the Gen- 
 eral Assembly by the Lieutenant-Governor as the result of 
 an accident — ^a plumber who had been engaged upon some 
 repairs having left fire in a gutter between the house and 
 chapel. But several other fires occurring shortly after- 
 ward in different parts of the city, some of them, perhaps, 
 under circumstances that could not readily be explained, 
 suspicions were awakened that the whole were acts of 
 
150 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 incendiaries. Not a chimney caught fire — and chimneys 
 were not at that day very well swept— but the incident was 
 attributed to design. Such was the case in respect to the 
 chimney of Captain Warren's house, situated near the ruins 
 of the public buildings, by the taking fire of which the 
 roof was partially destroyed ; and other instances might 
 be enumerated. Suspicion, to borrow the language of 
 Shakespeare, " hath a ready tongue," and is " all stuck full 
 of eyes," which are not easily put to sleep. Incidents 
 and circumstances, ordinary and extraordinary, were 
 seized upon and brought together by comparison, until it 
 became obvious to all that there was actually a conspir- 
 acy for compassing such a stupendous act of arson as the 
 burning of the entire town and murder of the people. 
 Nor was it long before the plot was fastened upon the 
 negro slaves, then forming no inconsiderable portion of 
 the population. A negro, with violent gesticulation, had 
 been heard to utter some terms of unintelligible jargon, in 
 which the words " fire, fire, scorch, scorch," were heard 
 articulated, or supposed to have been heard. The crew of 
 a Spanish ship brought into the port as a prize were sold 
 into slavery. They were suspected of disaffection — as 
 well they might be, and yet be innocent — seized, and 
 thrown into prison. Coals were found arranged, as had 
 been supposed, for burning a hay-stack; a negro was seen 
 jumping over a fence and flying from a house that had 
 taken fire in another place; and, in a word, a vast variety 
 of incidents, trifling and unimportant, were collated and 
 talked over until universal consternation seized upon the 
 inhabitants, from the highest to the lowest. As Hume 
 remarks of the Popish plot in the reign of Charles II, 
 " each breath of rumor made the people start with 
 anxiety; their enemies, they thought, were in their 
 bosoms. They were awakened from their slumbers by 
 the cry of Plot, and, like men affrighted and in the dark. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 15I 
 
 took every figure for a specter. The terror of each man 
 became a source of terror to another, and a universal 
 panic being diffused, reason, and argument, and common 
 sense, and common humanity, lost all influence over 
 them," * A Titus Gates was found in the person of a 
 poor, weak, servant-girl in a sailors' boarding-house, 
 named Mary Burton, who, after much importunity, con- 
 fessed that she heard certain negroes, in the preceding 
 February, conferring in private, for the purpose of setting 
 the town on fire. She at first confined the conspirators 
 to blacks, but afterward several white persons were 
 included, among whom were her landlord, whose name 
 was Hughson, his wife, and another maid-servant, and a 
 Roman Catholic, named Ury. Some other information 
 was obtained from other informers, and numerous arrests 
 were made, and the several strong apartments in the City 
 Hall, called " the jails," were crowded with prisoners, 
 amounting in number to twenty-six whites and above 
 one hundred and sixty slaves. Numerous executions 
 took place upon the most frivolous and unsatisfactory 
 testimony, but jurors and magistrates were alike panic- 
 stricken and wild with terror. Among the sufferers were 
 Hughson, his wife, and the maid-servant, as also the 
 Romanist Ury, who was capitally accused, not only as a 
 conspirator, but for ofiiciating as a priest, upon an old 
 law of the colony, heretofore mentioned as having been 
 passed at the instance of Governor Bellamont, to drive 
 the French missionaries from among the Indians. •' The 
 whole summer was spent in the prosecutions ; every new 
 trial led to further accusations ; a coincidence of slight 
 circumstances was magnified by the general terror into 
 violent presumptions ; tales collected without doors, min- 
 
 * Quoted by Diinlap, who has given a good collection of facts respecting 
 this remarlcable plot, though not rendered into a well-digested ^jiarrative. 
 See chap, xxi of his History. 
 
X52 HISTOBT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 gling with the proofs given at the bar, poisoned the minds 
 of the jurors, and this sanguinary spirit of the day suf- 
 fered no check until Mary, the capital informer, bewil- 
 dered by frequent examinations and suggestions, began to 
 touch characters which malice itself dare not suspect." 
 Then, as in the case of the Popish plot and the prose- 
 cutions for witchcraft in Salem, the magistrates and 
 jurors began to pause. But not until many had been 
 sent to their final account by the spirit of fanaticism 
 which had bereft men of theh reason as innocent of 
 the charges laid against them as the convicting courts 
 and jurors themselves. Thirteen negroes were burned at 
 the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy trans- 
 ported.* 
 
 The year 1742, if for no other reason, is memorable in 
 the annals of the city from the fact that in that year was 
 built the house now standing on the site of No. 1 
 Broadway, and known as the " Washington Hotel," 
 and the oldest house in the city. Previous to this year 
 (1742) the site was occuj^ied by an old tavern kept by a 
 Mrs. Kocks^ built the century previous by her husband, 
 Pieter Kocks, an officer in the Dutch service and an active 
 leader in the Indian war of 1693. The late Mr. David 
 T. Valentine — to whom New York is indebted more than 
 
 * Daniel Horsmanden, tlie third Justice of the Supreme Court, published the 
 history of this strange affair in a ponderous quarto. He was concerned in the 
 administration of the judicial proceedings, however, and wrote his history be- 
 fore the delusion had passed away. Chief-Justice De Lancey presided at least 
 at some of the trials, and he, too, though an able and clear-minded m-'n, was 
 carried away by the delusion. James De Lancey was the son of Stephen De 
 Lancey, a French Huguenot gentleman from Caen, in Normandy, who fled from 
 persecution in France. Settling in New York in 1686, he married a daughter 
 of M. Van Cortlandt, and was thus connected with one of the most opulent 
 families in the province. He was also an active member of the House of 
 Assembly during the administration of Governor Hunter. His son James was 
 sent to Cambridge University (England), for his education, and bred to the pro- 
 fession of the law. On being elevated to the bench, such were his talents and 
 application, he became a very profound lawyer. — Smith. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 153 
 
 to any other man for the preservation of its local history, 
 and for which she can never be sufficiently grateful-- 
 usually remarkably accurate, states tiiat the building No. 1 
 Broadway was built by Archibald Kennedy .(afterward 
 Earl of Cassilis), then Collector of the Port of New York. 
 This, however, is an error. It was built by Sir Peter, 
 afterward Admiral, Warren,* K. C. B. — whose name is so 
 identified with the naval glory of England — during his 
 
 NO. 1 BROADWAY FIFTY TEARS AGO. 
 
 residence in New York city. Neither pains nor expense 
 were spared to make it one of the finest mansions in this 
 country. The plans were all sent out from Lisbon — the 
 exterior and interior being similar in every respect to that 
 of the British embassador's residing at the Portuguese cap- 
 
 * Alter whom Warren Street is named. 
 31) 
 
154 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ital. The liouse was fifty-six feet on Broadway, and when 
 erected the rear of the lot was bounded by the North 
 River. Greenwich Street was not then opened or built — 
 the North River washing the shore. One room of this 
 edifice deserves particular notice, being the banqueting- 
 room, twenty-six by forty, and used on all great occa- 
 sions. After the British forces captured New York, in the 
 war of the American Revolution, as the most prominent 
 house, it was the headquarters of the distinguished British 
 commanders. Sir William Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and 
 Sir Guy Carlton, afterward Lord Dorchester, all in succes- 
 sion occupied this house ; and it is a memorable fact that 
 the celebrated Major Andre, then Adjutant-General of the 
 British forces, and aid to Sir Henry Clinton, resided in 
 this house, being in the family of Sir Henry, and departed 
 from its portals never to return, when he went up the 
 North River and arranged his treasonable project with 
 the traitor Arnold at West Point.* 
 
 * This building is also kaown to kistorians as the " Kennedy House." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The administration of Lieutenant-Governor Clarice was 
 ended in the autumn of 1743, by the arrival of Admiral 
 George Clinton, uncle of the Earl of Lincoln, and 
 a younger son of the late Earl, who had been 
 appointed to the government of New York through the 
 interest of his friends, to afford him an opportunity of 
 mending his fortunes. Mr. Clarke, who, in the commence- 
 ment of his administration, had succeeded in conciliating 
 the leaders of both political parties, had contrived before 
 the close of his career to lose the confidence of both, so 
 that his retirement from the Government was regarded 
 with universal satisfaction.* Especially had he incurred 
 
 * George Clarke, Esq., who, in various official stations, was for almost lialf 
 a century connected with the colonial government of New York, was an Eng^ 
 lisliman by birth " His uncle, Mr. Blaithwait, procured the secretaryship of 
 the colony tor him early in the reign of Queen Anne. He had genius, but no 
 other than a common writing-school education ; nor did he add to his stock by 
 reading, for he was more intent upon improving his fortune than his mind. He 
 was sensible, artful, active, cautious ; had a perfect command of his temper, 
 and was in his address specious and civil. Nor was any man better acquainted 
 with the colony and its affairs." He successively held the offices of Secretary, 
 Clerk of the Council, Councilor, and Lieutenant Oovernor ; and from his official 
 position he had every opportunity of enriching himself by obtaining grants and 
 patents of land, which, from his knowledge of the colony, he was enabled to 
 choose in the most advantageous locations. He was a courtier, and was careful 
 never to differ with the governors of the colony ; although during Cosby's 
 stormy career he usually kept himself quiet at his country villa upon the edge 
 of Hempstead plains. " I'is lady was a Hyde, a woman of fine accomplishments. 
 
J 56 
 
 HISTORT OF XBW YORK CITY. 
 
 the resentment of the Chief-Justice, De Lancey; who, 
 strangely enough, though usually a stanch supporter of 
 the prerogatives of the Crown, had now become, to some 
 extent, a favorite of the General Assembly. The new 
 Governor had spent most of his life in the navy; and, 
 according to the earliest English historian of New York, 
 " preferring ease and good cheer to the restless activity of 
 ambition, there wanted nothing to engage the interest of 
 his powerful patrons in his favor more than to humor a 
 simple-hearted man, who had no ill-nature, nor sought 
 anything more than a genteel frugality and common civil- 
 ity while he was mending those fortunes, until his friends 
 at court could recall him to some indolent and more 
 lucrative station." 
 
 Mr. Clinton arrived in New York on the 22d of Sep- 
 tember, and was received with demonstrations of univer- 
 sal satisfaction by the people Finding that the General 
 Assembly stood adjourned to meet in a few days, and 
 ascertaining that the people would be pleased with an 
 opportunity of holding a new election, the Assembly was 
 dissolved on the 27th, and writs for the return of 
 another Assembly issued the same day. The elections 
 were conducted without political acrimony^ and all tbe 
 old members, with but seven exceptions, were returned. 
 
 and a distant relation of tliat brancli of the Clarendon family. She died in 
 New York. Mr. Clarke returned to England in 1745, with acquisitions esti- 
 mated at one hundred thousand pounds. He purchased an estate in Cheshire, 
 where he died about the year 1761. George Clarke,. his grandson and the heir 
 to his estates, after a residence in America of about thirty-five years, died at 
 Otsego about the year 1835. His eldest son, George Hyde Clarke, with his 
 young wife, was lost in the ship Albion, wrecked on the coast of Ireland in the 
 summer of 1820, on his passage from New York to England. His second son 
 then returned to England and entered into possession of the fortune of liis 
 father's estates situated in that country. By the vast increase in price of his 
 American lands, Mr. Clarke's estates in this country became of princely value 
 before his death. They are inherited by his youngest son, George Clarke, Esq., 
 who at present resides in the noble mansion erected.by his father a few years 
 before his decease, upon the margin of Otsego Lake." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 157 
 
 The session opened on the 8th of November. Meantime, 
 the Governor had fallen into the hands of De Lancey, 
 who doubtless had the molding of his excellency's speech. 
 Its tone was conciliatory, although the sore subject of a 
 permanent revenue was opened afresh. But this was 
 done in gentle terms, the Governor asking for a grant 
 "in as ample a manner, and for a time as long, as had 
 been given under any of his predecessors." The Assem- 
 bly was informed tha.t, owing to the critical state of affairs 
 in Europe, and the doubtful attitude in which Great Brit- 
 ain and France stood toward each other, a large supply 
 of military stores for the defense of the colony had been 
 received from the parent government ; and the Governor 
 hoped the Assembly would show their thankfulness by 
 making an adequate provision for the purchase of others. 
 The usual recommendations in regard to the Indian inter- 
 course of the colony were renewed, and an appropriation 
 was asked for rebuilding the barracks and public offices, 
 together with the house of the Governor, which had been 
 destroyed by fire. The latter recommendation was in- 
 sisted on as being necessary for the comfort of the 
 Governor's family. 
 
 " An humble address " was voted by the council in 
 reply, drawn up by De Lancey. The appointment of the 
 new Governor was received " as an additional evidence of 
 his majesty's affection for his people, and his zeal for the 
 liberty of mankind, lately most evidently demonstrated in 
 his exposing his sacred person to the greatest dangers in 
 defense of the liberty of Europe." In all other respects 
 the answer was an echo of the speech. The address of 
 the House was more than an echo ; it was couched in 
 language of excessive flattery to the new Governor, and 
 of fawning adulation toward the sovereign, who was desig- 
 nated " the darling of his own people, and the glorious 
 preserver of the liberties of Europe." There was, how- 
 
158 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ever, a disposition on all sides to be pleased. The Assem- 
 bly responded to the demanded appropriations, voting the 
 Governor fifteen hundred pounds for his salary, one hun- 
 dred pounds for house-rent, four hundred pounds for fuel 
 and candles, one hundred and fifty pounds to enable him 
 to visit the Indians, and eight hundred pounds for the pur- 
 chase of presents to be distributed amongst them. Other 
 appropriations were made upon a scale of corresponding 
 liberality ; and the Governor was so well pleased with the 
 good temper of the Assembly, that he signed every bill 
 presented for his approbation without a murmur of disap- 
 probation, not even excepting the supply-bill, which, not- 
 withstanding his demand to the contrary, in the opening 
 speech, was limited to the year. 
 
 But, notwithstanding these reciprocal manifestations 
 of good feeling, and notwithstanding, also, the amiable 
 traits of the Governor's natural disposition, it will be seen, 
 in the progress of events, that the bluff characteristics of 
 the sailor were not always to be concealed; and his 
 administration, in process of time, became as tempestuous 
 as the element upon which he was certainly more at home 
 than upon the land. 
 
 Advices of the intended invasion of his majesty's 
 dominions, in behalf of a " Popish Pretender," were com- 
 municated to the General Assembly of New York 
 
 1744. . . 
 
 by Governor Clinton, in April, 1744. In connec- 
 tion with this anticipated act of hostility, which would of 
 course extend to the contiguous colonies of the two coun- 
 tries, efficient measures were urged for placing the country 
 in a posture of defense. The temper of the colony, in 
 regard to this movement of France, may be inferred from 
 the immediate action of the Assembly. In the council, 
 Chief-Justice De Lancey, in moving an address of thanks 
 for the speech, offered also a resolution expressive of the 
 abhorrence of that body of the designs of France in favor 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 159 
 
 of the Pretender, and declaring that the civil and religious 
 rights of his majesty's subjects depended on the Protest- 
 ant succession. The House was invited to join in the 
 address, which request, though a very unusual procedure, 
 was readily acquiesced in, and the address was prepared 
 by a joint committee of the two houses. From all this it 
 was evident that a war was very near at hand, and that 
 the frontiers of the colony might again, very soon, be sub- 
 jected to the ravages of a foe than whose tender mercies 
 nothing could be more cruel. 
 
 In 1746, the small-pox drove the Assembly from the 
 city to Greenwich; but soon appearing there also, pro- 
 duced a panic that for several days entirely 
 arrested the course of business. The Assembly 
 prayed for a recess from the 9 th of March to the 12 th of 
 April, and also for leave to adjourn their sittings to some 
 other place. Jamaica and Brooklyn were suggested ; but 
 in the opinion of the Governor the demands of the public 
 service forbade so long an interregnum, and he therefore 
 directed their adjournment for a week, to meet in the 
 borough of Westchester. They convened there accord- 
 ingly ; but the inconvenience of the locality was such that 
 the members begged permission to adjourn even back to 
 the infected city again, rather than remain where they 
 were. In the end the Governor directed them to trans- 
 fer their sittings to Brookl^'n, at which place the transac- 
 tion of business was resumed on the 20th of March, when 
 an address to the Governor was ordered to be prepared 
 in answer to that of the council, respecting the rejection 
 of the before-mentioned revenue bill. 
 
 Before the introduction of the bill, the Assembly had 
 inquired of the Governor whether he had any objection 
 to an emission of paper money to meet the exigencies of 
 the country ; to which question the proper answer was 
 given by Mr. Clinton, that " when the bill came to him 
 
160 
 
 HlfeTORT OF NEW YORK CUT. 
 
 he would declare his opinion." The bill was therefore 
 introduced and passed by the Assembly ; but the coun- 
 cil, disapproving of certain of its provisions, requested a 
 conference. The Assembly, however, declared that, inas- 
 much as it was a money bill, they would consent to no 
 such course upon the subject. The council thereupon 
 summarily rejected the bill, and sent up an address to the 
 Governor, written by the Chief-Justice, De Lancey, set- 
 ting forth the reasons by which its course had been 
 governed. One of the objections to the bill, according to 
 this representation, was found in the fact, "that the 
 money proposed to be raised by the bill was not granted 
 to his majesty, or to be issued by warrants in council, as 
 it ought to have been, and as has usually been done." 
 This objection involved the whole question of the royal 
 prerogative — nothing more. On the subject of the right 
 claimed by the Assembly of exclusive power over the 
 details of money bills, the address asserted " the equal 
 rights of the council to exercise their judgments upon 
 these bills." Various other objections of detail were sug- 
 gested ; but the two points specified above were the only 
 grounds of principle upon which the council relied in 
 justification of its course. Yet the unreasonableness of 
 the assumption of the House, that the council should not 
 be allowed even to point out and rectify the defects of 
 any thing which they chose to call a money bill, was 
 argued at considerable length. 
 
 There was yet another cause of irritation on the part 
 of the House. So early as the year 1709, the General 
 Assembly had found it necessary, in providing ways and 
 means for the public service — especially in the prosecu- 
 tion of the several wars in which the colony had been 
 involved by the Parent Government — to issue a paper 
 currency, called bills of credit. The operation had been 
 repeated, from time to time, in emergent cases — some- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 161 
 
 times with the approbation of the Crown, and sometimes 
 not — until these paper issues had become a part of the 
 policy of the colony. Others of the colonies, laboring 
 under the same necessities, had resorted to the same 
 measures of finance ; but to which the Crown, jealous of its 
 prerogative in all matters of currency, had uniformly 
 been opposed. For many years, therefore, antecedent to 
 this period, the royal governors had arrived in the colony 
 clothed with instructions against allowing further emis- 
 sions of bills of credit — instructions, however, which the 
 stern law of necessity had seldom allowed them to enforce. 
 Still, the Crown, keenly alive to every step of inde- 
 pendent action on the part of the colonies, was persisting 
 in its war against a colonial currency even of paper ; and 
 a bill was now before Parliament, upon the subject, which 
 gave great alarm to the people. Professedly, its design 
 was merely for preventing these bills of credit from being 
 made a legal tender ; but it was discovered that the bill 
 was to have a far more extensive operation — " obliging 
 and enjoining the legislatures of every colony to pay 
 strict obedience to all such orders and instructions as 
 might from time to time be transmitted to them, or any 
 of them, by his majesty or his successors, or by or under 
 his or their authority." Such an act, it was justly held, 
 " would establish an absolute power in the Crown, in all 
 the British plantations, that would be inconsistent with 
 the liberties and privileges inherent in an English man, 
 while he is in a British dominion. 
 
 Incensed at this stubbornness on the part of his little 
 Parliament, the sailor-Governor determined, in the Assem- 
 blv. which met on the 12th of October, 1748, to 
 
 •^ ' , 1T48. 
 
 re-assert the prerogative in the strongest terms by 
 bringing the subject of a permanent supply to a direct 
 issue; choosing, as Mr. Bancroft has remarked. New 
 York " as the opening scene in the final contest that led 
 
 21 
 
162 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 to independence." Accordingly, on the 14th he sent down 
 his message to the House, in which he demanded a per- 
 manent support for five years. The message stated that 
 on coming to the administration of the Government, he 
 had been disposed to do all he could, consistently with 
 his duty to the king, for the care and satisfaction of the 
 people. Hence, reposing confidence in the advice then 
 given him, he had given his assent to various acts of the 
 Assembly, the tendency of which, as experience had 
 taught him, was to weaken the authority of his majesty's 
 Government. Still, as the country was very soon after- 
 ward involved in war, he had forborne to take that atti- 
 tude in the premises which duty to his sovereign seemed 
 to require But with the return of peace, he deemed it 
 to be his indispensable duty to put a stop to such innova- 
 tions. Prominent among these was the practice which 
 had been growing up of making only an annual provision 
 for the payment of the officers of the Government. He 
 also alluded to the modern practice of naming the officers 
 for whose benefit the appropriations were made in the 
 act, thus interfering with the prerogative in the appoint- 
 ing honor. He admonished the Assembly that he should 
 give his assent to no acts of that character for the future ; 
 and demanded an appropriation for the payment of the 
 Governor's secretaries, judges, and other salaried officers, 
 for the term of five years, according to the practice that 
 had prevailed during the administration of his four imme- 
 diate predecessors — namely. Governors Hunter, Burnet, 
 Montgomery, and Cosby. The inconvenience of these 
 annual grants of salaries and allowances was adverted to, 
 and objections further urged against the recent method 
 of ratermixing matters of an entirely different nature 
 with the provisions of the salary-bills, and tacking new 
 grants for other purposes to the Governor's own support. 
 The Assembly, In its reply, justly regarding the re- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. X63 
 
 quest for a permanent supply as a direct attempt to 
 render the Crown independent of the people, with great 
 indignation refused to grant it. As to the more recent 
 practice of naming the officers provided for in the salary- 
 bills, it not only justified it, but intimated that if this 
 course had been adopted at an earlier day, his excellency 
 would not have been able to remove the third Justice 
 of the Supreme Court "without any color of misconduct" 
 on his part — who was "a gentleman of learning and 
 experience in the law."* The result can readily be seen. 
 After continual bickerings for several weeks, Mr. Clinton, 
 in great wrath, prorogued the Assembly. * 
 
 Thus the parties separated, and thus again commenced 
 that great struggle between the Republican and the Mon- 
 archical principle which, in the onward pi'ogress of the 
 former, was destined at a day not even then far distant 
 to work such mighty results in the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 Although, from a very early date in the historv of 
 this protracted controversy, it became inexcusably per- 
 sonal, yet it is not difficult to perceive that it was in 
 reality one of principle. On the one hand, the infant 
 Hercules, though still in his cradle, was becoming impa- 
 tient of restraint. The yoke of colonial servitude chafed 
 the necks, if not of the people, at least of their representa- 
 tives. The royal Governor was not slow to perceive what 
 kind of leaven was fermenting the body politic ; and 
 hence he became perhaps overjealous in asserting and 
 defending the prerogatives of his master. Doubtless, in 
 the progress of the quarrel, there were faults on both 
 sides. Of an irascible and overbearing temperament, 
 and accustomed in his profession to command rather than 
 to persuade, he was ill-qualified to exercise a limited or 
 
 * Alluding to tke removal, the year before, of Justice Horsmanden. This 
 act was again imputed to the influence of " a person of a mean and despicable 
 character " — meaning, as it was well understood. Dr. Colden. 
 
154 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 concurrent power with a popular Assembly equally jealous 
 of its OAvn privileges and of the liberties of the people — 
 watching with sleepless vigilance for every opportunity 
 to circumscribe the influence of the Cro-^vn, and ready at 
 every moment to resist the encroachments of arbitrary 
 power. Still, however patriotic the motives, under the 
 promptings of De Lancey, their opposition to Mr. Clinton 
 became factious ; and it is not difficult even for a republican 
 to believe that he was treated, not only with harshness, 
 but with great injustice, especially in regard to his 
 measures, and his personal exertions for the public defense 
 and the prosecution of the Indian war. 
 
 At length, worn out in health and spirits by his 
 struggle against a powerful opposition, Clinton, in 1753, 
 1T53. sent in his resignation to the Home Government, 
 and Sir Danvers Osborne was appointed in his stead. 
 
 The character of Mr. Clinton has not, I think, been 
 fairly drawn. Those upon whose opinions his character 
 rests were persons Hving at the same day, and who, influ- 
 enced by party strife, were not in a position to judge 
 impartially. He was an uncouth and unlettered admiral, 
 who had been, through the Newcastle interest, appointed to 
 the chair of Governor. He was evidently unsuited to his 
 position; and his former profession, in which he had always 
 been accustomed to command, ill fitted him to brave the 
 rebuffs and the opposition of party faction. His manner, 
 too, was not such as to win friends. Having to depend 
 entirely upon the advice of those around him, he was 
 often the dupe of those better versed in the arts of diplo- 
 macy than himself. But I look in vain for that love of 
 ease, to the neglect of his official duties, of which he is 
 accused by his enemies. On the contrary, although he 
 relied too much on the advice of others for his own good, 
 yet it was caused more by a consciousness of a lack of 
 education than by a desire to shirk action. In the care 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 165 
 
 of the Indians he was indefatigable, as appears by his 
 large correspondence with Colonel (afterward Sir William) 
 Johnson and the officers of the different frontier posts. 
 He labored incessantly with his Assembly tx) make them 
 realize the condition of the colony; and had they met his 
 views half-way, or even manifested a tithe of his energy, 
 the Province of New York would not have presented such 
 an inviting field for the encroachments of the French. He 
 is accused of amassing by unfair means a large fortune 
 while Governor, yet he freely advanced out of his private 
 purse large sums for the exigencies of the Indian affairs, 
 and many times saved the Six Nations from defection, 
 and the province from the horrors of a predatory warfare, 
 when it was impossible to rouse the Assembly to a sense 
 of danger. Indeed, I think it may safely be said that,' 
 had it not been for the untiring efforts of Mr. Clinton and 
 Colonel Johnson, the Six Nations would have been com- 
 pletely won over by the French, and the fire-brand and 
 tomahawk carried down to the very gates of New York. 
 
 Meanwhile, several public edifices had been erected, 
 and various improvements had taken place in the city. In 
 1747, the Presbyterian church in Wall Street, which had 
 been erected by Hunter^ was rebuilt. " In the course of the 
 next two years, Beekman and the contiguous streets were 
 regulated. Ferry Street was ceded to the city; Beek- 
 man, Dey, and Thames Streets were paved; Pearl Street 
 was dug down near Peck Slip, and graded from Franklin 
 Square to Chatham Street ; and John Street was paved 
 and regulated.* In 1751^ a Moravian Chapel was built 
 
 * Another important event occurred about this time, wMcli should not be 
 omitted by one who attempts to give a history of the city — inasmuch as it 
 gives us the origin of the yearly appropriation made by the Common Council 
 for the City Manual — viz., that in 1747 the Common Council appropriated 
 four pounds for the publication of fifty copies of An Essay on the Duties of 
 Vestrymen ! 
 
166 
 
 HISTOKT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in Fulton Street; the following year, the first Merchants' 
 Exchange was erected at the foot of Broad Street; and St. 
 George's Chapel was built by Trinity Church on the corner 
 of CliflP and Beekman, and was consecrated on the 1st of 
 July by the Rev. Mr. Barclay, a former missionary among 
 the Mohawks, but now the rector of Trinity Church." 
 This building remained in good preservation, well known 
 as one of the few original landmarks, until 1868, when it 
 shared the fate of other structures of a similar character, 
 and was torn down to make room for another altar to the 
 god Mammon ! This was, next to the Post-office, the 
 oldest church-edifice in the city, and its quaint old chan- 
 deliers, and aisles flagged with gray stone, continued for 
 many years relics of the days of yore. Washington, it is 
 said, was a frequent attendant of this church during his 
 residence in this city in the early part of the Revolution- 
 ary War. In speaking of the history of this edifice, a 
 writer in the New York World, of March 17th, 1868, 
 recalls the following interestmg facts : 
 
 •' One hundred and twenty years ago, New York city had not attained its 
 majority, and Broadway was but a cow-path atxjve Canal Street. The Right 
 Honorable George Clinton, ' Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over 
 the Province of New York and the Territories thereon, Depending in America, 
 Vice-Admiral of the Same, and Vice-Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Maj- 
 esty's Fleet,' as that most doughty and right honorable personage was wont to 
 sign himself in proclamations to the fat burghers of New York, sat in the chair 
 now filled by Reuben B. Fenton, In that day. New York city was a nest for 
 privateers, which sailed hence to destroy French and Spanish commerce. 
 According as their destination might be, these vessels, with a fair quantity of 
 rum, molasses, and sea-provisions, would be piloted to the Hook, and there 
 take on board an India, Mediterranean, or other pilot, to carry them to their 
 destination. Small negro boys and Jamaica men in parcels were sold at auc- 
 tion where now the Custom-house rears its lofty pillars. Maria Theresa, 
 Empress of Austria and Queen of Bohemia and Hungary, wielded the scepter 
 of the Caesars; George the Second, Fidei Defensor, twiddled his thumbs in 
 Windsor Park and played bowls with his Hanoverian mistresses ; and wheat 
 was six shillings a bushel ; flour, eighteen shillings a hundred ; beef, forty shil 
 lings a barrel ; West-India rum, three and eight pence a gallon ; salt, threo 
 shillings a bushel ; and single-refined sugar, one and ' tuppence ' a pound in 
 New York city. Manus Carroll had been hung at the old powder-house, which 
 still stands on an eminence at the upper end of the Central Park, for a cruel 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 167 
 
 and most ' un-Christian'-like murder which he had committed two years before 
 in Albany, then a thriving town. Counterfeiters were at that time amenable 
 to tlie death-penalty ; and the Barnum of that day exhibited wax-figures in Dock 
 Street, and the editor of the New York Weekly Post Boy was in the habit of 
 receiving presents of baskets of Bermuda potatoes from the masters of vessels 
 bound into the goodly port of New York. One day the editor received a potato 
 weighing seven pounds from the master of the Oood Delight, from Plumb 
 Island, in the far-off • Bermoothes,' and, out of sheer joy at the prodigy, he went 
 and made himself drunk on ' arrack-punch,' the most aristocratic tipple of our 
 forefathers' days. The city and county of New York had at that early day a 
 population of twelve thousand, two thousand of which number were negroes. 
 
 "On the 15th of April, 1748, a number of gentlemen met in the vestry of 
 King's Chapel, or Trinity Church, then situated where the present cliarch 
 stands in the Broadway, but, at the time referred to, overhanging the banks of 
 the Hudson, whose limits have since been pushed back a quarter of a mile by 
 the contractors and dust-collectors ; and these gentlemen being of the opinion, 
 after a deliberate consultation, that it was necessary to have a chapel of ease 
 connected with Trinity, it was then and there ordained that the Church-ward 
 ens. Colonel Moore, Mr. Watts, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Chambers, Mr. Horsmaa- 
 den, Mr. Reade, and Mr. Lodge, be appointed a committee to select a place for 
 the erection 'of ye ' Chapel of St. George's. Another meeting was held on the 
 4th of July, 1748. Colonel Robinson, one of the committee, reported that he 
 had agreed with a Mr. Clarkson for a number of lots, for which that person 
 had asked the sum of £500, to be paid in a year ; and several persons in Mont- 
 gomerie Ward had stated to him that the lots of Colonel Beekman, fronting 
 Beekmau and Van ClilF Streets, would be more commodious for building the 
 said chapel, and proi^osed that if the vestry would agree to the building of the 
 chapel on Colonel Beek man's property, the inhabitants of Montgomerie Ward 
 would raise money among themselves to purchase the ground, and that if Mr. 
 Clarkson insisted on the performance of the agreement with him for his lots, 
 they would take a conveyance for them, and pay the purchase-money ; which 
 was agreed to after many hot words ; for these respectable vestrymen, in a 
 manner like all vestrymen from time immemorial, had tempers of their own, 
 and no doubt they were exercised at the fact that the doughty Robinson had 
 taken upon himself to make an agreement to purchase lots for £500, a very 
 large sum in those days, when the gold-board had not been established, while, 
 on the other hand, the inhabitants of Montgomerie Ward, which was afterward 
 called the ' Swamp ' in the memory of man, were, without whip or spur, eager 
 for "the honor and glory of the future, to furnish the lots and build upon them a 
 church. Well, the vestrymen went home and drank more arrack-punch, sweet- 
 ened with muscovado sugar, and punished ' oelykoeks,' greasy with oil and other 
 substances, and then returned to the bosoms of their respective families. Dona- 
 tions poured in to the committee, and the first subscription, of £100, was made by 
 Sir Peter Warren, who desired, if not inconsistent with the rules of the church, 
 that they would reserve a pew for himself and family in perpetuity. The 
 Archbishop of Canterbury contributed ten pounds. The installation services 
 were held on the 1st day of July, A. D. 1753 ; but there being no bishop in the 
 country at the time, it was consecrated agreeably to the ancient usages of the 
 church. The Rev. Henry Barclay, D. D., at this time, was the rector, and Rev. 
 Samuel Auchmuty, D. D., assistant minister of Trinity Churcli. Being finished 
 
168 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in the finest style of architecture of the period, and having a handsome and 
 lofty steeple, this edifice was justly deemed a great ornament to the city. It 
 first stood alone, there being but few other houses in its vicinity. Shortly sub- 
 sequent, however, the etreets were graded and built upon, and now the im- 
 menae warehouses of enterprising merchants and handsome private residences 
 surround it on every side. When first constructed, the interior arrangement 
 of St. George's differed considerably from the present, the chancel at that time 
 being contained in the circular recess at the rear of the church, and the altar 
 standing back against the rear-wall in full view of the middle aisle. There 
 was also some difference in the arrangement of the desk, pulpit, and clerk's 
 desk. An interesting relation is told concerning the material of which this 
 part of the church-furniture was made, and it may be thus condensed : In one 
 of the voyages made by a sea-captain, whose vessel was unfortunately wrecked, 
 he sastained, among other injuries, the loss of the vessel's masts. This disas- 
 ter occurring on a coast where no other wood than mahogany could be procured, 
 the captain was obliged to remedy the loss by replacing the old masts with 
 masts made of mahogany. This ship, thus repaired, returned to this port about 
 the time St. George's was building, when more suitable masts were substituted, 
 and those made of mahogany were donated to the church. The pulpit, desk, 
 and chancel-rails were removed some years afterward, and it may be interest- 
 ing to state that that they can now be seen answering a like capacity in Christ 
 Church, in the little town of Manhasset, on Long Island. 
 
 " There is an incident connected with the beautiful font of this church 
 which will also bear repetition. Originally intended for a Catholic church in 
 South America, it was shipped on a French vessel to be carried to its destina- 
 tion ; but whilst on the voyage it was captured by the English during the old 
 French war and brought to this city. This font is made of white marble, and 
 is a masterly piece of workmanship. In 1814, when St. George's was burnei, 
 this font was supposed to have been destroyed, but it was found about thirty 
 years ago in a remote part of the church, where it had been removed during 
 the conflagration. It was somewhat damaged, but not enough, however, to 
 prevent its further use ; and after being cleaned and repaired it was replaced 
 in front of the chancel, where it now stands, an interesting feature of the time- 
 honored building. 
 
 " One of the melancholy events associated with this old church was the 
 sudden death of the Rev. John Ogilvie. On the 18th of ^ ovember, 1774, whilst 
 delivering one of the lectures he was in the habit of holding on Friday even- 
 ings, he was struck with apoplesy. He had given out his text : • To show that 
 the Lord is upright ; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." 
 —Psalm, xcii, 15 : and after repeating a sentence or two he sank into the read- 
 ing-desk, and was deprived of speech. He suffered thus for eight days, when 
 he was relieved by death. It was in this cliapel, in July, 1787, that the' Right 
 Rev. Samuel Provost, the first bishop of the diocese of New York, held his 
 first ordination, at vrhich time the late Right Rev. Richard C. Moore D D 
 Bishop of Virginia, and the ReV. Joseph G. I. Bend, of Baltimore, were made 
 deacons. In the year 1811, arrangements were made for a separation between 
 the congregation of St George's and the corporation of Trinity Church after 
 which the former became duly organized as a separate parish, known as St 
 George's Church. 
 
 "The following persons composed the first vestry: Church-wardens — 
 
ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL 
 
ST. GEORGE BUILDING. 
 
170 
 
 HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY 
 
 Gerrit Van Wagenen and Heury Peters. Vestrymen— Francis Dominick, 
 Isaac Lawrence, Isaac Carow, Robert Wardell, Cornelius Schermerhorn, John 
 Onderdonk, Edward W. Laiglit, and William Green. Alter St. George's 
 became a separate parish, its first minister was the Rev. Jolin Brady, who after- 
 ward became an assistant under the Rev. John Kewly. St. George's was 
 entirely consumed by fire in the month of January, 1814, nothing being saved 
 but the bare walls. After a proper examination, these walls were decided to 
 be safe enough to bear another roof, and when this was put on the whole 
 interior of the building was renewed. The interior of the church is much 
 more handsomely finished than the eiterior, the carved capitals of the Corin- 
 thian order pi-esenting a fine specimen of architectural beauty. The ground- 
 floor is divided into three aisles, and on either side a commodious gallery is 
 supported by massive columns. At the west end, and connecting these two, 
 there is another gallery, in the middle of which is located a handsome ma- 
 hogany organ. Above this end gallery there are two smaller ones, which are 
 used by the Sunday-school pupils. From the center of the ceiling three large 
 magnificent glass chandeliers depend, and these are among the few articles that 
 were saved from the fire. Over the side-galleries three smaller but very beau- 
 tiful chandeliers are hung above the arches. When St. George's was com- 
 pleted a second time, it was placed by the vestry under the pastoral charge of 
 the Rev. Dr. Milnor, who continued to fill the rectorship until the 8th of 
 April, 1845, when he died. This venerable minister was held in high esteem 
 by his parish, and his death was sincerely lamented. He had been a lawyer 
 in Philadelphia in early life, and for several terms represented that city in 
 Congress. In 1813, he abandoned secular pursuits, and was. admitted to 
 priests' and deacons' orders by Bishop White. 
 
 " One hundred years after the consecration of St. George's, a grand cente- 
 nary celebration was held in the church, and hundreds of worhipers knelt in 
 the shadow of the jjulpit from which George Washington had often heard 
 the sacred text read and expounded. Dr. Tyng held the rectorship until the 
 new edifice in Sixteenth Street was finished, when the communion service 
 was removed to the new church, and a number of old relics carried away. 
 Now the venerable pile is being gutted from organ-loft to altar, and the hungry 
 doors stand open that all may see the nakedness of the edifice. The old gray 
 flag-stones, worn by the feet of Schuylers, Livingstons, Eeades, Van Cliffs, 
 Beckmans, Van Eensselaers. Cortlandts, Moores, and others, well known and 
 respected in the infancy of the metropolis, are to be torn up and converted 
 into lime; the pulpit will go to a junk shop, and the rest of the furniture to 
 the wood-yard. At present the graves of Revolutionary heroes serve as a 
 depository for ashes and rubbish, and vessels are emptied daily from the win- 
 dows adjoining on places where, a hundred years ago, were carved the 
 sacred words never to be efiuced, " Requiescat in pace." The old church has 
 to be torn down, and the six lots will be sold to the highest purchasers. The 
 church was the oldest in the city but one, the building occupied as a post-oflSce 
 having been the first building erected as a place of worship. The property 
 purchased from Colonel Beekman for £500 is now worth, it is said, half a 
 million of dollars." * 
 
 *The site of this building is now (1871) occupied by the elegant marble building of ths 
 Orienlal and American Stove Works. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Clinton was at his country-seat at Flushing, 
 L. I., when his successor, Sir Danvers Osborne, arrived. 
 This was on Sunday, the 7th of October, 1753. The 
 council, mayor, corporation, and the chief citi- 
 zens met the new Governor on his arrival, and 
 escorted him to the council chamber. The following day 
 Mr. Clinton called upon him, and they both dined with 
 the members of the council. On Wednesday morning 
 Mr. Clinton administered to him the oath of ofiice, and 
 delivered to him the seals ; at the same time delivering 
 to James De Lancey his commission as Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor. As soon as these forms were finished. Governor 
 Osborne, attended by the council and Mr. Clinton, set 
 out for the Town-hall, where the new commission was 
 usually read to the people. Scarcely, however, had the 
 procession advanced a few steps, when the rabble, incited, 
 it is said, by the De Lancey faction, insulted Mr. Clinton 
 so grossly as to compel him to leave the party and retire 
 into the fort. In the evening cannon were fired, bonfires 
 lighted, fire-works displayed, and the whole city was given 
 up to a delirium of joy. Amid all these rejoicings, the 
 new Governor sat in his room, gloomy and sad ; and, 
 seemingly averse to conversation, retired early. On 
 Thursday morning he informed the council that his strict 
 orders were to insist upon an indefinite support for the 
 
172 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Government, and desired to have the opinion of the 
 board upon the probabilities of its success. It was 
 universally agreed by the members present that the 
 Assembly never would submit to this demand, and that 
 a permanent support could not be enforced. Turning to 
 Mr. Smith, who had hitherto remained silent, he re- 
 quested his opinion, which being to the same effect as 
 that just expressed, Sir Danvers Osborne sighed, and, 
 leaning against the window, with his fice partially con- 
 cealed, exclaimed, in great mental distress, " Then, what 
 am I sent here for?" That same evening he was so 
 unwell that a physician was summoned, with whom he 
 conversed for a little time, and then retired to his cham- 
 ber, where he spent the most of the night in arranging 
 his private affairs. In the morning he was found sus- 
 pended from the top of the garden-fence, dead.* 
 
 Sir Danvers Osborne had lost a wife, to whom he was 
 passionately attached, shortly before coming to New 
 York. This acting upon a mind morbidly sensitive, had 
 thrown him into a melancholy bordering upon insanity. 
 He came to the Government charged with instructions 
 much more stringent in their tone than those given to his 
 predecessor ; and, knowing the difficulty which Mr. Clinton 
 experienced during his administration, he saw before him 
 only a succession of storms and tempests. Almost the 
 first words of the city corporation in their address to 
 him in the Town-hall — " that they would not brook any 
 infringement of their liberties, civil and religious " — con- 
 vinced Sir Danvers Osborne of the utter impossibility of 
 the task assigned to him. All these causes working upon 
 a morbid state of mind — wishing to carry out his instruc- 
 tions on the one hand, yet seeing its utter hopelessness on 
 
 * Manuscript affidavits of Philip Crosby and John Milligan before the 
 council. Sworn to October 12th, 1753, and now preserved in the Secretary-of- 
 State's Office, Albany, N. Y. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. ]73 
 
 the other— produced a temporary insanity, in which state 
 he committed the rash act. Party rage, it is true, threw 
 out suspicions of unfair play ; and the council even 
 thought it worth while to appoint a committee to investi- 
 gate more fully the circumstances of his death; but these 
 suspicions, it was made clearly evident, were entirely 
 without foundation. 
 
 Immediately on the death of Governor Osborne, Mr. 
 De Lancey, by virtue of his commission as Lieutenant- 
 Governor, assumed the reins of government. The role 
 which he was henceforth to plaj'-, though difficult, was 
 acted with his usual shrewdness and address. He had 
 now to convince the ministry that he was zealous in the 
 promotion of the interests of the Crown ; while, at the 
 same time, if he would retain his own popularity, he must 
 show the Assembly that he was true to his former princi- 
 ples, and by no means required a compliance with the 
 instructions, which, on the part of his majesty, he should 
 present to them. " As his majesty's representative, he was 
 obliged to urge their compliance with seeming sincerity 
 and warmth ; but as James De Lancey, their old Iriend 
 and best adviser, it was his real sentiment that they 
 never ought to submit." The change in the administra- 
 tion, however, was productive of one good result — that of 
 infusing into the Assembly a desire to take active meas- 
 ures for the defense of the province, new threatened with 
 a desolating Indian war. Before the close of the session, 
 an elaborate complaint to the Crown and a representation 
 to the Board of Trade against Mr. Clinton were drawn up, 
 and forwarded, through Mr. De Lancey, to the Home Gov- 
 ernment. The Assembly was then prorogued to the first 
 Tuesday of the following March — the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor tenderly remarking, before they parted, that they 
 " must be sensible they had not acted with his majesty's 
 royal instructions." 
 
174 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 In the General Assembly, which met on the 15th of 
 October, 1754, was first manifested the want of that har- 
 mony which had hitherto been so flattering to Mr. 
 De Lancey's administration. The reluctance of 
 the Lieutenant-Governor at the congress to accede to the 
 plan of union first awakened suspicion in the public mind 
 that his sympathies were on the side of the Crown, and 
 that the affection which he professed for the people was 
 only a cover to his own ambition. There were also a few 
 of Mr. Clinton's friends left, around whom were gathered 
 a small opposition ; and the partiality which Mr. De Lan- 
 cey had shown to his partisans since coming into power 
 disgusted others and added to the discontent which was 
 now quite general. To this was added another source of 
 dissatisfaction — viz., the course he had taken in the found- 
 ing of the college. To understand this latter point more 
 clearly, it is necessary to glance at the origin of the con- 
 troversy which was now raging fiercely, and which had 
 already divided the Assembly into two parties. 
 
 The province of New York at this period was divided 
 in its rehgious views into two sects — the Episcopalian and 
 the Presbyterian — the former being led by James De Lan- 
 cey and the latter by WilUam Livingston. The Presby- 
 terians, though outnumbering ten to one the Episcopalians, 
 had not fairly recovered from the oppression of the early 
 Governors, Fletcher and Cornbury ; and they would prob- 
 ably have remained quiet had not the Episcopahans, with 
 great lack of judgment, stirred up anew the embers of 
 controversy. 
 
 The people of New York, awakened to the importance 
 of stimulating education, raised, by successive lotteries, 
 the sum of three thousand four hundred and forty-three 
 pounds for the purpose of founding a college ; and, in the 
 fall of 1751, passed an act for placing the money thus 
 raised in the hands of ten trustees. Of these, seven were 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. I75 
 
 Episcopalians, two belonged to the Dutch Church, and the 
 tenth was William Livingston, an English Presbyterian. 
 This manifest inequality in favor of the Church of Eng- 
 land at once raised a well-founded alarm in the minds of 
 the other sects, who very justly perceived in this an 
 attempt to make the college entirely sectarian, by which 
 oidy those in the Episcopal Church could participate in its 
 benefits. Nor were they left long in suspense, for it soon 
 became well understood that the majority of the trustees 
 were to have the college under their control, and were 
 intending shortly to petition the Lieutenant-Governor for 
 a charter, in which it was to be expressly stipulated that 
 no person out of the communion of the English Church 
 should be eligible to the office of president. Far-seeing 
 men uttered gloomy forebodings ; and a belief soon dif- 
 fused itself through the minds of intelligent dissenters 
 that this was only the foreshadowing of an attempt to 
 introduce into the colony an established church. 
 
 This idea was to a majority of the colouists repugnant 
 in the extreme. The union of Church and State, with its 
 tithes and taxes, was, like the " skeleton in armor," ever 
 present to their imaginations, stimulating them to the 
 utmost resistance. Mr. Livingston, therefore, partially 
 with the view of exposing the evils of a college founded 
 upon such sectarian principles, established a paper called 
 the Independent Reflector. The articles which successively 
 appeared from his pen on this subject were able and pun- 
 gent. Under his lash the leaders of the church party 
 winced ; and, in their agony, charged him with the design 
 of breaking up the plan of any college whatever, and 
 dreaded lest he should obtain a charter " for constituting 
 a college on a basis the most catholic, generous, and free." 
 These attacks of the church party were returned with 
 redoubled violence, and the controversy had now risen to 
 fever-heat. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 177 
 
 But the efforts of Mr. Livingston and other able writ- 
 ers to prevent the incorporation of King's (Columbia) 
 College under these principles were fruitless ; and Mr. De 
 Lancey accordingly granted the charter. The Rev. Sam- 
 uel Johnson, from Stratford, a worthy man, was called to 
 the president's chair, and Mr. Livingston was appointed one 
 of the governors, in the hope of silencing his opposition. 
 
 The granting of this charter was so displeasing to the 
 majority of the people, that the Lieutenant-Governor 
 thought it advisable, in order to win back their former 
 confidence, to urge at the present session the passage of 
 several popular acts. Among them was one for supplying 
 the garrison at Albany and the fortifications along the 
 frontiers, and another for the discharge of the claims of the 
 public creditors, especially the one of Colonel (afterward 
 Sir William) Johnson. 
 
 The granting of a charter to the new college, however, 
 had not utterly crushed out opposition to its obnoxious 
 principles. The House still had the disposal of the money 
 which had been raised ; and the sectarians having a ma- 
 jority, the trustees were ordered to report their transac- 
 tions by virtue of the act under which they had been 
 appointed. The latter, accordingly, on the 1st of Novem- 
 ber handed in two separate reports, William Livingston 
 reading one, and James Livingston and Mr. Nichol the 
 other. After the two reports had been considered, the 
 House unanimously resolved "that it would not consent 
 to any disposition of the moneys raised by lottery for 
 erecting a college within this colony in any other manner 
 than by an act of the Legislature hereafter passed for that 
 purpose." Permission at the same time was given Mr. 
 Robert Livingston to bring in a bill for incorporating a 
 college, which he introduced that same afternoon. 
 
 The introduction of this bill astonished both Houses. 
 It was vain to suppose that the council would give its 
 23 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 179 
 
 assent to an act so distasteful to its religious prejudices ; 
 nor was the Lieutenant-Governor likely to directly con- 
 tradict the letters-patent which, on behalf of the Crown, 
 he himself had granted; while the Assembly, composed 
 chiefly of dissenters, dared not reject it. In this predica- 
 ment, a motion was made by Mr. Walton — prefaced with 
 the remark " that the subject was of the utmost conse- 
 quence to the people they represented, with the respect 
 both to their civil and religious liberties " — that the con- 
 sideration of the bill be deferred until the next session, 
 by which time the sentiments of their constituents could 
 be obtained. This motion was gladly seized upon as the 
 only mode which presented an honorable retreat from the 
 position they had so hastily assumed, and was therefore 
 immediately carried. 
 
 Thus, with the close of the year, practically terminated 
 the college controversy, which, considered in itself, was 
 not, perhaps, of much importance ; but which should not 
 be omitted by the historian, who would show the progress 
 which the citizens of New York were making toward that 
 civil and religious freedom which they afterward attained. 
 
 Sir Charles Hardy, the person whom the ministry 
 had appointed to succeed Sir Danvers Osborne, arrived 
 in New York in 1755. He was, like Clinton, an 
 
 1 Tdt) 
 
 unlettered British admiral, and he had not landed 
 long before it was apparent that, like him, also, he 
 had not sufficient executive talent to govern without a 
 leader. He therefore soon resigned himsfelf into the hands 
 of De Lancey, who thus again became Governor. Sir 
 Charles Hardy, however, soon became tired of his inactive 
 life ; and having, like a sensible man, asked and received 
 permission to resign the government and return to his 
 former profession, he hoisted his flag as Rear-Admiral of 
 the Blue ; and leaving his government in the hands of the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. Jgl 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor, De Lancey, he sailed on the 2d of 
 July, 1757, to take command of an expedition against 
 Lewisburg. 
 
 The year before his departure, however, was signal- 
 ized by an outrage upon the citizens of New Y.ork, which 
 was long treasured up, and undoubtedly had its full weight 
 in the catalogue of grievances which a few years later 
 was to precipitate the colony into revolution. At this 
 time the colonists were engaged in a bloody war with the 
 Indians and French; and Lord Loudon, who had been 
 appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army in America, 
 arrived in New York in December, 1756, with 
 twenty -four hundred men. His first act after 
 landing was to insist that his officers should have free 
 quarters upon the city. This, it will be remembered, 
 was in direct opposition to the charter of liberties, 
 framed by the first Assembly under Governor Dongan ; 
 and the citizens, who saw in this an attempt to burden 
 them with a standing army, became excited, and warmly 
 pleaded their rights as Englishmen. But Loudon was 
 not to be moved. Six men were billeted upon the 
 brother of the Lieutenant-Governor — Oliver De Lancey. 
 The latter threatened, if they were not removed, to leave 
 the country. " I shall be glad of it," replied his lord- 
 ship, at the same time quartering half-a-dozen more upon 
 him, " for then the troops will have the whole house."* 
 The Corporation insisted that free quarters were against 
 the common law and the petition of rights. " God damn 
 
 * Sir : Am just now informed tliat 2,400 men are arrived in New York. My 
 Lord Loudon set a billettiug thera and sent only six to hia old acquaintance, 
 Mr. Ol. Do Lancey ; he zounzed, and blood-and-zounzed at the soldiers. This 
 was told my lord ; he sent Mr. 01. half-a-dozen more. He sent my lord word if 
 matters were to go so he would leave the country. My lord sent him word he 
 would be glad of it ; then the troops would have the whole house. I really 
 thought this so extraordinary, I must communicate it to yoa." — MS. Letter in 
 the author's possession. Wm. Gorry to Sir Wm. Johmon, Jan. 15th, 1757. 
 
182 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 my blood!" exclaimed Loudon to Mayor Cruger, who 
 presented the opinion of the Corporation, " if you do not 
 billet my officers upon free quarters this day, I'll order all 
 the troops in North America, under my command, and 
 billet them myself upon this city ! " All argument being 
 thus at an end, a subscription was raised for the quartering 
 of the officers ; and Loudon, having rendered himself an 
 object of detestation, went to Boston to breathe the same 
 threats and to talk of the rigor which was to character- 
 ize the next year's campaign. 
 
 Three years after the departure of Governor Hardy, 
 the City of New York was thrown into deep mourning 
 by the death of its former Chief - Justice and present 
 Lieutenant-Governor, James De Lancey. On the 30th 
 of July, 1760, he died very suddenly from an 
 attack of asthma, a malady to which he had for 
 many years been subject. The day previous to his 
 decease, he had visited Staten Island, and dined with 
 Governor Morris, General Prevost, and several other distin- 
 guished men of the day. Late in the evening he crossed 
 the bay, seemingly laboring under great depression of 
 spirits, and drove to his country-seat in the suburbs.* 
 The next morning he was found by one of his little 
 grandchildren t sitting in his library in the last agonies of 
 death. 
 
 By his violent political enemies Mr. De Lancey has 
 been represented as a most unprincipled demagogue, while 
 by his satellites he has been lauded to the skies as a dis- 
 interested citizen and patriot. Neither of these views is 
 correct; and the truth, as is generally the case, lies be- 
 
 * On the east side of the Bowery, a little above Grand Street. 
 
 f The little child that discovered him was the grandfather of the late 
 Bishop De Lancey, of New Tork. Miss Booth, in her generally accurate and 
 valuable work, states that James De Lancey was the ^reaf-grandfather of the 
 lato hishop. This, however, is a mistake. He was his grandfatJier . 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK, CITY. 183 
 
 tween the two extremes. Mr. De Lancey, undoubtedly, 
 was very ambitious and fond of notoriety ; and his love of 
 power and the emoluments of office often led him into the 
 commission of acts from which otherwise he would have 
 shrunk. While he has been praised for his " broad aiid 
 popular principles," and for his "political skill in suc- 
 cessfully preserving to the Assembly the right of annual 
 appropriations," yet he assumed this position more from 
 a determination to displease Clinton, that he himself 
 might rule, than from any love for the people. His 
 course in 1754, in relation to the college charter, alien- 
 ated his warmest friends; and although he subseq;iently 
 bitterly repented of giving his sanction to the act of incor- 
 poration, yet it was more on account of his loss of popu- 
 larity than from any feeling of liberality. He was, how- 
 ever, possessed of many amiable and noble qualities and 
 private virtues ; his disposition was social and genial, and 
 he was withal a good classical scholar and a profound 
 lawyer. His conduct upon the bench was generally irre- 
 proachable ; and his decisions, in those cases in which the 
 feelings of the political partisan did not enter, were char- 
 acterized by fairness and discrimination. His death, 
 occurring at this time, Avas a great loss to the prov- 
 ince ; for, numerous as were his faults, he was a man of 
 unquestioned ability. During his long administration 
 he had made himself thoroughly conversant with Indian 
 relations ; and since the departure of Clinton had heartily 
 co-operated with Sir William Johnson, the Indian super- 
 intendent, in all his efforts in that department. By his 
 death the political complexion of the province underwent 
 a material change; and Dr. Golden, by virtue of being 
 president of the council, took the charge of the Govern- 
 ment until the wishes of the ministry were known. 
 
 Scarcely had the gloom resulting from the death of 
 Mr. De Lancey been dispelled, when the city was again 
 
184 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 thrown into excitement — this time, however, from a 
 pleasurable cause. In the October that succeeded the 
 Lieutenant-Governor's death, General Amherst, covered 
 with laurels on account of his conquest of Canada, visited 
 New York. So overjoyed were the citizens at the suc- 
 cessful termination of the protracted struggle, that it 
 seemed as if thej could not do too much for him, whom 
 they regarded in the light of their preserver from the 
 tomahawk and scalping-knife Accordingly, upon the 
 arrival of Amherst, a public dinner was given to him, the 
 freedom of the city presented in a gold box, salutes' fired, 
 and the whole city illuminated. Nor, as is too frequently 
 the case with ovations, were these honors imdeserved by 
 their recipient, who was as modest as he was brave. 
 
 Meanwhile, the work of improving the city rapidly ' 
 advanced. In the spring of 1761, new streets were opened 
 and paved, among which was Partition Street, now Fulton. 
 At the same time the first theater was opened 
 in Beekman Street, under the patronage of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor, although the project was strenu- 
 ously opposed by the Assembly as tending to vitiate and 
 lower the standard of public morals. " During this yeai", 
 also, the old plan of lighting the streets by lanterns sus- 
 pended from the windows was definitely abandoned ; and 
 public lamps and lamp-posts were erected in the principal 
 streets, and lighted at the public expense." Laws were 
 also passed regulating the prices of provisions, some of 
 which the same author gives as affording an idea of the 
 prices at that time. Beef was sold at four pence half- 
 penny per pound; pork, five pence half-penny; veal, six 
 pence ; butter, fifteen pence ; milk, six coppers per quart ; 
 and a loaf of bread, of a pound and twelve ounces, fom- 
 coppers. 
 
 In June, 17G4, a light-house was erected on Sandy 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 185 
 
 Hook and lighted for the first time. Two ferries were 
 , also established the same year ; one between Paulus Hook 
 (Jersey City) and New York, and another between 
 Staten Island and Bergen. At the same time the ""*" 
 mail between New York and Philadelphia was changed 
 from once a fortnight to twice a week, the distance be- 
 tween the two cities being made in three days. 
 
 At an early period in New York the mails, now of 
 such vital importance, were a very insignificant affair. 
 
 SANDY HOOK, PI!OM THE LIGHT-HODSES. 
 
 Even since the American Revolution a saddle-bag boy on 
 horseback, without any protection, carried the mail three 
 times a week between New York and Philadelphia. Peo- 
 ple wondered at seeing the bags next placed upon a sulky ; 
 and were lost in amazement when a four-horse stage be- 
 
 31 
 
186 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 came necessary for the increasing load and bulk. Now, a 
 large car, several times a day, is found insufficient for the 
 amount of mail matter that passes between those two 
 cities ; and instead of there being, as formerly, only a few 
 straggling letters, two hundred and fifty thousand postage- 
 stamps are, on an average, daily canceled, and that is a 
 representation of the number of domestic letters delivered 
 at the post-office every twenty-four hours.* Then the post 
 went and returned by way of " Blazing Star," Staten Isl- 
 and. In process of time, several new routes were opened 
 to Philadelphia. One crossed the bay to Staten Island 
 in a perogue^ commonly called a periagiia, a little open boat 
 with lee-boards, and steered by one man. Reaching the 
 island, the traveler proceeded to the ferry at "Arthur 
 Rolls'" Sound, crossed in a scow to New Jersey, and 
 shortly reached the " Blazing Star," near Woodbridge. 
 Journeying slowly to the Raritan River, New Brunswick 
 was reached by a scow, and in the same manner Trenton, 
 on the Delaware, until, by the third or fourth day, the 
 "City of Brotherly Love" made its appearance. Another 
 route advertised a commodious "stage-boat" to start wilh 
 goods and passengers from the City Hall Slip (Coenties) 
 twice a week, for Perth Amboy ferry, and thence by 
 stage-wagon to Cranberry and Burlington, from which 
 point a stage-boat continued the line to Philadelphia ; this 
 trip generally required three days. This was long belbre 
 the days of steam-boats. These " stage-boats " were 
 small sloops, sailed by a single man and boy, or two men ; 
 and passing "outside," as it is still called, by the Narrows 
 and through the " Lower Bay," these small passage-ve.'^- 
 sels, at times, were driven out to sea, thus oftentimes caus- 
 
 * One comparative statement more. The City of New York is divided into 
 twelve postal stations, each one having its distinct officer and clerks. Station 
 A, situated in the heart of New York, does a larger business than the city of 
 Buflfalo, New Haven, Hartford, Hudson, or Troy. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. igy 
 
 ing vexatious delays. In very stormy weather, the " inside 
 route," through the Kills, was chosen. The most common 
 way to Philadelphia, however, was to cross the North 
 River in a sail-boat, and then the Passaic and Hackensack 
 by scows, reaching the " Quaker City " by stages in about 
 three days. But these passages had their perils. The 
 "Blazing Star Inn" (sign of a comet) lay four, or five 
 miles from the Staten Island ferry ; and Baron De Kalb, 
 then a colonel, crossing over here in January, 1768, was 
 the only one of nine passengers not frozen so as to lose 
 life or limb. The open scow sank on a sand-bank and 
 left the whole party exposed all night. When rescued, 
 he alone refused to be warmed by the fire, but placing his 
 feet and legs in cold water, went to bed and arose uninjured. 
 One of his comrades died on the scow before succor arrived. 
 In 1756, the first stage started between New York and 
 Philadelphia— three days through. In 1765, a second 
 stage was advertised for Philadelphia — a covered 
 Jersey wagon — at two pence a mile. The next 
 year- another line was begun, called the "Flying Machine," 
 with good wagons, seats on springs, time two days, and 
 fare two pence a mile, or twenty shillings through. John 
 Mersereau, at the " Blazing Star," " notifies that persons 
 may go from New York to Philadelphia and back in five 
 days, remaining in Philadelphia two nights and one day; 
 fare, twenty shillings through. There will be two wagons 
 and two drivers, and four sets of horses. The passengers 
 will lodge at Paulus Hook Ferry the night before, to start 
 thence the next morning early." * 
 
 * In tlds connection it may be mentioned that, during the year 1756, the first 
 British pacl^et-hoats commenced sailing from New Yorli. to Faimoutli, each let- 
 ter carried " to pay four-penny weight of s Iver." It is also worth noticing here 
 that the earliest voyage to China from New York was made during the year 
 1785, in the ship Empress, Captain Greene. The same year Captain Dean per 
 formed this identical voyage in an Albany sloop — a feat at that day more remark 
 able than the sailing of the little "Red, White, and Blue" across the Atlantic 
 a short time ago. 
 
188 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 During the year 1785, the first stages began their trips 
 between New York and Albany, with four horses, at four 
 pence a mile, on the east side of the North River, under 
 a special act of the Legislature, for ten years. Ten years 
 afterward this line was extended as far as Whitest one, just 
 beyond old Fort Schuyler (Utica).* 
 
 What a contrast between that day and our own ! Then 
 news from England five months old was fresh and racy. 
 Now we must have it in two hours, and then grumble at 
 the length of time taken by the Atlantic cable to convey 
 the intelligence. Then news seven days old from New 
 York to Boston was swift enough for an express. Now, if 
 we cannot obtain the news from Washington in less than 
 the same number of minutes, we become almost frantic, 
 and talk of starting new telegraph companies. 
 
 * On the opposite page will be found a facsimile of an advertisement, cut 
 out of an old newspaper kindly given me by tlie Hon. Theodore Faxton, of 
 Utica, X, Y. Mr. Faxton is the son-in-law of " Jason Parker." 
 
PARKE R't 
 
 Mail Stage, 
 
 From IVbiteftown to Canajobarrie. 
 
 THE Mail liantts H^bilifto-wn evirf 
 Moiulay an J T but/Jay, at ttut t'cloek 
 P. M. and proeeedt to Oil Fort &ebuyUr tit 
 Jiaipt tvtning i next fjuming fiarts at ftytr 
 Q^ clock, and arrivu at Canajoiarrie in the 
 fvitiitig ; elobangts fajfengirt •with tot Al 
 bany and Caaptrficwn fiagtj, and the ntxl 
 day returns 1 1 Old Fort Schuyler- 
 
 Fare for pafiengiri, Toe* Dollars ; itiaj 
 pajjtngtn. Four Pence per ailei i^lb. bag- 
 gage gratis J l^o-wt. rated the faint at a 
 p^Jfenger. 
 
 Seals may it hadly apflyiag at the Foji- 
 Offiee, Wbittjlo-Uin, at the hauft tf the fub- 
 cribtr. Old Fort Sdmyltr, or at Captaiu 
 Riaf^f, Can^tbarrie 
 
 JASON PARKER. 
 Jugufi, 1795. 8/ 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 It will be recollected that, on the death of Mr. De 
 Lancey, the Government had devolved on Dr. Cadwal- 
 lader Golden, as president of the council, until the wishes 
 of the ministry could be ascertained. Shortly after his 
 first speech to the Assembly on the 22d of October, 1760, 
 news arrived of the death of George the Second and the 
 accession of his grandson ; and as it was the unanimous 
 opinion of the provincial council that the demise of the 
 King dissolved the Assembly, writs were issued for a new 
 one, returnable upon the 3d of March, 1761. Mean- 
 while, various were the conjectures respecting the 
 name of the future governor. At one time rumor gave the 
 gubernatorial chair to General Gage ; again the public 
 were confident that Thomas Pownal would be the fortu- 
 nate man. Some few suggested Golden, and others Gen- 
 eral Monckton. All surmises were at length set at rest. 
 Pownal received the Governorship of Jamaica, Gage 
 remained at Montreal, and Golden, having been appointed 
 Lieutenant-Governor, announced to the Assembly that 
 his majesty had been pleased " to distinguish the services 
 of Major-General Monckton by constituting him his Cap- 
 tain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province."- 
 The new Governor, however, did not long occupy the 
 gubernatorial chair, for, preferring the excitement of 
 arm^ to the cares and troubles of office, he, like Governor 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 19I 
 
 Hardy, requested to be allowed to resume his old profes- 
 sion. Accordingly, having produced his commission to 
 the council and taken the oaths of office, he sailed from 
 New York on the last day of November, 1761, leaving 
 the government in the hands of Doctor Golden. 
 
 The administration of Doctor Golden was at first 
 marked by no event of special moment, and the inter- 
 course between himself and his Assembly, if we except 
 the slight opposition against the theater in Beekman 
 Street, was of the most amiable character. But this 
 calm was to be of short duration ; for, shortly after re- 
 ceiving his commission of Lieutenant-Governor, he was 
 instrumental in an act which set not only the Assembly, 
 but the whole province, in a blaze. As by the death of 
 Mr. De Lancey the seat of Ghief-Justice had become 
 vacant, a general wish was expressed by the community 
 that the vacancy should at once be filled. The three 
 remaining judges, Horsmanden, Chambers, and Jones, hav- 
 ing doubts as to their ability to issue processes under their 
 old commissions since the death of the King, likewise 
 urged the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint a successor 
 without delay. Golden, however, was more concerned 
 for his own and his family's advancement than for the 
 welfare of the colony. In the same letter in which he 
 announced to the Lords of Trade the death of De Lancey, 
 he recommended his eldest son for the seat at the 
 council-board, made vacant at the Lieutenant-Governor's 
 death; and in the same fawning and grasping spirit he 
 now desired the Earl of Halifax, the Colonial Secretary 
 of State, to nominate a Chief-Justice. The result was, 
 not only the nomination, but the actual appointment of 
 Benjamin Pratt, a Boston lawyer, to the seat, not, as had 
 been usual before the death of his late majesty, " during 
 good behaviour," but " at the pleasure of the King." 
 
 The appointment in this manner, and at this time. 
 
192 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 was peculiarly unfortunate. The sister colony of Massa- 
 chusetts was now writhing under the "writs of assist- 
 ance," which the British ministry had so recklessly deter- 
 mined to force upon the colonies. These " writs " had 
 been requested by the custom-house officers to enable 
 them the better to enibrce the revenue. They were in 
 effect search-warrants, and whoever held them might 
 with impunity break open a citizen's house and violate 
 the sanctity of his dwelling. The inhabitants were justly 
 incensed at this exercise of arbitrary power, and the 
 more so, as they saw no disposition on the part of those 
 in authority to resist this infringement upon their liber- 
 ties. Bernard, the Governor of Massachusetts, scrupled 
 not to become the tool of the Earl of Egremont, Pitt's 
 successor, and boldly declared himself in favor of adopt- 
 ing the odious plan of the Crown for increasing the 
 revenue. Hutchinson, the Chief-Justice of the province, 
 was equally subservient to the royal authority. An 
 opportunity, however, soon came in which the temper of 
 the people found vent. A petition having been presented 
 to the Supei-ior Court by the officers of the customs, that 
 "writs of assistance" might ensue, the question was 
 argued at length in February (1761) before the Chief- 
 Justice and his four associate justices. Jeremiah Gridley, 
 on behalf of the Crown, argued for the legality of the 
 writ, on the ground that as the writ was allowed to the 
 revenue-officers in England, to refuse the same powers to 
 the colonial officers would be to deny that " the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain is the sovereign legislature of the 
 British empire." 
 
 The fearless and impulsive James Otis, who had 
 resigned his office as Advocate-General, that, untrammeled, 
 he might argue this case against the Crown, appeared for 
 the people of Boston. "These writs," he exclaimed, 
 " are the worst instruments of arbitrary power, the most 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 193 
 
 destructive of English liberty and the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of law." With impassioned eloquence, he showed 
 to the court the nature of these writs. "In the first 
 place," he said, " the writ is universal, being directed to 
 all and singular justices, sheriiFs, constables, and all other 
 officers and subjects, so that, in short, it is directed to 
 every subject in the King's dominions. Every one with 
 this writ may be a tj'rant ; if this commission be legal, a 
 tyrant in a legal manner. Also may control, imprison, 
 or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, 
 it is perpetual. A man is accountable to no person for 
 his doings. * * * j^ the third place, a person 
 with this writ, in the daytime may enter all houses, 
 shops, &c., at will, and command all to assist him. Now, 
 one of the most essential branches of English liberty is 
 the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle, 
 and whilst he is quiet he is as well guarded as a prince 
 in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, 
 would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house 
 officers may enter our houses when they please. We are 
 commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants 
 may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in 
 their way, and whether they break through malice or 
 revenge, no man, no court may inquire. Bare suspicion 
 without oath is sufficient ; and," continued he, " I am 
 determined to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and 
 even life, to the sacred calls of my country in opposition 
 to a kind of power which cost one King of England las 
 head and another his throne ; and to my dying day I will 
 oppose, with all the power and faculties that God has 
 given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one 
 hand and villainy on the other ! " 
 
 At the next term of the court, the writ of assistance 
 was granted, but such was the feeling of the people that 
 the custom-house officers, although having the writs in 
 
 25 
 
194 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 their pockets, dared not in a single instance carry them 
 into execution. But although the arguments of Otis 
 failed to procure a decision in favor of the people, yet 
 they did not die within the walls of the court-house. 
 Caught up by his hearers, they were borne, as if on the 
 wind, throughout the length and breadth of the land. " I 
 do say in the most solemn manner," writes Mr. Adams, 
 " that Mr. Otis's oration against writs of assistance 
 breathed into this nation the breath of life." 
 
 With these stirring appeals of James Otis ringing in 
 their ears, it may readily be supposed that the people of 
 New York were in no mood for this further encroach- 
 ment upon their liberties. " To make the King's will," 
 said they, "the term of office, is to make the bench of 
 judges the instrument of the royal prerogative." Cham- 
 bers, Horsmanden, and Jones refused to act longer unless 
 they could hold their commissions during good behavior. 
 Champions at once arose to do battle for the people. 
 Conspicuous among these were William Livingston, John 
 Morin Scott, and William Smith, all prominent lawyers 
 and vigorous thinkers and writers; and they protested 
 through the public prints against this attempt to 
 render the judiciary dependent upon the Crown. 
 Nor were their efforts entirely fruitless, for in the an- 
 swer of the Assembly on the 17th of December to the 
 request of Dr. Colden that the usual salary of three hun- 
 dred pounds to the Chief-Justice should be increased, it 
 was resolved " that as the salaries allowed for the judges 
 of the Supreme Court have been and still appear to be 
 sufficient to engage gentlemen of the first figure, both as 
 to capacity and fortune, in the colony, to accept of these 
 offices, it would be highly improper to augment the salary 
 of Chief- Justice on this occasion ;" nor would they allow 
 even the usual salary, unless the commissions of the Chief- 
 Justice and the other judges were granted during good 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. ]95 
 
 behavior. To this Golden refused to caccede ; and Chief- 
 Justice Pratt, having served several terms without a 
 salary, was finally reimbursed out of his majesty's quit- 
 rents of the province. 
 
 Thus were the people of New York following in the 
 wake of their Puritan neighbors. Golden himself, as if 
 he had some glimmerings of the future, began to doubt 
 the result. " For some years past," he wrote to the 
 Board of Trade, " three popular lawyers, educated in Con- 
 necticut, who have strongly imbibed the independent 
 principles of that country, calumniate the administration 
 in every exercise of the prerogative, and get the applause 
 of the mass by propagating the doctrine that all authority 
 is derived from the people." 
 
 It was in the fall of 1763 that George Grenville and 
 Lord North first devised the plan of raising a revenue by 
 the sale of stamps to the colonists. Grenville, how- 
 ever, hesitated long before pressing this measure ; 
 and it was not until the 22d of March, of this year, that 
 the Stamp Act passed, and received the signature of the 
 King. The act declared that thenceforth no legal instru- 
 ment should possess any validity in the colonies unless it 
 was stamped by the Government.* Long before the pas- 
 sage of the act, the rumor that such a project was even 
 meditated by the ministry produced a universal outbm-st 
 of indignation. If Parliament wished to raise any sum, 
 said the colonists, let them employ the usual method of 
 writing circular letters to the provinces, requesting sup- 
 plies according to the ability of each. When thus applied 
 to heretofore, the King had never found them remiss, but, 
 on the contrary — as their loyal obedience to these requi- 
 sitions during the last war had fully shown^they had 
 
 * " By this act, a ream of bail bonds stamped was £100 ; a ream of common 
 printed ones before, was £15 ; a ream of stamped policies of insurance was 
 £190 ■ of common ones, without stamps, &%()."— Bradfurd, Mass., i, 13. 
 
196 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YOEK CITY. 
 
 always responded with alacrity. Taxation, however, with- 
 out representation in Parliament was tyranny to which 
 they would not submit. These views were advocated with 
 great power by James Otis in a series of pamphlets ; and 
 the public prmts teemed with similar discussions, all of 
 which were read with care and reflection. The Assem- 
 blies of Virginia and New York especially, by their pro- 
 tests, took firm ground against the passage of the act ; but 
 the petition of the former body was not received in Eng- 
 land until it was too late, while that of the latter was so 
 intemperate in its expressions against the newly-assumed 
 pretensions of the Parliament that the agent, Mr. Charles, 
 was unable to And any member of that body bold enough 
 to present it. 
 
 It may, therefore, readily be seen, that if the mere 
 intimation that such an odious measure was in conteni- 
 plation, produced so much solicitude, the passage of the 
 act itself was not calculated to allay the growing appre- 
 hensions of the people. But it was no sudden ebullition 
 of indignation that first manifested itself. Indeed, so 
 amazed were the colonists at the presumption of Parlia- 
 ment that when the news was first received their feelings 
 were too deep for utterance. Hutchinson, the Chief-Jus- 
 tice of Massachusetts, mistaking this for submission, has- 
 tened to write to the ministry that " his countrymen were 
 waiting, not to consider if they must submit to a stamp- 
 duty, but to know when its operation was to commence." 
 He knew not that this calm was but the stillness which 
 preceded the tornado that was to sweep with such deso- 
 lating fury throughout the land ! He was shortly unde- 
 ceived. Mutterings began to be heard in every province, 
 which, in New England and New York, soon grew into 
 acts of violence. On the 14th of August, Andrew Oliver, 
 the brother-in-law of the Chief-Justice, who had received 
 the appointment of stamp-distributer for Massachusetts, 
 
HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 197 
 
 was, together with Lord Bute, suspended in effigy from a 
 tree in one of the streets of Boston. In reply to the com- 
 mand of the Chief-Justice to take down those figures, the 
 sheriff gave a flat refusal; and the council of the province 
 likewise declined to interfere. That same liight, the mob, 
 taking the images down, carried them to the newly- 
 erected Stamp-office, which they immediately razed. Oli- 
 ver's dwelling was next assailed, the windows and furniture 
 demolished^ and the effigies burned on Fort Hill. The 
 next day, Oliver resigned ; but he was obliged, the same 
 evening, to make a public recantation at a bonfire which 
 the populace had kindled. But, having once given vent 
 to their long pent-up exasperation, they did not stop here. 
 Urged on by a popular preacher, Jonathan Mayhew by 
 name, who had taken for his text the previous day, " I 
 would they were even cut oft' which trouble you," they 
 destroyed, on the 26 th, the records and files of the Court 
 of Admiralty, and, breaking into the house of Hallowell, 
 the Comptroller of Customs, demolished the furniture, and 
 freely drank of the choice wines in the cellar. To their just 
 anger were now added the fumes of liquor ; and proceeding 
 forthwith to the residence of Hutchinson, they tore the 
 paintings fi om the walls, destroyed the plate, and scattered 
 his large and valuable library of books and manuscripts 
 to the winds ; nor did they depart until the interior of 
 the building, even to the partition-walls, was completely 
 demolished. Happily, Hutchinson and his innocent fam- 
 ily, having received timely notice of their danger, had 
 escaped before the arrival of the rioters — otherwise, the 
 crime of murder might have been added to these violent 
 and disgraceful proceedings. 
 
 In Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, 
 the popular indignation showed itself in similar demon- 
 strations, though not of so violent a character. The effect, 
 however, in those provinces was the same; each of the 
 
19S 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 stamp-distributers being forced to resign to save himself 
 from odium, if not from death. 
 
 Meantime, the Assembly of Massachusetts resolved, 
 on the Cth of June, that " it was highly expedient there 
 should be a meeting, as soon as might be, of committees 
 from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the 
 several colonies, to consult on the present circumstances 
 of the colonies, and the difficulties to which they were and 
 must be reduced, and to consider of a general congress — 
 to be held at New York the first Tuesday of October." 
 To this invitation the colonies heartily responded, and in 
 the convention, held at the time and place designated, 
 they were all represented, except New Hampshire, Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. The three latter, 
 however, although prevented by their Governors, by con- 
 tinued adjournments, from sending delegates, signified by 
 letters their willingness to acquiesce in whatever meas- 
 ures the convention might adopt; so, also, wrote New 
 Hampshire. Lieutenant-Governor Golden, who had from 
 the beginning pronounced the convention unconstitutional 
 and unlawful, Ukewise endeavored, by successive adjourn- 
 ments, to prevent the Assembly of New York from elect- 
 ing delegates. But an Assembly that had driven Clinton 
 from his chair, and had successfully fought through so 
 many years against a permanent support, was not to be 
 thus easily foiled ; and a committee appointed by 
 them in October, 1764, to correspond with their 
 sister colonies upon recent acts of Parliament in relation 
 to trade, now took their seats in the Congress as the rep- 
 resentatives of the people of New York. 
 
 Timothy Ruggles, who had been sent by Bernard, the 
 Governor of Massachusetts, to thwart the patriotic efforts 
 of his colleagues, was chosen president of the Congress, and 
 John Cotton, clerk. No time was lost. Committees were 
 iram'idiately appointed to draft petitions to Parliament. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. I99 
 
 having for their burden the Stamp Act ; and, after a har. 
 monious session of fourteen days, the convention dis- 
 solved, having adopted a declaration of rights, a petition 
 to the King, and a memorial to both Houses of Parliament 
 — the latter being drawn by James Otis. 
 
 As before remarked, the people of New York were 
 among the most bitter opponents of the Stamp Act. 
 While the riots were going on in Boston, the act itself 
 was reprinted, and hawked about the streets of New York 
 city, as " The folly of England, and ruin of America." 
 Secret organizations styling themselves the " Sons of Lib- 
 erty" met to discuss plans of resistance. Warned by the 
 example of his brother appointees in the neighboring colo- 
 nies, McEvers, the stamp-distributer, resigned. General 
 Gage, at the solicitation of Golden, ordered down, in July, 
 from Crown Point, a company of the Sixtieth regiment, 
 for the defense of Fort George, the guns of which were 
 remounted, new ordnance ordered, and the magazine 
 replenished with a bountiful supply of ammunition. On 
 the arrival of the first cargo of stamps in the harbor, 
 toward the end of October, placards were posted up in the 
 streets and at the Merchants' Coffee-house, of which the 
 following is a copy : 
 
 "PRO PATRIA. 
 
 " The first man that either distributes or makes use of stampt paper, let him 
 take care of his house, person, and effects. 
 
 "vox POPULI. 
 " WE DAKB." 
 
 Terrified at signs he could not misunderstand, the 
 Lieutenant-Governor had the stamps conveyed, for greater 
 security, to the fort, and in great trepidation summoned 
 the members of his privy council for their advice. But 
 notwithstanding he sent repeated messages, and notwith- 
 standing, also, that seven members were in the city, only 
 three (Horsmanden, Smith, and Reid) responded to his 
 
200 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 call, and the j declined giving any advice unless there was 
 a fuller Board. In this state of affairs, nothing was left 
 to Golden but to shut himself up in the fort and await the 
 result. He was not long in suspense. 
 
 On the 1st of November, the day appointed for the 
 Stamp Act to go into operation, the popular indignation, 
 which had been so long smoldering, burst forth. Early 
 in the evening, the Sons of Liberty, numbering several 
 thousand, appeared before the fort and demanded the 
 stamps. On being refused, they proceeded to the open 
 fields— a portion of which is now the Park — and, having 
 erected a gibbet, they hanged the Lieutenant-Governor in 
 efBgy, and suspended by his side a figure, holding in his 
 hand a boot, representing Lord Bute.* The images, after 
 hanging some little time, were taken down and carried, 
 together with the scaffold, in a torch-light procession to 
 the gates of the fort. Having in vain knocked on the 
 gates for admission, the mob broke into Colden's carriage- 
 house, brought forth the family-coach, placed inside of it 
 the two effigies, and, having again paraded them around 
 the city, returned to within one hundred yards of the fort- 
 gate, and hanged the figures upon a second gallows erected 
 for that purpose. A bonfire was then made of part of the 
 wooden fence, which, at that time, surrounded the Bowl- 
 ing Green ; and the effigies, together with the Lieutenant- 
 Governor's coach, a single-horse chair, two sleighs, and 
 several light vehicles, were cast into the flames and 
 
 * Golden, it is true, in a letter under date of November Stli to Secretary 
 Conway, says that tlie image suspended by tlie side of Ms effigy was intended 
 to represent the devil, in which Bancroft follows hiin. In a manuscript letter, 
 however, now before me, written by Alexander Golden, his son, to Sir William 
 Johnson, a month after, and when the facts, therefore, could be better ascer- 
 tained, the excitement having partially subsided, the writer says that the 
 second image was designed for Lord Bute. The hoot has now significance as a 
 rebus of Lord Bute which before it had not. " His Lordship's [John Stewart, 
 Earl of Bute] established type with the mob was a jack-boot, a wretched pun 
 on his Cliristian name and title." — Macaulay's Essay on the Earl of Chatham. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 201 
 
 entirely consumed. While the flames were lighting up 
 the black muzzles of the guns of the fort, another party, 
 having spiked the cannon on the Battery, proceeded to 
 the house of Major James, an artillery officer, who had 
 made himself especially obnoxious by his having aided in 
 putting the fort in a suitable posture for defense, and, 
 having burned everything of value, returned in triumph, 
 bringing with them the colors of the Royal Artillery 
 Regiment. 
 
 When McEvers resigned, Golden had sneered ; but even 
 he was now compelled to give way. The day after the 
 riot, he caused a large placard to be posted up, signed by 
 Goldsbrow Banyar, the deputy-secretary of the council, 
 stating that he should have nothing more to do with the 
 stamps, but would leave them with Sir Henry Moore, 
 Bart., who was then on his way from England to assume 
 the government. This declaration, however, did not 
 satisfy the Sons of Liberty. Through their leader, Isaac 
 Sears, they insisted that the stamped paper should be 
 immediately delivered into their hands, threatening, in 
 case of a refusal, to storm the fort where it was deposited. 
 The Common Council, alarmed at the uncontrollable fury 
 of the mob, and fearing an effusion of blood, added, like- 
 wise, their solicitation that the stamps might be deposited 
 in the City Hall. In answer to this latter request, the 
 cause of the dispute was delivered up, after considerable 
 negotiation, to the corporation — the Board giving a 
 pledge to make good all the stamps that might be lost. 
 
 But if the spirit of the mob could not be subdued, it 
 might at least be guided. On the 6th of November, a 
 meeting of the more conservative citizens was called, and 
 Sears, with four others,* was authorized to correspond 
 with several colonies upon the new and alarming feature 
 
 * These were John Lamb, Gershom Mott, ^Villiam Wiley, and Thomas 
 liohuison. 
 
 26 
 
202 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 of the prerogative of Parliament. The committee thus 
 appointed entered into their work with zeal^ the fruits of 
 which soon became apparent. A resolution, emanating 
 from New York and adopted by the other colonies, directed 
 the English merchants to ship no more goods to America, 
 and declared that no more goods coming from England 
 should be sold on commission in the colonies after the 
 first day of January, 1766. Nor did the patriotism of the 
 people end here. The wearing of cloth of British manu- 
 facture was dispensed with, coarse home-spun garments 
 taking its place. Marriages were no longer performed 
 by licenses, upon which the Stamp Act had now laid 
 duty, but were solemnized by being proclaimed in church. 
 Everywhere resistance to kingly oppression was the 
 watch-word. 
 
 The new Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart., who had 
 been appointed, in June, to succeed Major-General Monck- 
 ton, arrived in New York the beginning of November, 
 1765, after a tedious passage often weeks. When 
 he first landed, he was disposed to assume a haughty 
 tone in relation to the Stamp Act. The Corporation 
 offered him the freedom of the city in a gold box ; but he 
 refused to accept it, unless upon stamped paper. The 
 custom-house cleared vessels, but the men-of-war ran out 
 their guns and refused to allow them to leave the harbor, 
 unless they produced a certificate from the Governor that 
 no stamps were to be had. This the latter declined to 
 give, and the vessels remained at the wharves. The spec- 
 tacle, however, of Golden quaking with fear in the fort, 
 and the judicious advice of his council, soon convinced 
 him of the folly of any attempt to carry the act into 
 execution; and, before his first meeting with the Assem- 
 bly, he openly announced that he had suspended his 
 power to execute the Stamp Act. To still further appease 
 the people, he dismantled the fort, very much to the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 203 
 
 disgust of the Lieutenant-Governor, who, not having 
 been consulted, retired in chagrin to his country-seat at 
 Flushing, 
 
 Owing to the successive adjournments by Golden, the 
 General Assembly met, for the first time this year, on the 
 13th of November. Only fourteen members, however, 
 answering to their names, the speaker announced the 
 appointment of Sir Henry Moore to the government, and 
 adjourned the Assembly to the 19 th. 
 
 The severest test, perhaps, of public opinion at this 
 time, is to be found in the Governor's Opening address, 
 which was brief and general, and contained not the 
 slightest allusion to the existing troubles. The answer 
 of the House was equally guarded ; each party seeming 
 to be averse to broach a topic that was so unpleasant 
 to the other. But if the Assembly were unwilling to 
 allude in their address to that which was now upon every 
 mind, they showed no indisposition to handle it among 
 themselves. Among their first resolutions was one, not 
 only approving the action of the committee in meeting 
 with the Congress in October, but tendering them, also, 
 their warmest thanl^s for the part which they had taken 
 in the deliberations of that body. In connection with 
 this resolution, they further resolved, nemine contradicente, 
 " that for obtaining relief from the operation and execu- 
 tion of the Act of Parliament called the Stamp Act, hum- 
 ble petitions be presented to his Majesty, the House of 
 Lords, and the House of Commons, as nearly similar to 
 those drawn up by the late Congress as the particular 
 circumstances of the colony will admit of." A committee 
 was therefore appointed to draw up the three petitions, 
 which, signed by William NichoU, the speaker, were 
 forwarded, in the name of the House, to Charles and John 
 Sargeant, the colony's agents in London. 
 
 But the action of the Assembly did not keep pace with 
 
204 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the public requirements ; at least so thought the Sons of 
 Liberty. On the 26th, a sealed letter was handed by an 
 unknown person to Mr. Lott, clerk of the House, directed 
 " xo MR. LOTT, merch't. IN NEW YORK," and ran as follows : 
 
 " On receiving you are to read the in closed in the open Assembly of this 
 Province New York aa yoii are dark and whare of fail not on your perrel. 
 
 (Signed) " pbbedom." 
 
 The inclosed letter was directed " To the General 
 Assembly of the Province of New York," and was in the 
 following words : 
 
 " Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, you are to Consider what is 
 to be Done first Drawing of as much money from the Lieut. Governor's Sal- 
 lery as will Repare the fort & on Spike the Guns on the Battery & the nex a 
 Repeal of the Gunning Act & then there will be a good Militia but not before 
 & also as you are asetting you may Consider of the Building Act as it is to 
 take place nex yeare which it Cannot for there is no supply of Some Sort of 
 materials Required this Law is not Ground on Reasons but there is a great 
 many Reasons to the Contrary so Gentlemen we desire you will Do what lays 
 in your power for the Good of the public but if you take this ill be not so 
 Conceited as to Say or think that other People know nothing about Govern- 
 ment you have made their laws and say they are Right but they are Rong and 
 take a way Leberty. Oppressions of your make Gentlemen make us Sons of 
 Liberty think you are not for the Public Liberty this is the General Opinion of 
 the People for this part of Your Conduct. 
 
 " 1765 " by order " . ign'd, one & all. 
 
 " Nov'r 26 
 
 " FREEDOM." 
 
 Both of these letters — which, by the way, bear on 
 their face unmistakable evidence of their being designedly 
 written in this illiterate manner, probably for the greater 
 disguise * — were laid before the House by the clerk, who 
 dared not refuse. But the Assembly were not disposed 
 to have any such gratuitous advice ; nor was their patriot- 
 ism yet attuned to the same accord with that of the writer. 
 However much, moreover, they might be disposed, them- 
 selves, to criticise the unpopular Golden, they did not 
 choose to be instructed by the ironical suggestion in rela- 
 
 * The entire absence of punctuation in the same letter, with the correct 
 abbreviations of Sign'd and Nov'r, and the correct spelling of the more diffi- 
 cult words, show clearly the marks of design. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK OITY. 205 
 
 tion to the Lieutenant-Governor's salary and the s];>iked 
 guns. They therefore resolved that the said letters were 
 rebellious, scandalous, and seditious; that they were 
 designed to inflame the minds of the good people of the 
 colony against their representatives ; and that an address 
 should be presented to the Governor requesting him to 
 offer a reward of fifty pounds for their author or authors, 
 that they might be brought to " condign punishment;" 
 pledging themselves, at the same time, to provide the 
 means of defraying the above reward. 
 
 On the 3d of December, the Governor, by Mr. Banyar, 
 sent down a message to the House, in which the latter 
 was informed that by the Mutiny Act, passed during the 
 last session of Parliament, the expense of furnishing the 
 King's troops in America with quarters and other neces- 
 saries, was to be defrayed by the several colonies. In con- 
 sequence thereof, the Commander-in-Chief had demanded 
 that provision be made for the troops, whether quartered 
 within or marching through the province ; and it was now 
 requested to make provision accordingly. 
 
 This request was at this time exceedingly inopportune. 
 It involved a question which, in Lord Loudon's time — 
 when the country was engaged in a disastrous war, and 
 when, therefore, there was a seeming necessity for such 
 provision — had been productive of ill feeling, and. almost 
 of riots. It may readily be seen, therefore, that when no 
 such necessity existed, and when the public mind was in 
 such an excited state, the Assembly were in no mood to 
 comply. The message was accordingly referred to a com- 
 mittee of the whole House, of which Robert R. Livingston 
 was the chairman. On the 19th, they reported against it, 
 on the following grounds : that when his majesty's forces 
 were quartered in barracks belonging to the King, they 
 were always furnished with necessaries without any 
 expense to the counties in which they were quartered; 
 
206 HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and that if any expense were necessary for quartering 
 troops on their march, and supplying them with what was 
 required by the act, the House would consider thereof 
 after the expense was incurred. Sir Henry Moore was 
 too prudent a man to press the matter further ; and hav- 
 ing satisfied his duty to the Crown by the formal demand 
 for quarters, he allowed the matter to drop for the present. 
 
 The Sons of Liberty were still in the ascendant. The 
 last week in November, two hundred of them crossed over 
 to Flushing, and compelled the Maryland stamp-distrib- 
 uter, who had fled thither for safety, to sign a resignation 
 of his office. In December, ten boxes of stamps were 
 seized on their arrival in port, and consumed in a bonfire. 
 " We are in a shocking situation at present," wrote Alex- 
 ander Golden to Sir William Johnson, with whom the 
 former was on terms of intimacy, " and God knows how 
 it will end. Its not safe for a person to speak, for there 
 is no knowing friend from foe." 
 
 Opposition to the Stamp Act still continued. In Jan- 
 uary, 1766, a committee from the Sons of Liberty waited 
 upon six persons in Albany, and requested them to 
 take an oath that they would not accept the office 
 of stamp-distributer. All but Henry Van Schaack, the 
 Albany postmaster, having complied, the mob went to the 
 latter's. house, a little below the city, broke the windows, 
 furniture, and the piazza, and taking his pleasure-sleigh 
 into town, consumed it in a bonfire. Alarmed at these 
 demonstrations. Van Schaack took the required oath, and 
 the mob dispersed. 
 
 In New York city, the committee (Isaac Sears, chair- 
 man) were still active. Having ascertained by their 
 secret agents in Philadelphia that a merchant, Lewis 
 Pintard, had sent to that city a Mediterranean pass and 
 a bond on stamped paper, they waited upon the merchant, 
 and also upon the naval officer who had given the pass, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 207 
 
 on the 12th of January.; and, compelling them to appear on 
 the common, forced them to swear, before a crowd of eight 
 thousand people, that the passes which they had signed 
 and delivered were not stamped, to their knowledge. Not 
 satisfied, however, with this declaration, the committee 
 conducted them to the Coflfee-house, before which a bonfire 
 had been kindled, and obliged Pintard to commit the 
 passes to the flames with his own hands. On the follow- 
 ing day. Governor Moore, who, being of a timid and ami- 
 able nature, had a dread of becoming unpopular, sent for 
 one of the committee, and said, in the course of the con- 
 versation, that he hoped the " gentlemen, his associates," 
 did not suspect him of being cognizant of the Mediterra- 
 nean passes. Upon being informed that they did not, the 
 Governor further stated that he had solicited this inter- 
 view to assure the Sons of Liberty that, not only was he 
 ignorant of that transaction, but that he would have 
 nothing to do with any stamps whatever. 
 
 Alarmed at the rapid growth of republican principles 
 in x^merica, the seeds of which had been sown by its own 
 folly, Parliament, on the 18 th of March, repealed the 
 obnoxious act. The British Legislature, however, yielded 
 not with a good grace. " The colonists," wrote Sir William 
 Baker to Sir William Johnson, " must not think that these 
 lenient methods were brought about by the inducements 
 of their violence." * Fearing, therefore, that their action 
 would be misconstrued, Parliament hastened, almost simul- 
 taneously with the repeal of the Stamp Act, to pass a bill 
 declaring the absolute right of the King and Parliament 
 
 * " I hope the last sesaion of Parliament has conciliated the North Ameri- 
 cans to their mother country ; but at the same time it must be expected from 
 them obedience to the laws of this government. The colonists must not thinli 
 these lenient methods made use of by that administration were brought about 
 by the inducement of their violence ; but was really the effect of conviction 
 that the rash act past the two preceding sessions was unwarrantaVile and 
 oppressive." — M. S.; Sir William Baker to Johnson, Nov ^tli, 1766. 
 
208 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " to bind tfis colonies and people of America, subjects of the 
 Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever. ^^ 
 
 In the first delirium of delight at the repeal, the news 
 of which was communicated to the colonists bj their 
 agents, on the 16th of May, the tendency of the Declara- 
 tory Act was not heeded. In New York city, especially, 
 the populace seemed wild with joy. Bells were rung, a 
 royal salute of twenty -one guns tired, and the city illumi- 
 nated. On the 4th of June, the King's birthday, the 
 Governor had an ox roasted whole, a hogshead of rum 
 and twenty-five barrels of beer opened, and the people 
 invited to join in the feast. On the same day, a mast was 
 erected, inscribed " To his most Gracious Majesty, George 
 the Third, Mr. Pitt, and Liberty." But the enthusiasm 
 of the people did not end here. On the 23d of June, a 
 meeting was held, at which a petition was signed by a 
 majority of the citizens, requesting the Assembly to erect 
 a statue of William Pitt, as a mark of their appreciation 
 of his services in repealing the Stamp Act. That body 
 entered fully into the feelings of the people ; and, besides 
 complying with the wishes of their constituents, in rela- 
 tion to Pitt, they made provision for an equestrian statue 
 to his majesty George the Third; and also voted their 
 thanks and a piece of plate to John Sargeant, "for 
 his services as special agent/' during the Stamp Act 
 controversy. 
 
 The opening speech of Go^^ernor Moore to the Assem- 
 bly, on the 12th of June, began by adverting to the gen- 
 eral satisfaction diffused among the people by the repeal 
 of the Stamp Act. It was the impression made on the 
 minds of the people by this act of his majesty's favor 
 that had induced the Governor, so early, to call the 
 Legislature, in order to give them the earliest opportunity 
 of making those acknowledgments of duty and submission 
 which, on such an occasion, his excellency thought must 
 
BISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 209 
 
 arise in the bosom of every individual. It then spoke of 
 the impositions upon the credulity of the people by the 
 misrepresentations of artful and designing men. " Let it 
 be your concern," it continued, " to undeceive the deluded, 
 and, by your example, bring back to a sense of their duty 
 those who have been misled, that nothing which can carry 
 with it the least resemblance of former heat and prejudice 
 may be suffered to prevail, and the minds of those who 
 are too easily agitated be again disposed to a cheerful obe- 
 dience to the laws, and to sentiments of respectful gratitude 
 to the mother country." Their attention was next directed 
 to the care of those unfortunate persons who had suffered 
 from the " licentiousness of the populace for their defer- 
 ence to the British Legislature," and they were requested 
 to make full and ample compensation for the goods and 
 effects of the sufferers that had been destroyed. This 
 latter suggestion was owing to circular letters from the 
 minister to the provincial governors, requesting the colo- 
 nial Assemblies to show their " respectful gratitude for the 
 forbearance of Parliament," by indemnifying those who 
 had suffered injury in attempting to execute the late act. 
 In connection with the opening speech, petitions were 
 handed in by Lieutenant-Governor Golden and Major 
 James, praying the Assembly to make good their losses 
 by the recent riots. These petitions were thereupon 
 referred to a committee of the whole House, who reported 
 favorably upon the claims (>f Major James, but passed 
 over in silence those of the Lieutenant-Governor — very- 
 much to the chagrin of the latter, who forthwith wrote a 
 letter to Conway, begging him to lay his case before the 
 King, that his losses might be recompensed by a pension. 
 The Governor now ventured again to request of the 
 Assembly its compliance with the demands of the Minis- 
 try in relation to the quartering of troops, a large body of 
 whom was shortly expected from England. But although 
 
 27 
 
210 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the House had joined with the council in an humble 
 address to the King, thanking him for the repeal of the 
 SUmp Act, and although, moreover, it was perfectly will- 
 ing to vote statues to his majesty and William Pitt, it 
 was no more disposed to comply with this demand, now 
 that Parliament had yielded to its wishes, than it was at 
 the previous session, when the Stamp Act was in full force. 
 The House accordingly voted a series of resolutions simi- 
 lar in tone to those passed November, 1765, and postponed 
 further discussion on the subject until the troops had 
 arrived. A second message, however, from Sir Henry 
 Moore, induced it to alter its determination so far as to 
 state that the appropriations of 1762 were at his disposal, 
 and might be applied toward providing barracks, fire- 
 wood, and candles, for two battalions and one company of 
 artillery, for one year. Beyond this, however, it would 
 not go; and the Governor, while he was obliged to be 
 content with this decision, wrote at the same time to 
 the Lords of Trade, that its partial compliance was more 
 the result of compulsion than of gratitude for recent 
 favors ; and that, in his opinion, every act of Parliament, 
 unless backed by a sufficient power to enforce it, would 
 meet with the same fate. 
 
 Meanwhile, troubles had arisen in Dutchess county, 
 which, although in no way connected with the issues 
 between the colonies and the mother country, at first 
 threatened serious consequences. In the beginning of 
 1766, the Stockbridge Indians, feeling aggrieved by the 
 intrusions, as they claimed, of some of the people of 
 Dutchess upon their lands, broke into the houses of the 
 alleged trespassers, and turned their families out of doors. 
 As is generally the case on such occasions, several of the 
 vagabond class of whites, very ready for a fray, joined the 
 rioters, and committed acts of violence throusihout the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 211 
 
 country. The excitement now extended into Albany 
 County; and the mob, now grown to formidable dimen- 
 sions, threatened to attack New York city, and, indeed, 
 actually began their march thither. In this exigency, 
 General Gage (at that time cominander-in-chief of his 
 majesty's troops in America) ordered up, to meet the 
 insurgents, the Twenty-eighth regiment, which had just 
 arrived from England. The appearance of the troops 
 soon brought the rioters to reason ; and having succeeded 
 — though not without bloodshed — in restoring order, they 
 returned to New York with the chief ringleaders of the 
 rebellion. 
 
 "In 1766, the Methodist denomination was first organ- 
 ized in the city by Philip Embury and others ; and in 
 1767, the first church of this sect was erected upon nan. 
 the site of the present one in John, near Nassau »767. 
 Street, and, like it, christened Wesley Chapel. In the 
 same year, also, the first medical school was established, ' 
 which eventually became the New- York Hospital. Sev- 
 eral new streets were opened about the same time — among 
 others. Cliff Street and Park Place. For the better pre- 
 vention of fires, an ordinance was passed directing that 
 all the roofs in the city should be covered with slate or 
 tiles. For some years, however, tiles alone were used, the 
 first building roofed with slate being, it is said, the City 
 Hotel, in Broadway, erected about 1794." 
 
 The joyous feelings which had followed the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act were not of long continuance. Hardly had 
 the first gratulations of victory passed and sober reflection 
 taken their place, when the Declaratory Act, in all its omi- 
 nous proportions, loomed up, overshadowing the public 
 mind with gloomy forebodings. The persistent attempt, 
 moreover, to force the province into a compliance with 
 the Mutiny Act — an act which, to thinking men, seemed 
 
212 
 
 HISTOKT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 intended to provide the nucleus of a standing army- 
 alarmed all classes; and secret leagues were at once 
 formed in most of the colonies, the object of which was 
 to further union of counsel in resisting oppression. The 
 partial compliance of the Assembly with the requisition of 
 the Governor for quarters had been exceedingly distaste- 
 ful to the Sons of Liberty, who, upon the arrival of the 
 troops, made no disguise of their feelings. Mutual ani- 
 mosities accordingly arose between the citizens and sol- 
 diery, which soon culminated in open acts of hostility. On 
 the 10th of August, 1766, some of the troops, exasperated 
 at the people, to whose influence they attributed the action 
 of the Assembly in depriving them of liquor, cut down the 
 flag-staff, which, with so much apparent unanimity, had 
 been dedicated to " Pitt and Liberty." The following 
 evening, while the citizens were preparing to re-erect the 
 pole, they were assaulted by the soldiers with drawn bay- 
 onets, and several of them, among whom was Lsaac Sears, 
 were wounded. Governor Moore, who heartily wished 
 the troops aAvay, attempted, with General Gage, to restrain 
 these outrages, and, to some extent, succeeded ; but the 
 officers, intent upon gratifying their private malice; winked 
 at the conduct of their men, who, thus encouraged, became 
 more violent than ever. Several dwellings of the poorer 
 class, situated in the suburbs of the city, were broken into 
 on the 23d of October ; and, on the 3d day of November, 
 the domestic sanctuary of an honest drayman was entered 
 by a soldier, who, while he wounded its occupant, hesitated 
 not to hamstring his horse, upon which he relied for his 
 daily bread. 
 
 These licentious proceedings were not calculated to dis- 
 pose the Assembly any more favorably to the attempt to 
 quarter the obnoxious red-coats at their expense. Accord- 
 ingly, when, on the 17th of November, Governor Moore 
 laid before that body instructions from the Minister in- 
 
HtSrORX" OP KEW YORK CITY. 213 
 
 forming them of the King's displeasure at their conduct, 
 their absolute duty to obey the acts of Parliament, and 
 of his wish that provision for the troops should be imme- 
 diately made, the'y refused outright to make further pro- 
 vision, choosing to interpret the act as referring solely "to 
 soldiers on the march." On this refusal, Governor Moore 
 waited upon the House, and endeavored to prevail upon 
 them to alter their determination. His efforts, howeyer, 
 were unavailing ; and having, by the defiant attitude thus 
 assumed, no other alternative left, he prorogued the Assem- 
 bly on the 19th of December. 
 
 Already the British Cabinet regretted the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act, and the project of taxing America was 
 again resumed. The extravagant demonstrations of 
 delight manifested by the colonists at the repeal had 
 been regarded by British statesmen with ill-concealed 
 disgust; and when, in May, 1767, the news was 
 received that Georgia, following the example of 
 New York, had also declined obedience to the Mutiny Act, 
 the chagrin at having yielded became open and undis- 
 guised. Accordingly, in the same month, Townshend 
 introduced a bill into the House of Commons, imposing a 
 duty on all paper, glass, tea, and painters' colors, imported 
 into the colonies. In its passage through Parliament, the 
 bill met with scarcely any opposition ; and, on the 28th of 
 June, it received the cordial assent and signature of the 
 King. This was shortly followed by another, " to estab- 
 lish Commissioners of Customs in America," and also by 
 one "to compensate the stamp-officers who had been 
 deprived by the people." But by far the most important 
 in its consequences was another, which received the royal 
 assent on the 29th, and which declared that the functions 
 of the Assemhhj of New York were henceforth annulled — the 
 Governor and council being forbidden to give their assent 
 to any act passed by that body, " until the Mutiny Act 
 
214 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 was unequivocally acknowledged and submitted to." The 
 rebellious people of the colonies, said the authors of this 
 act, must be brought to unqualified submission, and the 
 supremacy of Parliament be maintained. 
 
 This latter act— by far the deadliest blow that had 
 yet been struck at their liberties— excited the utmost con- 
 sternation throughout the American provinces. It was 
 at once seen that if Parliament could, at pleasure, disfran- 
 chise a sister colony, the same fate might, at any time, 
 overtake the others. " This act," wrote Richard Henry 
 Lee, of Virginia, " hangs like a flaming sword over our 
 heads, and requires, by all means, to be removed." The 
 citizens of Boston, sympathizing deeply with the people of 
 New York, expressed, in no measured terms, their indig- 
 nation at what they styled ministerial tyranny. Tyranny 
 it indeed was, and of the most inexcusable kind, inasmuch 
 as it was not, as some have supposed, a tyranny into 
 which the British Ministry were led blindly, or through 
 ignorance of the consequences. " It is strange/' says an 
 elegant English writer, "that the British Government 
 should not have been apprehensive of the great and 
 increasing danger in which its colonial dominion was 
 involved." * It is not strange. The British Government 
 did it with open eyes, and clearl}^ foresaw the results 
 toward which its colonial policy was fast tending ; for 
 while, in the spring of this year, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer was pushing forward his schemes of taxation. 
 General Gage was putting Fort George, Ticonderoga, and 
 Crown Point on a thorough war footing ; and Carleton, the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Canada, was adding new defenses 
 to Quebec. " These measures," wrote the latter to the 
 Commander-in-Chief, " will link these two provinces — 
 New York and Quebec — so strongly together as will add 
 great security to both, and will facilitate the transfer of 
 
 * Qraliam. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 215 
 
 ten or fifteen thousand men, in the beginning of a war, 
 from one to another, as circumstances may require ; " and 
 in the same letter the writer suggests that a " place of 
 arms " should be immediately established in New York, 
 " for," he adds, " no pains, address, nor expense, is too 
 great, that will give security to the King's magazines ; 
 divide the Northern and Southern colonies ; and afford an 
 opportunity of transporting our forces into any part of the 
 continent." 
 
 The Assembly having expired by its septennial limita- 
 tion on the 6th of February, 1768, writs were issued for 
 a new election, returnable on the 22d of the follow- 
 ing month. Owing, however, to the Governor hav- 
 ing no special business to lay before the House, the new 
 Assembly was not convened until the 27th of October. 
 The opening speech of the Governor related chiefly to the 
 Indian trade, which his majesty had been pleased hence- 
 forward to confide to the colonies " The advantages," 
 said the Governor, " arising, not only from the intercourse 
 of trade with the Indians, but from the maintenance of 
 that tranquility among them which subsists at present, 
 are so obvious as to require no arguments to enforce them. 
 I shall, therefore, only recommend to you that, to avoid 
 any future cause of dissatisfaction or jealousy being given, 
 you will, by the most effectual laws, prevent any settle- 
 ments being made beyond the line which shall be agreed 
 on by the Indians." In its reply, on the 3d of Novem- 
 ber, the House expressed its willingness to co-operate with 
 the Governor in any measures for the better regulation of 
 the Indian trade ; and, indeed, for the first two weeks of 
 the session, nothing occurred to ruffle the general har- 
 mony of its proceedings. The critical posture of the 
 province to the mother country, however, forbade that 
 this state of quiescence should be lasting ; and it was not 
 
216 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 long before a direct issue arose between the Governor and 
 his Assembly. 
 
 The right of Parliament to tax America was still dis- 
 cussed with great freedom in all the colonies, but in none 
 with more vigor than in Massachusetts. In February, 
 the Assembly of that province had addressed a circular 
 letter, drafted by Samuel Adams, to her sister colonies, in 
 which the " great evils to which the inhabitants of Amer- 
 ica were subjected from the operation of several acts of 
 Parliament imposing taxes upon them," were set forth, and 
 their co-operation solicited in obtaining redress. This pro- 
 ceeding, as may readily be imagined, gave great offense to 
 the Ministry ; and Lord Hillsborough forthwith addressed 
 a letter upon the subject to the several colonial Governors, 
 requesting that their Assemblies should treat the circular 
 letter with silent contempt. But the resentment of the 
 mother country toward Massachusetts was not satisfied. 
 It was determined to still further disgrace lier, by detach- 
 ing a strong military force to occupy her capita,l The 
 rumor that such a step was meditated by the Crown 
 caused considerable comment ; and when, on the 28th of 
 September, two British regiments, accompanied by seven 
 men-of-war, arrived at Boston from Halifax, the indigna- 
 tion, not only in Massachusetts, but in those colonies that 
 sympathized with her, became intense. In Connecticut, 
 numerous town-meetings were held, in which it was 
 resolved, first, " to seek the Lord, by general fasting, 
 prayer, and humiliation, and then to call a convention of 
 ninety-two persons, to determine what was to be done in 
 the present difficulties and distress." In New York city, 
 especially, the Sons of Liberty felt deeply the indignity 
 offered to their sister colony ; and, in their first ebullition 
 of anger, indignation meetings were held, and Governor 
 Bernard and his sheriff burned in effigy. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 217 
 
 Such was the state of public sentiment, when, on the 
 lith of November, Sir Henry Moore laid before the 
 House the Earl of Hillsborough's letter forbidding corre- 
 spondence with Massachusetts, and called upon it to ren- 
 der a cheerful obedience to the wishes of the Secretary. 
 This action of the Governor was met by a warm remon- 
 strance from the Assembly ; and when, a few days after, 
 the former threatened to dissolve it, in case of its not 
 complying, it unhesitatingly refused obedience. The bold 
 stand thus assumed was warmly seconded by public opin- 
 ion, as appears conspicuously in the newspapers and 
 private correspondence of the day. A series of articles, 
 which had recently appeared under the title of " Letters 
 from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the 
 British Colonies," had paved the way for a fearless utter- 
 ance against ministerial oppression. " Let these truths," 
 said the leaders of the people in New York, " be indelibly 
 impressed upon our minds, that we cannot be free without 
 being secure in our property ; that we cannot be secure in 
 our property if, without our consent, others may, as by 
 right, take it away ; that taxes imposed by Parliament do 
 thus take it away ; that duties, laid for the sole purpose 
 of raising money, are taxes ; and that attempts to lay 
 such should be instantly and firmly opposed." 
 
 While, however, the Assembly was thus firm in main- 
 taining its constitutional rights and privileges, it evinced 
 no disposition to countenance acts of lawless violence ; 
 and, in reply to a message from the Governor on the 23d, 
 asking its aid in bringing to punishment the ringleaders 
 in a recent riot, it reported a series of resolutions which 
 distinctly set forth, that, although it felt deeply the course 
 of Parliament toward them, yet, so far from approving of 
 any violent proceedings, it would on all occasions endeavor 
 to support the dignity and authority of government. The 
 riot to which allusion is here made, had occurred on the 
 
218 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 14th of November, and had been the result of new exac- 
 tions, by way of imposts, of the Parliament upon the 
 colonies ; and while the reply of the House, as intimated, 
 strongly censured the rioters, yet it also condemned the 
 new duties in terms equally severe. This address gave 
 little satisfaction to the representative of the Crown ; and 
 on the last day of the year it was followed by a series of 
 strong constitutional resolutions, among which was one 
 declaring that it was the opinion of the committee " that 
 the House had an undoubted right to correspond and con- 
 sult with any of the neighboring colonies on any matter, 
 subject, or thing whatever, whereby they should conceive 
 the rights and liberties of the House to be in any way 
 affected." 
 
 These resolutions gave high displeasure ; and Sir 
 Henry Moore, having convened the Assembly in the City 
 Hall on the afternoon of the 3d of January, 1769, 
 dissolved it by a speech of evident irritation, yet 
 of affected regret and sorrow at the occasion demanding 
 the summary measure. Writs for a new election were 
 immediately issued, returnable on the 14th of February. 
 The people, however, sustained the action of their repre- 
 sentatives, and all the former members, with the excep- 
 tion of six, were returned by overwhelming majorities. 
 Such was the result of the first direct appeal of the Crown 
 to the people on the subject of the great constitutional 
 principles of liberty, which were now beginning to agitate 
 the political waters to their deepest fountains. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the fact that most of the 
 old members were returned, the election was hotly con- 
 tested. " I hear," wrote Sir William Johnson, jocularly, 
 to a friend in New York, " that you are likely to have a 
 hot election, and probably there will be work for shilla- 
 lahs." Nor was the writer far out in his conjecture. At 
 no time for many years had the excitement been more 
 
HISTORY OF KEW YORK CITY. 219 
 
 intense, and every means and device was made use of to 
 secure votes. In New York city, especially, the contest 
 was between the church party and the dissenters * — the 
 former being led by the De Lanceys, and the latter by the 
 Livingstons. " It is surprising," writes Peter Van Schaak 
 to his brother Henry, under date of January 27th, 1769, 
 " what trifles can be turned to the greatest advantage 
 in elections, and be made to captivate the passions of the 
 vulgar. A straw, a fire-brand, have severally answered 
 this purpose in a recent instance. It was said, during the 
 last election, that T. Smith had said that the Irish were 
 poor beggars, and had come over here upon a bunch of 
 straw. The whole body of Irishmen immediately joined, 
 and appeared with straws in their hats. Mr. Kissam, 
 who summed up the evidence for Mr. Scott in the late 
 charge against Mr. Jauncey, happened to say that the 
 passions of the Germans were fire-brands. A whole con- 
 gregation were, in consequence of that, resolved to vote 
 with them in their hands ; but, being dissuaded, they, 
 however, distinguished themselves by the name of the 
 Fire-brands. These gentlemen have also made themselves 
 remarkable by a song in the German language, the chorus 
 of which is : 
 
 " ' Maester Cruger, De Lancey, 
 Maester Walton and Jauncey.' 
 
 " 'Twas droll to see some of the first gentlemen in 
 town joining in singing these songs, while they con- 
 ducted the members to the Coffee-house." " I arrived 
 here St. John's Day," writes another person, at the same 
 time, from New York to a friend, " when there was a 
 grand procession of the whole Masonic fraternity, and a 
 
 * And not between the lawyers and the merchants as such, as stated by 
 Miss Booth. This writer also makes the prorogation of the Assembly, by Gov- 
 ernor Moore, occur in 1768, a year previous. This is, however, probably a 
 typographical error. 
 
220 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 very excellent sermon preached bv Dr. Auchmuty, at 
 Trinity chiu-ch, on the occasion. At the same time a col- 
 lection was made for the city, which I think amounted to 
 £200. Would you think it, but it is true, that the Pres- 
 byterians immediately labored to convert this charitable 
 affair to the disadvantage of the Church of England and 
 
 THE OLD WALTOK HOUSE. 
 
 the part which they take in the election ensuing 1 Will. 
 Smith and W. Livingston got an old rascally sermon, 
 called ' Masonry, the sure Guide to Hell,' reprinted, and 
 distributed it with great assiduity, * * and there is 
 this day an extraordinary Lodge held on the occasion, in 
 order to consult means to resent the affront." The 
 church party, having the support of the mercantile and 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 221 
 
 Masonic interests, was .triumphant; and John Cruger, 
 James De Lancey, Jacob Walton, and James Jauncey, 
 were elected by the city. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1769, the new Assembly met. 
 John Cruger was immediately chosen speaker, and it was 
 not long before another proof was afforded of the strength 
 of the church party in the House. " The De Lancey inter- 
 est," wrote Hugh Wallace, a member of the council, to 
 Sir William Johnson, " prevails in the House greatly, and 
 they have given the Livingston interest proof of it by 
 dismissing P. Livingston the House as a non-resident." 
 The Livingstons, however, were not entirely crushed, for 
 the same writer adds : " It is said he will be returned 
 again and again, and so become another Wilkes." 
 
 The opening speech of Governor Moore contained not 
 the remotest reference to the difficulties which had caused 
 the recent dissolution, but referred only to the manner in 
 which the colony's agent in London was appointed ; a 
 mode which his excellency thought objectionable, he 
 being of the opinion that the appointment of an agent 
 should be made by an act of the Governor, Council, and 
 Assembly, specially passed for that purpose, as had for- 
 merly been the case. The change in the manner of 
 appointing the colonial agent was -first introduced 
 during the administration of Governor Clinton, in 1747, in 
 the appointment of Robert Charles, without the former's 
 privity or consent. Clinton complained bitterly at the 
 time of the innovation, but without effect; it was, 
 therefore, not likely that the Assembly, having had their 
 own way in this matter for upward of twenty years, 
 would now yield. Accordingly, in their reply, they 
 utterly declined adopting the mode which his excellency 
 had recommended. This, of course, gave great dissatisfac- 
 tion to the Governor, who, on the 20th of May, prorogued 
 the Assembly to the month of July ; not, however, until 
 
222 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 that body had voted, with a very.ill grace, £1,800 for the 
 support of his majesty's troops quartered in the colony. 
 
 The death of Sir Henry Moore, on the 11th of Sep- 
 tember, 1769, threw a gloom over the entire city. His 
 polished manners, courteous address, and genial disposi- 
 tion had endeared him to many in the colony. Although 
 forced oftentimes, as the representative of the Crown, 
 to come in colUsion with the popular sentiment, yet such 
 occasions were evidently so distasteful to him that many 
 who were his bitter political enemies regarded him with 
 cordial good-will. By his death, the reins of government 
 fell, for the third time, into the hands of Doctor Golden, 
 who, as Lieutenant-Governor, opened the fall session of 
 the Assembly on the 2 2d of November. 
 
 Appearances seemed to indicate a stormy session. 
 Massachusetts had just passed a series of spirited resolu- 
 tions against the military and naval force stationed at her 
 capital. The Assembly of Virginia, late in the spring, had 
 been dissolved by the new Governor, Lord Botetourt, for 
 its presumption in sending Massachusetts words of encour- 
 agement and support. The refusal, moreover, of the House 
 of Commons, in March, to receive the representative of 
 the New York Assembly, excited the apprehensions of 
 those of the colonists who had hitherto been warmly 
 attached to the Crown. " I must confess," wrote Sir Wil- 
 liam Johnson, in September, " that the aspect of affairs at 
 home is very unpleasing, and ought to give concern to 
 every well-wisher of his country, because, whatever reason 
 or justice there may be in the late steps, there is a proba- 
 bility of their being carried further than a good man can 
 wish for." 
 
 Contrary, however, to general expectation, during the 
 fall and winter session, there were no collisions between 
 the Executive and the Legislature, although the spirited 
 resolutions of Virginia, of the preceding May, were unani- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 223 
 
 mously concurred in. On the first day of the session, a 
 bill was introduced for emitting one hundred and twenty 
 thousand pounds in bills of credit, to be put out on loan, 
 as a means of revenue. The bill was at first hailed with 
 delight by the leaders of the popular party, who thought 
 they discerned in it a desire, on the part of the Executive, 
 to gratify the wish of the people. When, however, it was 
 followed, on the 15th of December, by a motion to grant 
 two thousand pounds for the support of his majesty's 
 troops in the colony, which sum was to be taken out of 
 the interest arising from the loan bill, when it should 
 become a law, a complete revulsion of feeling took place ; 
 and they now saw only an attempt, on the part of the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, to compel the Assembly into an uncon- 
 ditional submission to the Mutiny Act. Accordingly, the 
 first sight that greeted the citizens on the morning of the 
 17th was a flaming placard, posted up in the most con- 
 spicuous portions of the city, addressed " To the Betrayed 
 Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York," and 
 signed " A Son of Liberty." This placard declared that 
 the granting of money to the troops was implicitly 
 acknowledging the authority that had enacted the reve- 
 nue acts, which had been passed for the express purpose 
 of taking money out of the pockets of the colonists with- 
 out their consent ; that what made the granting of money 
 the more grievoiis was, that it went to the support of 
 troops kept, not to protect, but to enslave them ; that this 
 was the view taken of the Mutiny Act by the Assemblies 
 of Massachusetts and South Carolina — therefore, let not 
 the Assembly of New York tell their disgrace in Boston, 
 nor publish it in the streets of Charleston ! The Assem- 
 bly, moreover, had not been attentive to the liberties of 
 this continent, nor to the prosperity of the good people of 
 this colony. This sacrifice of the public interest it attrib- 
 uted to a corrupt source which it scrupled not to affirm, 
 
224 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 in plain words, was an infamous coalition recently entered 
 into between the Executive and the De Lancey family for 
 this very object. In conclusion, the placard advised all 
 the people to assemble the following day in "the fields" 
 (the Park), there to express their sentiments upon a point 
 so vital to colonial liberty. 
 
 The large concourse of people gathered in " the fields " 
 at the time appointed, clearly showed how in unison with 
 the public feeling were the sentiments uttered in the 
 placard of the previous day. The object of the gathering 
 was set forth by John Lamb, one of the most prominent 
 of the Sons of Liberty, and the question asked, whether 
 the citizens would uphold the recent action of the Assem- 
 bly. The emphatic " No " that at once arose from the 
 vast throng was a sufficient answer to this question ; and 
 a committee of seven were immediately appointed to carry 
 this public expression of feeling to the Legislature. But 
 however much that body may have regretted their partial 
 committal to the loan bill, they did not choose to be dic- 
 tated to by a meeting which they considered little better 
 than a mob. Accordingly, the consideration of the placard 
 having been made the first order of the following day, 
 James De Lancey moved that " the sense of the House 
 should be taken whether the said paper was not an 
 infamous and scandalous libel." The question being put, 
 all the members voted in the affirmative, except Colonel 
 Schuyler, who, when his name was called, with admira- 
 ble moral courage, fearlessly answered in the negative. 
 A series of resolutions was then passed condemning the 
 paper as false, seditious, and infamous, and requesting the 
 Lieutenant-Governor to offer a reward of one hundred 
 pounds for its author or authors. Immediately after the 
 passage of these resolutions, Mr. De Lancey laid before the 
 House another hand bill, in which the lai^e proceedings of 
 that body were strongly condemned, signed " Legion." 
 
HISTOHY OF NEW YORK CITY. 225 
 
 Resolves were at once passed, similar in tone to those just 
 noticed, and an additional reward of fifty pounds offered 
 for the writer of this also. 
 
 Nothing worthy of special mention occurred during the 
 remainder of this session. John Lamb, it is true, three 
 days after the passage of the resolutions, was arraigned 
 before the House on suspicion of being the author of the 
 libelous hand bill ; but, nothing being proved against him, 
 he was immediately discharged. The General Assembly 
 having now been convened more than two months, and 
 its members being now anxious to return to their homes, 
 Lieutenant-Governor Golden signed several acts, among 
 them one for appointing commissioners from the 
 neighboring colonies, to agree upon a plan for regu- 
 lating the Lidian trade; and, on the 27th of January, 
 1770, prorogued it to the second Tuesday in March, and, 
 from time to time afterward, to the 11th of December. 
 
 Meanwhile, the hatred between the soldiers and the 
 Sons of Liberty daily gained strength. The former had 
 long writhed under the undisguised disgust with which 
 they were treated by the latter, and only waited for an 
 opportunity to repay this scorn with interest. Hitherto 
 they had been restrained, through motives of policy; and, 
 now that the supplies were granted, they threw off all 
 restraint, and' resolved to insult their enemies in the 
 most tender spot. Accordingly, on the 13th of Janu- 
 ary, a portion of the Sixteenth regiment attempted to 
 destroy the liberty-pole, by sawing oft' its spars and blow- 
 ing it up with gunpowder. A knot of citizens having 
 gathered round while they were thus engaged, they 
 desisted for the present from the attempt, and, charging 
 upon the group with fixed bayonets, drove them into a 
 tavern (kept by Montague), a favorite resort of the Sons 
 of Liberty, broke the windows, and demolished a portion 
 of the furniture. Three days afterward, however, they 
 
 29 
 
226 HISTORV OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 succeeded in their design ; and having, on the night of the 
 16th, cut the obnoxious symbol in pieces, they piled its 
 fragments in front of Montague's door. Incensed at this 
 daring insult, three thousand citizens assembled early the 
 folloAving morning at the scene of the outrage, and adopted, 
 among others, a resolution that all soldiers found in the 
 streets after roll-call " should be treated as enemies of the 
 city ; " mutually pledging themselves to see that this 
 resolve was vigorously enforced. Early the next morning, 
 insulting placards were found posted up in various parts 
 of the city, ridiculing the resolutions of the previous day, 
 and daring the citizens to carry them into execution. In 
 the course of the day, three soldiers were discovered by 
 Sears and others in the act of posting up more of these 
 hand bills ; and a skirmish ensuing, the citizens, having 
 obtained the upper hand, were conducting the oflfender.s to 
 the office of the Mayor, when they were met by a band of 
 twenty additional troops. A. general tight with cutlasses 
 and clubs now followed, the military slowly retreating to 
 Golden Hill.* At this point they were met by a party 
 of officers, who immediately ordered their men to the 
 barracks, and the riot was quelled. In this brush, several 
 citizens were wounded and one killed, althouo-h the sol- 
 diers were worsted. The following day witnessed a num- 
 ber of frays, none of which, however, were " attended with 
 loss of life ; and on the 20th, the Mayor having issued a 
 proclamation forbidding the soldiers to come out of the 
 barracks unless accompanied by a non-commissioned 
 officer, the excitement was quieted and order once more 
 restored.t On the 5th of February another pole was 
 
 * Joliu Street, between Cliff Street and Burling Slip. 
 
 f •■ We are all in confusion in this city ; the soldiers have cut and blowed 
 up the Liberty Pole, and have caused much trouble between the inhabitants. 
 On Friday last, between Burling Slip and Fly Market was an engagement be- 
 tween the inhabitants and the soldiers, when much blood was spilt ; one sailor 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 227 
 
 erected, inscribed " Liberty and Property," on ground pur- 
 chased for the purpose, where it remained until cut down 
 in 1776 b}' the British soldiery at that time occupying 
 the city. 
 
 Meanwhile the Sons of Liberty were undaunted. In 
 February, one hundred of them purchased of Colonel Mor- 
 ris a house for six hundred pounds— each of them con- 
 tributing six pounds — in which to celebrate the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act ; and having, on the 19th of March, drank 
 forty-five popular toasts, they proceeded to the jail, where 
 Captain McDougall was confined for being the author of 
 the libelous handbill of the previous December, saluted 
 him with forty-five cheers, and quietly dispersed. 
 
 In Boston, the feeling between the citizens and sol- 
 diery was even more embittered. The news of the' recent 
 occurrences in New York was not calculated to soothe this 
 mutual animosity; and when, on the 2d of March, an 
 affray took place at Gray's rope-walk, between a citizen 
 and a soldier, in which the latter was worsted, it required 
 but a small degree of forecast to anticipate an approach- 
 ing explosion. Three days afterward, on the evening of 
 the 5th, a sentinel, who had wantonly abused a lad, was 
 surrounded in King Street by a mob of boys, and pelted 
 with snow-balls, made of the light snow that had just 
 fallen. " They are killing the sentinel ! " shouted a by- 
 stander to the main guard. Instantly a file of six sol- 
 diers, headed by a corporal and followed by Preston, the 
 officer of the day, rushed to the rescue, at a double-quick 
 
 got run througli tlie body, who since died ; one man got liis skull cut in the 
 most cruel manner. On Saturday the Hall-bell rang for an alarm, when was 
 another battle between the inhabitants and soldiers ; but the soldiers met with 
 rubbers, the chiefest part being sailors witli clubs to revenge the death of 
 their brother, which they did with courage, and made them all run to their 
 barracks. What will be the end of this, God knows." — Letter from " New 
 Tork, Jan. 22d, 1770," in St. James Chronicle, or the British Evening Post, 
 March 5th, 1770. 
 
228 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 step, with fixed bayonets. A crowd gathered round, and, 
 the musket of a soldier being hit by a stick thrown from 
 the throng, Preston gave the order to fire. Montgomery, 
 the man whose musket bad been hit, immediately fired ; 
 and Attucks, a mulatto, who had been quietly looking on, 
 fell dead on the spot. Six others, thereupon, taking delib- 
 erate aim, fired in succession at the crowd, who were 
 already beginning to disperse. Three of the citizens, 
 including the mulatto, were instantly killed ; and of eight 
 others who were wounded, two died shortly afterward, 
 from their injuries. 
 
 It has usually been asserted by historians, that the first 
 blood in the war of the American Revolution was shed at 
 Lexington ; but such is not the fact. The Battle of 
 Golden Hill, on the 18th of January, 1770, was the 
 beginning of that contest, so fearful in its commencement, 
 so doubtful in its progress, and so splendid in its results. 
 The storm had now been gathering for several years, and 
 the public mind had become exceedingly feverish, not 
 only in respect to the conduct of the parent Government, 
 but in regard to the language and bearing of the officers 
 of the Crown stationed in the colonies. The destruction 
 of the liberty-pole increased the mutual exasperation ; and 
 the fight that followed was but the natural consequence. 
 To the CiTT OF New York, therefore, must ever be given the 
 honor of striking the first hlow. The town was thrown into 
 commotion, the bells rang, and the news, with the exag- 
 gerations and embellishments incident to all occasions of 
 alarm, spread through the country with the rapidity of 
 lightning. Everywhere throughout the wide extent of 
 the old thirteen colonies it created a strong sensation, and 
 was received with a degree of indignant emotion which 
 very clearly foretold that blood had only commenced 
 flowing. The massacre in King Street, two months later, 
 added intensity to the flame ; and, although five years 
 
HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITY. £29 
 
 intervened before the denionstration at Lexington, there 
 were too many nervous pens and eloquent tongues in' 
 exercise to allow these feelings to subside, or the noble 
 spirit of liberty that had been awakened to be quenched. 
 " Such stirring orations as those of Joseph Warren were 
 not uttered in vain ; and often were the people reminded 
 by him, or by his compatriots of kindred spirits — ' The 
 voice of your brethren's blood cries to you from the 
 ground ! ' The admonition had its effect, and the resolu- 
 tions of vengeance sank deeper and deeper, until the 
 fullness of time should come ! " 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 On the 18th of October, 1770, John, Earl of Dunmore, 
 arrived in New York to occupy the gubernatorial chair, 
 
 left vacant by the lamented Sir Henry Moore. 
 
 The new Governor is described, in a letter to Sir 
 William Johnson, as " a very active man, fond of walking 
 and riding, and a sportsman." This description affords a 
 clue to the character of the man — easy in his disposition, 
 and one who preferred the delights of the chase to contro- 
 versies with his Legislature. There was little likelihood, 
 however, of his being troubled with a body that had of 
 late grown very subservient. The news, moreover, which 
 he brought with him, of his majesty's consent to the bill 
 authorizing the emission of a colonial currency, increased 
 the spirit of loyalty ; and when, in his opening speech on 
 the 11th of December, he expressed his pleasure that the 
 example of the loyal subjects of the province had been the 
 means of restoring friendly feelings and confidence between 
 the parent country and the colonists, the address of the 
 Assembly, in reply, was a simple echo. During the entire 
 
 session, therefore, the wheels of government rolled 
 
 smoothly; and at its close, on the 16th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1771, the loan bill was passed, as was also the 
 one for appropriating two thousand pounds for the sup- 
 port of the troops. The crown had seemingly triumphed ; 
 but the end was not yet. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 231 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1771, Sir William Tryon, Bart., 
 having rendered himself odious to the people of North 
 Carolina by his petty tyranny, arrived in New York, 
 bearing his majesty's commission as Governor and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, in the place of Lord Dunmore, who was 
 transferred to the government of Virginia. 
 
 The year 1771 was also marked by the founding of 
 the New York Hospital. The first regular meeting, after 
 its organization, was held on the 24th of July, 1771. The 
 hospital began by the reception of lunatics, and patients 
 who were suffering from small-pox and syphilis. Fractures 
 and maniacs appeared together on the reports of diseases. 
 In 1798, the governors announced that the hospital was, 
 properly, an infirmary for the reception of such persons 
 as require first, medical treatment; second, chirurgical 
 management ; thii-d, for maniacs ; and fourth, for lying-in 
 women. Two hundred pounds were voted as the begin- 
 ning of a library. The meetings of the governors were 
 held for a long time at Bolton's tavern, or at the Coffee- 
 house. Bolton's was celebrated for fifty years as a place 
 of resort, like our modern Delmonico's, and was still better 
 known as Sam Francis's tavern. Here Washington bade 
 farewell to his officers, December 4th, 1783. The building 
 is still standing on the south-east corner of Broad and Pearl 
 Streets^ The Coffee-house, sometimes called " The Mer- 
 chants' Coffee-house," stood on the south-east corner of 
 Wall and Water Streets, recently occupied by the Journal 
 of Commerce. The slip near it was known as " Coffee-house 
 Slip," at the foot of Wall Street. The meal or flour mar- 
 ket was close by. The river then came up to Water 
 Street. When the governors purchased the five acres on 
 which they built in 1771 (a part of the Rutgers farm), the 
 spot selected was upon a spur or hill, surrounded on three 
 sides by marshes. 
 
 The water of two ponds, or " kolcks," frequently over- 
 
232 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tlowed meadows where now is the corner of Pearl and 
 Chatham Streets, so that ferry-boats were used. Rutgers 
 had suffered so lamentably with fever and ague that he 
 had some years before prayed the King for a better title 
 to his marshes, so that he might sell them to somebody 
 wiUing to make drains, because the inhabitants lost one- 
 third of their time by sickness. Governor George Clinton 
 complained, in 1746, to the Duke of Newcastle, that his 
 son had an ague and fever about ten months, which had 
 worn him to nothing. Where the Astor House stands, 
 there was, in 1780, an encampment of negro slaves who 
 had been enticed by Lord Dunmore from Virginia. They 
 died in large numbers of small-pox, and were buried where 
 Stewart's store, corner of Broadway and Reade Street, now 
 stands. John Quincy Adams saw New York in 1785 for 
 the first time, and found the city had then but 18,000 
 inhabitants. He says that while he tarried at John Jay's, 
 that gentleman was laying the foundation of a house on 
 Broadway, a quarter of a mile from any other dwelling. 
 Mr. Jay lived nearly opposite the hospital. In 1780, a 
 duel was fought behind the hospital, as the most retired 
 spot for the purpose. The cow-pastures extended from 
 Grand Street down to the hospital, which adjoined the 
 Raneleagh Gardens. Beyond St. Paul's church were fields, 
 orchards, and swamps. G. W. P. Custis, who was a mem- 
 ber of Washington's family while the President resided in 
 New York, spoke of St. Paul's church as quite out of town, 
 and of playing on a fine green common where the Park 
 Theater stood. 
 
 William A. Duer, in his reminiscences that began after 
 the war, in 1784, speaks of having often passed on skates 
 from the "kolck" under the bridge at Broadway and 
 Canal Street; and, pursuing the outlet to the meadows, 
 he would proceed over them to the north beyond Hudson 
 Square, and to the south as far as Duane Street, tlien 
 
u^X'^i 
 
 ^ *^v 
 
 \ '^1 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 233 
 
 Barclay Street, in the rear of the hospital. Our predeces- 
 sors were men who had faith in the growth of New York. 
 They knew that malaria would disappear with drainage ; 
 and so they ventured, in 1771, to build their hospital out 
 of town, on elevated ground, having eight beds in a ward, 
 as Johu Howard proved to be right, in Europe, fourteen 
 years afterward. The lands purchased a century ago still 
 remain unsold, and are not unlikely to yield a rental 
 which may enable the society largely to increase its use- 
 fulness, while so responsible a trust imposes upon the 
 governors the duty of careful inquiry into the manner of 
 establishing the best possible hospital, for it will be in 
 their power to afford every means of cure that science 
 shall point out. 
 
 Three years were employed in selecting the place and 
 choosing the proper kind of buildings for the Asylum for 
 the Insane. "Beginning in July, 1815, various sites were 
 chosen and abandoned. Long Island, Great Barren Island, 
 lands on the East River and on Harlem Heights, were ex- 
 amined. Twenty-six reports of committees were noted in 
 the minutes of as many meetings before the buildings were 
 begun. Seventy-seven acres were bought. Thirty-seven 
 of them were sold. A debt of $137,000 was incurred, and 
 a sinking-fund established, which finally discharged, in 
 1845, the entire debt, leaving the asylum, with nearly 
 forty acres of land, free of incumbrances, as it now 
 remains. So favorable to longevity has the locality 
 proved, that four patients who died there had been in- 
 mates fifty -eight, fifty-three, fifty-one, and forty-four years, 
 respectively. The pressure of the city has compelled the 
 asylum to seek ampler space elsewhere. Created by the 
 enlightened exertions of eminent surgeons and physicians, 
 the New York Hospital has always honored them and 
 their successors. The oldest names that have shed luster 
 upon American science have been connected with our 
 
 30 
 
234 HISTORY OF NEW YOEK CITY. 
 
 institutioa. The most wonderful triumphs of surgery have 
 been achieved within its walls and by members of its 
 staff The fame of Mott, Stevens, Rogers, Hosack, Post, 
 Smith, Gordon Buck, and many others, belongs to the his- 
 tory of our hospital, and is our proudest possession. The 
 old hospital will ever seek to derive its chief honor from 
 such supporters, and to afibrd them the widest field for the 
 exercise of their talents and for gathering fresh laurels." * 
 Connected with the history of the New York Hospi- 
 tal is an episode which may not be omitted, as it also 
 forms a portion of the history of the city. It was on the 
 12th of April, 1788, that a riot occurred, which, although 
 afterward facetiously called " The Doctor's Mob," yet, at 
 the time, was no laughable matter, and, indeed, threatened 
 to be very serious in its consequences. The public mind 
 had a few weeks previously been thrown into great excite- 
 ment by the discovery that a number of dead bodies had 
 been stolen from the different cemeteries of the city by 
 medical students. This circumstance had considerably agi- 
 tated the public mind; " and it was further provoked," says 
 Judge Duer, " by the reckless and wanton imprudence of 
 some young surgeons at the hospital, who from one of the 
 upper windows exhibited the dissected arm of a subject to 
 some boys who were at play on the green below. One of 
 them, whose curiosity was thus excited, mounted upon a 
 ladder used for some repairs, and, as he reached the win- 
 dow, was told by one of the doctors to look at his mother'' s 
 arm. It happened, unfortunately, that the boy's mother 
 had recently died, and the horror which had now taken 
 the place of his curiosity induced him to run to his father, 
 who was at work as a mason at a building in Broadway 
 (no doubt on Saturday, April 12th), with the information 
 
 * AddreBS of Mr. James W. Beekman, delivered before the New York His- 
 torical Society on tlie 24th of July, 1871, on the occasion of the celebration of 
 the centennial anniversary of the founding of the New York Hospital. 
 
HISrORr OP NEM^ YORK CITY, r 235 
 
 of what he had seen and heard. Upon receiving the intel- 
 ligence, the father repaired to his wife's grave, and, upon 
 opening it, found that the body had been removed. He 
 returned forthwith to the place where he had been at work, 
 and informed his fellow-laborers of the circumstances : 
 their indignation and horror at the relation were nearly 
 equal to his own. Armed with the tools of their trade, 
 they marched in a body to the hospital, gathering recruits 
 by the way, in number amounting to a formidable mob." 
 On arriving at the spot, the hospital itself was surrounded 
 by the excited crowd, who, bursting open the doors, de- 
 stroyed a remarkably choice collection of specimens in the 
 anatomical museum, which had been brought from abroad. 
 The physicians themselves were dragged from their places 
 of concealment, and would have been hung up on the spot, 
 had they not been rescued and lodged in the jail for safety. 
 This, however, although it saved the lives of the physi- 
 cians, only exasperated the populace still more. Accord- 
 ingly, in the afternoon of the next day, upon their demand 
 for the surrender of the physicians into their hands 
 having been refused, they attacked the few military that 
 had been called out to defend the jail, broke the windows, 
 tore down the fences, and swore to take the lives of 
 every physician in the city. Matters at length became so 
 serious that the citizens armed themselves, and. accompa- 
 nied by the Mayor, turned out in a body to relieve the 
 party defending the jail. Before proceeding to violent 
 measures, however, Clinton, Hamilton, Jay, Baron Steu- 
 ben, and other prominent citizens, endeavored to appease 
 the popular fury, but in vain. Still, the Mayor hesitated 
 to give the order to fire; and it was not until John Jay 
 and Baron Steuben had both been severely wounded by 
 stones (the latter, indeed, felled to the ground), that the 
 order was given. Five rioters fell, mortally wounded, at 
 the first fire ; several were wounded, and the remainder 
 
236 HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. 
 
 quickly dispersed.* The brigade under General Malcom 
 and Colonel Bauman's artillery were out several days and 
 nights after in detachments ; but the mob did not again 
 collect, and the peace of the city was restored. 
 
 The General Assembly, which had been prorogued to 
 the 7th day of August, 1771, was now further prorogued 
 from time to time to the 7th of January, 1772, 
 when it again met, and, on the 8th, the session 
 was opened for business by a speech from the new Gov- 
 ernor, of a mild and conciliatory character. His arrival 
 had been greeted by affectionate addresses of congratu- 
 lation, to which he referred with apparent warmth. His 
 recent cruel conduct in North Carolina was then justified 
 as a meritorious effort to preserve the constitution and the 
 laws ; and, in seeming mockery, his late wonderful achieve- 
 ment in that province — of dispersing with over one thou- 
 sand armed troops an unarmed • and inoffensive crowd — 
 was attributed to the special favor of a kind Providence. 
 The necessity of passing a good mihtia bill was then 
 pointed out ; and the thorough repairing of the fortifica- 
 tions of the city, which had become greatly injured by the 
 weather, was also recommended as worthy of immediate 
 attention. " Influenced only," he added, with consum- 
 mate flattery, "by principles that flow from an honest 
 heart, I feel an ardent desire to co-operate with you in 
 every measure that will best promote the honor and dig- 
 nity of his majesty's Government, and advance the real 
 felicity of a people eminently distinguished by their 
 loyalty to the best of sovereigns, and affectionate dis- 
 
 * " A ludicrous incident, illustrative of tlie heiglit of the popular fury, 
 occurred during the riot, which was nearly attended hy disastrous conse- 
 quences. While the excitement was at its height, a party of the rioters 
 chanced to pass tlie house of Sir John Temple, then resident British consul at 
 New York, and, mistaking the name of ' Sir John ' for ' Surgeon,' attacked it 
 furiously, and were with difficulty restrained from leveling it to the ground." 
 — Miss Booth's History of New York City. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 237 
 
 position to their mother country." The address sent in to 
 the Governor by the House, on the 17th, was conceived 
 in the same spirit that dictated the opening speech. It 
 accorded high praise to the brief administration of the 
 Earl of Dunmore, for its equity, impartiality, and disin- 
 terestedness ; and expressed strong confidence in the wis- 
 dom which was to mark that of his lordship's immediate 
 successor, as shown more particularly in his beneficent 
 administration of his former government ! 
 
 Indeed, it seemed as if, in this address, the last linger- 
 ing embers of resistance to ministerial tyranny in the 
 colony of New York had expired. A few stanch patriots, 
 such as Philip Schuyler, it is true, still remained in the 
 Assembly ; but their voices were powerless to turn back 
 the tide which now rolled in from the ocean of ministerial 
 patronage. William Tryon, a man fully as subservient as 
 Hutchinson, without his ability, backed by the Upper 
 House, and rendered, moreover, independent of the colony 
 by a recent order of the Crown, that his salary should 
 hereafter be paid from the revenue chest, was well fitted 
 for the purpose for which he had been transferred to the 
 chair lately occupied by the mild, but passive and inefficient, 
 Dunmore. Indeed, if anything was wanting to show the 
 subserviency of the present Assembly, it was supplied by 
 the utter indifference with which this attempt to render 
 the Executive independent of the people was received. In 
 former Assemblies, such an announcement would have 
 been met with an outburst of indignation before which no 
 Governor could have stood ; but now a message from 
 Tryon, in February^ refusing to receive a salary from the 
 people, produced not a word of comment ; and the removal 
 of this strong bulwark of tbeir liberties was quietly 
 acquiesced in. Far different, however, was the action of 
 the Assemblies of Massachusetts and the other colonies, 
 to whom the ministerial instruction in relation to salaries 
 
238 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 also extended. In the former body, especially, the recent 
 act of Parliament was boldly denounced ; other colonial 
 Legislatures did the same. New York was silent. True 
 men looked on in amazement, and in anxious expectation 
 strained their eyes for the first rays of the day-star of 
 hope. 
 
 But while the representatives of the people were thus 
 unmindful of their liberties, they were more attentive to 
 the local interests of the colony. At the close of the 
 present session, many praiseworthy acts were passed ; and 
 among them one for founding the present New York Hos- 
 pital, and another for dividing Albany county into thi-ee 
 counties, Albany, Tryon, and Chartotte. 
 
 Meanwhile, blind to their own interests, the ministry 
 thought only of reducing their " rebellious subjects " into 
 submission. Mortified and exasperated at the signal fail- 
 ure to foist the Stamp Act upon the colonists, they were 
 ready to embrace any scheme which promised to soothe 
 their wounded pride. An opportunity for doing this soon 
 came. The East India Company were now suffering 
 severely from the effect of the non-importation agree- 
 ments. Unable to make their annual payments to the 
 Government, of £1,400,000, they found themselves, in the 
 spring of 1773, with seventeen million chests of tea on 
 their hands, on the very verge of bankruptcy. In this 
 state of affairs, the company, in April, petitioned Parlia- 
 ment for permission lo export their teas to America, and 
 other countries, free of duty. This request, however, the 
 ministry, jealous of relinquishing in the least their right 
 to tax the colonies, would not grant ; but, by a special act 
 of Parliament passed on the 10th of June, allowed the 
 company to ship their tea to America, free of any export 
 duty — thus putting it in the power of the company 
 to sell their tea at a lower price in America than in Eng- 
 

 B3 
 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 239 
 
 land. No act that the Home Government had hitherto 
 passed, showed more plainly its utter inability to compre- 
 hend the great principle for which the colonists were con- 
 tending, than this. It was clear that the ministry sup- 
 posed that the motive of the colonists in resisting taxation 
 was merely of a sordid nature. This idea was in itself 
 sufficiently humiliating ; and now, when, by making con- 
 cessions to the East India Company, a direct attempt was 
 made to buy them off by an appeal to their pockets, the 
 indignation of tlie colonists was raised to the highest 
 •pitch. 
 
 The plan of union as proposed by Virginia, and which 
 had now been adopted by all the New England colonies, 
 rendered concert of action much easier than heretofore. 
 Accordingly, as soon as it was known that the tea-ships 
 were on their way to America, measures were immediately 
 taken to prevent the landing of their cargoes. The non- 
 importation agreements, which had of late grown lax, 
 became again stringent ; and the correspondence between 
 the vifilant committees of the several colonies was 
 renewed with greater activity than ever. On the 18th 
 of October, 1773, the inhabitants of Philadelphia assem- 
 bled in the State House ; and, having in several spirited 
 resolutions denied the right of Parliament to tax America, 
 and denounced the duty on the tea, compelled the agents 
 of the East India Company, by the mere force of public 
 opinion, to resign. In Boston, the patriots were no less 
 active. Town meetings were constantly held, and com- 
 mittees appointed to confer with committees from the 
 neighboring towns upon the best method of " preventing 
 the landing and sale of the teas exported from the East 
 India Company." Unlike, however, the excitement pro- 
 duced by the Stamp Act, everything was now done 
 " decently and in order." The burning of the Gaspe in 
 the waters of the Narraganset, on the night of the 17th of 
 
240 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 June, 1772, was suggestive. On the mght of the 16 th of 
 December, 1773, three tea-ships, whichlay moored at Grif- 
 fin's Wharf, were boarded by a party of men dis- 
 "^^' .guisedas Mohawk Indians, and their cargoes, con- 
 sisting of three hundred and forty chests of tea, thrown 
 into the waters of the bay. 
 
 Nor was New York behind her sister colonies m resist- 
 ing this new feature of ministerial oppression. Two days 
 after the meeting in Philadelphia, the Sons of Liberty held 
 a public meeting, in which they denounced in unequivocal 
 terms the importation of the hateful article ; and declared 
 with yuch efiect that tea-commissioners were fully as 
 obnoxious as stamp-distributers, that the commissioners 
 appointed for New York forthwith resigned. Public sen- 
 timent, moreover, was not confined merely to resolves. 
 A remark of Governor Tryon, that " the tea should be 
 delivered to the consignees, even if it was sprinkled with 
 blood," was not calculated to pour oil upon the troubled 
 waters ; and so soon as it was known that consignments 
 of tea would shortly reach the city, another mass-meeting 
 of the citizens was held at their old rendezvous — " the 
 fields " — to devise measures for preventing the landing of 
 the tea from a vessel which was hourly expected. Hardly 
 had the people assembled, when Whitehead Hicks, the 
 Mayor, hastened to the meeting, charged with a message 
 from the Governor, to the effect that, when the vessel 
 arrived, the tea should be publicly taken from the ship 
 into the fort, and there kept until the advice of the coun- 
 cil could be taken, or the King's order could be known. 
 The moment was critical, but John Lamb- — by whose 
 influence undoubtedly the meeting had been called — at 
 once saw through the artifice. He immediately arose and 
 addressed the Assembly. After giving a summary of the 
 grievances which had brought them together, he read the 
 act of Parliament (which prescribed the pnyment of the 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 241 
 
 duty, if the article was landed), and then asked, " Shall 
 the tea be landed ?" A unanimous " NO !" (repeated three 
 times) clearly showed the mind of his audience. 
 
 But this spirit of resistance to Parliamentary usurpa- 
 tion was not shared in by the Assembly, whose members 
 were more subservient than ever. Notwithstanding the 
 conduct of the Governor, they did not hesitate, in the 
 spring session, to vote five thousand pounds toward 
 rebuilding the Government House, which had been 
 recently destroyed by fire ; and, in response to his open- 
 ing speech, in which they were informed that he had been 
 called home to confer with the ministry in relation to the 
 New Hampshire grants, they expressed the hope that his 
 return to a grateful people would be speedy. Indeed, as 
 Mr. Dunlap remarks, if the number of compliments paid 
 him upon his departure were any test, it would seem as if he 
 was very much beloved. Several of the loyalists residing 
 in the city gave him a public dinner ; General Haldimand, 
 who had succeeded Gage as Commander-in-Chief, honored 
 him with a ball ; corporations and societies vied in pre- 
 senting addresses ; King's College created him a doctor in 
 civil law; and the General Assembly tendered him an 
 address, in which, after expressing their appreciation of 
 the uprightness and integrity of his conduct, they added, 
 in yet more fulsome eulogy, that they thought it their 
 duty, as the representatives of a free and happy people, to 
 pay this tribute of applause and acknowledgment to a 
 Governor who had so eminently distinguished himself by 
 his constant attention to their care and prosperity. The 
 Governor, in return, thanked them for their " truly loyal 
 and affectionate address ; " and having, on the 19th of 
 March, summoned the General Assembly to his house, 
 he gave his assent to the acts that had been passed, and 
 closed the session by prorogation. 
 
 Thus ended the third session of the Legislature of the 
 31 
 
242 HISTORT OF NBW YORK CITY. 
 
 colony and the administration of Governor Tryon, without 
 having in a single instance come into collision with his 
 excellency, or even with the legislative council, save in 
 the matter of a disagreement between the two bodies in 
 respect to an amendment to the militia bill, proposed by 
 the council, but to which the House disagreed. An 
 attempt was made in the council, on motion of Mr. Smith, 
 to obtain a conference, but the proposition was voted 
 down. The amendment referred to, according to the rea- 
 sons of dissent recorded by Mr. Smith, was an invasion of 
 the royal prerogative ; and, had the bill been passed in the 
 shape insisted upon by the House, Mr. Smith maintained 
 that it would have received the Governor's negative. 
 According to the reasons of dissent, the rejection of the 
 amendment of the council evinced a determination by the 
 House to control the action of the Governor in command- 
 ing the services of the militia, while there were indications 
 that their services would be required to quell insurrection 
 in the New Hampshire grants. Mr. Smith set forth that 
 a similar amendment sent to the House in 1772 had been 
 concurred in by that body, and that no reason was per- 
 ceptible justifying a change of sentiments upon the ques- 
 tion ; and he thought a friendly conference might induce 
 the House to yield. Other reasons for his assent were 
 given ; and he referred to open surmises abroad, that the 
 Legislature was losing its confidence in the Governor, and 
 the loss of the bill with the provision in question might 
 be viewed as an evidence that the Legislature had not 
 been "sincere in the testimonials they had given and 
 justly awarded to his excellency for an administration 
 wise and impartial, fair and generous, and steadily con- 
 ducted upon principles unbiased by party feuds and 
 acknowledged to be equally friendly to the rights of the 
 Crown and the weal of the colony." But the conference 
 was not asked, and, in fact, there was no collision. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 243 
 
 This profound tranquility which had succeeded the 
 election of the present General Assembly in 1770, was the 
 more remarkable for the raging of the political elements 
 all around New York, and from the circumstances under 
 which the preceding Assembly had been dissolved, and 
 the feelings attending the new election. The preceding 
 Assembly had been dissolved for its strong declaration of 
 those constitutional principles which had been planted in 
 the bosoms of the colonists from their settlement, and 
 which were striking deeper root every hour ; and yet, 
 neither under Sir Henry Moore, who had dissolved the 
 preceding and summoned the present Legislature, nor 
 under Lord Dunmore, nor under Governor Tryon, had a 
 breeze moved upon the political waters, so far as the Leg- 
 islature was concerned, save only by its concurrence in 
 the Virginia resolutions of May, 1769 ; nor did that act 
 of concurrence occasion any visible agitation. But it was 
 the deep, solemn calm, which often precedes the lightning 
 and the whirlwind ! 
 
 But the storm was to break sooner than was antici- 
 pated. The utterances of James Otis and Patrick Henry 
 had created a tide of public feeling which ordinary barri- 
 ers were powerless to resist. Events followed each other 
 in startling rajsidity. On the night of the 22d of April, 
 1774, the Sons of Liberty, following the example 
 
 lTT4r« 
 
 of their Boston neighbors, and, like them, also dis- 
 guised as Mohawks, threw over a cargo of tea, brought 
 by the Nancy ^ into the waters of New York Bay. New 
 York, imitating the example of her sister colonies, formed 
 a Provincial Congress in opposition to the regular Assem- 
 bly, whose members still remained lukewarm, and ap- 
 pointed five delegates to the Continental Congress, which 
 had already convened in Philadelphia. Tryon, in amaze 
 at the turn affairs had taken, sailed, as we have seen, for 
 England, on the 7th of April, 1774, to represent to the 
 
•244 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ministry the alarming state of things in the colonies. The 
 Province of New York was ordered by the Continental 
 Congress to contribute her quota of three thousand men 
 to the general defense. The battle of Lexington had been 
 followed by the battle of Bunker Hill ; the brave Mont- 
 gomery was preparing to undertake his ill-fated expedition 
 against Quebec ; and Putnam, and Heath, and Pomeroy, 
 and a score of brave spirits, laid close siege to Boston. 
 
