jjjahmtmi^aimmal itf
OF
Old new York
No. 4, New Series 1920 Edited By
Henry Collins Brown
1 PRAY YOU LET US SATISFY OUR EYES—
WITH THE MEMORIALS AND THE THINGS OF FAME
THAT DO RENOWN THIS CITY" Shakespeare .
New York 1920
Valentine's Manual Inc.
15 East 40™ St.
Ctertg logs of 191 B Mjo Jfiowjljt in Jorrujn iOattoa
STljat ICifortg Mioljt Not Pmsli from tl?^ larto. Sftyta Holum* ta Atfrrttonatelg Srotratro
Copyright, 1919 by
Henry Collins Brown.
Press of
The Chauncey Holt Company New York City
CONTENTS
Page
DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK, 1849.
Catherine Elizabeth Havens 1
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WASHINGTON IRVING.
Major George Haven Putnam 53
MOUNT ROOSEVELT— A MEMORIAL 61
WASHINGTON IRVING AND THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 62
NOTABLE RESTORATIONS— WALL ST. AND FIFTH AVE... 64 WALL STREET NINETY YEARS AGO. Sturges S. Dunham.... 78 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLORED SUPPLEMENTS
OF WALL STREET
FIRST WHITE WAY 94
REMOVE THE POST OFFICE FROM CITY HALL PARK— A PLAN FOR AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT TO THE LIBERTY BOYS OF 1918 97
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 102
EDWIN BOOTH MEMORIAL 115
THE FORTUNE TELLER 118
ITEMS 121
DR. J. G. HOLLAND AND ROSWELL SMITH.
William Webster Ellsworth 122
WHY I LIKE NEW YORK 129
SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN NAVAL PRINTS. H. C. Brown... 130
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HALF A CENTURY AGO— INTERESTING ITEMS OF OLD
NEW YORK. Arthur Winthrope Earle 141
SLAVE BURIALS IN NEW YORK. W. L. Calver 153
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BROOKLYN— AS IT WAS
IN THE 70's AND 80's. H. C. Brown 157
AMBROSE CHANNEL — INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE
GREAT WATERWAY. George F. Shrady 172
OLD TARGET COMPANIES AND FIREMEN. W. S. Ludlow.... 180
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 188
GRAMERCY PARK. John B. Pine 193
Gramercy Seat. Samuel B. Ruggles. Peter Cooper's Home.
Where the Atlantic Cable Project was born.
Cyrus W. Field's Residence.
Mayor Abram S. Hewitt.
Samuel J. Tilden.
John Bigelow.
Calvary Church.
Friends' Meeting House.
Dr. Bellows and All Soul's Church.
The Draft Riots.
The Players.
National Arts Club.
Trustees of Gramercy Parle.
A VOYAGE IN A CLIPPER SHIP IN THE SEVENTIES.
William Allen Butler 249
CELEBRATION OF THE 507TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
BIRTH OF JOAN OF ARC 253
HOW GREAT GRANDMOTHER TOOK HER OUTING IN 1810.. 257 ITEMS 259
SOME ASSOCIATIONS OF OLD ANN STREET. Aaron Mendoza 263 Christ Church. Barnum's Museum. Printers and Booksellers. Papers and Periodicals.
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CURIOUS ITEMS FROM OLD NEW YORK PAPERS 304
PUTTING OUT A FIRE, 1794 ' 309
MYRIAD MARVELS OF MANHATTAN 309
CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS 310
"REVERIES OF A BACHELOR," AND LOWER FIFTH AVE.
Albert Ulmann 312
WILLIAM HAMLIN CHILDS' CASE 317
SKATING IN OLD NEW YORK. Irving Brokaw 321
MIGRATORY BIRDS OF FORT WASHINGTON PARK 335
NEW YORK CITY'S WAR ACTIVITIES— A CHRONOLOGICAL
RECORD 336
THE BOSTON ROAD AND AARON BURR. Stephen Wray 367
OLD TIME MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.
A. J. Wall, Ass't Lib'n, N. H. Hist. Soc'y 401
OLD MANSIONS OF THE BRONX. Randall Comfort 435
Gouverneur Morris Mansion. Lewis Morris Mansion. Jonas Bronck's Residence. Old Hunt Mansion. Faile Mansion. Dennison White Mansion. Casanova Mansion. Old Fox Mansion. Simpson Mansion. Richard M. Hoe Mansion Old Vyse Mansion.
INDEX 453
fxi]
ILLUSTRATIONS
List of the Rare Old Prints, Engravings and Colored Lithographs Contained in this Volume.
Page
FRONTISPIECE (IN COLOR)
First Capitol of United States— Federal Hall Wall Street.
VAN DYCK'S PORTRAIT OF JAMES, DUKE OF YORK 7
U. S. S. GEORGE WASHINGTON (IN COLOR) 14
CLINTON HOTEL, BEEKMAN STREET, 1851 21
Showing the old City Hall Park fountain.
OLD MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH, NASSAU STREET 29
Built 1729; used as Post Office, 1845-75.
EDWARD LIVINGSTON, THIRD MAYOR OF NEW YORK,
1801-3 37
Original painting by Trumbull.
CLIPPER SHIP "SAMUEL RUSSELL" (IN COLOR) 44
A famous flyer in the China trade.
NEW YORK WEEKLY JOURNAL 50
One of Zenger's early numbers.
CUTTING THE TREES ON THE N. Y. HOSPITAL GROUNDS 51 To make way for Thomas Street.
DE WITT CLINTON, FOURTH MAYOR OF NEW YORK, 1803-7 59 Original painting by Catlin.
EARLE'S HOTEL, CANAL AND CENTRE STREETS, 1880 65
The McAlpin of 40 years ago.
CLIPPER SHIP "N. B. PALMER" (IN COLOR) 74
The remarkable record of 396 miles in one day is to her credit.
TALLY HO COACH, NEW YORK TO NEW ROCHELLE, 1877... 83 Delancey Kane, driving.
BROADWAY, LOOKING NORTH FROM MURRAY STREET,
1880 89
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Page
CITY HALL PARK, 1825 95
When the Park was the recreation ground and beauty spot of New York.
CLIPPER SHIP "BENEFACTRESS" (IN COLOR) 104
One of the fast clipper ships belonging to A. A. Low & Bro.
DR. HASTING'S OLD CHURCH, THE WEST PRESBYTERIAN 113 Now site of Aeolian Hall.
STATUE OF EDWIN BOOTH 119
Showing the great actor as Hamlet.
FORTY-SECOND STREET AND MADISON AVE., 1869.. 125
Just before the Grand Central Station was opened.
CLIPPER SHIP "HOUQUAH" (IN COLOR) 132
As she appeared entering Hongkong Harbor.
HOUQUAH, A NOTED CHINESE MERCHANT 139
Identified with the great business of A. A. Low & Bro.
THE VELOCIPEDE IN 1869 145
The origin of the bicycle, motor cycle and automobile.
JAM AT FULTON FERRY, 1883 151
BASEBALL AT CAPITOLINE GROUNDS, BROOKLYN, 1880.... 156
RACING AT JEROME PARK, 1880 156
U. S. S. "ALOHA" (IN COLOR) 160
Private yacht of Commodore Arthur Curtiss James, given to the government for service during the war.
AN OLD NEW YORKER'S MISHAP AT THE FERRY SLIP.... 169
JOHN WOLFE AMBROSE....- 175
For whom Congress named the great channel to New York.
AMBROSE LIGHTSHIP 175
Marking the entrance to the channel.
RETURN OF A TARGET COMPANY, 1879 181
Coming home from Lion Park.
U. S. S. "NOMA" (IN COLOR) 190
Lieut. Astor's yacht on duty on the high seas.
GRAMERCY PARK HOUSE, 1860 199
CYRUS W. FIELD PRESENTING HIS ALTANTIC CABLE
PLAN 205
From the painting in the Chamber of Commerce.
GRAMERCY PARK, LOOKING NORTH 211
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Page
U. S. S. "CORSAIR" (IN COLOR) 218
Private yacht of Commodore J. P. Morgan, given to the govern- ment for service during the war.
BOOTH'S THEATRE, SIXTH AVE. AND TWENTY-THIRD ST.,
1879 225
Where the great Shakespeare Revival in the 70's took place.
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 1846 231
UNITARIAN CHURCH OF ALL SOULS, 1855 237
CLIPPER SHIP "CHARLES H. MARSHALL" (IN COLOR) 246
CHART OF VOYAGE ON THE "CHARLES H. MARSHALL".. 247
WARSHIPS SALUTING JOAN OF ARC STATUE 255
NEW YORK HERALD OFFICE, 1870 261
REV. JOSEPH PILMORE, CHRIST CHURCH IN ANN STREET 267 From John Wesley's School, Kingswood, England.
HISPANIC SOCIETY AND OTHER NOTABLE BUILDINGS 274
BARNUM'S VICTORY OVER ST. PAUL'S VESTRYMEN 281
TYPE FOUNDRY IN ANN STREET 281
BURNING OF BARNUM'S MUSEUM, 1865 287
LINE DRAWING OF BROADWAY AND UNION SQUARE, 1820 292
ELEVATED ROAD, GREENWICH STREET, 1869 293
CLIPPER SHIP "FLYING CLOUD" (IN COLOR) 300
A record-breaker in the old California days.
BROADWAY AND MAIDEN LANE, 1880 307
NEW YORK'S NEW PUBLIC MUSEUMS, BROADWAY AND
155TH STREET 313
NEW YORK SKATING CLUB, 1863 319
SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK, 1860 (IN COLOR) 326
A rare old lithograph in the collection of Mr. Irving Brokaw.
JOAN OF ARC PARK COMMEMORATIVE MEDALS 333
FOURTH AVE., 52ND AND 53RD STREETS, 1875 339
Now "Victory Way."
CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF AUTOMOBILE ROW IN 1869... 345
CLIPPER SHIP "THREE BROTHERS" (IN COLOR) 352
Turned over by Commodore Vanderbilt to the government during the Civil War.
WAVERLY HOUSE, 1852 359
A rare print in the collection of Mr. Robert Goelet.
[xv]
Page
HOMESTEAD OF DR. JOSEPH BROWNE 365
OLD JOHNSTON TAVERN ON THE BRONX RIVER 371
Where the Boston stages changed horses.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE VOLUNTEER FIREMAN (IN
COLOR) 378
"Jump her boys, jump her."
LORILLARD'S SNUFF MILL ON THE BRONX RIVER 385
Destroyed in the blizzard of 1888.
BIXBY HOTEL AND W. & J. SLOANE'S CARPET WARE- HOUSE, 1853 391
HUDSON RIVER R. R. COMMUTATION RATE CARD, 1850.... 396
BATTERY PLACE, 1883 397
VOLUNTEER FIREMEN AT WORK (IN COLOR) 404
"The New Era."
WASHINGTON EQUESTRIAN STATUE 411
As he appeared at Valley Forge.
SHAKESPEARE STATUE, ERECTED BY CITIZENS OF NEW YORK 417
ROBERT BURNS STATUE, ERECTED BY ADMIRERS OF THE
PEASANT BARD 423
VOLUNTEER FIREMEN, EXTINGUISHING A GREAT FIRE
(IN COLOR) 430
"Now then with a will."
HUNT MANSION 437
CASANOVA MANSION 437
FAILE MANSION 443
DENNISON-WHITE MANSION 443
[xvi]
HOW THE CITY HALL PARK WOULD LOOK TODAY IF THE POSTOFFICE BRIDGE STATION AND COURT HOUSE WERE REMOVED. THE LIBERTY POLE COULD BE ERECTED ALMOST ON ITS OLD SITE
DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK (1849-1850)
Catherine Elizabeth Havens
August 6, 1849.
Xam ten years old to-day, and I am going to begin a diary. My sister says it is a good plan, and when I am old, and in a remembering mood, I can take out my diary and read about what I did when I was a little girl.
I can remember as far back as when I was only four years old, but 1 was too young then to keep a diary, but I will begin mine by telling what I can recall of that far- away time.
The first thing I remember is going with my sister in a sloop to visit my aunts on Shelter Island. We had to sleep two nights on the sloop, and had to wash in a tin basin, and the water felt gritty.
These aunts live in a very old house. It was built in 1733 and is called , the Manor House, and some of the floors and doors in it were in a house built in 1635 of wood brought from England.*
* Note — This house is now in possession of Miss Cornelia Horsford, of Cambridge, Mass., and was the subject of an article by the late Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, in the November number of the Magazine of American History for 1887.
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
The next thing I remember is going with my nurse to the Vauxhall Gardens, and riding in a merry-go-round. These Gardens were in Lafayette Place, near our house, and there was a gate on the Lafayette Place side, and another on the Bowery side.
Back of our house was an alley that ran through to the Bowery, and there was a livery stable on the Bowery, and one time my brother, who was full of fun and mis- chief, got a pony from the stable and. rode it right down into our kitchen and galloped it around the table and frightened our cook almost to death.
Another time he jumped onto a new barrel of flour and went right in, boots and all. He was so mischievous that our nurse kept a suit of his old clothes done up in a bundle, and threatened to put them on him and give him to the old-clothes man when he came along.
The beggar girls bother us dreadfully. They come down the steps to the kitchen door and ring the bell and ask for cold victuals ; and sometimes they peek through the window into the basement, which is my nursery. And one day my brother said to one of them, "My dear, I am very sorry, but our victuals are all hot now, but if you will call in about an hour they will be cold." And she went away awfully angry.
We moved from Lafayette Place to Brooklyn when I was four years old, but only lived there one year. My brother liked Brooklyn because he could go crabbing on the river, but I was afraid of the goats, which chased one of my friends one day. So we came back to New York, and my father bought a house in Ninth Street. He bought it of a gentleman who lived next door to us, and who had but one lung, and he lived on raw turnips
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and sugar. Perhaps that is why he had only one lung. I don't know.
I am still living in our Ninth Street house. It is a beautiful house and has glass sliding doors with birds of Paradise sitting on palm trees painted on them. But I am afraid we shall never move again. I think it is de- lightful to move. I think it is so nice to shut my eyes at night and not to know where anything will be in the morning, and to have to hunt for my brush and comb and my books and my etceteras, but my mother and my nurse do not feel that way at all.
I forgot to say I have a little niece, nearly as old as I am, and she lives in the country. Her mother is my sister, and her father is a clergyman, and I go there in the summer, and she comes here in the winter, and we have things together, like whooping-cough and scarletina. Her name is Ellen and she is very bright. She writes elegant compositions, but I beat her in arithmetic. I hate compositions unless they are on subjects I can look up in books.
Beside my little niece, I have a dear cousin near my age. Her father died in New Orleans, and her mother then came to New York to live. She brought all her six children with her, and also the bones of seven other little children of hers, who had died in their infancy. She brought them in a basket to put in the family vault on Long Island.
My aunt and my cousins came to New York three years ago. I was in my trundle-bed one night and woke up and saw my mother putting on her hat and shawl, and I began to cry, but she told me to be a good girl and go to sleep, and next day she would take me to see some little cousins. So the next day she took me, but first we
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
went to Mrs. May's toy store, just below Prince Street on Broadway, to buy some presents for me to give to my three little girl cousins. They were living in a nice house in Bleecker Street, near McDougal Street, and are named Annie Maria and Eliza Jane and Sarah Ann.
I took Annie a basket made by some of the people at the Blind Asylum. It was made of cloves strung on wire in diamond shapes, and where the wires crossed there was a glass bead. She keeps her big copper pennies in it.
Annie is my dearest friend. She and I are together in school, but now they have moved way up to Fifteenth Street ; but I walk up every morning to meet her and we walk down to school together. Saturdays I go up to Annie's, and on Irving Place, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets, there is a rope walk, and we like to watch the men walk back and forth making the rope. It is very interesting.1
Some Saturdays we go to see our grandmother, who lives with our aunt on Abingdon Square, and she sends Bella her maid out to buy some candy for us, and she tells us about what she did when she lived way down town in Maiden Lane. She is our mother's mother. Annie's parents and my parents were married in the Maiden Lane house, and my father took my mother to his house at 100 Chambers Street to live with him.
My grandmother's mother lived in Fletcher Street, and she had a sister who lived on Wall Street, opposite the old Tontine Coffee-House. They loved each othe** very much, and were both very sick and expected to die ; but my great grandmother got up of¥ her sick bed and
The Academy of Music mow stands where tli? jope walk was.
j r 4 1
OF OLD NEW YORK
went down to see her sister, and she died there an hour before her sister died, and they were buried together in their brother's vault in Trinity Church Yard. I love to hear my grandmother tell about these old times. She says Mr. R., who married her aunt, was a Tory; which meant he was for the English in the Revolutionary War. He was a printer and came from England, and Rivington Street was named for him.
My father's father lived on Shelter Island, and had twenty slaves, and their names were: Africa, Pomp, London, Titus, Tony, Lum, Cesar, Cuff, Odet, Dido, .Ziller, Hagar, Judith, and Comas, but my grandfather thought it was wicked to keep slaves, so he told them they could be free, but Tony and Comas stayed on with him. After he died Tony and Comas had a fight and Comas cut Tony, and my grandmother told Tony he must forgive Comas, for the Bible said "by so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," and Tony said, "yes, Missy, de nex' time Comas hit me, I'll heap de coals ob fire on his head and burn him to a cinder."
New York is getting very big and building up. I walk some mornings with my nurse before breakfast from our house in Ninth Street up Fifth Avenue to Twenty-third Street, and down Broadway home. An officer stands in front of the House of Refuge on Madison Square, ready to arrest bad people, and he looks as if he would like to find some.
Fifth Avenue is very muddy above Eighteenth Street, and there are no blocks of houses as there are downtown, but only two or three on a block. Last Saturday we had
a picnic on the grounds of Mr. Waddell's country seat
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
way up Fifth Avenue,2 and it was so muddy I spoiled my new light cloth gaiter boots. I have a beautiful green and black changeable silk visite,3 but my mother said it looked like rain and I could not wear it, and it never rained a drop after all. It has a pinked ruffle all around it and a sash behind.
Miss Carew makes my things. She is an old maid, and very fussy, and Ellen and I don't like her. She wears little bunches of curls behind her ears, and when she is cutting out she screws up her mouth, and we try not to laugh, and my mother says Miss Carew is well born and much thought of and only works for the best families.
There is another person called Miss Piatt who comes to sew carpets, and although we don't despise her, which would be very wicked, for my mother says she comes of an excellent old Long Island family, yet Ellen and I don't like to have her use our forks and drink out of our cups. She is very tall and thin and has a long neck that reminds Ellen and me of a turkey gobbler, and her thumb-nails are all flattened from hammering down carpets, and she puts up her front hair in little rings and sticks big pins through them. Ellen and I try to pick out a nicked cup for her to use so that we can recognize it and avoid it.
Mr. Brower makes my shoes and brings them home on Saturday night and stays and tries them on. My sisters go to Cantrell on the Bowery, near Bleecker Street. The wife of one of my brothers thinks I am too fond of pretty clothes, and she sent me a Valentine about a kitten wanting to have pretty stripes like the
2 Corner of Thirty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue, where the Brick Church now stands.
3 A visite was a loose fitting, unlined coat.
[ 6 ]
Van Dyck's Portrait of James, Duke of York for whom the City was named. Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art
OF OLD NEW YORK
tiger, and how the tiger told the kitten that she had a great deal nicer life than he did, out in the cold, and that she ought to be contented. I will copy it just as she wrote it. I don't know whether she made it all up, but she made up the verse about me. This is it:
A kitten one day,
In a weak little voice To a tiger did say :
"How much I rejoice
That I am permitted
In you to behold One of my own family,
So great and so bold !
I'd walk fifty miles, sir,
On purpose to see A sight so refreshing
And pleasant to mel
"With your gay, striped dress,
You must make a great show, And be very much courted
Wherever you go !
Every beast, great and small,
In the forest must say, 'I wish I were a tiger,
So showy and gay !"
The tiger, half dozing,
Then opened his eye, And thus to the kitten
He deigned a reply.
"You envious, foolish
And weak little thing, Know that your size, like mine,
Doth advantages bring.
"Though you have not strength,
Nor a gay, striped dress, You have comforts around
I should love to possess.
"Though I'm powerful and bold,
I'm the terror of all I Alas ! every one hates me
And flees at my call.
