USA > New York > New York County > Governor's Island; its military history under three flags, 1637-1913 > Part 8
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The part of the hollow passage near the salient of the redan
* For full list of Commanding Officers (v. p. 161).
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HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
is to be occupied by two magazines for fixed ammunition or storage. This will enlarge the terreplain and the salient of the redan. The parapets are sodded and the glacis is being graduated."
Other additions and repairs to the Castle and Fort were made in 1836, for which were appropriated $20,000.
Company B of the permanent party called the "music boys," a detachment of recruits for the field music of the army, occu- pied the South Battery. On Dec. 28, 1836, the troops in gar- rison, with the exception of the recuits of the 2nd Dragoons, were ordered to Florida for the Seminole War.
On April 18, 1837, a battery of the Ist Artillery under Capt. J. Dimick occupied the post and Fort Columbus continued to be an Artillery Post until November 15, 1852, when Gover- nor's Island became a General Recruiting Depot vice Fort Wood, pursuant to Genl. Orders No. 38, Series of 1852, A. G. Office.
nu Officers Cadet 1021
GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
The Post was at once occupied by Battery A, Ist Artillery, under command of Capt. Joseph P. Sanger, the garrison being shortly afterwards strengthened by Battery D, of the same Regiment.
From the Adjutant General's Notes we learn that a new Barbette battery was built in the 80's. This extended from the neighborhood of the Post Chapel N. W. across the Parade towards the Castle. It mounted a few guns and a modern earthwork battery was begun but not completed, and the entire battery was removed about 1893 .*
Plans were drawn as early as 1869 for a "New Barbette Battery" to cross the parade from the Castle S. E. to the Colonels' Row, but this was for some reason never begun.
In June, 1892, the armament of this Post, as given by the Adjutant General, was:
Thirty-six 10-inch Rodman guns, five 15-inch Rodman guns, two 8-inch siege howitzers, five 100-pdr. Parrott guns, two 41/2-inch rifles, two 24-pdr. Coehorn mortars, two 8-inch siege mortars, two 10-inch siege mortars, one 13-inch sea coast mortar. Field Artillery-three Gatling guns, long bar- rel, caliber 45.
No continuous records exist to show the dates of the various buildings on the Island except the fortifications. The best available data at present indicate the building dates about as follows :
The Administration Building-date unknown-probably about 1840.
The Post Headquarters Building is believed to be of some antiquity. As stated elsewhere, the old name for it was "The Governor's House," which, if historically correct, would take it back to 1775 at the least. 'As late as 1872 and later it was used for the main guard.t
The Commissary Building, 1845, and the Commanding Gen- eral's Quarters, 1840.
* Remains of this battery were discovered in the Summer of 1910, when the salt-water mains were laid across the Island.
+ See p. 174.
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HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
Numbers 2-5 inclusive, General's Row, 1855-7.
Other quarters in General's Row, 1875.
Colonels' Row-Various periods-1875, 1878, 1888 and 1905.
Old Hospital-Main wing, now (1913) used as Eastern Dept. Headquarters, 1840.
Regimental (Brick) Row, 1889 to 1908 (various dates).
New Hospital, 1880.
South Battery, 1812.
A tradition that this Battery was erected in 1834 arose probably from the fact that a second story was added to it in that year. This upper story was in red brick. The lower story was painted yellow, and for several years this striking artistic effect prevailed. At some period, perhaps the same, the outer walls of the Battery, built of the Newark sand- stone used for Castle Williams, were treated to a similar wash, which is happily disappearing under the kindly in- fluence of Nature.
Second addition to South Battery (Corbin Hall), 1904.
The present Officers' Club (South Battery) was used as a Club house first about 1879. No records are available to show the date of the foundation of the Club. A tradition lingers that General Schofield was the founder of the Club, but this cannot be verified.
Previous to that time at various periods dances had been given in the (present) Administration Building (west end), the old Hospital, and in the (present) Quartermaster's Store House adjoining the Post Quartermaster's Office. The wooden wings of the Hospital of 1840 were built in 1862 and used as a General Hospital during the Civil War. The School House and Printing and Telegraph Offices are reminders of this War Hospital.
Circular No. 4 (1870) mentions a married quarters near the old brick Hospital, and states that the Post Cemetery referred to elsewhere consisted of about half an acre.
