REPORT OF A SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BATTERY EXTENSION. 
 
 February 9, 1865. 
 
 JOHN W. AMERM AN, PRINTER, 
 No. 47 Cedar Street. 
 
 1865. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
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 Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 
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 http://archive.org/details/reportofspecialc00newy_1 
 
REPORT OF A SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 dtakwf <tanutt«rf the £ tot* of ffiw^wlt, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BATTERY EXTENSION. 
 
 February 9, 1S65. 
 
 JOHN TV. AMERMAN, PRINTER, 
 No. 47 Cedar Street. 
 
 1865. 
 
CIA". 
 
 •NT 
 
 to 
 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE 
 
 Gjjamkr of Comiiurre of % State of Ueto-fjark, 
 
 ox 
 
 THE BATTERY EXTEK"SIOjST. 
 
 The Committee appointed by the Chamber, by reso- 
 lution of 4th January, 1865, to " memorialize the Legis- 
 lature of this State, asking its action towards the 
 u completion of the Battery Extension, and to devise a 
 " plan by which the piers and wharves of the City shall 
 "be kept in order, and revenue yielded to the City 
 
 from the rent of the same," 
 
 Respectfully submit : That they have given the whole 
 subject of Encroachments on the Harbor, and especially 
 that known as the Battery Extension, their careful con- 
 sideration, and respectfully recommend to the Cham- 
 ber the adoption of the memorial herewith submitted, 
 drafted by them, and recommending the passage of a 
 bill* now before the Senate of the State, which places 
 the control of this alteration in the water front in the 
 hands of the Pilot Commissioners of this city. 
 
 * This bill has since passed. 
 
4 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THH 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 To the Eon. the Senate and House of Assembly of the 
 State of New- York : 
 
 May it please your Honorable Bodies : 
 
 The Memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of the 
 State of New- York respectfully represents : 
 
 The present condition of the alteration in the water 
 front of the City of New- York, known by the name of 
 the "Battery Extension;" the injury which is daily 
 caused by it in its present unfinished state, and the im- 
 portance of its early completion, in order to the preser- 
 vation of the safety of the harbor. 
 
 The Battery Extension was contracted for, under the 
 authority of the Corporation of the City of New-York, 
 by a Mr. Conkling, in the year 1851. The work was 
 undertaken and slowly carried on. In the year 1853 
 the contract was transferred to Mr. George Law, since 
 which period it has been prosecuted slowly until now, 
 when labor upon it is wholly suspended. 
 
 The dangers with which the safe navigation of the 
 harbor are threatened, by this protracted delay and 
 present stoppage, may be best shown by a reference to 
 the several reports which have been made upon en- 
 croachments upon the harbor during the last ten years. 
 
5 
 
 In the year 1855, Major Delafield, of the United 
 States Engineer Corps, now its distinguished chief, 
 communicated to this Chamber the dangers to which 
 the continuous and increasing encroachments, both 
 upon the East River and the New- York side of the 
 Hudson, were exposing the harbor of the city, by re- 
 ducing the volume of the tide in the Sandy Hook chan- 
 nel and causing alterations in the direction of the cur- 
 rents. 
 
 In the same year, the Committee of Commerce of 
 the Legislature of New- York and the Governor of the 
 State considered the subject, and extended invitations 
 to the authorities of New-Jersey to meet them in the 
 City of New-York, and make a personal examination of 
 the state of the harbor and the encroachments upon 
 the same. 
 
 In conformity with this invitation of Governor Clark, 
 Governor Price, of New-Jersey, a joint committee of 
 both houses of the Legislature, and Egbert L. Yiele, 
 Esq., the State Engineer, united with the authorities of 
 the State of New- York in an examination of the en- 
 croachments then existing and contemplated upon the 
 Brooklyn side of the East River. 
 
 A joint resolution was reported by this committee 
 to the Senate and General Assembly of New-Jersey, 
 and by them adopted, inviting the attention of the 
 Legislature of the State of New- York to the existing 
 abuses, and requesting it to " survey, lay out and estab- 
 lish in the rivers and harbor of New- York an exterior 
 water line, beyond which no erection should be there- 
 after made." 
 