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
"You may be very useful
By catching the mice ; Thus make the folks love you
And give you a slice
"Of their meat, and a place Nice and warm where to sleep,
While, friendless and cold, I my wanderings keep 1
"Now, envy no more
Fine looks and gay dress, But strive to be useful,
Make happy and bless
"The friends who 're around you
By kindness and care, And you'll find in return
Love and happiness there."
Methinks you, my dear Kitty,
My tale can explain ; If not, I'll unfold it
When I see you again.
August 15.
I got so tired doing so much thinking and writing in my diary that I waited to think up some more to say.
My father is a very old gentleman. He was born before the Revolutionary War. I have three sisters who are nearly as old as my mother. We have the same father, but different mothers, so they are not quite my own sisters ; but they say they love me just the same as if we were own. Two of them got married and went away to live with their husbands, but one whose name begins with C is not married. I will call her Sister C in my diary. She is educating me.
I love my music lessons. I began them when I was seven years old. Our piano is in the middle room be- tween the parlor and dining-room, and my teacher shuts the sliding doors, and Ellen peeked through the crack to see what I was doing, but she was only six years old.
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My teacher is very fond of me. Last year my sister let me play at a big musical party she had, and I played a tune from "La Fille du Regiment," with variations. It took me a good while to learn it, and the people all liked it and said it must be very hard. My mother has had all my pieces bound in a book and my name put on the cover.
I love my music first, and then my arithmetic. Some- times our class has to stand up and do sums in our heads. Our teacher rattles off like this, as fast as ever she can, "Twice six, less one, multiply by two, add eight, divide by three. How much?" I love to do that.
I have a friend who comes to school with me, named Mary L. She lives on Ninth Street, between Broadway and the Bowery. She and I began our lessons together and sat on a bench that had a little cupboard underneath for our books. She has a nurse named Sarah. Some- times Ellen and I go there and have tea in her nursery. She has a lot of brothers and they tease us. One time we went, and my mother told us to be polite and not to take preserves and cake but once. But we did, for we had raspberry jam, and we took it six times, but the plates were dolls' plates, and of course my mother meant tea plates. My brother laughed and said we were tempted beyond what we were able to bear, whatever that means. He says it is in the Bible.
I hate my history lessons. Ellen likes history be- cause she knows it all and does not have to study her lesson, but one day our teacher asked her to recite the beginning of the chapter, and she had only time to see there was a big A at the heading, and she thought it was about Columbus discovering America and began to recite at a great rate, but the teacher said, "wrong," and it
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
was about Andrew Marvell. Once a girl in our class asked our teacher if what we learned in history was true, or only just made up. I suppose she thought it was good for the mind, like learning poetry.
I meant to write about the time three years ago, when I went with my father to Brady's Daguerrean Gallery, corner of Tenth Street and Broadway, to have our picture taken.
My father was seventy-four, and I was seven. It is a very pretty picture, but people won't believe he isn't my grandfather. He is sitting down and I am standing be- side him, and his arm is around me, and my hand hangs down and shows the gold ring on my fore-finger. He gave it to me at New Years to remember him by. I wore it to church and took off my glove so that Jane S., who sits in the pew next to me, would see it, but she never looked at it. We introduced ourselves to each other by holding up our hymn books with our names on the cover, so now we speak. Ellen and I are afraid of the sexton in our church. He looks so fierce and red.
Once in a while my sister takes me down to the Brick Church on Beekman Street, where our family went be- fore I was born. We generally go on Thanksgiving Day. Dr. Spring is the minister. He married my parents and baptized all their children. Mr. Hull is the sexton, and he puts the coals in the foot-stoves in the pews. Some- times the heat gives out and the lady gets up in her pew and waves her handkerchief and Mr. Hull comes and gets her stove and fills it again. When church begins he fastens a chain across the street to keep carriages away.
A man used to stand in front of the pulpit and read two lines of the hymn and start the tune and all the
[ 12 ]
j& jS. dearie ptasljxrtgkm
Leaving the harbor of New York, Dec. 3rd, 1918, for the Peace Con- ference at Paris with President Wil- son and party on board. This event marked the first occasion in which a President of the United States ever absented himself from the coun- try while holding office.
OF OLD NEW YORK
people would sing with him. He had a tuning-fork, and used to snap it and it gave him the key to start the tune on, but that was before I was born. Afterwards they had a choir, and my mother and one of my sisters sang in it one time.
We are a musical family, all except my father ; but he went with my sister to hear Jenny Lind in Castle Garden, and when she sang "I know that my Redeemer liveth," the tears ran down his face. My sister took me too, and I heard her sing "Coming thro' the rye" and "John Anderson, my Joe," and a bird song, and she is called the Swedish Nightingale, because she can sing just like one. September 21.
My parents went up to Saratoga in August for two weeks, to drink the water. They always stay at the Grand Union Hotel. Some time they will take me. It takes my mother a long time to pack, particularly her caps. She has a cold that comes on the nineteenth day of every August. She calls it her peach cold, and says it comes from the fuzz on the peaches she preserves and pickles.4 It. lasts six weeks and is very hard to bear. It makes her sneeze and her eyes run, and it is too bad, for she has sweet brown eyes and is very beautiful, and when she was a girl she was called "the pink of Maiden Lane," where she lived.
This summer I went up to my sister's, my own sister, at Old Church. Maggy, my nurse, took me in a carriage from Hathorn's Livery Stable on University Place, to Catherine Slip on the East River, where we get into a steamboat — sometimes it is the Cricket, and sometimes
4 Now known as Hay Fever.
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL
the Cataline — and we sail up the sound to the landing where we get off to go to Old Church, and then we get into the stage-coach to ride to my sister's parsonage. I was so wild to get there and to see Ellen and the rest of them that I could hardly wait to have the driver let down the steps for me to get in, and put them up again.
I just love it at Old Church. We play outdoors all day; sometimes in the barn and the hayloft, and some- times by a brook across the road behind a house where three ladies live who have never married, although they have a vine called matrimony on their porch, and they are very good to us children and let us run through their house and yard. On Sundays it is so quiet we can hear every- thing they say, and one morning we heard Miss E. say, "Ann, do you think it is going to rain? If I thought it was going to rain I would take my parasol, but if I thought it was going to shine I would take my parasol- ette."
Every year there is a fair at the Landing, and of course the minister has to go, and so my sister goes too and takes us. There is an old wagon in the barn beside the carriage, and sometimes we all pile in with my nurse and my sister, and go down to bathe in the salt water. I wish we lived nearer to it and could go in every day.
It is lovely on Sunday at Old Church. My brother-in- law is in the pulpit, and his pew is in the corner of the church, and there are two pews in front of us. On pleasant days when the window is open behind us, we can hear the bees buzzing and smell the lilac bush; and out on the salt meadows in front of the church, we some- times, alas ! hear old Dan F. swearing awfully at his
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oxen as he is cutting his salt grass, which it is very wicked of him to cut on the Sabbath. He has only one eye and wears a black patch over the other one, and Ellen and I are afraid of him and run fast when we pass his house. A nice gentleman sits in front of us in church and brings little sugar plums and puts them on the seat beside him for Katy (Ellen's sister) to pick up, as she is very little and it keeps her quiet. One time this gentleman went to sleep in church, and his mouth was open and Katy had a rose in her little hand and she dropped it into his mouth, but he did not mind, because she was so cunning.
In the front pew of the three a family of two parents and three sons and a daughter sit. They are farmers, and they stomp up the aisle in their big hob-nailed boots, and the father stands at the door of the pew and shoves them all in ahead of him just as he shoos in his hens, and then he plumps himself down and the pew creaks and they make an awful noise.
The people in Old Church are very different from our church people in New York, but my sister says they are very kind and we must not make fun of them. Once a year they give her a donation party, and it is very hard for her for all the furniture has to be moved to make room for the people. They bring presents of hams and chickens and other things.
I could write lots about Old Church and the good times I have there. My sister's father-in-law is the Governor of the State, and sometimes he and his wife drive over and spend the day with my sister and her husband, who is their son. Once when my sister called us to come and get dressed as they were going to arrive soon, Ellen said to me, "You needn't hurry; he isn't your
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grandfather." She felt so proud to think he was the Governor. But my father is her grandfather too, and he is much finer looking than the Governor; and my mother says she is very proud of my father for he stands very high in the community — whatever that means. One time I was very angry with my father. It was about the Ravels. October 1.
I stopped to get rested a fortnight ago and then I forgot about my diary.
I will now tell about the Ravels. They act in a theater, called Niblo's Theater, and it is corner of Broad- way and Prince Street. My biggest own brother goes there with some of his friends to see the plays, and he said he would take me to see the Ravels. But when my father found out about it he would not let me go. He said he did not think it was right for Christians to go to the theater. I went out on our front balcony and walked back and forth and cried so much I hurt my eyes.
Now I must tell about this brother of mine, for he has gone away off to California. He went last February with five other young gentlemen.
When he was twenty-one years old he joined a fire company, and it was called "The Silk Stocking Hose Company" because so many young men of our best families were in it. But they didn't wear their silk stockings when they ran with the engine, for I remember seeing my brother one night when he came home from a fire, and he had on a red flannel shirt and a black hat that looked like pictures of helmets the soldiers wear. He took cold and had pain in his leg, and Dr. Washing- ton came and he asked my mother for a paper of pins
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and he tore off a row and scratched my brother's leg with the. pins and then painted it with some dark stuff to make it smart, and it cured him.
Last year my brother had the scarlet fever. His room was on the top floor of our house, and when dear old Dr. Johnston came to see him my mother felt sorry to take him up so many stairs, but he said, "Oh, doctors and hod-carriers can go anywhere." He lives on Four- teenth Street and his daughter comes to school with me.
Last week my sister took me to see Helen R. who is very sick with scarlet fever. They thought she would die, and she was prayed for in school, and now she is getting well. We went up in her room and she looked so funny in bed with all her hair cut off. She lives in Tenth Street.
Before my brother went to California, he wrote in my album, and this is what he wrote:
"My sister, thou hast just begun To glide the stream of Time, And as it wafts thee onward Towards thy glorious youthful prime,
Oh, may the fleeting moments
Which compose thy early years Be so improved that future days
Will not look back in tears I"
My album is a beautiful book, bound in pink kid. I begged one of my brothers (not own) for one, and he gave it to me and wrote lovely poetry on the first page. I don't understand it all, but it sounds like music. I will copy it here in my diary :
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''Spotless is the page and bright,
By heedless fingers yet untarnished; Ne'er the track of fancy's flight Has the virgin leaflet garnished !
Sweet the impress of the heart
Stamp'd in words of true affection !
This be every writer's part ! Love give every pen direction !"
October 15.
My eyes are so bad that I could not write in my diary, and Maggy takes me to Dr. Samuel Elliott's, corner of Amity Street and Broadway, and he puts something in that smarts awfully. He has two rooms, and all the people sit in the front room, waiting, and his office is in the back room; and they have black patches over their eyes — some of them — and sit very quiet and solemn. On each side of the folding doors are glass cases filled with stuffed birds and I know them all by heart now and wish he would get some new ones.
When I was four years old I had my tonsils cut out by Dr: Horace Green, who lives on Clinton Place. My nurse asked him to give them to her, so he put them in a little bottle of alcohol and sealed it up, and she keeps it in the nursery closet, and sometimes she shows it to me to amuse me, but it doesn't, only I don't like to hurt her feelings. My grandmother gave me a five- dollar gold piece for sitting so still when they were cut out.
November 8.
My diary has stopped on account of my eyes, and I have not studied much.
Ellen, is here, and we have had fun. We have been down to Staten Island to one of my sisters. She has ice
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cream on Thursdays, so we try to go then. One day I ate it so fast it gave me a pain in my forehead, and my brother-in-law said I must warm it over the register, and I did, and it all melted, and then they all laughed and said he was joking, but they gave me some more.
My brother-in-law is a dear old gentleman, but he is very deaf. He has a lovely place and every kind of fruit on it, and there is a fountain in front with pretty fish in it. The farmer's name is Andrew, and when he goes to market, Ellen and I go with him in the buggy ; and we always ask him to take us past Polly Bodine's house. She set fire to a house and burned up ever so many people, and I guess she was hung for it, because there is a wax figure of her in Barnum's Museum.
Maggy takes us there sometimes, and it is very in- structive, for there are big glasses to look through, and you can see London and Paris and all over Europe, only the people look like giants, and the horses as big as elephants. Once we stayed to see the play. Maggy says whenever the statue on St. Paul's Church hears the City Hall clock strike twelve, it comes down. I am crazy to see it come down, but we never get there at the right time.
My mother remembers when the City Hall was being built; and she and Fanny S. used to get pieces of the marble and heat it in their ovens and carry it to school in their mufTs to keep their hands warm. She loves to tell about her school days, and I love to hear her.
December 10.
My eyes are better and I will write a little while I can.
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Ellen and I went out shopping alone. We went to Bond's dry-goods store on Sixth Avenue, just below Ninth Street, to buy a yard of calico to make an apron for Maggy's birthday. We hope she will like it. It is a good quality, for we pulled the corner and twitched it as we had seen our mothers do, and it did not tear. Ellen and I call each other Sister Cynthia and Sister Juliana, and when we bought the calico, Ellen said, "Sis- ter Cynthia, have you any change? I have only a fifty- dollar bill papa left me this morning," and the clerk laughed. I guess he knew Ellen was making it up !
There is a bakery kept by a Mr. Walduck on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, and they make delicious cream puffs, and when I have three cents to spare, I run down there right after breakfast, before school begins, and buy one and eat it there.
On the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street is a chocolate store kept by Felix Effray, and I love to stand at the window and watch the wheel go round. It has three white stone rollers and they grind the chocolate into paste all day long. Down Broadway, below Eighth Street is Dean's candy store, and they make molasses candy that is the best in the city. Some- times we go down to Wild's, that is way down near Spring Street, to get his iceland moss drops, good for colds.
My mother says Stuart's candy store down on Green- wich and Chambers Street used to be the store in her day. When she was a little girl in 1810, old Kinloch Stuart and his wife Agnes made the candy in a little bit of a back room and sold it in the front room, and sometimes they used to let my mother go in and stir it.
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After they died their sons, R. and L. Stuart, kept up the candy store in the same place, and it is there still.
When my mother lived at 19 Maiden Lane, Miss Rebecca Bininger and her brother lived across the way from her, and they had a store in the front of their home and sold fine groceries, and their sitting room was behind the store. They were Moravians and they used to ask my mother sometimes to come over and sing hymns to them, and my mother says they were so clean and neat that even their pot-hooks and trammels shone like silver, and by and by Miss Rebecca would go into the store and my mother would hear paper rustling, and Miss Rebecca would come back and bring her a paper rilled with nuts and raisins for a present.
Sometimes my mother gives us a shilling to go and get some ice cream. We can get a half plate for six- pence, and once Ellen dared to ask for a half plate with two spoons, and they gave it to us, but they laughed at us, and then we each had three cents left. That was at Wagner's, on the other side of Broadway, just above Eighth Street. . There is another ice cream saloon on the corner of Broadway and Waverly Place, called Thomp- son's.
I hope Ellen will stay all winter. She is full of pranks, and smarter than I am if she is younger, and I hope we will have lots of snow. When there is real good sleigh- ing, my sister hires a stage sleigh and takes me and a lot of my schoolmates a sleigh ride down Broadway to the Battery and back. The sleigh is open and very long ; and has long seats on each side, and straw on the floor to keep our feet warm, and the sleigh bells sound so cheerful. We see some of our friends taking their after-
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noon walk on the sidewalk, and I guess they wish they were in our sleigh !
Stages run through Bleecker Street and Eighth Street and Ninth Street right past our house, and it puts me right to sleep when I come home from the country to hear them rumble along over the cobble stones again. There is a line on Fourteenth Street too, and that is the highest uptown.
I roll my hoop and jump the rope in the afternoon, sometimes in the Parade Ground on Washington Square, and sometimes in Union Square. Union Square has a high iron railing around it, and a fountain in the middle. My brother says he remembers when it was a pond and the farmers used to water their horses in it. Our Ninth Street stages run down Broadway to the Battery, and when I go down to the ferry to go to Staten Island, they go through Whitehall Street, and just opposite the Bowl- ing Green on Whitehall Street, there is a sign over a store, "Lay and Hatch," but they don't sell eggs.
January 2, 1850.
Yesterday was New Year's Day, and I had lovely presents. We had 139 callers, and I have an ivory tablet and I write all their names down in it. Some of the gentlemen come together and don't stay more than a minute ; but some go into the back room and take some oysters and coffee and cake, and stay and talk. My cousin is always the first to come, and sometimes he comes before we are ready, and we find him sitting behind the door, on the end of the sofa, because he is bashful. The gentlemen keep dropping in all day and until long after I have gone to bed; and the horses look tired, and the livery men make a lot of money.
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The Old Middle Church in Nassau Street, built 1729, taken- down 1882. Used as Post Office from 1845 to 1875. From the only original print known, in the collection of wllliam lorino andrews
OF OLD NEW YORK
Next January we shall be half through the nineteenth century. I hope I shall live to see the next century, but I don't want to be alive when the year 2000 comes, for my Bible teacher says the world is coming to an end then, and perhaps sooner.
January 14.
My mother said she could not afford to get me another pair of kid gloves now, but my sister took' me down to Seaman and Muir's, next door to the hospital on Broad- way, and bought me a pair. I like salmon color, but she said they would not be useful. Strang and Adriance is next door to Seaman and Muir's and we go there some- times.
We get our stockings and flannels at S. and L. Holmes' store, near Bleecker Street. They are two brothers and they keep German cologne. Rice and Smith have an elegant store on the corner of Waverly Place, and they keep German cologne too. We go sometimes to Stewart's store, way down on the corner of Chambers Street, but I like best to go to Arnold and Constable's on Canal Street, they keep elegant silks and satins and velvets, and my mother always goes there to get her best things. She says they wear well and can be made over for me or for Ellen sometimes.
My Staten Island sister gave me a nice silk dress, only it is a soft kind that does not rustle. I have a green silk that I hate, and the other day I walked too near the edge of the sidewalk, and one of the stages splashed mud on it, and I am so glad, for it can't be cleaned.
On Canal Street, near West Broadway, is a box store, where my mother goes for boxes. They have all kinds,
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from beautiful big band boxes for hats and long ones for shawls, down to little bits of ones for children, and all covered with such pretty paper.
Maggy, my nurse, is a very good woman, and reads ever so many chapters in her Bible every Sunday, and she said one day, "Well, Moses had his own troubles with these Children of Israel." I suppose she was thinking about the troubles she has with us children. I have a little bit of a hymn book that was given to one of my sisters (not own) by her affectionate mother. It was printed in 1811 and is called "The Children's Hymn Book," and some of the hymns are about children sleep- ing in church, and they are very severe, and I don't have to learn them, but Maggy teaches me some pretty verses sometimes to sing. I will copy down one of the hymns about sleeping in church. It is called "The sin and pun- ishment of children who sleep in the House of God." This is the hymn :
Sleeper awake! for God is here
Attend his word, his anger fear; For while you sleep his eyes can see,
His arm of power can punish thee.
This day is God's, the day He blest,
His temple this, His holy rest; And can you here recline your head,
And make the pew or seat your bed?
Jehovah speaks, then why should you Shut up your eyes and hearing too?
In anger He might stop your breath, And make you sleep the sleep of death!
Dear children then of sleep beware;
To hear the sermon be your care; For if you all God's message mind,
For sleep no season will you find.
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Remember Entycleus of old,
He slept while Paul of Jesus told; In sleep he fell, in Acts 'tis said,
That he was taken up for dead.
Hear this ye sleepers and be wise,
And shut no more your slumbering eyes,
For 'tis an awful truth to tell That you can never sleep in Hell!
There is another hymn called Hell, but my mother does not like me to learn it. She thinks it is too severe. We use the book "Watt's & Select" in our church, and I know lots of them. It is the University Place Church. This is the hymn called Hell :
There is a pit beneath the grave,
The same into which Satan fell ; God made it in His holy wrath ;
And called the horrid dungeon Hell.
There burns the everlasting flame,
Kindled by His almighty breath, And sinners in that pit endure
The vengeance of eternal death.
There is more of it but these hymns were written long ago, and we don't have such awful ones now. There is one hymn I have learnt, and in it, it says :
Like young Abijah may I see That good things may be found in me.
and my sister says when she was a little girl and learned it, she always thought that when Abijah died, they cut him open and found candies in him.