 Such was the condition of affairs when Washington, 
 
 on the 21st of June, 1775, set out from Philadelphia for 
 
 Boston, with the purpose of taking New York in 
 
 1TT5 ' . . 
 
 his way. All disguise had now been thrown off; 
 and it was his purpose to place that important post under 
 the command of one of his generals upon whom he could 
 rely. But the approach of Washington toward the city 
 threw the Provincial Congress into a quandar3^ It had 
 usurped the powers of Governor Tryon in his absence, 
 while professing, at the same time, a semi-loyalty to the 
 parent Government. To add, also, to its perplexity, 
 Tryon, who had just arrived from England, was in the 
 lower bay, and might arrive at the wharf at any moment. 
 A middle course was therefore adopted. The militia was 
 ordered out, and the commanding officer directed " to pay 
 military honors to whichever of the distinguished func- 
 tionaries should first arrive." As it chanced, Washington 
 arrived first on the 25th, and was escorted into the city 
 by a committee of the Provincial Congress, by whom he 
 had been met at Newark. As soon as the customary mili- 
 tary honors had been paid, Peter Van Burgh Livingston, 
 as President of the New York Congress, advanced and 
 delivered a congratulatory address. " Confiding in you, 
 sir," said the speaker, " and iu the worthy generals under 
 your command, we have the most flattering hopes of suc- 
 cess in the glorious struggle for American liberty, and the 
 fullest assurances that whenever this important contest 
 
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 245 
 
 shall be decided bj that fondest wish of each American 
 soul, an accommodation with our mother country, you 
 will cherfuUy resign the important deposit committed into 
 your hands and resume the character of our worthiest 
 citizen." 
 
 Bardly had these honors been paid to Washington, 
 when, at eight o'clock of the same evening, Tryon landed, 
 and was in turn greeted by the same mditia, and, in addi- 
 tion, by the Mayor and Common Council, who, by their 
 transports of loyalty, seemed anxious to neutralize, as far 
 as possible, the reception given a few hours previous to 
 Washington. Meanwhile, the latter, having placed the 
 city under the command of General Schuyler, departed for 
 Boston, leaving the citizens in great doubt as to the future 
 steps which would be taken by Tryon. 
 
 Their suspense, however, was to be short. The Pro- 
 vincial Congress, regarding the guns in the battery as a 
 standing menace to the patriot party, and wishing them 
 for the defense of the Highlands, ordered their removal. 
 The indomitable Lamb, at the head of his Liberty Boys, 
 among whom was Alexander Hamilton, at once volun- 
 teered for this service ; and, in the face of the guns of the 
 Asia, which opened her batteries upon the party, succeeded 
 in carrying away to a place of safety the whole of the 
 pieces of cannon, twenty-one in number. This event at 
 once brought things to a crisis ; and the Governor, alarmed 
 for his personal safety among an incensed populace, took 
 refuge on board of the Asia. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Assembly of New York, not wishing 
 to join in the radical action of the Provincial Congress, 
 and yet feeling keenly the course of the parent Govern- 
 ment, had prepared and sent to the Crown a memorial for 
 a redress of their grievances — a fact which the ministry 
 soon learned, and not without mortification. " We claim," 
 the address said, in conclusion, " but a restoration of the 
 
246 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 rights which we enjoyed by general consent before the 
 close of the last war-;' we desire no more than a continua- 
 tion of the ancient, government, to which we are enti- 
 tled by the principles of the British Constitution, and by 
 which alone can be secured to us the rights of English- 
 men." The address was presented to the House of Com- 
 mons by Mr. Burke, but was never called up. Incensed 
 at this insult to themselves, those faint hearts in the 
 Assembly who had heretofore wavered, now boldly joined 
 the patriots; and when, on the 10th of July, 1776, 
 the news was received in the city of the Declaration 
 of Independence, the enthusiasm was well-nigh universal 
 — almost all hastening to aid General Putnam (who had 
 succeeded Lee in the command) in fortifying the city. 
 The principal fortifications were as follow : A grand bat- 
 tery of twenty-three guns was erected directly south of 
 the Bowling Green; McDougall's battery of four guns 
 stood on a little eminence to the west of Trinity Church. 
 On the East-Hiver side were Coenties' battery, Water- 
 bury's battery, Badlam's battery of eight guns near the 
 Jewish burial-ground on Chatham Street, and the Inde- 
 pendent battery on a slight elevation on the corner of the 
 present Grand and Center Streets. " Breast-works were 
 also erected at Peck, Beckman, Burling, and Old Slips ; 
 at the Coffee-house, the Exchange, and in Broad Street." 
 Ditches were cut across the island from the East to the 
 North River ; and, at the same time, strong fortifications 
 were thrown up on Governor's Island, Paulus Hook (Jer- 
 sey City), Brooklyn Heights, and Long Island. 
 
 These fortifications were erected at the suggestion of 
 the Commander-in-Chief, who, rightly anticipating, on the 
 evacuation of Boston by General Howe, that his next point 
 of attack would be New York, dettiched General Greene, 
 with a portion of the army, to put Long Island and the 
 harbor of New York in a posture of defense. Washington 
 

HISTORY OF NEW YORE CITY. 247 
 
 followed soon afterward himself, and established his head- 
 quarters in the city. < Having been joined by his brother, 
 Lord Howe, as commander of the fleet at Halifax, General 
 (afterward Sir William) Howe arrived with his reinforce- 
 ments off Sandy Hook — the latter on the 25th of June, 
 1776, and the former on the 12th of the following month. 
 General Clinton arriving at about the same time from the 
 unsuccessful attempt against Charleston with Admiral 
 Hotham, the combined forces of the enemy now amounted 
 to nearly twenty-four thousand men, including the Hes- 
 sians. 
 
 On the 22d of August, the British army landed upon 
 Long Island at Gravesend. The American army, consists 
 ing of fifteen thousand men, under Sullivan, was encamped 
 in the neighborhood of Brooklyn. The battle of Long 
 Island, which was severely, though ineffectually, contested 
 by the American forces under Sullivan and Lord Stirling, 
 was fought on the 27th of August. On the 30th, the 
 
 kip's bat house. 
 
 Americans effected a masterly retreat across the East 
 River to New York. The enemy made immediate dispo- 
 sitions to attack the city ; and a hasty evacuation was 
 deemed advisable. The British fleet was divided into two 
 squadrons, one of which entered the East and the other 
 the North River. Under cover of the former. Sir Henry 
 Clinton crossed from Long Island and landed at Kip's 
 Bay with such celerity that the Americans fled in disorder. 
 
248 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Indeed, the evacuation resembled rather a flight than a 
 retreat — all the heavy artillery, military stores, baggage, 
 and provisions, falling into the hands of the enemy. A 
 large portion of the American forces, at that time, con- 
 sisted of militia, the conduct of which was scandalous 
 beyond endurance. They deserted, not only in small 
 numbers, but in companies and squadrons, whenever they 
 could ; and their conduct, in the face of the enemy, or 
 rather when running from the faces of the enemy, was 
 most cowardly. So disorderly was their demeanor, and 
 so like poltroons did they behave when flying from Sir 
 Henry Clinton, that even Washington himself lost his 
 patience, and was excited to a degree of hot exasperation. 
 In writing from Harlem Heights to a friend, General 
 Greene said that " two brigades of militia ran away from 
 about fifty men, leaving the Commander-in-Chief on the 
 ground, within eighty yards of the enemy, so vexed with 
 the conduct of his troops that he sought death rather than 
 life. His attempts to stop them were fruitless. He drew 
 his sword and threatened to run them through, and 
 cocked and snapped his pistols.* But all his exertions 
 were to no purpose." In a letter upon the subject of this 
 infamous conduct of the militia, to the President of Con- 
 gress, the Commander-in-Chief declared that, -' were he 
 called to give his opinion upon oath, he should say that 
 militia did more injury to the service than good." 
 
 General Greene strongly urged the destruction of the 
 city by fire — a measure afterward so effectively adopted 
 by Count Rostopchin, Governor of the ancient capital 
 of Muscovy, to arrest the career of Napoleon — that the 
 enemy might be deprived of the advantage of estabhshing 
 their winter-quarters therein. His reasons for this meas- 
 ure were sound, and ought, doubtless, to have been 
 
 * Mr. Bancroft, it is true, discredits this statement; but, it seems to me 
 vfdtliout sufficient reason. ' 
 
:?Vlii5:.<uL '>:>5A;^ltlEK(S--:!^'CEJ, 
 
 '/■-"■■■ 
 
 ./;.•,-/- /^^ . V'-^.. /J ^'. / '^ 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 249 
 
 adopted. Washington, also, was believed to be of the 
 same opinion, especially as two-thirds of the property 
 which it was proposed to destroy, belonged to undisguised 
 loyalists. But Congress would not allow the sacrifice ; 
 iind, on the 15th of September, 1776, the City of New 
 
 
 VIEW FROM FOBT LEE, 
 
 York was in full possession of the British — General 
 Washington having retired with the army to King's 
 Bridge. 
 
 For several weeks, Washington occupied Harlem 
 Heights above Manhattanville, residing meanwhile at the 
 
 32 
 
250 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 house of Colonel Roger Morris (between 160th and 161st 
 Streets); while Colonel Cadwallader, with eight hun- 
 dred men, was posted along the lower lines which crossed 
 the island. At length, on the 15th of November, an 
 attack being made by the enemy under Lord Percy, Cad- 
 wallader held them in check on Harlem Plains for more 
 than an hour and a half, until Washington had been able 
 to cross the Hudson from Fort Lee, reconnoitre the 
 position, and return in safety. But the gallant efforts 
 of Cadwallader were of no avail ; for Lord Percy, having 
 been reinforced, ruined the position of his adversary, 
 and, compelling him to retreat to Fort Washington 
 (already in possession of the British), made him prisoner. 
 The capture. of Fort Washington compelled that of Fort 
 Lee. " Washington retreated with his troops through the 
 Jerseys, and the struggle for liberty in New York was 
 
 It' would seem, however, as if the idea of firing the 
 city — though given up by Washington and Greene — was 
 still cherished by some of the residents of the city. 
 Scarcely had the British fairly taken possession, when, on 
 the night of the 20th of September — only six days after 
 they had marched in — a terrific fire broke out, which was 
 not subdued until one thousand houses, or about one- 
 fourth of the city, were reduced to ashes.* The fire was 
 first discovered in a low dram-shop, tenanted by abandoned 
 men and women ; but, in a few minutes afterward, flames 
 were seen to break forth from several other buildings, 
 lying in different directions, at the same moment. For 
 some time previous, the weather had been dry ; and at the 
 moment, a brisk southerly wind prevailing, and the build- 
 
 * Hugh Gaine, in his Universal Register for 11^1, states that before this 
 fire the city contained about four thousand two hundred houses, and thirty 
 thousand inhabitants. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 251 
 
 Ings being of wood and covered with shingles, the flames 
 soon caught the neighboring houses and spread with incon- 
 ceivable rapidity. The fire swept up Broad and Beaver 
 Streets to Broadway, and thence onward, consuming all 
 
 VIEW ON WASHINGTON HEIGHTS. 
 
 that portion of the town lying on the North River, until 
 the flames were stopped by the grounds of King's (Colum- 
 bia) College at Mortkile Street, now Barclay. St. Paul's 
 
252 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Church, at one time, was in great danger. Fortunately, 
 however, the roof was flat, with a balustrade on the eaves. 
 Taking advantage of this circumstance, a number of citi- 
 zens went into the balustrade and extinguished the flakes 
 of fire as they fell on the roof Trinity Church, with the 
 Lutheran Chapel, on the opposite corner of Rector Street, 
 was also destroyed. The Rev. Dr. Inglis was then rector 
 of Trinity ; and with this sacred edifice, his parsonage and 
 the Charity School— two large buildings — were consumed, 
 entailing a loss of church property to the value of twenty- 
 five thousand pounds. The organ of Trinity, alone, cost 
 eight hundred and fifty pounds. 
 
 At the present day, it is diSicult to say whether the 
 fire was or was not the result of incendiarism on the part 
 of disaffected Americans. Even reliable contemporaneous 
 writers diflier widely in their opinion on the subject, some 
 affirming positively that the city was set on fire, and others, 
 again, quite as positively afl&rming the contrary. For 
 ourselves, we are inclined to believe that the fire was the 
 result of a deliberate design ; nor, if the newspapers and 
 private correspondence of the day can be believed, is there 
 much room left for doubt. According to these authorities, 
 one man was seized in the act of setting fire to the col- 
 lege, who acknowledged that he had been employed for 
 the purpose. A New-England captain, who was seized at 
 the same time with matches in his pocket, also acknowl- 
 edged the same. One White, a carpenter, was observed to 
 cut the leather buckets which conveyed the water. ". The 
 next day, Saturday," says Steadman, in his history of the 
 American War, "a great many cart-loads of bundles of 
 pine-sticks dipped in brimstone were found concealed in 
 cellars of houses to which the incendiaries had not had 
 time to set fire." " The rebels," says the Rev. Charles 
 Inglis, in writing on the same subject, a few days after, to 
 the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 
^^^\i5^^]^=.-i.vv>.\"^i,. 
 
 TRINITY CHURCH, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 253 
 
 in Foreign Parts, "carried ofF all the bells in the city, 
 partly to convert them into cannon and partly to prevent 
 notice being given speedily of the destruction they medi- 
 tated against the city by fire, when it began. * * Several 
 rebels secreted themselves in the houses to execute the 
 diabolical purpose of destroying the city." Notwithstand- 
 ing, however, this seeming mass of testimony, it was found 
 impossible to obtain legal proof sufficient to fasten the act 
 
 
 
 THE OLD SUGATi-HOUSE IN MBERTY STREET. 
 
 upon any particular individual — for all who had been 
 caught at the time with matches, &c , had been killed on 
 the spot by the enraged soldiery — and the result was, 
 that several of the citizens, who had been arrested and 
 imprisoned on the charge of being the incendiaries, wore 
 acquitted. 
 
254 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The history of New York city during its occupation 
 by the British is not one that Americans can recall with 
 pleasure. True it is that this period has invested a few 
 of the old buildings, yet standing, with interest ; but these 
 very associations are of a saddening, melancholy nature, 
 a.nd only calculated to make Americans, even at the pres- 
 ent day, blush at the remembrance of the fact that British 
 officers — having their blood, and the same ancestry, and 
 speaking the same tongue — could ever have been guilty 
 of such horrid atrocities upon the persons of inoffensive 
 captives. Of the numerous prison-pens in the city during 
 the Revolution (among which was the old Sugar-House), 
 only two yet stand, like charred and battered monu- 
 ments of cruelty and tyranny — the North Dutch Church, 
 on WUliam Street, and the Middle Dutch Church (the 
 present Post-office). In the former edifice, eight bun- 
 dled prisoners were incarcerated, without fuel or bed- 
 ding, during two of the coldest winters New York has 
 ever known.* Their provisions were scanty, and of the 
 poorest quality ; and, as a natural ar.i probably anticipated 
 consequence, many died from cold and starvation. " We 
 never," says Oliver Woodruff, one of the prisoners, " drew 
 as much provisions for three days' allowance as a man 
 would eat at a common meal. I was there three months 
 during that inclement season, and never saw any fire, 
 except what was in the lamps of the city. There was not 
 a pane of glass in the windows, and nothing to keep out 
 the cold, except the iron grates." t " The allowance," says 
 
 * During one of these winters — that of 1779-80 — the river and bay between 
 C!ortlaudt Street, New Jersey, and Staten Island were frozen over for forty days. 
 Hundreds of people crossed daily on the ice, which was so thick that artillery 
 was also conveyed across. 
 
 f It is very true that, at times, the British themselves were often in want 
 of food, and suflTered from cold, and also that provisions were dear ; still, that 
 need not have prevented them from giving the prisoners bedclothes, and min- 
 istering to their necessities, and alleviating their condition as far as possible 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 255 
 
 Adolph Meyer, another prisoner, " was one loaf of bread, 
 one quart of peas, half a pint of rice, and one and a half 
 pounds of pork, for six days. Many prisoners died from 
 want ; and others were reduced to such wretchedness as 
 to attract the attention of common prostitutes, from whom 
 they received considerable assistance. No care was taken 
 of the sick ; and if any died they were thro-w^ at the door 
 of the prison, and lay there till the next day, when they 
 were put on a cart and drawn out to the intrenchments, 
 beyond the Jews' burial-ground, where they were in- 
 terred by their fellow-prisoners, conducted thither for that 
 purpose. The dead were thrown into a hole promiscu- 
 ously, without the usual rites of sepulcher." But the state 
 of things was even worse in the Middle Dutch Church (the 
 present Post-office), into which three thousand prisoners 
 were crowded. " Here," says John Pintard, an eye-wit- 
 ness of these scenes, " the prisoners taken on Long Island 
 and at Fort Washington — sick, wounded, and well — were 
 all indiscriminately huddled together by hundreds and 
 thousands, large numbers of whom died by disease ; and 
 many were undoubtedly poisoned by their inhuman attend- 
 ants for the sake of their watches and silver buckles." 
 " The beds of the prisoners," says Dunlap, writing at the 
 time, " were straw, intermixed with vermin. For many 
 weeks, the dead-cart visited the prison every morning, into 
 which from eight to twelve corpses were flung and piled 
 up, then dumped into ditches in the outskirts of the city." 
 The bones of the unfortunate victims of British cruelty, 
 thus disposed of, were collected after the Revolution, and 
 buried with proper funeral rites.* 
 
 * But none of these prison-pens were so horrible as the Jersey prison- 
 ship. " This vessel was originally a British line-of-battle ship, built in 1736, 
 and carried sixty guns. She had done good service in the war with France, 
 and had several times served as a part of the Mediterranean squadron. In the 
 spring of 1776, she sailed for America as one of the fleet of Commodore Hotham, 
 and arrived at Sandy Hook in the month of August. She was subsequently 
 
256 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 But while the American prisoners were thus languish- 
 ing in prison, the British officers and their wives were 
 passing their time in a round of gayety and frivolity. 
 The best view, perhaps, of the interior and social life of 
 New York at this time — now become in reality a British 
 city — is given in the letters of Mrs. General Riedesel.* 
 This lady was the wife of the German general who com- 
 manded the Brunswick troops at the battle of Saratoga, 
 where he was captured with Burgoyne. After her hus- 
 band was exchanged, she spent nearly two years in New 
 York city (1779-80), and her letters to her mother at this 
 time are of great interest. From these letters we make 
 the following extracts : 
 
 " Finally, late one evening, at the end of November, 
 
 1779, we reached New York, where my husband, who had 
 
 gone ahead of us, had already arrived before me. 
 
 A soldier who, at the gateway, had been ordered 
 
 to show us the way, conducted us to a very great and 
 
 used as a store-ship, then employed as a hospital-ship, and was finally, in the 
 winter of 1779-80, fitted up as a prison-ship, and anchored near the Walla- 
 bout in the East River, near what is now the Navy Yard, where she lay until 
 the close of the Wax, when the day of retribution arrived, and she was broken 
 up and sunk beneath the muddy iwaters of the East River to rise no more. 
 Dismantled of her sails and stripped of her rigging, with port-holes closed, 
 with no spar but the bowsprit, and a derrick to take in supplies, her small lone 
 flag at the stern became the appropriate but unconscious signal of the dreadful 
 Buffering that raged within. Hundreds of captured prisoners were packed into 
 this small vessel, where, with but one meal of coarse and filthy food per diem, 
 without hammocks, or physician, or medicines, or means of cleanliness, they 
 wretchedly perished. Thousands of emaciated skeletons were, during these 
 perilous years, cast into the billows of the bay. or left half covered in the sand- 
 banks and trenches. The bones of the dead lay exposed along the beach, dry- 
 ing and bleaching in the sun, whitening the shore until washed away by the 
 surging tides. About twelve thousand prisoners are believed to have died on 
 these vessels, most of whom were young men, the strength and flower of their 
 country." 
 
 * Letters and Journals relating to the War of the American Resolution, and 
 the Capture of the German Troops at Saratoga, hy Mrs. General Siedesel. 
 Translated from the original German, by William L. Stone. Albany: J. 
 MUNSELL. 1867. 
 
HISTORr OF NEW YORK CITY. 257 
 
 beautiful house, where we found everything prepared for 
 our reception ; and, better than all, a good supper. I was 
 too much occupied in putting the children to bed, and too 
 tired to inquire where I was, and supposed I was in a 
 public-house. My husband, who had taken tea with Gen- 
 eral Cornwallis, came home late. The next morning, a 
 servant came in to ask me what I desired for dinner, and 
 how many visitors I would probably have daily at table. I 
 replied that as my husband did not dine at home, I should 
 not need more than three dishes for six persons, namely : 
 myself, my children, my women-servants, and the pastor, 
 Mylius, the chaplain of my husband's regiment, whom we 
 retained in our family, and who gave my children instruc- 
 tion in everything useful. He was a man of piety, and 
 of excellent character and good humor, and the children 
 and we all loved him very much. ' I was then told that 
 the order had been given to serve up on my table every 
 day six large and four small dishes. Being still under 
 the impression that I was in a tavern, I decidedly forbade 
 this profusion, as I dreaded the bill. But I soon discov- 
 ered that I was staying at the house of the Governor, 
 General Tryon, who had forbidden them to tell me where 
 I had been taken, through fear that I would not accept of 
 his house.* This noble-minded man, moreover, in order 
 
 * The site of the present (1871) Bank of New York. 
 
 'On the night of December 29th, 1773, the Government House accidentally 
 caught fire. So rapid was the progress of the flames, that in a few moments 
 after the alarm was given a thick cloud of smoke and flame pervaded the whole 
 building, and in less than two hours it was entirely consumed. From this 
 dreadful conflagration, nothing in the building, except a few articles of furni- 
 ture taken from one of the parlors, was saved. The manner in which the fire 
 originated was not discovered. The deep snow which covered the roofs of the 
 other buildings in the city contributed to their protection, and the fire depart- 
 ment of the city showed great activity in preventing the progress of tlie flames. 
 Governor Tryon was a resident of the Government House in the fort at the time 
 of its destruction, and was a heavy loser by the event. He afterward resided 
 in a house on the corner of Wall and William Streets, the same house having 
 been subsequently, and until late years, occupied by the Bank of New York." — 
 V(J,lentine's Manual for 18G4, page 643. 
 33 
 
258 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 to avoid my thanks, crossed over to Long Island, where 
 he had a provisional command. All my wishes were 
 anticipated, and I was only in continual fear lest I should 
 abuse so much kindness. I also received a call from Gen- 
 eral Patterson, the commandant of the city, who told me 
 that they were still busy with the arrangement of the 
 house, which we were to have as our own residence. Lord 
 Cornwallis and General Clinton likewise came to see me. 
 The former went off soon afterward upon an expedition. 
 The latter offered me a country-seat. Of which he had the 
 disposal, where I might have my children inoculated with 
 the small-pox, an operation which it would be dangerous 
 to have performed in the city, as that disease was raging 
 there violently. I accepted his offer with much satisfac- 
 tion, and we made all necessary preparations to go there. 
 I gave our cook ten guineas to purchase all kinds of pro- 
 visions. But when he very soon came back and asked for 
 more money, I learned, to my surprise, that the money I 
 had given him would scarcely last for two days, so dear 
 was everything, even the commonest thing. For example, 
 one pound of meat, reckoning according to our money, cost 
 twelve groschen; * one pound of butter, eighteen groschen; 
 one turkey, four rix-thalers ; a fowl, twenty groschen ; an 
 egg, four groschen ; a quart of milk, six groschen ; a bushel 
 of potatoes, two rix-thalers ; a half bushel of turnips, two 
 florins ; ten oysters, eight groschen ; and six onions, one 
 rix-thaler. But what was there left for me to do but to 
 bear it with patience 1 1 
 
 * A grosclien, as has been mentioned in a preceding note, is a fraction over 
 tliree American cents. 
 
 f All contemporaneous accounts fully corroborate the statement of our 
 authoress. The rich in the city at first strove to keep up their sis courses, their 
 three-side services, and their profusion of fish, flesh, and fowl ; but at length 
 their resources failed. Many articles of food could no longer be obtained, and 
 others were so dear as to exhaust the means of the wealthiest. A turkey was 
 cheap at four dollars. Good meat could seldom be procured, and vegetables 
 were extravagantly dear. Fifty dollars, says an eye-witness, would not feed a 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 259 
 
 " One day a general was announced. I received him, 
 and in the course of conversation he asked me, among 
 other things, whether I was satisfied with my quarters. 
 My heart was too full of thankfulness for all the kindness 
 that had been shown me, not to give full vent to my feel- 
 ings in this regard, and I at last expressed the wish to 
 know personally my noble benefactor who had treated me 
 with so much delicacy. He laughed, and just at that 
 moment my husband stepped in, and said to me, " This is 
 the man who has shown us so much kindness." I was so 
 delighted at seeing him, that I could not find words to 
 express my feelings. Upon seeing my emotion, the man 
 was very much affected. I have invariably received from 
 him the greatest proofs of his friendship. 
 
 " The country residence of General Clinton, where we 
 went, was an hour's ride from the city. The grounds 
 were beautiful, as was also the house ; but the latter was 
 arranged more for a suinmer residence, and, as we had 
 come there in the month of December, we suffered much 
 from the cold. Notwithstanding this, however, the inocu- 
 lation was perfectly successful. Accordingly, as it was 
 now completed, and we had nothing more to fear from 
 the infection, we got ourselves in readiness to return to 
 the city, and sent our cook and the rest of our servants 
 ahead to prepare everything for our arrival, which we 
 expected would be upon the following day. During the 
 night"^ however, we had such a terrible storm that we 
 
 family for two days. Sir Henry Clinton entreated the farmers of the vicinity 
 to bring in provisions, but in vain. Nor was lie more successful in the forag- 
 ing parties he sent out. At sight of the enemy, the alarm was given. The 
 farmers of Westport and Southport, of Elizabetbtown and Rahway, hastily 
 buried their corn and oats beneath the snow, and old family furniture was car- 
 ried oflF at midnight and hidden in the depths of the forest. The British foraging 
 parties accordingly found the barns empty, the cattle driven off, and the farm- 
 houses deserted. In their rage, the foragers set fire to the old homesteads and 
 desolated whole districts, thus increasing the general misery mthout accom- 
 plishing the least good. 
 
260 
 
 HISTORT OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 believed the whole house would be overturned. As it was, 
 an entire balustrade actually fell down with a dreadful 
 crash, and on getting up the next morning we saw that 
 on account of snow having fallen during the night four or 
 five feet on the level, and eight feet in drifts, it would be 
 utterly impossible to venture forth without sledges. I 
 therefore went to work to hunt up all that I could find 
 for our dinner. An old hen that had been forgotten served 
 us for soup, and some potatoes which the gardener gave 
 us, with some salt meat that still remained over from our 
 stock of provisions, made up the entire meal for more than 
 fourteen persons, which number we then were. 
 
 " On our return to New York, I found, to my great 
 amazement, our new dwelling fitted up throughout with 
 mahogany furniture. I was at first frightened at the 
 expense which this would occasion. But Captain Willoe 
 informed me that the entire cost would be defrayed by 
 the Governor, and that the Comnlandant, General Patter- 
 son, considered himself fortunate in being able to justify 
 the confidence which I had placed in the English nation. 
 To render this remark intelligible, I must here state that 
 I had assured him, when he consulted me upon the 
 arrangement of our house, that I would leave everything 
 entirely to the English, from whom, up to the present 
 time, I had received sincere kindness and courtesy, and 
 who certainly would still preserve toward us that full 
 confidence which they had shown toward us. 
 
 " They overwhelmed us with distinguished marks of 
 courtesy and friendship, for which we had, in a great meas- 
 ure, to thank General Phillips, who, in New York, was 
 very much beloved, and was so strong a friend of ours that 
 he declared that whatever was done for us would flatter 
 him more than as if done for himself. I had also the 
 good fortune, during our stay, to make many friends on 
 my own account. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 261 
 
 "As the birthday of the Queen of England was 
 approaching (which really comes in summer, bnt, as the 
 King's birthday also comes in that season, is celebrated in 
 winter, to give more custom to the trades-people, as every 
 one upon those days appears at court in gala-dress), they 
 wished to celebrate the day with a great fete; and as it 
 was the general wish — partly to please General Philips, 
 and partly to make me forget my own suffering — to confer 
 on me a distinguished honor, they desired me to be queen 
 of the ball. In order to bring this about, they persuaded 
 the wife of General Cornwallis's adjutant — who, as an 
 English lady of noble birth, would have had precedence 
 over me — to remain at home, on the ground that she was 
 near her confinement. When at length the great day 
 arrived, all the ladies assembled at Governor Tryon's, 
 where they re6eived me with all ceremony. The General 
 introduced me to all the ladies, some of whom were envi- 
 ous of the honor which was shown me. But I immediately 
 declared that I received this distinction only on account of 
 the day, as they had conferred on me the honor of repre- 
 senting the Queen, and that in future I would give place to 
 those ladies who were older than I. As there were quite 
 a number present who were my elders, my explanation 
 conciliated them. Their countenances, accordingly, quickly 
 brightened up, and I was soon upon a pleasant footing 
 with the whole company. 
 
 " At six o'clock in the afternoon I was obliged to seat 
 myself on a carriage with Generals Tryon and Patterson, 
 to be driven to the ball, where we were received with 
 kettle-drums and trumpets. 
 
 " At supper, I was obliged, as I represented the Queen, 
 to sit under a canopy, and drink the first toast. I was 
 certainly much touched at all the marks of friendship I 
 received, although extremely tired ; still, in order to show 
 my gratitude, I cheerfully stayed as long as possible, and 
 
262 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 remained until two o'clock in the morning. Not only on 
 this occasion, but during the whole of my sojourn in this 
 place, I was loaded with kindness ; and I passed the 
 remainder of the winter very pleasantly, with the excep- 
 tion of suffering very much from the cold, as the commis- 
 sary had not had a sufficient quantity of wood cut. To 
 save expense, he had this work done by his negro slaves ; 
 and the winter setting in earlier than usual, and being 
 impossible, as the river was frozen half over, to bring in 
 wood either by boats or sledges, many of the garrison suf- 
 fered for fuel. We, indeed, received an order for it ; but 
 how did that help the matter, since there was no wood 
 to be had 1 We were, therefore, often obliged to borrow 
 wood of General Tryon for Saturday and Sunday, which 
 we would return on Monday if we received any. The 
 cold was so intense that I frequently made the children 
 lie in bed in order to keep them warm. Wood could not 
 often be purchased for money ; and if by chance a little 
 was for sale, it cost ten pounds by the cord. I have 
 myself paid one piaster (which is a crown with us) for a 
 single stick. The poor were obliged to burn fat, in order 
 to warm themselves and cook their meals.* 
 
 " One day I was at the house of the lady of General 
 Cornwallis's aid-de-camp, who had been confmed, and com- 
 plained bitterly of this lack of wood; whereupon, she 
 promised to send me some coals, which I could return at 
 my own convenience. I showed so much joy at this, that 
 a certain major, named Brown, who happened to be pres- 
 ent, and was attached to the commissariat, and who had 
 
 * " The wealthy," writes a contemporary, " shivered for cold in their splendid 
 apartments. In vain did Sir Henry Clinton issue proclamations to the farmers 
 of Long Island to send in their wood. In vain did ha dispatch foraging parties 
 to cut down the forests on the large estates of the patriots Vk'^illiam Floyd and 
 William Smith, the patroons of Long Island. The demand for fuel could not 
 be supplied, and the Baroness Riedesel, the caressed of all the army, suffered 
 severely in that inclement winter." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 263 
 
 already expressed much sympathy at our want of wood, 
 was so much affected that he immediately left the room. 
 
 " The next day, as I was looking out of the window, 
 [ saw quite a number of wagons full of chopped trees, 
 standing still in the street. Each wagon contained two 
 cords of wood. I went into the room where the pastor, 
 Mylius, sat with the children before the fire-place, in which 
 the last stick was burning, and said to him : ' Never before 
 have I been envious ; but now, the distress and pain which 
 these poor children suffer, make me so ; for just now there 
 has come to our very door four wagons filled with wood. 
 How happy would I be if I only had some of it!' 
 Scarcely had I thus spoken, when a servant brought me 
 a message from Major Brown, stating that he had sent me 
 these loads of wood with his compliments, and begging us 
 to send to him whenever we should again be out of fuel. 
 Imagine my joy, and my eagerness to thank our guardian 
 angel. I had scarcely seen his face, as the lying-in cham- 
 ber of milady had been so dark. Some days after, I was 
 at a ball where he also was expected to be present. He 
 had been described to me as a man with a very prominent 
 turned-up nose. For such a person, therefore, I looked 
 attentively; but I was obliged to look for a long time, 
 because the excellent man kept continually out of the 
 way, that I might have no opportunity to thank him. At 
 last, however, I found him, and thanked him right heartily. 
 He then told me that up that time he had known nothing 
 of our necessity, but that when he heard my story he 
 had not been able to go to sleep quietly the whole night, 
 through fear that the dispositions which he had already 
 made for our relief would not arrive sufficiently speedy. 
 These 'dispositions' consisted in giving the order to cut 
 down some of the trees in the great avenue * in front of the 
 
 * Probably, the present Wall Street. All the principal highways of the city 
 were adorned at this period with luxuriant s" ade-trees. A celebrated traveler. 
 
264 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 city; and when this proceeding was objected to on the 
 ground that it would make considerable damage, he 
 replied, that it was much better to spare a few trees than 
 to have a family, who had served the King with so much 
 zeal, suffer from want. He further told me that in future 
 we must, under all circumstances, whenever anything was 
 wanting that it belonged to the commissary to supply, 
 apply directly to him. This acquaintance was of great 
 advantage to us. My husband was supplied with many 
 kinds of provisions ; with Indian meal, part of which we 
 used for bread and part for cake, and also with salted 
 meat, which latter article, however, was entirely useless 
 to us, as we received more than we could consume ; and 
 it often was so uneatable that I gave it away to get rid 
 of it, especially since our servants were also supplied with 
 the same kind of food. The major, accordingly, advised 
 us to pursue the same plan in this regard as the other 
 generals, viz. ; to' exchange our meat for boxes of tallow 
 and candles of spermaceti (which burn better and are 
 more beautiful, than those of wax), and also for butter, 
 which they did gladly, as they were obliged to supply the 
 soldiers with meat. By this means, we saved considera- 
 ble. We were now no longer troubled for the want of 
 
 who visited New York just previous to tlie arrival of Governor Tryon, thus 
 describes the various kinds then growing in the city ; " In the chief streets there 
 are trees planted, which, in the summer, give them a fine appearance, and, dur- 
 ing the excessive heat at that time, afford a cooling shade. I found it extremely 
 pleasant to walk in the town, for it seemed quite like a garden. The trees which 
 are planted lor this purpose are chiefly of two kinds ; the water-beech is the most 
 numerous, and gives an agreeable shade in summer by its large and numerous 
 leaves. The locust-tree is like\vise frequent ; its fine leaves and the odorifer- 
 ous scent which exhales from its flowers make it very proper for being planted 
 in the streets near the houses and in the gardens. There are likewise lime- 
 trees and elms in these walks, but they are not, by far, so frequent as the 
 others. One seldom meets with trees of the same sort adjoining each other, they 
 being in general placed alternately." The last of these trees in Wall Street 
 was cut down in 18G6. A portion of its trunk (preserved as a sacred relic) is to 
 be seen in the old English chop-house, on Thames Street, known as " Old 
 Tom's." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 265 
 
 wood, for they broke to pieces an old and worthless ship 
 in order to furnish us with fuel, and from this time we 
 received weekly two cords of fire-wood. 
 
 " Throughout the whole winter. Generals Phillips, 
 Tryon, and Patterson were our constant friends and guests, 
 and every week we gave a gentleman's dinner party. 
 This was all that we could afford to. do, as everything was 
 so terribly high in the city. At the end of the winter, 
 General Tryon sailed for England ; but, just before his 
 departure, he sent to my house magnificent furniture, tap- 
 estry, carpets, and curtains, besides a set of silk hangings 
 for an entire room. Never shall I forget the many marks 
 of friendship which I have received from almost every one 
 of this excellent nation ; and it will always be to me a 
 source of satisfaction to be able at any time to be of use 
 to the English, as I have learned by experience how 
 pleasant it is to receive kindness from foreigners. 
 
 " About this time our friendly relations began with our 
 excellent friend General Clinton, who was the General- 
 in-Chief of the English army in the Southern provinces of 
 America. As is the case with every Englishman, it was 
 at first very difficult for our acquaintance to ripen into 
 intimac3^ His first call upon us was one of ceremony, as 
 he came as General-in-Chief, attended by his entire staff, 
 As his general appearance and conversation were agreea- 
 ble, I said to his friend. General Phillips, that I regretted 
 that he had treated us with so much ceremony, and that 
 a more friendly manner would have better accorded with 
 our feelings. Afterward he invited us out to his country- 
 seat to spend the summer, an invitation which was 
 accepted. His country residence was magnificent, a most 
 beautiful situation, orchard and meadows, and the Hudson 
 River running directly in front of the house. Everything 
 was placed at our disposal, including fruits of the most 
 delicious flavor ; indeed, of this latter article we had more 
 
 34 
 
256 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 than we could eat. Our servants feasted on peaches even 
 to satiety, and our horses, which roamed through the 
 orchards, eagerly ate the fruit from the trees, disdaining 
 that upon the ground, which every evening we had gath- 
 ered up and given to the pigs to fatten them. It seems 
 almost incredible, but nevertheless it is true, that with 
 nothing but this fruit we fattened six pigs, the flesh of 
 which was capital, only the fat was somewhat soft. 
 Peach, apricot^ and other fruit-trees are raised here with- 
 out espaliers, and have trunks as thick as those of ordinary 
 trees. 
 
 " Not far from us were the Hell Gates, which are dan- 
 gerous breakers for those ships that pass through them up 
 the river. We often saw ships in danger, but only one 
 was wrecked and went to pieces during our stay at this 
 place. 
 
 " General Clinton came often to visit us, but in himt-. 
 er's dress, accompanied by only one aid-de-camp. On one 
 of these occasions he said to us : 'I feel confident that you 
 look upon me more as a friend than a stranger ; and as I 
 feel the same toward you, you shall always be regarded 
 by me as such.' The last time he came to see us, he had 
 with him the unfortunate — as he afterward became — 
 Major Andre, who, the day afterward, set out upon the 
 fatal expedition in which he was captured by the Ameri- 
 cans and afterward hung as a spy. It was very sad that 
 this pre-eminently excellent young man should have 
 fallen a victim to his zeal and his kind heart, which led 
 him to undertake such a precarious errand instead of 
 leaving it to older and known officers, to whom properly 
 the duty belonged, but whom, on that very account (as 
 they would be more exposed to danger), he wished to save. 
 " We passed much of our time at this most agreeable 
 place, but our contentment was hroken in upon by a 
 malignant fever that prevailed in New York, and of 
 

 
 
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 267 
 
 which in our family alone, twenty fell ill, eight danger- 
 ously. Among these eight were my husband, and my 
 daughter Gustava. One can imagine my grief and appre- 
 hension; day and night I did nothing but divide my nurs- 
 ing between my husband and daughter. The former was 
 so ill that we often thought he would not survive the day; 
 and Gustava had such violent paroxysms of fever that she 
 entreated me, when she was shivering with the ague, to 
 lay myself upon her, at which times she violently shook 
 me, together with her bed, although she was only nine 
 years old. It frequently happened that those sick of the 
 fever died in these fits of shaking, and every day persons_ 
 would tell me of fifty or sixty fresh burials, which cer- 
 tainly did not tend to raise my spirits. The heat which 
 the sick suffered was so intense that their pulse beat one 
 hundred and thirty-five times in a minute. All our serv- 
 ants were sick, and of course I was obliged to do every- 
 thing. I was then nursing my little America, and had 
 neither opportunity nor desire to lie down, except while 
 giving her the breast. At such times I lay down upon 
 the bed and fell asleep. At night I was often busied in 
 making for my patients a lemonade of salts of wormwood, 
 mixed with lemon-juice, sugar, and water; by which means, 
 as all the sick in the house had them, I used up, in the 
 space of two weeks, two full boxes of lemons, each box 
 containing five hundred. 
 
 "We remained the entire summer of 1780 upon this 
 lovely estate. Two Miss Robinsons came to share oui 
 loneliness and enliven our little company. They remained 
 with us a fortnight previous to our return to the 
 city, when the news of the arrival of a ship from 
 Eno-land, bringing over the latest fashions, took them back 
 again to the town. On our return to the city I scarcely 
 recognized them in their odd and actually laughable garb, 
 which a very pretty woman, just over from England, had 
 
268 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 imposed upon them and the other New York ladies. This 
 lady was with child, and did not wish it to be known. 
 Accordingly, she made them think that in England they 
 wore bodices that were parted in the middle, whereby the 
 points stuck upward, hoops as large around as those of a 
 hogshead, and very short cloaks tied up with ribbons, all 
 of which they believed implicitly, and copied after.* 
 
 " Upon our return to New York we were received in 
 the most friendly manner, and our friends vied with each 
 other in making the winter pass most pleasantly. My 
 husband, General Phillips, and their aids-de-camp, were 
 finally exchanged in the autumn of 1780, but the rest of 
 the troops captured at Saratoga remained prisoners. 
 
 "General Clinton, partly through friendship to my 
 husband, and partly out of attachment to oiu- present 
 duke, wished to place General Riedesel in active service, 
 where he could serve to advantage. He, therefore, by 
 virtue of the power which an English general has in his 
 own army, appointed him Lieutenant-General, and gave 
 him the corresponding English allowance ; which, on 
 account of the dearness of everything (by reason of which 
 we had difficulty in making both ends meet), proved very 
 acceptable to us. At the same time he gave him a com- 
 mand at Long Island, which island lies opposite New York, 
 being separated from it by only a narrow channel called 
 
 * The taste for fasliionable frivolity and display seems to have been the 
 only thing unaflfected by the privations of that gloomy winter. Eugene Law- 
 rence, in speaking of New York city at this time, in a paper read before the 
 New York Historical Society, January 6th, 1857, says : " Meanwhile, in the 
 midst of all this suffering and want, the city streets were filled with the fash- 
 ions and the luxuries of Europe. The ladies crowded William Street, and the 
 merchants spread out the most costly wares. French silks, captured in some 
 unlucky vessels, sold readily at extravagant rates. Lutestrings and popling. 
 brocades, and the best broadcloth of England, were shown on the counters of 
 William Street and Wall ; and it is a curious circumstance, that, through all 
 the war, William Prince, of Flushing, continued his advertisement of fruit 
 and flowers, of magnolias and apricots, and of the finest grafts and the rarest 
 Beeds." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 269 
 
 the East River. I was not able during the winter to be 
 with him, as the house in which he had his quarters was 
 not habitable for me, as it was possible to heat only a few 
 rooms in it. My husband, accordingly, went back and 
 forth, which he easily did all winter, as everything was 
 quiet. The autumn before he was appointed to this post, 
 he had a severe relapse of his old complaint, caused prob- 
 ably by a cold which he caught by going in sea-bathing 
 while heated. He suddenly became perfectly stiff, and 
 could not speak ; and had it not been for friend Colonel 
 Warmb, who fortunately was in his room, it might, per- 
 haps, have been all over with him. The doctor immedi- 
 ately opened a vein and rubbed him strongly, and God 
 once more spared him to me ; but his cramps, oppressions, 
 headaches, and drowsiness increased. All the physicians 
 gave it as their opinion that the climate thoroughly disa- 
 greed with him, and that he never would be any better as 
 long as he remained in the Southern provinces of North 
 America. Still, there was nothing else for us to do. My 
 husband could not think of receiving permission to leave, 
 and was, therefore, obliged to remain at his post. 
 
 " In the spring of 1781, I also settled down on Long 
 Island, where we, although pretty lonesome, might have 
 lived perfectly contented if we only could have ^^^^ 
 been without solicitude ; but, as the river was not 
 frozen over, the Americans constantly attempted surprises 
 in order to take prisoners. Major Maybaum was drawn 
 out of his bed, and we knew that they aimed to do the 
 same thing with my husband. Our house was situated 
 close to the shore, and was perfectly isolated, so that if they 
 had overcome the watch, they could easily have carried 
 him away. Every one was therefore constantly on the 
 watch. Throughout the entire night, at the slightest noise, 
 he would wake up and place himself in readiness for an 
 attack, and thus he lost considerable sleep. I also became 
 
270 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 SO accustomed to watching, that daylight would often sur- 
 prise me, when I would lie down and catch a few hours' 
 sleep ; for it was only when my husband believed that I 
 was wide-awake and on guard, that he would allow him- 
 self to sleep, so t-errible was to him the thought that he 
 might again be taken prisoner. We had from our house 
 a magnificent prospect. Every evening I saw from my 
 window the City of New York, entirely lighted up ; and, 
 as the city is built close to the shore, I saw its reflection 
 in the water. We heard, also, the beating of the drums ; 
 and, if everything was particularly still, even the calls of 
 the sentinels. We had our own boat, and could cross over 
 in it to New York in a quarter of an hour." 
 
 During the Revolution, the house No. 1 Broadway — to 
 which allusion has been made on a preceding page — was 
 the head-quarters and general rendezvous of the British 
 generals and other army officers.* In like manner, 
 
 * Connected with the house No. 1 Broadway, built in 1743, and now the oldest 
 house in New York city, there is quite an amusing reminiscence. Previous 
 to this year (1743; the site was occupied by an old tavern kept by a Mrs. Kocks, 
 built fifty years before by her husband, Pieter Koqks, an officer iu the Dutch 
 service, and an active leader in the Indian war of 1693. Connected with this 
 personage there is an interesting as well as amusing episode. According to 
 Judge Daly, in The Historical Magazine for January, 1671, it appears that in 
 1654 this same Pieter Kocks, then a single man, residing in New Amsterdam, 
 brought an action, in the Court of Burgomeisters and Sehepens, against Anna 
 Van Vorst, who is described as a maid living at Ahasimus, for a breach of 
 promise of marriage mutually entered into between them, in confirmation of 
 which he had made her certain gifts. It would seem, however, as the record 
 states, that the lady had misgivings, and was not disposed to marry him. On 
 her part, she proved, by two witnesses, that he had agreed to give her up, and 
 had promised to give her an acquittal in writing. But the court would not 
 excuse her ; " as the promise of mariage," says the court, " was made before 
 the Omnipotent (Jod, it shall remain in force ; " and they held that neither 
 should marry any other person without the approval of the court ; that the 
 presents should remain with the lady until they were married, or until, by 
 mutual consent, they were exempted from the contract ; and they were equally 
 condemned in the costs of the suit. This Anna Van Vorst is supposed to have 
 been a daughter of the first emigrant by Vrouwtje Ides, and was the ancestor 
 of our fellow-citizen Hon. Hooper C. Van Vorst. 
 
 .-ince speaking of this house on page 152, a writer in the New York Everts 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 271 
 
 the Beekman House (the site of the present Journal of Com- 
 merce Building) was at the same time the head-quarters of 
 the British naval officers. This continued to be so during 
 the entire war, and, indeed, had been so before the Revolu- 
 tion. Admirals Charles Hardj (Admiral of the Blue) and 
 John Digby (Admiidl ot the Red) were often here The 
 
 THE TOMBS. 
 
 late King of England, William IV, who, as the Duke of 
 Clarence and a midshipman, came over here with Admiral 
 Digby, in the St. George, in 1782, made this house his 
 place of resort on shore. His German tastes were shown 
 hj his taking every occasion, when off duty, to skate 
 on the Kolck or Collect Pond (now the site of the 
 
 ing Post has given currency again to the story that it was built by Captain 
 Kennedy. Let this question be forever set at rest. The Watts family acquired 
 the ownership to the propeity of No. 1 Broadway through Sir Peter, Admi- 
 ral Warren, who, as stated on page 152, built the house. Captain Archi- 
 bald Kennedy, who, late in life, succeeded to the Scotch Earldom of Cassilis, 
 married a daughter of John Watts — a niece of Sir John Johnson's wife, nee 
 Miss Mary Watts — and hy this marriage acquired the property in question.- 
 2his is all the c-onnection that Kennedy ever had with the house in dispute. 
 
272 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Tombs). His companion on these occasions was Gulian 
 Verplanck*— the grand-uncle of the late Gulian C. 
 Verplanck— who once rescued him from drowning when 
 he had broken through the ice and fallen into the 
 Pond. The changes which have taken place from time 
 to time in the lines of roads and streets, have greatly 
 altered the aspect of the entire neighborhood. The calm 
 and quiet life of the ancient Hollanders in this locahty has 
 given place to scenes of which they had little dreamed. 
 Within a stone's-throw of the Journal of Commerce Build- 
 ing, Wall Street, with its fibers stretching out into every 
 part of the civilized globe, controls the destinies of millions 
 of human beings. Where the good Mrs. Beekman and her 
 five daughters attended to their household duties in the 
 old Dutch kitchen, a steam-engine now drives a printing- 
 press. Where they sat waiting for news from "home" by 
 ships that were months in coming, editors now sit, and 
 receive in the afternoon the morning's news in England 
 and Holland, t 
 
 At length a definite treaty of peace was entered into 
 by the United States and Great Britain on the 3d of Sep- 
 tember, 1783 ; and on the 25th of November of the same 
 year— just seven years, two months, and ten days 
 from the time the British had occupied New York 
 in triumph — Washington entered the city at noon — at the 
 
 * Afterward President of the Bank of New York, in which office he contin- 
 ued until his death, in 1V99. 
 
 f William Beekman had a country-seat three miles from the City Hal) , and 
 a house on his plantation in the lower part of the city. His down-town house 
 was located on the spot which is now the site of the Jo-urncd of Commerce 
 building. The old road to the fort, from the ferry on the East River, then at 
 Peck Slip, ran along the shore nearly to the foot of Wall Street, when it 
 turned and passed the Beekman House, which was probably erected with 
 reference to this highway. In 1713, a negro riot broke out near Hanover 
 Square, and Adrian Beekman (a son of Gerard, who had been owner of this 
 and other property), rushing out of his residence to help quell the insurrec- 
 tion, was stabbed by a negro. As a result of this riot, nineteen slaves were 
 executed. 
 
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 273 
 
 same time that the British troops, having, as they sup- 
 posed, prevented the immediate hoisting of American 
 colors, by knocking off the cleats and greasing the flag- 
 staff on Fort George, evacuated the city and sailed slowly 
 down the bay. But this device availed them little. 
 New cleats were at once nailed to the pole ; and before 
 the British disappeared in the offing they heard the thun- 
 ders of American cannon, proclaiming, as the Stars and 
 Stripes were run up, the downfall of British supremacy 
 in America ! 
 
 : <21^^^^l 11^^^^ 
 
 THE BOWLING GBEEN AND FORT OE0E6B IN 1783. 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A HISTORY of this period would be incomplete without 
 an allusion to the newspapers published in the City of 
 New York before and during the American Revolution. 
 
 The first newspaper published in New York city was 
 the New York Gazette, established by William Bradford in 
 October, 1725, just twenty-one years subsequent to the 
 establishment at Boston of the first newspaper pub- 
 lished in America — the Newsletter. It was printed 
 on a half sheet of foolscap, with large and almost worn- 
 out type. There is a large volume of these papers in the 
 New York Society Library, in good preservation. The 
 advertisements do not average more than three or four a 
 week, and arc mostly of runaway negroes. The ship-news 
 was diminutive enough — now and then a ship and some 
 half-dozen sloops arriving and leaving in the course of the 
 week. Such was the daily paper published in this, the 
 commercial metropolis of America, one hundred and forty- 
 six years ago ! 
 
 Eight years after the establishment of Bradford's 
 Gasette, the New York Weekly Journal was commenced by 
 John Peter Zenger, and was distinguished for the raciness 
 of its advertisements.* 
 
 * One of these advertisements was as follows : 
 
 "Whereas, the wife of Peter Smith has left liis bed and board, the public 
 are cautioned against trusting her, as he will pay no debts of her contracting. 
 
 " N. B. — The best of garden-seeds sold by the same Peter Smith, at the sign 
 of the Golden Hammer." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 275 
 
 The third paper published in New York was called 
 the Evening Post. It was commenced by Henry 
 De Forest in 1746. It was remarkable chiefly for 
 stupidity, looseness of syntax, and worse orthography, 
 and died before it was able to walk alone. 
 
 In 1752, the New York Mercury was commenced, and, in 
 1763, the title was changed to the New York Gazette 
 and Weekly Mercury. This paper was established by Hugh 
 Gaine at the sign of the Bible and Crown, Hanover 
 Square. It was conducted with taste and ability, 
 and became the best newspaper in the colonies. ^^^^' 
 In 1763, Gaine was arraigned by the Assembly for pub- 
 lishing a part of the proceedings without permission, and 
 withal incorrectly. He was a gentleman of a kind spirit, 
 and never had the power to withhold an apology when it 
 was asked ; -he accordingly apologized, was reprimanded, 
 and discharged. 
 
 As the storm of war drew on in 1775, the Mercury 
 contained a series of patriotic papers, under the signature 
 of the " Watch-Tower. " But as the British drew near to 
 New York, the patriotism of Gaine began to cool ; and, 
 during the whole course of the Revolutionary War, his 
 Mercury afforded very accurate indications of the state 
 of the contest. When with the Whigs, Hugh Gaine was 
 a Whig ; when with the Royalists, he was loyal. When 
 the contest was doubtful, equally doubtful was the 
 politics of Hugh Gaine. In short, he was the most per- 
 fect pattern of the genuine non-committal. On the arrival 
 of the British "army, he removed to Newark, but soon 
 returned to the city, and published a paper devoted to the 
 cause of the Crown. His course was a fruitful theme for 
 the wags of the day ; and, at the peace, a poetical petition 
 from Gaine to the Senate of the State, setting forth his 
 life and conduct, was got up with a good deal of humor. 
 His paper closed with the war. 
 
276 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Another paper, called the New York Gasette, was com- 
 menced by Wayman, the former associate of Parker. In 
 1766, Wayman was arrested and imprisoned for a 
 contempt of the Assembly, upon no other charge 
 than that of two typographical errors in printing the 
 speech of Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of the colony. 
 One of these errors consisted in printing the word never 
 for ever, by reason of which the meaning of the sentence 
 was reversed. The Assembly, however, was more rigid 
 in this case, from the suspicion entertained that this error 
 was intentional ; but such was clearly not the case. 
 
 A paper called the Netv York Chronicle was published 
 during the years 1761-'62, and then died. The New York 
 Pacquet was next published in 1763, but how long it lived 
 is not known. In 1766, Holt established the N'ew York 
 Journal, or General Advertiser, which, in the course of the 
 year, was united with Parker's Gazette, the Journal being 
 printed as a separate paper. John Holt edited the first 
 Whig paper published in this city ; nor, as in the case of 
 Hugh Gaine, did his patriotism come and go as danger 
 approached or receded from the city. In 1774, Holt 
 discarded the King's arms from the title of his 
 
 1774. . " 
 
 paper, and substituted a serpent, cut into pieces, 
 with the expressive motto, " Unite or die." In 
 Januar}', 1775, the snake was united, and coiled with 
 the tail in its mouth, forming a double ring. On the 
 body of the snake, beginning at the head, were the fol- 
 lowing; lines : 
 
 ^o 
 
 " United now, alive and free — 
 Firm on tliis basis Liberty shall stand, 
 And, thus supported, ever bless our land, 
 Till time becomes Eternity." 
 
 The designs both of 1774 and 1775 were excellent— 
 the first by a visible illustration, showing the disjointed 
 state of the colonies ; and the second presenting an 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 277 
 
 emblem of their strength when united. Holt maintained 
 his integrity to the last. When the British took possession 
 of New York, he removed to Esopus (now Kingston), and 
 revived his paper. On the burning of that village by the 
 enemy in 1777, he removed to Poughkeepsie, and pub- 
 lished the Journal there until the peace of 1783, when he 
 returned to New York, and resumed his paper under the 
 title of the Independent Gasette, or the New York Journal 
 revived. Holt was an unflinching patriot, but did not long 
 survive the achievement of his country's freedom. He 
 fell a victim to the yellow fever in 1798. The paper was 
 continued by his widow for a little while, but ultimately 
 fell into the hands of that celebrated political gladiator, 
 James Cheetham. 
 
 The celebrated James Rivington began his paper in 
 1733, under the formidable title of Rivington's New York 
 Gazette; or, the Connecticut, New Jersetj, Hudson River, and 
 Quebec Weekly Advertiser. The imprint read as follows : 
 " Printed at his ever open and uninfluenced press, fronting 
 Hanover Square." It is well known that Rivington was 
 the royal printer during the whole of the Revolutionary 
 War ; and it is amusing to trace the degrees by which his 
 toryism manifested itself as the storm gathered over the 
 country. The title of the paper originally contained the 
 cut of a large ship under full sail. In 1774, the ship sailed 
 out of sight, and the King's arms appeared in its place; 
 and in 1775, the words ever open and uninfluenced were 
 withdrawn from the imprint. These symptoms were dis- 
 liked by the patriots of the country ; and, in November, 
 1775, a party of armed men from Connecticut entered the 
 city on horseback, beset his habitation, broke into his 
 printing-office, destroyed his presses, and threw his types 
 into JO?. They then carried them away, melted, and cast 
 them into bullets. Rivington's paper was now effectually 
 stopped, until the British army took possession of the city. 
 
278 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Rivington himself, meantime, had been to England, where 
 he procured a new printing apparatus, and, returning, 
 established the New York Royal Gazette, published by 
 James Rivington, printer to the King's most excellent 
 Majesty. During the remaining five years of the war, 
 Rivington's paper was more distinguished for its lies and 
 its disloyalty than any other journal in the colonies. It was 
 published twice a week ; and four other newspapers were 
 published in this city at the same time, under the sanc- 
 tion of the British officers, — one arranged for each day, 
 so that, in fact, they had the advantages of a daily paper. 
 It has been said and believed that Rivington, after all, 
 was a secret traitor to the Crown, and, in fact, the secret 
 spy for General Washington. Be this, however, as it 
 may, as the war drew to a close, and the prospects of the 
 King's arms began to darken, Rivington's loyalty began 
 to cool down ; and by 1787 the King's arms had 
 
 1T87. . . . . . 
 
 disappeared ; the ship again sailed into sight ; and 
 the title of the paper, no more the Royal Gazette, was 
 simply Rivingtonh New York Gazette and Universal Ad- 
 vertiser. But, although he labored to play the repub- 
 lican, he was distrusted by the people, and his paper was 
 relinquished in the course of that year. 
 
 From this brief sketch of the history of newspapers, 
 from their first introduction into th(! city down to the 
 period of the Revolution, an idea may be formed of the 
 germ of the newspaper-press, which is now one of the 
 chief glories of our country. The public press of no other 
 country equals that of New York city and the United 
 States, either on the score of its moral or its intellectual 
 power, or for the exertion of that manly independence of 
 thought and action, which ought ever to characterize the 
 press of a free people.* 
 
 * The whole nvunber of periodicals issued in the United States is 5,983, with 
 73 to be added for the Territories, 353 for the Dominion of Canada, and 29 for 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK; CITY. 279 
 
 What a prophet would the great wizard-novelist of 
 Scotland have been, had the prediction which he put into 
 the mouth of Galeotti Martivalle, the astrologer of Louis 
 the Eleventh, in the romance of Quentin Durward, been 
 written at the period of its date ! Louis, who has justly 
 been held as the Tiberius of France, is represented as 
 paying a visit to the mystic workshop of the astrologer, 
 whom his majesty discovered to be engaged in the then 
 newly-invented art of multiplying manuscripts by the 
 intervention of machinery, — in other words, the apparatus 
 of printing. 
 
 the British colonies, — making a grand total of 6,438 ; of which 637 are daily, 118 
 tri-weekly, 139 semi-weekly, 4,643 weekly, 31 biweekly, 100 semi-monthly, 715 
 monthly, 14 bimonthly, and 62 quarterly. New York State has the largest 
 number of publications — 894 (of which 371 are published and printed in New 
 York city), and Nevada has the smallest number issued in any State — only 15. 
 Nevada has more daily than weekly papers, and is unique in this respect, 
 every other State having from three to twelve times as many weeklies as dailies. 
 Tri-weekly papers are more common in the South than semi-weeklies, while in 
 the Northern States the facts are reversed. 
 
 New York has 89 dailies, being the largest number published in any State, 
 Pennsylvania is second, with 61. Next comes Illinois, with 38 ; and California 
 has 34, being the fourth on the list. Delaware and Florida have each one 
 daily paper. Kansas has as many as Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, and 
 Arkansas combined. Nebraska and Nevada have each more dailies than either 
 Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Arkansas, 
 Delaware, Florida, Maine, or Mississippi. 
 
 Of the 73 publications issued regularly in the Territories, 13 are daily 
 50 weekly, 3 tri-weekly, 4 semi-weekly, 1 monthly, 1 semi-monthly, and ], 
 biweekly. 
 
 The papers of New York State have the largest circulation, averaging 7,411 
 each issue. Massachusetts is second, with 5,709 average ; then comes the 
 District of Columbia, with 4,323. As New York papers circulate everywhere, 
 while those of California do not go very much oat of the State, it is evident 
 that the papers have a better local support than in other States of the 
 American Union. 
 
 In the District of Columbia there is one newspaper published for every 
 three square miles of territory. Massachusetts has one to 30 square miles, and 
 Rhode Island one to 50. Then comes New York, with one to f)7. Connecticut 
 has one to 60, New Jersey one to 63, Texas one to 3,345, Florida one to 3,693 ; 
 while in the Territories one newspaper spreads its circulation over no less than 
 14,465 square miles. 
 
 For the names of the publications published in New York city, the curious 
 reader is referred to the American Newspaper Directory, of this city. 
 
280 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " Can things of such mechahical and terrestrial im- 
 port," inquired the King, " interest the thoughts of one 
 before whom Heaven has unrolled her own celestial 
 volumes 7 " 
 
 " My brother," replied the astrologer, " believe me, 
 that, in considering the consequences of this invention, I 
 read with as certain augury, as by any combination of the 
 heavenly bodies, the most awful and portentous changes. 
 When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the 
 stream of science hath hitherto descended to us ; how dif- 
 ficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search; 
 how certain to be neglected by all who love their ease ; 
 how liable to be diverted or altogether dried up by the 
 invasions of barbarism, — can I look forward without won- 
 der and astonishment to the lot of a succeeding genera- 
 tion, on whom knowledge will descend like the first and 
 second rain, — uninterrupted^ unalated^ unbounded ; fertilizing 
 some grounds and overflowing others ; changing the whole 
 form of social life ; establishing and Overthrowing relio-- 
 ions; erecting and destroying kingdoms — " 
 
 " Hold ! hold, Galeotti ! " cried the King-; " shall these 
 changes come in our time ? " , 
 
 "No, my royal brother," replied Martivalle ; "this 
 invention may be likened to a young tree which is now 
 newly planted, but shall, in succeeding generations, bear 
 fruit as fatal, yet as precious, as that of the Garden of 
 Eden,— the knowledge, namely, of good and of evil." 
 
THIED PEEIOD. 
 
 1783—1871. 
 
 From the Evacuation of New York City by tlie Britisli to the present day. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " The city is ruined by the war, but its future great- 
 ness is unquestionable." So wrote a citizen of New York, at 
 the close of the Revolutionary War, to a friend ; and never 
 was there a truer prophecy uttered. The trade 
 of the city was indeed " ruined ; " her treasury was 
 empty ; and her people were yet divided by domestic 
 feuds. StUl, this state of things could not last long. The 
 position of New York among the colonies had already 
 become too important to be ignored for any length of 
 time ; and the same causes which, at an early period, 
 made New York the center of the colonial interest, were 
 to continue in operation until she should become that 
 which she now is, — the metropolis of America. The Colo- 
 nial Congress of 1765, the Provincial Congress of 1776, 
 the selection of herself as the seat of the General Govern- 
 ment in 1788, and the inauguration of Washington in 
 1789, were " all hints of the empire that was to be." 
 
 36 
 
282 'HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 On the loth of September, 17^8, the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution was publicly announced ; and New 
 York was chosen as the seat of the General Gov- 
 "^^' ernment. This action of the Convention was 
 peculiarly gratifying to the citizens of New York, who at 
 once took steps to celebrate the occasion with fitting 
 ceremonies.* 
 
 It is well known that the festivities attendant upon 
 such a momentous occasion should be embalmed for 
 American generations yet unborn. The adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution — the instrument which was to bind 
 the almost disjointed members of the republic together, 
 as one people — was the most important event that the 
 citizens of New York had ever been called upon to com- 
 memorate. The period intervening between the formation 
 of the Constitution by the Convention, and its adoption 
 by the number of States requisite to give it validity, was 
 one of deep anxiety to the patriots of that day, not un- 
 mingled with fears as to the final result. A violent 
 opposition sprung up in various parts of the Confederation, 
 which was so successfully fomented by demagogues, and 
 by those Avho feared they might lose weight in the national 
 scale, should the new Federal edifice be erected, that the 
 friends of the Constitution, seeing nothing better than civil 
 tumult and anarchy in the prospective, should that instru- 
 ment be rejected, entertained the most lively apprehen- 
 
 * The account given in the text of the Procession in honor of the adoption 
 of the Federal Constitution, as well as the narrative of the Inauguration 
 Bai,l, is taken from the writings of the late Colonel William L. Stone, for thirty 
 years the editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser. It is believed to 
 comprise the only faithful historical record, political, festive, and fashionable, 
 of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the organization of the Govern- 
 ment, the pageantry attending it, and the demonstrations which followed that 
 important epoch in our national history. The particulars were collected by 
 Colonel Stone, with much care and labor, from such printed accounts as could 
 be found in the scattered remnants of the little dingy newspapers of that day, 
 and. also, such facts as were yet dimly floating in the recollections of those few 
 who were then survi\-iag and had been actors in the scenes described. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 283 
 
 sions upon the subject. There were, likewise, among the 
 opponents of the proposed Constitution, some good men 
 and real patriots, who honestly believed, that, in the event 
 of its adoption, too much power would pass from the 
 States to the Federal Congress and the Executive. The 
 ablest tongues and pens in the Union were brought into 
 action ; and it was that contest which combined the united 
 wisdom of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, in the Federalist, — 
 the ablest exposition of the Constitution that ever has 
 been, or, perhaps, ever will be, written. 
 
 The action, however, of the respective States was slow. 
 The proceedings of their conventions were watched with 
 absorbing interest ; and, when it was found that the voice 
 of New York would turn the scale (the Convention being 
 in session in Poughkeepsie), all eyes were eagerly turned 
 toward that quarter. The chief reason of New York's 
 reluctance to come into the Constitutional Union was the 
 fear — in view of the rising destiny of their city and State — 
 of making over too much of their local power to the 
 central Government ; especially their great share of rev- 
 enue from imports, and their commanding position between 
 New England and the South and West. The contest, 
 however, was not long in doubt. Hamilton redoubled his 
 wonderful efforts, and Livingston put the whole energies 
 of his capacious mind in requisition, and the Federalists 
 triumphed. The news was received in New York city 
 with unbounded delight ; the clubs celebrated the event 
 with dinners and great festivity, and the citizens gave, 
 themselves up to the most unequivocal evidences of grati- 
 fication. But private manifestations of the public feehng 
 were held not to be worthy of the occasion, and no time 
 was lost in concerting the necessary measures for a public 
 commemoration of the event, upon the most extensive and 
 splendid scale that the public means would allow. Nor 
 has the pageantry of any American celebration since that 
 
284 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 day — not even excepting the Atlantic Cable Celebration 
 of 1859 — excelled il in the ardor of its enthusiasm, or in 
 the splendor of its effect. In describing the procession on 
 this occasion, Colonel Stone says : — 
 
 " The procession was organized ' in the fields,' above 
 the city ; thence it moved down Broadway to Great Dock 
 Street ; thence through Hanover Square and Queen (now 
 Pearl) Street, up to Chatham ; through Chatham to 
 Division, and thence across, through Bullock Street, to 
 the grounds surrounding the country-seat of Nicholas 
 Bayard, near the present junction of Broadway and 
 Grand Street. 
 
 " A volume would scarce suffice to detail the par- 
 ticulars necessarj^ to a full description of the flags and 
 emblems, and patriotic decorations, which graced tlie many 
 divisions and subdivisions of this brilliant pageant — alto- 
 gether exceeding anything of a kindred character pre- 
 viously exhibited in the New World. After a brilliant 
 military escort came Captain Moore, in the character and 
 ancient costume of Christopher Columbus, preceded and 
 followed by a band of foresters, with axes, suitably ap- 
 pareled. The next division consisted of a large number 
 of farmers, among whom were Nicholas Cruger, driving a 
 six-ox team, and the present venerable John Watts, hold- 
 ing a plow. All the implements of husbandry and 
 gardening were borne in the procession, and the Baron 
 Poelnitz attended a threshing-machine. Their horses 
 were handsomely caparisoned, and led by boys in white 
 uniforms The tailors made a very brilliant display of 
 numbers, uniforms, and decorations of various descriptions. 
 In the procession of the bakers were boys in beautiful 
 dresses, representing the several States, with roses in their 
 hands. There were likewise an equal number of journey- 
 men in appropriate uniforms, with the implements of the 
 calling, and a loaf of bread was borne in the procession 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 285 
 
 ten feet long and three wide, on which were inscribed the 
 names of the several States. The display of the brewers 
 was happily conceived, and appropriate. In addition to 
 their banners Muttering gayly in the air, they paraded cars 
 with hogsheads and tuns, decorated with festoons of hop- 
 vines, intertwined with handfuls of barley. Seated on 
 the top of a tun was a living Bacchus — a beautiful boy of 
 eight years old — dressed in flesh-colored silk, fitted snugly 
 to the limbs, and thus disclosing all the fine symmetrical 
 proportions of his body. In his hand he held a silver 
 goblet, with which he quaffed the nut-brown, and on his 
 head was a garland of hops and barley-ears. The coopers 
 appeared in great numbers. Their emblem of the States 
 were thirteen boys, each thirteen years of age, dressed in 
 white, with green ribbons at their ankles, a keg under 
 their left arms, and a bough of white oak in their right 
 hands. Upon an immensely large car, drawn by horses 
 appropriately adorned, the coopers were at work. They 
 liad a broken cask, representing the old confederacy, the 
 staves of which all their skill could not keep together. In 
 despair at the repeated nullification which their work ex- 
 perienced, they all at once betook themselves to the con- 
 struction of an entirely new piece of work. Their success 
 was complete, and a fine, tight, iron-bound keg arose from 
 their hand, bearing the name of the New Constitution. 
 The procession of butchers was long, and their appearance 
 highly respectable. Upon the car in their procession was 
 a roasted ox, of a thousand pounds, which was given as a 
 sweet morsel to the hungiy multitude at the close of the 
 day. The car of the sons of St. Crispin was drawn by 
 four milk-white steeds, beautifully caparisoned. The 
 tanners, curriers, and peruke-makers followed next in 
 order, each with various banners and significant emblems. 
 The furriers, from the novelty of their display, attracted 
 great attention. It was truly picturesque. Their marshal 
 
286 
 
 HISTOKT OF NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 was followed by an Indian in his native costume and 
 armor, as though coming wild from the wilderness, laden 
 with raw furs for the market. A procession of journey- 
 men furriers followed, each bearing some dressed or manu- 
 factured article. These were succeeded by a horse 
 bearing two packs of furs, and a huge bear sitting upon 
 each. The horse was led by an Indian in a beaver" 
 blanket, and black plumes waving upon his head. In the 
 rear came one of their principal men, dressed in a superb 
 scarlet blanket, wearing an elegant cap and plumes, and 
 smoking a tomahawk pipe. After these, in order, marched 
 the stone-masons, brick-layers, painters and glaziers, cabinet 
 and chair makers, musical-instrument makers, and the 
 upholsterers. The decorations of the societies vied with 
 each other in taste and variety, but that of the upholsterers 
 excelled. The Federal chair of state was borne upon a 
 car superbly carpeted, and above which was a rich canopy, 
 nineteen feet high, overlaid with deep-blue satin, hung 
 with festoons and fringes, and glittering in the sun as with 
 ' barbaric pearl and gold'. It was sufficiently gorgeous to 
 have filled the eye of a Persian emperor, in the height of 
 Oriental splendor and magnificence. Twelve subdivisions 
 of various trades succeeded in the prescribed order, after 
 which came the most imposing part of the pageant. It 
 was the Federal ship Hamilton, — a perfectly-constructed 
 frigate of thirty-two guns, twenty-seven feet keel, and ten 
 feet beam, with galleries and everything complete and in- 
 proportion, both hull and rigging. She was manned by 
 thirty seamen and marines, with officers, all in uniform, 
 and commanded by that distinguished Revolutionary 
 veteran, Commodore Nicholson. The ship was drawn by 
 ten horses ; and, in the progress of the procession, went 
 through every nautical preparation and movement for 
 storms, calms, and squalls, and for the sudden shifting of 
 winds. In passing Liberty Street, she made a signal for a 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. ,287 
 
 pilot, and a boat came off and put one on board. On 
 arriving before Constable's house, Mrs. Edgar came to the 
 window, and presented the ship with a suit of rich silk 
 colors ; the yards were instantly manned, and the sailors 
 gave three hearty cheers. When passing Old Slip, a 
 Spanish government-ship gave her a salute of thirteen 
 guns, which was returned by the Hamilton with as much 
 promptness as though she had actually been a ship of 
 war upon the wide ocean. Next after the ship came the 
 pilots and the Marine Society. To these succeeded the 
 printers, book-binders, and stationers, led by those veterans 
 of the type and quill, Hugh Gaine and Samuel Landon. 
 They had a car, upon which the printers were at work ; 
 the press was plied briskly, and impressions of a patriotic 
 ode distributed, as they were taken, among the multitude. 
 Their banners were worthy of their proud vocation. To 
 these succeeded twenty-one subdivisions, of as many 
 different trades, each moving under its own banners ; after 
 which followed the learned professions and the literary 
 societies. The lawyers were preceded by John Lawrence, 
 Esq., supported by John Cozine and Robert Troup. The 
 Philological Society, headed by Josiah Ogden Hoffman, 
 Esq., the president, was the next. One of the founders of 
 this society was Noah Webster, LL. D., the great American 
 lexicographer, who was in the procession. The standard 
 was borne by William Dunlap, Esq. The officers and 
 •members of the university came next, and their successors 
 were the Chamber of Commerce and merchants, headed 
 by John Broome^ president. William Maxwell, vice- 
 president of the Bank, followed in a chariot, and William 
 Laight, the secretary, was mounted upon a noble steed. 
 Physicians, strangers, and gentlemen who were members 
 of Congress, then in session in New York, closed the civic 
 procession ; and the whole was brought up by a detach- 
 ment of artillery. 
 
288 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " The procession contained nearly five thousand people ; 
 and the spectacle was more solemn and imposing, and 
 more truly splendid, than had ever before been presented 
 to the eye of man on the American continent. It was, 
 indeed, a pageant of indescribable interest, and, to most, 
 of double attraction ; the occasion being one in which the 
 deepest sympathies were enlisted, and it being also the 
 first display of pomp and circumstance which they had 
 ever witnessed. The whole population of the city had 
 given themselves up to the enjoyment of the occasion ; and 
 gladness, in all its fullness, was depict-ed in every counte- 
 nance, while a noble enthusiasm swelled every bosom. 
 The bond of union was complete, and every man felt as 
 though his coimtry had been rescued, in the last hour, 
 from the most imminent peril. 
 
 " When the procession reached the country-seat of 
 Nicholas Bayard, a noble banquet was found already 
 spread for the whole assemblage, beneath a grand pavil- 
 ion temple covering a surface of eight by six hundred 
 feet, with plates for six thousand people. This splendid 
 rural structure had been erected in the short space of four 
 days, and the citizens were indebted for it to the taste and 
 enterprise of Major L'Enfant, by whom it was designed, 
 and under whose direction the work was executed. The 
 two principal sides of the building consisted of three large 
 pavilions, connected by a colonnade of about one hundred 
 and fifty feet front, and forming two sides of an obtuse' 
 angle ; the middle pavilion, rising majestically above the 
 whole, terminated with a dome, on the top of which was 
 Fame, with her trumpet, proclaiming a new era, and liold- 
 ing in her left hand the standard of the United States, and 
 a roll of parchment on which were inscribed, in large char- 
 acters, the three remarkable epochs of the War of the 
 Revolution, — the Declaration of Independence, the Alli- 
 ance with France, and the Peace of 1783. At her side 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 289 
 
 was the American eagle, with extended wings^ resting on 
 a crown of laurel gracing the top of the pedestal. Over 
 six of the principal pillars of this colonnade, escutcheons 
 were placed, inscribed with the ciphers of the several 
 powers in alliance with the United States, viz. : France, 
 Spain, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, Morocco; and over these 
 were displayed the colors of those respective nations, which 
 added greatly to the brilliancy of the entablature, already 
 decorated with festoons and branches of laurels. The 
 extremities of this angle were joined by a table forming 
 part of a circle, and from this ten more colonnades were 
 extended, each four hundred and forty feet in length, radi- 
 ating like the rays of a circle ; the whole having one 
 common center, which was also the center of the middle 
 pavilion, where sat the President of Congress. At the 
 . extremity of each colonnade was a pavilion, nearly simi- 
 lar to the three before mentioned, having their outsides 
 terminated in a pediment crowned with escutcheons, on 
 which were inscribed the names of the States now united. 
 The whole of the colonnades were adorned with curtains 
 elegantly folded, and with wreaths and festoons of laurels 
 dispersed with beautiful and tasteful effect. The various 
 bands of music which had enlivened the march of the pro- 
 cession were concentrated in the area within the angle 
 first described, during the banquet, but so disposed as Hot 
 to intercept the prospect from the seat of the president, 
 through the whole length of the ten colonnades. The 
 repast concluded, the procession wa^ reorganized, and 
 marched again into the city, and was dismissed at the 
 Bowling Green, where the Federal ship fired a closing 
 
 salute." 
 
 Thus passed the 23d of July, 1788, in the City of New 
 
 York, a day which deserves to be remembered by the 
 
 patriot, the politician, and the philosopher, as that on 
 which the people of the first city in the Western World 
 
290 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 gave simultaneously the strongest and most enthusiastic 
 demonstration of their attachment to the great princi- 
 ples of "oiu" Federal Union," as those principles were 
 understood by the distinguished architects who formed 
 the civil structure. On that occasion all narrow and big- 
 oted distinctions were lost, and absorbed in that noblest 
 of passions, — the love of country, and the determination 
 to secure and preserve the blessings of civil and religious 
 liberty. Esto perpetua! 
 

 ././// /// ///, ' , ... 
 
 '/// // -■■ /.'/ 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The winter festivities of 1788-89, however, were suc- 
 ceeded by matters of a public nature, which quickened the 
 pulse of the politician, and excited a lively degree 
 of attention, not only in the City of New York, 
 but throughout the borders of the young republic. 
 The elections under the new Constitution had been held ; 
 Washikgton — the man of all others " first in the hearts 
 of his countrymen " — had been spontaneously designated 
 by the people as their first Chief Magistrate under the new 
 system ; and the constituted authorities elect were about 
 to assemble in New York, to give action to the new polit- 
 ical machinery. Congress, consisting for the first time of 
 two branches, — a Senate and House of Representatives, — 
 was to meet on the 4th day of March, 1789 ; and the 
 thoughts of all were directed with deep solicitude to the 
 period at which their labors were to be commenced. 
 
 The day, "big with the fate of Rome," at length 
 arrived ; but it brought not a quorum of either House ; for 
 although the men 'of those days cannot be safely charged 
 with a deficiency of patriotism, yet they had no sinister 
 or ambitious purposes to accomplish, and, therefore, did 
 not assemble in organized bodies of partisans at the first 
 tap of the political drum. Adjourning over from day to 
 day, until nearly the " ides of March " had arrived, with- 
 out any accession being made to their numbers, on the 
 11th of that month the senators present jointly addressed 
 
292 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 a circular letter to the absentees, urging their prompt 
 attention to assist in putting the Government into opera- 
 tion. The request was repeated by letter on the 18 th. 
 
 The House of Representatives was similarly circum- 
 stanced. Only thirteen members appeared on the day 
 appointed, and these were from the five States of Massa- 
 chusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South 
 Carolina,— a commonwealth which, though always proud 
 and high-spirited, was then as anxious to come into the 
 Union as she seems since to have been to break out of it. 
 The members gathered in by degrees, though slowly ; and 
 the House, like the Senate, adjourned over daily, until the 
 1st of April, when a quorum appeared, and Frederick 
 Augustus Muhlenburgh, of Pennsylvania, was elected 
 Speaker. Among the most distinguished patriots then 
 present were Roger Sherman, Fisher Ames, Richard 
 Bland Lee, James Madison, Elias Boudinot, and Thomas 
 Tudor Tucker. 
 
 The members of the Senate came in still more tardily; 
 but, on the 6th of April, the arrival of Richard Henry 
 Lee, of Virginia, enabled them to form a quorum and 
 commence their labors. John Langdon was elected presi- 
 dent of the Senate, pro tern,, and Samuel A. Otis, secre- 
 tary. Both Houses thus being organized, they proceeded 
 to business, — their first act being to canvass the votes 
 returned for President and Vice-President, as prescribed 
 in the new Constitution. At the time the election by the 
 people was held, but ten States had placed themselves 
 within the pale of the new Constitution. The whole 
 number of votes cast was sixty-nine ; and so entirely did 
 the Father of his Country enjoy the affection of his chil- 
 dren, that, without the aid of caucuses, or nominating con- 
 ventions, every vote was given for George Washington. 
 " If we look over the catalogue of the first magistrates of 
 nations, whether thej' have been denominated presidents 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 293 
 
 or consuls, kings or princes, where shall we find one 
 whose commanding talents and virtues, whose overruling 
 good fortune, have so completely united all hearts and 
 voices in his favor, — who enjoyed the esteem and admi- 
 ration of foreign nations and his fellow-citizens with equal 
 unanimity 1 Qualities so uncommon are no common bless- 
 ing to the country that possesses them. But it was by 
 these great qualities, and their benign effects, that Provi- 
 dence had marked out the first head of this great nation, 
 with a hand so distinctly visible as to have been seen by 
 all men and mistaken by none." * By the Constitution, 
 while it bore the unadulterated impress of the wisdom of 
 its framers, and before it had been impaired by amend- 
 ment, the candidate receiving the second highest number 
 of votes was to be declared the Vice-President. The lot 
 fell upon one who, during the whole combat of the Revo- 
 olution, had been in the halls of legislation what his illus- 
 trious compeer had been in the field, — first in wisdom and 
 foremost in action.t 
 
 The gratifying result having been thus ascertained 
 agreeably to the constitutional forms, Charles Thomson, 
 the secretary of the old Congress, was dispatched to 
 Mount Vernon, as a commissioner, to notify the chieftain 
 of his election. Meantime a discussion arose in both 
 Houses, resulting in an irreconcilable difference between 
 them, of a character at once delicate and interesting. It 
 called forth great talent, and first awakened those feelings 
 of democratic jealousy and distrust of titles and power, 
 of which we have seen so much since. Not that our mod- 
 ern republicans are opposed, per se, to titles of a subordi- 
 nate character, since for this species of distinction no 
 
 * Inaugural Address of the first Vice-President — the elder Adams. 
 
 f Tlie vote .stood as follows : George Washington, 69 ; John Adams, 34 ; 
 John Jay, 9; Robert H. Harrison, 6; John Rutledge, 6 ; John Hancocli, 4; 
 George Clinton, 3 ; Samuel Huntington, 8 ; John Milton, 8 ; and one each for 
 James Armstrong, Edward Telfair, and Beujaraiu Lincoln. 
 
294 HISTORY OP KEW YORK CITY. 
 
 people on earth appear so fond, or in fact enjoy so much, 
 or adhere to it with greater tenacity. Many of the most 
 respectable citizens were constant listeners to the debates 
 of which we have just been speaking ; for they were not 
 only interested in the principle involved, but loved to 
 study the characters of those noble spirits who were now 
 assembled to consummate the revolution which their wis- 
 dom and valor had achieved, by reducing the discordant 
 members of the republic to order, and adjusting the details 
 of a government, under the firm but harmonious action of 
 which, complicated as it was, it was hoped the principles 
 of civil and religious freedom would for ages find shelter 
 and protection. The question at issue was upon the 
 adoption of some respectful title by which the President 
 of the United States should be addressed in their ofiicial 
 intercourse with him. The first proposition in the Senate 
 was, that the official address should be " His Excellency." 
 But this was not considered as sufficiently elevated. It 
 was at length determined by that body, that the address 
 should be — " His Highness the President of the United 
 States, and the Protector of their Liberties." But the 
 House of Representatives obstinately refused to sanction 
 any title whatever, and declared that the constitutional 
 address — " To the President" — was the only title which, 
 as consistent republicans, they could sanction. Commit- 
 tees of conference were appointed, but to no purpose. The 
 indomitable spirit of the House of Representatives was 
 not to be moved. The Senate finally resolved " that it 
 would be proper to address the President by some respect- 
 ful title ; but, for the sake of harmony, they would for the 
 present act in conformity with the House of Representa- 
 tives." And thus the matter has rested to this day. 
 
 Summoned by the worthy messenger of Congress to 
 repair to the seat of government and assume the high 
 trust which had been conferred upon him by the people, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 295 
 
 the progress of the President-elect, from the shades of 
 Vernon to New York, was like a triumphant procession 
 along the whole distance. At Philadelphia he was met 
 by Governor St. Clair, General Mifflin, and other distin- 
 guished citizens, with the most rapturous enthusiasm. A 
 grand banquet was prepared, of which he partook ; and 
 addresses were presented to him from all classes of the 
 people, expressive of their gratitude for his past services, 
 their joy for his present elevation, and their confidence in 
 his future administration. As he passed through the 
 streets, the welkin rang with their joyous acclamations, 
 and shouts of "Long live George 'Washington, the father 
 of his people," resounded from thousands of voices. But, 
 however flattering would have been these spontaneous 
 marks of popular affection to ordinary mortals, the con- 
 duct of the great chief on the occasion illustrated the 
 republican virtue of dignified humility, and showed how 
 excellent is glory when earned by virtue. Instead of 
 assuming the pomp of royalty, or of any personal superior- 
 ity, he sought throughout to prove himself, not only the 
 friend of the people, but one of them. 
 
 An escort attended him from the hospitable city of 
 Penn, until he was received by the citizens of Trenton, 
 into which place he was 'conducted by the civil and mili- 
 tary authorities of New Jersey, with every patriotic 
 demonstration of respect and joy. This place had been 
 rendered memorable by the capture of the Hessians, and 
 by the repulse of the British troops near the bridge over 
 the Delaware, the night before the Battle of Trenton. 
 Recollecting these circumstances, the ladies of that city 
 formed and executed the design of testifying their grati- 
 tude to the chieftain for the protection of their daughters, 
 by celebrating those actions in their pageant. For this 
 purpose a triumphal arch was raised on the bridge, of 
 twenty feet span, supported by thirteen pillars, each of 
 
296 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 which was entwined with wreaths of evergreens. The 
 arch was covered with branches of laurel, and decorated 
 on the inside with evergreens and . flowers. Suitable in- 
 scriptions were tastefully disposed, intertwined with flow- 
 ers of various hues. On the center of the arch above 
 stood a dome bearing the dates of the glorious actions 
 referred to, inscribed in letters of gold, and enwreathed 
 with flowers. The summit of the dome displayed a large 
 sun-flower, which, directing to the sun, signified, in the 
 language of Flora, " To you alone" — an emblem of the 
 unanimity of the people in his favor. Assembled beneath 
 the arch were many ladies, surrounded by their daughters, 
 to welcome their former deliverer and defender. As the 
 chieftain passed beneath the arch, a choir of girls, dressed 
 in white, and crowned with wreaths and chaplets of 
 flowers, sung a sonata composed for the occasion, com- 
 mencing — 
 
 " Welcome, mighty chief, once more." 
 
 Each of the white-robed misses carried a basket of flowers, 
 which, as the concluding line was sung — 
 
 " Strew your hero's way with flowers," — 
 
 were scattered in the path as he advanced. The pageant 
 was simple and beautiful; and the General returned 
 thanks for the compliment in a card which was published 
 at the time, and in which the white-robed maidens were 
 particularly mentioned. 
 
 Thence to Elizabethtown, the journey of the chieftain 
 was a continued pageant, in which no means were left 
 untried by the people to testify their attachment to the 
 ruler of their choice. At this point, preparations had 
 been made to receive their illustrious fellow-citizen by the 
 authorities of New York. A splendid barge, constructed 
 for the occasion, and elegantly decorated, had been dis- 
 patched thither to receive the beloved soldier and states- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YOKK CITY. 297 
 
 man in a manner corresponding with his exalted character, 
 and the dignity of the station he was about to fill. The 
 barge was rowed by thirteen masters of vessels, — Thomas 
 Randall, Esq., acting as cockswain, and commanded by 
 Commodore Nicholson. A deputation from the Senate 
 and House of Representatives, together with the Chan- 
 cellor of. State, the Adjutant-General, and the Recorder 
 of the city, proceeded to Elizabethtown in the barge, 
 which was accompanied by two others, one being occupied 
 by the Board of the Treasury, and the other by the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of War. 
 
 The embarkation took place on the morning of April 
 23d — as clear and beautiful a day as could be desired. A 
 salvo of artillery announced the departure of the flotilla 
 from the Jersej' shore, and the spectacle, as the fleet of 
 boats which had joined the procession emerged from the 
 narrow pass of the Kills into the noble bay of New York, 
 was of the most animating description. From every point, 
 the smaller craft, of all kinds and degrees, sped their way 
 thither to join in the fleet. All the flags and nautical 
 decorations upon which hands could be laid for the occa- 
 sion were put in requisition, and were now fluttering in 
 the breeze, as the thousand boats danced lightly over the 
 blue waters, and the many thousands of oars, briskly plied, 
 flashed in the sunbeams, as with every stroke they were 
 lifted from the foam. Every ship in the harbor was gayly 
 dressed for the occasion, excepting the Galveston, a Spanish 
 man-of-war, which lay at anchor, displaying only her own 
 proper colors. The contrast which she presented when 
 compared with the splendid flags and streamers floating 
 from every other vessel in the bay, especially the govern- 
 ment-ship, the North Carolina, was universally observed, 
 and the neglect was beginning to occasion unpleasant 
 remarks ; when, as the barge of the General came abreast, 
 in an instant, as if by magic, the Spaniard displayed every 
 
 38 
 
298 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 flag and signal known among nations. This handsome 
 compliment was accompanied by a salute of thirteen guns. 
 Salutes were also fired from the North Carolina and the 
 Battery of thirteen guns each. 
 
 Stairs for the landing of the chieftain had been pre- 
 pared upon Murray's Wharf, on arriving at which a salute 
 was fired by a detachment of artillery commanded by 
 Captain Van Dyck. He was there received by Governor 
 Clinton, who made a congratulatory address on the occa- 
 sion ; together with the principal officers of the State, and 
 the Mayor and Corporation of the city. There was a very 
 large assemblage of people at the dock, waiting anxiously, 
 but not impatiently, for the moment when they could 
 greet the arrival of the great object of their proudest hopes 
 and affections, and gratify their desires of looking — many 
 of them again, and many others for the first time — upon 
 that noble form and godlilie countenance. There was no 
 crowding for rank, or struggle for places, but all were 
 respectful and decorous in their demeanor. One old man, 
 whose head was frosted by upward of seventy winters, 
 standing upon the wharf, was particularly noted as labor- 
 ing under deep and evident emotion. He succeeded in 
 grasping the hand of the chieftain, and, as he passed along, 
 audibly, but involuntarily, expressed himself as follows : — 
 " I have beheld him when commanding the American 
 armies ; I saw him at the conclusion of peace, returning 
 to the bosom of his family in his primeval habitiition ; and 
 now I behold him returning to take the chair of the 
 Presidentship. I have not now another wish but that he 
 may die as he has lived, the beloved of his country !" 
 
 From the landing, the chief was conducted by a 
 numerous procession, civil and military, through Queen 
 Street to the quarters of Governor Clinton, at Faunce's 
 Tavern,* the large and ancient structure yet standing in 
 
 * Also known as Bolton's and Sam Francis' Tavern. ' 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 299 
 
 Pearl Street, on the south-east corner of Broad. The 
 military portion of the procession consisted of Captain 
 Stokes's dragoons, Captain Van Dyck's artillery, the 
 German Guards of Captain Scriba, a detachment of in- 
 fantry under Captains Swartwout and Steddiford, and 
 the artillery of Colonel Bauman. Next came the Cor- 
 poration, with the public officers; the President elect 
 walked with Governor Clinton, his old companion in 
 arms. The clergy followed in a body. The foreign 
 ambassadors, in their carriages, came next, and the cit- 
 izens promiscuously brought up the rear. The whole 
 were under the direction of Colonel Morgan Lewis, mar- 
 shal of the day, assisted by Majors Morton and Van Home. 
 
 The day was one of unmingled joy. No former event 
 of a civic character had more deeply arrested the public 
 attention. The hand of labor was suspended, and the 
 various pleasures of the city were concentrated into a single 
 enjoyment. All ranks and professions, with one universal 
 acclaim, joined in the loud welcome to " the Father of 
 his Country." The city was illuminated in the evening ; 
 and many beautiful and appropriate transparencies were 
 exhibited, creditable at once to the citizens who displayed 
 them and to the artists by whom they were executed. 
 
 The 30th day of April, 1789, Avas appointed by Con- 
 gress for the august ceremony of inducting the first 
 President of our Federal Union into his exalted 
 
 „ • - 1 1789. 
 
 station. Pursuant to previous notice and concert, 
 all the churches in the city were opened at nine o'clock on 
 the morning of that day, and their respective congregations 
 repaired to them, to unite in imploring the blessing of 
 Heaven on the new government. In these enlightened 
 days, 'when chaplains are voted out of legislative halls 
 from a sensitive regard to the rights of conscience and the 
 people's money, it may, perhaps, appear strange that such 
 a concerted ceremony should have preceded the other 
 
300 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 duties of the day. But the truth is, our Revolutionary 
 forefathers were a race of men sui generis, and they had a 
 way of doing things peculiar to themselves. They were 
 in the habit of imploring the blessing of Heaven on all 
 their important undertakings, and of returning thanks for 
 all signal blessings ; and, at the time of the establishment 
 of the Federal Government, the march of mind had not 
 yet been so rapid as altogether to have left this custom in 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 At twelve o'clock, a procession was formed under the 
 conduct of Colonel Lewis, consisting of the same detach- 
 ments of the State troops which had been detailed for the 
 reception of the President elect on his landing. The 
 President's house was then in Cherry Street, a few doors 
 from Franklin Square, — which was at that period the 
 court end of the town. The procession moved thence 
 through Queen, Great Dock, and Broad Streets, until they 
 arrived in front of the building called Federal Hall ; it 
 having been determined that the ceremony of administer- 
 ing the oath should take place in the open space in front 
 of the Senate Chamber, which was on the second story of 
 the building, and in full view of the people who should 
 assemble in Wall and Broad Streets as spectators. Stop- 
 ping at the proper distance, the procession was divided 
 into two parallel lines, facing inwardly, and the " observed 
 of all observers " passed through with stately and solemn 
 tread, attended by John Jay, General Knox, Chancellor 
 Livingston, and other distinguished gentlemen. They 
 were conducted, first to the Senate Chamber, where the 
 President elect was introduced to both Houses, assembled 
 in convention to receive him. Thence the illustrious 
 individual was conducted to the gallery or terrace before 
 mentioned, overlooking the two streets in which the 
 multitude had assembled. 
 
 As the building under whose lofty pediment this im- 
 
HrsToar of new york city. 
 
 301 
 
 posing scene was exhibited has been so long swept from 
 the face of the earth that few of' the present generation 
 have any distinct recollection of it, a description of it may 
 aid our attempt to depict the sublime ceremony, which it 
 is the principal design of the present chapter (o bring 
 before the reader. On the site of the old City Hall, which 
 had served the provincials for a court-house, and was a 
 mean, unsightly object, projecting awkwardly into Wall 
 Street from the north, a noble edifice had been erected for 
 the accommodation of Congress, on a plan and under, the 
 direction of Monsieur L'Enfant, a French architect, at 
 that time in high repute, whose name we had occasion to 
 mention in a preceding page. This building, hke the first, 
 projected into Wall Street, but permitted foot-passengers 
 to continue their promenades through an arched way. 
 Over this arcade was a balcony, the pediment projecting 
 over, which was supported by four massive Doric pillars, 
 dividing the open space into three parts, and forming an 
 area similar in that respect to the divisions in Raphael's 
 " Beautiful Gate of the Temple." After the adoption of 
 the Constitution, this building was called Federal Hall.* 
 Its front was upon Broad Street, which was terminated 
 by it. Persons on the balcony would, consequently, be in 
 full view from that street; and it was there, within a few 
 yards of the Hall, that a few select spectators took their 
 stand. 
 
 The volunteer companies of infantry were paraded in 
 front of the Hall on Wall Street. A troop of horse, uni- 
 formed and equipped much after the manner of Lee's and 
 Sheldon's dragoons (as may be seen in the picture of 
 Jack Laughton, the hero of Cooper's " Spy," as painted by 
 our distinguished countryman, Dunlop), were prominent 
 figures. Of the foot-soldiers, the most conspicuous were 
 
 * In later years, succeeded bj tlie Custom-house, which is now the United 
 States Sub-treasury. 
 
302 
 
 HISTORY OF NKW YORK CITY 
 
 two companies of grenadiers, one of which was composed 
 of the tallest youths of the city, and the other was the 
 company of Germans, commanded by Captain Scriba, 
 many of whom had been the slaves of the Prince of Hesse 
 Cassel, and other petty sovereigns in the German States, 
 but who now gloried in the liberty purchased for them, 
 and secured to them by those whom they had been forced 
 
 OLD PBDEEAL HALL. 
 
 from their own country to assist in subduing. The first 
 were dressed in blue, with red facings and gold-laced orna- 
 ments, cocked hats with white feathers, with waistcoats 
 and breeches, and black gaiters or spatterdashey, close- 
 buttoned from the shoe to the knee, and covering the shoe- 
 buckle. The second, or German company, wore blue coats, 
 with yellow waistcoats and breeches, black gaiters, similar 
 to those already described, and towering caps, cone-shaped, 
 

 
 
 ^^^ ^/a^^^^j 
 
 tlewY^rt ViTiiae 4 ■^'bi-stoTi 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 393 
 
 and faced with black bear-skin. A company in the full 
 uniform of Scotch Highlanders, with the national music 
 of the bagpipe, were seen among the military of the day, 
 as also were several well-disciplined and well-equipped 
 corps of light infantry and artillery. Colonel Lewis, 
 the marshal, was assisted by Major Morton, acting aid- 
 de-camp, as on the occasion of the landing one week 
 before. 
 
 Both Houses of Congress, having left their respective 
 chambers to witness the ceremony, now quite filled the 
 balcony and the space behind it. Every part of the build- 
 ing was thronged. From the balcony the view of Broad 
 Street was as of one mass, a silent and expectant throng ; 
 with faces upturned, they gazed upon the great object of 
 their regard, as he came forth from the interior of the 
 Hall, and took his place in the center of the balcony, 
 between the two pillars which formed the boundaries of 
 the middle compartment of the picture. He made his 
 appearance in a plain suit of brown cloth, coat, waistcoat, 
 and breeches, white silk stockings, and buckles of the sim- 
 plest fashion in his shoes, and every article of his dress 
 was of American manufacture.* His head was uncov- 
 ered, his hair powdered and dressed in the prevailing 
 fashion of that day, completed the costume in which his 
 tall, fine figure was presented to view, at the moment 
 which formed that epoch in the history of nations. 
 
 John Adams, the Vice-President, who had a few days 
 previously bee a inducted into office without parade in the 
 Senate, a short, athletic figure, in a somewhat similar 
 garb, but with the old-fashioned Massachusetts wig, dressed 
 and powdered, stood upon the right of the chieftain. Roger 
 Sherman was seen in the group, a little behind, standing 
 with Hamilton and many other sages and warriors, among 
 
 * Adams was also entirely clad in American fabrics on tlie occasion liere 
 described. 
 
304 HISTOEY OF NEW TORK CITY.- 
 
 whom was the American artillerist, Knox, and the accom- 
 plished Baron Steuben. 
 
 Opposite to the President elect stood Chancellor Liv- 
 ingston, in a fall suit of black, ready to administer the 
 oath of office. Between them, the Secretary of the Sen- 
 ate, a small, short man, held the open Bible, upon a rich 
 crimson cushion. The man on whom all eyes were fixed, 
 stretched forth his hand with simplicity and dignity. The 
 oath of office was administered. The Bible was raised, and 
 his head bowed upon it to kiss the sacred volume. The 
 Chancellor then proclaimed that it was done, in a full, 
 distinct voice, and in the following words : " Long live 
 George Washington, President of the United States ! " 
 The silence of thousands was at an end, — the air was 
 rent with acclamations, dictated by reason, and bursting 
 from the hearts and tongues of men who felt that the 
 happiness of themselves, their posterity, and their country 
 was secured. 
 
 The President bowed, and, having retired to the Hall 
 of the Representatives, where the Senate also assembled, 
 delivered his inaugural speech. Thence, the President, 
 accompanied by the Vice-President, the Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives, and the members of both 
 Houses, repaired in procession to St. Paul's Church, where 
 Divine service was performed by Bishop ■ Provost, the 
 Chaplain of the Senate ; and, before the adjournment of 
 Congress, they passed a resolution requesting the President 
 to issue his proclamation, recommending to the people of 
 the United States to observe a day of thanksgiving and 
 prayer, on account of the successful organization of the 
 new Government. 
 
 Such was the spectacle ; so simple, so dignified was 
 this august ceremony ! Contrast it with the impious 
 mockery of Heaven and the degrading pageantry displayed 
 to mislead the children of earth, which attends the coro- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 305 
 
 nation of European potentates, and every American must 
 feel proud, and justly proud, when he contemplates the 
 picture it presents of the institutions and manners of his 
 own country ! "It seemed," said a young gentleman in a 
 letter to a distant father, "to be a solemn appeal to 
 Heaven and earth at once. Upon the subject of this great 
 and good man," he added, "I may, perhaps, be an en- 
 thusiast ; but I confess I was under an awful and religious 
 persuasion that the gracious Ruler of the Universe was 
 looking down at that moment with peculiar complacency 
 upon an act which, to the American portion of His 
 creatures, was so very important. Under this impression, 
 when the distinguished Chancellor of New York announced, 
 in a very feeling manner, the words ' Long live George 
 Washington,' my sensibility was wound up to such a 
 pitch that I could do no more than wave my hat with the 
 rest, without the power of joining in the repeated accla- 
 mations which rent the air." 
 
 The proceedings of the day had all been marked by 
 that gravity and solemnity befitting the importance of the 
 occasion. It was, however, a day of uomingled rejoicing ; 
 and, after the more imposing civic iand religious ceremonies 
 were over, the popular feeling broke forth in the usual 
 manifestations of gladness. The festivities closed by an 
 illumination in the evening of unparalleled splendor, and 
 by a display of fireworks under the direction of Colonel 
 Bauman, of the artillery, which had only been equaled on 
 this side of the Atlantic by the memorable pyrotechnical 
 exhibition which took place at West Point during the 
 Revolution, when our French allies were celebrating the 
 birth of the Dauphirj$ — the unfortunate young prince who 
 subsequently, after his father's execution, himself fell a 
 victim to that spirit of freedom which those French officers 
 imbibed in this country, and which, running to riot after 
 their return, drenched the whole surface of France in blood. 
 
 39 
 
306 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Great pains had been taken bj the principal citizens 
 and the public authorities in the preparation of appropriate 
 transparencies. At the foot of Broadway a splendid 
 painting was exhibited, representing the Virtues of Forti- 
 tude, Justice, and Wisdom, intended as emblems — the first 
 of the President, the second of the Senate, and the third 
 of the House of Representatives. Of the' propriety of 
 the first, the world had had the fullest evidence ; and the 
 two others were well applied then, however great would 
 be the solecism of such an appropriation of those attributes 
 in later and more degenerate days. The Federal Hall 
 was illuminated with great splendor, and attracted uni- 
 versal attention. The Theatre, then situated at the corner 
 of Fly-Market Slip, was likewise tastefully illuminated by 
 various patriotic and attractive paintings. The ship North 
 Carolina^ lying off the Battery, displayed a glorious pyramid 
 of stars, lustrous and beautiful as the lamps of heaven. 
 
 The illuminations of private residences which attracted 
 the greatest attention were those of the French and 
 Spanish Ministers — the Count Moustier and Don Gardoqui. 
 These Ministers both felt a lively interest in the rising 
 destinies of the young republic, and lost no suitable occa- 
 sion for . testifying their friendship. Their houses were 
 situated in Broadway, near the Bowling Green, and they 
 seem to have exerted a generous rivalry in their prep- 
 arations for celebrating this event. The illuminations of 
 both were in a style of elegance and splendor alike novel, 
 attractive, and beautiful. The doors and windows of 
 Count Moustier displayed splendid bOrderings of lamps, 
 with fancy pieces in each window of tasteful and compli- 
 mentary designs. But the decorations of the Spaniard's 
 mansion excelled. The tout- ensemble formed a superbly 
 brilliant front. The principal transparency represented 
 the figures of the Graces, exceedingly well executed, 
 among a pleasing variety of patriotic emblems, together 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 307 
 
 with shrubbery, arches, flowers, and fountains. The effect 
 was greatly heightened by the disposition of moving pic- 
 tures of persons and figures in the background, so skillfully 
 devised and executed as to present the illusion of a living 
 panorama in a little spot of fairy land. 
 
 But we will not dwell too long upon the incidents of 
 this joyful evening, as other objects crowd upon our atten- 
 tion. The inauguration was succeeded by a round oi fetes 
 of a different description, the recollection of which it is 
 our design briefly to revive, before concluding the present 
 chapter. 
 
 For several subsequent days the time of the President 
 was much occupied in receiving visits, official and un- 
 official, of individuals, societies, and public bodies, calling 
 to pay their respects to the first magistrate. In all 
 instances, their reception was such as still more to. endear 
 the illustrious man in their affections ; for, although inured 
 to the camp, and in earlier life to the still rougher service 
 of border warfare in the wilderness, no one could dispense 
 the courtesies of the drawing-room, or the ceremonies of 
 state, with more true dignity, blended with a just measure 
 of affability and condescension, than Washington. 
 
 Extensive preparations had been made by the sub- 
 scribers to the city dancing assemblies to pay the Presi- 
 dent the compliment of an Inauguration Ball. The 
 honored lady of the chieftain, however, had not accom- 
 panied her august husband to New York, but was to 
 follow in a few days. The anxiety for her arrival was, 
 therefore, great; though, of course, proportionably less 
 than it had been for the President elect himself. But a 
 short time intervened before her approach to Elizabeth- 
 town was announced, accompanied by the lady of Robert 
 Morris, of Philadelphia — then in the Federal Senate. She 
 was met by the President at Elizabethtown Point, who 
 proceeded thither, with Robert Morris and several other 
 
308 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 gentlemen of distinction, in the barge already described, 
 rowed, as before, by thirteen eminent pilots, in handsome 
 white dresses. The passage through the bay again pre- 
 sented a brilliant spectacle ; a salute was fired on passing 
 the Battery ; and, on her landing, she was welcomed by 
 laro-e crowds of citizens who had assembled to testify their 
 
 joy. 
 
 The ball was truly an elegant entertainment. The old 
 " City Assembly Rooms," in which it took place, were ui 
 a large wooden building standing upon the site of the old 
 City Hotel* In addition to the distinguished pair for 
 whom it was given, it was honored by the Vice-President, 
 the Speaker of the House, and most of the members of 
 both branches of Congress ; Governor (George) Clinton, 
 Chancellor Livingston, Chief- Justice Yates, of New York; 
 the Hon. John Jay, General Knox, the Commissioners of 
 the Treasury; James Duane, Mayor of the city; the 
 Baron Steuben, General Hamilton, the French and Spanish 
 Ambassadors, and many other distinguished gentlemen, 
 both Americans and foreigners. Never was a lady, either 
 in public or private life, more popular than Mrs. Washing- 
 ton ; and, from the moment of her arrival, the most 
 respectful attentions had been paid to her by the principal 
 ladies of the city, and by those likewise of celebrity from 
 a distance. A numerous and brilliant collection of ladies 
 consequent^ graced the saloon with their presence, and 
 the decorations were such as in all respects comported 
 with their presence and the proud occasion. Among the 
 leading circles were the lady of his Excellency Governor 
 Clinton, Lady Sterling, Lady Mary Watts, Lady Kitty 
 
 * The City Hotel — the Astor House of tliat day, and built by Ezra Weeks — 
 stood on the west side of Broadway, on the block from Thames to Cedar 
 Streets, and was for many years the most distinguished establishment of the 
 kind in the country. It was the site of the " King's Arms Tavern " of a 
 hundred years previous, which was also in its day one of the most prominent 
 points of interest in the " fashionables " of " old New York." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 309 
 
 Duer, La Marchioness De Brehan, Mrs. Langdon, Mrs. 
 Dalton, Mrs. Duane (the Maj^oress), Mrs. Peter Van 
 Brook Livingston, Mrs. Livingston, of Clermont; Mrs. 
 Chancellor Livingston, the Misses Livingston, Lady 
 Temple, Madame de la Forest, Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. 
 Knox, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Gerry, Mrs. Edgar, Mrs. 
 McComb, Mrs. Lynch, Mrs. Houston, Mrs. Griffin, Mrs. 
 Provost, the Misses Bayard, and many others of the most 
 respectable families in the State and from abroad. The 
 whole number of ladies and gentlemen at the fete exceeded 
 three hundred. 
 
 There was more of etiquette in the arrangements for 
 this complimentary ball than was thought hy some to be 
 exactly consistent with our republican institutions, and 
 more, in fact, than was altogether agreeable to the feelings 
 of HIM in whose honor it was observed. Li connection 
 with the managers of the assemblies, Colonel Humphries 
 and Colonel William S. Smith were selected to adjust the 
 ceremonies, and their arrangements were reported to have 
 been as follows : — At the head of the room, upon a plat- 
 form handsomely carpeted, and beneath a rich drapery of 
 curtains and banners, was placed a damask-covered sofa, 
 upon which the President and Lady Washington were to 
 be seated. The platform was ascended by a flight of 
 three or four steps. The costume of the gentlemen was 
 prescribed ; their hair was to be dressed in bags, with two 
 long curls on the sides, with powder, of course, and all 
 were to appear and dance with small swords. Each 
 gentleman, on taking a partner to dance, was to lead her 
 to the sofa, and make a low obeisance to the President 
 and his ladj^, and repeat the ceremony of respect before 
 taking their seats after the figure was concluded. The 
 decorations of the assembly-room were truly splendid and 
 very tastefully disposed. 
 
 At that time there had been no more brilliant assem- 
 
310 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 blage of ladies in America than were collected on this 
 occasion. Few jewels were then worn in the United 
 States, but in other respects their dresses were rich and 
 beautiful, according to the fashions of the day. We are 
 not quite sure that we can describe the full dress of a lady 
 of rank at the period under consideration so as to render 
 it intelligible. But we will make the attempt. One 
 favorite dress was a plain celestial blue satin gown, with 
 a white satin petticoat. On the neck was worn a very 
 large Italian gauze handkerchief, with border stripes of 
 satin. The head-dress was a pouf of gauze, in the form 
 of a globe, the creneavx or head-piece of which was com- 
 posed of white satin, having a double wing, in large plaits, 
 and trimmed with a wreath of artificial roses falling 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, in two ranks, fell on each 
 side of the neck, and was relieved behind by a floating 
 chignon. 
 
 Another beautiful dress was a perriot, made of gray 
 Indian taffeta, with dark stripes of the same color, having 
 two collars, the one yellow and the other white, both 
 trimmed with a blue silk fringe, and a reverse trimmed in 
 the same manner. Under the perriot they wore a yellow 
 corset or boddice, with large cross stripes of blue. Some 
 of the ladies with this dress wore hats a VEspagnole of 
 white satin, with a band of the same material placed on 
 the crown, like the wreath of flowers on the head-dress 
 above-mentioned. This hat, which, with a plume, was a 
 very popular article of dress, was relieved on the left 
 side, having two handsome cockades, one of which was 
 at the top and the other at the bottom. On the neck 
 was worn a very large plain gauze handkerchief, the ends 
 of which were hid under the boddice, after the man- 
 ner represented in Trumbull's and Stuart's portraits of 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 311 
 
 Lady Washington. Round the bosom of the perriot a 
 frill of gauze, a la Henri IV, was attached, cut in points 
 around the edge. 
 
 There was still another dress which was thought to be 
 very simple and pretty. It consisted of a perriot and pet- 
 ticoat, both composed of the same description of gray 
 striped silk, and trimmed round with gauze, cut in points 
 at the edges in the manner of herrisons. The herrisons 
 were, indeed, nearly the sole trimmings used for the per- 
 riots, caracos, and petticoats of fashionable ladies, made 
 either of ribands or Italian gauze. With this dress they 
 wore large gauze handkerchiefs upon their necks, with four 
 satin stripes around the border, two of which were narrow 
 and the others broad. The head-dress was a plain gauze 
 cap, after the form of the elders and ancients of a nunnery. 
 The shoes were celestial blue, with rose-colored rosettes. 
 
 Such are descriptions of some of the principal cos- 
 tumes of the ladies who graced the inauguration ball of 
 Washington ; and, although varied in divers unimportant 
 particulars by the several ladies, according to their respect- 
 ive tastes and fancies, yet, as with the peculiar fashions of 
 all other times, there was a general correspondence of the 
 outlines, the tout enseinble was the same. 
 
 The President and his lady were introduced and con- 
 ducted through the saloon to the seat provided for them 
 by Colonel Humphries — a man of fine accomplishments 
 and manners. General Knox had just been appointed 
 Secretary of War, and his lady had been charged with so 
 far resembling Caesar as to have been somewhat " ambi- 
 tious." Be that as it may, it was said in those days that 
 she so arranged her own movements as to enter the sailoon 
 with the President and his lady, following them to their 
 station and ascending the steps, with the evident design 
 of obtaining, an invitation from the President to a seat 
 upon the honored sofa. Unluckily, however, the seat was 
 
312 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 too narrow for the accommodation of three persons, and the 
 lady of the war minister, with deep and apparent mortifi- 
 cation, was compelled to descend to the level of those who 
 had shown themselves to be less openly aspiring. No other 
 incident worthy of especial note occurred during the even- 
 ing, or none which attracted particular attention. 
 
 Among the gayest and most courteous of the cavaliers 
 present was the Baron Steuben. Well educated and bred 
 in a German court, having also mingled much in the 
 splendid court circles of Louis XV, in Paris, where he had 
 usually passed his winters previous to his emigration to 
 America, the manners of this gallant officer were formed 
 upon the best model of graceful ease, affability, and dig- 
 nity. He was thus, perhaps, as well qualified to teach 
 the tactics of the drawing-room as thooe of the field ; but, 
 too much of the real gentleman to appear in the least 
 degree assuming, he was a universal favorite. His dress 
 was of rich black silk velvet, with the star of his order 
 upon his breast, and he had ever some witty or playful 
 remark for eveiy person and every occasion, which was 
 received with additional interest from his German accent 
 and the little and often ludicrous mistakes to which he was 
 lial)le from his imperfect knowledge of the English idioms. 
 
 The saltatorj^ exercises were such as were usual in 
 those times and on great occasions. There are a few of 
 both sexes yet living who then mingled in the dance, but 
 the incidents of the festive night linger in their memories 
 like the fragments of a broken vision in times that are 
 passed. They remember only that the exercises went on 
 
 " With smooth step 
 Disclosing motion in its every charm. 
 To swim along and swell the mazy dance." 
 
 presenting to the eye, as in Milton's beautiful description, 
 
 " Mazes intricate, 
 Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular 
 Then most, when most irregular they seem." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 313 
 
 The illastrious chieftain himself did not hesitate to 
 countenance the elegant amusement by participation, as 
 the heroes and statesmen of antiquity, the demi-gods of 
 the Greeks and Romans, had done before him. Mrs. Peter 
 Van Brook Livingston and Mrs. Hamilton were succes- 
 sively honored by the chieftain's hand in a cotillion. He 
 afterward d.anced a minuet with Miss Van Zandt, subse- 
 quently the lady of William Maxwell, Esq., vice-president 
 of the bank. There was dignity and grace in every 
 movement of this incomparable man. But in the minuet, 
 which is held to be the perfection of all dancing, he 
 appeared to more than his wonted advantage. The min- 
 uet contains in itself a compound variety of as many 
 turnings in the serpentine, which is the line of beauty, 
 as can well be put together in distinct quantities, and is, 
 withal, an exceedingly fine composition of movements. It 
 is, therefore, the best of all descriptions of dancing to dis- 
 play the graces of person and attitude, and never did the 
 majestic form of Washington appear to greater advant,age 
 than on the present occasion of elegant trifling. There 
 was, moreover, youth and beauty in the countenance, grace 
 in the step, and heaven in the eye of his fair partner. 
 
 Shortly after the brilliant spectacle which we have thus 
 attempted but imperfectly to describe, the President was 
 complimented by another similar /efe, which he also honored 
 by his presence, given by the French minister. The pagean t 
 was one of uncommon elegance^ both as it respected the 
 character of the company and the plan of the entertainment. 
 As a compliment to the alliance of the United States and 
 France, there were two sets of cotillion dances in complete 
 uniforms. The uniform of France was worn by one set, 
 and that of the United States — the Revolutionary blue and 
 
 jjuff b\' the other. The ladies were dressed in white, 
 
 with ribands, bouquets, and garlands of flowers, answer- 
 ing to the uniforms of the gentlemen. But it would be 
 40 
 
314 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 alike wearisome and unnecessary to enter into further 
 particulars 
 
 The levees of President Washington were far more 
 select and courtly than are those of the Presidents of 
 later days. They were numerously attended by all that 
 was fashionable, elegant, and refined in society; but there 
 were no places for the intrusion of the rabble in crowds, or 
 for the more coarse and boisterous partisan, the vulgar 
 electioneerer, or the impudent place-hunter, with boots, 
 and frock-coats, or roundabouts, or with patched knees 
 and holes at both elbows. 
 
 Proud of her husband's exalted fame, and jealous of 
 the honors due', not only to his own lofty character, but 
 to the dignified station to which a grateful country had 
 called him, Mrs. Washington was careful in her drawing- 
 rooms to exact those courtesies to which she knew he was 
 entitled, as well on account of personal merit as of official 
 consideration. Fortunately, moreover, democratic rude- 
 ness had not then so far gained the ascendancy as to ban- 
 ish good manners, and the charms of social intercourse 
 were heightened by a reasonable attention in the best cir- 
 cles to those forms and usages which indicate the well- 
 bred assemblage, and fling around it an air of elegance 
 and grace which the envious only affect to decry, and the 
 innately vulgar only ridicule and contemn. None, there- 
 fore, were admitted to the levees but those who had either 
 a right by official station to be there, or were entitled to 
 the privilege by established merit and character, and full 
 dress was required of all.* 
 
 * Some eliow, if not of state, at least of respect for the high officer they were 
 to visit, was exacted down to the close of Jlr. Madison's administration. Mr. 
 Monroe required less formality and attention to dress, and the second President 
 Adams less still. But respect and reverence for the office still kept the multi- 
 tude, who had no business there, from the President's drawing-rooms until the 
 year 1829, when — but tempera mutantur ! 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 315 
 
 Mrs. Washington was a pleasing and agreeable, rather 
 than a splendid woman. Her figure was not commanding, 
 but her manners were easy, conciliatory, and attractive! 
 Her domestic arrangements were always concerted under 
 her own eye, and everything within her household moved 
 forward with the regularity of machinery. No daughter 
 of Eve ever worshipped her lord with more sincere and 
 affectionate veneration ; and none had ever cause to render 
 greater or more deserved homage. When absent, he was 
 ever in her thoughts, and her mild eyes kindled at his 
 presence. She was well educated, and possessed strong 
 native sense, guided by all necessary prudence and dis- 
 cretion. She rarely conversed upon political subjects, and 
 when the most expert diplomatists would attempt to draw 
 her out, she had the faculty of turning the course of con- 
 versation with equal dexterity and politeness. At all the 
 President's entertainments, whether at the table or in the 
 drawing-room, notwithstanding the regard to etiquette 
 heretofore adverted to, there was, nevertheless, so much 
 kindness of feeling displayed, and such an unaffected degree 
 of genuine hospitality, that golden opinions were won 
 alike from the foreign and domestic visitors. 
 
 In those days late hours were not necessary to fashion ; 
 and many of our fair metropolitan readers, who are in the 
 habit of dressing at ten to enter a distant drawing-room at 
 eleven, will doubtless be surprised to learn that Mrs. 
 Washington's levees closed always at nine ! This was a 
 rule which that distinguished lady established on the 
 occasion of holding her first levee, on the evening of 
 January 1st, 1790. The President's residence was in the 
 Franklin House, at the head of Cherry Street. " The 
 day," says a letter* of John Pintard, Esq. — who was then 
 in the hey-day of youth and life, mingling with the 
 fashionable world — " was uncommonly mild and pleasant. 
 
 * To Colonel Morris, of the New York Mirror. 
 
316 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 It was about full moon, and the air so bland and serene, 
 that the ladies attended in their light summer shades. 
 Introduced by the aids and gentlemen in waiting, after 
 being seated, tea, coffee, plain and plum cake were handed 
 round. Familiar and friendly conversation ensued, and 
 kind inquiries, on the part of Mrs. Washington, after the 
 families of the exiles, with whom she had been acquainted 
 
 WASHINGTON'S RESIDENCE IN 1790, AS IT APPEAEED IN 1850. 
 
 during the Revolutionary War, and who always received 
 marked attention from General Washington. Mrs. Wash- 
 ington stood by the side of the General in receiving the 
 respects of the visitors. * * * * Amid the social chit- 
 chat of the company, the Hall clock struck nine. Mrs. 
 Washington thereupon rose with dignity, and, looking 
 around the circle with a complacent smile, observed : ' The 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the year 1792, the construction of the Tontine 
 Building was begun by an association of merchants, orga- 
 nized in 1790, and incorporated in 1794, under the 
 
 1792 . 
 
 name of the " Tontine Association." Its object was 
 to provide a business center for the mercantile community. 
 The original building fronted what was then known as 
 Coffee-house Slip — now the corner of Wall and Water 
 Streets. The merchants had long felt the need of-some 
 place where they could assemble and discuss the probable 
 results of trade and the various questions of the time, and, 
 during their leisure, indulge in a cup of prime old coffee, 
 without walking to their distant homes in State Street, 
 Bowling Green, and the lower part of Greenwich Street. 
 Among the merchants who pushed forward the enterprise 
 were John Broome, John Watts, Gulian Verplanck, John 
 Delafield, and William Laight. In the vicinity of Broad 
 and Pearl Streets was the old Merchants' Coffee-house ; and 
 in front of that, on December 1st, 1791, the sheriff of New 
 York, Marinus Willett, sold under a writ of venditioni expo- 
 nas, the dwelling and lot of land then " in the tenure and 
 occupation of Anthony Bleecker, formerly held by Francis 
 Lucas, and known as No. 22 Wall Street, reserving the 
 right of way, ' if they have any right to it,' through an 
 alley adjoining one side of the said property^ and leading 
 from the adjoining farm and garden of Francis Clark." 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 319 
 
 The property was purchased by the five merchants abeady 
 mentioned, for the sum of £2,510, and held by them under 
 the provisions of the Tontine Association, as its first board 
 of dh'ectors. 
 
 On the 31st of January, 1792, the same gentlemen 
 bought of Dr. Charles Arding and Abigail his wife, " all 
 that certain corner house and land bounded south-easterly 
 by Water Street, south-westerly by Wall Street, north- 
 westerly and south-easterly by houses and land lately pur- 
 chased by them," for the sum of £1,970, current money 
 of the State of New York. On August 22d, 1792, Hugh 
 Gaine, Thomas Roach, and John Keese, commissioners 
 appointed by the Court of Common Pleas, then called the 
 Mayor's Court, in settling the large estate of the late Mor- 
 decai Gomez, chocolate-maker, conveyed to the same board 
 of directors, for the sum of £1,000, "all that certain mes- 
 suage and lot of land situate, lying, and being in the Sec- 
 ond Ward, formerly the East Ward, of the City of New 
 York, bounded south-easterly in front by Water Street, 
 north-westerly in the rear by a part of a lot of land lately 
 purchased by the parties to these presents of the second 
 part, of the sheriff of the city and county of New York, 
 under a decree of the Court of Chancery; north-easterly 
 by a house and lot of land late the property of Joseph 
 Royall, deceased, and south-westerly by a house and lot 
 of land lately purchased by the said party of Dr. Charles 
 Arding, and containing in breadth in front and rear at 
 each end, eighteen feet four inches, and in length on each 
 side thirty feet, English measure." 
 
 This transaction completed the purchases of land for 
 the Tontine Cofiee-house, and the massive building given 
 in the cut on next page, with its heavy wooden cornice, 
 railed balcony, and long stoop or piazza, with steps at each 
 end, soon rose from the ruins of the houses of Mordecai 
 Gomez and Dr. Arding. 
 
320 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 There was another Tontine society called the New 
 York Tontine Hotel and Assembly Rooms' Association, 
 and on September 27th, 1793, Peter De Lancey and Eliz- 
 abeth his wife, sold to Philip Livingston, John Watts, 
 Thomas Buchanan, Gulian Verplanck, James Watson, 
 Moses Rogers, James Farquhar, Richard Harrison, and 
 Daniel Ludlow, a lot of land bounded east by Broadway, 
 west by Temple Street, south by Thames Street, and north 
 
 TOKTINE COFFEE-HOUSE AS IT APPEAKED LN 1813. 
 
 by Little Queen Street, subject to such rights of survivor- 
 ship as the majority of the subscribers should decide. 
 Some years after, during a season of sharp political 
 excitement, the Fifth Ward Tontine was started, for the 
 purpose of making real-estate owners of enough young 
 men to carry a majority vote in the election. The vote 
 was cast, but the city authorities declared it illegal, and 
 that association caused no further public notice. 
 
. HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. S2l 
 
 On the completion of the Tontine Coffee-hAuse, the 
 Merchants' Exchange was removed to it from the dilapi- 
 dated building in the middle of Broad Street, below Pearl, 
 where it had been since the war. 
 
 In. 1793 war was declared between France and Ensr- 
 land ; and on the 9th of April, five days after the news 
 was received at New York, Citizen Genet arrived at 
 Charleston as the accredited Minister to the United States 
 from the new French republic. The war placed this Gov- 
 ernment in an embarrassing position ; for, bound to France 
 by obligations of gratitude as well as by the conditions of 
 a treaty of alliance, it was pledged also by the Federal 
 policy to preserve a strict neutrality in European wars. 
 Alexander Hamilton, at the head of the Federalists, in- 
 sisted that the treaty had been annulled by the change in 
 the French government ; or, in any event, did not apply 
 in case of an offensive war. Washington inclined to the 
 latter opinion ; and, while he received Genet as the Min- 
 ister of the republic, proclaimed the strictest neutrality 
 in respect to warlike operations. This greatly displeased 
 the anti-Federalists, who cheered on the new republic, and 
 aided Genet in fitting out privateers to cruise against the 
 enemies of France. Genet reached New York on the 8th 
 of August, and was welcomed by salvos of artillery and 
 pealing bells, saluting republican France. On the 12th of 
 June, the Ambuscade, which had brought Genet to Amer- 
 ica, arrived at New York, and her officers and crew were 
 received and entertained with much enthusiasm by the 
 anti-Federalists. The Liberty Cap was hoisted on the flag- 
 staff of the Tontine Coffee-house, and all true patriots 
 exhorted to protect it ; tri-color cockades wei;e worn ; the 
 " Marseillaise " was sung ; and, for a time. New York wore 
 almost the aspect of a French city. 
 
 During the year ending April 2d, 1811, the association 
 was called to mourn the decease of Gulian Verjslanck, 
 
 41 
 
322 HISTORY OP NEW TOKK CITT.^ 
 
 William Laight, aud Jolin Broome. The board of directors 
 was reduced to John Watts and John Delafield, who, in 
 conformity with the second section of the Constitution — 
 that, whenever the trustees, in whom the fee-simple is 
 vested, be reduced to less than three, then five others should 
 be elected, and the property conveyed to them — transferred 
 their trust to Richard Varick, Matthew Clarkson, Francis 
 B. Winthrop, John B. Coles, and Gulian Ludlow. The old 
 Coffee-house was then in full operation, but who can tell 
 us of the scenes therein 1 Who can call back the voices 
 of the old merchants of that day, and repeat the stories 
 they often laughed over in the Coffee-house on " opening 
 night?" 
 
 At length the Merchants' Exchange moved further up 
 Wall Street, and sales of merchandise were not so frequent 
 within the old house, but the long stoop on the Wall" 
 Street front was still used, and the advertisements of the 
 day read, " At X o'clock, in front of the Tontine Coffee- 
 house, will be -sold ." 
 
 In 1826 and 1827 the Tontine Coffee-house was in the 
 hands of John Morse, who had formerly kept the old 
 Stage-house at the corner of Church and Crown Streets, 
 New Haven. He turned the entire house into a tavern, 
 and it so remained for several years. The first floor was 
 in one room, running the full length of the house, and 
 fronting Wall Street. At the back of the room, extending 
 nearly its whole length, was the old-fashioned bar. Jutting 
 out from the counter were curious arms of brass supporting 
 the thick, round, and mast^like timber on which the heavy 
 dealers leaned while ordering refreshments. About the 
 room were numerous small tables, and after supper, in fair 
 weather, around the tables could be seen many of the 
 wealthy city men diminishing the contents of their pewter 
 mugs, or planning, amid the cm-Ung snioke in the room, 
 their operations for the next day. Morse was not success- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 323 
 
 ful in tlie Tontine, and was finally gold out for the benefit 
 of " whom it might concern." 
 
 In 1832, it was kept as a hotel by Lovejoy & Belcher, 
 and was the scene of several brilliant Masonic dinners. 
 The lodges^ in annual parade, would march from the City 
 Hotel, on Broadway, down to Broad Street; through 
 Broad to Pearl, and through Pearl Street to Wall and the 
 Cofiee-house — which they thought a long tramp. After 
 the banquet, the march would be resumed along Pearl 
 to Beekman Street, up Beekman to Chatham Street, down 
 Chatham to Broadway and the City Hotel. 
 
 In 1834, the Court of Chancery issued a decree re- 
 moving the restrictions by which the Tontine Association 
 were required to maintaia the building as a Coffee-house, 
 and it was then leased for general business purposes. In 
 1834, two brothers named Hudson came to New York, 
 from Boston, and established on the first floor of the house 
 a news-room, on the plan of that one now in Pine Street, 
 near WilHam. They also originated the Express news- 
 paper, the early numbers of which were printed in the 
 old Tontine. 
 
 The balcony had been removed, the interior of the 
 building somewhat changed, but the memory of happy 
 hours spent within its walls thrilled the hearts of the 
 gallant bands of men who composed the old volunteer Fire 
 Department when the bells struck off the first alarm for 
 the great fire of 1835. 
 
 Down through the narrow streets, amid the rush and 
 roar of the flames, the dense volumes of smoke and the 
 crash of falling warehouses, the firemen fought for every 
 inch of ground. Streets were obliterated by the ruins, 
 block after block of stores and dwellings vanished in the 
 crimson cloud that surged and rolled over them. At 
 length the flames reached the old Tontine, and the cornice 
 took fire. Among the bravest of the brave throughout 
 
324 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 that fight was the daring company of Engine No. 10. As 
 the cry went out, " There goes the old Tontine," the 
 brakes of No. 10 began to work with great vigor, and a 
 stalwart fireman, who held the pipe, directed the stream 
 against the threatened building. The atmosphere, un- 
 usually cold even for December, caught the spray from the 
 upward stream and dashed it in icy particles back on the 
 face and clothing of the sturdy pipeman. Three times 
 the cornice caught fire, and each time the pipe of No. 10 
 saved the Tontine. The plucky fireman was John Betts, 
 formerly a clerk with Hoffman & Glass, auctioneers, after- 
 wards with Glass & Gerard, and more recently of the 
 firm of Gerard & Betts. He is still living, and will 
 doubtkss remember that, when he gave up the pipe at 
 the Tontine fire, the palms of his gloves, frozen to the 
 pipe, were left on it when he went away. 
 
 After the fire, and in 1836, the Hudson Brothers gave 
 up the news-room, and the lessee of the building, Peter 
 McCarty, engaged Mr. James W. Hale to continue the 
 establishment, which was then called " Hale's News-room." 
 Mr. Hale occupied the whole of the lower floor as the 
 news-room ; and Caldwell & Kenyon kept a restaurant in 
 the basement. Caldwell & Kenyon afterwards sold out to 
 Charles Ridabock, familiarly known as the " Alderman." 
 Charles was a heavy, good-natured German, who kept the 
 dirtiest shop and the best oysters in the city. He had 
 been for many years an employee of George Washington 
 Brown, at the Auction Hotel, in Pearl Street. He re- 
 mained at the Tontine until just before the house was 
 torn down. 
 
 In 1843, the Legislature changed the name to the 
 "Tontine Building," and gave the management of its 
 affairs into the hands of "The Committee of the Tontine 
 Building." 
 
 The old Tontine was also the birth-place of whav is 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. -325 
 
 now one of the institutions of our country — its express 
 system. It was here, in 1837, that Mr. J. W. Hale 
 originated the package and letter express business, and 
 started WiUiam F. Harnden for Boston, three times a 
 week, with his little carpet-bag seldom more than half 
 full. His only advertisement was a slate hung up in the 
 News-room, and in a stationer's office at the corner of 
 Nassau and Wall Streets. The first customers of the 
 express were the visitors to Hale's News-rooms. 
 
 As there were no lines of mail steamers then running, 
 foreign correspondence was always sent by packet-ships 
 and other sailing vessels, the letter-bags for which were 
 kept at Hale's, as were also those of the steamers Sirius 
 and Great Western, after they commenced running to 
 New York. 
 
 In 1855, the New York Journal of Commerce, speaking 
 of the Tontine Goflfee-house, said : 
 
 " Tliere are few, liywever, wliose age links them to the olden time, when it 
 was the chief center of the commercial interests, who cannot recall scenes 
 within its walls ' the like whereof we ne'er shall see again.' A public meeting 
 convened within its roof, sent forth a decision which was almost universally 
 respected. As a single instance of this, let us turn back for forty years, when 
 the habit of distributing expensive scarfs to bearers and others at ordinary 
 funerals was so prevalent, that many poor families were sorely pinched to 
 provide this necessary mark of respect for a departed relative. Some benevo- 
 lent individuals, seeing the evil influence of such a fashion, called a meeting 
 at the Coffee-house, when nearly two hundred of those whose weight of 
 cliaracter gave force to their decisions, signed a pledge to abstain froni the 
 custom of distributing scarfs, except to the attendant ministers and physicians. 
 This was the death-knell of the oppressive fashion. In matters of more vital 
 moment, when great public interests were at stake, a voice has gone out from 
 the Coffee-house, which, like a recent echo from Castle Garden, has been 
 heard throughout the length and breadth of the land. Some of the noblest 
 charities, too, which the world has ever witnessed, received their first contri- 
 butions beneath this time-hallowed roof. 
 
 " But the history of this organization is highly instructing in another 
 point of view. The longevity of the nominees has been remarkable, we 
 believe, beyond any similar experiment of the kind ever witnessed. It is true 
 that the circumstances under which their names were selected would naturally 
 lead us to expect for them a longer average period of existence, but this average 
 has been so far extended as to be quite extraordinary. Of the two hundred 
 and three, whose names were handed in about sixty-one years ago, fifty-one 
 
326 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 still suiTive I Of these, the youngest is about sixty-two, and the oldest eighty- 
 three. This is about one-third greater longevity than the average of European 
 estimates. Only three of the nominees died in 1854, or one in every eighteen, 
 which, considering their average age, veas veiy remarkable." 
 
 In 1855, during the month of May, the old building 
 was demolished, and the ground leased to Mr. William H. 
 Aspinwall, with the condition that he should pay to the 
 Tontine Association, as rent, the sum of $5,500 per 
 annum, and should pay all taxes and assessments levied 
 by the city upon the ground, and upon such buildings as 
 should be upon it ; also, that the said lease should expire 
 and all the buildings upon the ground should revert to the 
 association when by death the nominees should be reduced 
 to seven. Mr. Aspinwall caused the erection of the present 
 building soon after he obtained the lease. 
 
 The walls are of Massachusetts yellow free-stone, the 
 keystones in the arches of the windows and doors being of 
 the same material. On the left of the picture, on the 
 Wall Street front, is seen the narrow alley mentioned in 
 the title deeds, showing that the heirs of Francis Clark 
 had the right of way in 1791.* 
 
 The death of Mr. John P. De Wint, at Fishkill, in 
 November, 1870, severed the last link in the Tontine 
 
 * The interior is cut up into offices, a large shaft near the rear of the hall- 
 way giving room for the main staircase and the faciHties for ventilation. The 
 history of the building since 1855 has not differed so much from that of others 
 in the vicinity as to make a detailed sketch of it necessary, but an incident of 
 1858 may be worth relating. The office of Messrs. W. T. Coleman & Co the 
 shipping merchants, was on the first floor of the new building, and the senior 
 member of the firm was seated at his desk one afternoon, busily examining 
 the papers of a California ship nearly ready to sail. A hack was driven up to 
 the door. A moment after, a hearty slap on the shoulder started Mr. Coleman 
 and the nasal tones of a gentleman from " down East " resounded in his ear— 
 "Saay, Squire, jest yeou give me the best room in ther heouse, will yer?" 
 
 Mr. Coleman.—-' This is not a tavern, sir. It's the office of the California 
 packets." 
 
 Stranger.—" No ! Well, I hain't been to York for thirty year, but used to 
 come pretty often then, and always stopped at the old Tontine Coffee-house." 
 
 Mr. Coleman kindly directed the stranger to the Astor House, and thither 
 the old guest of the Tontine was hurried. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 327 
 
 chain, the lease of the building terminated, the property 
 reverted to the owners of the shares represented by the 
 surviving seven nominees, and the affairs passed into the 
 hands of Mr. Frederick De Peyster, and Mr. W. T. Horn, 
 as attorney. The surviving nominees are Robert Benson, 
 Jr., William Bayard, Gouverneur Kemble, Horatio Gates 
 Stevens, Daniel Hoffman, Mrs. William P. Campbell, and 
 Mrs. John A. King. The heirs of George Bright, who 
 died two years after he nominated Gouverneur Kemble, 
 
 
 ■i: ■ I ' 
 ■■I I I 
 
 miti-t 
 
 r m 
 
 teamaE ^ilJ^iT'^ 
 
 
 i!5 ll:iJ.1irI 
 
 TONTINE BUILDING AT THE PIlEiENT DAY. 
 
 have yet to be found. The property will then be sold, 
 and the Tontine Association, like the old Coffee-house, 
 things of the shadowy past, will go down into the grave 
 of memory with its epitaph, " Well done," written on it by 
 the merchants of New York.* 
 
 On the 12th day of May, 1789, about two weeks after 
 General Washington had taken the oath of office, as the 
 
 * This sketch of the Tontikb Association is taken from an article pub- 
 lished in the New York Journal of Commerce, July 25th, 1871. 
 
 For the constitution of the Tontine Cofl'ee-house, in 1796, see Appendix 
 No I. 
 
328 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 first Chief Magistrate of the United States, the oldest 
 pohtical organization in the city now in exist- 
 ^^^^' ence. and which has recently (1871) been the 
 subject of much obloquy — the Tammany Society, or Col- 
 umbian Order — was instituted.* 
 
 The year following (1790), a most interesting event 
 in the history of this organization occurred, which, at the 
 time, excited considerable interest among the citi- 
 """' zens of New York. The United States had long 
 been desirous of forming a treaty of friendship and alli- 
 ance with the Creek Indians, and various unsuccessful 
 attempts had been made to effect this object. At length. 
 Colonel Marinus Willet went to that nation, and induced 
 Alexander McGilvery, a half-breed, with about thirty of 
 
 * Tlie history of the origin of this name — which is involved in much 
 obscurity — ^is as follows : — St. Tammant was the name of an Indian chief, who 
 has been popularly canonized as a saint, and adopted as the tutelary genins of 
 one branch of the Democratic party, Tammaut or Tammekukd (the name is 
 variously written), was of the Delaware nation, and lived probably in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. He resided in the country which is now 
 Delaware, until he was of age, when he moved beyond the Alleghanies, and 
 settled on the banks of the Ohio He became a chief sachem of his tribe, and, 
 being always a friend of the whites, often restrained his warriors from deeds 
 of violence. His rule was always discreet, and he endeavored to induce his 
 followers to cultivate agriculture and the arts of peace, rather than those of 
 war. When he became old, he called a council to have a successor appointed, 
 after which the residue of his life was spent in retirement ; and tradition 
 relates that " young and old repaired to his wigwam to hear him discourse 
 wisdom." His great motto was, " Unite in peace for happiness, in war for 
 defense." Where and by whom he was first styled Saint, or by what whim 
 he was chosen to be the patron of the Democracy, does not appear. 
 
 The New York Daily Q-azette for May 12th, 1790, contains the following 
 list of the officers of this order : 
 
 " The Society of St. Tammany, being a national society, consists of 
 Americans born, who fill all offices, and adopted Americans, who are eligible to 
 the honorary posts of warrior and hunter. 
 
 " It is founded on the true principles of patriotism, and has for its motives, 
 charity and brotherly love. 
 
 " Its officers consist of one grand sachem, twelve sachems, one treasurer, 
 one secretary, one door-keeper; it is divided into thirteen tribes, which 
 severally represent a State ; each tribe is governed by a sachem, the honorary 
 posts in which are one warrior and one hunter." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 329 
 
 the principal chiefs, to come to this city. The Tammany 
 Society determined to receive them with great ceremony. 
 The members, at that day, were accustomed to dress 
 in the Indian costume, and on this occasion they wore 
 feathers, moccasins, leggings, painted their faces, and 
 sported huge war-clubs and burnished tomahaAvks. When 
 the Creeks entered the wigwam, they were so surprised to 
 see such a number of their own race, that they set up a 
 whoop of joy which almost terrified the people present. 
 On the occasion of this interview, Governor George Clin- 
 ton, Chief-Justice Jay, Mr. Duane, the Mayor, Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, Secretary of State, and other distinguished men 
 were present. The Creeks were overjoyed with their 
 reception ; they performed a dance, and sang the E-tho 
 song. Mr. Smith, the Grand Sachem of the Society, made 
 a speech to the ludians, in which he told them that, 
 although the hand of death was cold upon those two 
 great chiefs, Tammany and Columbus, their spirits were 
 walking backward and forward in the wigwam. The Sag- 
 amore presented the chiefs with the calumet, and one of 
 them dubbed the Grand Sachem " Toliva Mico, or Chief 
 of the White Town." In the evening they went to the 
 theater, attended by the Sachems and members. Before 
 they left the city they entered into a treaty of friendship 
 with " Washingtoa, the Beloved Sachem of the Thirteen 
 Fires," as they were pleased to call him. 
 
 In June, of the same year, the Society established a 
 museum for the purpose of collecting and preserving every- 
 thing relating to the history of the country. A room was 
 granted for its use in the City Hall, and Gardiner Baker 
 was appointed to take charge of the collection. In ^^^^ 
 1794, it was removed to a brick building standing ' 
 directly in the middle of the street, at the intersection of 
 Broad and Pearl Streets, called the. Exchange. The lower 
 part was used as a market, but the upper part, being light 
 
 42 
 
330 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW TOKK CITY. 
 
 and airy, was well calculated for displaying the many 
 curiosities which now, by the indefatigable exertions of 
 Mr. Baker, had been collected. On the 25th of 
 "^^' June, 1795, the Society passed a resolution relin- 
 quishing to Gardiner Baker all their right and title to the 
 museum. He had taken so much pains and incurred so 
 much expense in getting it up, that he could, with good 
 reason, make a claim upon it. It was, therefore, given up 
 to him, upon condition that it should be forever known as 
 the " Tammany Museum," in honor of its founders, and 
 that each member of his family should have free access to 
 it. This museum, after the death of Baker, was sold to 
 Mr. W. I. Waldron, and, after passing through various 
 hands, formed the foundation of what was afterwards 
 called the " American" or " Scudder's Museum," in Chat- 
 ham Street.* 
 
 In September of the same year (1795) the city was 
 visited by that dreaded scourge, the yellow-fever, when 
 seven hundred and thirty-two persons died from the dis- 
 ease. In speaking of the situation at this time, the JVew 
 York Journal, of October 17th, says : " This city has been 
 in a truly melancholy situation; although the accounts 
 of the mortality have been greatly exaggerated in the 
 country. Consternation has added greatly to the distress 
 of the city ; the poor have suffered much, but their wants 
 have been liberally supplied from the hands of benevolent 
 donors. Very little business has been done — a solemn 
 calm has reigned through every street. We are now 
 blessed with salubrious western gales, which are conceived 
 to be sent in mercy, and presage to our hopes that the 
 city will be free from the epidemic in a little time. It 
 certainly puts on a less terrible hue — not more than one 
 
 * History of the Tammany Society, by H. G. Horton. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 331 
 
 in twenty dies. Those who have died were the greatest 
 part new residents." 
 
 In the month of December, 1796, the Fish-market was 
 torn down for the purpose of arresting a very destructive 
 fire. This conflagration is thus noticed in the 
 Minerva* for December 9th, 1796: "About one "^*' 
 o'clock this morning, a fire broke out in one of the stores 
 on Murray's Wharf, Coffee-house SHp. The number of 
 buildings consumed may be from fifty to seventy — a 
 whole block between the above slip, Front Street, and 
 the Fish Market. The progress of the fire was finally 
 arrested by cutting down the Fish Market." 
 
 So many fires occurring at about the same time, led 
 many of the citizens to believe that the slaves were again 
 conspiring to destroy the city. Great excitement was 
 caused and much preparation made to guard against such 
 a calamity. The same paper, of the 14th instant follow- 
 ing, says : — " Serious Cause of Alarm : Citizens of New 
 York, you are once more called upon to attend to your 
 safety. It is no longer a doubt — it is a fact, that there 
 is a combination of incendiaries in this city, aiming to 
 wrap the whole of it in fiames ! The house of Mr. Lewis 
 Ogden, in Pearl Street, has been twice set on fire — the 
 evidence of malicious intent is indubitable — and he has 
 sent his llack man, suspected, to prison. Last night an 
 attempt was made to set fire to Mr. Lindsay's house, in 
 Greenwich Street — the combustibles left for the purpose 
 are preserved as evidence of the fact. Another attempt, 
 we learn, was made last night in Beekman Street. A bed 
 was set on fire under a child, and his cries alarmed his 
 family. Rouse, fellow-citizens and magistrates ! yoiu- lives 
 
 * The Minerva (then edited hy Noah Webster) a few years afterwards 
 changed its name to the New York Commercial Advertiser, Zachariah Lewis 
 assuming its editorship. In 1834 it again changed hands, Messrs. Stone and 
 Hall becoming its proprietors. 
 
332 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and property are at stake. Double your night-watch, and 
 confine your servants." 
 
 The Common Council, on the 15th December, passed 
 resolutions ojffering five hundred dollars reward for the con- 
 viction of offenders, and recommended that good citizens 
 in the several wards should arrange themselves into com- 
 panies or classes, " to consist of such numbers as shall be 
 necessary for the purpose of keeping such watch for the 
 safety of the city." A citizen of that day, in writing to a 
 friend, also says : " The yellow-fever produced not such 
 extraordinary commotion. The present alarm, as it is 
 contagious, may be called the fire-fever." The " fever," 
 however, soon died out, as the precautions taken had the 
 desired effect, even if there had been any actual design of 
 conspiracy. 
 
 In the summer of 1798 the city was again visited by 
 the yellow-fever ; and so fearful was it in its effects this 
 time that the year was known for many years afterward as 
 the " Dreadful yellow-fever year." It came on so suddenly 
 that many were seized with it before they were really 
 aware of its presence. So fatal was it in August that 
 nearly one half of the cases reported died ; but, before it 
 had run its course, the proportion diminished one third. 
 The horror of the situation, moreover, was greatly in- 
 creased by the fact that the country people, becoming 
 naturally alarmed, would not bring their produce into the 
 city, although every encouragement was given them. 
 " No fees [licenses T\ were demanded of the country people 
 bringing provisions to our markets." The committee ap- 
 pointed to afford relief to the indigent and distressed sick, 
 in a communication to the public, say : " We entreat our 
 fellow-citizens of the surrounding country not to withhold 
 from the markets the usual supplies of poultry and small ' 
 meats, as well as other articles so essentially necessary to 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YOKE CITY. 333 
 
 both sick and well, in this city, in this distressed season."* 
 These appeals were, it is pleasant to know, answered by 
 many of the citizens who had left the city ; while others, 
 living in New Jersey, Long Island, and elsewhere, sent 
 large sums of money, as well as gifts of beef, pork, mutton, 
 butter, cheese, flour of all kinds, poultry and vegetables 
 by the wagon and sloop load. But, notwithstanding all 
 that was done to alleviate it, the ravages of the fever were 
 frightful, since 2,086 deaths were registered in a few short 
 months — a very large proportion, considering the popu- 
 lation of the city at this time. 
 
 Indeed, many of the slabs which still appear in the 
 grave-yards of Trinity and St. Paul's, in the midst of the 
 crowded and busy street, mark the restine-places 
 of the victims of this fell destroyer. Sad, however, 
 is the reflection how very short a period do the memorials 
 reared to the memory of the dead, by the hand of sur- 
 viving friendship and affection, endure ! A few, a very 
 few, brief years, and the head-stone has sunk, the slab is 
 broken, the short cohimn, or shaft, overturned. Yet, 
 while they do remain, they are often mementos of many 
 interesting incidents or endearing recollections. 
 
 An incident of this description, connected with the 
 pestilence of the year, now rises upon the memory ; and, 
 as its relation will wound none among the living, we will 
 repeat it. 
 
 There is a humble free-stone now standing in Trinity 
 Church-yard, so near the street that the bright and laugh- 
 ing eyes of beauty and pleasure can look upon it any day 
 as their possessors are tripping along Broadway. It 
 stands beneath the tree at the corner of Trinity Buildings, 
 now 111 Broadway; and the inscription yet retains the 
 name of Mrs. Isidore Johnson. The deceased was young 
 
 * DaiXy Adiiertiser, September 28tli, 1798. 
 
334 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 and beautiful, full of intelligence and vivacity Tvlien she 
 was married, a few months before the breaking out of the 
 fever. One Sunday afternoon, soon after the fever had 
 commenced, and before there was much alarm, walking 
 down Broadway, leaning upon the arm of her husband, by 
 whom she was adored, and whom she adored in turn, in 
 company with a friend, who was also newly married, the 
 topic of conversation naturally turned upon the epidemic. 
 Mrs. Johnson, whose natural buoyancy of spirits perhaps 
 imparted, even at that moment, an appearance of light- 
 heartedness she did not feel, was remarkably lively and 
 cheerful. In passing the spot we have indicated, where 
 the tree was then casting its refreshing shade upon the 
 green sward beneath, she suddenly stopped, and, looking 
 up into her husband's face with a sweet, though slightly 
 pensive smile, remarked with the utmost naivete, " There, 
 husband, if I die of the yellow-fever, bury me here." On 
 the very next Friday, she was buried there ! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The opening of the nineteenth century found New 
 York vastly improved. As commerce and trade revived, 
 it was found necessary to enlarge the grounds of 
 the city, and give it a more presentaUe appearance 
 to the many foreigners who had already begun to flock 
 thither for trade. The , city now numbered twenty-three 
 thousand souls, exclusive of a floating population, large 
 even for that early day. Reade and Duane Streets were 
 laid out and opened to the public in 1794. The waste 
 grounds around the Collect were filled in and graded ; a 
 canal, following the present Canal Street (whence the 
 name), was cut through from the Collect to the North 
 River, with a view of draining the Lispenard meadows ; 
 the beautiful lake was filled up and made firm ground ; 
 the grade of Broadway, from Duane to Canal Streets, was 
 determined upon by the city authorities ; the streets had 
 received numbers ; the United States Navy-yard, at 
 Brooklyn, had been begun ; the plan of the present modern 
 city, with its parallel streets and broad avenues, had been 
 adopted ; Washington, Union, Madison, and Tompkins 
 Squares had been laid out ; the great salt meadow on the 
 eastern side of the city had been drained, and already, in 
 imagination, divided into building-lots ; and, as the grand 
 step in this march of improvement, New York received, 
 in 1790, her first sidewalks, whicli were laid on both sides 
 
336 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITT. 
 
 of Broadway, from Vesey to Murray Streets. True, these 
 sidewalks were only narrow pavements of brick, scarcely 
 allowing two lean men to walk abreast, or one fat man 
 alone ; still tliey were far preferable to walking in the 
 middle of the streets on cobble-stones, especially if a person 
 had corns. At this time, also, Nassau and 'Pine Streets 
 were what the upper part of Fifth Avenue is now. Pearl 
 (then Queen) Street, from Hanover Square to John Street, 
 was the abode of wealth and fashion. Wall Street, now 
 given over to the sordid purpose of Mammon, was the gay 
 promenade on bright afternoons, and there many a gallant's 
 heart has been pierced by glances shot from beneath the 
 frizzled locks of the fair sex ; while the beaux, with their 
 powdered curls before, and their neat black silk bags 
 behind the head, their laced ruffles, and desperately square- 
 toed shoes, were equally comine il faut. The City Hall 
 stood at the foot of Nassau Street. Just below it was tLc 
 elegant mansion of Mr. Gulian Verplanck, and imme- 
 diately opposite, on the corner of Broad Street, .vas the 
 Watch-house ; while further down, at the corner of New 
 Street, stood Becker's Tavern, then a place of great resort. 
 In Nassau Street resided the Jays, Waddingtons, Rad- 
 cliffes, Brinckerhoflfs, and other prominent families. Where 
 the Merchants' Exchange now stands were the residences 
 of Thomas Buchanan, Mrs. White, and W. C. Leffingwell; 
 while in Pearl Street were the fashionable dwellings of 
 Samuel Denton, John Ellis, John J. Glover, John Mowatt, 
 Robert Lennox, Thomas Cadle, John B. Murray, Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor Broome, Andrew Ogden, Governor George 
 Clinton, and Richard Varick. Near the location of the 
 present City Hall was the Alms-house, with the Bridewell 
 on one side and the prison on the other. Grenzeback's 
 grocery stood where French's Hotel now stands. There 
 were but three or four buildings on the block where 
 Tammany Hall lately stood, one of which, nearly on the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 337 
 
 present site of the Tribune Building, was a place of great 
 resort for military men The only remnants of the neigh- 
 borhood at that time are the wooden shanties, with their 
 moss-covered roofs, which now disfigure Chatham Street, 
 opposite Center.* 
 
 In regard to the society and social life of the city at 
 this period, it is true that New-Englanders had even then 
 begun a brisk emigration thither, but the Dutch inhabit- 
 ants as yet greatly preponderated, while the Anglo-New- 
 Yorkers considerably outnumbered the new citizens from 
 the Eastern States. The simple, kind-hearted, and unos- 
 tentatious manners of the Dutch had not, however, disap- 
 peared, although great inroads had been made upon them. 
 Still, the good vrows and their daughters were to be seen 
 occasionally, in the gray of the summer evening, sitting 
 upon their stoops, saluting their passing acquaintances, or 
 talking to their neighbors at the adjoining door, or even 
 across the narrow streets, in a social and friendly man- 
 ner. More frequently yet might the worthy old Knicker- 
 bocker be observed on his porch, refreshing himself in the 
 cool of the evening with the soothing influences of his pipe 
 — that friend of indolent meditation and genuine inactive 
 philosophy. 
 
 The manners of the Anglo-American population were 
 entirely different. Previous to the Revolution, the royal 
 governors, most frequently noblemen, had- kept up the 
 pageantry of a little court in the metropolis, which was 
 often graced by the presence of ladies and gentlemen who 
 had received the advantages of polished and refined soci- 
 ety abroad. The lengthened occupation of New York, as 
 the head-quarters of the British army, moreover, had 
 served to continue much intelligent and accomplished 
 
 * K. G. Horton's History of the Tammany Society. 
 43 
 
338 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITT. 
 
 society in the citj^ during the contest of the Revolution, 
 the advantages of which were by no means lost by the 
 residents ; and the effects of these associations had not 
 been rubbed off by contact with democratic rusticity. 
 Many American officers, likewise, with their families, of 
 education and gentle breeding, if not of noble extraction, 
 had returned from the wars and settled down in the city ; 
 who, in addition to the advantages of foreign travel and 
 kindred society at home, had more recently been associ- 
 ated with the splendid array of officers from La Belle 
 France — among whom were the veteran Count Rocham- 
 beau and the gallant Lafayette — sent hither to fight the 
 battles of freedom, and carry back to their own country 
 the sacred fire of liberty kindled at the American altars. 
 These had left the impress of their gay and agreeable 
 manners upon the more English gravity of our own ; so 
 that the " good society " of that period, in New York, 
 deserved the appellation. Equally removed from the 
 imputed English taciturnity on the one hand, and the 
 apparent frivolity and loquacity of the French on the 
 other, it was just what it ought to be — easy, graceful, and 
 intelligent, and totally different from the puritanical pre- 
 cision which, at that time, prevailed to a far greater 
 extent in New England than at present. All, therefore, 
 was novelty to the young stranger who chanced to be in 
 the city — as well in the manners of society in its different 
 national classifications as in the extent and construction 
 of the city itself; for nothing, to an unsophisticated eye, 
 could appear more odd and grotesque than the primitive 
 Dutch architecture of New York. 
 
 If we suppose a stranger to be on a visit to the city at 
 this period, he probably visited the old red building called 
 a theater, in John Street, to see the Othello of John 
 Henry, and the Desdemona of his wife ; the Falstaff of 
 Harper, the Hallams, and Wignell, Jefferson, and other.s 
 
////, 
 
 '' / /' ,'/ ' /, •'/ ,''/'. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 339 
 
 of the corps dramatique, who were then strutting their brief 
 hours upon the stage. In his afternoon rambles for exer- 
 cise, he frequently accompanied his friends to the garden 
 of " Katey Mutz," at Wind-mill Hill — more recently the 
 site of the Chatham. Street Chapel— for a draught of 
 mead ; for the making of which " Aunt Katey," as she was 
 familiarly called, was particularly celebrated. From this 
 favorite place of resort he would, perhaps, stroll through 
 the meadows and orchards along the Bowery road, and 
 thence into the woods towards Corlear's Hook; which, 
 though now a densely peopled portion of the city, was 
 then a long walk into the country. His favorite ramble, 
 however, when alone, was to the hickory grove of Mr. 
 Nicholas Bayard, on the North River side, in that section 
 of the present city lying between Canal and Charlton 
 Streets. There was a spring of pure water here, and the 
 shady trees rendered it a charming place for solitary 
 meditation. Occasionally he drove out to the head of the 
 King's Road, and on the west side to Lake's " Hermitage." 
 near what is now the beginning of the Sixth Avenue. 
 More frequently, however, he dropped in at the "Ranelagh 
 Garden " to take a glass of ale or an ice of Jones, near the 
 Hospital. Again, if provided with letters to the principal 
 residents, he would, on a clear afternoon, walk up the new 
 road (now Broadway) as far as the beautiful country-seat 
 of Andrew Elliott, Esq.,* an English gentleman, who had 
 acted as Lieutenant-Governor under the Crown during a 
 portion of the time that the city was in British occupa- 
 tion. After spending an hour very agreeably with Mr. 
 Elliott, who was on the eve of taking his final departure 
 from this republican clime to one more congenial to his 
 feelings, he set out, towards evening, on his return to the 
 cit}' — taking the grove at Bayard's spring in his way. 
 
