' I Sx ICtbrtB SEYMOUR DURST ~t' 'Tort nteiuv wftn/ferdam of Je Manhatans I When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Arch ite( ruRAi \ndFini ArtsLibrar^ (ill Mil SEYM01 K U. 1)1 RSI Ol I) YORK 1.1 UK \\<\ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/inoldnewyorkOOjanv rr p p s In Old New York p p K BY THOMAS A. JANVIER AUTHOR OF "THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE' "THE UNCLE OF AN ANGEL." ETC. illustrate; HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON m : IN OLD NEW YORK Copyright, 1894, ^y Harper & Brothers Copyright, 1922, b]' Mrs. Catherine A. Janvier Printed in the U. S. A. TO C A. J. CONTENTS PAGE THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK I GREENWICH VILLAGE 84 DOWN' LOVE LANE 1 52 LLSPENARD'S MEADOWS 192 THE BATTERY 227 THE DEBTORS' PRISON 241 OLD-TIME PLEASURE-GARDENS . 25 1 NEW AND OLD NEW YORK 265 INDEX . . 279 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE ALONG THE CANAL IN" OLD MANHATTAN g ON THE RIVER FRONT 17 THE SURRENDER OF FORT AMSTERDAM 22 WET DOCKS, FOOT OF BROAD STREET 2Q ADVERTISEMENT, I766 38 THE CONFLAGRATION IN 1 776 5 1 A PRIVATEERSMAN ASHORE . 65 DEPARTURE OF BLACK BALL AND DRAMATIC PACKETS. . 71 "ERIE," OCTOBER 26, 1825 77 N. E. CORNER GREENWICH AND TENTH STREETS, 1892 . . 87 ON THE STEPS 9 1 NO. 54 DOWNING STREET 95 PORTRAIT OF SIR PETER WARREN 97 WARREN MONUMENT, WESTMINSTER ABBEY IOI A STAGE IN THE THIRTIES I07 THE WARREN HOUSE, GREENWICH ■ . . IO9 A WISTARIA WALK, HORATIO STREET . 115 GAY STREET 121 NO. 260 WEST TENTH STREET 125 SI ATE PRISON 127 NO. 246 WEST II \ III STREET 131 WIEHAWKEN STREET 135 NO. 135 WASHINGTON PLACE 139 A WINTER NIGHT IN GROVE STREF/I 141 HOME FOR AGED COUPLES, HUDSON STREET, OPPOSITE GROVE 149 X ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A CHELSEA DOORWAY 157 S. W. CORNER OF EIGHTH AVENUE AND TWENTY - SECOND STREET l6l A SIDE GATE IN CHELSEA 165 THE MOORE HOUSE 169 CHELSEA SQUARE — THE WEST BUILDING 1 73 CHELSEA SQUARE — MODERN COLLEGE BUILDINGS .... 1 77 CHELSEA COTTAGES ON TWENTY-FOURTH STREET . . . 180 A TENNIS-COURT IN CHELSEA l82 THE CHAPEL DOOR, CHELSEA SQUARE 1S5 NOS. 251, 253 WEST EIGHTEENTH STREET 188 LARK AT THE FOOT OF CANAL STREET I95 WEST STREET NEAR CANA1 I<)9 CAST-IRON NEWEL 202 WROUGHT-IRON NEWEI 203 LISPENARD'S MEADOWS 205 RICHMOND HILL 207 NO. 2IO WEST TENTH STREET 209 PUMP ON GREENWICH STREET, BELOW CANAL . . . . 21 3 THE LOCKSMITH'S SIGN 2l6 AN OLD-TIME KNOCKER 21 7 (ANAL STREET AND ST. JOHN'S CHURCH 221 THE FORT AND BATTERY, I75O 22() THE BATTERY, l822 237 ENTRANCE TO BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND HALL OF RECORDS 247 S. W. COR. OF EIGHTIETH STREET AND NINTH AVENUE . 255 NINETY-FIFTH STREET AND PARK AVENUE 259 NINETY-SEVENTH STREET NEAR PARK AVENUE .... 263 PARK AVENUE AND NINETY-SEVENTH STREET 267 WEST OF CENTRAL PARK 27 1 A BIT ON THE BOULEVARD 275 MAPS [656, VAX DER DONCK Frontispiece [664, "THE DUKE'S PLAN"' Facirig page 14 1695, NEW YORKE I729, LYNE 1755, MAERSCHALCK 1 766-1 767, RATZEN, LARGE I767, KA I ZEN, SM VLL 1775. MON I RESSOR 1782, H1M.S 1803, MANGIN 1807, THE COMMISSIONERS 1 MAI' . . . PLAN OF THE CHURCH FARM .... EXTENSION OF THE BATTERY SINCE 1783 24 36 38 44 4^ M4 42 54 58 40 232 In Old New York THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK JHERE was no element of permanence in the settlement of New York. The traders sent here under Hendrick Christiansen, immediately upon Hud- son's return to Holland in 1609, had no intention of remaining in America beyond the time that would pass while their ships crossed the sea and came again for the furs which meanwhile they were to secure. Even when Fort Manhattan was erected — the stockade that was built about the year 1614 just south of the present Bowling Green— this structure was intended only for the temporary shelter of the factors of the United New Netherland Company while en- gaged with the Indians in transient trade; for the life of this trading organization specifically was limited by its charter to four voyages, all to be made within the three years beginning January r, 161 5. Fort Manhattan, therefore, simply was a trading-post. If the Company's charter could be 2 IN OLD NEW YORK renewed, the post would be continued while it was profitable; upon the expiration of the char- ter, or when the post ceased to be profitable, it would be abandoned. That the temporary set- tlement thus made might develop, later, into a permanent town was a matter wholly aside from the interests in view. Leavenworth, Denver, a dozen of our Western cities, have been founded in precisely the same fashion within our own day. Not until the year 1621, when the Dutch West India Company