January 20.
Last Sunday my mother let me go with Maggy to her church. It is called the Scotch Seceders' Church. Mr. Harper is the minister. The church is in Houston Street. In the pew were her father and mother. They live in
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Greenwich village, and once she took me there, and her mother gave me elegant bread and butter with brown sugar thick on it.
Maggy has a sister married to a weaver, and his name is George Ross, and he is growing rich by buying land and selling it, and soon he is to be an alderman. Her other sister is Matilda, and she is my sister's maid. Our other servants are colored people. The man waiter is colored, and we hear him asking our cook on Sunday if she is going to Zion or to Bethel to church, and her name is Harriet White, but she is very black.
We have a Dutch oven in our kitchen beside the range, and in the winter my mother has mince pies made, and several baked at once, and they are put away and heated up when we want one. My mother makes elegant cake, and when she makes rich plum cake, like wedding cake, she sends it down to Shaddle's on Bleecker Street to be baked.
January 25.
This is my mother's birthday and my grandmother came to dinner. She is forty-nine to-day, and I hope she will live to be a hundred. She has a lovely voice and sings old songs, and plays them herself.
She went to a big school in Litchfield kept by a Miss Pierce, but was only there three months. Her father thought it was too cold for her to stay there. While she was there she boarded at Dr. Lyman Beecher's and his wife died, and he preached her funeral sermon, and my mother heard him. She says a Mr. Nettleton came there to preach once, and at breakfast he and Dr. Beecher had mugs of cider with pearlash in it, and they heated a
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poker and put it in the cider to make it fizz. It must have been horrid.
My oldest aunt went to Miss Pierce's school, and got acquainted with a young gentleman who was at Judge Gould's Law School in Litchfield, and she married him in 1811, and he became a clergyman, and Queen Vic- toria ordered him to come to Edinburgh to try to get an estate. That was in 1837. He took my aunt and their children and went away in a ship, and it took them ninety days to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and when they get the estate they will live in the castle, and my mother and I will go and visit them.
My aunt was sixteen and my uncle was nineteen when they were married, and he was born in Beaufort in South Carolina, and had a good deal of money. I do hope they will live in the castle! This, is called a law suit they are having to get the estate.
This aunt took dancing lessons when she was a girl of Mr. Julius Metz, and she danced the shawl dance, and was very graceful, and she and my mother took music lessons on the piano, of Mr. Adam Geib, and he played the organ in Trinity Church, and he and his brother George Geib sold pianos. A young lady in Edinburgh told one of my Scotch cousins that she supposed all the Americans were copper colored, and he said, "Well, you know my father is a Scotchman, so that is why I am white."
February 14.
I have had a lot of Valentines to-day.
Once when I was six years old I teased one of my brothers (not own) for a valentine, and he sent me one written on a sheet of lovely note paper with a rose bud
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in the corner. It is pretty long to copy, and I don't know all it means, but it sounds tinkly, like music. This is it :
Little Kitty one day, In her wheedling way, With her kisses and smiles And twenty such wiles,
Did a valentine request ; That somehow or other My brain I should bother And verses indite In stupidity's spite,
To comply with her simple behest.
Now, though it may seem
But a trifling affair To fill up a ream
Of paper so fair
With words that will jingle in rhyme, Yet to put them together
In proper connection And give them a meaning
And useful direction
Wit is quite as essential as time.
And here, little Kitty,
Will please to observe That speech, to be witty,
Must ever deserve The aids of reflection and sense ; And careless, gay prattle
And voluble talk, Though making much rattle
Will scarcely be thought
Very witty or worthy defense !
But as verse that is fired
With passion and truth, From a fancy inspired
By beauty and worth,
Hath a charm that no heart can resist, So the thoughts of a mind
That's calm, clear and pure, When they utterance find,
In words plain and sure,
Are generally reckoned the best !
[ 36 ]
ard Livingston, third Mayor of New York, 1801-3. Painted from life by John Trumbull. From the original in the City Hall
OF OLD NEW YORK
This brother is a lawyer, and now he has gone to California too, to a place called Eureka. He has a lovely voice, and so has my own brother too, who went to California last year, and they used to sing rounds with my sister.
When my mother sings one of her songs, she has to cross her left hand over her right on the piano to play some high notes, and make what my teacher says is "a turn," and it is beautiful. This song is called "The Wood Robin," and another one begins, "Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer." My mother knows ever so many songs, and some of them were sung before she was born. One of them is called "The Maid of Lodi," and another is "The Old Welsh Harper," and another, "A Social Dish of Tea," and a lot of others.
April 12.
I have a schoolmate who lives across the street, and her name is Minnie B. Her father is a doctor, and she has a brother, Sam, and he is fifteen years old and big, and to-day I ran over to see her, and Sam opened the front door, and when he saw me, he picked me up in his arms to tease me, but he didn't see his aunt Sarah who was coming downstairs, and when she saw him she was very severe, and said, "Samuel, put that child down right away, and come and eat your lunch." I don't dislike Sam, but I think he was very rude to-day, and I am glad his aunt Sarah made him behave himself.
Minnie B. and Lottie G., who lives on the corner of University Place and Ninth Street, and Mary P., who lives on Ninth Street across Fifth Avenue, and I have a sewing society, and we sew for a fair, but we don't make much money.
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But four years ago there was a dreadful famine in Ireland, and we gave up our parlor and library and dining room for two evenings for a fair for them, and all my schoolmates and our friends made things, and we sent the poor Irish people over three hundred dollars. My brothers made pictures in pen and ink, and called them charades, and they sold for fifty cents apiece ; like this : a pen, and a man, and a ship, and called it, "a desirable art" Penmanship. The brother who used to be so mis- chievous, is studying hard now to be an engineer and build railroads. He draws beautiful bridges and aque- ducts.
One Fourth of July, my father got a carriage from Hathorn's stable and took my mother and my sister and my brother and me out to see the High Bridge. It is built with beautiful arches, and brings the Croton water to New York. My brother says he remembers riding to the place where the Croton aqueduct crossed Harlem River by a syphon before the Bridge was built, and the man who took charge of it opened a jet at the lowest point, and sent a two-inch stream up a hundred feet.
My mother says when she was young, everybody drank the Manhattan water. Everybody had a cistern for rain water for washing, in the back-yards. And when she lived in Maiden Lane, the servants had to go up to the corner of Broadway and get the drinking water from the pump there. It was a great bother, and so when my grandfather built his new house at 19 Maiden Lane, he asked the aldermen if he might run a pipe to the kitchen of his house from the pump at the corner of Broadway, and they said he could, and he had a faucet in the kitchen, and it was the first house in the city to have drinking water in it, and after that several gentlemen
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called on my grandfather and asked to see his invention. My mother says the Manhattan water was brackish and not very pleasant to drink.
My grandfather had ships that went to Holland and he brought skates home to his children, and they used to skate on the Canal that is now Canal Street and on the pond where the Tombs is now, and my mother says that the poor people used to get a rib of beef and polish it and drive holes in it and fasten it on their shoes to skate on. The Canal ran from Broadway to the North River, and had a picket fence on both sides of it, and there were only three houses on its side, and they were little white wooden houses with green blinds. My grand- father used to tell his children that whichever one would be up early enough in the morning could ride with him before breakfast in his gig as far as the stone bridge, and that was the bridge at Canal Street and Broadway.
My grandfather bought the lot for his new house from Mr. Peter Sharp, the father of my mother's school- mate, Fanny. The lot was 28 feet wide, but the house was only 25 feet wide, and there was an alley 3 feet wide that was used by the shop people to get to the kitchen at the back of the house.
This Mr. Sharp was an alderman and he was a Demo- crat, and my grandfather was a Federalist, and they used to exchange their newspapers so as to read both kinds, and sometimes when my mother was waiting for Fanny to go to school, at her house, Mr. Sharp would throw down the paper and say a very wicked word about the Federalists. Another alderman is Mr. John Yates Cebra, a cousin of my mother's. He lives on Cebra Avenue on Staten Island, and once I went there with
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my sister in her barouche and the grays. . The grays are beautiful horses.
July 15.
I have not written in my diary for ever so long, but now school has just closed for the summer, and I have more time.
We had a new study last winter, something to strengthen our memories. The teacher was a Miss Peabody from Boston, and she has a sister married to a Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who writes beautiful stories.
We had charts to paint on, and stayed after school to paint them, and one-half of the page was a country and the other half was for the people who lived in that country, and the country was painted one color, and the people another color, and this is the way it will help us to remember; for Mesopotamia was yellow, and Abraham, who lived there, was royal purple, and so I shall never forget that he lived in Mesopotamia, but I may not remember after all which was yellow, the man or the country, but I don't suppose that is really any matter as long as I don't forget where he lived. We did not study it long, but it was fun to stay and paint after school.
Professor Hume teaches us natural science, and every Wednesday he lectures to us, and one day he brought the eye of an ox and took it all apart and showed us how it was like our own eyes. And another time he brought an electric battery, and we joined our hands, ever so many of us, and the end girl took hold of the handle of the battery, and we all felt the shock, and it tingled and pricked.
[ 42 ]
Samuel JRusadI 1S47
A beautiful vessel, plenty of light canvas for moderate weather but heavily sparred and every inch a Clipper.
Built by Brown & Bell and en- gaged in the China Tea Trade. In a run from Canton in 1851 she sailed 6,780 miles in 30 days, her best day being 328 miles.
( ' Nat ' ' B. Palmer was in com- mand. She was named for the foun- der of Eussell & Co., a great China firm in the early 40 's and with whom A. A. Low and his brother began their career as merchants and ship owners.
Collection Mrs. A. A. Low.
OF OLD NEW YORK
Sometimes he talks on chemistry, and brings glass jars and pours different things into them and makes beautiful colors. He told us we could aways remember the seven colors of the rainbow by the word, v i b g y o r.
Professor Edwardes has been teaching us French. He is a little bit of a man, with a big head, and gray hair and a broken nose, and when he recites one of La Fontaine's Fables, he says, "L'animal vora-a-ace," and rolls up his eyes until you can only see the whites of them. Mr. Roy comes from the Union Seminary on University Place, to teach us Latin.
August 6.
This is my birthday again, and I am now eleven years old. School will begin again in September and so I will write some more in my diary while I have time.
I think I will tell about the school my mother went
to.
The first school she went to was in Fair Street, and that is now Fulton Street, east of Broadway. It was kept by a Mrs. Merrill, an old lady who took a few little children, and each child brought her own little chair.
Then my mother went to Mr. Pickett's, and she says that was the school of that time. He had two sons who taught in the school. I will tell about it just as she has written it down for me.
"The school at first was at 148 Chambers Street, on the south side near Greenwich Street. Mr. Pickett's resi- dence was in front and the school buildings were in the yard behind, running up three stories, with a private side entrance for the scholars, and a well in the yard. The house was brick, painted yellow, but the school buildings were of wood. The first and second floors
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were for the boys, and the third for the girls, beautifully fitted up, and hardwood floors. On the wall in the four corners of the girls' room were oval places painted blue, and on them in gilt letters were inscribed, Atten- tion, Obedience, Industry, Punctuality. Mr. Pickett's desk was in the center of the room. The desks were painted mahogany color, and put in groups of four, facing each other. Wooden benches without backs were screwed to the floor. On top of the desks were little frames with glass fronts for the copies for writing, and the copies were slid in at the sides. Some of them were, Attention to study, Beauty soon decays, Command your- self, Death is inevitable, Emulation is noble, Favor is deceitful, Good humor pleases, etcetera. Quill pens were used, which Mr. Pickett made himself."
Some of the girls who went to school with my mother had awfully funny long names. One was Aspasia Sera- phina Imogene and their last name was Bogardus.
She had ten brothers and sisters, and these were some of their names : Maria Sabina, Wilhelmina Henrietta, Laurentina Adaminta, Washington Augustus, Alonzo Leonidas Agamemnon, Napoleon LePerry Barrister. There were eleven children, and their mother named them after people she had read about in novels. It must have been funny to hear their nurse call them all to come to dinner.
My name is Catherine Elizabeth. I don't like it very much. It makes me think of Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette and all those old queens with long names we study about in history, but my mother calls me Katy, and sometimes Katrintje, which is the Dutch for "little Katy."
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Some other schools in New York now are Mme. Canda's on Lafayette Place, Mme. Okill's on Eighth Street, Mme. Chegary's, the Misses Gibson on the east side of Union Square, Miss Green's on Fifth Avenue, just above Washington Square, and Spingler Institute on the west side of Union Square, just below Fifteenth Street. On the corner of Fifteenth Street next to Spingler Institute is the Church of the Puritans. Dr. Cheever is the minister, and he and the church people are called a long name, which means that they think slavery is wicked, and they help the black slaves that come from the South, to get to Canada where they will be free.
N. B. — My mother has read my diary and corrected the spelling, and says it is very good for a little girl. She has written down her memories of old New York, for me, and she was born in 1801, and can remember back to 1805, some things.
I 49
VALENTINE'S MANUAL
t n e
New -York Weekly JOURNAL
Containing ihe freftejl Advices Foreign } and Dome flick.
MUN DAT November 12, 1735.
I
Mr. Zcugcr.
Nccrt the following in your next, and you'Jl oblige vour Fnend,
CJTO.
Mird temporum felicitas uhi f'ntiri qua vein qn& fend as die ere licit.
Tacit.
THE Liberty of the Prefs is a Subject of the great- eft TrnnnrtaT*?, nnd in which every Individual is as much concern'd as he is in any other Part of Liberty : Therefore it will not be improper to commumca'e to the I'ublick the Senti- ments of a lire excellent Writer upon this Poin\ fuch is the Elegance and Pcrfpicuity of his Writings, fech the inmitjble Force cf his Rcp.fr) it will be difficult '.o fay 31 new that he lus not (aid, fay that much worfe whi-: faid.
There are two Sorts of Monarchic?., an abfolute and a limited one. In the firfl, the Liberty of thePrcfs cp.n never be maintained, it is incoiifillont with it , for What abfolute Monarch would fuller anv Subjofl to animadvert on his Action*., when it is in his Pow- er to declare the Crime, and to nomi- nee the Puni'hmciii ? This wodd make it vcrvdsniero'-H to exercifefuch a Liberty ptffidcs the Ob'/cfc a;»nft which tho'ij Per. j n:u!t be directed, is
v.n?, that <y Thins or not to h he has
their Sovereign, the fole fupream Ma- gifirate j for there being no Law in thofe Monarchies, but the Will of the Prince, it makes it ncceffary for bis Minifters to confult his Pleafure, be- fore any Thing can be undertaken: He is therefore properly chargeable with the Grievances of his Subjects, and what the Minifter there afts being in Obedience to the Prince, he ought not to incur the Hatred of the People j for it would be hard to impute that to h:m far 1 Crime, which is rheFruft of his Allegiance, and for refufing which he might incur the Penalties bflrea- fon. Bcfides, in an abfolute Monar- ch v, the Will of the Prince being the Law.a Liberty of thePrefs to complain of Grievances would be complaining againft the Law, and the Conititutiont to which they have fubmitted,or have been obliged to fubmif, and therefore*, in one Scnfe, may be faid to deferve Punishment, So that under an abfo- lute Monarchy, I fay, fuch a Liberty is inconfiflent with the Conffitution, having no proper Subject in Politics, on which it might be cxercis'd, and if exercis'd would incur a certainPenalty, But in a limited Monarchy, as Eng- Lii! I is, our Laws arc known, fixed, and cflablifhed. They are the ftreight Rule ami furcGuide to direct the King, t!ie Miniflers, and other his Subjects : And therefore an Offence againft the Laws is fuch an Offence againft the Confiitution as ought to receive a pro per adeov.n'c Pumfhrnent ; the [evc-ra..
ConlliJ.
One of the burned numbers of Zenger's paper in the great struggle for freedom of the press
[ 50
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WASHINGTON IRVING
George Haven Putnam
ASHINGTON IRVING may be regarded as the first author produced by the American Republic. He was, we may recall, born in 1783, the year in which the Republic secured, under the Treaty of Paris, recognition of its independence.
My father's home was a few miles south of Sunnyside. From time to time, my father would take me with him on his visits to his friend and author. I recall a word given to me by Irving a year or two before his death in regard to an interview that he had had with General Washington. He told me that when he was a youngster a year old, his nurse, who had the boy in a perambulator on the corner of Pearl Street and Broadway, held him up in her arms while Washington was passing on horseback in order that the General might place his hand on the head of the child who bore his name. "My nurse told me afterwards," said the old gentleman, "that the General lifted me in his arms up to the pommel of his saddle and bestowed upon me a formal blessing." I looked with reverential awe at the head that had been touched by the first President and
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was puzzled when the old gentleman said, "Haven, you will not see the spot that Washington touched." I did not venture to put the question to Irving, but had word later with my father. ''You goose," said my father, "did you not know that Irving wears a wig?"
I was with my father again at Sunnyside on a grey day in November, 1859, when the friends from New York and the great group of neighbours from Tarrytown and the surrounding country had gathered together to pay their last honours to the memory of the first American author. The writer has in his memory a picture of the weather-beaten walls of the quaint little church with the background of forest trees and the surroundings of the moss-covered graves. Beyond, on the roadside, could be seen the grey walls of the old mill, in front of which Ichabod Crane had clattered past, pursued by the head- less horseman. The adjoining road and the neighbour- ing fields were crowded with vehicles, large and small, which had gathered from all parts of the countryside. It was evident from the words and from the faces of those that had come together that the man whose life had just been brought to a close had not only made for himself a place in the literature of the world, but had been ac- cepted as a personal friend' by the neighbours of his home.
The final and, in some respects, the greatest of Irving's productions, the Life of Washington, was completed on his seventy-sixth birthday. Six months prior to the close of his earthly labours, he had the satisfaction, before the final illness in November, of holding in his hands the printed volume.
Irving occupied, an exceptional position among the lit- erary workers of his country. It was his good fortune
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OF OLD NEW YORK
to begin his writing at a time when the patriotic senti- ment of the nation was taking shape and when the citi- zens were giving their thought to the constructive work that was being done by their selected leaders in framing the foundations of the new state. It was given to Irving to make clear to his countrymen that Americans were competent not merely to organize a state but to produce literature. He was himself a clear-headed and devoted patriot, but he was able to free himself from his local feeling of antagonism toward the ancient enemy, Great Britain, and from the prejudice, always based upon igno- rance, against other nations that is so often confused with patriotism.
Irving's youthful memories and his early reading had to do with the events and with the productions of colonial days. Addison and Goldsmith are the two English writers with whose works Irving's writings, or at least those relating to English subjects, have been most fre- quently compared. His biography of Goldsmith shows the keenest personal sympathy with the sweetness of na- ture and the literary ideals of the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Irving's works came, therefore, to be a connecting link between the literature of England (or the English inspired literature of America) and the literary creations that were more justly entitled to the name Amer- ican, and Irving's books express the character, the method of thought, the ideals and the aspirations of English folk on this side of the Atlantic.
His long sojourn in England occurred just after the close of the war of 1812-1815. The war ruined the for- tunes of the firm of which his brothers were the managers, and this bankruptcy, in preventing Irving from becoming a merchant, was the determining influence in bringing
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him to devote his life to literature. It was of enormous service to the relations between the two countries that in these years, when, as a result of the issues of the war, there was bitterness on both sides of the Atlantic, a culti- vated, sweet-natured, clear-sighted citizen like Washing- ton Irving was sojourning in England as a kind of unoffi- cial Ambassador of the new Republic.
The Englishmen who were disposed to think of the rebellious Yankees as a set of uncultivated and some- times insolent frontiersmen could not but recognize that in this particular American they had to do with a man of intellectual force and refinement of nature. If America could produce one such gentleman, it was probably not safe to assume that the community was entirely backward in its civilization.
Irving was the first connecting link between the Eng- lish-speaking peoples on the two sides of the Atlantic, and his service to both countries in this relation can hardly be over-estimated.
Irving's Life and Letters present many evidences of his genius for friendship. He showed, as a traveller that happy faculty of coming at once into sympathy with the people of the immediate surroundings. With all circles with which he came into relations, he gave and received the best that there was to give or to receive. This en- abled him to understand the spirit of the peoples with whom he had to do in France, in Spain, on the banks of the Elbe, and in his tramps through Italy and Sicily, but, as said, he was particularly fortunate in securing sym- pathetic relations with the people in England. He made friends everywhere, but in securing new friends in Eu- rope, he did not forget or break relations with his old- time associates in America.
