Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 132

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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with its owners, but they have kept magnifying it, and making it an increasing power. That it was not called the Times or some such name was owing to the devo- tion of the Democratic party to the bird of Jove.

Among its founders were several prominent Denio- crats, chief of whom was Henry C. Murphy, who, with Richard Adams Locke, performed the part of its first editors. It was published by Alfred G. Stevens as a morning paper. Mr. Murphy was then a lawyer in suc- cessful practice, and Mr. Locke had been a writer on The New York Sun, in which he published the celebrated "Moon Hoax." The paper succeeded beyond the hopes of its projectors and more than paid its expenses; and the party of which it was the organ was successful. The first number issued as a permanent daily paper was on the 27th of December, 1841, with William B. Marsh as editor. In March, 1842, Isaac Van Anden purchased the paper. Mr. Marsh continued as editor, but he died February 26th, 1846. He was succeeded by Walter Whitman, whose contributions to the poetry and prose of our generation, have gained for him a distinguished name wherever the English language is spoken. Of Mr. Whitman, the traditions which survive as an editor are somewhat meager; but enough remains to show that he had little taste for the nnremitting duties of a daily editor. He was succeeded in 1847, by Mr. S. G. Arnold, an old Brooklyn journalist, and Mr. Van Anden's old partner, who remained in charge nntil 1852. In 1850, the name was abbreviated to the Brooklyn Daily Eugle, dropping the Democrat. Mr. Arnold left the Eagle because he found himself at variance with his constituency on the question of slavery. He was disposed to go farther in the direction of free-soil, than, just then, seemed reasonable to the supporters of the paper. Henry McCloskey, a native of Ireland, who had been a reporter under Mr. Arnold, now assumed the chief position, and speedily obtained for the Eagle an importance in the journalism of the country, which it had not reached under any of his predecessors. He was an accomplished scholar, an effective public speaker, a graceful writer of verse, and a most thorough-going Democrat of the straightest sect; but, above all, hc wielded a pen, which, in controversy, smote like a broad-sword. He retired from the Eagle in 1861; hav- ing by his extreme affirmations of the right of secession brought the Eagle into collision with the government. The short alternatives presented to Mr. Van Anden, the proprietor, was either to put a loyal man at the head of the paper, or have its publication suspended. Mr. Van Anden, whose sympathies were all on the Union side, had no difficulty in making a choice. In the office there was a young man, a reporter and assistant editor, who filled the bill of loyalty, and came up to the full measure of the ability required. This young man was Thomas Kinsella, and upon his shoulders the editorial duties were devolved. A little farther on in our narrative we shall outline the story of Mr. Kinsella's career, Ilere a

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word is in order about the more distinguished of his as- soeiates. The first of these, in point of time, if not of merit, was Mr. WILLIAM WOOD, who served him in the capacity of managing editor, and had full charge of the paper during the time Mr. Kinsella served the eity as a Commissioner of City Works. Wood was a thoroughly trained journalist. IIe begau the practice of his pro- fession in England, his native country, and had risen to an honorable position there, when he resolved to trans- fer his fortunes to America. He joined to habits of industry and great thoroughness in his work, a vast fund of general information, an intimate knowledge of Brooklyn affairs, and a remarkable capacity for stating a case clearly. He remained in the Eagle till the time of his death, which occurred in 1871. The managing editorship then deseended to Robert A. Burch, who now, after an interval of ten years, again holds the posi- tion. Between the time of Mr. Bureh's retirement from and his return to the Eagle, Andrew McLean, the present editor-in chief, was managing editor. Mr. St. Clair Me Kelvey, the present chief editor of the Albany Argus, was for many years under Mr. Kinsella, and as the associate of Mr. MeLean, oue of the Eagle's most important writers. John Stanton, an Englishman by birth, familiarly known as " Corry O'Lanus," was also among those whose labors contributed in a noticeable degree to the prosperity of the Eagle, under Thomas Kinsella's direction.

During the war an effort was made to issue a morn- ing edition of the Eagle, but the design was soon abandoned. In 1877, January 1st, the Sunday Eagle was started, and now forins a very interesting part of the Daily Eugle. In 1870, Mr. Van Anden was in- duced to sell out the whole establishment to an associa- tion, and retired for a time altogether from the Eagle;

but he soon afterward purchased some shares from a member of the Association, and continued his eounec- tion with the business department till his death on the 6th day of August, 1875.