came into existence, were con- siderate measures taken for assuring a substantial colonial life to the Dutch settlement in America. The earlier trading association, the United New Netherland Company, expired by limitation on the last day of the year 1617; but its privileges were revived and maintained by annual grant for at least two years; probably for three. Then the larger organization was formed, with chartered rights (so far as the power to grant these lay with the States General of Holland) to the exclusive trade of all the coasts of both Americas. Unlike the English trading companies — whose administration of their colonial establishments flowed from a central source — the Dutch West India Company was in the nature of a commer- cial federation. Branches of the Company were established in the several cities of Holland; which branches, while subject to the authority (whereof they themselves were part) of the organization as a whole, enjoyed distinct rights and privileges: having assigned to them, severally, specific ter- THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 3 ritories, over which they exercised the right of government, and with which they possessed the exclusive right to trade. In accordance with this scheme of arrange- ment, the trading- post on the island of Manhat- tan, with its dependent territory — broadly claimed as extending along the coast from the Virginia Plantations northward to New England, and in- land indefinitely — became the portion of the Am- sterdam branch ; wherefore the name of New Amsterdam was given to the post, even as the territory already had received the name of New Netherland. As a commercial undertaking, the Dutch West India Company was admirably organized. Its projectors sought to establish it on so substantial a foundation that its expansion would not be sub- ject to sudden checks, but would proceed equably and steadily from the start. To meet these re- quirements, mere trading-posts in foreign coun- tries were not sufficient. Such temporary estab- lishments were liable to be effaced in a moment, either by resident savages or by visiting savages afloat out of Europe — for in that cheerful period of the world's history all was game that could be captured at large upon or on the borders of the ocean sea. For the security of the Company, therefore, it was necessary that the New Nether- land should be held not by the loose tenure of a small fort lightly garrisoned, but by the strong tenure of a colonial establishment firmly rooted in the soil With this accomplished, the attacks 4 IN OLD NEW YORK of savages of any sort were not especially to be dreaded. Colonists might be killed in very con- siderable numbers and still (the available supply of colonists being ample) no great harm would be done to the Company's interests, for the colony would survive. Therefore it was that with the change in ownership and in name came also a change in the nature of the Dutch hold upon this island. Fort Manhattan had been an isolated settlement established solely for purposes of trade ; New Amsterdam was the nucleus of a co- lonial establishment, and was the seat of a colo- nial government which nominally controlled a region as large as all the European possessions of Holland and the German states combined. It would be absurd, however, to take very seri- ously this government that was established in the year 1623. The portion of the American conti- nent over which Director Minuit exercised abso- lutely undisputed authority was not quite the whole of the territory (now enclosed by the low- er loop of the elevated railway) which lies south of the present Battery Place. Within that micro- scopic principality he ruled ; outside of it he only reigned. That he was engaged in the rather magnificent work of founding what was to be the chief city of the Continent was far too monstrous a thought to blast its way to his imaginative faculty through the thickness of his substantial skull. Yet Fort Amsterdam, begun about the year 1626 its northern wall about on the line <>l THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 5 the existing row of houses facing the Bowling Green — really was the beginning of the present city. The engineer who planned it, Kryn Fred- erick, had in mind the creation of works suffi- ciently large to shelter in time of danger all the inhabitants of a considerable town ; and, when the Fort was finished, the fact that such a stronghold existed was one of the inducements extended by the West India Company to secure its needed colonists: for these, being most immediately and personally interested in the matter, could not be expected to contemplate the possibility of their own