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As one result of Irving's long absence from his New York home, we have the body of letters written by him to New York friends, and the most important in the series were those to one of his earliest associates, Henry Brevoort. These letters of Irving and Brevoort (to- gether with the answers from Brevoort to Irving) have now been collected and for the first time, in completeness, brought into print for the information of the present gen- eration of Americans. Mr. Hellman has edited the two volumes of this series, which presents a record of friend- ship such as is hardly parallelled in the annals of our lit- erature. From time to time, the veil of Irving's reserve is lifted so as to divulge the inner ideals of his chivalrous soul. From time to time in the earlier portion of the series, the tribulations of business affairs interpose their shadows, but for the most part these letters present a sane and cheerful record of a noble life and of a loyal relation of friendship. The letters are valuable not only for their portrayal of the character of the man, or of the two men, but they have continuing interest in the refer- ences of a first-hand observer to the important events and the noteworthy characters of the early nineteenth cen- tury. The final letter in the Irving series is one particu- larly worth reading. It touches upon literature, royalty, social affairs, and diplomacy. "In my diplomacy," writes Irving, "I have depended more upon good intentions and frank and open conduct than upon any subtle manage- ment. I have the opinion that the old maxim, Honesty is the best policy, holds good in diplomacy."
Brevoort did not possess the high literary standard or the grace of expression of his famous friend, but his let- ters touch with a charming grace and a sense of humour on topics intimately interwoven with the cultural, the
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commercial and the political development of America dur- ing the first half of the nineteenth century. Brevoort's letters have a special attraction in picturing to the Ameri- cans of our generation a group of men and women among whom Irving and himself were the most interest- ing. Old families of New York, early writers, actors, statesmen, artists, again cross from the land of shadows, and carry us along familiar highways and fascinating by- ways of our city's past.
Brevoort's letters from Paris in April, 1812, are inter- esting as pictures of the French life of the time, and they are evidence that Brevoort was a careful observer of the conditions about him. In one of the later letters of the series, written in December, 1842, reference is made to Charles Dickens whose "American Notes" called forth from Brevoort intelligent comment. During his stay in Paris, Dickens had become deeply attached to Irving and in his last letter before his departure for Spain, Dickens had written "wherever you go, God bless you ! What pleasure I have had in seeing and talking with you, I will not attempt to say. As long as I live, I shall never forget the privilege of my association with you." He asks Irv- ing to write to him "if you have leisure under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you and holds commu- nication with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive."
The last letter in the -series from Brevoort gives what, may be called an intimate picture of the gossip and scan- dal of the New York families of 1843. The epistle is a very mine of news for the absent friend who was then immersed in the difficulties of his Spanish mission. Irv- ing's reply refers to this letter as "most kind and wel- come." The wonder remains for us that these two men,
[ 58 ]
DeWitt Clinton, fourth Mayor of New York, 1803-7. Painted from life by George Catlin. From the original in the City Hall
OF OLD NEW YORK
at the time both past sixty, could, despite the far dif- ferent lines along which their lives ran and the great dis- tances which for so many years separated them, have thus cordially kept up their relationship in the same spirit of affection that animated them in the early days when they were looked upon as the merriest of young fellows in the little City of New York.
The letters are an assured testimonial to the fineness of nature of the two men. It is the privilege of Henry Bre- voort to have his memory recalled in these later genera- tions on the ground of the friendship for him of Wash- ington Irving.
Mount Roosevelt— A Memorial
W ithin sight of the country over which Theodore Roosevelt as a young man ranged his cattle and hunted wild game and just above the trails he followed while a visitor in this district, a mountain — one of the most lofty peaks in the Black Hills — became Mount Theodore Roosevelt, on July 4, in honor of the former President of the United States, "The Great American." Two tab- lets were unveiled.
The movement to provide the memorial had its incep- tion at a meeting of the Society of Black Hills Pioneers last January, when a suggestion of Captain Seth Bullock to change the name of Sheep Mountain to that of Mount Theodore Roosevelt was adopted.
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Washington Irving and the Empress Eugenie
To the casual reader the name of Washington Irving suggests a romantic figure that belongs to a very differ- ent world from the one in which we live. Somehow we think of him as the ancients thought of their muses — a forceful but mysterious being who wielded an en- chanting spell over our forebears, charming them into tears and smiles at his own good pleasure. He dwelt high up among the mountains and sometimes in the glades and forests of the lowlands but always far re- moved from the haunts of men. Such at least we too frequently visualize him if we dare give rein to our fancy at all, but nevertheless he was, as Theodore Roose- velt portrayed him, the first in the American field of true literature — quite a practical, every-day man of letters and a real builder of intellectual structures. But ro- manticism and fancy will always cluster about his name — and why not? We see him sitting at the feet of the great magician, Sir Walter Scott, at Abbots ford, learn- ing the secrets of his magic art and assuming the man- tle as it fell from his shoulders ; and again we find him among the legendary castles of old Europe. But let us turn to the pages of history a moment.
It is an afternoon in the gardens of the old Alhambra in Spain. The lengthening shadows fall aslant the fig- ure of a kindly-faced man of middle age. Upon his knee are two little children. He is telling them undoubt- edly some wonderful tale, for the children sit open-eyed and silent. One of them is Eugenie Marie de Montijo, eight years old, afterward Eugenie, Empress of France. The story-teller is the author of Diedrick Knickerbocker, now Minister to Spain from the United States.
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OF OLD NEW YORK
With this incident in mind, the writer sought a line from the aged Empress still living but now practically a recluse in the safe retreat she found in England with the fall of the French Empire. The following note is there- fore of passing interest.
FARNBOROUGH HILL FARNBORO' HANTS
February 9th, 1919. The Lady in Waiting to the Empress Eugenie presents her compliments to Mr. Henry Collins Brown and regrets that the very retired life the Empress now leads prevents her Majesty from attempting any definite promise of her recollections of Washington Irving, but as opportunity presents itself she may be able to send some memories that may be of interest. As this number of the Manual must go to press early in the year, it is doubtful if we shall be able to include this contribution unless received much earlier than we now expect. To have even the slightest contribution from one privileged to have such unique personal inter- course with New York's first citizen would be a joy indeed. The events of recent months have, however, imposed an additional burden upon a soul already tired almost beyond the limit of human endurance, and it is perhaps unreasonable of us to expect it at present.
Washington Irving died in 1859. The incident to which we have referred occurred in the 30's. The Em- press is now in her 92nd year. She has survived every contemporary — a striking example of "the last leaf on the tree" .
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Notable Restorations
Wall Street North and South Sides, from Broadway to William Street, as It Appeared Before the Great Fire of 1835
Fifth Avenue from 38th to 42nd Streets About 1880
With this number the Manual presents what it con- siders its most important work for old, New York in a series of Restorations, and for its first attempt has se- lected Wall Street. In this drawing of Wall Street we have been fortunately able to achieve a degree of his- torical accuracy which is of great value in a record of this kind and which we hope to maintain as the work progresses.
Certain unusual circumstances contributed to the result in this particular instance. First and foremost must be regarded the complete outline of the buildings sketched by Hugh Reinagle in the margin of the now famous "View of Wall Street looking East from Trinity Church" and lithographed by Peter Maverick, Jr. "The drawing for this lithograph," says Mr. Phelps Stokes, "must have been made between 1827 and 1834 and is a most inter- esting view of the period." With this as a foundation, other contemporary drawings were consulted. Wall Street has always enjoyed a measure of popularity among artists and writers unique among streets, which has resulted in making its records singularly full and complete. So in addition to Reinagle and Maverick, we have three other well-known artists — Burton, Fay and A. J. Davis — all of whose work ranks deservedly high, and each of whom contributed one or more buildings in this street to the existing collection. With the additional aid of contemporary maps, plans and other data, it is not at all unlikely that the restoration we present is for all.
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OF OLD NEW YORK
practical purposes, as correct as anything can be that must necessarily be constructed almost a century after the original has * disappeared.
Some trifling criticism may be offered here and there. Perhaps Nassau Street might be shown a little wider. When the Federal Hall stood where the Treasury Build- ing now is it was squarely in the centre of the street, the square of its end forming the jog that you will notice in front of the Hanover Bank Building; and the entrance to Nassau Street was through a small passage known as Pie Alley, which ran along what is now the side of the Bankers' Trust Building; then turned to the right as it reached the end of the building, and led into Nassau Street.
When the old Federal Hall was replaced by the Cus- tom House shown in our picture, this opening was con- siderably enlarged, but none of the contemporary draw- ings show it as wide as when in 1848 the Treasury Build- ing was completed with Nassau Street showing as we know it now. With trifling exceptions such as this, our work will bear the closest scrutiny and investigation.
That is what we intend to accomplish. No city has been more fortunate than has our own in the preserva- tion of its old records. Even with some regrettable and irreparable losses, there is still wonderful material avail- able for the task we have set ourselves. And as we de- velop the plan much more of it will undoubtedly appear. It is not at all an unusual thing for a man to walk into our office from San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, and even as far as Melbourne, Australia, and bring us some long- forgotten item which has come to light while rummaging through old family papers. Either he or his family lived in New York years ago and he feels that these old papers
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are valuable to us — which indeed they are — though per- sonally the owners have lost all interest in them. So in this way we secure occasional items of rare interest and of great value in our work.
This idea of restoring some of our old streets to their former appearance is perhaps the most important service the Manual can render the City and has long had our thoughtful consideration. The changes in Fifth Avenue, for another example, have been so recent and revolution- ary that it will no doubt be a great pleasure to many of our readers to see this old thoroughfare as it appeared less than forty years ago when it was the City's most fashionable residential street. The material for this work is at present very full and complete. Neglected for another half century and it would be absolutely im- possible.
In the days which we depict it was strictly a region of beautiful homes. There existed no particular reason for illustrating or publishing special views of it, as in the case of a financial centre like Wall Street — yet its pres- ent day importance in a business sense invests its past with an absorbing interest — and its delightful history in a less hectic period will soon loom large as one of the most interesting pages in our city's history. Historical accuracy is of course the one and only thing that will make these pictures truly valuable. We have no use for them as mere illustrations, and so you may occasionally see a building omitted in a block. That will indicate that no reliable data have been obtained and, pending such, we prefer to wait further developments.
Our plans in this direction are quite ambitious, and in time, no doubt, we shall have a fairly good representation of how some of our most famous streets looked in the
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OF OLD NEW YORK
days of their youth, and we predict for the series the power to renew and increase the love and veneration of all our citizens for the dear little village in which they live.
The City at the time of which the Wall Street view was made was still considerably behind Philadelphia in point of population. There was no coal used in the houses — wood being the only fuel. A load of this was dumped in front of your house, where it lay until a negro came along with a long buck saw and cut the sticks into proper lengths. Running water was available in certain sections, but the entire town practically depended upon the corner pump or on the special barrels from the "Tea Water Pump" which was peddled around the City. Gas had not yet put in an appearance, though there were rumors that such an illuminant existed and had been suc- cessfully used in London. Whale oil and tallow dips were still the source of artificial light. Most of the mer- chants lived in the top floors of the small two-story buildings in which they did business. Private carriages were owned by so few persons that each one was per- sonally known to all the people in the city, and it was a common thing to hear the owner's name mentioned as his vehicle drove by. Notwithstanding that slavery had been officially banished from New York and that the Declaration of Independence was now almost half a century old, slaves were still numerous in New York, and a society for the manumission of slaves was very active and carried on a constant effort to have the slaves granted freedom or deported to the South.
Knee breeches, silk stockings, silver buckles and peri- wigs had however completely disappeared. The men
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wore "skin tight" trousers held down by a boot strap. Coats of brilliant colors formed the popular styles, and they were ornamented with large, shining brass buttons, and were cut very much like the present dress suit. High, rolling collars with heavy "stocks" or four-in- hands together with vests of startlingly vivid colors, the whole surmounted with a huge high hat of rough beaver, completed the costume of the man of fashion as he ap- peared in Wall Street for the afternoon promenade. Such was New York at the time shown in our Wall Street views.
In our last number we gave expression to a haunting fear that was in our hearts regarding the material suc- cess of our venture. And we recalled the experience through which Bancroft's History passed. The first and second volumes were received in respectful silence, but no great amount of public interest seemed apparent. Yet with the appearance of the third volume the situa- tion changed in the twinkling of an eye. It aroused en- thusiasm in every direction, stimulated sales not only for the third volume but created a larger and wider demand for the entire work from beginning to end.
Our experience, we are happy to say, has been of a similar character. We have always had an abiding faith in the love of the New Yorker for his city and have pro- claimed this belief in season and out. While we suf- fered through the war, our faith never wavered. We might be wrong, but we wanted two things before we would capitulate — Peace and the Third Number.
Fate willed that we should have both at once, and it is with a perfectly savage feeling of delight that we record the result. With the signing of the Armistice,
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the sales immediately increased ; and upon the general distribution of the crucial third number, a demand for the back volumes made itself at once manifest and has continued ever since. Interest in Old New York has been aroused as never before, and we regard the Manual as a leading factor in this renaissance. It is good to know that this publication is now firmly established upon a permanent basis.
It was of course only natural that so astute an ob- server as Professor Brander Matthews would comment on this reawakened interest in our city. The sentiment he says has already reached important dimensions and each year sees a wider field brought under its influence.
Our own experience has been of a similar nature. A peculiarly effective demonstration occurred in our neigh- boring borough last March where the writer addressed the Brooklyn Institute on the subject of "Old New York," illustrated with some of these quaint and rare old views taken largely from the Manual.
Heretofore, it had been hard to get more than a mod- erate attendance at these lectures ; but at the Institute so many were unable to gain admittance at the first lecture that it had to be repeated twice in the month following — and in each case to a capacity audience.
The vivid contrast between the City of yesterday and today as shown in these slides is dramatic in the ex- treme. One has only to recall the skyline of fifty years ago compared with the skyline of today to get an idea of the thrill that these wonderful pictures produce. A close-up night-view from the Woolworth Tower requires a descriptive page all for itself — the myriad lights of the Equitable in the foreground like a sky full of stars ; the
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diamond necklace that seems to hang from the arc lights of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the cluster of globes th'at sparkle on Broadway — all combine to produce one of the most inspiring pictures ever imagined in or out of the theatre.
The late Frederick W. Whitridge remarked to us dur- ing a discussion regarding the size of our City: "New York is not a large City. It is a very small town. The real New York is still nothing but a good sized village ; these millions and millions are not New Yorkers."
This picturesque figure knew the old city as few of its average residents could possibly know it. In his early years while connected with Grace Church Sunday School he, with Miss Amy Townsend and other workers in the Parish, was instrumental in founding our original Cir- culating Libraries. And curiously enough, one of the first subscriptions for this work was a thousand-dollar bond given to Miss Townsend by Mr. Carnegie. That bond is still in existence and contributes its little income toward the Library fund just as it did when the project was first started.
But we meant to direct attention to the comparative smallness of the real New York. That is one reason why the circulation of the Manual will remain somewhat restricted. It is gratifying to know, however, that the first sale of these new Manuals at auction brought a premium of $7.00 above the published price, and may indicate that the real New Yorker is more numerous than the estimate hazarded above.
As a matter of fact very few copies of the new series have been sold compared with the old ones. In 1866 the Common Council ordered ten thousand copies of that
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^ JB. Pointer 1850
One of Jacob A. Westervelt's crack creations. Commanded by Charles P. Low. Mrs. Low fre- quently accompanied her husband, as indeed did the wives of several other captains. The ladies were made much of in foreign ports, the merchants entertaining them hand- somely; no gift was regarded too costly or too good for them and their presence aboard ship added much to the pleasure of the voyage. The N. B. Palmer was 1,490 tons and made the run to San Francisco from New York in 109 days scoring 396 miles in the best day's run.
Named after one of the most famous sea captains that ever sailed out of the port of New York.
Courtesy Mrs. A. A. Low.
OF OLD NEW YORK
year's issue to be printed, and awarded Mr. Valentine an extra bonus of $3,500.00 for his work. This edition of ten thousand copies was, like all the old Manuals, given away by the City without cost. A like number was printed of most of the other numbers except pos- sibly the very early ones. Yet the price brought to- day by these old books is very gratifying (number one, for instance, $125 to $150) and starts some interesting conjectures as to what the present Manuals will bring half a hundred years hence. When you stop to con- sider that compared with the old Manuals, there has been scarcely a tenth part of the new ones sold, one gets an idea of the scarcity that will prevail in a few years. We do not care to see it so early in its career mounting the ladder of fame by joining the ranks of that venerable and fascinating class — the Rare and First Editions. But such seems to be its good fortune.
The title page of this year's Manual is the work of Mr. William S. Eddy, 29 Broadway. He is undoubtedly an artist of no mean ability and his delightful decorative interpretation of our quotation from Shakespeare is a splendid illustration of what the right lines drawn by the right man can accomplish.
Air. Eddy should be intrusted with more commissions of this kind.
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WALL STREET NINETY YEARS AGO
By Sturges S. Dunham
HE views of Wall Street in the Manual for 1919, showing both sides from Broadway to William
Street, are the result of an attempt to give a gen- eral idea of the appearance of the street as it existed about 1830, when many of the old residences were still standing though given up to business uses. Wall Street was regarded as the seat of fashion for a considerable period after the Revolution, but as bootmakers and harnessmakers and "porterhouses" and "cider vaults" edged their way in, to say nothing of the bolder intrusion of banks and insurance companies and stockbrokers, the more fastidious gentry fled far up town to such quieter localities as Park Place and Beekman Street.
The confused numbering of Wall Street in early days, especially before 1793, makes it difficult, except in a few cases, to identify the buildings by their numbers alone. For instance, No. 5 was on the northwest corner of Wil- liam Street, No. 3 was on the site of the present Assay Office, and at the same time the south corner of Broad- way was No. 67. Nevertheless, by the aid of informa- tion from other sources, such as advertisements, news items, contemporary views, and real estate records, it has
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OF OLD NEW YORK
been possible to identify most of the old houses with certainty.
The four-story skyscraper on the north corner of Broadway, wearing the roof that evidently inspired the architect of the Bankers' Trust Building, was owned as early as 1786 by William G. Forbes, gold and silversmith. It then had only two stories. In 1809 it came into the possession of Najah Taylor & Co., jewelers, and at the period of the view it was the store of the ultra-fashion- able tailors of the day, Messrs. Howard, Keeler, Scofield & Co.', and provided offices for numerous lawyers, bro- kers, and commission merchants. Its number, now 90 Broadway, was then 88.
The little house next to the corner, on the site of pres- ent Xo. 2, was the grocery store of John Taylor in 1795, and in 1802 the establishment of Andrew Sitcher, painter and glazier. Ten years later it was again a grocery, Charles Lee, proprietor, and in 1830 William Bull & Son were making harness and saddles there.
The old church was the First Presbyterian Meeting House, — called a meeting house, we are told, because when it was first built, in 1719, only the Dutch Reformed and the established Church of England were permitted to have churches. Other places of worship were houses, and to keep up the legal fiction they had to be provided with fireplaces. We are also told that the fireplaces were never used, since in those primitive times anything con- ducive to comfort in the sanctuary was considered a con- trivance of the devil. The building shown in the view, erected in 1810, was burnt out in 1834, but was immedi- ately restored with the same walls and a pointed spire. Ten years afterward it was demolished and in 1846 the
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present church at Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street was dedicated.
The little two-story affair on the west corner of Nassau Street deserves more extended notice than its size would seem to justify. It was John Simmons' tav- ern, where, in February, 1784, the common council met and with appropriate ceremonies installed the newly ap- pointed Mayor, James Duane, in the presence of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. It is said that Sim- mons weighed more than four hundred pounds, and was of such bulk that at the time of his funeral the doorway of the tavern had to be enlarged to admit the coffin. His widow continued the business for several years, and among its later proprietors were David King and Samuel Randolph. After it ceased to be a tavern it was occu- pied by T. & W. Benton, bootmakers ; Thomas L. Rich, merchant tailor ; John N. Baur, watchmaker, and others.