In giving more at length the history of the Eagle, we give the history of the other journals ; its prog- ress from the time that Isaac Van Anden pulled the Columbia hand-press, through the developments of the single-eylinder, the double-cylinder, the four-cylinder, the eight-cylinder, and the Hoe web perfecting presses, which Patrick Gelston pulls by powerful en- gines ; from the time when it had four writers and twenty employees till now, its progress is the same which its contemporaries have made in journalism, and along that line of progress certain names shine con- spicuous-some living, and many dead.

The sudden and wonderful development of Coney Island was largely due to the Eagle. Its editorials on the New Wonderland at our doors were vigorous and comprehensive; and its correspondence was by far the best written from the Island. And this development of Coney Island opened a new field for local journal- isni. The Coney Island Sun, the Coney Island News, and other journals rose on the excitement. The Daily News we think was the only paper that established a complete newspaper establishment upon the island, with a steam press and all the equipments of a printing office. It was suspended at the close of its second season.

In 1842, the Weekly Eagle, containing choice selec- tions from the Daily, was issued for country circula- tion, but it was suspended in 1855.

The Sunday Evening Miscellany was also issued for several years from the Eagle office, and attained a large circulation in Kings county and throughout the Island.

ISAAC VAN ANDEN.

ISAAC VAN ANDEN chiefly desired to be remembered among men as the founder of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. He early put before himself the purpose of establishing in this city a newspaper which should be considered the equal of any paper of its class in the country ; and when, in his latter days, he saw his favorite object accomplished, he looked mpon it as a monument, speaking of him, to posterity. To sketch the life of Isaac Van Anden is to outline the history of the Eagle, and, indeed, of Brooklyn, for nearly forty years. He lived and labored for the city, because with its prosperity was bond up the fate of his darling project, and in that newspaper were centered his brightest hopes and loftiest ambitions. Apart from other considerations, the os- tablishment of an institution which, in various ways, gave employment to over two hundred persons, which received and expended in Brooklyn nearly a million dollars per an- mmm, was no slight claim for recognition among men. To Isaac Van Anden, the journal which he may be said to have

founded, and which he certainly nursed to manhood, took the place of sweetheart, wife or family. He saw Brooklyn emerge from the chrysalis of its village state and advance to the third position among the cities of the land; and, under his eye and hand, the paper of his affection kept pace with the growth of the public interests and population around it. Mr. Van Anden was single in his purpose, as men who make their mark usnally are; and he lived to see in success the re- sult which, as a rule, waits upon courage and persistenry in- telligently directed.

Isnae Van Anden came of the old Knickerbocker stock Ilis grandfather was a native of Holland, who, m early manhood settled as a farmer in Dutchess county, N. Y Thus Isane, the son of a farmer, passed all his earlier year amid agricultural surroundings. But, when old enough to scan for himself the horizon of the future, he turned his back upon farm-life and chose a trade. As an apprentice o the office of the Poughkeepsie Telegraph, then, as now, tle

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ISAAC VAN ANDEN.

chief paper of Dutchess county, the lad bent himself assidu- ously to the acquirement of every detail of his chosen craft. Long after he had ceased to do manual work, and when he had come to be ranked with the most influential men in Brooklyn, he was fond of relating how he won attention in Westchester by the excellence of his printing. When his apprenticeship ended, Van Anden was well versed in every branch of the business; and purchasing (in partnership with a fellow-workman, Alexander Lee) the Westchester Spy, in 1837, he settled at White Plains. Their success, though slow, was promising; but, receiving a proposition from Mr. Samuel G. Arnold (from whom he had purchased the Spy) to join him (as the business manager) in publishing a paper called the Advocate, in Brooklyn, he sold out to his partner and came to this city. Together, Arnold and Van Anden con- ducted the Advocate until, in 1838, the Democratic party of the State was overturned; William H. Seward (Whig) was elected Governor, and the political patronage of their paper seemed about to slip from their hands. To obviate this dan- ger, as well as to obtain an advantage over the rival Brook- lyn paper, they purchased a power-press and started the Brooklyn Daily News, as a non-partisan paper. This was subsequently bought out, in the Whig interest, by Wmn. A. Green, and the firm of Arnold & Van Anden was dissolved; the latter, who had retained a large portion of the materials of the old Advocate, endeavoring to get a living by conduct- ing a small job printing office. About this time (the winter of 1840-'41) the Democracy plucked up courage, and determined to contest, with increased vigor, the supremacy in Kings county of the then dominant Whig party; and, as a factor in this contest, resolved to start a newspaper which should dis- puss and proclaim Democratic principles. Hon. Henry C. Murphy, then a young and ambitious politician, in company with some of the older Democrats of the locality, commenced he publication of the Brooklyn Eagle. Soon they felt the necessity of some practical business man, acquainted with newspaper work, and Van Anden's skill, industry and ex- elleut habits having already attracted their attention, they leemed it advisable, both for the interests of the party and of the paper, to place the Eagle under his management. Overtures were made to the young printer, which resulted n his becoming the publisher, with the promise that in time e might become its proprietor.