massacre by savages of the land or sea in the same large and statesmanlike manner that such accidents of colonial administration were regarded by the Company's directors. The build- ing of the Fort, therefore, was the first step towards anchoring the colony firmly to the soil. By the time that the Fort was finished the popu- lation of this island amounted to about two hun- dred souls ; and the island itself, for a considera- tion of $24, had been bought by Director Minuit for the Company : and so formally had passed to Dutch from Indian hands. While the town of New Amsterdam thus came into existence under the protection of the guns of its Fort, the back country also was filling up rapidly with settlers. In the year 1629 the de- cree issued that any member of the West India Company who, under certain easy conditions, should form a settlement of not less than fifty persons, none of whom should be under fifteen 6 IX OLD NEW YORK years of age, should be granted a tract of land fronting sixteen miles upon the sea, or upon any navigable river (or eight miles when both shores of the river were occupied), and extending thence inland indefinitely ; and that the patroons to whom such grants of land should be made should exer- cise manorial rights over their estates. In accord- ance with the liberal provisions of this decree, set- tlements quickly were made on both sides of the Hudson and on the lands about the bay; but these settlements were founded in strict submis- sion to the capital ; and by the grant to the lat- ter (by the Charter of Liberties and Exemptions, 1629) of staple rights — the obligation laid upon all vessels trading in the rivers or upon the coast to discharge cargo at the Fort, or, in lieu thereof, to pay compensating port charges — the absolute commercial supremacy of the capital was assured. Thus, almost contemporaneously with its found- ing, the town of New Amsterdam — at once the seat of government and the centre of trade — be- came in a very small way what later it was des- tined to be in a very large way : a metropolis. The tangle of crowded streets below the Bowl- ing Green testifies even to the present day to the haphazard fashion in which the foundations of this city were laid. Each settler, apparently, was free to put his house where he pleased ; and to sur- THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 7 round it by an enclosure of any shape and. "within reason, of any size. Later, streets were opened — for the most part by promoting existing foot-paths and lanes — along the confines of these arbitrarily ordered parcels of land. In this random fashion grew up the town. Excepting Philadelphia, all of our cities on the Atlantic seaboard have started in the same care- less way : in as marked contrast with the invari- ably orderly pre-arrangement of the cities in the lands to the south of us as is the contrast between the Saxon and the Latin minds. Yet the piece- made city has to commend it a lively personality to which the whole-made city never attains. The very defects in its putting together give it the charm of individuality ; breathe into it with a sub- tle romance (that to certain natures is most strong- ly appealing) somewhat of the very essence of the long-by dead to whom its happy unreasonableness is due ; preserve to it tangibly the tradition of the burning moment when the metal, now hardened, came fluent from the crucible and the casting of the city was begun. Actually, only two roads were established when the town of New Amsterdam was founded, and these so obviously were necessary that, practically, they established themselves; One of them, on the line of the present Stone and Pearl streets — the latter then the water-front — led from the Fort to the Brooklyn ferry at about the present Peck Slip. The other, on the line of the present Broadway, led northward from the Fort, past farms and gar- 8 IN OLD NEW YORK dens falling away toward the North River, as far as the present Park Row ; and along the line of that street, and of Chatham Street, and of the Bowery, went on into the wilderness. After the palisade was erected, this road was known as far as the city gate (at Wall Street) as the Heere Straat, or High Street; and beyond the wall as the Heere Wegh — for more than a century, the only highway that traversed the island from end to end. Broad Street and the Beaver's Bath primarily were not streets at all. On the line of the first of these, with a roadway on each side, a canal ex- tended as far as Beaver Street; where it narrowed to a ditch which drained the swamp that extended northward to about the present Exchange Place. On the line of the Beaver's Path, east and west from the main ditch, were