In historic interest the site on the east corner of Nas- sau Street is the most important in New York. Here stood the second city hall, built in 1699-1700. In 1789, having been made over into the most elegant building in America and renamed Federal Hall, it became the first capitol of the United States, and on its balcony General Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the Republic. By 1812, the year in which the present City Hall was completed and occupied, it had become so dilapidated, and indeed unsafe, that the common coun- cil, unmoved by appeals for its repair and preservation, ordered the old building demolished and the lots sold. The structure shown in the view was erected in the year following and was first occupied as a bookstore by East- burn, Kirk & Company. About 1817 it became the Custom House, continuing as such until 1831 when the
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Collector moved his office to 21 Pine Street. The new Custom House, now the Sub-Treasury, was completed in 1839.
At this part of the street the view is not altogether ac- curate. Simmons' tavern and the old Custom House should be shown farther to the west, making room for two dwellings, which the artist has omitted, adjoining the Custom House on the east. These were built about 1813 and were numbered 13 and 15. The former was the res- idence of Garret Storm until leased to the Bank of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. About 1830 the latter concern moved "upstairs" and its former banking room was taken by the newly organized "National" Bank. No. 15 was for several years the residence of George Griswold, of the celebrated firm of shipping mer- chants, N. L. & G. Griswold, — known, in the slang of the day, as "No Loss & Great Gain."
The rest of the block, except a single lot on the north- west corner of William Street, was occupied before the Revolution by the buildings of Bayard's sugar refinery. In 1773 Samuel Verplanck bought a frontage of seventy- five feet next to the old city hall for what would now be about $650, and on the easterly portion the famous Ver- planck mansion was erected. During the Revolution it was occupied by British officers, among them General Robertson, and for a time it sheltered Benedict Arnold. It was given up by the Verplancks about 1810, and from that year until 1821 or later it was the residence of Ed- mund Moorewood, merchant, a former partner of Jona- than Ogden. In 1823 the building shown in the view, which is well remembered as the old Assay Office, was erected to house the New York Branch of the Bank of the United States. It was then No. 15^. After
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President Jackson had succeeded in killing "The Bank" and had bankrupted half the country in the process (no pun intended) the building was let to private parties and at one time was occupied by Henry Clews & Company. In 1839 it was the home of the new Bank of Commerce.
Passing down the block, the next three houses beyond the Assay Office were Nos. 17, 19 and 21. The first was the residence of William M. Seton, and later of John Keese. After it ceased to be a dwelling it contained the law offices of Major Nathaniel Pendleton and of William Duer and Beverly Robinson who practiced under the firm name of Duer & Robinson. For many years, including the period of the view, it was occupied by the Union Bank. No. 19, now No. 36, was in early days the resi- dence of Samuel Mansfield, merchant. Among its later tenants were Francis R. Tillou and F. Bayard Cutting, attorneys at law, composing the firm of Tillou & Cutting. In 1834 the building was taken by the " National" Bank, which continues on the same site as the Gallatin National Bank. No. 21 was the residence of George Barnewell, merchant, vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. The site is now No. 38.
The site of the next building, the fifth west of William Street, now No. 40, has been occupied for a hundred and twenty years by The Manhattan Company, which pur- chased the plot in 1799 and put up the building shown in the view. The statuary on top is supposed to represent Oceanus (not Bacchus) reclining in a comfortable posi- tion and pouring water or some other liquid out of a jar, probably intended to be symbolic of the blessings so gen- erously bestowed by the company upon the thirsty pop- ulace. When the Croton project was being agitated, Recorder Riker opposed the enterprise, contending that
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the water furnished by the Manhattan Company was good enough for any one, and in proof of the assertion adduced the fact that he drank a tumbler of it every morning — leaving his hearers wholly in the dark as to how he managed to make out during the rest of the day.
On the adjoining lot, the fourth from William Street, stood the residence of John Delafield, merchant, who was later connected with the Phenix Bank as cashier and president and was one of the original trustees of the old Tontine Coffee House on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets. In 1803 the Merchants' Bank opened for business in the Delafield house and at a subsequent period erected the building with the two columns in front.
The third house from William Street was the residence of Dr. Wright Post, the eminent physician and surgeon. It was then No. 27, now 44. Later came Samuel Jones, Jr., one of the great lawyers of his day, called the "father of the New York bar." John Speyer, merchant, was another occupant, and after him Benjamin Butler; Da- venport & Camman, brokers ; and the Globe Insurance Company.
The corner house was on the site of Gabriel Thomp- son's tavern, built about 1700. Some twenty years later the plot was acquired by Evert Bancker, whose descend- ants were living there as late as 1786. In 1789, when New York was the capital of the United States, the old Bancker dwelling was a boarding-house kept by Johannah Ursin, among whose boarders were Mynheer Francis P. Van Berckel, ambassador from Holland, and Samuel A. Otis, secretary of the United States Senate. The house was then No. 5. In 1790 or '91 the Bancker lot and the one adjoining were acquired by Francis Bayard Win- - throp, who built the two houses shown and resided in
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the westerly house, which in 1793 became No. 29, for twenty years or more, until he moved to No. 7 State Street. In 1815, No. 29 was the private bank of Jacob Barker, the "Quaker merchant," noted for his piety and "a talent for making bargains," as Fitz-Greene Halleck charitably puts it. Jacob was a pretty keen individual, and when it came to entertaining lambs in the manner for which Wall Street is (or was) famous he is said to have wielded the shears with remarkable skill. Indeed, if contemporary accounts are worth believing, he was not much different from a certain speculator of a later day, who built a theological seminary over in Jersey with one hand and with the other in Wall Street (he had a long reach) relieved widows and orphans of their sur- plus wealth. On one occasion Barker and two or three associates were indicted for conspiracy to defraud. Scorning the services of counsel, he conducted his own defense and was promptly convicted, but the court evi- dently took pity on him for he was granted a new trial. This time he had better success and managed to have the indictment quashed. Jacob Barker was also Fitz-Greene Halleck's first employer when the future poet came to New York in 1811. At the period depicted by the view, No. 29 was Mrs. Jane Smith's boarding-house and also contained the office of Cadwallader D. Colden, counsellor, who was mayor of the city in 1818, '19 and '20. No. 31, on the corner of William Street, now No. 46, was leased by the Bank of New York about 1798 as the residence of its cashier, Charles Wilkes, and here was passed the early childhood of Charles Wilkes, junior, who, as Captain Wilkes of the U. S. Navy, became famous in the Civil War for the seizure of Mason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners to Great Britain. After the Wilkes fam-
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ily moved to Hammond Street, now a part of West Eleventh Street, the house became the bookstore of Isaac Riley & Company, but in 1812 it was leased for $2,000 per annum to the Bank of America, which continued to pay the same rental until it purchased the property in 1831.
On the south side of the street the building at the cor- ner of Broadway existed until 1906, when it was demol- ished to make way for the present fourteen-story struc- ture. On the same site, originally No. 67 Wall Street, was the residence of Major Nathaniel Pendleton, of the Continental Army, who was one of General Hamilton's seconds at the fatal duel with Burr. Later it was the residence of another Revolutionary soldier, Colonel George Turnbull. From 1797 to 1804 the old house con- tained the law office of Daniel D. Tompkins, who was elected governor of the state in 1807, '09, '11, '13 and '15, and vice-president of the United States in 1816 and '20. For several years, beginning with 1803, the surrogate's court was in the same house, as was also the office of Pierre C. Van Wyck, counsellor at law, and in the 1812 directory we find "Keese, widow Rosa, boarding-house 1 Wall." The building shown is believed to have been erected some time between 1825 and 1830, and at the period depicted it contained the lottery office of R. H. Cuming.
Before 1845 the numbering on the south side between Broad Street and No. 1 Wall Street was so confused, and the buildings had such a shifting tenantry, that only a few can be identified with certainty. The two-story buildings west of New Street (three are shown, but the westerly pair were in fact one) were all No. 3, but some- times the one on the corner is referred to as No. 4. The
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east corner of New Street was also No. 3 in early days, and later it seems to have been AJ/2, 5 and 6. The Broad Street corner was No. 2 Broad Street and at the same time Nos. 10 and 11 Wall Street, the latter being the address of S. M. Isaacks & Co., brokers, in 1830. Next door west was No. 9, occupied by Charles Pool, barometer and mathematical instrument maker, who advertises in 1827 that he "has moved from 280 Broadway to 9 Wall Street, opposite the Presbyterian Church," and in a con- temporary view his sign appears on the building. The adjoining house was probably No. 8 and the little two- story buildings 7 and 6 respectively. Before 1800 No. 5 was the "counting house" of Jacob LeRoy & Son.
It is not generally known that Washington Irving was a lawyer, but a full-fledged attorney he was, having re- ceived his training in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman. He and his brother, John T. Irving, had an office in the building on the east corner of New Street for several years and at the same address is found another brother, Dr. Peter Irving, M. D. This was in 1807, '08, '09 and '10. A few years later one of the New Street corners, probably the same building, was the bookstore of Charles Wiley & Company, a favorite resort of Halleck, Bryant, Paulding and other literary men of the time. In the con- temporary view lithographed by Peter Maverick about 1830, the little buildings west of New Street are covered with engravers' signs, advertising them as "fashionable establishments." These engravers were Joseph Lewis and John B. Stout & Company. The first building erected on the west corner of Broad Street was a Dutch house with a gable toward the street, from the stoop of which in 1795 Alexander Hamilton made a speech advo- cating the Jay treaty with England, but evidently with
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ROADWAY FROM MURRAY STREET LOOKING NORTH 1880
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less persuasiveness than usual, for the applause he re- ceived was a shower of stones. The building in the view was erected early in the last century and was a favorite habitat of stationers and booksellers, among them being M. Ward & Company, Gould, Banks & Gould, and Peter Burtsell.
The corner of Broad Street being close to the City Hall and therefore a convenient location for police headquar- ters, the "watch house" was built on the east corner, in 1731. The old building was demolished in 1789 and the one shown in the view was erected for the same purpose. At that time the high constable was James Culbertson. He was succeeded about 1800 by John Delamater, who was followed in 1802 by Jacob Hays. From the prom- inence of his position and the remarkable vigor and judg- ment with which he discharged the duties of his office, High Constable Hays became the best known citizen of New York. He is often portrayed as a comic figure, but such characterization is unjust, for not only did he enjoy universal respect, from the law-abiding and from the criminal as well, but he also possessed (and deserved) an, international reputation as the ablest police officer in America and the equal of any in Europe. Appointed by Mayor Livingston in 1802 he was reappointed by each succeeding mayor till his death in 1850 at the age of 78, when the office died with him.
The original number of the first three-story house east of Broad Street is not known with certainty, but was probably 60, the residence of Jonathan Burrall, who in 1812, then living in Pine Street, became the first cashier of the Bank of America. In 1795 it was Daniel Par- ker's boarding-house and also contained the office of the supervisor, Colonel Nicholas Fish, and from 1803 to 1808
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the office of Richard Riker, assistant attorney-general, who was recorder from 1816 to 1829. The house ad- joining on the east was probably the residence of William Irvin, who was commissioner of accounts in 1789.
The site of the next building is associated with one of the greatest of all New Yorkers, General Alexander Hamilton. He owned an L-shaped piece of land extend- ing from No. 58 (now 33) Wall Street around into Broad Street. There is some dispute as to which street his res- idence fronted, but the General's grandson and biogra- pher, Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton, says Wall Street. About 1792 he sold the property, or at least the Wall Street part of it, to Gulian Verplanck, who built the house shown in the view and resided there till his death in 1799, at which time he was president of the Bank of New York. From 1805 it was the residence of John Low, then cashier of the Jersey Bank, of Jersey City, until it was taken by the Mechanics' Bank in 1810. The United States Pension Office was in the same building.
The sixth building from Broad Street, next to the Hamilton- Verplanck site, is the old Ludlow mansion. Originally it was No. 56, now 35. After an occupancy of twenty-five years or more by the Ludlow family it was given over to business about 1815 and in 1839 became the first home of the American Exchange Bank. In the same year it contained the general office of the New York & Harlem Railroad Company, and at the period of the view (about 1830) Ephraim D. Brown, broker, Archi- bald G. Rogers and William Van Hook, attorneys, and Joseph Staffler, merchant, had offices in the building.
Adjoining the Ludlow house on the east is shown the Jauncey residence, built by William Jauncey soon after the Revolution. After the Jaunceys moved to 24 Broad-
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way in 1815 or '16, the house contained the picture gal- lery of M. Paff, better known as "Old Paff," and the stationery store of Henry J. Megarey, who in 1834 pub- lished views of South Street, Broadway and Fulton Street, which are now rare and highly prized. At the period of the view Joseph D. Beers & Company, brokers, had their office in the building.
The little bank with the four Grecian columns in front stands on the site occupied as early as 1789 by the resi- dence of Edmund Seaman, merchant, who had a sugar refinery at No. 29 Pine Street. In 1804 it was the resi- dence of Wynant Van Zandt, Junior, who lived there till 1812 when it was taken by the Bank of the New York Manufacturing Company. This concern changed its name to the Phenix Bank in 1817 and later erected the building shown in the view.
The next house east of the Phenix Bank was the resi- dence of Ralph Thurman as early as 1804. At the pe- riod of the view it was the home office of the Manhattan Insurance Company and in 1839 the North American Trust & Banking Company.
The second house from William Street was originally No. 52 and was then occupied by Colonel William S. Livingston. In May, 1786, it .was taken by Colonel Richard Varick, recorder from 1783 to 1788 and mayor from 1789 to 1800. In 1794, as No. 28, it is given in the directory as the residence of William Maxwell, who was one of the founders of the Bank of New York ten years before. In 1816 and for more than thirty years after- ward it was the book and stationery store of Peter A. Mesier.
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In 1789 the house on the southwest corner of William Street, then No. 8 Wall Street, was the New York post- office, and residence of the postmaster, Colonel Sebastian Bauman, a Revolutionary soldier, who received his ap- pointment from President Washington. He held the of- fice till 1803. In 1799, the postoffice having been moved to 29 William Street, corner of Garden Street (Exchange Place) we find the old building in the possession of B. M. Mum ford, merchant. At the period of the view it was occupied by George W. Willis, watchmaker, Isaac M. Wooley, commission merchant, and Rufus L. Nevins, broker.
The First White Way
When William Niblo opened his new theater at Broad- way and Prince Street back on Independence Day, 1828, he celebrated the double occasion by a patriotic display of gas lights which flaunted the name of "Niblo" far and wide and immortalized it in stage as well as gas history. An admiring public gasped from a respectful distance, watching the red, white and blue shadows cast by the rows of gas jets spelling the proprietor's name.
Gas had been used for the first time in New York City five years before, but to the owner of Niblo's Garden goes the credit of first using gas for illuminating a thea- ter.— Gas Logic.
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Remove the Post Office and Court House from City Hall Park!
A Plan for an Appropriate Monument to the Liberty Boys of 1918
In the first issue of this publication, attention was called to the neglect of the City Fathers to print the Minutes of the Common Council from 1784 to 1831 — a most interesting period — and to the great importance of getting this valuable manuscript in printed form. The editorial was acknowledged by Bertram de Cruger writ- ing for the Mayor, and soon after a committee was ap- pointed by the late Mayor Mitchel and the result is that this work is now well toward completion. We were happy in being the humble instruments whereby so great an achievement was accomplished. Much work had previously been done in the same direction and perhaps we assume too much in claiming the whole credit. Nev- ertheless ours was the final touch that tipped the scale in the right direction.
And now a similar situation presents itself and a similar opportunity to render our city a great service is at hand. We refer to the removal of the Post Office and Court House from the City Hall Park.
It is quite reasonable to say that practically every citizen who really cares for New York is sick of the sight of these two eyesores on what is one of the few breathing spots in the crowded down-town district. And not one of us but would rejoice to see the old Park restored to its original graceful proportions of Colonial times. Many committees have already attempted to solve this problem but to no avail. In taking up the matter at this time we have the benefit of all the splendid work that has gone
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before and what is of greater importance — of the ex- istence of a distinct and important public sentiment in favor of the plan. If we can but crystallize this senti- ment— if we can get the various differing factions to unite on the idea of a Restored Park as a proper and fitting Memorial to our soldiers in the great World War — we shall be successful in this great plan for the betterment of our city. Madison Square, Union Square, Battery Park, Riverside Drive and all the other locations sug- gested for this particular monument have each their claims of merit. But nothing will so largely benefit all the people of all the Boroughs as more space in our present City Hall Park. And the Restoration of the Old Liberty Pole completes an ideal scheme.
During the stormy days that preceded the Revolution no body of patriots were more active than the Sons of Liberty, an organization formed in our own city and for many years a leading influence in the events that shaped the War of 1776. New York is seldom accorded that measure of credit for her revolutionary efforts that is cheerfully given to Boston or Philadelphia, but the fact remains that New York has a record that is equal to the best and superior to many of the cities that were then in revolt. Encounters with the soldiers in which American lives were lost occurred in New York considerably before the Boston massacre or the Battle of Lexington; and New York, of all the signatories of the non-Importation agreement was the only one to faithfully observe the covenant though as a result she was bound to suffer more severely than others on account of her extensive oversea commerce.
The Liberty Boys had a meeting place at Burns' Coffee House ; and later at the corner of Broadway and Ann
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Street. They erected a Liberty Pole in the "Common Lands" which we now know as the City Hall Park. And all public meetings of remonstrance relating to questions between the Royal Governors and the populace were held around the Liberty Pole on the Common. So obnoxious became the Liberty Pole to the servants of Royalty that it was repeatedly removed. Strange to relate, it was always restored and no matter how many times destroyed there was always forthcoming a new and loftier Liberty Pole. In a very short time it was easily seen that the struggle between popular rights and autocracy was sym- bolized in the attack and defence of the Liberty Pole.
As we all know the first struggle for Liberty in the Western World ended with the War of the Revolution. Autocracy was utterly routed and the start of the new world toward Democracy fairly begun. The contest thus commenced in City Hall Park under the Liberty Pole has raged unceasingly, and its latest victory has been achieved over the semi-barbaric Teutonic Empires. It was the United States of America, the originators of modern human freedom that ultimately made the world safe for democracy.
The time has come to suitably commemorate the brave deeds of our American boys who died in foreign lands that Liberty might live. Many projects have been ad- vanced for the conservation of this immortal service. All have merit. Any one of them would be good but so long as we cannot all agree on one particular plan why not adopt one that recalls the valor and daring of the original Sons of Liberty as well as the later heroes who so nobly trod in the footsteps of their fathers?
In earlier days City Hall Park was a very much more beautiful and attractive municipal gem than the present
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generation realizes. Stately trees, sparkling fountains and shaded paths made it an oasis in a desert of sidewalk and cobblestone and it was a beauty spot without a rival in any city in the world. But alas ! the work of the philistine and demagogue has all but ruined one of the most priceless spots in all the city's domain.
Under the pretense of temporary occupation a huge section of the Bridge Entrance has been wrongfully built across the East end. On the North the most unsightly building in all New York — the City Court — rears its ugly head and on the South, the Federal Government has inflicted upon our defenceless city one of the mightiest and ugliest buildings known to men — the Post Office. This building also exists upon sufferance and sufferance only. The Federal Government obtained the use of this plot for one purpose and one alone — a Post Office. That was a convenience to our merchants at the time and was so nominated in the bond. There never was to be any building there except one devoted wholly and exclusively to the Post Office business.
That obligation has for years been a dead letter. The Federal Government has broken its sacred word to the Municipal Government by using this building for other purposes and in the case of a private tenant would have been ousted long ago for breach of contract. To-day even as a Post Office this building is obsolete.
Looking at the view of City Hall Park before the addition of the Post Office, Court House and Brooklyn Bridge, one is at once struck by the beauty of contour, symmetry of design and fascinating aspect of the entire prospect. Nothing is so great an asset to the City as beauty in her public parks, or so adds to her renown among the countries of the world. And it would be a
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simple matter to restore to New York the City Hall Park of Colonial days, erect a fitting and dignified monu- ment to the gallant sons of New York now lying in Flanders Fields, Italy and France, and do it with means well within the City's present limited resources. If these excrescences should be once removed let us not commit the folly of replacing them by any structure however ar- tistic. Nothing can excel in beauty open space in a city so greatly congested as ours. The vacant land, the breathing space, the charming vista from whatever side you approach, is far more effective than the loftiest and grandest structure we could erect. Let the old foot paths be restored and new ones added for the convenience of the common people. Let the old Fountain once more send its myriad diamond studded strands to the sky ; let the old trees once more cast their grateful shade, and last but not least, let the old Liberty Pole rear again its defiant head to the assaults of privilege and autocracy!