The Eagle at this time occupied very modest quarters on 'ulton street, just opposite the present Eagle building. In he fall of the ycar succeeding this transfer, Hon. Henry C.

Murphy was elected Mayor of the city, and in that campaign the Eagle's influence as a political factor may be said to have first developed. In the second year of its existence, it be- came instrumental in securing for the Democracy in Brook- lyn an ascendancy which has never been lost. In this year, also, the owners of the Eagle offered it for sale to the young publisher; and, while the price asked seemed somewhat large, it was far within what Mr. Van Anden lived to see covered by a single day's receipts over the Eagle counters. For $1,500 Mr. Van Anden became sole proprietor of the Eagle; and the money paid represented the savings which industry and economy up to that time had enabled him to make. From this point, the history of the Eagle may properly be said to have commenced. Hitherto, it had been simply a political organ. Mr. Van Anden made the Eagle a newspaper. IIe was a Democrat, but he clearly distinguished between the exigencies aud the interests that legitimately affect all classes of society, and which no publisher is at liberty to subordinate to partisan ends. The Eagle, iu Van Anden's hands, did not cease to be Democratic in the broad and proper sense of the term; but it did cease to have more re- gard to the success of fortunate candidates than to the gen- eral welfare of the public and the city. The new man and the new spirit made, to all intents and purposes, a new paper-a paper which has ultimated in the Eagle of to-day, and of which we write when we speak of Mr. Van Anden's newspaper career in Brooklyn. In those days, how feeble, low barren, how dependent the most successful papers were in contrast with the leading journals of the present day. Then, no paper could live except as an organ. Patronage was the reward of supporting a party; and, without patron- age, it was assumed there could be no newspapers. In this respect, the jourualist of the day was as much concerned in the voting on election day as the rough political candidates. Mr. Van Anden resolved that his paper should be independ- ent of politicians and of parties. He became convinced that it might be made interesting as a newspaper; and that the public could be induced to support frank discussion, even when they did not agree with the conclusions reached, and impartial reporting when they regretted the facts. That he was not mistaken in his judgment, the Eagle is a living at- testation. Of his determination on this point, one incident among many may be mentioned. Shortly after he had be- come proprietor of the paper, Henry C. Murphy came to him with a speech, in pamphlet form, by Hon. Thos. Cummings, Member of Congress for the Long Island District; and, in a matter-of-course way, throwing it upon the table, said he wished it published in the Eagle. Such publications were ordinarily made by all organs. They had been made in the past by the Eagle, and Mr. Murphy could see no reason why the custom should not continue in force. "But," said Van Anden, addressing Murphy, "The Eagle is not big enough to hold that speech." "Oh, well," rejoined the Mayor, "you can publish it in instalhnents; it has got to be published." "Well," rejoined Van Anden, "it has not got to be published unless the readers of the paper want to see it. I don't think they want to see it. I am not going to publish it. I won't publish it." It is hardly necessary to say that the politiciau was astonished, and that the action of the Eagle's proprietor was for some time spoken of in local political circles as an almost nnjusti- fiable revolt; but the politicians concluded to content thein- selves with the speech in pamphlet form, and thereafter they never again informed the proprietor of the Eagle that any- thing " had got to be published." He assumed to be the sole judge of what should go into the columns of his paper. For years after this event, the Eagle's history in Brooklyn was

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one of unremitting effort to maintain life. Early and late he toiled and struggled-for those were days of trial, when a great burden rested upon his shoulders, and each day's issne was an experiment. He secured Richard A. Locke as his first editor; for, as for himself, then and since, he never un- dertook to edit the paper. He probably thought more, then, of the job-room, which brought him in his daily bread, than of the uewspaper which was, in time, to control a coun- try, influence a party, and lead the van of local journalism. For this he was not to be blamed; Brooklyn, at that time, was but a " one-horse place."