lateral ditches at the lower end of the swamp. This system of sur- face drainage having converted the swamp into a meadow, it became known as the Sheep Pasture. That the primitive conditions have not been whol- ly changed was made manifest within the past three years by the very extensive system of piling which was the necessary preparation to the erec- tion of the ten-story building on the northwest corner of Broad and Beaver streets. Down be- neath the modern surface the ancient swamp re- mains to this present day. Because of the homelikeness — as one sat con- tentedly smoking on one's stoop in the cool of summer evenings that there was in having a ^ . ALONG IHK ' AN Al IN OLD MANHATTAN THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK II good strong-smelling canal under one's nose, and pleasant sight of round squat sailor-men aboard of boats which also were of a squat roundness, Broad Street (then called the Heere Graft) was a favorite dwelling-place with the quality of that early day; and even the Beaver's Path — which could boast only a minor, ditchlike smell, that yet was fit to bring tears of homesickness into one's eyes, such tender associations did it arouse — was well thought of by folk of the humbler sort, to whom the smell of a whole canal was too great a luxury. Finally, one other street came into existence in that early time as the outgrowth of constrain- ing conditions; this was the present Wall Street, which primitively was the open way, known as the Cingle, in the rear of the city wall. As to the wall, it was built under stress of danger and amidst great excitement. When the news came, March '3> ^53, of a threatened foray hither of New- Englanders — a lithe, slippery, aggressive race, for which every right-thinking Dutchman entertained a vast contempt, wherein also was a dash of fear — there was a prodigious commotion in this city: of which the immediate and most wonderful mani- festation was a session of the General Council so charged with vehement purpose that it continued all day long! In the morning the Council re- solved "that the whole body of citizens shall keep watch by night, in such places as shall be desig- nated, the City Tavern to be the temporary head- quarters ; that the Fort shall be repaired ; that 12 IN OLD NEW YORK some way must be devised to raise money ; that Captain Vischer shall be requested to fix his sails, to have his piece loaded, and to keep his vessel in readiness; that, because the Fort is not large enough to contain all the inhabitants, it is deemed necessary to enclose the city with breast-works and palisades." And then, in the afternoon of this same momentous day — after strenuously din- ing — the Council prepared a list for a forced levy by which the sum of five thousand guilders was to be raised for purposes of defence. Having thus breathlessly discharged itself of so tremendous a rush of business, it is not surprising that the Coun- cil held no sitting on the ensuing day, but do voted itself solely to recuperative rest ; nor that it suffered a whole week to elapse before it pre- pared specifications for the palisades — the erec- tion of which thereafter proceeded at a temperate speed. Fortunately for themselves, the New-England- ers stayed at home. Governor Stuyvesant, being a statesman of parts, doubtless saw to it that news was conveyed across the Connecticut of the land- sturm which arose in its might each night and made its headquarters at the City Tavern — whence it was ready to rush forth, armed with curiously shaped Dutch black bottles, to pour a devastating fire of hot schnapps upon the foe. Wherefore the New- Englanders, being filled with a wholesome dread of such a valorous company — well in its cups, and otherwise fuming with patriotic rage wisely elected to give this city .1 wide berth ; and THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 13 it is but just to add that Dominie Megapolensis claimed some share in averting the threatened direful conflict because at his instigation Governor Stuyvesant, in view of the unhappy state of af- fairs, appointed the ninth day of April, 1653, as a day of general fasting and prayer. As the wall never was needed, its erection ac- tually did more harm than good. For nearly half a century its effect was to restrain that natural expansion northward of the city which certainly would have begun earlier had it not been for the presence of this unnecessary barrier. Yet even without the wall there would have been no such quick development of the suburbs as character- izes the growth of cities in these modern times. The fact must be remembered that for a century after the wall was built — that is, until long after