On the base of the monument let there be inscribed these words :
In Loving Memory of the Liberty Boys of 1918 who gave their lives that the work of the Liberty Boys of 1776 Might Not Perish from the Earth.
— o —
This Monument is erected, and the Park Re- stored to its original Colonial condition by the Grateful Citizens of the City of New York.
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A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
The following glimpse of life as it was in New York about . a hundred years ago was written by Mrs. Catherine C. Havens, who lived to the good old age of 96. The article is from her own journal and comes to us in her own handwriting and are her own personal recollections. It is the privilege and good fortune of the Manual to come into possession of such rare and interesting manuscripts and we take pleasure in presenting them to our readers.
was born in 1801 at 84 Beekman Street. At that
time Liberty, Dey, John Streets and so on down
to the Battery were all occupied by private fam- ilies. In Wall Street lived Mrs. Greenleaf, a widow and three daughters, George Griswold, the Buchanans ( father and son), the Whites and Stephen Storm.
I was seven or eight when my mother's father (James Cebra) died. He lived in Fletcher Street next to the corner of Water Street. It was a three-story house with one room on each floor. Entering the house there was a small square hall with a closet. My grandfather Cebra was a city weigher and had his office in the Custom House. The Custom House then stood south of the Bowling Green, facing it. It was a large brick building with heavy wooden Corinthian columns painted white supporting the roof, and balconies on each floor. My grandfather had some kind' of trouble in his leg late
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Pertefactress 1853
A pretty Clipper barque of about 600 tons built by Boosevelt & Joyce and engaged in the China trade. One of the famous tea traders sent out by the great Brooklyn ship mas- ters A. A. Low & Bro. A premium of $5 per ton was the prize held out to the first ship home from China to London in the early 50 's with the new crop.
Courtesy Mrs. A. A. Low.
OF OLD NEW YORK
in life and could not always walk to his office. When unable to walk a Mr. Morris came to his house from the Custom House and read the figures to him and my grandfather took them down in his books. An unmar- ried daughter, Peggy, kept house for him. I used to go regularly to see him on my Saturday half-holidays and stay until Monday morning, going to church with my Aunt Peggy on Sunday morning to old Trinity. My grandfather's pew was on the south side aisle next the wall about half-way up. The church was apt to be cold and my aunt carried a large martin muff in which she put my feet during service. Bishop Hobart preached there then. He wore spectacles with black rims.
Our house in Beekman Street was on the north side, between Cliff and Pearl Streets — a three-story brick house. We moved to Maiden Lane about 1806. At that time there was a market at the head of Maiden Lane called the Oswego market. The city decided to widen Maiden Lane from Broadway to Nassau Street and so all the houses on the south side of the block were taken down. My father then bought a lot on the north side, 28 feet wide, directly opposite our former house, from Peter Sharpe for $2,500, on which he built a three-story brick house in 1810, with a threefoot alley-way. It was built by Abraham Stagg and was a very handsome house for these days. We moved into it May 1, 1811. My sister Fanny was married there June 5th, 1811, by Dr. Spring of the Brick church, to Alex. Garden Fraser of Beaufort, S. C. She wore a colored silk dress, and her cousin, Eliza Cebra Waters, was bridesmaid, and Josiah Goggeshall was groomsman.
When I was about 8 or 9 years of age we attended Dr. Milledoller's church in Rutgers Street. We had a
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square pew at the foot of the middle aisle. I cannot re- member exactly when we left the Rutgers Street church and went to the old brick church, but it was while Drs. McKnight, Miller and Rogers were the associate min- isters. They all wore gowns and Dr. Rogers wore a white wig. It must have been about 1809 that Dr. Rogers died. I went to his funeral. He was buried in the brick church grounds.
Dr. Miller was then called to the church built for him in Wall Street and Dr. McKnight died soon after. In 1810 Dr. Spring was called to the brick church. I heard him preach his first sermon August 10th, 1810, from the text: "I am determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified." Very soon after Dr. Spring came my father united with the church. My mother also. My father was soon elected an elder and continued in that office until his death, November 26th, 1817. He was a very earnest Christian and a warm friend of Dr. Spring's. The latter said, on closing my father's eyes, that he was the most intelligent layman he had ever known. About 1798 or 1799 my father failed in business. The firm name was "Webb & Lamb, Shipping Merchants," corner Pearl Street and Burling Slip. One of their vessels, loaded with nutmegs, from Sarinam, was lost, and Mr. Lamb lost in it. This dis- aster caused their failure. In those days the laws were very rigid. My father had to go on what was called "the limits," until he could pay his debts. In 1799 my brother, Augustus Van Horn, was born, and a nurse, Mrs. Page, taking care of my mother, seeing my father was a very ingenious man, advised him to go into the suspender business, and showed him a pair which she had made herself. This was something entirely new,
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and, there being no business of this kind in the city, my father made several improvements in the article, until he brought out something very handsome. I remember how he shut himself in his room, not admitting any of his family, until he had completed his invention. During T. Jefferson's administration, he went to Washington and took out a patent under name of "Webb's patent suspenders." His store was in front of his house, and his living room in the rear. His factory was in the basement. This was in our own house, No. 19 Maiden Lane. He imported the sewing silk and webbing from Liverpool, from firm of Rabone Bros., and employed 60 women, some in knitting the sewing silk, for which he paid $14 per lb., and others in working on the different parts. This work was prepared for them by Ira Perego, an apprentice, and they came every Saturday, to bring their work, to receive their wages, and to get their work for the following week. He had agents in all the large cities of the U. S. In Boston it was Win. Little; in Philadelphia, Andrew Quinn ; in Albany, Paul Hock- strasser and agents in two or three places in New York City. He soon paid his creditors, and might have left a large fortune if he had not been so constantly called upon for charity. He was very benevolent, gave freely to the poor, and assisted many of his poorer relations.
Among others of my brother's family who used to come frequently to our house was his cousin, Susan Rivington. She was educated in London. Her father was a tory and a printer. Rivington Street was named for him. She lived on the northeast corner of Wall and Pearl Streets, opposite the Tontine Coffee House (north- west corner). The Phoenix Coffee House was on the southeast corner. Mr. Evans Bardin kept them both.
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First he kept the Phoenix, and afterwards the Tontine. I used to go there to visit his granddaughter, Mary Ann Richardson. The Washington Hotel was on the south- east corner of Reade Street and Broadway. The City Hotel was one block above Trinity, and Mechanics' Hall (a hotel), corner Broadway and Park Place. These are all the hotels I can remember. There were a great many boarding houses, well kept and well patronized. Mrs. Saidler kept one down Broadway, East Side, near the Battery. It was afterwards kept by Mrs. Reese. Mrs. Woods, 21 Broadway, on the West Side, also kept one. Down in Pearl Street Mrs. Mix and Tripp kept one in partnership ; also a Mrs. Diggins in Pearl Street and smaller ones about the city. Corner Pearl and John Streets Mrs. Cotton also kept a large boarding house and my brother-in-law, James H. Leverich, boarded with a Mrs. Jones in John Street. The old doctors in New York were Dr. Wright Post, corner Broadway and Gar- den Street ; Dr. Hodick, in Vesey Street ; Dr. Haversley, in Dey Street, and Dr. Handy, in Dey Street; Dr. Van Solingen, in Cortlandt Street ; Dr. Seaman, in Beekman Street; Dr. Mott, Dr. Turner and old Dr. Thomas Cock (Dr. Van Solingen's daughter Jane married Dr. Gun- ning S. Bedford, Sr.) and old Dr. Moore. (Dr. Van Solingen and Dr. Post were my father's physicians when he died.) In Pearl Street, from Maiden Lane to Beek- man Street, the young people used to call it "The John- nies" because so many Johns lived there. There lived John Taylor (grandfather of I. T. Johnston), John Adams, John Clendening, John Ellis, John Hone. These were their places of business, and they lived over them. In those days there were no bookkeepers ; every gentle- men kept his own books ; consequently there were no
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defalcations. I never heard of but one, and that was old Samuel Swartout, who was in the Custom House. After that when such occasional cases were heard of, it was said "So-and-So has been Swartouting."
Facing No. 21 Maiden Lane was a short street, called Little Green Street, which ran down one block to Lib- erty Street. On the west side was a large brick build- ing used as a school for girls, kept by a Mr. Griscom ; on the northwest corner of Liberty Street was a Quaker Meeting House and graveyard.
In William Street, opposite Cedar Street, an English lady, Mrs. Thomas, kept a school which I attended. In William Street, just a few doors south of this school, was a fashionable shoe store kept by a Mr. R. Bunn. The fashionable French shoe store was kept by Mr. Pardessus on the east side of William Street, between John and Fair (Fulton) Streets.
At the Post Office, southeast corner of William and Garden Streets, lived -Thomas Bailey, Postmaster. He married Mrs. McWhorter of Newark, N. J., and had two daughters, Ann Eliza who married Arthur Bronson, and Catherine, who married William W. Woolsey. They went to school with me at Mrs. Thomas' ; since then Cedar Street has been cut through and the schoolhouse destroyed.
Policemen were called constables ; they carried little square sticks about as big as a broomstick, going up to a point. The point was painted blue with a little blue ribbon at the top. The rest of the stick was painted white.
Somewhere about 1812 three steamers went up the Hudson River to Albany. They started from the foot of Cortlandt Street and were called The Paragon, The Car of Neptune and The Richmond. They were all-
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night boats and were not larger than an ordinary ferry boat.
The first event I can remember is the death of my little sister Eliza, a month old, at Sterling, Long Island (now Greenport), at my grandfather's, Orange Webb. She had on a little white slip and red shoes — and I wept because she had to lie out at night in the rain. I was then five years old.
My grandfather died in the month of May on Sun- day, suddenly, in an apoplectic fit. I was off with my sister at the foot of Hubert Street on the North River, seeing an immersion, when my parents sent for us to come to Fletcher Street to my grandfather's. I remem- ber as if it were yesterday seeing him laid out on a cot in the second story under the front windows. He was buried in Mr. Henry Remsen's vault in the New Dutch church in Nassau Street.
Catherine Lawrence — the daughter of my mother's half-sister, Catherine Beekman — was a beautiful girl and was engaged to her own cousin, Nat. Lawrence. He went on business to China and on his return found her married to Dr. Hicks. By him she had two children — Mary, who married Benson Van Zandt, son of Winant Van Zandt, and Caroline Louise, who married John C. Clarkson of New York. Her cousin must have loved her very devotedly, for after Dr. Hicks died he married her and by him she had six daughters and two sons. They were : Caroline, who married Nelson Abeel ; Cath- erine, who married Major Gallagher of Baltimore; Eliza- beth, who married Charles Clarkson of Flatbush, L. I. ; Charlotte and Cornelia, who died unmarried, and Julia, who married Phineas H. Buckley ; Charles and Clarkson, the sons, were unmarried.
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Dr. Hastings' old church — the West Presbyterian — Forty-second Street 1876, now site of Aeolian Hall
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Edwin Booth Memorial
The memorial of Edwin Booth erected in Gramercy Park is the first of its kind to an actor in this country. It is a product of the genius of one of the members of The Players— the club founded by Mr. Booth in 1888. Mr. Booth conceived the idea that the intermingling of players with men of kindred arts — writers, artists, sculp- tors, architects, musicians — would broaden their vision and give them a deeper knowledge of human motive and human action. These others also would derive intel- lectual and spiritual stimulus from contact with men who were interpreting the masters of dramatic literature and song. How excellently the idea has worked out is shown in the bronze statue of Edwin Booth recently erected in Gramercy Park and unveiled November 13th, 1918, the anniversary of Mr. Booth's birth.
The memorial is a fine representation of Booth in his favorite role of Hamlet when he was about the age of thirty-five, and to people who remember him in his incomparable impersonation of this character the statue has a strangely fascinating interest. Those who saw him as he rose to speak the famous soliloquy, "To be or not to be," have the whole scene vividly brought back to them. The statue is a noble memorial of the great Shakespearean actor, and will perpetuate his lovable per- sonality as well as his great achievements to future gen- erations of New Yorkers. Mr. Edmond T. Quinn, the sculptor, and Mr. Edwin S. Dodge, the architect, have accomplished a work of which the people of New York are justly proud.
The unveiling of the statue was an interesting event and well worthy of being preserved in the annals of our
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city. Three generations of Mr. Booth's descendants were present, Mrs. Edwina Booth Grossman, her son, Edwin Booth Grossman, and his daughter, Lois Fellows Grossman; also little Edwin Booth Waterbury, a son of Mr. Grossman's sister. The invocation was spoken by Rev. George C. Houghton, rector of the Church of the Transfiguration, affectionately known by actors and their friends as "The Little Church Around the Corner." The presentation of the memorial was made by Mr. Howard Kyle, secretary of the memorial committee, and the un- veiling of the statue by Mr. Edwin Booth Grossman followed. Mr. John Drew, president of The Players, accepted it in the following words :
Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen :
From the poet to whose genius Edwin Booth dedicated his great powers of interpretation I may well take my cue to-day. You remember that line in The Merchant of Venice, "Such har- mony is in immortal souls." Out of the immortal memory of Edwin Booth there has flowed the harmony to which we owe this statue, the harmony of many men, working steadily and devotedly together to do honor to his name. Amongst members of The Players, the club which he founded and gave not only to his own Profession but to the other arts, the monument was planned and made possible. The Players have fashioned it. The bronze was modelled by the sculptor, Edmond T. Quinn. The pedestal was designed by the architect Edwin S. Dodge. And that it stands now amid these trees, upon which Booth loved to gaze from the windows of his home yonder, is due also to the courteous co-operation of the Trustees of Gramercy Park, who from the start have sympathized with our project. An immense good will, my friends, has. carried the project to its successful completion. I speak of it with feeling. It is as the gift of a company of loyal loving hearts that I accept, on behalf of The Players this statue of the noblest Hamlet the American stage has ever produced, our leader and our friend.
Mr. John B. Pine made an address on behalf of the
trustees of the park, felicitating The Players on the
accomplishment of their long-cherished wish of erecting
this statue of the great player who for so many years
made Gramercy Park his home and who left here a
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place in which his spirit still dwells. The exercises fin- ished with a most interesting address by Brander Mat- thews, appreciative of the character and art of Edwin Booth. Mr. Matthews said:
We, who take pride in our membership in The Players have recognized from the hour when the Founder handed us the deed of gift and lighted the fire which still burns brightly on our hearth — we have recognized that we owed Edwin Booth a debt we could never repay, a debt not merely for the house with its furnishings, its books and its pictures, not merely for the kindly thought that prompted his liberality, but also and especially for the wisdom with which he established our pros- perity upon a sound and solid foundation. He was an actor; he loved his profession; and he wished to testify to this love. He meant The Players to be a home for the actor, first of all, for the dramatist and for the manager, that the men of his own calling might mingle at ease. But he knew that it is not well for the members of any one profession to fellowship exclusively with one another ; and he wanted the men of the theatre to associate with men of letters and with artists, painters, sculptors and architects. He held that
"All arts are one, all branches of one tree, All fingers, as it were, upon one hand."
And he designed The Players to be a haven of rest for the practitioners of all the allied arts.
Now, at last, more than a score of years since he was taken from us, we have been enabled to erect this statue, as an out- ward and visible sign of our gratitude and our affection. It is placed here in this little park that he loved to look down on, in full view from the room in which he lived the last years of his life and in which he died. It has been modelled by one of our own members, with a fidelity to be appreciated by all who knew Edwin Booth and with a beauty to be recognized by those who have had the privilege of beholding him.
In the privacy of our own home, we have a portrait of Edwin Booth, painted also by one of our own members, a portrait which shows him as we like to recall him, as one of us, as our fellow-Player, as a man of most engaging personality, gracious and courteous, unaffected and unassuming. And here in the open air, where all the world may gaze on it, we have now this statue, representing Edwin Booth as the public knew him, as an actor impersonating "Hamlet" and about to utter the soul-search- ing soliloquy on life and death. In all this great city of ours there is only one other statue of an actor — that of Shakespeare in Central Park; and I make bold to believe that the comrade- ship is one with which the author of "Hamlet" would not be displeased.
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We may apply to Edwin Booth the praise which was given to Shakespeare as an actor by one of his contemporaries : he was excellent in the quality he professed. He was a born actor, in- heriting the divine gift from the father whose memory he ever revered. He was an untiring student of his art, knowing why and how he got his effects. By his skill and his sincerity he was able to disguise the artificiality of "Richelieu" and of the "Fool's Revenge." I can recall the thrill with which — now not so far from three score years ago — I first heard Richelieu threaten to launch the curse of Rome; and I shall never forget the shiver that shook me as I later beheld the demoniac dance of Ber- tuccio when he believes that he is at last revenged on his enemy. But like the greatest of his predecessors, with whose achieve- ments he had admiringly familiarized himself, he liked best to act the greatest parts, the characters that Shakespeare has filled with undying fire — Othello and Iago, Brutus and Macbeth, Shy- lock and Hamlet. Here in New York more than half a century ago, he acted Hamlet for one hundred consecutive performances, a longer run than any Shakespearian play has ever had in any city in the world.
In founding The Players, Edwin Booth erected a monument more enduring than bronze ; and now we have set up this endur- ing bronze to bear witness that Hamlet's command has been obeyed and that The Players are "well bestowed."
The Fortune Teller
Almost where Fourteenth meets Broadway, The other day,
I came upon an old man, gnarled and gray.
He had a box of printed horoscopes In little envelopes :
A compact, greasy hoard of threats and hopes.
He had a pair of white and wheezy mice,
A monkey mad with lice,
A parrot ugly as a worn-out vice.
And customers, with dullness on their brows —
The men like cows
At noon, the women angry sows —
Came round him, apprehensive but content That God had sent
Such things to tell them what the future meant.
— Selected.
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A Beautiful Tribute to the American Soldier
Capt. Daniel Couve, Chaplain in the 59th Division of French Infantry, who came to New York on a social errand, related the following simple and touching incident:
"I stood in a Paris street to see your troops go by on the Fourth of July, and I cheered with the rest, but a little old woman beside me touched me on the arm. 'You don't cheer loud enough,' she said. 'These are our saviors.' And that is the way France feels."
An Appreciation
As we drove along country roads weak old women would come out and hold flowers to us.
Why should they hold flowers up to strangers from across the Atlantic? Only because they believed that we were the mes- sengers of friendship and of hope, and those flowers were their humble offerings of gratitude that friends from so great a distance should have brought them so great a hope. — President Wilson.
John Galsworthy on Americans and English
I do not think that you Americans and we English are any longer strikingly alike in physical type or general characteristics, no more than I think there is much resemblance between your- selves and the Australians. Our link is now but community of language — and the infinity which this connotes.
James Duane Complains to Gov. Clinton of the High Cost of Living in 1779
Philad. 27th April 1779.
The extravagance of living here is beyond description and the burden of public business, intolerable. I am for my own part worn down and stand in great need of Relaxation. . . . I must beg your Excellency's Indulgence the more so as I am here without Summer Clothes, and can not reconcile it to my feelings to purchase at the immoderate prices which are current.
His Excellency Governor Clinton. James Duane.
The Jury That Tried John Peter Zenger in the City Hall, Wall Street, 1735
Thomas Hunt, Foreman
Samuel Weaver Harmanus Rutgers
Stanly Holmes Benjamin Hildreth
John Bell Edward Man
Egbert Van Borsom Andries Marschalk
John Goelet Abraham Keteltas Hercules Wendover
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL Dr. J. G. Holland and Roswell Smith
William Webster Ellsworth
Two men who, with knowledge and sympathy and money, did much to further the growth of literature and art in New York in the seventies, were Josiah Gilbert Holland and Roswell Smith, founders, with the senior Charles Scribner, of the joint stock company known in its early years as Scribner & Co. The chief object of the company at first was the publication of Scribner' s Monthly, the magazine which on the sale of the Scribner interests to Roswell Smith in 1881 became The Century and the company publishing it "The Century Company." The new name was the suggestion of Dr. Holland's asso- ciate editor, Richard Watson Gilder, and the thought came to him from the Century Club, of which he was a member. The home of the Club was at that time in Fifteenth Street just off Union Square, next door to the house occupied by the Gilders, that interesting dwelling created by Stanford White from a stable which Mr. and Mrs. Gilder made a center of art and literature and hos- pitality for many years.