 * Now the corner of Tenth Street and Broadway — whore A T. Stewart's 
 iron store stands — and well known as the Sailor's Snug Harbor property. 
 
340 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YOEK CITY. 
 
 Meeting there some of his acquaintances, they strolled 
 together leisurely across the Lispenard meadows, and just 
 as the sun was sinking into his golden bed, called in at 
 the Mount Vernon Gardens, a fashionable place of retreat 
 at the White Conduit House, then situated at some dis- 
 tance from the city, near what is now the corner of 
 Leonard Street and Broadway. While seated in a rural 
 alcove, partaking of some of the ordinary refreshments of 
 such places, conversations of interest arose, mingled with 
 interesting stories and lively anecdotes, which caused the 
 friends to take no note of time, until they were startled 
 by the bells of St. Paul's pealing out the hour of nine. 
 
 The friends separated hastily, and our visitor, thread- 
 ing his way slowly along the narrow and inadequately 
 lighted streets, either returned to his lodgings at the City 
 Hotel, or, if previously introduced, paid a visit to the 
 Belvidere Club, at the house erected by that memorable 
 association of good fellows, on the hill beyond the seat of 
 Colonel Rutgers, which has been dug away within the 
 last forty years and built over upon a dead level. The 
 Belvidere Club was composed chiefly of foreigners, in- 
 cluding some of the professional gentlemen and merchants 
 of the city. They played lightly, gave excellent dinners, 
 and did not drink to excess, or rather, to what in those 
 days was counted excess. The house referred to as hav- 
 ing been built by the Club, was an elegant establishment, 
 standing upon one of the most charming sites in the 
 suburbs of the city, overlooking the town, with its beauti- 
 ful harbor, and a handsome section of Long Island. There 
 was also the Hardenbrook Club in existence at the same 
 period ; but its associates were hard drinkers, and our 
 visitor had no fellowship for such. Not being inclined to 
 become a member, even if his stay in the city had not 
 been short, he merely visited them a few times as a guest, 
 and as a matter of curiosity. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 341 
 
 There were, however, other enjoyments at his com- 
 mand of a higher order, and, being a student, much more 
 to his taste. The bar of New York at this time presented 
 a noble array of knowledge and talent. There were lit- 
 erally "giants" in those days, among whom were the elder 
 Samuel Jones, John Jay, Robert Troup, Richard Harrison, 
 Brockholst Livingston, William Duer, John Cozine, Josiah 
 Ogden Hoffman, and Chief-Justice Lansing — at this time 
 in the full meridian of their high professional career. 
 Alexander Hamilton also, though a few years younger 
 than those just mentioned, was fast soaring to the pinnacle 
 of his splendid intellectual course, as also was his able and 
 subtle rival, by whose hand he subsequently fell. It was 
 the delight of the young student to visit the courts and 
 witness the intellectual conEicts of these great men, where 
 the richest treasures of deep and varied learning were 
 disclosed, and the art of eloquence exerted to its highest 
 perfection — where mind grappled with mind, and, dis- 
 daining the petty subtleties and technicalities of the 
 profession, the champions stood forth in their own majesty 
 and strength, contending like men, and yielding only after 
 all had been done for their clients that could be achieved 
 by the power and weight of learning and the splendor of 
 eloquence. 
 
 These were likewise times of high political excitement. 
 Parties under the lead of Hamilton and Burr respectively, 
 were forming in strong friendship or violent opposition. 
 Frequent public meetings were held, and the ablest states- 
 men in the city often took part in these primar}^ assem- 
 blages. Night after night did the old Union Hotel in 
 William Street resound with the oratory of the distin- 
 guished popular leaders of the day, and often was pur 
 visitor among the most delighted of the auditors. He 
 was ever gratified with the antagonistic feats of mind, 
 whether at the bar, or upon the tribune of the people — 
 
342 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 whether exercised in close, logical, and nervous argument, 
 or in the more showy exhibitions of popular declamation — 
 whether imbued with wisdom, or sparkling with wit, — 
 the brisk assault and the tart reply. 
 
 One of these exhibitions of forensic ability was wit- 
 nessed in a remarkable criminal trial that took place in 
 March of the present year. The last week of the pre- 
 ceding year (1799) had been signalized by the 
 occurrence of a most mysterious murder, which at 
 the time threw the city into great excitement, and for 
 many days afterwards furnished the principal topic of 
 conversation among its citizens. In itself, the incident 
 might not be deemed of sufficient importance to allude to, 
 were it not for the fact that the trial of the suspected 
 murderer, as before hinted, called forth the splendid 
 abilities of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. 
 
 The case to which allusion is here made was as fol- 
 lows : An exceedingly comely young woman, Juliana 
 Elmore Sands by name, was taken, one Sunday afternoon, 
 to ride, by Levi Weeks, a young man, and a nephew of 
 Ezra Weeks, who built the City Hotel. The following 
 Thursday the body of the girl was found at the bottom of 
 the " Manhattan Well," just above the present Une of 
 Spring Street, between Greene and Wooster Streets, pre- 
 senting every appearance of having been foully dealt 
 with.* The young man, who had been her companion on 
 the previous Sunday, was at once arrested and placed 
 on trial for willful murder. Alexander Hamilton, Aaron 
 Burr, and Brockholst Livingston were retained for the 
 defense ; and during the trial, which lasted two days and 
 
 * Called tlie " Manhattan Well " from the fact tliat the " Manhattan Com- 
 pany," in searching round the city and suburbs for water, found a spring, which 
 they caused to be dug out several feet and made into a well. In the end, how- 
 ever, they decided that it would not answer their purpose; and it was accord- 
 ingly left curbed aud covered, retaiuiug ever afterwards the name of the " Man- 
 hattan Well." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 343 
 
 nights, the former two exhibited, in a marked degree, 
 the individual traits for which they were distinguished. 
 In conversation recently with a gentleman, now (1871) 
 ninety-four years old, he described to me the character- 
 istics of each of those great men as they appeared upon 
 the trial, of which he was an eye-witness. Hamilton, it 
 seems, was more of an orator than Burr. His style was 
 flowery, and his oratory graceful, fluent, animated, and 
 impassioned. Burr, on the contrary, was cool and impos- 
 ing in manner, collected and dispassioned in reasoning, 
 and confined himself, in argument, to a few strong and 
 prominent traits. Nevertheless, the latter did not always 
 depend upon argument, but resorted occasionally to what 
 would now be called "stage effect," to can-y his point. At 
 least this seems to be a fair inference from a circumstance 
 that occurred during this trial. It appears that at first 
 all the testimony pointed to the prisoner as the mur- 
 derer, and the evidence of one witness, in particular, was 
 so strong that it became plain that unless his testimony 
 could be broken down, the case for the defense would be 
 lost. The trial had lasted all the afternoon, and when it 
 grew towards dusk, Burr called his clerk to him, and, in an 
 aside, ordered a lighted candle to be brought in when he 
 should give a signal. Burr meanwhile, continued to cross- 
 question and harass the witness, constantly insinuating 
 that he himself was the perpetrator of the deed, until, 
 having succeeded in confusing him, he made the sign. 
 The lighted candle was thereupon handed him ; when, 
 suddenly holding it full in the face of the witness, he 
 exclaimed, in his most telling manner, " Behold the mur- 
 derer ! " This completed the discomfiture of the witness ; 
 and, after a charge by Chief-Justice Lansing, a verdict of 
 acquittal was rendered by the jury. 
 
 In 1803, De Witt Clinton was appointed Mayor of the 
 
344 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 city,* which station he held until the spring of 1807, when 
 he was succeeded, for a short time, by Colonel Mari- 
 ^**"'' nus Willett, the venerable soldier of the Revolu- 
 tion, and who, nearly half a century before, had gathered 
 imperishable laurels at Fort Stanwix. 
 
 One event, however, was to impede, for a short time, 
 the progress which the city was makmg on the road to 
 prosperity. This was the fire of 1804. About two 
 ^*"*' o'clock on the morning of the l8th of December, 
 of that year, a serious fire commenced in a grocery store 
 on Front Street. The air was cold, and a high wind 
 blowing, and the engines late in their appearance, the 
 devouring element extended with unexampled rapidity, 
 destroying many valuable stores and dwellings, with their 
 contents. The buildings from the west side of Coffee- 
 house Slip, on Water Street, to Gouverneur's Lane, and 
 thence down to the East River, were swept away, and 
 crossing Wall Street, the houses upon the east side of the 
 slip were also burned. Among them was the old Ton- 
 tine Coffee-house, so celebrated in its day, with several 
 brick stores. Most of the buildings being of wood, their 
 destruction caused new and fire-proof brick edifices to be 
 built in their places. About forty stores and dwellings 
 were consumed — fifteen on Wall Street, seventeen on 
 Front, and eight on Water Street — the value of the prop- 
 erty destroyed amounting to two millions of dollars. The 
 fire was supposed to be the work of incendiaries, from 
 anonymous letters sent to a merchant previous to the 
 event. A reward of five hundred dollars was, accordinglj-, 
 offered by the Mayor for the apprehension of the guilty- 
 parties. This same region, thirty-one years afterwards, 
 
 * The Mayor was at tliis time appointed to office by a Council of Appoint- 
 ment, consisting; of a Senator chosen by the Legislature from each of the four 
 districts of the State, with the Governor as Chairman of the Cotincil. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 345 
 
 was to witness the greatest conflagration which ever took 
 place in this city. 
 
 The year 1804 was indeed a memorable date in the 
 annals of the city. In that year the Historical Society 
 was founded, with De Witt Clinton for its first vice-presi- 
 dent; the New York Society Library received a fresh 
 impetus by the appointment of Gulian C. Verplanck as 
 
 - ^'=^'.^~v ■ ' .y ~ ■ ■ ^ — 
 
 SOCIETY T.IBKAKY BUILDING, 
 
 one of its trustees ; the present City Hall began to rise 
 from its foundation ; and the Public School Society was 
 virtually determined upon. It was marked also by dark 
 signs; for, besides bringing the dreadful fire, already 
 described, it brought the death of Alexander Hamilton 
 —killed in a duel, by Burr, on the 11th of July— and the 
 loss of his brilliant gifts and guiding intellect. Formerly, 
 a marble monument, erected by the St. Andrew's Society, 
 
 44 
 
THE GRAifGB — HAMILTON'S RESIDENCE. 
 
 •v ^ -v 
 
 mCIIM NU nil I LLl R S TE IDE CE 
 
DUELING GKOCND — WEBHAWKEN 
 
348 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 on the " Weehawken Dueling Ground," opposite Thirty- 
 first Street, marked the exact spot of the fatal encounter ; 
 and even as late as 1869, a cedar-tree, against which 
 Hamilton stood, while the seconds were arranging the 
 preliminaries, was still standing. Now, however (1871), 
 the newly-completed road-bed of the West-side Railroad 
 has destroyed the tree, besides removing every vestige of 
 the narrow ledge on which the principals stood.* 
 
 The year 1807 is also one yet more memorable, not 
 only in the city's history, but in that of the United States 
 and the globe. In that year was witnessed the 
 ^^"^" successful introduction of steam navigation. " Who 
 shall say," writes Dr. Osgood, " what steam navigation 
 has done to emancipate mankind from drudgery, and con- 
 struct society upon the basis of liberty ? It is science 
 turned liberator ; and the saucy philosophy of the eight- 
 eenth century become the mighty and merciful helper of 
 the nineteenth century. To us, individually and generally, 
 how marvelous has been the gift ! Wherever that piston- 
 rod rises and falls, and those paddles turn, man has a 
 giant for his porter and defender. The liberty of the 
 nation has been organized under its protection ; and the 
 great States of the Mississippi valley and the Pacific 
 coast are brought within one loyal affinity, and build their 
 new liberties upon the. good old pattern of our fathers. 
 Clinton and Fulton — the one identified with the rise of 
 steam navigation, the other with the Erie Canal — are 
 names that belong to universal history, as having given 
 
 * The details of this duel have been so often given that we may properly 
 omit them here. But one recent landmark of the city, connected with that 
 event — viz., Richmond IIelI/, where Burr was residing at the time, and at the 
 foot of which the boat was moored that conveyed him across the river to meet 
 Hamilton on that fatal morning — has entwined around it so many interesting 
 memories that our readers will thank us for givintr a sketch of it from the 
 scholarly pen of General Prosper M. Wetmore, who wrote it originally for Tlie 
 Historical Magazine. This sketch will be found in Appendix Xo. II. 
 
HISTOEY OP NEW YORK CITY. 349 
 
 America its business unity, and brought its united wealth 
 to bear upon the industry and commerce of the world." 
 
 But, notwithstanding the place which Dr. Osgood 
 assigns to Fulton, justice requires it to be stated that to 
 John Fitch, and not to Robert Fulton, belongs the honor 
 of inventing the steam-boat. 
 
 Probably no person has received so much praise, and 
 deserved it so little, as Robert Fulton. A man of no 
 practical ingenuity — of no power of conceiving, much less 
 of executing, an original mechanical idea— his friend 
 Golden has succeeded in persuading the public that to him 
 alone is due the successful navigation of our rivers by 
 steam. The facts, however, as I gathered them from the 
 late Biohop Potter, of Pennsylvania, who in turn received 
 them from Chancellor Livingston himself, are as follows : 
 Thirteen years before Fitch experimented with his steam- 
 boat upon the Collect in New York, he had^ as is well 
 known, run a little steamer on the Delaware, between 
 Philadelphia and Bordentown, with great success. During 
 that period he had experimented with various kinds of 
 propelling power — the screw, the side-wheel, and sweeps 
 or long oars. The most primitive thing about his vessel 
 was the boiler, which consisted simply of two potash 
 kettles, riveted together. Mr. Livingston, who was greatly 
 interested in the success of Fitch's experiments,* seized 
 the opportunity, when Minister to France, to visit the 
 workshops of Watt and Bolton, in England, where, for tlie 
 first time, he saw- a properly constructed steam-boiler. But 
 how was he to introduce it into the United States, unless 
 (which was then impossible) he went there himself? At 
 this crisis he thought of Robert Fulton, who, originally an 
 artist in Philadelphia, was then exhibiting a panorama in 
 
 * The Cliancellor liad previously expended large sums in boats and 
 macMnery for navigating the Hudson by steam, and obtained an act giving him 
 the exclusive right to do so in 1798. This was three years before he saw Fulton. 
 
350 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Paris. His panorama, however, failing to pay, was at- 
 tached, and he himself arrested for debt and thrown into 
 prison. Livingston also, at this time, had in his possession 
 the plans, models, and dravnngs of what was afterwards the 
 successful steam-boat, which he had obtained from the 
 American Consul, then residing at Havre, who, in turn, 
 had purchased them of Fitch, when the latter, com- 
 pletely discouraged, and a stranger in France, utterly 
 destitute, had given up in despair. Livingston, falling 
 into the error so common to many, of believing that, 
 because an artist can draw cleverly, he must necessarily 
 succeed equally well in mechanical conception and execu- 
 tion, paid off Fulton's debts, and sent him over to New 
 York with one of James Watt's boilers. Fulton, how- 
 ever, thoroughly incompetent and untrustworthy, failed 
 to rise to the occasion ; and when Livingston returned, a 
 year afier, he found his pet project precisely where he had 
 left it several years before. He, therefore, at once took 
 hold of it himself, and by his energy and perseverance, 
 finally brought bis idea to a successful issue — Fulton, 
 whom he could not entirely shake off, acting as a kind of 
 general superintendent. These facts, moreover, are con- 
 firmed not only by the late President William A. Duer, 
 in his New Yorker (Letter 7th), but by Mr. Ransom 
 Cook, now (1871) living at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. Mr. 
 Cook informs me that, in the summer of 1837, he was 
 in the city of New York, engaged upon his electro- 
 magnetic machinery. Among his workmen were two 
 who had been employed by Livingston and Fulton, while 
 those gentlemen were perfecting their steam-boat. They 
 surprised him greatly by stating that Fulton was a capital 
 draughtf man, and that was all. They added, that he was 
 so deficient in a knowledge of the laws of mechanics as 
 to furnish daily mirth for the workmen, and that it was a 
 long time before Livingston could convince him that the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 351 
 
 " starting-bar " of an engine should be made larger at the 
 fulcrum end than at the handle !* 
 
 On the 7th of August, 1807, the first steam-boat, the 
 Clermont, constructed and finished under the nominal 
 superintendence of Robert Fulton, encouraged by Chan- 
 cellor Livingston, stood in the stream opposite Jersey 
 City, ready at a signal to start on her way to Albany. 
 Thousands of citizens lined both banks of the river, and 
 filled every kind of available water-craft with the expec- 
 tation of witnessing the utter failure of " Fulton's Folly " 
 — as they had tauntingly christened the new boat — and 
 of having the satisfaction of saying, " I told you so." But 
 
 THE CLERMONT. 
 
 that sentence was never to be uttered ; for, at the word 
 from the alleged inventor, the wheels began to revolve, 
 slowly at first, then faster and faster, until " Fulton's Folly " 
 vanished up the river, leaving the scoffers staring after it 
 
 * In the jibove platement regarding the claims of Fitch and Fullon to be considered the 
 inventors of the steam-boat, I have written what I believe to be the true facts of the case. It 
 is far from my wish, however, to do injustice to any one, and I therefore here give a portion 
 of a letter written to me by Mr. J. H. B. Latrobe. of Baltimore, Md. Mr. Latrobe recently 
 read a paper before the Maryland Historical Society, designed to show that Mr. Nicholas rj. 
 Roosevelt, of New York city, was the real inventor of the present side-^^'heels to the steam- 
 boat. This paper has been published, and is accessible to those wishing to pursue the ques- 
 tion further. Mr. Latrobe writes : " It was Fulton who made the plans and superintended the 
 work of the Clermont.. The Chancellor was wholly incompetent. He was an inventor in a 
 f mall way, — a man, rather, of ideas to be carried out by others. His inventions, or his idea, 
 wanted theraeritofpraclicabilitj'. I have letters on letters ol his— OTi(7i«a<feW«rs— which prove 
 this beyond question. An able lawyer ; a statesman, too, he was hut a smotteror in the sci- 
 ences that involve accuracy in the mechanic arts. This is the impression his correspond- 
 ence gives me. So it woald you. Fulton, a miniature painter, a panorama-man, a toipedo- 
 man, a man of shifts through necessity, was a man of resources. There are papers in my 
 collection that abundantly prove this. • * * With regard now to Fitch. I mention him 
 in my monograph. There is a drawing somewhere ol his boat, but he was not the first who 
 had the idea of steam. Many had it. He practically antedated the Chancellor, and Roosevelt, 
 and F iltoii vith hi • vertv al pad lies or oars ,- but yru are (ne firs', that I have ever heard say 
 that he had anything to do with vertical wheels on the sidej:, which was the success. Had it 
 been as you state, it would have come out in the proceedings before the Legislature of New 
 Jersey, at Tienton, on the very river where his experinients lnok. place. The merit of Roose- 
 velt was that he not only suggested, but described the mechanical details of construction of 
 these wheels— and this to the Chancellor, too I It was not to Fitch, bat to two New-Yorkers. 
 of the old Knickerbockerstock, too, that the side-wheel boat owes its origin— Roosevelt, who 
 suggested and described it, while working at the Chancellor's imDracticability. * * * '■ 
 
352 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 with blank visages and open mouths. The triumph was 
 complete — yet to Fitch, not Fulton, belongs the honor. 
 
 In the summer of 1867, I chanced to be a passenger 
 on one of the swift and fairy-like steamers that ply in the 
 day-time between New York and Albany.* While passing 
 
 VIEW AT CATSKILL LANDIKG. 
 
 Catskill, the birth-place of Thurlow Weed, the latter, who 
 was also a passenger, was reminded of an incident of his 
 
 * In the course of the trip mentioned in the text, the distance between 
 West Point and Newburg^ — ten iniles — Tras made in t^ventj minutes and a half, 
 nearly thirty miles an hour. The speed of the boat (the Ghauncey Vibbard) on 
 this occasion was timed by Mr. Weed, Mr. Erastus Brooks, of the Express, and 
 Mr. Wilkes, of the Spirit of the Times. This time becomes the more remark- 
 able when it is stated that, at the time, the steam-boat had five hundrrd and 
 fifty passengers on board. The speed of Fulton's boat was about six miles an 
 hour ! The Ghauncey Vibbard and Thos. Powell are at present considered the 
 fastest boats in the United States, if not on the globe. In this connection, also, 
 it will be interesting to give the following account of the dimensions and speed 
 o{ X'ke Glermont. The Clermont vi as 100 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 7 deep. 
 The following advertisement appeared in the Albany Gazette on the 1st of Sep- 
 tember, 1807:— 
 
 " The North River Steamboat will leave Paulus-Hook [Jersey City] on 
 Friday, the 4th of September, at 9 in the morning, and arrive at Albany at 9 in 
 
HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY. 353 
 
 boyhood, connected with the first trip of the Clermont, 
 which he related to the little circle gathered around him : 
 " Sixty years ago, this very day," said Mr. Weed, " the 
 first steam-boat passed up the Hudson from New York to 
 Albany. The news spread like wild-fire, although there 
 was then no telegraph, and the banks of the entire river 
 were almost literally lined with people, to whom the first 
 steam-boat was a much greater wonder than the Great 
 Eastern to the present generation." To be on the bank, 
 however, was not enough tor Mr. Weed ; so, stripping off 
 his clothes and placing them on a rude raft improvised for 
 the occasion, he swam out into the stream, pushing the 
 raft before him ; and from an island (now forming the 
 main-land) he watched in actual fear and trembling, the 
 singular, and to him weird, spectacle — 
 
 " A peaceful fcark o'er the waters sped. 
 
 As the monster form drew near ; 
 From his perilous post the helmsman fled, 
 And the hailing captain bade with dread 
 
 From her demon-walie to steer. 
 
 " From the fishermen's cabins the inmates burst. 
 
 And were moved in their panic to say. 
 That the ghosts of the Dutchmen had risen from dust 
 To smoke their great pipes with a terrible gUst, 
 
 And hasten from Gotham away." * 
 
 the afternoon. Provisions, good berths, and accommodation are provided. The 
 charge to each passenger is as follows : 
 
 Dollars. Hours. 
 
 To Newburg 3 00 14 
 
 " Poughkeepsie 4 00 17 
 
 " Esopus 5 00 20 
 
 " Hudson 5 50 30 
 
 "Albany 7 00 30 
 
 " Mr. Fulton's new steam-boat," said the same paper, on the 5th of October, 
 "left New York on the 3d, at 10 o'clock, A. M., against a strong tide, very 
 rough water, and a violent gale from the north. She made a headway, against 
 the most sanguine expectations, and without being rocked by the waves." 
 
 Mr. Charles Dyke, who died in 1871, at the age of eighty-five years, in 
 this State, was the engineer of Fulton's little trial steamer, the Clermont, 
 at the time she made her first trip from New Yorlc to Albany, on the 7th of 
 August, 1807. 
 
 * Tlie First 8teainioa,t, by Mrs. Sigourney. 
 45 
 
354 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 1811. 
 
 It was not, however, until 1811 that "Crossing the 
 Ferry " at New York became an accomplished fact. In- 
 deed, the difficulties experienced in crossing the 
 North and East Rivers before horse or steam fer- 
 ries were known, will never be realized by the present 
 generation. They may be judged of somewhat by the fol- 
 lowing extract from a letter to the writer, written by a 
 gentleman who now (1871) is still living, at the age of 
 eighty-eight, hale and hearty. " When a boy of fifteen," 
 he writes, " I first visited New York city, in 1801. Then 
 
 we crossed from Brooklyn in small sail-boats — two cents 
 ferriage. With ice in the river, it was sometimes ex- 
 tremely perilous. To get .a gig across, of course, the 
 wheels must be taken off, and the horse jumped. On that 
 first visit I saw the fine farms below the present City 
 Hall — and one farmer was just driving out the gate with 
 a fine calf to carry down town to the butcher. My father 
 took me to the old Fly Market, whither he carried his 
 produce." * 
 
 * Letter from Isaac Bushmore, of Westbury, L. I., to the writer, dated No- 
 ecmber Wt. 1871. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 355 
 
 The first announcement of a steam ferry-boat appears 
 in the ColumUan newspaper of the 18th of September, 
 1811, as follows: '' Hohoken Steamboat. — Mr. Godwin 
 respectfully acquaints the citizens of New York and the 
 public at large, that he has commenced running a steam- 
 boat on the Hoboken Ferry, of large and convenient size, 
 and capable of affording accommodation in a very exten- 
 sive degree. The boat moves with uncommon speed and 
 facility, and starts from the usual ferry stairs, at the Cor- 
 poration wharf, foot of Vesey Street, New York, where 
 passage may be taken at any hour of the day." On the 
 24th of the same month, the following editorial appears in 
 the same paper : " Steam-boats are rapidly getting into the 
 ' full tide of successful experiment ' in this country. Last 
 week one of Colonel Stevens' ferry-boats, employed by 
 Mr. Godwin, of Hoboken, was started into operation, and 
 yesterday made sixteen trips back and forth, between that 
 place and this city, with a probable average of one hun- 
 dred passengers each trip.* Her machinery, we under- 
 stand, is somewhat different from that of the large North 
 River boats, and we presume she sails considerably faster 
 than any other heretofore constructed in our waters." 
 
 Even in those days it seems that there was sharp com- 
 petition. Especially was this the case between Fulton, 
 who represented the Paulus Hook Ferry Company, and 
 Colonel John Stevens that of the Hoboken Ferry. The 
 latter, it would appear, started the first passenger steam 
 ferry-boat, but the former produced, although at a later 
 period, a boat (or rather a double boat) which proved suc- 
 cessful for the general wants and uses of such a craft. 
 In July of the year following, 1812, the Columbian says, 
 editorially : " The large and commodious Steam-boat which 
 
 * Compare this statement with the fact that now two hundred thouaand per- 
 sons daily cross the East River, and as many more on the otlier side to New 
 Jersey and Staten Island. 
 
356 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 has been for some time erecting in this city by Mr. Fulton, 
 as a ferry-boat to ply between this city and the city of 
 Jersey, will be in full operation on Thursday next. The 
 crossing of the North River has beeen such an obstacle to 
 the communication with this city, that it is a matter of 
 real congratulation to the public that their difficulties are 
 removed. The most timid may cross now without fear. 
 As the fare of a market-wagon, loaded, will be but fifty 
 cents, there is no doubt but our markets will be better 
 supplied than ever they have been." " The boat impelled 
 by horses, from the New (Catharine) Slip to the upper 
 Brooklyn Ferry, carried at one time 543 passengers, be- 
 sides some carriages and horses. And a horse-boat is to 
 run soon from Grand Street Dock to Williamsburgh." 
 The same authority, a short time afterwards, announces 
 the successful launching of this boat, called the Williams- 
 hurgh^ from the ship-yard of Mr. Browne. It was not, how- 
 ever^ until May, 1814, that steam ferry-boats superseded 
 those propelled by horse-power on the Brooklyn ferry.* 
 In speaking of this great improvement, the paper we have 
 before quoted (the Columbian), under date of May I4th, 
 says : '•'■ Brooldyn Ferry-Boat. — The iS^assau, the new steam- 
 boat belonging to Messrs. Cutting & Co., which commenced 
 running from Beekman Slip to the lower ferry at Brook- 
 lyn a few days ago, carried, in one of her first trips, 549 
 (another counted 550) passengers, one wagon and a pair 
 of horses, two horses and chairs, and one single horse. 
 She has made a trip in four minutes, and generally takes 
 from four to eight, and has crossed the river forty times 
 in one day." " Yesterday (Sunday, May 10th), between 
 twelve and one o'clock, Mr. Lewis Rhoda accidentally got 
 hurled into the machinery of the new steam-boat Nassau, 
 
 * The picture of tlie Brooklyn Ferry-liouse, on tke opposite page, Is copied 
 from a colored engraving publislicd in London, by Tliomas Bakewell, in 174G, 
 entitled, " A South Prospect of ye Flourisliing City of New York, in ye Prov- 
 ince of New York, in America." 
 
358 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 which cut off his left arm a Httle below the elbow, and 
 broke his neck. He expired in about three hours."* 
 
 In 1808, De Witt Clinton was again appointed Mayor 
 
 of the city, which office — with the exception of only one 
 
 year, when he was superseded by Judge Radcliffe 
 
 in consequence of a change in party politics — he 
 
 retained by successive annual appointments, until the year 
 
 1815. 
 
 " In the discharge of his duties as Mayor," says Dr. 
 David Hosack, in his address before the Literary and 
 Philosophical Society, " whether presiding at the Common 
 Council Board, superintending the general interests of the 
 city as the President of the Board of Health, or officiating 
 in the character of a judge on the bench, Mr. Clinton 
 acquired the confidence, the respect, and the gratitude of 
 all classes of citizens, uninfluenced by the various party 
 feelings that distracted the community. As the presiding 
 
 * This may probably be considered the first " steam-boat accident " — now 
 become so friglitfullj' common — on record. 
 
 The first ferry ordinance on record (1654) lays down the following rates of 
 ferriage ; 
 The ferryman is to be allowed for a wagon, cart (either with horses or pior. ear. 
 
 oxen), or a head of cattle 2 10 
 
 For a one-horse wagon 2 
 
 For a plough , . . 1 
 
 For a hog, sheep, buck, or goat 3 
 
 For a savage, male or female ; 6 
 
 For each other person 3 
 
 Half for children under ten years. 
 
 For a horse, or four-footed horned beast 1 10 
 
 For a hogshead of tobacco 16 
 
 For a tun of beer ig 
 
 For an anchor of wiae or spirits g 
 
 For a keg of butter, or anything else g 
 
 For four schepels of corn \ 
 
 The ferryman cannot be compelled to ferry any one over before he is paid. 
 The hours shall be from 7 o'clock, A. M., to 5 P. M., in winter ; but he is not to 
 be obliged to ferry during a tempest, or when he cannot sail. 
 
 The directors and members of the Council, or court messenger, and other 
 persons invested with authority, or dispatched by the Eiecutive, are to be 
 exempt from toll. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 359 
 
 officer Of the Common Council, the dignity, the ability, 
 and the dispatch with which he performed the duties of 
 that important office, were always the theme of eulogy ; 
 and to the municipal concerns of the city he paid a 
 devoted and unremitted attention.". 
 
 In this year, also, he was instrumental in obtaining 
 from the State Legislature an appropriation of $100,000 
 for the fortification of the city. He was likewise the 
 President of the Board of Commissioners appointed to 
 
 FOBT HAMILTON. 
 
 superintend the accomplishment of those important mili- 
 tary works on Staten Island and in other portions of the 
 bay for the defense of the city. 
 
 It was while Clinton was Mayor that the ajfifair took place 
 which is generally known as the " Trinity Church Riot."* 
 
 * The following account of this riot is taken from Chief-Justice Daly's 
 scholarly discourse, delivered before the Century Club, on the death of (iulian 
 C. Verplanck. 
 
360 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 '< In 1811, one of the graduating class of Columbia Col- 
 lege, afterwards well known as Dr. J. B. Stevenson, who 
 had been appointed one of the disputants in a politi- 
 '^^'' cal debate which was to take place at the college 
 commencement, submitted, as required, what he was to say, 
 to the inspection of one of the faculty, Dr.Wilson. It contain- 
 ed this passage : ' Representatives ought to act according to 
 the sentiments of their constituents,' which Dr. Wilson 
 required him to modify by limiting it to one instance 
 only. The young man remonstrated, but the doctor was 
 mexorable, because, as he afterwards testified, he con- 
 sidered it expedient that the young man should deliver 
 correct principles, as he was to be the respondent in the 
 debate. The commencement was held in Trinity Church 
 before a crowded audience, and, when Stevenson came to 
 reply, he omitted the qualification, and delivered the 
 passage exactly as he had written it. When his name 
 was called for the delivery of a diploma, he ascended the 
 stage, and, as the president was in the act of handing him 
 the one prepared for him, one of the professors interposed, 
 and the president refused to confer the degree. The 
 young man withdrew, overwhelmed by this public ex- 
 posure ; but, upon returning to the body of the church, he 
 was surrounded by his fellow-graduates and friends, for he 
 had been an industrious and most exemplary student, and, 
 at their instigation, here turned to the platform and 
 demanded his diploma. One of the professors, anxious to 
 accommodate matters, said to him, ' Probably you forgot;' 
 but the young man promptly answered, ' I did not, but I 
 would not utter what I did not believe.' The diploma 
 was again refused, upon which he had the courage to turn 
 to the audience and say : ' I am refused ray degree, ladies 
 and gentlemen, not from any literary deficiency, but 
 because I refused to speak the sentiments of others as my 
 own.' This at once produced a sensation, upon which 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 361 
 
 Hugh Maxwell, an alumnus of the college, and afterwards 
 a distinguished advocate, went upon the stage and ad- 
 dressed the audience in support of Stevenson, condemning 
 the faculty in what they considered very bold and offen- 
 sive language. At this juncture Mr. Verplanck also went 
 on the platform and demanded of Dr. Mason, the provost, 
 who was the ruling power in the college, why the degree 
 was not conferred. Dr. Mason informed him, and Ver- 
 planck answered : ' The reason, sir, is not satisfactoi-y ; 
 Mr. Maxwell must be sustained.' The audience now 
 became greatly excited in favor of Stevenson, and Ver- 
 planck, turning towards them, moved a vote of thanks to 
 Mr. Maxwell ' for his zealous and honorable defense of an 
 injured man,' a proposition which the graduating class 
 received with three cheers, followed by three groans for 
 the provost. Vei-planck's manner in this scene, as subse- 
 quently described by Dr. Mason, ' was loud and rude, with 
 an air of consequence and disdain, calculated to aid and 
 increase the disturbance,' and, according to the doctor's 
 account, he ' appeared as if erecting himself into a tribunal 
 to judge above the heads of the faculty,' a statement in 
 which others who were present did not concur. Old as 
 well as young men now took as active a part as Verplanck 
 or Maxwell ; and when Dr. Mason, in his official character 
 as provost, came forward to restore order, he was, to 
 employ his own words, when examined as a witness, re- 
 ceived with a ' hiss that, in nianner and quality, would not 
 disgrace a congregation of snakes upon Snake Hill in New 
 Jersey.' He was compelled to retire, the poUce were 
 brought in, and the commencement came to an end in 
 confusion and disorder. 
 
 " From the college and the church the affair passed 
 
 into the newspapers. The faculty published in the daily 
 
 journals a lengthy vindication of their course, and were 
 
 answered by a rejoinder from the graduating class, and by 
 
 46 
 
362 HISTOET OP NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 replies from others who were present. A complaint was 
 made to the grand jury, and seven of the principal actors, 
 —Stevenson, Verplanck, and Maxwell being included, — 
 were indicted ; and, at the August term of the Court of 
 Sessions, or, as it was then popularly called, the Mayor's 
 Court, they were arraigned and put upon their trial fOr 
 the criminal offense of creating or assisting in a riot. De 
 Witt Clinton, being then Mayor of the city, presided ; and 
 from the unusual circumstance of such an occurrence in a 
 church upon such an occasion, and the fact that all who 
 were indicted were members of leading families of the 
 city, the trial excited the deepest interest. Verplanck 
 and Maxwell defended themselves, and three of the most 
 eminent counsel of that day, David B. Ogden, Josiah 0. 
 Hoffman, and Peter A. Jay, appeared for the other 
 defendants. The principal members of the faculty were 
 examined as witnesses, conspicuous among whom was 
 Dr. Mason, the provost of the college, in the earnestness 
 and zeal which he displayed to secure a conviction. He 
 was at the time the most eloquent preacher in the city, or,, 
 indeed, in the country, and in giving his testimony brought 
 all the weight of his popularity and his intellectual gifts 
 to bear with great effect against the accused. 
 
 " Verplanck addressed the jury upon his own behalf. He 
 declared, which was no doubt the truth, that he was moved 
 to do what he did solely from his sense of the injustice of 
 the college authorities, in publicly refusing to confer the 
 degree because the young man would not utter their 
 poUtical sentiments. 'There was,' he said, 'gentlemen 
 of the jury, a lofty spirit of gallantry about the conduct 
 of Mr. Maxwell, with which, at the time, I could not but 
 sympathize, and which now I cannot but admire. He was 
 bold in the cause of friendship and of character. I ap- 
 proved of his behavior, and I am proud that I did so ;' and 
 then gratified his own feelings, at least, by telling the jury 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 363 
 
 that Dr. Mason was 'a man towering in the proud con- 
 sciousness of intellectual strength, little accustomed to 
 yield, or even to listen to the opinions of others, that he 
 appeared as a witness pouring forth upon him and Max- 
 well all the bitterness of his rancor and the overboiling of 
 his contempt ; throwing off the priest and the gentleman 
 and assuming the buffoon ; showering upon them his deli- 
 cate irony, his choice simile of the congregation of snakes, 
 and all the other savory flowers of rhetoric, in which he 
 was so fertile, and had poured forth in such abundance,' 
 and, appealing to the jury, asked, ' What credit will you 
 give to a witness, inflamed by passion, smarting with 
 wounded pride, and mortified self-confidence V 
 
 " It was very doubtful whether the offense, which the 
 law denominates a riot, had been proved, or in fact com- 
 mitted — whether there was any thing more than a strong 
 expression of disapprobation on the part of the audience, 
 an occurrence more or less incident to the nature of public 
 assemblages, which became a scene of disorder from the 
 faculty persisting in refusing to give the young man his 
 diploma. No actual violence on the part of any of the 
 defendants was proved, nor was what occurred of a nature 
 to create public terror, a necessary ingredient in tlie crime 
 of riot. There was probably nothing more than a breach 
 of the peace. 
 
 " It was pertinently suggested by Mr. Jay, that, if the 
 college permitted the students to discuss a political ques- 
 tion, as a part of the public exercises at a commencement, 
 they should have been allowed the free exercise of their 
 own views in the discussion of it, and that the supervision 
 of their remarks should have been confined to the correc- 
 tion merely of literary defects ; that otherwise there was 
 no freedom in the debate, but the students were simply 
 mouth-pieces to utter the political views and sentiments 
 of the professors ; that there was nothing in the statutes 
 
364 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 of the college which imposed the penalty of a refusal of a 
 degree if a student would not incorporate in his speech 
 what a professor directed him to put in ; that a resolution 
 had been inserted in the minutes of 1796, subjecting the 
 compositions of the students to the inspection of the 
 faculty, and, if any such penalty as the deprivation of a 
 degree were attached, the students were left in ignorance 
 of it, as there was nothing of the kind in the college 
 statutes ; and he argued that it was not the young men 
 upon trial, but the faculty, who were responsible for the 
 disturbance ; that they had, perhaps, without sufficient 
 reiiection, fallen into an error, which their pride prevented 
 them afterwards from admitting. They had committed a 
 palpable act of injustice, and it was their unwillingness 
 to recede from it, and their determination to persist in it, 
 that had exasperated the audience. They, consequently, 
 were the real authors of the riot, if there was one ; but he 
 insisted, as did the other counsel for the defense, that, in 
 the sense of the law, there had been no riot. 
 
 " Clinton, however, had no misgivings in respect to 
 the law. He charged the jury that the oftense had been 
 committed, that all the defendants were guilty of it, and 
 got rid of the definition of a riot by Hawkins, a learned 
 elementary authority upon the criminal law, by declaring 
 it to be ' undoubtedly bad.' He commented upon the con- 
 duct of the defendants with great severity, and was espe- 
 cially severe upon Verplanck. It was difficult, he said, to 
 speak of his conduct in terms sufficiently strong ; that he 
 was one of the principal ringleaders ' in the scene of dis- 
 order and disgrace,' and that in his reply to the provost, 
 and in his moving a vote of thanks to Maxwell, he evinced 
 ' a matchless insolence.' He told the jury that they were 
 bound ' by every consideration arising out of the public 
 peace and the public morals, and by their regard for an 
 instil ution venerable for its antiquity, to bring in all the 
 

 O '! A-O ^^-'i-fC'-'^-'Z^;; r7"'7 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 365 
 
 defendants guilty ; ' that lie had no hesitation in declaring 
 that the disturbance was ' the most disgraceful, the most 
 uaprecedented, the most unjustifiable, and the most outra- 
 geous, that had ever come to the knowledge of the court.' 
 " Under this charge the jury found the defendants 
 guilty. Verplanck and Maxwell were fined two hundred 
 dollars each, which was imposed, says Renwick, Clinton's 
 biographer, in an address conveying a severe, merited, 
 and pointed reprimand. They were required, in addition, 
 to procure sureties for their future good behavior ; and the 
 same authority states that Clinton hesitated for some time 
 whether he was not called upon, by a regard for justice, 
 to inflict also the disgrace of imprisonment,"* 
 
 But before New York city was to attain to her present 
 high position, she was destined to pass through another 
 
 * " But the result of the prosecution did not produce the effect whicli its 
 promoters anticipated. Public feeling, especially in the Democratic party, was 
 with the defendants, and the course of Clinton, upon the trial, greatly aug- 
 mented the hostility of the Madisonian Democrats to him. We were then on 
 the eve of a war with England. The measures of Madison had not been suffi- 
 ciently energetic to satisfy the more ardent of the Democrats ; and Clinton, 
 relying upon a diversion of the dissatisfied portion of that party in his favor, 
 had taken the field as a candidate for the Presidency against Madison, and at 
 this very time was intriguing to secure tlie support of the Federalists. By tlie 
 Democrats his course upon the trial was attributed to a desire to ingratiate him- 
 self with the Federal party, and matters subsequently brought to light disclose 
 that this belief was not wholly without foundation. Dr. Mason, a Federalist 
 of the straitest sect, either shortly before or about the time of the trial, had 
 acted as the private friend of Clinton in bringing about an interview between 
 him and John Jay, Rufus King, and Gouverneur Morris, three of the principal 
 Federal leaders, whicli failed of its object through John Jay's disgust at hear- 
 ino' Clinton say that he liad never sympatliized with the Democrats, but had 
 always been in favor of the policy of Washington and Adams' administrations 
 
 an extraordinary statement from the man whose denunciation of tlie Federal 
 
 leaders as ' men who had rather reign in hell than serve in heaven,' had rung 
 through every part of the Union. It was, therefore, not without some ground 
 that he was exposed to the suspicion of having been actuated upon this trial 
 by a desire to do something that would gratify the Federalists, and especially 
 his negotiator with them, a man of imperious temper and despotic will, who 
 had set his heart upon the success of this prosecution." — Chief-Justice Daly's 
 Discourse. 
 
366 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 period of darkness and depression— the War of 1812 — a 
 period, moreover, which was to be rendered additionally 
 trying by the crippling of its resources by the terrible con- 
 flagration of 1811. The late Hon. G. P. Disosway, who, 
 with a few yet living, passed through this fiery ordeal, 
 gives his personal reminiscences of this fire as follows: 
 
 " An extensive fire broke out in Chatham Street, near Duane, on Sunday 
 morning. May 19th, 1811, raging furiously several hours. A brisk north-east 
 wind was blowing at the moment, and the flames, spreading with great rapid- 
 ity, for some time baffled all the exertions of the firemen and citizens. Between 
 eighty and one hundred buildings, on both sides of Chatham Street, were con- 
 sumed in a few hours. 
 
 " We well remember this conflagration. The writer was then a Sabbath- 
 school boy, and a teacher in a public school-room near by, at the comer of Tryon 
 Row. The school was dismissed, and, as usual, proceeded to old John Street 
 Church, thick showers of light, burning shingles and cinders falling all over 
 the streets. That was the day of shingle roofs. When the teachers and schol- 
 ars, their number very large, reached the church, the venerable Bishop McKen- 
 dall occupied the pulpit, and seeing the immense clouds of dark smoke and liv- 
 ing embers enveloping that section of the city, he advised the men ' to go to 
 the fire and help in its extinguishment, and he would preach to the women and 
 children.' This advice was followed. 
 
 " By this time the scene had become very exciting, impressive, and even 
 fearful. We have not forgotten it, and never will. The wind had increased to 
 a gale, and far and wide and high flew the blazing flakes in whirling eddies, 
 throwing burning destruction wherever they lit or fell. 
 
 " The lofty spires near by of the • Brick Meeting,' ' St. Paul's,' and ' St. 
 George's Chapel,' enveloped in the rapidly passing embers, soon became the espe- 
 cial objects of watchfulness and anxiety. Thousands of uplifted eyes, and, we 
 doubt not, prayers, were directed towards these holy tabernacles, now threatened 
 with speedy destruction. And there was cause for fear. Near the ball at the top 
 of the ' Brick Church,' a blazing spot was seen outside, and apparently not larger 
 than a man's head. Instantly a thrill of fear evidently ran through the bosoms 
 of the thousands crowding the Park and the wide area of Chatham Street. 
 They feared the safety of an old and loved temple of the Lord, and they feared, 
 also, if the spire was once in flames, with the increasing gale, what would be 
 the terrible consequence on the lower part of the city. 
 
 " 'What can we do ? ' was the universal question — ' What in the world can 
 be done 1 ' was in everybody's mouth. The kindling spot could not be reached 
 from the inside of the tall steeple, nor by ladders outside ; neither could any 
 fire-engine, however powerful, force the water to that lofty height. With the 
 deepest anxiety, fear, and trembling, all faces were turned in that direction. At 
 this moment of alarm and dread, a sailor appeared on the roof of the church, 
 and very soon was seen climbing up the steeple, hand over hand, by the light- 
 ning-rod ! - yes, by the rusty, slender iron ! Of course, the excitement now 
 became most intense ; and the perilous undertaking of the daring man was 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 367 
 
 watched every moment, as lie slowly, step by step, grasp after grasp, literally 
 crawled upward, by means of bis slim conductor. Many fears were expressed 
 among the immense crowd, watching every inch of his ascent, for there was no 
 resting-place for hands and feet, and he must hold on, or fall and perish ; and 
 should he succeed in reaching the burning spot, how could he possibly extin- 
 guish it, as water, neither by hose nor backet, could be sent to his assislaace ? 
 ' But where there is a will, there is a way,' says an old maxim, and it was at 
 this crisis he reached the kindling spot, and, firmly grasping the lightning-rod 
 in one hand, with the other he removed his tarpaulin hat from his head, and 
 with it literally, blow after blow, thick, strong, and unceasing, extinguished or 
 beat out the fire 1 Shouts of joy and thanks greeted the noble fellow as he 
 slowly and safely descended to the earth again.* The ' Old Brick ' was thus 
 preserved from the great conflagration of that Sunday morning. Our hero 
 quickly disappeared in the crowd, and, it was said, immediately sailed abroad, 
 with the favorable wind then blowing. A reward was offered for the person 
 who performed this daring, generous act ; but it is said that some impostor 
 passed himself off' for the real hero, and obtained the promised amount. 
 
 " The cupola of the ' Old Jail,' which stood on tlie spot now occupied by the 
 ' Hall of Records,' also took fire. This was extinguished through the exertions 
 of a prisoner ' on the limits.' This was the famous, generous institution where 
 unfortunate debtors formerly were confined and barred in with grated doors 
 and iron bolts, deprived of liberty, and \vithout tools, books, paper, or pen, 
 expected to pay their debts. It was a kind of ' Calcutta Black-Hole,' and the 
 inmates having no yard-room, the prisoners frequented the top of the building 
 for open-air exercise. Here they might be seen every hour of the day. Gen- 
 erally discovering fires in the city, they gave the first alarm, by ringing the 
 ' Jail-Bell.' This became a sure signal of a conflagration, and on this occasion 
 they saved the legal pest-house from quick destruction. The Corporation 
 rewarded the debtor who fortunately extinguished the threatened cupola. 
 
 " If the building had been destroyed and its inmates only saved, there 
 would not have been much public regret, for it had been a sort of ' Calcutta 
 Black-Hole ' to American prisoners of war during the Revolution. After Gen- 
 eral Washington's success, during 1777, in New Jersey, a portion of these poor 
 prisoners were exchanged ; but many of them, exhausted by their confinement, 
 before reaching the vessels for their embarkation home, fell dead in the 
 streets These are some of the historical reminiscences of the ' Old Debtors' 
 Prison,' which so narrowly escaped burning in the great fire of May, 1811." 
 
 Scarcely had the citizens of New York recovered from 
 the disheartening effects of this fire, when, on the 20th of 
 June, 1812, the news was received in the city of 
 President Madison's declaration of war against 
 Great Britain, issued a few days previous. A meeting 
 was immediately called at noon of the same day, in the 
 
 • This eailor was the fatter of the late Rev. Dr. Hague, Pastor of the Baptiet Church, 
 corner of Thirty-first Street and Madison A.y was.— Letter from Thomas Hays to the Author. 
 
368 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 park, at which the citizens solemnly pledged themselves to 
 give the Government their undivided support. Clinton, 
 also,— although, as chief magistrate of the city, he could 
 with perfect propriety have pleaded his official duties as 
 an excuse for not taking an active part, — hastened to offer 
 to the commander-in-chief his personal services for active 
 operations in the field. These were preferred in a letter 
 addressed to Governor Tompkins, by their mutual friend, 
 Thomas Addis Emmet. But the patriotism of Mr. Clinton 
 did not stop here. The declaration of war had found us 
 as a nation -wholly unprepared for war. The treasury 
 was empty, and its credit, at that time, impaired. It was, 
 accordingly, soon perceived that, if the city of New York 
 was to be defended, the funds for that purpose must be 
 provided by her own citizens. At this crisis, Mr. Clinton 
 suggested to the Common Council that they should borrow 
 the necessary funds on the credit of the city, and loan the 
 amount thus raised to the United States. The plan was 
 approved. An impressive address, drafted by Mr. Clinton, 
 was made to our citizens, and a million of dollars — at that 
 time a large sum to be secured in this manner — was raised 
 by subscription for the defense of the city. 
 
 Nor was it only in repelling outside foes that the 
 
 virtues of Clinton's character were exhibited. His 
 
 patriotism, his unshaken firmness in supporting 
 
 the laws and in preserving the peace of the community, 
 
 were at this time most conspicuous. 
 
 A state of war in every country produces a body of 
 men who, under various specious prctcxes, excite to acts 
 of riot and disorder, which they turn to the gratifica- 
 tion of their private and personal resentments, or their 
 own malignant passions.* Disgraceful scenes of lawless 
 violence and of bloodshed had recentlj- occurred in a 
 
 * Vide, for example, the " Draft Riot " iu New York in 18(33. 
 
HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITY. 369 
 
 sister city, and gave fearful omen of what might likewise 
 be expected in New York, unless restrained by the strong 
 arm of the law. Mr. Clinton foresaw the crisis, and his 
 correct and intrepid spirit prepared for the emergency. 
 In an address to the Grand Jury, he alluded to the riotous 
 scenes in Baltimore, and, with a view to prevent a repe- 
 tition of similar occurrences m New York, he digested 
 and prepared a system of police regulations for the pre- 
 servation of the peace of the city, which was adopted by 
 the Common' Council. The' result was that the city re- 
 mained tranquil and undisturbed by tumult of any sort. 
 " The character of Mr. Clinton," says Dr. Hosack, in 
 alluding to this circumstance, " was an assurance to the 
 community that these regulations would not remain a 
 dead letter, but be faithfully and promptly executed. His 
 well known firmness gave tranquillity to our city ; the 
 vicious were awed ; the virtuous, under his auspices, felt 
 additional confidence." 
 
 But, as a city, New York did welL Her conduct, 
 in view of the severe blow which it was perceived would 
 at once be given by the war to the prosperity of New 
 York, was no slight proof of patriotism ; and many who 
 at the beginning of the war were rich, found themselves, 
 when the treaty of peace was signed on the 24th of 
 December, 1814, ruined. The condition in which 
 
 1814, 
 
 New York was at the close of the war, as well as 
 the extravagant demonstration of joy with which the 
 news of the termination of hostilities was received, is thus 
 graphically described by the late Francis Wayland, 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 nation 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 
 
 47 
 
370 HISTORY. OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 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 oiF; our ships were rotting in every creek and cove 
 where they could find a place of security ; our immense 
 annual products were mouldering in our warehouses ; the 
 sources of profitable labor were dryed 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 
 exhausted ; no one could predict when the contest would 
 terminate, or discern the means by which it could much 
 longer be protracted.* 
 
 * The following lines, entitled " Hard Times," published in New York 
 city at the close of the War of 1813, seem, with one or two exceptions, 
 written for the present day. History has repeated itself, except in the case of 
 the geese and turkeys ! Would that a " good fat goose " could now he bought 
 for five shillings ! 
 
 " No business stirring, all things at a stand, 
 
 People complain they have no cash in hand. 
 
 Dull times ' re-echoes now from every quarter. 
 
 Even from father to the son and daughter. 
 
 Merchants cry out no money to be had. 
 
 Grocers say the 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 — 
 
 Business dull — amusement still we seek. 
 
 Some live awhile, and then, perhaps, they fail. 
 
 While many run in debt and go to jail. 
 
 The females must have ribbons, gauze, and lace. 
 
 And paint besides, to smooth a wrinkled face ; 
 ' The beaux will dress, go to the ball and play. 
 
 Sit up all night and lay in bed all day, 
 
 Brush up an empty pate, look smart and prim. 
 
 Follow each trifling fashion or odd whim. 
 
 Five shillings will buy a good fat goose. 
 
 While turkeys, too, are offered fit for use. 
 
 Are those bad times when persons will profess 
 
 To follow^ fashions and delight in dress ? 
 
 No ! times are good, but people are to blame, < 
 
 MTio spend too much, and justly merit shame." 
 
"sasr^S' 
 
 i/'' 
 
 ./■ ^^^'<^ '-2-J ^ W a.--ryo-9 o -2; 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. , 371 
 
 " It happened that, on a Sunday afternoon, in February, 
 1815, a ship was discerned in the offing, which was sup- 
 posed to be a cartel, bringing home our Commis- 
 sioners at Ghent, from their unsuccessful 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 breathless haste 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 repeated it. From house to 
 house, from street to street,, the news spread with electric 
 rapidity. The whole city was in commotion. Men bear- 
 ing lighted torches, were flying to and fro, shouting like 
 madmen, ' Peace ! PEACE !' When the rapture had par- 
 tially subsided, one idea occupied eveiy 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 tliat tlie news of peace was received, S. G. Goodrich (" Peter 
 Parley ") happened to be in the city. Speaking of the joyful effect produced, he 
 says : " I had gone in the evening to a concert at the City Hotel. While listen- 
 ing to the music, the door of the concertroom was thrown open, and in rushed 
 a man breathless with excitement. He mounted on a table, and swinging a 
 white handlierchief aloft, cried out, 'Peace! Peace! Peace!!' 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 
 marching about with candles, lamps, torches — making the jubilant street ap- 
 pear like a gay and gorgeous procession. The wliole night Broadway sang its 
 son tr of peace. We were all Democrats, all Federalists ! Old enemies rushed 
 into each 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 
 morniu"", I set out for Connecticut. All along the road, the people saluted us 
 
372 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The winter of 1817 was unusually severe. As late 
 as the 15th of February the Hudson was frozen over from 
 the city to the New Jersey side, so that people 
 crossed on the ice from shore to shore. "Several 
 gentlemen," records the Evening Post for February, " set 
 out for a sleigh-ride on the ice from Flushing to Riker's 
 Island, where they arrived in safety. This was the first 
 sleigh that was ever known to visit the island, and, as it 
 passed down the bay, it drew forth numbers of people on 
 the shore to view so singular an event." The suc- 
 ceeding year, also, witnessed the same intensity of 
 cold, Long Island Sound being entirely closed by ice 
 between Cold Spring and the Connecticut shore. The 
 Hudson likewise was again frozen so firmly that heavy 
 teams crossed to the Jersey side. Many persons, like 
 the Canadians, when the ice-pont forms between Quebec 
 and Point Levi, sought to make gain out of this 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 fur- 
 naces where the cooking was done.* 
 
 with swinging of hats and cries of rejoicing. At one place, in rather a lone- 
 some part of the road, a schoolmaster came out, with the whole school at his 
 heels, to ask us if the news was true. We told him it was ; whereupon he 
 tied his bandanna poctet handkerchief to a broom, swung it aloft, and the 
 whole school hosannaed, ' Peace ! Peace ! ' " 
 
 * An amusing anecdote was told at this time of a certain Jeremiah But- 
 man, around whose tent the ice had become quite thin, from the efiFects of the 
 stove and several days of mild weather. One of his customers, happening to 
 step upon a weak spot outside of his tent, broke through, and was strug-gling 
 in the water, when a friend put his head inside of Butman's tent, saying, 
 " Jerry, there is a man gone down your cellar !" " Is it so ?" said Jerry. " Then 
 it is about time for me to leave these premises." The man, however, was 
 finally extricated, the tent struck, and all were safely taken to the land on 
 a sled. 
 
 On account of the severe winter, provisions were considered very dear. At 
 the present day, however, the prices that then ruled would be considered 
 
MONUMENT TO QENERAL MONTGOMERy. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORE CITY. 373 
 
 In the same year (1818) the Legislature of New York 
 — De Witt Clinton, Governor — ordered the remains of 
 General Montgomery to be removed from Canada to New 
 York. This was in accordance with the wishes of the 
 Continental Congress, which, in 1776, had voted the beau- 
 tiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands in the front 
 wall of St. Paul's Church, in Broadway. When the funeral 
 cortege reached Whitehall, New York, the fleet stationed 
 there received them with appropriate honors ; and on the 
 4th of July they arrived in Albany. After lying in state in 
 that city over Sunday, the remains were taken to New York, 
 and on Wednesday deposited, with military honors, in their 
 final resting-place at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton, with 
 that delicacy for which he was always remarkable, had 
 informed Mrs. Montgomery when the steamer Richmond^ 
 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 moment that the boat passed. It was 
 now 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 steam-boat halted 
 before the mansion ; the band played the " Dead Mai-ch ; " 
 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 
 
 remarkably chieap. The following are the quotations taken from the Golum- 
 Uan of December 5th, 1818 : 
 
 Best beef, per lb 13J^c. Butter, fresh 33c. 
 
 " " •< cwt f;7tol3 " In firkins .... 23c. to 36c. 
 
 Pork, per lb 10c. Potatoes, per barrel 56c. 
 
 " " cwt $8. Turnips, " " 31c. 
 
 Veal, per lb 10c. Cabbages, per 1,000 . . $6 to $7 
 
 Mutton, per lb 8c. Wood, oak, per load ....' $3 25c. 
 
 Turkeys, apiece (good) $1 56c. " Walnut " $.'? 50c. 
 
 Fowls, per pair 56c. " Pine " $1 63^c. 
 
 Geese, per piece 50c. to 56c. 
 
374 HSTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tender emotions of the moment, she had swooned and 
 fallen to the floor * 
 
 The gallant dead, though surrounded by the turmoil 
 of a busy city, is still permitted to rest beneath the turf 
 made radiant by the unsullied blossoms of early spring. 
 I'he brave Wolfe, who fell on nearly the same spot sixteen 
 years previous, sleeps within the splendid mausoleum of 
 Westminster Abbey. But as we stand over the simple 
 grave of Montgomery, we recall the quaint and beautiful 
 language of Osborne : " He that lieth under the herse of 
 heavenne is convertible into sweet herbs and flowers, that 
 maye rest in bosoms that wolde shrink from the ugly bugs 
 which may be found crawling in the magnificent tombs 
 ofHeny the Vll."t 
 
 On the 22d of February, 1819, a grand ball was given 
 by the Fourteenth Ilegiment,J in honor of General Andr-ew 
 
 * Janet Livingston, the sister of the distinguished Chancellor Livingston, 
 and the wife of Geaeral Riphard Montgomery, met the latter when he was a 
 Captain in the British army, on his way to a distant frontier post. The meet- 
 ing left mutual tender impressions. Returning to England soon after, Mont- 
 gomery disposed of his commission, and, emigrating to New York, married the 
 object of his attachment. But their visions of anticipated happiness upon a 
 farm at Rhinebeck were soon ended. He was called upon to serve as one of 
 the eight brigadier-generals in the Continental army. He accepted sadly, 
 declaring that " the will of an oppressed people, compelled to choose between 
 liberty and slavery, must be obeyed." His excellent wife made no opposition; 
 and, accompanying him as far as Saratoga, received his last assurance : " You 
 sliall never have cause to blush for yonr Montgomery." Nor did she, for he 
 fell bravely at Quebec. Having reduced St. John's, Chambly, and Montreal, he 
 effected a junction with Arnold before the walls of Quebec, where he was shot 
 through both his thighs and head, while leading his men, on the 31st of Decem- 
 ber, 1775. In person. General Montgomery was tall, graceful, and of manly 
 address. At the time of his death he was only thirty-nine years of age. 
 
 ■f For the inscription on the cenotaph, and also for a letter from General 
 Montgomery, explaining the reason J'or his coming to America, — which has 
 always been involved in obscurity — see Appendix, No III. 
 
 i The Fourteenth (now the Seventh) Regiment — also known as the Govern- 
 or's Guards, from the fact that it had once been detailed by Governor Daniel D. 
 Tompkins (at the time a Major-General in the Army of the United States) as 
 his special body guard — was distinguished for its splendid discipline and its 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 375 
 
 Jackson, at the City Hotel. The ball was attended by the 
 General in person, and was far ahead, in elegance and 
 brilliancy, of anything before known in the city 
 — so much so, indeed, as to call forth several 
 squibs and criticisms from " Croaker,^' the celebrated 
 " quiz " and satirist of that day.* 
 
 The winter of 1820-'21, like that of 1817-'18, was 
 one of remarkable severity. Indeed, for many years pre- 
 vious, such intense and steady cold weather had not 
 
 18 20. 
 
 been known. A new.spaper of that day, speaking 
 of this, says : " The weather, after twenty-one 
 days of steady cold, began to moderate on Saturday after- 
 noon (the 20th). On Saturday morning, Long Island 
 Sound was crossed upon the ice from Sand's Point to the 
 opposite shore, distance eight miles. The price of oak 
 wood was up to five dollars a load, Saturday."! Three 
 days afterwards the same paper states : " The cold still 
 continues intense ; both the North and East Rivers were 
 crossed on the ice, and the bay is nearly filled with float- 
 ing 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 Cortlandt Street to Powle's Hook (Paulus Hook, 
 Jersey City). The Hoboken ferry-boat, with fifty-seven 
 persons and twenty-three horses on board, drifted, on 
 
 brilliant uniforms — blue coats, white pantaloons, and tall, wavinfr feathers — 
 which exceeded in richness and elegance all others in the city. " With its gal- 
 lant cavalier. Colonel James B. Miirraj', at its head, it was the pride and deliglit 
 of the beauty and fashion of the city; while it was equally distinguished, on 
 the march in Broadway, in the wallis of fashion, and in the gayeties of the ball- 
 room." — Recollections of the Seventh Regiment, by Asher Taylor 
 
 * Fitz Greene Hallcck. 
 
 f American, January 22d, 1831. 
 
376 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Wednesday evening, below Governor's Island, and Avas 
 inclosed in the ice, where she now remains. The people 
 suffered much from the cold during the night, although 
 none were frozen." The same paper, also, of the 27th of 
 January, says: "More than a thousand persons crossed 
 the North Eiver on the ice ; produce, of every kind, was 
 taken over in sleds ; and hundreds 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 persons 
 at the same time walked from Long Island to Staten Isl- 
 and, — such a circumstance has not been witnessed before 
 since the year 1780, when heavy ordnance were conveyed 
 on the ice from New York to Staten Island." 
 
 This long and severe cold weather caused much suf- 
 fering among the poor, and led to the establishment of 
 soup-houses, through the generosity of many of the butch- 
 ers. 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 $2,106.46.* 
 
 * The Market Book, by Thomas F. Devoe. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 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 again to be added. In 
 1819. the city was visited by yellow-fever, which 
 shortly disappeared, only to return with increased 
 violence in the fall of 1822. Hardie, in his account 
 of the fever at this time, says : " Saturday, the 24th of 
 August, our city presented the appearance of a town 
 besieged. From daybreak till night one line of carts, con- 
 taining 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 strongly marked on their countenances, and with 
 hurried gait, were hustling through the streets. Tempo- 
 rary stores and offices were erecting, and even on the 
 ensuing day (Sunday) carts were in motion, and the saw 
 and hammer busily at work. Within a few days there- 
 after, the custom-house, the post-office, the banks, the in- 
 surance-oflSces, and the printers of newspapers located 
 themselves in the village, or in the upper part of Broad- 
 way, 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 
 
 48 
 
378 HISTOET OF NEW TOEK CITT. 
 
 metropolis."* "You cannot conceive," writes Colonel 
 William L. Stone, at that time editor of the Commercial 
 Advertiser, under date of September 26th, 1822, to 
 his wife, " the distressmg situation we are m, and 
 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-looking 
 carriages." And again, about a month after, he also 
 writes, under date of October 10th, as follows : " As 
 to the fever, 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 
 parts of the city, who would not move, and the physicians 
 will not visit them. I know several who have died with- 
 out a physician. Old Mr. Taylor, for instance (Soap and 
 Candles, Maiden Lane), would not move, and is now in 
 his grave." On the 19th of the same month, also, he 
 writes again to his wife : "I believe I told you in my last 
 letter that I did not believe the fever was any better. 
 The result has proved the correctness of what I said. The 
 disease rages with fresh violence, as you will perceive by 
 the reports. 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 I yet hope that 
 we shall be able to remove back by the first of next 
 
 * The visits of yellow-fever in 1798, 1799, 1803, and 1805, tended much to 
 increase the formation of a village near the " Spring Street Market/' and one, 
 also, near the " State Prison ; " but the " fever of 1822 " built up many streets, 
 with numerous wooden buildings, for the uses of the merchants, banks (from 
 which Bank Street took its name), offices, &c. ; and the celerity of putting up 
 those buildings is better told by the Eev. Mr. Marcellus, who informed me that 
 " he saw corn growing on the present corner of Hammond and Fourth Streets, 
 on a Saturday morning, and, on the following Monday, ' Sykes & Niblo ' had 
 a house erected capable of accommodating Viree hundred boarders." Even the 
 Brooklyn ferryboats ran up here daily.— 3^ Market Book, by Thomas F. De- 
 voo. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 379 
 
 month." The cold weather of 1822 and 1823, however, did 
 not, as the writer hoped, check , the disease ; and dur- 
 ing the succeeding summer its ravages became 
 so frightful, that all who could, fled the city. 
 Business was entirely suspended, and the place presented 
 the appearance literally of a deserted city — with no sounds 
 except the rumbling of the hearses, as, at the dead of 
 night, they passed through the streets to collect the 
 tribute of the grave. By the 2d of November, however, 
 the fever had disappeared ; the inhabitants again returned 
 to their homes ; the bank sand custom-house, which had 
 been removed, during the fever, to Greenwich Village, on 
 the outskirts of the town, moved back to their customary 
 places ; and business and social intercourse once more 
 flowed in their accustomed channels. 
 
 The two following years were to witness two august 
 celebrations in New York. The first was in the summer 
 of 1824, on the occasion of the visit of General 
 
 1 834:. 
 
 Lafayette to America, in his eighty-sixth 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, the 15th of August, General Lafayette, 
 accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, 
 and his secretary, Auguste Le Vasseur, arrived in New 
 York bay in the ship Cadmus. As the ship passed through 
 the NarroAvs a salute was fired from Fort 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, he was conducted to the seat of 
 Daniel D. Tompkins, the Vice-President of the United 
 States, where he spent the day receiving calls. 
 
 Lafaj^ette had no idea, nor even a suspicion, of the wel- 
 come that awaited him on this side of the Atlantic. At 
 
380 BISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 least such is the inference from an incident told by one of 
 the actors in it to Captain Mayne Reid, by whom, in turn, 
 it was narrated to the author. 
 
 Lafayette had left France, after nearly half a century's 
 absence from the United States, and without any intima- 
 tion that he was to have any public reception in America. 
 The gentleman who gave the relation to Captain Reid — 
 a well-known Boston merchant — chanced to be his fellow- 
 passenger on the voyage, which was made in a Havre 
 packet-ship.* 
 
 While crossing the Atlantic, this gentleman had many 
 opportunities of conversing with the French marquis and 
 his son Washington. All knew that our old ally, though a 
 nobleman, was not rich ; and in his conversations with his 
 fellow-passengers he showed himself 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 United States. Indeed, the Americans who 
 were aboard 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 gen- 
 tleman 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 event 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 
 
 * The Congress of the United States, some moatha before, upoa learning 
 that it was the intention of Lafayette to visit this country, had unanimously 
 passed a resolution inviting him to our shores, and directed that a nationcd 
 ship should he held in readiness for his conveyance Vi^henever it would suit his 
 convenience to embark. This honor, however, the marquis declined, and took 
 passage from Havre for New York on the 13th of July, 1824. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 381 
 
 favorable wind to enter the Bay of New York. Near the 
 Narrows she was boarded by a row-boat, in which were 
 two gentlemen in plain civilian dress ; who, after holding 
 a private conference with the captain, again re-entered 
 their boat and put ofi". No one aboard the packet, except 
 the skipper himself, knew to what the conference related. 
 
 After passing through the Narrows, and coming along- 
 side of Staten Island, the French ship cast anchor. This 
 was a surprise to the passengers, 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. There were steam-boats, 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 mean?" asked the marquis. 
 
 No one could make answer. 
 
 " Some grand anniversary of your republic, messieurs, ^^ 
 was the conjecture of Lafayette. 
 
 About noon, the gayly-decked vessels approached ; and 
 it was seen that they were all making for the French 
 ship, around which they soon clustered. Presently, one of 
 the steam-boats came alongside, and a number of gentle- 
 men, dressed in official costume, stepped on board of the 
 Cadmus. Among them were General Morton, 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 the Gen- 
 eral Marquis de Lafayette, did the modest old soldier know 
 that a grand ceremonial was preparing for himself The 
 tears fell fast from his eyes as he received their congratu- 
 
382 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 lations ; and, on shaking hands with his fellow-passenger, 
 the Boston merchant, at parting, he said : 
 
 " Monsieur, I shall love New York so well, I may never 
 be able to get away from it to pay you a visit in Boston. 
 Pardieu ! This grand republique — this great people ! " 
 
 The object of this early visit upon the marquis, before 
 he had landed, was to exchange greetings, and communi- 
 cate to him informally the plan that had been made for 
 his reception on the next day. The following arrange- 
 ments were published in the morning papers of Monday : 
 
 AEKAJfGEMBNTS OF THE COKPORATION FOB THE KECEPTION OK THE 
 MAKQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 
 
 The committee of arrangements of the Corporation hare the pleasure to 
 announce to their fellow-citizens the arrival of the distinguished guest of their 
 country, the Marquis de Lafayette. 
 
 The following are the arrangements made for his reception in the city : 
 
 The committee of arrangements of the Corporation, the generals and other 
 oiBcers of the United States Army, the officers of the navy, the major-generals 
 and the brigadier-generals of the militia, the President of the Chamber of 
 Commerce, and the committee from the Society of Cincinnati, will proceed, at 
 nine o'clock this morning, the 16th, to Staten Island, where the marquis is 
 lodged, and escort him to the city. They will be accompanied to the Battery 
 by the steam-boats, all with decorations, except that in which the marquis is 
 embarlLed, 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 
 marquis will be announced by a salute from Fort Lafayette and the steam-ship 
 Robert Fulton. The forts in the harbor will also salute as the boats pass. 
 
 The masters of vessels are requested to hoist their flags at mast-head, and, 
 when convenient, to dress their vessels. 
 
 The bells of the city will be rung from twelve to one o'clock. The com- 
 mittee request that no carriages or horses, excepting those attached to the 
 military and the procession, appear south of Chambers on Broadway, Market- 
 field Street or Whitehall Street, between the hours of eleven and two. 
 
 The portrait-room in the City Hall is appointed to the use of the marquis, 
 where, during 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 paying 
 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 announced by a salute from the shore, which 
 
HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 383 
 
 was responded to by Fort Lafayette, and by the steam- 
 ship 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 better im- 
 agined than described. The steam-boat Chancellor Living- 
 ston, with her venerable passenger, was escorted up the bay 
 by the splendid steam-ship Robert FultoUj manned by two 
 hundred United States sailors from the Navy Yard, and the 
 steam-boats Oliver Ellsworth, Connecticut, Olive Branch, 
 and Nautilus, each having on board a large party. of ladies 
 
 .jAsr-% 
 
 FORT LAFAYETTB. 
 
 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 steam-ship Robert Fulton, 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 was never forgotten by 
 those who witnessed i't. The ship Cadmus, towed by the 
 steam-boats, brought up the rear, her towering spars 
 decorated in the most elegant and fanciful manner with 
 flags and signal.'^. " She moved majestically, as if con- 
 
384 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 scious of the veneration which was being testified for the 
 noble patriot she had conveyed to our shores." As the 
 procession passed Governor's Island, a salute was fired 
 from Castle William. 
 
 On arriving in the city, the marquis landed at Castle 
 Garden on a 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 off" 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 early friends of his youth ; thence he proceeded 
 with the committee and the military and naval ofiicers to 
 review the troops drawn up in line \mder the command of 
 Major-General Benedict. The muster was, on this occa- 
 sion, unusually full and splendid, each corps vying with 
 the other 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 were lined with spec- 
 tators, and to the incessant huzzas of the multitude, 
 graceful females signified their welcome by the silent, 
 but not less grateful and affecting, testimony of the waving 
 of handkerchiefs. Never, on any previous occasion, had 
 there been witnessed such a universal assemblage of the 
 beauty, fashion, and splendor of the cit}^ 
 
 Upon arriving at the City Hall, the marquis was con- 
 ducted to the Common Council chamber, where the Corpor- 
 ation were assembled. The members rose at his entrance, 
 and their chairman, Alderman Zabriskie, introduced him 
 to the Mayor, who welcomed the city's guest in an appro- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 285 
 
 priate speech. At its conclusion Lafayette responded as 
 follows : 
 
 " Sir, — While I am bo affectionately received by the citizens of New York 
 and their worthy Representatives, I feel myself overwhelmed with inexpres- 
 sible emotions. The sight of the American shore, after so long an absence ; 
 the recollection of the many respected friends and dear companions no more to 
 be found on this land; the pleasure to recognize those who survive, this im- 
 mense concourse of a free Republican population who so kindly welcome me; 
 the admirable appearance of the troops, the presence of a corps of the national 
 navy, — have excited sentiments to which no human language can be adequate. 
 You have been pleased, sir, to allude to the happiest times, to the unalloyed 
 enjoyments of my public life ; it is the pride of my life to have been one of the 
 earliest adopted sons of America. I am prond, also, to add that, upward of forty 
 years ago, I have been particularly honored with the freedoni of this city. I 
 beg you, Mr. Mayor. I beg you, gentlemen, to accept yourselves, and to trans- 
 mit to the citizens of New York, the homage of my everlasting gratitude, devo- 
 tion, and respect." 
 
 At the conclusion of this addi-ess, which was received 
 with most enthusiastic demonstrations, the marquis, 
 attended by the Maj^or and Common Council, retired from 
 the Council chamber to a platform in front of the City 
 Hall, where they received a marching salute from 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, devoted his life and fortune to the cause of 
 their country; who willingly shed his blood in the 
 acquirement 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 Wash- 
 ington ! 
 
 In the evening, the front of the City Hotel, the City 
 
 Hall, and other buildings were handsomely illuminated; 
 
 the theaters and public gardens displayed transparencies 
 
 and fireworks ; rockets blazed from the different house- 
 
 49 
 
386 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tops ; and an immense balloon was sent up from Castle 
 Garden, representing tlie famous horse Eclipse mounted 
 by an ancient knight in armor. General hilarity reigned 
 supreme. 
 
 On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 18th, General 
 Lafayette, with his son, visited the Navy Yard (dining 
 with the commandant and a few invited guests), and, m 
 the evening of the same day, the rooms of the New York 
 
 XAVT YARD, EKOOKLYN. 
 
 Historical Society. A large number of distinguished citi 
 zens had collected at the latter place to meet hiha ; and, 
 on his entrance into the room, he was conducted by Doc- 
 tor Hosack and General Philip Van Cortlandt to the 
 chair that had once been the seat of the unfortunate 
 Louis XYI.* Over the chair, and decorated with Revo- 
 lutionary emblems, was hung the portrait of Lafayette, 
 painted for General Stevens in 17(S4. Thus was an 
 
 * Presented to tlie New York Historical Society by Gouverneur Morris. . 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 387 
 
 opportunity afforded the audience of gazing at once upon 
 the young and chivalrous warrior of the Revolution, and 
 upon the same man, who, by forty years' hard service 
 since, had ripened into a good old age, full of wisdom and 
 honors, and without, by a single act, having tarnished the 
 bright escutcheon of his fame. 
 
 As soon as Lafayette had taken his seat, Doctor Hos- 
 ack, in a graceful address, tendered him his election as an 
 honorary member of the society. To which the General 
 responded in the following woi'ds : 
 
 " Sm, — With tlie most lively gratitude, I receive the honor which the His- 
 torical Society of New York have 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 investigation, and clear defi- 
 nition 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 iu vain observe the happiness and pros- 
 perity 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 day the city again 
 presented a scene of bustle and activity, preparatory to 
 the departure of General Lafayette and suite for Boston. 
 At seven o'clock, the horse artillery, commanded by Col- 
 onel Arcularius, paraded in Broadway in front of Wash- 
 ington Hall, and, at eight o'clock, took up their line of 
 march to Harlem, in order to supersede 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 the Mayor, Philip Hone, at 
 
388 HISTORY OF NEW TOKK CITY. 
 
 half-past seven, and repaired immediately after to the 
 ■City Hotel, whence the entire cavalcade under the com- 
 mand of General Prosper M. Wetmore, as Brigade-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 Commercial 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 hap- 
 pily 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."* 
 
 * At this time there was a great rivalry between Philadelphia and New 
 York, as to which city should receive the marquis most splendidly. A corre- 
 spondent, writinjr from Philadelphia to the Commercial Advertiser at this time, 
 says ; " The great object here seems to be, to rival the reception given to the 
 General in New York ; and, so far as it respects the military parade, the dis- 
 play of paintings, banners, arches, &c., 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, the naval fete in the harbor of New York. 
 
 " There are many splendid triumphal and civic arches erected here, and the 
 streets through which the General is to pass are lined with spectators. The 
 windows of the houses are filled, and there are thousands of spectators in the 
 boxes, or temporary stages, which have been erected for the purposes of public 
 accommodation and private gain. These seats are let at from twenty-five to 
 fifty cents each, and not for three or four dollars, as has been reported in New 
 York. And they are not well filled, notwithstanding the trifling expense. 
 There are many societies out to-day, handsomely dressed ; and the procession 
 will be much larger than has ever been witnessed in America. 
 
 " It is supposed that the General will arrive at the Hall of the Declaration 
 ol Independence at about four o'clock. Here he will be received by the Cor- 
 poration, and presented to the principal citizens, who. have the good fortune to 
 be guests. After which he will return to his lodgings at the Mansion House. 
 To-morrow, the General dines with the Corporation.. On Saturday, he attends 
 a Masonic festival. On Monday evening, he attends a Grand Civic Ball, and 
 departs for the South on Tuesday." 
 
HISTORY OF KEW YORK CITY. 389 
 
 " Such," writes Colonel Stone, in closing iin 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 witnessed in America, and which will 
 rarely, if ever, be equaled. They were proud days for the 
 cause of enlightened and liberal principles. No fulsome 
 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 services of a great benefactor of the whole 
 civilized world, come among us in a private capacity, and 
 in the unaffected attire of Republican simplicity." 
 
 It was most fitting that the city which had so nobly 
 supported the project of the Erie Canal from the begin- 
 ning should take the chief part in the ceremonies 
 attending its realization. Probably no project of 
 internal 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 
 obstacles in the way of its successful completion were by 
 no means removed. The same incredulity as to the prac- 
 ticability of the canal, and the same apprehensions as to 
 the capacity of the State, continued to raise a fierce oppo- 
 sition in the Legislature against anj^ appropriation for car- 
 rying out the work which it had itself authorized. Many 
 attempts were accordingly made to arrest, or at least 
 curtail and arrest, the project; and often during the prog- 
 ress of the undertaking it seemed as if it would be utterly 
 abandoned. 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 sup- 
 port at the polls. In accomplishing this result, the Coin- 
 
390 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 mercial Advertiser, the oldest paper of New York city, gave 
 powerful aid. That paper, which had always been the 
 organ of the Federalists, became, upon Colonel Stone's 
 assuming its management, in 1820, a stanch advocate of 
 the Clintonians. A strong personal friendship for Mr. 
 Clinton on the part of its editor, together with a firm con- 
 viction of the necessity for a canal through the interior of 
 New York State, led to the position thus assumed. The 
 trials and rebuffs experienced by Governor Clinton and 
 his supporters in pushing the canal project, and the energy 
 
 1825. 
 
 SANDY HOOK, FROM THE SHIP CHANNEIi. 
 
 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 the 26th 
 of October of the same year, the first canal-boat, the 
 Seneca Chief, left Buffalo, having on board Governor Clin- 
 ton, 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 
 along the entire line of the canal from Buffalo to Albany, 
 and thence along the banks of the Hudson to Sandy Hook, 
 announced the successful termination of the enterprise 
 
y V 
 
 
 ^^>»:^ 
 
 c- « 
 
 \' 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 / 
 
 -2S^- >^^^ 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 391 
 
 In New York city, especially, this event Avas celebrated 
 by extraordinary civic and military ceremonies, and the 
 citizens gave themselves up to the wildest demonstrations 
 of joy. Nor was ihis 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 tide of error as 
 well as that of the Tonnewanda, piling up the waters of 
 the mighty Niagara a.s well as those of the beautiful Hud- 
 son ; — 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 Ironde- 
 quoit as with the laurel's 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 Onondaga ; to smile 
 through Oneida's verdant landscape ; to hang upon the arm 
 of the ancient Mohawk, and with her, after gayly stepping 
 down the cadence of the Little Falls and the Cohoes, to 
 rush to the embrace of the sparkling Hudson, — and all 
 in the space of eight short years, — was the work of 
 which the oldest and richest nations of Christendom 
 might be proud." * Colonel Stone, as one of the most 
 zealous champions of the canal, was appointed to write 
 the Narrative op the Celebration, receiving a silver 
 medal and box from the Common Council of New York 
 city, together with the thanks of that body.t 
 
 * Stone's Narrative. 
 
 f Colonel Stone's narrative of the celebration was published by the Common 
 Council under the title of the Grand Erie Canal Celebration, accompanied 
 by a memoir of the great work by Cadwallader D. Colden. 
 
 In connection with the Erie Canal and its influence in building up the inte- 
 rior towns of the State, Colonel Stone was wont to relate the following anec- 
 dote : In 1820, he visited Syracuse with Joshua Foreman, the founder of tliat city 
 and one of the earliest and most zealous friends of the Brie Canal. " I lodged 
 for the night," says Colonel Stone, " at a miserable tavern, thronged by a com- 
 
392 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The naval and land processions in the city on this 
 occasion were so unique, and, withal, were projected and 
 carried out on such a magnificent scale, that we quote the 
 following description from Stone's Narrative, a work which 
 is now rare and difficult to obtain : 
 
 "The long-expected fourth of November — a day so 
 glorious for the city and State — with all its ' pomp and cir- 
 cumstance,' came and passed ; and the incidents, like the 
 fragments of a splendid vision, are yet floating, in bright 
 and glowing masses, through the imagination. But the 
 pageant was too brilliant, and the scenes too various, for 
 the memory to retain more than certain vague impres- 
 sions, no less beautiful than indistinct. Those who saw 
 the magnificent scene will , at once admit that it cannot 
 be painted in language ; and those who had not that hap- 
 piness must content themselves with the assurance, that 
 the best endeavors of the writer to convey to them an 
 adequate idea of its grandeur will fail. The poet, by 
 giving full sway to his imagination, may perhaps partially 
 succeed in conveying the various impressions imbibed on 
 the occasion, and some detached parts of the scene might 
 possibly be used to advantage by the painter who unites 
 skill with genius. But we repeat, that the narrative, in 
 humble prose, will fall short of a just representation. 
 
 " The grand fleet arrived in our waters from Albany 
 before daylight, and came to anchor near the State Prison. 
 
 panj of salt-boilers from Salina, forming a group of about as rough-looking 
 specimens of liumanity as I bad ever seen. Their wild visages, beards thick 
 and long, and matted hair, even now rise up in dark, distant, and picturesque 
 effect before me. It was in October, and a flurry of snow during the night had 
 rendered the morning aspect of the country more dreary than the evening before. 
 The few houses, standing upon low and marshy ground, and surrounded by 
 trees and tangled thickets, presented a very uninviting scene. ' Mr. Foreman ' 
 said I, ' do you call this a village f It would make an owl weep to fly over it.' 
 ' Never mind,' said he, in reply, ' you will live to see it a city yet ! ' '' Colonel 
 Stone did, indeed, live to see it a city, when he wrote the above in 1840 with 
 a mayor and aldermen, and a population of mdre llian twelve thousand souls 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. " 393 
 
 The roar of cannon from different points, and the merry 
 peals of our numerous bells, greeted the sun as he rose in 
 a cloudless sky. In a few moments afterwards, signals 
 were given by the flag-ship, and the various flags, ban- 
 ners, and other decorations, were run up as if at the sud- 
 den command of a magician. Shortly afterwards, the new 
 and superb steam-boat Washington. Captain E. S. Bunker, 
 bore proudly down upon the fleet, heaving up the foaming 
 billows as though she spurned the dominion of Neptune. 
 In the language of the Noble Bard, 
 
 ' She walked the waters like a thing of life, 
 Aud dared the very elements to strife.' 
 
 She bore the great banner of the Corporation, representing, 
 in dark figures, the arms of the city upon a snow-white 
 ground. The Washington was an entirely new boat, char- 
 tered for the occasion, of large dimensions, beautiful model, 
 and superbly finished throughout — uniting all the improve- 
 ments in steam-boat architecture. The design of the taff- 
 rail represented the renown of Washington and Lafayette. 
 The center was a trophy of various emblems — the laurel 
 and the olive— standards — swords — the balance — the ca- 
 duceus of Mercury, &c. The trophy was surmounted with 
 a bald eagle. Each side of it was decorated with a bust 
 — ou the right, that of Washington ; on the left, the bust 
 of Lafayette. The former was crowned with the civic 
 wreath and the laurel — the latter with the laurel only. 
 The genius of America was crowning her hero, and the 
 spirit of Independence, waving the flaming torch, binding 
 the brow of Lafayette. Each of these figures was attended 
 with emblematic medallions of Agriculture and Commerce. 
 The whole was based on a section of the globe, and the 
 background was a glory from the trophy. The corners of 
 the taffrail were each filled with a cornucopia, which grace- 
 fully completed the design, on which neitlier painting nor 
 gilding had been spared to enhance the effect. She ran 
 
 50 
 
394 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 alongside of the Chancellor, and a Committee of the Cor- 
 poration, with the officers of the Governor's Guard, came 
 on board to tender his Excellency their congratulations on 
 his arrival in our waters from those of Lake Erie. In per- 
 forming this duty, Alderman Cowdrey made a handsome 
 and pertinent address, in behalf of the Common Council, 
 to which his Excellency made a reply in behalf of himself ' 
 and his associates in the great work, and the several per- 
 sons and bodies who had been welcomed to the shores and 
 waters of New York, and to whom the hospitalities of the 
 city had been so cheerfully tendered. To the officers of 
 the Guards^ headed by Colonel Brett, the Governor also 
 expressed his gratitude and thanks for their prompt atten- 
 tion on the occasion. 
 
 " This duty having been performed, and there being 
 an hour to spare, the several boats entered their respective 
 docks, and came to anchor at the places assigned them, to 
 give their numerous passengers an opportunity to prepare 
 for the enjoyments of the day, agreeably to *their various 
 inclinations. 
 
 " The escorting fleet got under way, and passed the 
 British sloops-of-war Swallow, Captain Baldock, and King- 
 fisher, Captain Henderson, dressed for the occasion, and 
 bearing the American flag in company with the cross of 
 St. George. A salute was fired from these ships, which 
 was returned from the fleet, 
 
 " Not the least pleasing of this morning scene was the 
 packet-ship Hamlet, Captain Candler, prepared by the 
 Marine and Nautical Societies, appearing at sunrise in the 
 North River, superbly dressed in the flags of various na- 
 tions, interspersed with private signals, and the number- 
 flags of the difierent members. She made a most splendid 
 appearance during the whole day. At eight o'clock, these 
 societies met on board the steam-boat Fulton, Captain R. 
 Bunker, lying at Fulton Street Wharf (East River), and 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 395 
 
 were conveyed on board of the ship, where Captain J. G. 
 Collins, assisted by his officers, took the command. Com- 
 modore Chauncey politely sent an officer and twenty men 
 from the Navy Yard, to assist in the duties of the ship. 
 And before they landed, an excellent collation, prepared 
 for the occasion by the joint committees of the two 
 societies, was spread, of which all on board partook — to 
 the number of one hundred and twenty-five. 
 
 " At half-past eight o'clock, the Corporation and their 
 invited guests assembled in the Sessions Room at the City 
 Hall, and at a quarter before nine proceeded to the steam- 
 boats Washington, Fulton, snad Providence, stationed at the 
 foot of Whitehall Street. At the same place was also sta- 
 tioned the Commerce, Captain Seymour, with the elegant 
 safety-barge, Lad?/ Clinton. This barge, with the Ladi/ 
 Van Rensselaer, had been set apart by the Corporation for 
 the reception of the invited ladies, with their attendants. 
 The Lady Clinton was decollated with a degree of taste and 
 elegance which was equally delightful and surprising. 
 From stem to stern she was ornamented with evergreens 
 hung in festoons and intertwined with roses of various 
 hues, China asters, and many other flowers alike beauti- 
 ful. 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, as well as many other 
 distinguished ladies, was on board of the barge, which, 
 though the party was select, was much crowded. Captain 
 Seymour, however, paid every attention to his beautiful 
 charge ; every countenance beamed with satisfaction and 
 every eye sparkled with delight. 
 
 "A few minutes after nine o'clock, the entire party 
 being on board, the fleet from Albany, as before men- 
 tioned, led by the flag-ship of the Admiral, came round 
 from the North and proceeded up the East River to the 
 Navy Yard, where salutes were fired, and the sloop-of-war 
 
396 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Cyane was dressed in the colors of all nations. While 
 here, the flag-ship took on board the officers of that sta- 
 tion, together with their fine band of music. The officers 
 stationed at West Point, with the celebrated band from 
 that place, having been received on board on the preced- 
 ins; eveninsc, were likewise on board of the Chancellor Liv- 
 ingston. On returning from the Navy Yard, the steam- 
 boat Ousatonic, of Derby, joined the fleet. The wharves 
 and shores of Brooklyn, the Heights, and the roofs of 
 many of the buildings, were crowded with people to an 
 extent little anticipated, and only exceeded by the thick 
 masses of population which lined the shores of New York 
 as far as Corlser's Hook. The fleet, having arrived between 
 the east end of the Battery and Governor's Island, was 
 joined by the ship Hamlet^ before mentioned. While the 
 commander was signaling the various vessels, and they were 
 maneuvering about to take their stations, the spectacle was 
 beautiful beyond measure. Long before this time, however, 
 our city had been pouring forth its thousands and tens of 
 thousands ; Casth? Garden, the Battery, and every avenue 
 to the water, were thronged to a degree altogether beyond 
 precedent. The ships and vessels in the harbor were filled, 
 even to their rigging and tops. And the movements in 
 forming the order of the aquatic procession gave opportu- 
 nity to all to observe the several vessels in every advan- 
 tageous and imposing situation. Loud cheers resounded 
 from every direction, which were often returned. Every- 
 thing being in readiness, and every boat crowded to the 
 utmost, the fleet, taking a semicircular sweep toward Jer- 
 sey City, and back obliquely in the direction of the lower 
 point of Governor's Island, proceeded down the bay in the 
 order detailed in the official report of the Admiral, each 
 boat and ship maintaining the distance of one hundred 
 feet apart. 
 
 " The ship Hamlet was taken in tow bv the Oliver Ells- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 397 
 
 worth and Bolivar, and assumed and maintained its place 
 in splendid style. Four pilot-boats were also towed by 
 other steam-boats, together with the following boats of 
 Whitehall watermen, all tastefully decorated, viz.: The 
 Lady of the Lake, Dispatch, Express, Brandt/wine, Sylph, 
 Active, and Whitehall, Junior. 
 
 " The sea was tranquil and smooth as the 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 ever. As the boats 
 passed the Battery they were saluted by the military, the 
 revenue-cutter, and the castle on Governor's Island ; and, 
 on passing the Narrows, they were also saluted by Forts 
 Lafayette and Tompkins. They then proceeded to the 
 United States schooner Porpoise, Captain Zautzinger, 
 moored within Sandy Hook, at the point where the grand 
 ceremony was to be performed. A deputation, composed 
 of Aldermen King and Taylor, was then sent on board the 
 steam-boat Chancellor Livingston, to accompany his Excel- 
 lency 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 Mr. 
 Rhind, addressing the Governor, remarked ' that he had a 
 request to make which he was confident it would afford 
 his Excellency great pleasure to grant. He was desirous of 
 preserving a portion of the water used on this memorable 
 occasion, in order to send it to our distinguished friend 
 and late illustrious visitor, Major-General Lafayette ; and, 
 for that purpose, Messrs. Dummer & 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 Mr. 
 D. Phyfe from a log of cedar brought from Erie in the 
 Seneca Chief.' The Governor replied that a more pleasing 
 
398 HISTORY OP NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 task could not have been imposed upon him, and expressed 
 his acknowledgment to Mr. Rhind for having suggested 
 the measure. 
 
 " His Excellency, Governor 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 com- 
 memorate the navigable communication which has been 
 accomplished 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 
 almost every part of the world enables him to fill his cabi- 
 net with everything 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 Orinoko, La Plata, and Amazon, of South 
 America. The Hon. Cadwallader D. Golden then pre- 
 sented to the Mayor an able Memoir upon the subject of 
 Canals and Inland Navigation in general. 
 
 " Never before was there such a fleet collected, and so 
 superbly decorated ; and it is very possible that a display 
 so grand, so beautiful, and we may even add, sublime, will 
 never be witnessed again. We know of nothing with 
 which it can be compared. The naval /ei^e given by the 
 Prince Regent of England, upon the Thames, during the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 399 
 
 visit of the Allied Sovereigns of Europe to London, after the 
 dethronement of Napoleon, has been spoken of as exceeding 
 everything of the kind hitherto 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 uncommonly fine. No winds agi- 
 tated 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 tranquilly as upon the natural 
 mirror of a secluded lake. Indeed, the elements seemed 
 to repose, as if to gaze upon each other, and participate 
 in the beauty and grandeur of the sublime spectacle. 
 Every object appeared to pause, as if to invite retlection 
 and prepare the mind for deep impressions — impressions 
 which, while we feel them stealing upon the soul, impart 
 a consciousness of their durability. It was one of those 
 few bright visions whose evanescent glory is allowed to 
 light up 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, conseci\ates, as it were, 
 all surrounding objects, even to the atmosphere we inhale. 
 
 " While the fleet was here at anchor, a deputation 
 from the members of the Assembly from difl'erent parts 
 of the State, who were on board one of the steam-boats as 
 guests of the Corporation, preceded by Clarkson Crolius, 
 Esq., their Speaker, paid a visit to the Seneca Chief, to 
 reciprocate congratulations with the Buffalo committee on 
 the completion of the Grand Canal, to which the Legisla- 
 ture, of whom they were members, had made the last and 
 finishing appropriation. 
 
 " Everything being made ready for returning to the 
 
400 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 city, salutes were fired from the revenue-cutter, the pilot- 
 boats, several of the steam-boats, and from the ' Young 
 Lion of the West,' who, having prepared himself with a 
 pair of brazen lungs . at Rochester, often mingled his roar 
 with that of the artillery with which he was saluted on 
 his passage down. While passing up the Narrows, the 
 passengers on board of the different boats partook of ele- 
 gant collations. The Corporation, with their guests, dined 
 on board of the the Washington, the Mayor presiding, 
 assisted by Aldermen King and Taylor. 
 
 " When approaching the British armed vessels before 
 mentioned, the latter fired another salute. In consequence 
 of this compliment, a signal was immediately made from 
 the flag-ship, and the whole squadron passed round them 
 in a circle. The United States schooner Porpoise manned 
 her yards and gave the Britons three cheers, which were 
 returned. While performing this circular maneuver, the 
 British bands struck up ' Yankee Doodle '; in return for 
 which act of courtesy, the American bands, as they passed 
 the other side, successively played ' God Save the King.' 
 Another circumstance connected with these demonstra- 
 tions of good feeling must not be omitted : On board 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 
 appropriate drawings, in water-colors, representing Britan- 
 nia, Columbia, the Eagle, the Lion, and an English and 
 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 comino- throuo-h 
 Welsh mountains, the other as through American mount- 
 ains of granite ; and on their basements were conspicu- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 401 
 
 ously inscribed ' Clinton ' and ' Bridgewater,' in honor of 
 men whose pursuits in each country were so similar. The 
 whole was designed by J. R. Smith, and executed by him 
 and an assistant. 
 
 " One reflection occurred to us when the fleet was 
 below the Narrows, which, although it has no immediate 
 relation to the time or the occasion, it may not be amiss 
 to mention. When we viewed the number and tonnage 
 of the steam-boats employed, and the countless multitude of 
 passengers borne upon their spacious decks, we could not 
 but reflect upon the facilities of defense which, by means 
 of steam navigation, our city would possess in the event 
 of hostilities with any maritime power, and an attempt 
 upon our lives and property from this direction. There 
 were out upon this occasion, besides other craft of magni- 
 tude, no less than twenty-nine steam-boats, each capiible 
 of carrying from twelve to twenty-four guns, and from one 
 to five hundred men. And from the readiness with which 
 this force assembled, and from the rapid multiplication of 
 vessels of this description with the increase of business in 
 our metropolis, there is no doubt that even at the present 
 moment fifty boats, with ten thousand men and six or 
 seven hundred guns, might be collected, prepared, and 
 sent to repel an approaching naval armament, in one or, 
 at most, two days. Neither winds nor tides could stay 
 their progress, or control their movements. They could 
 choose their own time, position, and points of attack ; and 
 tremendous must be the power that could successfully 
 oppose, and superhuman the skill that could baffle, an 
 expedition of this kind, directed by the hand of valor and 
 sustained by the unconquerable spirit of freemen ! 
 
 " The head of the land procession, under Major-General 
 Fleming, marshal of the day, assisted by Colonels King 
 and Jones, Major Low, and Mr. Van Winkle, had already 
 arrived on the Battery, where it was designed the whole 
 
 51 
 
402 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 should pass in review before the Corporation and their 
 guests, and the spectators on board of the other boats, 
 which lay to near the shore, to afford an opportunity of 
 witnessing the cars, and banners, and other decorations of 
 the several societies, professions, and callings, who had 
 turned out in the city in honor of the event commemo- 
 rated. The Washington and Chancellor Livingston ran into 
 the Pier No. 1, in the East River, and landed the Corpo- 
 ration and their friends at the proper time for them to 
 fall into the rear of the procession. The fleet then dis- 
 persed, each vessel repairing to its own moorings; and 
 thus, without a single accident to alloy the festivities of 
 the day, ended an agreeable /e^e, unrivaled in beauty and 
 magnificence, we fearlessly aver, in the annals of the world. 
 
 " This narrative would probably be considered incom- 
 plete, were it not to include a notice of that part of the 
 pageant which was exclusively confined to the city. And 
 yet a minute description can hardly be deemed necessary, 
 since the ample oflScial report of the marshal of the day 
 is included among the papers collected in this volume. 
 To be as brief as possible, therefore, we will state, in gen- 
 eral terms, that the procession through the city, although 
 it could not, from the very nature of things, present to the 
 eye the bright and glowing images which ravished the 
 senses upon the water, was yet such as to reflect the 
 highest credit upon our city, the societies, and individuals, 
 whose patriotism induced them to bear a part, and the 
 occasion which called them forth. 
 
 " The civic processiou was composed of the several 
 benevolent and mechanic societies of our city ; the fire 
 department ; the merchants and citizens ; the offieers 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, accompanied by fine bands of 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 403 
 
 music, exclusively of the Corporation, their associate com- 
 mittees and distinguished guests, who fell in the rear of 
 the procession, as before mentioned, at the Battery. This 
 procession, the largest of the kind ever witnessed in 
 America, commenced forming in Greenwich Street, six 
 abreast, at nine o'clock a. m. — the right resting in Market- 
 field Street, near the Battery, and extending 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 
 counter-march of the whole column upon the right wing. 
 By this maneuver, every society and division was brought 
 into such close approximation with each other as to afford 
 every individual a distinct view of the whole. The pro- 
 cession moved from Greenwich Street through Canal 
 Street into Broadway, up Broadway to Broome Street, up 
 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 specfcicle was of a 
 most imposing and animating description. Every society 
 and occupation seemed to have been engaged in a laudable 
 strife, regardless of the expense, to excel each other in the 
 richness of their banners, and the beauty and taste ex- 
 hibited in their badges and other decorations. Nor had 
 the money of the societies been expended, or the skill of 
 the artists of our city exercised, 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 
 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 otherwise beautifully and splen- 
 didly decorated. The richest Turkey or Brussels carpets 
 covered the floors of some, whilst the costly gilding of 
 
404 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 others reflected back the golden rays of the sun with 
 dazzling efi'ulgence.* The eye of beauty, too, gazed with 
 delight upon the passing scene ; for every window was 
 thronged, and the myriads of handkerchiefs which flut- 
 tered 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, proclaimed their possessors worthy of being 
 the wives, mothers, and daughters of freemen. It was, in 
 fine, a proud spectacle ; but language fails in attempting 
 its description — much more in imparting to paper the 
 sensations which it created. It is not difificult to describe 
 individual objects correctly, but it is impossible to portray 
 their general effect, when happily grouped together. It is 
 amid scenes like these — a faint gleam of which can only 
 be conveyed to the future antiquary or historian — that 
 the mind is absorbed in its own reflections, musing in 
 solitude, though surroimded by the gay and the thought- 
 less, and literally lost in its own imaginings. 
 
 " The festivities of the day were closed in the evening 
 by illuminations of the public buildings and the principal 
 hotels, upon many of which appropriate transparencies 
 were exhibited. The illumination of the City Hotel con- 
 tributed 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 pre- 
 sented a brilliant wreath, encircling the letter " C." The 
 front, in William Street, displayed the words "Grand 
 Canal," in large and glowing capitals. We do not re- 
 member to have seen a more original and beautiful method 
 of illuminatiag than that adopted at this establishment. 
 Peale's Museum presented a beautiful transparency— rays 
 
 * For a particular description of the several cars, bauners, and badges the 
 reader is referred to the report of the marshal of the day. ' 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 405 
 
 of glory, containing a motto illustrative of the dependence 
 of the fine arts upon the success of commerce. Scudder's 
 Museum, likewise, 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 in- 
 terlude, composed "for the occasion by Mr. Noah, with 
 scenery specially prepared for the occasion, was received 
 with great applause. A similar production, from the pen 
 of Mr. Woodworth, was played at the Chatham Theater, 
 and was likewise well received. The house of Mr. Seixas, 
 in Broadway, was illuminated ; and an appropriate trans- 
 parency, 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 exhibited representing 
 the canal-boat Seneca Chief receiving on board his 
 Excellency the Governor, the Buffalo deputation, Indian 
 chiefs, &c., 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 they made to 
 contribute to the enjoyment and festivities of the day. 
 The City Hall, under their direction, was superbl}^ illu- 
 minated, the front presenting a very magnificent trans- 
 parency, on which were painted interesting views of the 
 Canal, columns with the names of worthies, figures em- 
 blematical of the occasion, &c. The fire-works, prepared 
 b}' Mr. Wilcox, far exceeded the public expectation, and 
 were unrivaled of the kind. Such rockets were never 
 before seen in New York. They were uncommonly large. 
 Now they shot forth alternately showers of fiery serpents 
 and dragons, ' gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire ;' 
 and now they burst forth and rained down showers of 
 stars, floating in the atmosphere like balls of liquid silver. 
 
406 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 The volcanic eruption of fire-balls and rockets with which 
 this exhibition was concluded, afforded a spectacle of vast 
 beauty and sublimity. They were sent up apparently 
 from the rear of the hall to a great height, diverging like 
 rays from a common center, then floating for a moment 
 like meteors of the brightest light, and falling over in a 
 graceful curve, presenting a scene magnificent and enchant- 
 ing. The park was filled to overflowing ; not less than 
 eight or ten thousand admiring spectators were collected 
 in it to view the splendid display which the Corporation 
 had prepared so munificently for their fellow-citizens. 
 
 " Thus passed 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 all attempts at description must 
 be utterly in vain. Others can comprehend the greatness 
 of the occasion ; the Grand Canal is 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 commu- 
 nity. Never before had been presented to the sight a fleet 
 so Iseautiful as that which then graced our waters. The 
 numerous array of steam-boats and barges proudly breast- 
 ing the billows, and dashing on their way regardless of 
 opposing winds and tides ; the flags of all nations, and ban- 
 ners 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 vari- 
 ous forts, accompanied by heavy volumes of white smoke 
 contrasting finely with the smoke from the steam-boats ; 
 the crowds of happy beings who thronged the decks, and 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 407 
 
 the voice of whose joy was mingled with the sound of 
 music, and not unfrequently drowned by the hissing of 
 the steam ; all these, and a thousand other circumstances, 
 awakened 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 remem- 
 ber 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 excite, to dazzle, and often to improve the condi- 
 tion and promote the welfare of mankind ; but the ' fash- 
 ion 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, the 7th of November, the fes- 
 tivities of our city were appropriately concluded by a ball, 
 which was given in the Lafayette Amphitheater, in Lau- 
 rens Street, by the officers of the militia, associated with 
 a committee of citizens. The circus-buildings, comprising 
 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 vary- 
 ing 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 
 
 * For a letter from Colonel Stone to Dr. Hosack upon the legislative pro- 
 ceedino-s of 1816-17, in regard to the Erie Canal, see Hosaok's Memoir of De 
 Witt Clinton. 
 
408 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 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 divided 
 into three compartments by the original division of the 
 audience part of the circus, the stage, and the additional 
 building on Thompson Street. Of these we shall speak in 
 order, but briefly. The two tiers of boxes were preserved, 
 and decorated 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 engiueers who 
 had been employed in the construction of the Canal, viz., 
 Briggs, White, Geddes, Wright, 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 past and the present Canal 
 Commissioners— Hart, Bouck, Holly, De Witt, North, Liv- 
 ingston, Fulton, Clinton, Van Rensselaer, Morris, Eddy, 
 Young, Seymour, Porter, Ellicott. 
 
 " From the roof, splendid chandeliers added their blaze 
 of light to the numberless lamps which were hung nearly 
 parallel to the upper boxes. Passing into the upper apart- 
 ment, 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, representing 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, on 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITT. 409 
 
 the face of which arches were skillfully painted, and in 
 the distance of which landscapes were represented. Here 
 was also hung the painting, spoken of near the commence- 
 ment of this narrative, from the cabin of the canal-boat, 
 faithfully representing the whole arrangement at that 
 place. The music of the band which was placed here was 
 excellent, and we discovered that the bugle-notes were 
 those of Willis, of West Point. Our national stripes were 
 suspended from the center, and tastefully looped up from 
 the extremities of the ceiling, forming a complete circum- 
 ference of regular semicircles, meeting in a common center. 
 Here, also, were lamps and chandeliers, and wreaths of 
 flowers, and garlands of roses, and various devices and 
 emblems, highly creditable to the managers. But it was 
 to the third and remaining apartment that the exer- 
 tions of the committee were directed, and their success 
 was correspondent. So many and so elegant were the 
 decorations, that the writer cannot hope to give them 
 more than a very brief notice, in which he must call upon 
 the imagination of the reader to increase with treble 
 intensity the imperfect idea given of the splendor of deco- 
 ration displayed. Imagine in a large hall, collected, and 
 displayed in one grand view, the flags and emblems and 
 costly decorations, which, in a continued and scattered 
 procession, called forth such enthusiasm of admiration. 
 Imagine them presented in one overwhelming view, blaz- 
 ing 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 prodigious mirror, the whole 
 reflected back in trebled brilliancy, doubling the immense 
 area including the thousand lights that sparkled around, 
 to tenfold greater splendor. And when all this is done, the 
 imagination of the whole scene will be faint to the real- 
 ity. Floods of light were poured forth from every point, 
 which were glanced back by the glittering array of the mili- 
 53 
 
410 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tary, and a thousand other objects of brilliant reflec- 
 tion. 
 
 " 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 congratulation 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. Mir- 
 rors, and splendid lights, and emblems, and statues, and 
 devices, beyond the writer's abiUties to describe, orna- 
 mented this part of the house in common with the rest. 
 Upon the supper-table was placed, floating in its proper 
 element (the waters of Erie) a miniature canal-boat, made 
 entirely of maple-sugar, and presented to Governor Clin- 
 ton by Colonel Hinman, of Utica. The refreshments were 
 excellent ; and, considering the vast number who were to 
 partake of them, very plentifully provided. At a season- 
 able hour the company retired, with memories stored for 
 future conversation, with the events, and decorations, and 
 splendors of ' The Grand Canal Ball' " 
 
 That this joy was not ill-timed and excessive, the 
 steady increase of the productiveness of the State afi"ords 
 conclusive proof Many of the supporters of the " Big 
 Ditch,"^ who, at the time, were regarded as enthusiastic 
 and visionary, have lived to see their most sanguine pre- 
 dictions more than realized, as well as the complete refu- 
 tation of the opinion which one of our greatest statesmen, 
 whose zeal for internal improvements could not be ques- 
 tioned, was known to have expressed, that this enterprise 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 411 
 
 had been undertaken a hundred years too soon, and that, 
 until the lapse of another century, the strength of our 
 population and our resources would be inadequate to such 
 a work.* 
 
 While, however. New York city was thus vindicating 
 her claim to a place in the van of internal improve- 
 ments, she did not hesitate to take the lead, also, 
 m extending aid to a nation at that time struggling 
 for its release from the thraldom of an oppressor. Greece 
 
 * The following statistics were furnished by the late Hon. Nathaniel S. Ben- 
 ton, for many years an able Canal Auditor : 
 
 The amount of tolls in 1823 was 1199,655.08 ; in 1866, $3,966,532.53 ; and 
 the total amount of tolls from 1833 to 1866, inclusive, $90,153,379.19. The 
 amount of tons going to tide-water is given in the report only as far back as 1836. 
 In 1836, the number of tons going to tide-water over the Canal was only 419,125 ; 
 in 1866, 3,533,664 ; and the total amount between these two years, inclusive, was 
 53,761,967. It also appears that, in 1837, the estimated value of all property 
 transported on the Canal was $47,720,879 ; in 1865, $186,114,718 ; and between 
 these years, inclusive, $3,439,407,533. The amount of tons that came to this 
 city in 1857, without breaking bulk, was 881,390; in 1866, 1,633,173; and 
 between those years, 11,775.S96. This ratio of increase seems to be broken in upon 
 only in one particular, viz., in the amount of tons — the product of the State itself 
 — arriving at tide- water. In 1836. this was 364,901 ; and in 1865, 173,538. Here 
 the previous rule is reversed, and instead of a gain there is a considerable fall- 
 ing-ofiF. This, however, is not to be attributed to a decrease in production, but 
 to the fact that the channels by which produce is conveyed to the city are 
 becoming more numerous each succeeding year. This is evident, if the amount 
 brought down by the Champlain Canal for 1866(561,053) be added, which gives 
 a total of 734,591. And if to this could be added the number of tons that now 
 go by way of the Central and other railroads of the State, which otherwise 
 would have gone by the Canal, the sum would be very greatly increased. 
 Indeed, this element of transportation by rail must be taken into calculation in 
 forming a correct estimate of the importance of the Canal. It will be seen by 
 the figures given above, that, with the exception just mentioned, the Canal shows 
 a steady increase in its tolls and tonnage, notwithstanding the vast amount of 
 freight yearly diverted from it by the railroads, and by vessels which now con- 
 vey considerable freight from Bufiulo direct to Europe, which formerly was 
 brought to this city for shipment abroad. And to this must also be added the 
 large amount of trade which has been directed by various channels into the 
 Western States. 
 
 The report of the Auditor gives also the cost of the enlargement up to the 
 close of 1866, viz., $33,030,613.80. The original cost was $7,143,789.86 ; the 
 total cost, therefore, up to 31st of December, 1866, is $40,324,403.66. 
 
412 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 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 in men or money. This arose probably 
 from the fact, that, at this time, the Greeks were in no 
 need of assistance. Fighting with enthusiasm, and upon 
 their own soil, they had beaten oflf the Turkish hordes, 
 and cleared most of the country of their oppressors. In 
 this year, however, affairs wore a different hue. Byron 
 had died, 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 in the mountains, retaining only here 
 and there a fortress. As it was a war without quarter, 
 every one fled ; for surrender was death to every man 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 G. 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 nothing, 
 and accordingly returned to the United States to get help. 
 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 
 organize efforts for raising supplies, he came to New York, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 413 
 
 at the solicitation of Colonel Stone, with whom he had 
 been for a long time in correspondence, with a view to 
 this end.* Colonel Stone now threw himself heartily into 
 the good work. He roused the public through his papei', 
 the Commercial Advertiser ; issued stirring appeals for aid ; 
 depicted in vivid colors the sufferings of the Greeks j and 
 got up private meetings of wealthy men, at which large 
 subscriptions 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, ships, 
 and large amounts of grain, flour, clothing, and money, 
 were obtained, forwarded, and distributed among the 
 
 * Letter from Dr. Samuel G. Howe to the autlior. 
 
 f In this connection, tlie autlior recalls an anecdote characteristic of both the 
 parties to whom it refers. Colonel Stone, while engaged in securing subscriptions 
 for the Greeks, called upon John Jacob Astor, 1st, for a considerable amount. To 
 all his persuasions the old fur-merchant turned a deaf ear, finally alleging that 
 he himself was really quite poor. " Yes, Mr. Astor," replied the Colonel, " every 
 one is poor nowadays but you and me." Astor knew that the Colonel was, at 
 this time, very much embarrassed, having lost nearly all his property by 
 indorsing ; and, upon this reply, so archly given, he joined in the laugh, and 
 handed the Colonel his check for considerably more than the sum asked for. 
 
 I At a mass meeting held ia the Cooper Institute on the 26th of January, 
 1807, in behalf of the Cretan patriots— his Honor Mayor Hoffman in the chair- 
 Professor R. 0. Hitchcock D. D., in paying a high tribute to the early friends 
 of the Greeks in the United States, said: "In Massachusetts, Dr. Howe, Web- 
 ster, and Everett ; in Kentucky, Clay. But let us not forget one of oar own 
 fellow-citizens, who battled liard for the liberties of the Greeks, and who was one 
 of three who received from the Greeks themselves a token of the respect and 
 veneration in which he was held, — a name that has been strangely omitted of 
 late when speaking of the early struggles of the Greeks ; a man whose grace- 
 ful pen has adorned our national literature ; who %vrote thrilling articles to 
 rouse the people to a sense of the wrongs of those patriots ; one who traveled 
 up the Hudson, speaking to any one and every one that thronged around him, 
 of the great subject that occupied the whole power of his mind,— the liberty of 
 the Greeks ; one second only, if even second to any, to Dr. Howe himself— the 
 name of William L. Stone." 
 
414 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 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 the cause.* 
 
 * Memoir of Colonel William L. Stone, by William L. Stone, 2d. Albany ■ 
 J. Munsell. 1866. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In 1828, Sa-go-te-wat-ha, or Red-Jacket, the great 
 Seneca orator, visited New York on his way to Washing- 
 ton. In 1797, his rival — though in a different field 
 
 18S8« 
 
 — Tha-yen-da-ne-gea, or Brant, had also paid a 
 visit to New York, at which time he was the guest of 
 Theodosia, the daughter of the Vice-President, Aaron 
 Burr, at Richmond Hill. Miss Theodosia treated the 
 forest chief with all the courtesy that hospitality sug- 
 gested ; and, young as she was, she performed the honors 
 of her father's house (Burr was then in Philadelphia) in a 
 manner that must have been as gratifying to her absent 
 parent as it was creditable to herself Among other 
 attentions, she gave him a dinner party, selecting for her 
 guests some of the most eminent gentlemen in the city, 
 among whom were Bishop Moore and Drs. Bard and 
 Hosack. In writing to her father upon the subject, she 
 gave a long and sprightly account of the entertainment. 
 She said that, in making the preliminary arrangements, 
 she had been somewhat at a loss in the selection of such 
 dishes as would suit the palate of her principal guest. 
 Being a savage warrior, and in view of the many tales she 
 had heard of 
 
 The cannibals tliat each other eat, 
 
 The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders. 
 
416 
 
 HISTOKY OF NEW YORK CITJ. 
 
 she added, sportively, that she had a mind to lay the 
 hospital under contribution for a human head, to be served 
 up like a boar's head in ancient hall barbaric. But, after 
 all, she found him a most Christian and civilized guest in 
 his manners.* 
 
 In like manner, Red- Jacket, during his stay in the city, 
 was made the " lion " of the hour ; and many of the oldest 
 and most distinguished families vied with each other to 
 do him honor. While in New York, his portrait was taken 
 by Robert W. Weir, at the request of Dr. John W. Francis. 
 Henry Inman and Mr. Mathias also made sketches of 
 him ; but the one by Weir is of far the highest order of 
 merit, and has become the standard likeness of " the last 
 of the Seneca orators." An acquaintance of several 
 years, and the reception of some trifling presents from Dr. 
 Francis, had enabled the latter to educe a promise from 
 the old chief to sit on his next visit to New York. This 
 happened in the present year ; when, with his interpreter, 
 Jemison, he very promptly repaired to the studio of Mr. 
 Weir. " For this purpose," writes Dr. Francis to his 
 friend William Dunlop,t " he dressed himself in the cos- 
 
 * The following characteristic letter was written at the time by Burr, 
 introducing the Mohawk chief to his daughter : — 
 
 " Philadelphia, Feb. 28<A, 1797. 
 
 " This will be handed to you by Colonel Brant, the celebrated Indian chief. 
 I am sure that you and Natalie* will be happy in the opportunity of seeing a 
 man so much renowned. He is a man of education — speaks and writes the 
 English perfectly — and has seen much of Europe and America. Receive him 
 with respect and hospitality. He is not one of those Indians who drink rum, 
 but is quite a gentleman ; not one who will make you fine bows, but one who 
 understands and practices what belongs to propriety and good-breeding. He 
 has daughters — ^if you could think of some little present to send to one of them 
 (a pair of ear-rings, for example), it would please him. Ton may talk to him 
 very freely, and offer to introduce him to your friend, Mr. Witbeca, at Albany. 
 Vcde et arma. x. B."| 
 
 f The author of the History of the American Arts of Design. 
 
 * Natalie Beligii, aa adopted child of Aaron Burr, born in France, and subsequently 
 marriiid to a son of General Sumpter, of South Carolina. 
 
 t Stone's Life of Joseph Brant. 
 
HISTORY OP HEW YORK CITY. 
 
 417 
 
 tume which he deemed most appropriate to his character 
 decorated with his brilliant over-covering and belt, his 
 tomahawk and Washington medal* For the whole 
 period of nearly two hours, on four or five successive days, 
 he was as punctual to the arrangements of the artist as 
 any individual could be. He chose a large arm-chair for 
 his convenience, while his interpreter, as well as himself, 
 was occupied, for the most part, in surveying the objects 
 which decorated the artist's room. He had a party of 
 several Senecas with him, who, adopting the horizontal 
 position, in different parts of the room, regaled themselves 
 with the fumes of tobacco to their utmost gratification. 
 Red-Jacket occasionally united in this relaxation ; but 
 was so deeply absorbed in attention to the work of the 
 painter as to think, perhaps, of no other subject, At 
 times he manifested extreme pleasure, as the outlines of 
 the picture were filled up. The drawing of his costume, 
 which he seemed to prize, as peculiarly appropriate, and 
 the distant view of the Falls of Niagara — scenery at no 
 great distance from his own residence — forced him to an 
 indistinct utterance of his satisfaction. When his medal 
 appeared complete in the picture, he addressed his inter- 
 preter by striking gestures ; and when his noble front was 
 finished, he sprung upon his feet with great alacrity, and, 
 seizing the artist by the hand, exclaimed with great 
 energy, " Good ! good ! " The painting being finished, he 
 parted with Mr. Weir with a satisfaction equal to that 
 which he, doubtless, on some occasions, had felt on effect- 
 ing an Indian treaty. R.ed-Jacket must have been beyond 
 his seventieth year when the painting was made. He 
 exhibited in his countenance somewhat of the traces of 
 time and trial on his constitution. Nevertheless, he was 
 of a tall and erect form, and walked with a firm gait. His 
 
 * See engraving in the large-paper edition of this work, which is a copy oi 
 Weir's painting. 
 53 
 
418 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 characteristics are preserved by the artist to admiration ; 
 and his majestic front exhibits an attitude surpassing 
 every other that I have ever seen of the human skull. As 
 a specimen for the craniologist, Red-Jacket need not yield 
 his pretensions to those of the most astute philosophers. 
 He will long live by the painting of Weir, the poetry of 
 Halleck, and the fame of his own deeds.* 
 
 Red-Jacket loved his native forests, and no music was 
 to him so sad as the sounds of approaching civilization, 
 before which they were destined to fall. Every blow of 
 the woodman's ax sent a pang to his heart. The crash of 
 a falling tree sounded more painfully upon his ears than 
 the jar of an earthquake. The following anecdote will 
 illustrate his feelings upon this subject. In the days 
 of his youth, he was wont to join the hunters in 
 the beautiful valley of the Genesee with great enthusiasm. 
 Game was then plenty, and those were, indeed, the fairest 
 hunting-grounds he could traverse Toward the close of 
 his life, he went thither to indulge once more in the 
 chase, where a forest, apparently of considerable extent, 
 yet remained. He entered it, recognizing some of his 
 ancient friends among the venerable trees, and hoping 
 still to find abundant game. But he had not proceeded 
 far before he approached an opening, and his course was 
 presently impeded by a fence, within the inclosure of 
 which one of the pale-faces was engaged in guiding the 
 plow. With a heavy heart, he turned in another direc- 
 tion, the forest seeming yet to be deep, and where he 
 hoped to find a deer, as in the days when he was young. 
 But he had not traveled long before another opening 
 broke upon his view ; another fence impeded his course, 
 
 * Doctor Francis held many conversations witb Red-Jacket, durino- the lat- 
 ter's stay in the city, some of which were upon the subject of tlie diseases to 
 which the Indians were subject. The chief was quite descriptive in his statements 
 and seemed safficiently qualified to make a number of very fair distinctions in 
 relation to the subject. — Conversations of Br. Francis with Col. ^Vm. L. Stone. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 419 
 
 and another cultivated field appeared within. He sat 
 down and wept.* 
 
 In the same year that Red-Jacket visited the city, the 
 Merchants' Exchange, in Wall Street (begun in 1825), was 
 completed. Masonic Hall, opposite the New York Hospi- 
 tal, the Arcade, in Maiden Lane, and other buildings of 
 more or less interest, were also erected. It has been the 
 custom of late years to speak of the changes that have 
 taken place in New York city as of recent date. This, 
 however, is a mistake. Modern New York begins, in 
 reality, about the year 1820, at which time the " march 
 of internal improvement" began to level the most inter- 
 esting of our city landmarks. Indeed, as late as 1827, 
 Exchange Place was Garden Street, Beaver Street was 
 Exchange Street, and Hanover Street was unknown. Gar- 
 den Street, ending in what is now Hanover Street, was 
 connected with Exchange Street and Pearl Street by 
 Sloat Lane. This narrow lane was afterward widened 
 and extended through to Wall Street, forming Hanover 
 Street. The triangular block now bounded by Beaver, 
 Pearl, and Hanover, was then bounded on the north by 
 Exchange Street, on the east by a private alley, connect- 
 ing the east end of that street with Pearl at a point some 
 fifty feet this side of the present junction, on the south by 
 Pearl, as now, and on the west by Sloat Lane. Beaver 
 Street was subsequently opened through on its present 
 line, and the private alley was closed up and built upon. 
 
 In 1829, an old resident of New York, returning to the 
 city, after an absence of several years, was so struck with 
 the changes which had taken place, both in the 
 
 * 1823. 
 
 people and in the buildings, that he gave them to 
 
 the public in two very interesting letters.! The reminis- 
 
 * Related to Colonel W. L. Stone by a Seneca cliief. 
 
 f The late Gulian C. Verplanck (under the novi de plume of Fraiiei.s Her 
 bert), in the Talisman, for 1829-1831 
 
420 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 cences contained in them are of great value, as tending to 
 preserve that which otherwise must have fallen into obliv- 
 ion. New York has, it is true, reached a proud mercan- 
 tile position ; but it must not be supposed that, on this 
 account, she has no traditions other than those associated 
 with trade. To assume this would be as unjust as it is 
 untrue. Many memories she has, both of a pleasant and 
 a saddening nature; and while there are many, in this 
 intensely practical age, who profess to sneer at everything 
 in which they can " see no money," yet there are a few 
 from whose hearts all sentiment has not been entirely 
 crushed out. It is for the benefit of this latter class that 
 we reproduce a portion of the reminiscences here alluded 
 to. The writer says : 
 
 " New York is full of old reminiscences. Some are 
 consecrated by religious feeling, and some by their con- 
 nection with the political destinies of our country. My 
 father used to show me, when a boy, the spot on the 
 North River, just above the present Barclay-street Ferry, 
 where Jonathan Edwards, when temporary pastor of Wall- 
 street Church, used to walk backward and forward on the 
 solitary pebbly shore, sounding the depths of his own con- 
 science, and drawing ' sweet consolation ' from the religion 
 which he taught. Here he ruminated on the mysteries 
 of eternal preordination and free-will, while fell upon his 
 ear the murmurs of that ocean which is the symbol of 
 eternity and power, and whose motions are controlled, like 
 the events of our own lives, by the word and will of the 
 Most High. Then, likewise, he showed me the little 
 church, back to the site of the present Methodist Chapel, 
 in John Street, where Whitfield, as my father expressed 
 it, used to 'preach like a Hon,' with a searching power 
 that made the sinner quail, and shook and broke the infi- 
 del's stony heart. It was in Wall Street that the apos- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 421 
 
 tolic Tennant lifted up his melodious voice, and sounded 
 the silver trumpet of the Gospel. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " On the site of the present Custom-house,* where the 
 commerce of the world pays its tribute to the great treasury 
 of the nation, stood the old City Hall, commanding a view 
 of the wide and winding avenue of Broad Street. Here, 
 in a species of balcony, in the second story of the build- 
 ing, such as the Italians call a loggia, mean in its materials 
 of wood and brick, but splendid in the taste and propor- 
 tions given to it by the architect L'Enfant, the inaugura- 
 tion oath of the chief magistracy of the Union was 
 administered by Chancellor Livingston to Washington, 
 the first of our Presidents. In front of the building an 
 innumerable and silent crowd of citizens, intently gazing 
 on the august ceremony, thronged the spacious street, 
 and filled Wall Street from William Street to Broad- 
 way. Behind the President elect stood a group of the illus- 
 trious fathers of the nation — Hamilton and Knox, and the 
 elder Adams, and the venerable and learned and eloquent 
 Johnson, and Ellsworth and Sherman of Connecticut, and 
 Clinton and Chief- Justice Morris and Duane of New York, 
 and Boudinot of New Jersey, and Rutledge of South Caro- 
 lina, and less conspicuous in person, though among the 
 foremost in fame, the Virginian, Madison. There, too, 
 stood the most revered of the clergy of New York, the 
 venerable Dr. Rodgers, of the Presbyterian Church ; the 
 wise and mild and suasive Dr. Moore, of the Episcopal ; 
 the dignified and eloquent Dr. Livingston, of the Dutch ; 
 and the learned Dr. Kunze and the patriotic Dr. Grose, of 
 the German churches. Back of these stood younger men, 
 since scarcely less illustrious than the elder statesmen I 
 have mentioned — Ames, and Cabot, and Gouverneur Mor- 
 ris, majestic and graceful in spite of his wooden leg. But 
 
 * No\T the Sub-Treasury. 
 
422 HISTORY OF NEW YORE CITY. 
 
 why should I attempt to describe this great occasion by 
 words 7 I lately looked over the portfolio of my friend 
 Dunlap, and found, among many other fine things, sketches 
 which present this scene vividly to the eye, with the fea- 
 tures of the great men who figured in it, and their costumes 
 and attitudes, such as he himself beheld them. I wish 
 somebody would employ him to paint a noble picture, 
 such as he is capable of producing, on this magnificent 
 subject. The pride of a New-Yorker, the feelings of a 
 patriot, the ambition of an artist, and the recollections of 
 this interesting ceremony, which still live in his memory, 
 would stimulate him to do it ample justice. 
 
 " Cedar Street, since that day, has declined from its 
 ancient consequence. I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. 
 Jefferson in an old two-story house in that street, unbend- 
 ing himself in tlie society of the learned and polite from 
 the labors of the bureau. And there was Talleyrand, whom 
 1 used to meet at the houses of General Hamilton and of 
 Noah Webster, with his club-foot and passionless, immov- 
 able countenance, sarcastic and malicious even in his 
 intercourse with children. He was disposed to amuse 
 himself with gallantry, too. But who does not know, or 
 rather, who ever did know, Talleyrand 7 About the same 
 time I met with Priestley, grave and placid in his man- 
 ners, with a slight difficulty of utterance ; dry, polite, 
 learned, and instructive in his conversation. At a period 
 somewhat later, I saw here the deputy Billaud de Var- 
 ennes, who had swayed the blood-thirsty mob of the 
 Faubourg St. Autoine, turned the torrent of the multitude 
 into the hall of the Legislative Assembly, and reanimated 
 France to a bolder and more vigorou.<! resistance ao-ainst 
 her foreign enemies. I visited him in the garret of a poor 
 tavern in the upper part of William Street, where he lived 
 in obscurity. But why particularize further 7 We have 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 423 
 
 had savans, litterateurs, and politicians by the score, all men 
 of note, some good and some bad, and most of whom cer- 
 tainly thought that they attracted more attention than 
 they did, — Volney and Cobbett and Tom Moore, and the 
 two Michaux, and the Abbe Correa, and Jeffrey, and 
 others; the muster-roll of whose names I might call, over, 
 if T had the memory of Baron Trenck, and my readers the 
 taste of a catalogue-making librarian. Have we not 
 jostled ex-kings and ex-empresses and ex-nobles in Broad- 
 way 7 trod on the toes of exotic naturalists, Waterloo 
 marshals, and great foreign academicians at the parties 
 of young ladies 7 and seen more heroes and generals all 
 over town than would fill a new Iliad 1 
 
 "Pensive memory turns to other worthies no less illus- 
 trious in their way. There were Billy the Fiddler and his 
 wife, whom no one having seen, could ever forget, and no 
 one who had music in his soul remember without regret- 
 ting that such a fiddle should ever have been hung up. 
 Billy had been a favorite of Mozart, at Vienna, and used 
 to say that he had composed one (I forget which) of his 
 six celebrated sonatas ; though I believe he drew rather 
 too long a bow when he made this statement. He was 
 about four feet six inches in height, with a foot as long as a 
 fourth of his stature. His head was not disproportionate, 
 as those of dwarfs usually are ; but he had their charac- 
 teristic petulence ; and the irritability of his temper was 
 certainly not improved by the enforced attendance of a 
 retinue of idle boys, who always formed his suite when he 
 walked forth in the streets. His wife was a suitable com- 
 panion for him as to personal appearance and height ; and 
 it seemed, on looking at the couple, to be not at all won- 
 derful how the Germans came by their wild and droll con- 
 ceptions of goblins and elves. But I never heard of any 
 other magic practiced by Billy, except that the sweet and 
 enlivenino- strains of his violin made tlie young masters 
 
424 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 and misses, at whose juvenile parties he officiated, dance 
 off the soles of their shoes and stockings ; and that they 
 would have begun upon their tender skins if they had not 
 been discreetly carried home. 
 
 " There was also the family of the Hewletts (which, 
 from tradition or observation, I may say I know for four 
 generations), contemporaries of the successive Vestrises. 
 Indeed, according to the family record, the first Hewlett 
 was a pupil of the first Vestris, and a favorite disciple of 
 that great master; who only complained that he was not 
 sufficiently leffer in his ascents, nor quite de plomb enough 
 in his descents ; but certified, that, for grace, agility, and 
 science, he was the prince of his eleves. The opinions of 
 those educated under the successive dynasties of these 
 masters of aerial gymnastics, as fashion controlled both 
 teachers and scholars, ' and as longer puffs and louder 
 fiddles ' brought other professors of the graces of motion 
 forward, varied as to the distinctive characteristics of their 
 several excellencies ; still, the Hewletts kept their ground. 
 They outlived the Revolution of Seventy-six; — Trinity 
 Church was pulled down, the Governor's Court fled from 
 the Battery, but they kept the field, like the trumpeters 
 of chivalry. They taught dancing to the belles, who cap- 
 tivated the members of the first Congress ; and tried to 
 teach some of the members themselves. Then came the 
 horrible French Revolution ; and in that terrible storm, 
 which • overthrew the landmarks of the Old World, new 
 manners and new teachers were drifted on our shores, and 
 the Hewletts went out of vogue. There must be few who 
 have dwelt in this now all-be-metamorphosed city, even for 
 six years past, who have not had occasion to obsei've the 
 dapper legs and silken hose of the last of this line. But they 
 will be seen no more. David Hewlett is dead ! and as he 
 trod lightly upon the earth, may the earth lie lightly on 
 him He was a gentleman, every inch of him. He 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 425 
 
 was the last of the anti-Revolutionary dancing-masters; 
 a kind, good, humble man. At St. Paul's I always found 
 him repeating the service with a formality which was the 
 result of decorous habit, and a fervor which could only 
 have come warm from the heart Again I say, light be the 
 earth above him ! and he must have a stern, hard heart 
 who can scoff at my honest tribute to the memory of my 
 old dancing-master. 
 
 " My reminiscences of New York, or rather the people 
 that have been in it, come before my mind in pretty much 
 the same order that 'jewels and shells, sea-weed, and 
 straw,' are raked by ' old father Time from the ocean of 
 the past,' according to Milton or Bacon, or some other 
 ancient writer of eminence. I had an uncle, who was a 
 prudent man in all his transactions ; and who, from patri- 
 otic considerations, waited for the development of events 
 before he took any part in the Revolutionary War. He 
 had many of what might be called Tory recollections of 
 that period. He knew the Duke of Clarence, when he 
 came here as a midshipman ; skated with him on the Col- 
 lect, where now stand the arsenal and the gas-manufac- 
 tory,* and helped out of the ice him who is now official 
 head of the English navy, and who may probably wield 
 ere long the scepter of the British Empire. In walking 
 along Broadway, he has often pointed out to me the small 
 comer-room in the second story in the house in Wall 
 Street, opposite Grace Church, then and long after occu- 
 pied by Dr. Tillary, a Scotchman (formerly a surgeon and 
 afterward an eminent physician), and told me how he 
 used, at the period referred to, to eat oysters there, in the 
 American fashion, with his Royal Highness, who preferred 
 them to the copper-flavored productions of the British 
 
 Channel. 
 
 " Pine Street is now full of blocks of tall, massive 
 
 * The present vicinity of tlie Tombs. 
 54 
 
426 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITl 
 
 buildings, which overshadow the narrow passage between, 
 and make it one of the gloomiest streets in New York. 
 The very bricks 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 elsewhere. The sober occu- 
 pations of the inhabitants also, who are learned members 
 of the bar, nearest Broadway, and calculating wholesale 
 merchants as you approach the East River, inspu-e you 
 with ideas of sedateness and gravity as you walk through 
 it. It was not thus thirty or forty years ago. Shops were 
 on each side of the way — low, cheerful-looking, two-story 
 buildings, of light-colored brick or wood, painted white or 
 yellow, and which scarcely seemed a hindrance to the air 
 and sunshine. Among these stood the shop of Auguste 
 Louis de Singeron, celebrated for the nea tness and qualitj^ 
 of its confectionery and pastry, and for the singular man- 
 ners of its keeper, who was at once the politest and most 
 passionate of men. He was a French emigrant, a courtier, 
 and a warrior ; a man of diminutive size, but of a most 
 chivalrous, courteous, and undaunted spirit. He might be 
 about five feet two inches in height ; his broad shoulders 
 overshadowed a pair of legs under the common size ; his 
 fiery-red hair was tied into a club behind, and combed 
 fiercely up in front ; the upper part of his cheek-bones, 
 the tip of his nose, and the peak of his chin, were tinged 
 with a bright scarlet ; his voice was an exaggeration of 
 the usual sharp tones of his nation, and his walk was that 
 of a man who walks for a wager. He was the younger 
 son of a noble family ; and, having a commission in the 
 French army, was one of the officers who defended the 
 Tuileries on the melancholy night of the 10th of Auo-ust, 
 1792, when the palace streamed with blood, and the devoted 
 adherents of the king were bayoneted in the corridors, or 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YOBK CITY. 427 
 
 escaped only to be proscribed and bunted down like 
 wolves. Auguate de Singeron made his way to L'Orient, 
 took passage to the United States, and landed at New 
 York without a penny in his pocket. His whole inven- 
 tory consisted of a cocked hat, a rusty suit of black, a cane, 
 a small-sword, a white pocket-handkerchief, and shirts, if 
 I am justified in speaking of them in the plural, the exact 
 number of which cannot now be known, as he never chose 
 to reveal it, but looked as if they had never been brought 
 acquainted with the nymphs of the fountains. He at first 
 betook himself to the usual expedient of teaching French 
 for a livelihood ; but it would not do. He lost all patience 
 at correcting, for the twentieth time, the same blunder in 
 the same pupil; he showed no mercy to an indelicate 
 coupling of different genders ; and fell upon a false tense 
 with as much impetuosity as he had once rushed upon the 
 batteiy of an enemy. But if he got into a passion sud- 
 denly, he got out of it as soon. His starts of irritation 
 were succeeded by most vehement fits of politeness ; he 
 poured forth apologies with so much volubility, and so 
 many bows, and pressed his explanation with so much 
 earnestness and vigor, and such unintelligible precipita- 
 tion, that his pupils became giddy with the noise, and, at 
 the end of his lesson, were more perplexed than ever. In 
 short, to apply the boast of a celebrated modern instructor, 
 his disciples were so well satisfied with their progress, that 
 they decUned taking lessons a second quarter, and the 
 poor Frenchman was obliged to think of some other way 
 of getting a living. But what should it be 1 He had no 
 capital, and scarcely any friends. Should he become a bar- 
 ber, a shoe-black, a cook, a fencing-master, a dentist, or a 
 dancino--master 1 Either of these occupations was better 
 than to beg, to starve, or to steal, and the French nobility 
 have figured in them all. The flexibility of the national 
 character adapts itself in mature age to any situation in 
 
428 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 life with the same ease that people of other nations 
 accommodate themselves to that in which they were born. 
 French marquises have sweltered in the kitchens of Eng- 
 lish private gentlemen, in greasy caps and aprons ; French 
 counts have given the polish to the nether extremities of 
 the stately dons of Madrid ; and French dukes have taken 
 German ones by the nose. The graceful courtiers, who 
 led down the dance the high-born dames of France, have 
 exhausted themselves in the vain effort to teach Yorkshire- 
 men to shuffle cotillions ; the officers of his Most Christian 
 Majesty's household have drawn teeth for cockneys ; and 
 the chevaliers of the Order of St. Louis have given lessons 
 in the use of the broadsword to men who afterward figured 
 as Yankee corporals. In the midst of his perplexity, a 
 mere accident determined the future career of Monsieur 
 de Singeron. He had politely undertaken to assist in the 
 manufacture of some molasses-candy for a little boy, the 
 son of his host ; and, after a process attended with some 
 vexations, during which the lad thought, two or three 
 times, that his French acquaintance would swallow him 
 alive, he produced the article in such delicious and melt- 
 ing perfection, that his fame was quickly spread abroad 
 among the boys of the neighborhood as an artist of incom- 
 parable merit. He took the hint, got his landlord to 
 assist him with a small credit, turned pastry-cook and 
 confectioner, set up at first in a small way, enlarged his 
 business as he got customers, and finally took a handsome 
 shop in the street I have mentioned. The French have 
 as great a talent for comfits as for compliments ; and the 
 genius that shines in the invention of an agreeable flat- 
 tery displays itself to no less advantage in the manufac- 
 ture of a sugar-plum. Auguste Louis de Singeron was 
 no vulgar imitator of his clumsy English and Dutch 
 brethren in the art. I speak not of the splendor of his 
 crystallizations, of the brilliant frost-work of his plum- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 429 
 
 . cakes, nor of the tempting arrangement he knew how to 
 give to his whole stock of wares, though these were admi- 
 rable. But the gilt gingerbread I used to buy of him — 
 instead of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba — was 
 graced with the stately figures of Louis XVI and Marie 
 Antoinette ; the queen standing bolt-upright — as became 
 the conqueror of hearts and the mistress of the finest king- 
 dom in the world— and the monarch holding her hand, with 
 a delicate inclination of his royal body, as if acknowledging 
 the empire of beauty. He, I believe, first introduced the 
 practice of stamping the New-year's cake with figures -of 
 Cupids among roses, and hearts transfixed by an arrow in 
 honor of la belle passion. His marchpane bore an impress 
 of the facade of the Tuileries, with its pilasters, columns, 
 and carvings ; and his blanc-mange was adorned with a 
 bas-relief of warriors in bag-wigs and cocked hats, tilting 
 fiercely at each other on its quivering and glancing surface. 
 " I shall never forget the courtly and high-bred civility 
 with which M. de Singeron used to welcome me to his 
 shop, and bow me out of it. I have since seen the nobles 
 of the court of Marie Antoinette, and was no longer at a 
 loss to account for the graceful manners of my old friend, 
 the confectioner. It was not, however, quite safe to pre- 
 sume too much upon his forbearance, for he knew no 
 medium between the most violent irritation and the most 
 florid politeness. He had no patience with these people who 
 stood in his door on a keen windy day, and would neither 
 come in nor go out. They always got from him a hearty 
 curse in French, followed, as soon as he could recollect 
 himself, by something civil in English. ' Peste soil de la 
 htte^ he used to say, '■ fermez done la — I beg pardon, sare, 
 but if you vill shut de door, you shall merit my eternal 
 gratitude ! ' The fellows who went about the streets cry- 
 ing ' good oysters,' and ' fine Rockaway clams,' avoided his 
 ill-omened door in the winter months, taught by bitter 
 
430 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 experience, and sundry ungracious and unexpected raps 
 on the knuckles. He at first tried the plan of making 
 them come in, shut the door, and deliver their errand, and 
 then sending them about their business. This not suc- 
 ceeding, he tried the shining old lignum-vitae cane, with 
 which he used to promenade in the gardens of the Tuileries, 
 and with much betler effect. On one occasion, however, he 
 happened to bestow it rather rudely upon the nasal organ 
 of a sailor. The fellow's proboscis was originally of most 
 unnatural and portentous dimensions ; it swelled terriblj- 
 from the effect of the blow ; and, meeting with a pettifog- 
 ger, who told him it was a good case for damages, he 
 brought an action against the confectioner. Monsieur de 
 Singeron in vain offered an apology and a plaster of bank- 
 notes ; the sailor was inexorable, and insisted on produc- 
 ing his injured member before the seat of justice. He did 
 so, but unluckily the effect on the jury was rather ludi- 
 crous than pathetic, and the impres.sion it made was 
 against the plaintiff, who got only ten shillings by his 
 suit. M. de Singeron thought it was not enough, and gave 
 the fellow a five-dollar note besides, which he had the 
 meanness to accept, though I believe he blushed as he 
 did it. 
 
 " Monsieur de Singeron afterward sold cakes and con- 
 fectionery in William Street, and then in Broadway, and 
 finally was one of that joyful troop of returning exiles that 
 flocked back to France on the restoration of the Bourbons, 
 He was provided for by being made a colonel of cuiras- 
 siers, and in the decline of his life his gallant and courte- 
 ous spirit was no longer obliged to struggle with the 
 hardships and scorns of poverty. I have lately heard, 
 though indirectly, so that I cannot vouch for the fact, that 
 he has been promoted to be one of the marshals of France. 
 " There was another Frenchman of distinction, also of 
 the old school of French manners, but less fortunate than 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 43] 
 
 Monsieur de Singeron, and who used daily to take his soli- 
 tary walk through Broadway. I allude to Admiral Pierre 
 de Landais, a cadet of the family of a younger son of the 
 youngest branch of one of the oldest, proudest, and poor- 
 est families in Normandy.' He had regularly studied in 
 the tJcole de la Marine, and was thoroughly instructed in 
 the mathematical theories of sailing and building a ship, 
 although, like the rest of his countrymen, he always found 
 some unexpected difficulty in applying his theory to prac- 
 tice. For a Frenchman, however, he was a good sailor ; 
 but, in consequence of his grandfather having exhausted 
 his patrimony in a splendid exhibition of fire-works for 
 the entertainment of Madame de Pompadour, he had nei- 
 ther interest at court nor money to purchase court favor. 
 He was therefore kept in the situation of an aspirant, or 
 midshipman, until he was thirty-two years old, and was 
 kept, I know not how many years more, in the humble 
 rank of sous-lieutenant. He served his country faithfully, 
 and with great good-will, until, in the beginning of the 
 reign of Louis XVI, a page of the mistress of the Count 
 de Vergennes came down to Cherbourg to be his captain. 
 While he was boiling with indignation at this affront, the 
 war between England and America broke out, and he 
 seized that opportunity to enter the service of the United 
 States. There he at once rose to the command of a fine 
 frigate, and the title of admiral. Soon afterward came 
 the brilliant affair of the Serapis and the Bon Homme Rich- 
 ard, in which Paul Jones, by his impetuous and undisci- 
 plined gallantry, earned the reputation of a hero, and poor 
 Landais, by a too scrupulous attention to the theory of 
 naval science, incurred that of a coward. I believe that 
 naval authority is against me ; but I venture to assert, 
 meo periculo, and on the authority of one of my uncles, who 
 was in that action as a lieutenant to Paul Jones, that 
 Landais erred, not through any defect of bravery, but 
 
432 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 merely from his desire to approach his enemy scientific- 
 ally, by bearing down upon the hypotenuse of the precise 
 right-angled triangle prescribed in the thu'ty-seventh 'ma- 
 
 noEUvre ' of his old text-book. 
 
 5- i; i> » • »' « » 
 
 " The naval committee of Congress, unfortunately, 
 understood neither mathematics nor French ; they could 
 not comprehend Landais' explanation, and he was thrown 
 out of service. After his disgrace, he constantly resided 
 in the city of New York, except that he always made a 
 biennial visit to the seat of Government, whether at Phil- 
 adelphia or at Washington, to present a memorial respect- 
 ing the injustice done him, and to claim restitution to his 
 rank and the arrears of his pay. An unexpected dividend 
 of prize-money, earned at the beginning of the Revolution- 
 ary War, and paid in 1790, gave him an annuity of one 
 hundred and four dollars, or rather, as I think, a hundred 
 and five ; for I remember his telling me that he had two 
 dollars a week on which to subsist, and an odd doUar for 
 charity at the end of the year. 
 
 i',i -;;:- -:> -;ic- -;;:- -«> s 
 
 "Although Congress, under the new Constitution, con- 
 tinued as obdurate and as impenetrable to explanation as 
 they were in the time of the Confederation, the admiral 
 kept up to the last the habits and exterior of a gentleman. 
 His linen, though not very fine, nor probably very whole, 
 was always clean ; his coat threadbare, but scrupulously 
 brushed; and, for occasions of ceremonious visiting, he 
 had a pair of paste knee-buckles and faded yellow silk 
 stockings with red clocks. He wore the American cock- 
 ade to the last ; and on the Fourth of July, the Day of St. 
 Louis, and the anniversary of the day on which the Brit- 
 ish troops evacuated the city of New York, he periodically 
 mounted his old Continental navy uniform, although its 
 big brass buttons had lost their splendor, and the skirts of 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 433 
 
 the coat, which wrapped his shrunken person like a cloak, 
 touched his heels in walking, while the sleeves, by some 
 contradictory process, had receded several inches from the 
 wrists. He subsisted with the utmost independence on 
 his scanty income, refusing all presents, even the most 
 trifling ; and when my naval uncle, on one occasion, sent 
 him a dozen of Newark cider, as a small mark of his rec- 
 ollection of certain hospitalities at the admiral's table 
 when in command, while he himself was but a poor lieu- 
 tenant, Landais peremptorily refused them, as a present 
 he could not receive, because it was not in his power to 
 reciprocate. 
 
 Tf ^ tP Tf TT If 
 
 " He was a man of the most punctilious and chivalric 
 honor, and at the same time full of that instinctive kind- 
 ness of heart and that nice sense of propriety which 
 shrink from doing a rude thing to anybody on any 
 occasion. Even when he met his bitterest enemy, as he 
 did, shortly after he came to New York, the man whose 
 accusation had destroyed his reputation and blighted his 
 prospects, whose injuries he had for years brooded over, 
 and whom he determined to insult and punish whenever 
 he fell in with him, he could not bring . himself to offer 
 him an insult unbecoming a gentleman, but, deliberately 
 spitting on the pavement, desired his adversary to con- 
 sider that pavement as his own face, and to proceed 
 accordingly. 
 
 " Thus, in proud, solitary, and honorable poverty, lived 
 Pierre de Landais for some forty years, until, to use the 
 language of his own epitaph, in the eighty-seventh year 
 of his age, he ' disappeared ' from life. As he left no 
 property behind him, and had no relations and scarcely 
 any acqaintances in the country, it has always been a mat- 
 ter of mystery to me who erected his monument — a plain 
 white marble slab, which stands in the church-yard of St. 
 55 
 
434 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 Patrick's Cathedral, in New York, and on which is read 
 the followino; characteristic inscription : 
 
 A LA MEMOIRE 
 
 de 
 
 PIEERE DE LANDAIS, 
 
 ANCIBN CONTRE-AMIEAL, 
 
 au service 
 DES £TATS-UKIS, 
 
 Qui Disparut 
 
 Juin 1818, 
 Ag6 87 ana. 
 
 "Who would suppose that the exploded science of 
 alchemy had ever its professors in the United States, 
 where the easy transmutation of the soil of the wilderness 
 into rich possessions renders unnecessary the art of con- 
 verting dross into gold '? Yet such is the fact. Every- 
 body who has been a frequent walker of Broadway, in any 
 or all of the forty years preceding the last five, must 
 recollect often meeting a man whom at first he might not 
 have particularly noticed, but whose constant appearance 
 in the same part of the street at the same hour of the 
 day, and the peculiarities of whose dress and person, must 
 at length have compelled attention. He was a plump- 
 looking man, somewhat under the middle size, with well- 
 spread shoulders, a large chest, a fair, fresh complexion, a 
 clear but dreamy eye, and a short, quick stride, and had 
 altogether the signs of that fullness of habit which arises 
 from regular exercise and a good appetite, while a certain 
 ascetic expression of countenance at once forbade the idea 
 that it owed anything to festivity or good cheer. His 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 435 
 
 age, which never appeared to vary, might, from his looks, 
 be estimated at five years, on the one side or other, of 
 fifty. His dress was that of an old-fashioned, respectable 
 citizen, educated before the age of suspenders, pantaloons, 
 and boots, and who had never been persuaded to counte- 
 nance those innovations of modern effeminacy. Notwith- 
 standing its obsolete cut, it showed no signs of poverty, 
 except, perhaps, to those, and those only, who occasionally 
 met him sweltering, with a laudable contempt for the 
 weather, in a full suit of thick Prussian blue, or Dutch 
 black broadcloth, in a hot August day ; or striding through 
 a snow-storm in nankeen breeches and white cotton stock- 
 ings in December. His name was Jan Max-Lichenstein ; 
 he was a Pomeranian by birth, who, early in life, going to 
 Amsterdam to seek his fortune, became employed as a 
 clerk in the great Dutch banking and cotamercial house of 
 Hope & Co., where he proved himself a good accountant, 
 and rendered himself useful in their German and Swedish 
 correspondence. 
 
 '■ Afterward, by some accident or other, he found him- 
 self an adventurer at St. Petersburg. What led him to 
 that city I cannot say ; I have never heard it accounted 
 for among his acquaintances in this city ; at Amsterdam 
 I forgot to inquire, and St. Petersburg I have never visited. 
 But thither he went; and, having the good fortune to 
 become known to Prince Potemkin, received an employ- 
 ment in his household, and finally came to be intrusted 
 with the management of his finances. The prince, as 
 everybody knows, like many others who have millions to 
 dispose of, had constantly occasion for millions more ; and, 
 as everybody also ought to know who knows anything of 
 his private history, when his funds were so reduced that 
 he. had nothing left but a few millions of acres and a few 
 thousand serfs, took most furiously to gambling and 
 alchemy. These liberal employments were divided be- 
 
436 HISTOET OF NEW TOEK CITY. . 
 
 twcen him and his treasurer. The prince rattled the 
 dice-box in the gilded saloons of Tzarzko Zelo ; and the 
 Pomeranian, in spite of his remonstrances and his own 
 better judgment, was set to compounding the alkahest, or 
 universal menstruum, in the vaults under the north wing 
 of Potemkin's winter palace. We soon get attached to 
 the studies in which we are obliged to employ ourselves, 
 and Lichenstein gradually found his incredulity yielding, 
 and a strange interest stealing over him, as he read the 
 books, and sweltered and watched over the operations of 
 alchemy. The result was, that at length he became a 
 believer in the mysteries of imbibition^ solution, ablution, 
 sublimation, cohabation, calcination, ceration, and fixation, 
 and all the martyrizations of metals, with the sublime 
 influences of the Trine Circle of the Seven Spheres. 
 
 "Lichenstein,- however, with all his diligence and 
 increase of faith, could neither coin gold nor get it out of 
 the prince's tenants in such quantities as it was wanted, 
 and he was now destined to learn how much the favor of 
 the great depends upon the state of their stomachs. One 
 morning Potemkiu, after a run of bad luck, plenty of good 
 champagne, a sleepless night, and an indigestible breakfast 
 of raw turnips and quass, called upon him for an extraor- 
 dinary sum, and, .not finding it easily furnished, flew into 
 a passion and discharged him on the spot. As the prince 
 never paid any debts but those of honor, Lichenstein knevr 
 that it would be in vain to ask for his salary, and walked 
 into the streets without a penny in his pocket. The late 
 Chief-Justice Dana, of Massachusetts, then our Minister 
 at the Court of St. Petersburg, was about to return to 
 America. Lichenstein had heard the most flattering 
 accounts of the prospects held out in the United States to 
 active and intelligent adventurers from the Old World 
 and readily beheved all he heard, which, for a believer in 
 alchemy, was no great .•stretch of credulity He had some 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY., 437 
 
 little acquaintance with the American Minister, in conse- 
 quence of once or twice negotiating for him small bills on 
 the bankers of the United States at Amsterdam. He 
 threw himself upon his generosity, and requested a passage 
 to this country — a favor which was readily granted. Here 
 he was fortunate enough, almost immediately on his ar- 
 rival, to be employed in the first mercantile house in New 
 York, to answer their Dutch, German, and Northern cor- 
 respondence, with a salary which, though not half so large 
 as that allowed by Prince Potemkin, he liked twice as 
 well, because it was regularly paid. He had scarcely 
 become well settled in New York, when his old dream of 
 alchemy returned upon him. He carefully hoarded his 
 earnings until he was enabled to purchase, at a cheap rate, 
 a small tenement in Wall Street, where he erected a fur- 
 nace with a triple chimney, and renewed his search of the 
 arcanum magnum. Every day, in the morning, he was 
 occupied for two hours in the counting-room ; then he was 
 seen walking in Broadway ; then he shut himself in his 
 laboratory until the dusk of the evening, when he issued 
 forth to resume his solitary walk. 
 
 " Year after year passed in this manner. Wall Street, 
 in the meantime, was changing its inhabitants ; its burgh- 
 ers gave way to banks and brokers ; the city extended its 
 limits, and the streets became thronged with increasing 
 multitudes — circumstances of which the alchemist took 
 no note, except that he could not help observing that he 
 was obliged to take a longer walk than formerly to get 
 into the country, and that the rows of lamps on each side 
 of Broadway seemed to have lengthened wonderfully 
 toward the north; but whether this was owing to the 
 advance of old age, which made his walk more fatiguing, 
 or to some other unknown cause, was a problem which I 
 believe he never fully solved to his own satisfaction. 
 
 " Still, the secret of making gold seemed as distant as 
 
438 HIRTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ever, until it presented itself to him in an unexpected 
 shape. His lot in Wall Street, which measured twenty 
 eight feet in front and eighty-seven in depth, and for which 
 he had paid three hundred and fifty pounds in New York 
 currency, had become a desirable site for a newly-char- 
 tered banking company. One day Lichenstein was called 
 by the president of this company from his furnace, as he 
 was pouring rectified water on the salt of Mercury. He 
 felt somewhat crusty at the interruption, as he hoped, by 
 reverberating the ingredients in an athauor, to set the 
 liquor of Mars in circulation ; but when this person had 
 opened to him his errand, and offered him twenty-five 
 thousand dollars for the purchase of his lot, his ill-humor 
 was converted into surprise. Had he been offered five 
 thousand, he would have accepted it immediately ; but 
 twenty-five thousand ! the amount startled him. He took 
 time to consider of the proposition, and the next morning 
 Avas offered thirty thousand by a rival company. He must 
 thuik of this also, and before night he sold to the first 
 company for thirty-three thousand. He was now pos- 
 sessed of a competency ; he quitted his old vocation of 
 clerk, abandoned his old walk in Broadway, and, like Ad- 
 miral Landais, ' disappeared,' but not, I believe, Uke him, 
 to another life. I have heard that his furnace has again 
 been seen smoldng behind a comfortable German stone 
 house in the comfortable borough of Easton- — a residence 
 which he chose, not merely on account of its cheapness 
 of living, nor its picturesque situation, but chiefly, I believe, 
 for its neighborhood to Bethlehem, where dwelt a Mora- 
 vian friend of his, attached to the same mysterious studies, 
 and for its nearness to the inexhaustible coal-mines of 
 Lehigh. 
 