it was demolished — the inherited tendency to pack houses closely together still was overwhelm- ingly strong. For centuries and centuries every European city, even every small town, had been cramped within stone corsets until the desire for free breathing almost was lost. Long after the necessity for it had vanished the habit of constric- tion remained. Excepting these five streets — Pearl (including Stone), Broadway, Broad, Heaver, and Wall; to which, perhaps, Whitehall should be added, be- cause that thoroughfare originally was the open way left on the land side of the Fort — all of the oil streets in the lower part of the city are the outcome of individual need or whim. The new 14 IN OLD NEW YORK streets in this region — South, Front, part of Wa- ter, Greenwich, Washington, and W T est — are the considerate creations of later times, all of them having been won from the water by filling in be- yond the primitive line of high tide. Having thus contrived — by the simple process of permitting every man to make lanes and streets according to the dictates of his own fancy — to lay out as pretty a little tangle of a town as could be found just then in all Christendom, and a town which resembled in the crooks of its crookedness (to an extent that was altogether heart-moving) the intricate region just eastward of the Botermarkt in the ancient city after which it was named, the Governor in Council, about the year 1653, promulgated a decree that a map should be made of New Amsterdam : and that the town should remain from that time forward without alteration. Doubtless Jacques Cortelyou, the official sur- veyor, executed the first part of this decree ; but very diligent search in this country and in Hol- land has failed as yet to bring to light the map which he then made. The most widely known early map, therefore, is " The Duke's Plan " (as it usually is styled), which represents " the town of Mannados or New Amsterdam as it was in Sep- tember, 1661," being a draft made in the year 1664, upon the capture of the town by the Eng- lish, to be sent to the Duke of York. Presum- ably, this map differs from Cortelyou's map only in showing a few more houses, in the substitution r o z en r r c 10 IN OLD NEW YORK of English for Dutch text, and in its gallant dis- play of the English flag.* The Duke's Plan is of exceeding interest, in that it exhibits the extent of the town at the moment when it passed from Dutch to English ownership : a triangle whereof the base was the present Wall Street, and the sides were on the lines of the present Water, Front, State, and Greenwich streets, which then, approximately, were the lines of high tide. Nor was even this small area closely built up — by far the larger part of it being given over to garden plots in which fair Dutch cabbages grew. The northern limit of the map is about the present Roosevelt Street, where Old Wreck Brook (as it was called later) discharged the waters of the Fresh Water pond into the East River across the region which still is known as "The Swamp." All told, there were but twelve buildings outside of the wall: of which the most important were the storehouses belonging to Isaac Allerton close by the " pas- sageway " to Brooklyn — that is to say, the pres- ent Peck Slip. Inside the wall the only block built up solidly was that between Bridge and Stone streets — then divided by the Winckel '" The earliest map of New York known to be in existence is that now in the possession of Mr. Henry Ilarisse: a plan of " Manatus, drawn on the spot by Joan Vingboons in n>3o"; to which great additional value is given by its marginal legend record- ing the names of the first forty-tivc householders on this island. This most precious document was exhibited in July, 1892, in Paris ut the Columbian exhibition of maps and globes ON THE KIVKK FRON' The evolution of new york 19 Straat, upon which stood the five stone store- houses of the Dutch West India Company. This was the business centre of the town, because here were the landing-places. From the foot of Moor Street (which may have derived its name, now corrupted to Moore, from the fact that it was the mooring-place), the single wharf within the town limits extended out a little beyond the line of the present Water Street. Here, and also upon the banks of the canal in the present Broad Street, lighters discharged and received the car- goes of ships lying in the stream. Already, as is shown by the houses dotted along the East River front outside the wall, the tendency of the town was to grow towards the northeast ; and this was natural, for the Perel Straat — leading along the water-side to the Brooklyn ferry — was the most travelled thoroughfare in