The two men Dr. Holland and Roswell Smith were singularly alike in many of their traits, both strongly, almost sternly religious, both desirous of doing good in the world and of helping along their fellow men by what used to be known as "precept and example." Dr. Hol- land had been an associate of the elder Samuel Bowles on that sterling newspaper, the Springfield Republican, and he was also a writer of poetry and semi-religious essays intended for the uplift of young people. His poetry was written in the days when long poems, whole books of a single poem, were in order, the days of Mrs. Browning's
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"Aurora Leigh" and not so many years after Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and ''Don Juan," but a million years from the latter in their "lesson." His characters were distinctly good, home-loving people, sweet women and noble-hearted men.
The present writer never passes the little parsonage of the Presbyterian Church at Riverdale on the automobile road to Yonkers, without thinking of Dr. Holland's "The Mistress of the Manse," the scene of which was laid in that house. Others of his poems were "Bitter Sweet" and "Kathrina, Her Life and Mine in a Poem" — great sellers they were. "The Spoon River Anthology" and Masefield's "Dauber" of our day cannot touch them in popularity. His "Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects" and the works which he wrote under the pseudonym of Tim- othy Titcomb had a great popular sale. The "Nation" well said of Dr. Holland: "He had the immense advan- tage of keeping on a plane of thought just above that of a vast multitude of readers, each one of whom he could touch with the hand and raise a little upward." Dr. Hol- land wrote too a life of Lincoln, and even now, when a fifty-foot shelf would not take in all the biographies of the great emancipator, Dr. Holland's book holds its own.
Roswell Smith was a business man of high ideals and broad vision. His uncle, Roswell C. Smith (after whom he was called, but in later years he dropped the middle name), was an author of school books, and "Smith's Arithmetic" and "Smith's Geography" will be remem- bered by some older readers. It is said that the sale of "Smith's Grammar" was surpassed only in sales of text books by Noah Webster's famous spelling book. The young Roswell passed his later boyhood years in the home of his uncle and doubtless bookmaking got into
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his blood then. When he grew up the West called, as it called so many young men. He went to Lafayette, Indiana, and into the law office of Henry L. Ellsworth, retired Commissioner of Patents (he had been the first Commissioner and was known as "the father of the Pat- ent Office"). Roswell Smith married Mr. Ellsworth's daughter, practiced law, bought profitable real estate, and at forty turned his eyes toward the East and fixed his mind on buying a newspaper.
But first he would make the "grand tour" with his family. Knowing Dr. Holland, they decided to go to Europe together. "I must tell you," said Dr. Holland before starting, "that one of my idiosyncrasies is always being exactly on time." "Then," replied his friend, "I fear we cannot get on together, for I am always half an hour ahead."
One moonlight night they stopped in a walk and leaned over the parapet of a bridge at Geneva, and with the rushing Rhone as an accompaniment. Dr. Holland told Roswell Smith his plan for a new American magazine, one which should really develop American Art and Amer- ican Literature and which should be the vehicle of his own little preachments to people young and old. It seemed to Roswell Smith far better than his own idea of buying a newspaper; yes, he would join in the enterprise, his time and his money should be dedicated to it. In a few days he returned to New York with a letter of introduc- tion to Charles Scribner, who had been Dr. Holland's publisher, and very soon the new company was launched, Mr. Smith and Dr. Holland dividing sixty per cent, of the stock between them, the Scribner book firm taking the other forty per cent. Mr. Scribner's "Hours at
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Home" was merged in the new venture, the first number of which appeared in November, 1870.
American literature at that time was at a low ebb. Harper s was the leading magazine and its great success was built on the fact that it was the acknowledged me- dium for the appearance of the work of the great Eng- lish novelists of the day first appearing serially — Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Trollope, Charles Reade. No notable fiction was being produced in America. The day of Poe and Irving and Cooper and Hawthorne had passed and they had no successors. The new Scribner's Monthly was forced to turn to the foreign George Mac- donald and Mrs. Oliphant for its first year's serials, but its conductors began at once to encourage American fic- tion writers to produce novels, and American artists to draw illustrations which were both good art and inter- esting embellishments. The day of "The Fair Penitent" and "The Bandit's Bride," engraved on steel was over. Bret Harte wrote his first novel, "Gabriel Conroy," for the new magazine; George W. Cable was discovered in New Orleans by Edward King, going through the South- ern States gathering material for his "Great South" pa- pers, discussing the agricultural and economic growth of the country south of Mason and Dixon's line since the war. King sent some of the young cotton clerk's work to Dr. Holland, and presently all the literary world was reading those exquisite stories of New Orleans which later became Cable's book, "Old Creole Days." "Fanny Hodgson" was another early Scribner's Monthly writer ; the world has known her long as Frances Hodg- son Burnett. Thomas Nelson Page began to send in his work to the magazine, and it was soon not only a success itself but as was said at the time, "it made a success of
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Harpers too." Mr. Alclen, editor of Harper s, wrote to a friend that Scribners Monthly had had the effect on them of a fast horse driven alongside one's buggy — you just had to whip up.
Dr. Holland lived on the west side of Park Avenue near Thirty-eighth Street ; Mr. Roswell Smith at 54 East 54th Street. There were young people in both families, much entertaining was done, and Dr. Holland's home became a Mecca for the literary lights of the time. There were other houses too which attracted them. On Satur- day nights one went to the home of Miss Mary L. Booth, editor of Harper's Bazar. It was at the corner of Park Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street — a barren waste of a dis- trict it was too — and in that big, simply furnished parlor at Miss Booth's one met Frank R. Stockton and Mary Mapes Dodge, Stedman and Stoddard and Edgar Faw- cett. Sometimes the hostess's cousin, Edwin Booth, came in — sad and gloomy he was then, given to standing by himself, with folded arms, in a corner, talking little.
The wife of Professor Botta had frequent "literary" receptions, as had "Aunt Fanny" Barrow, a writer of children's books, and Mr. Clapp of E. P. Dutton & Co., who lived in these days on Thirty- fourth Street just off Broadway.
Both Roswell Smith, at the business end of the office, and Dr. Holland at the literary end, were men of great squareness in dealing with authors and artists. They paid well, often more than was asked. When General Grant wrote his war articles for the Century, he was to have five hundred dollars each for the four — a good price at the time — but Mr. Smith sent him an extra check for $2,000 when the last article came in. He paid George Kennan for his epoch-making articles on the Siberian
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prisons, much more than had been agreed on. And the founders of "The Century" (and "St. Nicholas" was added to the enterprise in 1873) were fortunate in some of their helpers ; especially Richard Watson Gilder and Alexander W. Drake, who lifted high the banner of good American art and kept it high for the forty years that they were privileged to work together. But that is another story and a later one.
New York City
William F. Kirk
"Oi loike New York," said Pat O'Brien, "Because so many frinds av moine Have come here from the dear ould sod To fale no more the tyrant's rod. Sure 'tis a blissed town av rist — Av all great towns Oi luv it bist !" "Ya, dot iss so," said Adolph Schwenck. 'Ay tenk so, tu !" said Olaf Brenk.
"I likes New York," said Adolph Schwenck,
"I puts dot money in dot benk,
Und effer in dot, understandt,
Dan effer in dot Faderlandt.
Berlin iss great, und back I go,
But only for a visit, so!"
Said Olaf Brenk, "New York ban fine !"
"Faith, and it is !" said Pat O'Brien.
"Ay lak New York," said Olaf Brenk,
"It ban best town in vurld, Ay tenk !
Ef yu skol yomp around and try
Yu got gude chance for going high.
Stockholm ban fine, but Ay skol call
New York the yolliest town of all."
Said Adolph Schwenck, "Dem vords iss fine !"
"Faith and they are !" said Pat O'Brien.
—Selected.
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Some Famous American Naval Prints
Henry Collins Brown
In the pages of that delightful repository of antiquarian lore concerning New York of an older period — Valen- tine's Manual — one may see an old-time print or two of exceeding interest, not so much for what they are as for the tremendous developments which they foreshadowed. One is dated October 14, 1814; others a little later; and it required the passing of a full century before their full significance could be realized.
The first scene is laid in the palace of the Tuilleries. Napoleon has granted an audience to a young Ameri- can inventor who is enlarging upon the merits of an idea which he claims would destroy the British fleets and lay the shores of Albion prostrate before the soldiers of the Empire. It is an important matter and the greatest strategist the world has ever known calls to his aid the most eminent body of scientists in his dominion, the French Academy. That august body deliberates at length and also experiments with the result that they report that power enough to propel a small toy might be developed, but to force a vessel "across the Channel and discharge this strange missile called a "torpedo" with sufficient force to destroy an enemy ship, was not to be seriously considered. Napoleon therefore declined to entertain the matter further. Proceeding to England, the inventor prevailed upon Lord Chatham to witness a practical demonstration of his torpedo, and in front of the Prime Minister's house in the harbor of Deal, and in the presence of a large number of persons, he launched one of his torpedoes against the hull of a large derelict
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Jtouqualj 1844
One of the really famous ships in the China trade. Commanded by the redoubtable Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer. She made the run from New York to Java Head in 72 days and to Hongkong in 84 — distance 14,272 miles.
This ship was named in honor of Houquah, a well known merchant of Canton whose goods were invariably up to sample. He was much re- spected by American and English residents in China no less for his integrity than for his kindness and business ability.
She was 706 tons and was built in New York by Brown & Bell. She had a great reputation in her day.
Courtesy Mrs. A. A. Low.
OF OLD NEW YORK
provided for the purpose, and destroyed it completely. The present-day reports of instant destruction were equalled if not surpassed in this attempt. The vessel was blown into a thousand pieces and sank immediately.
The idea was rejected upon the ground that England being mistress of the seas could not afford to encourage the development of so terrible an engine of destruction, and no other nation had the means or the inclination at the time to make the necessary investment, as it could not be profitable. Such was the original invention of the torpedo, and the inventor's name, as our readers may have guessed, was none other than our hero — Rob- ert Fulton.
His submarine was never tried ; but his iron-clad "Fulton the First" was safely launched in the Harbor of New York right opposite the present Battery, and proved practical. A double page picture of this interest- ing event forms one of the three old prints in the Manual to which I have referred.
The absorbing interest with which all Naval prints pertaining to American history are now regarded, is largely the result of the present activity of the sub- marine and the deadly torpedo. And while the immor- tal skill of a Jeakes, a Tiebout, a Richards, or a Pocock failed to delineate this epochmaking incident of Fulton's, there is a very distinct and close connection between the two. And my references to these half -forgotten prints may not be amiss.
In the famous collection now possessed by the India House in New York, is a modest painting that will some day become famous as the subject of some future aqua- tint or other art production — the William P. Frye. It lacks the delicacy of coloring possessed by the etchings
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of a century ago, but as the starting point of the never- to-be-forgotten ruthlessness of the German submarine it will some day take high rank among collectors. There is something pathetic in this peaceful looking merchant- man when one recalls its tragic end. And its cruel fate will ever add an interest to the print which it would not otherwise possess.
Turning however to the Naval prints of long ago, we find here an entirely different atmosphere. There may be sights more calculated to stir the blood than the old time all hands-repel-boarders sea fight, but if such there be I have failed to find it. And in the mighty combat between the B on Homme Richard and the Serapis painted by Paton and engraved by Fittler, published in 1790, we have a spirited representation that satisfies every longing of the soul.
A very wonderful ensemble and one which sums up a whole chapter in Naval history is that curious and little known folio aquatint under the title of "Sprigs of Lau- rel." It was drawn and engraved, by that well known artist, W. S. Strickland, with whose other work, both in New York and Philadelphia, we are quite familiar. In this remarkable grouping, however, Strickland has gath- ered together no less than nine distinct engagements, be- ginning with Perry's victory at Lake Erie and ending with the encounter between the Peacock and L'Epervier.
This fascinating aquatint is unknown to Stauffer and is of the greatest scarcity. It is accordingly of surpass- ing interest, and though Mr. John Kneass, of 125 Mar- ket Street, Philadelphia, announced its publication at the modest sum of $3.00 per copy it brought one of the high- est prices paid at the late Halsey sale in whose collection it had reposed for many years. The vessels represented
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are the Constitution and Guerriere, Wasp and Frolic. United States and Macedonian, Constitution and Java, Hornet blockading Bonne Citoyenne, sinking of the Pea- cock and L'Epervier. The battle of Lake Erie forms the chief vignette across the entire print ; the other scenes somewhat smaller. It is surprisingly well drawn and the colors add much to its fascination.
The very scarce original impression of the folio aqua- tint from a drawing by Birch, showing the loss of the packet ship Albion, is an item that appeals with rare force to the collector. The engraving is by Tiebout, whose view of the Federal Hall in Wall Street has made him among the best known of early New York engra- vers. This, however, was published in Philadelphia, October 25th, 1823, by S. Kennedy at No. 58 Walnut Street. Stauffer has it recorded as No. 3200. The orig- inal colored impression was recently disposed of at a sale in New York and brought an attractive figure. Robert Havel, another New Yorker, also figures prom- inently in a spirited rendering of the combat between the Constitution and Java. The latter is in a set of four, and very scarce.
Tiebout afterwards entered the publishing business on his own account as we find a rather ambitious under- taking by him in the production of a line folio depicting the "Glorious and Brilliant Victory" obtained by Com- modore O. H. Perry over the British Fleet on Lake Erie. It bears the date 1813 and was printed by Riley and Adams, No. 238 Water Street, New York. In the margin are printed eight Naval engagements. The en- tire plate is in colors and is now of greatest scarcity. Of the many numerous engravings of this interesting
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event this is one that is rarely met with. Its value is constantly enhancing.
Tiebout also published the same year an excellent plate of the Constitution and Guerriere from a painting by T. Birch. This is now very rare and its value is con- stantly increasing. StaufTer has recorded this as No. 3206. All these old Naval combats seem to have been great favorites with our early engravers, as we find sev- eral examples of the Chesapeake and Shannon; the Con- stitution and Guerriere ; the Constitution and Java ; the Endymion and President. We are thus fortunate in hav- ing examples of the best artists — J. T. Lee, Joseph Jeakes, Thomas Whitecombe, Anna Jeakes, Robert Dodd, J. C. Schetky, L. Haghe, Garny, Debucourt, Coqueret, Robert and D. Havell, Montardier Bangean, P. W. Tompkins and others.
One of the most complete collections of these particular prints is that possessed by Mr. H. O. Havemeyer, Jr., of New York. For many years Mr. Havemeyer has been an industrious collector of these fascinating sub- jects, and as several important collections have recently been dispersed his has naturally been enhanced thereby.
It is quite impossible to describe the charm of these old time aquatints or the extreme delicacy of their color- ing. And their reproduction in black fails to convey an adequate idea of the fascination possessed by the col- ored originals. It would seem as though a revival of this lost art would meet with appreciation today. There is certainly nothing that quite supplies their place in the market today.
In these prints we have almost a complete history of the early days of the American Navy, and it is a record to stir the red blood in a man's veins. In view of what
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HOUQUAH, A NOTED CHINESE MERCHANT OF HONGKONG CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH THE GREAT BUSINESS OF A. A. LOW & BRO. IN THE DAYS OF THE CLIPPER SHIP TEA TRADE 1830-40. COURTESY OF MRS. A. A. LOW
OF OLD NEW YORK
we have been obliged to read during the last year or so, it is refreshing to recall the days of clean fights, of manly combats and of that ancient chivalry which seems inseparable from fighters of the sea. The achievements of the Anglo-Saxon sailors have made many a brilliant page in naval history from the days of Drake to Far- ragut.
Let us hope that this glorious record will be kept un- sullied in the stormy days that are to come. Let us hope that no matter what the provocation, the American ideal of manliness, of squareness, of self-respect will never be lowered. Let those who will, adopt the meth- ods of the Barbary pirate and the Chinese junk; but let the Yankee sailor lad be always as he has been — a credit to the men who go down to the sea in ships and a glory to the service.
Half a Century Ago
Arthur Winthrop Earle
The Velocipede
In 1869 the craze was for velocipedes — the fore-runner of the bicycle. All over town there were academies and rinks for teaching and practicing the art of riding. Be- tween Grace Church and Tenth Street there was a four- story building — afterward occupied by the Vienna Bakery — the top floor of which was used as a Velocipede Riding Academy, patronized by hundreds of young peo- ple who crowded it nightly and in the daytime too. Fancy riding was a feature in the rinks and also on the stage in variety shows.
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The velocipede was a very crude affair compared with the modern bicycle. At first it was made with an iron band around the wheels and the saddle was perfectly rigid. Riding in the open was therefore practiced only by those who had the strength and daring to endure its strenuousness. The idea of riding fifty or sixty miles and coming home refreshed and still vigorous was out of the question, but on the smooth floors of the Riding Academies the sport went fast and furious and perhaps as many miles were covered within their walls in the same time as were accomplished later by the bicycle with its air cushion tires and its ballbearing apparatus.
Skating-Rinks
On Fifth Avenue between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Streets, where the Windsor Hotel afterward stood, there was an ice-skating rink in the winter time. The lots were below street grade and we went down steps to the pond. This was in the early seventies. The building on Third Avenue used later for the American Institute Fairs was also a skating-rink, one of the largest and best patronized in the city.
The Cocktail Route
As the days of prohibition approach, perhaps some Old New Yorkers will be interested to recall the "Cocktail Route" up Broadway as it was navigated forty or more years ago. The first "lighthouse" was Theodore Stew- art's on John Street — the like of which never existed elsewhere ; the next tack was laid to the Astor House
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bar, then came Stewart's "uptown place" in Warren Street — the first place of its kind which had a circular bar where the inside as well as the outside was exposed to view. The next "lighthouse" was Dowd's, near Leonard Street. From there the course was laid to Ball's near Howard Street. Flere the navigator could indulge himself to his heart's content in excellent fish cakes. Ball's was the first place to offer these deli- cacies as an appetizer. The next leg of the course was to the New York Flotel at Waverly Place, a fine old hos- telry with an excellent bar, and then to the Morton House at the corner of Fourteenth Street. The next was a long stretch to the Hoffman House and thence to Phil. Milligan's at Thirty-first Street where the friends parted and took their several ways home in a more or less happy frame of mind. The man of affairs of the present day does not know anything of the zig-zag route his predecessors took to his home when business closed. The fastest and straightest line from office to home is the vogue now, and the "Cocktail Route" has gone the way of many another old New York custom.
Artists' Quarters
Some of the older artists will remember Martinelli's in Third Avenue which was frequented by artists forty years or more ago. This was before he opened his res- taurant in one of the old mansions on the north side of Union Square near the Everett House. His place was in a cellar in Third Avenue fitted up to appeal to the Bohemian taste of his patrons. It was very comfortable and inexpensive and was patronized by members of the
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National Academy of Design. There was a long table in the room and the seat at the head of the table was reserved at all times for the President of the Academy. When Martinelli moved to the more pretentious quarters in Union Square the artistic charm passed and his pa- trons from the Academy disappeared.
The St. Nicholas Hotel
This was the finest hotel in New York in the seventies. Its proprietor had been a cook on a North River sloop and he considered this fact a certificate of excellence. He was very proud of his cuisine and it was said of him that he would rather show his kitchen to visitors than the spacious and handsome parlors.
Voting in 1868
As an illustration of how they did things at the polls in these days it was not considered an unusual thing to see a body of purchased or coerced voters marched to the polls. On election day, at the time of which I speak, the owners of the large refineries in the eighth ward, nearly all of whom were prominent in the religious life of the community, formed their employees in line, placed the ballots in their hands, marched them off to the polls and saw them deposit the ballots in the ballot-box.
Passing of the Old Volunteer Fire Department
When the Volunteer Fire Department was disbanded the formal farewell to the "machine" was made by run-
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THE CELEBRATED
AMERICAN IMPROVED VELOCIPEDE.
iPatorxtecl January 2©? 18Q9.
Many EXPERT RIDERS la New York have giveu it a trial, and pronounce it The Stroitt/eat., Best Constructed, and Most Perfect Velocipede yet produced.
The art of riding is very easily acquired. It has been mastered, in many instances, in one day by parties who rode easy and gracefully.