An engineer map of 1857 shows a pump in the courtyard of the Castle just 15 feet south of the centre.
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GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
As late as 1870 there was in the courtyard of the Castle a reminder of the Civil War time in a long wooden building used as a mess hall and kitchen for recruits. The upper tiers of the Castle were used as recruit quarters during the re- cruiting period, 1852-1878. The wooden building in the Castle was 60 x 30 feet and had a roof-pitch of 8 feet. It contained three small store-rooms and was furnished with two doors and ten windows.
A reference to this is found under date of Decr. 7th, 1871, when permission was asked to remove the powder from the magazines in the Castle and to store it in the Post magazines on the ground that "the fires kept in a wooden building used as a mess room and kitchen renders the opening and closing of the magazines dangerous."
In spite of the apprehension expressed in 1871, the powder remained till after the arrival of General Hancock, when it was removed from the Island except that which is stored in the Garrison magazine on the west glacis of Fort Jay.
This magazine in the midst of traffic, passed monthly by thousands, is probably not visited annually by a half dozen, and yet it is, next to the Castle, the oldest building in undis- turbed condition on Governor's Island, and is worth, for that reason, a few words of description.
This little magazine on the west glacis slope is a stone build- ing with a stone dove-tailed roof and double walls, the interior ones of brick with ventilating apertures arranged to avoid the outside windows. The interior sheathing of the magazine is one inch white pine. On the north side is a ventilating win- dow which at some period was bricked up and cemented. The wooden inside door is furnished with fine copper bolts. The interior ceiling is of heavy rough-hewn oak beams. On these beams are painted in black a number of names and initials of an early period, showing the magazine to date from at least the period of the Castle, 1807-II, and probably earlier, as the Castle had its own magazines and Fort Jay was (in part) of earlier construction. These names are painted in bold char-
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HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
acters and some of them are of artistic excellence. Among them are
W H 1812 C M 1812 C F Morton 1815
This magazine is at present used for the storage of saluting powder. It is surrounded by a fence of venerable appearance which is believed to have done picket duty long enough to entitle it to honourable mention. The warning sign over the door, though frequently renewed, also shows evidence of antiquity in the lettering employed.
Other powder magazines are to be found in Fort Jay in the north side of the barrack square. These magazines are on the right and left of the enclosed area under the ramparts. They have copper ventilators and barred entrances. In magazines Nos. 2 and 6 are inside wooden doors, grated, with small wooden trap doors near the top secured by a button on the outside. These have no value for purposes of ventilation and it is believed that at one period the magazines were used for prisoners and that the traps were for passing in food.
During the Civil War a double guarded cell was maintained in what is now the basement of K Co., 29th Infantry. This consisted of an outside cell in which the guard was locked in and an inner one for the prisoner. One or more celebrated Confederate officers were imprisoned here before execution, including Captain John G. Beall, a Naval officer, who with two others, captured the S.S. "Philo Parsons" and S.S. "Island Queen." His execution took place February 24, 1865.
An historical account of Governor's Island would not be complete without reference to its oldest inhabitant, to whom the author of this work wishes to express his thanks for many notes of historical interest.
Sergeant David Robertson, Hospital Steward, U. S. A., entered the Army in July, 1854, and has served continuously in the Hospital Corps for 59 years.
Such length of service is almost unprecedented, and when it
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GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
is combined with unbroken duty in one Garrison it deserves more than passing mention. In addition to his length of ser- vice, Doctor Robertson has endeared himself to thousands of officers and their families by his kindly nature as well as by his professional skill of high order which has been unsparingly given to all who needed his care, commanding Generals, offi- cers of every rank, soldiers and civilians for nearly sixty years of service, during three epidemics of cholera and two of yel- low fever, besides the innumerable cases, surgical and medical, that have been submitted to his skillful treatment.
While Doctor Robertson has been retired with full pay and allowances he still remains (1913) on active duty, where his friends hope long to find him.
Doctor Robertson and his wife lived for many years in their cottage near the Chapel in the midst of an old-fashioned garden that was one of the sights of Governor's Island. Mrs. Robertson was the daughter of Lieutenant Michael Moore, who was born July 4, 1800, and enlisted in 1812 for the War. He retired in 1871 after many years of meritorious service on Governor's Island.
Thus these two officers in one family represent in their own persons 118 years of active service.