the town. In the year 1661, when the draft was made from which The Duke's Plan was copied, New Amsterdam was a town of about one thousand souls, under the government, organized in 1652, of a schout, two burgomasters, and five schepens. The western side of the town, from the Bowling Green northward, was a gentle wilderness of or- chards and gardens and green fields. On the eastern side the farthest outlying dwelling was Wolfert Webber's tavern, on the northern high- way near the present Chatham Square — whereat travellers adventuring into the northern wilds of this island were wont to pause for a season while they put up a prayer or two for protection, and 20 IN OLD NEW YORK at the same time made their works conform to their faith by taking aboard a sufficient store of Dutch courage to carry them pot -valiantly on- ward until safe harbor was made again within the Harlem tavern's friendly walls. Save for the Ind- ian settlement at Sappokanican (near the present Gansevoort Market) and the few farm-houses scat- tered along the highway, all this region was desert of human life. Annual round-ups were held, under the supervision of the Brand-master, of the herds which ran wild in the bush country whereof the be- ginning was about where the City Hall now stands And upon the town rested continually the dread of Indian assault. At any moment the hot-headed act of some angry colonist might easily bring on a war. In the early autumn of 1655, when peaches were ripe, an assault actually was made: being a vengeance against the whites because Hendrick Van Dyke had shot to death an Indian woman whom he found stealing peach- es in his orchard (lying just south of the present Rector Street) on the North River shore. Fort- unately, warning came to the townsfolk, and, crow cling their women and children into the Fort, they were able to beat off the savages ; where- upon the savages, being the more eager for re- venge, feli upon the settlements about Pavonia and on Staten Island: where the price paid for Hendrick Van Dyke's peaches was the wasting of twenty-eight farms, the bearing away of one hundred and fifty Christians into captivity, and one hundred Christians outright slain. Ill At eight o'clock on the morning of September 8, 1664, the flag of the Dutch West India Com- pany fell from Fort Amsterdam, and the flag of England went up over what then became Fort James. Governor Stuyvesant — even his wooden leg sharing in his air of dejection — marched dis- mally his conquered forces out from the main gateway, across the Parade to the Beaver's Path, and so to the Heere Graft, where boats were ly- ing to carry them to the ships at anchor in the stream. And at the same time the English marched gallantly down Broadway — from where they had been waiting, about in front of where Aldrich Court now stands — and Governor Nicolls solemnly took possession of New Amsterdam, and of all the New Netherland, in the name of the English sovereign, and for the use of the Duke of York. This change of ownership, with which came also a change of name, was largely and immedi- ately beneficial to the colon\\ Under the gov- ernment of the Dutch West India Company, the New Netherland had been managed not as a national dependency, but as a commercial venture which was expected to bring in a handsome re- turn. Much more than the revenue necessary to maintain a government was required of the colo- nists ; and at the same time the restrictions im- THE SURRENDER OF FORT AMSTERDAM posed upon private trade — to the end that the trade of the Company might be increased — were so onerous as materially to diminish the earning power of the individual, and so correspondingly to make the burden of taxation the heavier to bear. Nor could there be between the colonists and the Company — as there could have been be- tween the colonists and even a severe home gov- ernment — a tie of loyalty. Indeed, the situation had become so strained under this commercial despotism that the inhabitants of New Amster- dam almost openly sided with the English when THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 23 the formal demand for surrender was made, and the town passed into British possession and be- came Xew York without the striking of a single blow. Virtually, this was the end of Dutch ownership hereabouts. Once again, from July 30, 1673, until November 10, 1674, the Dutch were in pos- session — following that "clap of thunder on a fair frosty day," as Sir William Temple called it, when England declared war against Holland in the year 1672. But this temporary reclamation had no influence beyond slightly retarding the great de- velopment of the city, and of all the colony, which came with