 In response to this call of a neighboring State, whose 
 commerce, as well as our own, was suffering from these 
 
6 
 
 infringements upon the common domain, and to the 
 urgent representations of the commercial community of 
 New- York City, an act was passed by the Legislature 
 of New-York, on the 30th March, 1855, entitled " An 
 Act for the appointment of a Commission for the pres- 
 ervation of the Harbor of New- York from Encroach- 
 ments and to prevent Obstructions to the necessary 
 Navigation thereof." These Commissioners, known by 
 the name of "The New-York Harbor Commissioners," 
 at once entered upon their work, and, with the advice 
 of Gen. Joseph G. Tottex, Chief Engineer of the United 
 States, Professor A. Dallas Bache and Commander 
 Chas. H. Davis, now Admiral U. S. N., decided upon an 
 exterior line, and reported the same to the Legislature 
 the 8 th January, 1856, and 5th March, of the same year. 
 
 These reports were referred to the Committee on 
 Commerce and Navigation of the Senate, which body, 
 after conference with the committee of the Corporation 
 of the City of New-York on wharves, piers and slips, 
 reported to the Senate, 17th March, 1856, with a bill 
 defining an exterior line. This bill was adopted and 
 passed into a law April 1, 1856, under the title of u An 
 act for the payment of expenses under the act for the 
 preservation of the harbor of New- York from encroach- 
 ments, passed March 30th, 1855, and to limit the ex- 
 penses and duration of the Commission created by said 
 act." The sum of $50,000 was appropriated, and the 
 time in which the exterior line should be established 
 fixed for the 2d Tuesday in January, 1857. 
 
 On the 27th January, 1857, the Harbor Commission- 
 ers informed the Legislature that, contrary to the acts 
 virtually forbidding the filling up of the waters of the 
 
7 
 
 port beyond Water and South streets, the Corporation 
 of the city had authorized or permitted the deposit 
 of earth in the Hudson River, between the termination 
 of Dey and Yesey streets, from about 435 feet in depth 
 and 480 feet in width west of West-street ; and on the 
 East River, between Thirteenth and Eighteenth streets, 
 the riparian owners had filled in beyond the cession of 
 the 400 feet to the city, and beyond the exterior line 
 established by the Legislature. 
 
 The State claimed to own a large portion of the area 
 thus occupied, and a conflict of jurisdiction ensued be- 
 tween it and the city authorities. This is what is known 
 as the West Washington Market Case, and has for a 
 long time occupied public attention. 
 
 On the 24th April, 1858, the Commissioners of the 
 Land Office of the State leased to James B. Taylor and 
 Owen W. Brbnnan the right of the State to this prop- 
 erty for a consideration, taking from them a bond of 
 indemnity, to save the State from costs in any action 
 for the maintenance of the right under the lease. This 
 lease was renewed on the 17th April, 1860. 
 
 In this case, therefore, the State maintained its right 
 of sovereignty, and the same right over the waters and 
 harbor was again successfully sustained by a decision 
 of the Supreme Court, February 17, 1862, Wm. F. Allen, 
 Judge, in a suit brought in the name of the People, at 
 the instance of the Board of Commissioners of Pilots, 
 to restrain Cornelius Vanderbilt from erecting a pier 
 at the north end of the Battery, and outside of the pier 
 line established in the act of 1857. There would seem, 
 therefore, to be no reason to question the power of the 
 Legislature to grant the relief hereinafter prayed for in 
 the matter of the Battery Extension. 
 
8 
 
 In the year 1859, the attention of the commercial 
 community was seriously drawn to the growing dan- 
 gers and the importance of watchful care to preserve 
 the harbor, by an alarming report that u vessels had 
 struck upon the shoal of the Battery, where there was 
 supposed to be an ample depth of water." 
 
 Mr. George W. Blunt, then Pilot Commissioner and 
 a member of this Chamber, immediately called the at- 
 tention of Professor Bache, Superintendent of the Coast 
 Survey, to the subject. Lieut. Craven, U. S. N., then 
 attached to this service — the same gallant officer who 
 lost his life while commanding the iron-clad Tecumseh, 
 in the attack on the forts of Mobile — was detailed to 
 re-survey the shoal, and communicated his report on 
 the 27th September, 1859, in a letter to the Chamber 
 of Commerce. 
 
 A committee of the Chamber examined into the sub- 
 ject of the encroachments and the remedies for them in 
 November, 1859, and urged immediate application to 
 the Corporation to take measures to complete the Bat- 
 tery Extension without delay. 
 