The then influential men of the city were Whigs; and the advertising men were, as a class, of the same party; and had it not been for Mr. Van Anden's skill and industry as a job printer, the Eagle would, in all probability, have been abandoned. By industry and economy, however, he snc- ceeded in making enongh out of the job office to meet the defieieuces of the journal's income and to keep himself, at least, ont of debt. lle was peenliarly adapted to conduct a struggle of this kind, from the fact that he had no political ambition; no desire for distinetion of any kind, except from his newspaper. When that prospered he was happy; when things went well with it and the prospect brightened, all the hopes he cared to indulge seemed realized. Beside the Eagle, there were in those early days two newspapers-the Adver- tiser and the Star-both of which had circulations larger than the Eagle, which, for the first few years of its existence, was third in the race for popular favor. The result, how- ever, was certain from the first. The Advertiser and the Star died long ago; the former, because of bad business manage- went; because its managers were weak where Mr. Van Anden was strong; because they squandered the resources which he took care to husband; the Star failed, because the proprietor did not understand the new times that came with the advent of the New York Herald and the Eagle in journalism. Mr. Van Anden worked at the press, worked at the case, worked in the office, worked outside, to the eud that he might meet his obligations; and he met them, thereby overcoming his less frugal and judicious rivals on the Advertiser. He was keenly alive to the current of popular seutiment; he saw and availed himself of every innovation in the production aud distribution of his paper, and thereby distanced hopelessly all rivals. As already mentioned, Mr. Van Anden's absorbing ambition came to be the establishment of a great paper in Brooklyn; and, to the accomplishmeut of that object he sacrificed uearly every passiou and desire. He had no ex- pensive habits; no longings that affected his income; no tastes that were allowed to diminish his resources. What- ever the Eagle made was allowed to remain in the Eagle, strengthening it in whatever way seemed most judicious. The new era that was opening he comprehended, and con- formed his actions to its spirit. The old " blanket sheets" of New York were falling into decay: and a journalism with a basis of independence, and with curreuts of enterprise run- ning through it, was coming into power.

Thirty years ago, the newsboy, now so familiar a figure, first appeared on the stage of journalismn. Before he was nn- known. Mr. Van Anden was shrewd onongh to see the nse that might be made of this new personage; and he lost no time in making his acquaintance. This appreciation of the newsboy is only illustrative of the spirit in which every de- partment of the Eagle was being conducted. The two-cylin- der press was, in time, exchanged for one of four cylinders; and, realizing how much quicker printing and rapid distri- bution might do for circulation, Mr. Van Anden practiced wolf-denial until he had on the premises an eight-cylinder press. Nor was he ever quite happy, until he saw the Eagle