The little group of Lombardy poplar trees still left (1913) at the edge of the Arsenal Yard is a reminder of a forest that adorned Manhattan and Governor's Islands 100 years ago and should be viewed with the respect due to the survivors of an ancient race. The poplar was largely used in the 18th cen- tury for the beautifying of the city. Guernsey tells us in his book, "New York in the War of 1812," that Broadway was literally lined with them on both sides from Bowling Green to Sailors' Snug Harbour (10th Street) and that they were found along the streets and lanes of the City and in the door-yards of the homes. Paintings of that period show Governor's Island with a lordly crown of stately poplars from its Eastern to its Western end, notably the "Wall View," by Wm. C. Wall, 1823, now the property of Mr. Wm. Havermeyer. An- other view by Wall, belonging to the same family, painted in
III
HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
1820, shows Castle Williams with the surf breaking at its base and a sentry in uniform of the 1812 period .* Drawings and paintings of Governor's Island by Chapman, Wood, Howell, Stubbs, Stevenson and Bachman in the 30's and 40's also show the long regimental line of poplars now shrunken to the dimensions of a squad, but well worth notice, both for their dignified beauty and for the story they tell us of the days when old New York was young. John W. Francis in his "Old New York" says the Lombardy Poplar was found in great abundance in 1800-1805 and that it was introduced in New York under direction of Louis XVI, who sent out the elder Michaux from the Jardin des Plantes accompanied by a gardener, Paul Sanier, who spread the poplar everywhere.
The old name of Jay, which had been discontinued about the year 1810, was restored in 1904, according to the following order :
General Orders.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
No. 18. WASHINGTON, January 25, 1904.
The following order is published to the Army for the information and guidance of all concerned-
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, January 20, 1904.
The fortification on Governor's Island, New York Harbor, partly built 1794-1795, enlarged and completed 1798-1801, and partly rebuilt 1806-1808, now known as Fort Columbus, is hereby restored to its original name of Fort Jay; and the said fortification and the Military post located on the said Island will hereafter be known and designated as Fort Jay.
ELIHU ROOT,
Secretary of War.
The change of name from Jay to Columbus is supposed to have been due to Jay's temporary unpopularity with the Re- publication party, which was not satisfied with the Jay Treaty with England (1794). The treaty, however, proved its value,
* (Frontispiece.)
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GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
and Jay was twice elected Governor of New York after its adoption.
The restoration of the original name is a graceful recog- nition of the splendid character of the man of whom Daniel Webster said: "When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing less spotless than itself."
BUTTERMILK CHANNEL.
The question of the carly condition of what we now call Buttermilk Channel has been for many years an interesting one. References to the matter appear in the Peter Jay Origi- nal Letters (New York Historical Society). Peter Jay was the Father of John Jay. The date of these letters was about 1750.
"Marabie Bevois says she is aged 84 years (near 85), was born in New York. It's last May 63 years since she came to live at Brookland (Brooklyn). Heard Jeromus Remsen's mother say that there was only a small creek between Nutten Island and the shoar and that a squah carried her sister over it in a tub."
"Joost Van Brunt aged 77 years and upwards, born and lived at New Utrecht-says he was about seven years old when the Dutch came to take New York-says that a great deal of the land's washed away against Nutten Island and it went further out than now but can't say how much. Jeromus Rem- sen aged 77 years says that he heard his mother say she was carried off Nutten Island by a squah and that it was all sedge and meadow, only a creek between Nutten Island and Long Island; it is now 116 or 117 years since his mother was born; has often heard people say that there was but a small creek between Nutten and Long Island."
"A Mr. Van Alstine, upwards of eighty years of age in 1786, said he remembered when Governor's Island was sepa- rated from Long Island only by a narrow creek, which was crossed upon logs raised above the high tide."
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HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
The Minutes of the Common Council of New York furnish this early reference to Nutten (later, Governor's) Island, which indicate that at that time it was so slightly separated from the main land as to serve as a point of reference for the main shore line. Otherwise the Red Hook line would have been mentioned.
Report of the Committee appointed for enquiring into the Ancient Rights and Privileges of this Citty-was read in the words following (vizt.)
NEW YORK, Jan. Ye 24th, 1698 (9).