 " As I write, my recollections of the past, both ludi- 
 crous and melancholy, crowd upon me. I might amuse 
 my readers with a history of the ' Doctors' Mob,' whicli 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 439 
 
 happened some forty years ago, when the multitude, indig- 
 nant with the physicians and surgeons for having, as was 
 supposed, violated the repose of the dead, besieged them 
 in their dwellings, with an intention to inflict justice upon 
 them according to their own summary notions, obliging 
 them to slip out at windows, creep behind beer-barrels, 
 crawl up chimneys, and get beneath feather-beds ; and 
 when the grave gentlemen of the healing art were fed in 
 dark places, like hunted rebels or persecuted prophets, for 
 three days and three nights. I might give my readers a 
 peep into the little dark room in Pine Street, where Brown 
 used to frame his gloomy and interesting fictions without 
 any aid from the picturesque, and entangle his heroes in 
 one difficulty after another, without knowing how he 
 should extricate them. I might show residing in that 
 part of Pearl Street now enlarged into Hanover Square, 
 but then a dark and narrow passage, the famous General 
 Moreau, who, when told that the street was not fashiona- 
 ble, replied that he ' lived in de house, and not in de 
 street ' — a conceited grammarian, talking absurdly of that 
 science, and magnifying his supposed discovery of three 
 thousand new adverbs, but otherwise gentlemanly, intelli- 
 gent, and agreeable, and fortunate in his beautiful and 
 accomplished wife. When I spoke of great men, I might 
 touch upon the tragic and untimely end of one of our 
 greatest — Hamilton — brought over from the fatal spot 
 where he fell to expire in the hospitable mansion of Mr. 
 Bayard, on the green shore of the Hudson. I well recol- 
 lect the day of his death, a fine day in July ; and the 
 bright sunshine, the smiling beauty of the spot, the cheer- 
 ful sound of birds and rustling boughs, and the twinkhng 
 waters of the river, contrasted strangely and unnaturally 
 with the horror-struck countenances and death-like silence 
 of the great multitude that gathered round the dwelling. 
 I will not attempt to describe the scene. 
 
440 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " In this city especially, it is of more importance to 
 preserve the recollection of these things, since here the 
 progress of continual alteration is so rapid, that a few 
 years effect what in Europe is the work of centuries, and 
 sweep away both the memory and the external vestiges 
 of the generation that precedes us. 
 
 " I was forcibly struck with this last reflection, when 
 not long since I took a walk with my friend, Mr. De Vielle- 
 cour, during his last visit to New York, over what I recol- 
 lected as the play-ground of myself and my companions 
 in the time of my boyhood, and what Mr. De Viellecour 
 remembered as the spot where his contemporaries at an 
 early period used to shoot quails and woodcocks. We 
 passed over a part of the city which in my time had been 
 hills, hollows, marshes, and rivulets, without having 
 observed anything to awaken in either of us a recollection 
 of what the place was before the surface had been leveled 
 and the houses erected, until, arriving at the corner of 
 Charlton and Varick Streets, we came to an edifice utterly 
 dissimilar to anything around it."' It was a wooden build- 
 ing of massive architecture, with a lofty portico supported 
 by Ionic columns, the front walls decorated with pilasters 
 of the same order, and its whole appearance distinguished 
 by that Palladian character of rich though sober orna- 
 ment, which indicated that it had been built about the 
 middle of the last century. We both stopped involun- 
 tarily, and at the same moment, before it. 
 
 " 'If I did not see that house on a flat plain,' said Mr. 
 De Viellecour, ' penned in by this little gravelly court- 
 yard, and surrounded by these starveling catalpas and 
 horse-chestnuts, I should say at once that it was a man- 
 sion which I very well remember, where in mj- youth I 
 passed many pleasant hours in the society of its hospita- 
 
 » Richmond IIill, formerly Burr's residence, f^ee Appendix Xo. II. 
 
HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 441 
 
 ble owner, and where, afterward, when I had the honor of 
 representing my country in the Assembly, which then sat 
 in New York, I had the pleasure of dining officially with 
 "Vice-President Adams. That house resembled this ex- 
 actly ; but then it was upon a noble hill, several hundred 
 feet in height, commanding a view of the river and of the 
 Jersey shore. There was a fine, rich lawn around it, 
 shaded by large and venerable oaks and lindens, and skirted 
 on every side by a young but thrifty natural wood of an 
 hundred acres or more.' 
 
 " Perceiving it to be a house of public entertainment, I 
 proposed to Mr. Viellecour that we should enter it. We 
 went into a spacious hall, with a small room on each side 
 opening to more spacious apartments beyond. ' Yes,' said 
 Mr. Viellecour, ' this is certainly the house I spoke of 
 He immediately, with the air of a man accustomed to the 
 building, opened a side-door on the right, and began to 
 ascend a wide staircase with a heavy mahogany railing. 
 It conducted us to a large room on the second story, with 
 wide Venetian windows in front, and a door opening to a 
 balcony under the portico. ' ' Yes,' said my friend, ' here 
 was the dining room. There, in the center of the table^ 
 sat Vice-President Adams in full dress, with his bag and 
 solitaire^ his hair frizzed out each side of his face, as you 
 see it in Stuart's older pictures of him. On his right sat 
 Baron Steuben, our royalist republican disciplinarian gen- 
 eral. On his left was Mr. Jefferson, who had just returned 
 from France, conspicuous in his red waistcoat and breeches, 
 the fashion of Versailles. Opposite sat Mrs. Adams, with 
 her cheerful, intelligent face. She was placed between the 
 courtly Count Du Moustiers, the French embassador, in 
 his red-heeled shoes and ear-rings, and the grave, polite, 
 and formally-bowing Mr. Van Birkel, the learned and able 
 envoy of Holland. There, too, was Chancellor Living- 
 ston, then still in the prime of life, so deaf as to make 
 56 
 
442 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 conversation with him difficult, yet so overflowing with 
 wit, eloquence, and information, that while listening to 
 him the difficulty was forgotten. The rest were members 
 of Congress and of our Legislature, some of them no 
 inconsiderable men. 
 
 " ' Being able to talk French — a rare accomplishment 
 in America at that time — a place was assigned to me next 
 the count. The dinner was served up after the fashion of 
 that day, abundant, and, as was then thought, splendid. 
 Du Moustiers, after taking a little soup, kept an empty 
 plate before him, took now and then a crumb of bread into 
 his mouth, and declined all the luxuries of the table that 
 were pressed upon him, from the roast-beef down to the 
 lobsters. We were all in perplexity to know how the 
 count could dine, when at length his own body-cook, in a 
 clean, white linen cap, a clean, white taUier before him, a 
 brilliantly white damask serviette flung over his arm, and 
 a warm pie of truffles and game in his hand, came brust- 
 ling eagerly through the crowd of waiters, and placed it 
 before the count, who, reserving a moderate share to him- 
 self, distributed the rest among his neighbors, of whom 
 being one, I can attest to the truth of the story, and the 
 excellence of the jjate. But come, let us go and look at 
 the fine view from the balcony.' 
 
 " My friend stepped out at the door, and I followed him. 
 The worthy old gentleman seemed much disappointed at 
 finding the view he spoke of confined to the opposite side 
 of Varick Street, built up with two-story brick houses 
 while a half-a-dozen ragged boys were playing marbles on 
 the sidewalks. ' Well,' said he, ' the view is gone, that is 
 clear enough ; but I cannot, for my part, understand how 
 the house has got so much lower than formerly.' 
 
 " I explained to my friend the omnipotence of the Cor- 
 poration, by which every high hill has been brought low, 
 and every valley exalted, and by which I presumed this 
 
HISTORY OF NEW FORK CITY. 443 
 
 house had been abased to a level with its humbler neigh- 
 bors, the hill on which it stood having been literally dug 
 away from under it, and the house gently let down, with- 
 out disturbing its furniture, by the mechanical genius and 
 dexterity of some of our Eastern brethren. 
 
 " ' This is wrong ! ' said the old gentleman ; ' these New- 
 Yorkers seem to take a pleasure in defacing the monu- 
 ments of the good old times, and of depriving themselves 
 of all venerable and patriotic associations. This house 
 should have been continued in its old situation, on its own 
 original and proper eminence, where its very aspect would 
 have suggested its history. It was built upward of seventy 
 years ago by a gallant British officer, who had done good 
 -service to his native country and to this. Here Lord 
 Amherst was entertained and held his head-quarters at 
 the close of those successful American campaigns which, 
 by the way, prevented half the State of New York from 
 now being a part of Canada. Here were afterward suc- 
 cessively the quarters of several of our American generals 
 in the beginning of the Revolution, and again after the 
 evacuation of the city. Here John Adams lived as Vice- 
 President during the time that Congress sat in New York ; 
 and here Aaron Burr, during the whole of his Vice-Presi- 
 dency, kept up an elegant hospitality, and filled the room 
 in which we stand with a splendid library, equally indica- 
 tive of his taste and scholarship. The last considerable 
 man that lived here was Counselor Benzon, afterward Gov- 
 ernor of the Danish islands, — ^a man who, like you, Mr. 
 Herbert, had traveled in every part of the world, knew 
 everything, and talked all languages. I recollect dining 
 here in company with thirteen gentlemen, none of whom 
 I ever saw before, but all pleasant fellows, all men of edu- 
 cation and some note — the Counselor, a Norwegian, I, the 
 only American, the rest of every different nation in Europe, 
 and no two of the same, and all of us talking bad French. 
 
444 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " ' There are few old houses,' continued Mr. De Yielle- 
 cour, 'with the sight of which my youth was familiar, that 
 I find here now. Two or three, however, I still recog- 
 nize. One of these is the house built by my friend, Chief- 
 Justice Jay, in the lower part of Broadway, and now occu- 
 pied as a boarding-house. It is, as you know, a large, 
 square three-story house, of hewn stone, as substantially 
 built within as without ; durable, spacious, and commodi- 
 ous ; and, like the principles of the builder, always useful 
 and excellent, whether in or out of fashion.' 
 
 " ' I believe he did not reside there long 1 ' said I. 
 
 " ' No ; he soon afterward removed into the house built 
 by the State for the Governors, and then to Albany, so that 
 I saw little of him in that house beyond a mere morning 
 visit or two. No remaining object brings him to my mind 
 so strongly as the square pew in Trinity Church, about 
 the center of the north side of the north aisle. It is now, 
 like everything else in New York, changed. It is divided 
 into several smaller pews, though still retaining, exter- 
 nally, its original form. That pew was the scene of his 
 regular, sober, unostentatious devotion, and I never look 
 at it without a feeling of veneration. But, Mr. Herbert, 
 can you tell me what is become of the house of my other 
 old friend. Governor George Clinton, of Greenwich 1 ' 
 
 " ' It is still in existence,' I answered, ' although in 
 very great danger of shortly being let down, like the one 
 in which we now are.' 
 
 " ' When I was in the Assembly,' pursued Mr. De 
 Viellecour, 'the Governor used to date his messages at 
 Greenwich, near New York. Now, I suppose, the mansion 
 is no longer near, but in, New York.' 
 
 " ' Not quite,' I replied, ' but doubtless Will be, next 
 year. In the meantime, the house looks as it did.' 
 
 " ' I remember it well — a long, low, venerable, irregu- 
 lar, white, cottage-like, brick-and-wood building, pleasant. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 445 
 
 notwithstanding, with a number of small, low rooms, and 
 one very spacious parlor, delightfully situated on a steep 
 bank, some fifty feet above the shore, on which the waves 
 of the Hudson and the tides of the bay dashed and sported. 
 There was a fine orchard, too, and a garden on the north ; 
 but I suppose that if not gone, they are going, as they say 
 in Pearl Street.' 
 
 " ' It is even so. Were you often there ? ' 
 " ' Not often ; but I had there, too, divers official din- 
 ners, and at one of them I recollect sitting next to old 
 Melancthon Smith, a self-taught orator, the eloquent 
 opposer of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and 
 the Patrick Henry of the New York Convention of 1788, 
 who for weeks successfully resisted the powerful and dis- 
 cursive logic of Hamilton, and the splendid rhetoric of 
 Robert R. Livingston. On my other side, and near the 
 Governor, sat Brissot de Warville, then on a visit to this 
 country, whose history as a benevolent, philosophic specu- 
 latist, an ardent though visionary republican, and one of 
 the unfortuna te leaders of the Gironde party in the French 
 National Assembly, everybody knows.' 
 
 " ' But you say nothing of the Governor himself 
 " ' Oh, surely you must have known him ! If you did 
 not, Trumbull's full-length of him in the City Hall here, ■ 
 taken forty years ago, and Ceracchi's bust, of about the 
 same date, will give you an excellent idea of his appear- 
 ance.' 
 
 " ' Oh, yes, his appearance was familiar to me, and I 
 knew him personally, too ; but when I was in his company 
 I was too young to have much conversation with him ; 
 and afterward, when he was last Governor, and during his 
 Vice-Presidency, I was, you know, out of the country.' 
 
 " ' His conversation and manners in private corre- 
 sponded exactly with his public character and his looks. 
 His person and fixce had a general resemblance to those 
 
446 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 of Washington ; but, though always dignified, and in old 
 ao-e venerable, he had not that air of heroic elevation which 
 threw such majesty around the Father of the Republic. 
 There was a similar resemblance in mind. If he had the 
 calm grandeur of Washington's intellect, he had the same 
 plain, practical, sound, wholesome common sense, the same 
 unpretending but unerring sagacity as to men and meas- 
 ures, the same directness of purpose and firmness of decis- 
 ion. These qualities were exerted, as Governor during our 
 Revolution, with such efiect that the people never forgot it, 
 and they witnessed their gratitude by confiding to him the 
 government of this State for twenty-one j^^ears, and the 
 second office in the Union for eight more. His behavior in 
 society was plain but dignified, his conversation easy, 
 shrewd, sensible, and commonly about matters of fact — the 
 events of the Revolution, the politics of the day, the useful 
 arts, and agriculture. 
 
 '"Is Hamilton's house still standing 1 ' 
 " ' Not that in which he labored as Secretary of the 
 Treasury to restore the ruined credit of the nation, and 
 reduce our finances and revenue laws to order and uni- 
 formity — where he wrote the Federalist, and those admi- 
 rable reports which now form the most luminous com- 
 ■ mentary upon our Constitution. That was in Wall Street • 
 it has been pulled down, and its site is occupied by the 
 Mechanics' Bank. His last favorite residence was the 
 Grange, his country-seat at Bloomingdale, which, when I 
 last saw it, remained much as he left it ' 
 
 " Mr. Viellecour and myself ordered some refresliment, 
 as a kind of apology for the freedoms we had taken with 
 the old mansion. On leaving it, we walked down Green- 
 wich Street, moralizing, as we went, on the changes which 
 time was working, so much more visibly in this little 
 corner of the world than in any other part of it which I 
 had seen— where the flight of years seemed swifter than 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 447 
 
 elsewhere, and to bring with it more striking moral les- 
 sons. After an absence of thirty years from the great 
 cities of Europe, I beheld, when I revisited them, the same 
 aspect — venerable still, yet neither newer nor older than 
 before — the same order of streets, the same public build- 
 ings, the same offices, hotels, and shops, the same names on 
 the signs, and found my way through their intricacies, as 
 if I had left them but yesterday. Here, on the other hand, 
 when I returned after an absence of two years, everything 
 was strange, new, and perplexing, and I lost my way in 
 streets which had been laid out since I left the city. 
 
 " My companion often stopped to look at houses and 
 sites of which he had some remembi'ance. ' There,' said he, 
 pointing to a modest-looking two-story dwelling in one of 
 the cross-streets, ' there died my good friend Mons. Albert, 
 a minister of our French Protestant Church about twenty 
 years ago, a very learned and eloquent divine, and the 
 most modest man I ever knew. He was a native of Lau- 
 sanne, a nephew of D'Yverdun, the friend of Gibbon, who 
 figures in the correspondence and memoirs of the histo- 
 rian. Mons. Albert was much in the society of Gibbon, 
 and has related to me many anecdotes of his literary 
 habits and conversation.' 
 
 " ' I must not suffer you to monopolize all the recol- 
 lections of the city,' said I to my friend. ' Observe, if 
 you please, that house on the corner opposite the one to 
 which you have directed my attention. There lived, for 
 a time, my old acquaintance. Collies, a mathematician, a 
 geographer, and a mechanician of no mean note. He was 
 a kind of living antithesis, and I have often thought that 
 nature made him expressly to illustrate that figure of 
 rhetoric. He was a man of the most diminutive frame 
 and the most gigantic conceptions, the humblest demeanor, 
 and the boldest projects I ever knew. Forty years ago, 
 his mind was teeming with plans of Western canals, steam- 
 
\ 
 
 448 HISTORY OP NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 boats, railroads, and other public enterprises, which in 
 more fortunate and judicious hands have since proved 
 fruitful of wealth to the community, and of merited honor 
 to those who carried them through. Poor Collies had 
 neither capital to undertake them himself, plausibility to 
 recommend them to others, nor public character and sta- 
 tion to give weight and authority to his opinions. So he 
 schemed and toiled and calculated all his life, and died at 
 eighty, without having gained either wealth for himself, 
 or gratitude from the public. The marine telegraphs in 
 this port are a monument of his ingenuity, for he was the 
 first man of the country who established a regular and 
 intelligible system of ship signals.' 
 
 " My friend stopped at some of the shops to make 
 inquiries concerning the ancient inmates. At length I 
 heard him asking for Adonis. ' Pray,' said I, ' who is this 
 modern Adonis for whom you are inquiring? Some 
 smooth, rose-cheeked boy, doubtless, like him of Mount 
 Libanus.' 
 
 " ' This Adonis, replied Mr. Viellecour, ' is neither a 
 smooth nor rose-cheeked boy, being, in fact, a black old 
 man, or rather gentleman, for a gentleman he is every inch 
 of him, although a barber. I say is, for I hope he is still 
 alive and well, although I have not seen him for some 
 years. In this sneaking, fashion-conforming, selfish world 
 I hold in high honor any man who, for the sake of any 
 principle, important or trifling, right or wrong, so it be 
 without personal interest, will for years submit to incon- 
 venience or ridicule. Adonis submitted to both, and for 
 principle's sake.' 
 
 " ' Principle's sake ! Upon what head V 
 
 " ' Upon his own, sir, or upon Louis the Sixteenth's, just 
 as you please. Adonis was an old French negro, whom 
 the convulsions attendant in the West Indies upon the 
 French revolution threw upon our shores, and who held 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YOEK CITT. 449 
 
 in the utmost horror all Jacobinical and republican abom- 
 inations. He had an instinctive sagacity as to what was 
 genteel and becoming in manners and behavior, as well 
 as in the cut of a gentleman's hair, or the curl of a lady's. 
 He had attended to the progress of the French revolution 
 with the greatest interest, and his feelings were excited 
 to the highest pitch when he* heard of the beheading of 
 the French king and the banishment of the royal family. 
 He then deliberately renounced the French nation and 
 their canaille parvenue rulers, and, in testimony of the sin- 
 cerity of his indignation and grief, took off his hat and 
 vowed never to put it on again until the Bourbons should 
 be restored to the throne. This vow he faithfully kept. 
 For twenty-one years, through all weather, did he walk 
 the streets of New York bare-headed, carrying his hat 
 under his arm with the air of a courtier, filled with combs, 
 scissors, and other implements of his trade, until his hair, 
 which was of the deepest black when he first took it off"^ 
 had become as white as snow. For my part, I confess I 
 never saw him, on my occasional visits to the city, walk- 
 ins: to the houses of his customers without his hat, but 
 I felt inclined to take off my own to him. Like all the 
 rest of the world, I took it for granted that the loyal old 
 negro would never wear his hat again. At length, in the 
 
 year 1814, the French armed schooner , with the 
 
 white flag flying, arrived in the port of New York, bring- 
 ing the first intelligence of the return of the Bourbons to 
 their throne and kingdom. Adonis would not believe the 
 report that flew like wild-fire about the city. He would 
 not trust the translations from the French gazettes that 
 were read to him in the American papers by his custom- 
 ers, but walked down to the Battery with the same old 
 hat under his arm which he had carried there for twenty 
 years, saw the white flag with his own eyes, heard the. 
 news in French from the mouth of the cook on board the 
 57 
 
'430 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 vessel, and then, waving his hat three times in the air, 
 gave three huzzas, and replaced it 'on his head with as 
 much heart-felt pride as Louis the Eighteenth could have 
 done his crown.' 
 
 " I could not help smiling at the earnest gravity of 
 the old gentleman's eulogy upon Adonis. ' I fear,' said I, 
 ' that your chivalric coif eur 'owes a little of his sentimental 
 loyalty to your own admiration of everything generous 
 and disinterested. When you are excited on this head, 
 sir, you often remind me of what old Fuseli, in his ener- 
 getic style, used to say of his great idol, Michael Angelo — 
 ' All that he touched was indiscriminately stamped with 
 his own grandeur. A beggar rose from his hands the 
 patriarch of poverty ; the very hump of his dwarf is im- 
 pressed with dignity.' I suspect you have been uncon- 
 sciously playing the Michael Angelo in lighting up such 
 a halo of consecrated glory round the bare and time-hon- 
 ored head of old Adonis. I am afraid I cannot do quite 
 as much for another tonsorial artist of great celebrity who 
 flourished here in our days, but whom, as at that time 
 you were not much in the habit of coming to town, per- 
 haps you do not remember. He made no claim to chiv- 
 alry or romance — his sole ambition was to be witty and 
 poetical ; and witty he certainly was, as well as the ve- 
 hicle and conduit of innumerable good pleasantries of 
 other people. I mean John Desborus Huggins.' 
 
 " ' Huggins — Huggins,' said Mr. De Viellecour. ' I knew 
 
 a young lady of that name once ; she is now Mrs. , 
 
 the fashionable milliner.' 
 
 " ' Ob, yes ; that incident of your life cannot easily lose 
 its place in my memory. But John Desborus Huggins 
 was no relation of hers. He was of pure English blood, 
 and had no kindred on this side of the Atlantic. At the 
 beginning of this century, and for a dozen years after, he 
 was the most fashionable, as well as the most accom- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 451 
 
 plished, artist in this city for heads, male or female. He 
 had a shop in Broadway, a low wooden building, where 
 now towers a tall brick pile, opposite the City Hotel. 
 This was literally the head-quarters of fashion ; and for- 
 tune, as usual, followed in the train of fashion. But Hug- 
 gins had a soul that scorned to confine its genius to the 
 external decoration of his customers' heads. He panted 
 after wider fame ; he had cut Washington Irving's hair ; 
 he had shaved Anacreon Moore, and Joel Barlow on his 
 first return from France ; from them, when he was here, 
 he caught the strong contagion of authorship. One day 
 he wrote a long advertisement, in which he ranged from 
 his own shop in Broadway to high and bold satire upon 
 those who held the helm of state at Washington, mim- 
 icked Jefferson's style, and cracked some good-humored 
 jokes upon Giles and Randolph. He carried it to the 
 Evening Post. The editor, the late Mr. Coleman, you 
 know, was a man of taste as well as a keen politician. He 
 pruned off" Huggins's exuberances, corrected his English, 
 threw in a few pungent sarcasms of his own, and printed it. 
 " ' It had forthwith a run through all the papers on 
 the Federal side of the question in the United States, and 
 as many of the others as could relish a good joke, though 
 at the expense of their own party. The name of Huggins 
 became known from Georgia to Maine. Huggins tried a 
 second advertisement of the same sort — a third, a fourth, 
 with equal success. His fame as a wit was now estab- 
 lished, business flowed in upon him in full and unebbing 
 tide. Wits and would-be wits, fashionables and would-be 
 fashionables, thronged his shop ; strangers from North and 
 from South had their heads cropped and their chins scraped 
 by him for the sake of saying, on their return home, that 
 they had seen Huggins ; whilst, during the party-giving 
 season, he was under orders from the ladies every day and 
 hour for three weeks ahead. But alas, unhappy man ! he 
 
452 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 had now a literary reputation to support, and his inven- 
 tion, lively and sparkling as it had been at first, soon began 
 to run dry. He was now obliged to tax his friends and 
 patrons for literary assistance. Mr. Coleman was too 
 deeply engaged in the daily discussion of grave topics to 
 continue his help. In the kindness of my excellent friend, 
 the late Anthony Bleecker, he found for a long time a 
 never-failing resource. You were not much acquainted 
 with Bleecker, I think, the most honorable, the most ami- 
 able, and the most modest of human beings. Fraught 
 with talent, taste, and literature, a wit and a poet, he 
 rarely appeared in public as an author himself, while his 
 careless generosity furnished the best part of their capital 
 to dozens of literary adventurers, sometimes giving them 
 style for their thoughts, and sometimes thoughts for their 
 style. Bleecker was too kindly tempered for a partisan 
 politician, and his contributions to Huggins were either 
 good-natured pleasantries upon the fashions or frivolities 
 of the day, or else classical imitations and spirited paro- 
 dies in flowing and polished versification. Numerous 
 other wits and witlings, when Bleecker grew tired of it, 
 some of whom had neither his taste nor his nice sense of 
 gentlemanly decorum, began to contribute, until at length 
 Huggins found himself metamorphosed into the regular 
 Pasquin of New York, on whom, as on a mutilated old 
 statue of that name at Rome, every wag stuck his anony- 
 mous epigram, joke, satire, or lampoon, whatever was 
 unseemly in his eyes or unsavory in his nostrils in this 
 good city. I believe he was useful, however. If his 
 humanities had not been too much neglected in his youth 
 to allow him to quote Latin, he might have asked with 
 Horace^Ridentem dicere verum — " 
 
 " ' My dear sir,' interrupted the old gentleman, ' if j^ou 
 will quote, and I see you are getting into one of your quot- 
 ing moods, you had better quote old Kats, my maternal 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 453 
 
 grandmother's favorite book, the great poet of Holland 
 and common sense. He has said it better than Horace : 
 " Haar lagehend coysheid laert, haar spelend vormt ter 
 deuyd." You ought always to quote old Kats, whenever 
 you can, for I suspect that you and I and Judge Benson 
 are the only natives south of the Highlands who can read 
 him. But to return to your barber-author.' 
 
 " ' Huggins became as fond and as proud of these con- 
 tributions as if he had written them all himself, and at 
 last collected them and printed them together in one 
 goodly volume, entitled Hugginiana, illustrated with de- 
 signs by Jarvis, and wood-cuts by Anderson. He was 
 now an author in all the forms. Luckless author ! His 
 vaulting ambition overleaped itself He sent a copy of 
 his book to the Edinburgh Review, then in the zenith of its 
 glory, and the receipt was never acknowledged. He sent 
 another copy to Dennie, whose Port Folio then guided the 
 literary taste of this land, and Dennie noticed it only in 
 a brief and cold paragraph. What was excellent in a 
 newspaper jeu d^esprit, whilst events and allusions were 
 fresh, lost, of course, much of its relish when served up 
 cold, years after, in a clumsy duodecimo. Besides, not 
 having been able to prevail on himself to part with any- 
 thing which had once appeared under his name, much 
 very inferior matter was suffered to overlay those sprightly 
 articles Avhich had first given him eclat. Then the town 
 critics assailed him, and that " most delicate monster," the 
 public, who had laughed at every piece, good, bad, and 
 indifferent, singly in succession, now that the whole was 
 collected, became fastidious, and, at the instigation of the 
 the critics aforesaid, pronounced the book to be "low." 
 Frightful sentence ! Huggins never held up his head after 
 it. His razors and scissors lost their edge, his napkins and 
 aprons their lustrous whiteness, and his conversation its 
 soft spirit and vivacity. His affairs all went wrong thence- 
 
454 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 
 
 forward, and whatever might have been the immediate 
 cause of his death, which took place a year or two after, 
 the real and eflficient reason was undoubtedly mortified 
 literary pride. ""Around his tomb," as old Johnson says 
 of Archbishop Laud — 
 
 " ' Aroimd Ms tomb, let arts and genius weep. 
 
 But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep." ' 
 
 " We had now got far down into the old part of the 
 city, when, turning up Vesey Street from Greenwich, Mr. 
 De Viellecour made a sudden pause. ' Ah,' said he, ' one 
 more vestige of the past. There,' pointing to a common- 
 looking old house, ' there, in 1790, was the atelier of 
 Ceracchi, when he was executing his fine busts of our 
 great American statesmen.' 
 
 " ' Indeed ! ' answered I. ' I have often thought of it 
 as a singular piece of natural good fortune, that, at a time 
 when our native arts were at so low an ebb, we had such 
 an artist thrown upon our shores to perpetuate the true 
 and living likenesses of our Revolutionary chiefs and 
 sages. Ceracchi's busts of Washington, Jay, Alexander 
 Hamilton, George Clinton, and others, are now, as mere 
 portraits, above all price to this nation ; and they have, 
 besides, a classic grace about them which entitles the artist 
 to no contemptible rank as a statuary.' 
 
 '"It was not a piece of mere good fortune,' said my 
 friend ; ' we have to thank the artist himself for it. Cerac- 
 chi was a zealous republican, and he came here full of 
 enthusiasm, anxious to identify his own name in the arts 
 somehow or other with our infant republic — and he has 
 done it. He had a grand design of a national monument, 
 which he used to show to his visitors, and which he wished 
 Congress to employ him to execute in marble or bronze. 
 Of course they did not do so ; and, as it happened, he was 
 much more usefully employed for the nation in modeling 
 the busts of our great men.' 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 455 
 
 " ' He was an Italian — I believe a Roman — and had 
 lived some time in England, where he was patronized by 
 Reynolds. Sir Joshua (no mean proof of his talent) sat 
 to him for a bust, and a fine one, I am told, it is. Ceracchi 
 came to America enthusiastic for liberty, and he found 
 nothing here to make him change his principles or feel- 
 ings. But the nation was not ripe for statuary : a dozen 
 busts exhausted the patronage of the country, and Con- 
 gress was too busy with pounds, shillings, and pence, fixing 
 the revenue laws, and funding the debt, to think of his 
 grand allegorical monument. Ceracchi could not live upon 
 liberty alone, much as he loved it; and, when the French 
 Revolution took a very decided character, he went to 
 France, and plunged into politics. Some years after, he 
 returned to Rome, where he was unfortunately killed in 
 an insurrection or popular tumult, growing out of the uni- 
 versal revolutionary spirit of those times.' 
 
 " ' May his I'cmains rest in peace,' added I. ' What- 
 ever higher works of art he may have left elsewhere — and 
 he who could produce those fine classic, historical busts, 
 was undoubtedly capable of greater things — whatever else 
 he may have left in Europe, here his will be an enduring 
 name. As long as Americans shall hold in honored 
 remembrance the memory of their first and best patriots, 
 — as lone: as our sons shall look with reverent interest on 
 their sculptured images, the name of Ceracchi will be 
 cherished here : 
 
 ' " And -while along the stream of time, their name 
 Expanded flies and g^athers all its fame ; 
 Still shall his little bark attendant sail. 
 Pursue the triumph and partake the gale." ' 
 
 " We had now finished our long walk, and, as the old 
 gentleman was going into his lodgings, I took leave of him, 
 saying that our afternoon's walk had furnished me with 
 the materials, and I was now going home to record our con- 
 versation as a chapter of ' Reminiscences of New York.' " 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The year 1834* may with propriety be called the 
 Year of Riots. In that year, the civil authorities were 
 obliged, for the first time, to call for military aid to 
 assist in maintaining the peace of the city. It was 
 on the 10th of April, during the municipal election,! that 
 the services of the National Guard were called into requi- 
 sition — a call, says a chronicler of that day, which " was 
 responded to with an alacrity that produced a very strik- 
 ing impression on the minds of the people." J 
 
 The elections, at that time, were held for three succes- 
 sive days ; and, in the inefficient condition of the city 
 police, they were oftentimes the cause of great excitement 
 and turbulence. On the present occasion, party strife ran 
 high, and gave rise to a series of brawls and riots in the 
 
 * From the year 1829 to the present year (1834), tliere is no event In tte his- 
 tory of the city — with the exception of the cholera in 1832 — that calls for par- 
 ticular mention. The cholera of 1832 (which then visited the city for the first 
 time) raged to a fearful extent, " almost depopulating the city, and creating a 
 universal panic among the inhabitants. It returned two years afterward, modi- 
 fied in violence, then disappeared entirely until 1849, when it broke out early 
 in the summer, and raged fearfully until autumn." In 1855, it again appeared, 
 nor has it since wholly abandoned the city. 
 
 •j- It was in 1834 that the Mayor was elected by the city for the first time. 
 Hitherto, as mentioned in a preceding note, that office had been filled by 
 appointment by the Governor and Council. 
 
 X Asher Taylor. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 457 
 
 Sixth Ward, perfectly in keeping with the questionable 
 reputation which that precinct has ever maintained.* 
 
 Toward noon of the 10th, a large concourse of people 
 collected around the head-quarters of their respective 
 political leaders, whence they sallied forth, armed with 
 bludgeons and stories, and endeavored to drive their oppo- 
 nents off the ground. At length, their passions getting 
 the mastery of their reason, many from either side made 
 a dash upon the gun-shops in Broadway for fire-arms. By 
 this time the entire population of that part of the city, 
 becoming greatly alarmed at the probable result of the 
 disturbance, were in a condition to believe any report that 
 might be started. Accordingly, when it was rumored that 
 the mob were on their way to the State Arsenal to obtain 
 by force the arms and ammunition there stored, a large 
 number of peaceable citizens hastened to seize and hold 
 possession of that building against the fighting men of all 
 parties. 
 
 The State Arsenal was a three-story brick building 
 (erected in 1808), on the corner of Elm and Franklin 
 Streets^ and, with its yard and out-buildings, occupied the 
 block between Center and Elm, and Franklin and White 
 Streets. In the center of the front, facing on Franklin 
 Street, was a handsome three-story brick dwelling, the 
 residence, at that time, of the Commissary General, who 
 had charge of the establishment. 
 
 The party that made for the Arsenal was increased on 
 the way by a large crowd, actuated by various motives. 
 Some were for peace, and some for war ; while many were 
 in for anything that might turu up. Gaining access to the 
 yard and obtaining the keys of the main building in which . 
 the arms were deposited, the party armed themselves, and 
 prepared to defend the establishment from the belligerent 
 crowds who, they apprehended, might make an attempt 
 
 * Hence its appellation — " The Bloody ould Sixtli.' 
 58 
 
458 HISTORY OF NEWYOfiK CITY. 
 
 upon it — a course which their own hasty action was well 
 calculated to invite. 
 
 The news of the attack on the Arsenal and its capture 
 spread, greatly exaggerated, like wild-fire throughout the 
 city, and, superadded to the stories of war already afloat, 
 created an alarm unprecedented heretofore in the civil 
 history of the city. Meanwhile, Mayor Lee called for 
 military aid upon General Morton, who acted with such 
 promptitude that in a very short space of time most of the 
 members of the Twenty-seventh regiment had assembled 
 at the Arsenal, armed and uniformed. The irregular force 
 that had been holding the establishment at once retired, 
 and left it in charge of the soldiers ; and the turbulence and 
 disorder soon subsiding, the peace of the city was restored. 
 
 After midnight, the Mayor visited the garrison, and 
 relieved the regiment from further duty, thanking the 
 men for their prompt response to his call for aid, and 
 declaring emphatically that " the city had been in a state 
 of insurrectio7i^ beyond the power of the civil authorities to 
 control or subdue." 
 
 " The people of the city, of all classes, were enlight- 
 ened by the novel experience of that day — the mass of 
 quiet citizens, by the knowlege that a disorderly element 
 existed ill their midst of a most formidable and alarmino- 
 character, spreading widely, and including parties and 
 classes before undreamed of in such connections ; and the 
 civil authorities, by the assurance that they possessed a 
 power and a force hitherto imtried, reliable, and at read}' 
 command for such emergencies, which was deemed by 
 them of incalculable importance ; and the members of the 
 National Guard, by the evidence that had passed under 
 their observation, that on their organization, in a great 
 measure, the orderly people and the civil authorities of 
 the city must rely for their future security of ' life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness ' within its borders. The 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 459 
 
 reflections called up by the events of that day sank deeper 
 in the minds of observing and thinking men than appeared 
 at the moment."* 
 
 In reference to the duties of the 10 th of April, the 
 Common Council passed the following resolution : 
 
 " That the thanks of tlie Common Council be presented to the individuals 
 who thus nobly sastained 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." 
 
 Major-General Morton, in promulgating the resolution 
 of the Common Council, adds 
 
 " Next to the satisfaction arising from the consciousness of having performed 
 a duty, is the approbation of those whose good opinion we prize. These reso- 
 lutions, emanating from the municipal authorities of our city, cannot, therefore, 
 but be highly gratifying. 
 
 " The late occurrences will show to the public the necessity and the use of 
 a well-regulated militia, prepared at all times to support the magistracy iu sus- 
 taining law and order In the community. It will confirm us in the opinion, 
 long entertained, that the time has not yet arrived when we may beat our 
 swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning-hooks. 
 
 " The Major-Generaldoubts not that the corps will still continue to perform 
 their duties ; they will be sustained by their fellow-citizens, who will see iu 
 them, not the array of an uncontrolled force, but a power directed by the ven- 
 erable majesty of the laws in the persons of the magistrates." 
 
 On the 21st of June, Major-General Morton "had the 
 melancholy duty to announce to the Division the death of 
 General Lafayette," in France, on the 20th of May pre- 
 ceding, in the ninety-seventh year of his age. The Gen- 
 eral thus concluded : 
 
 " But a few years since we were engaged in wel- 
 comino" him, with joyful and grateful hearts, as one of 
 the soldiers of our Revolution, and the adopted son of 
 our country. We are now called upon to pay funeral 
 honors to his memory. 
 
 " The Common Council have resolved to pay funeral 
 honors to the deceased, and have invited the corps to unite 
 with them on the occasion. 
 
 * Recollections of the Seventh Regiment. 
 
460 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 "The Division is therefore ordered for duty on the 
 26th inst.," on which day the regiment united in an im- 
 posing military and civic demonstration in celebration of 
 the funeral obsequies of the last General officer of the Rev- 
 olution, " the confidential friend of the great Washington, 
 and the adopted son of our country — the illustrious Mar- 
 quis DE LaTAYETTE." 
 
 Three months after the National Guard had quelled the 
 " Election Riot," they were again called upon to put down 
 a disturbance of a much more formidable character. 
 
 For several months in the early part of the year there 
 had been considerable feeling against certain citizens en- 
 tertaining anti-slavery opinions, or, as they were from this 
 period styled, ^^Abolitionists" who were holding a series "of 
 public meetings in which, as their opponents alleged, they 
 " indulged in the most latitudinarian discussions, and vio- 
 lent and exciting declamations in favor of their peculiar 
 views, and in denunciation of all adverse to them." 
 
 Some of the leading party newspapers of the day, also, 
 pandered to the prejudices of the lower classes of the com- 
 munity, and suggested a course of open hostility and acts 
 of violence, with the view of making short work of the 
 " pestilent faction." At the same time it must be admitted 
 that the Abolitionists themselves were not without blame, 
 and, in many instances, exhibited a " zeal without knowl- 
 edge." Indeed, their conduct was in some respects most 
 reprehensible ; for, while the excitement was almost at its 
 height, among other things calculated to inflame their oppo- 
 nents, they posted an incendiary placard all over the city, 
 headed, 
 
 " Look Out for Kidnapping ! ! " 
 
 Then followed a cut representing a negro-driver mounted 
 on a horse, with a double-thonged whip, driving before 
 him a colored man, whose wife and children were cling- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 461 
 
 ing to him to prevent the unnatural separation. The 
 result may easily be seen. The meetings of the Aboli- 
 tionists were attacked and broken up ; and the mob, 
 " increasing in boldness under the promptings and encour- 
 agement of their friends and advisers," as in the case of 
 the " Draft Riot " in 1863, proceeded to the dwellings of 
 Arthur and Lewis Tappan, on Rose Street, and other 
 well-known and reputable citizens who were specially 
 obnoxious, and, in their own expressive slang, " went 
 through them," breaking furniture, and burning such 
 pieces as were too heavy to be lifted. At length, a proc- 
 lamation from the Mayor, and several troops of the city 
 cavalry called out for the occasion, having failed to dis- 
 perse the rioters, who were every moment becoming more 
 violent and threatening, that personage, on the afternoon 
 of the 11th of July, called upon the National Guard 
 (the Twenty-seventh regiment) for assistance. The men 
 responded with alacrity, and in two hours from the time 
 of receiving their orders had assembled in the Arsenal 
 yard, to the number of four hundred. 
 
 Upon being directed by the Mayor to march with his 
 command to the City Hall and hold himself in readiness 
 for such action as might be required. Colonel Stevens 
 asked for a supply of ammunition before he moved. To 
 this request the Mayor at first gave a refusal ; but, upon 
 the Colonel telling him decidedly that he should not 
 advance a step without it, he gave a reluctant consent, 
 and six rounds of ball-cartridges were thereupon served 
 out to the regiment.* 
 
 * " Colonel Stevens used, in after times, often to speak of his anxiety at the 
 time as to how ' bis boys ' would conduct themselves in this their first appear- 
 ance in such a trying position. They were, a large portion of them, quite 
 young, and had had but little training of their minds to the reality of such 
 grave duties as were then before them ; he watched, with no little solicitude, 
 their reception of the ball-cartridges, which seemed a novelty to many of them ; 
 they turned them over in their hands as if surprised at their appearance, and 
 
462 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The troops then marched down Broadway to the Park. 
 The street was filled with an excited crowd of rowdies, 
 who assailed the men at every step with hisses and hoot- 
 ings. The mob and the riotous proceedings seemed, in 
 fact, to be "rather popular with the people generally, even 
 of the better classes, who were in the streets looking on." 
 This ill-judged sympathy and the insults of the rowdies, 
 however, had the effect, the Colonel observed, of exciting 
 the " boys " to a proper pitch of feeling for the occasion, 
 so that by the time they reached the Park "nothing 
 would have suited them better than an order to ' pitch 
 into ' their blackguard assailants." The regiment remained 
 for a considerable time in front of the City Hall, march- 
 ing and countermarching in presence of the collected 
 crowd, that the latter might see that they were ready for 
 the work on hand. This came sooner, perhaps, than was 
 expected. 
 
 About ten o'clock in the evening, word was brought 
 of a large and disorderly gathering in the vicinity of the 
 Spring-street Church (Rev. Mr. Ludlow's), between Mac- 
 dougal and Varick Streets. This was one of the most ob- 
 noxious points, several meetings of the Abolitionists hav- 
 ing been held there, and the minister of the congregation 
 being understood to be among the most zealous of that 
 class. It was feared that the rioters intended to destroy 
 the church building, and Colonel Stevens was ordered to 
 mai'ch as quickly as possible to the scene of the riot. 
 Before moving, he gave the order to load with ball-car- 
 tridges ; " and closely watching, with no little interest, 
 the motions of the men, he was satisfied, from the jerk 
 and emphasis with which the ' ram down ' was given, that 
 they were all right, and that there would be no hesitation 
 
 appeared to be remarking to each other upon the new and strange position in 
 wliich they found themselves; they all, however, he noted, placed the car- 
 tridges in their boxes." — Recollections of tlie Seventh Regiment. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 453 
 
 or hanging back on their part when the time came for 
 action." 
 
 The churches, indeed, seemed to be the special object 
 of dislike to the rioters. Besides Rev. Mr. Ludlow's 
 church, on Spring Street, the mob made demonstrations 
 against Dr. Cox's church, corner of Laight and Varick 
 Streets ; the African Chapel, corner of Leonard and 
 Church ; St. Philip's Church (also a colored Church), on 
 Center Street, and a church corner of Dey and Washington 
 Streets. The residence of Dr. Cox was also attacked ; but 
 fortunately the Doctor and his family, having received 
 notice of the intentions of the mob, had, a few hours 
 before, packed up their furniture and moved to the house 
 of a friend. 
 
 The regiment first met the rioters in large force m 
 Thompson Street, above Prince, where they were prepar- 
 ing to sack the parsonage of the Spring-street Church. 
 This, however, was prevented by the timely appearance 
 of the troops, who, pressing forward with the bayonet, 
 compelled the mob to fall back. All the streets in the 
 vicinity were filled with angry faces, on which the most 
 malignant and diabolical passions were depicted ; and as 
 the regiment wheeled from Macdougal into Spring Street, 
 to protect the church — the especial object of the fury of 
 tbe mob — the men were assailed with stones and other 
 missiles thrown from windows and from the crowd, by 
 which many were hit, and several were felled to the 
 ground. This so exasperated the soldiers that it Avas only 
 with the gi-eatest difficulty they were restrained from at 
 once opening fire, " A striking feature of this occasion," 
 says General Prosper M. Wetmore, who was present, " was 
 the shower of sparks struck out by the stones glancing on 
 the bayonets and barrels of the muskets." 
 
 Near the church the regiment encountered a barricade 
 of carts, barrels, and ladders chained together, planted 
 
464 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 across the street. On top of this obstruction a City Hall 
 politician was haranguing and encouraging the mob to 
 further resistance and deeds of outrage. He, however, 
 was quickly disposed of, and, with a dozen men of the 
 same stripe, sent to the rear under guard. The troops had 
 not arrived a moment too soon. Already a portion of the 
 pews and furniture had been thrown into the street, and 
 one of the rioters was in the steeple ringing the bell, to 
 attract the mob. He, too, was immediately seized and 
 placed in custody ; and " the church cleared of its irrev- 
 erent congregation." 
 
 At this juncture, the Aldermen who had been deputed 
 by Mayor Lawrence to accompany the military, and to 
 direct, as magistrates, the action of the regiment, became 
 greatly alarmed, and, having entered into negotiations for 
 an armistice, agreed to a cessation of hostilities upon a 
 promise of some of the mob to disperse. Accordingly, 
 they endeavored to prevail on Colonel Stevens to " retreat " 
 to the City Hall, asserting that the rioters were too for- 
 midable for his little band to contend with. To this the 
 Colonel answered that " there was no retreat in the case ; 
 that he was there with his regiment for the purpose of dis- 
 persing the mob and quelling the riot; that he should not 
 retire until that was done ; and that he should proceed to 
 the City Hall only through that crowd* He then, in defi- 
 fiance of the orders of the Aldermen again reiterated, 
 moved two companies up to the barricade under a shower 
 of stones, broke it up, and, marching through the debris^ 
 wheeled into Varick Street, driving the mob before him at 
 the point of the bayonet. Here he met Justice Olin M. 
 LowndeSjt who had formerly been a captain in the regi- 
 ment, with a force of police, and, thus reinforced, he 
 
 * Can it be that General Grant borrowed bis famous pbrase of " fighting it 
 out on this line " from these words of Colonel Stevens ! 
 f Justice, not Sheriff, Lowndes, as Asher Taylor states. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 455 
 
 turned round and marched back against the mob. Charg- 
 ing with prolonged cheers through the remains of the 
 barricade, the troops and police pushed the rioters rapidly 
 back to Sullivan Street. Here Colonel Stevens halted his 
 first division, holding Spring Street in that direction, and, 
 wheeling the second across Sullivan Street, and the third 
 and fourth to the left, facing opposite, he held securely all 
 the streets, severed the mob into four pieces, and thus 
 restored order in that section of the city. 
 
 The whole performance of the regiment, says Asher 
 Taylor, was admirable. The men were assailed with 
 stones and every offensive missile, and some of them were 
 spit upon by the rabble. A number of them were struck 
 and severely bruised. The sergeant-major was felled to 
 the ground at the side of his colonel; notwithstanding 
 which, with a forbearance from retaliation, and a subordi- 
 nation to discipline, truly surprising, and reflecting the 
 highest credit on the commanding officer and all engaged 
 in the duty, the colonel, elated at having accomplished 
 his ends without resorting to the use of fire-arms, joyously 
 exclaimed, " A victory, without firing a shot !" 
 
 On their way back to the City Hall, the troops marched 
 through Center Street, and quickly put to flight a party 
 of the rioters that was assailing St. Philip's (colored) 
 Church. 
 
 The regiment was put on duty again the next after- 
 noon; but, with the exception of slight disturbances at 
 the head of Catharine Street, near Chatham Square, and 
 in Greenwich village, the night passed off quietly. The 
 troops, however, were kept under arms until Sunday, the 
 13th, at three o'clock, when they were dismissed to their 
 homes, with orders to hold themselves in readiness to 
 re-assemble at three strokes of the City Hall bell. Hap- 
 pily their services were not again required. The mob had 
 been effectually put down, and peace was again restored. 
 59 
 
466 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had the troops been dismissed, and 
 the city restored to quiet, when, in August, their services 
 were again called upon to suppress a riot among the 
 stone-cutters and masons. The cause of the disturbance 
 was as follows : While the University was building, the 
 contractors, for economy's sake, chose to purchase the 
 marble at Sing-Sing, and employ the State prisoners to 
 cut and hew it before bringing it to the city. No sooner 
 was this known than it raised the ire of the stone-cutters' 
 guild in the city to fever heat. Believing themselves 
 aggrieved, they held meetings, paraded the city with in- 
 cendiary placards, and even went so far as to attack the 
 houses of several worthy citizens. The Twenty-seventh 
 regiment was again called out by the Mayor, Cornelius 
 W. Lawrence (who, by the way, seems to have had as 
 Mayor a pretty severe term), and, commanded by Colonel 
 Stevens, dispersed the malcontents. The feeling, how- 
 ever, was so intense that it was thought best not to dis- 
 band the troops entirely; and, accordingly, a portion of 
 the regiment lay under arms in Washington parade-ground 
 for four days and nights. By that time the riot was over, 
 and the soldiers were dismissed to their homes. Thus 
 three times, within as many months, had the militia of 
 the city been called upon, at the risk of life, to put down 
 riots in the city. No wonder, therefore, that a prominent 
 citizen of New York wrote at this time to a friend in 
 a neighboring city : " Buy me a quiet place in the suburbs, 
 and, if necessary to complete the sale, draw on me for the 
 amount. I cannot live here longer, for my property is not 
 safe."* 
 
 * The houses on the north-west corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighteenth 
 Street, now owned by Mrs. T. Bailey Mj'ers and Mrs. Sidney Mason, were 
 built by Robert C. Townsend and Henry H. Elliott, from Sing-Sing- marble, 
 and were, like the University, also delayed by the "Stone-cutters' Riot." 
 These buildings were, with the University, the last ones erected by material 
 from that source. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 457 
 
 In the early summer of this year, the city was once 
 more thrown into excitement by what is known as " The 
 Five Points Riot." For several years previous, 
 and more especially since the election brawls of ^^^^' 
 the preceding year (1834), the antagonistic spirit between 
 the Irish and Americans, which resulted many years after 
 in the formation of the Know-nothing party, had been 
 increasing in bitterness ; and when, in June of this year, 
 it was reported that a regiment, under the name of the 
 "O'Connell Guards," was about to be organized in the 
 city, the indignation of a portion of the native American 
 population rose to fever heat. Many styled this " the 
 making of an Irish regiment out of American citizens," 
 and vowed that they would prevent its formation at all 
 hazards. Demagogues, as is always the case at such 
 times, were not wanting to encourage this feeling for 
 base partisan ends ; mutual recriminations followed ; and, 
 finally, the angry passions thus engendered culminated in 
 open violence. 
 
 On Sunday, the 21st of June, the peace of the city was 
 disturbed and the sanctity of the Sabbath violated by 
 riots of greater or lesser magnitude in different quarters 
 of the town.' One of these was in Grand Street, near 
 Crosby. Another occurred in Chatham Street, which, 
 having its rise in a quarrel between a negro and a white, 
 •soon grew into a general battle, and was only quelled by 
 the police with considerable difficulty. The third and greats 
 est riot, however, of that day took place early in the 
 evening in the Sixth Ward, the scene of which was prin- 
 cipally in Pearl Street, near Chatham. This, also, was 
 be^un by a fight between two men — Irishmen — whose 
 example, proving contagious, was imitated by others of 
 their countrymen in such numbers that the affray shortly 
 assumed the character of a serious riot. A number of citi- 
 zens here interfered to keep the peace, but only with the 
 
468 HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 effect of increasing the uproar, and gaining for themselves 
 sundry unpleasant visitations from fists, shillalahs, stones, 
 and brickbats. Finally, the Mayor, accompanied by a 
 large force of the police, appeared on the spot, and, having 
 arrested the principal ringleaders, dispersed the rioters for 
 the time being. In this affray. Dr. William McCafifrey, a 
 highly-respected physician, who was passing at the time, 
 on his way to visit a patient, was hit by a brick, and his 
 jaw broken. He was then thrown down and his ribs 
 broken ; and, although he was rescued, he shortly after- 
 ward expired. By this time the turbulent element had 
 extended into different parts of the city. On the next 
 day, Monday, the riots were renewed by mobs . of Irish 
 and Americans. A public-house, known as the " Green 
 Dragon," in the Bowery, near Broome Street, was attacked, 
 the doors and windows broken in, and the house itself com- 
 pletely " gutted." The Mayor and police again came to 
 the rescue ; but the mob were not dispersed until several 
 prominent citizens (among them Justice Lowndes) had 
 been dangerously wounded, and a great amount of blood 
 had been shed. The next day witnessed nearly the same 
 scenes ; and it was not until a notice had been publicly 
 displayed to the effect that "the proprietors of the 
 ' Bleecker-street House ' desire to state that there will 
 be no meeting of the ' O'Connell Guards,' as advertised in 
 the Sunday dailies," that peace was permanently restored. 
 
 In this same year, the Don-jon, or Old Debtors' Prison, 
 was changed into the present Hall of Records. A stran- 
 ger in New York, and even many of its younger citizens, 
 would hardly suppose, from the present appearance of the 
 handsome Ionic temple standing directly east of the City 
 Hall, for what " base uses " that classic edifice was origi- 
 nally built, or for what ignoble purposes it was kept, until 
 the present year Although it may now be justly consid- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 469 
 
 ered one of the most correct and pleasing specimens of 
 architecture in the Union, yet, until the transformation of 
 its outward form and proportions, it was one of the most 
 unsightly of buildings. It was not, however, of' repub- 
 lican origin— having been erected early in the reign of His 
 Most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, as a place 
 of confinement for such of his refractory subjects as either 
 could not or would not pay their debts. Nor is it any 
 great credit to his majesty's successors in the Government 
 that it should not have been appropriated to some other 
 use at a much earlier day. Long did the citizens of New 
 York petition for its removal or destruction, but in vain — 
 until, " in the course of human events," the public service 
 demanded an additional edifice as a depository for its 
 records. A change from the Boeotian to the Ionic order, 
 and its conversion to a more humane purpose, were then 
 determined upon, not only for the public convenience, but 
 from motives of economy. One of the patriotic members 
 of the city government, distinguished for his enterprise and 
 public spirit, undertook the work, and gave to the ancient 
 walls of unhewn stone their existing " form and pres- 
 sure" — at an amount, too, not much exceeding, probably, 
 twice the cost of two new buildings of the same dimensions. 
 The Old Debtors' Prison underwent its metamor- 
 phosis during the latter days of the venerable "Poppy 
 Lownds," as the worthy old jailor was called, who, for a 
 long succession of years, had presided over the internal 
 police of the prison. He was a kind-hearted old gentle- 
 man ; and, amidst all the storms and vicissitudes of party, 
 was never removed from office during his life-time — for 
 the good reason, probably, among others, that the venera- 
 ble officer had grown so lusty in his place that it was 
 impossible to remove him out of it without removing a 
 portion of the prison walls also. Be that, however, as it 
 may, almost any day " Poppy Lownds " might have been 
 
470 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 seen sitting in his big oaken arm-chair, dozing in some 
 pleasing reverie, like a Turk over his sherbet after dinner, 
 or as "■ calm and quiet as a summer's morning." If a visitor 
 chanced to call, he would take a long pipe from his 
 mouth, with the most easy deliberation, while the whiffs 
 from the aromatic Virginia weed curled upward in an 
 
 THE PKOVOST, OR DEBTORS' PRISON. 
 
 azure cloud and mingled with the vapor which had pre- 
 ceded it. Still, "Poppy Lownds," as before stated, was a 
 good soul, and many a debtor had cause long to remember 
 the kindness with which, he was treated while sojournino- 
 in the old Don-jon* 
 
 *It ia true that the change from a prison into the Hall of Records was con- 
 templated as early as 1830; but the building was not made perfectly ready 
 for occupation until the present year. 
 
 For a more detailed account of the Debtors' Prison see Appendix No. IX 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In 1835, New York was visited by the most terrible 
 conflagration she had ever experienced — an event which 
 was so disastrous to the mercantile as well as to the 
 
 • • 183d 
 
 private interests of the city, that a full account of it 
 must not be omitted. The late Mr. Gabriel P. Disosway, 
 who was present on the occasion, kindly furnished me, a 
 few months before his death, with the following account 
 of the conflagration itself, and the losses entailed by it : 
 
 " The fearful night of December 16, 1885, will long be remembered for the 
 most terrible conflagration that has ever visited the great city. I then resided 
 in that pleasant Quaker neighborhood, Vandewater Street, and hearing an alarm 
 of fire, hastened to the front door. I immediately discovered, from the direc- 
 tion of the flame and smoke, that the fire was ' down-town,' and not far off. 
 Thousands of others besides myself dreaded such an alarm that night, as it was 
 the coldest one we had had for thirty-six years. A gale of wind was also 
 blowing. I put on an old warm overcoat and an old hat, for active service 
 ' on my own hook,' Years afterward these articles, preserved as curiosities, 
 bore marks of the heat, sparks, and exposure of that fearful time. Our own 
 store, Disosway & Brothers, 180 Pearl Street, near Maiden Lane, although fire- 
 proof, naturally became the first object of my attention. This was provi- 
 dentially located several blocks abof e the fire ; and, accordingly, having 
 lighted the gas, and leaving the clerks to watch, I hastened to the building 
 that was on fire. 
 
 " This was the store of Comstock & Andrews, well-known fancy dry-goods 
 jobbers, at the corner of Pearl and Merchant Streets, a narrow, new lane, a 
 little below Wall Street. When I entered the building on the lower floor, the 
 fire had commenced in the counting-room, having caught, as it was believed, 
 from the stove-pipe. Those few of us present had time to remove a considera- 
 ble quantity of light fancy silk articles. The goods, however, were of a very 
 
472 HISTOET OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 Inflammable nature, and a strong current of air sweeping through the adjoin- 
 ing lane, we were soon compelled to leave the balance of this large and valua- 
 ble stock to destruction. Here, and in this manner, the great fire of 1835 
 originated. 
 
 " In a short time this tall and large brick store was enveloped in flames, 
 which burst from the doors and windows on both streets. Over half an 
 hour had elapsed before the first engine arrived, and attempted to throw a 
 stream upon the opposite stores of Pearl Street, against which the gale was 
 driving the rapidly increasing heat and embers. But so furious were both 
 that the boldest firemen retreated for their lives and the safety of their 
 machine. The street at this point Is very narrow, and prevented any man 
 from reaching the lower or adjacent part of Pearl from this end. A burning 
 wall of fire now intervened, and increased every moment. The way to the 
 alarming scene was through William and Water Streets, and Old Slip. After 
 a little while, that which was universally dreaded happened — the water in 
 the hydrants froze, and prevented the engine from obtaining any further sup- 
 ply. Having drawn the 'machine' to a safe place, the firemen nobly went to 
 work saving property. It was all they possibly could do. The reader must 
 remember that the thermometer had now fallen below zero, which, added to a 
 biting, fierce winter wind, paralyzed the exertions of both firemen and citizens. 
 All ordinary means for stopping the rapidly increasing flames were abandoned, 
 and the efibrts of all were directed to the removal of the contents of the build- 
 ings to places beyond the supposed reach of destruction. In this way immense 
 quantities of goods were placed in the large Merchants' Exchange on Wall 
 Street, in Old Slip, Hanover Square, and the Garden-street Dutch Church and 
 its adjoining grave-yard. In a few hours, however, the devouring element, 
 reaching these areas and splendid edifices, swept everything away as with 
 the ' besom of destruction.' Millions of dollars were consumed in a very 
 short time. 
 
 " I am writing my own reminiscences of that awful night, and not the expe- 
 riences of another, and must be excused if I often use the personal pronoun. 
 By midnight it was evident that no earthly power could stay the then Etna-like 
 rapid progress of the raging torrent, which increased every moment most 
 alarmingly, and spread in every direction, except toward the east. Most fortu- 
 nately, it did not cross Wall, that street having become an impassable harrier, 
 else the eastern and upper sections of the city might have shared the same fate 
 as the lower. Who can tell where the calamity would have paused, for there 
 were immense blocks of wooden buildings on Water and Cherry and Pearl 
 Streets, 'up' town more than 'down,' and inflammable magazines which, 
 onoe fired, could extend the common destruction over the city. 
 
 " My own course that night was to obtain voluntary aid, and, entering the 
 stores of personal friends, remove, if possilile, books and papers. Such was 
 absolutely the heat in front of some stores on the south side of Pearl, near 
 Wall Street, that, although they were not yet on fire, it was impossible to force 
 an entrance that way, and we were obliged to effect it from Water Street, as 
 those buildings extended through the block. A panel in the rear door was 
 broken out, and. entering through this with lanterns, we reached the counting- 
 room, and then, collecting the hooks and invoices, placed them in a hand-cart 
 and sent them away. It is impossible to imagine the fervent heat created by 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 473 
 
 the increasing flames. Many of tlie stores were new, with iron sliutters, doors, 
 and copper roofa and gutters, ' fire-proof ' of first class, and I carefully watched 
 the beginning and the progress of their destruction. The heat alone, at times, 
 melted the copper roofing, and the burning liquid ran off in great drops. At 
 one store, near Arthur Tappan & Co.'s, I warned some firemen of their danger 
 from this unexpected source. Along here the buildings were of the first class, 
 and one after another ignited under the roof, from the next edifice ; downward, 
 from floor to floor, went the devouring element. As the different stories 
 caught, the iron-closed shutters shone with glowing redness, until at last, 
 forced open by the uncontrollable enemy within, they presented the appearance 
 of immense iron furnaces in full blast. The tin and copper-bound roofs often 
 seemed struggling to maintain their fast hold, gently rising antl falling and 
 moving, until, their rafters giving way, they mingled in the blazing crater 
 below of goods, beams, floors, and walls- 
 
 " On the north side of Hanover Square stood the fine store-house of Peter 
 Remsen & Company, one of the largest East India firms, with a valuable stock. 
 Here we assisted, and many light bales of goods were thrown from the upper 
 windows, together with a large amount of other merchandise, all heaped in the 
 midst of the square, then thought to be a perfectly secure place. Vain calcula- 
 tion ! Both sides of Pearl Street were soon in the furious blaze, and the ground 
 became covered with living cinders. This whole pile disisolved and mingled 
 in the common and increasing ruin. Water Street, too, was on fire, and we 
 hastened to the old firm of S. B. Harper & Sons, grocers, on Front, opposite 
 Gouverneur Lane, where there appeared to be no immediate danger. 
 
 " The father and sons had arrived, and we succeeded in removing their val- 
 uables. As we left the store after the last load, a terrible explosion occurred 
 near by with the uoise of a cannon. The earth shook. We ran for safety, not 
 knowing what might follow, and took refuge on the corner of Gonvernour 
 Lane, nearly opposite. Waiting for a few minutes, a second explosion took place, 
 then another and another. During the space, perhaps, of half an hour, shock 
 after shock followed in rapid succession, accompanied with the darkest, thickest 
 clouds of smoke imaginable. The explosions came from a store on Front 
 Street, near Old Slip, where large quantities of saltpeter in bags had been 
 stored. Suddenly the whole ignited, and out leaped the flaming streams of 
 these neutral salts in their own peculiar colors, from every door and window. 
 Some might have called them fire-works. We have never forgotten this salt- 
 peter eruption, or explosion, and never doubted since the explosive character 
 of the article. 
 
 " About midnight, the onward march of the uncontrolled, riotous flames had 
 reached the East River, and could go no further beyond that impassable bar- 
 rier. Before this, the crowded shipping had fortunately sufficient time to be 
 removed from the docks and slips. One of the most grand and frightful scenes 
 of the whole night was the burning of a large oil-store at the corner of Old Slip 
 and South Street. It was four or more stories high, and filled with windows on 
 both sides without any shutters. This was before the days of petroleum and 
 kerosene, and the building was full of sperm and other oils. Tliesc fired hogs- 
 head after hogshead, and over the spacious edifice resembled a vast bonfire or 
 giant beacon, casting its bright beams far and wide on the river and surround- 
 ing region ; but finally the confined inflammable mass, from eaves to cellar, shot 
 60 
 
474 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 out with treraendous force throngh every window and opening, and soon all 
 disappeared except the cracked, tottering, and falling walls. 
 
 " The blazing, flying timbers were carried across the East Riyer, and, in one 
 instance, set fire to the roof of a house in Brooklyn, which, however, was 
 quickly extinguished. Large quantities of tar and turpentine on the wharves 
 becoming ignited, ran down blazing into the stream, and, floating off', made a 
 sort of burning sea, many square yards in extent. The conflagration. Increasing 
 every moment, also extended inward toward Broadway. Great hopes were 
 indulged that the Merchants' (marble) Exchange (in which, since 1837, the Post- 
 office had been located) would escape. In the vast rotunda of the edifice stood 
 a most beautiful white marble statue of Alexander Hamilton. Accordingly, a 
 great anxiety was manifested to save this image of the great statesman. It was 
 a masterpiece of art, and hundreds of willing hands, including those of a large 
 number of sailors, undertook its removal, but to no purpose ; and the finely 
 chiseled marble, with the solid granite of the Exchange, before long mingled 
 together in common ruin. The letters of the Post-oflice were alone saved. 
 
 " There was evidently now no salvation for those fine new stores on William 
 Street, near by, and in Exchange Place, where the auctioneers and other com- 
 mission houses had located. I sought the premises of Burns, Halliburton & 
 Company, one of the most popular firms of that day. They were the agents of 
 the Merrimac and other works, and had an immense valuable stock of calicoes, 
 muslin, and flannels. Their large store extended from William Street to the 
 grave-yard of the Garden-street Church. Most of the stock was easily removed 
 to this place of imagined security, which, indeed, became the depot, for the time 
 being, for millions of merchandise. We soon cleared this store. The firm were 
 agents also for extra flannels. These, packed in small bales, and light, were 
 readily cast from the upper stories into the grave-yard. In one of the upper 
 lofts I met a member of the firm, Mr. B., one of Nature's noblemen, since dead, 
 with his other partners, and he was weeping. ' Too hard,' said he, ' after all 
 the toil of years, to see property thus suddenly destroyed !' ' Cheer up,' we 
 replied, ' the world is still wide enough for success and fortune ;' and so it 
 proved to him and many other sufferers. 
 
 " This row of fine new stores had very flat roofs, and, imagining that a good 
 view of the whole conflagration could be obtained from the top, we soon found 
 our way there. Some friends in the yard, fearing that we had been locked up 
 and in danger, screamed like wild Indians, pointing out a way of escape. But 
 there was no danger ; and what a sight now presented itself ! Prom Maiden 
 Lane to Coenties Slip, and from William Street to the East River, the whole 
 immense area, embracing some thirteen acres, all in a raging, uncontrollable 
 blaze ! To what can we compare it ? An ocean of flre, as it were, with roaring, 
 rolling, burning waves, surging onward and upward, and spreading certain uni- 
 versal destruction; tottering walls and falling chimneys, with black smoke 
 hissing, crashing sounds on every side. Something like this, for we cannot 
 describe it, was the fearful prospect, and, soon satisfied with the alarming fear- 
 ful view, we retreated from our high look-out. The light had spread more 
 and more vividly from the fiery arena, rendering every object, far and wide 
 minutely discernible — the lower bay and its islands, with the shores of Long 
 Island and New Jersey. Even from Staten Island the conflagration was very 
 plainly seen. A sea on fire is, perhaps, the best similitude I can fancy to 
 describe this grand and awful midnight winter scene. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 475 
 
 " Not long after we left our higli stand-point it was enveloped in tlie uni- 
 versal blaze, and soon the Garden-street Church, with its spire, organ, and heaps 
 of goods stored within and outside, was consumed. There, too, was lost the 
 venerable bell which had been removed at an early period in New York his- 
 tory from the old St. Nicholas Church within the present Battery. ' What more 
 can be done to stop the progress of the flames ? ' became the anxious and general 
 inquiry. Mr. Cornelius W. Lawrence, the Mayor, appeared with his officers, and, 
 after consultation, it was determined to 'blow up' some buildings, and the 
 east corner of Coenties Slip and Coenties Lane (a narrow street) was selected 
 as the proper place to begin the necessary work. On the opposite side was 
 the store of William Van Antwerp & Co., hardware-dealers, and relatives of the 
 writer, who, engaged at this point in saving goods, could see the necessary prep- 
 arations for the blast. The building to be ' blown up,' I think, was occupied by 
 Wyncoop & Co., grocers. It was large, and of brick. Colonel Smith soon 
 arrived with the powder and a gang of officers and sailors from the Navy Yard ; 
 and none else were permitted to interfere. They commenced mining in the 
 cellar, and placing heavy timbers upon the powder-kegs and against beams 
 of the floors, everything was soon ready for the explosion, A friend near by 
 
 said to an old tar, ' Be careful or you will be blown up I' ' Blow and be ! ' 
 
 was the careless and characteristic reply to the warning. But all having been 
 admirably and safely arranged, the crowd retreated. The torch was applied, 
 and in an instant the report followed ; then the immense mass heaved up as if 
 by magic, and losing its fastenings, from the cellar to the roof, tottered, shook, 
 and fell. A shout went up from the gazing spectators ; and at this point the 
 common danger was evidently arrested, thanks to Colonel Swift, Lieutenant 
 Reynolds, and Captain Mix, of the navy, and their noble, brave sailors. Hero- 
 ism can be as much displayed at a terrible catastrophe of this kind as on the 
 bloody field of battle, and it was to-night. This party of miners arrived about 
 two o'clock in the morning, when their important work commenced. They con- 
 tinued it successfully in another direction ; indeed, it was believed that the 
 conflagration was at last checked by this blowing-up of the buildings. 
 
 "Wearied with watching, labor, and anxiety, thousands wished for the 
 return of day, and at length a dim increasing light in the east, but enshrouded 
 with dull, heavy clouds of smoke, foretold the coming morning. And what 
 an unexpected melancholy spectacle to thousands did New York present ! The 
 generous firemen from Philadelphia soon after made their appearance ; but the 
 fire had been checked. The immense remains continued to blaze and burn for 
 many days. We could now travel around the bounds of the night's destruc- 
 tion, but no living being could venture through them. lu many places there 
 were no lines of the streets to be discovered at all, as every foot of ground 
 was covered with the heated bricks, timbers, and rubbish of the destroyed 
 buildings. 
 
 " Many a merchant living in the upper section of the city went quietly to 
 bed that night, and, strange as it may seiim, when he came down-to tvn the 
 next morning, literally could not find his store, nor enough of his stock remain- 
 ini'' to cover his hand — every yard, ell, pound, gone I There were official state- 
 ments of several stores, in each of which a quarter of a million of dollars iu 
 goods was consumed, with books, notes, and accounts. New York the next 
 day sat, as it were, in sackcloth and ashes, and real sorrow began to appear on 
 
476 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 men's faces as tlie losses and ruin were discovered by the UgM of day. To 
 increase, also, the public calamity, the insurance companies, except the iEtna, 
 of Hartford, and the Chatham, had all become bankrupt from their severe 
 losses, and could not pay. Universal gloom prevailed, but not despondency. ^ 
 " There was great anxiety expressed for the preservation of the Merchants' 
 Exchange on Wall Street, and a large crowd assembled in front to watch the 
 noble edifice, now in imminent danger. 
 
 ^^^•cr:.--.^^.ur. 
 
 MEKCHANTS' EXCHANGE BEFORE THE FIKB. 
 
 " We have stated that the letters of the Post-office, then in its basement, 
 were saved, and the marble statue of Hamilton, placed beneath the rotunda, 
 was lost. But now the fire-fiend had reached the solid structare, and all hopes 
 of saving it were abandoned. The public gaze evidently centered most upon 
 its cupola. Higher and higher the flames reached, and after a brief conflict the 
 roof fell. A short silence ensued in the almost breathless crowd, but what 
 a strange thing is ever a mob 1 Next went up — shall we call it a fiendish shout, 
 as a friend standing by did at the time ? Then caine another pause, the lofty 
 shooting fires lighting up the faces of surrounding crowds. At this moment a 
 

 u 
 
 z 
 < 
 
 X 
 
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 X 
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 I 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 479 
 
 man was seen liurrying along, crying out at tlie top of Wb voice, ' Is there a 
 surgeon among you, gentlemen? for God's sake, is there a surgeon?' The 
 report soon spread that hundreds were in the Exchange at the moment its 
 cupola fell, and those dragged out of the ruins needed a surgeon's care. Prov- 
 identially, this was.not the case, and that which was still more wonderful and 
 striking, no fatal or serious accident occurred during the whole of this awful 
 December calamity. 
 
 " During the conflagration, then under full headway toward Broad Street, 
 the presence of mind of one man saved much property. This was Downing, 
 the oyster king, of Broad-street fame. Water was out of the question, and at 
 this emergency he thought of his supplies of vinegar, which were large, and 
 with careful application by pailful after pailful, a large amount of property 
 was saved in that direction from the general destruction. To his good sense, 
 and credit, and worthy memory, we record this generous act. 
 
 " I forgot to mention one circumstance connected with the destruction of the 
 Garden-street Church, and have been reminded of it by a friend who was 
 among the very last persons to leave the sacred edifice. Many, many a solemn 
 dirge had been played upon that fine organ at the burial of the dead, and now, 
 the holy temple on fire, some one commenced performing upon it its own 
 funeral dirge, and continued it until the lofty ceiling was in a blaze. The music 
 ceased, and in a short time the beautiful edifice, with its noble instrument and 
 immense quantities of goods stored inside and out, were all irrecoverably 
 gone, nothing escaping save the long-sleeping dust and bones of the buried 
 dead. 
 
 " I forgot also to mention in their proper place some items about the old ' Ton- 
 tine Coffee house.' This was the ' Exchange ' of the city. The old folks may 
 remember its rough but pleasant keeper, old Buyden. We only have heard of 
 his fame, and it is related of him that, when the first anthracite coal was offered 
 for sale in New York, he. tried it in the hall of the Tontine ; but he pronounced 
 the new article worse than nothing, for he had put one scuttle into the grate, 
 and then another, and after they were consumed he took up two scuttlefuls 
 of stones. 
 
 " In the great flre of 1835, this well-known public edifice came very near 
 sharing the common destruction. The engines had almost entirely ceased 
 working, and the Tontine was discovered to be on fire in its broad cornices, at 
 the corner of Wall and Water Streets. This created still greater alarm, for 
 the burning of this large building would destroy the hopes of saving the east- 
 ern section of the city, if not more. Two solitary engines, with what little 
 water they managed to obtain, were throwing their feeble and useless streams 
 upon the flaming stores opposite, when Mr. Oliver Hull, of our city, calling 
 their attention to the burning cornice, generously promised to donate one hun- 
 dred dollars to the Firemen's Fund ' if they would extinguish that blaze.' 
 Seeing the threatening danger, they immediately made a pile of boxes which 
 had been removed from the adjacent stores, from the top of which, by great 
 efl!brts, a stream reached the spot and quickly put out the alarming flame. Mr. 
 Hull is still living, and, thanks to him for his wise counsel and generosity at 
 that trying moment, and gratitude to the noble firemen who so successfully 
 averted the awful progress of the destroying clement from crossing Wall 
 Street and ending, who can tell where ? They were frequently told of the 
 
480 HISTOKT OF NEW TOEE CITY. 
 
 vital importance of preventing tlie conflagration extending beyond this limit, 
 and labored accordingly, and with the happiest reaults. 
 
 " A8 already stated, no lives were lost during the conflagration ; still, we 
 remember that, shortly afterward, one of our most widely-known and respected 
 f eUow-citizens passed away in death. This was John Laing, often called ' Hon- 
 est John Laing,' the senior partner of Laing, Turner & Co., of the old New 
 York Gazette and General Advertiser ; and his last iUness — of paralysis or 
 apoplexy^was hastened by the excitement and devastation of this great pub- 
 lic calamity. He was a gentleman of the old-school quette-haiT style. 
 
 " In the estimated thirteen acres of the burnt district, only one store escaped 
 entire. This was occupied by the well-known John A. Moore of this day, in 
 the iron trade on Water Street, near old Slip. Watched inside, and fire-proof, 
 in their wildest career, the rapid flames seemed, as it were, to overleap the 
 building, destroying all others. There it stood, solitary and alone, amidst sur- 
 rounding entire destruction, as a sad monument stands alone amid the general 
 min. 
 
 " As many as three or four buildings were blown up to stop the progress of 
 the fire, all other efforts having failed ; and if such a measure had been resorted 
 to earlier, great destruction of property might possibly have been prevented. 
 There was also a want of powder, although, unknown to the citizens, a vessel 
 loaded with the article lay anchored in the stream. At last, Mr. Charles King 
 generously volunteered to visit the Savy Yard for a supply, and returned with 
 a band of marines and sailors. The explosions went on feajfully and success- 
 fully. Up and down went the mined structures, two barrels of powder under 
 each, until no flames were left, no means of spreading the fiery element to the 
 next houses. 
 
 " The extent, of the fire in December, 1835, may be imagined from its sev- 
 eral limits. These, commencing at Cofiee-house Slip, extended along South 
 Street to Coenties Slip, thence to near Broad, along William, to Wall, and down 
 that street to the East River on the south side, with- the exception of Xos. 51, 
 53, 55, 57, 59, and 61, along where the new splendid banking-house of Brown 
 Brothers & Company now stands. This burnt district embraced some thir. 
 teen acres, in which nearly seven hundred houses were leveled to the ground 
 in a single winter's night, with a loss of seventeen mUlion dollars ; four mill- 
 ions, it was calculated, was the value of the buildings, and thirteen, of the 
 goods. During a few hoars this vast amount disappeared, either in the fl'aming 
 atmosphere or in ashes upon the earth — the most costly goods and products 
 from ever}' portion of our globe. Some merchants, retiring to bed wealthy in the 
 evening, and perhaps so dreaming, found themselves the next morning either 
 ruined or their estates seriously inj ured. In the impressive language of Script- 
 ure, their riches had taken wings and flown away in a single night — "ware- 
 house, stock, notes, and books, all gone beyond recovery. 
 
 " After the general consternation had somewhat subsided, a public meeting 
 assembled in Jlr. Lawrence's otBce (the Mayor's), City Hall, to consider what 
 should be done under the circumstances. At this meeting, committees were 
 appointed to provide means for the relief of the most necessitous cases, and to 
 ascertain the condition of the insurance companies, and the amount of the losses 
 as far as practicable. The writer acted as secretary of this last committee, and 
 the losses absolutely stated from various firms and parties amounted to seven- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 4^1 
 
 Ceen millions of dollars. In many cases tliey Wire total. Some would not name 
 their damages, and among them very large houses; and, although the seven- 
 teen millions were reported by the losers, still, the committee estimated the 
 reaZ loss at twenty millions of dollars. To increase the difficulties, all the 
 insurance companies, except the two mentioned in a former article, failed to 
 meet the demands against them, but paid as much as they were able, and this 
 consumed all their assets, leaving them bankrupt. This result caused great 
 distress among a class who had been otherwise unharmed — old people, widows, 
 orphans, and others, whose income came from fire-insurance ^JmdewfZs/ these 
 were now at an end, and many suffered severely in consequence. Among the 
 first acts of the public committee was to relieve this class. 
 
 " In respect to the entire loss, some accounts place the number of buildings 
 at five hundred and twenty-eight ; others, higher. Let us visit the • burnt dis- 
 trict,' as it was then named, commencing at the eastern limits. Coffee-house 
 Slip, and South, Front, and Water Streets, were burned down from Wall Street 
 to Coenties Slip, Pearl consumed from the same point to Coenties Alley, and 
 there, as we have seen, stopped by the blowiug-up of a building. This was 
 the well-known crowded region of the dry-goods importers and jobbers, mer. 
 chant princes in the granite palaces, filled with the richest merchandise, 
 domestic and imported. The destruction on Stone Street extended down from 
 William to then No. 32, one side, and to No. 39 on the other. Beaver was 
 destroyed half-way to Broad. Exchange Place was burned from Hanover 
 Street to within three doors of Broad, and here, also, the flames were arrested 
 by blowing up a house. The loss on William Street was complete, commencing 
 at Wall and ending in South, and on both sides, including the market in Old 
 Slip. Wall Street was devastated on the south side, from William to South, 
 excepting, as we have noticed, Nos. 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, and 61. The greatest 
 efforts were made along here to prevent the flames reaching the banks and 
 offices on the opposite side. Here was located the Courier and Enquirer oiKce ; 
 and we well remember the noble person of its editor, Colonel Webb, as he stood 
 on a prominent, elevated place, exhorting the people to renewed diligence and 
 efforts to save the city. All the intermediate streets, lanes, and alleys within 
 tJiese limits were also swept away by the destroying element. The following 
 statement will be found, we imagine, nearly accurate, of the houses and stores 
 leveled to the earth : 
 
 On Wall Street 26 On Old Slip .■ 83 
 
 On South Street ---. TO On Stnne Street 41) 
 
 On Front Street 80 On Mill Street _..'. 38 
 
 On Water Street 'i'6 On Boaver Street 23 
 
 On Pearl Street ™ On Hanover Street 16 
 
 On Exchange Place 62 On Coenties Slip 16 
 
 On Gouvernear's Lane 20 On Hanover Square 3 
 
 On Jones's Lane 10 On Cuyler's Alley 20 
 
 On Exchange 31 ■ 
 
 On William Street 44 Total 674 
 
 " 8'x hundred and seventy-four tenements were thus consumed in a few short 
 hours, and the far greater part were occupied by New York's largest shipping 
 and wholesale dry-goods merchants, besides many grocers. 
 
 " This was a terrible day for the commercial emporium of our land. The 
 destruction had been fearful, and so were the consequences. In a few Inonths 
 01 
 
482 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the United States banks suspended payment ; then followed the commercial dis- 
 tress of 1837, and for a time business seemed paralyzed. Next came bankruptcy 
 after bankruptcy in quick succession, and soon the banks of our State stopped 
 payment for one year. The Legislature legalized this necessary public act. 
 What a disastrous moment ! what terrible reverses ! what g-loomy forebodings 
 and prospects I But the most wonderful fact of all these fearf al times was the 
 energy and elasticity of the New-Yorkers. Not long depressed by their misfor- 
 tunes, a reaction took place, and before many months the city literally arose 
 from her ashes, and acres of splendid granite, marble, brown-stone, and brick 
 stores filled the entire ' burnt district.' Business, trade, and commerce revived 
 more briskly than ever before. How truly astonishing, and how noble and 
 praiseworthy ! What shall we call our native city — the Giant of the Western 
 World, the Queen of America, the Commercial Emporium, or by what other 
 name ? Her wharves and streets are now visited by men from every region of 
 the world, and her white canvas gladdens every ocean. In vain do we search 
 for a chapter in ancient or modern history of such a conflagration and its losses, 
 and of rapid recovery from all its evils, with increasing prosperity, as we find 
 in the great fire of New York in December, 1835. Well may New-Yorkers be 
 proud of their noble city, her enterprise, her trade, and her ' merchant princes.' " 
 
 The great extent of the " burnt district," and the im- 
 mense amount of valuable goods and property of various 
 kinds which remained among the ruins, exposed to depre- 
 dations, required the exercise of energies beyond the ordi- 
 nary civil powers ; and, such an organization as the present 
 " Insurance Patrol " being at that time unknown, the 
 Mayor accepted the services of the " National Guard " * 
 for guard duty in the emergency. " A line of sentinels 
 was accordingly formed from the foot of Wall Street, up 
 Wall, and to the foot of Broad Street, outside of the limits 
 of the devastated district, rendering entire protection to 
 the exposed property during the night of their service. 
 The narrator recollects well his two ' turns ' on post dur- 
 ing the night, at the corner of the ruins of the old Mer- 
 chants' Exchange, at Hanover Street, in an exceedingly 
 cold and driving storrn of sleet and rain, and the gloomy 
 and dreadful appearance of the smoldering ruins extended 
 over a space of upward of fifty acres, broken here and 
 there by a -fitful ilame from a half-smothered fire. He 
 recollects as well, too, the relief of toasting his toes, in 
 
 * This name was, in 1847, changed into the " Seventh Regiment." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. 483 
 
 the ' off' intervals, at the glowing fire, and refreshing the 
 inner man with the genial hospitality of the noted ' Auc- 
 tion Hotel' of George W. Brown, in Water Street, which 
 was the head-quarters of one wing of the regiment for the 
 occasion."* 
 
 As soon as the first excitement had subsided, a public 
 meeting of the citizens of New York convened, in pursu- 
 ance of a call from the Mayor, at the City Hall, on Sat^ 
 urday, the 19th of December, at noon. The meeting was 
 called to order by Judge Irving, upon whose motion the 
 Mayor took the chair. 
 
 The following gentlemen were then appointed vice- 
 presidents on the motion of General Prosper M. Wet- 
 more; Albert Gallatin, Preserved Fish, Louis McLane, 
 George Newbould, Isaac Bronson, Enos T. Throop, Camp- 
 bell P. White, John T. Irving, Samuel Hicks, George 
 Griswold, James G. King, Benjamin L. Swan, Jacob Loril- 
 lard, and Stephen Allen. On motion of General Jacob 
 Morton, the following secretaries were also appointed : 
 Jonathan Goodhue, Prosper M. Wetmore, John S. Crary, 
 John A. Stephens, Jacob Harvey, Reuben Withers, Dud- 
 ley Selden, Samuel B. Ruggles, George Wilson, Samuel 
 Cowdrey, James Lee, and John L. Graham. The meet- 
 ing was addressed by William L. Stone, Prosper M. Wet- 
 more, and several other prominent citizens, after which 
 the following resolutions were, on motion of James G. 
 King, unanimously adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That while the citizens of New York lament over the ruin 
 which has left desolate the moat valuable part of this city, and deeply sympa- 
 thize with the numerous sufferers, it becomes them not to repine, but to unite 
 
 * Asher Taylor, in his Reeollectiona of the Seventh Regiment. Chief-Justice 
 Daly, also, was one of the guard on this occasion. The head-quarters of his 
 regiment was at the Shakespeare Tavern, where, during the night, they were 
 all regaled with bread and cheese. The Judge had a tussle, on his beat, 
 with a negro who was carrying off a case of silks, in which the former came 
 off the victor. 
 
484 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in a vigorous exertion to repair the loss ; that the extent of her commerce, the 
 number, wealth, and enterprise of her citizens, justify, under the hleesing of 
 Divine Providence, a primary reliance upon her own resources. 
 
 " Resolved, That we consider it the duty of our citizens and moneyed institu- 
 tions, who stand in the relation of creditors to those who have directly or indi 
 rectly suffered by the late fire, to extend to them the utmost forbearance and 
 lenity." 
 
 On motion of Dudley Selden, Esq., it was further 
 
 " Mesohed, That a committee of the Mayor and one hundred and fifty citi- 
 zens be appointed to ascertain the extent and probable value of the property 
 destroyed, and how far the sufferers are protected by insurance. Also, with 
 power to make application to Congress for relief by an extension of credit for 
 debts due the United States, and a return or remission of duties on goods 
 destroyed ; and also to ask such other aid from the general. State, and city gov- 
 ernments as may be deemed expedient. Also to ascertain the origin and cause 
 of the fire, and what change, if any, should be made, either in the regulating 
 of streets, the erection of buildings, or the arrangements of the Fire Depart- 
 ment, to prevent a recurrence of similar calamities, and take such other meas- 
 ures as the emergency may demand. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Committee to be appointed take the earliest and most 
 effectual measures to ascertain and relieve the necessities of those who have 
 been reduced to want by the recent unfortunate event." 
 
 On motion of Colonel Murray, it was also 
 
 " Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be, and they are hereby, tend- 
 ered to the citizens of Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Newark for the sponta- 
 neous expression of their sympathy in our misfortunes, and that they be espe- 
 cially tendered to the firemen of those cities, who, with a promptitude and 
 kindness unexampled, have left their homes at this inclement season to offer 
 their services, and which they are now tendering at the scene of the calamity." 
 
 On motion of Prosper M. Wetmore, it was finally 
 
 " Resohed, That the members of the two boards of the Common Council he 
 ex officio members of the committee to be appointed." 
 
 The Committee was then announced as follows :* 
 
 Cornelius W. Lawrence Albert Gallatin, Preserved Fish, Samuel Hicks, 
 Benjamin L. Swan, Dudley Selden, Jonathan Goodhue, Saul Alley, Prosper M. 
 Wetmore, John T. Irving, John Pintard, George Newbould, Samuel B. Ruggles, 
 James G. King, Wm. B. Astor, George Griswold, Ends T. Troop, Samuel Cow- 
 drey, Thomas J. Oakley, George Wilson, Wm. T. McCown, John G. Coster 
 
 * The reader will not fail to remark that this committee was composed of 
 men whose names are household words in the history of our city and are 
 identified with its interests and prosperity. Hence the propriety of giving 
 them in full in the text. The names in italics represent those who are living 
 at the present time (1872). 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 435 
 
 Walter Bowne, James P. Boorman, Louis McLane, Jacob Lorillard, John S. 
 Crary, Jacob Harvey, Reuben Withers, Ogden Hoffman, Charles King, Edward 
 Sanford, John W. Leavltt, Adam Treadwell, John Leonard, George S. Rob- 
 bins, Wm. Neilson, Stephen Whitney, Joseph Bouchaud, Jacob MoHon, John 
 Wilson, Mordecai M. Noah, Philip Hone, William L. Stone, Rensselaer Havens, 
 Charles W. Sanford, Wm. Van Wyck, D. F. Manice, John Kelly, H. C. De 
 Rham, Isaac Bronson, Campbell B. White, John A. Stevens, James Lee, 
 George Douglass, Stephen Allen, John Fleming, John B. Lawrence, Wm. B. 
 Townsend, OJiarles H. Sufsell, James Heard, Charles Graham, George Ireland, 
 John Y. Cebra, Samuel Jones, Charles Augustus Davis, Robert C. Wetmore, 
 James D. P. Ogden, Andrew Warner, David Hall, James Conner, Robert White, 
 Richard Pownell, Joseph Blunt, Samuel Ward, F. B. Cutting, John H. How- 
 land, John Lang, Daniel Jackson, J, Palmer, Richard Riker, James Boosemlt, 
 Jr., James Monroe, Richard McCarthy, Isaac S. Hone, Peter A. Jay, Amos But- 
 ler, Joseph D. Beers, David Bryson, Samuel Swartwout, Walter R. Jones, Philo 
 L. Mills, Morris Robinson, Benjamin McVickar, John Haggerty, Charles Den- 
 nison, George W. Lee, Wm Churchill, George Lovett, G. A. Worth, Edwin 
 Lord, B. L. Woolley, Wm. Mitchell, Burr Wakeman, Wm. Leggett, James B. 
 Murray, Peter A. Covvdrey, John L. Graham, George D. Strong, Jonathan 
 Lawrence, Cornelius Heyer, James Lawson, Samuel S. Howland, Jam,ea Watson 
 Webh, Wm. M. Price, John Delafield, James McCride, M. M. Qaackenboss, B. 
 M. Brown, Wm. B. Crosby, G. C. Verplanck, Wm. Beafh Lawrence, Joseph L. 
 Josephs, S. H. Foster, T. T. Kissam, Robert Bogardus, Wm. Howard, Luman 
 Reed, Robert Smith, M. Tllshoefer, Samuel Thompson, Robert C. Cornell, P. G. 
 Stuyvesant, David Hadden, Benjamin Strong, Wm. P. Hall, Isaac Townsend, 
 Charles P. Clinch, Rufus L. Lord, J. R. Satterlee, David S. Jones, David Austin, 
 Seth Geer, Robert Lenox, Perez Jones, Wm. Turner. 
 
 Scarcely had this committee been appointed when a 
 communication was received from the President of the 
 Board of Trade, announcing the names of a committee 
 from that body to co-operate in the objects of the meeting. 
 
 On motion of Mr. P. M. Wetmore, it was accordingly 
 
 Resolved, That the following gentlemen, deputed from the Board of Trade, 
 be added to the committee, viz., Gabriel P. Disosway, Robert Jaifrey, Silas 
 Brown, N. H. Weed, George Underhill, D. A. Cushman, Meigs D. Benjamin, 
 Marcus Wilbur, and Thomas Denny. 
 
 Thereupon the committee, "having been requested to 
 meet at seven o'clock in the evening at the Mayor's office, 
 adjourned." Terrible, however, as was this calamity, New 
 York city was by no means crushed by the blow. " Great 
 as the loss has been," said a writer,* a few days after the 
 
 * " Foster's | account of the | conflagration | of the principal portion of the 
 
486 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 fire, "we are happy to announce to our friends at a 
 distance, that our merchants and others who have suflFered 
 are in good spirits, and fully determined promptly to 
 redeem their loss. All despondency, if it ever existed, is 
 at an end. Smiling faces and cheerful countenances meet 
 us at every corner, and demonstrate that there is an elas- 
 ticity in the character of our people which always enables 
 them to rise above the most overwhelming evils. The 
 same spirit which made New York what it is, will enable 
 it quietly to bear and nobly to triumph over even the 
 present calamity. Indeed, such is the tone of the public 
 mind, that we expect to see business as brisk as ever in the 
 spring ; and within two years the entire district destroyed 
 Avill be rebuilt on a more permanent and convenient plan" — 
 a prophecy which was more than fulfilled ; since, in 1836, 
 according to an assessment made November 12th, of that 
 year, the value of the real and personal estate in New York 
 city was $327,988,780, of which the proportion of real estate 
 was $253,201,191, and of personal $74,787,589. This 
 was an increase of $20,183,824 over the assessments of 
 1832-'33.* 
 
 In the month of February, 1836, the peace of the lower 
 part of the city was endangered by a " strike " among 
 
 the stevedores and other "long-shore" workmen. 
 
 After parading the streets and along the docks for 
 several days, their demonstrations became so violent that 
 the civil authorities were roused to vigorous action. The 
 Mayor called upon the Twenty-seventh regiment, which, 
 with ball-cartridges and a bountiful supply of ammuni- 
 
 fiist I ward of the city of New York | on the night of the 16th of December 
 1835." The two cuts given in tlie text, representing the ruins of the Mer- 
 chants' Exchange, are from this pamphlet. 
 
 * Mies' Register, Nov. 20th, 1836. Compare the above assessment with the 
 fact that the taxable property of New York Island in 1871, reported at 
 less than half its value, reaches nearly a thousand mUliom, and the annual tax 
 tweaty-five millions. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 487 
 
 tion, promptly turned out on the morning of the 24th of 
 February, and took up its quarters in the court-rooms 
 of the City Hall. This fact coming to the knowledge of 
 the rioters, order was restored, and the regiment was dis- 
 missed in the evening. 
 
 This same year witnessed, also, the destruction of the 
 " Old Shakespeare Tavern," the ancient stamping-ground 
 of the " National Guards," and for many years intimately 
 associated with the military history of the city. It stood 
 at the south-west corner of Fulton and Nassau Streets (the 
 site [1872] of the present Commercial Advertiser building). 
 It was originally a low, old-fashioned, massive edifice, 
 built of small, yellow bricks, two stories high, with dor- 
 mer-windows on the roof. The entrance, in its early days, 
 was through a green baize door on Nassau Street — an 
 entry running through the building, with rooms on both 
 sides. " The Tap " was in the south front room, on 
 Nassau Street, and was fitted up in one corner with 
 a circular bar of the old English fashion. The build- 
 ing was erected many years before the Revolution, by 
 John Leake, a commissary in the French war,* but, in 
 1822, a modern extension on Fulton Street, three stories 
 high, was added. 
 
 On the second story there was a room for public meet- 
 ings and military drills, and on the third story there was 
 also another room, arched, for concerts and balls, and for 
 the accommodation of the political, literary, and musical 
 patrons of the house. It was kept in its palmiest days by 
 Thomas Hodgkinson, an Englishman by birth, who had 
 come over to the United States when quite young.t He 
 
 *This Leake is said to have saved tlie life of tlie Duke of Cumberland at 
 the Battle of Dettingen. He was also at the siege of Louisburg, under Sir 
 William Pepperell. 
 
 \ Hodgkinson was an officer of the Second regiment of N. Y. S. Artillery, 
 
488 
 
 HISTOET OP NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 was a brother of the celebrated comedian and vocalist, 
 John Hodgkinson, who was at one time manager of the 
 old Park Theater. Hodgkinson bought the house in 
 1808, and under his management it soon became and long 
 continued a great resort for the wits of the day, and was 
 celebrated for the superiority of its wines and the quiet 
 comfort and elegance of its private suppers. 
 
 The " Shakespeare Tavern," in fact, was to New York 
 what the " Mermaid" was to London in the days of Shakes- 
 peare and Queen Bess, or, later, the " St. James Coffee- 
 house " and the " Turk's Head " in the time of Reynolds, 
 Garrick, and Goldsmith. Within its walls, Hugh Gaine and 
 James Cheetham have broken many a lance over the polit- 
 ical topics of the day. In its tap-room " Ready-Money Prov- 
 ost" has been seen quietly sipping a mug of foaming flip 
 as he meditated over some fresh scheme for cheating the 
 revenue.* Here, De Witt Clinton was wont to discuss his 
 
 and distinguished for liis devotion to tlie cause of liis adopted country in 1812. 
 At iiis deatb, which occurred on the day of the reception of General Lafayette, 
 in 1824, he was a captain, and was buried with military honors. Two of his 
 sons served in the " National Guard." — Recollections of the Seventh Regiment, 
 for the use of two copies of which book (now exceedingly rare) the author is 
 indebted to the courtesy of Herman G. Carter, Esq., and to the publishing 
 house of J. M. Bradstreet & Son. 
 
 * " Ebadt-Monbv Pkovost," or David Provost — a man long known as the 
 chief of a gang of smugglers who infested Long Island Sound — acquired his 
 compound appellation in consequence of the abundance of money which he 
 always had by him, even in times of the greatest scarcity. One of his strong- 
 holds for secreting his contraband articles was at Ilallett's Cove, L. I. He was 
 for many years such a character, that I here give a conversation said to have 
 been held between him and a gentleman, as illustrative both of the man and of 
 the ideas held by his class upon smuggling: 
 
 " I have not the honor of an acquaintance with you, Mr Provost ; but I have 
 heard much of you and your occupation." 
 
 " No reflections, if you please, Mr. Talcott : my occupation is an affair of my 
 own : ' Free Trade' 's my maxim : we fowt witli Great Britain for liberty, and 
 agin the tea-tax and the custom-houses. I got a bullet in my leg, and like to 
 liave had a baggonet in my bread-basket at tlie battle of Brooklyn, over there 
 where the Jarsey Blues was shot. I was agin the custom-houses then, and I'm 
 agin them now. Well : we whipped the English, and the Hessians to boot, 
 and got our liberties, they tell us. But blast my picture, if we aint more pes- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 489 
 
 pet project, the Erie Canal; here, Fitz-Greene Halleck, 
 and Sands, and Percival,* and Paulding, and Willis Gay- 
 
 tered and plagued witli custom-liouses now tlian we was then — and be banged 
 to 'em ! " 
 
 " I meant no reflections, Mr. Provost," replied Mr. Talcott ; " but as you 
 said you supposed you were a stranger to me, I only intended to say that you 
 bad been pointed out to me as a smug — I beg pardon — as a — " 
 
 " Ay, smuggler — say it out ! They turn up their noses, and call me smug- 
 gler, who have never cheated a man in my life ; while they fail for their thou- 
 sands, and ride in their coaches all the while besides ! Many a time have I lent 
 the scoundrels the hard chink — the real Caroluses — to keep them out of limbo; 
 when, before they had turned the next corner, they would call me smuggler I — 
 just because. I'm for making an honest living by feeb tkadb. There's Con- 
 gress has just been introducing a Tariff, as they call it, and Madison, and Car- 
 roll, and old Roger Sherman, and all on 'em are voting for it. But by the" — 
 and here, with flashing eyes, the smuggler swore a great oath which we will 
 not repeat — " ' Ready-Money Provost ' will stand by his ' reserved rights,' as 
 they call them away there in Virginny, and nullify the custom-house laws, as 
 long as the ' Pot ' boils in Hcllgate !" 
 
 " Never mind," replied Talcott, in a conciliating tone ; " we will waive that 
 subject. I am no merchant, and know little of the mysteries of trade or of 
 smuggling. And if — " 
 
 " Smuggling, again ! I tell you, Mr. Talcott, you must not make my Jarsey 
 blood boil too hot. I'm an honest man, that pays his debts, and ruins no friend 
 who has the kindness to underwrite for me. I am ouly a free-trader, — acting 
 as a broker between the importer and the jobber, just to help 'em get clear of 
 the duties which Government puts on to pay their idle officers. It's no harm to 
 cheat the Government,— particklar when one gets along without swearing till 
 all's blue in the custom-house. And, as betwixt man and man, I've never taken 
 anybody in — man nor woman nother — and, what's more, I've always stuck to 
 my engagements." 
 
 Provost, notwithstanding his roughness and questionable occupation, mar- 
 ried the widow of James Alexander, and mother of Lord Stirling, an eminent 
 American officer in the Revolutionary War. He was buried in the family vault, 
 cut in a rocky knoll in Jones's Wood, near the house in which he lived the latter 
 portion of his life. It is now a dilapidated ruin near the foot of Seventy-first 
 Street. The marble slab which he placed over the vault in memory of his wife 
 (and which commemorates him, also) lies neglected over the broken walls. 
 Near the site of the tomb, the Germans, who love the open air, go thither on 
 Sunday, in large numbers, and tents, wherein lagerMer is sold, form conspic- 
 uous objects in that still half-sylvan retreat. Provost died in 1791, aged ninety 
 years. 
 
 * In the spring of 1833, S. G. Goodrich was in New York, and invited Mr. 
 Cooper, the novelist, to dine with Percival at the City Hotel. Mr. Goodrich 
 thus describes their appearance : " It is not easy to conceive of two persons 
 more strongly contrasting with each other. As they sat side by side at the 
 table, I noted the difference. Mr. Cooper was in person solid, robust, athletic ; 
 63 
 
490 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 lord Clark, have met in social converse and passed many 
 a merry jest and brilliant repartee ; here, too, McDonald 
 Clark, the "Mad Poet,"* has often startled the little circle 
 gathered around him by one of his strange outbursts of 
 poetic frenzy; here, some of the liveliest sallies of the 
 Croaker and most touching passages in Yamoyden were 
 conceived and brought forth; and here, also. Sands first 
 recited to his friends Stone, Verplanck, and John Inman, 
 his last and most remarkable poem — The Dead of 1832.t 
 Henceforth, let no one say that New York has no memo- 
 ries save those of the temples of the money-changer. The 
 old Shakespeare Tavern has entertained coteries composed 
 
 in voice, manly ; in manner, earnest, empliatic, almost dictatorial — with some- 
 tliing of self-assertion bordering on egotism. * * * Percival, on tlie contrary, 
 was tall and thin ; his chest, sunken ; his limbs, long and feeble ; his hair, 
 silken and sandy ; hia complexion, light and feminine ; his eyes, large and 
 spectral ; his whole air startled ; his attitudes, shy and shrinking ; his voice, 
 abashed and whispering. Mr. Cooper ate like a man of excellent appetite and 
 vigorous digestion : Percival scarce seemed to know that he was at the table. 
 Cooper took hia wine as if hia lips appreciated it : Percival swallowed his evi- 
 dently without knowing or caring whether it was wine or water. Yet these 
 two men conversed pleasantly together. After a time, Percival was drawn out, 
 and the stores of his mind were poured forth as from a cornucopia. I could 
 see Cooper's gray eye dilate with delight and surprise." 
 
 Percival, as is well known, was very eccentric, even if he was not at times 
 deranged. He was more free in conversation with Mrs. Colonel Stone than 
 perhaps with any other person. He was subject to deep dejections ; and, when he 
 was quite " in the depths," he would come to her, usually spending several 
 days at the house ; but he came and went suddenly. One morning, upon com- 
 ing down to breakfast, she found a piece of poetry. It was on her plate ; and 
 he was not seen nor heard of for some time afterward. This piece of poetry, 
 entitled "Musings at the House of a Friend," does not appear in his published 
 poems, and is, therefore, given at the close of Appendix No. V. 
 
 * For several curious anecdotes of McDonald Clark, see Appendix No. V. 
 
 f This poem appeared in the Gommercial Advertiser but a few days before 
 Sands's death. " By a singular coincidence," says Mr. Verplanck, in his ele- 
 gantly written sketch of the poet, " he chose for his theme the triumphs of 
 Death and Time over the men who had died in the year just closing— Goethe, 
 Cuvier, Spurzheira, Bentham, and Walter Scott ; Champollion, ' who read the 
 mystic lore of the Pharaohs ;' Crabbe, the poet of purity ; Adam Clarke, the 
 learned Methodist ;— a goodly company, whom he himself was destined to join 
 before the year had passed away." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 491 
 
 of as choice spirits as ever supped at the " Turk's Head." 
 True, all is now changed. Where formerly it stood, the 
 hum of business and the rattling of drays have succeeded 
 
 PROVOST S TOMB, J0NB3 S WOOD. 
 
 to the quiet that was once so grateful to the wearied 
 frame ; and a bare brick building usurps the site of the 
 quaint vine-clad tavern. But, though all traces of it have 
 
492 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 vanished, it will live in its traditions, which, like the ivy 
 that formerly covered its portals, shall forever be entwined 
 around the hearts of future generations,* 
 
 * On tlie death of its proprietor in 1824, the house passed to his connection 
 by marriage, James C. Stoueall (afterward an alderman of the Second Ward), 
 by whom the interior was remodeled and modernized, and a handsome bar- 
 room fitted up in one corner, with an entrance on Fulton Street. Like his 
 predecessor, Stoneall maintained the character of the house until the widening 
 of Fulton Street caused its demolition. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It was during the mayoralty of Cornelius W. Law- 
 rence that the great Flour Riot took place — a riot which, 
 although I can find no mention of it save in the contem- 
 poraneous records of the day, at first threatened the most 
 serious destruction to life and property. 
 
 The winter of 1836-'37 had been one of unusual 
 severity. In addition to this, a scarcity of the cereal 
 crops throughout the country, the preceding season (not 
 more than one-half the usual quantity having been har- 
 vested), had raised flour to twelve and fifteen dollars a 
 barrel — at that time an enormous price. The poorer class 
 of citizens, as a matter of course, suffered greatly ; and a 
 mistaken idea having got abroad that a few of the larger 
 flour and grain dealers had taken advantage of the scarcity 
 to buy up all the flour in the city, there was added mental 
 to physical distress. But, granting all this, it is extremely 
 doubtful whether these feelings would have culminated in 
 actual deeds of violence, had not two political factions — the 
 Loco-foco and the Temperance — -for their own ends, fanned 
 the embers of discord into a blaze. The former, through 
 their party organs, labored to stir up the evil passions in 
 the bosoms of the laboring classes by the war-cry of " the 
 poor against the rich;" while the latter attributed the 
 scarcity of grain to the distilleries. A few weeks before 
 
494 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the riot, a public meeting had been held at the New York 
 Tabernacle,* to consider and act upon the high price of 
 grain and provisions, on 'which occasion the speeches 
 evinced considerable heat, though they were not of an 
 openly incendiary character. The fires, however, were 
 only smoldering, and, accordingly, on Friday, the 10th of 
 February, 1837, a notice was published in some 
 of the newspapers, and conspicuously placarded 
 through the city, of a meeting to be held in the Park on 
 the afternoon of the next Monday, February 13th. The 
 notice itself, as will be seen, was couched in language 
 of a highly injudicious character, and well calculated to 
 inflame the minds of the unthinking, and lead them into 
 the excesses which they afterward committed. 
 The following is a fac-simile of the notice : 
 
 BREAD! MEAT! RENT! FUEL!! 
 
 Their Prices Must Come Down ! 
 
 C^* The voice of the people shall he heard and will prevail. 
 
 S^" The people will meet in the Park, rain or shine, at 
 
 4 o'clock Monday Afternoon, ..^J 
 To enquire into the cause of the present unexampled dis- 
 tress, and to devise a suitable remedy. All friends of 
 humanity, determined to resist monopolists and extortion- 
 ists, are invited to attend. 
 
 Moses Jacques, Daniel Gorham, 
 
 Paulus Hedl, John Windt, 
 
 Daniel A. Robertson, Alexander Ming, Jr. 
 
 Warden Hayward, Elijah F. Crane. 
 New York, February 10th, 1837. 
 
 * The New York Tabernacle, built in 1835-'36, and designed for a free 
 chnrch, was torn down in 1856, and respected in 1859 by the societj, on the 
 comer of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 495 
 
 Under the above call, a mob of about six thousand 
 people collected together, at the time appointed, in front 
 of the City Hall, combining within itself all the elements 
 of riot and revolution. Moses Jacques was selected as the 
 chairman. Order was not the presiding genius, and the 
 meeting was divided into various groups, each of which 
 was harangued by some favorite demagogue after his own 
 fashion and on his own account. ' 
 
 Conspicuous among the orators was Alexander Ming, 
 Jr., and other speakers, who, in a most exciting manner, 
 denounced the landlords and the holders of flour for the 
 prices of rents and provisions. One of these orators, after 
 working upon the passions of his audience until they were 
 fitted for the work of spoliation and outrage, expressly 
 directed the popular vengeance against Mr. Eli Hart, who 
 was one of the most extensive flour-dealers in the city. 
 " Fellow-citizens," he exclaimed, " Mr. Hart has now fifty- 
 three thousand barrels of flour in his store. Let us go 
 and offer him eight dollars a barrel, and if he does not 
 take it" — here some person touched the orator on the 
 shoulder, and he suddenly lowered his voice, and finished 
 his sentence by saying, "we shall depart from him in 
 iomce." This hint was sufficient. A large body of the 
 rioters at once marched off in the direction of Mr. Hart's 
 store, situated on Washington Street, between Dey and 
 Cortlandt, The store was a large brick building, and had 
 three wide but strong iron doors upon the street. Being 
 apprised of the approach of the mob, the clerks secured 
 the doors and windows, but not until the middle door had 
 been forced, and some thirty barrels of flour rolled into 
 the street, and their heads staved in. At this point Mr. 
 Hart arrived on the ground with a posse of officers from 
 the police. The latter were immediately assailed by a 
 portion of the mob in Dey Street, their clubs wrested 
 from them and shivered to pieces. The numbers of the 
 
496 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. 
 
 mob not being large enough at this time, the officers suc- 
 ceeded in entering the store, and for a short while delayed 
 the work of destruction. The Mayor next arrived on the 
 scene, and attempted to remonstrate with the infatuated 
 multitude on the folly of their conduct, but to no purpose ; 
 their numbers were rapidly increasing, and his Honor was 
 assailed with all sorts of missiles, and with such fury that 
 he was compelled to retire. Meanwhile, large reinforce- 
 ments of rioters having arrived from the Park, the officers 
 were driven from the field, and the store carried by as- 
 sault—the first iron door torn from its hinges being used 
 as a battering-ram against the others. The rioters, like 
 enraged and famished tigers, now rushed in ; the windows 
 and doors of the upper lofts were wrenched open, and the 
 work of destruction again commenced. Barrels of flour 
 by dozens, by fifties, and by hundreds were thrown in 
 rapid succession from the windows, and the heads of those 
 which did not break in falling were at once staved in. 
 Intermingled with the flour were sacks of wheat by the 
 hundred, which were cast into the street, and their con- 
 tents emptied upon the pavement. About one thousand 
 bushels of wheat and six hundred barrels of flour were 
 thus wantonly and foolishly destroyed. The most active 
 of those engaged in this were foreigners, debased by intem- 
 perance and crime — ^indeed, the greater part of the assem- 
 blage was of exotic growth ; but there were probably a 
 thousand others standing by and abetting their incendiary 
 labors. Amidst the falling and bursting of the barrels 
 and sacks of wheat, numbers of women were engaged, 
 like the crones who strip the dead on the battle-field, fill- 
 ing the boxes and baskets with which they were provided, 
 and their aprons, with flour, and making ofl^withit. One 
 of the destructives, a boy named James Roach, was seen 
 upon one of the upper window-sills, throwing barrel after 
 barrel into the street, and crying out with every throw, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 497 
 
 " Here goes flour at eight dollars a barrel !"* Early in 
 the assault, Mr. Hart's counting-room was entered, his 
 books and papers seized and scattered to the winds.t 
 
 Night had now closed upon the scene ; but the work 
 of destruction did not cease until strong bodies of police 
 arrived, followed soon after by detachments of troops. 
 The store was then closed, and several of the rioters 
 were arrested and sent to the Bridewell, under charge of 
 
 THE OLD UUIDEWELL. 
 
 the Chief of Police. On his way to the prison, the latter, 
 with his assista.nts, was assailed, his coat torn off him, and 
 several prisoners were rescued. 
 
 Before the close of the proceedings at Hart's store, the 
 cry of " Meech " was raised, whereupon a detachment of 
 the rioters crossed over to Coenties Slip to attack the 
 
 * This boy, however, with others, paid dearly for his flour, being afterward 
 indicted, tried, and sent to prison for a term of years, 
 f Mr. Hart's loss was set down at $10,000. 
 63 
 
498 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 establishment of Meech & Co., also extensive flour-dealers. 
 But the store of S. H. Herrick & Co., coming first in their 
 way, they commenced an attack on that. The windows 
 were first smashed in with a shower of brickbats, and 
 the doors immediately afterward broken. Some thirty 
 barrels of flour were then roiled into the street, and their 
 heads staved in. The citizens and police, however, ad- 
 vancing in large force, compelled the mob to desist, and 
 soon dispersed it, capturing, also, some of the rioters. 
 
 " At eight o'clock in the evening," writes Colonel Wil- 
 liam L.. Stone to a friend on the morning after the occur- 
 rence, " all was quiet. I took a stroll over the scene of the 
 principal riot, wading for a considerable distance knee- 
 deep in flour and wheat. Several hundreds of people 
 were yet lingering about, but the police were strong, and 
 the patrols of troops frequent. I saw several women 
 stealing away with small sacks of flour; but the weather 
 was too intensely cold for people to remain abroad, and 
 before nine all was quiet and still. The night was brio-ht 
 moonlight, and the glittering of the burnished armor 
 made quite a striking appearance. Thus has ended the 
 first attempt of the sovereign wisdom of this country to 
 reduce the price of provisions by reducing the quantity 
 in the market!" 
 
 A detachment of the military^ consisting of the Na- 
 tional Guards, under Colonel Smith, and Colonel Helas's 
 regiment, were under arms the entire night, with muskets 
 loaded and cartridge-boxes well supplied with powder and 
 ball, ready to act promptly on hearing the signal from the 
 great bell of the City Hall ; but, happily, their services 
 were not called into requisition. 
 
 Regarding this riot, the city authorities were greatly 
 blamed for not taking oflicial measures for the preserva- 
 tion of the peace of the city in anticipation of the meet- 
 ing in the Park. They had had, it seems, full warning. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 499 
 
 An anonymous letter had been found a day or two pre- 
 vious in the Park, addressed to a Mr. W. Lennox, inform- 
 ing him that Hart's store would be attacked soon by a 
 large number of people ; and that, the better to carry out 
 this project, two alarms of fire were to be given, one near 
 the Battery, and the other higher up Broadway ; and 
 while the attention of the police was thus distracted, the 
 conspirators were to break into Hart's store and carry off 
 as much flour as they could. Besides this letter, sev- 
 eral other anonymous letters, to the same import, were 
 received by the Mayor. It would therefore appear that 
 the censure of the authorities by the public was not 
 entirely undeserved. 
 
 In this riot some forty of the rioters were captured, 
 and afterward indicted, tried, and sent to State Prison. 
 The ringleaders, however, almost to a man, escaped. Not 
 a single person who signed the call, nor, as can be discov- 
 ered, a single orator who harangued the meeting, was tried. 
 Nor did the mob succeed in bettering their condition. 
 '' One effect," says Niks' Register for the week after the 
 riot, " has resulted from the doings of the Political Econ- 
 omists (!), which will add to the distress of that class they 
 affected a desire to relieve. The stock of flour having 
 been reduced, the price has naturally risen, and fifty cents 
 per barrel more is now asked than was demanded previous 
 to the mob." 
 
 The Great Fire of 1835, narrated in the preceding 
 chapter, convinced the people of New York that the 
 question of an ample supply of water could no longer be 
 postponed. It had now been nearly seventy years since 
 the subject of supplying New Yorii with water began to 
 attract the attention of the city authorities. Prior to the 
 year 1799, the dependence of the people of the city for 
 water was' on the old " Collect Pond," the famous " Tea- 
 
500 HISrORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Water Pump," and wells in different parts of the city. In 
 1774, when the total population of the city did not exceed 
 22,000, works were constructed by Engineer Collis, on 
 the east line of Broadway, between the present Pearl and 
 White Streets. Here a reservoir was built, and a large 
 well sunk in the " Collect Pond," now filled up and cov- 
 ered with costly buildings. The breaking out of the Revo- 
 lutionary War in 1775, and the occupation of the city by 
 the British, caused these works, while yet uncompleted, to 
 be abandoned. The " Tea- Water Pump" was situated in 
 Chatham Street, east of Pearl. Its water was pure and 
 soft, and the pump was resorted to from all parts of the 
 city. As late as 1797, the records of the Common Council 
 indicate its popularity, a resolution having been passed to 
 prevent the street being obstructed by the water-carts, and 
 the owner required to raise and lengthen the spout for the 
 convenience of passers on the sidewalk. A fruitless effort 
 was again made in 1798-'99 to obtain water for the city 
 from the River Bronx, but no further action was taken at 
 that time, owing to the organization of the Manhattan 
 Company. This Company, which waS incorporated April 
 2d, 1799, supplied the city until 1822. The Manhattan 
 Works, however, had long since proved comparatively 
 worthless ; and, after much discussion — the people mean- 
 while having decided the question of " water or no water " 
 in the affirmative, by a large majority vote — it was 
 resolved to construct an aqueduct from the Croton River 
 distant forty miles from New York, which should conduct 
 the waters of that stream into the city. The work was 
 accordins;ly, forthwith be";un, and finished in 1842 
 Never was there a better investment made than 
 that of the Croton Aqueduct by the citizens of any 
 other city. It has proved itself of great benefit, not only 
 in a sanitary and financial point of view, but as a real 
 source of enjoyment — its construction having given rise 
 
MOUTH OF THE CROTON RIVER 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 501 
 
 to many imposing works of art of which New-Yorkers 
 may justly be proud. 
 
 Beginning at the " Dam," the waters of the Croton 
 flow to the Distributing Reservoir in Central Park, forty 
 
 CROTON AQUEDUCT AT SING SING. 
 
 miles and a half, through a covered viaduct made of stone 
 and brick. In its course, it flows through sixteen tunnels 
 in rock, varying in length from one hundred and sixtj- to 
 one thousand two hundred and sixty-three feet. As it 
 passes through Sing Sing and over the Kill, it becomes an 
 
CKOTON DAM. 
 
 TUB mon BUIDOK. 
 
VIEW IN CENTKAL PARK. 
 
504 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 elliptical arch of hewn granite, of eighty-eight feet span, 
 with its key-stone more than seventy feet from the waters 
 of the brook beneath it. In Westchester County it crosses 
 twenty-five streams, from twelve to seventy feet below 
 the line of grade, besides numerous small brooks furnished 
 with culverts. Upon its reaching Harlem River, it passes 
 
 over from the main-land to Manhattan Island by the 
 " High Bridge," justly considered one of the most mag- 
 nificent structures on the continent. Built of granite, the 
 " High Bridge," or aqueduct, is one thousand four hun- 
 dred and fifty feet in length, and rests upon arches sup- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 505 
 
 ported by fourteen pieces of heavy and elaborate masonry. 
 Eight of these arches are eighty feet span, and six of 
 them fifty feet high. The height of the bridge above 
 the water is one hundred and fourteen feet. The original 
 cost of this structure was nearly a million of dollars. This 
 point forms one of the " lions " of the city — to which any 
 
 THE KKSEEVOIK, FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " cousin " or " friend " who visits New York must certainly 
 
 be taken during his or her stay. Nor, indeed, could a 
 
 more charming drive be taken in the suburbs of the 
 
 city than this. The Bloomingdale Road, which, leading 
 
 through Manhattanville, conducts the visitor from the city 
 
 to the " High Bridge," and, passing between hills covered 
 
 with wood, afibrds, in the heats of summer, a delightful 
 
 change from the dust and scorching stone sidewalks and 
 
 brick walls of the town. 
 
 From the " High Bridge" (which, by the way, is at 
 
 the toot of One Hundred and Seventy-fourth Street), the 
 
 waters pass the Clendening Valley in an aqueduct one 
 
 thousand nine hundred feet in length, and enter the Receiv- 
 64 
 
506 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ing Reservoir in the Central Park. Hence the waters are 
 conveyed to the Distributing Reservoir on Murray Hill. 
 The Reservoir stands in solemn contrast to the gay 
 buildings of the Fifth Avenue, by which it is surrounded. 
 " Its walls, in Egyptian style, are of dark granite, and 
 average forty-four feet in height above the adjacent 
 streets." Upon the top of the wall, which is reached by 
 massive steps, is a broad promenade, from which may be 
 obtained a fine view of the surrounding country. Per- 
 fect security for the visitor is obtained by a strong battle- 
 ment of granite on the outside, and an iron fence on the 
 inside nearest the water. The water was first let into 
 this reservoir on the 4th of July, 1842 ; and, on the 14th 
 of the following October, distributed, by means of iron 
 pipes, throughout the city.* 
 
 * The Croton Dam covers an area of four liuudrcd acres, and contains 500,- 
 000,000 gallons of water. The usual flow of the water through the pipes is 
 30,000,000; its capacity 60,000.000. The Receiving Reservoir covers thirty-five 
 acres, and contains 150,000,000 of gallons. The Distributing Reservoir holds 
 21,000,000 of gallons. "The ridge line, or water shed, enclosing the Croton 
 Valley above the dam is 101 miles in length. The stream is 39 miles in 
 length, and its tributaries 13G miles. The total area of the valley is 352 square 
 miles, and within it are 31 natural lates and ponds." — Losaing's Book of the 
 Hudson. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 New York had now fairly distanced all competitors. 
 The gas had been introduced into the city in 1825 ; the 
 New York University, notwithstanding the " Stone-cut- 
 ters' Riot," finished in 1835; the magnificent Mer- 
 chants' Exchange (the present Custom-house), and the 
 Custom-house (now the Sub-treasury), erected in 1827 ; 
 the Croton Aqueduct completed, and its practical utility 
 inaugurated by a brilliant procession, in 1842, and a com- 
 munication by the magnetic telegraph opened with 
 other cities. Nothing was wanting to her temporal 
 prosperity ; her civil freedom was all that could be desired. 
 One thing only was necessary to place her on a footing 
 with her sister cities in breadth and liberality of senti- 
 ment. Nor was she long in taking this last step. By the 
 provisions of an act passed by the New York Board of 
 Education on the 11th of April, 1842, it was declared that 
 no. school in which any religious or sectarian doctrine or 
 tenet was taught should receive any portion of the school 
 moneys to be distributed by this act. Archbishop Hughes 
 at once took the ground that to allow the Bible to be read 
 daily in the schools was teaching a sectarian doctrine, and 
 therefore demanded that the schools in which it was read 
 should not be included in the distribution of the moneys. 
 Colonel Wm. L Stone, who for many years had been one 
 
508 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITT, 
 
 of the School Commission, and at this time (1843-'44) 
 was the county superintendent of the Common Schools,* 
 immediately protested against the promulgation of 
 this atrocious sentiment. A lengthy public discus- 
 sion upon this point followed between the Arch- 
 bishop and Colonel Stone, in which the latter carried the 
 day ; and at a meeting of the Board of Education, held 
 November 13, 1844 (three months after Colonel Stone's 
 death), the act was amended by a resolution to the effect 
 " that the Bible, without note or comment, is not a secta- 
 rian book, and that the reading of a portion of the Scrip- 
 tures without note or comment, at the opening of the 
 
 * The difficulty whicli the author experienced in endeavoring to discover 
 the year in which Colonel Stone was Superintendent of Common Schools 
 deserves particular mention, as showing the shiftless manner in which the pub- 
 lic records are kept in the city of New York. Wishing to ascertain the exact 
 year in which Mr. Stone held the office, he went to a gentleman (we will call 
 him A), whom he knew to be engaged in writing a history of our common 
 schools, and asked the question. The gentleman was unable to tell him at the 
 moment, but referred him to the Board of Education as the place where, of 
 course, the desired information could be obtained. The author went there and 
 asked an officer of the Board the question. He could not tell him, but referred 
 him to a gentleman upstairs who would know. The latter, however, was 
 equally in the dark, but, in his turn, referred his questioner to a gentleman 
 • down-stairs in another department, who, having been connected with the Board 
 for a long term of years, would certainly know. Upon repeating the question 
 to this one, he was informed that he did not know, as, until within a few years, 
 the school records had not been annually printed, and that the manuscript kept 
 by the different secretaries before that time was mislaid. He, however, was 
 
 positive that if he should go to Mr. , in ^Vsll Street, he would know, as 
 
 he was one of the School Commissioners in the year designated. To him, 
 therefore, the author went ; but his astonishment may well be imagined when 
 that person said he had entirely forgotten, but stated that if he would go to 
 such a one — mentioning the veritable Mr. A. — he could undoubtedlj' tell him, 
 as he was now engaged upon a history of the common schools ! This, if not 
 " reasoning in a circle," certainly was questioning in a circle, the questioner 
 having brought up at the very point from which he' started! Finally, upon 
 the author making a second visit to the room of the Board, an attache of the 
 place, who had a dim recollection of a record-book being in the cellar, went 
 down-stairs, and, after much search, eshumed the manuscript, from which, after 
 patient search, the desired information was brought to light. Now, if such 
 difficulty e-v.ists in ascertaining — not an insignificant fact, but one relating to 
 the Superintendent of Common Schools only twenty years since — what would 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 509 
 
 schools, is not inculcating or practicing any religious or 
 sectarian doctrine or tenet of any particular Christian or 
 other religious sect." The catholic spirit of New York's 
 Dutch ancestors had triumphed. Henceforth it is to be 
 hoped that she will be as cosmopolitan in her religious 
 as she is in her civil rights. 
 
 In 1845 New York was again visited by a conflagra- 
 tion second only in its ravages to the one of 1835. 
 
 The burnt district embraced Broadway, Exchange 
 Place, New, Broad, Beaver, Marketfield, Stone and 
 Whitehall Streets, and — which is a striking 
 coincidence — a portion of the same region devas- 
 tated by the great conflagration in 1835, ten years before. 
 
 be the difficulty in finding tlie history of events which occurred thirty, forty, 
 or fifty years ago ? 
 
 We have stated the above with no intention of throwing censure upon the 
 officers of the present Board. The fault lies not at their door. On the con- 
 trary, with great courtesy, they endeavored to aid us to the extent of their 
 ability, and realized in its fullest extent the evils of the manner in which the 
 records had in former times been l^ept. Indeed, it is only justice to say that 
 it has been through their exertions that the proceedings have latterly been 
 printed. 
 
 Another remarkable illustration of the subject existed a few years ago in 
 the basement of the City Hall, under the County Clerk's office. The ancient 
 rolls of the Colonial Courts were one grand pile of parchment, lying in mass, 
 and great quantities were stolen and sold to gold-beaters. It would probably 
 be impossible at the present time to find the judgment-roll in any cause tried 
 prior to the year 1787, unless by chance. Possibly there has been more care 
 of late in the preservation of these records. Their value caunot be overesti- 
 mated. (See also Appendix XII., in regard to the destruction of the records in 
 the Hall of Records by the mice.) 
 
 Although there may be spasmodic attempts by individuals to bring about 
 a reform in this regard, yet we greatly fear that it will continue so long as the 
 true cause of the difficulty remains, to wit, that political maxim — the bane of 
 American institutions — " to the victors belong the spoils." New office-holders 
 care little for old records; and, throwing aside all sentiment in the matter, 
 unless this thing is rectified, it will, in time, embarrass the practical business 
 relations of every -day life. More attention must be paid to preserving records. 
 It is not necessary to make enormous jobs, such as the atrocity which was per- 
 petrated in New York City in reference to the Register's office. What is 
 needed is a general respect for the value of old records, and the adoption of 
 preservative means. 
 
510 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " It broke out on July 19th, 1845, completely destroying 
 Exchange Place and Beaver Street, from Broadway almost 
 to William. Both sides of Broad Street, from above Ex- 
 change Place to Stone, with the east sides of Broadway 
 and Whitehall, were consumed. Above Exchange Place 
 the flames crossed Broadway, and consumed a number of 
 buildings on its west side. During the progress of the 
 fire a tremendous explosion took place, similar to that of 
 1835, in a building stored with saltpeter. The owner 
 contended that this article could not explode, which gave 
 rise to the long-debated question, " Will saltpeter ex- 
 plode V and for a long time able and scientific men 
 warmly took sides in the arguments. Explosive or not, this 
 was the second store filled with the article that blew up, 
 causing great alarm and destruction to the neighborhood. 
 
 " Three hundred and forty-five buildings were swept 
 away at this time. Their value, with the goods, was 
 estimated at about five millions of dollars. Among other 
 things destroyed was the " Old Jail Bell," which had 
 hung and rung in the cupola of that ancient civil pest- 
 house and prison during the American Revolution. There, 
 as already stated, for years it was the fire-alarm, or signal, 
 and was considered especially the firemen's bell, as it could 
 be depended upon at all times. At an early period, when 
 it uttered its warning tones, citizens, with fire-buckets on 
 their arms, might have been seen hastening to the scene 
 of danger and forming into parallel lines, one to pass the 
 full buckets to fill the engines, and the other to return the 
 empty ones for refilling. Most of the New York families 
 had such leather buckets, which generally hung in some 
 prominent part of the hall or entry, ready at hand in case 
 of need." * 
 
 The signal-bell rang in the days of John Lamb and 
 pleasant-faced Tommy Franklin, and during Jameson 
 
 * Hon. G. P. Disosway. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 511 
 
 Cox's and Wyman's and Gulick's administrations. It was 
 cherished by the firemen, and, upon the destruction of the 
 Bridewell, the old bell was placed in the cupola of the 
 Naiad Hose Company, Beaver Street, and was still devoted 
 to its long-established uses. But the great fire of '45 
 swept away this building, with its venerable bell; and the 
 faithfal old public sentinel, sounding its last alarm, suc- 
 
 DAENUM'S museum and ST. PAUL'S CltUECH. 
 
 cumbcd to the flaming foe against which it had so many 
 years successfully warned the citizens. 
 
 Many fires have occurred since the one of 1845. The 
 Crystal Palace (1858), Barnum's Museum (1865), Harp- 
 er's Building (1853), the old Irving House and the Acad- 
 emy of Music (1866), and the Winter Garden Theater 
 (1867), have fallen before the destroyer — each involving 
 
512 . HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 heavy losses ; but the city has never since been visited by 
 such wholesale destruction of property ; and it is fervently 
 to be hoped that New York, protected by its present effi- 
 cient Fire Department, has experienced the last of similar 
 calamities. 
 
 Indeed, with the exception of Constantinople, New 
 York has, perhaps^ suffered more frequently from con- 
 flagrations than any other city in the world. Hamil- 
 ton said in his time that one could not be twenty-four 
 hours in New York without hearing an alarm of fire. 
 This observation was repeated by a writer who published 
 a small work, in 1837, called A Glance at New York, who 
 added that one alarm a day would be a small average, and 
 that it would be nearer the truth to say that the firemen 
 of New York were called out five hundred times a year — 
 a statement which all familiar with New York at that time, 
 and for years before it, can corroborate. Many of these, 
 undoubtedly, were false alarms, raised by boys for the 
 pleasure of running after the fire-engines. We have had 
 no fire of the magnitude of that of London in 1666, which 
 laid waste four hundred and thirty-six acres, destroyed 
 eighty-nine churches, thirteen thousand two hundred 
 houses, and left two hundred thou.sand people temporarily 
 without homes ; nor like the fire in Hamburg, in 1842, 
 which burned down sixty-one streets and one thousand 
 seven hundred and forty -seven houses ; nor like the Chi- 
 cago fire, which burned over five acres, and left one hundred 
 thousand of her citizens houseless. But if the frequency 
 of fires in the city, the magnitude of some of them, and 
 the amount of property destroyed, be collectively consid- 
 ered, it will be seen that New York, perhaps,, has suffered 
 more heavily from this kind of calamity than any other 
 city of modern times. 
 
 Still, it must be admitted that, as a general thing, all 
 of the conflagrations, both general and individual, with 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 513 
 
 which New York has been visited, have in the end proved 
 of great benefit, bj^ causing more spacious and elegant 
 edifices to arise, phoenix-like, out of the ashes. Perhaps 
 in no other city of either hemisphere is there such a 
 number of magnificent public and private edifices. Take 
 Fifth Avenue, for example, which, although at present 
 the chief of the fashionable promenades, is by no means 
 the only handsome thoroughfare. For a distance of 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE IIOTElj, MADISON SQUAKB. 
 
 more than . two miles one may pass between houses of 
 the most costly description, built chiefly of brown free- 
 stone, some of it elaborately carved. Travelers agree 
 that in no other city in the world can there be found an 
 equal number of really splendid mansions in a single street. 
 At Madison Square, between Twenty-third and Twenty- 
 sixth Streets, it is crossed diagonally by Broadway. At 
 
 65 
 
514 HISTORY OF NEW TOKK CITY. 
 
 the intersection, and fronting Madison Park, is the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel, built of white marble, and said to be one 
 of the largest and most elegant buildings of the kind in 
 
 the world. , xt v i 
 
 It is therefore, not a little singular that New York, 
 with her traditions and memories, should have so lew 
 
 UNIOM StiOARK. 
 
 public monuments. True, there are a number of statues ; 
 such, for example, as those of "Washington, Lincoln, and 
 Franklin, erected successively in 1856, 1870, and 1872", 
 but it is a hteral fact that, with the exception of 
 the mural one to the memory of General Montgomery, 
 in the front wall of St. Paul's, and the soldiers' monument 
 in Trinity church-yard, the only public monument that 
 
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT IN TEINITT CHUKOH-YAHD. 
 
 WOKTH'S MONUMENT. 
 
516 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 can, with truth, be thus designated, is the one to the 
 memory of the late General William J. Worth, of the 
 United States army, erected by the corporation of the city 
 
 of New York in 1858. It is of Quincy granite, 
 
 the apex is fifty-one feet from the ground, and the 
 smooth surface of the shaft is broken by raised bands, on 
 which are the names of the battles in which General 
 Worth had distinguished himself in the War of 1812 and 
 the war with Mexico. On the lower section of the shaft 
 are representations of military trophies in bronze relief. 
 The entire execution and designing of the work is due to 
 Mr. James G. Batterson, who deserves great praise for the 
 admirable manner in which his task was performed. The 
 site of the monument — which is inclosed in a plain iron 
 railing, and surrounded by green turf — is most happily 
 chosen ; and, in addition to being a worthy tribute to a 
 beloved and gallant soldier of the Empire State, is a hand- 
 some ornament to the brilliant and fashionable locality. 
 
 In the same year (1845) the Post-office was removed 
 from the Rotunda in the City Hall Park to the Middle 
 
 Dutch Church, where it still (1872) remains. 
 
 Har-per's Magazine for October, 1871, in giving a 
 reliable and minute sketch of the New York Post-office 
 and its traditions, says : 
 
 " Immediately after the destruction of the Post-office iu the great fire of 
 1885, it bad been removed temporarily to the brick stores in Pine, near Nassau 
 Street ; the destruction of such an enormous number of buildings making it 
 impossible to obtain a suitable building in the vicinity of the burned district. 
 In this strait, the city authorities offered the Rotunda iu the City Hall Park 
 erected in 1818, by Vandelyn, the artist, for a studio and the exhibition of pan- 
 oramic pictures. W hen it was understood the Government proposed to accept 
 the Rotunda, busy as the merchants were in re-establishing themselves and 
 counting up their losses, they found time to get up very demonstrative indig- 
 nation meetings and protests against locating a post-office so far up town. 
 
 " The Post-office was, however, installed in the Rotunda, and the commer- 
 cial pressure of 1837, which followed the great fire, diverted the public mind 
 from the location of thp Post-office. Illustrative of the pecuniary disaster of the 
 period may be mentioned that, iu the ' collapse,' many of the merchants of the 
 day owed the letter-carriers various sums, ranging from fifty to one hundred and 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YOliK CITY. 
 
 517 
 
 fifty dollars, much of which money wag never paid, the debtora being irretrieva- 
 bly ruined. This year the mail time between New York and New Orleans was 
 reduced to six days and six hours. But the people, nevertheless, were impa- 
 tient for more rapid communication, for we find in a Chicago paper of the time 
 this notice ; 
 
 " ' IIioHLT Impohtant.— By a foot passenger from the South we learn that the long- 
 expected mail may be looked for in a week.' 
 
 " Fortunately for the interests of commerce and the unity of the country, 
 rapid transit of news, cheap postage, and facilities for traveling, were approach- 
 ing consummation in the erection of railroad Hues, with which private enter- 
 prise was threading every section of the country. One triumph announced 
 seemed only to create a demand for another, and when Amos Kendall carried 
 
 THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH DURI>G THE RESOLUTION 
 
 out the idea of connecting the. non-continuous lines of railways by pony 
 expresses, there was added a new value to the Post-office of New York. It 
 began to assume its present central importance, and the promise of its brilliant 
 future was almost realized, when the firing of guns from our national forts and 
 vessels, with the ringing of bells, and cheers of thousands of e.-cultant men, all 
 joined in welcoming the first appearance of steam merchantmen in our harbor 
 — the ever-to-be-remembered &irius and Oreat Western. 
 
 " The inconvenience of having the Post-oflfice so far from the center of busi- 
 ness was still complained of, and, to quiet dissatisfaction as far as possible, a 
 letter-delivery was established in the new Merchants' Exchange, where the 
 
518 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Custom-house is now located, and placed in charge of Jameson Cox, an alder- 
 man and ex-chief:engineer. For letters two cents, for papers one cent, extra, 
 was charged, which sums were paid without complaint by the merchants, and 
 the amount thus collected paid to letter-carriers' charges. 
 
 " In the year 1836, Mr. Gouverneur had been removed, and James Page, 
 Esq., postmaster of Philadelphia, commissioned to take charge, which super- 
 vision was maintained for six weeks, when Jonathan J. Coddington was com- 
 missioned postmaster. When the latter assumed the duties of his position the 
 Post-office was in the Rotunda building: and in the house of a hook-and-ladder 
 company adjoining, and a ' hose-house on the opposite side of the way.' Noth- 
 ing could have been more inconvenient, contrary to good discipline, and injuri- 
 ous to expeditious business operations. To remedy these evils, Mr. Coddington 
 built a handsome extension facing toward Wall Street. With this important 
 addition, and other improvements, he brought the entire business (now con- 
 stantly increasing) under one roof. The mails were received in Chambers 
 Street, the box delivery was on Center Street, while the interior of the Rotunda 
 was devoted to the general delivery. 
 
 " The location of the Post-office in the Rotunda seemed to be unsatisfactory 
 to citizens living in every part of the city. An application ^was therefore made 
 for the establishment of a branch post-office for the receipt and delivery of the 
 mails in the upper part of the city. The reply was, that such an office could 
 only be a branch of the one already existing, and that no compensation could 
 be allowed for services beyond the two cents per letter paid the carriers. It 
 was also doubted if the extent of New fork demanded such an addition to its 
 postal facilities. The proposition was also submitted to Mr. Coddington, and 
 was opposed by him and his clerks. The subject was finally referred to the 
 Cliamber of Commerce, which recommended that there be established a sub- 
 post-office for the reception of letters at Chatham Square, but not any place for 
 the delivery of letters other than the existing arrangements at the Post-office 
 and by the penny post. Such was the origin of the Chatham Square post-' 
 office, which maintained its popularity and usefulness until its occupation was 
 destroyed by the present iron boxes now so familiar on the street corners. 
 
 " So much esteemed was Mr. Coddington by the officials at Washington, that 
 the Postmaster-General, under General Harrison's administration, informed him 
 that, though a political opponent of the administration, he might retain his 
 position. One week after this notice President Harrison died, and his succes- 
 sor, John Tyler, promptly requested Mr. Coddington to renew his bonds. On 
 this hint, after some hesitation, he did as requested, and forwarded them to 
 Washington in June. The reply was promptly returned in the form of a com- 
 misgion creating ' John Lorimer Graham postmaster of New York, in place of 
 Jonatlian Coddington removed.' 
 
 •Mr. Coddington is still remembered among the old clerks of the Post- 
 office, and the old merchants of the city, as one of the best of officers. He tried 
 vo learn the details of his position, and took pride in making every improve- 
 ment that would render his department efficient. He was a man of great per- 
 sonal independence, and, though a decided politician, he would not allow hia 
 bias that way to affect his official conduct. On one occasion a committee of 
 ward politicians called upon him, and stated, through their chairman, that he 
 had been assessed fifty dollars for partisan purposes. Mr. Coddington heard 
 the proposition with patience, and then rising from his chair said : 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 519 
 
 " ' I refuse to pay any such assessment as tliis you spoak of. I'd have you 
 understand that I am postmaster of New York City, and not postmaster of a 
 ward committee.' 
 
 " The pressure to get the Post-office ' down town ' still continued, and 
 advantage was taken of the fact that the ' Middle Dutch Church' was for sale 
 to procure it for a Post office. There was nothing in the world so unsuited as 
 the building for such a purpose ; but the location was desirable, and the mer- 
 chants went to work to press the matter upon the Government. The property 
 was offered for |350,000, but the Postmaster-General decided not to give more 
 than $400,000. Lest the purchase might not be consummated, the merchants 
 in a few hours raised by voluntary contributions the additional $50,000, and the 
 old church was secured for secular purposes. 
 
 " The extravagance and folly of the Federal Government in buying property 
 erected for a church, and attempting to alter it to accommodate a post-office, or 
 in leasing any kind of private property and fitting it up for public service, finds an 
 illustration, but not an exceptionable one, in this ' high old Dutch Church Post- 
 office of New York city.' It may not be out of place to mention to the general 
 reader that this old church was dedicated, in 1733, as a house of Christian wor- 
 ship. Until the close of the century its services were carried on in the ' Hol- 
 land language ;' after that it was alternated with the English language. In 
 the year 1776 the British tore out its pews, and (with the adjoining building, 
 the old Sugar-house) used it as a prison for American patriots, taken and 
 treated as rebels. When no longer needed for this purpose, it served in rainy 
 weather as a school-house for cavalry. When the British evacuated New York 
 the congregation again took possession, removed the pulpit and altar from the 
 eastern side to the northern end, and erected the heavy, formidable galleries, 
 destined eventually to become so conspicuous in the economy of the Post-office. 
 
 "Perhaps no building could be invented more unsuited for the purposes to 
 ^vhich it has been appropriated. John Loriraer Graham, who had the respon- 
 sible and difficult task of making it available, commenced by expending on the 
 attempt what was then the large sum of $80,000. He then issued a printed 
 circular, surmounted by a picture of the old church, dated New York, January 
 2d, 1845, which read ; 
 
 "'The postmsster has great pleasure in announcirs to hia fellow-citizens that the new 
 Post, office buildin- (112 years old) in Nassau Street, will be ready for occupation in a few 
 days, and respectfully invites, &c., &c., to view the interior nrrangementa of the estahlish- 
 ment.^ 
 
 ■' It was a grand time when the citizens crowded into this old church to look 
 for the Post-office. The eighty thousand dollars had made no material change ; 
 to be sure, the altar railing was gone, but the pulpit remained, and the gal- 
 leries left intact resembled great overhanging amphitheaters. But the Post- 
 office was Anally installed; and then commenced that era in its business his- 
 tory that has made it a sort of visible standard, or gauge, of the miglity growth 
 
 of old Manhatta. »*,,-. 1 sf 
 
 "The inconvenience, the necessarily miserable arrangements, the total unfit 
 ness of the place-inherently so by the main design of the building-have been 
 a source of constant discomfort and annoyance, and male the labors of tue 
 clerks andthe supervision of the executive officers onerous to the las degree 
 Durin<r the first year of the occupation, the space immediately around the build- 
 
520 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 In- was still covered witli the tablets of what should have heen the truly hon- 
 ored dead; for there lay the representatives of a large part of our ancient 
 and best population. The vaults under and around the church gave up their 
 dPad when the profane feet of the busy multitude pressed forward toward the 
 church not for prayer, but from the absorbing interest in the living, bustling 
 world ' For a long year the strange spectacle was presented of coffins and 
 mail-bags of carts and extemporized hearses, jostling each other while engaged 
 in their allotted work ; but at last this incongruous mingling of the dead pop- 
 ulation and the living ended; but the forbidding look of that old castellated 
 
 church remained. 
 
 " The tower, bountifully made of stone, continued, and still continues, to 
 look down sullenly on the bustle beneath, while the strong walls of the church 
 inside announcing, in Dutch, that ' My house shall be called a house ot 
 prayer,' and the rough plastered walls outside, speaking of the wasting storms 
 of nearly a hundred and fifty years, repudiate all harmonious minglings and 
 .■5ympathies with the secular business of distributing the mails. 
 
 " But the place is not without its living defenders of old traditionary pos- 
 session. The mynheers are gone ; the Knickerbockers know the place no 
 more ; but the rats, descendants of the original stock, keep high revel BtiU, and 
 continue to dispute possession with Uncle Sam and his salaried cohorts." * 
 
 It was while Caleb S. Woodhull was Mayor that a ter- 
 rible riot occurred in Astor Place. It was at this time 
 that the Native American Party was all-powerful 
 in the city, and the greatest prejudice existed 
 among the populace against any one of foreign birth. 
 Such was the state of popular feeling when, in the autumn 
 of 1848, William C. Macready, a well-known and eminent 
 English tragedian, came to this country to play a fare- 
 well engagement. Some hostility existed between him 
 and Edwin Forrest, an equally well-known and eminent 
 American tragedian, arising, as Macready assumed, from 
 the unfriendly course of Forrest toward him while Mac- 
 ready was playing in this country in 1844, and, as For- 
 rest claimed, from the course pursued toward him by 
 Macready while the latter was playing in England, which 
 hostility was greatly augmented by Forrest having hissed 
 Macready, in Edinburgh, for introducing something of his 
 own in the play of Hainlet, in which he was performing 
 the principal character. When Macready was announced 
 
 * For a more detailed account, taken from the same source, see Appendix No. IV. 
 
 1849. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY 521 
 
 to appear in New York, in 1848, it was anticipated that 
 some opposition would be manifested toward him by the 
 friends of Forrest, but Forrest dissuaded them from any 
 such attempt. Macready went through his engagement 
 without interruption, and, upon his benefit night, inju- 
 diciously, in his speech to the aydience, referred to the 
 project of a party or faction to excite hostile feelings 
 against him, and of its failure, in language which had the 
 effect of arousing an active opposition to him on the part 
 of the friends of Forrest. He was attacked by a Boston 
 newspaper while performing in that city, and, upon his 
 subsequent appearance in Philadelphia, a riot in the the- 
 ater was prevented only by the strenuous exertions of the 
 manager and the presence of a strong police force. At 
 the close of this engagement, Macready, in his speech to 
 the audience, referred to the ungenerous treatment he 
 had received at the hands of an American actor, and For- 
 rest replied, in a card in a Philadelphia newspaper, charg- 
 ing Macready with instigating persons to write him down 
 in the newspapers while he was in England, and procur- 
 ing his friends to go to the theater, to hiss and drive him 
 from the stage ; in which card he applied to Macready 
 such epithets as " superannuated driveler," " poor old 
 man," and spoke of the disturbed state of his guilty con- 
 science ; to which card Macready rejoined by another, 
 denying the truth of Forrest's statements, and threaten- 
 ing an action for libel. No further attempt was made to 
 oppose Macready, although he continued to be assailed in 
 the newspapers, until his reappearance at the Astor Place 
 Opera-house, in May, 1849, where, upon the first night 
 of his appearance, he was prevented from performing by 
 the hisses and demonstrations of a number of persons act- 
 ing in concert, who displayed banners, with inflammatory 
 appeals, in different parts of the house. As he persisted 
 in performing, the demonstrations against him became 
 
 66 
 
522 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 more violent ; chairs and missiles were thrown upon the 
 stage, and he was compelled to desist from his attempt. 
 As the hostility against him was supposed to proceed from 
 a very limited number of persons, who had organized 
 together to drive him from the stage, it elicited strong 
 expressions of condemnation on the part of several of the 
 public newspapers, and forty-eight prominent citizens 
 signed and published a letter requesting him to recon- 
 sider his determination not to perform, and assuring him 
 that the good sense and respect for order in the commu- 
 nity would sustain him upon the subsequent nights of his 
 performance ; in consequence of which letter he was 
 announced to appear on the evening of May 10th, 1849. 
 This letter had a very different effect from what its sign- 
 ers anticipated, and greatly intensified the opposition. 
 It was regarded as a challenge or defiance, by a few rep- 
 resenting the upper or wealthier classes, to the less prom- 
 inent part of the community, and national prejudices and 
 antipathies were aroused by appeals through certain 
 newspapers, prominent among which was a weekly pub- 
 lication denominated Ned Buntline's Otvn^ conducted by 
 E. C. Z, Judson, and by the posting and distribution 
 of incendiary handbills throughout the city. Through 
 these means, and from a report, which spread extensively, 
 that the officers and crews of the British vessels and 
 steamers in the harbor would assemble at the theater to 
 sustain Macready, the excitement became general throuo-h- 
 out the city, and, a serious disturbance being apprehended, 
 the Mayor advised the managers of the Opera-house to 
 close it for that evening, and abandon any further attempt 
 of a public performance in the city on the part of Mac- 
 ready. The managers, however, insisted upon their right, 
 under their license, to open the theatre and perform, and 
 the public authorities, in recognition of it, took measures 
 to prevent any disturbance of the peace by stationing a 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 523 
 
 strong police force in and around the Opera-house ; and 
 arrangements were made with the major-general com- 
 manding the uniformed militia to have an efficient mili- 
 tary force in readiness to sustain the authorities, if neces- 
 sary. Long before the opening of the Opera-house, large 
 crowds assembled about and in front of it, and upon the 
 opening of the doors the theater was speedily filled by 
 persons having tickets, and without any disturbance or 
 disorder. When Macready appeared the whole audience 
 rose, and, the great bulk of those present being friendly 
 to him, he was received with cheers and the waving of 
 handkerchiefs, mingled with the groans and hisses of the 
 few who were opposed to him. The noise continuing, a 
 placard was displayed from the stage, requesting those in 
 favor of order to remain quiet, which was complied with. 
 About ten or fifteen persons, however, in the parquet, and 
 some in the gallery, continued their opposition by hissing 
 and angry demonstrations, and, as they Avould not desist, 
 they were arrested by the police. Order was temporarily 
 restored, and the play proceeded, but with occasional 
 interruptions and hisses. Meanwhile the crowd upon the 
 outside of the theater had largely augmented, and a group 
 of young men, about twenty in number, were especially 
 active in fomenting disturbance, conspicuous among whom 
 was the prisoner Judson, with whom many of the young 
 men frequently conferred, and who appeared to be acting 
 as their leader. Judson was heard to say, " It is a shame 
 that Americans should be served so !" and after a confer- 
 ence with three of the young men, in a low tone, Judson 
 called out, " Now, boys, whatever you have to do must be 
 done quickly ! " and one of the young men shouted, " Now, 
 boys, for a shower!" to which Judson, in his assumed 
 capacity as a leader, called out, " Hold, boys, until you are 
 all ready ! " and immediately a volley of stones was dis- 
 charged against the walls and windows of the Opera- 
 
524 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 house, upon which the police arrested several of the 
 participants, but not without very great resistance on the 
 part of others. In the interior of the house the play was 
 proceeding, when it was suddenly interrupted by a 'large 
 paving stone, which came through one of the windows 
 and fell among the audience, followed by other stones, 
 smashing the panels of the doors and falling in the lobby 
 and other places. The wildest scene of confusion ensued 
 in the interior of the theater, which was heightened by the 
 cry that it was on fire under the parquet, which proved 
 to be the fact, and through this timely warning it was 
 speedily extinguished. Notwithstanding the activity of 
 the police in making arrests, the attacks upon the Opera- 
 house were continued outside with increased violence. A 
 large number now united in assailing it with stones, break- 
 ing the windows and attempting to force the doors at 
 the entrances, which were resisted by the police, and the 
 doors were barricaded from the inside, when a proposition 
 was made, but not carried out, to enter the building from 
 the rear by ladders ; a plan devised by the prisoner Jud- 
 son, who had had ladders brought there for that purpose, 
 with the design of entering the building in that way to 
 put a stop to the performance and drive out the audience. 
 The crowd on the Eighth Street side of the theater, as 
 described by the witnesses, was wild with excitement, and 
 at the front, upon Astor Place, were wrought up to the 
 highest pitch, heaving to and fro like the waves of the 
 ocean, the number of persons being variously estimated 
 at from ten to twenty thousand. Stones and missiles 
 were flying in all directions, and the police, after vainly 
 endeavoring to allay the disturbance, and deserted by 
 the Mayor, who fled from the scene, were compelled to 
 keep compactly together for their own security. The 
 recorder and the sheriff, who were upon the spot promptly, 
 placed themselves at the head of the police and kept them 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 525 
 
 together, who were now assailed with stones, missiles, and 
 cries of derision from every quarter, in their unavaiUng 
 attempt, as a body, to disperse the crowd, and some of 
 them were very severely injured. 
 
 As it was apparent that the police force was insuffi- 
 cient to protect the building or to quell the riot, which 
 had increased to alarming proportions, the sheriff, with 
 the advice of the recorder, dispatched a messenger for the 
 military. The major-general had ordered the Seventh 
 regiment of infantry, known as the National Guard, and 
 a troop of horse, to assemble at the arsenal, fully equipped, 
 but, owing to the shortness of the notice, a force of but 
 two hundred and seven men, in all, had assembled when 
 the call came for their services ; and this body, under the 
 command of Colonel Duryea, and accompanied by Major- 
 General S;indford and Brigadier-General Hall, hastened 
 to the scene of disturbance. Upon entering Astor Place, 
 the troop of horse, which was in front, was assailed by a 
 shower of stones and brickbats, which were so continuous 
 and rapid that nearly every man in the troop was injured. 
 Their horses became" unmanageable, and, being thrown 
 into confusion, they individually galloped off, leaving the 
 infantry alone to contend with the rioters. The small 
 body of infantry was speedily wedged in by the pre.vsure 
 of the crowd upon either side, and assailed by opprobrious 
 epithets and paving stones, an ample supply of which was 
 at the command of the rioters, from a large pile in the 
 street, the pavement having been recently broken up to 
 put down water pipes. The military, however, being kept 
 together in good order and efficiently commanded, forced 
 their way through the crowd and cleared the rear of the 
 theater, the rioters retreating before them as they ad- 
 vanced, and, having effectually cleared Eighth Street, a 
 cordon of police was thrown across it, to prevent any fur- 
 ther access to it by the rioters. The military then passed 
 
526 BISTORT OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 through Eighth Street to Broadway, accompanied by the 
 recorder and the sheriff, and turned into Astor Place, to force 
 back the crowd from that side of the theater, the rioters 
 retreating before them until the military had reached 
 to about the center of the Opera-house ; when the crowd, 
 either from the pressure behind, or from the determina- 
 tion to resist, remained stationary, and commenced assault- 
 ing the military with showers of pavirig stones and brick- 
 bats, by which nearly the whole of the first platoon were 
 injured, and also the colonel commanding, the recorder, 
 and several others. At this moment a pistol was fired 
 from the crowd, which wounded one of the captains, 
 whereupon General Sandford, and General Hall, who 
 accompanied him, called out repeatedly to the crowd to 
 fall back and disperse, or that they would be fired upon ; 
 but were answered only by derisive cries, and by the 
 crowd rushing forward upon the military, durlzig which 
 the commanding general was knocked down, together with 
 several soldiers in the front rank, the whole body being 
 forced back toward the Opera-house, followed by continu- 
 ous showers of stones. At this juncture the order was given 
 to charge bayonets, and the attempt made, but it could 
 not be done, the pressure of the crowd was so close ; the 
 muskets of several of the soldiers were forcibly taken from 
 them by some of the more active of the rioters. The com- 
 manding officer now apprised the recorder and the sheriff 
 that it would be impossible for the military to maintain 
 themselves without firing, and the sheriff, with whom that 
 discretion was supposed to be lodged, after repeated calls 
 to the rioters, on his part and that of the recorder, to fall 
 back, or that they would be fired upon, and which was 
 received with defiant shouts of " Fire, if you dare ! " gave 
 the order to fire. General Hall suggested to fire over the 
 heads of the crowd, which order was given, and the mili- 
 tary fired in that manner. It was followed by a shout, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 527 
 
 " They have only blank cartridges ! Give it to them 
 again ! " and another volley of paving stones followed, by 
 which the recorder and several others were struck, and 
 one or two severely injured. The order was then again 
 given tci tire, and to fire low, which was done, when excla- 
 mations were heard that men had been shot ; and for the 
 first time the mob gave way, and the military advanced, 
 driving the rioters before them. The latter rallied again 
 at the corner of Lafayette Place and advanced upon the 
 military, discharging a volley of stones, by which sev- 
 eral of the soldiers were hurt severely, when another 
 order was given to fire, which was executed, and proved 
 so effectual that the bulk of the rioters fell back and dis- 
 persed, keeping up, however, for some time, an attack 
 upon the military, with stones and brickbats, until the 
 latter, without firing again, got complete possession of the 
 ground, and order was restored. Twenty-three persons 
 were killed upon the spot by the fire of the military, or 
 died afterward of their wounds, and twenty-two were 
 wounded, independent of injuries and severe wounds 
 received from paving stones by many of the police and 
 the military. Many of the killed and wounded were 
 merely spectators, who had taken no part in the riot, or 
 persons who were passing at the time. A woman walk- 
 ing with her husband, in Broadway, was shot dead; a 
 man was killed instantly by a musket ball while stepping 
 from a Harlem railroad car ; an eminent merchant was 
 wounded in the neck by a ball while standing in the Bow- 
 ery, and another person was severely wounded by a shot 
 in*^St. Mark's Place, two blocks off from the scene of the 
 riot ; a Mr. Gedney was shot dead while looking at the 
 riot from the corner of Astor and Lafayette Places, and 
 his own brother was in the platoon by which the volley 
 had been fired. 
 