 Lieut. Craven, in his report of survey, stated "that 
 "the accumulation on the shoal, off the point of the 
 " island, has evidently been aided to a startling degree 
 " by the extension of the Battery." And again, u that 
 " the Battery Extension has already accomplished that 
 " which would have required a half century of the 
 " operations of nature, having pusLud the shoal out 
 " as the shore line was changed." But he further states, 
 u that it is probable, when the slowly progressing en- 
 largement is completed and the walls finished, the 
 " changes will be less rapid;" and " that the injury is 
 " now without other remedy than that of hastening 
 
# 
 
 9 
 
 " to its completion a work which has proved so seri- 
 " ously disastrous to this already crowded part of the 
 " harbor, and, by legislation, preventing any extensions 
 u beyond the lines of the city as defined by the Har- 
 " bor Commissioners." 
 
 But, notwithstanding the statements of these eminent 
 scientific authorities and the earnest and repeated re- 
 monstrances of the Chamber, as well as of numbers of 
 our commercial men, the work was not hastened, and, 
 at the present time, no progress whatever is being 
 made towards its completion. 
 
 A reason for the delay of the holder of the contract 
 to pursue this work may, perhaps, be found in the fact, 
 that he has for many years had the use of a valuable 
 wharf, the franchise of which is worth $5,000 and up- 
 wards, annually to the city, free of charge. 
 
 This wharf, which he was permitted by the corpora- 
 tion to use for the landing of stone necessary to the 
 work, he has applied to ferry purposes, to his great 
 personal advantage. 
 
 Begun in an utter disregard of the true interests of 
 the city, which may, perhaps, seek the shelter of ignor- 
 ance, this work has been pursued with a tardiness more 
 criminal than the original inception. If the city is to 
 receive damage from this enterprise, and it be shown 
 that this damage will be infinitely increased by delay, 
 it would seem that so much, at least, would be yielded 
 to the demand of public interest and the pressure of 
 public opinion. So far from this, the work is now 
 wholly suspended. 
 
 The interposition of your Honorable Bodies is now 
 invoked to remedy the evil, which, after repeated solici- 
 tation, the Corporation of the city has failed to amend. 
 
10 
 
 Of the correctness of the judgment of the scientific 
 men whose views have been stated, there can be no 
 question. It only needs to ask the opinion of any New- 
 York merchant, pilot or sailor of the now passing gen- 
 eration, and to compare the harbor as it was previous 
 to 1815, when at every wharf water was at all seasons 
 abundant, and sailing vessels starting from them beat 
 out to sea unaided by the now inevitable steam-tug, with 
 the present intricate and dangerous navigation, when 
 even steamers, with their power and independence, often 
 hang off the point of the Battery for a half-hour, wait- 
 ing an opportunity to pass from one river to the other. 
 
 Nor, may it please your Honorable Bodies, is this a 
 subject merely municipal, and affecting the interests of 
 this metropolis only ; not so ; the City of Albany propor- 
 tionately, to her commerce, suffers more than the City of 
 New- York, and the limitation of the harbor which in- 
 jures the one will, ere long, wholly ruin the other, un- 
 less checked. The diminution of the volume of tide 
 water which flows through the gates of the ocean, and 
 the consequent diminished force and extent of the back- 
 set above Newburgh, have, year by year, caused a 
 descent of the bar at Albany, until now it is miles be- 
 low the ancient limit, and ere long will leave that city 
 without river navigation, except for the most insignifi- 
 cant and light draught vessels. And in this the Cham- 
 ber is not unmindful of its own indebtedness to the 
 State. Re-chartered in 1781 as the Chamber of Com- 
 merce of the State of New- York, and favored since in 
 special and peculiar legislation by the people of the 
 State, it recognises its duty to regard the commercial 
 interests of the State at large ; and it would be false to 
 its history and to its traditions were it to permit any 
 
11 
 
 consideration for a simply municipal interest, to stand 
 in the way of its duty to the State and to the Nation, 
 of which that State is part. 
 
 During the past year the Chamber took effective action 
 to prevent legislation in New-Jersey injurious to the 
 harbor ; and on the 4th May, 1864, a committee re- 
 ported that, at their instance, a commission had been 
 appointed by the Legislature of that State to report 
 upon an exterior line for the whole of the New -Jersey 
 shore bordering on the Hudson, and a bill had been 
 passed, similar to that adopted by this State, for the due 
 regulation of the harbor. 
 
 There seems, therefore, to be little more needed to 
 preserve to ourselves and to future generations the un- 
 paralleled and priceless advantages of our noble harbor, 
 than to force to a conclusion the work known as the 
 Battery Extension, and to this your consideration is 
 respectfully and earnestly invited. 
 