We have viewed And Examined the Records of the Citty and doe find * * * * that all that Land from Ye Eastern End of Nutten Island for half A Mile deep to Ye West point of Ye Wallabout," &c .-
In the Colonial Documents (London) we read of this period that in 1691
"Governor Sloughter arrived in New York in the Ship "Arch Angell" in March, the troop ship having arrived two months before. The officers of the two foot companies de- manded entrance into their Matyes Fort of the Cittey but were denied entrance by Jacob Leisler with the Stile of Lieut Gover- nour.
* *
The Sd Leisler fortified himself in ye Fort and had 16 or 17 bulletts in ye fire Red hott to fire ye towne withall.
The Noyze and Shouting yt followed upon ye Govr's landing (being come in ye pinnas by the back side of Nutten Island) made the hearts of his followers to divide," &c.
Nearly one hundred years later General Scott wrote as fol- lows to John Jay, son of the Peter Jay whose Original Letters are above quoted relative to Buttermilk Channel :
**
*
NEW YORK, 6th September, 1776. * * * * *
We are liable every moment to have the communication between us and the City cut off by the entrance of frigates
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GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
into the East River between Governor's Island and Long Island, which General McDougall assured us from his own nautical experience was very feasible.
Later, same date.
*
* * * *
*
The Garrison was drawn off in the afternoon after our retreat under fire of shipping which are now drawn up just behind Governor's Island and the fire of some cannon from the Long Island Shore, but with no other loss than that of one man's arm.
Watson's Annals state that "an old gentleman in 1828 re- members that as late as 1786 the Buttermilk Channel was deemed unsafe for boats to pass through it because of numer- ous rocks there. It was, however, secured for a boat channel through which boats with milk and buttermilk usually made their passage. My mother told me that when she first entered New York Harbour (then a girl) she was surprised to see all the market boats in the East River rowed by robust women, their heads fitted with close caps, two women to an oar."
Also the same authority states of Nutten Eylandt that it was formerly nearly joined to Long Island by a low interven- ing morass and a small dividing creek and that cattle passed to and fro at low water.
Mr. James Le Baron Willard of Brooklyn writes to the author : "I do not like to give up the idea which I have held as a truth since childhood of 'crossing the channel'. told by those whose word was well worthy of credence. It may be the tales were but traditions so often told that they became accepted as facts. However, I know that our Bay tides were very much lower formerly than now."
There seems to be a strong consensus of opinion among residents of Brooklyn Borough that the Channel was fordable at an early period. Mr. Charles B. Pearson, a gentleman in his 90th year, writes to Mr. Willard on the subject. He says his father in law John Davidson was born in 1802 and was
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HISTORY OF GOVERNOR'S ISLAND
a Trinity Church school boy and chorister and that he had often told the writer of wading across from Brooklyn to Gov- ernor's Island through mud and over the stones-that he used to skate from the Battery on the Hudson to Canal Street, the main inlet, and along the inlet to Broadway and under a stone bridge to the present Tombs prison. In those days Water Street, as its name indicates, was on the East River front. Now, there are two streets east of it, thus narrowing the River there as the Atlantic Docks later did east of the Island and deepening the channel to a considerable extent. The excavations for the Atlantic Docks were made in 1842 and at a depth of 20 feet many roots of trees were found and beneath them peat was discovered in considerable quantities.
Other old residents of Brooklyn recall that the tides in the Buttermilk Channel were formerly less high than now; and that the Red Hook flats were not filled in until after 1846. These facts, coupled with the building of the Atlantic Docks opposite the Island and subsequent dredging of the Channel, would easily explain the present navigable conditions of the Channel. A resident of Governor's Island told the author that she walked half across the Channel in 1849. This was with the use of stepping stones at low tide.
It is difficult to reconcile the foregoing statements in toto without fuller knowledge of conditions. For example, we have the statement that in (about) 1630 it was a small creek and that a "squah carried a child over in a tub"; that it was crossed in 1710 by "logs raised above the high tide"; that the "pinnas of the 'Arch Angell' came to the back side in 1691"; that the British frigates (or shipping of war) were drawn up "just behind Governor's Island" in 1776; that it was "full of rocks and unsafe" in 1786; that John Davidson, born in 1802, "waded across as a boy," probably in 1812, and that the "fort to guard the pass at Buttermilk Channel was completed and equipped" in March, 1813.