 A very full investigation of the riot was instituted by 
 
528 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the coroner's jury, who found that the persons killed came 
 to their death from gunshot wounds fired by the military, 
 by the order of the civil authorities, and that, in the opin- 
 ion of the jury, the circumstances that existed at the time 
 justified the authorities in giving the order to fire upon 
 the mob.* 
 
 Quite a number of local events, of considerable interest 
 at the time, occurred about this period. Among these may 
 be mentioned the visit of Jenny Lind to the United States, 
 and her first appearance in Castle Garden on the 
 7th of September, 1850 ; the new municipal regu- 
 lations imposed by the amended city charter of 
 1849 ; the Grinnell expedition to the Arctic regions ; and 
 the arrival of the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth^ on 
 the 5th of December, 1851. 
 
 On the 14th of July, 1853, the World's Fair for the 
 
 exhibition of the industry of all nations was opened at 
 
 the Crystal Palace, in Reservoir Square, in the 
 
 1853 • 
 
 vicinity of the distributing reservoir of the Croton 
 Aqueduct. " The fairy-like Greek cross of glass bound 
 together with withes of iron, with its graceful dome, its 
 arched naves, and its broad aisles and galleries, filled with 
 choice productions of art and manufactures gathered from 
 the most distant parts of the earth — quaint old armor 
 
 * An investigation was also instituted before Hon. Jolin W. Edmonds, pre- 
 siding justice of the Supreme Court, as a committing- magistrate, to inquire 
 into tlie cause of the riot, by whom it was instigated, aided, or ahetted, and, 
 upon the information thus elicited, additional arrests were made. As the 
 recorder, the Hon. Frederick A. Tallraadge, had participated as a magistrate in 
 quelling the riot, his place as presiding judge of the Court of Sessions was 
 filled by the Hon. Charles P. Daly, one of the judges of the New York Court 
 of Common Pleas, at the opening of the June term of the court, 1849. 
 
 Previous to this riot, it was the general opinion that no one could be prose- 
 cuted for a riot, as it was supposed to be the natural effect of political passion. 
 The trial of the Astor Place rioters decided and set at rest forever this question 
 in the affirmative ; vide the able charge of Chief Justice Daly, in Judge 
 Edmonds's Select Cases (not yet published on account of the plates being 
 destroyed by fire)— from which, by the way, this account of the riot is taken. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 529 
 
 from the Tower of London, gossamer fabrics from the 
 looms of Cashmere, Sevres china. Gobelin tapestry, Indian 
 curiosities, stuffs, jewelry, musical instruments, carriages 
 and machinery of home and foreign manufacture, Maro- 
 chetti's colossal equestrian statue of Washington, Kiss's 
 Amazon, Thorwaldsen's Christ and the Apostles, Powers's 
 Greek Slave, and a host of other works of art beside, will 
 long be remembered as the most tasteful ornament that 
 ever graced the metropolis." Beautiful, however, as was 
 this fairy-like palace, it vanished in smoke in the short 
 space of half an hour, on the 5th of October, 1858, and 
 fell, burying the rich collection of the American Institute, 
 then on exhibition within its walls, in a molten mass of 
 ruins. 
 
 In the winter of 1855, Canal Street was extended from 
 Centre Street across Baxter to Mulberry Street, at which 
 point it intersected Walker Street. The latter 
 
 1 S55 
 
 street was at the same time widened twenty-five 
 feet to East Broadway. Park Place and Duane Street 
 were also widened, and the Bowery and Chambers Street 
 extended. 
 
 In 1856, that great lung of the city, the Central Park, 
 was, for the first time, thrown open to the public. The 
 project of a large park had long been agitated ; and 
 even as far back as the beginning of the present 
 century it was proposed to make the Collect Pond the 
 center of large ornamental grounds. But, with the excep- 
 tion of the small parks scattered here and there, through- 
 out the city, nothing definitely was decided upon until the 
 23d of July, 1853, when the Legislature authorized the 
 purchase of a portion of the present Central Park, at that 
 time bounded by Fifty-ninth and One-hundred-and-sixth 
 Streets and Fifth and Eighth Avenues, about two and a 
 half miles long by half a mile wide, and comprising nearly 
 seven hundred and seventy-seven acres. On the 17th 
 
 67 
 
530 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW yOEK CITY. 
 
 of November of the same year, five commissioners were 
 appointed by the Supreme Com't to appraise the land for 
 the Park. They completed their work in the summer of 
 
 1855, valuing the land at $5,398,695 ; and in February, 
 
 1856, the Common Council confirmed their report and made 
 the purchase. The State Arsenal and grounds were shortly 
 afterward added, at a cost of $275,000. In 1859, the Legis- 
 lature extended the northern boundary of the Park to One- 
 
 THE TEKUACE-BRIDGE AND MAiL, CEXTKAX. PARK. 
 
 hundred-and-tenth Street, thus including a high hill east 
 of McGowan's Pass, from the top of which a fine view 
 is obtained of the whole island. In 1864, the Park was 
 again enlarged by the addition of Manhattan Square, a 
 rough and uncultivated piece of land, covering a space of 
 nineteen and a half acres, and bounded by Seventy-sev- 
 enth and Eighty-first Streets and Eighth and Ninth Ave- 
 nues. The whole area of the Park was thus increased to 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 531 
 
 elglit hundred and sixty-two and fifty-nine one-hundredths 
 acres — more than twice the size of the largest of the Lon- 
 don parks, and eight times larger than all the public parks 
 and squares of New York combined. ■ 
 
 "The year 1857 was a disastrous one to New York; 
 a year of mob rule ; beginning with civil strife and end- 
 ing with financial ruin. Many defects in the city charter 
 called for remedy, and the growing abuses in the municipal 
 government of New York, proceeding from the ignorant 
 majority that controlled the elections, seemed to demand 
 that certain powers should be transferred from the keep- 
 ing of the city to that of the State, which was so deeply 
 interested in the welfare of the great American metropo- 
 lis. It began to be more and more realized that there 
 were two peoples in New York, the property-owners, or 
 bond fide citizens, who were for the most part respectable, 
 orderly, and law-abiding men ; and the poor and illiterate 
 masses, chiefly of foreign birth, who owned scarce a rod 
 of land or a dollar, yet who ruled the city by their votes, 
 and elected to office only such men as would pander 
 to their vices. Nevertheless, the latter class represented 
 and still represents New York city in the eyes of many ; 
 a most unjust judgment. 
 
 " In the spring of 1857 the State Legislature passed 
 several bills relating to New York, and amended the char- 
 ter in several important particulars. The charter and 
 State elections, which had hitherto been held on the same 
 day, were separated ; the first Tuesday in December being 
 fixed as the date of the former. The Comptroller, as well 
 as the Corporation Council and Mayor, were to be elected 
 by the people. The city was divided into seventeen alder- 
 manic districts, from each of which an Alderman was to 
 be elected by the people once in two years. The Board 
 of Councilmen was composed of six members elected 
 annually from each senatorial district, or twenty-four in 
 
532 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 all. The Alms-house and Fire Departments remained 
 unchanged, and the superintendence of the Central Park 
 was given to a Board, to be appointed by the State Gov- 
 ernment. The most important innovation, however, was 
 the transfer of the Police Department from the city to 
 the State. By the Metropolitan Police Act a police dis- 
 trict was created, comprising the counties of New York, 
 Kings, Westchester, and Richmond ; and a Board of Com- 
 missioners was instituted, to be appointed for five years 
 by the Governor and Senate, to have the sole control of 
 the appointment, trial, and management of the police 
 force, which was not to outnumber two thousand, and to 
 appoint the chief of police and the minor ofl&cers. This 
 Board was composed of five members. The Police Com- 
 missioners Were to secure the peace and protection of the 
 city, to insure quiet at the elections, and to look after the 
 public health. The first members of the Board appointed 
 were Simeon Draper, General James W. Nye and Jacob 
 Chadwell, of New York ; James S. T. Stranahan, of Kings 
 County, and James Bowen, of Westchester County — the 
 mayors of New York and Brooklyn being members 
 ex officio. 
 
 " This was the signal for war. Mayor Wood, who had 
 strenuously opposed the action of the Legislature, an- 
 nounced his determination to test the constitutionality of 
 the law to the uttermost, and to resist its execution ; he 
 refused to surrender the police property or to disband the 
 old police ; and for some time the city witnessed the curi- 
 ous spectacle of two departments — the Metropolitan Po- 
 lice under the Commissioners, and the Municipal Police 
 under the Mayor — vieing for mastery. After exhausting 
 all the resources of the law to evade obedience to the act 
 the Mayor and municipal government finally caused it to 
 be referred to the Court of Appeals. Before the final de- 
 cision came, blood was spilled. On the 16th of June 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 533 
 
 matters were brought to a crisis by the forcible ejection 
 from the City Hall of Daniel D. Conover, who had been 
 appointed Street Commissioner by Governor King, to fill 
 the vacancy caused by the death of the former incumbent. 
 The Deputy Commissioner meanwhile claimed his right 
 to hold the oflBce, and a third competitor, Charles Devlin, 
 had been appointed by Mayor Wood, who claimed the 
 appointing power. Mr. Conover immediately obtained a 
 warrant from the Recorder to arrest the Mayor on the 
 charge of inciting a riot, and another from Judge Hoff- 
 man for the violence offered him personally ; and armed 
 with these documents, and attended by fifty of the Metro- 
 politan Police, returned to the City Hall. Captain Wall- 
 ing, of the police, at first attempted in vain to gain an 
 entrance with one warrant. Mr. Conover followed with 
 the other, but met with no better success. The City Hall 
 was filled with armed policemen, who attacked the new 
 comers, joined by the crowd without. A fierce afi"ray en- 
 sued, during which twelve of the policemen were severely 
 wounded. The Seventh Regiment chanced to be passing 
 down Broadway, on its way to take the boat for Boston, 
 whither it had been invited to receive an ovation. It was 
 summoned to the spot^ and its presence almost instantly 
 sufficed to quell the riot. ' Mr. Conover, accompanied by 
 General Sandford, entered the City Hall and served the 
 writ on the Mayor, who, seeing further resistance useless, 
 submitted to arrest. The Seventh Regiment resumed its 
 journey ; nevertheless the city continued in a state of 
 intense excitement, and nine regiments were ordered to 
 remain under arms. Their services were not needed, how- 
 ever, and the Metropolitan Police Act being declared con- 
 stitutional by the Court of Appeals on the first of July, 
 the Mayor seemed disposed to submit, and the disturbance 
 was supposed to be ended. 
 
 " The city, however, had become greatly demoralized 
 
534 HSTORT OF NEW YORK OITT. 
 
 by this ferment. Amidst the civil strife of the police, 
 the repression of crime had been neglected. An organ- 
 ized attempt seems to have been made by the ruffians of 
 the city to take advantage of the prevailing demoraliza- 
 tion to institute mob rule, in order to rob and plunder 
 under cover thereof The national holiday afforded an 
 opportunity for thi.s outbreak. On the evening of the 3d 
 of July the disturbance commenced by an altercation 
 between two gangs of rowdies, the one styled the " Dead 
 Rabbits " or " Roach Guard," from the Five Points Dis- 
 trict, and the other the "Atlantic Guard " or "Bowery Boys," 
 from the Bowery. The next morning the Dead Rabbits 
 attacked their rivals in Bayard Street, near the Bowery. 
 The greatest confusion followed ; sticks, stones, and knives 
 were freely used on both sides, and men, women, and chil- 
 dren were wounded. A small body of policemen was dis- 
 patched to the spot, but it was soon driven off, with 
 several wounded, and the riot went on. The rioters tore 
 up paving stones, and seized drays, trucks, and whatever 
 came first to hand, wherewith to erect barricades ; and 
 the streets of New York soon resembled those of Paris in 
 insurrection. The greatest consternation and horror pre- 
 vailed through the city ; the Seventh Regiment, which 
 was still in Boston, was summoned home by telegraph, 
 and several regiments of the city militia were called out ; 
 but the riot was not quelled until late in the afternoon 
 when six men had been killed and over a hundred 
 wounded. There was little fighting the next day until 
 about seven in the evening, when a new disturbance broke 
 out in Centre and Anthony Streets. The militia were 
 summoned to the spot, and dispersed the crowd. Several 
 regiments were ordered to remain under arms, but no 
 other troubles occurred. 
 
 " This riot aroused the citizens to the danger of the 
 position, and intensified the prejudice against the Muni- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 535 
 
 cipal Police, which was accused of abetting the rioters. 
 Vigorous measures were taken to organize the Metropoli- 
 tan Police and secure its efficiency, in spite of the factious 
 resistance which still existed. The rioters were by no 
 means quieted, however, and on the 13th and 14th of 
 July another outbreak occurred among the Germans of 
 the Seventeenth Ward, who had hitherto held aloof from 
 the disturbance, which had been almost wholly confined 
 to the Irish. The riot continued for two days, but was 
 finally quelled by the police without the assistance of the 
 militia, who were under arms, awaiting the signal for 
 action. The peace of the city was not again disturbed, 
 and the elements of disorder were gradually restrained. 
 
 " The scourge of civil war was quickly succeeded by 
 that of financial distress. In the autumn of 1857 a great 
 monetary tempest swept over the United States. For 
 several years the country had been in the full tide of 
 prosperity. Business was flourishing, commerce prosper- 
 ous, and credit undisputed both at home and abroad ; the 
 granaries were overflowing with the yield of a luxuriant 
 harvest, and everything seemed to prophesy a continued 
 era of prosperity. In the midst of the sunshine a thun- 
 derbolt fell upon the country. The credit system had 
 been expanded to its utmost limits, and the slightest con- 
 traction was sufficient to cause the commercial edifice to 
 totter on its foundation. The first blow fell on the 24th 
 of August, 1857, by the suspension of the Ohio Life and 
 Trust Company, an institution hitherto regarded as above 
 suspicion, for the enormous sum of seven millions of dol- 
 lars. This was followed by the suspension of the Philadel- 
 phia banks, September 25th, 26th, succeeded by the general 
 suspension of the banks of Pennsylvania, Marjdand, the 
 District of Columbia, and Rhode Island. An universal 
 panic was the result ; the whole community seemed 
 paralyzed by an utter lack of confidence; the credit sys- 
 
536 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tern fell to the ground, carrying with it the fortunes of 
 half the merchants, and business was prostrated. Failure 
 followed failure. A run upon the banks forced the State 
 Legislature to pass an act, October 13th^ 14th, authorizing 
 a general suspension of specie payment by the banks for 
 one year. The city banks, however, resumed payment 
 on the 24th of December. The Massachusetts banks sus- 
 pended payment on the same day. The panic spread 
 through the United States, and thence extended across 
 the ocean, involving the European nations in the general 
 ruin. The manufactories stopped work throughout the 
 country, thus throwing thousands out of employment and 
 reducing them to a state of utter destitution. A state of 
 terrible suffering ensued. Crowds of the unemployed 
 workmen gathered in the Park, clamoring for bread and 
 threatening to procure it at all hazards, while many more, 
 as needy and less demonstrative, perished silently of cold 
 and starvation. For some time serious danger was ap- 
 prehended from the rioters, who accused the speculators 
 of being at the root of the evil, and threatened to break 
 open the flour and provision stores and distribute the con- 
 tents among the starving people. Prompt measures were 
 taken by the corporation to alleviate the suffering and 
 provide for the public safety. Many of the unemployed 
 were set to work on the Central Park and other public 
 works, soup-houses were opened throughout the city, and 
 private associations were formed for the relief of the 
 suffering ; but this aid failed to reach all, and many per- 
 ished from sheer starvation, almost within sight of the 
 plentiful harvests at the West, which lay moldering in 
 the granaries for the want of money wherewith to pay 
 the cost of their transportation. Money abounded yet 
 those who had it dared neither trust it with their neigh- 
 bor or risk it themselves in any speculative adventure ; 
 but, falling into the opposite extreme of distrust, kept 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 537 
 
 their treasure locked up in hard dollars in their cash-boxes 
 as the only safe place of deposit. As spring advanced, 
 business gradually revived, the manufactories slowly com- 
 menced work on a diminished scale, the banks resumed 
 payment one by one, and a moderate degree of confidence 
 was restored ; yet it was long before business recovered 
 its wonted vitality. The failures during the year num- 
 bered five thousand one hundred and twenty-three, and 
 the liabilities amounted to two hundred and ninety-one 
 millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 " In April of the same year the city government 
 resolved to remove the hundred thousand bodies that 
 filled the Potter's Field, or pauper burial-ground, from the 
 city limits to Ward's Island, where seventy acres had 
 been purchased for the purpose. Previous to 1823 the 
 Washington Parade-ground had been devoted to this use, 
 after which the ground now occupied by the distributing 
 reservoir, on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth 
 Avenue, was taken for a public cemetery. At the expira- 
 tion of two years the bodies were removed from both 
 Washington and Reservoir Squares to the new Potter's 
 Field, bounded by Forty-eighth and Fiftieth Streets, and 
 Fourth and Lexington Avenues. This site was granted 
 by the city, in the following year, to the State Woman's 
 Hospital, founded in 1857 by Dr. J. Marion Sims, and 
 subsequently conducted by Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, the 
 grandson of the eminent lawyer of that name (whose 
 monument forms one of the prominent features of St. 
 Paul's church-yard), and the grand-nephew of the cele- 
 brated Irish patriot."* 
 
 During the next few years no events stand out partic- 
 ularly prominent in the city's history. It is true that the 
 destruction of the Quarantine buildings on Staten Island 
 
 * Mary Booth's History of New York City. 
 
538 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY 
 
 by the populace in July, 1858, occasioned considerable 
 
 jggg excitement, but the rioters were soon put down. 
 
 In June, 1860, the city entertained the mem- 
 
 1860. ' ' •' 
 
 bers of the Japanese Embassy ; and in the same sum- 
 mer welcomed successively the Prince de Joinville, 
 i8«i' Lady Franklin, and the Prince of Wales. In 1861 
 1 8G2. aQ(j 1862, the citizens of New York, almost to a man, 
 and without distinction of party, rose grandly to 
 1863. sustain the Union ; but, in 1863, the enviable rep- 
 utation thus gained was sadly tarnished by an event to 
 which, on account of its importance, the next chapter will 
 be devoted. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The year 1863, as hinted in the last chapter, was 
 marked by an event which, as has been justly remarked, 
 was the most humiliating of any ever recorded in 
 the annals of New York. The national victories 
 of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, while they gladdened the 
 hearts of loyal citizens, only exasperated the disloyal por- 
 tion of the community, and urgedthem to desperate meas- 
 ures. An opportunity for such a course was soon found 
 when the draft, in accordance with a proclamation, issued 
 by the President of the United States on the eighth of 
 May, was begun in the Eastern and Middle States, early 
 in July. This process for obtaining soldiers, however 
 necessary, was known to be distasteful to American citi- 
 zens, and more or less resistance to its execution was 
 anticipated, but, greatly to the surprise of all, and much, 
 perhaps, to the disappointment of some, the draft was 
 begun and completed in a considerable portion of the 
 country without exciting any violent opposition. There 
 were, indeed, everywhere, from those liable to suffer from 
 its effects, expressions of dissatisfaction, though a general 
 resignation to its necessity. 
 
 Even in New York, on the first day of the draft, Sat- 
 urday, July 11th, there was hardly any manifestation of 
 public discontent. The drawing in the Twentieth Ward 
 
540 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 took place, under the guard of a strong police force, at the 
 office of the provost marshal. No. 677 Third Avenue, 
 beginning at nine o'clock in the morning and ending at 
 four in the afternoon. A large crowd assembled in the 
 neighborhood and exhibited great interest in the result, 
 but no desire to interfere with the process. " Everything 
 then went on as quietly as possible during the entire day. 
 The people seemed to take it in more of a jocular than a 
 serious mood, as a smile flitted frequently across the 
 countenances of several. When some familiar name was 
 announced, there was an ejaculation of ' How are you, 
 Brady V or ' How are you, Jones V Then there were joc- 
 ular tokens of sympathy, such as ' Good-by, Patrick,' or 
 ' Good-by, James,' when the drawn name happened to have 
 either of these Christian prefixes to the same." 
 
 Such was the prelude, comical in its extremes of good 
 humor, which preceded the tragic week of civic anarchy. 
 During the Sunday which succeeded the first day of the 
 draft, there was evidently great agitation among the 
 poorer inhabitants of the city, who, gathering about the 
 streets in throngs, angrily denounced a compulsory sys- 
 tem for obtaining soldiers, that seemed to bear most 
 heavily upon the class to which they belonged. On Mon- 
 day morning, July 13th, the draft of the Ninth District was 
 resumed. At nine o'clock the doors of the provost mar- 
 shal's office were thrown open, when a large crowd imme- 
 diately thronged in. The drawing commenced at half-past 
 ten o'clock. Some fifty or sixty names had been taken 
 from the wheel and announced, when, on the announce- 
 ment of Z. Shay, 633 West Forty-second Street, a stone 
 was dashed through the window. This was taken as the 
 signal for a general attack by the populace on the out- 
 side, which had been gathering since the opening of the 
 day, and now numbered several thousands. 
 
 " During the early part of the morning," reports a 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 541 
 
 journalist,* " the people of the Ninth District, consisting 
 of a large number of respectable workmen and others, 
 were seen to assemble at certain specified spots, and 
 between eight and nine o'clock began moving along the 
 various avenues west of Fifth Avenue, toward their 
 appointed place of general meeting. A large number of 
 workmen's wives, etc., began also to assemble along the 
 various avenues, and, if anything, were more excited than 
 the men, who were armed with sticks, stones, adzes, 
 axes, saws, and some with even old swords. As the 
 assembled people moved along they stopped at the differ- 
 ent workshops and factories, and a deputation entered the 
 various buildings to inform their proprietors that they 
 would not be answerable for the safety of their premises 
 unless the same were closed and their men allowed to 
 join them if they so desired. In most cases the request 
 was complied with at once, and the assemblage moved on. 
 They next arrived at their specified meeting place, on an 
 open lot near the Park, and by their concerted action it 
 was evident that there had been some degree of organiza- 
 tion in their movements. Having arranged their plans 
 to their satisfaction, they began to move down town again, 
 by way of Fifth and Sixth Avenues, until they reached 
 the vicinity of Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Streets, 
 along which they proceeded in an easterly direction. 
 When they arrived at Fourth Avenue, along which the 
 New Haven and Harlem Railroad tracks run, one of the 
 principals of the assembled people caught sight of the tel- 
 egraph wires and poles. It was at once suggested that 
 the authorities might telegraph to Albany for troops. 
 Scarcely were the words uttered when the axes were laid 
 at the feet of the telegraph poles, and down they camO: 
 That part of the wires that could not be thus destroyed 
 
 * New York Herald. 
 
542 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 was divided by means of men climbing the poles and 
 throwing slings, stones, etc., until the wires were severed 
 and rendered completely useless. Another branch wire, 
 leading from the railroad to Third Avenue, and that along 
 Third Avenue, were similarly damaged, and then the 
 crowd again moved on to the provost marshal's office." ^ 
 
 On the first stone being thrown through the window, 
 the mob on the outside rushed into the building. After 
 having dashed the wheel into pieces, torn into shreds the 
 draft list, and destroyed the furniture of the office, they 
 emptied out a can of turpentine, and setting fire to it, the 
 whole house was soon in flames. The fire extended to 
 three adjoining buildings, as the mob, overpowering the 
 police, would not allow the firemen to extinguish it, 
 and exulted with loud shouts at the conflagration. 
 
 The crowd, still increasing in numbers and becoming 
 more excited, now turned to go to the arsenal, where, 
 in the meantime, a detachment of regulars from Gover- 
 nor's Island had arrived and were prepared to defend the 
 building. A small force of only about forty soldiers, 
 being a part of the provost guard, having been sent 
 up from the Park to awe the rioters, came into collision 
 with them in the Third Avenue, near Forty-second Street, 
 and fired, killing and wounding several persons. This 
 instead of intimidating, aroused the fury of the people, 
 who attacked the soldiers and forced them to fly. As 
 they fled they threw away their muskets, which were 
 seized by their pursuers and used against them. One 
 being overtaken, was "beaten almost into jelly, and 
 fainting from loss of blood and exhaustion, was thrown 
 into an alley-way and left to take care of himself as best 
 he might." Others were seized and mangled to death. 
 In Forty-second Street, a policeman on duty having fired 
 into the crowd and unfortunately killed a woman, was 
 set upon with sticks and stones, and after being thus 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITIV 543 
 
 cruelly mauled, was shot in the back. The rioters, in the 
 course of their morning's havoc, burnt the Bull's Head 
 Hotel in Forty-third Street and the Colored Orphan Asy- 
 lum in Fifth Avenue, and tore up a portion of the New- 
 Haven Railroad track. In the afternoon they ret^umed 
 their work of destruction, and after killing and wounding 
 half a dozen of its defenders, destroyed a depot of fire- 
 arms at the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-first 
 Street, and burned two private houses in Lexington 
 Avenue, in their rage at the escape of a policeman who 
 had sought refuge in one of them. The draft in the 
 Eighth District, including the Twenty-second Ward, was, 
 notwithstanding the disorder in other parts of the city, 
 persisted in until twelve o'clock, when it was suspended. 
 About four o'clock in the afternoon the mob attacked the 
 enrolling office. No. 1190 Broadway, second door from the 
 corner of Twenty -ninth Street, and after rifling it and the 
 neighboring shops, burnt them to the ground. In other 
 parts of the city there were also riotous manifestations, 
 and some acts of violence. A crowd thronging about the 
 Tribune office broke the windows and tore down the doors. 
 Demonstrations were also made against the residences of 
 Mayor Opdyke and others. 
 
 The civic and military authorities seemed perplexed 
 how to act. The usual proclamations and orders were 
 issued by the Mayor and the commanders of the United 
 States troops and militia, but nothing effective was done 
 toward re-establishing order in the city and rescuing it 
 from the ruthless sway of the mob. It is true that, in 
 consequence of the call of the President for troops to 
 resist the invasion of the enemy, New York had been 
 deprived of most of its armed defenders;* still, with 
 
 * An idea of tlie deserted state of the lower and business part of tlie city 
 during the riot may be gatliered from this fact. At two o'clock on the after- 
 
544 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 unanimity of action and timely precaution, it would not 
 have been difficult to organize the orderly citizens into 
 efficient conservators of the peace. 
 
 On the second day, Tuesday, July 13th, the rioters, 
 their audacity heightened by impunity, and their lust of 
 blood and plunder increased by previous license, recom- 
 menced their work of rapine and murder. The Governor 
 of the State came to the rescue of the helpless city with 
 a proclamation : 
 
 " To THE People of the City of New York — A riotous 
 demonstration in your city, originating in opposition to 
 the conscription of soldiers for the military service of the 
 United States, has swelled into vast proportions, direct- 
 ing its fury against the property and lives of peaceful 
 citizens. I know that many of those who have partici- 
 pated in these proceedings would not have allowed them- 
 selves to be carried to such extremes of violence and of 
 wrong, except under an apprehension of injustice ; but 
 such persons are reminded that the only opposition to the 
 conscription which can be allowed is an appeal to the 
 courts. 
 
 " The right of every citizen to make such an appeal 
 will be maintained, and the decision of the court must be 
 respected and obeyed by rulers and people' alike. No 
 other course is consistent -with the maintenance of the 
 laws, the peace and order of the city, and the safety of 
 its inhabitants. 
 
 " Riotous proceedings must and shall be put down. 
 The laws of the State of New York must be enforced, its 
 peace and order maintained, and the lives and property 
 of all its citizens protected at any and every hazard. The 
 
 noon of Monday, tlie first day of the riot, tlie writer turned into Broadway 
 from Grand Street,, and as far as he could see up and down Broadway, he dis- 
 covered but one solitary individual. 
 
HISTOHT OF NEW YORK CITT. 545 
 
 rights of every citizen will be properly guarded and 
 defended by the Chief Magistrate of the State. 
 
 " I do therefore call upon all persons engaged in these 
 riotous proceedings to retire to their homes and employ- 
 ments, declaring to them that, unless they do so at once, I 
 shall use all the power necessary to restore the peace and 
 order of the city. I also call upon all well-disposed per- 
 sons not enrolled for the preservation of order to pursue 
 their ordinary avocations. 
 
 " Let all citizens stand firmly by the constituted 
 authorities, sustaining law and order in the city, and 
 ready to answer any such demand as circumstances may 
 render necessary for me to make wpon their services, and 
 they may rely upon a rigid enforcement of the laws of 
 this State against all who violate them. 
 
 " Horatio Seymour, Governor. 
 
 " New York, July 14th, 1863." 
 
 The rioters gave little heed to words however persua- 
 sively uttered, and in spite of the Governor's proclama- 
 tion, continued to glut their instincts of rapine and cruelty. 
 The State, civic, and military authorities (both Federal and 
 State), the navy. Governor Seymour, Mayor Opdyke, the- 
 Police Commissioners, Generals Wool, Brown, and Sand- 
 ford, co-operated in efforts to protect the city, but found 
 that the forces at their command were barely sufficient to 
 guard the public property. The Custom-house, the Sub- 
 treasury buildings, and arsenals were filled with marines 
 and sailors, the approaches and entrances were covered by 
 cannon, and the halls lined with howitzers from the Navy 
 Yard. The ship-yards, gas-works, and public institutions 
 were guarded by the few militia left in the city, and gun- 
 boats anchored in the East and North Rivers, with their 
 broadsides menacing Wall and other streets, which were 
 thought to be especially exposed to attack. Notwith- 
 
 69 
 
546 HISTORY OF. NEW rOKK CITY. 
 
 standing tliese precautions, and the suspension of the 
 draft, which was supposed to have provoked the popular 
 violence, the mob, on the second day of the riot, contin- 
 ued to rage almost without check. The city, thus at the 
 mercy of robbers and murderers, wore an air of gloom and 
 despair. Business was arrested, the stores and shops were 
 closed, and the promenades deserted. The well-dressed 
 women, the fashionable loungers, and the dashing equip- 
 ages were absent from the streets ; and the occupant of 
 every house barricaded his windows and doors, and armed 
 himself with such weapons as he could procure. 
 
 Though the whole city was more or less the scene of 
 violence, the most tragic incidents occurred in the Second 
 and Third Avenues and neighboring streets. " Early in 
 the morning," wrote a reporter,* " there might be seen 
 several hundreds of people congregated at each of the 
 corners in the vicinity of Thirty-fourth Street and up to 
 Forty-sixth. There seemed to be no great excitement 
 pervading the masses of persons Avho were here assem- 
 bled, but a settled and gloomy quiet hung over their 
 every movement. All canvassed the exciting events 
 which had transpired the day previous with a good deal 
 of sober calmness, and no demonstration of any descrip- 
 tion took place which might be construed as an outbreak. 
 
 " Numbers were armed, but no attack upon person 
 or locality seemed to be determined upon. Several of 
 their friends addressed them, and they listened with com- 
 parative quiet. Father Clowrej-, the Catholic priest of 
 that district, spoke to them, and requested that they 
 would go to their homes and keep quiet. This advice 
 from the venerated clergyman seemed to be regarded 
 with a good deal of interest, and the crowd, for a few 
 moments, seemed to be deeply impressed with what was 
 
 * New York He' aid. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 547 
 
 SO feelingly said to them. There appeared to be a general 
 disposition to keep quiet at this moment, and several turned 
 into the adjacent streets, as if to wend their way home- 
 ward. Father Clowrey, however, soon went away, and 
 the crowd commenced to clamor and use emphatic gestic- 
 ulations once more. Propositions were made by several 
 to proceed to different localities and break open premises. 
 But these suggestions seemed to meet with opposition. 
 Some one of the multitude remarked that the police and 
 military were coming up the avenue, as on Monday, and, 
 like a flash of electricity, the whole crowd were moved 
 with the most tremendous excitement, and daring epithets 
 were freely indulged in. ' Let them come on, and we will 
 meet them like men !' were the outcries which were now 
 raised. The crowd rushed into several houses, and took 
 therefrom every article which might in any way be con- 
 verted into a weapon. Women also armed themselves with 
 whatever they could lay hold of, expressing themselves in 
 the strongest language, both of encouragement to their 
 friends and relatives, and disdain for those who were com- 
 ing up to disperse them. The crowd was at this time 
 congregated between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-seventh 
 Streets in the Second Avenue, and accessions to their 
 ranks were flocking in from all directions. There was not 
 a single laborer in that locality who did not leave his em- 
 ployment and join the mass, until it must certainly have 
 numbered some ten thousand persons in all. The sight 
 at this time was certainly of a nature to excite fear 
 in the stoutest heart. There was not much clamor or 
 noise of any description, but a settled and determined 
 appearance was the peculiar characteristic of each indi- 
 vidual. All seemed imbued with one idea, that of ' resist- 
 ance,' and no matter what obstacle came in their path, 
 they seemed ready to encounter it. 
 
 " At about ten o'clock in the morning a body of troops. 
 
548 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 about -four hundred in all, accompanied by a number of 
 police, marched leisurely up Third Avenue. The military 
 were composed of Company H, of the Twelfth regiment, 
 under command of Captain Franklin ; and about fifty of 
 the Eleventh regiment New York Volunteers, under the 
 command of Colonel H. F. O'Brien. They brought with 
 them two small field-pieces. There were also about four 
 hundred police on the march, led by Deputy Superintend- 
 ent Carpenter and Sergeant Copeland. They were well 
 armed, and carried their clubs in a firm grasp, as if deter- 
 mined to do their part of the work. 
 
 " On arriving at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and 
 Third Avenue, the entire force marched down the street 
 into the avenue, the military passing up some few minutes 
 before. There was no opposition whatever offered to the 
 military as they filed past ; but as soon as the police made 
 their appearance the fight commenced, and in earnest. A 
 shower of bricks came down upon their heads from all 
 directions, and a hand-to-hand encounter immediately fol- 
 lowed. The police rushed into the various houses on the 
 route, and, hurrying up stairs, used their clubs against any 
 person, young or old, whom they met. In those encoun- 
 ters it is impossible here to state how many were killed 
 and wounded ; but there must certainly have been upward 
 of ten or fifteen clubbed to death. 
 
 '■ This assault did a great deal to excite the people to 
 the highest pitch, and they now fought and acted like men 
 who did not care what they did, or what was the conse- 
 quence of their acts. The police fought well, but in some 
 cases they acted in a manner calculated to incite the 
 people to increased violence. Several were clubbed to 
 death in their own houses, and the stairs, rooms, and hall- 
 ways covered with blood, while the furniture, glasses, &c., 
 were broken to pieces. The police evidently got the best 
 of it in this encounter, and succeeded to a great extent in 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 549 
 
 putting down the disturbance, which was fast spreading 
 from street to street. The police, as they came from the 
 houses after inflicting summary punishment upon all who 
 came in their way, formed again in the streets. Here they 
 took up the line of march, and were proceeding to another 
 vicinity, when a second attack took place ; and now the 
 real work commenced. 
 
 " There were two howitzers placed in position, sup- 
 porting which were two companies of the Eleventh New 
 York State Volunteers, under command of Colonel O'Brien, 
 who was on horseback. The military were formed on 
 Second Avenue, at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street, 
 with the crowd on either side of them and a few in front, 
 none expressing the slightest trepidation at the dangerous 
 position in which they were placed. Bricks flew like hail- 
 stones among the soldiers. Colonel O'Brien rode up and 
 down in the center, and then gave the command ' Fire !' 
 to those who had charge of the howitzers. Some allege 
 that these pieces were loaded with grape and canister ; 
 but however this may be, there were several seen to fall 
 at this time. The two companies of infantry of the Elev- 
 enth regiment, which were under the immediate coni 
 mand of Colonel O'Brien, also opened a fire of Minie 
 bullets and committed some havoc among the crowd, 
 which was firmly massed together at this point. Several 
 fell upon the sidewalks and in the middle of the street, 
 and were carried into various houses, where their wounds 
 were attended to. 
 
 " The action of Colonel O'Brien, as described by sev- 
 eral who were within hearing distance of him during the 
 whole time, is thus described from the commencement of 
 the conflict. He urged on the soldiers to fire into and 
 attack the people in all manner of ways. How true this 
 is cannot be determined ; but the fate which he met with 
 is probably one of the most horrible that the present gen- 
 
550 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 eration ever witnessed. Colonel O'Brien, as lias already 
 been stated, was on horseback, and had the entire com- 
 mand of the military, and it was by his orders that they 
 fired. 
 
 " A most heart-rending occurrence took place during 
 this fight. Colonel O'Brien held a revolver in his hand, 
 and was riding up and down between either line of the 
 crowd. He, as it is stated, fired his revolver into their 
 midst, the ball killing a. woman and child, which she held 
 in her arms. After several rounds had been fired the 
 people began to disperse, and the police proceeded to 
 another part of the city. Colonel O'Brien and his com- 
 mand, however, remained. The Colonel dismounted from 
 his horse and walked into a drug store. 
 
 " Had he taken his departure at this time, there is 
 little doubt that his life would have been saved. Colonel 
 O'Brien stayed in the drug store for some few minutes ; it 
 is thought that he went in to get some refreshments. The 
 crowd were around the door at this time. There was 
 scarcely a word spoken, but the lowering glances of a 
 thousand men looked down in vengeful spirit upon him as 
 he stood in the door. He then drew his sword, and with 
 the revolver in the other hand, walked out on the sidewalk 
 in the very center of the crowd. He was immediately 
 surrounded, and one of the men came behind, and, strik- 
 ing him a heavy blow on the back of the head, staggered 
 him. The crowd then immediately surrounded and beat 
 him in a most shocking manner. His almost inanimate 
 body was taken up in the strong arms of the crowd and 
 hurried to the first lamp-post, where it was strung up by 
 a rope. After a few minutes the body was taken down, 
 he being still aHve, and thrown, like so much rubbish, into 
 ihe street. The body lay in the middle of the street, 
 within a few yards of the corner of Thirty-fourth Street! 
 Nature shudders at the appalling scenes which here took 
 
HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 55| 
 
 place, The body was mutilated in such a manner that it 
 was utterly impossible to recognize it. The head was 
 nearly one mass of gore, and the clothes saturated with 
 blood. A crowd of some three hundred persons sur- 
 rounded the prostrate figure. These men looked upon the 
 terrible sight with the greatest coolness, and some even 
 smiled at the gory object. Our reporter walked leisurely 
 among the crowd which surrounded the body, and gazed 
 upon the extended mass of flesh which was once the cor- 
 pulent form of Colonel H. F. O'Brien. Notwithstanding 
 the fearful process which the soldier had gone through, he 
 was yet breathing. The eyes were closed, but there was 
 a very apparent twitching of the eyelids, while the lips 
 were now and again convulsed, as if in the most intense 
 agony. After lying for about an hour in this position, sev- 
 eral of the crowd took hold of the body by the legs and 
 dragged it from one side of the street to the other. This 
 operation was gone through with several times, when the 
 crowd again left the body lying in its original position. 
 
 " Had Colonel O'Brien been a man of weak constitu- 
 tion, he would certainly have ceased to exist long before 
 this time. He was, however, a man of great natural 
 strength, and this fact probably kept him breathing longer 
 than would any common person. The crowd remarked 
 this, and watched his every slightest movement with the 
 most intense anxiety. Now and then the head would be 
 raised from the ground, while an application of a foot from 
 one of the crowd would dash the already mangled mass 
 again to the earth. This conduct was carried on for some 
 time ; and when our reporter left the body was still lying 
 in the street, the last spark of existence evidently having 
 taken its flight. ~ 
 
 " Probably the worst feature of the affray in this 
 neighborhood was the death of the two or three unfortu- 
 nate women who happenened to be on the ground at the 
 
552 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 time. One woman's life was saved by the timely services 
 of Dr. E. D. Connery, who extracted a ball from her per- 
 son. This gentleman's valuable services were brought into 
 requisition in other places where a number of parties had 
 been wounded. These events, of course, inflamed the other 
 women of that ward, and they turned out in large force 
 to aid their relatives and friends when any opportunity 
 should occur. 
 
 " At four o'clock everything was comparatively quiet 
 where the real fighting had taken place. An immense 
 crowd, however, still remained. They were not congre- 
 gated in one solid mass, but were assembled in groups, a 
 few yards apart, of about two hundred each. There was 
 no boisterous discussion. The people conversed in tones 
 of studied ease, and did not make any remarks of a blood- 
 thirsty nature. Every brow had its frown, every hp was 
 compressed, some cheeks were blanched — not with fear, 
 but with intense anger. There was not a word uttered 
 counseling cessation, but a vigorous prosecution of the 
 work in which they were engaged was urged. Each house 
 of business was closed, and private dwellings had their 
 doors and windows properly barred and locked. Dark- 
 ness was rapidly stealing on, but the crowd still lingered." 
 
 The negroes of the city were the especial object of 
 the fury of the mob. Their houses were sacked and 
 burned, and they themselves hunted out, tracked, seized 
 upon and murdered. These poor creatures became so 
 terror-stricken, that those who were able skulked out of 
 the city, and those who were left hid away, and did not 
 venture to show themselves in the light of day. 
 
 It was clear, whatever may have been the original 
 motive of the rioters, that it had now degenerated into a 
 lust for blood and plunder. Houses and shops were 
 broken into for no other purpose than to steal their valu- 
 able contents. Thus, a throng of men, women, and chil- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 553 
 
 dren sacked the clothing store in Catherine Street, of 
 Brooks Brothers, who were not in any respect objects 
 of political odium. 
 
 The second day of the riot closed with unabated 
 gloom, and was followed by a night of wakeful anxiety, 
 for the constant tolling of the fire-bells, telling of repeated 
 •house-burnings, foreboded a general conflagration. 
 
 On the next day, the third of the riot, Wednesday, 
 July 15th, the mob still held the city in its cruel sway. 
 The suspension of the draft was officially announced. 
 Governor Seymour proclaimed the city and county of 
 New York to -be in a state of insurrection. Mayor Opdyke 
 hopefully declared that the riot had "been in a good 
 measure subjected to the control of the public author- 
 ities," and invited the citizens to form voluntary associa- 
 tions to patrol and guard the districts in which they lived, 
 against the "fragments of the mob prowling about for 
 plunder," and to save " the military and police from the 
 exhaustion of continued movements." He further de- 
 clared, that " the various lines of omnibuses, railways, and 
 telegraphs must be put in full operation immediately," 
 and promised " that adequate military protection against 
 their further interruption would be furnished on applica- 
 tion to the military authorities of the State." 
 
 The Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes addressed 
 his flock, saying : 
 
 " In spite of Mr. Greeley's assault upon the Irish, in 
 the present disturbed condition of the city, I will appeal 
 not only to them, but to all persons who love God and 
 revere the holy Catholic religion which they profess, to 
 respect also the laws of man and the peace of society, to 
 retire to their homes with, as little delay as possible, and 
 disconnect themselves from the seemingly deliberate 
 intention to disturb the peace and social rights of the 
 citizens of New York. If they are Catholics, or of such 
 
 70 
 
554 HISTORY OP NEW TOEK CITT. 
 
 of them as are Catholics, I ask, for God's sake— for the 
 sake of their holy religion — for my own sake, if they have 
 any respect for the Episcopal authority — to dissolve their 
 bad associations with reckless men, who have little re- 
 gard either for divine or human laws." 
 
 The aldermen of New York unanimously voted an 
 ordinance by which $2,500,000 were appropriated to 
 relieve those who might be drafted for compulsory ser- 
 vice. 
 
 The city still wore the gloom of the previous days. 
 "General commerce," said a journalist, "appeared to 
 stand still. Storekeepers, in neighborhoods where a mul- 
 titude of people sacked dwellings, anticipated further 
 attacks. In the principal streets the shutters were kept 
 up, and the proprietors kept their doors ajar, in order to 
 suddenly close them in case of danger. There were 
 few, if any, jewelers' marts open. The precious gems, 
 gold, and trinkets were prudently deemed too costly a 
 temptation to be exposed to apprehended seizure." 
 
 The riot still raged. Crowds of excited people gathered 
 in the districts which had been the scenes of violence, 
 and while in all they threatened to resume them, in some 
 they actually did so with increased fury. The Arsenal 
 in the Seventh Avenue, the constant object of the popu- 
 lar menace, had been placed in a state of military defense. 
 Mountain howitzers, brass field-pieces,, and picket-guards 
 commanded the approaches, and a body of troops, under 
 Major-General Sandford, encamped within the inclosure 
 and occupied the neighboring streets. Close to the mili- 
 tary line, a large crowd gathered from an early hour in 
 the morning and threatened an attack, 
 
 " About eight o'clock the first engagement," reported 
 a journalist,* " took place in this part of the city between 
 
 * New York Herald. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 555 
 
 the military and the people. News was received that a 
 large crowd had congregated in the neighborhood of 
 Eighth Avenue and Thirty-second Street. The crowd 
 numbered between four thousand and five thousand men. 
 They had been collected in that vicinity for some time, 
 apparently in doubt where to move. A. negro unfortu- 
 nately made his appearance, when one of the men called 
 him an opprobrious name. The negro made a similar 
 rejoinder, and after a few words the indiscreet colored 
 man pulled out a pistol and shot the man. With one 
 simultaneous yell the crowd rushed on him. He was 
 lifted high in the air by fifty stalwart arms and then 
 dashed forcibly on the pavement. Kicks were adminis- 
 tered by all who could get near enough. Some men then 
 took hold of him by the legs and battered his head sev- 
 eral times on the pavement. Life was now nearly ex- 
 tinct, and a rope called for. The desired article was in a 
 moment produced, and the black man's body was soon 
 after suspended from a neighboring lamp-post. The pas- 
 sions of the people were now fully aroused, and an assault 
 was made on the neighboring houses to search for negroes. 
 A scene of this kind soon degenerated into one of indis- 
 criminate destruction. ^Word was passed along to fire the 
 houses and burn the niggers out. At this time the mili- 
 tary, consisting of a strong detachment of infantry and 
 one twelve-pounder mountain howitzer, arrived on the 
 ground, under command of Colonel Winslow. The people 
 were too intent on the work of destruction to heed their 
 arrival. The howitzer was unlimbered, and poured a 
 deadly charge of canister into the crowd. Signs of resist- 
 ance were evinced, and an evident determination to wrest 
 the gun from the hands of the artillerists. The infantry 
 received the order to fire, and again a shower of bullets 
 thinned the crowd. No symptoms were evinced of their 
 retirino-, and the howitzer again thundered forth a deadly 
 
556 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 discharge of canister. The fire was by this time too hot 
 for the crowd to withstand, and with shrieks and yells 
 they commenced to scatter in all directions. During the 
 whole time the military had been under a strong fire of 
 stones, brickbats, pistol and gun shots, not only from the 
 crowd in their front, but from the housetops. The crowd 
 dispersing, orders were given to the soldiers to return. 
 After cutting down the body of the negro the military 
 commenced to fall slowly back. The crowd at once re- 
 assembled and closed up in their rear. Four separate 
 times, before the crowd would desist from the pursuit, 
 was the order given to the infantry to fire. After con- 
 siderable difficulty Colonel Winslow and his command re- 
 turned to the Arsenal, after having successfully carried 
 out the orders they had received. 
 
 " Shortly before twelve o'clock. Colonel Magee was 
 ordered to proceed to Thirty-fourth Street, near Sixth 
 Avenue, to rescue eighteen colored men who were mo- 
 mentarily in danger of being assaulted by the people. 
 The Colonel went off with four men, and succeeded in 
 bringing the darkeys to the Arsenal. Nobody hurt. 
 
 " During the morning the crowd on Seventh Avenue 
 and Thirty-fourth Street increased in numbers and bold- 
 ness. The pressure from the rear forced those in front 
 to press too closely on the pickets, who were in moment- 
 ary danger of being surrounded and deprived of their 
 arms. Brickbats, stones, and occasionally pistol and gun 
 shots were fired at the troops. When the advance was 
 witnessed from the Arsenal, the howitzers were planted 
 to sweep the avenue. A detachment of the One Hundred 
 and Seventy-eighth New York Volunteers, under com- 
 mand of Captain Gandolfo, and Lieutenants Meding and 
 Blackmire, were ordered out to charge on the people. 
 On reaching the crowd a volley was fired over their 
 heads, and a general stampede was the result. 
 
. HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 557 
 
 " About one o'clock another disturbance took place in 
 Thirty-third Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. 
 A large crowd had assembled and commenced sacking 
 some of the houses in that vicinity. Captain Doles, of 
 General Hunter's staff, who had volunteered his services, 
 was ordered to proceed to the scene of the disturbance 
 with a detachment of the Twentieth New York Artillery, 
 armed with rifles. The crowd dispersed on the appear- 
 ance of the military, who then had orders to right-about- 
 face and return to quarters. The people then commenced 
 to hoot them. A shower of brickbats, stones, and other 
 missiles were fired at them. . In the melee a number of 
 negroes rushed by to take refuge in one of the houses. 
 This sight maddened the crowd, and a rush was made to 
 intercept the darkeys. Captain Doles ordered his men to 
 fire a volley into them, which was done ; but the crowd 
 still pressed on ; the soldiers became enraged at their 
 persistence, and, without waiting for orders, another vol- 
 ley was fired. This was an unfortunate occurrence, as 
 one of the shots wounded a fireman who was at the time 
 busil}^ engaged in cleaning some hose. 
 
 " About two o'clock information was received at the 
 Arsenal that a large number of muskets were secreted in 
 a store on Broadway, above Thirty-third Street. Colonel 
 William Meyer was ordered to proceed to the spot, with a 
 detachment of thirty-three men belonging to Hawkins's 
 Zouaves, for the purpose of seizing the arms to prevent 
 their falling into the hands of the people. Colonel Meyer 
 conducted his command through Thirty-fifth Street, across 
 Sixth Avenue, thence to Broadway and Thirty-second 
 Street. The premises were entered, and, in spite of a 
 large and constantly increasing crowd, the arms were 
 brought out. An Irishman, passing at the time with his 
 cart, was pressed into the service, and obliged, much 
 ao-ainst his will, to convey them to the Arsenal. The 
 
558 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 people followed the cart and its escort for some dis- 
 tance; but no forcible demonstration took place. The 
 party returned to the Arsenal after an absence of about 
 forty minutes, and reported the successful conclusion of 
 their mission. 
 
 " Many times during the day a scattering fire was 
 heard from the pickets. The troops then sprang to arms, 
 while the volunteer citizens were placed in position to 
 support the artillery. The guns were wheeled round to 
 command the threatened point, and everything seemed to 
 indicate an immediate and desperate attack. In most 
 instances, however, the demonstration was quelled by the 
 discharge of a volley into the air, when the crowd, which 
 in many instances was largely composed of women and 
 children, instantly disappeared after firing a few stones at 
 the soldiers. 
 
 " At five o'clock Colonel Sherwood's battery of rifled 
 six-pounders and a strong force of infantry, under com- 
 mand of Colonel Meyer, were ordered to the corner of 
 Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, to quell a 
 serious disturbance which had broken out at that point. 
 On arriving there, they found the people busily engaged 
 in rifling and gutting the stores and private houses. 
 Flames were issuing from the windows, and the scene 
 resembled closely many similar ones which our cibizens 
 during the last few days have been called to look on. 
 Suspended from a lamp-post was the body of a black man 
 who had been hung up a few minutes before. The fire- 
 men made their appearance on the ground at the same 
 time as the military. The people who had been engaged 
 in the work of destruction retired behind the firemen, thus 
 placing a barrier of our brave firemen between themselves 
 and the military. It was this circunastance only which 
 prevented the discharge of the rifled field-pieces. From 
 the housetops the usual salute of brickbats and stones 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 559 
 
 was showered down on the military. Several citizens 
 stepped up to Colonel Meyer and informed him that 
 men were stationed on the housetops, with rifles in their 
 hands, ready to fire on his men. The Colonel thereupon 
 ordered his men to keep a sharp lookout, and if any shots 
 were fired from the housetops, to deliver a volley in- 
 stantly. At this time Judge McCunn appeared on the 
 scene, and entreated the Colonel ' to spare those innocent 
 people.' The Judge informed the Colonel that he had, by 
 authority from Governor Seymour, been using his influ- 
 ence to quell the disturbance. Colonel Meyer replied that 
 he, as a military man, had but to obey orders, and if the 
 people attempted to advance or fire on his men, he should 
 certainly order it to be returned by a volley. The infantry 
 and artillery then slowly retired, and had hardly reached 
 the Arsenal ere the disturbance broke out with renewed vio- 
 lence, and word was brought to General Sandford that two 
 more negroes were dangling in mid air from the lamp-posts. 
 " The pickets brought in a large number of prisoners, 
 dirty, ragged, and bloody in appearance, but sullen and 
 determined in demeanor. 
 
 " The colored folks in the Twentieth Ward suffered 
 very severely. Numberless were the atrocities perpe- 
 trated on them. They were hunted from their houses by 
 the score. When caught, they were hung up to lamp- 
 posts, or beaten, jumped on, kicked, and struck with iron 
 bars and heavy wooden clubs. At one time there were 
 between fifty and sixty of these people in the Arsenal. 
 Many of them were horriblj- maimed and disfigured. No 
 respect had been paid either to sex, age, or condition. One 
 woman was burned out of her house who had only been 
 confined on Tuesday. * * * Many affecting scenes took 
 place between different members 0/ the same family who 
 had given each other up as lost, and met unexpectedly in 
 the Arsenal. One poor fellow had been obliged to run for 
 
560 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 his life, and in about an hour his wife arrived in deep dis- 
 tress ; but when she saw her ' old man ' alive and all right, 
 except a ghastly wound on the head, her joy was bound- 
 less, and could find no better vent for it than by flinging 
 her arms around her husband's neck." 
 
 " Between seven and eight o'clock p. M.," says a news- 
 paper reporter, " about one hundred soldiers, dressed in 
 citizens' clothes and accompanied by a portion of Haw- 
 kins's Zouaves, who were in uniform, with one field-piece, 
 marched up the First Avenue. The crowd, at the time, 
 were congregated in the street, corner Nineteenth Street, 
 not doing anything very obnoxious. While the soldiers 
 were orderly marching along, all at once the military 
 were fixed upon by some man of the crowd in the rear. 
 The soldiers turned and killed the man who had fired. 
 
 Thursday, July 16 th, opened more cheerfully. Sev- 
 eral of the militia regiments which had been absent on 
 service had returned to the city, and its inhabitants felt 
 more confident of security. The mob, though somewhat 
 awed by the arrival of .fresh troops, was still defiant and 
 occasionally resisted the soldiers, who, however, succeeded, 
 after several severe encounters in which many lives were 
 lost, in establishing their ascendancy. 
 
 On Friday, the 17th day of July, Mayor Opdyke pro- 
 claimed : 
 
 " The riotous assemblages have been dispersed. Busi- 
 ness is running in its usual channels. The various lines 
 of omnibuses, railway, and telegraph have resumed their 
 ordinary operations. Few symptoms of disorder remain, 
 except in a small district in the eastern part of the city, 
 comprising a part of the Eighteenth and Twenty-first 
 Wards. The police is everywhere alert. A sufficient 
 military force is now here to suppress any illegal move- 
 ment, however formidable." 
 
 The Federal Government, in the meantime, had pre- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 561 
 
 pared to vindicate its contemned authority. Major-Gen- 
 eral Dix was relieved of his command at Fortress Monroe 
 and ordered to New York, as commander of the Depart- 
 ment of the East in place of General Wool, and General 
 Brown was superseded by General Canby in the command 
 of the United States troops in the city and harbor. A 
 large force was, at the same time, ordered to New York, 
 and soon some thirty thousand Federal soldiers occupied 
 the city and neighborhood, when public halls were turned 
 into barracks and parks into camping-grounds. With its 
 authority thus fortified, the Government disclaimed all 
 responsibility for the suspension of the draft, and declared 
 its determination to prosecute it. The civic authorities, 
 too, became less disposed to conciliate the violations of the 
 law, and Mayor Opdyke vetoed the aldermanic ordinance. 
 The supervisors of the State and county, however, made\ 
 a compromise by voting a large sum to relieve the fami^-^ 
 lies of conscripts and to pay bounties to volunteers. The 
 President of the United States, after a disputatious cor- 
 respondence with the Governor of New York, agreed to. 
 modify the quotas, but refused to postpone the draft until 
 a decision might be obtained in regard to its legality. 
 The draft accordingly took place in New York during 
 the month of August, without the least attempt to resist it. 
 The exact number of persons killed in this riot is not 
 known. The police estimated it in round numbers at 
 over one thousand. The mob and the negro population 
 were naturally the greatest sufferers, the losses of the 
 military and police force being comparatively slight. The 
 city subsequently paid about one million five hundred 
 thousand dollars as an indemnity for the losses sustained 
 during the riot.* 
 
 * The greater portion of the account of this riot has been derived from 
 T?ie War vrith the South (published by Virtue & Yorston), which, in turn, was 
 mostly taken from the accounts of newspaper reporters who were on the spot. 
 and in most in.stances eye-witnesses of the incidents they describe. 
 71 
 
562 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 This is the history of the Draft Riot so far as can be 
 ascertained, for in all probability its secret history, as 
 well as the real instigators who, from behind the curtain, 
 pulled the wires, will never transpire. But a foul blot 
 upon the fair escutcheon of New York must ever remain 
 the " Draft Riot " — a riot which differs in every particu- 
 lar from those which have been narrated in preceding 
 pages. Unlike the " Negro Riot," the city was in no 
 apparent danger from the- torch of the incendiary ; un- 
 like the "Doctors' Riot," the graves of relatives had not 
 been despoiled ; unlike the " Election Riot," the excite- 
 ment of a political canvass could not be pleaded in exten- 
 uation ; unlike the " Flour " and the " Bread Riots," people 
 were not clamoring for bread ; unlike the " Stone-cutters' 
 Riot," no trade or interest was threatened by supposed 
 destruction; unlike the "Five Points" and the "Astor 
 Place Riots," the pride of nationality was not touched ; 
 unlike the " Police Riot," there was no prospect of per- 
 sons being thrown out of employment ; unlike the 
 " Quarantine Riot," there was no fear that the seeds of a 
 dire contagion would be scattered over a community. 
 The " Draft Riot " was in no respect like any of these, 
 but was gotten up simply to gratify shameful, wanton, 
 and wicked passions, and ended in a crusade against an 
 inoffensive race who had done their murderers no harm. 
 Utterly unprovoked, and without the shadow of excuse 
 or palliation, the " Draft Riot" stands out, and shall for- 
 ever stand out, black and hideous in the city's histoiy. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The year 1865 was marked by the substitution of a 
 paid for a volunteer Fire Department. The history of 
 this branch of municipal organization, from the 
 time of its origin in the early Dutch period up to 
 the present day, is replete with so much interest that it 
 has been deemed best to wait until the present year before 
 considering it as a whole.* 
 
 In 1662, an incident occurred of no ordinary impor- 
 tance. This was the importation by New York city of 
 two fire-engines from London. There was no subject upon 
 which, at that time, the inhabitants of the city felt a 
 deeper interest than the most effectual means of extin- 
 guishing fires ; for the loss of property by conflagrations 
 was a calamity to which the city, from its first settlement, 
 had been peculiarly exposed. The ground upon which it 
 was originally built was very irregular. Great inequal- 
 
 * The exceedingly interesting account of the origin and history of the Fire 
 Department, to which the present chapter is devoted, is taken from Chief-Justice 
 Daly's address delivered in 1871, and entitled The Origin and History of the 
 NeiB York Fire Department. This address has never been printed ; and I 
 cannot sufficiently thank Judge Daly for his kindness in allowing me the use 
 of it for this work. Without this chapter the history of the city would be 
 very incomplete. This address also contains such a vast amount of clas- 
 sical and curious information in regard to the fires in ancient times, and the 
 mode of extinguishing them, that it is to be hoped that the author will 
 allow it to be published in pamphlet form. The address is given verbatim. 
 
564 HISTORY OF KEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ity of surface was produced by hills or elevated ground, 
 the communication between which was interrupted by 
 natural obstructions ; for when the water did not find its 
 way through the valley in streams, it collected between 
 the elevated ground in numerous places, in ponds and 
 marshes. These difficulties presented formidable obsta- 
 cles even to the hardy race that founded the city, so that 
 little effort was made at the outset to level it. 
 
 The houses were at first huddled together in close 
 proximity to the fort which had been built near the site 
 of the present Battery, for the common protection, and 
 were afterward distributed here and there, as the interest 
 and convenience of each proprietor dictated. As the set- 
 tlement grew larger, and streets and lanes became requi- 
 site to facilitate communication, they were necessarily 
 narrow, crowded, and short, with but two exceptions, — the 
 Hooghe Straat (the present Pearl Street), which ran along 
 the water, and the Heere Straat (the present Broadway), 
 which, following the ridge of an ascending hill, extended 
 in a straight line from the Port to the City Wall, or Wall 
 Street. A city so irregularly distributed, from the diffi- 
 culties of its natural situation, presented numerous obstruc- 
 tions to that ready communication and rapid action which 
 are so necessary in a time of fire ; in addition to which, the 
 houses, for many years, were built exclusively of wood, 
 the roofs were thatched with reeds or straw, and the 
 chimneys were also of wood. Exposed during the long 
 heat of the summer to the action of the sun, thev io^nited 
 quickly and burned rapidly ; while, during the winter, the 
 cold at that period was usually so intense that it was 
 necessary to keep huge logs blazing in the great open Dutch 
 fire-place, which carried up through the wooden chimney 
 a large volume of heat, making it in time exceedingly 
 combustible ; so that the catching on fire of a chimney or 
 the burning-down of a building, or of many, was a very 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 555 
 
 ordinary occurrence* The means for extinguishing fire, 
 moreover, were very inadequate. There was no want of 
 water. The little settlement was surrounded on three 
 sides by the bay, the East and North Rivers; and a 
 stream deep enough for market-boats to ascend, extended 
 through the middle of it, flowing in from the bay up 
 through the center of the present Broad Street as far as 
 Exchange Place ; in addition to which there was generally 
 a well or cistern in the garden of each house. 
 
 But, though water was abundant, the transportation of 
 it quickly and in sufficient quantity was no easy matter. It 
 had to be carried by hand; and as it was many years 
 before any public regulation was established to secure a 
 prompt supply of it in such emergencies, it may be im- 
 agined a scene of confusion must have ensued when tubs, 
 pails, or other means of conveying water had to be hastily 
 improvised to stay the progress of a fire. To remedy this, 
 measures were taken in 1648. Four firewardens were 
 appointed by Governor Stuyvesant and his council, whose 
 duty it was declared to be to prevent all accidents by fire ; 
 to visit all around, and see that every one kept his chimney 
 clean by sweeping ; and, in case any one was found to be 
 deficient, to demand immediately a penalty of three guild- 
 ers — about $1.30 ; and the ordinance further declared that 
 if any house was burned through the carelessness of the 
 occupant, he was to be subjected to a fine of thirty guild- 
 ers — about $11 ; from which fines a fund was to be created 
 for the purchase of leather buckets and hooks and ladders 
 in Holland. 
 
 It might naturally be supposed that a sense of common 
 danger would have made every inhabitant vigilant to 
 guard against the occurrence of such calamities, and that 
 a regulation of this nature would have met with very 
 general approval. But our Dutch ancestors were pro- 
 
 * Vide account of the " Negro Plot " in the first part of this work. 
 
566 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 verbially slow. They were exceedingly averse to any 
 change which interfered with their personal habits, or 
 settled mode of conducting their affiiirs ; and, when such 
 changes were sought to be brought about by the instru- 
 mentality of law or ordinances, they were very intractable 
 and difficult to manage. 
 
 Householders did not co-operate with the authorities 
 in giving effect to a regulation so manifestly essential to 
 the public safety. On the contrary, the firewardens 
 experienced the greatest difficulty in performing the duty 
 of inspecting chimneys, the Dutch housewives being 
 especially belligerent and abusive. The records of the 
 Court of Burgomasters and Schepens aver that Magdalen 
 Dircks was brought before it; and it was proved, by 
 her own confession, that, as she passed the house of Fire- 
 warden Litschoe, then the principal tavern-keeper, and a 
 very considerable personage, she and her sister called 
 out, as that important individual stood in his own door- 
 way, " There is the chimney-sweep ;" and the worshipful 
 court gave it as its judgment that such things could not 
 or ought not to be tolerated, and fined Magdalen two 
 pounds Flemish. But it was not confined to the women. 
 Even a man of laiv, Solomon La Chair, afterward a notary 
 and a very prominent official, was brought before the 
 court for abusing the firewardens by calling them 
 chimney-sweepers. " It is not seemly," says the court, 
 " that men should mock and scoff at those appointed to 
 any office — yea, especially to such a necessaiy office ; " and 
 Solomon was accordingly mulcted. 
 
 But it was not, it seems, even in the power of the 
 court to uphold the firewardens. So many indio-nities 
 were heaped upon them that the office became undesirable, 
 its duties were gradually relaxed, and the ordinance fell 
 into neglect. 
 
 As these four firewardens were the pioneers in the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 567 
 
 important duty of saving the city from conflagrations, it 
 may be well to mention who they were. The first, 
 Martin Krieger, kept a famous tavern immediately oppo- 
 site to the Bowling Green, during the early part of the 
 Dutch period. He was afterward, when a municipal 
 government was established, one of the two first Burgo- 
 masters ; was subsequently a member of Governor Stuyve- 
 sant's council ; and, down to the capture of the city by 
 the English, he filled many important offices. The next, 
 Thomas Hall, was an Englishman, who had been taken 
 prisoner by the Dutch, and, being released upon parole, 
 concluded to remain in New Amsterdam, where, in course 
 of time, he became a man of wealth and influence, filling 
 many public stations. He was the owner of a large farm 
 in the vicinity of Spruce and Beekman Streets, which 
 afterward passed into the hands of William Beekman, the 
 ancestor of the Beekman family. The third, Adrian 
 Wyser^ was at first one of the officials of the Company by 
 whom New Netherland was founded, and afterward a 
 member of the Executive Council. The last, George 
 Woolsey, was an Englishman, who came here and became 
 the agent of Isaac Allerton, one of the principal Dutch 
 traders, and who afterward became the proprietor of a 
 plantation in Flushing. 
 
 It has been stated that the ordinance which led to the 
 appointment of tliese four firewardens fell into disuse ; 
 and, as a consequence of the neglect of the precau- 
 tionary measures it was designed to enforce, the number 
 of fires greatl}^ increased. At length, in 1657, after nine 
 years had gone by, another ordinance was resorted to, the 
 preamble of which discloses the perilous condition of things, 
 by the passage that " fires were apprehended, even to the 
 entire destruction of the city." The authorities were now 
 earnestly aroused. Energetic measures were adopted. All 
 thatched roofs and wooden chimneys were ordered to be 
 
568 HISTORY OF NEW YOEK CITY. 
 
 taken down within four months, under a penalty of twenty- 
 five guilders ($10) for every month's delay; but so 
 difficult was it even then to enforce this indispensable 
 regulation, that the execution of it was postponed — first 
 for four months, then for a year, and afterward for ten 
 years. The difficulty of complying with it was, in fact, 
 very great. There was a want of material for the cover- 
 ing of roofs, and the getting-out of stone for the chimneys 
 was a laborious and troublesome process. Bricks and tiles 
 were first imported from Holland in 1659, no doubt in 
 consequence of this very ordinance. In the previous 
 year, 1G58, the subject of being prepared for the occur- 
 rence of fire was also taken into consideration, and it was 
 decreed that for every house, whether large or small, one 
 beaver, or its equivalent, eight guilders (S3), should be 
 paid, to raise a sum of money to procure from the father- 
 land one hundred and fifty leather fire-buckets, and for 
 the making of some fire-ladders and fire-hooks. The pre- 
 amble to this ordinance sets forth that it is customarv, in 
 all well-regulated cities, to have fire-buckets, ladders, and 
 hooks in readiness at the corners of streets, and in public- 
 houses, in time of need ; and that it was then especially 
 necessary in New Amsterdam, as the houses were chiefly 
 of wood, there being but a small number built of stone. 
 But the raising of money then by tax was a very slow 
 process. It probably came in so tardily that the project 
 of sending to the fatherland was given up hopelessly, for 
 the all-sufficient reason that the Amsterdam merchants 
 were not in the habit of fulfilling the orders of the little 
 municipality which bore the name of their city on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, unless the}- had some better 
 assurance for payment than its promises. The hooks and 
 ladders were made in the city, and were distributed about 
 in different places ; but the most essential things of all, 
 the leather buckets, were wanting. The Worshipful 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 569 
 
 Court of Burgomasters and Schepens now bestirred them- 
 selves. The shoemakers of the city, who were then seven 
 in number, were summoned to meet the city authorities 
 on the 1st of August, 1658, to consider the grave question 
 of the possibility of making the buckets in the city. 
 Four of them attended. The first one to whom it was 
 proposed declined the arduous undertaldng. The second 
 declared that he had no material. The third ventured to 
 make one hundred for six guilders two stivers a piece, or 
 about $2.50 ; and the fourth was brought to engage to make 
 the remaining fifty upon the same terms. Six months 
 further passed, when at last^ on the 20th of January, 
 1658, the one hundred and fifty buckets were brought to 
 the Stadt House, or City Hall, which then stood upon 
 Pearl Street, facing Coenties Slip ; and being I'egularly 
 numbered, the first fifty were deposited in the City Hall, 
 and the remaining portion were divided in lots of ten and 
 twelve, and placed at the residences of nine of the prin- 
 cipal inhabitants. 
 
 The next step was the establishment of public wells — 
 a measure dictated not only by a regard for the public 
 safety in time of fire, but also for the public health. 
 Before the completion of that great work, the Croton 
 Aqueduct, the water required for domestic purposes was 
 probably worse than that of any other city of equal extent 
 in the world. That obtained from the wells of individ- 
 ual proprietors, which were the chief source of supply for 
 the first forty-four years, was so bad that even horses 
 refused to drink it. In the year now under consideration, 
 the first public well was dug in front of the Fort, upon 
 the site of a natural spring ; and affording, as it did, a 
 supply of comparatively wholesome water, it became a 
 great resort of the inhabitants during the remaining period 
 of the Dutch occupation. 
 
 This year (1658) and the preceding one were especially 
 
 73 
 
570 HISTORr OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 distinguished by energetic measures for the improvement 
 of the city. The Dutch burghers were now in reality 
 aroused. In addition to these precautionary measures for 
 the extinguishment of fires, a rattle watch was established, 
 consisting of eight men, the duty being imposed upon each 
 of the citizens in turn. The city was surveyed and regu- 
 lated. Streets were for the first time paved with stone — 
 one of them. Stone Street, still retaining the name that 
 was then given to it. With the exception of Stone Street, 
 the pavement extended only to the width of ten feet from 
 the front of the houses, the center of the street being left 
 without pavement, for the more easy absorption of the 
 water, as there were no sewers. Names were also given 
 to many of the streets ; and, in 1660, a brick-yard was 
 established in the vicinity of the present Park ; and though 
 the enterprise was not profitable to its projectors, it led to 
 the use of brick in the construction of houses. And the 
 progress must have been very rapid ; for Denton, who 
 visited the city ten years afterward, in 1670, records the 
 fact that the houses were then mostly of brick or stone, 
 covered with red and black tiles, giving to the city, he 
 says, "a pleasing aspect, when seen from an elevated 
 height." 
 
 This active movement for the improvement of the 
 city was, no doubt, to be attributed to the fact that the 
 inhabitants had obtained from the States-General in 
 Holland, four years previously, what they had long 
 petitioned for, — a municipal government, and with it the 
 enjoyment of those local privileges to which they had been 
 accustomed in the cities, towns, and villages of their 
 fatherland; or, to express it in different words, the in- 
 estimable right of local self-government. They had been 
 ruled exclusively before this by a governor and by a 
 council sehicted by him, who administered atFau\s with 
 special reference to the interest of a trading corporation 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITY. 57^ 
 
 in Amsterdam, by whom New Netherland was founded 
 as a commercial speculation ; and though the inhabitants 
 were nominally under the protection of the Dutch Govern- 
 ment, they were so far away that they were completely 
 subject to the will of governors, who were at times 
 capricious, in some instances grossly incompetent, and 
 generally arbitrary. Such a government was not in 
 harmony with the interest of the individual citizen. It 
 retarded progress by taking away all desire for it ; and 
 when the inhabitants were released from its restraiut by 
 the establishment of a municipal body, elected by them- 
 selves, which was alike a court of justice and a repre- 
 sentative council clothed with the power of municipal 
 government, the effect was speedily felt in the active 
 movement and public spirit which dictated the improve- 
 ments to which allusion has been made.* 
 
 The English appear to have been particularly vigilant 
 in the adoption of precautionary measures against fires, 
 and it would seem that there was every reason for them 
 to be so. When they repossessed themselves of the city, 
 in 1674, it contained three hundred and twenty-two 
 houses ; and eight years after, the number is put down 
 at two hundred and two, — -a diminution which cannot 
 be accounted for in any other way than by the fre- 
 quent occurrence of conflagrations, t One of their first 
 
 * For an account of tlie judiciary in the Datcli period, written by Judge C. 
 P. Daly, see Appendix VII. 
 
 f In the early part of the Middle Ages, the dwellings of the common people 
 in most countries of Europe were of timber ; and, from this cause and the want 
 of efficient means to extinguish conflagrations, fires were of frequent occurrence, 
 and were among the most dreaded of calamities. There are records of the 
 destruction of whole towns, the efforts of the inhabitants being utterly power- 
 less to arrest the progress of the flames. This condition of things gave rise to 
 a custom which prevailed throughout Europe, and in many countries was 
 enforced by law, by which, at the ringing of a bell at sunset in summer and 
 eight o'clock in winter, all the inhabitants of a city, town, burgh, or village, 
 raked the fire together upon the hearth, and put over it a brass cover, of a shape 
 adapted to the purpose, which was called a curfew. The bell tolled for a quar. 
 
572 HISTORY OP NEW TOBK CITY. 
 
 public measures of this description, in 1677, three years 
 subsequent to the re-occupation, was to order the con- 
 struction of six public wells, — the principal part of the 
 expense of which was imposed upon the inhabitants 
 of the streets where they were severally located. This 
 is the earliest measure recorded for assessing the cost 
 of public improvements upon the owners of growing 
 property, — a policy which has ever since been adhered to, 
 though the fairness or justice of it may be questioned. In 
 1687, seven additional public wells were ordered to be 
 made in different streets. Eight pounds was contributed 
 by the city for each well. The residue of the expense was 
 imposed upon those found to be chiefly benefited by its 
 establishment in their vicinity ; and they were debarred 
 from the use of it until they had paid their proportionate 
 part. These wells were placed in the middle of the 
 street, and the water was raised by the old Egyptian 
 method of a balance-pole and bucket, a mode still in use 
 in many parts of the country. All these were known by 
 popular names, as De Remiers well, Janson well, De Kay 
 
 ter of an hour, to admonisli every one that the time had come to put on the 
 curfew, to extinguish the lights in each household, and for all to retire to rest. 
 It was called the " curfew hell," and at the sound of it every occupation ceased, 
 and all merriment was hushed : there was a solemn seriousness about it that 
 recommended it as a fitting image to the poets. There are frequent references 
 to it in Chaucer and in Shakespeare, and all will remember the opening line 
 of Gray's celebrated Elegy, 
 
 " The curfew toll3 the knell of parting day." 
 The poets made use of it legitimately ; but it is a curious fact that English his- 
 torians, and even legal writers, ignorant of its origin, and the fact that it was 
 simply a precautionary regulation against fire, have perpetuated the belief that 
 in England it was a badge of tyranny imposed, after the Conquest, by the Nor- 
 mans upon the Saxons, to make them feel the extent of their subjugation. 
 Even BO celebrated a writer as Blackstone, after declaring that England at this 
 period was governed under as absolute a slavery as it was in the power of a war- 
 like and ambitious prince to impose, enumerates as one of the proofs of it, that in 
 cities and towns all company was obliged to disperse, and fire and candle had 
 to be extinguished at eight at night, at the sound of the melancholy curfew ; 
 whereas the custom, or regulation, had existed long previously, in Saxon times, 
 and has been traced up to the days of Alh^.—Jadge DaZy'$ Address. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 573 
 
 well, &c. ; and the water procured from most of them 
 would in this day be regarded as very bad. Kalm, a Swedish 
 traveler and naturalist, who visited the city in 1748, seventy 
 years afterward, says : " There is no good water to be 
 met with in the town ; but a little way out there is a 
 spring of good water, which the inhabitants take for their 
 tea and kitchen purposes. Those, however, who are less 
 delicate upon this point make use of the water from the 
 wells in the town, although it is very bad. The want of 
 good water bears heavily upon the horses of strangers 
 who come into the town, for the animals do not like to 
 drink the water obtained from the wells." The spring of 
 good water to which Kalm refers, was the famous tea- 
 water pump, a little west of the present line of Chatham 
 Street, opposite Roosevelt Street, which was still in use 
 forty years ago, standing in the middle of a large 
 grocery-store, — -all who dealt with the grocer having free 
 access to it, and others, it is presumed, for a pecuniary con- 
 sideration. In fact, down to the time of the completion of 
 the Croton Aqueduct, the water-vender was one of the 
 features of the city. With a hogshead mounted upon a 
 cart, he traversed the streets, morning and afternoon, sup- 
 plying his customers with pure and wholesome water at a 
 small charge per pail. 
 
 Another important measure was introduced by the 
 English in 1658, during the period of their first occupation, 
 which was the lighting of the city by night ; and, as the 
 method adopted was a very primitive one, it is here given 
 in the language of the ordinance : " Every seventh house 
 in all tlie streets shall, in the dark time of the morn, cause 
 a lantern and candle to be hung out on a pole, the charge 
 to be defrayed equally by the inhabitants of the said seven 
 houses ;" and upon very dark nights every inhabitant was 
 required to have a lighted candle in his window. 
 
 Another of these measures was the employment of a 
 
574 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 regular night-watch, composed of men who were paid for 
 their services by the city, instead of imposing that duty, 
 as the Dutch had done, upon all the citizens in turn. The 
 watch was set at nine o'clock in the evening (when the 
 city-gates were shut and locked), and was kept up until 
 day-break. It was maintained, however, only during the 
 winter months — that is, from the beginning of November 
 to the end of March, that being the period when the 
 greatest danger from fire was apprehended. At the ring- 
 ing of the bell of the Fort at nine o'clock, a sergeant- 
 major, with his halberd, proceeded, followed by the watch, 
 to each of the city-gates, which he locked for the night. 
 He then stationed each man at his particular post, and, to 
 secure the vigilant discharge of his duty, each watchman 
 was required to go, once every hour, through that part of 
 the city which was allotted to him, and with a bell to pro- 
 claim the time of the night and the state of the weather, — 
 a regulation which, no doubt, secured a vigilant discharge 
 of the watchman's duty. But it must have been somewhat 
 disturbing to all but sound sleepers to have had their 
 slumbers broken at regular intervals by the loud ringing 
 of a bell and a hoarse voice announcing such information 
 as, " Past two o'clock, and a dark, cloudy morning." This 
 practice was borrowed from Germany. In the German 
 burghs or towns, it was at jfirst the custom to station their 
 guardians of the night in the steeples of churches or other 
 elevated places; and, as a security against their going 
 asleep, to require them every hour to proclaim the time 
 of the night. When this was changed to a regular patrol- 
 ling of the streets, the custom of calling the hour was con- 
 tinued probably for the same reason ; but, among the 
 musical people, this duty was relieved by a very poetical 
 feature, for the German watchman accompanied the call- 
 ing of the time of the night by singing the verse of a song 
 inculcating some precept of the Christian religion, the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 575 
 
 words of which were so arranged or varied as to adapt it 
 to the particular time of the night. A translation of a 
 verse of one of these watchmen's songs is here presented 
 as a specimen : 
 
 " Hark ye, neighbors, and hear me tell 
 Ten now strikes on the helfiy bell. 
 Ten were the holy commandments given 
 To man below, by God in heaven. 
 Human watch from harm can't ward us ; 
 Yet God will watch and pfuide and guard us. 
 May he, through his heavenly might, 
 Give us all a blessed night." 
 
 But, notwithstanding these precautionary measures, 
 the want of efficient means for extinguishing fire was 
 sevei'ely felt ; and a stringent ordinance, passed in 1686, 
 records the fact of their frequent occurrence, and of the 
 great damage done from the lack of efficient means to 
 arrest a fire after it broke out. This ordinance enacted 
 that everj^ house having two chimneys should be provided 
 with a fire-bucket, and that those having more than two 
 fire-places should have two buckets. This, however, did 
 not suffice ; and it was enacted, in 1696, that every tenant, 
 under a penalty, should procure the necessary number of 
 buckets, and deduct the cost of them from the rent. The 
 practice of having eveiy house supplied with fire-buckets 
 now became general, and was continued long after the 
 introduction of fire-engines. If a fire broke out at night, 
 the watchman gave the alarm with his rattle, and knocked 
 at the doors of the houses, with the cry, " Throw out our 
 buckets;" the alarm being further spread by the ringing 
 of the bell at the Fort, and by the bells in the steeples of 
 the different churches. When the inmates of a house 
 were aroused, the first act was to throw out the buckets 
 into the street, which were of sole-leather, holding about 
 three gallons, and were always hung in the passage close 
 to the door. They were picked up by those who were 
 
576 HISTORY OF NEW XOEK CITY. 
 
 hastening to the fire, it being the general custom for nearly 
 every householder to hurry to the fire, whether by day or 
 by night, and render his assistance. As soon as possible, 
 two lines were formed from the fire to the nearest well or 
 pump ; and when that gave out, the hne was carried to the 
 next one, or to the river. The one line passed up the full 
 buckets, and the empty ones were passed down the other. 
 No one was permitted to break through these lines ; and if 
 any one attempted to do so, and would not fall in, a bucket 
 of water, or several, were instantly thrown over him. 
 Each bucket was marked with the name or number of the 
 owner ; and, when the fire was over, they were all collected 
 together, and taken in a cart belonging to the City Hall. 
 A city bellman then went round, to announce that they 
 were ready for delivery, when each householder sent for 
 his buckets, and hung them up in the allotted place, ready 
 for the next emergency. 
 
 In 1677, the city contained three hundred and sixty- 
 eight houses. In 1693, the number was estimated at five 
 hundred and ninety-four. In 1696, it was put down as 
 seven hundred and fifty ; and when the two fire-engines 
 arrived from London, in 1731, the population of the city, 
 by an enumeration made that year, was 8,628 ; and it 
 must have contained 1,200 houses. Up to that time, there 
 was no means for extinguishing fires except the convey- 
 ing of water to it in buckets, and the use of ladders and 
 fire-hooks. The buildings, however, were not very high. 
 Originally, they were chiefly of one story ; and few at this 
 time exceeded two — the first three-story house, which is 
 still standing in Pearl Street, opposite Cedar Street, having 
 been built by a member of the De Peyster family about 
 the year 1690. 
 
 It seems to us at the present day a very simple matter 
 for the corporation to have ordered two fire-engines from 
 London ■ but it was a momentous aflair in 1731. In the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 577 
 
 first instance, an act of the provincial legislature had to 
 be passed to enable the city to raise money for the term 
 of three years to purchase the engines. This having been 
 done, the Common Council, on the 6th of May, 1731, 
 resolved to purchase, in the language of the record, " two 
 complete fire-engines, with suction leather-pipes and caps, 
 and all materials thereunto belonging, for the public serv- 
 ice, to be the fourth and sixth series of Mr. Newsham's 
 fire-engines." A committee of three aldermen was ap- 
 pointed to carry out the resolution ; and they contracted 
 with two merchants, Stephen Delancey and John Moore, 
 then the principal mercantile firm of the city, to import 
 at the rate of one hundred and twenty per cent, on the 
 foot of the invoice, exclusive of commission and insur- 
 ance, the money to be paid within nine months after the 
 delivery ; which shows that the merchants of that day 
 knew how to charge for their advances, especially when 
 the city was the paymaster. 
 
 Thomas Newsham, the person from whom the two 
 engines were to be forwarded, was then one of two nail- 
 makers in London, the other being a maker named Foroke. 
 Each" of them claimed to have surpassed all others in the 
 construction of what is termed in their advertisement, 
 " constantly steamed engines." Newsham, however, was 
 the more successful, and vanquished his competitor. He 
 had invented nothing new, for all the essential properties 
 of the fire-engine had then been discovered, and the supe- 
 riority of his machine consisted simply in the ingenious 
 mechanical adaptation of principles already known. In 
 form it resembled the machine in use when engines were 
 worked by hand. Indeed, Newsham's engine, with very 
 little modification, continued in use in London down to 
 1832, and in this city after that period. The old engine 
 which Colonel Myers has secured to be preserved in this 
 
 city as a relic is Newsham's engine; and in form and 
 73 
 
578 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 structure it is in no respect different from the kind 
 made by him in 1740. He made two kinds. One of this 
 structure, and another called a Treddle, the treddle being 
 a platform placed above the body of the machine, upon 
 which twelve men could stand, six abreast, who, by tread- 
 ing alternately on each side of the fulcrum of the lever, 
 imparted to it the requisite ascending and descending 
 motion. This treddle-engine, Newsham claimed, had 
 thrown a stream of water over the Royal Exchange,. in 
 London, to an elevation of one hundred and sixty-five feet, 
 in the presence of many thousand spectators ; and being 
 the one of the greatest power, it was the kind ordered by 
 the corporation of New York. • 
 
 Ewbank, a competent authority in hydraulics, says 
 that Newsham was certainly mistaken ; that the height 
 of the jet from his engine could not have been more than 
 fifty feet; and that Ewbank is right, is to be inferred 
 from the fact, that, when Trinity Church was on fire in 
 1753, the stream from the engines did not reach the 
 steeple, which had ignited in several places. " We ob- 
 served with universal terror," says a writer in a newspa- 
 per of the day, " that the engine would scarce deliver the 
 water to the top of the roof," a height of about sixty feet ; 
 " and we want," says this writer, " at least one engine of 
 the largest size, which will throw water one hundred and 
 seventy-five feet high, discharging two hundred gallons in 
 a minute, to cost about sixty-five pounds sterling ;" indi- 
 cating by this passage that there were then (1753) engines 
 of that power. 
 
 The two engines arrived in December, 1731. A room 
 was fitted up for them in what was then the New City 
 Hall, at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets. A com- 
 mittee of two aldermen was appointed to have them 
 cleaned and put in order for use, and immediate use was 
 soon found for them. A paragraph in the Boston Weekly/ 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 579 
 
 Nevjsletter of January 6th, 1732, gives, under the head of 
 news from New York, an account of a fire which occurred 
 in the city on the 7th of December preceding. It is in 
 these words : " Last night, about 12 o'clock, a fire broke 
 out in a joyner's house in the city. It began in the 
 garret, where the people were all asleep, and burnt vio- 
 lently, but by the aid of the two fire-engines, which 
 came from. London in the ship Beaver, the fire was extin- 
 guished, after having burnt down the house and damaged 
 the next." 
 
 Some person, little apprehending that it would de- 
 scend as a memorial to our day, made a rough, pen-and- 
 ink sketch of one of these engines, which, though rude 
 and badly drawn, is sufficient to indicate its structure, 
 and the manner in which it was worked. The sketch, 
 having been put in the hands of a mechanical draughts- 
 man, he has skillfully reproduced it in a proper draw- 
 ing, which will convey an exact representation of what 
 may possibly have been the first fire-engine in America. 
 By the resolution of the Common Council, the engine was 
 to be complete, with suction-pipe and all materials 
 thereunto belonging. The suction-pipe was then known, 
 and both Newsham and Foroke state in their advertise- 
 ments that their engines feed themselves " with a sucking 
 pipe ;" but, if we judge by this pen-and-ink sketch, these 
 engines had no suction-pipe, or the use of it had been 
 given up, as persons are represented in the act of passing 
 buckets of water by hand to supply the engine. 
 
 Beneath this pen-and-ink sketch is the following de- 
 scription of the drawing : " This is a fliir copie of ye 
 ingen, arrived from London, and now in ye City Hall, 
 seven feete wide on ye board and nine feete on worke- 
 poole, thirteen feete long in ye whole, manned by twelve 
 tug-men, eleven bucket-men, and one pipe-man." 
 
 The experience of the fire of the 7th of December 
 
580 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 had doubtless pointed out the necessity of putting them 
 in charge of some competent and skillful person; and 
 accordingly, on the 21st of January following, the Mayor 
 and four aldermen were appointed a committe to employ 
 workmen to put them in good order, and to engage per- 
 sons by the year " to keep them in repair, and to work 
 them Avhen necessary." Anthony Lamb was accordingly 
 appointed "overseer," or, as the office was afterward 
 called, chief-engineer, at a salary of £12 a year ; and he 
 and the persons employed by the year imder him may 
 be said to have been the first regularly organized Fire 
 Department.* 
 
 The room fitted up for these two engines in the City 
 Hall would seem not to have been sufficiently commodious ; 
 and accordingly, in 1736, the Corporation ordered a con- 
 venient house to be built, " contiguous to the watch-house 
 in Broad Street, for their security and well-keeping." 
 This building, the first engine-house in the city, was in 
 the middle of Broad Street, half-way between Wall Street 
 and Exchange Place. The watch-house stood at the head 
 of Broad Street ; and immediately behind it, in the middle 
 of the street, this engine-house was built, as appears from 
 an indication of it upon a map of the city in 1742, made 
 by David Grim. 
 
 Lamb held the office of chief-engineer until 1736, 
 when he was succeeded by Jacob Turk, a gunsmith, who 
 appears to have been an ingenious man ; for, in the year 
 
 * Antbony Lamb was an Englishman, who had eomc to the city and estab- 
 lished himself in business as a matliemafical-instrument maker and general 
 worlier in wood, ivory, and brass. He kept for many, years a well-known estab- 
 lishment at the sign of the Quadrant and Survepng Compass, in the vicinity 
 of Old Slip, where he fabricated, repaired, and sold surveying and nautical 
 instruments, and many other things, and at the same time practiced as an ocu- 
 list, from which combined occupation he realized a substantial fortune. He 
 was the father of General Lamb, of Revolutionary memory, one of the princi- 
 pal leaders in the formation of the Sons of Liberty in 1776. — Judge Daly's 
 Address. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. ggl 
 
 after his appointment, the city voted him £10 to enable 
 him to complete a small fire-engine which he was making 
 as an experiment. In this, however, it seems, he was not 
 alone ; for one William Lindsay advertises in the New 
 York Gazette, May 9th, 1737, a fire-engine made by him, 
 which, he says in his advertisement, will deliver two 
 hogsheads of water, in a continuous stream, in a minute. 
 The voluntary Fire Department was established in the 
 city in 1738, under an act of the Colonial Legislature, and 
 lasted for one hundred and twenty-seven years. A 
 high compliment, and one that was, no doubt, deserved, 
 was paid to the city in the preamble to this colonial 
 act, in these words — " The inhabitants of the City of 
 New York, of all degrees, have very justly acquired the 
 reputation of being singularly and remarkably famous 
 for their diligence and services in cases of fire ;" and 
 it was, no doubt, this fact which led to the institution 
 of the voluntary system. This act empowered the 
 Corporation to appoint a certain number of freemen, or 
 freeholders, not to exceed forty-two, to be selected in 
 equal proportion from the six different wards of the 
 city, who were to be known thereafter by the designation 
 of " The Firemen of the City of New York," who, in con- 
 sideration of their voluntary service, were to be exempt 
 from serving as constables, surveyors, or jurors, or in the 
 militia, except in case of invasion or other imminent dan- 
 ger. This statute was passed in 1737, and in the follow- 
 ing year the Corporation selected five firemen from each 
 ward, or thirty in all, and passed an ordinance for their 
 regulation, or government. The firemen, divided into 
 companies, chose their own foreman, assistant, and clerk, 
 from their own number. The firewardens wore a hat, the 
 brim of which was black, the crown white. The city arms 
 were blazoned on its front. They also carried a speaking- 
 trumpet, painted white, with " Warden," in black letters. 
 
582 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 When a building took fire in the night, notice was imme- 
 diately given by the watchmen to the members of the 
 Corporation, firewardens, and bell-ringers. They also 
 called out " Fire," and the inhabitants placed lighted can- 
 dles in their windows to aid the engines in their passage 
 through the streets. Watchmen neglecting their duties 
 were liable to a fine of one hundred dollars. When a 
 chimney took fire the occupant of the house was fined 
 five dollars. The same fine was imposed upon carpenters 
 who did not carefully remove their shavings at the end 
 of every day's work. A person using a lighted lamp or 
 candle in a store-house, unless secured in a lantern, for- 
 feited ten dollars. Jacob Turk became the head of this 
 new organization ; and that he was an efiicient super- 
 intendent, or chief-engineer, may be inferred from the 
 fact that he continued in the oSice for twenty-five years. 
 Among other things, he introduced the well-known leather 
 cap worn by the firemen to the present day. 
 
 Turk was succeeded in 1761 by Jacobus Stoutenbergh, 
 who was, like Turk, a gunsmith. He was one of the 
 thirty firemen originally appointed in 1738, and he con- 
 tinued to be chief-engineer down to the time of the Revo- 
 lution. When he was appointed, in 1761, the city had 
 largely increased, and, in consequence, the force in the fol- 
 lowing year (1762) was augmented to two assistants and 
 sixty men. After the breaking-out of the Revolution, it 
 was converted into a military organization, consisting of 
 two battalions, commanded by Stoutenbergh, and was 
 composed of one adjutant, one captain, five lieutenants, 
 and one hundred and thirty-four men. It retired, neces- 
 sarily, as a part of the military, with the retreat of the 
 American army from the city in 1776; and the extent of 
 the ravages of the dreadful conflagration which followed 
 immediately after the entrance of tlie British troops was 
 mainly owing to the want of firemen in the city. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 533 
 
 The Fire Department was reorganized after the Revo- 
 lution; and, in 1793, the Legislature granted an act of 
 incorporation by which the firemen of the city were 
 " constituted and declared to be a body politic in fact and 
 in the name of the Fire Department," This was the 
 origin of the system nearly seventy years ago. This act 
 continued until April, 1810, and was renewed from time 
 to time until the Common Council appointed a " chief- 
 engineer, with a salary of eight hundred dollars per 
 annum," to whom was confided the sole control of this 
 department. He reported twice a year to the Common 
 Council the condition of the engines, buckets, houses, and 
 apparatus. He also reported all fires and their accidents, 
 with the number of buildings destroyed or injured, the 
 names of the sufferers, with the probable cause of the 
 burning, &c. The firewardens were also appointed by 
 the Common Council, but none were eligible until they 
 had served as firemen five years. They acted as over- 
 seers at all fires ; and, during the months of June and 
 December, examined all fire-places, chimneys, stoves, 
 ovens, and boilers, and, if found defective, ordered the 
 owners to repair them ; and if neglected, a fine of twenty- 
 five dollars was imposed. They also examined all build- 
 ings ; and would olten order hemp, hay, gunpowder, and 
 other combustible articles to be removed to safe places, 
 under a penalty of ten dollars. The Fire Department 
 then consisted of twenty engines, two hook-and-ladder 
 companies, twenty-two foremen, thirteen assistants, and 
 three hundred and eighteen men ; and, in 1825, Mr. Cox, 
 the chief-engineer, reported forty-two engines in good 
 order, five hook-and-ladder trucks, and one hose-wagon, 
 with 'l0,256 feet of good hose : also, two hundred and 
 fifty-five buckets, and twenty-eight ladders and thirty 
 hooks. The total number of men belonging to the Fire 
 Department was 1,347. 
 
584 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 The voluntary system was, upon its introduction, a 
 most desirable one, and continued to be so for more than 
 three quarters of a century. For alacrity, intrepidity, 
 skUl, and courage, the men who composed it would com- 
 pare with any body of firemen in the world. At its insti- 
 tution and for many years it consisted almost exclusively 
 of the most influential and prominent citizens, who dis- 
 charged their arduous labors at a great sacrifice of time, 
 and frequently of health, from a high sense of public duty ; 
 and the example they set infused into the whole commu- 
 nity a zeal and willingness to lend their aid and assistance 
 upon the breaking-out of a fire, almost without precedent 
 in the history of cities. The effect upon the rising genera- 
 tion was especially marked, and the young were made to 
 feel that to be a fireman was an honorable and enviable 
 distinction. For a long while, "No. 5," on Fulton Street, 
 and " 14," near St. Paul's Church, were considered the 
 " crack companies " of the city, — the first to reach a fixe 
 and among the last to leave it; and many a race they 
 had. But in course of time this was changed, and the 
 efiect of the institution upon the young was as injurious 
 as it had been formerly beneficial. The body grew large 
 and formidable. It became a power, and resisted for 
 many years every attempt to introduce new and im- 
 proved methods for the extinguishment of fires. Steam 
 fire-engines were introduced in Loudon in 1832, with 
 a marked increase of efficiency and economy; but it 
 took nearly thirty years before they could be introduced 
 in New York. Horses had long been used in London to 
 transport the engines more quickly ; but the voluntary fire- 
 men of New York persisted in the habit of dragging their 
 engines to the fire by hand to the last, thereby diminish- 
 ing their alacrity and lessening their physical strength. 
 When the city was embraced within moderate limits, the 
 occasional duty of acting as a fireman was not a very 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 535 
 
 onerous one ; but, when the city was expanded miles in 
 extent, it exacted an amount of time which few were able 
 to give who had their own business to attend to ; and, con- 
 sequently, this class was gradually withdrawn from the 
 department, which was filled by those who could give 
 more time to it. The increasing extension of the city 
 demanded, moreover, a constant augmentation of the force 
 of the department; and, as it increased in numbers, it 
 degenerated in quality. The engine-houses became loiter- 
 ing-places for the idle and the young, and at which the 
 latter learned little except to become rude in speech and 
 imperious in manner. Thus was brought forth and foster- 
 ed a character very closely resembling the gamin of Paris, 
 familiarly known as the " b'hoy," who seems now to be 
 disappearing with the causes that produced him. The 
 rivalry between companies engendered animosities ; and 
 street brawls among the firemen at a fire, occasionally 
 expanding into street riots, in which free use was made of 
 the brickbat and the paving-stone, were not of unusual 
 occurrence until the system had reached the point when 
 grave men propounded the inquiry of how to get rid of it. 
 The remedy was found in substituting for it a body of 
 picked men, permanently engaged and regularly paid for 
 their services, and by the general introduction of steam 
 fire-engines, or, as they are called, " steamers." This was 
 eflfected in 1865, by the creation and chartering by 
 the Legislature of the present Metropolitan Fire 
 Department, with Charles E. Pinckney president, and that 
 fine old fireman, Philip W. Engs, treasurer. The conse- 
 quence of it has been increased efficiency in the extin- 
 guishment of fires, a large diminution in the number of 
 men requisite for that puri:)0se, and an entire cessation of . 
 the demoralizing influences to which reference has been 
 already made. In 1863, the voluntary department con- 
 sisted of 4,122 men. The present department (1871) 
 
 74 
 
5S6 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 consists of 599 men, or about one seventh of the former 
 force. 
 
 The new act allows twelve steam fire-engines and 
 hook-and-ladder companies, — the engines to have one 
 foreman, one assistant, an engineer, stoker, driver, 
 with seven firemen. Of the hook-and-ladders, each one 
 has a foreman, one assistant, a driver, and nine firemen. 
 Their pay is fixed at $3,000 per annum to the chief- 
 engineer ; assistant, $2,000; district engineer, $1,500; 
 foreman, $1,100; assistant, $900; engineer of steam- 
 engine, $1,080 ; stokers, drivers, and firemen, $840 each , 
 superintendent of telegraph, $1,800 ; telegraph-operators, 
 $1,000 each; battery boy, $500 ; line-man, $1,000; and 
 bell-ringers, each $800. The department are uniformed, 
 and the number of their engines has increased to fiftj''- 
 six, and the hook-and-ladders to twenty-five. 
 
 How different the Fire Department now from the one 
 of former years, when men were the horses to drag the 
 ropes of the machine, and their strong arras the motive 
 power to work them ! Now we have in their places horses 
 to pull the engines, and the mighty giant, steam, to force 
 the water upon the raging fiery element. Still, the little 
 old-fashioned hand fire-engines did wonderful service in 
 their day; and, indeed, the noble bearing, bravery, endur- 
 ance, and success of our New York firemen had a world- 
 wide fame.* 
 
 *In Appendix No. VIII. will be found an interesting letter from Colonel T. 
 Bailey Myers to tlie author, giving an account of the Firemen's Lyceum, organ 
 ized by bim, as Trustee, for the use of the Department, and as a means for the 
 improvement of the men. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Previous to the year 1802 no special effort had been 
 made to establish an institution for art in the city. In that 
 year, however, the idea of a " New York Academy 
 of Fine Arts" was first mooted, which, in 1808, cul- 
 minated in one being chartered under the name of the 
 " American Academy of Arts ;" Robert R. Livingston, 
 president; John Trumbull, vice-president; and De Witt 
 Clinton, secretary — Trumbull being the only artist. " The 
 first exhibition was held in Greenwich Street, near Morris, 
 in a building formerly used as a circus. In 1825, an asso- 
 ciation was formed by the artists of the city under the 
 name of the New York Drawing Association, which was 
 afterward organized under the name of the National 
 Academy of the Arts of Design, with S. F. B. Morse as 
 the first president. The first public exhibition of the new 
 Academy took place in May, 1826, in the house on the 
 south-west corner of Broadway and Reade Street. The 
 room in which the first exhibition was held was in the 
 second story, and was lighted with gas — six burners in all 
 for the whole exhibition — which consisted of one hundred 
 and seventy pictures." * Let the reader contrast these 
 humble beo^innings with the present delightful receptions, 
 
 * Mary L. Booth. 
 
 For a detailed liistory of the National Academy of Design from the finished 
 pen of T. Addison Kichards, see Appendix No. X. 
 
588 
 
 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 which are attended by all of the wit, culture, and beauty 
 of the city, and which are held in the elegant building on 
 the north-west corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third 
 
 Street. 
 
 NATIONAL, ACADEMY OF DESIGN. 
 
 The building itself has a front of eighty feet on Twenty- 
 third Street, and of ninety-eight feet and nine inches on 
 Fourth Avenue. "The main entrance is on the former 
 front, level with the second story, and reached by a double 
 flight of steps. This second and principal story is thus 
 divided : A wide hall extends from the entrance nearly 
 the whole length of the building. In this are the stairs 
 leading to the third story. To the right hand, on enter- 
 ing, is a range of four large rooms, which occupy all of the 
 Fourth Avenue side. These rooms are lighted by the eio-ht 
 windows shown in the engraving — forming an arcade 
 which extends from the entire depth of the longer facade 
 — and by the three windows of similar design on Twenty- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 589 
 
 third Street. The grand staircase leading to the upper 
 galleries is a feature of the buildhig. They are ' wide, 
 massive, and imposing in effect. Exhibition galleries 
 occupy the whole of the third story, which is lighted from 
 the roof The interior of the building has been hand- 
 somely fitted up at great expense. Most of the woodwork 
 is of oak, walnut, ash, and other hard woods, oiled and 
 polished, so as to show the natural color and gi-ain. 
 The rooms of the second floor, except the lecture-room, 
 are finished like the parlors of a first-class house. Each 
 of the four large rooms on Fourth Avenue has an open 
 fire-place, with a hearth of ornamental encaustic tiles, and 
 rich mantel-piece of oak. The windows are fitted with 
 plate-glass sliding sashes, and the rooms communicate 
 through a series of plate-glass sliding-doors. The vesti- 
 bule at the main entrance has an ornamental pavement 
 of variegated marbles, and the floor of the great hall is 
 walnut and maple in patterns. The design of the exterior 
 was copied from a famous palace in Venice; and, being 
 the only instance of this style of architecture in the city, 
 or we believe in the country, it possesses a peculiar in- 
 terest. It is one of the most brilliantly decorated edifices 
 in the country. The double fiight of steps leading to the 
 main entrance — rendered necessary by the circumscribed 
 limits of the lot on which the building stands — has been 
 skillfully made an ornament rather than a defect. It is 
 beautifully carved, and underneath it is an elegant drink- 
 ing fountain, radiant in color and other exquisite embel- 
 lishments. The walls of the lower story are of gray 
 marble, marked with intervening lines of North River 
 blue-stone, and the entire elevation is thus variegated in 
 blue and gray and white. The cost of the building was 
 one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars." * 
 
 * S^ew York Uliistrated. 
 
590 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 In August, 1865, the Old Wabren Mansion was torn 
 down, its beautiful lawns covered with brick, and its 
 massive locusts cut up and given to the winds.* This 
 mansion, which stood near the intersection of 
 ^**'^' Charles and Bleecker Streets, was built by Sir Peter 
 Warren about 1740. Although, when demolished, in the 
 heart of the city, yet at that time it stood in the open 
 country with its lawns reaching down to the North River 
 — long before even the first cottage had been built in the 
 village of Greenwich. It is indeedsafe to say that around 
 no other house did there cluster so many associations 
 which to New Yorkers should be especially dear. Admi- 
 ral, afterward Sir Peter Warren, K. B., the hero of Lewis- 
 burg, is scarcely known to the present generation ; and 
 yet aside from his being so long identified with the naval 
 glory of England, he was in our colonial history the great 
 man of an era, and at one time, during the administration 
 of Clinton, exercised more influence in the Colonial Gov- 
 ernment than even the Governor himself At that time, 
 when the extreme limit of our city was Wall Street, the 
 house No. 1 Broadway, by the Bowling Green — now the 
 Washington Hotel — was built by Sir Peter as his town 
 house, in distinction from his country seat — the house of 
 which we are now speaking. In 1748, when the small- 
 pox was raging in this city, the Colonial Assembly, to 
 get out of reach of the contagion, accepted Sir Peter's 
 tender of his country seat and adjourned thither to escape 
 the plague by being in the country! It indeed seemed 
 
 * Other landmarks, it is true, had previously been demolished. The Old 
 Brick Church, erected in 1768 on the triangular piece of grouna oetween 
 Park Row, Beekman, and Nassau Streets, and used in the Revolution, first as 
 a prison and then as a hospital for prisoners, had given place, in 1856, to the 
 " Times Building," and the Atlantic Garden, formerly " Burns' Coffee 
 House," and the " Faneuil Hall " of New York, had been also purchased and 
 destroyed by the Hudson River Railroad Company ; but neither of these ever 
 possessed the personal reminiscences of the Old Warren Mansion. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 591 
 
 really cruel to cut down those ancient trees, planted by 
 the Admiral's own hand. A tree, like a tooth, is very 
 easily removed, but is a long time in growing; and it is 
 thus that a Spanish peasant feels when, with religious 
 
 TtlE OLD BRTCK CUUKCII. 
 
 feeling, he stoops down by the wayside and plants the pit 
 or seed of the fruit which he has been eating. It were 
 to be wished that Americans had more veneration for the 
 ancient traditions of their own country and for the ves- 
 
592 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tiges of the past. A few individuals occasionally have 
 this feeling, and in a large measure ; but as a nation we 
 have no love for the past, and hence old landmarks, preg- 
 nant with hallowed associations, are continually being 
 removed to make room for " modern improvements," until 
 it is to be feared that soon oral tradition will be all that 
 will be left to inform the rising generation of what once 
 was. It is true that more attention is now paid to our 
 past history than formerly by historical societies ; but 
 they are powerless in very many instances to arrest the 
 hand of vandalism. The practice of the old country in 
 this respect is far different. An old abbey or castle, or 
 even an old tavern, is guarded with zealous care ; the 
 government — if private liberality is in fault — pays out 
 large sums to keep them intact ; and the people, even the 
 lowest, feel a personal interest in the preservation of some 
 relic which their village may perchance boast of. Es- 
 pecially is this difference in feeling between the old world 
 and the new seen in the care with which all the memen- 
 toes of a battle-field are preserved. In Germany, for 
 example, while the most ignorant peasant residing in the 
 vicinity of any of the battle-fields of the thirty years' 
 war will tell you accurately and truthfully where this and 
 that point of interest is ; where the battle raged the hot- 
 test and where the turning point was reached ; a well-to- 
 do farmer in America, residing on the battle-field itself, 
 will be unable to point out a single place of interest — and 
 he will do very well if he knows that there was a battle 
 fought on his farm at all. Even at this very time two 
 farmers, living in the vicinity of the scene of the famous 
 battle of Saratoga, are busily advocating their claims to 
 living upon the particular spot upon which the famous 
 charge of the British Highlanders was made — and yet 
 the farms lie a mile distant from each other ! Chancing, 
 moreover, to visit, a year or two since, the ruins of Fort 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK; CITY. 593 
 
 Ticonderoga, on Lake Charaplain, the writer was pained 
 to find that the farmers in the vicinity had for several 
 years past been in the habit of pulling down the ruins 
 and drawing them off for the purpose of building fences. 
 But it is not too late to prevent the removal of the few 
 old landmarks that yet remain among us. In the densely 
 settled parts of the city where they stand there is great 
 need of breathing-places, and why, therefore, cannot our 
 city government buy the spots and let them remain as 
 little parks 1 The public certainly would feel much better 
 satisfied with this expenditure of the public funds by the 
 City Council than voting silver services or costly badges. 
 In the same spirit of vandalism the crumbling remains 
 of those who — some of them for nearly a century — had 
 slept beneath the tower of the Old North Dutch Church,* 
 
 ■ * Tbis edifice, standing at the north-west corner of Fulton and William 
 Streets, New York, is one of the antiquities of the city, being now over a 
 centur}' old. In 1767 the two churches then used by the Protestant Reformed 
 Dutch Church (since known as the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church) were 
 found insufficient to accommodate the increasing congregations, and the Con- 
 sistory decided to erect a third place of worship. They resolved that " the 
 church should be erected on the grounds of Mr. Harpending ; that it should 
 be one hundred feet in length and seventy in breadth ; that it should front 
 Horse and Cart Lane, and be placed in the middle of the lot." The grounds 
 thus referred to were given by John Harpending, an influential member of the 
 church, who had died at an advanced age in 1733. His coat of arms can still 
 be seen suspended over the pulpit ; it has on it implements belonging to the 
 currying business, his trade having been that of a tanner and currier. The 
 motto which it bears, " Dando Oonsermt," -is significant of the spirit which 
 actuated the donor in tlie distribution of his wealth. The part of William 
 Street on which this church stands was then called " Horse and Cart Lane," 
 from a tavern near by, which had for a sign the picture of a hoi-se and cart. 
 
 The corner-stone of the North Dutch Church was laid July 3d, 1767, by 
 Isaac Roosevelt, one of its elders, and the dedication was preached by the Rev. 
 Dr. Laidlie, on the 25th of May, 1769. The cost of the building was £13,000. 
 
 The main walls are constructed of uncut stone, stuccoed and painted. The 
 door and window dressings and molding are of freestone, now badly damaged 
 by the rough usage through which the building has passed. On the columns 
 in the interior of the church can be seen the initials of the generous contrib- 
 utors toward the erection of the church. The original pulpit was removed 
 during the Revolution by the British. Some time after the war an American 
 gentleman, attending service in a country church in England, was astonished 
 75 
 
594 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 were removed in 1866 to Greenwood Cemetery. In the 
 majority of cases, however, the silver plates once attached 
 to the coflfins (mingled with fine dust) were the only 
 remains. The dust was separated as carefully 
 as possible, placed in boxes, and conveyed to Green- 
 wood. Still, in the chaotic state in which the ashes of 
 the dead lay complete accuracy was impossible ; and per- 
 haps the dust of persons who, while on earth, cherished 
 bitter animosity toward each other, is destined hereafter 
 to repose in the closest commingling in the same casket. 
 
 The Consistory at the time expressed the intention 
 (which has since been carried out) to dispose of only a 
 part of the land upon which the building stands ; and 
 should that edifice be torn down, they wish the community 
 to be assured that it is their present intention to erect on 
 part of its site a spacious and elegant chapel, in which 
 preaching will be continued each Sabbath, and the regular 
 noon prayer-meeting upon every day of the week — so 
 long as they have control. 
 
 Thus much to explain the intentions of the Consistory. 
 We add our unqualified condemnation of the movement. 
 It is a disgrace to the age and to the city that old church- 
 yards are thus invaded by the demands of commerce, and 
 the repose of the dead violated, because the city has 
 grown. Old grave-yards ought to be venerated as holy 
 ground. Men should no more consent to such changes 
 than they would consent to sell the bones of their own 
 fathers and mothers for knife-handles. If the church is 
 deserted and congregations cannot be maintained, then let 
 
 to recogBize in it the pulpit of the North Dutch Church. During the Eevolu- 
 tionthia church was used as a place for storage, and as a hospital by the En""- 
 lish. It was also used by the latter as a prison, and at one time contained 
 eight hundred American prisoners. The lower part was stripped of the pews, 
 pulpit, etc., and the marks of ill-usage can still be seen on the pillars. The 
 engraving shows the church as it appeared before its wooden steeple was 
 destroyed by fire, which occurred about two years ago. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 595 
 
 it stand as a memorial, or in its place build a durable 
 monument to the old and good men of New York who 
 sleep beneath it. But let them sleep! Our condemnation 
 applies to all the removals of down-town churches and 
 
 OLD NORTH DUTCH CUDRCH. 
 
 church-yards which have taken place or are now going 
 forward. There is no excuse for it, nor any palliation of 
 the offense against propriety. If the Consistory intend 
 to build a chapel in place of the North Dutch Church, let 
 
596 
 
 HISTOEY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 them build it ; but let not a spade-full of the dust of the 
 fathers be sold for gold. 
 
 In the spring of 1867 the Stuyvesant Pear-Tree, then 
 
 THE STUTVESANT PEAE-TREE. 
 
 18C7. 
 
 in its two hundred and twentieth year, put forth 
 blossoms for the last time. This tree was planted 
 on .Governor Stuyvesant's farm in 1647, and stood at the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 597 
 
 corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street, where it 
 was cherished bj all familiar with its history as the last 
 visible link which connected the present generation di- 
 rectly with the time of the Dutch dynasty.* 
 
 In 1868 the widening of the Bloomingdale road into 
 the hew Boulevard, by the Park Commissioners, caused 
 the removal of still another venerable landmark. 
 This was an old house on Broadway, between 
 Seventy-fifth and Seventy-sixth Streets, which possessed 
 greater historical interest than was generally known even 
 to those living in its immediate vicinity. It was here 
 that Louis Philippe, of France, taught school during his 
 residence in America, and the room in which his classes 
 were held remained until the building was torn down, in 
 nearly the same condition as during his occupancy of it. 
 This quaint old house was erected some time previous to 
 the Revolution, although no accurate record of its age 
 can be found. The original deed of transfer was executed 
 in 1796, but the house is known to have been considera- 
 bly older than this, as it was standing several years pre- 
 vious to the sale of the farm. 
 
 It was a low two-story frame house with brick ends, 
 covering a space fifty by eighty feet square, substantially 
 built and habitable, though it had not been occupied for 
 the past thirteen years. A steep, sloping, shingle roof 
 extended from the eaves of the porch in front to the 
 extreme rear kitchen, with dormer windows to light the 
 upper rooms. In the interior, on either side of the central 
 hall, were parlors and sitting-rooms, with low ceilings and 
 narrow doorways. The wood-work in the rooms was fin- 
 ished with an elaborate care not seen in the houses of this 
 class at the present day. There were corner cupboards with 
 
 * Since the fall of the tree, however, a promlsinor shoot from the ancient 
 stock has taken ita place, and shows a hardy vigor which may yet enable it to 
 rival its progenitor in age. 
 
598 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 carved and paneled doors, quaintly ornamented window 
 casings, immense fire-places, surbases finished with a pro- 
 fusion of molding, and doors that seemed to have been 
 put together like a Chinese puzzle. The stairs were narrow 
 and steep, turning squarely at each platform, instead of 
 winding, as in more modern houses. Around the fire- 
 place in the school-room of the exiled King was a row of 
 blue and white Antwerp tiles, ornamented with pictures 
 from the New Testament, with the chapter and verse to 
 which they referred indicated in large characters beneath. 
 These were probably the last that remained in New York 
 of the historical Dutch tiles that were once so fashionable. 
 This venerable mansion, which was probably the oldest 
 in the city, was formerly the homestead of the Somerin- 
 dike family, who once owned nearly all the surrounding 
 part of the island not included in the extensive Harsen 
 estate. 
 
 The beginning of 1869 was marked by the occurrence 
 of five separate events. These are, first, the removal of 
 yet another landmark — the old New York Hospi- 
 tal ; * second, the blotting out of the beautiful St. 
 John's Park, by the erection of the huge and unsightly 
 
 * The New York Hospital was founded, as stated in a former chapter, in 
 1770, during the administration of Governor Duumore, and was then a mile in 
 the open country. It is a question whether the authorities of New York, in 
 consenting to the removal, have not made a very serious mistake ; and also, 
 whether the number of elegant iron stores erected on its site at all compensate 
 for its loss. Aside from any sentimental reasons why it should have been 
 allowed to remain, there is one which should have been conclusive ao^ainst it, 
 viz. : that the lower part of the city is thus left destitute of any place to which 
 injured persons can be brought for relief. Situated, as it was, in the most 
 bustling portion of the city, this Hospital received more casual patients than 
 any other. Women and children run over in the press of the street ; laborers 
 injured while employed in the new buildings con.stantly going up in the vicin- 
 ity ; warehouse porters bruised or sprained while handling packages and casks ; 
 — all invariably found in it a comfortable asylum, and received the best of 
 medical and surgical attendance. Now, however, the nearest hospital is Belle- 
 vue, more than three miles distant from the Battery — a long way to carry a 
 patient prostrated, it may be, with sun-stroke or broken bones. We do not 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 599 
 
 freight depot of the Hudson River Railroad ; third, the 
 extension of Church Street from Fulton to Morris Streets, 
 and the opening of Pearl Street through the Hospital 
 grounds; fourth, the tearing down of numerous old and 
 dilapidated buildings, and the erection in their places of 
 costly and imposing business and private structures ; and 
 
 HUDSON IIIVBB RAILROAD FREIGHT DEPOT. 
 
 fifth, the removal of the courts and civil offices from the 
 City Hall to the New Court House. 
 
 The extension of Church Street removes many objec- 
 tionable places, breaks up a number of dens of iniquity, 
 and puts in their stead some really fine structures. 
 Directly in the rear of Trinity Church the "tumble- 
 
 know how efficient police-surgeons may he as a rule, but we do know tliat in 
 some instances they live miles away from the precinct to which they are 
 attached, and if, as it is said, the station-houses are unprovided with medical 
 applianc^w, a physician, called in hurriedly in an imminent and deadly crisis, 
 may find his best efforts frustrated for want of proper means. 
 
600 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 down" " rookeries," which formerly stood in that vicinity, 
 have given place to a block of nine elegant stores. The 
 entire building, which is built of iron, painted white, is six 
 stories in height and tastefully ornamented. The north 
 end, fronting on Trinity Place, is occupied by the United 
 States Government as a bonded warehouse — while the 
 other stores, which are mostly occupied by shipping mer- 
 chants, will compare favorably with any of similar char- 
 acter in New York. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 Architecture is one of the crowning glories of a city , 
 and nothing more strongly indicates the cultivation of a 
 people than refinement in this beautiful depart- 
 ment of science. " Order is the first law of nature," 
 and the utter disregard hitherto paid to all established 
 orders of architecture in this country is one reason, prob- 
 ably, that we have become such a disorderly people ! The 
 taste of the Greeks in the arts has contributed more to 
 their glory than their deeds of arms. The chisel of 
 Phidias carved for him a name of more true renown than 
 the sword did for Alexander ; and the name of Sir Christo- 
 pher Wren will live as long in English history as that of 
 the Duke of Wellington. Every patriotic Gothamite, 
 therefore, should rejoice at each successive improvement 
 in architectural taste among us. 
 
 In this respect the present year, as hinted at toward 
 the close of the last chapter, marks an era in the history 
 of the city. There is not space to speak in detail of each 
 of the new buildings which were finished or were building 
 during this year — among the latter of which may be men- 
 tioned the Grand Central Depot, opened in 1871, and the 
 new Post-office, not yet completed.* Great changes were 
 
 * This structure, now (1872) building at the southern end of the City Hall 
 Park, will, when completed, add another to the many magnificent structures 
 which adorn the city. It is to be built of granite, marble, and iron, at a cost of 
 $8,000,000, which amount has been appropriated by Congress. 
 
 The style of architecture is the pure French Renaissance. It will be three 
 76 
 
602 HISTOET OF NEW TORK CITY." 
 
 noticeable throughout the city, but especially so along the 
 line of Broadway. This great thoroughfare will ever be 
 improving ; and property owners will not be satisfied until 
 its entire length presents an even and unbroken front of 
 brown stone or marble. Passing by the many structures 
 erected in 1867 and 1868, such as the Park and other 
 banks,* the Herald Building and others, the following 
 buildings are successively reached, viz. : the Merchants' 
 
 stories high, surmounted by a Mansard roof, marked by a center pavilion four 
 stories in height. The pavilion in front will be 160 feet high, and the build- 
 ing facing the City Hall will be 320 feet in length. The first story will be 32 
 feet high, composed of arched openings, supported upon square piers ; the 
 second will be 18 feet high, and the third, 16 feet. The style of the building 
 is that of the Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville. The building will display the 
 following statues: America, Commerce, Industry, VTashington, Franklin, Jus- 
 tice, History, Peace, Strength, Truth, Genius of the Arts, Virtue, Honor, Litera- 
 ture, Mechanics, Genius of Science, Agriculture, and Navigation. The public 
 corridor will be 25 feet wide and 600 feet in length, with entrances from Broad- 
 way and Park Row. The building can be completed, it is clMmed, in two 
 years. Clocks are to be placed at various points around the building for the 
 accommodation of the public. 
 
 In his annual report (January, 1872) Mr. MuUett, the architect, speaks of it 
 as follows : 
 
 " The progress of work has been not only gratifying, but its cost has been 
 kept within the amount of the estimates. The first story is now nearly com- 
 pleted. An idea of the immense amount of work that has been done juay be 
 formed from the following statement of materials used and labor expended to 
 the present time, viz. : 2,476,960 bricks ; 15,701 barrels cement ; 144,087 feet 
 cube granite ; 2,689 yards rubble masonry ; 5,306,442 pounds of wrought and 
 cast iron ; and the magnitude of the undertaking, from the fact that there are 
 now engaged at Dix Island 1,002 persons in the preparation of the granite 
 alone, of whom 704 are employed in cutting the granite for the Government, 
 and 298 in quarrying the stock and otherivise for the contractors. Three hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven thousand one hundred and sixty-nine and one-half days' 
 labor have already been expended in cutting and boxing the granite after it 
 has been quarried ; and it is estimated that three hundred thousand days" labor 
 will be required to complete that branch of the work alone." 
 
 * The more prominent banks of New York include the Bank of New York 
 corner of Wall and William Streets, the Mechanics' Bank, the Merchants' 
 Bank, the Manhattan, the Bank of Commerce, Nassau Bank, &c. The banks 
 of New York are daily becoming more important in an architectural point of 
 view. 
 
 The American Exchange Bank, 138 Broadway, corner of Liberty Street is s 
 splendid building of Caen stone. 
 
niSTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 603 
 
 Exchange Bank, a few doors south of Warren Street ; the 
 elegant stores on the grounds of the old New York Hospi- 
 tal ; the Ninth National Bank Building, between Walker 
 and Lispenard Streets ; the large iron building on the site 
 of the well known Costar property, which has a frontage 
 of seventy-five feet on Broadway, and extends back two 
 hundred feet to Mercer Street ; and the iron store of A. 
 T. Stewart, occupying an entire block, until, in Union 
 Square, we come to two fine iron buildings on the former 
 site of Dr. Cheever's Church. But perhaps the two most 
 costly buildings which deserve especially to be noticed are 
 those of the Equitable Assurance Company and the New 
 York Insurance Company. The building of the former 
 Company, at the corner of Broadway and Cedar Street, is 
 probably the strongest and most solid structure in the 
 United States. The building is of Concord granite, and 
 
 The Bank of Commerce, in Nassau Street, facing the Post-office, is one of 
 tlie finest marble edlGces iu tlie city. Its capital is $10,000,000. 
 
 Duncan, Sherman & Co.'s Banking House is built of brown stone, and stands 
 on the corner of Nassau and Pine Streets; it cost $150,000. Adjoiuiag- this is 
 another splendid establishment — the Continental Bank. 
 
 The Bank of the Republic is situated at the corner of Broadway and Wall 
 Street ; it is a noble edifice, built of brown stone ; its entire cost is estimated 
 at about $175,000. Its capital is $2,000,000. 
 
 The Metropolitan is also built of brown stone, and is located at the corner 
 of Pine Street and Broadway ; its cost is stated at $160,000. 
 
 The Bank of the Commonwealth, 15 Nassau Street, is a beautiful brown 
 stone structure of elegant proportions. 
 
 The Bank of America is one of the old established banks, situated 46 Wall 
 Street. Its capital is $3,000,000. 
 
 On the corner of Wall and William Streets is another fine edifice, the Bank 
 of New York, recently built with brick and brown stone facings. Its capital is 
 $3,000,000. 
 
 The Bank of North America, 44 Wall Street, has a capital of $1,000,000. 
 
 Broadway Bank, corner of Broadway and Park Place, is a massive brown 
 stone building ; its cost is stated at $137,000. 
 
 The Park Bank, 214 and 317 Broadway, is a recent establishment, with a 
 capital of $3,000,000. 
 
 The Phenix Bank, 45 Wall Street. 
 
 The Shoe and Leather Bank, corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, has 
 a capital of $1,000,000. 
 
 The Union Bank, 34 Wall Street, has a capital of $1,500,000. 
 
604 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the successive stories are in the doric and composite 
 orders, surmounted bj a balustrade, dormer windows, and 
 a double-pitched French roof. The elevation of the build- 
 ing is one hundred and twenty-five feet from the side- 
 walk, and it is readily discerned above all other houses 
 in approaching the city from the ocean. Over the main 
 entrance is placed an allegorical group, representing the 
 Guardian Angel of Life Insurance stretching an arm of 
 protection over the widow and fatherless. The cost of 
 the structure was one million five hundred thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 EQUITABLK BniLDINtt. 
 
 The New York Insurance Company's building, on the 
 corner of Broadway and Leonard — the site formerly occu- 
 pied by Appleton & Co., and more recently by S. B. Chit- 
 tenden & Co., until the latter were burned out — is also an 
 ornament to the city, and cost, exclusive of the ground, 
 one million of dollars. It is -in many respects like the 
 Equitable ; but though very strongly built, it lacks that 
 massiveness that is apparent in the walls and solid stone 
 pillars of the other. 
 
 White Street has also been built up rapidly, and so 
 valuable has it become that lots now sell readily for $50,- 
 000 to $60,000 each ; and it would scarcely be credited— 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 605 
 
 at least by a Rip Van Winkle— that three hundred feet 
 nearer Broadway will make an average difference of 
 $6,000 or $7,000. A very fine building was erected on 
 this street the present year, intended for the straw-goods 
 trade, at a cost of $50,000 for the building and $65,000 
 for the lot. It is chiefly of iron, and measures 25x100 
 feet.* 
 
 In this connection it will be interesting to quote an 
 article which appeared in the Historical Magazine for Feb- 
 ruary, 1868 : 
 
 " Broadway, Past and Present.— We have received a communication 
 whicli gives some interesting facts concerning tlie territory of Broadway. Our 
 correspondent, -vvlio lived in New York in 1800, says : 
 
 ' It occurred to me a few days since, wlien I noticed in your columns tUe 
 advertisement of sale at auction, by E, H. Ludlow, of the plot of ground on 
 the corner of Broadway and Canal Street, that it might interest some of your 
 young readers, and those who have, within the past ten years, made our city 
 their residence, to learn a few facts about the early territory of Broadway. 
 The above plot, which the owners, I am told, have refused to sell for four hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, I know was purchased by John Jay, the graudfatlier of 
 the present owners, for the sum of one thousand dollars, and had he or his 
 son William lived a century beyond tliis they would never have sold it. In 
 their day they never believed in selling real estate ; so it was with the late 
 owner of the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, Benjamiu Stevens. He 
 purchased that lot for one thousand dollars. The corner of Broadway and 
 Broome Street was bought by a barber for five hupdred dollars, and remained 
 in the hands of his heirs until within a few years. The Jay lot above referred 
 to is held under lease by Patrick Dickie, at a rent of two thousand dollars per 
 annum, and for which he receives from the occupants about sixty thousand do] ■ 
 
 * In order to show the immense percentage paid on investments made in 
 real estate, we give an authentic table of the value gf a few of the builditgs 
 referred to in the text, and the rents that are expected for them by their 
 owners : 
 
 Buildings. Cost. Rent Tikpected. 
 
 Marble Store $50,000 .... $13,000 
 
 Iron Store 95,000 .... 25,000 
 
 Factory 45,000 .... 10,000 
 
 Store, Iron 110,000 .... 28,000 
 
 Store 70,000 .... 18,000 
 
 Store 70,000 .... 16,000 
 
 Store 135,000 .... 35,000 
 
 By which it appears that the rental averages a little more than twenty-five 
 per cent, on the outlay. 
 
606 HISTORT OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 lars. It may not be generally known that the site wliere Stewart's store 
 stands, on Broadway and Reade Street, was formerly occupied by a hotel 
 known as Washington Hall, and that it was so far from the business center of 
 the city that country merchants would not go out to it, and every one failed 
 who kept the hotel. The lot owned by Gemmel, the watchmaker, ou the cor- 
 ner of Broadway and Duane Street, was sold in 1813 for fifteen hundred dollars 
 down. It was the first house built in the city with an under cellar. About 
 fifteen years since, when walking up Broadway with one of our old Irish resi- 
 dents, he mentioned that he had seen lots sold since his arrival in New York, 
 on Broadway, for one thousand dollars, which were then worth about seven thou- 
 sand. He lamented his neglect in not availing himself of the chances of making 
 a fortune in Broadway property, which he had suflFered to pass. The same lots 
 to-day are worth one hundred thousand dollars ; yet I am told by those who 
 know, that lots in London, situated with equal business advantages to lots on 
 Broadway, in the most favorable locations, are worth in London quite double 
 the present value on Broadway. All owners of Broadway property should 
 bear in mind that there is but one Broadway in the world, and they have only 
 to 1 earn themselves, and to teach their heirs, to wait ; and while waiting they 
 will get a large interest upon present values, and in twenty years from to-day 
 the values will be double ; and it is more than probable they will be increased 
 to more than three times the present prices they are selling at.' " 
 
 The following account of an auction sale, held the 11th 
 of January 1872, and clipped from the New York Tribune^ is 
 also in point : 
 
 " A large attendance of wealthy real estate owners attended the sale con- 
 ducted by Messrs. Muller, Wilkins & Co., under direction of the executors of 
 the late Daniel Devlin. The property comprises four first-class marble stores 
 and lots on the north side of Canal Street, 237 feet east of Broadway, known 
 as Nos. 361, 36^, 365 and 367 Canal Street, and two five-story stores and lots on 
 the South side of Howard Street, connecting with the Canal Street property — 
 lot on Canal Street 100 x 110, lot on Howard Street 49.8 s 100. By direction of 
 Mr. Devlin's will the property was sold at auction. The executors oflfered the 
 whole in one lot, and, after languid bidding by a few prominent capitalists, it 
 was sold to Mr. E. S. Higgins for $363,000. The stores are now rented, on a 
 lease expiring May 1st, for $55,000, and are sublet for $72,000. 
 
 " Adrian H. Muller sold, by order of the Supreme C-ourt, under direction of 
 W. W. Goodrich, referee, one-third interest in the two blocks of ground on the 
 north side of Sixty-first Street, and commencing at Eighth Avenue. The 
 property' was struck off at $65,000, and was purchased by the parties in interest. 
 
 " Messrs. Arnold, Constable & Co. have recently purchased two lots on the 
 north-east corner of Eighty-third Street and Fifth Avenue for $95,000, payino- 
 $55,000 for the corner lot and $40,000 for the one adjoining." 
 
 Before closing the record of this year allu.sion should 
 be made to the elegant buildings of the Youno- Men's 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 607 
 
 Christian Association, Booth's Theater, and the Grand 
 Opera-house. 
 
 The Young Men's Christian Association of New York 
 City was organized' July, 1852, and incorporated April, 
 1860, for the " Improvement of the Spiritual, Mental, 
 Social, and Physical Condition of Young Men." The 
 Association seeks to accomplish the purposes of its organ- 
 ization by the employment of the following agencies, 
 namely : Free Reading-Rooms, a Free Circulating and a 
 Free Reference Library, Sunday Evening Sermons, Free 
 Lectures at Rooms, Prayer Meetings, Bible Classes, Social 
 and Musical Meetings, Readings, a Literary Society, and 
 a Musical Society ; by aiding in the selection of good 
 boarding-places; by obtaining, as far as possible, situations 
 for those who are out of employment ; by visiting and 
 relieving those who are sick and in want ; by introducing 
 strangers to fit persons for friends and acquaintances, and 
 to suitable church connections ; and by the use of every 
 other means in harmony with the name it bears, that may 
 tend to cheer, aid, and guide young men, especially such 
 as come from country homes or foreign lands.* 
 
 It was soon found, however, that the general rooms 
 of the Association, which were situated at 161 Fifth 
 Avenae, were entirely too small to accommodate the con- 
 stantly increasing influx of young men. Accordingly, in 
 1868, a A^ery valuable plot of land on the south-west cor- 
 ner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street was pur- 
 chased, at a cost of one hundred and forty-two thousand 
 dollars, for the erection of a building worthy of the work 
 to which the Association had devoted its energies. The 
 
 * " Hundreds of young men," writes Mr. McBurney, the Secretary, to tlie 
 writer, " from all parts of our own land, as well aa from Europe, come to us 
 for advice on temporal and spiritual things. We are careful not to make pub- 
 lic the cases which come under our notice, so'tliat young men may come to us 
 with full confidence when in difficulty. Many who havo been thus quietly 
 helped are now holding prominent positions in the city." 
 
608 
 
 HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 vigor and good judgment with which the Association con- 
 ducted its work gave to it the full confidence of the very 
 best men in the city (its real estate is held by a Board of 
 Trustees, composed of such men as Stewart Brown, 
 
 itiiifti 
 iiiii 
 
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 » 
 p 
 
 o 
 
 Robert L. Stuart, James Stokes, Charles C. Colgate, Robert 
 Lenox Kennedy, Jonathan Sturges, and others), and the 
 result was that in the summer of this year the building 
 
BOOTH'S THEATRE, 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.. 609 
 
 was completed and thorougbly furnished at a cost of 
 about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The 
 building itself stands directly opposite the Academy of 
 Design, on the south-west corner of Fourth Avenue and 
 Twenty-third Street. It is acknowledged to be one of 
 the finest specimens of the Renaissance order of archi- 
 tecture in the city. The roof is of the steep Mansard 
 pattern, presenting towers of equal height at each corner 
 of the building, and a larger tower (windowed) over the 
 entrance (on Twenty-third Street), which is simple and 
 elegant. The dimensions of the building are one hundred 
 and seventy-five feet on Twenty-third Street, eighty- 
 three feet on Fourth Avenue, and ninety-seven feet at the 
 rear. The material is New Jersey brown-stone and the 
 yellowish marble from Ohio in almost equal parts, though 
 on account of the latter composing the trimming mate- 
 rial the brown stone gives the building the controlling 
 air. The building contains twenty-five apartments in all, 
 including gymnasium, library, lecture-rooms, offices, etc. 
 Besides this general building, the Association has rooms at 
 76 Varick Street, One Hundred and Twenty-Second 
 Street and Third Avenue, and at 97 Wooster Street, for 
 colored young men. 
 
 " Branching off along the same street, to the west of 
 Fifth Avenue, will bring us to Booth's new theater, on the 
 corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. The 
 building is in the Renaissance style of architecture, and 
 stands seventy-five feet high from the sidewalk to the 
 main cornice, crowning which is a Mansard roof of twenty- 
 four feet. The theater proper fronts one hundred and 
 forty-nine feet on Twenty-third Street, and is divided into 
 three parts, so combined as to form an almost perfect 
 whole, with arched entrances at either extremity on the 
 side for the admission of the public, and on the other for 
 another entrance and the use of actors and those employed 
 
 77 
 
glO HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 in the house. There are three doors on the frontage, 
 devised for securing the most rapid egress of a crowded 
 audience in case of fire, and, in connection with other 
 facilities, said to permit the building to be vacated in five 
 minutes. On either side of these main entrances are 
 broad and lofty windows ; and above them, forming a part 
 of the second story, are niches for statues, surrounded by 
 coupled columns resting on finely-sculptured pedestals. The 
 central or main niche is flanked on either side by quaintly- 
 contrived blank windows ; and between the columns, at 
 the depths of the recesses, are simple pilasters, sustaining 
 the elliptic arches, which will serve to span and top the 
 niches, the latter to be occupied by statues of the great 
 creators and interpreters of the drama in every age and 
 country. The finest Concord granite, from the best quar- 
 ries in New Hampshire, is the material used in the entire 
 fagade, as well as in the Sixth Avenue side. The interior 
 — probably the most complete and elegant in the world — 
 is equally deserving of notice. It is subdivided, architect- 
 urally speaking, into four heights. The first and lower- 
 most embraces the parquet, circle, and orchestra scats, for 
 the accommodation of eight hundred persons. The second 
 tier is thrown into the dress-circle ; the third constitutes 
 the family circle ; and the fourth embraces the gallery, 
 or amphitheater. There is something of the French 
 model suggested by the general effect of the interior, but 
 there are many graceful and pleasing originalities. The 
 stage is fifty-five feet in breadth, seventy-five feet in depth, 
 fifty in total height, and is set in a beautiful ornamental 
 framework, so as to give the effect of a gorgeously framed 
 picture to the mise en scene. The boxes are tastefully 
 arranged on either side of the stage ; and all of the inte- 
 rior divisions and subdivisions unite in their construction 
 the latest and most improved appliances for celerity and 
 ease in the manifold operations of the entire company. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. QH 
 
 Taken from a point embracing the Sixth Avenue and 
 Twenty-third Street fagades, the glittering granite mass, 
 exquisitely poised, adorned with rich and appropriate 
 carving, statuary, columns, pilasters, and arches, and 
 capped by the springing French roof, fringed with its 
 shapely balustrades, offers an imposing and majestic 
 aspect, and forms one of the architectural jewels of the 
 city. 
 
 "The Grand Opera-house is an imposing and elegant 
 structure, and occupies the block on Eighth Avenue between 
 Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Streets. It is estimated 
 to have cost nearly half a million of dollars. It fronts 
 one hundred and thirteen feet on the Avenue, and ninety- 
 eight feet on Twenty-third Street, and is eighty feet high 
 from the base to the cornice. It has a basement and four 
 floors — the former being occupied by a warming appara- 
 tus, and as a general store-room for the theater. The main 
 entrance to the theater is twenty-one feet wide, and leads 
 up a passage eighty feet long into a vestibule forty- 
 five by seventy-two feet. Thence the visitor passes up the 
 main staircase, twelve feet wide, which conducts him 
 directly into the dress-circle. The upper stories, which 
 are divided into the family-circle and the amphitheater, 
 have their entrance on Twenty-third Street. The parquet 
 and orchestra are arranged in the usual manner — the for- 
 mer occupying the elevation of the inclined plane. The 
 stage is seventy-two by seventy-six feet, which, including 
 the proscenium, makes a total depth of eighty-four feet. 
 It is capitally adapted for setting elaborate scenes and 
 spectacles, the ground beneath being excavated to the 
 depth of twenty-five feet. The scenery is so arranged as 
 to descend through the stage and slide at the sides in the 
 usual way. The exterior of the building is a good speci- 
 men of the Italian order of architecture. At the top, over 
 the main entrance, is a statuesque group representing 
 
gj^2 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 Apollo and Erato. Below this are medallions of Shake- 
 speare and Mozart; and on either side of the window 
 below are large figures representing Comedy and Tragedy. 
 Emblazoned coats-of-arms brighten the main entrance on 
 either side. One of the most praiseworthy features of this 
 noble theater is the ease with which the audience can 
 make their exit from the building in case of fire— there 
 being no less than seven exits leading directly to the 
 stree°ts, and all readily accessible. ' The front of the the- 
 ater, on Eighth Avenue, is of solid marble, with orna- 
 mental cornice ; and the interior is lighted by chandeliers 
 in a dome thirty feet in diameter." * 
 
 Indeed, it needs no prophetic vision to foretell that 
 soon New York will have justly entitled herself to the 
 name of the City of Palaces. In fact, only two things are 
 now apparently required to enable the keystone to be 
 placed upon the edifice begun by our Dutch ancestors, 
 viz., a good municipal government, and a safe and rapid 
 means of transit from the upper to the lower portions of 
 the island. From the peculiar topographical situation of 
 New York — it being, in effect, a long and narrow penin- 
 sula — the, population, unable to spread itself out on each 
 side, is either obliged to reside on the opposite banks of 
 two rivers, or is forced into the upper portion of the 
 island — either of which alternatives is extremely incon- 
 venient to the business community. To lessen this in- 
 convenience various schemes have been devised, such as 
 an "arcade railroad" underneath Broadway, or a horse- 
 car railroad on the surface of the same thoroughfare. 
 There was also this year a pneumatic railroad started 
 underground, at the corner of Wari-ea Street and 
 Broadway, which has been carried as far as Murray ; 
 while an elevated railroad, on iron pillars, was com- 
 
 * New York Illustrated. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 613 
 
 pleted on Greenwich Street from the Battery to Thirtieth 
 Street, though the cars are not yet making regular trips. 
 Neither of these plans, however, meet all the requirements 
 of the case, and it is evident that a mode of transit fulfiUing 
 all the conditions of success has yet to be invented. It can- 
 not, however, be doubted that, with the fertility of 
 expedients which New-Yorkers have always shown 
 to meet any exigencies that might arise, this desirable 
 consummation is only a question of time. 
 
 The opening of the year 1870 saw the old charter 
 abolished by the Legislature, and a new one given to 
 the city. The change first had its origin in the 
 members of the Tammany organization sep- 
 arating into two bitter opposing factions called re- 
 spectively the "Old" and "Young" Democracy — the 
 former being led on the war-path by Wm. M. Tweed, and 
 the latter by Sheriff O'Brien. After much angry dis- 
 putation, both in this city and in the halls of the State 
 Capitol, the " Old Democracy " triumphed, and carried 
 through the new charter. While the fate of that instru- 
 ment was in abeyance, the excitement ran high, and 
 man}'^ old and staunch Republicans united, or more jDrop- 
 erly espoused, for the time being, the cause of the 
 "Young Democracy," whose watchword professed to be 
 " thorough reform in all departments of our corrupt city 
 government." Indeed, so important did it appear that 
 .the old charter should be retained, or rather that the 
 new one should be defeated, that the president of the 
 Union League Club, Hon. Jackson L. Schultz, hastily 
 called a meeting on the evening of the 2d of April, at 
 which a committee of fifteen, with the Hon. Horace 
 Greeley as chairman, was appointed to proceed to Albany 
 at the earliest possible moment, and " protest emphati- 
 cally against the passage of the charter now before the 
 Senate^ unless it is essentially amended." But although 
 
614 
 
 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 the committee performed their duties faithfully, even to 
 opposing it on the floor of the Senate, their efforts availed 
 little ; and although a few modifications were introduced 
 into it, yet the Central Park Commission, with their 
 powers, were changed ; and the new charter was given 
 to the city substantially in its original shape.* 
 
 * The old and new departments compare as follows : 
 New. 
 Finance. 
 Law. 
 Police. 
 
 Public Works. 
 Charities and Correction. 
 Fire. 
 Health. 
 Public Parks. 
 Buildings. 
 Docks 
 
 Old. 
 Finance. 
 Law. 
 Police. 
 
 Croton Board. 
 Street Department. 
 Charities and Correction. 
 Fire. 
 Health. 
 Central Park. 
 Buildings. 
 
 The number of these departments remains the same, though two old ones 
 are consolidated, and one entirely new one created. 
 
 The direct power of the people in the election of public officers under the 
 new charter, and as formerly exercised, compares as follows : 
 
 Under New Charier. 
 The people elect- 
 Mayor. 
 
 Corporation Counsel. 
 Aldermen, who are also Super- 
 visors. 
 Assistant Aldermen. 
 School Officers. 
 Judicial and County Officers. 
 
 Under the Old System. 
 The people elected — 
 Mayor. 
 
 Corporation Counsel. 
 Comptroller. 
 
 Aldermen and Assistants. 
 Supervisors. 
 School Officers. 
 Judicial and County Officers. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the sum of these changes shows a very considerable 
 loss in the people, even if the various commissioners and other officers were 
 appointed by a Mayor elected for that purpose. But when it is remembered 
 that the appointments are all made by an official about retiring from office, to 
 be succeeded by a Mayor who can exercise no control whatever over any of 
 these executive departments, it will be apparent that the City Government, 
 instead of being more democratic than under the old system, is in reality a 
 great deal less so. 
 
 At the present time of writing, lio\'ever (January, 1873), the presumption 
 is, that the " new charter " will be entirely abolished by the present Legisla- 
 ture now in session; the State election held on the 7th of November, 1871, 
 having returned a majority of members to both houses pledged to its repeal. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 6I5 
 
 The main peculiarity of the new charter, stripped of 
 all of its verbiage, appears to consist in two things, viz. . 
 first, that the various commissions which ruled so many 
 departments of the city government and were appointed 
 by the Governor of the State, instead of being elected by 
 the people, are retained, with this difference, that the ap- 
 pointing power is vested in the Mayor of the city of New 
 York ; and secondly, that the old system of choosing in- 
 spectors of election is re-established, while the registry 
 law is also retained. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The 3'ear 1871 will always be memorable from the 
 occurrence of three events — one of pleasant and two of 
 painful memories. These were : first, the Orange ^^^^ 
 Riot; second, the noble manner in which the 
 city of New York responded to the request of the suffer- 
 ers of the Great Chicago Fire for relief; and, third, 
 the culmination and exposure of the gigantic' frauds, and 
 the downfall of the " Tammany Ring." 
 
 The Orange Riot, which at one time promised to be 
 as disastrous in its effect upon life and property as the 
 " Draft Riot " of the Civil War, occurred on the after- 
 noon of Wednesday, the 12 th of July. Numerous threats 
 having been made by the Roman Catholics against the 
 Orangemen should they turn out in procession in honor 
 of the victory won by the Prince of Orange at the battle 
 of the Boyne, the Mayor issued a proclamation forbidding 
 the parade. This step, however, at once aroused such an 
 outburst of indignation, irrespective of party — not only 
 in the city but throughout the country — that Governor 
 Hoffman hastened to issue, on the morning of the day, 
 a counter-proclamation, guaranteeing the safety of all 
 Orangemen who should join in the celebration. The 
 procession accordingly formed at the head-quarters of the 
 Oiangemen, on the corner of Twenty-ninth Street and 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 617 
 
 Eighth Avenue, and began its march under the escort of 
 four militia regiments, the Seventh, Ninth, Twenty-second, 
 and Eighty-fourth, and a large force of policemen. Scarcely 
 however, had the procession begun its march, when it 
 was attacked at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 
 Twenty-sixth Street, both with missiles and fire-arms, 
 hurled and discharged from the street and neighboring 
 housetops. The Seventh Regiment, followed by the 
 Eighty-fourth and the Ninth, thereupon, acting under 
 general though not specific orders, began firing on the 
 crowd by sections, and with such effect that the mob were 
 quickly dispersed. As is almost always the case on such 
 occasions, several innocent persons were unavoidably killed. 
 Still, it is believed that the promptness with which the 
 military opened fire was the means of preventing a vast 
 amount of bloodshed. The number of those who were 
 killed in this riot was sixty- two. 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, the 6th of October, the 
 citizens of New York city were startled by the news 
 which flashed along the telegraphic wires that a terrific 
 .fire was raging in a sister city. Nor were the emotions 
 to which this intelligence gave rise dissipated when, on 
 the next day, and the next, news came that the fire was 
 still burning with increasing fury, and on the day fol- 
 lowing the further intelligence that, although the fire 
 had been extinguished by a providential rain, yet it was 
 not until five square miles of Chicago had been reduced 
 to ashes, one hundred thousand people rendered houseless, 
 and several hundred persons burned to death. 
 
 In response to the cry for help that went up from the 
 stricken city, instant and abundant relief was sent from 
 every part of the Union. Wherever the news was carried 
 it awakened the best impulses of human nature. The 
 General Government sent thousands of tents and army 
 
 78 
 
618 HISTOEY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 rations. Societies and private citizens sent money, cloth- 
 ing, and provisions. Railroad companies dispatched spe- 
 cial trains laden with these gifts. From Canada and from 
 Europe came expressions of sympathy and proffers of 
 assistance. Foremost among all in the good work was 
 New York city. On Monday and Tuesday, whUe the 
 fire was in progress, nearly all business was suspended 
 Crowds surrounded the bulletin boards of the newspaper 
 and telegraph offices ; men meeting with men could talk 
 of nothing save the great and — as all considered it — 
 national calamity ; and although there was scarcely a per- 
 son whose business was not more or less injured by the 
 fire, yet when the event was spoken of it was to express 
 heartfelt sympathy with the sufferers — personal consider- 
 ations were cast entirely aside. 
 
 As soon as the extent of the disaster was known, 
 meetings were held for the purpose of raising contribu- 
 tions in money and clothing in aid of the victims ; collec- 
 tions were taken up at the diiferent churches ; the pro- 
 prietors of the New York Tribune offered any Chicago 
 newspaper the use of a duplicate set of type and presses ; 
 A. T. Stewart gave individually fifty thousand dollars; 
 and wagons went through thb streets bearing large 
 placards, with the words : " We take Contributions for 
 THE Chicago sutferers." Public and private liberality 
 walked hand in hand. In less than two weeks the hand- 
 some amount in money and material of nearly three mil- 
 lions of dollars was raised and forwarded to Chicago. The 
 City of New York had acquitted herself nobly. 
 
 Although it had long been known by the citizens of 
 New York,^ and the people throughout the country gene- 
 rally, that immense frauds were being perpetrated by cer- 
 tain persons ycleped " members of the Tammany Ring," 
 yet It was not until the early summer of this year that 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. gjg 
 
 the people were fully aroused, both to the alarming state 
 of alFairs and to the necessity of bringing the guilty par- 
 ties to justice. Accordingly a vigorous attack upon the 
 "Ring" was first made by the New York Tijnes, which, 
 in a series of able editorials, exposed, by the publication 
 of the exoi'bitant sums paid for different articles furnished 
 the city government and other documents, the iniquitous 
 proceedings by which the tax-payers of the city had been 
 robbed of their money. There was the record of mil- 
 lions paid away for work that never was done, supplies 
 that never were furnished, chairs and carpets that never 
 were seen in any of the city or county ofl&ces. There 
 were warrants drawn in favor of men who had no exist- 
 ence, and indorsed to the order of particular friends and 
 instruments of the "Ring," There were proofs of the 
 most daring forgery as well as of wholesale robbery. The 
 whole country was aroused. Even Europe rang with the 
 scandal. 
 
 At first the leaders of the "Ring" contented them- 
 selves with replying either by gibes or by the argumentum 
 ad Imninem — referring to alleged frauds in the departments 
 of the Federal Government. At length, however, the 
 sledge-hammer blows dealt day after day in the columns 
 of the Times began to tell, and the "Ring" leaders, relin- 
 quishing their former tactics of treating the accusations 
 lightly, and as a thing to be settled merely by a pert 
 repartee, resorted to various quibbles. The Mayor, for 
 example, stated that he had acted " ministerially," and 
 had, therefore, " no personal responsibility." He also said 
 that his name had been forged to duplicate bills, while the 
 other officers of the municipal government, following the 
 same line, assumed an air of entire ignorance regarding 
 their alleged fraudulent practices. 
 
 Meanwhile the disclosures of corruption and malfea- 
 sance in ofiice were of so astounding a nature that the 
 
620 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 people were at length aroused to the importance of vigor- 
 ous measures, and joined in a general demand for some 
 action that would lead to the deposition of the men who 
 had violated their oaths of office and betrayed their high 
 trusts, chief among whom were mentioned A. Oakey 
 Hall, Mayor ; Peter B. Sweeney, President of the Com- 
 mission of Public Parks ; William M. Tweed, Commis- 
 sioner of Public Works ; and Richard B. Connolly, Comp- 
 troller of the City and County of New York — public 
 officers commonly known as the " Ring " rulers of this 
 city. 
 
 In obedience to the popular demand the following call 
 was issued and published in the public newspapers : 
 
 " A meeting of citizens and tax-payers, irrespective of party, to consider 
 the present condition of the city finances in view of the charofes of corruption 
 that have been made in respect to them, and to take such action as the public 
 safety may require, will be held at the Cooper Union on Monday, September 
 4th, 1871, at 8 P. M. Hon. Wm. F. Havemeyer will preside. Hon. Edward 
 Salomon, Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt, Hon. James Emott, Hon. Oswald Otten- 
 dorfer, Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, Hon. Thomas A. Led with, and others, have 
 accepted invitations to address the meeting. All persona opposed to the cor- 
 rupt administration of city affairs are respectfnlly invited to attend. 
 
 In response to this call Cooper Union was crowded on 
 the evening of the 4th of September in every part, and 
 long before the - hour announced for the opening of the 
 meeting thousands of citizens were obliged to return to 
 their homes, unable to obtain admission. 
 
 At eight o'clock, James M. Brown, Esq., of the firm 
 of Messrs. Brown Brothers & Co., bankers, called the 
 meeting to order, and nominated for chairman the Hon. 
 William F. Havemeyer, ex-Mayor of the city of New 
 York. The organization was completed by the election 
 of two hundred and twenty-seven Vice-Presidents and 
 fifteen Secretaries. These were chosen from among the 
 most distinguished citizens of New York city. 
 
 At this meeting, after the subject for which it had 
 been called had been ably presented by speakers of both 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 621 
 
 parties, Joseph H. Choate, Esq., reported a series of reso- 
 lutions, which were unanimously adopted, and are ap- 
 pended, and a committee of seventy citizens and tax-pay- 
 ers was chosen in accordance with the recommendation 
 therein contained. 
 
 THE RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 • "Resolved, That the tax-payers and citizens of New York have learned with 
 astonishment and alarm that the funded and bonded debt of the city and 
 county has been more than doubled within the last two and a half years ; that 
 the acknowledged indebtedness of the city and county is now upward of 
 $113,000,000, being over $63,000,000 more than it was when the present Mayor 
 took his office, and that there is reason to believe that there are floating con- 
 tingent or pretended debts and claims against the city and county which will 
 amount to many millions of dollars in addition, which will be paid out of the 
 City and Co\mty Treasury, unless the present financial officers are removed or 
 their proceedings arrested. 
 
 " Resolved, That the distinct, precise, and emphatic charges in regard to the 
 use and expenditure of this enormous sum, and the fraudulent niisappropria- 
 tion of the public money, which have been made against the present city and 
 county officials, have been met by these officers with contemptuous denials of 
 any power to interfere, with flippant evasions, with studied concealment of a 
 large part of the public accounts, and with attempts to garble and confuse the 
 residue, and by. the other parties implicated with an utter silence, which is a 
 confession of their guilt. 
 
 "Resolved, That the facts and figures already disclosed compel us, as they 
 must all honest and reflecting men, to the conclusion that enormous sums of 
 money have been wrongfully taken from the public treasury ; that millions of 
 dollars have been paid to a few firms and individuals for work never performed 
 and materials never furnished, and this with the procurement or connivance 
 of persons now holding the principal offices of trust and profit under the pres- 
 ent charter ; that exorbitant rents are paid for military armories and offices, 
 and in several instances in rooms which do not exist or are not occupied. 
 That the lono- and continued concealment of the accounts of the city proper 
 furnishes oround to believe that these accounts will disclose facts, if possible, yet 
 more astounding, and will show that the same men who have squandered or 
 stolen hundreds of thousands of the tax-payers' moneys are still engaged in 
 similar frauds and peculations. 
 
 " Resolved, That the public officers directly arraigned at the bar of public 
 judgment for these offenses, are William M. Tweed, now Commissioner of the 
 Department of Public Works, some time President of the former Board of 
 Supervisors, and afterward one of the ' Interim ' Board, who had notoriously 
 u controlling influence in the first of these Boards and shared in the acts of the 
 other and who from his relations to parties in whose name bills were pre- 
 sented and to whom they were ordered to be paid, is open to the suspicion, 
 not only of having planned the swindle, but of having shared the plunder; 
 Richard B. Connolly, the present Comptroller, and A. Oakey Hall, the present 
 
622 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Mayor, who were also members of the 'Interim' Board which sanctioned the 
 payment of several millions of dollars, contrary to law and right, but who also 
 signed the warrants and consented to the payments which tbey confess they 
 had the power to expose, if not to arrest ; and unless these officers can meet 
 the charges by other evidence and on different pleas than have yet been fur- 
 nished in their behalf, the credit of the city of New York and the material 
 interests of its citizens will demand that they quit or be deprived of the offices 
 which they have dishonored and the power they are abusing. 
 
 " Resolved, That we have a right to, and do, demand a full and detailed 
 exhibit of the public receipts and expenditures for the past two years and a 
 half, and of the real and pretended liabilities of the city and county of New 
 York, including its funded and its floating debt. This demand is not simply 
 to show whether the men who have used money of the city and created its now 
 enormous debt, can produce vouchers or accounts for every payment, or 
 whether the books of the Comptroller will balance, but what is the total 
 amount which has been collected from taxes, received from revenue and bor- 
 rowed upon the credit of the city ; and what has been done with the money, to 
 whom it has been paid and upon what considerations and pretense, in every 
 instance. 
 