 Your memorialists further respectfully submit, that 
 there is now before the Honorable the Senate a bill, 
 entitled " An Act to prevent encroachments in the 
 Harbor of New- York, and to provide for the comple- 
 tion of the extension of the Battery." 
 
 This bill places the control of this work, in certain 
 contingencies, in the hands of the Pilot Commissioners 
 of this city. These gentlemen have already examined 
 this subject, and their map, showing the present con- 
 dition of the alteration, is hereunto annexed. And it 
 may be here stated, that recently one of their number 
 has visited Washington, and arrived at an understanding 
 with the authorities, that the Government will co- 
 operate in the improvement for public purposes of ad- 
 vantage and convenience to the commerce of the city. 
 
 With regard to the character of this improvement, 
 
12 
 
 it is proper to say that it is proposed to transfer the 
 present Barge Office to the Battery, where a handsome 
 building, similar in character to that of the Union Ferry 
 Company, will be erected by the Government for rev- 
 enue purposes, and a large basin will be made, which 
 will furnish accommodation to the numerous barges 
 and small boats for a landing. These improvements 
 will supply a great want of this community, and, in 
 the form proposed, be also a great ornament to the 
 city. It is not believed that any first-class city in the 
 world is so ill provided with this kind of accommo- 
 dations. 
 
 This bill is in all respects satisfactory to this Cham- 
 ber and to our merchants generally, and, if passed into a 
 law, will prove of incalculable benefit to the city ; 
 wherefore your memorialists commend it to your early 
 and favorable consideration, and, as in duty bound, 
 they will ever pray, &c. 
 
 In submitting the above memorial for the approval 
 of the Chamber, the Committee respectfully state that 
 they will present a further memorial, on the subject of 
 a plan " by which the piers and wharves of the city 
 " shall be kept in order, and revenue yielded to the 
 " city from the rent of the same," as called for by the 
 resolution of the Chamber. 
 
 All of which is respectfully submitted. 
 
 John Austin Stevens, Jr. 
 George W. Blunt, 
 Fred'k A. Conkling, 
 Charles H. Marshall, 
 Ezra Nye. 
 
 New- York, February 6, 1865. 
 
13 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR B ACHE. 
 to the president of the new-york chamber of commerce. 
 
 Lane's Brook, 
 Washington Co., Maine, Sept. 27, 1859. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 The report that one or more vessels had struck upon the shoal off 
 the Battery, where it was generally supposed there was deep water, 
 induced one of the Pilot Commissioners, George W. Blunt, Esq., 
 to call my attention to the desirableness of a re-survey of the shoal. 
 It was assigned to Lieut.-Commanding T. A. Craven, TJ. S. N., the 
 assistant in the Coast Survey, who, having been charged with the hy- 
 drography of the New- York harbor for the Commissioners on Harbor 
 Encroachments, was familiar with every part of the shoal. His re- 
 port, recently presented to me, gives in detail the changes which 
 have occurred, and shows prospectively those which may be expected. 
 It is important, and I therefore beg leave, through you, to call the 
 attention of the Chamber of Commerce to it. The filling between 
 Pier No. 1 and the Castle may readily be amended by dredging, and 
 no doubt the entire completion of the Battery work would retard the 
 now rapid increase of the shoal. The shoal must, however, in a gen- 
 eral way, be related to the present shore line, as the old was to the 
 former shore ; and thus the shoal, changed somewhat in form, must be 
 pushed out to a distance not equal but corresponding to the addition 
 of the shore line of the Battery. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 A. D. Bache, 
 Superintendent U. S. Coast Survey. 
 
 To Pelatiah Perit, Esq., 
 
 Preset Chamber of Commerce. 
 
14 
 
 REPORT OF LIEUT. CRAVEN. 
 
 New-York, Sept. 20th, 1859. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 In compliance with your directions in July last, I made an exami- 
 nation of the shoal off the Battery, New-York, for the purpose of 
 ascertaining what changes had taken place in that locality, and I 
 herewith submit to you a map of the Survey, scale 1-5000, on which 
 I have also had the soundings placed, from the Surveys of 1855 and 
 1856, for comparison. 
 
 The soundings of '55 and '56 are underlined, and the curves are 
 also distinctly drawn. 
 
 In order to make this discussion as explicit as possible, I divide 
 the shoal into sections, and call your attention to each portion sepa- 
 rately ; you will be much interested in observing the rapidity with 
 which the shoal is accumulating, and with what regularity the de- 
 posits are being made. 
 