English rule. Although the Xew Netherland had been ac- quired, nominally, by force of arms, Xew York by no means was treated as a conquered province. Colonel Richard Xicolls, who commanded the English military force, and who became the first English Governor of the Province, conducted his government with such wise conservatism that there was no shock whatever in the transition from the old to the new order of things, and the change was most apparent in agreeable ways. Xot until three-fourths of a year had passed was the city government re-organized, in accordance with English customs, by substituting for the schout, burgomasters, and schepens, a sheriff, board of aldermen, and a mayor; and even when the change was made it was apparent rather than real, for most of the old officers simply continued to carry on the government under new names. 24 IN OLD NEW YORK The Governor's Commission, of June 12, 1665, by which this change was effected, is known as the Nicolls Charter. It did actually slightly enlarge the authority of the municipal government; but its chief importance was its demonstration of the intention of the English to treat New York not as a commercial investment, but as a colonial capital entitled to consideration and respect. The most emphatic and the most far-reachingly beneficial expression of this fostering policy was the passage, in the year 1678, of what was styled the Bolting Act ; in accordance with the pro- visions of which this city was granted a monop- oly in the bolting of flour, and in the packing of flour and biscuit for export under the act. No mill outside of the city was permitted to grind flour for market, nor was any person outside of the city permitted to pack breadstuffs in any form for sale ; the result of which interdict was to throw the export trade in breadstuffs, mainly with the West Indies and already very consider- able,' exclusively into the hands of the millers and merchants of New York. Outside of the city, and with justice, this law was regarded with ex- treme disfavor. From the first, strong efforts were made by the country people to secure its repeal; but the "pull" of the city members in the Provincial Assembly (the whole matter has an interestingly prophetic flavor), was strong enough to keep it in effect for sixteen years. At last, in 1694, the country members broke away from their city leaders (as has happened also in St: m i_ THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 25 later times) and most righteously repealed this very one-sided law. But the Bolting Act had been in force long enough to accomplish a result larger and more lasting than its promoters had contemplated, or, indeed, than they well could comprehend : it had laid the foundation of the foreign commerce of New York. During the sixteen years that the act remained operative the city expanded, under the stimulus of such extraordinary privileges, by leaps and bounds. Fortunately, an authoritative record has been preserved — in the petition filed by the New York millers and merchants against the re- peal of the act — of precisely what the city gained in this short space of time. In the year 1678 (the petitioners state), the total number of houses in New York was 384; the total number of beef cattle slaughtered was 400; the sailing craft hail- ing from the port consisted of three ships, seven boats, and eight sloops; and the total annual revenues of the city were less than .£2000. On the other hand, in the year 1694 the number of houses had increased to 983 ; the slaughter of beef cattle (largely for export), to nearly 4000 ; the sailing craft to 60 ships, 40 boats, and 25 sloops; and the city revenues to ^5000. In con- clusion, to show how intimately this prodigious expansion was associated with the milling inter- est, the petitioners declared that more than 600 of the 983 buildings in the city depended in one way or another upon the trade in flour. In view 26 IN OLD NEW YORK of these facts, very properly do the arms of New York — granted in the year 1682, in the midst of its first burst of great prosperity — exhibit, along with the beaver emblematic of the city's commer- cial beginning, the sails of a windmill and two flour-barrels as emblems of the firm foundation upon which its foreign commerce has been reared. By comparing the map of 1695 with the Duke's Plan of 1664 the development of the city under the influence of the Bolting Act may be seen at a glance. In 1664 fully one-third of the available street-front space remained vacant in the city proper, and only eighteen buildings had been erected outside of the wall. By 1695 the six hundred new buildings had occupied almost all the available street - front