 " Resolved, That the citizens of the city have also a right to know, and are 
 determined to ascertain, who are and have been on the pay-rolls of the City 
 Government, what pay they receive and what services they render, as well as 
 who have actually profited by the enormous payments of bills or accoxmts, 
 obviously exceeding any value received by the city ; who are represented by 
 the fictitious names alleged to appear in these accounts, and to what extent 
 any members of the present City Government are concerned, in real partner- 
 ships or under fictitious names, in the plunder of the public treasury. 
 
 " Resolved, That any legal remedy which is now available to citizens at 
 large to fully ascertain and disclose frauds charged upon the city and county 
 officers, and to recover the money wrongfully taken thereby from the public 
 treasury, should be resorted to, and that if no such remedies are found to exist, 
 then the law should be altered so as to enable citizens and tax-payers, under 
 proper restrictions aud regulations, to call officers intrusted by them with 
 power and money to legal account, and to invoke the arm of justice to discover 
 fraud in public officers and to prevent or redress the dishonest appropriation 
 of public money. 
 
 " Resolved, That we appeal to the next Legislature of the State to repeal the 
 charter and laws by which the present rulers of the city have obtained and 
 perpetuated their power, and to give to the city of New York a form of gov- 
 ernment such as shall be devised or approved of by our wisest and best citizens, 
 ami shall enable us to secure an honest and efficient administration of the laws. 
 
 " Resolved, That the citizens of this city are earnestly entreated to make 
 the reform of their own government the one controlling issue at the next elec- 
 tion, to support no man for office, and especially for the Legislature of the 
 State, no matter what may be his party name, who is not known to be both 
 honest and incorruptible, and determined and distinctly pledged, so far as he is 
 able, whatever may be the consequences, to reform the city of New York ; and 
 that our fellow-citizens throughout the State are entreated to join ns in the 
 effort to redress evils which concern them hardly less than ourselves. 
 
HISTORY OP NKW TOEK CITT. 623 
 
 "Resolved, That the public credit, character, and the business interests of 
 this great and growing city imperatively demand that its citizens be kept fully 
 and constantly informed of the issue of any public stock, bonds, or other evi- 
 dences of debt binding the real or personal property of the city or its citizens ; 
 and further, that legal provision should be made for preventing any such 
 issue not especially authorized, or exceeding the amount specifically appropri- 
 ated for that purpose (by means, if necessary, of officers to be elected by the 
 people of this city, in such manner as to secure the representation of the vcholo 
 people, the minority as well as the majority). 
 
 " Resoliied, That the thanks of the community are due to the public news- 
 papers who have contributed to enlighten the public mind and to form and 
 give utterance to public opinion upon these issues, and especially to the New 
 York Times, for its fearless and searching investigation and exposure of the 
 public accounts and of the conduct of the present officers of the city. 
 
 " Resolved, That an Executive Committee of seventy members be appointed 
 by the President of this meeting, whose duty it shall be to take such meas- 
 ures as shall be necessary or expedient to carry out the objects for which we 
 are assembled, to demand a full exhibition of all the accounts of the city and 
 county, and an explicit statement of all the persons to whom, and the pretenses 
 upon which the large payments of the past two years and a half have been 
 made ; to enforce any remedies which now exist to obtain this information if 
 it is refused, and to recover whatever sums of money have been fraudulently 
 or feloniously abstracted ; and also to impress upon the Legislature and Gov- 
 ernor of the State such measures of legislation and action as may be necessary 
 or proper to enforce the existing laws, and to supply their defects, and to 
 remove the cause of the present abuses ; and finally, to assist, sustain, and 
 direct an united effort, by the citizens of New York, without reference to party, 
 to obtain a good government and honest officers to administer it ; and the said 
 committee are hereby authorized to call upon all citizens interested in good 
 government to contribute such funds as may be needed to execute the powers 
 intrusted to them, and also to fill vacancies and add to their number." 
 
 The Committee of Seventy, which, like the Vice- 
 Presidents and Secretaries, was also composed of men of 
 character and position, soon afterward met and organized 
 by the selection of the following officers : 
 
 Henry G. Stebbins, Chairman. 
 William F. Havemeyer, Vice-Chairman. 
 RoswELL D. Hatch, Secretary. 
 Emil Sauer, Treasurer. 
 
 A Comn;ittee on Address was appointed, of which 
 Major J. M. Bundy was chairman, who reported " An 
 Appeal to the People of the State of New York," at 
 a special meeting of the Committee of Seventy, held in 
 
624 HISTORY OF NEW TOEK CITY. 
 
 the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce on Saturday, 
 September 23d. The Address was unanimously adopted, 
 and ordered to be printed for general circulation, together 
 with, the resolutions adopted at the meeting in Cooper 
 Union on the evening of September 4th, and the speech 
 delivered thereat by the Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt, M. C* 
 The appeal read as follows : 
 
 "On the 4th of this month the people of the City of New York assembled 
 at Cooper Institute to give expression to the almost nniversal indignation that 
 has been growing daily deeper against corrupt municipal officials. As this 
 expression was deliberate and not spasmodic, it was not completed by the pro- 
 ceedings of the most earnest and enthusiastic meeting held in this city since 
 1861. Our best citizens, of both parties, felt that the hour had come when all 
 lawful means must be used to redeem the city from plunderers and to restore 
 her drooping credit. As the most effectual method of carrying out their pur 
 pose a Committee of Seventy was appointed, which now, as part of its work, 
 addresses the people of this State, and calls upon them to do their share toward 
 effecting a thorough and complete reform. 
 
 " What we have done here is known through the public press. What may 
 and should be done elsewhere we propose to suggest, and from the stand-point 
 of the wholly non-partisan movement which we represent. And at the outset 
 we must say, that from the time of our appointment to the present this Com 
 mittee has not misrepresented the sentiment of the meeting which called it 
 into being. 
 
 " Some of the members of this Committee have been known by reputation 
 to every intellijrent voter of this State for many years, and their words will not 
 be doubted when they say — as do all the Committee — that they have in all 
 their deliberations faithfully represented the non-partisan spirit of the great 
 • body of citizens who conferred on them the high honor of serving as their 
 spokesmen and agents. Not one word has been uttered in our most confiden- 
 tial intercourse that could be construed into proof of the slightest desire to use 
 the power of this Committee for any partisan end. We should have been not 
 only false to a most sacred trust, but untrue to the inspiration that has daily 
 come to us in the earnest support of both Democrats ana Republicans, had Wo 
 failed to realize the nature of the righteous revolution which has brought us to 
 the front. 
 
 " We have not so failed, but have given all the aid in our power to the 
 honest members of the party which is dominant here, and which is peculiarly 
 humiliated by scoundrels who have misused an honored party name as a cover 
 for their villainies. 
 
 " We appeal to citizens of both parties to save us and the State from the 
 possibility of another such degradation as has fallen on all of us, from Montauk 
 
 * For this speech see Appendix No. XI. This speech should be read in con- 
 nection with the text. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 625 
 
 Point to tlie ■westernmost and nortliernmoBt corners of New York. It lies 
 easily in your power to so assert the honest manhood that ought to prevail in 
 both parties, that no such Legislatures as those of the last few years will be 
 possible during the rest of this century. No private business, no partisan end, 
 can be so important to any right-minded citizen as the plain duties that are 
 thrown on him by recent deplorable revelations. Unfit nominations for the 
 Legislature cannot succeed, and are not likely to be made, in any district where 
 honest men are alive and awake to the issues of this campaign. The money 
 that has been accumulated from the spoils of the metropolis will be poured out 
 like water to procure the election of purchasable legislators, but it will be 
 spent in vain wherever the people are aroused by a few earnest leaders. All 
 the wealth of our city could not bribe a thoroughly awakened people or divert 
 them from their purpose. Wliether aroused by the treason that is bold and 
 armed, or by the meaner and fouler treason that makes the ballot a farce, 
 law an instrument of fraud, and courts of justice a snare, the people are equal 
 to the demand, and their loyalty and honesty are sure to conquer. 
 
 " A free and active and prosperous people like ours will endure many 
 evils in their government ; but there is no power on earth that is so irresistible 
 or so fatal to wrong-doers as the public opinion which is finally sure to be 
 roused by successive and growing enormities. 
 
 " The fountain can rise no higher than its source. When the people are 
 apathetic, and demagogues and selfish schemers make a business of politics, 
 there is no force to sustain our officials above the low level of indiiference and 
 easy morals. But the moral power of ten actively righteous men in every Assem- 
 bly district would so raise the tone of local politics that no bad man could get 
 his head high enough above the surface to command the support of either party. 
 
 " Official corruption has grown up as the result of the necessarily enormous 
 expenses of a gigantic war, of an inflated currency, of the magnificent chances 
 offered to private ambitions, of stock and gold gambling, and a universally 
 spread passion for sudden wealth and idle display. It is an evil which has 
 afflicted both parties and dragged them down from the high principles that 
 gave them origin. Honest and earnest patriots will feel the common woes and 
 humiliations that have been brought on us by the representatives of both par- 
 ties, and will be enkindled to a doubly bitter hatred of the Achans that are in 
 their own camp, and that have draggled their own banners in the mire of 
 corruption. 
 
 " In this city, where one political party has had unchecked rule for so many 
 years, and where millions could be stolen from the tax-payers without imposing 
 extra burdens that were felt as onerous by so wealthy a constituency, it is not 
 strange that prevailing corruption should have broken out in aggravated 
 forms, nor that all the evil elements in our community should have finally 
 been combined into an apparently irresistible phalanx. No such mass of bad 
 material was elsewhere to be found waiting such a masterly alliance of corrupt 
 leaders to develop all its resources of evil. Ignorance furnishes ready tools 
 of a combination that included a political craft worthy of a depraved Macchia- 
 velli, an adroitness of advocacy that was eflFective in spite of occasional buf- 
 fooneries, a coarse brutality of power that awed and inspired ruffians and low 
 nature?, and a sort of cunning that was the sublimation of the skill of the 
 sneak -thief. Given these elements, opportunities, and leaders, and the natural 
 79 
 
626 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 result was the Ring, which, until lately, hag robbed and stolen itself into power, 
 which has bought Legislatures, controlled governors, corrupted newspapers, 
 defiled courts of justice, violated the ballot-box, threatened all forms of civil 
 and religious liberty, awed the timid rich, bribed the toiling masses, and 
 cajoled respectable citizens, and which hag finally grown so strong and reckless 
 as to openly defy the intelligence and virtue which it believed to be inert, 
 voiceless, and powerless to stay its aggressions or to assert the supremacy of 
 honesty and justice. 
 
 " But you of the country must help us. This is your city, as truly as it is 
 our own. We are your factors and business agents. If we are overburdened 
 with taxes, you have to pay us the more for doing your business. The corrup- 
 tion of our municipal government could not have-grown to its present gigantic 
 proportions had our leaders of the Ring not found active support and willing 
 material in bribable members of the Legislature elected by the rural districts. 
 You must help us in our eflfort to purify our political life, and the one effica- 
 cious manner by which you can come to pur relief is to elect honest men only 
 to the next Legislature. If our city is disgraced by a senator who domineers 
 among weaker villains by mere grossness and magnitude of scoundrelism, he 
 has found willing tools among the false representatives of districts where one 
 year of his stealings would be regarded as enormous wealth. 
 
 " There is no occasion for advice from this Committee as to the details of 
 the great fight against all forms of official corruption which has made such 
 cheering progress in this city. If the feeling which prevails among all our 
 good citizens shall be shared by those who are further removed from the «vils 
 which at first appalled and then stung us into activity, earnest hearts will 
 find ready means to incarnate honest purposes in noble actions, and to redeem 
 the fair fame of our State for generations to come. We have tried to define 
 the issue as it has pressed on us. If we have succeeded, and if you feel, as we 
 do, that it is now the honest manhood of the State that is on trial, no combina- 
 tion of political tricksters can repress or even direct the swelling tide of popu- 
 lar indignation and resolve. In its presence all ordinary political issues will 
 sink out of sight, and next November will witness a vindication of the manhood 
 of the people of New York, as proud and momentous in its consequences as 
 that which was attested when the State rose as one man at the call of a differ- 
 ent form of patriotism. 
 
 " The cause of self-government is deeply involved in this campaign. Of 
 what use was it for tens of thousands of our best and bravest to lay down 
 their lives on distant fields, if our government— municipal. State, and national 
 — are to fall into the hands ot tricksters and thieves? Where is the demoral 
 ization to end that has made such appalling progress in the city of New York ? 
 Will even the local governments of the interior long withstand the inroads of 
 corruption, when weak and bad men see it glittering with diamonds, reveling 
 in private palaces, gaudy in equipages, and the master of the means of luxuri- 
 ous vice, in the metropolis of the State? How long will it he safe for you to 
 intrust your business to a community that you will not help to rid of thieves, 
 and where successful villainy sets dangerous examples to men of easy con- 
 sciences, infirm purpose, and eager ambition ? When the confidence that 
 underlies all profitable human intercourse is sapped, in so far as concerns the 
 relations between rulers and ruled among a quarter of the population of the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 627 
 
 State, where and how is the process of decay and disease to stop ? What other 
 relations of trust between man and man will be long held eacred? 
 
 " We appeal especially to the vast reserve force of voters through whose 
 criminal indifiference to their political duties the shame and disgrace that we 
 are now enduring has come upon us. At least one-third of the best classes of 
 of our people are habituaUy absent from the polls. The forces of evil are 
 active, crafty, and resolute. They are already visible all over the State, in 
 the shape of combinations to purchase votes for the Ring with offers of 
 local benefits. We believe that the temper of the people is such that it will 
 reader all these schemes futile and disastrous to their authors. The honest 
 people of this State have never before had such inspiration to redeem them- 
 selves from all the wiles of corruptionists and to teach them a lesson that will 
 be remembered for generations to come. Never has the proud motto of our 
 State been more appropriate than it will be if we do our duty this fall. In 
 our glorious resurrection of public virtue the humiliations of the past will be 
 forgotten as a hateful dream, and every institution of our society and politics 
 will feel the elevating influences of revived confidence in honesty and justice." 
 
 Thus the matter rested until the morning of the 11th 
 of September, when it was discovered(]) that the Comptrol- 
 ler's office at the City Hall had been broken open during 
 the preceding night, and all the vouchers abstracted, to 
 the number of more than thirty-five hundred, from their 
 place of deposit.* The news of this robbery at once 
 aroused such a storm of indignation from all classes, with- 
 out distinction of party, that Mayor Hall, in a letter, 
 immediately requested Mr. Connolly to resign his office 
 of Comptroller. To this request, the latter returned a 
 peremptory refusal, assigning as a reason, that for him to 
 take such a step without impeachment, and a trial, and 
 a conviction, would be tantamount to an acknowledgment 
 of guilt. The day following, however, acting upon the 
 advice of a prominent Democrat, viz., William H. Have- 
 meyer, he appointed to the office of Deputy-Comptroller, 
 Andrew H. Green. This appointment gave great satis- 
 faction to the community, who now, for the first time, 
 since the skein of corruption had begun to unravel, 
 
 * It may strike the reader as singular that, when about a hundred thousand 
 dollars had been paid for safes for the now Court-house the vouchers were 
 kept in a glass-case — from which place they were abstracted as mentioned in the 
 text. 
 
628 HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 
 
 breathed more freely. Not only was Mr. Green a distin- 
 guished member of the Democratic party, but he had 
 formerly and for a long time held the responsible position 
 of Comptroller of the Central Park Commission, dur- 
 ing which period, although daily handling large sums of 
 money, his record was unsullied. Against him, suspicion, 
 with her hundred tongues, had never whispered the slight- 
 est charge of venality. Soon after his assuming the 
 duties of his office, he instituted an investigation into the 
 " voucher robbery" — an investigation which resulted in 
 the discovery of their charred remains in an old ash-heap 
 in the attic of the City Hall. The supposed agents in 
 this affair were arrested, indicted, and committed for trial 
 without bail, but up to the present period remain untried. 
 But Deputy-Comptroller Green did not stop here. He 
 quickly lopped off the fungi which had been clinging to 
 the city treasury in the form of sinecure ofl&ces ; reduced 
 all expenditures to the lowest point consistent with a 
 safe administration of the finances ; brought order out of 
 chaos ; and very soon saved large sums to the city. 
 
 Almost the first action of the Committee of Seventy 
 was to procure an injunction from Judge Barnard, re- 
 straining, for the present, the payment of all moneys out 
 of the city treasury. This order, however, was subse- 
 quently modified, so as to allow the payment of the labor- 
 ers on the public works, and the progress and completion 
 of permanent works, such as the receiving and distributing 
 reservoirs, and the laying of mains, but forbidding the use 
 of the moneys raised for such purposes for the ordinary 
 expenses of the department. At the same time some of 
 the largest banks— such was the confidence felt in the 
 integrity of Andrew H. Green— advanced nearly a million 
 dollars with which to meet the more pressing claims 
 against the city, and enable the wheels of government to 
 roll more smoothly. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 629 
 
 The next step of the Committee was to present the 
 Major for indictment before the Grand Jury. Here 
 again the "Ring" endeavored to suborn justice, for it 
 was presently discovered that the jury had evidently— as 
 the technical phrase is — been " packed," from the foreman 
 down, with relations and personal intimates of the person 
 to be indicted. Upon this fact being brought to the no- 
 tice of Judge Barnard, he immediately dismissed the 
 jurors and ordered another " panel." The new " panel," 
 however, failed, from lack of sufficient evidence, to bring 
 in an indictment against the Mayor. 
 
 Proceeding in the work they had undertaken, the 
 Committee next called upon the Governor of the State, 
 and requested him to appoint Charles O'Conor to assist 
 the Attorney-General in prosecuting the most prominent 
 officers of the city government for malfeasance in office. 
 In reply, the Governor stated that he had no power to 
 take such action, but he would recommend that course to 
 the Attorney-General. Thereupon the latter wrote a 
 letter to Mr. O'Conor, empowering him to act for the 
 State, and to employ such associates as he might deem 
 proper. Hon. William M. Evarts, Wheeler H. Peckham, 
 and Judge Emott were thereupon chosen by Mr. O'Conor 
 as associates. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor and his associates at once went actively 
 to work. On the 26th of October, William M. Tweed was 
 arrested on the affidavit of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, and held 
 to bail in the sum of one million of dollars.* 
 
 * Divested of all legal forms, the facts set forth by Mr. Tilden in his affida- 
 vit were as follows: By the City Tax-Levy of .1870, section 4, the Mayor, the 
 Comptroller, and the President of the Board of Supervisors were made a special 
 Board of Audit, to decide upon all outstanding claims against the county of 
 New York. Instead of auditing the claims, the Board delegated the duty of 
 auditing the bills to Auditor James Watson, and directed the payment of 
 whatever bills either Mr. Tweed or Mr. Joseph B. Young should certify as cor- 
 rect. The bills were collected, amounting to $6,312,541.37, and were paid 
 accordingly ; the whole amount going to the immediate personal friends and 
 
630 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Meanwhile the State election for members of the Leg- 
 islature, State officers, and Judges of the Supreme Court 
 of the city took place on the 7th of November. Perhaps 
 never in the city's history — excepting the ones held in 
 1768 and in the spring of 1800, when New York city 
 decided the fate of John Adams* — had an election taken 
 
 associates of Mr. William M. Tweed, nearly tlie whole of it upon voucliers 
 which were indorsed by Andrew J. Garvey, James H. Ingersoll, under the 
 style of " Ingersoll & Company," or " E. A. Woodward." As each set of war- 
 rants was paid, Mr. E. A. Woodward, who acted throughout as the confiden- 
 tial agent of Mr. Tweed, deposited to the account of Tweed in the National 
 Broadway Bank his share of spoils. When the warrants were paid to Inger- 
 soll or Garvey, they uniformly made a payment of a large part of the money 
 to Woodward ; and a large part of this again was immediately deposited to the 
 credit of Mr. Tweed. As this was done again and again, on twenty-sis differ- 
 ent days, and as all the transfers were made by drafts upon the same bank, the 
 evidence was absolutely complete that Tweed shared in the proceeds of these 
 fraudulent vouchers, audited and indorsed by him ; and the amount of stolen 
 money thus directly traced from the public treasury to the jjockets of this one 
 person, through the transactions of this ad interim Board alone, is no less than 
 one million of dollars. 
 
 * The election of 1800, alluded to in the text, was probably the most bitter, 
 personal, and hotly contested election that New York city has ever witnessed 
 — and it was on this occasion that the remarkable spectacle was presented of 
 Hamilton making speeches at the polls, and Burr dictating the Republican 
 legislative ticket. The contests between the Federalists and the Republicans in 
 the charter elections had gradually increased in bitterness, and the Federalists 
 began gradually to lose ground. Thus, in the election of the preceding spring 
 (1799), the Sixth and Seventh Wards were <;arried by the Federalist party ; 
 and, elated by their success, the victors put forth renewed efforts in the elec- 
 tion of this year. " To evade the property qualification, requiring every voter 
 to be a landholder, an association of thirty-three young men purchased a 
 house and lot in tlie Fifth Ward, jointly on the principle of a Tontine, and hav- 
 ing tlius rendered them.selves eligible according to law, presented themselves at 
 tlie polls as Republican voters. The same scheme was adopted in the Fourth 
 Ward by a club of seventy-one members. The election returns showed four 
 wards for the Republicans and three for the Federalists ; the Fifth ^'ard beino' 
 carried in favor of the former by a majority of six, and the Fourth Ward by 
 thirty-five. This result was at once contested by the Federalists, on the ground 
 of illegal voting by the Tontine Association, and, on being submitted to the 
 decision of the retiring board, the majority of which belonged to that party 
 was pronounced null and void, and the balance of power restored to the hands 
 of the Federalistsi The State election having been decided in favor of the 
 Republicans by the election of ex-Governor George Clinton, Edward Living- 
 ston, the brother of the well-known Chancellor of that name, received the 
 appointment of Mayor of New York," and the vote of one majority in the 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. ' 531 
 
 place that was attended with more acrimony or greater 
 excitement. Turning, as it did, on the frauds of the Tam- 
 many Ring, all classes of citizens, irrespective of party, 
 were aroused. Merchants, almost to a man, closed their 
 stores ; and thousands who had not voted for years exer- 
 cised on this occasion the right of franchise. Republicans 
 and Democrats united to crush one of the wickedest con- 
 spiracies ever aimed against municipal integrity and life. 
 The result was an overwhelming defeat of the " Ring." 
 General Franz Sigel was elected Register by a majority 
 of twenty-five thousand votes. All of the anti-Tammany 
 judges were elected ; and only one (Wm. M. Tweed) of 
 the five Tammany Senators was successful. Of the 
 twenty-one Assemblymen sent to the Legislature by the 
 city, Tammany elected but seven ; while all the anti-Tam- 
 many Aldermen were elected but two. Of the twenty- 
 one Assistant Aldermen chosen, a majority were pledo-ed 
 to reform. 
 
 Tammany, however, did not yield without a desperate 
 struggle. All her old tactics of " ballot-stufling," and 
 intimidation at the polls, with which she was wont to be 
 successful heretofore, were employed. "In this city," says 
 the New York Tribune^ in commenting upon the election, 
 " the frauds on election day in Tweed's district are under- 
 stood to have been enormous, and the intimidation of 
 voters was without parallel in recent years. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that the ballots for O'Donovan Rossa 
 were kept out of the boxes by sheer ruffianism ; and in 
 many precincts it was literally unsafe to vote against the 
 ' Boss.' Anti-Tammany voters were beaten and driven 
 away from the polls, and there seems to be ground for 
 charging that some of the police were in collusion with the 
 assailants. If Tweed were allowed to take his seat in the 
 
 electoral college, consequent upon the result of the New York Slate election, 
 gave the Presidency to Jefferson Instead of to Adams. 
 
632 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Senate on the strength of an election like this, the princi- 
 ples of free republican government would receive a worse 
 blow than from the theft of twenty millions of dollars."* 
 
 The effects of the election were soon apparent. Mem- 
 bers of the Ring who, up to this time, had been defiant, 
 became crestfallen ; several of the most prominent of them 
 
 * To the same effect, Mr. Melville D. Landon, a perfectly credible journal- 
 ist, wrote the next day after the election, in the Commercial Advertiser, as 
 follows : 
 
 " The disgraceful scenes, the ruffianly assaalts, the dishonest repeating-, 
 fraudulent voting, and final surrender of the ballot-boxes in this Tweed ward 
 cannot be described. I am not writing about what I heard or read in the news- 
 papers, but I state what I saw with my own eyes. 
 
 " I saw drunken men come into the second voting precinct — not with Repub- 
 lican votes, for such a man would have been assaulted in three minutes, but 
 with the ticket of the Committee of Seventy, including O'Donovan Rossa, and 
 lay them on the ballot-boxes. 
 
 " I saw Edward Coppers, » low, vulgar scoundrel, acting as inspector, snap 
 these votes off, and before the eyes of Michael Costello, the only Republican 
 who dared to stay in the room, deposit Tweed votes. 
 
 " I saw four policemen, among whom was a contemptible scoundrel of the 
 name of Francis O'Rourke, connive at these frauds. 
 
 " I saw thief after thief come in, whom Mr. Costello knew to be voting fraud- 
 ulently, and their votes were received by their associate thief. Coppers, and 
 deposited unchallenged. 
 
 " I saw brave Michael Costello challenge one brutal repeater, and then I 
 saw five scoundrels assault him, and drag him to the ground, while four police- 
 men stood by and saw it done. 
 
 " Then I saw Francis O'Rourke march this innocent brave Republican chal- 
 lenger to the station-house, and falsely accuse him of assault, when he knew 
 he was telling a villainous lie. 
 
 " Then 1 saw Michael Costello in a cold, damp, stone cell, looking, like a 
 felon, out of an iron gate. 
 
 " Shall this scoundrel police officer, Francis O'Rourke, go free— shall he still 
 remain on the police force ? 
 
 " After this I saw the ballot-boxes in the hands of thieves and repeaters. 
 Every Republican vote was rejected unless it was disguised. Only Tweed 
 votes were received. 
 
 " After this, H. G. Leask, of the ' Committee of Seventy,' sent Patrick Elliff 
 to take Michael Costello's place. He was assaulted and driven away from the 
 polls, and Mr. Leask's son was also abused and struck. The mob of thievee 
 and roughs now attacked Mr. Leask's store, which was defended by police 
 
 "To this the writer proposes to testify when \\'m. M. Tweed asks for his 
 seat in Albany next winter. This morning I see this voting precinct o-ave 346 
 votes for Tweed and only 42 against him, wlieu it cast 48 Republican votes for 
 Woodford in 18T0." 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 533 
 
 hastened to hand in their resignations of .important posi- 
 tions which they held; and, finally, on the 20th of 
 November, Richard B. Connolly resigned his office as 
 Comptroller in favor of Andrew H. Green, who was at once 
 appointed to the vacancy by the Mayor.* With this mem- 
 orable election the curtain fell upon the play which Tam- 
 many had so long kept upon the political boards, to rise 
 again under very different management. 
 
 On the 25th of November ex-Comptroller Connolly was 
 arrested on substantially the same charges as his colleague 
 in public office, William M. Tweed, and was also held to 
 bail in the same sum ; but, not so fortunate as the latter, 
 he was unable to obtain the requisite amount of bail, and, 
 on the 29th of November, was committed to the Ludlow 
 Street Jail, where he remained until the last day of the 
 year. On the 16th of December the Grand Jury indicted 
 William M. Tweed for felony. On his way to the Tombs, 
 however, he was rescued by a writ of habeas corpus ; and, 
 upon being taken before Judge Barnard, was released on 
 
 * Undoubtedly, one of tlie principal results of the election will be the 
 creating of a new charter for the city. In framing one, the leading idea, says 
 the New York TimeSf should be so " to reduce the profits of office-holding, that 
 the professional politicians and place-hunters "will be forced to abandon their 
 corrupt and corrupting avocation. Every officer under the City Government 
 should receive a iixed salary, and in no case should he be allowed to pocket 
 any of the fees connected with his office. 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, such as clerkships 
 and the like, it would be well if they could be made permanent and independ- 
 ent of political changes. Civil service reform is now agitating the minds of 
 the best men in the country of both parties, and is looked forward to as the 
 cure for the worst evils of our politics. The Republican Party now adminis- 
 tering the National Government has taken the initiative in this much-needed 
 reform. Why should not the same party, which will have entire control of the 
 next Legislature, second the efforts of their representatives in the General 
 Government, and anticipate them in making a practical trial of the experi- 
 ment ? No better place could be found to test the virtues of civil service 
 reform than the City of New York ; for nowhere else have the evils of the old 
 system wrought such wide-spread corruption, and produced such demoraliza- 
 tion of political parties as here." 
 80 
 
634 HISTOET OF NEW YORK CITT. 
 
 the trifling sum of five thousand dollars bail. At length, on 
 Friday, the 29th day of December, Mr. Tweed, forced to 
 the step by the power of public opinion, resigned his office 
 of Commissioner of Public Works, George Van Nort, a 
 gentleman of large experience and high standing, being 
 appointed to fill the vacancy. On the same day that this 
 resignation was sent in. Mayor Hall was prohibited by a 
 writ from Judge Brady from reappointing or recognizing 
 the old Common Council; while, to complete the final 
 downfall of the " Ring," William M. Tweed, spurned by 
 nearly all of his fair-weather friends, was ejected from the 
 position of Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society — 
 Augustus Schell being elected to his place by acclama- 
 tion.* 
 
 Upon the assembling of the Legislature at Albany on 
 the 1st of January, 1872, the Committee of Seventy for- 
 warded a petition to the Senate praying for the expulsion 
 of Wm. M. Tweed from his seat in that body ; and 
 
 1872. , . . 
 
 here, at the present time of writing (February 
 1st, 1872), the matter rests. The " Tammany Ring has 
 been broken into fragments." Tweed is under heavy 
 bonds to answer for various charges ; Connolly and other 
 subordinate, though probably not less guilty, leader.-?, keep 
 out of the public view ; James Fisk, Jr.,t is in his grave — 
 
 * As an illastration of tlie unslableuess of power and Influence, especially 
 when not founded upon principles of rectitude, the reader can compare the 
 position held by Mr. Tweed now (1872) with the one held by him only a few 
 months since, when, at the wedding of his daughter, nearly $100,000 worth of 
 gifts was presented to the latter by her father's political and personal 
 admirers. At the close of Appendix No. XI. a partial list of these presents is 
 given, both as a curious bit of history and as a " sign " of the " times." No 
 propriety is violated by this publication, since the list was printed at the time, 
 purposely, by the family in nearly all of the city papers. 
 
 For the act of incorporation of the Tanamany Society see Appendix No. XII. 
 
 t On Sunday, the 7th of January, 1872, James Fisk, Jr., died from the eflfects 
 of a pistol shot received at the hands of Edward S. Stokes, on the afternoon 
 previous, in the Grand Central Hotel. 
 
 .It.may, at first, seem singular that Fisk is mentioned in the text in connec- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW TORK CITY. 635 
 
 having come to a violent end by unlawful means ; and the 
 names of the chief actors in the Tammany frauds are liter- 
 ally a " by-word and a hissing " to the " ends of the earth." * 
 What further course will be taken, and with what results, 
 cannot now with certainty be stated. Already, however, 
 a good work has been performed ; and the probabilities 
 are, that if the Committee push matters with the same 
 energy they have up to the present time evinced, the 
 members of the "Ring" will be brought to justice, and 
 forced to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. Then shall the 
 City of New York, it is to be hoped, be as distinguished 
 for the purity of her government, as she now is for her 
 liberality, her influence, and her wealth.! 
 
 tion "witli the Tammany leaders. Investigation, however, points to him as 
 having, with the "Erie Ring," been thoroughly identified with them In sun- 
 dry ways. At least such Is the prevailing public opinion, shown by the fact 
 that his death ia universally accepted as another sign of the utter disruption 
 and ruin of the " Tammany Ring." 
 
 * Chief among the causes which undoubtedly led to the overthrow of the 
 " Tammany Ring " were the caricatures or cartoons which appeared from time 
 to time in Harper's Weekly. The eflfects of these, by bringing the leaders of 
 the "Ring" into justly merited ridicule, cannot, perhaps, be over-estimated. 
 Indeed, in all ages, before the invention of printing, and since, " picture writ- 
 ing" has been one of the moat effectual weapons for moving and directing 
 public opinion. Every one will perceive the power of these methods of giving 
 expression to suppressed opinion, especially upon the ignorant multitude, by 
 reflecting what has often been the effect of a good caricature upon his own 
 mind, 
 
 f Before closing the record of this year allusion should be made to the 
 " Westfield disaster." The Westfield, which was a ferry-boat plying between 
 the city and Staten Island, exploded her boilers just as she was on the point 
 of leaving Whitehall Slip on Sunday, the 30th of July. One hundred and six 
 persons were killed, and one hundred and fifty injured, many of them for life. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The History of New York City has now been brought 
 down to a period within the recollection of almost the 
 youngest inhabitant. The limits of this work will 
 not permit me to speak at length of the causes 
 which have led to the commercial and local prosperity 
 of New York ; the part taken by her publishing-houses 
 in the dissemination of much that is good and beautiful 
 and true in American literature;* the position won for 
 
 * Chief among these may be mentioned the house of Virtue <& Yorston, 
 which, though a branch of the great house of Virtue & Co., London, can 
 with propriety be called thoroughly A'merican, from the fact of its havino- 
 been instrumental, more, perhaps, than any similar house, in making the public 
 familiar with American scenery. On this account a brief sketch of this firm 
 belongs to the history of the city. 
 
 The house of Virtue & Yorston was first established in New York, in 1834, 
 under the name of R. Martin & Co., and, in 1835, opened at 69 Barclay Street. 
 Thence it was removed to Broadway, between Maiden Lane and Liberty, and, 
 
 shortly after, to 20 John Street, where — Mr. Martin retiring it became G. 
 
 Virtue & Co. Upon the business being removed, in 1863, to 13 Dey Street 
 (see engraving on opposite page), where It still remains, the name of the firm 
 was again changed to the present one of Virtue & Yorston. Mr. Yorston, the 
 junior partner, having long been connected with the establishment of G. Vir- 
 tue & Co., in England, was pecaliarly fitted for his work. He had also, for a 
 series of years, extensively canvassed for those books which have given this 
 house a world-wide reputation (among these. Views in Switzerland, and the 
 Vernon Gallery), and was thoroughly converdant with the wants of the 
 American public. 
 
 It has been said that the house of Virtue & Yorston has always been 
 peculiarly American. It was while the firm was established on Broadway that 
 Bartlett prepared and finished his sketches for the great work of himself and 
 N'. P. Willis upon the scenery of the United States and Canada— books which 
 
VIRTUE & YORSTOWS BUILDING 
 
HISTORY OP NEW TORE CITY. 637 
 
 her in letters by Sands and Halleck and Bryant and Ban- 
 croft ; her School of Painting, fostered in its earlier days 
 by Trumbull, Jarvis, Henry Inman* and Ingham, and in 
 its later ones by Church, Bierstadt, Page, Richards, Hunt- 
 ingdon, Elliott, Kensett, and others equally distinguished ; 
 her School of Sculpture, represented by Brown, Thomp- 
 son, and Ward ; the nature and extent of her benevo- 
 lent institutions,! and the character of her " merchant 
 princes." Wealth in itself is no evidence of a city's pros- 
 perity, and therefore I do not refer to those of her rich 
 men who are distinguished for that alone, and whose names 
 will readily suggest themselves to the reader. But we, 
 as citizens, do take pride in pointing to men whose 
 immense wealth is guided and controlled by the prin- 
 ciples of evangelical religion. Of this latter class are 
 Marshall 0. Roberts, WilHam E. Dodge, S. B. SchiefFelin, 
 Moses H. Grinnell — and others of similar character — men 
 who are distinguished alike for their christian virtues and 
 purity of life, and for their unparalleled business success. 
 While, moreover, I have been compelled, as a faithful his- 
 torian, to recount a few events that must ever remain foul 
 
 still remain the best authorities on the subjects of which they treat. This 
 house, also, was the first to inspire the American public with a taste for hand- 
 somely illustrated works. The Great Civil War, The Battles of America by 
 Sea and Land, illustrated with fifty-one steel engravings, and TJie Uistory of tlis 
 United States, with ninety steel engravings, are familiar to all lovers of Ameri- 
 can history. Among the works which have been introduced by them, and 
 which have tended greatly to cultivate a taste for art in this country, may 
 be mentioned "The Art Journal," one of the most superb works that have 
 ever been published ; " Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland," with one hundred 
 and twenty engravings on steel ; " Ireland, its Scenery and Character," illustrated 
 with over sis hundred engravings; "Piedmont and Italy;" "Switzerland;" 
 " The Beauties of the Bosphorus ;" " Scotland ;" " Gems of European Art ;" 
 " Royal Gems from the Galleries of Europe ;" " The Wilkie Gallery ;" " The 
 Vernon Gallery ;" and " The Turner Gallery," 
 
 * For Personal Reminiscences of Inman see Appendix No. XIII. 
 
 f For a full account of the aims and nature of the benevolent institutions 
 of New York City, the reader ia referred to a book exclusively devoted to that 
 subject, published by E. B. Treat & Co. 
 
638 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 blots upon the otherwise bright escutcheon of the city, I 
 would far rather dwell upon pleasanter themes — the 
 founding of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb,* and 
 the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delin- 
 quents — the establishment of that noble work, the Young 
 Men's Christian Association — the course taken by the 
 city during the late civil war, in which she led the van in 
 every movement having for its object either the support 
 of the Government or the relief of its brave defenders! — 
 the dinner given to Charles Dickens, under the auspices 
 
 * " Colonel Stone," writes Harvey P. Peet, the President of the New York 
 Deaf and Dumb Asylum, to the author, "entered with characteristic zeal into 
 the effort to build up a superior institution for the deaf and dumb in New 
 York. To his influence is due, in large measure, my selection for the position 
 of principal, and I ascribe much of the success which crowned my labors to his 
 ready sympathy and encouragement, and his intelligent and zealous co-opera- 
 tion. From the time I became principal of the institution, in 1831, to his 
 death in 1841, he was the man, of all others, on whom I most relied for aid in 
 urging the claims of our institution on the people of our city and State. He 
 was constant in his attendance at our public exhibitions, ever ready and felici- 
 tous in suggesting tests of the acquirements of the pupils, and ever prepared 
 with appropriate anecdotes to be related by signs and translated into written 
 languages, so that it always seemed that much of the popular interest of those 
 occasions was owing to him. The editor of a journal of wide circulation and 
 extensive influence, especially among the more wealthy and benevolent 
 classes, he was eminently successful in his appeals to benevolence — and that 
 because of the confidence generally felt both in his goodness of heart and in 
 his discrimination 
 
 "As a director of this institution, his quick intelligence and sound judg- 
 ment enabled him to appreciate the value of suggestions for improvements, 
 and his influence with the Board could always be relied on to secure their 
 adoption, at the same time that his rare good sense preserved him from the 
 error of some men of undoubted philanthropy, w^ho, in a similar situation, 
 have thought that theories formed in the closet might be made to overrule a 
 life-long professional experience. He was a liberal donor to the library of 
 the institution, and his newspaper was always sent free for the use of our 
 teachers and pupils. His example and influence, moreover, obtained for it 
 frequent donations of books and periodicals. The value of such gifts to an 
 institution like ours needs no comment." 
 
 f Chief among these was the Great Metropolitan Fair, held in the city in 
 the spring of 1864, for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission, 
 and which netted $1,000,000 for the relief of the soldiers — a sum exceeding that 
 produced by all other fairs, for the same purpose, in the country. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 639 
 
 of the Press, on the 18th of April, 1868 — the erection of 
 the statue to Samuel F. B. Morse in the Central Park, in 
 1870 — the generous welcome extended to the Russian 
 Duke Alexis by the citizens of New York, in the winter 
 of 1871 — and the unveiling of the Franklin statue in 
 Printing House Square, on the 17th of January, 1872. 
 The details of these events, however, are too well known 
 to need recapitulation here. A brief retrospective glance. 
 
 DBAP AND DUMB ASYLUM. 
 
 or rather a comparison between old and modern New 
 York, will therefore conclude this history. Nor, perhaps, 
 can this be done better than by giving at length a few of 
 the closing passages of Dr. Osgood's admirable address, 
 delivered before the New York Historical Society, on the 
 occasion of its sixty-second anniversary, in November, 
 
 1866: 
 
 " In 1796 taxes were light, being about one-half of one 
 
640 HISTOET OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 per cent. ; and in that year the whole tax raised was 
 £7,968, and the whole valuation of property was £1,261,585 
 — estimates that were probably about half the real value, 
 so that the tax was only about one-fourth of one per cent. 
 A man worth $50,000 was thought rich, and some for- 
 tunes reached $250,000. Mechanics had a dollar a day 
 for wages, and a genteel house rented for $350 a year, and 
 $750 additional would meet the ordinary expenses of liv- 
 ing for a genteel family — such as now spends from $6,000 
 to $10,000, we have good reason to believe, from such 
 authority as Mr. D. T. Valentine, Clerk of the Common 
 Council. A good house could be bought for $3,000 or 
 $4,000, and flour was four and five dollars a barrel, and 
 beef ten cents a pound. 
 
 " There were great entertainments, and men ate and 
 drank freely — more freely, apparently, than now — but 
 nothing of present luxury prevailed in the high classes ; 
 and how rare the indulgence was, is proved by the com- 
 mon saying, that ' the Livingstons give champagne,' which 
 marked their case as exceptional. Now, surely, a great 
 many families in New York besides the Livingstons give 
 champagne, and not always wisely for their own economy 
 or their guests' sobriety. 
 
 " These homely items give a familiar idea of old New 
 York in 1801. We must remember that it was then a 
 provincial city, and had nothing of its present back-coun- 
 try connection with the West, being the virtual capital of 
 the Hudson River Valley rather than that of the great 
 Empire State. Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and the noted 
 cities of Western New York were but names then, and 
 Albany was of so little business note that the main com- 
 munication with it was by dilatory sloops, such as Irving 
 describes after his slow voyage in the craft that he long 
 waited for, and which gave him ample time to study the 
 picturesque on the Hudson, with such food for his humor 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 641 
 
 as the Captain's talk in Dutch to his crew of negro slaves, 
 .What a contrast with a trip now in the St. John or the 
 Dean Richmond — marine palaces that float you, as in a 
 dream by night, through the charmed passes of the Hud- 
 son to Albany ! 
 
 -.-" \i i',i Sk V 'IJ i!c V 
 
 " The New York churches were strong ; but the clergy 
 were little given to speculative thinking, and no com- 
 manding thinker appeared among them, such as abounded 
 in New England. They kept the old creeds and usages 
 with a strength . that awed down dissent, and with a 
 benign temper that conciliated favor, Latitudinarian 
 tendencies were either suppressed or driven into open 
 hostility with the popular creeds under deistical or atheist- 
 ical teachers. In all, the congregations numbered thirty, 
 and the Jews had one synagogue. Even the most radical 
 congregation in the city, the Universalists, held mainly 
 to the old theological views, and had only one point of 
 peculiar doctrine, and even with this single exception, and 
 with all the orthodox habits, they had only a lay organiza- 
 tion in 1801, and were without a regular minister till 1803. 
 
 " The Dutch Reformed, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 
 and Methodists, numbered each five congregations ; the 
 Baptists, three ; the Friends, two ; the Lutherans, two ; 
 the Roman Catholics, Huguenots, Moravians, and Univer- 
 salists, one each. Some writers erroneously assign seven 
 churches, instead of five, to the Episcopalians in 1801, by 
 claiming for them the Huguenot Church Du Saint Esprit, 
 which was established in 1704, and acceded to the Episco- 
 pal Church in 1804; and Zion Church, which was estab- 
 lished by the Lutherans in 1801, and joined the Episcopal 
 communion in 1810. 
 
 " As far as we can judge, the Presbyterian clergy had 
 most of the new American culture of the severer kind, 
 and Drs. Samuel Miller and John M. Mason were the 
 
642 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 intellectual leaders of the New York pulpit. The only 
 man to be named with them in popular influence was 
 John Henry Hobart, who was ordained in 1801, conse- 
 crated Bishop in 1811, and who, in spite of his extreme 
 views of Episcopal prerogative, is to be named among the 
 fathers of the American Church, and a good specimen of 
 what old Trinity Church has done to unite patriotism 
 with religion. 
 
 " The Episcopal Church had much accomplishment in 
 its clergy, and Bishop Prevoost, who received ordination 
 in England, was a man of extensive knowledge ; and Dr. 
 Livingston, of the Dutch Church, was a good match for 
 him in learning and dignity. It is said that when these 
 clerical magnates met on Sundays and exchanged saluta- 
 tions, they took up the entire street, and reminded be- 
 holders of two frigates under full sail, exchanging salutes 
 with each other. 
 
 * * " We may regard old New York as culminating 
 in the year 1825, with the completion of the Erie Canal ; 
 and that great jubilee that married this city to the mighty 
 West began a new era of triumph and responsibility that 
 soon proved that the bride's festival is followed by the wife's 
 cares and the mother's anxieties. New York had become 
 the national city, and was so for a quarter of a century 
 more, and then she became cosmopolitan, European as well 
 as American, and obviously one of the few leading cities of 
 the world — the third city of Christendom, We may fix 
 this change upon the middle of the century as well as 
 upon any date, and call the time from 1850 till now her 
 cosmopolitan era. The change of course, was gradual, 
 and the great increase of the city dates from the close of 
 the Revolutionary War and the evacuation of the city 
 by the British troops. The population doubled nearly in 
 the ten years after 1790, and went from 33,000 to 60,000. 
 In 1825 it reached 166,085, and in 1850 rose to 515,515. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 643 
 
 All this increase could not but bring a new sense of power, 
 and throughout all the bewildering maze of the old New 
 York politics we can see traces of the desire of the peo- 
 ple and their leaders to dispute the palm of empire with 
 Virginia and its old dominion.. 
 
 is ft "The introduction of gas and of the Croton 
 water were grand illustrations of the power of organized 
 industry, and mighty aids in throwing light, health, and 
 purity into the lives of the people ; and the rise of the 
 great popular daily journals that almost created the na- 
 tional press of America made an era in the free fellow- 
 ship of public thought. The city pushed its triumphal 
 march forward during that period from Bleecker Street to 
 Madison Square, and vainly tried to halt its forces at 
 Washington and Union Squares, or to pause long any- 
 where on the way of empire. The whole period would 
 make an important history of itself, and our task now is 
 with the New York of to-day, as it has risen into cosmo- 
 politan rank since 1850 — the year which gave us a line 
 of European steamers of our own, and opened the Golden 
 Gate of California to our packets. 
 
 " Look at our city now in its extent, population, wealth, 
 institutions, and connections ; and consider how far it is 
 doino- its great work, under God's providence, as the most 
 conspicuous representative of the liberty of the nineteenth 
 century in its hopes and fears. You are too familiar with 
 the figures and facts that show the largeness of the city 
 to need any minute or extended summary of recapitula- 
 tion. That we are not far from a million of people on 
 this island, that began the century with sixty thousand ; 
 that the valuation of property, real and personal,* has 
 
 * The valuation of property in New York city represented by the census 
 on the 30th of June, 1871, was $769,303,250 of real, and $306,947,223 of per- 
 sonal estate. 
 
 For the value of real and personal estate at the present time, as well as the 
 
644 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 risen since 1805 from 425,000,000 to $736,988,058; that 
 the real value of property here is about $1,000,000,000, 
 or a thirtieth part of the entire property of Great Britain ; 
 that our taxes within that time have risen from $127,000 
 to $16,950,767, over four and a half millions more than 
 our whole national expenditure in 1801 ; that our banking 
 capital is over $90,000,000, and the transactions of our 
 Clearing Houses, for the year ending October 1st, 1866, 
 were over $29,000,000,000 ; that our Savings Banks have 
 300,000 depositors and $77,000,000 of deposits ; that our 
 one hundred and eight Fire Insurance Companies and 
 thirty-eight Fire Agencies have a capital of $47,560,000, 
 and our eighteen Life Insurance Companies a capital of 
 $2,938,000, whose premiums last year (1865) were nearly 
 $9,000,000; that by the census of 1865 the number of 
 dwellings was 49,844, and the value of them was 
 $423,096,918 ; that this city, by the census of 1860, re- 
 turned a larger manufacturing product than any other 
 city in the Union, and more than any State, except New 
 York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania — the sum total 
 of $159,107,369, from raw material worth $96,177,038 in 
 4,375 establishments, with 90,204 operatives, and $61,- 
 212,757 capital, and manufactured nearly one-eleventh of 
 the sum total of the United States manufactures in 1860, 
 which was $1,885,861,676 ; that in twenty years we 
 exported, from September 1st, 1846, to September 1st, 1866, 
 to Europe, over 27,000,000 barrels of flour, over 164,000,- 
 000 bushels of wheat, 127,000,000 bushels of corn, nearly 
 5,000,000 bushels of rye ; that the receipts for customs in 
 this port for 1865 were $101,772,905 ; that this city is 
 the great gold market of the world, and in 1865 received 
 $61,201,108, and exported over $30,000,000 abroad, and 
 received in twelve years, 1854 to 1866, from San Fran- 
 
 financial resources generally of New York city beginning of 1873 see Gover- 
 nor Hoffman's Message, in Appendix No. XIV. 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY, 645 
 
 Cisco, $375,558,659 in gold ; that our shipping, registered 
 and enrolled in 1865, amounted in tonnage to 1,223,264 
 tons, and the number of arrivals of vessels in this port in 
 1865 was 12,634, of these 2,078 being steamers ; that our 
 exports for the year 1865 were $208,630,282, and our 
 imports were $224,742,419 ; that on an average thirty- 
 five tons of mail matter are received here for our citizens, 
 and fifty-five tons are sent out daily ; that the average 
 number of mail-bags received is three hundred and eiglity- 
 five, and the average number sent out is seven hundred 
 and thirteen ; that within three years and a half the mail 
 correspondence of our citizens has doubled ; that the num- 
 ber of letters and newspapers collected by the carriers 
 for the quarter ending December 31st, 1865, was over 
 3,000,000, and the number delivered by them was over 
 3,600,000, and the deliveries from post-office boxes for the 
 same quarter were over 5,000,000 ; that the increase of 
 letters is so marvelous that New York may soon rival 
 London, which in 1862 received by mail 151,619,000 
 letters. These and the like plain statistics are sufficient 
 to prove the imperial wealth and power of New York, 
 and to startle us with the problem of its prospective 
 growth, when we remember that 4i\ per cent, increase, 
 which has been generally the actual rate of increase, will 
 give us a population of some 4,000,000 at the close of the 
 century, « 
 
 » «- " Let us pass in review the industrial army of 
 the city, which General Barlow, Secretary of State, allows 
 me to copy from the unpublished census of 1865, and let 
 us imagine it divided into regiments, thus, of about a 
 thousand persons each : 
 
 Blacksraiths, over two and one-half regiments or 
 
 Bookbinders, over one 
 
 Boiler Makers, nearly one " 
 
 Boot and Shoe Makers, over six 
 
 Butchers, four 
 
 , . . . 3,621 
 
 .... 1,134 
 
 910 
 
 .... 6,307 
 
 .... 8,998 
 
646 HISTORY OF KBW YORK CITY. 
 
 Brokers, one and one-third regiments or 1,348 
 
 Barbers, one " ^'*'^^ 
 
 Cabinet Makers and Dealers, two and one-half " •••• 3,575 
 
 Carpenters, over six " 6,853 
 
 Cartmen and Draymen, four and one-half " — • 4,675 
 
 Clerks, seventeen and one-half. " .... 17,6*0 
 
 Clergy, nearly one-half " ■ • • • ^" 
 
 Confectioners, nearly one " ■ - - - '56 
 
 Cooks, one... " ••.- 906 
 
 Coopers, one and one-half " ■ ■ • - 1,401 
 
 Dressmakers, etc., nine and one-half " . • • • 9,501 
 
 Drivers, nearly two " . - • • 1,895 
 
 Engineers, over one " .... 1,196 
 
 Grocers, one " ...- 937 
 
 Hat and Cap Makers, one and one-half " .... 1,438 
 
 Jewelers, one " 925 
 
 Laborers, twenty-one and one-quarter " 21,281 
 
 Laundresses, three and one-half. " 3,590 
 
 Lawyers, one and one-fourth " 1,232 
 
 Merchants, six " 5,978 
 
 Machinists, three " .... 3,108 
 
 Masons, three " 2,757 
 
 MUliners, one and one-third " .... 1,334 
 
 Musicians, nearly one " .... 809. 
 
 Painters and Glaziers, four " .... 3,801 
 
 Peddlers, two " 1,988 
 
 Physicians, one and one-fourth " 1 ,269 
 
 Piano Makers, nearly one " 855 
 
 Plumbers, one " .... 1,108 
 
 Police, one and one-half. " .... 1,546 
 
 Porters, nearly three " .... 2,729 
 
 Printers, two " 2,186 
 
 Saddlers and Harness Makers, one " .... 915 
 
 Sailors and Marines, over three " .... 3,288 
 
 Servants, thirty-three " 33,282 
 
 School Children, one hundred " 100,000 
 
 Ship Carpenters, one " .... 1,156 
 
 Stone Cutters, one and one-third " .... 1,343 
 
 Tailors, ten " 9,734 
 
 Teachers, over one and one-half - " , , . . 1,608 
 
 Tinsmiths, one '. " .... 931 
 
 " These occupations and others that I might present 
 from the voluminous pages of the census reckon about 
 150,000 of the people, and with school-children a quar- 
 ter of a million.* 
 
 * The reader must bear in mind that the above figures were taken in 1865. 
 Doubtless the next census will show a larger increase. 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 647 
 
 * « " The marvelous growth of population, within 
 twenty years, has added half a million to our numbers, 
 and called, of course, for new measures, and ought to be 
 some excuse for some mistakes and disappointments. 
 The charter bears the mark of many changes, and i,s des- 
 tined to bear more. The original charter was "given by 
 James II. in 1686 ; was amended by Queen Anne in 
 1708 ; further enlarged by George II. in 1730, into what 
 is now known as Montgomery's Charter, and as such was 
 confirmed by the General Assembly of the Province in 
 1732, and made New York essentially a free city. The 
 Mayor was appointed by the Provincial Governor and 
 Council, till the Revolution ; by the State Governor and 
 four members of the Council of Appointment, till 1821 ; 
 by the Common Council, until 1834, and afterward by the 
 people. In 1830, the people divided the Common Coun- 
 cil into two boards, and in 1849 the government was 
 divided into seven departments, the heads of each being 
 chosen by the people, and the Mayor's term of office being 
 extended to two years. In 1853, the Board of Assistant 
 Aldermen was changed to a Board of sixty Councilmen, 
 and the term of Aldermen extended to two years. ' In 
 1857, the number of Aldermen was reduced from twenty- 
 two to seventeen, and the sixty Councilm'en to twenty- 
 four. 
 
 ■■■■ * " With all the drawback of defective municipal 
 government, the city is a great power in the Union, and 
 gave its wealth and men to the nation. Nay, its very 
 passion has been national, and the mass who deplored 
 the war never gave up the Union, and might, perhaps, 
 have consented to compromise rather than to disunion, 
 and have gone beyond any other city in clinging to the 
 Union as such, whether right or wrong. The thoughtful 
 mind of the city saw the true issue, and, whilst little 
 radical or doctrinaire in its habit of thinking, and more 
 
648 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 iuclined to trust to historical, tendencies and institutional 
 discipline for the removal of wrong than to abstract 
 ideas, it did not waver a moment after the die was 
 cast, and the blow of rebellion and disunion was clear. 
 The ruling business powers of the city gave money and 
 men to the nation, when the Government was halting 
 and almost paralyzed. The first loan was hazardous, and 
 the work of patriotism ; and when our credit was once 
 committed, the wealth of the city was wholly at the 
 service of the nation ; and the ideas of New England, and 
 the enthusiasm of the West, marched to victory with the 
 mighty concurrence of the money and the men of the Em- 
 pire City and State. The State furnished 473,443 men, 
 or, when reduced to years of service, 1,148,604 years' ser- 
 vice ; equal to three years' service of 382,868 three years' 
 men; and the city alone furnished 116,382 men, equal to 
 267,551 years' service, at a net cost of $14,577,214.65. 
 That our moneyed men meant devoted patriotism, it is 
 not safe to say of them all. In some cases, their capital 
 may have been wiser and truer than the capitalist, and 
 followed the great current of national life. Capital, like 
 water, whose currents it resembles, has its own laws, and 
 he who owns it cannot change its nature, any more than 
 he who owns a water-power can change the power of the 
 water. The capital of this city is bound, under God, to 
 the unity of the nation, and, therefore, has to do a mighty 
 part in organizing the liberty of the nineteenth century. 
 Led by the same large spirit, and true to the Union policy 
 which has been the habit of the community from the 
 old Dutch times, the dominant thought of our people will 
 be sure to vindicate the favorite idea of States Rights in 
 the Union against States Wrongs out of it. 
 
 ■■' * " And how shall we estimate the education of 
 our people in its various forms ; by schools, colleges, news- 
 papers, books, churches, and, not least, by this great uni- 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 649 
 
 versity of human life which is always before our eyes ! 
 Think of the 208,309 scholars reported in 1865 in our 
 public schools, and the average attendance of 86,674 in 
 those schools, and over 100,000 scholars in regular at- 
 tendance in all our schools, both public and private.* 
 Think of our galleries of art, private and public, and our 
 
 COOPER INSTITUTE, MEKCANTILE LIBHAET, AND BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
 great libraries and reading-rooms, like the Astor, the Mer- 
 cantile, the Society, and the Cooper Institute. Consider 
 the remarkable increase of private libraries, such as Dr. 
 
 * For a History of the Schools and the Public School Society, by Hon. 
 Hooper C. Van Vorst, see Appendix No. XV. 
 82 
 
G50 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Wynne has but begun to describe in his magnificent 
 volume. Think of our press, and its constant and enor- 
 mous issues, especially of daily papers, which are the pe- 
 culiar literary institution of our time, and alike the com- 
 mon school and university of our people. Our 350 
 churches and chapels, 258 of them being regular churches 
 of all kinds, can accommodate about 300,000 hearers, and 
 inadequate as in some respects they are, as to location 
 and convenience, they can hold as many of the people as 
 wish to attend church, and far more than generally attend. 
 Besides our churches and chapels, we have powerful re- 
 ligious instrumentalities in our religious press, and our 
 city is the center of publication of leading newspapers, 
 magazines, and reviews, of the great denominations of 
 the country. In these organs the best scholars and 
 thinkers of the nation express their thoughts in a 
 way wholly unknown at the beginning of the century, 
 when the religious press of the country was not appa- 
 rently dreamed of The higher class of religious and 
 theological reviews that are published here are, perhaps, 
 the best specimens of the most enlarged scholarship and 
 severe thinking of America, and are doing much to edu- 
 cate an enlightened and truly catholic spirit and fellow- 
 ship. If the question is asked, in view of all these means 
 of education, what kind of mind is trained up here, or 
 what are the indications of our New York intelligence, it 
 may not be so easy to say in full, as to throw out a hint 
 or two by way of suggestion. There is, certainly, what 
 may be called a New York mind and character, and there 
 must be from the very nature of the case. Some charac- 
 teristics must mark each community, as the results of 
 birth and breeding; and however great the variety of 
 elements, some qualities must predominate over others in 
 the people, as in the climate and fruits of a country. 
 Where two tendencies seem to balance each other for a 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 651 
 
 time, one is sure, at last, to preponderate, and to gain 
 value and power with time, and win new elements to 
 itself. It is not hard to indicate the essential New York 
 character from the beginning. It is positive, institu- 
 tional, large-hearted, genial, taking it for granted that all 
 naen are not of one pattern, and that we are to live by 
 allowing others to have their liberty as we have ours. 
 
 » ■;.:- u jjow far assimilation in its various forms of 
 thought and life is to go, we can only conjecture ; for the 
 process has but begun. Our community, like every other 
 community, must go through three stages of development 
 to complete its providential evolution : aggregation, ac- 
 commodation, and assimilation. The first stage is aggre- 
 gation ; and that comes, of course, with the fact of resi- 
 dence.* Here we are, about a million of us, aggregated 
 on this healthy and charming island, and here we most 
 of us expect and wish to stay. We are seeking our next 
 stage, and wish accommodation not with entire success, 
 and the city is distressed by prosperity, and is like an 
 overgrown boy, whose clothes are too small for his limbs, 
 and he waits in half-nakedness for his fitting garments. 
 In some respects, the city itself is a majestic organism, 
 and we have light, water, streets, and squares, much to 
 our mind, always, of course, excepting the dirt. The 
 scarcity of houses, the costs of rent, living, and taxation 
 are grievous, and driving a large portion of our middling 
 class into the country. Yet the city is full and overflow- 
 
 * In this connection the following emigration statistics are of value. Dur- 
 ino- the year 1871 the numbRr of passengers who arrived at the port of New 
 York were as follows : Ireland, 50,320 ; Germany, 88,601 ; England, 51,037 
 Scotland, 10,154 ; Wales, 1,334 ; France, 4,245 ; Spain, 130 ; Switzerland, 2,630 
 Holland,'929 ; Norway, 3,718 ; Sweden, 10,749 ; Denmark, 2,210 ; Italy, 2,309 
 Portugal, 48 ; Belgium, 161 ; West Indies, 315 ; Nova Scotia, 53 ; Japan, 14 
 South America, 85 ; Canada, 68 ; China, 246 ; Sicily, 12 ; Mexico, 39 ; Russia, 
 713- East Indies, 6; Turkey, 8; Greece, 7 ; Poland, 763 ; Africa, 8 ; Central 
 America, 35 ; Australia, 23. Total arrivals, 271,067, of whom 41,428 were citi- 
 zens, leaving the number of aliens 239,639. 
 
652 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ing, and is likely to be. The work of assimilation is 
 going on, and every debate, controversy, and party, brings 
 the various elements together ; and we are seeing each 
 other, whether we differ or agree. Great progress has 
 been made in observing and appreciating our situation 
 and population. Probably New York knows itself better 
 to-day than at any time since its imperial proportions 
 began to appear. In politics, police, philanthropy, educa- 
 tion, and religion, we are reckoning our classes, numbers, 
 and tendencies, and feeling our way towards some better 
 harmony of ideas and interests. The whole population 
 of the city was, by census of 1860, 813,669; and by the 
 census of 1865, 726,386. The voters number 151,838 ; 
 native, 51,500 ; foreign, 77,475. Over twenty-one years, 
 they who cannot read and write are 19,199. Families 
 number 148,683. Total of foreigners by census of 1860 
 was 383,717 ; and by the census of 1855, 313,417. Num- 
 ber of women, by census of 1865, was 36,000 more than 
 of men, and of widows, over 32,000 ; being 25,000 more 
 widows than widowers. The Germans, by the census of 
 1860, numbered 119,984; and by the census of 1865, 
 107,269. This makes up this city not the third, but the 
 eighth city in the world as to German population. These 
 German cities have a larger population : Berlin, Vienna, 
 Breslau, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, and Dresden. The 
 Irish, by the census of 1860, number 203,700 ; and by the 
 census of 1865, 261,334. 
 
 " New York now, we believe, has a million of resi- 
 dents, and either peculiar difficulties in the census com- 
 mission of 1865, or peculiar influences after the war, led 
 to the appearance of diminishing population. Certainly 
 we have, of late, gained numbers, and have not lost in 
 variety of elements to be assimilated. The national diver- 
 sities are not hostile, and we are seeking out their best, 
 instead of their worst, qualities. Italian art and French 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 653 
 
 accomplishment we can appreciate without forgetting that 
 we are Americans. We are discerning in our New York 
 Germany something better than lager beer and Sunday 
 concerts, and learning to appeal to the sterling sense and 
 indomitable love of liberty of the countrymen of Luther 
 and Gutenberg. The Irish among us, who make this the 
 second if not the first Irish city of the world, and who 
 contribute so largely to our ignorant and criminalreturns, 
 we are studying anew, and discerning their great service 
 to industry and their great capacity for organization. We 
 find among them good specimens of the blood of the Clin- 
 tons and the Emmets, and are bound to acknowledge that, 
 in purity, their wives and daughters may be an example 
 to any class in America or Europe. Old Israel is with us 
 too in force, and some thirty synagogues of Jews manifest 
 the power of the oldest organized religion, and the exam- 
 ple of a people that cares wholly for its own sick and 
 poor ; willing to meet Christians as friends and citizens, 
 and learn our religion more from its own gospel of love 
 than from its old conclaves of persecution. We often see 
 other types of the Oriental mind in our streets and houses, 
 and it will be well for us when Asia is here represented by 
 able specimens of her mystical piety, and we learn of her 
 something of the secret of her repose in God, and give her 
 in return something of our art of bringing the will of God 
 to bear upon this stubborn earth, instead of losing sight 
 of the earth in dreams of pantheistic absorption. In 
 many ways the various elements are combining to shape 
 our ideas and society, and fill out the measure of our 
 practical education. 
 
 " Yet, probably, the most important assimilation, as 
 already hinted, is that which is going on here between the 
 various elements of our American life in this mother-city, 
 which is destined, apparently, to be to America what Rome 
 was to the tribes that thronged to its gates. What has 
 
654 HISTORY OF NEW TORE CITT. 
 
 been taking place in England is taking place here, and the 
 Independents and Churchmen are coming together here as 
 in England since the Revolution of 1688, when extremes 
 were greatly reduced, and the independency of Milton and 
 Cromwell began to reappear in combination with the church 
 ways of Clarendon and Jeremy Taylor. The most signifi- 
 cant part of the process is the union here of Puritan indi- 
 vidualism and its intuitive thinking and bold ideas, with 
 New York institutionalism, and its organizing method and 
 objective mind. The Yankee is here, and means to stay, 
 and is apparently greatly pleased with the position and 
 reception, and enjoys the fixed order and established paths 
 of his Knickerbocker hosts. It is remarkable that whilst 
 New England numbered only some 20,000, or 19,517 of 
 her people here, which is 7,000 less than the nations of 
 Old England in the city, by the census of 1860, they are 
 so well received and effective, and fill so many and impor- 
 tant places in business and the professions. By the census 
 of 1865, New York city has 17,856 natives of New Eng- 
 land, and 19,699 natives of Old England; a balance of 
 1,843 in favor of Old England. Yet, in the State at large, 
 the result is different, for the population numbers 166,038 
 natives of New England, and 95,666 natives of Old Eng- 
 land ; a balance of 70,372 in favor of New England. It is 
 curious to note that the city had only 825 native Dutch 
 in 1865, and the State 4,254. In a philosophical point of 
 view, it is memorable that the Puritan mind is now 
 largely in power, even in our church establishments that 
 so depart from New England independency, and the lead- 
 ing Presbyterian and Episcopal preachers and scholars are 
 largely from the Puritan ranks. Our best informed scholar 
 in the philosophy of religion, who holds the chair of theo- 
 logical instruction in the Presbyterian Seminary, is a New 
 England Congregationalist, transplanted to New York. 
 Nay, even the leading, or at least the most conspicuous, 
 
HISTORY OP NEW YORK CITY. 65g 
 
 Roman Catholic theologian of New York is the son of a 
 Connecticut Congregationalist minister, and carries the 
 lineal blood and mental habit of his ancestor, Jonathan 
 Edwards, into the illustration and defense of the Roman 
 creed. It is worthy of note that our most philosophical 
 historian is the son of a Massachusetts Congregational 
 minister, and a lover of the old scholastic thinking, and a 
 champion of the ideal school of Edwards and Channing 
 in its faith and independency ; author, too, of perhaps the 
 most bold and characteristic word of America to Europe, 
 the oration of February 22d, 1866, that was the answer of 
 our New World to British Toryism and Romish Obscu- 
 rantism, whether to the Premier's mock neutral mani- 
 festo or the Pope's Encyclical Letter. 
 
 * * "It is the province of the New York Historical 
 Society to keep up the connection of the New York of the 
 past with the New York of to-day, and zealously to guard 
 and interpret all the historical materials that preserve the 
 continuity of our public life. It is to be lamented that so 
 little remains around us to keep alive the memory of the 
 ancient time ; and everything almost that we see is the 
 work of the new days. Sad it is that all the old neigh- 
 borhoods are broken up, and the old houses and churches 
 are mostly swept away by our new prosperity. But how 
 impressive are our few landmarks ! We all could join in 
 the Centennial Jubilee of St. Paul's, and wish well to its 
 opening future. So, too, we can greet our neighbors of the 
 John-street Church in their Centennial, and thank God for 
 the one hundred years of New York Methodism. Who of us 
 can pass without reflection by the old Middle Dutch Church, 
 now our Post-office, in Nassau Street, without recalling the 
 years and events that have passed since 1729, when it was 
 opened for worship in the Dutch tongue 1 In March, 1764, 
 the preaching there was, for the first time, in English ; and 
 in August, 1844, Dr. De Witt gave an outline of its his- 
 
656 
 
 HISTORT OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 tory and pronounced the benediction in Dutch ; and that 
 old shrine of the Knickerbockers is now the busy brain 
 of the nation and the world, and receives and transmits 
 some forty tons of thought a day. What would one of 
 those old Rip Van Winkles of 1729 have thought, if he 
 
 HISTOKICAL SOCIETY BUrLDFNG AKD ST. MARK'S CHURCH. 
 
 could have prolonged his Sunday afternoon nap in one of 
 those ancient pews till now, and awoke to watch the day's 
 mail, with news by the last steamers and the Atlantic 
 cable for all parts of the great continent? Our Broad- 
 
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 657 
 
 way, ever changing, arid yet the same old road, is perhaps 
 our great historical monument, aud the historical street 
 of America by eminence. All the men of our history have 
 walked there, and all nations and tribes have trodden its 
 stones and dust. In our day what have we seen there — 
 what processions, armies, pageants ! What work would 
 be more an American as well as New York history than 
 Broadway, described and illustrated with text and por- 
 traits from the time when Stuyvesant astonished the 
 Dutch with his dignity to the years that have brought 
 the hearse of our murdered President* and the carriage of 
 his successor along its stately avenue 1 Thank heaven for 
 old Broadway, noble type of American civilization, from 
 the Battery to Harlem River, and may the ways of the 
 city be as straight as the lines of its direction and as true 
 to the march of the Providence of God.f 
 
 <■ a " What the orator who ushers in the twentieth 
 century here, or who celebrates your one hundredth anni- 
 versary, may have to say as he reviews the nineteenth 
 century, I will not undertake to say. What we should 
 wish and pray for is clear. Clear that we should wish the 
 new times to keep the w^isdom and virtue of the old with 
 
 * Alluding to the funeral obsequies of President Lincoln, which consisted 
 of the remains of the President being carried in procession through Broadway 
 on the SSth of April, 1865, on their way from Washington to their final restinrr. 
 place in Springfield, Illinois. The remains reached the city the preceding day, 
 and after lying in state in the City Hall, which had been draped for the occa- 
 sion, the city of New York took its final leave of all that was mortal of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln. " The remains were escorted to the railroad depot by a procession 
 nearly five miles in length, composed of a military force of upward of sixteen 
 thousand men, together with numerous civic officers and societies. Last in the 
 procession marched two thousand colored citizens. Every window and balcony 
 was filled; every house was shrouded in funeral drapery; while along the 
 whole line the streets were thronged with sincere mourners. A large assem- 
 blage met in the afternoon of the same day in Union Square, to listen to a 
 funeral oration from Hon. George Bancroft, and an eulogy from William C. 
 Bryant." 
 
 f For an article upon " New York Society in the Olden Time," by the Right 
 Rev. Bishop Kip, see Appendix No. XVl. 
 
658 HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 all the new light and progress ; clear that after our trying 
 change from the old quarters to the new, we may build a 
 nobler civilization on the new base, and so see better days 
 than ever before ; that the great city that shall be here 
 should be riot only made up of many men but of true 
 manhood, and be not only the capital of the world but 
 the city of God ; its great park the central ground of 
 noble fellowship ; its great wharves and markets the seat 
 of honorable industry and commerce ; its public halls the 
 head-quarters of free and orderly Americans ; its churches 
 the shrines of the blessed faith and love that join man with 
 man, and give open communion with God and heaven." 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIXES. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION AND NOMINATIONS OF THE SUBSCRIBERS 
 
 TONTINE COFFEE-HOUSE.' 
 
 CONSTITUTION, &c, 
 
 WiiEUEAS ihe several persons whose names are hereunto subscribed and 
 set, have, at their joint expense, purchased certain lots of land in the Second 
 Ward of the city of New York, and erected a building thereon, called the 
 Tontine Coffee-house, to be kept and used as a coffee-house in the said city of 
 New York, and have furnished the same for that purpose, and have taken con- 
 veyances for the same premises in the names of John Broome, Gulian Vor- 
 planck, John Delafield, William Laight, and John Watts, five of the said sub- 
 scribers, in joint tenancy, as trustees for themselves and the other subscribers ; 
 and. whereas the property in tlie said lands, and building, and furniture is 
 divided into two hundred and three shares, wliich belong to the persons whose 
 names are hereunto subscribed and set, in the proportion mentioned opposite 
 to their respective names ; and the owner of each of the said shares, or his 
 executors, administrators, or assigns, is to have and receive tlie profits of such 
 share during- the natural life of the person named and described, opposite to 
 his name, as his nominee for such share, and to whicli description sucli owner 
 has subscribed his name ; and, upon the death of any such nominee, the share, 
 whicli depends upon the life of such nominee, is to cease, and the whole profits 
 of the said premises are continually to go to, and be equally divided among, such 
 of the said owners whose nominees shall be living on the first day of May in 
 every year, until the said nominees shall by death be reduced to seven, when 
 the whole of the said property is to vest in the persons then entitled to the 
 shares, standing in the names of the seven surviving nominees ; and the trus- 
 tees, or their heirs, in whom the fee of tlie said land and premises shall then 
 be vested, are then to convey the same to the persons so entitled in fee, equally 
 
 * New York : Printed in the year 1796. 
 
2 APPENDIXI. 
 
 to be divided between tliein ; tlierefore, in order to carrj- the said plan into exe 
 cution, it is hereby agreed, by and between tlie said owners, as follows, that is 
 to say : — ■ 
 
 Mrst— Thai the said building shall be used and kept as a coffee-house, and 
 for no other use or purpose, until the number of the said nominees shall be 
 reduced to seven. 
 
 Secondly — That Comfort Sands, Cornelius Ray, Anthony L. Bleecker, James 
 Tillery, and V\'illiam Henderson, who have been chosen and appointed a com- 
 mittee for that purpose, shall settle all the accounts of the said purchase and 
 building as soon as conveniently may be, and divide the surplus, if any, of the 
 subscription money paid by the present owners, and the net profits already 
 arisen among the said owners, in proportion to their respective shares, and take 
 care of and manage the said business for the interest of the said owners, and 
 receive the rents and profits of the said premises, until the first day of June 
 next, and shall then divide the net profits thereof between such of the said 
 owners whose nominees shall then be living, in proportion to their respective 
 shares. 
 
 Tliirdly — That it shall and may be lawful for the owners of the said several 
 shares, for the time being, to meet together yearly and every year, at the said 
 cottee-house, on the first Monday in June, in every year, at eleven of the clock 
 in the forenoon, and tlien and there, by a majority of the votes of the persons 
 so met. to elect and choose five of the said owners, resident in the city of New 
 York, as a coiuiuittee to manage the said business for one year ; and that the 
 committee for tlie time being, or the major part of them, or the survivors or 
 survivor of them, or the major part of tlie survivors of them, shall always 
 superintend such election, and make return of, and give notice thereof, to the 
 persons elected. But no person shall have more than one vote at such election, 
 although he may be entitled to more than one of the said shares. 
 
 Fourtldy — That every such committee, hereafter to be chosen as aforesaid, 
 shall liave the care and management of the said house and premises for the 
 said owners, and take care of, and keep the same in repair, and make leases 
 thereof, as occasion may require, which leases shall be confirmed, when neces- 
 sary, by the persons in whom the fee of the said land may be vested. The com- 
 mittee shall also settle and adjust the accounts of the preceding committee, 
 aud shall receive the rents and profits of the premises aforesaid, and divide 
 the net proceeds thereof, on the second Tuesday in May, in every year, between 
 such of the owners of the said several shares, whose nominees shall be liviuo- 
 ou the first day of the same month of May, in the same 3 ear, in proportion to 
 their respective shares. 
 
 Fiftldy — That, until the said nominees shall be reduced to seven, as afore- 
 said, each of the said shares shall be considered as personal estate, and upon 
 the death of the owner, if not disposed of by him, shall go to his executors or 
 administrators, and it shall be lawful for any person entitled to such share to 
 sell and transfer the same to any other person ; but all such transfers shall be 
 in writing, and signed by the person making the same, in the presence of, and 
 attested by, two witnesses at least, and shall be registered in a book to be kept 
 for that purpose by the said committee, and no transfer shall be valid until the 
 same sliall be registered, as aforesaid. And all such transfers shall be in the 
 following form, to wit : 
 
APPENDIX I. 3 
 
 Know all men by these presents, that I (liere insert tlie name and addition 
 of tlie owner, and if such owner claims as devisee, executor, or administrator, 
 insert such description) do hereby, for value received, sell, grant, and convey 
 (here insert the name and addition of the purchaser) my share in tlie New York 
 Tontine Cofiee-houae, to which I am entitled during the natural life of (here 
 insert the name and description of the nominee) and all my rights, title, inter- 
 est, claim, and demand, of, in. and to the same. In witness whereof, I have 
 hereunto set my hand and seal, this day of , in the year of 
 
 our Lord one thousand 
 
 And no person claiming any share as devisee, ^executor, or administrator 
 shall be entitled to the profits thereof, or to sell or transfer the same, or to vote 
 in respect thereof, until the will and letters testamentary, or letters of admin- 
 istration, by which such claim shall be made, shall be recorded in the proper 
 office in the State of New York, and a registry thereof entered in the said book 
 of registry of transfers by the said committee. 
 
 SixtMy — That the present trustees, in whom the fee simple of the said laud 
 and premises is now vested, shall, as soon as conveniently may be, execute sucli 
 declaraticn or deed as counsel shall advise, as necessary and proper, to answer 
 the several purposes aforesaid. 
 
 Se.venMy — That when the said trustees, in whom the fee simple of the said 
 land and premises is vested, shall by death be reduced to less than three, the 
 said committee, for the time being, shall give notice thereof in at least two of 
 the newspapers printed in this city, and request the then owners of the several 
 shares to meet together at the said Coifee-house, at a certain time therein to be 
 mentioned, not less than ten days from the first publication thereof, to nomi- 
 nate and elect five other persons to be trustees for them ; and such five persons 
 as shall at such meeting be elected, by a majority of the votes of the said own- 
 ers so met, shall be trustees for the whole of the said owners. And the sur- 
 vivors or survivor of the present trustees shall thereupon, on demand, in due 
 form of law, convey the said land and premises, with the appurtenances, unto 
 such new trustees, and the survivors and survivor of them, and the heirs of 
 such survivor, upon the like trusts as aforesaid, with a covenant therein to be 
 inserted, that, if such new trustees shall, by death, be reduced to less than three 
 before the said nominees shall by death be reduced to seven, that then the sur- 
 vivors or survivor will, in due form of law, convey the said land and premises, 
 with the appurtenances, unto five other trustees, to be chosen in the manner 
 aforesaid, upon the like trusts as aforesaid, and with the like covenant, to be 
 therein inserted. 
 
 EiglMiUi — That when the said nominees shall by death be reduced to seven, 
 then the trustees, or their heirs, in whom the fee simple of the said land and 
 premises shall be vested, shall, in due form of law, convey the same land and 
 premises, with the appurtenances, and all their estate and interest therein, to 
 the persons then entitled to the shares standing in the names of the seven sur 
 viving nominees, and to the heirs and assigns of the persons so entitled forever, 
 equally to be divided between them. 
 
 Done in the city of New York, the fourth day of June, in the year of our 
 Ivord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-four. 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 RICHMOND HILL. 
 
 BT GENERAL PROSPER M. WET MORE. 
 
 The memories clustering round the spot once known by this name have 
 not lost their freshness in the passing away of two generations of our people ; 
 while its many living traditions of social and political events extend over a 
 space of time fast approaching the close of a century. 
 
 This princely estate, so well known to our elderly citizens, was for many 
 years one of the chief attractions of the suburban scenery of New York. Situ- 
 ated on a commanding eminence, surrounded by groves of ancient trees, a short 
 distance west of the centre of the island, it extended, through intervening 
 rales, to the shores washed by the waters of the Hudson. The hand of Art and 
 the guidance of taste had adorned its broad expanse of cultivated grounds, 
 with all the luxuriance of gardens, arbors, and shrubberies ; while Nature 
 lent to the perfection of the landscape her choicest productions and the ripen- 
 ing iniiuences of her beneficence. The chequered fortunes of the owners of 
 this beautiful region were not more remarkable than the conflicting conditions 
 which followed the title to the estate, as it passed into the hands of its succes- 
 sive proprietors. About ten years anterior to the Revolution, an English gen- 
 tleman. Major Abraham Mortier, at one period of his life a Commissary of the 
 English Army, acquired possession of the principal part of this eligible tract 
 of land, -which was then held under grant from the Colonial Government] by 
 the Episcopal Church of the City of New York. This religious organization, 
 afterwards under the sanction of law, adopted the more definite title of 
 " Trinity Church." 
 
 The grant to the Cliurch embraced immense possessions within the bounds 
 of the rising city, a goodly share of which is still retained under the same 
 authority. Having secured from the Church a lease of the property for a long 
 extended term of years, the new proprietor erected, on a conspicuous eminence, 
 a spacious and imposing edifice, to which, with a natural fondness for 
 familiar English names, he gave the designation of "Richmond Hill." He 
 speedily commenced, on a scale of generous expenditure, to improve and orna- 
 
APPENDIXII 5 
 
 rncnt its grounds. This disposition, on his part, growing witli the opening 
 attractions of his new home, continued until the outbreak of hostilities, or, 
 according to the local traditions, until his premature death. While the property 
 remained in his possession. Major Mortier devoted much of his time and no 
 small share of his fortune to the embellishment of his highly-prisied acqui- 
 sition.* 
 
 At the commencement of active hostilities, in the neighborhood of New 
 York, under the tenure of military power. General Washington, with his fam- 
 ily, were, for a portion of the year 1776, the occupants of Richmond Hill. It 
 was during this period that Colonel Aaron Burr was appointed an aid with the 
 rank of major, on the staff of the Commander-in-chief, and, thus early, became 
 personally acquainted with the advantages and attractions of the place. It is 
 not within the design of this brief sketch to follow the successive changes of 
 title and possession, between the departure of Mortier and the removal of 
 Washington's headquarters from Richmond Hill to the Roger Morris House, 
 near the Point of Rocks. The movement of the American forces was con- 
 sequent on the subjugation of the city by the British troops, and preceded 
 only, by a short time, the capture of Fort Washington. During the seven 
 years' occupation of the Island of New York, little is known of its internal con- 
 dition ; but, undoubtedly, some superior British officer enjoyed the advantages 
 and administered the unpaid-for hospitalities of Richmond Hill. The year 
 1783 witnessed the departure of the unsuccessful supporters of royalty and the 
 gradual return of citizens to the peaceable resumption of their property and 
 rights. The legal tenure of the rights held under the Church-lease to the 
 Richmond Hill property was maintained, and the buildings and improvements 
 were not disturbed nor injured while in adverse occupancy. During the first 
 year of the Government, under the newly-adopted Constitution, while President 
 Washington was living, with some display of courtly splendor, at the Franklin 
 mansion, on the corner of Pearl and Cherry Streets, John Adams, of Massachu- 
 setts, the first Vice-President, occupied the house and grounds of Richmond 
 Hill. How much the delightful surroundings of that beautiful residence were 
 enjoyed by its inmates, at this period, is pleasantly depicted in the letters of 
 Mrs. Abigail Adams, the wife of the Vice-President. She writes to her rela- 
 tive, Mrs. Shaw, in the following glowing terms: 
 
 " Richmond Hilij, N. Y., 
 
 'f 37th September, 1789. 
 
 " I write to you, my dear Sister, not from the disputed banks of the Poto- 
 mac, tlie Susquehanna, or the Delaware, but from tlie peaceful borders of 
 the Hudson ; a situation where the hand of Nature has so lavishly displayed 
 her beauties, that she has left scarcely anything for her handmaid. Art, to per- 
 form. 
 
 " The house in which we reside is situated upon a hill, the avenue to which 
 is interspersed with forest-trees, under which a shrubbery, rather too luxu- 
 riant and wild, has taken shelter, owing to its having been deprived, by death, 
 some years since, of its original proprietor, who kept it in perfect order. In 
 
 * Thi? property is traced on the insp, published from a survey mode, in 177G, by Major 
 Montresor. 
 
 84 
 
6 APPENDISII. 
 
 front of tte house tlie noble Hudson rolls its majestic waves, bearing upon his 
 bosom innujuerable small vessels, which are constantly forwarding the rich 
 products of the neighboring soil to the busy hand of a more extensive com- 
 merce Beyond the Hudson rises to our view the fertile country of the Jer- 
 seys covered with a golden harvest and pouring forth plenty, like the cornu- 
 copia of Ceres. On the right hand, an extensive plain presents us with a view 
 of fields, covered with verdure, and pastures full of cattle. On the lett, the city 
 opens upon us, intercepted only by clumps of trees and some rising ground 
 which serves to heighten the beauty of the scene, by appearing to conceal a part. 
 In the background is a large flower-garden, enclosed with a hedge, and some 
 very handsome trees. On one side of it a grove of pines and oaks, fit for con- 
 templation. 
 
 " ' In this path. 
 
 How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each etcp 
 
 Shall wake Iresh beantiee ; each last point present 
 
 A different picture, new, and each the same.' 
 
 " If my days of fancy and romance were not past, I could find here an ample 
 field for indulgence ; yet, amidst these delightful scenes of Nature, my heart 
 pants for the society of my dear relatives and friends, who are too far removed 
 from me." 
 
 In another letter, written a year later, to her friend, Mr. Brand-Hollis, liv- 
 ing in England, she repeats and enlarges her description of the beauties of the 
 scenery by which she was surrounded at her delightful residence at Richmond 
 Hill, and when the removal of the Government from New York to Philadelphia 
 required the official families to change their residences, the regrets of Mrs 
 Adams were feelingly expressed. ■ 
 
 In the year 1797, this property was in the possession of an eminent foreign 
 gentleman by the name of Temple ; and a good deal of public excitement was 
 awakened by an extensive robbery committed on the premises, the perpetra- 
 tors of which were never discovered. Just at this period the Richm<md Hill 
 estate came into the possession of Aaron Burr, by whom it was retained, as a 
 country residence, for about fifteen years. 
 
 Colonel Barr retired from the army, in conseqtieuce of greatly impaired 
 health, some years before the Revolutionary contest had ceased. He had 
 entered, actively, into the practice of the law, at New York, in which he had 
 already acquired no little distinction elsewhere. Subsequently elected to the 
 Senate of the United States, and, at the close of that service, elevated to the 
 office of Vice-President, much of his time was necessarily spent at the seat of 
 government ; but all of his home life was passed in the society of his family, 
 at Richmond Hill. While his business offices and temporary lodging apart- 
 ments were in the crowded city, his hours of enjoyment and the brilliant 
 scenes of his social entertainments always found him at this chosen spot. It 
 was here that he received, with fitting honors, the distinguished strangers, 
 from every land, who came to study the features of the country and to estimate 
 the characters of the people, ne%v]y entering into the family of nations. Cer- 
 tainly, no man of that day was better qualified to perform the duty he had 
 taken upon himself. Born, as it seemed, to adorn society ; rich in knowledge ; 
 brilliant and instructive in conversation ; gifted with a charm of manner that 
 
APPENDIX II. 7 
 
 was almost irresistible ; lie was tlie idol of all who came witliin the magic 
 sphere of his friendship and his social influence. In his immediate family 
 circle were centered his purest joys, his highest hopes. His married life had 
 been, one of uninterrupted happiness, save from the declining health of his 
 affectionate wife. The correspondence between them, which is extant, affords 
 undeniable evidence of the truth of these statements. His daughter, Theodo- 
 sia, after the death of her mother, was the delight of her father's heart, the 
 chosen companion of his hours of ease and relaxation. She conducted, with 
 rare tact and discretion, the generous hospitality of the Richmond Hill estab- 
 lishment ; and the felicity of her management and the charm of her manner 
 were, frequently, the topic of admiration and commendation in the best social 
 assemblages of those happy days. 
 
 Among the frequent guests at Burr's house, during this period of his high- 
 est prosperity and popularity, were the accomplished Volney, the courtly 
 Talleyrand, and the princely-born Louis Philippe. Expatriated, under the 
 misrule of the French Revolution, these were all of a class of men whom Burr 
 delighted to entertain, and who could appreciate and enjoy the elegant hospi- 
 tality which was extended to them. About this time, also, while the Vice- 
 President was at his post of duty, in Washington, he requested his daughter, 
 whom he had left in charge of his country establishment, and who was then 
 fourteen years of age, to give a dinner-party at Richmond Hill, to the celebrated 
 Indian Chief, Brant.* 
 
 The years that were passed (with occasional absences on public duty) at 
 Richmond Hill, in the compaaionship of his wife and daughter, comprised the 
 six years of allotted service in the Senate and the four years' incumbency of 
 the office of Vice-President of the United States. In that brief period of time 
 culminated, declined, and passed away, forever, the fame, distinction, and hap- 
 piness of Aaron Burr. 
 
 There is no parallel in personal history for such a fate, so sudden and so 
 irreparable, as that which befell the once honored, respected, admired, and 
 feared master of Richmond Hill. 
 
 As a brave and faithful soldier of the Revolution, he was without fear and 
 without reproach. In his first battle, he was chosen to lead the forlorn hope, 
 at the assault of Quebec ; and, while under fire, he bore the body of Montgom- 
 ery from the crimsoned snow-banlt where he fell. Chosen by Washington to 
 fill the responsible post of aid, he remained in that confidential position until 
 he voluntarily accepted the office of the like distinction by the side of Putnam ; 
 and thence only changed his line of duty to accept the more active service in 
 the command of a regiment. Distinguished in the arduous duties of maintain- 
 ing the integrity of " the neutral ground " of Westchester, his conduct won 
 the admiration of every judicious commander. Successful whenever he led an 
 independent command, on the disastrous field of Monmouth he made the final 
 sacrifice of his health and ambition to the cause of his country. Retiring from 
 duty, as an invalid, he declined to accept the proffered privilege of leave from 
 active service with continued compensation, and returned to the wallts of pri- 
 vate life with shattered health, but with few of the honors and none of the 
 rewards of his faitliful service. 
 
 * For an account of this dinner, and also for a letter written by Burr to his daughter, 
 introdnciufi the Chief, Brant, to her, tiee Cliiipter VI.. Part III.. 
 
8 APPENDIX II. 
 
 This is tlie brief, but true, military record of Aaron Burr. Is tliere nothing 
 in such a record to justify the hope of a memory worthy to be cherished, rather 
 than to meet the execration of undying enmity ? One act of Burr's life made 
 him an outcast, not alone from the society he had adorned and honored, but 
 from the country which had given him birth, and in support of whose liberties 
 he had freely periled his life. Of the great host of enemies, so suddenly 
 raised up, and Avho so relentlessly followed the footsteps of the stricken man. 
 how many were there who should have shuddered with the infamy of casting 
 the first stone? 
 
 At the closing of his ofEcial duties, 4s Vice-President, Burr followed out a 
 long and well considered purpose of opening a justifiable enterprise for the 
 conquest of one of the provinces of Southern America. Through the perfidy 
 of one or more of his trusted agents, he was arrested, imprisoned, and tried for 
 treason, in the city of Richmond, Virginia. After months of enforced delay, 
 for sinister purposes, the trial was held before the most distinguished of all 
 the Chief-Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States ; and while the 
 whole power of the Government of the nation wasairrayed against the perse- 
 cuted defendant, under the advice and ruling of John Marshall, he was honor- 
 bly acquitted and restored to all the rights of a citizen. And yet there are 
 men who continue to write and speak of Aaron Burr as a traitor ! 
 
 How many years was he in advance of that glorious enterprise which 
 secured Texas as one of the States of the American Union ! His subsequent 
 career was one of long-continued and almost crushing sorrows. The sad 
 sufierings which his misfortunes had cast upon hie noble-minded daughter, 
 Theodosia, who had previously become the wife of Governor Alston, of South 
 Carolina ; the melancholy death of her only child ; and the loss of the devoted 
 mother, on her voyage to meet and welcome home her beloved father, after his 
 long years of absence abroad, altogether make one of the most pathetic stories 
 in the whole range of personal literature. This painful episode has led our 
 reflections far away from the subject of Richmond Hill, and we now again 
 take up the thread of our history. Before Burr's loss of fortune he had con- 
 templated parting with this property, and had opened negotiations with a 
 wealthy capitalist to that end. Having suddenly determined to visit Europe, 
 in the hope and expectation of obtaining pecuniary assistance in the prosecu- 
 tion of his Mexican enterprise, he departed, leaving, his business affairs in a 
 condition of irretrievable embarrassment. The necessary consequence was, 
 that the Richmond Hill property was sold, to satisfy the most pressing of his 
 creditors, for a very small part of its actual value; and that, finally, the 
 larger portion became incorporated with the vast estate of Mr. John Jacob 
 Astor. A part of the property held by Burr was not embraced under the 
 Church-lease, but had been purchased from other parties; and so much as had 
 been thus acquired, with a title in fee. had been disposed of some years prior 
 to the ultimate catastrophe from which there was no recovery. 
 
 While writing these lines, we have lying before us an attested copy of a 
 conveyance, with an attested map of the premises attached, from Aaron Burr 
 to John Jacob Astor bearing date the eighteenth of November, 1803. This 
 instrument purports to convey a piece of land known as the " Triangle," com- 
 prising about forty city lots, bounded by the line of the Church property, and 
 is conveyed, in fee. to the purchaser. The location of this section is indicated. 
 
APPHNDISII. 9 
 
 by its boundaries, on Downing, Bedford, and Village Streets— the latter name 
 being now obsolete. 
 
 It is a significant fact, in relation to Burr's well-known business relations, 
 tliat this piece of property was conveyed, subject to an existing mortgage, in 
 favor of the Manhattan Company. We have also before us an original instru- 
 ment, certified of record, by T. Wortman, clerk of the city and county of New 
 York, purporting to be a mortgage executed by Timothy and Mary Green to 
 Aaron Burr, covering certain lots, formerly part of the estate of said Burr, and 
 which had previously been part of the estate of Elbert Herring, and was 
 bounded by property held by Burr, under a Church-lease. This mortgage 
 bears date the twenty -third day of October, 1802 ; and appears to have been 
 assigned, on the same day, to the Manhattan Company. These ancient docu- 
 ments are only interesting to antiquaries in search of disputed or forgotten 
 boundaries, and were found, with many other unconsidered trifles, among the 
 multifarious articles seeking a purchaser in the stock of a dealer in old paper. 
 They are entirely at the service of any person who can find them of any value. 
 Thus passed away, into other hands, the possessions once held and dearly 
 prized by the dwellers in the spacious halls and on the broad lands of Rich- 
 mond Hill. From time to time, between the years 1806 and 1818, the prem- 
 ises, diminished in size and attraction, were noticed in the public papers to be 
 rented for private residences; and thus, as time passed on, the fortunes of 
 Richmond Hill declined. 
 
 The writer remembers the place well. In the year 1813 the noble mansion 
 remained in good preservation, with its broad entrance, under a porch of 
 imposing height, supported by tall columns, with balconies fronting the rooms 
 of the second storj', and with an aspect of distinction altogether beyond the 
 ordinary private dwellings of that day. The outer entrance of the premises, 
 at the period mentioned, was through a spacious gateway, placed between 
 highly ornamented columns, at the then termination of McDougal Street, 
 about two hundred feet north of Spring Street. The grounds at that time 
 had been reduced in size, by the interposing barriers of newly opened streets, 
 and no longer extended to the river. The beautiful piece of water, long known 
 as " Burr's Pond," remained intact, with a full supply of the needed element, 
 which, in winter, gave excitement and enjoyment to all the noisy urchins 
 fond of the exercise of skating. On this point the writer can speak from per- 
 sonal knowledge. " Burr's Pond," so far as its exact location can now be 
 traced, must have been on or near the piece of ground known as " the Trian- 
 gle," as it has been followed to a point where it meets the junction of Bedford 
 and Downing Streets. 
 
 In the year 1830 the final excavation of the high ground was completed, 
 and in 1833 a public garden was opened, and soon became a popular resort for 
 the neighboring inhabitants, to whom refreshments were served from the main 
 building. A turtle feast became, also, a standard entertainment, and was 
 frequently presented to an appreciative public by a society gifted with a 
 knowledge of such culinary accomplishments. 
 
 Having thus passed through all the mutations of city suburban property, 
 these premises followed the fortunes of other localities ; the street commis- 
 sioner made his influence felt ; streets and avenues were opened ; build'ngs 
 were demolished or removed ; profile maps came into vogue ; hills disappeared 
 
10 APPENDIX II. 
 
 and valleys were filled ; until at length the old Riclimond Hill mansion found 
 itself shorn of aU its grandeur, stripped of its verdant groves, despoiled of its 
 gardens and lavFns, Bitting sadly, far beneath its former altitude, at the noisy 
 and somewhat unsavory corner of Charlton and Varick Streets. Its stately 
 portals no longer opened wide to welcome the entrance of distinguished guests 
 from foreign lands, or the brilliant crowds who came to mingle in the gay 
 receptions of joyoXis and sparkling Theodosia. Poor Theodosia ! whose grave 
 had been made for her beneath the surging billows of the ocean. 
 
 Alas ! for the changes wrought by the relentless hand of Time ! The 
 tenacity of life with the old mansion was remarkable ; and, after the gardens 
 had ceased to be remunerative and other similar attractions had failed, a new 
 and more pretentious effort was made to embellish its history and to keep 
 alive, a little longer, the distinction attached to its name. On its new foundation 
 the house was placed with its front, still wearing the adornments of columns 
 and balconies, some twenty feet withdrawn from Varick Street, extending along 
 the line of Charlton Street. About the year 1831 the premises were leased 
 and a new building constructed, in the rear, connected with the principal 
 edifice and running back about fifty feet, with the view to form a dramatic 
 temple, under the title of " The Bichmond Hill Theatre." When completed, 
 the management of the establishment was entrusted to Mr. Eichard Russell, 
 an experienced and respectable member of the theatrical profession. 
 
 Shortly before the opening night the manager invited, by public notice and 
 ihe offer of a prize, the co-operation of our city's literati in the production of a 
 Poetical Address for the occasion. The committee selected to award the prize sat 
 in one of the reception chambers of the old time-honored mansion. It was an 
 afternoon to be remembered. As the twilight deepened into the evening, the 
 shadows of departed hosts and long-forgotten guests seemed to hover round 
 the dilapidated halls and dismantled chambers. Silence and a saddening 
 gloom weighed heavily on the spirits of the selected party. But the lights 
 came, the feeling of depression soon passed away, and the disordered fancy 
 was roused to resume the duty of the hour. 
 
 Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck was chosen to break the seals of a couple of dozen 
 envelopes. The writer of this paper was permitted to be a sharer in the cere- 
 monies. As the poems were read, or glanced at, some few were placed on the 
 right hand, but much the larger number on the left. Of course there could be 
 but little hesitation in making up the final verdict. The successful competitor 
 bore the name of Fitz-Greene Halleck ; and, with these pages, the original 
 manuscript of the following beautiful poem is placed in the hands of the editor 
 of The Historical Magazine : 
 
 PRIZE POEM 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE OPENING OF THE niCIIMONt) HILI, THB.VTRE. 
 
 Where dwells the Drama's Spirit !— not alone 
 Beneath the palace-roof, beside the throne, 
 In learning's cloisters, friendsMp's festal bowers. 
 Arts pictur'd halls, or triumph's laurel'd towers— 
 Where'er man's pulaps beat, or passions play, 
 She joys to smile or sigh his thoughts away, 
 Crowd times and scenes within her ring of power, 
 And teach a life's experience in an hour. 
 
APPENDIX II. 11 
 
 To night she greets, for the first time, our dome, 
 Her latest, may it prove her lusting home, 
 And we, her messengers, delighted stand, 
 The summoned Ariele of her mystic wand, 
 To ask your welcome. . . Be it yours to give 
 Bliss to her coming hours, and hid her live 
 Within these walls, new-hallowed in her cause. 
 Long in the nurturing warmth of your applause. 
 
 *TiB in the public smiles, the public loves, 
 
 Hie dearest home, the actor breathes and moves ; 
 
 Your plaudits are, to us, and to our art, 
 
 As is the life-blood to the human heart; 
 
 And every power that bids the leaf be green 
 
 In nature, acts on this her mimic scene. 
 
 Our sunbeams are the sparkliogs of glad eyes. 
 
 Our winds, the whisper of applause that flies 
 
 From lip to lip, the heart-born lauf^h of gleo, 
 
 And sounds of cordial hands that ring out merrily ; 
 
 And heaven's own dew falls on us in the tear 
 
 That woman weeps o'er sorrows picturM here, 
 
 When crowded feelings have no words to tell 
 
 The might, the magic of the actor's spell. 
 
 These have been ours, and do we hope in vain, 
 Here, oft, and deep, to feci them ours again ? 
 No — while the weary heart can find repose 
 From its own pains in fictions, joys, or woes ; 
 While there are open lips and dimpled cheeks 
 When music breathes, or wit or humor speaks; 
 While Shakspeare's master spirit can call up 
 Noblest and holiest thoughts, and brim tbe cup 
 Of life with bubbles bright as happiness, 
 Cheating the willing bosom into bliss; 
 So long will those who, in their spring of youth. 
 Have listened to the drama's voice of truth ! 
 Marked in her scenes the manners cf their age. 
 And gathered knowledge for a wider stage ; 
 Come here to speed with smiles life 's summer years. 
 And melt its winter's snow with warmest tears; 
 And younger hearts, when ours are hushed and cold, 
 Be happy here, as we have been of old. 
 
 Friends of the stage ! who hail it as the shrine 
 Where music, paintiuL', poetry entwine 
 Their wedded garlands, whence their blended power 
 Refines, e^aUs, ennobles, hour by hour, 
 The spirit of the land ; and, like the wind, 
 Unseen, but felt, bears on the bark of mind; 
 To you. the hour that consecrates this dome 
 Will call up dreams of prouder hours to come. 
 When some creaLtnir Poet, born your own, 
 May waken here the drama's lottiest tone. 
 Through after years to echo loud and long; 
 A Shakspeare of the west— a star of song ! 
 Brightening your own blue skies with living fire. 
 All elimee to gladden, and all tongues inspire, 
 Far as beneath the heaven, by sea-winds fanned, 
 Floats the tree banner of your native land. 
 
12 APPENDIXII. 
 
 However promising may have been tlie opening of the theatrical specula- 
 tion, it did not, in -the end, restore the fortunes or rescue the name of the 
 Richmond Hill House. The situation was not well adapted for such a place ot 
 amusement, and its existence was not a protracted one. 
 
 What is known as "the regular drama" — tragedies and comedies — failing 
 to attract sufficient support, an operatic company was called into requisition. 
 Some well-appointed musical entertainments were offered, but usually with 
 Inadequate results. One of the most effective performers in Italian opera, and 
 with a superb voice, was presented at this house. Pedroti will long be remem- 
 bered for her charming acting and singing. 
 
 Several of the actors, of established reputations, from other theaters, 
 appeared here for short engagements. Cooper occasionajly reminded his 
 admirers of an early day of the gratification his acting had afforded them ; 
 while those well-remembered favorites, Mr. and Mrs. Hilson, whose names 
 were houaehold words with a New Tork audience, sometimes wandered away 
 from the Park to receive a cordial welcome at Richmond Hill. But the chief 
 incident in this dramatic episode was the entrance into the management of 
 John Barnes, so long and well known as one of the leading comic actors from 
 ihe Park company, 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Barnes were sterling performers. They had brought from 
 their old theatrical homestead all the prestige of a life-long stage success. 
 They had also acquired a moderate competency in the practice of their profes- 
 sion, and had won the warm regard and respect of a large community of friends 
 of the drama, by the excellency of their deportment and habits of life. Mr. 
 Barnes first appeared at the Park Theater, in the year 1816, and Mrs. Barnes at 
 the same time. They both soon established themselves in public favor, and 
 remained at the Park until the spring of the year 1833, when Mr. Barnes 
 accepted the management of the new theater. The enterprise was a signal 
 failure, much to the regret of those who witnessed the misfortune which befell 
 the manager and his accomplished companion. 
 
 In opening the second season, in May, 1832, Mrs. Barnes delighted her 
 audience by reciting a brilliant Address from the penof a gentleman who shone 
 among the literary lights of that day. Mr. Charles P. Clinch, with character- 
 istic, but not to be commended, modesty, withheld his poem from the press, 
 and it cannot, therefore, lend grace and beauty to these pages. 
 
 The theater, with the aid occasionally of a circus company, or a menagerie, 
 continued its feeble existence for about ten years, and at the close of 1843 it 
 finally surrendered to a fate that was Inevitable — its doors were closed never 
 again to be opened. 
 
 And thus passed away the glories and the shadows of Richmond Hill. All 
 that remains of them are a few fleeting memories and a page or two of history 
 fast fading into oblivion. 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 INSCRIPTION ON MONTGOMERY'S MONUMENT. 
 
 This Monument is erected by the order of Congress, 
 25th Jan""?, 1776, to transmit to posterity a grateful remem- 
 brance of the patriotism, conduct, enterprise & perseverance 
 of Major General Richard Montgomery, 
 Who after a series of successes amidst the most discou- 
 raging difficulties Fell in the attack on 
 Quebec, 31" DeC 1775, Aged 37 years. 
 
 Invenit et 8culpsit,Parisiis J.J. Caffieri, SculptorEegius, Anno Domini cbbcclxxvii 
 
 THE STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 Caused the Remains of 
 
 MIAJ^OR G^KN-r,. RICHARD MIONTOOMIBKY. 
 
 To be conveyed from Quebec 
 
 And deposited beneath this Monument, 
 
 the 8th day of July, 
 
 1818. 
 
 85 
 
H APPENDIX III. 
 
 LETTER FROM GENERAL MONTGOMERY. 
 
 General Richard Montgomery was born December 3, 1736, not at Convoy, 
 as sometimes stated, but at Swords ; Feltrim, near Swords, having been a resi- 
 dence of different members of the family, and indeed at times of Thomas 
 Montgomery. 
 
 The events leading to Richard Montgomery's design of coming to America 
 have always been involved in obscurity, but the following, which I have not 
 before seen, may give the whole clue to his emigration :* " Tou no doubt will 
 be surprised when I tell you I have taken the resolution of quitting the ser- 
 vice and dedicating the rest of my life to husbandry, for which I have of late 
 conceived a violent passion. A passion I am determined to indulge in, quit- 
 ting the career of glory for the substantial comforts of independence. My 
 frequent disappointments with respect to preferment, the little prospect of 
 future advancement to a man who has no friends able or willing to serve him, 
 the mortification of seeing those of more interest getting before one, the little 
 chance of having anything to do in the way of my profession, and that time of 
 life approaching when rambling has no longer its charms, have confirmed me 
 in the indulgence of my inclination. And as a man with little money cuts but 
 a bad figure in this country among peers, nabobs, etc., etc., I have cast my eye 
 on America, where my pride and poverty will be much more at their ease. 
 This is an outline of my future plans." The tenor of this is borne out in a let- 
 ter he wrote — one of the la«t he ever penned — to his father-in-law, Judge Liv- 
 ingston, who died before the letter reached its address, at " Headquarters 
 before Quebec, December 16, 1775. . . . Should my good fortune give me 
 success, I shall as soon as possible return home. I have lost tlie ambition 
 which once sweetened a military life — a sense of my dnty is the only spring of 
 action. I must leave the field to those who liave a more powerful incentive. 
 I think our affairs at present in so prosperous a situation that I may venture 
 to indulge myself in that sort of life which alone gives me pleasure. Should 
 the scene change, I shall always be ready to contribute my mite to the public 
 safety." Alas ! for him and for his adopted country, what a change a fortnight 
 brought to these bright dreams. But yet the letter to his father-in-law betrays 
 the c^use of his failure in Quebec, the force of which, perhaps, his unflinching 
 spirit underestimated. " The unhappy passion for going home which prevails 
 among the troops, has left me almost too weak to undertake the business I 
 am about." 
 
 General Montgomery, soon after his coming to America in 1772, ''laid out 
 part of his money in the purchase of a farm and house near King's Bridge, 
 about thirteen miles from the city of New York. Upon this he erected a 
 small fort, which was evacuated and has been ever since garrisoned by the 
 
 British troops After your brother's marriage, having acquired a tract of 
 
 land by my sister, he laid out a considerable sum of money in building a 
 dwelling house and mills, which by his will were left to his widow." | This is 
 
 * MS. letter written to his cousin John Montgomery of Ballyleck, in the possession of 
 General George S. Montgomery. 
 
 t Letter of Cliaiicellor Livingston to Viscount Ranelagh,. dated Salisbury, ^ovembGr 
 2, 1777. 
 
APPENDIXIII. 15 
 
 Montgomery Place on the Hudson, now in tlie possession of Mrs. T. P. Barton, 
 wlio inherited it from her aunt, Mrs. Montgomery. 
 
 Mrs. Montgomery kept up an intimate correspondence with members of 
 her husband's family in Ireland, and many years after his death paid them a 
 visit. There are many specimens of American trees at Convoy, the seed of 
 which it is said she sent over. She died in 1828, aged eighty-five. 
 
 There is a very good portrait of the General at Beaulieu House, a photo- 
 graph of which I have seen, and which, when compared with that at Mont- 
 gomery Place, would make it appear that the latter was a copy of the former ; 
 he must have sat for it at an earlier age than thirty-six, the period of his com 
 ing to America ; he is habited iu a red coat, and had not yet resigned his com- 
 mission in the British army. 
 
 General Montgomery left behind him but few memorials of his active and 
 eventful life ; those that have come to light have mostly all appeared in the 
 biographical notices already of him. His correspondence was sparse, but 
 good ; time may yet collect many of his letters still in private hands, and 
 these, with other memorials which we hope are in store for the curious inquirer, 
 may at a future day be given by some lover of his memory— and what Ameri- 
 can does not merit tliis claim 1 — to the public. 
 
APPENDIX IV. 
 
 NEW YORK CITY POST-OFFICE. 
 
 The history of the New York Post-oflBce is to Buch an extent the history of 
 the city itself, bo far as regards its growth and prosperity, that the present 
 .work would not be complete without a more detailed account than the one 
 given in the text. The following sketch is also from Harper's Magazine for 
 October, 1871 : 
 
 There seems to be no preserved evidence that for very many years after the 
 settlement of what is now known as the city of New York there was any offi- 
 cially recognized post-office. The population was small in numbers, and there 
 were no business inducements which would lead to much correspondence. 
 The very first ships which arrived after the primitive settlement of course 
 brought letters to New Amsterdam, and the commencement of our local office 
 was naturally coeval with the foundation of the city ; but it was many years 
 before there was a population which called for any system looking toward 
 revenue. 
 
 On the arrival of the vessel those letters relating to the cargo were deliv- 
 ered to the merchants ; the members of the exulting, expecting crowd which 
 welcomed their friends received their letters from hands warm with the grasp 
 of friendship. If a solitary epistle found no owner, it was left in the possession 
 of some responsible private citizen until called for. In time the intercourse 
 with Holland increased, and there gradually developed a system of voluntary 
 distribution which became eventually known as the " coffee-house delivery," 
 which maintained its popularity and usefulness more than a hundred years. 
 
 This system grew out of the custom of masters of vessels, and the people 
 from the settlements of Breucklyn, Pavonia, and the distant Hackensack, 
 leaving at some agreed-upon popular tavern letters intrusted to them which 
 they could not personally deliver. Here these " waifs " were kept in a small 
 box, conveniently placed within the reach of all, or gibbeted ingeniously upon 
 the surface of a smooth board, by means of green baize, tape, and brass-headed 
 nails, the " composition " displayed the while, like some choice picture, in the 
 most conspicuous part of the public room. There were hangers-on at these 
 popular resorts who unconsciously acted as agents for this arcadian post : for 
 
APPBKDIXIV. 17 
 
 they acquired temporary importance, and sometimes a bit of tobacco or a glass 
 of Scbiedam sclinappe, by circulating information regarding the " letter list." 
 It was a curious sight, these old depositories of commercial speculations and 
 homely friendships. Many were the neglected letters which were taken and 
 examined by the simple-hearted old burghers, until the superscriptions were 
 entirely defaced by the handling. Crabbed writing must, under the best cir- 
 cumstances, have made the characteristic and familiar Holland names of Guys- 
 bert van Imbroecken and Ryndert Jausen van Hooghten appear very much 
 like an imitation of a Virginia fence ; but when these same letters became 
 here and there defaced and stained by soiling fingers, the superscription must 
 have been a jumble indeed. It is asserted, however, that the possible contents 
 of these " literary orphans" were sources of infinite gossip to the loungers at 
 the tavern, for they would sit silently and smoke for long hours thinking over 
 the important matter, occasionally uttering the vague speculation that they 
 "were written by somebody;" and after this severe effort of conjectural 
 thought would lapse again into dreamy somnolency. 
 
 The tradition, however, is doubtful that the earlier Dutch governors 
 received their official dispatches through the coffee-house delivery, and con- 
 tinued so to do up to the time of the testy and resolute Stuyvesant, who con- 
 ceived the idea that more rapid communication with the gubernatorial head- 
 quarters might be had by sending these important docaments, withoat any 
 circumlocution, to his official residence. 
 
 For many years, even after the English took possession of New York, the 
 coffee-house delivery was really the people's institatiou for the distribution of 
 written information. The custom continued with the population of the sea 
 port towns of turning out and greeting the arrival of every important vessel, and 
 there followed the consequent exchange of congratulations, inquiries, and let- 
 ters ; and even after a more comprehensive and responsible system was 
 demanded, it was difficult to get the people to wholly change their old and 
 confirmed ways, to depart from habits associated witli so many pleasant 
 traditions. 
 
 But this simple style of conducting business gradually became Inefficient; 
 and the " mother country," after England assumed the maternal position, 
 turned its attention to the establishment of post-offices throughout the few 
 densely settled portions of the colonies. At this period, toward the close of 
 the seventeenth century (1673), New York boasted of five thousand inhabit- 
 ants. Both Philadelphia and Boston were her superiors in population and 
 commercial importance, and their citizens entered upon the new arrangements 
 with actively expressed, zeal. But New York in spirit remained a mere vil- 
 lage, for its old population was quite satisfied with things as they were, and 
 resolutely maintained its correspondence, whenever it was possible, through 
 private means. An innovation on this custom was evidently made by an offi- 
 cial order, issued in 1686, that ship-letters must be sent to the custom-house ; 
 and we presume that the municipal government came to the rescue in IG93, by 
 passing an act establishing a post-office. 
 
 In the year 1710 the Postmaster-General of Great Britain directed the 
 establishment of a " chief letter office" in the city of New York, Philadelphl i 
 liaving been previously made the headquarters of the colonial organization, 
 In the succeeding year arrangements were completed for the delivery of tlie 
 
18 APPENDTXIY. 
 
 Boston mail twice a month, and propositions to establiah afoot post to Albany- 
 were advertised. The New York Gazette, for the week ending the 8d of May, 
 1732, has the following interesting advertisement : 
 
 " The New York Post-office will be removed to-morrow to the uppermost of the two 
 hooeea on Broadwaj', opposite Beaver Street. 
 
 KiOHAnD NiCHOL, Esq., P. M." 
 
 In 1740 a complete road was " blazed " from Paulus Hook (Jersey City) to 
 Philadelphia, over which road, without any stated intervals of time, the mail 
 was carried on horseback between Philadelphia and New York. 
 
 Twenty-one years (1758) after the notice we have quoted of the removal of 
 the New York post-office to Broadway we find it still in the same location, but 
 designated as being- opposite Bowling Green, and that it would be open every 
 day, save Saturday afternoon and Sunday, from 8 to 12 A. M., except on post 
 nights, Avhen attendance would be given uotil ten at night. Signed, Alexan- 
 der Golden, Deputy-postmaster, and Secretary and Comptroller. 
 
 Dr. Franklin must have been very active in the establishment of postal 
 facilities throughout the colonies ; for in the year 1753, much to his personal 
 satisfaction, he was appointed Postmaster-General, with a small salary, which, 
 it was quaintly added, " he could have if he could get it." But in spite of the 
 establishment of a city post forty years previously. New York did not attract 
 any special attention, and the revenues derived therefrom are not mentioned, 
 while those of Boston and Philadelphia have frequent notice. It is probable 
 that the municipal and the colonial authorities carried on much of their cor- 
 respondence tlirough agents, who were left to their own ways, the habits of the 
 mass of the people coufining them to their old notions of volunteer distribu- 
 tion, which was also encouraged by the high rates of postage. So long, indeed, 
 did the coflfi^e-house delivery maintain its popularity, tliat we find " the consti- 
 tuted officials" complaining of the fact as injuring the revenue, and finally 
 an attempt was made to break up the custom by the publication of severe 
 penalties. 
 
 In Dr. Franklin's celebrated examination before the House of Commons 
 committee on the situation of the colonies we find the following questions and 
 answers, evidently aimed at the coffee-house distribution of letters : 
 
 Committee — Do not letters often come into the post-offices of America 
 directed to inland towns where no post goes? 
 
 Dr. Fkanklin — Yes. 
 
 Committee — Can any private person take up these letters and carry them 
 as directed ? 
 
 Dr. Franklin — Yes, a friend of the person may do it, paying the postage 
 that has accrued. 
 
 But for many years, in spite of this governmental opposition, New York 
 city kept up the custom. The coffee-houses maintained their popularity. To 
 them resorted the chief men and the wits of the town. At them were to be 
 met the sea-captains and strangers from abroad, and gossip answered the place 
 of the daily paper; and there was kept up the " card-rack," sticking full of 
 letters and business notices; nor would public opinion severely condemn this 
 custom, so peculiar to New York. Even the first Tontine Coffee-house, as it 
 was called, had its place for exchanging letters. It was not until it was 
 
APPENDIXIV. 19 
 
 found out by experience that a well-regulated city post was safer, of lesB 
 trouble, and more expeditious, tliat the coffee-house letter distribution came 
 to an end. 
 
 The oppressions of the colonies by the British Government occasioned a 
 novel form of indignation, which expressed itself by the decided patronage of 
 what appears to have been a " continental post," which was carried on in 
 opposition to the one under the control of the English Postmaster-general, for 
 we find a notice that the deputy of the British Government was vainly endea- 
 voring to keep up a post-office. 
 
 Alexander Golden remained postmaster up to the breaking out of the Rev- 
 olution, for in the year previous (1775) his name appears in the Gazette in con- 
 nection with the office, and with the additional one of agent for the English 
 packets, which sailed once a month. 
 
 Upon the British troops taking possession of New Tork, the old record of 
 the post-office disappears. For seven years it was abolished by the exactions 
 of the provost-marshal, and little correspondence ensued not connected with 
 the movements of troops. William Bedlow was the first postmaster after the 
 close of the war, as his name appears in that connection in 1785 ; but in the 
 succeeding year (1786) Sebastian Bauman was postmaster ; and in the first 
 directory of the city ever published — in which we find nine hundred and 
 twenty-six names of citizens, the members of Congress, etc., John Hancock, 
 Esq., President — is the following advertisement : 
 
 ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES OP THE MAILS AT THE POST- 
 OFFICE IN NEW TORK. 
 
 ARRIVALS. 
 
 PROM NEW ENQLAHD AHD ALBANY. 
 
 From November IH to May \st. 
 On Wednesday and Saturday, at seven o'clock p. m. 
 
 From May \st to November 1st. 
 On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at Hght o'clock r. Ji. 
 
 FROM THE SOUTHWARD. 
 
 From Noveniber \st to May 1st. 
 On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at nine o'clock p. m_ 
 
 DEPARTURES. 
 
 FOR NEW ENGLAND AND ALEANT. 
 
 From November 1st to May 1st, 
 On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, at ten o'clock p.m. 
 
 Frmn May 1st to November 1st. 
 On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, at ten o'clock p. m. 
 
 FOR THE SOUTHWARD. 
 
 Frmn November 1st to May 1st. 
 On Sunday and Thursday, at two o'clock p. m. 
 
 From May 1st to November Ut. 
 On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at four o'clock p. m. 
 *»* Letters must be in the oiBce half an hour before closing. 
 
20 APPENDIXIV. 
 
 Congress in those early days was more considerate of the personal comforts 
 of the post-office clerks than at the present time ; for, with business that was 
 scarcely worth noticing under the head of " labor," that deliberative body 
 found heart to pass a solemn act directing " that all letters left at the post a 
 half hour before the time of making up the mail must be forwarded therein." 
 Therefore, advertised the sagacious Sebastian Bauman, all letters left at the 
 office not conformable with this act will be left over until the next post ! The 
 income of the New York post-office the first year (1786) of this most excellent 
 red-tape official was two thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine dollars and 
 eighty-four cents ; and from this amount, as a starting-point, can be correctly 
 estimated the annual increase of the postal business of New York City. 
 
 On the 30th of April, 1788, Washington was inaugurated President, and 
 the establishment of the General Post-office as now organized immediately 
 followed. Samuel Osgood was appointed Postmaster-General, and assumed 
 his duties in the city of New York under the tuition of Sebastian Bauman. 
 What should be done with this important official Was evidently a subject of 
 Congressional discussion ; for we find officially recorded, that " the Postmas- 
 ter-general shall not keep any office separate from the one in which the mails 
 arriving in New York are opened and distributed, that he may by hia pres- 
 ence prevent irregularities, and rectify mistakes which may occur." In fact, 
 this now most important officer of the General Government, and his solitary 
 assistant and one clerk, then had nothing to do ; so tiiey took their first les- 
 sons in the service in the post-office of the city of New York. At this time 
 there were throughout the United States seventy-five legally established post- 
 offices and one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five miles of postoffice 
 routes. 
 
 In a very short time the national capital was tria,nsferred to Philadelphia, 
 which had three penny-post carriers when New York had one — sucrgestive 
 data of the comparative importance of the two cities at that time. The 
 Southern or Philadelphia mail left New York daily ; the Eastern mail tri- 
 weekly; special mails for New Jersey and Long Island once a week. Mails to 
 Albany were carried on horseback — contractor's remuneration, " j>ostage col- 
 lected." 
 
 "Colonel" Sebastian Bauman disappears in 1804; and his successor, Josias 
 Ten Eyck, after what was to the public probably an uneventful year, gave way to 
 General Theodoras Bailey, who received his appointment January 2d, 1804, 
 and who satisfactorily performed the duties of his office for nearly a quarter 
 of a century. General Bailey was a gentleman of high standing iu the com- 
 munity. He was a member of the House of Representatives two sessions, and 
 a United States Senator in 1803, which position he held one year, and then re- 
 signed to assume the duties of postmaster. 
 
 The post-office was removed from Broadway by General Bailey, who estab- 
 lished it in a house he had purchased, 29 William Street, corner of Garden 
 now Exchange Place. The building, even at that early day, was considered 
 and spoken of as an " old-fashioned house." The windows were wide apart, 
 and between the two on the lower story was a narrow dixir, the entrance of 
 which was protected by a stoop lined with the usual wooden benches. A 
 single dormer-window broke up the monotony of the peaked roof The win- 
 dow frame on the left of the door was divided into tlie noveltv of small boxes 
 
APPENDIXIV. 21 
 
 (now for the first time introduced), one hundred and forty-four in number. 
 The office occupied was twelve feet in width and fifteen deep. The room was 
 so small that it soon became overcrowded, and the increase of the newspaper 
 mail became so great that William Coleman, publisher of the Evening Post, 
 who kept a booli-store corner of William and Wall Streets, used to take the 
 accumulated newspapers, generally of an entire week, over to his store, and 
 assort them at his leisure, tying up each distribution with a string, and then 
 sending them back to the post-office to be distributed through the mails. 
 
 General Bailey occupied the upper part of the house with his family. In 
 accordance with the custoui of those times, between twelve and one o'clock he 
 closed up the lower part of the door and joined his family at dinner. If any 
 parties were delayed by this attention to refreshments, they would, if strangers, 
 reach around, and, seizing hold of the huge lion-headed knocker, make a clatter 
 tbat could be heard a block away. If the solitary clerk answered this clamor, 
 he generally remarked that the banks closed between twelve and one, and why 
 shouldn't the post-office ? and, with other evidences of dissatisfaction, would 
 dismiss the impatient citizens. But if General Bailey was forced to reply, he 
 would answer the call with the courtliness of an officer of the army associated 
 with General Washington, and he would dismiss the inquirer, after written 
 and sealed information with the same old-school bow with which he would have 
 delivered an order from head-quarters or a bouquet to a lady. If any of 
 General Bailey's personal acquaintances happened to call in an unpropitious 
 hour, and no one was in attendance, they would help themselves, carefully leav- 
 ing the money for postage on the table, which occupied almost the entire inte- 
 rior of the room. 
 
 The establishment of the " embargo " in the year 1807 paralyzed all busi- 
 ness, and, of course, seriously aflfected that of the post-office. From this time 
 onward for several years there was little that occurred of general interest. It 
 was not until the agitation of tlie right of the British Government to impress 
 seamen sailing under the American flag that New Tork was aroused from what 
 seemed to be a chronic apathy, and the name of General Bailey, the postmaster, 
 suddenly appears, among others, attached to certain resolutions resenting this 
 monstrous assumption on the part "of the self-styled mistress of the seas." The 
 War of 1812 followed and thepost-offlce business continued to suffer. The clerical 
 force, in consequence, was reduced one-third by the dismissal of a junior clerk ; 
 Archibald Forrester, one of the two retained, acting occasionally as a volunteer 
 in throwing up earthworks " above King's Bridge," and again iu superin- 
 tending laborers engaged in constructing the round fort which still adorns the 
 Battery. Jimmy Mower, the junior clerk, was drafted, but saved his place by 
 hiring a substitute. Thus the post-office took a front rank in the patriotic 
 efforts made to save the national honor. This war excitement liad a healthy 
 action on the country ; the post-office business began to increase, and from that 
 time steadily developed in importance. 
 
 In the summer of 1823 the city was desolated by the yellow fever, and was 
 almost absolutely deserted by its population. The infected district was sepa- 
 rated from the outer world by a high board fence, which ran across the city 
 throuo-h the line of Duane, and what was then known as Harrison Street. Per 
 sons who liad the temerity to climb to the top of this barricade relate that in 
 the height of the plague not a living person could be seen. The post-office, for 
 86 
 
23 APPENDIXIT. 
 
 tte public accommodation, was moved to Greenwicli village, tte desks, mail- 
 bags, and all making hardly enougb to overcrowd a modern furniture cart. 
 The building temporarily appropriated was a handsome two-story frame-house, 
 erected for a bank but not occupied, situated corner of Asylum, now Fourth, 
 and what was subsequently known as Bank Street. 
 
 [This house, the last of the old homesteads remaining below Thirty-seventh 
 Street, is now (January, 1873) in process of demolition oh the corner of Fourth 
 Street and West Tenth. It was a wide, one story frame building, with peaked 
 roof and verandah front, and was considered the most beautiful residence of 
 ancient Gotham. The grounds around it, consisting of several acres, were laid 
 out regardless of expense. Besides flowers innumerable, they contained every 
 known variety of choice fruit-trees, and its fish-ponds were the wonder of the 
 period. There being no Croton, a large number of cisterns were sunk at great out- 
 lay to supply these with water. It was erected by Garret Gilbert, a well-known 
 personage who flourished seventy-five years ago. He: did not enjoy it long, 
 however, as he soon ran through his large fortune, and the property was sold 
 at auction to the late Senator Marcus Spencer, whom many of the old residents 
 of the city will remember. In 1833, during the prevalence of the yellow fever, 
 as stated in the text, it was temporarily taken possession of by the United 
 States authorities, who established the postoffice there, out of the reach of the 
 epidemic. Senator Spencer and his family continued to reside in the house until 
 twelve years ago, when he died. It then passed into the possession of Dr. Hall, 
 the Senator's son-in-law, who now owns it. — Note by the Author.'] 
 
 The magnificent trees which surrounded the house still have representatives 
 standing in Hammond Street. Between Greenwich village and New York at 
 that time was a vast tract of unoccupied and broken land. Woodcock and 
 and snipe " from the Jerseys " still found shelter in the marshes, the waters of 
 which drained through old Canal Street. 
 
 When the yellow fever was raging, the rural population of the village, 
 much to their annoyance, found their houses filled with people flying for their 
 lives; these inflictions were borne with patience, since any fears were quieted 
 by liberal pay for shelter ; but when the post-oflice arrived, followed by the 
 fear-stricten clerks, they concluded that disaster had indeed fallen in their 
 midst, and that the letters and those grim road-worn mail-bags were but seeds 
 and depositories of pestilence. With the sharp, biting frosts of the latter part 
 of November the post-oflice was removed back to its old quarters. 
 
 In the year 182.5 there was an imperative demand for better, or rather for 
 more roomy, accommodations, and the Government leased the " Academy Build- 
 ing," opposite Dr. Matthew's church in Garden (now Exchange) Street. The 
 free school which had been its occupant for many previous years was under the 
 control of the " Reformed Dutch CJonsistory." It was a two-story wooden build- 
 ing, and familiar to the youthful population, and especially "the rising young 
 men," for they had one and all within its inclosure been more or less severely 
 disciplined in the principles of a useful education, and had been physically in- 
 vigorated by the virtues of a souna thrashing. 
 
 The front of the building had some pretensions to novelty by slight 
 attempts at ornamentation, and the unusual covering of a flat roof. On one 
 side was a small pen, through which was the entrance into the yard, and under- 
 neath was a sort of dungeon for the confinement, if so ordered, of fractious boys 
 whom reason, mingled with Scripture, worldly advice, and birchen rods had 
 failed to reform. On the opposite side was Postmaster Bailey's residence a 
 
APPENDIXIV. 23 
 
 narrow two-story house, with a single dormer-window, and a cellar in the base- 
 ment, protected from observation by doors which, from their propitious angle, 
 formed the " summer sliding-pond " of young New York. 
 
 In this new location two windows were knocked into one, and the acquired 
 space was filled up with nine hundred letter-boxes, and, to the astonishment of 
 many, they were soon leased for business purposes. To make everything satis- 
 factory to the public. General Bailey obtained permission from the Government 
 to build a wooden shed over the sidewalk, so that people waiting at the delivery 
 window were protected from the snow and rain. At this time there were eight 
 clerks — W. B. Taylor, Joseph Dodd, George Abell, Courter Goodwin, W, S. Dun- 
 ham, James Lynch, James Mower, and Charles Forrester. On the 1st of January, 
 1871, three of these clerks, after forty-five years of faithful service, were still 
 at work, viz., W. B. Taylor, Joseph Dodd, and Charles Forrester ; the two last 
 named are all that are left of those who were on duty in the first quarter of 
 the century. 
 
 In those da3-s the prevailing spirit was one of quiet. There was not appar- 
 ently even a foreshadowing of the " lightning speed " which is characteristic of 
 every event of this generation ; for, thirty or forty years ago, a voyage from 
 Liverpool to New York was " rapid " if accomplished within two months, and 
 quite satisfactory if not prolonged to ninety days. Even after the lapse of this 
 last-mentioned time there was no anxiety in the minds of self-possessed friends. 
 The vessel, they would say, has met with some accident and put in at Fayal, 
 of Azores or Western Islands, then a sort of half-way station, where ships and 
 passengers alike rested from their fatigues. After repairing sails and cordage, 
 and supplying the exhausted stores of provisions, the good ship and easy-going 
 passengers would renew their slow progress westward, possibly consuming a 
 third of a year in the voyage. It was after one of these " long-drawn-out 
 events," when the skipper probably consumed more time to get his craft from 
 Sandy Hook to the " Dover-street Dock '' than is now necessary to make the 
 entire voyage across the Atlantic, that a passenger, evidently born out of 
 his time, so fully realized the misery of the programme that he indignantly, 
 and with some tendency to hyperbole, asserted, " that if all the trees in the 
 the world were pens, and all the men in the world scribes, and all the water in 
 the sea ink, they couldn't explain the calamity of such a voyage." 
 
 There were no telegraphs, no speedy movements by the aid of steam, and 
 consequently nothing of what is now designated newspaper enterprise. As a 
 consequence, the people, even like their Knickerbocker predecessors, depended 
 upon, and were quite satisfied to wait upon, chance for information. A well- 
 known citizen "from the interior," now designated the "rural districts," was 
 button-holed ("interviewed," we would say) under the post-office shed regard- 
 ing the corn and potato crop of his section. A " Southerner," or a live sea-cap- 
 tain, or a passenger "just from Europe," were severally perfect magazines of 
 news. Information thus obtained — if used with spirit — would frequently appear 
 within a week or ten days. Here at the post-office was to be met, every pleas- 
 ant morning, Charles King of the American, Redwood Fisher of tlie Daily 
 Adv&rtiser, and the pleasantest man of all the press,. Major Mordecai M. Noah 
 of the Courier, and other distinguished editors, who, having exchanged the 
 ordinary courtesies of the day, would in an oracular manner give utterance to 
 startling political or social observations, the pleasant interlude very likely ter 
 
84 APPENDIXIV. 
 
 minating in a, practical joke, profanely indulged in by an irreverent bank clerk, 
 or valuable assistant of a popular auctioneer. 
 
 But tbe post-office had among its clerks Jimmy Mower. He was a smart 
 business man, of wonderful capacity for work, and of the most equable good- 
 nature. In addition, he was pretty well read ; he boasted that he got his infor- 
 mation in connection with his business of distributing the newspapers. One of 
 his jokes grew out of the fact that in the war he was drafted, but, to avoid the 
 responsibility, hired a substitute, who was killed at the famous sortie on Fort 
 Erie, Canada frontier, and consequently that he (Jimmy Mower) had been killed 
 in the service of his country, and that his bones were absolutely whitening on 
 the battle-field. His efforts to get a pension for his heirs and get his post-ofEce 
 pay at the same time proved a puzzler to the beat legal minds. The fashion 
 of the times was rather " stately," but Mower, dead as he was, had life enough 
 in him to amuse his fellow-clerks by sometimes joining in the conversations 
 held under the shed outside of the post-office, and turning what was serious 
 into ridicule. He generally hallooed his remarks through a broken pane of 
 glass, at the same time making his hands almost invisible in the distribution 
 of mail matter. 
 
 He was popular with the crowd, and if he could give the erudite Charles 
 King, or the subtle Redwood Fisher, or the worthy Major Noah what the 
 " boys " termed a " side-winder," it would set the post-office congregation in a 
 roar. If Jimmy was turned on by some indignant individual who didn't see 
 his joke, the light-hearted official retreated to the interior of the post-office, leav- 
 ing the vehement eloquence intended for his head to be expended against the 
 obtruding glass. Colonel Dodd and Charley Forrester, who are still clerks in 
 in the post-office, were great admirers of Jimmy Mower, and they still insist, 
 after forty-five years of serious reflection on the subject, that Mower was the 
 smartest man they ever knew, and that in his fights with " the editors and the 
 big-bugs " he always got the advantage. 
 
 The post-office now began to be an institution, and this growing importance 
 was pleasant to General Bailey, who, with more enlarged quarters and a pri- 
 vate house entirely at his disposal, seemed to grow more courtly than ever, 
 and dispensed his pleasant hospitality of conversation from the benclies of his 
 front-door, where he could often be seen side by side with the Clintons, the 
 Willetts, and Schuylerg, indulging in mutual congratulations upon the growth 
 of the city and country, both of which they had assisted to rescue from colonial 
 dependence and place on the high-road to national greatness. 
 
 At that time there were sis letter-carriers, the extreme up-town boundary 
 of their field of labor being a straight line crossing the island at Catharine and 
 Canal Streets. Colonel Reeside was now becoming of national importance by 
 his connection with the Post-office Department. He carried the great South- 
 ern mail through from Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, delivering it 
 by contract at Paulus Hook (Jersey City). Here it was taken possession of by 
 Colonel Dodd, who brought over the bags in a skiff, and then trundled them up 
 to Garden Street in a wheelbarrow. 
 
 At the foot of Rivington Street, in the year 1825, was an important spot of 
 high ground, known as " Manhattan Island " — a place where were located the 
 ship-yards, among them the large one belonging to Henry Eckford. The pro- 
 prietors of these yards had an extensive correspondence with the South espe- 
 
APPENDIXIV. 35 
 
 daily witli Georgia and Florida, from whicli States they obtained their fat pine 
 aud live-oak used in ship-building. Mr. Charles Forrester, more than forty 
 years an employ^ of the post-office, and who still performs his daily and ardu- 
 ous duties, then a boy, lived in the suburbs, and he would bring up the letters 
 directed to these ship-builders, carry them across the wet meadows that lined 
 the eastern side of the island, and deliver tliem to their owners. 
 
 The year 1835 was made memorable by the fact that Colonel Eeeside 
 obtained the contract to carry the mails from Boston to New York, the route 
 being over the old post-road. Reeside's stages were very showy, drawn by 
 four blooded Virginia horses, aud driven by the most accomplished " Jehus." 
 
 On pleasant summer afternoons the people confined to the lower part of the 
 island would purposely walk up the Bowery to see the " Boston mail " come 
 in. Some time before the vehicle reached the old hay-scales, just where the 
 Cooper Institute now stands, the driver would herald his approach by a melo- 
 dious winding of his horn ; then, laying aside this vulgar instrument, he would 
 assume his legitimate scepter, the whip, which he would harmlessly crack 
 over the heads of his spirited steeds with a noise that, on a clear day, could be 
 "heard a mile." 
 
 On Saturdays the jolly school boys and girls would gather together under 
 the tall poplars aud button-wood trees, and as the stage dashed along thoy 
 would wave their hands as a welcome, and the most venturesome would catch 
 hold of the straps, aud thus have the glory of riding a few yards under the 
 overhanging " boot." The characteristic gamins of that period would evince 
 their enthusiasm by following the coach and rollicking in the dust of its 
 revolving wheels ; would cheer it and its passengers to the end of the route ; 
 and especially was this the case when the driver would make purposely-abor- 
 tive attempts to drive these human flies away with his whip, or a jocose pas- 
 senger would bandy wit with the boys, and make them crazy with delight by 
 the scattering of a few pennies in the road. 
 
 In the winter tliese gay coaches were put aside, and in their place was a 
 huge box on wlieels, the combination not unlike a hearse, in the heart of which 
 was deposited the load. The practice then was to abandon passengers, when 
 the roads were heavy from mud and rain, and carry the mails ; but now-a-days, 
 if the reports from many of the existing stage routes be true, under unfa- 
 vorable circumstances the drivers abandon the mails to carry the passengers. 
 Amos Kendall, the indefatigable Postmaster-general, by his industry aud good 
 management, reduced the carrying time between New York and New Orleans 
 from sixteen to seven days. The event was celebrated at the Merchants' 
 Exciiange and the post-ofiice by the raising of the national standard, and there 
 was a general rejoicing in Wall Street. Jimmy Mower had his joke by gravely 
 asserting, that all newspapers delivered at the office from New Orleans less 
 than sixteen days old were printed at the Advertiser office. 
 
 Proo'ress was now perceptible in the whole city, in the evident growth of 
 wealth and population. The merchants (1825) were suddenly inspired with 
 the ambition to have an Exchange worthy of their increasing importance, and 
 an honor to the growing metropolis. To realize this idea tliey purchased a lot 
 of seventy feet fronting on Wall Street, and at that time practically between 
 William and Pearl Streets. The foundations of the building were laid with 
 imposing ceremonies, and its gradual erection, joined with the promising 
 
26 APPENDIXIV. 
 
 grandeur, was to the citizens a source of daily surprise and self-congratulation. 
 In due time the structure was completed, and to give proper importance to the 
 event, and a characteristic recognition of one of New York's greatest financiers 
 and lawyers, a marble statue of Alexander Hamilton was placed conspicuously 
 under the dome. 
 
 The " solid men " went from this stately pile around to the humble post- 
 office in Garden Street, and the board front and "shanty" shed became distaste- 
 ful to their eyes and unworthy of the city. This public sentiment was utilized 
 into well- written articles for the newspapers, and the people grew suddenly 
 ambitious for a better and more convenient post-office. The merchants favored 
 the idea, and a part of the basement of the new Exchange was leased to the 
 Federal Government, and in the year 1837 the post-olE'ce was established in its 
 new and excellent quarters. 
 
 Wall Street at this time presented a picturesque mingling of the highest 
 social life with churches, banks, and business stores combined. That it was 
 in a transition state was apparent, yet we much doubt if the fact was fully 
 realized by even the most sagacio as citizens. The monetary institutions had a 
 solid, unpretentious look, and the buildingsin which they were lodged, in some 
 instances, were occupied in their upper stories by the presidents or cashiers 
 with their families. Then our most solid merchants did not find it inconsist- 
 ent to live over their stores, and have at their tables their confidential clerks. 
 Large trees still shaded the sidewalks, and private residences were to be seen, 
 at the windows of which, after business hours, the ladies of the household 
 presented themselves, or, standing at the front-door, according to the early 
 custom of New York, chatted with neighbors. "Wall Street Church" and 
 grounds occupied half the block that reached from Nassau to Broadway ; 
 while over the whole towered the venerable pile known as " Old Trinity," its 
 grave-yard adding to the rural aspect, and giving an air of quiet to the sur- 
 roundings. The Merchants' Exchange occupied only the eastern half of the 
 square on which it was built ; and directly adjoining it was a little candy 
 shop, where they sold spruce-beer and " taflFy" by the penny's worth. Then 
 came the shop of a fashionable haberdasher, and on the corner was Benedict's 
 well-known watch establishment, the regulator of which governed Wall 
 Street time. 
 
 In the rear of the eastern corner of the basement of the Exchange was 
 located the celebrated lunch-room of Charley King. How his restaurant 
 would compare with the more pretentious ones of modern date we will not 
 assert; but for hearty good-will, substantial fare, high respectability, and 
 unquestioned manners, the proprietors of this now almost forgotten lunch- 
 room have not, since its destruction, been surpassed. In the basement corner 
 of Wall and Hanover Streets James Buchanan, British consul, and David Hale 
 printed a paper with the happily selected name of Journal of Commerce. It 
 was at the commencement an unpretending sheet, and from the fact that it was 
 semi-religious in its tone, and refused advertisements for the sale of liquors 
 was assumed to be a " temperance sheet." Among the well-known characters 
 then living in New York was one "Johnny Edwards, scale-beam maker." He 
 lived " up town," in the vicinity of what is now known as Fourth Street and 
 Second Avenue. He was a man of the most harmless eccentricity, dressin" 
 himself in a Quaker garb, and riding about in a rickety old gig. He used 
 
APPENDIXIV. 27 
 
 sometimes to come down to Wall Street in business hours, and, taking advan- 
 tage of tlie crowd in front of the Exchange, would proceed to harangue the 
 " thoughtless generation " on the virtues of his patent scale beams, and the 
 necessities of temperance. As he clinched his argument regarding temperance 
 with the distribution of tracts, he took great umbrage at the assumptions of 
 the Journal of Commerce, pronouncing it a rival sheet on the great subject of 
 temperance. The crowd enjoyed these interruptions of the usual routine of 
 the street, to the great annoyance of David Hale, who considered the whole 
 'thing an undignified travesty on his gravely attempted efforts to bring about 
 a moral reform. 
 
 Even at this dawning era the spirit of New York was unambitious, and the 
 people, with few exceptions, were evidently unconscious of the changes in its 
 character which were impending. One mail delivery a day was all the mer- 
 chants demanded. The newspapers were rarely excited about the receipt of 
 their exchanges. The hurry and bustle and anxiety which now pervades 
 Wall Street were totally unknown. Groups were constantly in and about the 
 Exchange conversing upon trivial matters ; the merry, hearty laugh was 
 heard time and again through the day, expressing admiration of harmless 
 jokes uttered by persons at the time enjoying the hospitality of Charley 
 King's lunch ; while the clerks, less able to pay, made merry at Billy Niblo's, 
 or Clark and Brown's, where for a sixpence they commanded a plentiful dish 
 of Fulton Market beef, and trimmings to match ; and, if extravagantly in- 
 clined, they would pay another sixpence for a cup of coffee and a cruller, to 
 make the equal of which has ceased to be possible outside of the " kitchen- 
 houses" belonging to our old population. 
 
 The Exchange had a narrow front on the street, and ran through to Gar- 
 den. The entrance to the basement was under a circular opening, which was 
 made of the arch which supported the steps that led up to the rotunda. The 
 post-office was established in the rear eastern half of the basement, where it 
 had ample room and much to spare. Two delivery windows were established, 
 and three thousand boxes for the accommodation of the merchants ; and so 
 seemingly enormous had now become the business that twenty-two clerks 
 were employed, and twenty-two letter-carriers, whose routes now reached up 
 as high as Houston and Ninth, now Fourth Street. Now for the first time was 
 found a demand for the assignment of a clerk wholly to a special duty, and 
 "little Sam Gouverneur" Was appointed to the exclusive care of the money 
 department, and dignified with the title of " cashier." 
 
 To facilitate the arrival and departure of the mails, and give light to that 
 part of the basement occupied by the post-office, what is now known as 
 Hanover Street (which had, thirty years previously, been used by foot passen- 
 gers as a short-cut to Hanover Square) was cleared out and made a street, and 
 a small court on this side of the Exchange conveniently opened itself for the 
 accommodation of the wagons and other vehicles employed by the post-office. 
 
 General Bailey, who had been an acceptable and honored postmaster almost 
 a quarter of a century, full of years and honors, on the 4th of September, 1828, 
 passed away. The veterans of the Revolution, as they now began to be called. 
 State and city soldiery, the various civic societies, and representatives of the 
 army and navy, vied with each other in paying to liis memory every possible 
 respect. General .Tackson, in compliment to ex-President Monroe, who was 
 
28 APFENDIXIV. 
 
 theu living, appointed liis son-in-law, Samuel L. Qouverneur, to succeed 
 General Bailey. With tliia event the old-times' history of the post-offlce of 
 New York may be said to have passed away. 
 
 * * * # «* » * * * 
 
 The windows of the post-office for the distribution of letters and the selling 
 of stamps " in sums less than one dollar," are interesting places to study the 
 cosmopolitan character of our busy population. It is not uncommon to witness 
 people of every nationality " in line," waiting for their turn to inquire for cor 
 respondence. The ladies' window is especially a center of observation ; and the' 
 appearance of the sex dressed in gay colors and wreathed in smiles lightens up 
 the otherwise care-worn, pell-mell, rushing, and sombre-looking crowd. Here 
 the " young lady of the period " contrasts with the old crone whose undutiful 
 son is " ofl" at sea." The widow in her weeds throws sly glances at the dashing 
 clerk ; her hopefulness of the future contrasting strongly with the face of the 
 suifering wife, who, sad and discontented, turns abruptly away because her 
 absent spouse " had failed to write." 
 
 During the rebellion the post-office clerks, by virtue of their duties, were 
 often made unwilling participants in many sad scenes and associations. There 
 was a terrible significance in the hymn or prayer-book returned "from the 
 front," often saturated with blood or marred by the bullet. Then there were 
 the packets of unclaimed letters, dictated by loving, patriotic hearts, returned 
 to the mother, wife, or sweetheart of the soldier, bearing the formal but terri- 
 ble indorsement of the adjutant of the regiment, of " William Brown, killed in 
 battle." It was often almost like stabbing the recipients to the heart to hand 
 them such a fatal gift, and the look of unutterable anguish that sometimes fol- 
 lowed haunted the day musings and midnight dreams of the sympathizing 
 official. But there sometimes, nay, often, came a letter that conveyed to wife 
 and family a respite to agonizing suspense, and then the old post-offlce was for 
 the moment bright, and the dangers of war for an instant were forgotten. Les- 
 sons of human nature are taught at the delivery window of a post-office in the 
 classified peculiarities of the universal patrons of the " republic of letters," 
 among which are developed the common facts, that " clergymen, as a class, 
 and women, universally, are the most difficult to please !" Certainly they seem 
 to complain the most. 
 
 Romantic incidents are not unusual in the history' of specific mails. When 
 the Japanese empire was opened to the outside world, the first mail from that 
 legendary country was sent to New York in a sailing vessel via San Francisco, 
 Panama, and Aspinwall. By a coincidence a mail from China 1110, England 
 arrived at the post-office simultaneously, and the written ideas and wishes of 
 these two Oriental nations for the moment reposed side by side. In their route 
 of destination they separated, and made the circuit of the world, to meet again 
 in our great ^Veste^n city of " mushroom barbarians." But speculation is brief 
 in the post-office when work is to be done ; the words, " Who separates?" are 
 heard, the " travelers " are " broken up," and, piecemeal, sent to their various 
 destinations. Some years since a steamer running between Liverpool and Que- 
 bec was involved in a terrible storm that swept over the mouth of the St Law- 
 rence. The stanch ship was lost, and all living creatures on board perished 
 Two months afterward the divers, among other things, recovered from the 
 wreck the New York city mail, and it was promptly forwarded to its place of 
 
APPENDIXIV. 29 
 
 destination. When opened tlie contents were found comparatively safe ; tlie 
 letters were carefully dried and duly distributed ; and these frail, delicate, 
 paper memorials of tliouglit remained intact, while the iron-ribbed ship and 
 the brave men who commanded her still repose in their ocean grave. * * 
 
 The discipline and efficiency of the city post is shown in the reminiscence 
 that, twenty years ago, before there was a postal treaty with England, people 
 in that country, according to their caprice, indorsed on the outside of their 
 letters by what line of steamers they desired them to be sent. By some acci- 
 dent neither of the two composing the American line crossed from England in 
 six months ! The consequence was an extraordinary accumulation of letters 
 indorsed " by American steamer ;" and when the Washington did reach this 
 port, having " broken her shaft, and been frozen up in the harbor of Bremen," 
 she had a six months' mail on board. This enormous collection of letters was 
 taken to the post-office, and the clerks, without neglecting their daily routine 
 duties and working " overtime," distributed this accumulation in ten days ! 
 The same number of letters, without interfering with the daily business of the 
 office, would now be distributed in one hour ! Instead of there being as 
 formerly only a few straggling letters, two hundred and fifty thousand postage 
 stamps are, on an average, daily canceled, and that is a representation of the 
 number of domestic letters delivered at the pnst-offioe every twenty-four 
 hours. It costs the government sixty thousand dollars annually for cartage to 
 haul this vast amount of mail matter to the stations and railway lines.* One 
 
 * Ap a post-office and a railroad depot are naturally connected— the one distributiufi; 
 the mails and the other conveying them— the following account of the GnAND Central 
 Depot, which was referred to In Chapter XIV., Part III., as having been opened to the public 
 in 1871, is in point. The Grand Central Depot on Forty-second Street and Fourth _\ venue 
 serves as a central depot for the Hudson River, Harlem, and New Haven Railroads. Without 
 much pretension to architectural elegance.it is commodious and well adapted to the pur- 
 poses for which it was designed, and perhaps we ougltt not to aak much more from a rail- 
 road depot. 
 
 The building was projected by Commodore VANimRBiLT, and constructed under the 
 supervision of Mr. W. H. VAKnERElLT. Ground was broken November 15th, 1869, and the 
 depot was ready for occupation October 9th, 1871. The entire building is 696 feet long and 
 aiO/eet wide; the space for the accommodation of trains is 610 feet by 200, the rest of the 
 building being devoted to offices, waiting-rooms, etc. The height of the main body of the 
 depot, from the ground to the top of the roof, is 100 feet, while that of the central tower on 
 Forty-second Street is 160 feet to the apex of the roof, and 200 feet to the top of the flag-staff. 
 Thereof of the main body of the structure— the car-house, as it is called— is supported by 
 thirty-one immense and stroog iron trusses, each weighing about forty tons. As it would 
 have been extremely difficult to raise such huge masses at once, each truss was lifted to its 
 position in sections by derricks mounted on a movable staging. About eight million pounds 
 of iron were used in the construction of the depot, ten million bricks, and 20,000 barrels of 
 cement. There are 80,000 feet of glass in the roof, by which the whole building is abundantly 
 lighted during the daytime, while at night it is brilliantly illuminated by means of tlie 
 electrical light. 
 
 That part of the building which fron tii on Forty-second Street is to be occupied by the 
 New York and New Haven Railroad ; that on Central Avenue by the Hudson Eivcr and 
 Harlem roads. To accommodate the immense number of passengers arriving and departing 
 by these roads there are thirty-one entrances to the building, and the waiting-rooms are 
 all that could be desired for comfort and convenience. The building is heated by steam, 
 circulated through every part of it by about 7.5,000 feet of pipe. The union of the three 
 depots, by wliich these railroads have a common terminus in this city, will be of great advan- 
 tage to the traveling public— iVote by the Author. 
 87 
 
30 APPENDIIIV. 
 
 comparative statement more : The city of New York is divided into twelve 
 postal stations, eacli one having its distinct officer and clerks. Station A, 
 situated in the heart of New York, does a larger business than either of the 
 cities of B afiFalo, New Haven, Hartford, Hudson, or Troy. Such is the epitom- 
 ized history, illustrated by the post-office, of the growth and prosperity of the 
 city of New York. 
 
APPENDIX V. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF McDONALD CLARKE, 
 
 THE MAD POET. 
 
 A -WRITER in the New York Evening Post, for June 2d, 1868, says: 
 
 My reminiscences, going back some forty years, include tlia't somewliat 
 noted character McDonald Clarke, a poetic scintillator of somewhat odd fancies, 
 who kept the town laughing while he sometimes was starving. 
 
 His poetic figure is before me as I saw it in Broadway. There he stood 
 near St. Paul's — his pedestal the curbstone, his pose and style the favorite 
 attitude of the classic Kapoleon, with arms folded. Yet his head rested not 
 upon his bosom, but was lifted to the stars; on his feet were no two boots or 
 shoes, but one boot and one shoe. This eccentricity, more than the character 
 of his verses, caused his soubriquet of " The Mad Poet." 
 
 Now, why McDonald favored this oneness of articles generally duplex was 
 quite the talk of the town, as much so as the curtailment of the tail of the cur 
 of Alcibiades in the days of the ancient Greeks. Alcibiades gave a reason. 
 McDonald never did, at least so far as I have heard. There were mystery, 
 symbol, poetry, humanity, niany social problems in that one boot and one 
 shoe. The boys kicked all these to tbe winds, and said McDonald was 
 " cracked." The boot might have been cracked and so might the shoe, but a 
 more whole-souled fellow than McDonald I never knew. 
 
 I have some of his verses with which he bespangled the newspapers of the 
 time. There have been some poets who wrote for the million, but I am con- 
 fident McDonald never obtained half the sum. His topics covered all creation, 
 and he was somewhat in the clothes-line. One of his invocations tc a heroic 
 purchaser to deal with a tailor proclaims that, when he is fitted : 
 
 " His royal Spanish cloak heUl fling 
 In the face of the stormy weather." 
 
 Another much admired couplet a little hangs upon the clothes-line, but 
 reaches the dignity of a majestic personification. He is walking on the Battery 
 
82 APPENDIXV. 
 
 and Bomewliat mixing up the stars witli tailors, as poets are apt to do. He 
 breaks out into this splendid conception : 
 
 ** Twilight has drawn her mantle round, 
 And pinned it with a silver star." 
 
 A Bohemian of the present day would run things into the ground, by rudely 
 stating that Madame Demorest made the mantle and Tiffany sold the star, but 
 McDonald delicately calls the poem " Evening," and leaves the rest to the 
 sympathetic imagination. 
 
 Years had rolled on, and I had not seen McDonald. I heard incidentally 
 that he had married an actress, who led him peculiarly to feel that all the 
 world was her stage, and he only a supernumerary. 
 
 This did not alter his benevolent views of human nature, nor of the moat 
 sacred of all ordinances. In the lecturing era he came out with a lecture on 
 " Love and Matrimony," which captivated the oyster-house wits and critics of 
 Gotham, who attended with their "ladye-loves " and gave him overflowing 
 audiences. 
 
 When New York was exhausted, he turned Lis attention to Brooklyu. He 
 secured Classical Hall, then ^he fashionable place for such exercises, and pla- 
 carded and advertised extensively. The evening came, bright and pleasant, 
 and there were three persons in the house, all told — two editors and the janitor 
 — all " dead-heads." I shall never forget the amazed look with which he sur- 
 veyed the long lines of empty benches. This soon gave way, however, to the 
 accustomed sunburst of his cheerful aspect, and he mounted the rostrum and 
 prouQunced his whole performance, stretching over the Space of an hour, with 
 good manner and emphasis. He came down at the close, saluted his three 
 auditors, said some jocose things, but nothing of discouragement, and vanished, 
 promising to see me next day. Of this famous lecture I recollect but one point. 
 He is declaiming against common ideas and false taste in regard to female 
 beauty. Hear McDonald : 
 
 " There are some people (says he) who admire delicate little girls with 
 jimpy waists, and infinitesimal feet which run in and out beneath their fur- 
 belows like mice, but (here the lecturer became the impassioned orator) give me 
 the girl with a waist like a cotton bag and a foot like a flounder." 
 
 He called to see me the next day. and for what purpose do you suppose ? 
 It was to propose a repetition of the lecture. His hopeful and ebullient nature 
 Lad found special reasons for Lis ill-success, wLich would be overcome on a 
 SBcond experiment. Before settling this point he drifted off — " By-the-by, how 
 did you like the lecture?" I praised its general tenor and salient points, but 
 ventured to remark that I detected in certain passages a sad and monotonous 
 undertone. 
 
 " Aye !" said he, " there it is, there it is ! I thought so, I felt so. Now 
 Colonel, look here. There is no use trying to conceal it. I am, you know a 
 perfect child of nature. I always was so. Now you must have understood my 
 situation. Look at it. I had come to Brooklyn expecting to see the house 
 crowded from pit to dome! What did I encounter? Ye gods! I thought I was 
 iu tlie wrong place ; had got into the school-house after it was dismissed. But 
 there were yourself, and A ,'and B (pardon me, all dead-heads), and 
 
APPENDIXV. 33 
 
 having my gun ready loaded, I thought I would fire it off. But all the while 
 runaing through the lecture was 'room-hire,' 'janitor,' 'bill-sticker,' 'no 
 money,' and such like things, which took from it all force and spirit. But you 
 must hear me again under better circumstances. I must act as 1 feel. Oh, 
 Colonel, sometimes I feel — I feel — I feel (here he was searching for a simile 
 and got it) like the eternal lightning, and at other times I feel like a farthing 
 candle." Give to this antithesis the roar of a bull of Bashau and the attitude 
 of Jove clutching the thunderbolt, dwindled to the gentlest whisper and the 
 posture of a poor devil boring a hole through the floor with his fore-finger, and 
 you have his grapMc delineation. 
 