ITS ADVANTAGES OVER
OTHER VELOCIPEDES: 1st. The driving wheel is from five to ten inches higher, and still gg. the. saddle is so low' that the rider -= can touch the floor with both feet. 2d. We balance the machine on the kack wheel instead of the front. In doing this the balance is more perfectly acquired, and the rider can not be thrown from his saddle. Experts pronounce this the true principle of balanc- ing and riding a Velocipede.
Sd. The saddle is placed back of the front wheel, thereby giv- ing the rider greater power on the cranks to drive the Veloci- pede at great speed, or up steep grades.
4th. We apply the break and leg bests to the standard, over front wheel, so that they operate on the wheel in any position.
5th. By inclining the staniv- akd, over the front wheel, duck at air angle of forty degrees, in turning we tip the wheel and turn a perfect circle without the viim Torcinxo mi: leg. We also avoid the jar to the guiding arms in going over rough ground or paverneut.
Cth. Yon will notice, from cut, the easy and graceful position of the rider.
As all are ambitions to get as large a z>bcvik» wheel as they can use, we give the sizes below, in proportion to a man's height : Men from 4 ft. 10 in. to 5 ft 2 in. high, can use a 3S in. wheel and touch the floor with both feet. Men from 5 ft. 3 in. to 5 ft. 6 in. high can use a -11 in. wheel and touch the floor with both feet. Men from 5 ft. 7 in. to 5 ft.
hitrh can use a 45 in. wheel and touch the floor with both feet. Men from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft. can use a 48 in. wheel and touch the floor with both feet. As all will be desirous of getting the Velocipede that will run the easiest, go the fastest, and turn the shortest, we invite all to send for "Circular giving fall description, TOMLINSON, DEMAREST, & CO., Fine Caeeiage BtJiLDEss. 620 BROADWAY. New Yoek.
Out of this came the bicycle, the motor cycle and the automobile
OF OLD NEW YORK
ning it out of the house, turning it around and running it back "tongue in." "Harry Howard Hose laid" in Christopher Street and it was here the above solemn farewell ceremony was witnessed.
Thackeray and the Bozvery Boy
When visiting New York, Thackeray expressed a wish to meet a Bowery Boy. A friend took him to the Bow- ery and suggested that he get into conversation with one of the boys. Approaching one, Thackeray made an effort to begin a conversation by saying, "I want to go to the Bowery." The answer came swiftly back, "Well, sonny, you can go."
The Gap Between New York and Harlem
The change from the old New York to the newer city took place when the elevated roads were opened. Pre- viously there had been a great gap between New York and Harlem. When people found that they could go to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street in less time than it took to go to Forty-second Street by stage or horse- car they flocked to the new districts by hundreds of thousands and "Old New York" as we knew it then fast disappeared in the great modern city of today.
Greenwich Village Proper
The application of the term Greenwich Village by the scribes of the present day to territory east of Sixth Ave-
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nue is absolutely wrong. Greenwich Village was west of Sixth Avenue and southwest of Greenwich Avenue. My mother as a girl lived in the neighborhood of Jane Street, and when going to visit an aunt who lived on McDougal Street walked through open fields.
Washington Parade Ground
Washington Square was Washington Parade Ground prior to the time when it was cut through for teams and Lawrence Street widened and called South Fifth Ave- nue. The drills of the Seventh Regiment took place in the wide space on the outer edge of the Parade Ground. It was to provide a better drill ground that Tompkins Square was opened.
Longacre Square in Its Infancy
In the spring of 1862 my family moved to one of the newly completed brownstone houses on the east side of Seventh Avenue, between Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh streets. At that time there were no houses except squat- ters' shanties between Forty-eighth Street and Central Park.
My father kept his driving-horses at the livery stable opposite the site of the present Hotel Astor, which was then occupied by a row of houses that had been put up by the Astor family. Our usual drive in the afternoon was up through Central Park to 110th Street and Fifth Avenue, where Harlem Lane began, and thence out to Bloomington and King's Bridge. My father owned some lots on West 129th Street which were occupied by gardeners. The rental he received was his winter's supply of celery.
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Carmansville to New York in 1867
In 1867 my brother lived at Carmansville. In going to and from his business he took the steamer "Tiger Lily" between Carmansville and 129th Street and East River, and from there the famous boats "Sylvan Dell," "Sylvan Stream," "Sylvan Grove" and "Sylvan Glen" to Peck Slip.
Frolics of the Old Fire Department
I remember the final parade of the old Volunteer Fire Department. Every Engine Company, Hook and Lad- der and Hose had its own particular pet — we would say mascot now. One had a live bald eagle called "Uncle Abe." Hook and Ladder No. 8 had a black bear. In parading the apparatus was drawn by hand, the tow rope being extended from curb to curb by the front rank of men, and the men on the ends would "swipe" the hand- kerchiefs of the ladies and tie them on to the rope, so that by the time they reached the place of dismissal the rope was hung full of them.
Bill Poole
When Bill Poole was shot his last words were, "I die an American Citizen," and the American Wards — the eighth, ninth and fifteenth — suspended all business. On the Sunday afternoon he was buried the Sunday schools were almost entirely empty of pupils.
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VALENTINE'S MANUAL Chop Houses in the '6o's
There was an English Chop House known as "The Studio" just above Dr. Muhlenberg's church that was so very English that I do not remember having seen an American paper or magazine there at any time. On Fourth Avenue near 20th Street there was a similar place but not quite so exclusive. Quiet controlled the Chop Houses of those days, so very different from the noise and bustle of the Chop Houses of to-day. And where are the good old Oyster Houses that used to be plentiful? What turtle soup we used to get at Fulton Market !
Pat Gilmore and His Band
Pat Gilmore was at the apex of his fame when he played at Brighton Beach. He was very proud of his band, and it was a big one. There were 100 pieces in it. There was only one other band to compare with it, and that was Col. Jim Fisk's Ninth Regiment Band, which also had 100 pieces. Grafula the famous leader of the Seventh Regiment Band would not have more than 48 pieces. He said that he could make more music or more noise with 48 pieces than Gilmore could with 100. Gil- more travelled all over the country giving concerts. He carried 100 uniforms with him, many of which were filled by local talent of the places where he played.
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Slave Burials in New York
W. L. Calver
Directly on the line of Tenth Avenue near its junction with 212th Street in the fields of Inwood about thirty rude stones may be seen projecting a few inches above the sod. These stones are partly enclosed by a semi- circle of wild pear trees which have been permitted to grow and furnish shade for the cattle which represent Manhattan Island's last herd. The regularity with which these stones have been placed is not at first appar- ent, and a careless observer might easily pass them with- out notice ; indeed, few residents of Inwood know of their existence ; yet they mark human graves — and real slave graves at that. Within a stone's throw of this burial place is another where lie the masters of these poor blacks. It was a custom, more forcible than law — though laws there were, too — that the servant could not be consigned to consecrated ground. For further proof of this one need only stroll out the Hunt's Point Road to where that thoroughfare first reaches the Sound, and there where rest other ancient lords and masters of the soil in the "Hunt and Legget burial ground" may be seen the usual adjunct — a slave plot — just across the roadway.
By a singular coincidence these two reminders of slav- ery days in New York are most inappropriately situated. The fields of Inwood encircled by the surrounding heights are like a vast amphitheater in whose arena was fought one of the most disastrous battles in the struggle for American Independence. The human chattels in- terred subsequently in the blood-bought soil were not the property of Loyalists. There is quite a touch of irony in
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the fact that in the Hunt's Point burial plot, which ex- cluded the sable representatives of our race, rests Joseph Rodman Drake, one of freedom's best friends.
The Hunts and Leggets, for whom the little cemetery at Hunt's Point is named, were descended from the Jes- sups and Richardsons, the original patentees of the coun- try thereabouts. To the present representatives of these old families one must go to obtain what little informa- tion of a positive character there is concerning the occu- pants of the slave plot at Hunt's Point.
Mr. Henry D. Tiffany, who resides at "Foxhurst" at the junction of the Southern Boulevard and Westchester Avenue, is the son of Mary L. Fox, whose mother was Charlotte Legget, who was descended from John Rich- ardson, the original patentee of Hunt's Point — or the planting neck of West Farms, as the point was known in Colonial times. Mr. Tiffany's mother, who died in 1897, had a clear recollection of the last black interred in the slave plot. This was an old negress named "Aunt Rose." She had formerly been a slave in the Legget family, but she and her children had been manumitted. Aunt Rose was something of a character in her way and a memory of her has consequently survived to the present time in Mr. Tiffany's family. She was buried in the slave plot some time away back in the forties.
Slavery in New York was the subject of much legis- lation in old times, and the laws in relation to the burial of slaves were strictly enforced. Some of these laws were peculiar. In 1684 the burial of slaves was first legislated upon. The private burial of a slave by his master was forbidden, and a citizen of Albany who in- terred his slave in a "private and suspicious manner" was fined 12 shillings. The object of this law was of course
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to prevent the concealment of a murder, either by or at the instigation of his master.
Thirty-eight years later the Corporation of New York ordered that all Negro and Indian slaves dying within the city should be buried by daylight. The penalty for infraction of this law was ten shillings, to be paid by the masters or owners. Under the laws of 1731 not more than twelve slaves were to attend a funeral, under pen- alty of being publicly whipped, unless the master pay a fine of 12 shillings. No pall, gloves or favors were to be used. A slave who had held a pall, or wore gloves or favors, was to be publicly whipped. The object of these laws was to prevent conspiracy and sedition. The two things which New Yorkers dreaded most apparently were tires and slave insurrections. By an ordinance passed March 10th, 1712, all slaves, whether Negro or Indian, were forbidden to appear in the streets an hour after sunset. Statistics prove that from 1698 to the Revolu- tion the slaves stood to freemen in the proportion of only one to seven.
The marriage of slaves was made legal in 1813. One or other of the parties might be free, but the children followed the condition of the mother. Those familiar with the dusky "hot corn" vender of the present time will be interested to know that by an ordinance passed 160 years ago, blacks were forbidden to sell boiled Indian corn on the streets of New York.
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SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BROOKLYN
H. C. Brown
HE Brooklyn of which I write is a different city from the one we know to-day, entirely different. The buildings have changed, the streets have changed, and the people have changed, and there are a great many more families in the village than when I was a boy playing among its vacant lots and selling water around the Union grounds at a cent a glass, and when the water got very warm, dropping the price to "as much as you could drink for a cent." The people do not seem to me to be so neighborly nor so approachable as the people I used to know on our block. On summer nights we all used to sit out on the front stoop and the young folks would start some popular song like "Wait Till the Clouds Roll By, Jennie," or "Juanita, Soft Over the Mountains," or some other favorite. And all the other stoops would presently join in the singing, which made it a very enjoyable and neighborly affair.
Opposite my home on Marcy Avenue, I looked out upon the smiling acres of the old Wyckoff farm in the 70's, and I consider myself among the few men who were fortunate enough to witness the harvesting of a
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wheat crop on land in Brooklyn now covered with apart- ment houses in endless succession. In my day the city was seldom called by its real name, but was affectionately referred to as the "City of Churches" or the "City of Homes." I think that that appellation is still to a large extent true of Brooklyn to-day.
It has always been a remarkable city in more ways than one. A few years ago it gave Taft a majority of 27,000 when all the rest of the country turned him down, and the next year it gave Hearst 57,000 majority while the rest of the state did exactly the reverse. The civic independence of Brookyn passeth all understanding. The same city that gave us Seth Low also gave us John F. Hylan, and until Brooklyn makes up its mind, we shall not know whether a League of Nations is a good thing or a bad one- There seem to be two very distinct Brooklyns : the one forever a butt of ridicule at the hands of newspaper par- agraphers ; the other a city of intellectual accomplish- ment, of a cultured society and a home-loving and God- fearing people. Marshall P. Wilder made a whole lot of money out of his single reference to the building of a subway between New York and Brooklyn, which he said was constructed so that a New York man could go to Brooklyn without being seen. Chauncey Depew used to describe Brooklyn as being always between pleasure and the grave, because it lay between New York and Green- wood Cemetery.
A writer in the New York Sun on one occasion raised the question as to whether a Brooklyn man ever blacked his boots, and another correspondent replied to the effect that he had recently rode in a Brooklyn street car and saw a man who had not only his boots blacked, but his
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Commodore Arthur Curtiss James, owner
Patriotic Spirit of New York Yachtsmen in the Great World War.
The following letter to Commodore James which accompanied the return of the U. S. S. Aloha, shown opposite, gives a glimpse of a fascinating page in recent history.
Headquarters of the Third Naval District Third Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street Brooklyn, New York. July 25, 1919
S. W. 158-5 My dear Sir.
It is my privilege and very pleasant duty to express to you on behalf of the Navy as well as Commandant of the Third Naval District, the deep appreciation of the loyal and generous spirit which prompted you to put your Yacht, ALOHA, at the disposal of the Navy at the nominal charter of one dollar per month.
This vessel was taken over on April 22nd, 1917, and desig- nated as S. P. No. 317. After such changes as were required to fit her for the service intended, it was commissioned on June 5, 1917, and assigned to duty as flagship of Rear Admiral Cameron McR. Winslow, U. S. N., Inspector of Naval Dis- tricts, and upon this detail performed very valuable service. On the cessation of hostilities it was placed out of commission and returned to you on January 29, 1919.
The ready and generous response of the yacht owners, at a time when small vessels were so greatly needed, contributed in no small way to the successful manner in which the American Navy met the demands so suddenly made upon it on the dec- laration of war.
I remain,
Very sincerely,
J. F. GLENNON,
Rear Admiral U. S. N.
Arthur Curtiss James, Esq., 99 John Street, New York City.
In sftite of the brief time at our disposal — Naval censorship preventing release till the Treaty was actually signed, — we have been enabled to present the Aloha, Corsair and Noma as part of the fighting forces of the United States Navy, and to quote brief extracts from the official records in Washington telling of submarine encounters ; responses to S. O. S. signals and their valiant service as Convoys. It is all in striking contrast to their hitherto peaceful lives in summer harbors. Next year we shall include Sultana, North Star, Kanawha, Vedette, Aphrodite. Christobel, etc., till the list of New York yachts is complete.
OF OLD NEW YORK
eyes blacked as well. Another observing citizen said he noticed an old lady coming out of the subway at the City Hall who stood somewhat bewildered at the crowds at the Bridge entrance. One of the policemen approached her sympathetically and asked her if she did not want to go to Brooklyn and she replied, "No ; I have to go." The cartoonists find it sufficient to draw a procession of baby carriages propelled by men along a border of rubber plants, in order to indicate Brooklyn. And so between the work of the dramatist who starts a play, "Why a Girl Leaves Home," and ends it with the next line, "Because She Lived in Brooklyn," to the artist whose work I have just described, the city does not begin to get the credit to which it is entitled.
One has only to recall Brooklyn's pre-eminent position in the field of educational work, her great and command- ing influence in the religious world, her magnificent park- way and her many noble public improvements to appre- ciate her greatness and importance. I am told, and I believe it is true, that there exists nowhere in this world the equal in artistic beauty and magnificent conception to the Soldiers' Arch at the entrance to Prospect Park. The genius who created this magnificent memorial also astounded the world by the brilliance of his work at the great World's Fair in Chicago, where his fountain in the Court of Honor challenged the admiration of artists the world over. It is no small credit to this wonderful city that it was one of her native sons who created this im- perishable work of art, and that Frederick MacMonnies played around the streets of Brooklyn Heights as a boy, grew up in the city, and found his talents acknowledged and recognized in the place of his birth before the world took him up.
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So when one has under consideration such complex material, and so mysterious a body of men and women as constitute the great city of Brooklyn, he has a task of no mean dimensions. It is doubtless true that I am unable to refer to many two-story houses that have been sup- planted by a fifty or sixty-story structure, as in the case of New York. Yet if New York's material progress is more manifest to the eye, so also is Brooklyn's spiritual progress to the soul.
I shall therefore content myself with a sketch of Brooklyn as I knew it in the 70's and 80's, and try to pass in brief review some of the salient features of the city as it then appeared to me and more particularly the ^"E. D.," and I will try to analyze the causes which, for some occult reason, imbued the W. D. with what seemed to me a sense of superiority.
Nothing I have ever encountered since these early days will equal the scorn and disdain with which a young lady from the Heights would remark to me upon learn- ing of my residence, "Oh, you are from the E. D." Nothing more was ever added. But it was enough. There seemed to be nothing left for anybody to do who came from the E. D. but to dry up and blow away. There was no use of protesting against this attitude, for in that case, the young ladies would simply change it to "You're from Williamsburg," and of course everybody knew that that was the last word in contempt. Undoubt- edly, the Heights in those days corresponded to the best knowledge we now have of heaven. As it was, there- fore, impossible for a native son of the E. D. to aspire to residence on the Heights, so he did the next best thing and moved away. He has lived, however, to see the mighty fallen; and to observe unfortunately the once
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proud and cultured precincts of Brooklyn Heights brought to the level of ordinary everyday boarding houses.
They tell me that in the Park slope some of the glories of the Heights have been preserved, but I belong to a past generation — to the generation that was accustomed to the forest of masts that clustered 'round the docks — - below the heights — to the clipper ships that bore the house flags of Brooklyn merchants from Java Head to New York in a hundred days. When these galleons dis- appeared there also disappeared a distinct era in the life of Brooklyn — never to return.
Notwithstanding the superciliousness of society on the Heights, the young ladies and young gentlemen in the li. D. contrived to exist and amuse themselves after a fashion, even if it was perhaps a simpler fashion. In the circle in which I moved, one of our favorite dissipa- tions were surprise parties. We met at each other's houses and from there marched in a body to the home of one of our mutual friends who was popularly sup- posed to be in entire ignorance of the intended festivities. Occasionally this surprise was a great success and our young friend was caught wholly unprepared. Some- times she had her hair done up in curl papers just ready to go to bed, and other times she was helping mother wash up the dishes after a supper later than usual. But in the majority of instances, news of our coming leaked out in some way and the family was carefully prepared for our reception, and simulated with more or less suc- cess, unfeigned surprise at the appearance of the party.
The invitations were quite informal, the dignity of engraving not even being considered. You were cor- dially invited to meet at the residence of Miss So-and-so
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to attend a surprise party, and there was always a post- script which read, "P. S. — Please furnish oranges," or apples, or cake, as the case might be. After a while this modest request was omitted and the invitations then read "Gents assessed 25c." This was considered quite an ad- vance in the social scale and a very distinct improvement over the plebeian method of bringing your contribution in a paper bag. With the gradual growth of wealth and culture in the eastern district, however, this primitive method of entertainment gradually decreased until it ceased altogether, and thereafter the hostess provided all the refreshments and you were simply expected to honor them with the pleasure of your company. I have been to many gatherings in many parts of the world since those green and salad days, but I have yet to recall one which lingers in my memory with greater fragrance and with more lovable association than the various nights that I spent in the old E. D. the guest of a surprise party where I furnished oranges, or cake, or candy.
The next great popular form of entertainment was undoubtedly the Sunday parade on Bedford Avenue in the afternoon. It must be remembered that everybody who aspired to be anybody, belonged to one of our churches, and that all of these churches had Sunday school in the afternoon, which terminated at four o'clock. At that hour, by common consent, all the young people gravitated to the Avenue, and as there were about a dozen churches in the immediate neighborhood the stream of promenaders grew to quite respectable propor- tions. By common consent it was given up to the younger element, and I remember with what pleasure and excitement I would doff my hat to sundry and va- rious young ladies whom I had met socially during the
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OF OLD NEW YORK
week or previously. It was a moral certainty almost that if you were anxious to meet any particular young lady whom you had not seen recently, you could accom- plish your purpose quite naturally on Bedford Avenue. The Avenue ended at the fountain, which marked the beginning of Fourth Street. Fourth Street, I under- stand, has since been added to Bedford Avenue, and no longer enjoys a separate existence.
The residences on both sides of the Avenue were of a very substantial character, and were occupied by fam- ilies quite equal, if not superior, from the point of means, to their more lordly neighbors on the Heights. There were many famous homes on the Avenue, that of Mrs. Knapp's being among the better known. Mrs. Knapp's interest in St. John's Church and in all musical affairs in the eastern district made her magnificent home the head- quarters for many delightful receptions and entertain- ments of this character, and around this home centered much of the social life in the eastern district.
Upon one occasion, General Grant, then in the very height