From the building of the fort in 1813 the obvious conclusion is that it was navigable for ships of war, as Genl. Scott inti- mates in his letter to John Jay in 1776, and yet statements of
116
22 ND REGT., N. G. N. Y., CORPS OF ENGINEERS-CHURCH PARADE.
019
GARRISON EVENTS AND NOTES, 1868-1913
most undoubted veracity are made from 1630 to 1812 that it was a sedgy creek, a fordable stream, a crossing for cattle, a wading place for children.
Probably the safest conclusion in absence of positive infor- mation is that local conditions varied with the years and that it may have been possible to cross it occasionally under ex- ceptional conditions of wind and tide, as the falls of Niagara under certain conditions of ice formation may be crossed by the daring adventurer. Of one thing we may be certain, viz, that the sedge marsh of the 17th century is today a highly important artery in the commercial system of the Port of New York with a channel 1000 feet wide at the narrowest point and a depth of 25 feet. The Navy Department sends large battleships now through Buttermilk Channel, in striking con- trast with the wooden Dreadnaughts of 1776, and it is planned to increase the Channel to a depth of 35 feet, as it affords a more direct route from the Navy Yard to the sea and also obviates the necessity of excavating Diamond Reef, which lies between Governor's Island and the Battery. The encircling sea wall was built at different periods in the development of the Island-the S. W. portion in 1866, and the N. portion from the Castle to the Arsenal at a later period by the now well- known writer, F. Hopkinson Smith.
We learn from the Tompkins papers that a fort existed at an early period to defend Buttermilk Channel (p. 68). A plan of the Fortifications of New York in 1814 in Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution shows a considerable work at the South Battery. This corresponds closely with this order and with the fact that repairs were ordered for the South Battery in 1832.
.
CHAPTER VI. TRANSPORTATION IN FOUR CENTURIES. 1600-1913.
THE GOVERNOR'S ISLAND FERRY IN FOUR CENTURIES. 1600-1913.
It is a long cry from the Indian canoe of prehistoric times and the colonial barge of Wouter Van Twiller in 1637 to the "General Otis" of to-day; from the Pagganck Island of the aborigines and the Nutten Island of the Dutch and the Gov- crnor's Island as it began to be called in the time of Charles II of England, to the Department and Regimental Headquarters of the United States Army of 1913. With little imagination one can see the gliding canoe of the red men putting out from its wooded shores, and at a later period the thick-prowed yawl of the Dutch occupation, succeeded again after 1674 by the stately barge of the English Colonial Governors.
How busy our little port must have been when the famous sawmill was built in 1639, and again when it was burned in 1647 "to save the Iron!" How our shores must have re- sounded to the tramp of visiting thousands during the days of the racetrack, in the time it was used as quarantine for immi- grants by the act of June 13, 1710, and subsequent periods, especially when the ten thousand Palatines were detained here before being sent to populate Columbia and Greene Counties ! What stirring scenes during the erection of Castle Williams, with landing of stores and supplies, and the feverish building of the original Fort Jay, when professors and students of Columbia College came down with their shovels and picks to help the workmen complete the fort!
How the English Governors Hardy, De Lancey, Colden, Moore, Dunmore and Tryon crossed over in the days when our Island served as their official residence, the "Smiling Garden of the Sovereigns of the Province," as an old historian
I18
TRANSPORTATION IN FOUR CENTURIES
calls it, we do not know, but one can imagine the dignified barges of that period, with their passengers of official import- ance and the pleasant social activities which they served much as our Quartermaster transports do to-day.
In 1732 appeared in Parker's "Post Boy" the following advertisement :
"On Monday the 2nd of October next will be exposed for sale at Publick Vendue a large fine barge with Awning and Damask Curtains, two sets of oars, sails and everything that is necessary for her. She now lies in the Dock and did belong to the late Governor Montgomerie."
The following orders throw light upon the subject of later English Colonial transportation :
COMMON COUNCIL, CITY HALL, Nov. 8, 1756.
No. (1346) Warrant issued.
Ordered that Mr. Recorder issue his warrant to the Treasurer of this City to pay the further sum of twenty- eight pound, sixteen shillings, and five pence in full for the Government Tax of the ferry (to Governor's Island).
The latest use of the term "Nutten" vice "Governor's" the author has found contained in the MSS. Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York under date of May 5, 1794, in which John Hillyer is authorized to keep the Ferry to Nutten Island for one year and is enjoined to provide "good boats." He is allowed to "re- ceive three pence for each passenger and to carry fatigue parties free."
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