 Sec. I. From Pier No. 1 North River, to Castle Garden. In the 
 angle formed by the line of the Battery and the Pier, there has been a 
 very rapid filling up ; the three-fathom curve has been pushed outward 
 eighty yards beyond the line of 1856 ; the 17 feet spot in the outer 
 part of this section is extending towards Pier No. 1, and there is an 
 average decrease of three feet in depth throughout this section. 
 
 Sec. II. extends to the three-fathom curve of 1856. In this portion 
 of the shoal the change has been not less considerable than in the 
 angle of Pier No. 1. The three-fathom curve was, in 1856, about 
 seventy-five yards south of the Castle ; it will be seen that it has ex- 
 tended toward the Castle wharf, and embraces a considerable area, 
 where formerly we had five fathoms; outside of this curve, we find 
 in this section a general decrease of five feet in the depth. 
 
 Sec. III. embraces the general shoal to the southeastern portion of 
 the curve of three fathoms. Excepting in the part already indicated, 
 there has been no material change in the general contour of the shoal, 
 but in following the curve to the southernmost point, it will be seen 
 that it has extended about one hundred feet to the southward. 
 
 Sec. IV. extends from last Section to East River Piers. In calling 
 your attention to this section, I will merely refer to the knoll lying 
 about AY. S. W. from Pier No. 1, East River. This knoll has eighteen 
 
15 
 
 feet water upon it, is very small, arid has deep water outside and close 
 to it; there is no change in depth on the knoll, but it is extending 
 itself towards the north, and it will be seen that in that direction 
 there is a decrease of two feet in the depth near the shoal. 
 
 East of this knoll there is no apparent change. Drawing a waved 
 line from the last-mentioned knoll to Castle Garden, you mark out 
 the eddy waters of this part of the river ; the current of the two rivers 
 meeting here at ebb and dividing at flood ; this portion of the stream 
 being too sluggish to carry off matters held in suspension, they are 
 rapidly and constantly deposited. 
 
 Although from natural causes there must always have been a shoal 
 off this point of the island, its accumulation has evidently been aided 
 to a startling degree by the extension of the Battery. The currents 
 which formerly flowed between Castle Garden and the shore, made 
 the greater portion of their deposit so near the shores as to cause no 
 great injury to the operations of commerce; and the process of de- 
 posit was so gradual that it would have required an interval of many 
 years ere the shoal would have seriously encroached on the waters of 
 the Bay; but the Battery Extension has already accomplished that 
 which would have required a half century of the operations of nature > 
 having pushed the shoal out as the shore line was changed. 
 
 In illustration of this assertion, we have but to look at the extraor- 
 dinary heaping up of the earth in the angle formed by the Battery 
 wall and Pier No. 1, a heaping up made by the ebb current of the 
 North River, which, as it comes around the pier, is now turned back 
 and forward into eddies by the Battery walls. This current formerly 
 ran through the space now covered by the filling in, and poured the 
 suspended matter into the East River, off Whitehall, from whence it 
 was carried away and distributed in the deep waters of the Bay. 
 But now a large portion of the sediment brought down by the ebb is 
 doubtless rilling in the spaee here with great rapidity ; its effects are 
 still more strongly visible in the section off the Castle where we see 
 changes of six and eight feet m the space of three yards. This 
 is due to the united efforts of the ebbs from the two rivers ; and the 
 time cannot be far distant when — unless dredging is resorted to — the 
 entire space from the Castle to the head of Pier No. 1 will be quite 
 filled in. 
 
 In addition to the material damage done by thus forcing out into 
 the stream a shoal which was heretofore of little consequence, it may 
 
16 
 
 safely be presumed that, in rilling in for the Battery Extension, very 
 liberal supplies have been contributed to the shoals from the dirt 
 carts, as without the security of a regular sea wall, immense quanti- 
 ties of the loose earth must, from time to time, be washed away and 
 added to the shoal ; and it is probable that when the slowly progress- 
 ing enlargement is completed and the walls finished, the changes will 
 be less rapid. The injury is now without other remedy than that of 
 hastening to its completion a work which has proved so seriously dis- 
 astrous to this already crowded part of the harbor, and, by legislation, 
 preventing any extensions beyond the lines of the city as defined by 
 the Harbor Commissioners. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 
 Your ob'd't servant, 
 
 T. Augs. Craven, 
 Lieut t - Comm anding. 
 
 Prof. A. D. Bache, 
 
 Sup^t U. S. Coast Survey. 
 
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