space in the city proper, and had forced the laying out of so large a group of new streets to the northward of the wall that the city had been almost doubled in size. In the annexed district few houses had been erected west of King (William) Street; and the new streets west of Broadway possibly had not even been opened — for the growth of the town still was toward the northeast. But the many new buildings east of King Street, and the provision upon so large a scale of new streets, showed the alert enterprising spirit that was abroad. This was, indeed, the most active period in real-estate transactions that the city so far had known. Prices were rising prodigiously. By the year 1689 fourteen lots near Coenties Slip were sold at auction for ,£35 each, and a lot at the THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 27 foot of Broad Street actually was valued at £80. However, while affected by the rise in real-estate values generally, the extraordinary rise in prices hereabouts was due to the building at the foot of Broad Street — at the same time that the canal was filled in — of the Wet Docks: two basins of a sufficient size to harbor a whole fleet of the little ships of that day while their cargoes were taken in or discharged. And about the same time, so rapidly was the commerce of the city increasing, two new wharves were built upon the East River front. Finalh', in the midst of this most flourish- ing period, New York received, April 22, 1686, the very liberal charter — known as the Dongan Char- ter, because granted through the Governor of that name — which still is the basis of our civic rights." During this energetic and highly formative pe- riod, while wise and sound English government was doing so much to foster the welfare of the city, the English race distinctly was in a minority among the citizens. This fact is brought out clearly in the following statement made by Gov- ernor Dongan, in the year 1687, in his report to the Board of Trade : " For the past seven years * The Dongan Charter, granted by James II.. was amended by Queen Anne in 1708, and was farther enlarged by George II. in 1730 into what is known as the Montgomery Charter. This last, confirmed by the General Assembly of the Province in 1732, made New York virtually a free city. The Mayor was appointed by the Governor in Council until the Revolution, by the State Covernor and four members of the Council of Appointment until 1821, by the Common Council of the city until 1834, and since this last date (in theory) by the people. 28 IX OLD NEW YORK there have not come over to this Province twenty English, Scotch, or Irish families. On Long Isl- and the people increase so fast that they com- plain for want of land, and main' remove thence to the neighboring provinces. Several French families have lately come from the West Indies and from England, and also several Dutch fami- lies from Holland, so that the number of foreign- ers greatly exceeds the King's natural born sub- jects." In point of morals, the New York of two hun- dred years ago seems to have been about on a par with frontier towns and outpost settlements of the present day. About the time that Gov- ernor Dongan made his report to the Board of Trade, the Rev. John Miller — for three years a resident of the colony as chaplain to the King's forces — addressed to the then Bishop of London a letter in which he reviewed the spiritual short- comings of the colonists. Mr. Miller's strictures upon the Dissenters, naturally warped by his point of view, scarcely are to be quoted in fairness ; but of the clergymen of the Establishment, toward whom his disposition would be lenient, he thus wrote: "There are here, and also in other prov- inces, main' of them such as, being of a vicious life and conversation, have played so many vile pranks, and show such an ill light, as have been very prejudicial to religion in general and to the Church of England in particular." Continuing, he complains broadly of " the great negligence of divine things that is generally found in the peo- THE EVOLUTION OF NEW YORK 3 1 pie, of what sect or sort soever they pretend to be." And, in conclusion, he declares: " In a soil so rank as this no marvel if the Evil One finds a ready entertainment for the seed he is ready to cast in : and from a people so inconstant and re- gardless of heaven and holy things no wonder if God withdraw His grace, and give them up a prey to those temptations which they so industriously seek to embrace." These cheering remarks relate to the Province at large. Touching the citizens of Xew York in particular, the reverend gentleman briefly but for- cibly describes them as drunkards and gamblers, and adds :