possessed of machines that would print 50,000 copies an hour. Nor did his desire to improve and enlarge stop there. One of the last things he did for the Eagle was to devise the improved process by which it is now enabled to use both type and stereotype plates, and by so doing preserve all the advan- tages of the stereotyping process, while losing none of the advantages enjoyed by those who print with type. No mother ever watched a child with more solicitude than he watched the Eagle. There was no sacrifice he was not prepared to make in its behalf, and there was nothing that pleased him so much as the facts that appeared from time to time, evine- ing its angmenting prosperity. He declared that the happiest day of his life, and the happiest he ever expected to enjoy, was that in which he learned that he could truthfully put at the head of his paper the lines so familiar now to all readers of the Eagle. " The Brooklyn Daily Eagle has the largest cir- culation of any evening newspaper published in the United States." Mr. Van Anden published a Democratie newspaper, because he was a Democrat by conviction; had been reared in that faith, and held to it with the steadiness characteristic of his people and race. He believed that the welfare of the country depended upon the operation of Democratic prin- ciples, as he understood them-honesty in publie life. economy in government, and no interference by government in affairs in which the people are competeut to manage for themselves. For Brooklyn, as a city, he had a profound love. He had made his fortune in it; his friends were here and all that he anticipated of material prosperity centered here. He not only never sought office, but again and again rejected offers that would have moved any one less single of purpose than himself. There is no doubt that he could have been Mayor of Brooklyn; for the nomination for that position was tendered him by men who could, by their influence, have secured his election. But he had no political ambitions, and would form no connection of any kind likely in the slightest degree to embarrass the cause of the paper. No quan, perhaps, who has ever been identified with a newspaper had fewer per- sonal ends to serve than Mr. Van Anden, and to this must be attributed in no insignificant degree the influence which the Eagle gained while under his management. Of his attach- ment to Brooklyn he desired in some way to give attestation. He was among the foremost and firmest friends of the Bridge enterprise, and the $25,000 which he gave for stock of the company at its incipiency was paid in the belief that he never would receive a cent in return. "That much," he said, "I am willing to give toward the betterment of Broek- lyn." He was an early friend of the Prospect Park enterprise; he was one of the Commissioners intrusted with its conduct; and, so firm was his belief in the character of the men as- sociated with him in it, as regarded the commendable nature of the project, that he would listen to no man who assailed either. To the Park, as to the Bridge, he gave his time aud thought cheerfully, animated by a desire to serve the city and the citizens, to whom he felt an abounding gratitude for the success which had covered his business carcer. Ile was, also, a director in the Mechanics' Bank, the Brooklyn and the Standard Life Insurance Companies, the Safe Deposit Company, and was a helper in many charities. Ile was opon the Democratic Electoral ticket in 1865 and 1869-once de- feated, once elected.

Mr. Van Anden, in social life, was what his business and public life implied. Unostentations, somewhat retiring never demonstrative, but kindly and unmistakably h nost D his utterance. Ile was the friend of every man for whom he pretended friendship, and for no man did he pretend eves respect, when he believed him unworthy of it. Ile com but little for company; and, so it came that his friends were

Kumar Pinsella

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rather few than numerous. His attachments, when formed, were of an enduring kind. Toward men who served him he had a gratitude that was constant. Murphy, Lott, and Van- derbilt, the men who helped him in his younger days, were men that he always held himself under obligations to serve ; and, from Mr. Van Anden, the younger servants of the Eagle learned, as they took positions of trust, that, come what might, these, his early friends, were to be treated as friends. He was not less attached to old servants. He disliked changes among the persons about him. One department was under the charge of a man who counted 35 years in Mr. Van Anden's service. Another had come as a boy to the Eagle office, and had grown gray without leaving it. A third had commenced his career as a journalist, and had continued it, without a break, from youth to advanced age ; and so on. These things pleased Mr. Van Anden hardly less than the growth of the paper itself, and in that they gave him joy we have an evidence of the gentle character of his mind. Mr. Van Anden was a bachelor. He was accustomed to say that the Eagle, in early days, was his mistress, and that lie in- dulged the passiou until it became too late to transfer his affections to any other object.

Mr. Van Anden's birthplace is a mile and a half north from the main street of Poughkeepsie, and is not now in possession of the Van Anden family. The house stands on a high bluff overlooking the Hudson, and commanding a fine view of the Catskills in the distance. IIis Brooklyn residence was on Columbia street, where, for many years, he lived with his venerable mother and widowed sister; and here, in his well-stocked and pleasant library, he passed nearly all his leisure hours, amusing himself in viewing the ever-changing scene presented by the busy harbor before hini; in storing his mind with useful informa- tion, or in laying out the plans for the development and conduct of his darling newspaper, which his subordinates were to work out to the letter by his schedule. His pleas- ures, aside from the one great pleasure of his life, were few and simple; his dress elegant, without being finical; his man- ner plain and unaffected. His life-which ended at the resi- dence of his brother, at Poughkeepsie, August 4, 1875-was marked by gentle consideration for the poor and humble; generosity and self-sacrifice in the interests of tliose less prosperous thau himself; and by courtesy and good will to- wards all mankind.

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 132

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360