 He -was dissuaded from a second experiment. 
 
 I am inclined to think it was before this that he upset Johnny Lang and 
 several others by a happy retort. Lang, in his New York Gazette, had alluded 
 to him as " McDonald Clarke, that fellow with zigzag brains." The insulted 
 poet rushed into the sanctum of Colonel Stone, of the Commercial Advertiser, 
 blazing with fury. 
 
 " Do you see. Colonel," said he, " what Johnny Lang says of me t He calls 
 me a fellow with zigzag brains." 
 
 " Well, you are," said the Colonel. " That's a happy description !" 
 
 " Oh ! that's very well for you to say," replied McDonald. " I'll take a joke 
 from you. But Johnny Lang shall not destroy my well-earned reputation. 
 Zigzag brains, forsooth! Zigzag brains— think of it, Colonel! I must have a 
 chance to reply to him in your paper." 
 
 " How much space would you want ?" said the Colonel, 
 
 " I think I could use him up in a column and a half," said McDonald. 
 
 " A column and a half!" said the Colonel. " Stuff! you shall have no such 
 space. I'll give you just four lines, and if that will answer fire away, but not 
 a line more." 
 
 The poet, driven thus into a narrow corner, sat down and instantly perpe- 
 petrated the following neat epigram — quite enough to immortalize him : 
 " 1 caa tell JobuDy Lang, ia the way of a laugh, 
 In reply to his rude aud unmannerly scrawl, 
 That in my humble senBe it is better by half, 
 To have brains that are zigzag than to have none at all." 
 
 " There, Colonel," said he, " let Johnny Lang put that in his pipe and 
 smoke it." 
 
 The last time I met him was two or three years before his death, on the 
 familiar curbstone of Broadway. His face was still sunny and genial, but he 
 was rubbing his arms and chest. I ventured to suggest rheumatism. " Oh, 
 no," said he ; "I am very well. I sleep in an attic room in an old and very pictur- 
 esque building, through the roof of which, that has considerably tumbled in, 
 I can see the stars. This is delightful, but for the exceptions of showers and 
 heavv rains. Last night I got to sleep, and when I woke up I was thoroughly 
 drenched. I have since felt these pains over me ; but the water couldn't have 
 done the damage, I think it couldn't. Do you think it could ?" 
 
 Simple child of nature. I left him rubbing his arms and laughing at the 
 top of his bent. The nest I heard of him he was dead, and dead of an injury 
 which was more a shock to his sensitive, moral nature than the rude blow or 
 thrust of the hind who gave it was to his physical frame. 
 
34 APPENDIX V. 
 
 Why is it that if any man is known to be " cracked," or subject to any illu- 
 sion or weakness, all the rest of the world, rejoicing in their pride of reason, 
 delight to impose upon him by manifold cruel deceptions ? 
 
 Mc Donald Clarke had really a handsome face and person, as the fine engrav- 
 ing- by Peter Maverick from a picture by Inman clearly shows, and beginning 
 life as a poet and lover of the human race, fell into the delusion of believing 
 that one portion of that race — the gentler sex — was always disposed to fall in 
 love with him. His life, therefore, was a series of adventures, in which it is 
 pretty certain that the course of true love never did run smooth with him. 
 
 The wicked wags, those false friends who availed themselves of his weak- 
 ness, persuaded him by many wiles and false lures, to believe that a lovely 
 young lady on Broadway had fallen in love with him. The cross-gartering of 
 Malvolio was nothing to the pranks they made him perform to win the notice 
 of the high-born and proud lady. The plot culminated in an invitation (forged 
 of course), to visit the young lady at her mansion. McDonald proceeded 
 thither, kid-gloved, and dressed in two boots. The damsel, annoyed and fore- 
 warned, had given directions to the servants, if he ever appeared, to thrust him 
 from the door, which it is said was done rudely and contumeliously. 
 
 Tlien came the breaking-up and a Greenwood funeral. For a time an 
 unmarked grave stood on the border of the Sylvan Water, Over this was soon 
 placed a tomb, surrounded by an iron railing, supplied by the gifts of friends. 
 On one of the entablatures are the sentences : " Poor McDonald Clarke " — 
 " Let silence gaze, but curse not his grave ;" while his fine face in has relief, 
 on another, makes love to his beautiful neighbor, the Indian Princess Do- 
 liumme, who occupies the adjoining mound. Another of his verses is also 
 fitly carved on his tomb : 
 
 " For what are earthly honors now ? 
 
 He never deemed them worth his care, 
 And Death hath set upon his brow 
 The wreath he was too proud to wear." 
 
 MUSINGS AT THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND 
 
 In the midst of my troubles and pain 
 
 I welcome this fav'rite retreat. 
 Unmolested I here can attain 
 
 A solitude quiet and sweet. 
 No troublesome visitor calls. 
 
 No modest inquirers perplex, 
 No insolent gazers appall. 
 
 No ojficial civilities vex. 
 
 'Tis no place for repining or sighs. 
 No murmurings fall on the ear. 
 
 Duty teaches the blessing to prize. 
 Shed for others' misfortune the tear • 
 
APPENDIXV. 85 
 
 Love, peace, and benevolence meet 
 
 In union delightful and rare ; 
 While religion provides them a sweet 
 
 To mix in the cup of their care. 
 
 You may call this a fanciful dream. 
 
 And say it exists not in life, 
 You: may tell me mortality's stream 
 
 Is ever with concord at strife. 
 But God, as if willing to show 
 
 His blessing can quiet the stream. 
 Has here made it peacefully flow, 
 
 And experience has proved it no dream. 
 
 To Mrs. Stone — iy Percival. 
 
APPENDIX YI. 
 
 WILLIAM KIDD, THE PIRATE. 
 
 One of tlie most terrible names in the juvenile literature of England and 
 English America, during the last century and a half, has been that of William 
 Kidd, the pirate. In the nursery leg-end, in story, and in song, his name has 
 stood forth as the boldest and bloodiest of buccaneers. The terror of the ocean 
 when abroad, the story said that he returned from his successive voyages to 
 line our coasts with silver and gold, and to renew with the devil a league, 
 cemented with the blood of victims shot down, whenever fresh returns of the 
 precious metals were to be hidden. According to the superstitions of Connecti- 
 cut and Long Island, it was owing to these bloody charms that honest money 
 diggers have ever experienced so much difficulty in removing the buried treas- 
 ures. Often, indeed, have the lids of the iron chests rung beneath the mattock 
 of the stealthy midnight searcher for gold ; but the flashes of sulphurous fires, 
 blue and red, and the saucer eyes and chattering teeth of legions of demons, 
 have uniformly interposed to frighten the delvers from their posts, and pre- 
 serve the treasures from their greedy clutches. But notwithstanding the har- 
 rowing sensations connected with the name of Kidd, and his renown as a pirate, 
 he was but one of the last and most inconsiderable of that race of sea-robbers, 
 who, during a long series of years in the seventeenth century, were the admira- 
 tion of the world for their prowess, and its terror for their crimes. 
 
 In the latter part of the seventeenth century Kidd was in command of a mer- 
 chant vessel trading between New York and London, and was celebrated for his 
 nautical skill and enterprise. The first mention of him in authentic colonial 
 history occurs in 1691, in which year the Journals of the New York Assembly 
 tell us that on the 18th day of April much credit was allowed to be due him 
 " for the many good services done for the province in attending with his ves- 
 sels." But in what capacity, or for what object he thus " attended with his 
 vessels " does not appear. It was also declared that he " ought to be suitably 
 rewarded," Accordingly, on the 14th of May following, it was ordered by the 
 same Assembly " that the sum of £150 be paid to Captain Kidd, as a suitable 
 
APPENDIXVI. 37 
 
 acknowledgment for the important benefits whicli tlie Colony had receiyed 
 from his services." The presumption is, that those services were in some way- 
 connected with the protection of the Colonial merchant vessels from the 
 attacks of the pirates, who were at that time hovering along the coasts of the 
 Northern Colonies. Indeed, the harbor of New York was no stranger to the 
 pirate vessels ; and the commerce between them and the " people of figure" in 
 this city was not inconsiderable. It was no secret that the pirates were fre- 
 quently in the Sound, and were freely supplied with provisions by the inhabit- 
 ants of Long Island ; and, still farther, it was well known in the year 1695, that 
 the English freebooters had fitted out their vessels in the harbor of New York. 
 On the arrival of the pirate vessels from their cruises their goods were openly 
 sold in the city, and the conduct of the Colonial Government was such that col- 
 lusion, if not direct partnerships, between them and the public authorities was 
 not doubted. 
 
 Colonel Fletcher, a poor and profligate man, was Governor at that time. 
 He was beyond doubt concerned with the freebooters, as also was William 
 Nicoll, a member of the Privy Council. Complaints upon this subject having 
 reached England, and the throne, in the year of 1695, Fletcher was succeeded 
 by the Earl of Bellamont, the appointment being made in the belief that from 
 his rank and the weight of his character, he would be able to retrieve the 
 character of the Colonial Government, The King declared, in terms, " that he 
 thought the Earl a man of resolution and integrity, and with these qualities 
 more likely than any other he could think of to put a stop to the growth of 
 piracy." Immediately after his lordship had arrived in New York, and 
 assumed the direction of the Government, he laid before his Council letters 
 from Secretary Vernon and the East India Company, relating to this matter, 
 informing the board that he had an affidavit asserting that Fletcher had per- 
 mitted the pirates to land their spoils in the province, and that Mr. Nicoll 
 bargained for their protections, and received for his services 800 Spanish 
 dollars. Nicoll confessed the receipt of the money for protections, but pro- 
 tested that it was in virtue of a certain act of the Assembly, for allowing 
 privateers on their giving security — denying entirely the receipt of money 
 from the pirates. However, on an argument before the Council, it was shown 
 by the King's counsel that there was no such act in existence. The Council 
 advised that Fletcher should be sent home for trial, and that Nicoll should be 
 tried here. But in fact neither trial ever took place, owing, probably, to a 
 want of evidence against the accused. On meeting the General Assembly, in 
 his opening speech. Lord Bellamont adverted to the subject of piracy in these 
 word s : 
 
 " It hath been represented to the Government in England, that this prov- 
 ince has been a noted receptacle of pirates, and the trade of it under no 
 restriction, but the acts of trade violated by the neglect and connivance of 
 those whose duty it was to have prevented it." 
 
 Thouo-h not brought to trial, as already stated, yet the circumstances were 
 so strong against Nicoll that he was suspended from the Council-board, and 
 obliu-ed to enter into a recognizance in £2,000 to answer for his conduct in 
 reo-ard to the protections. He, however, survived the scandal, and was after- 
 ward a successful demagogue in Suffolk County, by the people of which he was 
 elected to the Assembly, and by that body to the chair of the speakership. 
 
38 APPENDIXVI. 
 
 But to return to Kidd. Justice to his memory requires it to be said, that he 
 was not, at that period, so far as is known, a pirate himself. Before Lord 
 Bellamont sailed from England for his Government, he met with Robert Liv- 
 ingston, of New York:, the ancestor of the Livingstons of Livingston's Manor, 
 with whom he held a conversation respecting the pirates, and the best means 
 that could be adopted to put them down. The project of employing a swift 
 sailing armed ship of thirty guns, aad one hundred and fifty men, to cruise 
 against them, was spoken of ; and Livingston recommended his lordship to Kidd, 
 as a man of integrity and courage, acquainted with the pirates and their places of 
 rendezvous, and as one iu all respects fit to be intrusted with the command of 
 a vessel engaged in such a difficult service. He had indeed commanded a pri- 
 vateer in regular commission, against the pirates in the West Indies, in which 
 service he had acquitted himself as a brave and adventurous man. The project 
 not being entertained by the Board of Admiralty, a private adventure against 
 the pirates was suggested by Mr. Livingston, one-fifth part of the stock of which 
 he would take himself, besides becoming security for the good conduct of Kidd. 
 The proposition was approved by the King, who became interested to the 
 amount of one-tenth ; and the residue of the expense was supplied by Lord 
 Chancellor Somers, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earls of Romney and Oxford, 
 and Sir Edmond Harrison and others. The ship having been procured and 
 equipped, Kidd sailed for New York, under a regular commission, in April, 1696, 
 the direction of the enterprise being committed to the Earl of Bellamont and 
 himself. For a time he served faithfully, and with advantage to the commerce 
 of the Colonies and mother country, for which services he received much pub- 
 lic applause, and another grant from the Colony of 250 pounds. Tradition, 
 moreover, says that, on visiting the Government House, he was received with 
 public honors, and invited to a seat with the Speaker of the House of Assembly. 
 
 But on his next voyage he stretched away to the Indian Ocean, and turned 
 pirate himself Selecting the island of Madagascar as his principal place of 
 rendezvous, and burning his own ship after having captured one that suited 
 him better, his depredations upon the commerce of all nations were represented 
 to have been great. He is said to have " ranged over the Indian coast from the 
 Red Sea to Malabar, and that his depredations extended from the Eastern 
 Ocean back along the Atlantic coast of South America, through the Bahamas, 
 the whole of the West Indies, and the shores of Long Island." But it will 
 presently be seen that tliis statement must have been an exaggeration, as time 
 was not attbrded for operations so extensive before his arrest. 
 
 It is beyond doubt true that Long Island Sound contained several of his 
 hiding-places. " Kidd's Rock " is well known at Manhasset, upon Long Island, 
 to this day. Here he was supposed to have buried some treasures, and many 
 have been the attempts of the credulous to find the hidden gold. But- it could 
 not be found. There is also no doubt that he was wont to hide himself and his 
 vessel among those curious rocks in Sacliem's Head Harbor called the Thimble 
 Islands. I have explored his haunts there, and the pirate's cavern. There is 
 also upon one of those rocks, sheltered from the view of the Sound, a beautiful 
 artificial excavation, of an oval form, holding perhaps the measure of a barrel, 
 called " Kidd's Punch Bowl." It was here, according to the legends of the 
 neighborhood, that he used to carouse with his crew. But it is a fact beyond 
 controversy, that he was accustomed to anchor his vessel in Gardiner's Bay. On 
 
APPENDIXVI. 39 
 
 one occasion, in the niglit, he landed upon Gardiner's Island, and requested Mrs. 
 Gardiner to provide a. supper for himself and his attendants. Knowing his des- 
 perate character, she dared not refuse, and fearing his displeasure, she took 
 great pains, especially ia roasting a pig. The pirate chief was so pleased with 
 her culinary success that, on going away, he presented hei with a cradle-blan- 
 ket of gold-cloth. It was a velvet, inwrought with gold, and very rich. A 
 small piece of it yet reraains in the family, which I have seen. On one occa- 
 sion when he lauded at the island he buried a small casket of gold, silver, and 
 precious stones in the presence of Mr. Gardiner, but under the most solemn 
 injunctions of secresy. 
 
 Repairing soon afterward to Boston, where Lord Bellamont happened' to be 
 at the time, he was summoned before his lordship, and directed to give a 
 report of his proceedings in the service of his company. Refusing to comply 
 with this demand, he was arrested on the 3d of July, 1699, on the charge of 
 piracy. He appears to have disclosed the fact of having buried the treasure at 
 Gardiner's Island, for the same was demanded by his lordship, and surrendered 
 by Mr. Gardiner. I have seen the original receipt for the amount, with the 
 different items of the deposit. The amount was by no means large, and affords 
 evidence of no such mighty sweepings of the seas as have been told of in story 
 and in song. Of gold in coins, gold-dust, and bars, there were 750 ounces. Of 
 silver, 506 ounces ; and of precious stones, about 16 ounces. 
 
 Lord Bellamont wrote home for a ship-of-war to carry Kidd to England for 
 trial. The Rochester was dispatched upon that service ; but being obliged to 
 put back, a general suspicion prevailed in England that there was collusion 
 between the pirates and the ministers, and in fact, that they dared not bring 
 the sea-robber home for trial, lest it should be discovered that the Lord 
 Chancellor and his noble associates in the enterprise were confederates in the 
 piracies also. Party spirit ran high, and the opponents of the ministers 
 brought a resolution into the House of Commons for excludhig from place all 
 the partners of Kidd in the original enterprise. And although this resolution was 
 voted down, yet the Tories contrived afterward to impeach several of the Whig 
 lords upon the charge of having been concerned with Kidd. But the articles 
 were not sustained. Meantime Kidd had been taken to England, tried on an 
 indictment for piracy and murder, and hung in chains, with sis of his crew. 
 In addition to the indictment for piracy, he was indicted for the murder of one of 
 his own subordinate officers, named Moore, whom he killed in a quarrel, by strik- 
 ing him over the head with a bucket. He was convicted upon both charges, 
 but protested to the last that he was the victim of conspiracy and perjury. 
 
 But after all, suspicions were entertained by the public that the execution 
 was a sham — that the Government dared not to put him to death — and that, to 
 avoid disclosures, a man of straw was hung in his place. In proof of this asser- 
 tion, it was gravely and strongly alleged that Kidd had been seen alive and 
 well, many years afterward, by those who could not be mistaken as to his iden- 
 tity. There is little doubt, however, of his having been honestly hung al 
 " Execution Dock," in London, on the 12th of May, 1701. Yet, when compared 
 with the nobler buccaneers, Solonois, Morgan, and De Grammont, Kidd must 
 have been a pirate upon an insignificant scale — a mere bottle-imp by the side 
 of Satan, as portrayed in stupendous grandeur by Milton! 
 
 The following old ballads were favorite ones for several years after his death : 
 
40 
 
 APPENDIX Vr. 
 
 BALLAD L 
 
 ru sing you a song that youUl wonder to hear, 
 
 Of a freebooter lucky and bold, 
 Of old Captain Kidd — of the man without fear — 
 
 How himself to the devil he sold. 
 
 His ship was a trim one as ever did swim. 
 His comrades were hearty and brave^ 
 
 Twelve pistols he carried, that freebooter grim. 
 And he fearlessly ploughed the wild wave. 
 
 He ploughed for rich harvests, for silver and gold. 
 
 He gathered them all in the deep ; 
 And he hollowed his granaries far in the mold, 
 
 Where they lay for the devil to keep. 
 
 Tet never was rover more open of hand 
 
 To the woodsmen so merry and free : 
 For he scattered his coin 'mong the sons of the land 
 
 Whene'er he returned from the sea. 
 
 Yet pay-day at last, though unwished and unhid. 
 
 Come alike to the rude and the civil ; 
 And bold Captain Kidd, for the things that he did. 
 
 Was sent by Jack Ketch to the devil. 
 
 BALLAD II. 
 
 My name was Captain Kidd, 
 When I sailed, when I sailed ; 
 My name was Captain Kidd, 
 And so wickedly I did, 
 God's laws I did forbid. 
 When I sailed, when I sailed. 
 
 I roamed from sound to sound. 
 And many a ship I found. 
 And them I sunk or burned, 
 When I sailed, when I sailed. 
 
 Farewell to young and old. 
 All Jolly seamen bold ; 
 You are welcome to my gold. 
 For I must die, I must die. 
 
 Farewell, for I must die ; 
 Then to eternity. 
 In hideous misery, 
 I must lie, I must lie. 
 
APPENDIX VII. 
 
 THE JUDICIARY IN THE EARLY DUTCH 
 PERIOD. 
 
 BY CHIEF-JUSTICE DALY. 
 
 Peter Stoyvbsant came out as Governor in 1647. Van Dinelage, who 
 had acted as schout fiscal under Van Twiller, came with him, in the capacity 
 of vice-director, and Hendrick Van Djcfc as schout fiscal. Immediately after 
 his arrival, Stuyvesant established a court of justice, of whicli Van Dinclao-e 
 was made the presiding judge, having associated with him occasionally others 
 of the company's ofiBcers. The new tribunal was empowered to decide " all 
 cases whatsoever," subject only to the restriction of asking the opinion of the 
 Governor upon all momentous questions, who reserved to himself the privilege, 
 which he frequently exercised, of presiding in the court, wlienever he thought 
 proper to do so.* 
 
 The desire for a popular form of government became so strong after Stuy- 
 vesant's arrival that he found it necessary to make some concession. He 
 allowed the commonalty to elect eighteen persons, from whom he selected 
 nine, as a permanent body to advise and assist in public affairs. This body, 
 who were known as the board of the nine men, had certain judicial powers 
 conferred on them. Tliree of their number attended in rotation upon every 
 court day, to whom civil cases were referred as arbitrators, and their decision 
 was binding upon the parties, though an appeal lay to the Governor and 
 Council, upon the payment of one pound Flemish. These tribunals, with the 
 manorial courts before referred to, constituted the judicial organization of the 
 colony for several years afterwards. 
 
 The government of Stuyvesant but increased the popular discontent 
 Though a man of capacity and integrity, he was unfitted for the place assigned 
 him. or his duty as the careful guardian of the pecuniary interests of a com- 
 
 * Broeden Raedt, extracts in 4 Doc. Hist, of N. Y., 69. Albany Eec, 20, 28, 29, 38, 66 to 
 61, 2 O'Call., 24 to 31. Brodhead, 467, 523, 532. 
 
43 APPENDIXVII. 
 
 mercial corporation was inconsistent witli the just and politic rule of a people 
 like the colonists, who had their own views as to the manner in which a com- 
 munity should be governed. It was natural that they should desire to live 
 under institutions to which they had been accustomed in Holland, and which, 
 whatever might be their advantages or defects, had to them the merit of 
 nationality, and were associated with their eafliest recollections. This 
 Stuyvesant did not, or would not, see. Strongly conservative himself by 
 nature, and long used to military rule, he saw in a demand so just and reason- 
 able nothing but a desire to break loose from the restraints of lawful authority. 
 Though not an unjust man, he felt himself warranted in resorting to any 
 means to crush everything in the shape of popular encroachment, and, as he 
 was both prompt and energetic, his government became insufferably oppres- 
 sive. Before the end of two years he was in open collision, not only with the 
 board of nine men, but with the sohout fiscal, Van Dyck, and the vice-director, 
 Van Dinclage, an enlightened and learned man, and the most influential 
 member of his Council. The Council he was enabled to control, but not so 
 with the popular body. In one of its members, Adrian Van der Donck, he had 
 to cope with a man whose ability and energy was equal to his own. Insti- 
 gated by Van der Donck, the board of nine men resolved to send a delegation 
 to Holland, but they had no sooner decided upon this step than Stuyvesant 
 arrested its projector, seized his papers, and procured a decree of the Council 
 removing him from his position as one of the popular representatives. But 
 this violent and arbitrary measure did not produce the eSect expected. The 
 nine men met together, a spirited remonstrance was prepared to the States- 
 general, and three of the number, of whom Van der Donck was one, went 
 with it as a^deputation to Holland. 
 
 This mission was so far successful, that in 1650 a provisional order was 
 made by the States-general, which, among other things, decreed, that a Court 
 of Justice should be erected in New Netherland, and that a burgher govern- 
 ment should be established in New Amsterdam, to consist of two burgomasters, 
 five schepens, and a schout, and that in the meantime, or for three years, the 
 nine men should continue to exercise judicial powers in the trial of civil 
 causes.* This order was resisted by the Amsterdam chamber as a violation of 
 the privileges granted by their charter, and Stuyvesant, no doubt under 
 instructions, refused to obey it.-|- When it was known at New Amsterdam 
 that Stuyvesant would not cxmiply with tlie order, tlie nine men again appealed 
 to the home government, and Van der Donck, who had remained in Holland 
 appeared as their advocate before the States-general. A long struo-gle ensued 
 during which Stuyvesant grew more violent and unreasonable. He impris- 
 oned Van Dinclage for uniting with Van der Donck in a protest to the States- 
 general, dismissed the schout fiscal. Van Dyck, from office, for co-operating 
 with the nine men, and followed up these arbitrary and illegal acts by equally 
 violent measures against other leaders of the popular movement t The 
 Amsterdam chamber, who regarded the establishment of a burgher court as 
 likely to prove detrimental to the interests of their commercial monopolv em- 
 ployed every means to counteract the efforts of Van der Donck ■ but after 
 
 • Brodhead, 514. 
 
 t i O'Call., am ; Brodhoad. 540 ; 8 Doc. History of N. T 
 
 :; Biodhead, 6S5, 532. 
 
APPENDIXVII. 43 
 
 maintaining tlie contest for two years, tliey at last thouglit it prudent to yield, 
 and slgoified to Stuyvesant tlieir assent to the wishes of the colonists. The 
 inhabitants of New Amsterdam were to be allowed to elect a schout, two 
 burgomasters, and five schepens, " as much as possible according to the custom 
 of old Amsterdam," and the magistrates thus elected were to compose a muni- 
 cipal court of justice, subject to the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of 
 the province. 
 
 " We have resolved," they wrote to Stuyvesant, " to permit you hereby to 
 erect a Court of Justice (een bauck Van Justitie) formed as much as possible 
 after the custom of this city, to which end printed copies relative to all the 
 law courts here, and their whole government, are transmitted. And we pre 
 sume that it will be sufficient at first to choose one schout, two burgomasters, 
 and five schepens, from all of whose judgment an appeal shall lie to the 
 Supreme Council, where definite judgment shall be pronounced."* It was evi- 
 dent, from the order of the States-general, that these officers were to be elected 
 by the commonalty, as was customary in the cities, towns and villages of Hol- 
 land, and such would seem to be the direction in the dispatch of the Amsterdam 
 Chamber. The language of the dispatch was, perhaps, a little ambiguous, and 
 Stuyvesant, putting the construction upon it that conformed most with his 
 own views, and which, if erroneous, he perhaps felt would not be unpalatable 
 to his employers, resolved to appoint the new magistrates himself. He not only 
 determined thug to keep the power in hia own hands, but he practically 
 defeated the provision that had been made for a city schout, by appointing to 
 that office Cornelius Van Tienhoven, a man of depraved and dissolute life, 
 exceedingly obnoxious to the colonists, whose only recommendation was the 
 ability he had shown in carrying out the measures of hia headstrong and arbi- 
 trary superior. 
 
 By this means, the two offices of city schout and sellout fiscal were united 
 in the same person. Stuyvesant even went so far as to refuse to allow the 
 new magistrates to appoint their own clerk, though it had been the usage in 
 Amsterdam from the time that that city had had a burgomaster, and, as a 
 crowning act, he informed the new tribunal that its establishment, or the 
 scope of its authority, did not in the slightest degree diminish the power of 
 himself and his Council to pass whatever laws or ordinances they pleased for 
 the municipal government of the city.f 
 
 On the second of February, 1653, he issued a proclamation appointing as 
 buro-omasters Arent Van Hatten and Martin Krieger, and as schepens Paulus 
 L. Van der Grist, Maximilian Van Gheel, Allard Anthony, Peter W. Cowen- 
 hoven and William Beekman. Five days afterwards, the newly appointed 
 magistrates aseembled ; Van Tienhoven, the schout fiscal, attending in his 
 additional capacity of city schout, with Jacob Kip, who had been appointed 
 secretary or town clerk, a station he continued to fill for many years after- 
 wards. No business was transacted, other than to give notice that the Court 
 would meet for " the hearing and determining of all disputes between parties, 
 as far as practicable," in the building heretofore called the City Tavern, near 
 the Stadt House (City Hall), on every Monday morning at nine o'clock. 
 
 * 1 N. Y. Doc. History, 38T. 
 
 + 1 N. T. Reo. of Biirgomastorfl and Schepens, vol. i. Brodhead, SiH. 
 
44 APPENDIX VII 
 
 Tlie Stadt House not being ready on tlie day appointed, the nest meeting 
 took place four days afterwards at the Fort, where the Court was duly organ- 
 ized for the dispatch of business, and the proceedings opened with, prayer; 
 the following eloquent extract from which will show the sense entertained by 
 these new magistrates of the duties and obligations of the judicial office : 
 
 " We beseech thee, oh I Fountain of all good gifts, qualify us by thy grace, 
 that we may, with fidelity and righteousness, serve in our respective offices. 
 To this end enlighten our darkened understandings, that we may be able to 
 distinguish the right from the wrong, the truth from falsehood, and that we 
 may give pure and uncorrupted decisions, having an eye upon thy Word, a 
 sure guide, giving to the simple wisdom and knowledge. Let thy law be a 
 lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths, that we may never turn away 
 from righteousness. Deeply impress on all our minds that we are account- 
 able not to man, but to God, who seeth and heareth all things. Let all 
 respect of persons be far removed from us, that we may award justice unto the 
 rich and unto the poor, unto friends and enemies, to residents and to strangers, 
 according to the law of truth, and grant that not one of us, in any instance, 
 may swerve therefrom ; and as gifts do blind the eyes of the wise and destroy 
 the heart, keep, therefore, our hearts in judgment. Grant unto us, also, that 
 we may not rashly prejudge any one, but that we patiently hear all parties, 
 and give them time and opportunity for defending themselves, in all things 
 looking up to Thee and to thy Word for counsel and direction."* 
 
 It was the intention that the municipal government conceded to New 
 Amsterdam should conform, as far as practicable, to that of the parent city. 
 How essentially Stuyvesaut departed from this in the outset has been already 
 shown, and his resolving that the burgher government did not diminish the 
 right of himself and his Council to regulate municipal afiairs, left the precise 
 powers of the new tribunal very indefinite and uncertain. It led, at the com- 
 mencement, to an organization of the municipal government in many respects 
 different from that of Amsterdam, and to great unwillingness at first on the 
 part of the burgomasters and schepens to interfere at all in municipal matters. 
 In Amsterdam there were four burgomasters, each of whom attended three 
 months of the year, in rotation, at the City Hall, for the dispatch of public 
 business ; and the schepens, who were nine in number, held the regular court 
 of justice, having civil and criminal jurisdiction, which was almost unlimited. 
 The duties of the schepens were especially j udicial, while those of the schout 
 and the burgomasters were chiefly executive, and the three bodies, when assem- 
 bled together, constituted a "college," for the enactment of municipal ordi- 
 nances and laws, under the title of " The Lords of the Court of the City of 
 Am sterdam." There was also a permanent council, composed of thirty-six mem- 
 bers, the nature of which need not be explained.! Though this division of 
 duties and labors was highly essential in a city of the magnitude of the Dutch 
 commercial metropolis, it was not so necessary in a small community like that 
 of New Amsterdam, which, at the period in question, could not have embraced 
 
 * 1 N. T. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., i., 3. 
 
 t J. Wagenaar-Amsterdamsche Geschiedenisacn, 1740. Meyer's lastitutions Judiciaires 
 tome iii., livre 5, chap. ii. 253. Ordinances of Amsterdam, vol. ii., p. 695. Vander Linden 379 
 S O'Cill. 210. 
 
APPENDIXVII. 45 
 
 much over seyen hundred inhabitants* F'rom this cause, perhaps, as well as 
 from the uncertainty respecting the precise distribution or extent of their 
 duties, occasioned by the notice they had received from Stuyvesant, the newly 
 appointed officers assembled together as one body, and in that united capacity 
 continued thereafter to discharge legislative, judicial, and executive functions. 
 In the towns and villages of Holland the schout was the first officer of the board. 
 He convoked the court, and presided at the head of it, but without taking any 
 part in its proceedings other than in collecting the votes. His position was some- 
 what analogous to that of the speaker or the president of a legislative assem- 
 bly, except that he had no vote, though he might express his opinion, and he 
 was obliged to quit the bench when he acted as prosecuting officer, the oldest 
 burgomaster then presiding in his stead.f In New Amsterdam, however, Arent 
 Van Hatten, being the first named as burgomaster, assumed the presidency of 
 the court,! and after he retired from office the eldest burgomaster continued to 
 act in that capacity until 1656, when Stuyvesant ordered that the presidency 
 should be changed every three months, which continued until 1660, in which 
 year the colonists obtained what they had long petitioned for, a separation of 
 the office of city schout from that of the schout fiscal. This separation had in fact 
 been made six years before, and a city schout appointed by the Amsterdam 
 chamber, but this officer, Jochem T. Kuyter, having been killed in a collision 
 with the Indians before he could enter on the duties of his office, Stuyvesant 
 retained the schout fiscal. Van Tieuhoven, in the discharge of the duties of city 
 schout, and persisted, against the earnest remonstrance of the inhabitants, in 
 continuing him and the succeeding schout fiscal, Nicasius de Sille, as city schout, 
 until the Amsterdam chamber finally appointed to the post Peter Tonneman, 
 who had formerly been schout of a district of Dutch towns on Long Island. 
 Tonneman received his appointment in Holland, and when he came out he 
 insisted upon his right to the presidency of the court. In this he was sup- 
 ported by Stuyvesant, who went personally before the burgomasters and sche- 
 pens, and insisted not only that Tonneman should sit at the head of the court, 
 but that he should have a vote in all matters in which he was not a party, a 
 privilege never granted to the sellouts in Holland. The burgomasters and 
 schepens resisted, but after a long and angry discussion, it was finally agreed 
 that Tonneman should have what he claimed until the question should be 
 determined by the " Lords Majores " in Holland. It does not appear whether any 
 further action was had in the matter, but the name of Tonneman was continued 
 thereafter upon the records as the chief or presiding officer.g In 1657 that 
 branch of municipal affairs wliich especially required the discharge of execu- 
 tive duties had increased so largely, that the burgomasters organized a sepa- 
 rate court, which met every Thursday, to dispose of it.|| In view of the serious 
 encroachment made upon their time by the accumulation of duties, or, as they 
 
 * Valentine's History of the City of New York, p. 53. Brodhcad, 648. 
 t Van Leuwen, book i., chap, i., sec. 21. Meyer's Institutions Jndiciaires, tome iii., livreS, 
 chap, xi., 253. Vander Linden, 3T7. Brodhead, 674. 
 t N. T. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., i. 4; ii., 488. 
 § N. Y. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., v. 414, 484. 
 
 I N. Y. Kec. of Burg, and Schep. Ordinances of Burgomasters. 
 89 
 
46 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 expressed it, the impossibility of attending to tlieir private affairs, the burgo- 
 masters petitioned Stuyvesant to be released thereafter from attending the 
 burgher court, but he refused to grant it, and the court continued in the dis. 
 charge of mixed legislative and judicial functions as long as the Dutch held 
 possession of the province. 
 
 The proceedings of this tribunal, or as it was denominated, " The Worship- 
 full Court of the Schout Burgomaster and Schepens," were all recorded by 
 their clerk or secretary ; and as everything that took place before it — the 
 nature of the claim, or of the offense, the statements of the parties, the proof 
 and the decision of the Court, with the reasons assigned for it — were carefully 
 noted and written down, these records supply a full account of the whole 
 course of its proceedings, and furnish an interesting exposition of the man- 
 ners and habits of the people. Upon perusing them, it is impossible not to be 
 struck with the comprehensive knowledge they display of the principles of 
 jurisprudence, and with the directness and simplicity with which legal investi- 
 gations were conducted. In fact, as a means of ascertaining truth, and of 
 doing substantial justice, their mode of proceeding was infinitely superior to 
 the more technical and artificial system introduced by their English succes- 
 sors. None of these magistrates were of tlie legal profession. They were all 
 engaged in agricultural, trading, or other pursuits, and yet they appear to 
 have been well versed in the Dutch law, and to have been thoroughly 
 acquainted with the commercial usages, customs, and municipal regulations of 
 the city of Amsterdam. This is the more remarkable, as a knowledge of the 
 Dutch law at that period was by no means of easy acquisition. Though 
 the principles and practice of the civil law prevailed in Holland, it was greatly 
 modified by ancient usages ; some of them of feudal origin, others the result of 
 free institutions, which had existed from the earliest period ; and it had en- 
 grafted upon it a number of public regulations or ordinances, emanating from 
 the different provinces, as distinct and partly independent sovereignties, which 
 had originated either as feudal privileges or sprung. up during Spanish domi- 
 nation, or were the result of the long struggle and many political changes 
 which the Low Countries had passed through before the general establishment 
 of free institutions. In every town and ^'illage in Holland, moreover, there 
 existed usages and customs peculiar to the place, which had the force of law, 
 and were not only different in different towns, but frequently directly opposite. 
 The Dutch law, in fact, was then a kind of irregular Mosaic, in which might 
 be found all the principles as well as the details of a most enlightened system 
 of jurisprudence, but in a form so confused as to make it exceedingly difficult 
 to master it.* That these magistrates should have had any general or prac- 
 tical acquaintance with such a system at all was scarcely to have been 
 expected ; but that they had is apparent not only from the manner in which 
 they disposed of the ordinary controversies that came before them, but in 
 their treatment of difficult questions as to the rights of strangers, their 
 
 * H. Fagel and J. C. Yaa der Hoop. Dissert, de usu juris Itomani in HoUandia Hap;., 1779. 
 F. Van Mieris Groot Cliarterbock der Graaven Van Holland, Leid., 175.3^. Declen Cau en 
 Seheltus, Placaat Boek Van de Staaten Generaal Van Holland, en Van Zeeleud; J.Deelen, 
 edition of 1G38. Actes des Etats Generaux de 1600. Reciieilles et mis en ordre, par M. 
 Gachard, Bruselles, 1819. Oeuvres de Raepsait, tome iii. Des Droit dea Eelgis et Gaulois 
 Meyer's Institutions Judiciaircs, tome ill., livrc 5, chap. xi. 
 
APPENDIXVII. 4- 
 
 familiarity with the complicated laws of inheritance, and the knowledge they 
 displayed of the maritime law while sitting as a Court of Admiralty. The 
 Amsterdam chamber sent out to them the necessary books to guide them as to 
 the practices of the courts of Amsterdam, and when the province passed into 
 the hands of the English, there was attached to the court a small but very 
 select library of legal works, mainly in the Dutch language. There were, 
 moreover, men educated to the legal profession, in the colony. Van Dinclage, 
 the vice-director, who had acted as schout fiscal for Van T wilier, and chief judge 
 of the court established by Stuyvesant, was a doctor of laws ; and there is suf- 
 ficient known respecting him to warrant the opinion that he was an able and 
 accomplished jurist. Van der Donck was admitted to the same honorable 
 degree in the University of Leyden, and was afterward an advocate of the 
 Supreme Court of Holland.* The schout fiscal, Nicaoiua de Sille, who acted as 
 city sellout for four years, is stated in his commission from the Amsterdam 
 chamber to be " a man well versed in the law."f 
 
 In addition to these, there were several notaries. Dirk Van Schellyne, who 
 came out in 1641, had previously practised at the Hague; David Provoost dis- 
 charged the duties of notary for some years before Schellyne's arrival 4 and 
 there was another notary named Matthias de Vo3.§ Under the civil law as it 
 prevailed in Holland, a considerable part of the proceedings in a cause, if it 
 was seriously contested, was conducted by the notary, who was required, at 
 least, to be well versed in the manner of carrying on legal controversies ; and 
 as he was frequently consulted by suitors for advice as to their rights and lia- 
 bilities, he was generally well-informed and capable of giving it. || Such was 
 the case with Van Schellyne, who, from the records he has left, was evidently 
 an experienced and skillful practitioner. He was not only connected with the 
 court in the discharge of his duties as notary, but he was appointed by it, in 
 1665, high constable (conchergio).!]" All of these men must have had more or 
 less to do with establishing the mode of legal proceeding, and of advising and 
 guiding the magistrates. Van Schellyne and De Sille were in constant com- 
 munication with them, Van Dinclage must have brought into use the forms of 
 legal procedure in the court over which he had presided, and Van der Donck 
 was one of the chief getters-up of the new tribunal ; and though he survived 
 its creation but two years, he was no doubt advised with and consulted in 
 respect to its organization, and as to the mode in which it was conducted. We 
 find him, in fact, the very year that it was established, claiming its protection 
 as a "citizen and burgher" against the menaces of Stuyvesant.** The court 
 was required, in all its determinations, to regard as paramount law all regula- 
 tions established by or instructions received from the Chamber of Amsterdam 
 or the College of Nineteen, for the government of the colony. Next, all edicts 
 or ordinances duly established by the Governor and Council ; then the usages, 
 
 * 2 O'Call., 550. 
 
 + Brodhead, 561. 5 N. Y. Rec. of Barg. and Schep., 5. 
 
 t 3 N. Y. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., 101. 
 
 § 5 N. T. Rec. of Barj. and Schep., 642. 
 
 1 S. Van Leawen, Practj'k der Notariasen. Eott., 1742. 
 
 ^ N. Y. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., ii. 643. 
 
 *♦ N. Y. Rec. of Burg, and Schep., i. 321. 
 
48 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 customs, or laws prevailing in the city of Amaterdam, and where they furnished 
 no guide, the law of the fatherland, by which was more particularly understood 
 the ordinances of the province of Holland, and of the States-general, and the 
 civil law as it prevailed in the Netherlands, or, as it is denominated by jurists, 
 the Roman Dutch law. 
 
 The burgomaster and schepens had constantly demanded from Stuyvesant 
 that they should be allowed to nominate a double number of persons, from 
 whom their successors should be chosen, as a partial approximation to the 
 privileges enjoyed in the Netherlands, or, as they expressed it, " in the beloved 
 city of Amsterdam,"* but he continued the old magistrates, merely supplying 
 vacancies, until 1656, when he consented, with the proviso that the old magis- 
 trates should always be considered as renominated, which left it in his power 
 to continue them precisely as he had done before. The condition was accepted, 
 and the nominations made ; but Stuyvesant. being displeased with some of the 
 new names, continued the old magistrates, merely supplying vacancies until 
 the time for reappointment came around, in 1G58, when he at last gave way, 
 and selected, from a double list of names presented to him, the magistrates 
 who were to serve. The burgomaster and schepens then selected continued 
 in office until 1660, when a new nomination and appointment was made every 
 year in the month of February,! which was continued thereafter, until the 
 English changed the org'anization of the court. All these magistrates, as far 
 as can be gathered, were men of intelligence, of independence, and, with one ' 
 or two exceptions, of high moral character, evincing ia the discharge of their 
 duties, and especially in those of a judicial nature, that unswerving adhesion 
 to establish rules and customs, that sterling good sense, and strong love of 
 justice, which constitute so marked a feature in the Dutch national character. 
 
 The right which Stuyvesant claimed, of interfering in the administration of 
 city matters, appears to have been confined to the general regulation of the 
 city's affairs, and not to the administration of justice between particular indi- 
 viduals or as against public offenders. Upon the former matter, he and the 
 burgomaster and the schepens came frequently in collision ; and he sometimes 
 gave vent to his anger at their insolence and presumption, by a public procla- 
 mation, in which they were contemptuously referred to as " the little bench of 
 justice,":|: but he seems to have abstaiaed from any interference with their 
 judicial powers. At first he was disposed to limit their action in criminal 
 cases, but finally he suffered them to exercise unlimited criminal and civil 
 jurisdiction, except the infliction of punishment in capital cases. The mode 
 of proceeding in civil cases was simple and summary. The court was held 
 once every fortnight, though frequently once every week, upon a stated way. 
 Attachexi to tlie court was an officer known as the court messeno-er who at 
 the verbal request of the party aggrieved, summoned the adverse party to 
 appear at the next court-day. If the defendant failed to appear, he incurred 
 the cost of the summons, lost the right to make any objection to the jurisdic- 
 tion of the court, and a new citation was issued. If he failed again, he incurred 
 
 * New Amsterdam Rec, 359, 373, 375. 
 + Rec. of N, T. Burgomasters and Schepens, iv., 299. 
 
 t Documents of Stuyvesant's Ooancil in N. Y. Record of Burgomasters and Scherens 
 aotU ot February, 1654. 
 
APPENDIXVII. 49 
 
 additional costs, lost the riglit to make all "dilatory exceptions," or to adjourn 
 or delay the proceeding. He was then cited for the third time, and if he did 
 not then appear, the court proceeded to hear the case and give judgment, and 
 he was cut o£F from all right of appeal or review. But if, upon hearing the 
 plaintiff's case, the court deemed the presence of the defendant essential, they 
 might issue a fourth citation, in the nature of an arrest, and compel his appear- 
 ance. Parties, however, usually attended upon the first citation. The plain- 
 tiff stated his case, and the defendant made his answer. If they differed in a 
 fact which the court thought material, either party might he put to an oath, 
 and, if they were still in conflict, the court might require the examination of 
 witnesses, and the matter was adjourned until the next court-day, during 
 which time either party might take the depositions of his witnesses before a 
 notary, or the court might require that the witnesses should be produced, to 
 be examined orally before it, at the adjourned day, under oath. But, most 
 generally, the matter was disposed of upon the first hearing of the parties, 
 without resorting to the oath or the examination of witnesses. If it was intri- 
 cate, or it was difficult to get at the truth, it was the constant practice to refer 
 the cause to arbitrators, who were always instructed to bring about a recon- 
 ciliation between the parties if they could ; and this was not confined merely 
 to cases of disputes about accounts, or to differences growing out of contracts 
 but it extended to nearly every iiind of case that came before the court. The 
 arbitrators were left to the choice of the litigants, or appointed by the court, 
 or one of the sehepens was directed to take the matter in hand and try and 
 reconcile the contestants. If no reconciliation could be effected, or the parties 
 would not submit to the final deterraination or conclusion of the arbitrators, 
 the dissatisfied party might again bring the matter before the court, where it 
 was finally disposed of. These references were frequent upon every court- 
 day. In fact, the chief business of this tribunal was, in acting as a court of 
 reconciliation ; and, it is worthy of remark, that, though the amount involved 
 was frequently considerable or the matter in dispute highly important, 
 appeals to the court from the decision of the arbitrators were exceedingly 
 rare. 
 
 Indeed, the first appeal to be found upon the records was brought by a 
 stranger.* There was a more formal mode of proceeding, if parties preferred 
 it. After the plaintiff had stated his case, the defendant might require him to 
 put it in writing, and a day was given for that purpose. The defendant was 
 then obliged to answer in writing, to which the plaintiff could reply, and the 
 defendant rejoin, and there ended the pleadings. Each party then went before 
 the notary of his choice, and had the depositions of his witnesses reduced to 
 writing, a draft or copy of which was retained by the notary, in a book kept 
 by him for the purpose ; and where it was necessary, a commission, or, as it 
 was called, a requisitory letter, might be obtained for the examination upon 
 interrogation of vfitnesses residing beyond the court's jurisdiction, who were 
 examined before the j ndges of the local court where the witness resided, who 
 sealed up the examination, and transmitted it to the court having jurisdiction 
 of the cause. When the proofs were complete, they were added to the plead- 
 
 * N. Y. Eec. of BurgomasterB and Schepene, i., 188, 231 11., 10, 176 j iii., 188 ; v., 190; vi., 
 474; vii., 180, 
 
CO APPENDIX Til. 
 
 ings, the whole constituting what was called the memorial, which was 
 Bubmitted to the court, either party being at liberty to inspect it, and having 
 the right, within a certain time, to have any of the witnesses of his adversary 
 examined upon cross-interrogatories, in respect to anything contained in cheir 
 deposition, which was material, or to have additional witnesses examined on 
 his own behalf in reply ; the manner of conducting which subsequent examin- 
 ation was arranged by the judge. But this mode of proceeding being dilatory 
 and expensive was rarely resorted to. The majority of cases were referred to 
 arbitration, or disposed of upon a summary hearing of the parties before the 
 magistrates ; and it may be important to note, in respect to the rules of evi- 
 dence, that whenever a paper or document was produced, purporting or avowed 
 to be in the handwriting of a party, it was assumed to be his haud writing, 
 unless he denied the fact under oath ; and that merchants or traders might 
 always exhibit their books in evidence, where it was acknowledged or proved 
 that there had been a dealing between the parties, or that the article had been 
 delivered, provided they were regularly kept with the proper distinction of 
 persons, things, year, month, and day — a practice which, in the States of Xew 
 Jersey and New York, survived these Dutch tribunals, and has at the present 
 day, with certain qualifications or restrictions, extended to nearly every State 
 in the Union. Full credit was given to all such books, especially where they 
 were strengthened by oath, or confirmed by the death of the parties, and also 
 to memorandums made between parties by sworn brokers. A leading distinc- 
 tion in evidence was also made between what was termed full proof, as where 
 a fact was declared by two credible witnesses, as of their own knowledge, or it 
 was proved by a document or written paper, and half proof, as where it rested 
 upon the positive declaration of knowledge by one witness only, under which 
 latter head, as weak but assisting evidence, hearsay was allowed, which, in 
 some instances, as in the case of certain dying declarations, was admitted to 
 the force of full proof ; and as the determining of a case upon the evidence of 
 witnesses was left to the judges, very discriminating and nice distinctions were 
 made in adjusting or weighing its relative force or value.* 
 
 When judgment was rendered against a defendant for a sum of money 
 time was given for payment, usually fourteen daj's, for the discharge of one 
 half, and the remainder in a month. If, at the expiration of that time he did 
 not comply, application was made to the court, and the sellout, or usually the 
 court messenger, went to the delinquent, and exhibiting a copy of the sentence 
 and his wand of office, which was a bunch of thorns, summoned him to make 
 satisfaction in twenty-four hours. If at the expiration of that time the amount 
 was not paid, the delinquent was again summoned to pay within twenty-four 
 hours, which involved additional expense ; and if, vvhen that time expired he 
 was still in default, the messenger, in the presence of a schepen, took into 
 custody the debtor's movable goods, which he detained for sis days, within 
 which time they might be redeemed on payment of the expenses If thev 
 were not redeemed, notice was then given by publicly announcing upon a 
 Sunday, and upon a law day, that they would be sold, and at the next law or 
 market day they were disposed of by auction. If it was necessary to levy 
 
 * Rec. of X. T. Burs, and Schep., vii., yiii. Mejer'o Institutions Jadiciaircs chap 14. 387 
 Van Leawou, book v., chap. xiii. to ss. and x.tiii. ' i- ^ 
 
APPENDIXVII. 51 
 
 upon or sell real estate, or what in tlie civil law is termed immovable property, 
 a longer term was allowed, and greater formalities were required. The 
 manner of selling it was peculiar. The officer lighted a candle, and the 
 bidding went on while it was burning, and he who liad offered the most at the 
 extinction of the candle was declared the purchaser, which differed from the 
 ordinary mode in a Dutch auction, where a public offer of the property ia made 
 at a price beyond its real value, which is gradually lowered or diminished 
 until one of the company agrees to take it.* The civil business of the court 
 was large and varied, such as actions for the recovery of debts, which were 
 generally cases of disputed accounts, or of misunderstanding between the 
 parties, for in truth the probity and punctuality of the Dutch suits by creditors 
 to enforce payments from delinquent debtors formed but a small proportion in 
 the general mass of this business. There were proceedings by attachments 
 against the property of absconding debtors or of non-residents or foreigners, 
 on which security was required of the debtor intending to depart, to release 
 the property from the attachment ; actions to recover the possession of land, or 
 to settle boundaries, a proceeding somewhat similar to the relief aflbrded by 
 our courts of equity upon a confusion of boundaries ; actions to recover 
 damages for injuries to land or to personal property, or to recover specific 
 personal property as in replevin, or its value as in trover. 
 
 Actions for freight, for seamen's wages, for rent, for breach of promise of 
 marriage, where the performance of the contract was enforced by imprison- 
 ment; for separation between man and wife, in which case the children were 
 equally allotted to the parties, and the property divided.f after the payment of 
 debts ; proceedings in bastardy cases, in which the male was required to give 
 security for the support of the child, and in which both delinquents might be 
 punished by fine or imprisonment. Actions for assault and battery, and for 
 defamation, which were quasi-criminal proceedings, punishable by fine and 
 imprisonment, or both, though the defamer was generally discharged upon 
 making a solemn public recantation before the court, sometimes upon his 
 knees, asking pardon of God and of the injured party. Pecuniary compensa- 
 tion for injuries to person or character could not be enforced; though cases 
 occurred in which the defendant was discharged, it appearing that he had made 
 compensation to the other party in money or goods. And, from tne frequent 
 application made to the court for redress in cases of defamation, detraction 
 would seem to have been a vice to which the inhabitants were particularly 
 prone. 
 
 The court also acted as a court of admiralty, and as a court of probate, in 
 taking proof of last wills and testaments, and in appointing curators to take 
 charge of the estates of widows and orphans. Application was made to Stuy- 
 vesant for liberty to establish an orphan-house, similar to the celebrated insti- 
 tutions which exist throughout Holland. He did not think that such an estab- 
 lishment was necessary, but he afterward assented to the appointment of orphan- 
 masters, and those officers acted in aid of the court. Some of its proceedings 
 in the exercise of this branch of its jurisdiction will serve to illustrate how 
 tenaciously the Dutch clung to old forms or legal ceremonies, as, where a 
 
 * Rec. ofN. T. Burg, and Schep.,i. of 204, 250; v 207, 670. Van Leuwen, book 5, chap. 25. 
 + Eec. of N. Y. Burg, and Scliep., iv., 1659. Rec. of Mayor's Court, i., 533. 
 
Sa APPENDIX VII. 
 
 widow, to relieve herself from certain obligations, desired to renounce her lius- 
 band's estate, it is, in all such cases, recorded, that the intestate's estate "' has 
 been kicked away by his wife with the foot," and that she has dnly " laid the 
 key on the cofHn."* The court also exercised a peculiar jurisdiction, that of 
 Eummoning parents or g'uardlans before them, who, without sufficient cause, 
 withheld assent to the marriage of their children or wards, and of compelling 
 them to give it.f It also granted passports to strangers, or conferred on them 
 the burgher right, a distinction which, now that it has ceased to be attended 
 with any practical advantage, is still kept up in the custom of tendering or pre- 
 senting the freedom of the city to strangers, as a mark of respect. It may not 
 be uninteresting, moreover, to state, that the origin of a fee bill, for regulating, 
 by a fixed and positive provision of law, the costs of attorneys and other public 
 officers, is to be traced to Stuyvesant. On the 25th of January, 1658, he put 
 forth what is known in Holland as a placard, that is, a proclamation or ordi- 
 nance emanating from some legislative or executive authority, having the 
 force of law, by which he established a regular tariff of fees. In England, the 
 fees of attorneys and other officers of the court has always been regulated by 
 the court, and not by any public act. In New York, however, the fees of pub- 
 lic officers have been a matter of statute regulation from a very early period. 
 Ten or twelve years after the restoration of the province to the English, they 
 were regulated by an ordinance of the Governor, and afterward by acts of the 
 General Assembly ; and there is every reason to believe that the practice, 
 especially as respects the fees of attorneys and officers of the court, was derived 
 from the Dutch.| 
 
 A copy of Stuyvesant's ordinance remains in the records of the burgomas- 
 ter and schepens, and as the preamble to the document is of interest as a legal 
 curiosity, we shall take the liberty to insert it : " Whereas the Director-general 
 and Council of New Netherland have sufficient evidence, from their own expe- 
 rience, in certain bills of costs which have been exhibited to them, as well as 
 by the remonstrances and complaints which have been presented to them by 
 others, of the exactions of scriveners, notaries, clerks, and other licensed per- 
 sons, in demanding and collecting from contending persons excessively large ■ 
 fees and money, for writing for almost all sorts of instruments, to the manifest, 
 yea, insufferable expense of judgments and judicial costs, some of whom are 
 led by their covetousness and avarice so far as to be ashamed to make a 
 bill or specify the fees they demand, but ask or extort a sum in gross. There- 
 fore, to provide for the better and more easy administration of justice, the 
 Director-general and Council do enact," etc. ; after which follow provisions 
 requiring the licensing of the officer entitled to take the fees, the keeping of a 
 record of all fees charged by them, and prohibiting champerty and other 
 abuses. It is then provided, that the officers enumerated shall serve the poor 
 gratis, for God's sake, but may take from the wealthy the fees specified. Each 
 particular service is then enumerated in the manner of oar former fee bills, 
 with the number of stivers allowed for each. Among tho provisions is the 
 
 * Rec. of N. Y. Burg, and Schep., ii., 323. 
 
 + Hec. of N. T. Barg. aod Schep., vols, i., ii., iii., iv., v., vi. 
 
 t Ordinance and Table of Pees in first edilion of the Colonial Laws, by Bradford, 1694- 
 Charter Book and Acta of Ae.semb!y of 1683, in office of Secretary of State ; Laws of 1709 ordi 
 nance regulating fees. 
 
APPENDIXVII. 53 
 
 following entry : " No drinking, treats, presents, gifts, or doucers shall be 
 inserted in any bill, or demanded ;" and the ordinance concludes by directing 
 that it shall be read once every year in the court, upon a day specified, to the 
 officers enumerated, who were thereupon to be sworn faithfully to observe it ; 
 any officer being subject, for a violation of its provisions, to a fine of fifty 
 guilders, or the loss of his office* 
 
 In criminal cases, the scho ut prosecuted as plaintiff on behalf of the community. 
 At his requisition, and upon the inspection by a magistrate of evidence sufficient 
 to warrant a belief that an offense had been committed, the offender might be 
 arrested or summoned according to the discretion of the magistrate ; though 
 where the culprit was detected in the actual perpetration of the deed, or where, 
 in the judgment of the schout, there was strong ground of suspicion against 
 him, and, in his opinion, the public interest demanded it, he might direct his 
 immediate arrest ; but in all such cases the sellout was obliged to give notice 
 of the arrest to the magistrate within twenty-four hours, who was thereupon 
 bound to investigate the matter — a provision that practically dispensed with 
 the necessity of the writ of habeas corpus, so familiar in the history of the 
 English law.f Bail was allowed, except in cases of murder, rape, arson, or 
 treason. There were two modes of trying the prisoner ; either publicly upon 
 general evidence, which was the ordinary mode, or by examining him secretly 
 in the presence of two schepens, in which written interrogatories were pro- 
 pounded to the prisoner, to which he was obliged to return categorical answers. 
 The Dutch law then adhering to the general policy of the civil law in respect 
 to extorting confessions from offenders, and making use of tlie torture and of 
 all those inquisitorial aids and appliances which have cast such a blemish upon 
 tlie criminal jurisprudence of Europe.:]: 
 
 The torture, however, was not used, except where the presumptive proof 
 amounted almost to a certainty ; and but one case has been found upon the 
 records in which this cruel and unnecessary test was resorted to. Criminal 
 prosecutions were not frequent, nor were the offenses generally of a grave 
 character. The punishments were by fine, which were distributed in three 
 equal parts, to the schout, to the court, and to the poor ; by imprisonment, 
 whipping, the pillory, banishment from the city or the province, or death, 
 which, however, could not be inflicted without the concurrence of the Governor 
 and his Council.§_ 
 
 Courts of the same popular character were established upon Long Island,! 
 shortly after the erection of the one at New Amsterdam. 
 
 A coart with two schepens existed at Breuklin (Brooklyn) before 1654, 
 which in that year was increased to four schepens. There was one at Midwout 
 (Flatbush), with three schepens, and another at Amersfoort (B'latlands). 
 David Provoost, who had been a notary at New Amsterdam, was made schout 
 of Breuklin, and a district court was established, composed of the schout of 
 
 * Placards of Stuyvesaut in Rec. of N. Y. Burg, and Schep. 
 + Ordinances of Amsterdam, p. 46, and seq. Ed. of 1644. 
 
 % La Practiqiie et Kncheridon des Caases Criminills, Louvain, 1555. Van Leuwen, book 3, 
 chaps. 37, 28. 
 
 § Ttec. of N. Y. Burg, and Schep., iv., 141. 
 I Thompson's History of Long Island, 96. 2 O'Call. 313, 323. 
 90 
 
54 APPENDIXVII. 
 
 Breublin, and of delegates from these three tribunals, whicli was continued 
 until 1661. 
 
 In that year similar courts -were established at Boswyck (Bushwick), and 
 at New Utrecht, and the whole were formed into a district known as " the five 
 Dutch towns," to which there was attached one schout, residing at Breuklin, 
 each town having its separate courts.* Courts were also established by virtue 
 of a grant from Stuyvesant among the English settlers at Carorasset (Jamaica), 
 in 1656,t and at Middleburgh (Newtown), in 1659.| In 1653 Stuyvesant, by 
 the simple exercise of his prerogative, established a court at Beverwyck 
 (Albany), independent of the Patroon's Court of Raensellervyck.g It was held 
 at the house of the vice-director, upon the second floor, in a room directly 
 under the roof, without a chimney, and to which access was had, by a straight 
 ladder, through a trap-door. The courts thus enumerated, including the 
 patroon courts already referred to and the Supreme or Appellate Court at New 
 Amsterdam, composed of the Governor and Council, constituted the judicial 
 tribunals of New Netherland, until the colony passed into the hands of 
 the English. 
 
 * Brodhead, 580. 
 
 t Thompson's History of Loug Island, 06. 
 
 t Riker's Annals of Newtown. 
 
 ? Albany Eec, 183. Bccords of Mortgages, Albany, book A. 2 O' Call., 183. 
 
APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 THE FIREMAN'S LYCEUM. 
 
 LETTER FROM COLONEL T. BAILEY MYERS. 
 
 Fireman's Lyceum, 137 Mercbb Stbekt, ) 
 New Yokk City, Decemher 1st, 1871. ) 
 Deae Sir — In compliance with your request that I should send you a brief 
 historical sketch of the origin and scope of the Fireman's Lyceum, I give you a 
 few facts, which I trust will cover the ground. The eliange from the Volun- 
 teer to the Paid Department involved new duties imposed upon a few men 
 selected to take the place of many, whose whole time belonged to the public, 
 and was spent at the apparatus-houses waiting for duty. Idleness in quarters, 
 in military life, is an evil which has been apparent in every service, and under 
 the new system of a paid department, the life of the fireman nearly assimilated 
 to that of a soldier in garrison. How to occupy the time of the men while 
 waiting for the alarm-signal which might at any moment summon the com- 
 pany to duty, became at an early day a subject for consideration with the Board 
 of Commissioners. The connection of some industrial pursuit with the duty, 
 as is the case in other countries, which, while lessening the expenses of the 
 department, would employ tlie time of the men, was considered as a means-of 
 affording the needed occupation ; but for reasons on which it is not necessary 
 to enlarge, that course was deemed at present impracticable, especially in the 
 face of a constant agitation by local politicians (seeking votes amongst the 
 force), of an increase of tlie pay of the firemen from $1,000 to |1,300 per annum, 
 a proposition always popular with the men, and not objectionable to legislatures 
 more intent on gratifying their colleagues (when it could be done at the 
 expense of the tax-payers of the city alone, whom tliey apparently represent) 
 than on an economical administration of public affairs ; and therefore difficult 
 to be opposed by commissioners themselves holding office by a feeble tenure 
 and subject at any time to be legislated out of their control. 
 
 Under the new system the Department was placed upon a semi-military 
 
56 .APPENDIXVIII. 
 
 basis, the strictest discipline preserved in service or in quarters, and requisitions, 
 reports, and other written forms introduced, involving a large amount of labor 
 and requiring clerical skill in the officers not heretofore generally necessary. 
 For many of these strict military details, unpopular and subjects for ridicule at 
 the time, as being in direct opposition to the personal independence and licensed 
 freedom of the volunteer system, and necessarily incident to unpaid serv- 
 ice, but which have tended greatly to the present efficiency and compactness 
 of the force, the public are indebted to the perseverance and talent for organi- 
 zation possessed by General Shaler, with whom they originated, and who urged 
 the necessity of their adoption. They are now sanctioned by usage, and are not 
 likely to be abandoned. Their effect has been to reduce the material of the 
 Department to the efficiency and prompt, quiet, concerted action of regular bat- 
 teries of artillery, with the substitution of the apparatus for field-pieces. These 
 changes necessarily called the attention of the Board to the means of elevating 
 the educational standard of the men. 
 
 After much consideration the Board, on the 27th of December, 1867, passed 
 a resolution authorizing me, as a member of the Board, to take possession of 
 the large hall above the head-quarter offices of the Department, and to organize 
 a lyceum and library for the use of the men, provided the same should be done 
 without expense to the public. In compliance with this resolution I proceeded at 
 once to interest the insurance companies and a few personal friends in the enter- 
 prise, and soon secured the moderate sum of money necessary to accomplish 
 it. To do this it was necessary to husband our resources, and make our pur- 
 chases at book sales only, which were attended for that purpose very faithfully 
 by Mr. C. E. Gildersleve, at that time secretary of the Board. Subsequently, as 
 the collection increased, a formal trust was created, by which I hold the prop- 
 erty so acquired for the use of the firemen of the city of New York. The col- 
 lection of books has gradually increased, until, at the present time, it includes 
 4,873 volumes belonging to the library, and 1,500 deposited for reference by 
 the trustee. The cases in which these books are contained are of walnut, with 
 eliding wire-doors and improved fastenings, and are the work of the men of the 
 
 Department, and compare very favorably with those in any public library 
 
 the materials for these cases is the only expense to which the Department has 
 been in any way subjected. The furniture, some of which is antique, and all 
 suitable to the use, together with a collection of curiously engraved portraits of 
 distinguished Americans, appropriate views, historical documents, autographs, 
 maps. Revolutionary currency, &c., &c., have been deposited in the library for 
 its use from the private collection of the trustee. To this has been added an 
 engine in use by the Department early in the century, and various flags, 
 lanterns, certificates, obsolete implements and apparatus, together forming" a 
 not uninteresting collection, and intended to remind the men not only of the 
 past achievements of the Department, but also of the great men, and remark- 
 able events connected with the general history of the country, and which is 
 constantly increasing by the contributions of old firemen and others. The 
 library is divided into chapters of geography and travel, history, biography, 
 natural science, and carefully selected fiction, and includes such works as are 
 most likely to entertain and improve the leisure hours of the men. Mr. Burns, 
 the librarian, attends at all hours of the day, and the officers and men are ena- 
 bled to draw such books as they may select from the printed catalogues for use 
 
APPENDIX VIII. 57 
 
 at tlieir quarters, which is generally done through one member representing his 
 company. The books have been largely and steadily used, about two hundred 
 volumes being draven in each month, and they aflford great satisfaction to the 
 members. It is scarcely necessary to say that there are some of the older 
 members who cannot avail themselves of the use of books from the want of 
 education, but in the case of all the appointments made for the last four years 
 to be able to read has been an indispensable requisite in a department where 
 every member is eligible as a candidate for competitive examination for officers, 
 in which position these qualifications are absolutely necessary. The Lyceum 
 room, which ia also used for the weekly trial terms held by the Board, is con- 
 stantly resorted to by strangers and visitors, as a pioneer effort in the way of a 
 Department Library. The Lyceum was formally dedicated on the 27th of 
 December last, in the presence of a large audience, on which occasion Chief- 
 Justice Daly delivered an able address, and the Bennett Gold Medal — for the 
 the endowment of which Mr. James Gordon Bennett had intrusted me with 
 one thousand dollars, and which is held in trust for that purpose by Messrs. 
 James M. McLean, Robert S. Hone (whom I associated with me), and myself, as 
 trustees — was conferred on two meritorious officers of the Department for 
 gallant efforts in the cause of humanity in saving life. 
 
 In giving you, as requested, the particulars of this little collection, I trust 
 I have not made more than the necessary allusion to the part I have had in its 
 formation, for which I have been amply rewarded by the success it has attained, 
 and the evidences of the good it has already accomplished ; and I sincerely trust 
 that in whatever vicissitudes the Department may in the future be placed, and 
 by whomsoever controlled, the Lyceum will continue to be the subject of their 
 care, and the same facilities afforded to its trustee to make it an object of 
 instruction and amusement to the gallant and useful body of men for whose 
 benefit it was founded. 
 
 Very truly, your obedient servant, 
 
 T. BAILEY MYERS. 
 Wm. L. Stone, Esq., New York City. 
 
APPENDIX IX. 
 
 HALL OF RECORDS, 
 
 FORMERLY THE DEBTORS' PRISON. 
 
 [From the Evening Post, of De^xmher lith, 1871.] 
 
 The commiinity was startled a few days ago by the announcement tliat the 
 Grand Jury had found an indictment against the Hall of Records, on account 
 of its manifest unfitness as a repository of the public papers. It was generally 
 supposed that the recent repairs, for which, of course, the city paid, had put 
 the building in good condition , and a knowledge that records of such value aa 
 those relating to the property of this city were in danger caused much 
 uneasiness. We propose to give, therefore, a brief history of the building in 
 question, with a statement of its contents and the amount of money recently 
 expended on it. 
 
 The house was erected as a jail long before the Revolutionary war. It was 
 known for many years as the " New Jail," prisoners having formerly been 
 confined in a building at the corner of Dock Street and Coenties Slip, and also 
 in the basement and attic of the City Hall, in Wall Street. The structure was 
 originally almost square, considerably smaller than at present, and three 
 stories in height. Its walls were of rough stone, and it was surmounted by a 
 large cupola rising from the center of the roof. In January, 1764, the " New 
 Jail " was the scene of a riot. Near it, on the northern side of the Park, or 
 " The Fields," as it was then called, ran a long row of wooden barracks, where 
 the British troops were quartered. One Sunday evening a large party of the 
 soldiers, armed with muskets and axes, made an attack on the jail for the 
 purpose of rescuing a certain Major Rogers, who was there imprisoned for debt. 
 After maltreating the jailer for refusing to give up the keys, they forced the 
 locks of all the doors in the building, and would have released all the prison- 
 ers had not most of the latter preferred to remain where they were. The 
 disturbance, which occasioned great excitement and alarm in the citv, was 
 terminated by the intervention of the militia. During the Revolution, after 
 the occupation of the city by the British, the building became known as the 
 
APPENDIXIX. C!' 
 
 " Provost," from tlie fact tliat it was under the charge of the notorious William 
 Cunningham, the British provost-marshal. Cunningham's quarters were on 
 the right of the entrance, and the guard-room on the leCt. Two sentinels were 
 stationed at the entrance night and day, and numerous others were posted 
 through the building, which was then used chiefly for the confinement of 
 captive patriots. The main room on the second floor was called " Congress 
 Hall," and was appropriated to prisoners of the higher class, who were here so 
 densely packed together that, it is said, when they lay on the floor at night 
 the men could not change their posture unless the same movement was made 
 by all simultaneously. In addition to this hardship, they were half-starved and 
 otherwise shamefully abused ; being given impure water when abundance of 
 good was at hand, neglected in sickness and denied all intercourse with their 
 relatives and friends. Two pounds of hard biscuit and two pounds of raw salt 
 pork a week were the allowance of food for each man, without fuel for cooking. 
 Among the prisoners thus treated here were Ethan Allen, Judge Fell, of New 
 Jersey, and other prominent persons. 
 
 After the Revolution the building was used as a prison for debtors, common 
 felons being confined in the old Bride%vell, also in City Hall Square, which was 
 erected in 1775 and torn down in 1888. On the first floor three wards for 
 prisoners were ranged on each side of a long corridor passing through the 
 center, and the second story was similarly arranged, with the exception that 
 the greater part of one side was fitted up as a chapel, where prayers were said 
 every Thursday. A watchman was kept in the belfry to look out for fires, and 
 in consequence the jail bell was always the first rung when an alarm was given. 
 In this event also a long pole with a lantern was extended from the belfry in 
 the direction of the fire, thus guiding the firemen and citizens generally to the 
 place where their services were needed. This lantern-pole was known as the 
 "pointer," and its direction was always the first subject of inquiry when the 
 fire-bells rang. When the jail was remodeled for other purposes, the alarm 
 bell BO long connected with it was placed upon the Bridewell, and on the 
 destruction of the latter building, being held in high regard by the firemen of 
 the time, it was removed to the roof of the house of the Naiad Hose Company, 
 in Beaver Street, with which it was destroyed in the great fire of 1845. 
 
 In June, 1830, when the jail contained only thirty-five debtors, the Common 
 Council received a communication from Jameson Cox, the Register, calling 
 attention to the need of providing a fire-proof building for the safe keeping of 
 the public records. The subject was referred to a committee, in accordance 
 with whose report, in the July following, the Common Council decided to 
 remodel the Debtors' Prison as a building for the Register's and other county 
 offices, and voted an appropriation of $15,000 for that purpose. Several other 
 appropriations were subsequently made, amounting to about $15,000 more. 
 The building was reduced in height by one story, the cupola torn down and 
 the roof covered with copper. A portico was added at each end, supported by 
 six massive columns of marble from the Sing Sing quarries. The interior was 
 extensively altered, and the exterior was stuccoed in imitation of marble. 
 The Temple of Diana at Ephesus was taken as the model of the structure, 
 which was considered at the time of its completion as the most perfect piece of 
 architecture in the city. During the cholera season of 1832, while yet unfin- 
 ished the buildin"' was used as a cholera hospital. It was soon afterwards 
 
60 APPENDI5IX. 
 
 completed, and the offices of tlie Register, Comptroller, Street Commission, and 
 Surrogate established in it. The Register's ofiSce occupied only the west side 
 of the first story, which then amply accommodated the comparatively small 
 number of records. As the work of the ofiBce increased and documents accu- 
 mulated, this space became much too narrow, and in 1858 the rooms of the 
 Surrogate, on the same floor, were appropriated to the use of the Eegister. 
 The Street Department was moved in the following year, leaving the whole 
 upper story for the Comptroller's office, which, in the fall of 1869, was trans- 
 ferred to the new County Court-house. 
 
 In 1869 it was determined to devote the whole building to the use of the 
 Register, and on May 18th, 1869, the Supervisors passed a resolution ordering 
 the issue of not over one hundred thousand dollars in bonds, to be known as 
 " New Tork County Repair of Building Stock," and to be used for the repairs 
 of this building. In 1870 a further appropriation of $40,000 was made for 
 " refitting the Register's office," and bills for this amount were made out to A. 
 J. Garvey for ostensibly performing the work. The iron stairway outside the 
 northern end of the building, which formerly led to the Comptroller's office, 
 was taken away and a wooden stairway erected inside the hall. Besides this, 
 all that can be shown as the result of this expenditure are some gas-fixtures 
 in the walls of the third story, a few desks, and a quantity of common wooden 
 book-racks, which were placed in the second story and have never been used. 
 No use whatever has ever been made by the Register of either the second or 
 third story, because as it is constantly necessary to refer from one volume of 
 the records to another, their dispersal over different floors would most seriously 
 embarrass and delay the work of the office. 
 
 The hall running through the middle of the first story is used for maps, 
 powers of attorney, discharges of mortgages, and indexes. On the west side 
 are three rooms occupied for conveyances, and on the east side four rooms 
 which are used for mortgages and by the recording clerks and searchers. All 
 of these rooms are lined with combustible wooden book-racks, which contain 
 the titles to all the real estate on Manhattan Island. There are twelve 
 hundred large volumes of conveyances and nearly as many of mortgages, and 
 the discharges, powers of attorney, indexes, etc., swell the total number of 
 volumes to nearly twenty-eight hundred. The earliest Dutch records are at 
 Albany, in the office of the Secretary of State, but the documents here extend 
 as far back as 1665. The space is so inadequate that many volumes are stowed 
 away in racks under the desks of the clerks, and unless other accommodations 
 are afforded it will soon be necessary to pile them in heaps on the floor. The 
 number of volumes has doubled during the last fifteen years, and the present 
 increase is at the rate of a hundred volumes a year. The Register's office 
 contains nearly eight hundred maps of real estate in this city, which are put 
 away in wooden pigeon-holes, exposed not only to dust and the danger of fire, 
 but to the attacks of mice, which abound all over the building, and are 
 frequently seen running about the floor. These animals, attracted by the 
 paste with which the paper surface of the maps is fastened to the muslin 
 backs, have already mutilated a large number, rendering some absolutely 
 worthless. Many of these maps are of great value, as references are made to 
 marks and numbers upon them in important conveyances and mortgages, and 
 their destruction might seriously affect the title to large amounts of real estate. 
 
APPENDIXIX. 61 
 
 One map of this character, which has hoen in the office but two years, has been 
 badly damaged in this manner. Those inmates of the Register's office wlio 
 have been tliere long enough to know, assert that the ceilings have not been 
 whitewashed or in any way cleaned for over fifteen years. No visitor to the 
 building would be disposed to question the statement, as the ceilings in most 
 of the rooms are as black as though overlaid with soot. The stools, desks, and 
 other articles of furniture, originally of a cheap description, have been in use 
 for a long series of years, and are so worn and battered that a second-hand 
 furniture dealer would hardly purchase them. Panes of glass are broken out 
 of some of the windows, and the openings stopped with books. Nearly all the 
 glass has been broken in the outer entrance door, and the loss repaired with 
 pieces of board. The furnaces in the basement, by which the office is heated, 
 are old and worn out, in consequence of which the clerks arc frequently 
 nearly stifled by coal-gas. One of the hot-air openings is immediately under 
 a book-rack, and the volumes of manuscript above it are sometimes so hot that 
 a man can hardly bear his hand upon them. They are, of course, as dry aa 
 tinder and would readily take fire. Although the building is nominally fire- 
 proof, the staircase leading to the second story is built of pitcli pine. The 
 main room on the second floor, besides useless book-niches before mentioned, 
 contains a considerable quantity of boards and shavings whicli Mr. Garvey's 
 workmen left behind them. Similar inflammable materials are scattered 
 through the smaller rooms opening out of it, which are otherwise bare and 
 empty. The sole contents of the new third story are more boards and 
 ehavino-s, two rusty old stoves, and some pieces of stove-pipe. The otherwise 
 dirty floor is whitened in many places by the rain, as the costly new roof has 
 leaked ever since its erection. 
 
 91 
 
APPENDIX X. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF 
 
 DESIGN. 
 
 BY T. ADDISON RICHAKDS, 
 
 Corresponding Secretary of the National Academy of Design, and Professor of Art in tbe 
 
 University of tlie City of New York. 
 
 The National Academy of Design was instituted in the year 1826. It 
 superseded tlie American Academy of Art, tlien tlie only society of the kind 
 in the country, and with the organization and management of which the artists 
 were dissatisfied. 
 
 The American Academy was a joint^stock association, composed chiefly of 
 laymen, prominent citizens, connoisseurs, and patrons of art ; and, perhaps, 
 necessarily so, in view of the small number and smaller influence of the body 
 professional at that time. It was organized on the 3d of December, 1802, under 
 the title of the New York Academy of Fine Arts, aud was chartered February 
 12th, 1808, under the altered style of the American Academy of Art, when the 
 original number of shareholders (five hundred) was changed to one thousand, 
 and the value of shares (one hundred dollars) to twenty-five dollars. The first 
 president was Robert R. Livingston, though that office was afterward filled 
 by the distinguished artist. Colonel John Trumbull. Among its directors 
 were De Witt Clinton, David Hosack, John R. Murray, and other prominent 
 citizens. The society purchased a collection of casts and opened a school for 
 the study of the Antique. It also prepared exhibitions at irregular and lone 
 intervals, and with varying success. On the whole, it was not fortunate, and 
 had a somewhat struggling existence for about twenty-five years, when it was 
 at length absorbed by the new National Academy of Design. 
 
 The general causes of the discontent of the artists with the old Academy 
 ivere the slight consideration paid to them aud their virtual exclusion from the 
 management, they deeming themselves to be more competent than laymen to 
 control an art association. The immediate reason for the defection of the pro- 
 fessional body was the rudeness shown to them and to the art-students when 
 
APPENDIXX. 63 
 
 tliey attempted to avail ttemselves of the very liberal privileges offered them 
 of studying in the schools of the Academy daring the pleasant hours of from six 
 to eight in the morning only, and this without fire in the winter weather, and 
 with doors opening sooner or later at the discretion and convenience of the jani- 
 tor. Great offense chanced to be given to the young knights of the brush on a 
 certain frosty morning, when they turned their indignant backs forever upon 
 the grim old Alma Mater, and with Morse, afterward the illustrious inventor 
 of the electric telegraph, at their head, they betook themselves to the rooms 
 of the Historical Society in the old Alms-house building, City Hall Park, and 
 formed a " Drawing Association " of their own. This happened on the 8th of 
 November, 1835. Various yet fruitless efforts at reconciliation and reunion 
 were made, when at length, on the 14th day of January, 1836, the " Drawing 
 Association " resolved to set up permanently for itself, and after listening to a 
 spirited address by their leader, Morse, they formed the National Academy of 
 the Arts of Design, as the society was first named. The next day, January 
 15th, they met, and by ballot elected fifteen from their body who were to con- 
 stitute the Academy, and by the 18th the " fifteen " had, as directed by the 
 society, added ten others to their number. Of these original members, as we 
 write, February, 1873, the only survivors are S. F. B. Morse, A. B. Durand,and 
 T. S. Cummings. 
 
 The discussion of the points at issue between the two societies was the 
 great topic of the time, and was argued at great length and considerable feeling 
 in the columns of the Evening Post, the chief champions being Col. Trumbull, 
 of the old Academy, and Prof. Morse, the leader of the new. These papers may 
 be found in extenso in Gummings's Historic Annals, published in 1865. 
 
 The first charter of the association was obtained from the Legislature of 
 New York in 1838. 
 
 GALLERIES AND EXHIBITIONS. 
 
 The school department being in operation, even before the formal organiza- 
 tion of the new society, steps were at once taken toward the next means pro- 
 posed for the promotion of the arts — the institution of the annual exhibitions, 
 which have continued without interruption and with ever-increasing success to 
 the present time, consisting now as then of original works by living artists, 
 and never before exhibited by the Academy. 
 
 For the first exhibition, which took place in the spring of 1836, a small room 
 was secured on the second story of a building at the south-west corner of Broad- 
 way and Reade Street. The apartment was lighted in the evening by six ordi- 
 nary gas-burners, and was the first instance on record of a public exhibition of 
 pictures at night. The venture failed to pay expenses, and the members 
 were assessed to make up the loss. 
 
 Not discouraged with the ill-success of this first attempt, the second exhibi- 
 tion was duly prepared in the spring of 1837, but in new quarters, for the Acad- 
 emy was then and long afterward very migratory. This time an appreciating 
 public was invited to a larger and somewhat better display, spread upon the 
 walls of an apartment on the third story of the Arcade Baths, in Chambers 
 Street, between Broadway and Centre Street — a building which afterward 
 became successively Palmo's Opera-house, Burton's Theater, and the United 
 States Marshal's Office. The Academy leased these premises for three years at 
 
64 APPENDIXX. 
 
 three hundred dollars per aonum; and here were held also the third, fourth, 
 and fifth exhibitions, in 1828, 1829, and 1830. The next ten exhibitions, from 
 the sixth to the fifteenth inclusive (1831 to 1840), were held in very much more 
 suitable rooms on the third floor of the Mercantile Library, in Clinton Hall, 
 then at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets. These apartments were 
 leased at an annual rent of five hundred dollars. 
 
 In 1840, at the expiration of the Clinton Hall lease, the Academy again 
 removed, and this time went up-town, settling for another decade on the upper 
 floor of what was then the Society Library building, at the corner of Broadway 
 and Leonard Street. These galleries were larger and more commodious than 
 any yet occupied by the society. The annual rent was increased to one 
 thousand dollars." The exhibitions from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth 
 inclusive (1841 to 1849), were held here. 
 
 In 1830, the institution moved yet further up-town, and for the first time 
 in its history, into its own house, having purchased the property formerly 
 occupied by Brewer's stables in the rear of 663 Broadway, opposite Bond Street. 
 Here a suite of six fine galleries was erected, having a total length of one 
 hundred and sixty-four feet, and a breadth of fifty feet. The exhibitions of 
 1850 to 1854, twenty-fifth to twenty-ninth inclusive, took place here. After five 
 years of occupancy the Academy thought fit to sell this property, for which it 
 received about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, affording a net gain 
 on the investment of sixty-nine thousand dollars, and leaving, after the payment 
 of all outstanding indebtedness, a balance in the treasury of nearly sixty 
 thousand dollars. This accumulation of funds was the first step toward the 
 erection of the palatial edifice afterward built by the Academy in Twenty- 
 third Street. 
 
 On the sale of the Broadway property, while awaiting the building of a 
 new home, it became necessary to find other accommodations, and temporary 
 quarters were secured in the gallery over the entrance to what was then the 
 Rev. Dr. Chapin's Church, at 548 Broadway. Here were given the thirtieth 
 and thirty-first annual exhibitions in 1855 and 1856. 
 
 For the thirty-second exhibition iu 1857 the old rooms at 663 Broadway, 
 remaining then unchanged, were rented by the society. In 1858, a suite of 
 galleries was fitted up by the Academy on the upper floor of the building at 
 the north-west corner of Tenth Street and Fourth Avenue. The thirty-third, 
 thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth exhibitions, 1858 to 1861 inclusive, 
 were held at this place. The thirty-seventh, thirty-eigthth, and thirty -ninth 
 exhibitions, 1863 to 1864 inclusive, took place in the galleries of the building 
 625 Broadway, then known as the Institute of Art or the Derby Gallery. 
 
 In the spring of 1865, the Academy took possession of a new edifice in Twenty- 
 third Street, corner of Fourth Avenue, where all the subsequent exhibitions, 
 the thirty-ninth to the forty-sixth, 1865 to 1871 inclusive, have been held,' 
 with the addition of the series of Winter Exhibitions, commencing in 1867, 
 and of the Summer Exhibitions, established in 1870. The annual collections of 
 the American Society of Painters in Water Colors have been included in the 
 Winter Exhibitions of the Academy. 
 
 The site of the present beautiful edifice of the Academy was purchased in 
 the autumn of 1860, from Mr. William Niblo, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars. 
 Plans by Mr. P. B. Wight were submitted in January, 1861. Ground was first 
 
APPENDIXX. 65 
 
 broten on the 18tli of April, 1863, and on tlie 21st day of October, in the same 
 year, the corner-stone was laid with appropriate and imposing ceremonies. 
 
 The entire cost of the property, including the land, has been about two 
 hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars. The building has a frontage of 
 80 feet on the north side of Twenty-third Street, and extends 98 feet 9 inches 
 on the west side of Fourth Avenue. It is three stories high, beside the cellar. 
 The lower or street floor is occupied by the janitor's rooms, and the school 
 apartment. The central story, which is reached by & double flight of elegant 
 marble steps, entering a hall eighteen feet in width, is occupied by the Parlors, 
 the liilirary, Council, and Lecture rooms, and other apartments. The upper 
 floor is devoted entirely to the Exhibition rooms. In the center ds a hall or 
 corridor 34 by 40 feet, divided by a double arcade supported on columns of 
 polished marble. The galleries, five in number and of varying dimensions, are 
 all entered, from this central vestibule, and all communicate with each other. 
 The building is constructed of white and gray marble, tastefully contrasted, 
 and richly sculptured. The architecture is that revived Gothic, now the dominant 
 style in England, which combines the features of the different schools of the 
 middle ages. It is familiarlj' spoken of as the Venetian Gotliic ; but the archi- 
 tect says of it, if a name for the style be demanded, it can only be said that the 
 name of no past style of architecture is altogether appropriate to it. As the 
 revived Gothic goes on toward more perfect success, it will find a name for 
 itself 
 
 OHGANIZATION" AND CHARACTER. 
 
 The Academy is a private association devoted to the public service. It is, 
 as it ever has been, owned and controlled only by artists, no others being 
 eligible, under tlie constitution, to membership, except in the complimentary 
 grades of Honorary Members or Fellows. Its means are devoted entirely to 
 the cultivation of the Arts of Design in all such ways as may be deemed 
 available. Lilie similar institutions, in other countries, its chief methods of 
 labor have thus far consisted of permanent organization of the professional 
 bodv for the union of its experience, power, and influence, both within itself 
 and upon the community at large ; in the foundation of schools for technical 
 instruction in the various branches of Art study ; in the establishment of Exhi- 
 bitions of Works of Art for the cultivation both of professional knowledge and 
 the public taste; and of lectures upon Anatomy, Perspective, and other Art 
 subjects. 
 
 MEMBERSHIP. 
 
 Membership in the Academy is both professional and lay, the former con- 
 sisting of the Academicians, Associates, and Honorary Members, and the lat 
 ter of Honorary Members and Fellows. 
 
 Associates.— The Associates are chosen on their merits by ballot at the 
 annual meetings of the Academicians. They must be professional artists and 
 exhibitors at the time of their election. 
 
 Academicians.— Academicians are chosen from the body of Associates and 
 from professional Honorary Members. They are the body corporate, and, in 
 their election, distinguished professional ability and personal character are 
 the only claims entertained. 
 
 Fellows.- Connoisseurs, amateurs, and all lovers of Art may become Fel- 
 
66 APPENDIXX. 
 
 lows of the Academy on the payment of a subscription of one hundred dollars, 
 Subscriptions of five liundred dollars constitute a Fellowship in Perpetuity, 
 with power to transfer all the privileges of the grade, or to bequeath them for- 
 ever. It is through the liberal subscriptions of the Fellowship Fund that a 
 large portion of the means to erect the present edifice of the Academy has 
 been obtained. 
 
 HoNORAKT Mejibbrs. — Honorary Membership is conferrred at the same 
 time and in the same manner as in the election of Academicians and Associates 
 upon distinguished artists and lovers of Art at home and abroad. No elections 
 have been made into this body since the foundation of the grade of Fellows. 
 
 The educational department of the Academy commenced with its earliest 
 history, and has always been regarded as one of its most important fields of 
 labor. Through nearly half a century, free schools have with rare interrup- 
 tions been maintained. They embrace at present departments for the study 
 of the Antique Sculpture, of the Living Model, of Pictorial Anatomy, and of 
 Perspective, to which will be added, as may be required, classes in Modeling 
 and in Painting. The schools being intended only for advanced students, all 
 applicants for admission must be able to submit to the Council a shaded crayon 
 drawing made from a cast of some portion of the human figure. The schools 
 have been attended by hundreds of students, and they number among their 
 graduates many of the most successful artists of the land. The late James A. 
 Suydam, X. A., at his death, in I860, bequeathed the munificent sum of fifty 
 thousand dollars toward the maintenance of the Academy schools. Other 
 and still larger endowments for this important work, are, however, greatly 
 needed. 
 
 In these few pages we have been able to take only a cursory glance at the 
 history of the Academy. The story of its struggles and fortunes, with sketches 
 biographical and anecdotal of the many distinguished artists who are or have 
 been among its members, might form the theme of a most interesting volume. 
 
APPENDIX XI. 
 
 POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN NEW YORK. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. R. B. KOOSEVELT 
 
 Delivered at the Grand Mass Meeting in Cooper Union, on Monday Evening, 
 September Ath, 1871. 
 
 Ladies and GENTLEMElf : I do not know whether it is exactly possible 
 for a man to be born a Democrat, but I claim to come as near it as any one can. 
 The earliest recollection that I have of public questions, when ray arms bad 
 attained little more tlian seven years' pith, was my upholding stanchly and 
 unswerving-ly the great doctrines of Democracy. Siuce that time I have been 
 a Democrat — for Democracy is like vaccination : when it once takes well, it 
 lasts a lifetime. But as I did not believe disloyalty to nuean Democracy during 
 the war, I do not believe dishonesty to mean Democracy now. The very cor- 
 ner-stone of our faith is pure, economical administration of government, and 
 without that no code of principles can receive the hearty support of our party. 
 Our party is a party of the people, and the people are always on the side of 
 what is right and true. There may be, and there doubtless are, among both 
 parties good, honorable men. Looking around me, I cannot doubt that both 
 sides can lay equal credit in this particular. But those who love Democracy, 
 those who have put their abiding faith in it and built up the hopes of the glory 
 of their country on it, naturally look upon it as the representation of whatever 
 is noblest and best. 
 
 To us Democrats, therefore, comes the charge of corruption against our 
 rulers with a two-fold force, an especial horror. To hear that the chief officers 
 of a Democratic city, who have been elected by an overwhelming majority of 
 Democratic votes, some of whom have been chosen over and over again to vari- 
 ous positions of trust, are venal and corrupt, is indeed almost incredible. And 
 yet, what is the evidence? The charges are direct, plain, and explicit ; misap- 
 propriations of vast sums are alleged ; time, place, and circumstance are all 
 stated through the daily press with the utmost exactness. Pretended pur- 
 
68 APPENDIXXT. 
 
 cliases, wliich are in their very nature impossible, are proved to have been 
 paid for. The building and furnishing of our New Court-house are made the 
 pretext for the payment of bills which are not merely monstrous — they are 
 manifestly fabulous. It is pretended that acres of plastering have been done, 
 and miles of carpeting furnished. The entire City Hall Park could have been 
 plastered and carpeted at less expense ; and no sane man can put faith in the 
 pretense, if it were made, that the work charged for was really done. How- 
 ever, I must do our rulers the credit of saying that they make no such pre- 
 tense. They have never denied the payments, they have not even asserted that 
 the money was earned, while they have, in every one of their lame defenses, 
 impliedly admitted that the bills were extravagant, if not fraudulent. They 
 have presumed to defy the public ; they have tried to lay half the blame on the 
 shoulders of Republicans, as if a burglar were to excuse himself by asserting 
 that he was assisted by a fellow-burglar ; and they have stated that the charges 
 were brought by political enemies, and so not entitled to answer ; but nowhere 
 has there been a straightforward, positive refutation — nowhere a denial even 
 of any sort. 
 
 That they are guilty no man who has read the statements doubts for a mo- 
 ment, and no one believes that any such sums were actually expended on the 
 Court-house. Nevertheless, I have been informed that this building, instead 
 of costing $3,000,000 or $5,000,000, as alleged, the latter being supposed to be 
 the extreme limit, has act aally cost over $12,000,000. To prove this I have 
 been shown the figures purporting to have been taken from the Comptroller's 
 books ; but I hope I was deceived, and that they were exaggerations. But of 
 the facts distinctly alleged in the public press there can be no question ; it is 
 admitted by .default that millions on millions of the public money have been 
 paid to a few obscure individuals, for which they never did nor could have per- 
 formed equivalent labor ; while a little printing company of $35,000 capital has 
 received $1,.500,000 from the county alone in two years. 
 
 Nevertheless, shocking as are these accusations, they are but trifling in 
 comparison with the real crimes of the accused. Money is, after all, a trivial 
 affair; we are a wealthy nation, growing with immense rapidity, rolling up 
 capital and adding to our resources daily; we can endure limitless peculations 
 in our officials, and still survive ; but they have stolen from us something 
 dearer and more sacred than our wealth — they have stolen our rights, our lib- 
 erties, our very national institutions. Such wrongs as I have enumerated 
 would never have been submitted to by the Democratic party had the individ- 
 uals composing that party not first been deprived of the free expression of their 
 will. These, our masters, have stolen our ballots, have falsified the will of the 
 people, and pulled away the very key-stone of the arch of liberty. 
 
 What I am about to tell you I hardly expect you to believe ; yet I will give 
 you every point of time and circumstance. I will furnish you with every detail 
 and all the minutiae of the mode of operations; and, large as is this meetino- 
 were I to call my witnesses together, I could fill this building as fall as it is now! 
 I know whereof I speak ; and in exposing these shameless iniquities rather in 
 defense of Democracy than in arraignment of it, I really extenuate and set down 
 naught in malice. By a combination of certain Democratic and Republican 
 office-holders in this city the votes of the people no longer express their will. 
 They are falsified in three diffiirent ways, so that no matter how honest the 
 
APPENDIXXI. 69 
 
 mass of voters miglit be, the corrupt Ring would apparently be retained in 
 power. To eflfect this, three forces are brought into play. There is the use of 
 repeaters at the polls, the manipulation of ballots as they are deposited, and 
 the false counting of them in making up the canvass. Precisely how these 
 schemes are managed I will explain to you. 
 
 Heretofore there has been a registry of all legal voters In this city, I can 
 only speak of the past. I cannot tell what Tammany will do hereafter ; and 
 now that the registry law has been repealed we may be sure that matters will 
 not be improved. There were three registers to supervise these lists, three 
 inspectors to receive the votes, and three canvassers to count them. One of 
 each of these boards was a Republican, and could stop all frauds if he pleased, 
 but as the parties to be defeated were only those Democrats who were opposed 
 to Tammany, he shut his eyes with resolute determination. To begin with, 
 gangs of repeaters were orgauissed, whose first duty was to have their names 
 recorded in as many districts as possible, usually from a dozen to fifty; and it 
 was curious with what childlike innocence the Republican register would 
 receive the names of one hundred men who assumed to reside at the private 
 dwelling of some leading Tammany ward politician, or who pretended to camp 
 out on some vacant lot. So the repeaters were enrolled ; and I have had lists 
 of them offered to me for sale at so much a vote when Tammany did not need 
 them. 
 
 On election day these men went to the polls in gangs with their captains, 
 and marched from district to district like companies of soldiers. If one of them 
 was challenged, the result depended upon the localit}' ; in a disreputable 
 neighborhood, the challenger was knocked into the gutter and probably locked 
 up by the police for disturbing the polls. In a district where this would not 
 answer, the accused was taken before a police magistrate, who sat all day to 
 hear just such cases, and who let him out on bail, the necessary bail being also 
 on hand for the purpose, and the repeater was usually back at the polls and 
 hard at work before the challenger, and no one ever heard of such a case being 
 brought to trial afterward. 
 
 In another way were these repeaters used. Many people, especially wealthy 
 Republicans, do not vote. It is the duty of every man to vote ; this is one of 
 the obligations he assumes in demanding liberty ; and rather than have the 
 duty neglected, Tammany sees that it is performed. Toward the latter part of 
 the day it will be found that certain persons who are registered have not 
 voted, and it then belongs to the polling officers to copy such names on slips 
 and pass them to the proper parties outside ; and it would horrify, if not amuse, 
 some of our wealthy millionaires to see what ragged-clothed, bloated-faced and 
 disreputable individuals represented tliem at the polls and performed for them 
 B, public duty which they had neglected. This is repeating. I have given you 
 but a hurried sketch of it ; the votes polled by it count up tens of thousands. 
 But, successful as it was, it had its defects. The repeaters began to imagine 
 they were their own masters ; they thought they held the power, because they 
 were the instruments of power. To use a political term, they undertook to 
 set up shop for themselves. Still repeating, when kept in its place, is not 
 disapproved by our Ring rulers. 
 
 The manipulation of the ballots— "Ringing" the ballots, as it is appropriately 
 
 called is a very beautiful operation, and it is said by those who have tried it 
 
 92 
 
70 APPENDIXXI. 
 
 to be perfect. It is now tlie favorite plan ; it is simple, inexpensive, and effec- 
 tive. Wben one of your good, innocent Republicans, we will suppose, is 
 going to tbe polls to vote the wrong ticket or support the wrong man, as you 
 are so fond of doing, your unwise intentions are quietly frustrated. The 
 inspector holds in his hand the ballot you ought to deposit., and when he 
 receives yours quietly substitutes one for the other and drops yours on the 
 floor before he puts his in the box. This is a simple sleight-of-hand trick, 
 easily learned and readily applied. If, however, you are suspicious, and watch 
 the official, or if the latter is awkward and inexperienced, a man near by 
 pushes against you, or the policeman seizes you and accuses you of having 
 voted before. Of course ample apologies are immediately tendered for the 
 rudeness, the inspectors are indignant that so respectable a gentleman should 
 be insulted, they abuse the rough or the policeman, and you are shown out with 
 ■ great respect ; but your ballot is thrown down on the floor, and the substitute 
 got into the box. Repeating is expensive, false counting is troublesome, our 
 Tammany men are not experts at arithmetic, and figures are often trouble- 
 some, as our amiable Comptroller will admit at this moment ; but " Ringing" 
 ballots is a complete success. It is only necessary to buy a Republican inspec- 
 tor, and a small place or a few hundred dollars will usually do that. 
 
 The third plan is false counting. This is done generally by transferring 
 the figures boldly. For instance, if Jones, the Tammany candidate, gets one 
 hundred votes, and Smith, the opposition candidate, receives two hundred, 
 the two hundred of Smith are transferred to Jones, who gives his I'ue hundred 
 to Smith. This is an exquisitely simple process, but in practice it is said to 
 work badly, and great complaint is made of it by those who have tried it. In 
 the first place, the candidates are often too nearly equal to give Tammany its 
 just preponderance, or to overcome some persistent opposition in a district 
 where this plan cannot be worked, for it is found utterly impracticable in some 
 districts. Its defects can sometimes be cured by a false count. That is to say, 
 the votes are counted by tens, one canvasser taking them up and countino- ten, 
 when he calls " tally," and slips a piece of elastic around the bundle. Of 
 course he has ouly to take five votes instead pf ten, and call "tally," to aufr- 
 ment greatly the chance of his favorite. In one instance this was done so 
 enthusiastically that the Tammany candidate had received fifty " tallies," or 
 five hundred votes, and had a large quantity yet uncounted, when the poll- 
 clerk felt it advisable to inform the canvassers that there were only four hun- 
 dred and fifty names on the registry. 
 
 Between these three schemes the voice of the people of New York has been 
 utterly stifled up until last fall, when, by the cruel and tyrannical interference 
 of the United States Government, under the vile bayonet election law, we got 
 a fair vote. The wrong was not so much done to Republicans, for the inspect- 
 ors saw that comparative justice was secured to their party on general issues ■ 
 but it was alowed full scope against opposition Democrats — Democrats who 
 believed in a pure government, and were opposed to; Tammany Hall. Thus it 
 is that Democrats have to bear the entire odium of the misrule of our city 
 while we Democrats still believe our party to be the honest one. 
 
 This odium we cannot endure. I speak as a Democrat to Democrats If wp 
 would see a chance of carrying the next Presidential election, of taking- the 
 nation from the hands of those who, in our opinion, are unfit to have control 
 
APPENDIXXI- 71 
 
 of it, of restoring to general acceptation tlie principles we liave at heart, we 
 must vindicate our party ; we rnust remove tlie load of disgrace brought on ua 
 by official corruption in this city. Here we are in control. We have undis- 
 turbed possession of all branches of the municipal government, and an immense 
 majority of voters. For all frauds, peculation, venality, and iniquity in the 
 municipal government we are responsible, and no party with such a record will 
 ever be given the possession of the National Administration. We must crush 
 Tammany, or Tammany's dishonesty will crush us. Large portions of the 
 money stolen from our treasury were used to bribe Republicans ; notoriously, 
 the very charter under which we live was carried by the jjurchase of a Repub- 
 lican. Municipal officers and the spoil of our citizens have been 'divided 
 between both parties. But none of this excuses us. We are in power ; we can 
 correct the abuses ; if we do not, we ought to suffer, and we will. If Republi- 
 cans are not blameless, we are mainly guilty. 
 
 Already we are threatened with the loss of the Germans. That economical 
 people will not submit to have their houses mortgaged by the issue of munici- 
 pal bonds in order to give to corrupt men wealth and luxury. From all sec- 
 tions of the country come complaints from Democrats that they have to defend 
 the Iniquities of Tammany Hall, and that they are beaten by the bad record of 
 our city rulers. If Democracy would survive, it must put down with a strong 
 hand these abuses. We can still do so. The people are not so entirely heli> 
 less as our masters would have us believe. The latter cannot defy an outraged 
 and indignant community with the impunity they hope. The power is still 
 with us if we are willing and determined to exert it. In times of great excite- 
 ment the usual barriers are swept away, and the people rush along in a mighty 
 current which carries all before it. Those who would resist it are overwhelmed 
 and perish, but the corrupt always cower before it and are most earnest to con- 
 ciliate it. So it will be here. Canvassers, inspectors, and registers, be they 
 Democrats or Republicans, are as fond of their lives as though they were hon- 
 est men ; and no one appreciates the danger of irritating the people more than 
 they. An aroused and outraged public is not patient, and Judge Ledwith laid 
 down good law when be told his friends that if they saw an inspector tamper 
 with their ballots they could shoot him on the spot. The man who cheats a 
 nation out of its birthright has committed the highest of crimes, and deserves 
 no mercy. We arc living under a wrong system. To allow a mayor elected for 
 two years to appoint all other municipal officials for five years may be Tammany 
 Democracy, but it is not ours. That system must be changed ; a proper mode 
 of selecting polling officers must be established; every protection must be 
 given to the ballot ; and, incidentally to these reforms, the Ring which secured 
 control of Tammany Hall must be put down ; and then, not only will our city's 
 fame be redeemed, our taxes lightened, our business affairs improved, our com- 
 merce increased, and our metropolis made what it should be, the grandest city 
 in the world, but Democracy and Republican institutions will be relieved from 
 the discredit which has been brought upon them. 
 
T3 APPENDIXXr. 
 
 LIST OF PRESENTS 
 
 UECErVED BT MB. TWEED'S DATJGHTER ON THE OCCASION OF HEK WBDDrNQ. 
 
 Cornelius Corson, coral set $1,000 
 
 Cornelius Corson, watct in finger-ring 1,000 
 
 Charles E. Loew, peart set 700 
 
 Mrs. E. A. Garrett, diamond locliet, gold chain 5,000 
 
 Peter B. Sweeny, diamond and enamel bracelet 1,000 
 
 James M. Sweeny, diamond bracelets 1,000 
 
 Harry Genet, diamond cross 2,000 
 
 Edward Boyle, gold, diamond, and pearl cross 1,000 
 
 James Ryan, sable chain necklace, gold and diamonds 1,.500 
 
 Superintendent Kelso, ice-bowl 500 
 
 Henry Smith, filagree armlets 700 
 
 Mrs. R. B. Connolly, gold and silver ice-dish 500 
 
 Mrs. E. A. Woodward, silver punch-bowl 500 
 
 Mrs. Geo. J. Miller, silver calie-baskets 500 
 
 M. J. Shandley, paintings and wax flowers 1,000 
 
 Charles H. Hall, pitcher and goblet 500 
 
 Mrs. Edward Hogan, silver ice-cream dish 500 
 
 Mrs. Augustus L. Brown, fruit-dish, bowl, and pitcher 350 
 
 (Charles G. Cornell, silver pitcher and goblet 250 
 
 Sheriff Brennan, silver dish and spoons 500 
 
 Mrs. Joseph B. Young, two silver castors 250 
 
 Dr. Carnochan, silver- ware 500 
 
 Nicol & Davidson, bronze statue of Juno 500 
 
 Thomas J. Creamer, gold and silver ware 1,000 
 
 J. H. Tooker, silver-ware 500 
 
 James P^sk, Jr., silver ice-bowl 500 
 
 Mrs. L. IngersoU, bouquet-holder 500 
 
 John Garvey, silver gong 500 
 
 Senator Norton, gold chain and diamond pendant 1,500 
 
 Mrs. John J. Blair, cameo, diamond, and pearl set 2,500 
 
 Frank Voorliies, turquois and pearl set 500 
 
 Joseph G. Harrison, cameo sleeve-buttons, with diamonds 1,000 
 
 John McB. Davidson, neck-chain, gold, pearls, diamonds, and enamel. . . . 1,500 
 
 John H. Keyser, necklace and diamond cross 1,000 
 
 James H. IngersoU , diamond wheat-spray for the hair 2,000 
 
 John Cox. (Judge), chain and diamond locket 2 500 
 
 Hugh Smith, emerald and diamond locket 5 OOO 
 
 Joseph S. Bosworth, Jr., diamond and pearl ring 1 goO 
 
 John H. Williams, full silver service 1 000 
 
 Thomas C. Fields, gold and diamond necklace and ear-rings 5,000 
 
 W. E. King, emerald, diamond, and gold bracelets 5,000 
 
 George G. Barnard, gold, diamond, and pearl necklace 1,000 
 
 Edward Kearney, amethyst and diamond set .' l 000 
 
 A sincere friend of W. M. Tweed, diamond set, in gold and glass box. . 5,000 
 
APPENDIXXI. 73 
 
 Thurlow Weed, sugar-bowl $500 
 
 Andrew J. Garvey, silver set 500 
 
 Eugene Durnin, silver set 500 
 
 J. S. Boswortli, silver-ware 250 
 
 Jay Gould, silver- ware 250 
 
 W. W. Watson, silver set 500 
 
 H. J. Hastings, silver punch-bowl 250 
 
 E. D. Bassford, silver ice-pitclier 100 
 
 Walter Roche, silver- ware 250 
 
 Dr. Schirmer, silver- ware 250 
 
 E. J. Shandley, card-basket 400 
 
 John J. Deane, card-basket 250 
 
 Isaac Bell, clock and chandeliers 1,000 
 
 Thomas W. Hall, vases 500 
 
 Lord & Taylor, bridal parasol 1,000 
 
 J McGinnis, clock and candlestick 500 
 
 James J. Gumbleton, fan 250 
 
 Ely IngorsoU, French clock 500 
 
APPENDIX XII. 
 
 ACT OF INCORPORATION OF THE TAMMANY 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 AiJ Act to Incorporate the Society of Tammany or Columbian Order in the 
 City of New York. Passed April 9th, 1805. 
 
 Wliereas, William Mooney and other inhabitants of the City of New York 
 have presented a petition to the Legislature setting forth that they, since the 
 year 1789, have associated themselves under the name and description of the 
 Society of Tammany or Columbian Order, for the purpose of affording relief to 
 the indigent and distressed members of the said Association, their widows and 
 orphans, and others who may be found proper objects of their charity ; they 
 therefore solicit that the Legislature will be pleased by law to incorporate the 
 said Society for the purposes aforesaid, under such limitations and restrictions 
 as to the Legislature shall seem meet. 
 
 Therefore, be it enacted by the people of the State of New York, repre- 
 sented in Senate and Assembly, that such persons as now are or shall from 
 time to time become members of the said Society shall be and are hereby 
 ordained, constituted, and declared to be a body corporate and politic in deed, 
 fact, and name, by the name of " The Society of Tammany or Columbian Order 
 in the City of New York ;" and tliat by that name they and their successors 
 shall have succession, and shall be persons in law, capable of suing and being 
 sued, pleading and being impleaded, answering and being answered unto, 
 defending and being defended in all courts and places whatsoever, in all man- 
 ner of actions, suits, complaints, matters, and causes whatsoever ; and that 
 they and their successors may have a common seal, and change and alter the 
 same at their pleasure ; and that they and their successors shall be persons 
 capable in law to purchase, take, receive, hold, and enjoy to them and their 
 successors any real estate in fee simple or for term of life or lives or otherwise, 
 and any goods, chattels, or personal estate, for the purpose of enabling them 
 the better to carry into effect tae benevolent purposes of affording relief to the 
 
APPENDIX XII. 75 
 
 indigent and distressed, provided that the clear yearly value of such real and 
 personal estates shall not exceed the sum of five thousand dollars ; and that 
 they and their successors shall have full power and authority to give, grant, 
 sell, lease, devise, or dispose of the said real and personal estates, or any part 
 thereof, at their will and pleasure ; and that they and their successors shall 
 have power from time to time to make, constitute, ordain, and establish by-laws, 
 constitutions, ordinances, and regulations as they shall judge proper, the elec- 
 tion of their officers, for the election or admission of new members of the said 
 corporation, and the terms and manner of admission, for the better govern- 
 ment and regulation of their officers and members, for fixing the times and 
 places of meeting of the said corporation, and for regulating all the affairs and 
 business of the said corporation ; provided, that such by-laws and regulations 
 shall not be repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States or of 
 this State ; and for the better carrying on the business and affairs of the said 
 corporation there shall be sucli nujubers of officers of ihe said corporation and 
 of such denomination or denominations to be chosen in such manner and at 
 such times and places as are now or shall from time to time be directed by 
 the constitution and by-laws of the said corporation, made or to be made for 
 t,hat purpose ; and that such number and description of members shall be suf- 
 ficient to constitute a legal meeting of the said corporation as are now or may 
 hereafter be directed by the said constitution and by-laws of the said corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 And be it further enacted, that this act be and hereby is declared to be a 
 public act, and that the same be construed in all courts and places benignly 
 and favorably for every beneficial purpose therein intended. 
 
 State of New York. Secretaky's Office. 
 I have compared the preceding with the original on file in this office, and 
 do hereby certify that the same is a correct transcript therefrom, and of the 
 whole of said original law. 
 
 Given under my hand and seal of office at the City of Albany, 
 this 34th day of January, in the year 1859. 
 
 [seal;] S. W. UOWTOl^, Dep. of Secretary of State. 
 
APPENDIX XIII. 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF HENRY INMAN, 
 THE ARTIST. 
 
 FROM THE PRIVATE MANUSCRIPT DIARY OF THE LATE 
 MRS. COL. WILLIAM L. STONE. 
 
 New York, August I2th, 1838. 
 
 " I CALLED tliis morning on my husband's friend, Henry Inman, to sit for 
 my portrait. When I went in I found Vanderlyn, the favorite pupil of Gilbert 
 Stuart, with him. He, however, soon went away and left us together. Inman 
 looked haggard and worn.* He seemed glad to see me, and gave me more of 
 his confidence than usual. To-day he related to me the particulars of his early 
 life-struggles. I listened attentively while he unfolded before me pages in the 
 history of his inner life. He has a beautiful mind, the most exquisite percep- 
 tion of moral, intellectual, and natural beauty, and a keen relish of the harmo- 
 nies. He possesses the choicest social qualities and the finest sensibilities. 
 Indeed, his feelings are so delicate, that it requires a very refined nature to 
 understand him. As a natural consequence, he is quite often misunderstood 
 by coarser minds. 
 
 " In speaking of his early life, Mr. Inman said : ' From my boyhood my 
 greatest recreation was a pencil and piece of paper. My father was possessed 
 of a harsh, uncompromising temper, and thought every one must be brought 
 up alike. He had made up his mind to dispose of me very diflferently from 
 what my taste suggested. But my mother was gentle and persuasive • she 
 spoke in my behalf, and argued that my success would be far greater in a 
 branch of business that suited my talents. Shortly, after this, my father met 
 John Wesley Jarvis, the painter, who was then in the zenith of popular favor 
 He spoke of me to him, and procured an interview. Jarvis at once proposed 
 to take me (then only fifteen) as a pupil. Soon afterward, I went with him to 
 
 * This was just after Imnan had lost nearly all of the means he had acquired by his art, 
 through unfortunate specolations in 1836. 
 
A P P ENDI X X I II. 77 
 
 Albany, where we put up at Crittenden's, the most expensive hotel in the 
 place. He represented me as a wonderful boy, and kept me living at great 
 expense, thereby creating a taste for a style of life far above my means to sup- 
 port. Here he left me for several vi^eeks, while he went to a distant city to 
 fulfill an engagement. \Mien he returned, I told him I was in difficulty ; that 
 I had incurred heavy expenses in his absence, and had no means to pay my 
 bills ; and that I had written to my father for advice, but had received for an 
 answer that he had no money to give me, and I must take care of myself. 
 ' 'Then," said Jarvis, " you must paint. You can paint now better than any one 
 in this country except me; and you can paint cabinet-pictures, in a style in 
 which I will instruct you, that will consume but little time. You can turn 
 them off very fast, and charge low, say, five or six dollars ; you can paint half 
 a dozen in a week. I will speak to all the great people here, and tell them 
 what a wonderful lad you are ; you will soon have plenty of work. You can 
 stay here this winter and pursue this course, while I go to New Orleans. I will 
 pay what I can of Crittenden's bill already run up, and in the spring, upon my 
 return, wc will begin again in New York." Jarvis was as good as his word, and 
 during that winter I painted every member of tlie Legislature, which brought 
 me in a considerable sum. Jarvis, though very dissipated, and careless in money 
 matters, was always very kind-hearted and liberal, and willing to share all he 
 had with me. My disposition was timid, and I never received any encourage- 
 ment from my father ; but Jarvis wound himself round my heart by his kindly 
 sympathy. He always tried to make me believe I was equal to anything I had 
 a mind to undertake. The best society and the finest abilities in the State con 
 gregated at Crittenden's ; and my stay had its advantages in that respect.' 
 
 " I recollect well a morning passed in Inman's studio last spring. We had 
 considerable talk of pictures, and of one in particular that happened to be at 
 the time on his easel — a picture of a little boy of two years of age. On my 
 expressing my surprise at his having attained a perfect likeness of a sitter who 
 was not one moment quiet, he replied that it was diflScult ; it made him a little 
 nervous, but that he painted parts — the form of the head and features — while 
 _tbp child sat asleep in the nurse's lap ; for the rest, he gave him some toy, and, 
 when he was full of delight, caught the expression. 
 
 " I remarked, it had often surprised me to see pictures where the form and 
 features were correct, and yet entirely spoiled by the expression — either the 
 absence of expression, or a smile about the mouth, in which the other features 
 did not participate. The expression lacked harmony — the indescribable play 
 of the features was wanting. 
 
 " ' Ah, yes,' cried he, ' there you have it ; I always consider, when I fail to 
 convey in a picture the play of the features free from constraint, that I have 
 failed altogether — it is all labor lost.' 
 
 " I remember Inman's showing me a portrait of Miss T , the general's 
 
 daughter. He had taken great pains with the composition of it. A friend, who 
 was with me, found fault with it, and told him the attitude was not natural. 
 He was a little nettled by the criticism. My friend doubtless was wrong, as 
 that is a part of the picture which had been greatly admired by artists. INIiss 
 T was celebrated for her beauty, and, when abroad, appeared at the differ- 
 ent courts of England, Prance, Austria, Russia, Italy, etc., wliere she was styled 
 ' The beautiful American.' She has the most perfect self-possession I ever saw 
 93 
 
78 APPENrflXXIII. 
 
 in one of her age, for she is now only eighteen. After her return, several artists 
 were engajred to paint her, but the pictures were declared by lier father and 
 admirers failures. I asked Inman what he thought of her face— if people did 
 not err in styling it symmetrical, — and if he were not surprised to observe one 
 of her age so entirely placid and unmoved under all circumstances. He said 
 he was — that her features, considered separately, were far from handsome ; but, 
 as a whole, they produced a very agreeable impression. ' But, in illustration 
 of your last remark,' he continued, ' I will tell you what happened when her 
 father brought her to see me, and engaged my services. He began by telling 
 me how sadly he had been disappointed in all the likenesses taken of his daugh- 
 ter; how much trouble she had given herself to sit for his gratification, and 
 with how little success ; that persons who had much reputation, and succeeded 
 with others, failed here, etc. To relieve us from a conversation which was 
 
 rather embarrassing, I turned to Miss T , and in 'a playful manner said, 
 
 " Let me look at your face. Miss T , and see if I can discover what it is 
 which makes your face so difficult to paint." Instead of bursting into a laugh, 
 as most girls would, or blushing a little, and thus imparting a higher interest 
 to the expression of her features, she turned her face toward me without the 
 least change of expression, and with the utmost coolness, as if the face had 
 belonged to a third party. " Alas," thought I, " it is sad to think your friends 
 should have taken so much pains to repress in you the natural expression of 
 those emotions which are so beautiful and so natural to youth, and which 
 impart to them an interest wliich no accomplishment can give I" ' 
 
 " I remember, also, seeing on one of his easels a very sweet picture of a 
 young girl, ia a straw gypsy trimmed with a simple blue ribbon. On inquring 
 who was the original, he showed me an extremely awkward likeness by a rude 
 hand, from which he assured me he had composed this. He stated that the 
 young lady was dead, and this sketch, by an unfledged artist, was all the 
 parents possessed of their child. The family assured him that his likeness 
 was a perfect representation of the original. What a beautiful and wonderful 
 art ! It seems as if it might belong to angels both in its earthly and spiritual 
 attributes ! 
 
 " The rapidity with which Inman paints is marvelous. A few months since 
 my husband (by preconcerted arrangement) came into his studio accompanied 
 by hia father, an aged Revolutionary veteran. My liusband had long been desir- 
 ous of ha-s-ing his father sit for his portrait, but the latter had always resolutely 
 refused ; and he now came into Inman's room ignorant tliat it was an artist's 
 studio. Inman placed the old veteran in his sitter's chair, took a seat at a desk, 
 and began to converse with him about his exploits in the Revolutionary War, 
 aud of General Washington, and the great men who figured in that struggle for 
 liberty, and soon the old gentleman was quite absorbed in his narrations. 
 After half an hour had been thus employed, the son walked up to Inman's 
 desk, and, looking over his shoulder, involuntarily exclaimed, 'Why, it is 
 perfect.' 
 
 " The old gentleman started to his feet. ' Surely,' cried he, ' you have not 
 stolen my likeness f It was even so ; and never was there a more perfect 
 portrait. 
 
 " Inman tells me that when he has made himself comfortable in circum- 
 stances by portrait-painting, he intends to go abroad, and paint several pieces 
 
A?PENDIXXIII. 79 
 
 whicli lie enslirined in his tljouglits, and only require time and opportnnity to 
 embody and render tangible. He is exceedingly fond of his children, especially 
 his eldest daughter, Mary. She is not over fifteen, but has the development 
 of one of eighteen or twenty ; and he says her mind is remarkably mature. He 
 tells me he does not mean to yield to his desire to visit Europe till she has fin- 
 finished her school-days, and can go vfith him and share his enjoyment.* He 
 has met with many disappointments, but he never croaks nor complains of 
 the world's churlishness. In person he is somewhat short and thick-set. He 
 has a rather large head, which seems bigger on account of an abundance of ' 
 light-brown hair which grows low down on his forehead, and injures some- 
 what the appearance of his head. His eyes are light blue, and his nose 
 rather (as he playfully expresses it) of the 'snub order belonging to a par- 
 ticular order of classical noses.' The expression of his face is not particu- 
 larly striking, but exceedingly amiable, and about the mouth and chin there 
 is much sweetness. The latter contains a dimple. He has a large share of 
 that simplicity and enthusiasm in his pursuits which are the concomitants 
 of true genius. He possesses, also, an exquisite imagination. A constant 
 succession of beautiful images seems to pass before him when he is in health 
 or spirits. But tlie imagination takes its tone from the state of the health 
 which affects the mind ; and they who in health revel amid a world of ideal 
 splendor, pay a heavy tax when sickness, sorrow, and suffering clothe every 
 object which imagination presents in the most revolting or gloomy drapery. 
 
 " He once told liic an anecdote that I wish that I could recollect in all its 
 particulars. He had painted some pictures which had given great satisfaction 
 — a thing he appreciated far higher than money ; but being unexpectedlj- 
 dnnned, and failing in other quarters, he was obliged to resort to the collection 
 of his dues from this source with great reluctance. He wrote a note expressive 
 of these feelings, which he repeated, and which I understood perfecth-, but the 
 person to whom it was addressed, not being cast in a delicate mold like him- 
 self, took it as a reflection on his want of promptness in making payment, 
 and treated it accordingly. He said it cost him a degree of chagrin that was 
 almost insupportable. 
 
 " Sakatoga Springs, January 22rf, 1846. 
 
 " I have just seen in the Commercial the death of Henry Inman, the artist. 
 
 The shock was very great, not having heard of liis illness. He died on the 
 
 17th inst., of disease of the heart, aged 45. He suflfered greatly, I remember, 
 
 from physical derangement while I was sitting, so that he was often very fever- 
 
 * Inmnn's intention in this respect was carried out during the latter portion of his life. 
 In 1844, accompanied by his daughter, he wont to England, having heen sent on a special 
 mission to Ej-flal hy Professor Henry Reed, of Philadelphin, to procure the likeness of Words- 
 worth. 31r. James T. Fields, in his charmingly told Yesterdays with Authors, gives an 
 account of a visit he made to Wordsworth, and the interview between himself and the poet 
 and his wife. During this visit he saw a duplicate of the picture painted hy Inman hanging 
 in the poet's library. " The painter's daughter, who accompanied her father," writes Mr. 
 Field, " made a marked impression on Wordsworth, and both he and his wife joined in the 
 question ' Are all the girls in America as pretty as she ?' I thought it an honor," contmncd 
 Mr. Field, " that Mary Inman might well be proud to be so complimented by the old bard." 
 
 During his stay in England, Inman painted, also, very remarkable llitenesees of several 
 distinguished persons, among whom was Dr. C\\s.\miirs.— Author. 
 
bt) APPENDIXXIIT. 
 
 isli, and I used to be on the qui vim lest I slionld do or say anything to increase 
 liis irritability. Persons of less vital energy would have taken to the bed under 
 circumstances when he worked laboriously. When the rage for speculation 
 came on, he was drawn into the vortex, and alas ! poor fellow, he is only one 
 among many, whose peace of mind was destroyed, and whose sleepless solici- 
 tude produced diseases from which death could alone release them. How many 
 creations of beauty are entombed with him ! 
 
 " A'sentiment which he once quoted to me, as expressive of his feelings, 
 now comes back to me with great force. ' For myself,' he said, ' much rather 
 would I Bleep where the moonbeams would convert into diamonds the dew- 
 drops gathering on the rosebuds, than to lie beneath the dome of St. Peter's — 
 rather rest where the soft south-wind would wake the fragrance of blossoms 
 which affectionate hands had planted, than to molder in the chambers of the 
 eternal pyramids.' " * 
 
 * At the time of hia death Inmaa was Vice-President of the National Academy of Desifni. 
 Immediately npon his decease, ofa complaint aggravated, if indeed not bronght on, as hinted 
 in Mrs. Stone's Diary, by anxiety of mind, apnbiic exhibition was given in New York of such 
 of his paintings as could readily be collected, for the benefit of his widow and children. The 
 extent of his works may in some measure bo judged of from the fact that this particular col- 
 lection contained one hundred and twenty-seven paintings of various kinds. — Author. 
 
APPENDIX XIY. 
 
 MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR HOFFMAN RELATING 
 TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Slowing the Value of Real Estate, etc., etc. ; together with a Comparison between 
 New York and otlier Cities. 
 
 Executive Chamber, Ai-bany, 
 J'o tlie Legislature : January 2d, 1872. 
 
 The financial condition of New York City is a matter of great interest to 
 the people of the State at large, and, in some degree, to the commercial world, 
 its stocks and bonds being held for investment at home and abroad. In view 
 of the recent events, I deemed it my duty to procure for you full information 
 as to its liabilities and resources, and addressed a letter to the Chairman of 
 the State Board of Commissioners for Revision of the Tax Laws, the lion. 
 David A. Wells, who seemed to me specially fitted for the work, requesting 
 liim to investigate and report to me. In consequence of delay in his obtaining 
 some of the facts, his report did not reach me until my annual message was in 
 print. My letter to him and his reply are as follows : 
 
 State of New Tokk, Executive Chamber, 
 
 Albany. November 35th, 1871. 
 
 My Dear Sik — The financial condition and credit of New York City are of 
 
 interest as well to the people of the State at large as to its own citizens. It is 
 
 important that the actual condition of our great metropolis in reference to its 
 
 indebtedness and its resources should be made known with accuracy ; and I 
 
 desire to communicate the facts to the Legislature and the ijeople of the State 
 
 in my next message. Will you undertake to investigate the matter in my 
 
 behalf? 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Hon. David A. Wbuls. JOHN T HOFFMAN. 
 
 Chairman, etc. 
 
83, APPENDIXZIV. 
 
 New Tokk, December 28th, 1871. 
 Sir — In response to your note of November 25tb, requesting mc to investi- 
 gate and report to you on the relation which exists between the indebtedness 
 of the city and county of New York, and the resources available for the pay- 
 ment of such indebtedness ; or the extent of the resources of property which 
 may be fully regarded as constituting an adequate and inalienable security 
 for the ultimate payment in principal and interest of such indebtedness, I have 
 the honor to submit the following exhibit : 
 
 FUNDED DEBT. 
 By report furnished on request by Hon. A. H. Green, Comptroller, it appears 
 that the funded debt — ^bearing fide, six, and neven per cent, interest — of the 
 city and county of New York, was, on the 16th day of December, 1871, $87,- 
 371,808-51 ; and the assets of the sinking fund of the city and county — con- 
 sisting of stocks and casli — available for the redemption of debt, were on the 
 same day $30,137,093.03 ; thus making the present net funded debt of the city 
 and county of New York, $67,234,715.49. 
 
 FLOATING OR TBMPOKART DEBT. 
 
 The temporary or floating debt of the city and county of New York con- 
 sisting of bonds issued in anticipation of receipts and assessments, arrears of 
 interest. State taxes, unpaid warrants and the like — was on the 16th day of 
 December, 1871, $28,359,071.35 ; or, deducting cash on hand— $6,959,919.63 in 
 the city and county treasury — $21,299,152.73. 
 
 In addition to the above, the Comptroller also reports claims already pre- 
 sented on unsettled accounts, to an estimated aggregate of $6,000,000 ; which 
 last included would make the total ascertained debt and " claims presented" 
 of the city and county of New York, on the 16th of December 1871 $94 533 
 867^2. ' '"" ' • 
 
 PKOSPECTIVK INDEBTEDNESS. 
 
 So much for the present aspect of the indebtedness of the city and county 
 of New York. In respect to the future, it is to be noted : 
 
 First— IhaX much of the existing temporary and floating debt of the city 
 and county of New York as above indicated— including an aggregate of assess- 
 ment bonds issued in anticipation of tax receipts of $14,950,700.00— is redeem- 
 able from the collection of assessments, or arrears of taxes, and that a very 
 considerable amount of these assessments and arrears is certain to be collected • 
 and, ' 
 
 -Ssconrf.— That the city holds bonds and mortgages on account of sales of 
 real estate to the amount of $1,132,893.26; the proceeds of which, when col- 
 lected, are applicable for an increase of the sinking fund held for the redemp- 
 tion of the funded debt. 
 
 On the other hand, it is known that claims to a very considerable amount 
 for services rendered and materials furnished to the several departments of 
 the city and county government, during the year 1871 and previously are yet 
 to be presented, and that the carrying out of such public works as are' already 
 m progress, or certain to be authorized, will also require further additional 
 expenditures. 
 
 But in estimating the amount of these prospective requirements for expend- 
 
APPENDIXXIV. 83 
 
 iture, it should not be overlooked, that the amount of claims against the city 
 yet to he presented is not likely to be in excess of the arrears of assessments 
 and taxes yet to be collected ; aud further, that the amount to be hereafter 
 expended on account of public improvements cannot, with any regard for 
 economy and moderation, ever prove disproportionate to the concurrent increase 
 in the material resources of the city, arising from its certain and rapid increase 
 in wealth, business, and population. 
 
 So that, making every allowance for contingencies, or any immediate "■ 
 advances on account of public improvements, the total present liabilities of 
 New York city and county may be safely estimated as not in excess of one 
 hundred millions of dollars ; and further, that the ratio which the liabilities 
 of the city and county at present sustain to their assets and resources is not 
 likely to be changed for the worse in the future ; certainly not if the safeguards 
 against corruption and extravagant expenditure, suggested by recent experi- 
 ence, are by the Legislature authorized and provided. 
 
 UTPLUBNCE OF PUBLIC IMPROVBMBNTS IN AUGMENTING THE SOURCES OF 
 MUNICIPAL KBVBNUB. 
 
 As bearing upon the question of future municipal liabilities, ou account of 
 expenditures for public improvements, it is interesting to note the result which 
 has followed one of tlie largest single items of expenditure authorized by the 
 city for such purpose, and which at the time of its inception was denounced by 
 many as a measure of indefensible extravagance. We refer to the expendi- 
 tures incurred by reason of the construction of the " Central Park ;" the cost 
 of which, up to 1869, is returned at $10,463,963.00. 
 
 Now, an examination of all the facts pertaining to this expenditure will 
 show, that, so far from its having been a burden upon the city treasury, it has 
 really proved a direct and important source of revenue. Thus in 1856, before 
 the Park was commenced, the total valuation of real estate for taxation in the 
 three wards around the Park, the 12th, 19th, and 22d, was |26,429,566.00 ; but in 
 in 1866, when the Park had been practically completed, the valuation of the 
 same property for assessment was returned at $30,070,415.00, an increase in ten 
 years of $53,640,850.00. And further, the revenue received by taxation on this 
 increased valuation was sufficient, in 1870, to not only pay the interest on all 
 the bonds of the city issued for the Park purchase and construction, but actu- 
 ally afforded a surplus of over ($3,000,000) three millions of dollars ; or a sum 
 BufEcieut, if used as a sinking fund, to pay the entire principal and interest 
 of the cost of the Park, in less time than the Park was in the course of con- 
 struction. 
 
 ASSETS AND KESOUECBS. 
 
 The maximum of the liabilities of the city and county, on account of indebt- 
 edness, having been thus estimated, we come next to the no less important 
 consideration of the assets and resources available for the payment of such 
 indebtedness ; or the real tangible property which may be properly regarded 
 in the nature of security or guaranty for the payment of such obligations of 
 indebtedness as the city and county of New York may have lawfully issued. 
 
 Any valuation of the public property of the city must, from necessity, be 
 very indefinite, inasmuch as many of the items which would be included in 
 any inventory — as the streets, sewers, lamps, public monuments, and the like— 
 
84 APPENDIXXIV. 
 
 are not susceptible of a money valuation, and if attached would be practically 
 of no benefit in the bands of a city creditor ; but apart from these, it cannot be 
 doubted that the value of the lands and buildings, wharfs, water, ferry, and 
 market rights in possession of the city and county, and which can be readily 
 convertible in open market into a money equivalent, is in excess of every pres- 
 ent municipal or county indebtedness. 
 
 The valuation of the public property of the city of New York, givien by the 
 Mayor in an official communication to the Board of Supervisors, August 16th, 
 1871, was $243,985,499.00. 
 
 In this valuation were comprised the following : 
 
 Markets $4,767,374 00 
 
 Sundry Lots of Land 2,719,807 00 
 
 "Wharfs and Piers 13,322,433 00 
 
 Public Parks and Squares 106,416,490 00 
 
 Total $120,725,574 00 
 
 Kext to the so-called public property of the city and county, the property 
 most readily available for attachment and levy in case of a default in the pay- 
 ment of the principal or interest of the city's indebtedness, is the real estate 
 of the city and county, the revenue derived from the assessment and taxation 
 of which constitutes also the main element and strength of its municipal 
 credit. 
 
 The valuation of this class of property for the year 1871, as returned by 
 the Commissioners of Taxes and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors, was 
 $769,306,410.00. Bat it ought to be clearly understood, that this valuation for 
 tax purposes does not represent any fair valuation of the property assessed, or 
 even an approximation thereto, and in great part for the following reasons : 
 
 The taxation required to defray the expenditures of the State, as a whole 
 is apportioned to the several counties of the State, according to their property 
 valuation ; and hence there has been for years, and is now, a strife between 
 the different boards of cx)unty officials, to run down the valuation of property 
 to the very lowest practical figure, in order to divert as large a proportion of 
 the State taxation as possible from themselves, and throw it upon their neigh- 
 bors ; and as some of the counties in the interior of the State have been so 
 successful in doing this, as to actually reduce their valuation to thirty, twenty 
 and even a smaller proportion of the real and true value of the property 
 assessed, a similar course of procedure has been forced upon the tax officials 
 of New York, as a matter of necessity and local protection. And thus it has 
 come about that, instead of a returned assessment valuation of §769,306,410.00 
 for 1871-3, representing the true market value of the real estate of the city 
 and county of New York, in private ownership, it does not, in all probability, 
 represent more than forty per cent, of such true value ; an estimate wluch 
 instead of being a conjecture, is based on a large amount of evidence, recently 
 collected by an expert for the Board of Commissioners I'or Eevisino- the Laws 
 of the State relative to Taxation. 
 
 The conclusion, therefore, seems warranted that the value of the real estate 
 of the city of New York— public and private— which may be fairly regarded 
 as an available security for the liquidation of the city and county debts, can 
 
APPENDIXXI. 85 
 
 not be less than two thousand million dollars, on wliicli tlie present debt, as 
 above estimated, namely, $100,000,000, would be equivalent to a mortgage of 
 five per cent. 
 
 In this estimate it will be observed that no account has been taken of the 
 valuation of the personal property owned or held by citizens of the city or 
 or county of New York. The amount of such property valued and assessed 
 for the year 1871-2 was $306,947,238.00. The investigations of the State Com- 
 missioners lead, however to the conclusion, that this amount does not repre- 
 sent so much as twenty per cent, of the real value of this description of property 
 concentrated in the city of New York ; or, in other words, that the true value 
 of the personal property of New York city cannot be estimated at less than 
 fifteen hundred millions. Much of this property, it must be acknowledged, 
 can never be reached for assessment purposes by any law which the ingenuity 
 of man can devise ; or which any civilized poople would tolerate in respect to 
 execution ; but, whether returned for assessment or not, it nevertheless exists, 
 and by increasing the ability to pay, operates to decrease the real burden of 
 taxation imposed on other property of a more tangible and accessible character. 
 
 It is also to be noted, that if the new plan of assessing personal property 
 recommended by the State Board of Commissioners, and which is to be pre- 
 sented this winter to the Legislature in the form of a definite code, is adopted, 
 namely, doing away with the direct assessment of individuals for personal 
 property, and substituting therefor, as an equivalent, the assessment of indi- 
 viduals on a valuation of three times the rent or rental value of the premises 
 Ijy them occupied, the amount or equivalent of such property returned for 
 assessment and taxation will be very greatly increased ; and the financial 
 resources of the city be thereby correspondingly augmented. 
 
 INCKBASE OF NEW YORK IN POPULATION AND WEALTH. 
 
 In estimating the prospective ability of the city of New York to sustain and 
 liquidate indebtedness, the recent and prospective increase of the city in popu- 
 lation and wealth constitutes an element of not a little importance. Thus, from 
 1830 to the year preceding the outbreak of the civil war, 1860, the average rate 
 of increase for each successive period of five years was 38 per cent. ; a continu- 
 ous rate of growth probably without precedent in any country. During the 
 period of the war, or from 1860 to 1865, the population of the city decreased 9J^ 
 per cent. Since 1865. or during the five years from 1865 to 1870 inclusive, the 
 gain in population was 1,%%^ per cent. ; thus indicating that the average rate of 
 increase experienced prior to 1860, was again likely to be approximated. 
 
 The increase in the valuation of the property of the city and county for 
 assessment purposes, during the ten years from 1860 to 1870, was 83^ per cent. 
 
 The present increase in the value of the real estate of the whole city for 
 assessment purposes, is estimated by experts to average about five per cent, per 
 annum.* 
 
 * The aunual message of the Mayor tells us New York has an area of twenty-two sqnare 
 miles, and twenty-nine miles of water front; four hundred and sixty miles of streets, roads, 
 and avenues, nineteen thousand street gaslights, and is penetrated underground by three 
 hundred and forty miles of Croton water pipes, and two hundred and seventy-flve miles of 
 sewere; has a population of nearly a million, one thousand horse-railway cars, two hundred 
 and sixty-seven omnibuses, about twelve thousand lieensed vehicles, and as many more pri- 
 vate vehicles; a city which, in ten months, paid the Federal Government one huudred and 
 94 
 
86 APPENDIXXIV. 
 
 KBLATION OF TAXATION TO FOPXILATXON AND PROPBETT. 
 
 It is also interesting to note the relation wticli taxation sustains to popula- 
 tion and property in New York and some of the otlier leading cities of the 
 conntry. The following data are derived from the most authentic sources : 
 
 City of New Yokk.— Population, 1870, 952,293 ; aggregate State, city, 
 county, and school taxes, 1870, $25,403,859.00 ; special taxes as estimated by 
 officials, $3,000,000.00 ; total taxation, $27,403,859.00. Taxation per capita, 
 $29.08. 
 
 BosTOiT. — Population, 1870, 250,525 ; aggregate of all taxation, 1870, 
 $9,050,420.00 ; taxation per capita, $36.00. 
 
 Chicago. — Population, 1870, 398,977; total taxation, general and special, 
 1870, $9,356,333.00 ; taxation per capita, $30.00. 
 
 But as in the opinion of some experts the burdens of taxation in any com- 
 munity are properly represented by the relation which the aggregate of the 
 annual levy of taxes sustains to the value of property assessed, attention is 
 further asked to the following comparisons : 
 
 In Boston and Philadelphia real estate is returned for assessment at nearly 
 its full marketable value. On tills basis the relation of taxation to real estate 
 valuation in these two cities would be as follows : 
 
 Boston real estate valuation, 1870, $365,593,100.00 ; aggregate taxation, 
 1870, $9,050,420.00 ; ratio of taxation to real property valuation, 1 to 40. 
 
 Philadelphia real estate valuation, 1871, $491,844,096.00 ; aggregate taxa- 
 tion, 1871. $9,026,753.00 ; ratio of taxation to real property valuation, 1 to 54. 
 
 Cincinnati real estate valuation as made anew for 1871, $123,427,888.00 ; 
 aggregate taxation, 1871, $4,004,035.00 ; ratio of taxation to real property valua^ 
 tion, 1 to 30. 
 
 In the city of New York, on the other hand, on valuation of real estate 
 acknowledged to be only about 40 per cent, of the real property, the ratio of 
 aggregate taxation to real property valuation would have been in 1870, as 1 to 
 27 ; but if the valuation of the real estate of New York were advanced in pro- 
 portion to the value taken for assessment purposes in Boston and Philadelphia, 
 the ratio, instead of being as 1 to 27, would be much more favorable than in 
 either of the cities above mentioned, or in the approximative ratio of at least 
 1 to 65. 
 
 It is therefore evident, that in comparison with the actual accumulated and 
 tangible wealth of the city of New York, any liability, on account of indebted- 
 ness, which the city has as yet incurred, or is prospectively likely to incur, is 
 very insignificant ; and, with a reasonably honest, efficient, and economical gov- 
 ernment, sach as public opinion and legislative authority, guided by recent 
 experience, seems certain to compel, there can be no good reason why the inter- 
 est-bearing debt obligations of the city should not be regarded as the most 
 desirable of investments. I am, yours, most respectfully, 
 
 DAVID A. WELLS. 
 Chairman Board of Commixsioners for Revision of the Laws of the State of New 
 
 York relating to the Assessment and Collection of Taxes. 
 To Hon. John T. Hoffman, Governor of the State of New York. 
 
 twenty millions of dollars for duties on Imports, and exported In the same time two hundred 
 and fifty-one millions of dollars' worth of merchandise.— ifb(« by the Author. 
 
APPENDIXXIV. 5'^ 
 
 ' I have also received a letter, dated 29tli December, 1871, from Hon. Andrew 
 H. Green, Comptroller of tlie city of New Yorlj, in whicli he says : 
 
 " Immediate legislation is essential for the maintenance of the credit of the 
 city by the meeting of the obligations maturing early in January, and to malie 
 provision for past claims which are due and which are of pressing importance. 
 Equally important is prompt legislation to malie provision for the maintenance 
 of the Government of 1872. 
 
 " As the law appears now (Chap. 583, sec. 3, of 1871), no authority exists to 
 malie appropriations till May next, leaving the four first months of the year 
 1873 without any provision by which payments of necessary expenses for these 
 months can be made." 
 
 I respectfully asli your immediate attention to those suggestions, and such 
 early legislation with reference to them as may be necessary and proper. 
 
 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 
 
APPENDIX XY. 
 
 HISTORY OP THE SCHOOLS AND THE PUBLIC 
 SCHOOL SOCIETY OP NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVEEKD AT THE ORGANIZATION MEETING OF THE DEPAETMENT OP PUBLIC 
 
 INSTEUCTION OF THE CITY OF NEW TORE, ON THE 39TH DAT OF 
 
 APELL, 1871, BY THE PRESIDING OFFICER, 
 
 COMMISSIONEK HOOPER C. VAN VOEST. 
 
 * * Tlie sentiment of the people of New York in favor of public instruction 
 was early developed, and has been of constant, steady, and progressive growth. 
 It has long since been fixed as a wise State policy. Even in its colonial con- 
 dition some efforts were made in that direction ; but when the State had come 
 to be thoroughly organized, and its political status established, one of the first 
 of its deliberate acts was a provision made for the organization of a system of 
 instruction for the young. The importance, as a measure of State, of tlie 
 establishment of a system of common-school education was apparent to the 
 mind of Gov. George Clinton, who, as early as 1793, called attention of the 
 Legislature to it in his annual message. Under his administration, and upon 
 his recommendation, the first important and practical legislation was had 
 looking to the foundation of a sound system of public instruction, and the sum 
 of fifty thousand dollars a year — a large appropriation for those days — for five 
 years was made for this object. In. 1798, and before the expiration of the five 
 years limited by the act, schools had been established in a majority of the then 
 counties of the State, and about sixty thousand children during that year 
 received public instuction. The legislation so happily inaugurated by Gov- 
 ernor Clinton was further supported by subsequent executives and legislatures. 
 Through the encouragement of Governors Jay and Tompkins in the early 
 period of its history, and in later years of Governors Marcy, Seward, and others. 
 
APPENDIXXV. 89 
 
 all legislation needed to firmly establisli and liberally sustain tlie system was 
 from time to time secured. It is impracticable now to follow the various stages 
 in the history of this important subject. But its movement, although at times 
 retarded, steadily progressed. Appropriations were from time to time made 
 as its wants demanded, and funds were established for its support and complete 
 administration. The amount of public money now appropriated in the various 
 districts of the State for the support of free schools exceeds ten millions of 
 dollars, and which sum is chiefly raised by direct taxation ; and the number of 
 children who received instruction during the past year is about nine hundred 
 and seventy thousand. To such a magnitude has this system grown in the 
 State, under its fostering care, in the space of about sixty years. 
 
 NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS. 
 
 But I beg to call attention for a few moments to the history of the schools 
 of this city, which has a peculiar interest to xis. When that distinguished 
 statesman, De Witt Clinton, was Mayor of the city of New York, a Free School 
 Society wag established in the city " for the education of such poor children as 
 do not belong to or are not provided for by any religious society." This 
 organization was formed in pursuance of an act of incorporation obtained from 
 the Legislature, the Mayor himself being one of the incorporators, and the first 
 President of the Society. The first school under this act of incorporation was 
 opened in the year 1806. It depended chiefly for its support on the contribu- 
 tions of the benevolent. In the course of twenty years this excellent society 
 had established in the city several well-organized schools, for the support of 
 which they had received both municipal and State aid. 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY OF NEW YOKK CITT. 
 
 In the year 1826 the various schools of this society, together with others 
 which were in existence and not under its control, were united and directed 
 under the management of a corporation called the "Public School Society." 
 This organization gave a new impulse to the cause of popular education, and 
 placed the whole system on a broader basis and infused new energy in all its 
 operations. This society performed a most useful service to the State and to 
 the cause of education during the period of its existence, and those who 
 managed its affairs deserve high commendation for their disinterested public 
 service. During the existence of this society not less than six hundred 
 thousand youth of the city had been educated, and a large number of teachers 
 prepared for service. The Board of Education was organized under an act of 
 the Legislature, passed April 18th, 1843, which act extended to the city of New 
 York the common-school system which prevailed in the other portions of the 
 State, the schools under which were managed by officers elected by the people 
 for the purpose. The Board of Education commenced its operations as soon 
 as its measures could be perfected, and proceeded to erect school-houses and 
 gather scholars for instruction. It was evident that the mission of the " Public 
 School Society " was now over, that it was neither wise nor economical to have 
 two systems of instruction proceeding at the same time, in the same field of 
 operation ; it would lead to conflict of opinion, and that both judicious action 
 and usefulness would be impaired. This was soon felt by all the friends of 
 education and good government. The necessity for unity of system, and 
 
80 APPENDIXXV. 
 
 administration witliout distraction became manifest. In 1853, an act of tlie 
 Legislature was passed authorizing the Public School Society to discontinue 
 its organization, and to transfer its property, real and personal, to the city of 
 New York, and a portion of its trustees to become Commissioners at large of 
 the common schools of the city and members of the Board of Education ; and 
 its property, valued at over $600,000.00, under the act, and by the action of the 
 society itself, passed to the control of the Board of Education, upon whom the 
 administration of the common-school system was thenceforth solely to depend. 
 The influence of the consolidation of these two organizations into one harmo- 
 nious body was beneficial to the salutary working of the system. 
 
 THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Since the year 1853 and up to the present time, the public schools of New 
 York have been under the control of this organization, called the " Board of 
 Education," the members of which have been elected by the people, and 
 during that period of time our school system has attained to its present great 
 prosperity and usefulness. Under its care and management has been perfected 
 a wise and judicious system of instruction ; it has progressed and expanded 
 and adapted itself to the improvements which have taken place in science and 
 arts and the methods of instruction. The cause of education or its adminis- 
 tration has not been stationary. It has steadily grown and increased in its 
 means of usefulness. It has appropriated to itself and endeavored to put in 
 practice in the schools whatever experience has established to be beneficial in 
 method or subjects of instruction. The results of its operations may this day 
 be regarded with emotions of honorable pride by every citizen of New York, 
 Under the means and influences which this Board has furnished, the great 
 mass of the children and youth of the city have been educated. Contemplate 
 for one moment the result of its work. It has established and well maintained 
 thirty-four Primary Departments and Schools, in which were instructed this 
 day at least sixty-five thousand children. It has established and well main- 
 tained eighty-nine Grammar Schools, male and female, in which were instucted 
 this day over thirty-five thousand children. 
 
 The system of instruction of the males terminates in a full and complete 
 course of collegiate education of four years in the College of New York, fitting 
 and preparing them for any sphere of action or usefulness in life ; and that of 
 the females in a Normal College, which at this time contains over one thousand 
 pupils who are themselves being educated and trained to become the teachers 
 and guides of others. The number of schools wholly under the control of 
 the Board of Education was 821, in addition to which there are some fifty 
 corporate schools, partly under the charge of this Board, and who participate 
 in the enjoyment of the public moneys. In the work of instruction are daily 
 engaged 363 male teachers and 2,326 female teachers, making a total of 2,689 
 teachers. And the extent of the work accomplished by these earnest and 
 painstaking toilers in this interesting department of the work of life, charged 
 with so much responsibility for the present and future, to the individual and 
 to the State, may be appreciated when it is considered that during the year 
 past nearly 235,000 pupils have received instruction in the public schools, and 
 that the average daily attendance in all the schools under the charge of the 
 Board is over one hundred thousand. 
 
APPENDIXXV. fll 
 
 FEMALE TEACHERS. 
 
 When it is considered that quite eight tenths of all the instruction of the 
 youth of the city of New York, of both sexes, is performed by females, no one 
 can well exaggerate the importance of the results to follow from tho establish- 
 ment of the Normal College for their education and discipline. This 
 institution, completely and thoroughly organized during the past year, under 
 its efficient President and able corps of teachers and instructors, may well 
 command the interested attention and invoke the best wishes and prayers of 
 all who are interested in successful and useful education. But the Board of 
 Education, as the other organizations which have preceded it, has done its 
 work. Under that name it belongs to the past. But from this rapid sum- 
 mary of what it has accomplished it must be conceded that its mission was a 
 good one, and its work, if not perfect, was at least well done. 
 
 THE NEW DBPAKTMBNT. 
 
 The Department of Public Instruction, under the recent act of the Legisla- 
 ture amending the city charter, now commences its career under our direction 
 as its Commissioners. I have deemed it proper to give this brief but yet very 
 imperfect survey of the past history and accomplishment of the cause of educa- 
 tion in New York, in order that we may be sensibly and properly impressed 
 with the importance of the work in which we are engaged, and with the mag- 
 nitude of the trust to which we have, by the appointment of the Mayor of 
 New York, succeeded. The change at this time wrought is not in the system 
 of the schools, nor in their administration, nor in the course of instruction. 
 Nothing ia extended or diminished. The recent act establishes a connection 
 between the administration of public instruction and the municipal govern- 
 ment. The Department of Public Instruction is in name and in fact a branch 
 and department of the city government. If instruction is the business of the 
 State, this is as it should be. Our duties as Commissioners are no more and 
 no less than they were as members of the Board of Education. 
 
 But as Commissioners of Public Instruction our term of office has been 
 extended, nor may the number of this body be increased or diminished, except 
 by force of additional legislation or by death or resignation of the members. 
 There is, then, before this Commission, a term of five years for disinterested 
 and useful devotion to the cause of education, and the good of the State, and 
 the happiness and welfare of its people. We have succeeded to the public 
 schools when they are in successful operation, well officered with principals 
 and teachers; and when they enjoy to a very large extent the confidence, and 
 when they are earnestly regarded with the warm interest of the people. For 
 we all know that these schools lie close to the heart of the people of this great 
 metropolis. 
 
 We take these schools when our city has a population of one million of 
 souls, and at a time when the proper education and discipline of our youth ia 
 justly regarded by every observing mind as the foundation of the continued 
 prosperity and safety of the State and city. Those who have preceded us have 
 so perfected and amplified the subjects and methods of instruction as to have 
 brought the means of education and the acquisition of useful elcmenlary knowl- 
 edge, in an attractive form, to every house, aud within the reach of every child 
 inthe city, of teachable years. They have erected for us large, commodious, and 
 
93 APPENDIX XV. 
 
 well-ventilated school-houses, constructed with reference to the comfort, cheer- 
 fulness, and health of the teacher and the pupils. We have, at our hands, already 
 supplied books and apparatus such as are suggested by the latest improve- 
 ments in arts and science, and advanced methods of instruction. And we have 
 to aid us an able and experienced Superintendent of the schools, with his assist- 
 ants, upon whom is imposed the duty of visitation and examination, without 
 which no system is complete, and a large band of skilled teachers and instruct- 
 ors eager for the discharge of their duties, and ready to co-operate with us and 
 second our efforts to further extend the blessings and advantages of education. 
 Both the State and city are liberal in the dispensation of their funds to us ; no 
 reasonable demand for money for the purpose of public instruction has ever 
 been denied. For the coming year there is placed at our disposal two million 
 seven hundred thousand dollars. These weighty considerations should give us 
 a corresponding sense of our duties and responsibilities, and we should be pre- 
 pared to bring to this work a disposition faithfully and as intelligently as we 
 can, to discharge its duties, as we will justly be held to a great accountability. 
 Ours is not a work of construction, but of improvement and extension. 
 
 ********** 
 
 Dr. Franklin, as early as 1753, advocated a scheme for the education of the 
 youth in Pennsylvania, which embraced instruction in book-keeping, the rudi- 
 ments of geometry, astronomy, geography, history, logic, and natural science. 
 
 In addition to the Latin and Greek, he advocated instruction in the French, 
 German, and Spanish languages. To all of which was to be added good morals 
 and good manners. Franklin thus early saw how useful to the American youth, 
 business man, and citizen, would prove the knowledge of these modern tongues 
 — the languages of people with whom, as he foresaw, we were to have exten- 
 sive commercial intercourse, and who in a great degree would in time become 
 a constituent part of our own people. * * * 
 
 Gentlemen, in the administration of this trust, as Commissioners of Public 
 Instruction, let us be ever impressed with its importance and its responsibility. 
 Let it be our office to devote our time and our attention to the duties of the 
 place. Let it be ours to suggest and carry out any needed improvement and 
 just advance in the cause of education and in methods and systems of instruc- 
 tion, and where errors exist let us correct them in all cases. Let us see to it 
 that the youth of this generation be well instructed ; let us place within their 
 reach every means of knowledge which will make their lives more useful and 
 happy, and enable them to become good citizens of the Republic, always remem- 
 bering that no system of education is valuable which docs not tend to improve 
 the intellect, strengthen the physical an! develop the moral nature. 
 
 No education is valuable which does not lead the pupil into habits of right 
 thought, knowledge, and action, and which does not furnish him with the 
 means to be of service to the State, by being a law-abiding, peaceful, intelli- 
 gent, and virtuous citizen, whose highest aim in life, is to be faithful in all his 
 relations to his God, his country, and mankind. 
 
APPENDIX XYI. 
 
 NEW YORK SOCIETY IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 BY ET. REV. BISHOP KIP.* 
 
 To lament the days that are gone, and believe the past better than the 
 present, is a tendency which has been remarked as far back as the days of Sol- 
 omon. " Say not thou," says the wise king," What is the cause that the former 
 days were better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." 
 However this may be, it is a propensity, which has always existed, to compare 
 unfavorably the present with the distant past. The Golden Age of which poets 
 sang was in " our fathers' day, and iu the old time before them." 
 
 From this feeling the writer realizes that he is not free, and, in many 
 respects, might be inclined to impute his estimate of the present to the waning 
 light in which he sees it. When dealing, however, with facts with which he 
 is well acquainted, he feels that he cannot be prejudiced ; and in this way it is 
 that he contrasts the society of the present with that which once existed iu 
 New York. From his distant home he looks back on the rush and hurry of 
 life as it now exists in his native city ; and, while he realizes its increased glit- 
 ter and splendor, he feels that it has depreciated from the dignity and high 
 tone which once characterized it. 
 
 Of the society of the olden time he can, of course, know but little by actual 
 experience. His knowledge of it began when the old regime was just passing 
 away. In the days of his childhood, the men of the Revolution were fast going 
 down to the grave. Of these he knew some in their old age. His father's 
 contemporaries, however, were somewhat younger, though brought up under 
 the same inflences. But when that generation departed, the spirit which had 
 aided in forming their characters had gone also, never again to be felt. To 
 many of these men he looked up as if they were superior beings; and, indeed, 
 he has felt, in all his passage through life, that he has never seen the equals 
 of those who then stood forward prominently in public affairs. 
 
 * This article originally appear<;d in Putnam^s Magazine for September, 1870. 
 95 
 
94 APPENDIXXVI. 
 
 The earliest notice we have of colonial society is in Mrs. Grant's deliglitfnl 
 American Lady. She was the daughter of a British officer who came over 
 with troops during the old French war, and her reminiscences begin about 
 1760. Her residence was principally in Albany, with the Schuyler family. 
 Still, she was brought in contact with the leading families of the colony, and, 
 as she was in the habit of often visiting Ne%v York, she learned much of the 
 state of things in that city. She writes thus of the old Dutch and colonial fami- 
 lies of that day : " They bore about them the tokens of former affluence and 
 respectability, such as family plate, portraits of their ancestors executed in a 
 superior style, and great numbers of original paintings, some of which were 
 much admired by acknowledged judges." In New York, of course, the highest 
 degree of refinement was to be seen, and she says: "An expensive and elegant 
 style of living began already to take place in New York, which was, from the 
 residence of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, become the seat of a little 
 court." 
 
 Society, in that day, was very stationary. About 1635 the first Dutch set- 
 tiers came out, and the country was much of it occupied by their large grants, 
 many of which had attached to them manorial rights. They brought with 
 them some of the social distinctions of the old country. In the cities of Hol- 
 land, for a long time, there had been " great " and " small " burgher rights. In 
 Amsterdam the " great burghers " monopolized all the offices, and were also 
 exempt from attainder and confiscation of goods. The " small burghers " had 
 the freedom of trade only. In 1657 this " great burgher " right was introduced 
 into New Amsterdam by Governor Stuyvesant. 
 
 About fifty years after the arrival of the early Dutch settlers, they were fol- 
 lowed by the Huguenots, driven abroad principally by the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, and including in their number members of some of the best 
 families in France. Thus came the Jays, De Lanceys, Rapaljes, De Peysters, 
 Pintards, &c. In 1688 the English took possession of the colony, and, from that 
 time, English settlers increased. The colony became (as Paulding says) " a 
 place in which to provide for younger sons." Still, this often brought out 
 scions of distinguished families and the best blood in England. 
 
 Thus matters stood until the Revolution, The country was parceled out 
 among great proprietors. We can trace them from the city of " New Amster- 
 dam " to the nortliern part of the State. In wliat is now the thickly-populated 
 city were the lands of the Stnyvesants, originally the Bowerie of the old Gov- 
 ernor. Next above was the grant tn the Kip family, called "Kip's Bay," made 
 in 1638. In the center of the island were the possessions of the De Lanceys. 
 Opposite, on Long Island, was the grant to the Laurence family. We cross 
 over Harlaem River and reach " Jlorrissanea," given to the Morris family 
 Beyond this, on the East River, was " De Lancer's Farm," another grant to 
 that powerful family ; while on the Hudson, to the west, was the lower Van 
 Courtlandt manor, and the Phillipse manor. Above, at Peekskill, was the 
 upper manor of the Van Courtlandts. Then came the manor of Livingston 
 then the Beekmans, then the manor of Kipsburgh, purchased by the Kip 
 family from the Indians, in 16SG, and made a royal grant by Governor Don<ran 
 two years afterward. Still higher up was the Van Rensselaer manor, twenty' 
 four miles by forty-eight ; and, above that, the possessions of the Schuylers 
 Further west, on the Mohawk, were the broad lands of Sir William Johnson 
 
APPENDIXXVI. 93 
 
 created a baronet for his services in the old French and Indian wars, who 
 lived in a rude magnificence at Johnson Hall. All this was sacrificed by his 
 son, Sir John, for the sake of loyalty, when he took up arms for the King and 
 was driven into Canada. The title, however, is still held by his grandson, and 
 stands recorded in the baronetage of England. 
 
 The very names of places, in some cases, show their history. Such, for 
 instance, is that of Yonkers. The word " J unker " (pronounced Tounker), in the 
 languages of northern Europe, means the nobly-born — the gentleman. In 
 West Chester, on the Hudson River, still stands the old manor-house of the 
 Phillipse family. The writer remembers, in his early days, when visiting there, 
 the large rooms and richly-ornamented ceilings, with quaint old formal gardens 
 about the house. When, before the Revolution, Mr. Phillipse lived there, " lord 
 of all he surveyed," he was always spoken of by his tenantry as " the Yonker " 
 — the gentleman — par excellence. In fact, he was the only person of that social 
 rank in that part of the country. In this way the town, which subsequently 
 grew up about the old manor-house, took the name of Yonkers. 
 
 This was a state of things which existed in no other part of the continent. 
 In new England there were scarcely any large landed proprietors. The country 
 was divided up among small farmers ; and, when the Revolution commenced, the 
 people a,lmost unanimously espoused its cause. The aristocratic element, which 
 in New York rallied around the Crown, was here entirely wanting. The only 
 deception to this which we can remember, was the case of the Gardiners, of 
 Maine. Their wide lands were confiscated for their loyalty ; but, on account 
 of some informality, after the Revolution, they managed to recover their prop- 
 erty, and are still seated as Gardiner. 
 
 At the South, where so much was said about their being "the descendants 
 of the Cavaliers," there were no such feudal relations. The planters had no 
 tenantry ; they had slaves. Their system, therefore, was similar to that of the 
 serfdom of Russia. With the colonial families of New York it was the English 
 feudal system. 
 
 Hereditary landed property was, in that day, invested with the same dignity 
 in New York whicli it has now in Europe ; and, for more than a century, these 
 families retained their possessions, and directed the infant colony. They formed 
 a coterie of their own, and, generation after generation, married among them- 
 selves. Turn to the early records of New York, and you find all places of official 
 dignity filled by a certain set of familiar names, many of which, since the Rev 
 olution have entirely disappeared. As we have remarked, they occupied a posi- 
 tion similar to that of the English country gentleman, with his many tenants, 
 and were everywhere looked up to with the same kind of respect which is now 
 accorded to them. Their position was an acknowldged one, for social distinc- 
 tions then were marked and undisputed. They were the persons who were 
 placed in office in the Provincial Council and Legislature, and no one pretended 
 to think it strange. " They," says a writer on that day, " were the gentry of 
 the country, to whom the country, without a rebellious thought, took off its 
 hat." 
 
 In that age the very dress plainly marked the distinctions in society. No 
 one who saw a gentleman could mistake his social position. Those people of a 
 century ago now look down upon us from their portraits, in costumes which, 
 in our day, we see nowhere but on the stage. Velvet coats with gold lace, large 
 
96 APPENDIXXIV. 
 
 sleeves, and ruffles at tlie hands, wigs and embroidered vests, with the accom- 
 panying rapier, are significant of a class removed from the rush and bustle of 
 life— the "nati consumere f ruffes" — whose occupation was not — to toil. No 
 one, in that day, below their degree, assumed their dress ; nor was the lady 
 surpassed in costliness of attire by her servant. In fact, at that time there 
 were gentlemen and ladies, and there were servants; 
 
 The manner in which these great landed estates were arranged fostered a 
 feudal feeling. They were granted by Government to the proprietors on con- 
 dition that, in a certain number of years, they settled so many tenants upon 
 them. These settlers were generally Germans of the lower class, who had been 
 brought over free. Not being able to pay their passage-money, the captain 
 took them without charge, and then they were sold by him to the landed pro- 
 prietors for a certain number of years, in accordance with the size of the family. 
 The sum received remunerated him for the passage-money. They were called, 
 in that day, Redemptioners ; and, by the time their term of service— sometimes 
 extending to seven years — had expired, they were acquainted with the ways 
 of the country and its manner of farming, had acquired some knowledge of the 
 language, and were prepared to set up for themselves. Thus both parties were 
 benefited. The landed proprietor fulfilled his contract with the Government, 
 and the Redemptioners were trained for becoming independent settlers. 
 
 From these Redemptioners many of the wealthy farming families now liv- 
 ing in the Hudson River counties are descended. In an early day they pur- 
 chased lands which enriched their cliildren. The writer's father once told him 
 of an incident which occurred in his grandfather's family. One of his German 
 tenants, having served out his time of several years' duration, brought to his 
 late owner a bag of gold which had come with him from the old country, and 
 was sufiicient to purchase a farm. "But," said his master, in surprise, "how 
 comes it, Hans, with all this money, that you did not pay your passage, instead 
 of serving as a Redemptioner so long ?" " Oh," said the cautious emigrant from 
 the Rhine, " I did not know English, and I should have been cheated. Now I 
 know all about the country, and I can set up for myself." 
 
 These tenants, however, looked up with unbounded reverence to the landed 
 proprietors who owned them, and it took much more than one generation to 
 enable them to shake off this feeling, or begin to think of a social equality. 
 
 There was, in succeeding times, one curious result of this system in the con 
 fusion of family names. These German Redemptioners often had but one 
 name. For instance, a man named Paulus was Settled as a tenant on an estate. 
 As his children grew up, they needed something to distinguish them. They 
 were Paulus' Jan, and Paulus' Hendrick. This naturally changed to Jan Pau 
 lus and Hendrick Paulus, and thus Paulus became the family name. 
 
 This was well enough. But they frequently took the name of their propri 
 etor. He was known as Morris' Paulus, and this, in tlie next generation, natu- 
 rally changed to Paulus Morris, and his children assumed that as their family 
 name. In this way there are many families in the State of New York bearing 
 the names of the old landed proprietors, which have been thus derived. 
 
 Some years ago a literary gentleman, who was compiling facts with regard 
 to the early history of the State, came to the writer very mncli puzzled, 
 " Who," said he. " are these people? I find their names in Dutchess County ; 
 and vet, looking at Holgate's pedigree of that family, I see they cannot belong 
 
APPENDIXXVI. 97 
 
 to it. Where did they come from, and where do they belong ?" The above 
 account was a satisfactory solution of the mystery. 
 
 But to return to this system. It was carried out to an extent of which, in 
 this day, most persons are ignorant. On the Van Kensselaer manor there were, 
 at one time, several thousand tenants, and their gathering was lilce that of the 
 Scottish clans. When a member of the family died, they came down to Albany 
 to do honor at the funeral, and many were the hogsheads of good ale which 
 were broached for them. They looked up to the " Patroon "' with a reverence 
 which was still lingering in the writer's early day, notwithstanding the inroads 
 of democracy. And before the Revolution, this feeling was shared by the 
 whole country, 'When it was announced in New York, a century ago, that 
 the Patroon was coming down from Albany by land, the day he was expected 
 to reach the city crowds turned out to see him enter in his coach and-four. 
 
 The reference to the funerals at the Rensselaer manor-house reminds us of 
 a description of the burial of Philip Livingston, one of the proprietors of Liv- 
 ingston manor, in February, 1749, taken from a paper of that day. It will show 
 something of the customs of the times. The services were performed both at 
 his town-house in New York, and at the manor. " In the city, tlie low<!r 
 rooms of most of the houses in Broad Street, where he resided, were thrown 
 open to receive visitors. A pipe of wine was spiced for the occasion, and to 
 each of the eight bearers, with a pair of gloves, mourning-ring, scarf, and 
 handkerchief, a monkey-spoonw&s^xen" (This was so called from the figure 
 of an ape or monkey, which was carved in solido at the extremity of the 
 handle. It differed from a common spoon in having a circular and very shallow 
 bowl.) " At the manor these ceremonies were all repeated, another pipe of 
 wine was spiced, and, besides the same presents to the bearers, a pair of black 
 gloves and a handkerchief were given to each of the tenants. The whole 
 expense was said to amount to £500." 
 
 Now, all this was a state of things and a manner of social life totally 
 unknown in New England. We have already mentioned that most of its 
 inhabitants were small farmers, wringing their subsistence from the earth by 
 hard labor. Here were literally no sertanU, but a perfect social equality 
 existed in the rural districts. Their "helps" were the sons and daughters of 
 neio-hboring farmers, poorer than themselves, who for a time took these 
 situations, but considered themselves as good as their employers. The com- 
 paratively wealthy men were in their cities. 
 
 No two races of men could be more different than the New Yorkers of that 
 day and the people of New England. There was a perfect contrast in all their 
 habits of social life and ways of thinking. The Dutch disliked the Yankees, 
 as they called them, most thoroughly. This feeling is shown, in a ludicrous 
 way, through the whole of Irving's " Knickerbocker." " The Dutch and the 
 Yankees," he says, "never got together without fighting." 
 
 There is a curious development of this prejudice in the following clause, 
 which was inserted in the will of a meml^er of a distinguished colonial family 
 
 of New York, dated 1760. " It is my wish that my son, , may have 
 
 the best education that is to be had in England or America ; but my express 
 will and directions are, that he never be sent, for that purpose, to the Connecticut 
 colonies, lest he should imbibe, in his youth, that low craft and cunning so 
 incidental to the people of that country, which is so interwoven in their consti- 
 
08 APPENDIXXVI. 
 
 tutions tliat all their acts cannot disguise it from the world, though many of 
 them, under the sanctified garb of religion, have endeavored to impose them- 
 selves on the world as honest men." 
 
 Once in a year, generally, the gentry of New York went to the city to 
 transact their business and make their purchases. There they mingled, for a 
 time, in its gayeties, and were entertained at the court of the Governor. 
 These dignitaries were generally men of high families in England. One of 
 them, for instance— Lord Cornbury — was a blood-relative of the royal family. 
 They copied the customs and imitated the etiquette enforced " at home," and 
 the rejoicings and sorrowings, the thanksgivings and fasts, which were ordered 
 at Whitehall, were repeated again on the banks of the Hudson. Some years 
 ago the writer was looking over the records of the old Dutch Church in New 
 York, wlien he found, carefully filed away, some of the proclamations for 
 these services. One of them, giving notice of a thanksgiving-day, in the reign 
 of William and Mary, for some victory in the Low Countries, puts the cele- 
 bration ofl a fortnight, to give time for the news to reach Albany. 
 
 During the rest of the year these landlords resided among their tenantry, 
 on their estates ; and about many of their old country-houses were associa- 
 tions gathered, often coming down from the first settlements of the country, 
 giving them an intere-st which can never invest the new residences of those 
 whom later times elevated through wealth. Such was the Van Courtlandt 
 manor-house, with its wainscoted rooms and its guest-chamber ; the Rensselaer 
 manor-house, where of old had been entertained Talleyrand and the exiled 
 princes from Europe ; the Schuyler house, so near the Saratoga battle-field, 
 and marked by memories of that glorious event in the life of its ownf r — (alas, 
 that it should have passed away from its founder's family !), and the residence 
 of the Livingstons, on the banks of the Hudson, of which Louis Philippe 
 expressed such grateful recollection when, after his elevation to the throne, he 
 met, in Paris, the son of his former host. 
 
 There was one more of these old places of which we would write, to pre- 
 serve some memories which are now fast fading away, because it was within 
 the bounds of our city, and was invested with so many historical associations 
 connected with the Revolution. It is the house at Kip's Bay. Though many 
 years have passed since it was swept away by the encroachments of the city, 
 yet it exists among the recollections of the writer's earliest days, when it was 
 still occupied by the family of its founder, and regarded as their first home on 
 this continent. It was erected in 1655, by Jacobus Kip, Secretary of the 
 Council, who received a grant of that part of the island. There is in the pos- 
 session of tlie family a picture of it as it appeared at the time of the Revolu- 
 tion, when still surrounded by venerable oaks. It was a large double house, 
 with three windows on one side of the door and two on the other, .with one 
 large wing. On the right hand of the hall was the dining-room, running from 
 front to rear, with two windows looking out over the bay, and two over the 
 country on the other side. This was the room which was afterwards invested 
 with interest from its connection with Major Andre. In the rear of the house 
 was a pear-tree, planted by the ladies of the family in 1700, which bore fruit 
 until its destructiou In 1851. In this house five generations of the family were 
 born. 
 
 Then came the Revolution, and Sargent, in his " Life of Andre," thus gives 
 
A P P E N D 1 X X V I . 09 
 
 its history in those stirrinor times : " Where now in New York is the unallur- 
 ing and crowded Deighborhood of the Second Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, 
 stood in 1780 the ancient Bowerie or country-seat of Jacobus Kip. Built in 
 1655, of bricks brought from Holland, encompassed by pleasant trees, and in 
 easy view of the sparkling waters of Kip's Bay, on the East River, the man- 
 sion remained, even to our own times, in possession of one of its founder's line. 
 Here" (continues Sargent, incorporating t.ie humorous recollections of Irving's 
 " Knickerbocker") spread the Same smiling meadows, whose appearance had 
 so expanded the heart of Oloffe the Dreamer, in the fabulous ages of the col- 
 ony ; here still nodded the groves that had echoed back the thunder of Henry 
 Kip's musketoon, when that mighty warrior left his name to the surrounding 
 waves. When Washington was in the neighborhood. Kip's house had been 
 his quarters ; when Howe crossed from Long Island on Sunday, September 
 15th, 1776, he debarked at the rocky point hard by, and his skirmishers drove 
 our people from their position behind the dwelling. Since then it had known 
 many guests. Howe, Clinton, Kniphausen, Percy, were sheltered by its roof. 
 The aged owner, with his wife and daughter, remained; but they had always 
 an officer of distinction quartered with them ; and if a part of the family were 
 in arms for Congress, as is alleged, it is certain that others were active for the 
 Crown. Samuel Kip, of Kipsburgh, led a cavalry troop of his own .tenantry 
 with great gallantry in De Lancey's regiment; and, despite severe wounds, 
 survived long after the war, a heavy pecuniary sufferor by the cause which, 
 with most of the landed gentry of New York, he had espoused." 
 
 In 1780, it was held by Colonel Williams, of the 80th royal regiment ; and 
 here, on th'e evening of the 19th of September, he gave a dinner to Sir Hfinry 
 Clinton and his staff, as a parting compliment to Andre. The aged owner of 
 the house was present ; and, when the Revolution was over, he described the 
 scene and the incidents of that dinner. At the table. Sir Henry Clinton 
 announced the departure of Andre, next morning, on a secret and most import- 
 ant expedition, and added (what we have never seen mentioned in any other 
 account, and showing what was to have been Andre's reward), " Plain John 
 Andre will come back Sir John Andre."* 
 
 Andre — it was said by Mr. Kip — was evidently depressed, and took but lit- 
 tle part in the merriment about him; and when, in his turn, it became neces- 
 sary for him to sing, he gave the favo ite military chanson attributed to 
 Wolfe, who sang it on the ere of the battle of Quebec, in which he died : 
 
 " Why, soldiers, H'hy, 
 Should we be melancholy, boys ? 
 Why, soldiers, why. 
 Whose business 'tis to die? 
 For should the next campaign 
 Send us to Him who made as, boys. 
 We're free fro:n pain : 
 But should we remain, 
 A bottle and kind landlady 
 Makes all well again." 
 
 * Mrs. General Kiedesel was at this dinner-party, and was one of the sfuests. who bade 
 Miijor Andre farewell.— See Stone's Zetters of Mrs. General Eiedeed, translated from the Ger- 
 man. Tide also page 265 of this work, where Mrs. Eiedesel speaks of her parting with 
 Andre. 
 
100 APPENDI2XVI. 
 
 His biograplier, after copying tliis account, adds : *' How brilliant soever 
 the company, how cheerful the repast, its nlemorymust ever have been fraught 
 with sadness to both host and guests. It was the last occasion of Andre's 
 meeting his comrades in life. Four short days gone, the hands then clasped 
 by friendship were fettered by hostile bonds ; yet nine dayb more, and the 
 darling of the army, the youthful hero of the hour, had dangled from a 
 gibbet." 
 
 After the Revolution the place remained in its owner's possession, for his 
 age had fortunately prevented him from taking any active part in the contest. 
 And when Washington, in the hour of his triumph, returned to New York, he 
 went out to visit, again those who, in 1776, had been his involuntary hosts. 
 Dr. Francis relates an interesting little incident which occurred at the visit : 
 "On the old road towards Kingsbridge, on the eastern side of the island, was 
 the well-known Kip's Farm, pre-eminently distinguished for its grateful fruits 
 — the plum, the peach, the pear, and the apple — and for its choice culture of 
 the rosacea. Here the elite often repaired, and here our Washington, now 
 invested with Presidential honors, made an excursion, and was presented with 
 the rosa gallica, an exotic first introduced into this country in this garden — fit 
 emblem of that memorable union of France and the American colonies in the 
 cause of Republican freedom." 
 
 In 1851 this old place ^was demolished. It had then stood tw^o hundred and 
 twelve years, and was the oldest house on the island. It was swallowed up 
 by the growth of the mighty metropolis, and Thirty-fifth Street runs over the 
 spot where once stood the old mansion. A short time after it was deserted, 
 the writer made his last visit to it, while most of it was still standing, and the 
 stone coat-of-arms over the hall-door was projecting from the half-demolished 
 wall. As he stood in the old dining-room, there came back to him visions of 
 the many noble and chivalrous men who, in the last two centuries, had feasted 
 within its walls. But all these, like the place itself, now live only in the rec- 
 ords of the past. 
 
 Such was life in those early days among the colonial families in the country 
 and the city. It was simple and unostentatious, yet marked by an affluence 
 of everything which could minister to comfort, and also a degree of elegance 
 in the surroundings which created a feeling of true refinement. Society was 
 easy and natural, without the struggle for precedence which now is sn univer- 
 sal ; for then every one's antecedents were known, and their positions were 
 fixed. The intermarriages, which for more than a century were taking place 
 between the landed families, bound them together, and promoted a harmony 
 of feeling now not often seen. There were, in that day, such things as old 
 associations, and men lived in the past, instead of, as in these times, looking 
 only to the future. 
 
 The system of slavery, too, which prevailed, added to the ease of domestic 
 life. Negro slaves, at an early day, had been introduced into the colony, and 
 every family of standing possessed some. They were employed but little as 
 field-laborers, but every household had a few who were domestic servants, 
 liike Abraham's sers-ants, tliey were all " born in the house." They shared 
 the same religious instruction with the children of the family, and felt, in 
 every respect, as if they were members of it. This mild form of slavery was 
 like the system which existed under the tents of th« patriarchs on the plains of 
 
APPENDIX -X VI. IttI 
 
 Mamre ; and there certainly never were happier people than those " men-serv- 
 ants and maid-servants." They were seldom separated from their families, or 
 sold. The latter was reserved as an extreme case for the incorrigible, and a 
 punishment to which it was hardly ever necessary to resort. 
 
 The clansmen of Scotland could not take more pride in the prosperity of 
 their chief's family than did these sable retainers in New Amsterdam. In 
 domestic aflFairs they assumed a great freedom of speech, and, in fact, family 
 affairs were discussed and settled as fully in the kitchen as in the parlor. The 
 older servants, -indeed, exercised as full control over the children of the family 
 as did their parents. As each black child attained the age of six or seven 
 years, it was formally presented to a son or daughter of the family, and was his 
 or her particular attendant. This union continued often through life, and of 
 stronger instances of fidelity we have never heard than were exhibited in some 
 of these cases. Fidelity and affection, indeed, formed the bond between master 
 and slave, to a degree which can never exist in this day with hired servants.* 
 
 This state of things continued far down into the present century. In the 
 writer's early day his father owned slaves for domestic servants, and he very 
 well remembers, when visiting the place of a relative on the Hudson River, see- 
 ing the number of slaves about the house. At that time, however, the system 
 was just going out ; it had lost its interesting features, and the slaves, still 
 remaining at those old places, had become a source of care and anxiety to their 
 owners. 
 
 The charm of life in that day was its stability. There was no chance then 
 for partienuism — no stocks in which to dabble, no sudden fortunes made. There 
 was but little commerce between the colony and the mother-country, and men 
 who embarked in this business were contented to spend their lives in acquiring 
 a competence. They never aspired to rival the landed families. With the 
 latter, life flowed on from one generation to another in the same even way. 
 They lived on their broad lands, and, when they died, the eldest son inherited 
 the family residence, while the others were portioned off with farms belonging 
 to the estate, but which it could well spare. On their carriages and their silver 
 were their arms, which they had brought with them from Europe, by which 
 every one knew them, which were used as matters of course, and were distinc- 
 tions no one ventured to assume, unless entitled to them. Sometimes these 
 were carved in stone and placed over their doors. This was the case with the 
 Walton House, which we believe is still standing in Franklin Square (Pearl 
 Street) ; and, as we have already mentioned, with the Kip's Bay House. The 
 windows of the first Dutch churcTi built in New York were filled with the arms 
 of the families at whose expense it was erected. 
 
 In 1774, John Adams, on his way to attend the first Congress, stopped in 
 New York. The honest Bostonian was very much struck with " the opulence 
 and splendor of the city," and "the elegance of their mode of living," and in 
 his Journal freely records his admiration. He speaks of " the elegant countrj'- 
 seats on the island;" the Broad Way, a fine street, very wide, and in a right 
 line from one end to the other of the city ;" " the magnificent new church then 
 building which was to cost £20,000 ;" the Bowling Green, which he describes 
 as " the beautiful ellipse of land railed in with solid iron, in the centre of 
 
 * In this connection gee page 148. — Author. 
 96 
 
102 APPENDIXXVI. 
 
 whicli is a statue of His Majesty on horseback, -very large, of solid lead, gilded 
 witli gold, on a pedestal of marble, very liigh." He records tbat " the streets 
 of tbe town are vastly more regular and elegant than those of Boston, and the 
 the houses are more grand, as well as neat." 
 
 The most amusing display is when he is invited to one of these country- 
 seats, •' near Hudson's River." He writes : " A more elegant breakfast I never 
 saw : rich plate, a very large silver coffee-pot, a very large silver tear pot, napkins 
 of the very finest materials, toast and bread and butter in great perfection. 
 After breakfast a plate of beautiful peaches, another of pears, and a musk- 
 melon, were placed on the table." 
 
 It is evident, however, from his Journal, that he saw little of the best families. 
 He was not in a situation to be feted by them, for they had no sympathy with 
 the object of his journey. His principal entertainers were two lawyers — Scott 
 and Smith — who had grown wealthy by their profession. Among all he men- 
 tions as extending civilities to him, the only persons belonging to the aristoc- 
 racy of the city were some members of the Livingston family, who, even then, 
 were putting themselves forward as leaders in the coming movement. 
 
 The Revolution broke up and swept away this social system. It ruined 
 and drove off half the gentry of the province. The social history, indeed, of 
 that event has never been written, and never will be. The conquerors wrote 
 the story, and they were mostly " new men," who had as much love for those 
 they dispossessed as the Puritans had for the Cavaliers of England, whom for a 
 time they displaced. In a passage we have quoted from Sargent's " Life of 
 Andre," the author says : " Most of the landed gentry of New York espoused 
 the royal cause." And it was natural that it should be so,. for most of them 
 had for generations held office under the Crown. Their habits of life, too, 
 had trained them to tastes which had no sympathy with the levelling doctrines 
 inaugurated by the new movement. They accordingly rallied around the 
 King's standard, and when it went down they went down with it, and in many 
 cases their names were blotted out of the land. 
 
 We once read in an old number of Blackwood's Magazine some discussion 
 about the impolitic course pursued by England toward her colonies. The 
 remarks about the manner in which she lost her American colonies were pecu- 
 liarly judicious. The writer says the Government should have formed an 
 aristocracy in America, by giving titles, and thus gathering the great landed 
 proprietors about the throne by new ties. These extensive landholders, previ- 
 ous to the Revolution, were as able to keep up the dignity of a title as were 
 the English nobility of that day ; and the effect which would have been pro 
 duced, In the strengthening of their loyalty, is obvious. Had the head of the 
 Livingston family been created Earl of Clermont and that of the Laurences 
 been made Lord Newtown, would they have taken the side of the Revolution- 
 ists? We trow not. Instead of this, these powerful landed families were neg- 
 lected, until some of them became embittered against the Government. No 
 title, as a mark of royal favor, was given to a single American, except a baro- 
 netcy to Sir William Johnson.* 
 
 * The writer, usually bo accurate, is mistaken \-n this. William Pepperell was also cre- 
 ated a baronet for his part in the capture of Louisburg, in the same manner as Johnson waj 
 made one for his defeot of Dieskau, at the battle of Lake George, 11f>6.—Autlwr. 
 
A P P E N DI X X V r . 103 
 
 Of the few landed families who took tlie popular side, perhaps the Living- 
 stons and Schuylera occupied the leading position. The former had not been 
 in favor with the Government, but were the political antagonists of the De 
 Lanceys, by whom they were excluded from office. They therefore welcomed 
 the new order of things. 
 
 Religion, in those days, had a good deal to do with the state of parties. As 
 far back as 1745, the De Lanceys were the leaders of the Church of England 
 party, and the Livingslons of the Dissenters. Relicrious bitterness was added, 
 therefore, to that which was political. "In 1769, (says Stone, in his Life of 
 Sir William Johnson, " the contest was between the Church party and the Dis- 
 senters, the former being led by the De Lanceys, and the latter by the Living- 
 stons. The Church, having the support of the mercantile and masonic inter- 
 ests, was triumphant ; and John Cruger, James De Lancey, Jacob Walton, and 
 James Jauncey, were elected by the city." 
 
 To the popular side, also, went the Jays, the Laurences, a pbrtion of the Van 
 Cortlandts who were divided, a part of the Morris family, which was also divided 
 (while Lewis Morris was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, 
 his brother, Staats Morris, was a general in the British army, and married the 
 Dowager Duchess of Gordon), the Beekmans, and some few others. Tlie 
 " Patroon " — Mr. Van Rensselaer — was fortunately a minor, and therefore, not 
 being obliged to take either side, saved his manor. Many of the prominent 
 leaders were from new families, made by the Revolution. An upturning of 
 this kind is the time for new men. Peculiar circumstances brought some for- 
 ward who otherwise would have had no avenue for action opened before them. 
 Alexander Hamilton, for example, had just arrived in New York, a young man 
 from the West Indies, when the popular outbreak gave him, at a public meet- 
 ing, an opportunity of exliibiting his peculiar talents. 
 
 The history of a single family will show the course of events. Probably 
 the most powerful family in the State, before the Revolution, was that of the 
 De Lanceys. Descended from the ancien noblesse of France, and helping large 
 possessions, they had exerted a greater influence in the colony than any other 
 family. James De Lancey administered the government of the colony for many 
 years, till his death, in 1760. Most of the younger members of the family were 
 in the British army previous to the Revolution. Wlien that convulsion took 
 place, they, of course, remained loyal, and became leaders on that side. Oliver 
 De Lancey was a brigadier-geeneral, and organized tlie celebrated corps styled 
 " De Lancey's Battalion." His fine mansion at Bloomingdale was burned, in 
 consequence of his adherence to the royal cause. They forfeited their broad 
 lauds, and their names appeared no more in the future history of the State. 
 Some fled to England, where they held high oSices, and their tombs are now 
 to be seen in the choir of Beverley Cathedral. Sir William De Lancey died at 
 Waterloo, on the stag" of the Duke of Wellington. Just two months previous, 
 he had been married to a daughter of Sir Benjamin Hall ; and his friend, Sir 
 Walter Scott thus alludes to him in his ode, The Field of Waterloo : 
 
 "De Lancey changed Love's bridal wreath 
 For laurels from the hand of death.'' 
 
 The son of General De Lancey, Oliver De liancey, Jr., who succeeded 
 Andre as Adjutant-General of the British army in America, rose through the 
 
104 APPENDIX XVI. 
 
 grade of Lieutenanl^General to that of General, and died, at the beginning of 
 this century, nearly at the head of the English army-list. 
 ' In In 1847 the late Bishop of Western New York (William Heathcote De 
 Lancey) told the writer a curious story of his recovery of some of their old 
 family papers. In the spring of that year, being in New York, a package was 
 handed to the servant at the door by an old gentleman, on opening which the 
 Bishop found an anonymous letter directed to him. The writer stated that, 
 being in England between thirty and forty years before, he found some papers 
 relating to the De Lancey family among some waste paper in the house where 
 he was staying ; that he had preserved them, and, seeing by the newspapers 
 that the Bishop was in the city, he now inclosed them to him. These the 
 Bishop found to be : 1st, the commission of James De Lancey as Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the colony ; 2d^ his commission as Chief-Justice of the colony ; 3d, 
 the freedom of the city of New York, voted to one of the family in 1780 ; 4th, 
 a map of the lands owned by them in West Chester County and on New York 
 island, prepared by the Bishop's grandfather. He advertised in the New 
 York papers, requesting an interview with his unknown correspondent, but 
 there was no response, and he heard no more from him. 
 
 Some branches of this family remained in New York, and we cannot point 
 to a more striking evidence of the change wrought by the Revolution, than 
 the fact that, since that event, the name of De Lancey, once so prominent, is 
 never found in the records of the Government. It is in the Church only that 
 it has acquired eminence, in the person of the former distinguished Bishop of 
 Western New York. 
 
 This is the kind of story which might be told of many other loyalist 
 families. TJuinod by confiscations, they faded out of sight, and, being excluded 
 from political oflBce, they were forgotten, and their very names would sound 
 strange in the ears of the present generation of New Yorkers. Many years 
 ago, in the old country-house of a relative, the writer amused some days of a 
 summer vacation by bringing down from the dust of a garret, where they had 
 reposed for two generations, the letters of one of these refugees, who, at the 
 beginning of the Revolution, was. obliged to seek safety on board a British 
 ship-of-war off New York harbor (from whence he writes his farewell, com- 
 mending his wife and children to the care of the family), and then made his 
 home in England, until, as he hoped, " these calamities be overpast." It was 
 sad to read his speculations, as night after night he attended the debates in 
 Parliament and watched the progress of the war, and, to the last, confidentlv 
 trusted in the success of the royal arms, which alone could replace him in the 
 position from which he had been driven into exile. When these hopes were 
 ultimately crushed, a high appointment was offered him by Government, but 
 he preferred to return to his own land to share the straitened circumstances of 
 his family, and be buried with his fathers. 
 
 The withdrawal of so many of the gentry from the country, and the worldly 
 ruin of so many more, was necessarily detrimental to its social refinement. It 
 was taking away the high-toned dignity of the landed proprietors, and substi- 
 tuting in its place the restless aspirations of men who had to make their 
 fortunes aud position, and get forward in life. Society lost, therefore, much of 
 its ease and gracefulness. Mrs. Grant, to whose work we have already alluded, 
 who in her youth had seen New York society as far back as 1760, and lived to 
 
APPENDIX XVI. 
 
 103 
 
 know what it was after tbe peace, thus speaks of tlie change : " Mildness of 
 manners, refinement of mind, and all the softer virtues that spring up in the 
 cultivated paths of social life, nurtured by generous aflfections, were undoubtedly 
 to be found in the unhappy loyalists. . . . Certainly, however necessary 
 the ruling powers might find it to carry their system of exile into execution, it 
 has occasioned to the country an irreparable privation. What the loss of the 
 Huguenots was to commerce and manufactures in France, that of the loyalists 
 was to religion, literature, and amenity in America. The silken threads were 
 drawn out of the mixed web of society, which has ever since be.en comparatively 
 coarse and homely." * 
 
 This is somewhat of an exaggeration. The tone of society was, indeed, 
 impaired, but not lost. There were still enough of the old families remaining 
 to give it dignity, at least for another generation. The community could not 
 ■ suddenly become democratic, or throw off all its old associations and habits of 
 reverence. As a writer on that day says, people were " habituated to take ofi" 
 their hats to gentlemen who were got up regardless of expense, and who rode 
 about in chariots drawn by four horses." It took a long while for the com- 
 munity to learn to act on the maxim that "all men are created equal ." Not, 
 indeed, until those were swept away who had lived in the days of the Revolution, 
 did this downward tendency become very evident. Simultaneously, too, with 
 their departure came a set of the nouveaux riches, which the growing facilities 
 of New York for making commercial fortunes brought forward, and thus by 
 degrees, was ushered in — the age of gaudy wealth. 
 
 The final blow, indeed, to this stately old society was given by the French 
 Revolution. We know how every thing dignified in society was then swept 
 away in the wild fury of democracy, but the present generation cannot conceive 
 of the intense feeling which that event produced in our own country. France 
 had been our old ally, England our old foe. We must side with the former in 
 her struggles against tyranny. It became a political test. The Republicans 
 adopted it, and insensibly there seemed to grow up the idea that refinement and 
 courtesy in life were at variance with the true party-spirit. In this way demo- 
 cratic rudeness crept into social life, and took the place of the aristocratic ele- 
 ment of former days. Gradually it went down into the lower strata of society, 
 till all that reverence which once characterized it was gone. 
 
 The manners of an individual at last became an evidence of his political 
 views. Goodrich, in his " Recollections," speaking on this very point, gives an 
 ammuslng instance of it. A clergyman in Connecticut, who was noted for his 
 wit, riding along one summer day, came to a brook, where he paused to let his 
 horse drink. Just then a stranger rode into the stream from the opposite 
 direction, and, as his horse began to drink also, the two men were brought face 
 to face, ' 
 
 '• How are you, priest ? " said the stranger 
 
 " How are you. democrat ? " inquired the parson. 
 
 " How do you know I am a democrat ? " said one. 
 
 " How do you know I am a priest ? " said the other. 
 
 " I know you to be a priest by your dress," said the stranger 
 
 " And I know you to be a democrat by your address," said the parson. 
 
 * "American Lady," p. I 
 
100 APPENDIXXVr. 
 
 Even tlie dress was made tlie exponent of party views, as much as it had 
 been by the Cavaliers and Puritans of England. As republican principles 
 gained ground, large wigs and powder, cocked hats, breeches and shoe-buckles, 
 were replaced by short hair, pantaloons, and shoe-strings. It is said that the 
 Marquis de Breze, master of ceremonies at Versailles, nearly died of fright at 
 the first pair of shoes, divested of buckles, which he saw on the feet of a Revo- 
 lutionary minister ascending the stairs to a royal levee. He rushed over to 
 Dumouriez, then Minister of War. " He is actually entering," exclaimed the 
 Marquis, " with ribbons in his shoes ! " Demouriez, himself one of the incen- 
 diaries of the Revolution, solemnly said, " Tout est flni f — '■ The game is up ; 
 the monarchy is gone." And so it was. This was only one of the signs of the 
 times. Buckles and kings were extinguished together. 
 
 Such being the feeling of the gans culottes in France, the favorers of Jaco- 
 binism in this country were not slow to imitate them. Jefferson eschewed 
 breeches and wore pantaloons. He adopted leather strings in his shoes instead 
 of buckles, and his admirers trumpeted it as a proof of democratic simplicity. 
 Washington rode to the capital in a carriage drawn by four cream-colored 
 horses, with servants in livery. All this his successor gave up, and even abol- 
 ished the President's lenees, the latter of which were afterward restored by 
 Mrs. Madison. Thus the dress, which had for generations been the sign and 
 symbol of a gentleman, gradually waned away, till society readied that charm- 
 ing state of equality in which it became impossible, by any outward costume, 
 to distinguish masters from servants. John Jay says, in one of his letters, that 
 with small clothes and buckles the high tone of society departed. 
 
 In the writer's early day this system of the past was just going out. Wigs 
 and powder and queues, breeches, and buckles, still lingered among the older 
 gentlemen — vestiges of an age which was vanishing away. But the high-toned 
 feeling of the last century was still in the ascendant, and had not yet succumbed 
 to the worship of mammon which characterizes this age. There was still in 
 New York a reverence for the c<ilonial familes, and the prominent political men 
 — like Duane, Clinton, Golden, Radcliff, Hoffman, and Livingston— were gen- 
 erally gentlemen both by birth and social standing. The time had not yet 
 come when this was to be an objection to an individual in a political career. 
 The leaders were men whose names were historical in the State, and they influ- 
 enced society. The old families stiil formed an association among themselves 
 and intermarried one generation after another. Society was, therefore verv 
 restricted. The writer remembers, in his childhood, when he went out witn 
 his father for his afternoon drive, he knew every carriage they met on the 
 avenues. 
 
 The gentlemen of that day knew each other well, for they had grown up 
 together, and their associations in the past were the same. Yet, what friend- 
 ships for after-life did these associations form ! How different this from the 
 intimacy between Mr. Smith and Mr, Thompson, when they know nothino- of 
 each other's antecedents, have no subjects in common but the money-market 
 and never heard of each other until the last year, when some lucky speculation 
 in stocks raised them from their " low estate," and enabled them to purchase 
 houses " up-town," and set up their carriages. 
 
 There was, in that day, none of the show and glitter of modern times • but 
 there was, with many of these families, particularly with those who had 
 
APPENDIXXVI. 107 
 
 retained their landed estates, and were still living in their old family-homes, 
 an elegance which has never heen rivaled in other parts of the country. In 
 liis early days, the writer has been much at the South ; has stayed at Mount 
 Vernon when it was yet held by the Washingtons ; with Lord Fairfax's family 
 at Ashgrove and Vancluse ; with the Lees in Virginia ; and with the aristocratic 
 planters of South Carolina; but he has never elsewhere seen such elegance of 
 living as was formerly exhibited by the old families of New York. 
 
 Gentlemen then were great diners-out. Their associations naturally led to 
 this kind of intimacy, when almost the same set constantly met together. Giv- 
 ing dinners was then a science, and a gentleman took as much pride in the 
 excellence of his wine-cellar as he did in his equipage or his library. This had 
 its evils, it is true, and led to long sittings over the table, and an excess of con- 
 vivialitj' which modern customs have fortunately corrected. 
 
 There was a punctilioasness, too, in their intercourse, even among the most 
 intimate, which formed a strange contrast to the familiarity of modern society. 
 Gentlemen were guarded in what they said to each other, for those were duel- 
 ing-days, and a hasty speech had to be atoned for at Hobokeu. Stories are still 
 handed down of disputes at the dinner-table which led to hostile meetings, but 
 which, in our day, would not have been remembered next morning. In an obit- 
 uary sketch, one of this set published at his death, twenty-five years ago, when 
 speaking of the high tone which then characterized society, the writer said : 
 " Perhaps the liability, which then existed, of being held personally answera- 
 ble for their words, false as the principle may have been, produced a courtesy 
 not known in these days." 
 
 One thing is certain — that there was a high tone prevailing at that time, 
 which is now nowhere seen. The community then looked up to the public 
 men with a degree of reverence which has never been felt for those who suc- 
 ceeded them. They were the last of a race which does not now exist. With 
 them died the stateliness of colonial times. Wealth came in and created a social 
 distinction which took the place of family, and thus society became vulgarized. 
 
 Gulian C. Verplanck was, perhaps, the last prominent member of the gen- 
 eration which has gone. Where can we point to any one of those now living, 
 like him, surrounded by the elevating associations of the past, distinguished 
 in public life, and a ripe scholar in literature and theology? The old historical 
 names of Jay and Duer and Hoffman, and a few more of colonial times, are still 
 upheld among us by their sons, who are showing, in the third generation, the 
 high talents of those who had gone before them ; " but what are they among 
 
 60 many !" 
 
 '• Kari nantes in gurgite vaato." 
 
 The influences of the past are fast vanishing away, and our children will 
 look only to the shadowy future. The very rule by which we estimate indi- 
 viduals has been entirely altered. The inquiry once was, " Who is he ?" Men 
 now ask the question, "How much is he worth?" Have we gained by the 
 change ? 
 
 Is it strange that the writer answers in himself that description in Horace — 
 
 " Laudator acti temporis, me puero !" 
 As years gather round him, and the shadows deepen in his path, he instinc- 
 tively turns more and more from the " living Present " to commune with the 
 
108 APPENDIXXVI. 
 
 " dead Past." Many, however, to whom he has referred in these pages, will 
 be to most of his readers only, names, while to him they are realities — ^living 
 and breathing men ; and, as he thinks of them, he believes there is no delusion 
 in the conviction that, for eloquence and refinement, for all the graces which 
 elevate and ennoble life, they have left no successors. The outward pressure is 
 now too democratic. Most of the prominent men, also, of the present day, want 
 the associations of the past. 
 
 As Edward IV. stood on the tower of Warwick Castle, and saw marching 
 through the park below him the mighty host of retainers who, at the summons 
 of the great Earl of Warwick, had gathered round him, and then thought how 
 powerless, in comparison, were the new nobles with whom he had attempted 
 to surround his throne, he is said to have muttered to himself, " After all, you 
 cannot make a great baron out of a new lord !" And so we would say, " You 
 cannot make out of the new millionaire what was exhibited by the gentlmea 
 of our old colonial families !" 
 
 Commerce, indeed is fast taking the place of the true old chivalry with all 
 its high associations. It is impossible, in this country, for St. Germain to hold 
 its own against the Bourse. Money-getting is the great object of life in this 
 practical age ; and, every month, the words which Halleck wrote so many years 
 ago are becoming more true : 
 
 '* These are notTOmantic times 
 So beautiful in Spenser^s rhymes. 
 
 So dazzling to the dreaming boy; 
 Ours are the days of fact, not fabie, 
 O.' Knights, but not of the Round Tabic, 
 
 Of Baillie Jarvie, not Rob Roy. 
 And noble name and cultured land. 
 Palace and park, and vassal band, 
 Are powerless to notes of baud 
 
 Of Rothschild or the Barings." 
 
APPENDIX XVII, 
 
 VISIT OF GENERAL JACKSON TO THE CITY 
 •AS A GUEST OF TAMMANY, IN 1819.* 
 
 BY GENERAL PKOSPER M. WBTMORE. 
 
 One incident in the history of Tammany caused a good deal of feeling at 
 the time of its occurrence, and has probably not been forgotten by all of those 
 who have survived the last half century. Previous to the year 1820, the war 
 between the Bucktails, ot Regular Tammany orgaization, and the Clintonians, a 
 party of more recent date, had begun to wax warm, and it was expected that at 
 the then approaching national election an unusual degree of bitterness, perhaps 
 of violence, would prevail in the contest. Every preparatory effort was there- 
 fore put in force to increase the strength of each of the contending parties. 
 
 In the early spring of 1819, an unexpected event awakened the enthusiasm 
 of the people, of every class, to an unusual degree. It was the arrival in New 
 York of General Andrew Jackson, then only known as the hero of New Orleans, 
 and the successful commander who had closed the war with our British antag- 
 onists by the most brilliant victory of the whole contest. The name of Jackson 
 had not at that time become a watchword of party, although there were a few 
 sagacious politicians who regarded him as the " coming man." It will natu- 
 rally be supposed that the active members of the two contending parties would 
 be alive to the importance of securing so valuable an adherent, and a share of 
 the prestige which attached to the person of a victorious general. 
 
 Jackson was received with great eclat by the municipal 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 vener- 
 able and distinguished General Ebenezer Stevens, then living, at an advanced 
 age, on Long Island, near Hell Gate. Stevens had commanded the American 
 
 * Referred to on page Sti. 
 97 
 
110 A P P E N D I X X V 1 1 . 
 
 artillery at the surrender of Bargoyne, at Saratoga, and Jackson had defeated 
 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 warrior of another 
 
 age. 
 
 During the stay of the General in the city, he accepted an invitation to dine 
 at Tammany Hall. He was received with the greatest cordiality by the domi- 
 nant party, who expected great results from so auspicious an event. The enter- 
 tainment was superb, as the phrase was understood in that primitive day, when 
 Stetson was not, and Delmonico undreamed of. Alas ! how precarious are all 
 human expectations ! An explosion followed the opening of the intellectual 
 exercises, which speedily put an end to the harmonious hilarity of the occasion. 
 The circumstance which led to this disastrous result cannot be better stated 
 than in the language of one of Halleck's notes to an all usiou in TTie Orodker : 
 
 " A grand dinner was given to General Jackson, at Tammany Hall, on the 
 23d of February, 1819, in honor of his visit to this city. The hall 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 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 Buck- 
 tails, who looked upon Clinton as their bitterest foe. General Jackson, per- 
 fectly independent of all parties, had conceived a great admiration for Mr. 
 Clinton, although he was at that time personally unacquainted with him, and 
 hence the toast. The greatest confusion ensued, amid which the General left 
 the room." 
 
 The subject was just fitted to call out the brilliant wits of the day. Drake, 
 in the first number of The Croaker, has the following lines 
 " I'm sick of General Jackson's toast 
 Canals are naught to me; 
 Nor do I care who rales the roast, 
 Clinton or John Targee." 
 
 Halleck took his full share of the fun. One of his earliest contributions to 
 the series of The Croaker, entitled, " The Freedom of the City in a Gold Box 
 to a Great General," is in his happiest vein. One stanza from another of his 
 productions on the same topic must suffice. It is entitled, " The Secret Mine 
 Sprung at a Late Supper :" 
 
 " The songs were good, for Mead and Hawkins sung 'em, 
 
 The wine went round, 'twas laughter all and joke. 
 
 When crack 1 the General sprung a mine among 'em, 
 
 And beat a safe retreat amid the smoke. 
 As fall the sticks of rockets when we fire 'em. 
 
 So fell the Bucktails at that toast accurst, 
 Looking like Korah. Dathan, and Abiram, 
 When the firm earth beneath their footsteps burst." 
 It may well be supposed that such an opening for jocose allusion was not 
 neglected, and the subject continued to be a sore one to the Bucktails for manv 
 a month after the public at large had forgotten the occurrence Jackson's 
 unpremeditated piece of strategy was not without its effect upon the future 
 policy of parties; for in after years the Clintonians became the inost earnest 
 and influential members of the Jackson party. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aboliticnist Eiot, 460. 
 Academy of Design, 588, 589, 609. 
 
 of Music, 511. 
 
 Act of Navigatioiv closes ports in itSTew 
 England, Maryland, and Vir- 
 ginia, 58. 
 Act of Parliament empowering Govern- 
 ment Officials to receive their 
 salaries independent of the peo- 
 ple, boldly denounced, 238. 
 Adams, John, first Vice-President of the 
 United States, 194, 293, 303. 
 
 John Quincy, 232. 
 
 Samuel, his oiroular letter on tax- 
 ation, 216. 
 Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 
 procession iu favor of, 282. , 
 ^tna Insurance Company, 476. 
 Africa, 147. 
 African Chapel, 463. 
 African Slaves, 25. 
 
 Albany City, 14, 16, 44, 45, 109, 110, 
 126, 148, 641. 
 
 City, Six Nations in Council at, 
 
 130. 
 
 County of, 114, 311. 
 
 County of, divided into three por- 
 tions, 288. 
 Albion, a ship, 156. 
 Alderton's Building, 90. 
 Alexander, James, a prominent lawyer of 
 
 New York, 134. 
 Alexis, Bussian Duke, reception of, 639. 
 Alleged Bobbery of Vouchers from Comp- 
 troller's Office, 637. 
 Allegiance, Oath of, Traders compelled 
 to reside within city limits, and 
 take, 53. 
 Allerton, Isaaxj, one of the "May Flower" 
 
 emigrants, 90. 
 Alliance with France, 288. 
 Almshouses, 336. 
 Ambuscade, a ship, 321. 
 A.meriea, 14, 15. 
 
 America, Bank of, 603. 
 
 Bank of North, 603. 
 
 American Academy of Fine Arts found- 
 ed under Charter, 587. 
 
 Academy of Fine Arts, Trum- 
 bull's connection with, 587. 
 
 Army of 15,000 men, encamped at 
 
 Brooklyn, 247. 
 
 Civilization, 637. 
 
 Coast, 16. 
 
 Lawyers, eminent, 341. 
 
 Press, The, its History and Prog- 
 ress, 374-380. 
 
 Republic, new, a stranger's ex- 
 perience in the, 338. 
 
 Americans retreat across Bast Kiver, to 
 New York, 247. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, 392. 
 
 Amherst, General, 184, 443. 
 
 ■ General, visit to New York, 184. 
 
 Amsterdam, 10, 14, 56, 63, 85. 
 
 Chamber, 18, 35, 43, 63. 
 
 Chamber, proclamation relating 
 
 to settlement in and trade with 
 New Netherland, 35. 
 
 Directors, 59, 148. 
 
 Fort, 21, 35, 26, 37, 36, 46, 49, 63. 
 
 Fort, surrender of, 62 'tu>te. 
 
 Port, changed to Fort James, 63. 
 
 Harbor of, 10. 
 
 New 23, 24, 26, 38, 39, 34, 35, 37, 
 
 39, 40, 50, 51, 52. 
 
 New, and Long Island Ferry, 40. 
 
 New, Population of, 53, 55, 59, 148. 
 
 New, Survey and Map made, 58. 
 
 New, Col. Nicholls anchors be- 
 fore, 61. 
 
 New, surrendered to the British, 
 
 61. 
 
 New, henceforth known as New 
 
 York, 62. 
 
 New, Literature of, 77. 
 
 New, Sunday in, 77. 
 
 New, Mode of Worship in, 78. 
 
114 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ancient and Modem New York, com- 
 parison bet-ween, 689-658. 
 
 Andr^, Major, 154, 266. 
 
 Andros, Sir Edmuad, 68, 106, 109, 113. 
 
 Sir Edmimd, appointed Gtovemor, 
 
 by Duke of York, 68, 106. 
 
 Anglo-American manners ajid cnstoms, 
 337-340. 
 
 Anglo-Dutch "War carried on by the Na- 
 YieB of the two powers, 66. 
 
 Ann Street, 90. 
 
 Anne, Queen, 124, 138, 155, 647. 
 
 Annual grants of supplies only, insisted 
 upon by the Assembly, 143. 
 
 Anonymous communications to Govern- 
 ment by Sons of Liberty, 204 
 
 Appeal to Citizens on the Tammany 
 Frauds question, 624r-627. 
 
 Appleton & Co., 604. 
 
 Apple-raising, 69. 
 
 Aqueduct, Croton, at Sing Sing, 500, 501. 
 
 Arcade in Maiden Lane, 419. 
 
 Archangel, 14. 
 
 Architecture of New York City, 601. 
 
 Ardiug, Rev. Charles, 319. 
 
 Armuyden, in Zealand, 95. 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, 154. 
 
 Arrival of two British regiments at Bos- 
 ton, 216. 
 
 Arsenal, State, 457. 
 
 Asia, a ship, 245. 
 
 Aspinwall, William, 41. 
 
 WiUiam H., 376. 
 
 Assembly, (Colonial) the people petition 
 for a representative, and are re- 
 fused, 106. 
 
 the first, meets in 1683, 113, 114 
 
 the, provides for building a 
 
 church, 121. 
 
 the, refuses to grant supplies and 
 
 is dissolved, 143. 
 
 functions of the, annulled by the 
 
 British Parliament, 213. 
 
 elected in 1768, is convened, 215. 
 
 remonstrates withGov.Moore,217. 
 
 dissolution of the, in 1769, 218. 
 
 meets ; John Cruger speaker, 231. 
 
 petitions the Crown for redress 
 
 of grievances, 245. 
 
 13y, 129, 136-146, 156-165, 173 
 
 173, 174, 177, 179, 181, 183, 190, 
 191, 194, 196, 198, 203, 203-241. 
 
 Astor House, 332, 308. 
 
 Astor, John Jacob, 38. 
 
 John Jacob, Anecdote of, 413. 
 
 Astor Library, 049. 
 
 Astor Place Opera House, 531, 532. 
 
 Place Riot, 520. 
 
 Assurance Companies, 003. 
 
 Asylum for the Insane, seeking suitable 
 site for, 233. 
 
 A.sylum for the Insane, Review of its sub- 
 sequent career, 338. 
 Atlantic Cable Celebration, 384 
 
 Garden, 30, note. 
 
 and Pacific Oceans, 17. 
 
 Attucka, a mulatto, 238. 
 Auchmuty, Rev. Samuel, 167, 230. 
 Auction Hotel, 483. 
 
 BADLAii's Battery, 246. 
 Baker, Gardiner, 339. 
 
 SirWilUam, 207. 
 
 Baldook, Captain R., 394. 
 Ball in honor of the opening of the Erie 
 Canal, 410. 
 
 in honor of the Queen's Birthday, 
 
 361. 
 Washington Inauguration, 309. 
 
 Baltimore, 369, 388. 
 
 Bancroft, George, 54, 161, 200, 248, 637. 
 
 (jeorge, delivers an oration upon 
 
 President Lincoln, 607. 
 Bank Street, 378. 
 Bank of Commerce, 603. 
 
 of the Commonwealth, 603. 
 
 of the Republic, 603. 
 
 of America, 603. 
 
 of New York, 603. 
 
 Broadway, 603. 
 
 of North America, 603. 
 
 Union, 603. 
 
 Banks suspend paym.ent, 536. 
 Eauman, Colonel, 236, 299, 305. 
 Banyar, Goldsbrow, 201, 205. 
 Barclay, Rev. Mr., 160, 167. 
 
 Street, 251. 
 
 Street Ferry, 420. 
 
 Barlow, General, 645. 
 
 Barnard, Jiidge, 6.J-S. 
 
 Bamum's Museum, 511. 
 
 Baxre, M. deLa, Governor, 111. 
 
 Barren Island (Beeren Eylant), 98. 
 
 Bartlett, an artist, 636. 
 
 Batterson, James G., designs the Worth 
 
 Monument, 516. 
 Battery, The, 19, 25, 30, 49, 78, 87, 
 
 396, 403, 475, 499, 613, 657. 
 Fort, The dilapidated condition of, 
 
 47. 
 Fort, guns removed from, by. the 
 
 Liberty Boys, 245. 
 Fort, required by Gflvemment, 
 
 47. 
 Fort, dismantled, 201. 
 
 Battle, first on record between English 
 and Dutch trading vessels near 
 Fori Amsterdam, 27. 
 
 of Bunker Hill, 106, 244 
 
 of Golden Hill, New York, 228. 
 
 of Long Island, 247. 
 
 Baxter, George, 39. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 115 
 
 Baiter Street, 539. 
 
 Bayard, Nicholas, 284, 839. 
 
 Bayard's Hickory Grove, 339. 
 
 Spring, 339. 
 
 Beaver Street, 30, 92, 115. 251, 419, 481, 
 509, 510. 
 
 Becker's Tavern, 336. 
 
 Bedloe's Island, 139. 
 
 Beekman, Adrian, killed in a riot, 272, 
 note. 
 
 Colonel, 170. 
 
 • — J. W., quotation from his ad- 
 dress on behalf of the New 
 York Hospital, 284, 235. 
 
 House, 371, 272, note. 
 
 Mrs., 272. 
 
 SUp, 246, 356. 
 
 Street, 165, 184, 333, 331, 590. 
 
 Swamp, 70, 91, note, 167. 
 
 WiUiam, 272, note, 
 
 — William, Sohepeu of New Am- 
 sterdam, 148. 
 
 Beelen Island, 45. 
 
 Belgium, 19. 
 
 BeU, Old Jail, 367, 510. 
 
 Bellamont, Earl of. Governor of New 
 York, Massachusetts, and New 
 Hampshire, 131, 131. 
 
 Belvidere Club, 340. 
 
 Benckes, Admiral, 67. 
 
 Bend, Rev. J. G., 168. 
 
 Benson, Judge, 104, 453. 
 
 Benton, Hon. Nathaniel, gives Canal 
 Statistics, 411. 
 
 Benson, Governor, 443. 
 
 Berkeley, Sir William, Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, 106. 
 
 Bermuda, Trade with, 30, 167. 
 
 Bernard, Governor of Massaehusetts, 
 193. 
 
 Betste (bedstead), 75. 
 
 Bevers Paatje (Beaver Lane*, 62. 
 
 Bible, discussion on the admission of the, 
 without comment, into the N. Y. 
 Public Schools, 508, 509. 
 
 House, 133, 649, 
 
 Bierstadt, an artist, 637. 
 
 "Big Ditch," The, 410. 
 
 Bills of Credit, or Paper Currency, issue 
 of objected to by Assembly, 161. 
 
 Billy the Fiddler, 433. 
 
 Blackwell's Island, 88. 
 
 Blauvelt, Captain, 43. 
 
 Blazing Star Inn, stages stop at, 186, 
 187. 
 
 Bleecker, Anthony, 318, 452. 
 
 Street, 643. 
 
 Street House, 468. 
 
 Block, Adrien, 14, 15. 
 
 Bloomingdale Koad, 503, 505, 597. 
 
 Board of Education, 507. 
 
 Boes, Captain, 67. 
 
 Bogardua, Doraine Everardus, second 
 Clergyman in New Netherland, 
 24, 33, 48. 
 
 Rev. W., 33, 57. 
 
 Bolton's Tavern (Sam Francis's), 331, 
 298. 
 
 Booth, Mary L., 183, 319. 
 
 Booth's Theatre, 607, 609. 
 
 Boston, 30, 41, 133, 125, 199, 314, 316, 333 
 337, 339, 343, 344, 246, 274, 387. 
 
 old post road, 91, 93. 
 
 Bouok, Mr., 408. 
 
 Boudinot, EUas, 393. 
 
 Boulevard,*Thc New, 597. 
 
 Bowerie Farm, 93. 
 
 Bowerie Village, 103. 
 
 Bowery, 13, 93, 408, 539. 
 
 Bowling Green, 19, 37, 80, 87, 78, 93, 115, 
 135, 300, 346, 389, 318. 
 
 Bradford, Governor William, of New 
 Plymouth, 133. 
 
 Bradford's Gazette, 374. 
 
 Bradatreet & Son, 488. 
 
 Brady, Rev. John, 170. 
 
 Brant, Joseph (Thayendanegea), visits 
 New York as the guest of Miss 
 Burr, 415, 416. 
 
 BrazU, 43, 46, 63, 103. 
 
 Bread Riots, 536. 
 
 Breastworks erected, 246. 
 
 Breukelen, 88, 98. 
 
 Breweries, Brick-kilns, and other Manu- 
 factories in New Netherland, 
 59. 
 
 Brick Church, Old, 366, 590. 
 
 Bridewell, Old, 336. 
 The, 336, 497. 
 
 Bridge Street (Brugh Straat), 30, 88, 
 93, 125. 
 
 British Army land on Long Island, at 
 Graveseud, 347. 
 
 Fleet oooupy the North and East 
 
 Rivers, 347. 
 
 House of Commons refuse to re- 
 ceive representatives of New 
 York Assembly, 333. 
 
 Museum, 87. 
 
 Officers and their wives indulg- 
 ing in gayety and frivolity, 
 whilst American citizens are 
 languishing in prison, 356. 
 
 Broad Street, 13, 34, 30, 87, 88, 89, 93, 
 115, 134, 331, 346, 351, 300, 303, 
 318, 331, 336, 431, 477, 480, 481, 
 483, 509, 510. 
 
 Broadway, 13, 19, 67, 89, 90, 93, 95, 103, 
 133, 153, 333, 331, 335, 340, 403, 
 421, 436, 463, 474, 499, 509, 
 003. 
 
 Bank, 603. 
 
116 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BroadVay, Past and Present, 605. 
 
 No. 1, Head-quarters of British 
 
 Coininandera during Revolu- 
 tionary War, 152, 154. 
 
 its true histoiy, 270. 
 
 East, 529. 
 
 Brodhead, J. R., 54 
 
 Brooklyn, 474 
 
 Ferry, 93, 356. 
 
 Heights, 346. 
 
 Navy Yard, 480, 482. 
 
 Brooks, Erastus, 352. 
 
 Broome, John, 387, 318, 323, 336. 
 
 Broome Street, 403. 
 
 Brown, George W., Auction Hotel of, 483. 
 
 Major, 262, 263. 
 
 Brown, a sculptor, 637. 
 
 Brunswick Troops, 256. 
 
 Bryant, WiUiam Oullen, 637, 657. 
 
 Buck, Gordon, 234 
 
 Buffalo, 186, 890. 
 
 Buildings, Improvements in Streets and, 
 in New York, 37. 
 
 average height of, in 1677, 576. 
 
 Bullock Street, 284 
 
 Bunier, Captain E. S., 393. 
 
 Buiiker HiU, Battle of, 106, 344 
 
 Burgher government established in Man- 
 hattan, 53. 
 
 Burgomasters, Salaries o|, 40. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 256. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 346. 
 
 Burling SUp, 326, 246. 
 
 Burlington, N. J., Stages run to, 186. 
 
 Bumet, Gov. William, succeeds Gov. 
 Hunter, aa Governor of New 
 York, 126, 127. 
 
 Gov. William, anecdotes of, 129, 
 
 130. 
 
 resigns Governorship of New 
 
 York, and accepts that of New 
 Hampshire and Massachusetts, 
 139. 
 
 Burnet's policy, beneficial effects of, 138. 
 
 Burning of the Government House, 357. 
 
 Bums' Coffee-house, 307, 390. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 341, 343, 345, 415, 443. 
 
 obtains the acquittal of Levy 
 
 Weeks charged with the mur- 
 der of Miss Sands, 343. 
 
 Burr, Theodosia, entertains Brant, 415. 
 
 Burroughs, Mr., 136. 
 
 Bushwick, or Boswyck, 148. 
 
 Bute, Lord, 197, 200. 
 
 Butman, Jeremiah, 372. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 413. 
 
 Cabot, 24 
 
 Cadaraqui, Eort at, 109, 113. 
 " Cadmus," the ship m. which Lafayette 
 visited America, 379, 383. 
 
 CadwaUader, Col., defends HarlemPlains, 
 
 250. 
 Caen, Normandy, 153. 
 Caesar,' the Nigger, 84, 85. 
 Caffniere, Admiral, 113. 
 Calvin, 137. 
 Calvinlsts, 33. 
 Cambridge University, 153. 
 Canada, 15, 16, 31. 
 
 Indiana invade, 113. 
 
 Canal Street, 13, 333, 335, 403. 
 
 Street, extension, 539. 
 
 , Erie, The, projected by CUntcn, 
 
 348. 
 
 — , Erie, The, rejoicings at its comple- 
 tion, 379, 389^01. 
 
 Carleton, General, and Lieutenant-Gover- 
 nor Sir Guy Carleton, 154 
 314 
 
 Caribbean Islands, 53. 
 
 CarroU, Mr., 166. 
 
 CarroUof CarroUtou, 489. 
 
 Carter, Herman. G., 488. 
 
 Carteret, Philip, Governor of New Jer- 
 sey, 103, iiote. 
 
 Castle Garden, 384, 
 WiUiam, 384 
 
 Catherine Slip. 356. 
 
 Street, 91, 465. 
 
 Catholics, 22. 
 CatskUl, 352, 
 Caughnawaga, the town of the Caughna- 
 
 wagas or Praying Indians, 127. 
 Cayenguinago, 120. 
 Cayugas, 108. 
 Cedar Street, 433, 603. 
 Celestial Empire, 14. 
 Central Park, 501, 503, 539. 
 
 Park Commission, 614. 
 
 Park, History and Description of, 
 
 539-531. 
 Park, Prof. S. E. B. Morse's Statue 
 
 in, 639. -v 
 
 Park, Receiving Reservoir, 506. 
 
 Centre Street, 246, 337, 457, 463, 465, 
 
 529. 
 Century Club, 359. 
 Chamber of Commerce, 634 
 Chambers, John, 135, 167, 194 
 
 Street, 132,529. 
 
 Chambly, Fort, 374 
 
 Champlain, Lake, 132, 593. 
 
 Chancellor Livingston, a steam vessel, 
 
 383, 396. 
 Charity School, 252. 
 Charles, Robert, Colonial Agent, 231. 
 Charles L, 37, 146. 
 Charleston, S. C, 247. 
 Charlton Street, 13, 339. 
 Cliarlotte County, 338. 
 Charter, Dongau's, 116. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 117 
 
 Charter of Liberties, The, 114. 
 
 of Columb a (King's) College, op- 
 
 position of citizens to its beinn- 
 granted, 177-179. 
 — first, of New Netherlaud, 40. 
 
 of Privileges and Exemptions, 
 
 21. 
 
 Montgomery's, 647. 
 
 of New York City. The old one 
 
 annulled, 613. 
 of New York City. The new one 
 
 promulgated and passed, 614. 
 of New York City — ita provisions 
 
 as compared with the old, 614, 
 
 note. 
 
 of New York City — its special 
 
 peculiarities, 615. 
 
 of New York City — the various 
 
 Charters and their provisions, 
 
 615. 
 Chatham, Earl of, 200. 
 
 ■ Insurance Company, 476. 
 
 Square, 465. 
 
 Street, 91, 93, 165, 233, 823, 337, 
 
 467. 
 Street, " Tea Water Pump" in, 
 
 COO, 573. 
 Chauncey Vibbard, a steamboat, 352, note, 
 
 353. 
 Cheatham, James, 488. 
 Cherry Street, 13, 472. 
 Cheshire, 156. 
 
 Chicago, Great Fire in, 616-618. 
 Great Fire in, New York City 
 
 aids sufferers by, 616. 
 China, 187. 
 
 Choate, Joseph H., 621. 
 Christ-Kinkle Day, 69-71. 
 Christiaensen, Hendrick, 14, 15, 16. 
 Christian Association, Young Men's, 638. 
 Church, an artist, 637. 
 Churches and Ministers in New York 
 
 City, 641, 643. 
 Church Street, extension from Fulton to 
 
 Morris, 599, 600. 
 Citizens refuse to support the Troops, 
 
 213. 
 consternation of, at the ravages of 
 
 the Yellow Fever, 332. 
 City, The, divided into sis Wards, 
 
 115. 
 
 Council, 57. 
 
 Gate, 89. 
 
 Boundary established, 131. 
 
 Hall, or Stadt^Huys, 89. 
 
 Hall, 77, 124, 301, 336, 345, 375, 
 
 385, 403, 421, 462, 465, 480, 
 
 483. 
 
 Hall Slip, 186. 
 
 HaU Park, 91, 224, 498. 
 
 Hall, present, built, 345. 
 
 City Hall, jjublic meeting of Citizens 
 called at, for fire of 1835, 483- 
 
 — Hotel, The, 211, 
 
 385, 404, 483. 
 — Seal, New, 116. 
 - Wall, The, 92. 
 
 308, Tiote, 375, 
 
 Clarence, Duke of, saved from drowning 
 by Gulian Verplanok, 271. 
 
 Claremont, 504. 
 
 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of. Lord 
 Chancellor of England, 188. 
 
 Clark, McDonald, the Mad Poet, 490. 
 
 William, 135. 
 
 WiUia Gaylord, 489, 
 
 Clarke, George, Secretary of Colony, 138. 
 
 George, appoiuted Lieut.-Gov., 
 
 188, 142. 
 George, Lieut.-Gov , supported in 
 
 his acts by the popular voice, 
 
 138. 
 George, Lieut.-Gov., his first 
 
 speech in the Greneral Assembly, 
 
 George, Lieut.-Gov., his action on 
 
 the Indian affairs of the Colony, 
 
 139. 
 George, ex-Lieut.-Gov., his career, 
 
 155, note, and 156. 
 — GeorgQ Hyde, son of Lieut.-Gov., 
 
 156. 
 Claus, Santa, 69-71. 
 Clermont, Fulton's First Steamboat, 351 , 
 
 352. 
 Cliff Street, 89, 90, 211, 226. 
 Clinton, Admiral George, Gcovernor of 
 
 New York, 155, 233. 
 Admiral George, his Address to 
 
 the Assembly, 157. 
 Admiral George, asserts the Royal 
 
 prerogative, 162. 
 
 Admiral George, resigns, 164. 
 
 De Witt, Mayor of New York, 
 
 343. 
 
 De Witt, appointed Mayor a 
 
 second time, 358. 
 
 De Witt, 408, 488. 
 
 De Witt, superseded by Judge 
 
 • EadcUffe, 358. 
 De Witt, his character and con- 
 duct, public and private, 358, 
 • 859. 
 De Witt, his firmness and patriot- 
 ism as Mayor, 368. 
 
 De Witt, Governor, opens the 
 
 Erie Canal, 891, 898. 
 Clinton, Sir Henry, 154, 247, 258, 265. 
 Hall, 649. 
 Mrs. George, 308. 
 
 Clover- Watie, The, or Pasture-field, 83. 
 Cod, Cape, 51. 
 
118 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Coddington, J. J., 518. 
 
 Coenties Alley, 481. 
 
 Battery, 246. 
 
 Lane, 475. 
 
 SUp, 19, 87, 186, 474, 475, 480, 
 
 481, 497. 
 
 Ooffee-Houae SHp, 318, 331, 344, 
 
 480, 481. 
 
 — ■ The Breast-works erected at, 246. 
 
 Bums', Sons of Liberty kindle a 
 
 bon-fire before, 207, 590. 
 
 Golden, Dr. CadwaUader, 109, 120, 180, 
 135, TwU, 163, 183, 190, 191, 194, 
 200, 225. 
 
 Dr. CadwaUader, Governor of 
 
 New York, 190. 
 
 Dr. CadwalMer, hung in eiSgy, 
 
 200. 
 
 Dr. CadwaUader, ex-Governor, ap- 
 pointed a third time Governor 
 of New York, 222. 
 
 — CadwaUader, D., at Erie Canal 
 
 celebration, 398. 
 
 Alexander, 300. 
 
 Cold Spring, 373. 
 
 Colgate, C. C, 608. 
 
 College Controversy, 179. 
 
 CoUect (Kolck), site of the Tombs, 13, 83, 
 91, 271. 
 
 Colonial Congress, 281. 
 
 Currency, authorization of a, by 
 
 the Govemnient, 230. 
 
 Colony sides with. England against 
 France, 159. 
 
 state of, described by John Pin- 
 
 tard, 255. 
 
 described by Dunlop, 255. 
 
 Columbian Order, or Tammany Society, 
 estabUshed, 338. 
 
 Columbia (King's) College, charter grant- 
 ed, 177. 
 
 people's opposition to grant of 
 
 charter, 177-179. 
 
 Colve, Capt., 67. 
 
 Capt., made Governor of New 
 
 Netherland, 67. 
 
 Commerce at a stand-stiU, 554. 
 
 Commission appointed by Gov. Stuyve- 
 sant to confer with Capt'. Scott, 
 61. 
 
 Committee of Seventy, 630-634. 
 
 " Commons," The, 91. 
 
 Common Council, 201, 333, 394, 459, 647. 
 
 Comparison between England and Am- 
 erica, 654. 
 
 Coney Island, 59, 04, 97. 
 
 Island, Dirck De Wolf com- 
 mences to make salt at, 59. 
 
 Conflagration of 1804, 344 
 
 terrible, of 1811, 366, 367, mote. 
 
 of 1835, 471-486. 
 
 Conflagration of 1835, accounts of tene- 
 ments consumed, 481, 482. 
 of 1845, 509, 510. 
 
 Congress, General, held at New York, 
 
 198. 
 of the Indians and Six Nations at 
 
 Albany, 127. 
 Conijnen Eyiant (Rabbit Island), 97. 
 Connecticut, 60, 197, 371. 
 Shore, 372. 
 
 ConnoUy, Richard B., 620, 627-630. 
 Kichard B., goes to jaU, 633. 
 
 Constable's House, 387. . 
 Constantinople, 513. 
 Continental Congress, 243, 373. 
 Army, 374 
 
 Contingent furnished by New York City 
 
 to defend the Union, 648. 
 Conway, Minister, 309. 
 Cook, Ransom, 350. 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore, himself and Percival 
 
 dine together at the City Hotel, 
 
 489. 
 Cooper Institute, 413, 630, 634 649. 
 
 Corlear's Hook, Woods, 339. 
 Combury, Lord, appointed Gfovemor of 
 
 New York, his character and 
 
 administration, 132. 
 Lord, superseded by Lovelace as 
 
 Governor of New York, 123. 
 detestation of, 133. 
 
 ComwaUis, Lord, 356. 
 
 Corporate Seal of New Amsterdam and 
 New York, 40. 
 
 Corporation Library, 131. 
 
 Corry, Wm., MS. letter to Sir Wm. John- 
 son, 181. 
 
 Cortelyou, Jacques, makes a Survey and 
 Map of New Amsterdam, 58. 
 
 Cortlandt Street, 107, 254, tioU, 375, 495. 
 
 Cosby, Gov. WiUiam, 133, 138, 162. 
 
 Costello, Michael, 633. 
 
 Cotton, John, clerk to General Congress, 
 198. 
 
 CouncQ held at Fort George, 135, Tu>te. 
 of Appointment, 344, Tiote, 647. 
 
 CourceUes, The ChevaUer de. Governor of 
 
 Canada, 109. 
 Cox, Rev. Dr., 463. 
 
 Jameson, Register, 510. 
 
 Coziue, John, 387, 341. 
 
 Cranberry, N. J., stages run to, 186. 
 
 Credit, BiUs of, or Paper Currency, issue 
 
 of objected to by Assembly, 161. 
 Creek Indians visit New York as the 
 
 guests of Tammany, 338. 
 Criminal Trial, Remarkable ; sensational 
 
 denouement, 343-344 
 Crisis, Great Financial, of 1857, 535-537. 
 Croaker, The, a poem, 490. 
 CroUiis, Clarkson, 399. 
 
INDES. 
 
 Jl'J 
 
 Crosby, Philip, 172. 
 
 Street, 467. 
 
 " Crossing tlie Ferry " at New York, 
 
 354. 
 Croton Aqueduct, 500, 507. 
 
 Aqueduct at Sing Sing, 501. 
 
 Dam, 506. 
 
 River, 500. 
 
 Crown, prerogative of, in appointment of 
 
 Colonial Treasurer, resisted, and 
 
 office declared elective, 146. 
 Crown Point, 133, 199, 314. 
 Cruger, John, Mayor of New York, 183, 
 
 319. 
 John, chosen Speaker of the new 
 
 Assembly, 231. 
 
 Nicholas, 284. 
 
 Orummashie Hill, 93. 
 Crystal Palace, 511. 
 
 — Palace, World's Eair at, 538. 
 
 Custis, G. W. P., 333. 
 
 Custom-Duty of 30 per cent, exacted, 
 
 53. 
 Custom House, 431. 
 Customs at Funerals, 81. 
 Cyane, sloop of war, 396. 
 
 Daly. Chief-Justice, C. P., 370, 359, 483, 
 538. 
 
 " Dam," The, 501. 
 
 Damen, Jan Jansen, 33. 
 
 Jan Jansen, appointed Kirke- 
 
 Meester, 33. 
 
 Dana, Chief Justice, 486. 
 
 Davis, Kobert, 376. 
 
 Dead-Rabbit Riot, 534. 
 
 Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 638. 
 
 Dean, Captain, 187. 
 
 Dean Richmond, a steamboat, 641. 
 
 Debtors' Prison, History of the old, 469. 
 
 Prison (Provost and Hall of Re- 
 cords), 367, 468. 
 
 Declaratory Act, 308, 211. 
 
 — ■ Act distasteful to the people, 313. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 246, 388. 
 
 Delafield, John, 318. 
 
 Delaware, 36, 41, 55. 
 
 — Expedition from Boston to the, 41. 
 
 Second Expedition, 41, 42. 
 
 Trade, Interference of New Eng- 
 land Adventurers with, 43. 
 
 DeKt, 59. 
 
 Delmonico's, 331. 
 
 Denmark, 43. 
 
 Denonville, Marquis, Governor of Canada, 
 113. 
 
 Design, Academv of 588, 589, 609. 
 
 Dey Street, 165,"463, 495. 636, 637. 
 
 De La Barre, Governor of Canada, 111. 
 
 DeBrehan, LaM.,309 
 
 De Fore tt, Henry, 275. 1 
 
 De Lancey, Bishop, 188. 
 
 Chief Justice and Gov., James, 
 
 139, 147, 153, 171, 177, 183, 190. 
 Chief Justice, James, his address 
 
 on behalf of Council, in reply to 
 
 the Governor, 157. 
 Chief Justice, James, assumes the 
 
 government, 173. 
 Chief Justice, James, again ap- 
 pointed Governor, 179. 
 Chief Justice, James, Death of, 
 
 182. 
 Chief Justice, James, Review of 
 
 his life, 183. 
 
 Mr. James, 324. 
 
 ~ Oliver, 181. 
 
 Stephen, 153. 
 
 De Landais, Pierre, 431, 434. 
 
 His tombstone at St. Patrick's 
 
 Cathedral, New York, 434. 
 De Meyer, Nicholas, 106. 
 Do Milt, Anthony, appointed Schout, 
 
 68. 
 De Peyster, Abraham, 148. 
 De Ruyter, Admiral, Michael, 54. 
 De VieUecour, Mr., 440, 454. 
 De Vries, Captain, 36, 38 33. 
 De Wint, J. P., 336. 
 De Witt, Capt. Oomelis, 14. 
 
 ■ — Rev. Dr. Thomas, ()o5. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, Dinner given to, by the 
 
 Press, 638. 
 Digby, Admiral, 371. 
 Dircksen, Adrian, 33. 
 Cornells, 39, 90. 
 
 Directors of West India Company, 23. 
 
 Discovery of Fish in United States rivers 
 and lakes by Le Moyne ; its 
 value to the State as a source of 
 revenue, 55. 
 
 Discussion on admission of the Bible 
 without comment into Public 
 Schools, 508, 509, and note. 
 
 -— ^— on the right of the British Parlia- 
 ment to tax America, 316. 
 
 Disosway, Gabriel P., narrative of fire of 
 1835,471-483. 
 
 Ditches cut across the island from North 
 to East rivers, 346. 
 
 Doctor's Mob, 234^236. 
 
 Dodge, WiUiam E., 637. 
 
 Domestic arrangements of early Dutch 
 settlers, 71-86. 
 
 Dominiok, Francis, 170. 
 
 Dougan, Governor, 87, 109, 110, 112, 113, 
 141, 181. 
 Governor, hia charter, 116. 
 Governor, his administration, 113. 
 
 "Don Jon," or Old Debtors' Prison, 
 changed into Hall of Records, 
 468. 
 
130 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dordrectt, 17. 
 
 Downing, the Oyster King, 477. 
 
 Draft for Soldiera to serve in war of 
 
 1863-5, 539. 
 " Draft Eiot," The, in 1863, 461, 589-563. 
 Draper, Simeon, 533. 
 Drawing School Association, 587. 
 Dresses, description of those worn at 
 
 "Washington Inauguration Ball, 
 
 310-314 
 Duane, James, Mayor of the city, 308, 
 
 339. 
 
 Mrs., 309. 
 
 ■ Street, 93, 333, 335, 539. 
 
 Dudley, Joseph, 119. 
 Duelling-ground, Weehawken, 348. 
 Duer, William A., 233, 350. 
 
 William 341. 
 
 Lady Kitty, 309. 
 
 Duke's County, ll4. 
 
 Diuica.a Sherman and Oo.'s Banking 
 
 House, 603. 
 Dnnlap, W., 134, 151, 241, 287. 
 Dualop, an artist, 801, 416, 433. 
 Dunmore, John, £arl of. Governor of 
 
 New York, 330, 233, 337. 
 John, Earl of, transferred to Vir- 
 ginia; Sir WiUiam Tryon his 
 
 successor, 331. 
 Duryea, Colonel, 525. 
 Dutchess County, 114 
 
 Comity, trouble in, 310. 
 
 County, Rioters visit Albany 
 
 County, and threaten to attack 
 
 New York, 311. 
 Dutch Ancestors, 75. 
 
 Church at the Battery, 78. 
 
 ■ Church, Middle (the present Post 
 
 Office), 354, 255, 516. 
 Church, North, (previously a pris- 
 on), in. WiUiam Street, 254, 
 
 593 
 
 Reformed Church, 77, 93, 135. 
 
 Company (East India), aboUsh 
 
 their monopoly, and open the 
 
 trade, 50. 
 Company, prohibition of employes 
 
 of, to trade with Indians, 33. 
 
 Customs, 72, 
 
 East India Company, 10. 
 
 Emigrants, 85. 
 
 Gtovemment investigate the af- 
 fairs of the Company, 46. 
 
 Matrons, 75. 
 
 ^ Titles, list of ancient, 86. 
 
 Traders, 17. 
 
 The, finally dispossessed of New 
 
 Netherland, 68. 
 West India Company, 17, 22, 50, 
 
 58, 147. 
 Duties on Imports and Exports, 63, 64 
 
 Eakly Hours observed by Washington's 
 
 Family, 315-317, 
 East Broadway, 539. 
 East Indies, 10, 14 
 TTidia. Company, their projects in 
 
 relation to Tea Trade, 338. 
 ■ India Company, agents forced to 
 
 resign, 339. 
 
 Jersey, 103. 
 
 • River, 13, 31, 24, 29, 53, 89, 90, 
 
 91, 93, 98, 103, 273, 344, 375, 
 
 436, 473, 474, 480. 
 
 River, Trade on, 52. 
 
 Eaton, Gov., of New Haven, protests 
 
 against Gov. Stuyvesant, 51. 
 Eddy, Thomas, 408. 
 Edgar, Mrs., 387, 309. 
 Edmond, Judge, J. W., 528. 
 Education, Board of, 507. 
 
 State of, in New York, 649. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, pastor of Wall Street 
 
 Church, 430, 655. 
 Eelkins, Jacob, agent at Eort Nassau, 16, 
 
 27, 28. 
 Eendragt, a ship, 33, 24 
 Egremont, Earl of, 192. 
 Election, contested, between Adolphe 
 
 Philipse and Gerrit Van Home, 
 
 140. 
 of Assemblymen, contest between 
 
 Church party and Dissenters, 
 
 319. 
 
 Riots, 10th April, 1834, 456^60. 
 
 Elevated RaUroad, 612. 
 
 Elizabethtown (Elizabeth), 103, 396, 
 
 297, 307. 
 EDicott, Mr., 408. 
 Elliott, Henry H., 466, rwU. 
 EUiott, an artist, 637. 
 Ehn Street, 457. 
 Emanuel College, 105, 
 Embury, PhiUp, 211. 
 Emigration Statistics, 651. 
 Eminent Personages in New York, Remi- 
 niscences of, 422-439. 
 Visitors at " Shakspeare Tavern," 
 
 488-490 
 Emmet, T. Addis, 368. 
 T. Addis, Dr., President of St-ate 
 
 Woman's Hospital, 537. 
 Empress, a ship, 187. 
 England, 24, 49, 53, 68. 
 English Language officially recognized 
 
 in New Amsterdam, 39. 
 design to monopolize the fur trade, 
 
 108-110. 
 Enhanced value of propertv in New 
 
 York, 605. 
 Episcopalian party in New York, 174. 
 Equitable Life Insurance Company, 603. 
 Erie Canal, 643. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 121 
 
 Erie Oanal, Tte, projected by De Witt 
 
 Clinton, 348. 
 Canal, Rejoicings in celebration 
 
 of completion of, 379, 389-401. . 
 ■ — Canal, Popularity of tlie proiect, 
 
 389. 
 — Canal, First Canal-boat proceeds 
 
 along entire line from Buffalo to 
 
 Sandy Hook, 890. 
 Oanal, Celebration in New Tork 
 
 City, 391-411. 
 Canal, Steam and Sailing Fleet, 
 
 Pageant, Ball, and Banquet, 
 
 395^11. 
 Canal, British Men-of-War salute 
 
 American Fleet, 400. 
 ~ — Canal, Land Procession, 401. 
 
 Canal, Civic Procession, 403. 
 
 Lake, 109. 
 
 Esopus (Kingston), 277. 
 
 Evarts, William M., is associated with 
 
 Charles O'Couor in prosecuting 
 
 the King, 639. 
 Everett, Edward, his cona«otiou with the 
 
 Greek Eebellion, 413. 
 Evertsen, Admiral, 67. 
 Exchange, Merchants', in Wall Street, 
 
 completed, 419. 
 Place (Garden Street), 88, 134, 
 
 419, 474, 509, 510. 
 
 Breast-works erected at the, 246. 
 
 — Street, 419. 
 
 Excise Duty imposed on wine, beer, 
 
 brandy, and beaver skins, 43, 44. 
 Exorbitant price of provisions, 370, 373, 
 
 373, note. 
 Exports, duty of 10 per cent, paid to 
 
 Company, 35. 
 Express from New York to Boston, 335. 
 Express Newspaper established by the 
 
 Brothers Hudson, 333. 
 Eyres, Nicholas, 126. 
 
 Faies, two Annual, instituted, 37. 
 
 Falmouth, 187: 
 
 Farm, No. 1, 24. 
 
 No. 3, 34 
 
 Fashions in New York from 1680 to 
 1690, 80. 
 
 Fathom, a, 38, note. 
 
 Faubourg St. Antoine, 433. 
 
 Faunce's Tavem. See Sam Franci^s 
 Tavern. 
 
 Faxton, Theodore S., 188. 
 
 Federal Constitution, adoption of, public- 
 ly announced, 383. 
 
 — Government, action of the, in the 
 
 " Draft Kiot," 560, 561. 
 
 . Hall, Wall Street, Inauguration 
 
 of Washington at, 301-303. 
 
 Fenton, Keuben E., 166. 
 
 Ferry, Difficulty in crossing, in the olden 
 time, 354. 
 
 — House, the, 88. 
 
 New Amsterdam and Long Is- 
 land, 40, Tiote. 
 
 Old (Peck Slip), 90. 
 
 Kegulalions, 40. 
 
 KegTilatious and Tolls, 358, note. 
 
 ■ Street, 13, 91, 165. 
 
 Festivals, peculiar and spcial, observed in 
 New York, etc., 69. 
 
 FSte given by the French Minister to 
 President Washington, 313. 
 
 Fifth Avenue, 336. 
 
 Avenue Hotel, 513, 514 
 
 Avenue, Reservoir in, 506. 
 
 Financial panic of 1857, 535-537. 
 
 crisis at New Netherland, 43. 
 
 — difficulties ; discontent of citizens, 
 
 65. 
 
 resources of New Tork City, 
 
 643. 
 Fire Companies, 583-586. 
 
 Department, History of the Old 
 
 and New, 563, 
 Department (Volunteer), organ- 
 ized, 563. 
 
 Department (Voluntary), estab- 
 
 Ushed, 581. 
 
 Department, reorganized, 583. 
 
 Engine, first in Aiaerica, 579. 
 
 Engines, 576-581. 
 
 "Firemen of the City of New York," 
 
 581. 
 Fires, the numerous, attributed to the 
 slaves, who were accused as in- 
 cendiaries, 331. 
 Fires in New Tork : 
 
 Conflagration of 1776, 350. 
 1796, 831. 
 1811, 366. 
 1835, 471-499. 
 1845, 509. 
 Bumiiig of Crystal Palace, 511, 328. 
 " " Bamum's Museum, 511. 
 " " Winter Garden Theatre, 
 
 511. 
 " " Academy of Music, 511. 
 " " Harper's Building, 511. 
 " " Colored Orphan Asylum 
 
 543. 
 « " Merchants' Exchange 
 (See Fire of 1835.) 
 First Free Grammar School founded by 
 
 the Corporation, 133. 
 Fish, Preserved, 483. 
 
 Market pulled down, 331. 
 
 Fisk, Col. James, Jun., assassinated, 634, 
 
 Fitch, John, the real inventor of the 
 steamboat, 349. 
 
123 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ritcli, John, History of the first applica- 
 tion of steam to river and sea 
 navigation, 349-351. 
 
 Pive Nations, 109, 110, 117, 130. 
 
 Nations in OonncU, 119. 
 
 Nations, Convention of, 110. 
 
 Points, 88. 
 
 ■ Points Eiot, 1835, described, 467. 
 
 Flame, a ship, 43. 
 
 Flathnsh, or Midwout, 60, 148. 
 
 Fleming, Major-General, 401. 
 
 Fleet of five ships despatched by Dutch 
 
 Government to regain New 
 
 Amsterdam, 67. 
 Fletcher, Col., Governor of New York, 
 
 117, 119, 120-123, 143, 174 
 
 Col., career o^ 130, 121. 
 
 Florida, 23. 
 
 Flour, method of manufacture, 76. 
 
 Eiot of 1837, 493-499. 
 
 Floyd, William, 263. 
 
 Flushing, 171. 
 
 Fly Market, 90, 236, 854. 
 
 Market SUp, 306. 
 
 " Flying Machine," The, 187. 
 Foreman, Joshua, a pioneer of the Erie 
 
 Canal, 390. 
 Forrest, Edwin, his connection with the 
 
 Astor-place Eiot, 530. 
 Fort Amsterdam, 63. 
 
 George, i Battery), 135,199, 214,273. 
 
 Hope, (South Kiver), 85. 
 
 Lee, 350. 
 
 ' Orange, <Albany), 28. 
 
 St. Frederick (Crown Point), 133. 
 
 Stanwix (Eome), 139, 344 
 
 ■ Ticondcroga, 21^ 593. 
 
 Washington, 250. 
 
 WiUiam Hendrick, 67. 
 
 French Minister, enthusiastic welcome 
 accorded him by the citizens 
 and U. S. Government, 321. 
 
 French's Hotel, 336. 
 
 Freshwater Pond (Collect or Kolck), 12, 
 13, 83, 91, 271. 
 
 Frieslaad, 42. 
 
 Frontenac, Louis de Euade, Count de. 
 Governor of Canada, 113, 120. 
 
 Front Street, 39, 344, 473, 481. 
 
 " Fulton's FoUy," origin of the term, 351. 
 
 Fulton Ferry, 357. 
 
 Market, 90. 
 
 Eobert, 349, 408. 
 
 Eobert, his claims disputed, 349. 
 
 Eobert, a steamship, 383. 
 
 Street, 166, 184, 487, 492. 
 
 Furmau, 98. 
 
 Fur Trade, improvement in, 41. 
 
 Gage, General, 30, 190, 199, 211, 212, 
 
 241. 
 Guiae, Hugh, 250, 275, 287, 319, 488 
 G^deu Street, 87, 88, 419, 472, 475 
 
 Street Church, 472-477. 
 
 Gardoqui, Don, Spanish Ambassador, 
 
 306. 
 
 " Fortune " and " Tiger," two ships, 14 
 Fourteenth Eegiment, or Govemor'a 
 
 Guard, 374, 375, note. 
 Fourth Avenue, 609. 
 France, 18, 289. 
 Francis, Dr. Jolm. W., 416. 
 
 Sam, tavern, 231, 298. 
 
 Frank] in, Benjamin, 456. 
 
 Square, 165, 300. 
 
 Statue.iaPrintiug-Hou^e Square, 
 
 unveiling of, 639 
 
 Street, 457. 
 
 ■ Lady, visits New York, as the 
 
 guest of the Hon. Henrv Griu- 
 
 nel, 538. 
 Tommy, one of the old firemen, 
 
 510. 
 French settlement on the St. Lawrence, 
 
 113. 
 EepubUo, arrival of G«uet, first 
 
 Minister of the new, to the 
 
 United States, 331. 
 
 Gaspe, a frigate, destroyed in the waters 
 of the Narragansctt, 239. 
 
 General Assembly, power of the, ac- 
 knowledged, 145. 
 Assembly, New, elected, 156. 
 
 Assembly, first meeting since com- 
 mencement of Stamp-Act Eiot. 
 203. 
 
 Assembly, Governor's openino- 
 
 speech, Oct. 27, 1,768, 215. 
 
 Assembly dissolved, and new one 
 
 convened, 218. 
 
 Congress held at New York, 198. 
 
 Genesee VaUey, 418. 
 
 Genet, Citizen, arrival at Charleston as 
 accredited Minister from the 
 French EepubUc to the U. S 
 321 
 
 George H., 166, 190. 647. 
 
 Ill, accession of, to the throne of 
 
 England, 190. 
 
 m., 208, 469. 
 
 Fort, (Battery), 135, 199, 314, 378. 
 
 Georgia, 213. 
 
 Geresolveert, a sheriff, 103. 
 
 Gerrit, a guide, 103. 
 
 Gerry, Mrs., 309. 
 
 Girondists, 445. 
 
 Gomez, Mordecai, 319. 
 
 Goodrich, S. G., (Peter Parley\ 371 489 
 490, note. 
 
 Good Hope, a yacht, 45. 
 
 Hope, Cape of, 17. 
 
 Gold Coast, 60. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 123 
 
 Gkild Street, 83, 90. 
 
 Golden Hill (John Street, between Gold 
 and Cliff Streets), 90, 106. 
 
 Hill, Battle of, 226, 238. 
 
 Shark, a ship, 55, 
 
 GouTemeur Lane, 344, 473. 
 
 G^uanes (Gowanua), 99. 
 
 (Gowanus) Oysters, 99. 
 
 Uovemor's Island, 19, 376. 
 
 Island, Fortifications thrown up 
 
 on, 246. 
 
 Government of the City of New York, 
 116. 
 
 appointments exasperate the peo- 
 ple, 193. 
 
 Grace Church, 435. 
 
 Graham, English historian, 314. 
 
 Grameroy Park, 93. 
 
 Grand Central Depot, 601. 
 
 Opera House, 607, 611, 613. 
 
 Street, 13, 13, 233, 467. 
 
 Street Dock, 356. 
 
 Gravesend, 59. 
 
 Gray's Hope "Walk, 327. 
 
 " Great Citizenship," The Charter of, 56. 
 
 Great Chicago Fire, 617, 618. 
 
 Chicago Fire, Liherality of Am- 
 erican Citizens to the Sufferers 
 by, 617, 618. 
 
 — Dock Street, 300. 
 
 excitement in New York City, 
 
 234. 
 
 Fixe in New York, in 1835, 323, 
 
 324. 471-499. 
 
 Mass Meeting in the Park of New 
 
 York City, to protest against 
 Loan BiU, 333. 
 
 Western, a steamship, 325. 
 
 Barren Island, 233. 
 
 Greek Rebellion, New York City gives 
 aid to, 411. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, goes to Albany to op- 
 pose the Now Charter, 613. 
 
 " Green Dragon," The, in the Bowery, 
 486. 
 
 Greene, Captain, 187. 
 
 Greene, General Nathaniel, detached to 
 put New York and Long Island 
 in a state of defence, 346. 
 
 — ■ General Nathaniel, urges the de- 
 struction of New York City, 
 248. 
 
 Street, 13, 842. 
 
 Green, WiUiam, 170. 
 
 Andrew H., appointed Comptrol- 
 ler, 627. 
 
 Greenland Company, 9. 
 
 Greenwich Street, 87, 154, 318, 331, 403, 
 613. 
 
 Village, 24, 104, 159, 377, 444, 465. 
 
 Greuville, George, 195. 
 
 Griffin's Wharf, 340. 
 Griffin, Mrs., 309. 
 Grinnell, Moses H., 637. 
 Heniy, 528. 
 
 Grounds of New York Hospital, elegant 
 stores now ereotf;d on site, 603. 
 
 Hackbhsack Eiveb, or Archter Cul, 
 
 187. 
 Hackney Coach, the first, 93, Twte. 
 Hague, the Dutch Government at the, 
 
 42,69. 
 Kev. Dr., 367. 
 
 Haldimand, General, commander-in-chief, 
 i>ice Gen. Gage, 341. 
 
 Hale, J. W., starts an express, 325. 
 
 " Half Moon," Hendrick Hudson's ex- 
 ploring vessel, 10, 14. 
 
 HaU Moon Fort, 115. 
 
 Halifax, Earl of, 191. 
 
 HaUfax, N. S., 216. 
 
 Hallams, The, actors at the John Street 
 Theatre, 338. 
 
 Halleok, Fitz-Greene, 375, 418, 489, 637. 
 
 Hall of Records, the old Debtors' Prison, 
 468. 
 
 Hall, A. Oakey, Mayor, 620. 
 
 Brigadier-General, 525. 
 
 Hamburgh, 512. 
 
 Hamersley Street, 14. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 187, 285, 345, 383, 
 
 303, 341, 343. 
 Alexander, Killed by Aaron Burr 
 
 in a duel, 345. 
 
 Alexander, 420, 513, 630. 
 
 Andrew, eminent American 
 
 lawyer, defends Zenger, 135. 
 Andrew, receives the freedom of 
 
 city in a gold box, 136. 
 Federal ship, carried in procession, 
 
 286. 
 Fort, 359. 
 
 Hamlet, a ship, 394. 
 Hanover Street, 419, 481, 482. 
 
 Square, 89, 93, 373, 336, 473. 
 
 Hardonbrook Club, 340. 
 
 Hardie, his account of the yellow fever, 
 
 377. 
 Hard Times of 1813, 370. 
 Hardy, Sir Charles, Governor of New 
 York, 179, 371. 
 Sir Charles, resigns, 179. 
 
 Harlem Heights, 333, 248. 
 
 Plains, 350. 
 
 River, 136, 504, 657. 
 
 River at High Bridge, 503. 
 
 Hamden, W. F., establishes the first Ex- 
 press Comjiany, 325. 
 
 Harper, an actor at John St. Theatre, 
 338. 
 
 Harper's Building, 511, 
 
124 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Harper's Weekly, its aid in exposing the 
 frauds of the Tammany King, 
 635. 
 
 Magazine, 516. 
 
 Harrison, Richard, 341. 
 
 Mr., 135. 
 
 Harsen Estate, 598. 
 
 Hart, Canal Commissioner, 408. 
 
 Eli, his store sacked by a mob, 495. 
 
 Hartford, 186. 
 
 The .^tna of. Insurance Com- 
 pany, 4T6. 
 Havemeyer, W. F., 630. 
 Hay, Lady, 1S3. 
 
 Hays, Thomas, correspondence "with au- 
 thor, 807. 
 Heath, General, 344 
 Helas, Colonel, his regiment called out in 
 
 the Flour Riots, 498. 
 Hell Gates, The, 83, 102, 266, 489. 
 
 Gates, Great and Little, described, 
 
 102. 
 Hendriek, Fort William, 67. 
 Henlopen, Cape, 51. 
 Henry, Patrick, 140. 
 Henry VH., 374. 
 Herald Building, 602. 
 Heere Straat (Broadway), 30. 
 Heerman's Orchard, 93. 
 Hewlett, David, 424 
 Hewletts, The, 424 
 Hicks, Whitehead, 240. 
 High Bridge, 502, 504. 
 Highlands, Defence of, 345. 
 Hillsborough, Earl of, his letter to Gov- 
 ernor Moore, 217. 
 Hineman, Colonel, 410. 
 Historical Society of New York, 234, 268, 
 386, 639. 
 
 Society of New York founded, 
 
 345. 
 
 Society of Long Island, 93. 
 
 — Magazine, 270, 605. 
 
 Hitchcock, Professor, 413. 
 Hoboken Ferry, 355, 375. 
 
 Ferry-boat, 355, 376. 
 
 Hodgkinson, Thomas, landlord of Shaks- 
 peare Tavern, 487. 
 
 John, lessee of the Park Theatre, 
 
 488. 
 Hoffman, Josiah Ogden, 287, 341, 363 
 
 Governor, 533, 616. 
 
 Holidays and National Festivals, descrip- 
 tion of, 69, 70, 71. 
 Holland, U, 15, 20, 21, 30, 57, 59, 97, 289. 
 
 citizens of, 56. 
 
 and Boston (Export Trade be- 
 tween), 30. 
 
 North, 17. 
 
 Hollanders, 16. 
 
 " HoUandia" (WaU Street), 92. 
 
 Holt, John, an editor, 276. 
 
 " Honest John Laing," 480. 
 
 Hoofden (Headlands), 97. 
 
 Hook and Ladder Companies, 686. 
 
 Hope, Fort, 35. 
 
 Horse and Cart Lane, 593, Twte. 
 
 Horsmanden, Daniel, Chief Justice, 135, 
 
 144 152, 163, 194 
 Hosaok, Doctor, 234 358, 369, 386, 415. 
 Hospital, New York City, 211. 
 
 New York City, founded, 231. 
 
 New York City, destroyed, 598, 
 
 603. 
 State Woman's, 537. 
 
 Hostility between the soldiers and the 
 
 people, 313. 
 Hotel, Fifth Avenue, 518, 514 
 Hotham, Admiral, 247. 
 House of Commons, 246. 
 
 of Representatives, convened, 292. 
 
 Depot 
 John's 
 
 Hoven, 14 
 
 Howard, Lord, 110. 
 
 Howe, Lord, arrives with reinforcements 
 
 off Sandy Hook, 247. 
 Howe, Dr. Samuel G., 412. 
 Hubbard, Rev. Mr., 122. 
 Hudson, Hendriek, 9, 10, 14 
 
 Brothers, estaiilish the first News 
 
 Room, 323. 
 River, 14 78, 373. 
 River Railroad Freight 
 
 erected on site of St. 
 
 Park, 12, 598 
 Square, 232. 
 shore of the, 439. 
 Huguenots, 23. 
 
 Huggins, the Barber-Author, 453. 
 Hughes, Archbishop, .508. 
 Archbishop, addresses the rioters, 
 
 553. 
 Hughson, John, an alleged accomplice in 
 
 the Negro Plot, 151, 
 Human remains in Old North Dutch 
 
 Church graveyard removed to 
 
 Greenwood Cemetery, 594 
 Hume, the historian, 150. 
 Humphries, Colonel, 309. 
 Hunter, Governor, 123, 136, 152, 162. 
 
 Fort, 139. 
 
 Huntington, an artist, 637. 
 
 Husking Bees, 69. 
 
 Hutchinson, Chief Justice, 192, 237. 
 
 Ibr.\him Pasha oppresses the Greeks, 
 
 412. 
 Ides, Vronwtje, 270. 
 Illinois, 108. 
 
 Trade, 108. 
 
 Illuminations in New York, 305-307. 
 Inauguration Ball (Washington), 283, 
 307. • 
 
INDEX. 
 
 125 
 
 Incleberg (Beacon or Murray Hill), 93. 
 
 Independent Battery, The, 246. 
 
 Independent Gazette, 277. 
 
 Independent Beflector, The, establiahed, 
 175. 
 
 India, Channel to, 14. 
 
 Indian Trade, 109, 215. 
 
 War, 26, note. 
 
 Indians, 14, 16, 20, 23. 
 
 War •with, occasioned by tax 
 
 levied on corn, furs, etc., Bup- 
 pUed by them, 30, 87. 
 
 New Xluj^land, enter into competi- 
 tion "with Long Island Mon- 
 tauks, 88. 
 
 — Treaty -with, 47. 
 
 Rarltan, employed as miners, 48. 
 
 invade Canada, 112. 
 
 trade -with, revived, 126, 137. 
 
 — the Stockbridge, collisions be- 
 tween them and the citizens of 
 Dutchess county, 210. 
 
 Industrial status of New York, facts and 
 figures relating to, 645. 
 
 Ijaglis, Eev. Dr. Charles, 253. 
 
 Ingoldesby, Major Richard, 119. 
 
 Inman, Henry, 416, 637. 
 
 John, 490. 
 
 Institution for Deaf and Dumb, 688, 639. 
 
 for Deaf and Dumb, Col. W. L. 
 
 Stone, one of its earliest and 
 most zealous promoters, 638, 
 note. 
 
 Insurance Patrols, 482. 
 
 Iroquois, 16. 
 
 Indians and the French, war be- 
 tween, 111. 
 
 Irish and American mobs in the Five 
 Points Kiot, 4G8. 
 
 Irving House, 511. 
 
 Judge, 483. 
 
 Jackson, Gen. Andrew, BaU given in his 
 honor at the City Hotel, 374, 
 375. 
 
 Jacques, Moses, 495. 
 
 Jamaica, 61, 122, 159. 
 
 James Kiver, Virginia, 11. 
 
 Street, 12, 13. 
 
 Duke of York and Albany, 60, 
 
 68, 106, 108. 
 
 n., 118, 122, 647. 
 
 - Major, 201, 209. 
 
 Jan, Mr., 97. 
 Japanese Embassy, reception of, 538. 
 Jarvis, John Wesley, 453. 
 Jauncey, James, 219. 
 Jav, John, eminent American lawyer, 
 233, 235, 383, 300, 329, 341. 
 
 Peter A., 362. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 329, 422, 441. 
 
 Jemison, an interpreter, 416. 
 
 Jenny Lind visits United States, 528. 
 
 Jersey, New, 11. 
 
 Blues, 488. 
 
 Prison ship, 355. 
 
 Jesuits, 110. 
 Jews, 23, 041. 
 Jewish Cemetery, 91, 346. 
 John Street, 83, 89, 165, 211, 336, 336, 
 838, 420. 
 Street,Theater in, 338. 
 
 Johnson, Sir John, 308. 
 
 Rev. Samuel, first President of 
 
 Columbia College, 177. 
 Colonel Sir Wilham, 165, 177, 
 
 181, 183, 200, 206, 318, 331, 
 
 230. 
 Mrs. Isidore, affecting incident of, 
 
 334. 
 Joinville, Prince de, 538. 
 Jonoaire, Father, 138. 
 Jones, Mr., member of Colonial Assembly, 
 
 194. 
 
 Paul, 431. 
 
 Samuel, the elder, an eminent 
 
 American lawyer, 341. 
 Jones's Wood, 489. 
 Joris, Adriaen, 20. 
 Journal of Commerce, 281. 335, 327. 
 of Commerce IBuildiug, 271. 
 
 Judson, E. Z. C. (Ned Buntline), 522. 
 
 Kalb, Baron de, 187. 
 Kats, Old, 453. 
 
 Eeith, Grovernyr William, 127. 
 Kennedy House (No. 1 Broadway), 
 153, 270. 
 
 Capt. Archibald, 158, 371. 
 
 Robert L., 608. 
 
 Kensett, an artist, 637. 
 
 Kerstrydt (Christmas), 69. 
 
 Kewley, Rev. John, 170. 
 
 Key of Kalmar, a ship, 43, 
 
 Kidd, Captain, the Pirate, 74. 
 
 Captain, arrested, and sent to 
 
 England for trial, 133. 
 Kieft, Governor, WiUiam, 26, 33, 33, 39. 
 Governor, William, makes a levy 
 
 on Van Rensselaer's goods, 43. 
 Governor, William, discovers war 
 
 material in the cargo, 43. 
 Governor, William, embarks for 
 
 Holland, and is lost at sea, 48. 
 Kil von Kol, 97. 
 " KUl," The, 501. 
 King's Bridge, 131, 349. 
 
 Chapel, 107. 
 
 College, 177, 241, 251. 
 
 County, 114. 
 
 Birthday celebration, 1766., 208. 
 
 Road, 339. 
 
126 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 King's Arms Tavern, 30, noie. 
 
 King Street, 237. 
 
 William, in. 131. 
 
 Kip, Hendricksen, one of tte nine men, 
 wishes to depose Kieft, 30, 56. 
 
 • Mrs., 14S. 
 
 Et. ReV. Bishop, 657. 
 
 Kirke-Meesters, 34 
 
 Kissam, Mr., 219. 
 
 " Ki59ing Bridge," The, 83. 
 
 Knight, Miss S., travels on horseback 
 from Boston to 'New York ; diary 
 of her joTirney, 125, 126. 
 
 Knox, General, 300, 811, 431. 
 
 Kochs, Peter, 153, 270. 
 
 Mrs. 152, 270. 
 
 Koeck, bell-ringer, 77. 
 
 " Kolck," see CoUect. 
 
 Kolck Hook, 91. 
 
 Koopman, 30. 
 
 Koom, Nicholas, appointed " Wacht- 
 Mecster," at Beeren Island, 45. 
 
 Krigier, Oapt. Martin, 30, 57, 567. 
 
 Krigier's Tavern, 30. 
 
 — Tavern, Demolition of, 30, note. 
 
 Kuyter, Damcn, Kieft, and De Vries, ap- 
 pointed Kirke-Meesters, 33. 
 
 Lajbadists visit New York and Long Is- 
 land ; their jonmal, 93-105. 
 
 Lafayette Amphitheatre, Laurens Street, 
 407. 
 
 Fort, 383. 
 
 General, 338. 
 
 General, reception of, and his son, 
 
 at New York, 379-889. 
 
 General, visit vaiioua national in- 
 stitutions, 886-889. 
 
 General, Departure for Boston and 
 
 Philadelphia, 387, 388. 
 
 General, his death, 459. 
 
 General, Funeral honors paid him. 
 
 by the authorities and citizens, 
 459. 
 
 Place, Riot at, 537. 
 
 Laight, Edward W., 170. 
 
 "William, 287, 318. 
 
 Street, 463. 
 
 Laing, John, " Honest John Laing," 
 editor of Mew York Gazette, 4S0. 
 
 Lake's Hermife^e, 339. 
 
 Lake Champlain, 132. 
 
 near John and Gold Streets, 83. 
 
 Lamb, Anthony, 580. 
 
 — John, 201, 324, 240, 345, 510. 
 
 Landais, Pierre de, 431-484. 
 
 Landon, M. D., describes election-day 
 frauds, 032. 
 
 Samuel, 287. 
 
 Land-gate, 89. 
 
 Laugdon, John, 392. 
 
 Langdon, Mrs., 309. 
 
 LanBing, Chief Justice, his charge at Levi 
 
 Weeks' trial, 341-343. 
 Latimer, Hugh, 137. 
 Laud, Archbishop, 137. 
 Laughton, Jack, 301. 
 Laurence, Isaac, 170. 
 Lawrence, Cornelius W., Mayor, 464, 460. 
 — — ^ Eugene, his description of New 
 
 York during British occupation, 
 
 268, note. 
 La Monta,7ne, Dr. Johannes, a member of 
 
 Kieft's Council, 33, 56. 
 La Salle, Robert, Cavalier de, 108, 109. 
 Leake, John, builder of Shakespeare 
 
 Tavern, 487. 
 L'Enfant, M., 801. 
 Lee, Richard Henry, 214, 293. 
 
 General Arthur, 246. 
 
 Richard Bland, 292. 
 
 Mayor, 458. 
 
 Fort, the retreat of Washington, 
 
 250. 
 Lee's Dragoons, 301. 
 Le Moyne, a Jesuit, discovers fish in 
 
 American- Lakes, 55. 
 Leisler, ex-Govenior, executed for trea- 
 son, 118, 141. 
 Lenni Lenape Indians, 11. 
 Leonard Street, 132, 840, 463, 604. 
 Lewis, Zachariah, proprietor of the 
 
 Minerca, alters its title to the 
 
 Commercial Advertiser, 331. 
 Lewis, Morgan, 299. 
 Lexington, Battle of, 228, 244 
 Libel Suit, first great, tried in the city, 
 
 134 
 Lichenstein, Max Jahn, 435, 438. 
 Light-house erected at Sandy Hook, 184. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, statue of, 514. 
 ^~— Abraham, funeral obsequies of, 
 
 657. 
 Lind, Jenny, visits New York, 528. 
 Liquor, Sale of, prohibitory laws passed, 
 
 49. 
 Lispenard Meadows, 335, 340. 
 Street, 340, 603. 
 
 Literature and Art in New York, 636, 
 637. 
 
 Little Queen Street, 330. 
 
 Livingston, Chancellor, 800, 349, 390, 441. 
 
 Brockholst, eminent American 
 
 lawyer, 341, 843. 
 
 Doctor, 421. 
 
 James, 177. 
 
 Peter van Burgh, delivers con- 
 gratulatory address to Washing- 
 ton, 244 
 
 Robert, 177. 
 
 Robert R., 205, 283, 408, 445. 
 
 William, 135, 174, 177, 194, 230. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 127 
 
 Livingston, Janet, wife of Gren. Mont- 
 gomery, 374, TWte. 
 
 London, 96. 
 
 Fires, 612. 
 
 Longueil, Baron de, 128. 
 
 Long Island, its potteries, 59. 
 
 ■ — Island Ferry, 39. 
 
 Island, its general condition, 95, 
 
 233, 246, 376, 474. 
 
 Island, Battle of, 247. 
 
 ■ Island, fortifications tkrown up on, 
 
 246. 
 
 Island Sound, 873, 875. 
 
 'Longshore men and Stevedores, Strike 
 among the, 486. 
 
 Loockermans, Oapt. G-overt, refuses to 
 strike his flag, 45. 
 
 Lords of Trade, 210. 
 
 Loudon, Lord, commander-in-chief of 
 British army in America, ar- 
 rives in New York, 181. 
 
 Lord, his outrage upon the Char- 
 ter of Liberties, 181, 182. 
 
 Lovelace, Grovenior, succeeding Gov. 
 NichoUs, 66, 107, 123, 141. 
 
 Lower Bay, 186. 
 
 Lowndes, Justice, 464. 
 
 Lownds, Poppy, the old Jailer of the 
 Debtors' Prison, 468. 
 
 Low, Major, 401. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 109. 
 
 Ludlow, Rev. Mr., 462, 463. 
 
 E. H., 605. 
 
 Street JaU, 633. 
 
 Lutheran Chapel, 252. 
 
 Lyons, N. T., 391. 
 
 McBuKNET, Richard, 607. 
 McCaffrey, Doctor, killed, 468. 
 McDougal Street, 463, 463. 
 McDougaU, Captain, 327. 
 McDougall's Battery, 246. 
 MoEvers, Stamp Distributor, 199. 
 McG-ilvery, Alexander, a half breed, 
 
 338. 
 McG-owan's Pass, 530. 
 Maagde Paatje (Maiden Lane), 89, note 
 Macready, W. 0., the tragedian, his visit 
 
 to New York, 530. 
 
 Eiot, 520. 
 
 Madison, James, 283, 314, 865. 
 
 — — James, Declares war against 
 
 Great Britain, 367. 
 
 Square, 335, 643. 
 
 Madisonian Democracy, 365. 
 
 Magellan Straits, 17. 
 
 Magnetic Telegraph, 507. 
 
 Maiden Lane (Maiden's VaUey), 83, 
 
 474. 
 Mails, early, 186. 
 Maine Coast, 54. 
 
 Manhattan and Long Islands, description 
 of, 95, 98. 
 
 Island, or New York, 9, 10, 15, 16, 
 
 30, 504. 
 
 " Manhattan Seawant," 39. 
 
 Manhattan Town, Improvements in, 50. 
 
 Well, Miss Sand's body found in, 
 
 343. 
 
 Mauhattanville, 249, 504, 505. 
 
 Mauliasset, 168. 
 
 Manners and Customs and social condi- 
 tion of New York under Dutch 
 rule, 69. 
 
 Manning, Captain John, 67. 
 
 Manor of Polham, 148. 
 
 Map and Survey of New Netherland 
 made, 58. 
 
 Marcellus, Rev. Mr., 378. 
 
 Marine Society in Procession, 287, 394. 
 
 Market Days and Fairs, Regulation of, 
 52. 
 
 a New, established in Broad 
 
 Street, 124 
 
 Market-place for inhabitants of Long Is- 
 land, etc., 88. 
 
 Market boats rowed by women, 88. 
 
 Marketfleld Street, 30, 403, 509. 
 
 Martivale, Guleotti, 379. 
 
 Maryland, 110. 
 
 Mary, Queen, 118. 
 
 Massachusetts, 31, 35, 121, 216. 
 
 Masonic Fraternity, 319, 320. 
 
 Hall, 419. 
 
 Mason, Rev. Dr. John M., 361-365, 641. 
 
 Mathias, Mr., 416. 
 
 Mauritius River (North River), 14, 37. 
 
 Max-Lichenstein, Jan, 435, 438. 
 
 Maxwell, WiUiam, 387. 
 
 Hugh, his connection with the 
 
 Trinity Church Riot, 301, 
 
 May Flower, a ship, 90. 
 
 Medical School established, 211. 
 
 Megapolensis, Domine Johannes, 57. 
 
 Melyn, Comelis, a patroon in Staten Is- 
 land, 48. 
 
 Mercer, Street, 603. 
 
 Merchants' Coffee-house, 199, 207, 319, 
 331, 318. 
 Exchange Bank, 603, 603. 
 
 —Exchange, The first, 166. 
 
 Exchange, 331, 332, 336, 419, 507. 
 
 Exchange, bm-ningof , 474, 476, 483. 
 
 Merchant Street, 471. 
 Mermaid Tavern, 488. 
 Mersereau, John, runs a stage to Phila- 
 delphia, 187. 
 Methodist Denomination established, 311, 
 
 420. 
 Metropolitan Fair, Great, 638. 
 Bank, Broadway, 603. 
 
 Meyer, Nicholas, 106. 
 
128 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Meyer, Adolph, 255. 
 
 Mexican War, 516. 
 
 Miamia, 111. 
 
 Middlebvirg, 17. 
 
 Middle Dutcli Churcli, 254, 516. 
 
 Midwout (Tlatbuali), 60. 
 
 MifBin, General, 290. 
 
 Milbuxn, Leisler's son-in-law, 118, 141. 
 
 Militia, The, services to the city, 459. 
 
 MUler, Doctor Samuel, 642. 
 
 Milligan, Joirn, 172. 
 
 MUlington, Eev. John, 131. 
 
 Milnor, Eev. Dr., 170. 
 
 Milton, 654 
 
 Minetta Brook, 93. 
 
 Ming, Jr., Alexander, incites a riot, 494. 
 
 Minuit, Peter, appointed Director-General 
 
 of New Netherland, 20, 23, 92. 
 Mitchell, Doctor, povira the waters of 
 
 various foreign rivers into the 
 
 Atlantic Ocean, 398. 
 Mohawlis, or Maquas, the Iroquois tribe 
 
 of, 120, 166. 
 Mohawk Eiver, 189. 
 
 VaUey, 189. 
 
 Monckton, General, 191, 202. 
 
 Montauks, The, 38. 
 
 Montgomery, Gjovemor John, 130, 162. 
 
 General Eichard, 244, 373. 
 
 Montgomery's Monument, 374. 
 Montgomery "Ward, 167. 
 Montgomery's Charter, 647. 
 Montgomery, Mrs. Janet, 309, 373. 
 Montreal, 109, 112, 127, 190. 
 Montaigne's Tavern, 236. 
 Moore Street, 87, 88. 
 
 Eev. Eichard, 168. 
 
 Bishop, 415. 
 
 _ Colonel, 167. 
 
 Tom, 423. 
 
 Captain, as Columbus in the Erie 
 
 Cajial celebration, 284. 
 ■ Sir Henry, Governor, 203, 206, 
 
 207, 208, 209, 212, 217, 221. 
 Sir Henry, death of, 222 ; throws 
 
 a gloom over the whole colony, 
 
 230, 243, 276. 
 Moravian Chapel built, 165. 
 Moustier, Count, 806, 441. 
 Morocco, 289. 
 Morris, Colonel Eoger, 250. 
 
 Eobert, 307. 
 
 Chief Justice, 421. 
 
 Gouvemeur, 386, 421. 
 
 Governor, 183. 
 
 Street, 24, 93. 
 
 Morse, John, 323. 
 
 ~ S. F. B., 587. 
 
 — S. IT. B., erection of statue of, in 
 
 Central Park, 639. 
 Morton, Major, 299, 381, 458. 
 
 Mott, Gershom, 201. 
 
 Doctor, 234. 
 
 Mount Vernon Gardens, 340. 
 Vernon, 293. 
 
 Moyne, Father Simon C., discovers sail 
 at SyTa<;use,54. 
 
 Muhlenburgh, F. Aug, 292. 
 
 Mulberry Street, 529. 
 
 Municipal Election in New York City, 
 531-535. 
 
 Privileges, as established in Ger- 
 many and Holland, introduced 
 into New Amsterdam by Gov- 
 ernor Stuyvesant, 56. 
 
 Frauds, Eemonstrance of Citizens 
 
 in relation to, 618. 
 
 MunseU, Joel, 256. 
 
 Murphy, Hon. Henry C, For. Corres- 
 ponding Sec. Long Island His- 
 torical Society, 93, 94. 
 
 Murray HiU, Distributing Eeservoir, 506. 
 
 Street, 836, 612. 
 
 Colonel J. B., 375. 
 
 Music, Academy of, 511. 
 
 Mutiny Act, 205, 311, 218, 338. 
 
 Mutz, Katey, keeps a favorite pla/ie of 
 
 resort, 339. 
 Myers, Colonel T. Bailey, 586. 
 Mrs. T. Bailey, 466. 
 
 Naiad Hose Company, 511. 
 
 Nancy, a ship, 243. 
 
 Naufan, Liutenant Governor, 122. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 248. 
 
 Narrows, The, 186. 
 
 Nassau, Fort (Albany', 16. 
 
 Street, 115, 132, 311, 336, 487. 
 
 Natalie, a ward of Aaron Burr, 416. 
 
 National Guard (Seventh Eegiment), 394, 
 458, 482, 498. 
 
 Academy of the Arts of Design, 
 
 588, 589. 
 
 Nautical Society, 894. 
 
 Naval War between England and Hol- 
 land; effect on New Netherland, 
 54 
 
 Navy Yard, 480 ; Lafayette visits, 386. 
 
 Negro Riot of 1712, 272. 
 
 Plot (Eiot) of 1741, 147-153. 
 
 Negroes the special object of the fury of 
 the mob durins: the draft riot 
 of 1863, 552, 550, 559. 
 
 Nichol, Mr., 177. 
 
 Nieuwenhuysen,Domine"WiIhelmusVan 
 
 96. 
 Neversink HiUs, 48, 97. 
 Newark, 244, 275. 
 Newburgh, 352. 
 Newfoundland, 10, 17, 23. 
 Newspapers : 
 
 New York Gazette, 133, 136, 274,838. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 129 
 
 2fewspapers : 
 
 Boston Newsletter, 374. 
 
 New York "Weekly Journal, 133, 274. 
 
 New York Evening Post, 275, 276. 
 
 New York Mercury, 275. 
 
 New York Gazette and Weekly Mer- 
 cury, 275. 
 
 New York Chrouiolo, 276. 
 
 New York Paoquet, 276. 
 
 New York Journal and General 
 Advertiser, 376, 330. 
 
 Now York Royal Gazette, 378. 
 
 Parker's Gazette, 376. 
 
 Independent Gazette, 277. 
 
 Eivington's Gazette, 277. 
 
 New York Commercial Advertiser, 
 382, 378, 388, 487. 
 
 New York Express, 833. 
 
 New York American, 875. 
 
 British Evening Post, 227. 
 
 Columbia, 855. 
 
 New York Journal of Commerce, 
 231, 327. 
 
 Minerva, 331. 
 
 "Weekly Post Boy, 167. 
 
 Independent Reflector, 175 
 
 Universal Register, 250. 
 
 New York Times, 619. 
 
 New York "World, account of New 
 York in 1748, 166-169. 
 New Amsterdam, 22, 26, 28, 34, 50, 53, 
 59, 73, 76, 80, 94, 148. 
 
 Brunswick, 186. 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 332. 
 New Catherine SUp, 356. 
 
 — Democracy, 613. 
 
 England, 30, 35, 49. 
 
 ■ England Indians, "War with, 43. 
 
 England Puritans, 31. 
 
 Englanders, 38, 41, 43. 
 
 Hampshire Grants, 341. 
 
 Hampshire, Government of, 129. 
 
 197. 
 
 Harlem (New York Citj), 102. 
 
 Haven, 50, 131, 186. 
 
 Jail Riot, see Riots. 
 
 ^ Jersey, 103, 122, 180, 144, 474. 
 
 Netherland, 9, 17, 21, 32, 31, 88, 
 
 46, 59, 62, 63, 64, 147. 
 Netherland, the names of two 
 
 ships ; first ship, 18, 19 ; second 
 
 ship, 32. 
 
 Netherland Company, 16. 
 
 Street, 509. 
 
 • Utrecht, 61, 148. 
 
 New York, Introduction of Gas and 
 Croton "Water, 643. 
 
 York, Real and Personal Estate, 
 
 estimate of, according to Census 
 of 1871, 643-645. 
 
 York Merchant Shipping and Ton- 
 nage, Passenger vessels, etc., 645. 
 
 York Post-Offioe Returns, 646. 
 
 York Industrial Population, an- 
 alysis, 646. 
 
 York Charters, various, of the 
 
 City; their provisions, 647. 
 
 York, State of Education, Li- 
 braries and ReaduiG; Rooms, 
 649. 
 
 York, Emigration Statistics, 651. 
 
 York, Review of its condition 
 
 generally, 649-658. 
 
 York, "Draft Riot" in, 539-563. 
 
 York, Subsequent Fires, not 
 
 hitherto enumerated, 511. 
 
 York, Comparison with other 
 
 cities, as to number and extent 
 of conflagrations, 512. 
 
 York Bay, 343 ; frozen over, 354, 
 
 381. 
 
 York County, 114. 
 
 York Pulpit, 641. 
 
 • York University, 466, 507. 
 
 York Isknd, 10, 11, 13. 
 
 York Island, topography, 11. 
 
 York Harbor put in state of de- 
 fence, 346. 
 
 York Coffee-House, 404. 
 
 York, Government of, 129. 
 
 York Congress, 244. 
 
 York, New Post-Office, 603. 
 
 York Hospital, 311, 331, 598. 
 
 York Life Assurance Company's 
 
 Building, 603. 
 
 York Society Library founded, 
 
 345. 
 York, Gas introduced into, 507. 
 
 Year's Day, 70, 317. 
 
 York and Albany Steamers, 352, 
 
 York, Ancient and Modem, His- 
 tory of City and Government, 
 37, 67, 112, 246, 639-658. 
 
 York, Interior and social lifeof, 356. 
 
 Niagara, 109, 138, 417. 
 
 Nicholl, "WilUam, 203. 
 
 Nicholson, Erancis, Lieutenant-Governor 
 of New York and Commissioner, 
 386. 
 
 NicoUs, Colonel Richard, appointed De- 
 puty-Governor for the Duke of 
 York, 66, 107. 
 
 Nieuw Jar (New "Tear), 70. 
 
 Night "Watch, a regular, established in 
 New York City, 374^76. 
 
 Niles's Register, 486. 
 
 Ninth National Bank, 603. 
 
 Noah, Major Mordecai M., 403. 
 
 North Carolina, 231. 
 
 Carolina, a ship, 297, 306. 
 
 Dutch Church, in William Street, 
 
 previously a prison, 254. 
 
130 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 North Eirer, 14, 53, 93, 103, 335, 
 
 353, 375. 
 Eiver Steamboat, 353, note, and 
 
 353. 
 aud South. Kivers, Trade on, 53, 
 
 53. 
 Nott, Rev. Dr., 137. 
 Number One (1) Broadway (Kennedy 
 
 House), 154, 370, 271. 
 Nutten's i Governor's) Island, 19. 
 
 Oates, Titus, 151. 
 
 O'Brien, Sheriff, 613. 
 
 O'Brien, Colonel, murdered by the mob, 
 
 550. 
 O'ConneU Guards, 467. 
 O'Conor, Charles, selected to prosecute 
 
 the Tammany Ring, 639. 
 O' CaUaghan, Doctor E. B., 105, 145. 
 Ogden, Lewis, 331. 
 
 David B., 3G3. 
 
 John and Richard, 34. 
 
 Ogilvie, Rev. John, 168. 
 
 Old Brick Church, The, 590, 591. 
 
 Democracy, The, 613. 
 
 Ferry, see Peck Slip. 
 
 North Dutch Church, cor. Fulton 
 
 and William Streets, 593, 594, 
 
 note. 
 
 Shakespeare Tavern, 487, 488. 
 
 Sugar House, 253. 
 
 SUp, 346, 473, 481. 
 
 Tom's Chop House, 364. 
 
 Warren Mansion, The, 590. 
 
 Wreck Brook, 91. 
 
 Oliver, Andrew, 196. 
 
 ■ Street, 91. 
 
 Onderdonck, John, 170. 
 Oneida Lake, 139. 
 
 55. 
 
 Oneidaa, 108. 
 
 Onondagas, 108, 134 
 
 Ouontio, Indian name of the Grovemors 
 
 of Canada, 111. 
 Ontario, 55. 
 
 Lake, 109. 
 
 Opdyke, Mayor, 543. 
 
 Opera House, Astor Place, 531, 523. 
 
 Orange County, 114, 136. 
 
 Fort (Albany), 28, 35, 45, 95. 
 
 Prince of, 37, 45, 616. 
 
 Riot, 616, 617. 
 
 Order of Jesus, members of, 108. 
 Oriental Stove Works, now occupying 
 
 the former site of St. George's 
 
 Chapel, 170. 
 Osborne, Sir Danvors, 164, 171. 
 Osgood, Rev. Dr., 348, 639. 
 Oswego, 127, 128, 130, 139. 
 Otis, James, 193, 193, 196, 243. 
 Samuel A., 393. 
 
 Otsego, Lake, 156. 
 Owl's KjU, 91. 
 
 Oyster Bay, on Long Island, the Umit of 
 Dutch Settlements, 148. 
 
 Paas (Passion Week), 70. 
 
 Pacific Ocean, 17. 
 
 Page, William, artist, 637. 
 
 Palatines, 133. 
 
 Pahnyra, N. Y., 391. 
 
 Park Theater, 333, 405, 488. 
 
 Park and other Banks, 603, 603. 
 
 Place, 311, 539. 
 
 City Hall, 498. 
 
 St. John's, 13. 
 
 Parker, Jason, drives a mail stage, 188. 
 James, an editor, 136. 
 
 Parker's Gazette, 376. 
 
 Passaic River, 187. 
 
 Passage Place, 89. 
 
 Passports, prohibition against travelling 
 
 without, 35. 
 Patterson, Greneral, escorts ilrs. General 
 
 Eiedesel to a baU, 360 ; sails for 
 
 England, 365. 
 Partition Street (Fulton), 184 
 Patroons, 21, 22, 23, 34, 43. 
 Patrooneries, 31. 
 Paulding, James K., 56, 489. 
 Paulus Hook (Jersey City) and New York 
 
 i'erry established, 185. 
 
 — : Hook (Jersey City), 185, 186, 346. 
 
 Peace of 1667, 108. 
 
 of 1783, 288. 
 
 Peale's Museum, 404. 
 
 Pearl Street, 24, 30, 88, 89, 91, 92, 98, 
 
 115, 165, 233, 384, 399, 318, 331, 
 
 331, 336, 403, 419, 467, 472. 
 Street opened through the New 
 
 York Hospital grounds, 599. 
 Peet, Harvey P., letter of, to the author. 
 
 688. 
 Peck Slip, 39, 30, 90, 165, 346. 
 Peckham, Wheeler H, 629. 
 Peloponnesus, The, 413. 
 Peltry, export duty on, increased, 50. 
 Penn, William, 113. 
 Pennsylvania, 123. 
 Pepperell, Sir WiUiam, 487. 
 Pequods, 31. 
 Percival, James Gates, dines with J. F. 
 
 Cooper at the City Hotel, 489. 
 Percy, Lord, 350. 
 Periodicals, number of, in the United 
 
 States, note, 378. 
 Perth Amboy Ferry, stage- boats run to, 
 
 186. 
 Peters, Henry, 170. 
 Philadelphia, stae-es established between 
 
 New York and, 186. 
 Phnipse, Colonel Adolph, 140. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 131 
 
 Philippe, Louis, teaches school in New 
 York, 597. 
 
 Phillips, General, 260, 265. 
 
 Phoenix, lilrs. D., 81. 
 
 Phyfe, D., makes a hex from a log of 
 
 Erie cedar, for Lafayette, 397. 
 Pine Street, 336, 425. 
 Pintard, Lewis, 306, 317. 
 
 John, 355. 
 
 Pinxter (Whitsuntide\ 70. 
 
 Pitt, WiUiam, 208, 210. 
 
 Pleasure Gardens at Harlem, 85, 
 
 Plymouth Company, 24 
 
 Harbor, 33 
 
 Rook, 18. 
 
 Pneumatic Railroad, 613. 
 
 Poeluitz, Baron, 384. 
 
 Police Regulations, a new code of, enact- 
 ed, 114. 
 
 Political Parties in New York, origin of, 
 142. 
 
 Pomeroy, General, 244. 
 
 Popish Pretender, 158. 
 
 Popish Plot, 150. 
 
 Popular Government established, by the 
 construction of a Greneral As- 
 sembly, 113. 
 
 Population of New York, 642, 653. 
 
 Porter, Peter B., 408. 
 
 Portuguese, 148. 
 
 Post OfSoe, 166; history of, 516-520. 
 
 — Office Buildiag, the New, 601. 
 
 Road, old, 93. 
 
 ■- Doctor, 234. 
 
 Potatoes, Price of Bermuda, 30. 
 
 Potemkin, Prince, 435. 
 
 Potomac River, 138. 
 
 Potter's Field, removal of bodies from, 
 537. 
 
 Hill, 91. 
 
 Potter, Bishop Alonzo, 349. 
 
 Powder House, The, 91, iwte. 
 
 Powell, Thos., a steamboat, 353, 353, 
 rwie. 
 
 Powle's (Paulus) Hook, 375. 
 
 Pownal, Thomas, 190. 
 
 Pratt, Chief Justice, 191, 195. 
 
 Presbyterian (Wall Street) Churoli, 165. 
 
 President of the United States, of&cial 
 title of the, 394. 
 
 Preston, Colonel, 337. 
 
 Prevost, General, 183. 
 
 Price of Provisions, 184. 
 
 Priestly, Doctor, 433. 
 
 Printing House Square, 639. 
 
 Printz, Gov., 43. 
 
 Prison Ship, the horrors of the " Jersey," 
 255, 356, note. 
 
 Prisoners, neglect and ill-treatment of, 
 355. 
 
 Prison Weekly Dietary, 355. 
 
 Privateer, La Garce, 43. 
 
 Procession in honor of founding the Re 
 
 public, 283-29,0. 
 Provincial Congress, 243, 845. 
 Provost, Old, see Debtors' Prison. 
 
 Bishop, 304. 
 
 Rev. Samuel, 168 
 
 ._. , — ... 
 
 David, a Tobacco Inspector at 
 
 Manhattan, and Commissary at 
 Fort Good Hope, 148. 
 
 Ready Money (David), the Long 
 
 Island Smuggler, 488. 
 
 Provost's Tomb, Jones's Wood, 491. 
 
 Prussia, 389. 
 
 Public burial-ground in the entrench- 
 ments, 255. 
 
 Public School Society, 345. 
 
 Public Wells established, 569. 
 
 Puritans, 18, 31, 654. 
 
 Putnam, General, 344, 346. 
 
 Mrs. Washington, 74 
 
 Quakers, 32. 
 
 Quarantine Establishment at Bedloe's Is- 
 land, 139. 
 
 Buildings on Staten Island de- 
 stroyed by the populace, 537. 
 
 Quebec, 113, 314, 344. 
 
 Queen's County, 114. 
 
 Queen Street (Pearl), 384, 398, 300. 
 
 Quider, Indian name of Peter Schuyler, 
 119. 
 
 Quilting Bees, 69. 
 
 Rabbit Island, 97. 
 Rancleagh Gardens, 332, 339. 
 Raritan River, 186. 
 Indians, 48. 
 
 " Ready Money Provost," 488, 489, note. 
 
 Reade Street, 233, 335. 
 
 Real Estate Auctions, 606. 
 
 Rector Street, 139. 
 
 Red Jaeket (Sagoyewatha) visits New 
 York, and has his portrait paint- 
 ed, 416 ; Doctor Francis de- 
 scribes his personal appearance, 
 417-419. 
 
 Reformed Dutch Church, 24. 
 
 Reid, an Assemblyman, 199. 
 
 Captain Mayne, relates an anec- 
 dote of Lafayette, 380. 
 
 Religious Denominations of New York, 
 641. 
 
 Rensselaer, Killian Van, 35. 
 
 Rensselaerwyck (Albany), 44. 
 
 Renwick, Doctor, 365. 
 
 Reservoir on Fifth Avenue, 505. 
 Distributing, 501. 
 
 Restless, the first vessel built in New 
 
 Amsterdam, 15. 
 Revenue, Public, of New Netherland, 66. 
 
132 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Review of admmistrations of variouB 
 
 Governors, 141. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 455. 
 Rhoda, Lewis, first man Trilled by a 
 
 Steamboat accident, 356. 
 Rhode Island, 197. 
 Richards, T. Addison, 637. 
 Richmond HiU, 348, 415, 440. 
 
 County, 114. 
 
 Riedesel, General, 256, 368. 
 
 — Mrs. General, her history of the 
 
 Siege of New York, and inci- 
 dents connected therewith, 256- 
 370. 
 Eiots : 
 
 AboUtioniat, 460. 
 
 Astor Place, 530. 
 
 Boston, 199. 
 
 Bread, 536. 
 
 Dead Rabbit, 534. 
 
 Doctor's Mob, 334^236. 
 
 Draft, 368, 461, 539. 
 
 Election, 456-460. 
 
 Five Points, 467, 468. 
 
 Plour, 493^99. 
 
 'Longshoremen's, 486. 
 
 Macready, 520-538. 
 
 Negro, of 1713, 373. 
 
 Negro, of 1741, 147-153. 
 
 Orange, 616, 617. 
 
 PoUce, 533. 
 
 Quarantine, 537. 
 
 Stamp Act, 197-199. 
 
 Stone Cutters', 466. 
 
 Trinity Church, 359-365, note. . 
 Riots, year of, 456. 
 Rivington, James, editor and owner New 
 
 York Gazette, 377, 378. • 
 Roach, Thomas, 319. 
 Roberta, Marshall O., 637. 
 Robinson, Thomas, one of the Sons of 
 Liberty, 201. 
 
 Colonel, 167. 
 
 Rochambeau, Count, 338. 
 
 Roohefort, 113. 
 
 Rodgers, Rev. Doctor, 431. 
 
 Roelandseu, Adam, a school-master, 34, 
 
 33. 
 Rogers, Doctor, 234. 
 Roosevelt Street, 91. 
 
 Hon. R. B., 620, 624 
 
 Jacobus, 91. 
 
 Rose Street, 461. 
 Rossa, O'Donovan, 681. 
 Rostopchin, Gfeneral, 248. 
 Ruggles, Timothy, 198. 
 Ptushmore, Isaac, his experiences in cross- 
 ing the feriies in early times, 
 354. 
 Russia, 14. 
 Rutgers Street, 13. 
 
 Rutgers' Farm, 331. 
 
 Mr., 333. 
 
 ■ Colonel, 340. 
 
 Ryker, Hendrick, 
 
 St. Bentcio, a ship, 50, 51. 
 
 St. Clair, Governor, 395. 
 
 St. Frederick, Fort, 132. 
 
 St. George Building, 169. 
 
 St. George's Chapel, 166-169, 366. 
 
 St. GreoTge, a sliip, 271. 
 
 St. John's, 374. 
 
 St. John's Park, 12, 598, 599. 
 
 St. James Coffee House, 488. 
 
 St. James's Chronicle, 227. 
 
 St. John's Day, 219. 
 
 St. Lawrence River, 109. 
 
 St. Nicholas, Old Church of, 78, 475. 
 
 St. Michael's Day, 116. 
 
 St. Paul's Church, 232, 804, 833, 366. 
 
 St. Petersburg, 486. 
 
 St. Philip's Church (Colored), 463, 465. 
 
 St. Tammany, see Tammany. 
 
 Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket), 416, 417, 41.9. 
 
 Sam Francis's Tavern (Black Sam's), 331, 
 
 298. 
 Sandford, General, 525. 
 Sand Hills, 13. 
 Sand's Point, 375. 
 Sands, Robert C, 489, 637. 
 
 Juliana Ebnore, murder of, 343. 
 
 Sandy Hook, 11, 55, 67, 97, 380. 
 Santa Claus (Christ-Elinkle Day), 70. 
 Sappokanikke (Greenwich),104. 
 Sargeant, Charlss and John, 203. 
 Saratoga Battle Ground, 592. 
 
 — Battle of, 256. 
 
 Springs, 74, 374. 
 
 troops captured at, 368. 
 
 Schaats, Domine, 95. 
 
 Schermerhom, Cornelius, 170. 
 
 Schenectady, 120. 
 
 SchieflfeUn, S. B., 637. 
 
 School of Painting, 637 ; of Sculpture, 
 
 637: 
 Sohout Fiscal, 30, 77. 
 Schultz, Jackson S., 613. 
 Schutt«r'8 Island, 104. 
 Schuyler, Peter, 119, 123, 224. 
 
 PhiUp, 237, 245. 
 
 Fort, 188. 
 
 Sconce, 74 
 
 Scott, John Morin, 194 319. 
 
 Captain, 60. 
 
 Scudder's Museum, 330, 405. 
 
 Sea Mew, The, a sHp, 20. 
 
 Sears, Isaac, a leader of the Sons of 
 
 Liberty, 201. 
 Seguine, Joseph, 876. 
 Seigneuries, 31. 
 Senate, first meeting of the, 292. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 133 
 
 Seneoaa, 108, 134, 139. 
 
 Seneca Chief, the first canal-boat, 890. 
 
 Seventh Regiment, 374, 617. 
 
 Seawant, see Wampum. 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 408, 545. 
 
 Shaera Straat, aee Broadway. 
 
 Shakespeare Tavern, 488-490. 
 
 Sharpe, Rev. John, 131. 
 
 Sheldon's Dragoons, 301. 
 
 Sherman, Roger, 893, 303, 489. 
 
 Shoe and Leather Bank, 603. 
 
 Shoemaker's Land, 90. 
 
 Simonson, Daniel, carries the mail from 
 
 Staten Island to New York on 
 
 the ice, 378. 
 Sims, Doctor J. M., founds the State 
 
 Woman's Hospital, 537. 
 Singeron, Auguate Louis de, 428-430. 
 Sing Sing, 466, 501. 
 Sirius, a steamship, 325. 
 Six Nations, treaty with the, 124 
 
 Nations, 127, 165. 
 
 Slave Market at the foot of Wall Street, 
 
 149. 
 
 Trade, History of, 147-151. 
 
 Sloap Banck (Bunk), 19, 75. 
 
 Sloat Lane, 404, 419. 
 
 Sloughter, Colonel Henry, Governor of 
 
 New York, 118, 143. 
 Small-Pox, 159. 
 
 " Small Citizenship," record of, 57. 
 Smith, William, 133, 134, 194, 330, 343 363. 
 
 T., 319. 
 
 Doctor, 234. 
 
 Peter, 374 
 
 Richard, 103. 
 
 — Colonel W. S., 309. 
 
 Colonel, 498. 
 
 Smit's Valey, 97. 
 
 Smug'gling aboUshed, 49. 
 
 Snake Hill, N. J., 361. 
 
 Society Library, N. Y., 131, 345, 649. 
 
 for the Reformation of Juvenile 
 
 Delinquents, 688. 
 Soldiers' (Martyrs' i Monument, 515 
 Sons of Liberty, 193, 199, 200, 306, 307, 
 
 212, 216, 334, 335, 343. 
 South Street, 29, 192, 480, 481. 
 
 River, 35, 42, 52. 
 
 Soutberg, a ship, 19, 34, 38. 
 Spain, 24, 50. 
 Spotswood, Governor, 137. 
 Spring Street Church, 463, 463. 
 
 . Street, 342, 463. 
 
 Street Market, 378. 
 
 Spuyten Duyvel, 103. 
 Stadt Huys (City Hall) of Now Amster- 
 dam, 37, 68, 89. 
 Stage Boats first introduced, 186. 
 . Line started from New York to 
 
 Philadelphia, 187. 
 
 Stages first run between New York and 
 Albany, 188. 
 line extended to TJtica, 188. 
 
 Stamp Act, 195, 199, 200, 203, 203, 806- 
 208, 210, 311, 813, 337, 338, 289. 
 
 Stanwix, Fort (Rome), 189, 844. 
 
 Staple Right granted, 36, 
 
 Star Chamber, 137. 
 
 " Stars and Stripes," The, displaces the 
 British Standard, 378. 
 
 Staten Island, 48, 55, 67, 97, 133, 183, 
 876, 474, 587. 
 
 Island and Bergen Ferry estab- 
 
 lished, 185. 
 States-General, the Dutch, 15, 17, 33, 34, 46. 
 State Right, 51. 
 
 ■ Arsenal, 457, 530. 
 
 Street, 93, 125, 318. 
 
 Prisoners, 378. 
 
 Steadman, the historian, 253. 
 
 Steam navigation, 348. 
 
 Steamer, the first, the Clermont, con- 
 structed under Fulton's nominal 
 superintendence, 351, 353. 
 
 Steddiford, Captain, 399. 
 
 Steenwyck, Comelis, 57, 61. 
 
 Steenwyck's Orchard, 93. 
 
 Steeregraft, 93. 
 
 Steuben, Baron, 335, 304, 312, 441 
 
 Stevenson, Doctor J., 360. 
 
 Stevens, Doctor, 234, 
 
 Horatio G., 327. 
 
 Colonel John, 355, 386, 461. 
 
 Stewart, A. T., 333, 603. 
 StirUng, General Lord, 347, 489. 
 Lady, 308. 
 
 Stoffelaon, Jacob, of Pavonia, one of the 
 
 Twelve Men, 25. 
 Stokes, Captain, 399. 
 
 James, 608. 
 
 Edward S., shoots James Fisk, Jr., 
 
 634. 
 Stone, Colonel WilUam L., 383, 331, 
 
 389, 390, 418, 419, 483, 498, 507, 
 
 508, 638. 
 
 Mrs., 490. 
 
 Street, 30, 93, 93, 481, 509, 510. 
 
 Stoneall, J. C. (Alderman), keeps the 
 Shakespeare Tavern, 492. 
 
 Strycker, J. Gerritsen, 57. 
 
 Stuart, R. L., 608. 
 
 Sturges, Jonathan, 608. 
 
 Stuyvesant, Governor Peter, 48, 49, 50, 
 55, 56, 60, 63, 05. 
 
 Mrs., T^ife of Gtovemor, 148. 
 
 Pear-tree, 596. 
 
 Stuyvesant's " Bowerie," 93. 
 Suaaendael, 26. 
 Sub-Treasury, 507. 
 Suckanhook sucki, 38 
 Suffolk County, 148. 
 
134 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sullivan, General, 247. 
 
 Sumpter, General, 416. 
 
 Swamp, The, 90, 91. 
 
 Swart, Jacob, 94 
 
 Swartwout, Captain, 399. 
 
 Swedes, their connection with the early 
 
 history of America, 43. 
 Sweden, 42, 389. 
 Sweeney, Peter B., 620. 
 Syracuse, 391. 
 
 Tabeenacle, New York, 494. 
 
 Taller, Colonel, 129. . 
 
 Taloott, a Mr., holds a conversation with 
 " Beady Money" Provost, 488. 
 
 Talleyrand, 422. 
 
 Tallmadge, F. A., 538. 
 
 TamiUl, 83. 
 
 Tammany organization, 838-380. 
 
 Frauds, etc., exposure of, 618-635. 
 
 HaU, 336. 
 
 Museum, 330. 
 
 Tammanund, the Patron Saint of Tam- 
 many, history of, 338. 
 
 " Tap," The, 487. 
 
 Tappan, Gov. Kieft sends sloops to, 36. 
 
 Lewis, 461. 
 
 Arthur, 461. 
 
 Taverns, Licenses for, first issued, 51. 
 
 Tavern, the first erected in New Nether- 
 land, 37. 
 
 Tayler, Asher, 375, 456, 483. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 654. 
 
 " Tea Water Pomp," The, in Chatham 
 Street, 500, 573. 
 
 Temple, Sir John, 236. 
 
 Teunissen, Jan., 98, 101. 
 
 Thames Street, 165, 264 
 
 Thayendagea (Joseph Brant), 415. 
 
 Thirtieth Street, 613. 
 
 Thirty-first Street, 348. 
 
 Thirty-sixth Street, 93. 
 
 Thomson, Charles, 393. 
 
 Thom.pson, Launt, a sculptor, 637. 
 
 Tiooiideroga, Fort, 214, 593. 
 
 " Tiger" and " Fortune," two Dutch 
 ships, 14 
 
 Tildeu, S. J., 629. 
 
 Tillary, Doctor, 425. 
 
 Tombs, The, 12, 271. 
 
 Tompkins Square, 335. 
 
 — Daniel D. 374, 379. 
 
 Tontine Coffee House, history of, 318, 
 319-327. 
 
 Hotel Association (Fifth Ward', 
 
 320. 
 
 Town Hall, 171. 
 
 Townsend, Robert G, 466. 
 
 Trading Charter, 15. 
 
 Treaty of Peace hetween the States 
 General and Great Britain, 68. 
 
 Treaty of Peace between United Statei 
 and Great Britain, 273. 
 with Indians, 47. 
 
 Trenton, Battle of, 295. 
 
 Tribune Building, 337 ; threatened by 
 
 rioters, 543. 
 Trinity Church, 68, 83, 121, 166, 252, 333. 
 
 Church Eiot, 359-365. 
 
 Place, 600. 
 
 Troup, Kobert, 287, 841. 
 
 Tromp, Admiral, 54 
 
 Troy, N. T. 186. 
 
 Trumbull, John, 587. 
 
 Tryon, Governor William, 331, 237, 240, 
 
 •244, 345, 257, 365. 
 Tucker, lliomas Tudor, 293. 
 Tuliva Mico, 339. 
 Turk's Head, London, compared with the 
 
 Shakespeare Tavern, 488, 491, 
 
 493. 
 Tweed, WilUam M., 613, 630, 639. 
 Twenty-third Street, 609. 
 Tyng, Rev. Dr., 170. 
 
 Ulstek County, 114, 136. 
 Union Bank, 603. 
 
 Sctuare, 835, 514, 657. 
 
 Hotel, 841. 
 
 League Club, 613. 
 
 of New England Colonies, 239. 
 
 United Colonies, The, resist the execu- 
 tion of the Tea Duties, 340. 
 
 -'New Netherland Company, 16, 31. 
 
 Provinces, 35, 53. 
 
 States Sanitary Commission, 638. 
 
 States Navy Yard, Brooklyn, 335. 
 
 University of New York, 466, 507. 
 Utioa, 188. 
 Utrecht, Peace of, 126, 132. 
 Ury, John, a priest and school-master, im- 
 plicated in the Negro Plot, 151. 
 
 Valentine, David T., 126, 153, 640. 
 
 Van Birkel, Mr., 441. 
 
 Van Burggh, Jan GOleson, 56. 
 
 Johannes Pietersen, 57. 
 
 Karl, 57. 
 
 Van Cortlandt, Stephanus, first native- 
 bom Mayor of N. T., 107, 117. 
 
 OJen. PhSip, conducts Lafayette to 
 
 the chair of Louis XVI., 386. 
 
 Van Couwenhoven, Jacob, 57. 
 
 Pieter, 57. 
 
 Van Dam, Rip, 76, 91, 183, 138. 
 
 Van Dyck, Captain, 298. 
 
 Van Ecke, Domiae, 95. 
 
 Van Home, Gerrit, 140. 
 Major, 299. 
 
 Van Dcr Huyghens, Schout Fiscal, 46, 48. 
 Van Rensselaer, General Stephen, 390, 
 408. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 135 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Johannes, tte first pa- 
 troon, 44. 
 
 KilUau, 35. 
 
 Van Schaick, Henry, 306, 319. 
 
 Peter, 319. 
 
 Van Tienhoven, Cornells, 33. 
 
 Mrs., 57. 
 
 Van T-willer, "Wouter, Governor, 34, 37, 
 33, 43, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 93. 
 
 Van Vorst, Anna, 370. 
 
 • Hooper C, 370, 649. 
 
 Van Wyok, Laurisen Oomelisen, 57. 
 
 Van Zye, Captain, 67. 
 
 Vanderbilt, John, 376. 
 
 VanderoHff's Orchard (John Street), 89, 
 90. 
 
 Vandergrist and Van Dyok, 93, 
 
 Vanderlyn, the pupil of Stuart, 516. 
 
 Vandewater Street, 471. 
 
 Varennes, Baron De, 433. 
 
 Varick, Kichard, 333. 
 
 Street, 13, 463, 463, 464, 609. 
 
 Vasseur, Auguste L., Secretary to La- 
 fayette, 379. 
 
 Venerable Society for Propagating the 
 Gospel in Foreign Parts, 253. 
 
 Vergennes, Count De, 431. 
 
 Verhulst, William, 30. 
 
 Verplanck, Gulian, 139, 272, 318, 331, 336. 
 
 Gulian C. 272, 345, 430^55. 
 
 Vesey Street, 355. 
 
 Vessels, Toll levied on, 45. 
 
 Vigne, Jean, 96. 
 
 Virginia, 11, 15, 16, 31, 35, 49, 110, 333. 
 
 Virtue & Yorstou, house of, 636, 637. 
 
 " Vlaokte," The, or Flat, 91. 
 
 Vly Market (Market in the Marsh), 89, 
 note. 
 
 Volckertsen, Captain, 14. 
 
 Waldeon, "W. J., 330. 
 
 "Wales, Prince of, visits New York, 538. 
 
 Coast of, 48. 
 
 Walker Street, 539, 603. 
 
 WaUace, Hugh, 231. 
 
 WaUoons, 18, 33. 
 
 Wall Street, 24, 68, 115, 117, 165, 331, 
 263, 264, 272, 318, 336, 344, 419, 
 431, 425, 471, 476, 477, 480, 481, 
 
 • Street Church, 420. 
 
 Walphat's Meadow, 91 
 
 Walton, Jacob, 331. 
 
 Wampum, Sevant, or Zeawant, taken as 
 
 the standard of value, and used 
 
 as currency, 29, 31, 36, 38, 43, 
 
 64, 77. 
 Warden, Robert, 170. 
 Ward's Island, bodies from the Potter's 
 
 Field removed to, 537. 
 Ward, John Q, A., a sculptor, 637. 
 
 Warren, Admiral Sir Peter, 150, 153, 
 
 167, 371, 590. 
 — Mansion, Old, history destruction 
 
 of, 590. 
 
 Street, 153, 613. 
 
 Joseph, 229. 
 
 War of 1812, 367-370, 516. 
 Washington, General George, 166, 344, 
 
 345, 347, 249, 273, 281, 391, 394- 
 
 317. 
 
 Lady, 315-317, 
 
 Hotel, 153. 
 
 Medal, 417. 
 
 Parade Ground, 14, 835, 466, 587. 
 
 Street, 468. 
 
 Fort, 350, 355. 
 
 — a steam-boat, 393. 
 ■ Monument, 514. 
 
 Watch House, 336. 
 
 Water Gate, 89. 
 
 Street, 39, 87, 88, 93, 231, 318, 
 
 344, 473, 473, 477, 480, 481. 
 Watkins, Rev. Hezekiah, 137. 
 Watts, Hon. John (Recorder), 271, 284, 
 
 318. 
 Mary, marries Sir John Johnson, 
 
 371. 
 Watt, James, 349. 
 Way-house, 88. 
 Wayland, Francis, gives an account as an 
 
 eye-witness of the reception of 
 
 the news of Peace by the citizens 
 
 of New York, 369. 
 Wayman, WiUiam, 136, 276. 
 Webster, Noah, 387, 433. 
 Daniel, 413. 
 
 Wood, Thurlow, 353, 390. 
 Weehawkon Duelling Ground, 348. 
 Weeks, Ezra, keeps the City Hotel, 308, 
 
 342. 
 Levi, nephew of Ezra Weeks, 
 
 tried for the murder of Miss 
 
 Sands, 342. 
 Weigh-house, 88. 
 Weir, Robert W., an artist, 416. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 601. 
 Westchester County, 148, 504, 
 Westfield, disastrous explosion of the, 
 
 635. 
 Westlndies, 59, 166. 
 India Company, 17, 18, 19, 33, 33, 
 
 25, 37, 31, 36, 43, 45, 50, 58, 59, 
 
 63, 83, 103. 
 Westminster, 68. 
 
 Abbey, 374. 
 
 Wesley Chapel, 311, 430. 
 
 Westphalia, 93. 
 
 West Point, 853. 
 
 Wetmore, Prosper M., 348, 888, 468, 48a 
 
 Wey, Captain, 14, 18, 30. 
 
 White Conduit House, 340. 
 
1S6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 White Street, 457, 604. 
 
 Whitehall, N. T., the funeral cortege of 
 
 Gen. Montgomery halts at, 373. 
 
 Street, 24, 30, 87, 88, 92, 125. . 
 
 Whitefield, Kev. George, 420. 
 
 Wieringen Shoals, 98. 
 
 Wigneli, an actor at John St. Theatre, 
 
 838. 
 Wiley, WilUam, 201. 
 WiUett, Colonel M., 318, 328, 344 
 Willoe, Captain, 260. 
 WilUam Street, 90, 92, 93, 115, 404, 431, 
 
 433, 473, 474. 480, 481. 
 
 and Mary, 141. 
 
 Williamsburgh, 356. 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel P., 636. 
 
 Willy, Noe, 91. 
 
 WiadmOl HiU, 339. 
 
 Winthrop, Governor, 31, 43. 
 
 Wolfe, General, 374 
 
 Wolfert's Valley, 91. 
 
 Woodbridge, N. J., early stages run to, 
 
 186, 
 Wood Creek, 139 
 
 WoodhuU, Caleb S., 530. 
 
 Wooley, Bev. Charles, 105. 
 
 Wooster Street, 342, 609. 
 
 World's Fair, 538. 
 
 Worth, General W. J., monument to, 516. 
 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 601. 
 
 Tamotden, a poem, 490. 
 
 YeUow Fever, 123, 330-332, 377-379. 
 
 York, James, Duke of, 60. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association of 
 
 New York City, its aims, etc., 
 
 606-609, 638. 
 Young, Thomas, 408. 
 
 Zabriskib, Alderman, 384 
 
 Zantberg HiUa, The, 93. 
 
 Zantzinger, Captain, 397. 
 
 " Zealandia" (Wall and WOliam Streets), 
 
 93. 
 Zeeland, 95. 
 Zeawant, see Wampum. 
 Zelo, Tzarzko, 436. 
 Zenger, John PhiUp, 133, 134, 135, 136. 
 
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