USA > New York > New York City > Historic tales of olden time; concerning the early settlement and advancement of New York city and state. For the use of families and schools > Part 11
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The use of stoves was not known in primitive times, neither in families nor churches. Their fire-places were as large again as the prezent, with much plainer mantel- pieces. In lieu of marble plates round the sides and top of the fire-places, it was adorned with china Dutch-tile, pictured with sundry scripture pieces. Doctor Franklin first invented the " open stove," called also " the Frank-
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lin stove :" after which, as fuel became scarce, the better economy of the " ten plate stove " was adopted.
The most splendid looking carriage ever exhibited among us, was that used as befitting the character of that chief of men, General Washington, while acting as President of the United States. It was very large, so as to make four horses, at least, an almost necessary ap- pendage. It was occasionally drawn by six horses, Virginia bays. It was cream coloured, globular in its shape, ornamented with cupids supporting festoons, and wreaths of flowers, emblematically arranged along the pannel work ;- the whole neatly covered with best coach-glass. It was of English construction.
Some twenty or thirty years before the period of the revolution, the steeds most prized for the saddle were , pacers, since so odious deemed. To this end the breed was propagated with much care. The Narraganzet pacers of Rhode Island were in such repute that they were sent for, at much trouble and expense, by some few who were choice in their selections. It may amuse the present generation to peruse the history of one such horse, spoken of in the letter of Rip Van Dam of New- York, in the year 1711, which I have seen. J: states the fact of the trouble he had taken to procure him such a horse. He was shipped from Rhode Island in a sloop, from which he jumped overboard when under sail and swam ashore to his former home. He arrived at New- York in 14 days passage, much reduced in flesh and spirit. He cost £32, and his freight 50 shillings. This writer, Rip Van Dam, was a great personage, he hav- ing been President of the Council in 1731 ; and on the death of Governor Montgomery that year, he was go- vernor, ex officio, of New- York. His mural monument is now to be seen in St. Paul's church.
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Mr. A. B., aged 75, told me that he never saw any carpets on floors, before the revolution ; when first in- troduced, they only covered the floors outside of the chairs around the room ; he knew of persons afraid to step on them when they first saw them on floors ; some · dignified families always had some carpets, but then they got them through merchants as a special importa- tion for themselves. Floors silver sanded in figures, &c. were the universal practice. The walls of houses were not papered, but universally white-washed.
Mahogany was but very seldom used, and when seen was mostly in a desk or " tea-table." The general furniture was made of ".billstead," another name for maple.
The first stoves he remembered came into use in his time, and were all open inside in one oblong square ; having no baking oven thereto, as was afterwards in- vented in the " ten plate stoves."
He thinks coaches were very rare ; can't think there were more than four or five of them ; men were deemed rich to have kept even a chaise. The governor had one coach ; Walton had another ; Colden, the lieut. govern- or, had a coach, which was burnt before his window hy the mob ; Mrs. Alexander had a coach, and Robert Murray, a Friend, had another, which he called his " leathern conveniency," to avoid the scandal of pride and vain glory.
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CHANGES OF PRICES.
" For the money cheap-and quite a heap."
IT is curious to observe the changes which have oc- curred in the course of years, both in the supply of com- mon articles sold in the markets, and in some cases, the great augmentation of prices :- for instance, Mr. Brow- er, who has been quite a chronicle to me in many things, has told me such facts as the following, viz :- he remembered well when abundance of the largest " Blue-Point " oysters could be bought, opened to your hand, for 2s. a hundred, such as would now bring from 3 to 4 dollars. Best sea bass were but 2d. a Ib., now at Sd. Sheep-head sold at 9d. to ls. 3d. a-piece, and will now bring 2 dollars. Rock fish were plenty at 1s. a-piece for good ones. Shad were but 3d. a.piece. They did not then practice the planting of oysters. Lobsters then were not brought to the market.
Mr. Jacob Tabelee, who is as old as eighty-seven, and of course saw earlier times than the other, has told me sheep-head used to be sold at G.d., and the best oysters at only Is. a hundred ; in fact, they did not stop to count them, but gave them in that proportion and rate by the bushel. Rock fish were sold at 3d. a pound. Butter was at 8 to 9d. Beef by the quarter, in the winter, was at 3d. a pound, and by the piece at 4d. Fowls were about 9d. a piece. Wild fowl were in great abundance. He has bought twenty pigeons in their season for Is. ;
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HISTORIC TALES
a goose was 2s. Oak wood was abundant at 2s. the load.
In 1763 the market price of provisions was established by law, and published in the gazette ; wondrous cheap they were,-viz: a cock turkey, 4s. ; a hen turkey, 28. 6d .; a duck, ls. ; a quail, 1_d. ; a heath hen, 1s. 3d. ; a teal, 6d .; a wild goose, 2s .; a brandt, 1s. 3d. ; snipe. ld. ; butter, 9d. ; sea bass, 2d. ; oysters, 2s. per bushel ; sbeep-head and sea bass, 3 coppers per pound ; lobsters. fd. per pound ; milk, per quart, 4 coppers ; clams, 9a. per 100; cheese, 4gd.
SUPERSTITIONS.
" Stories of spectres dire disturb'd the soul."
THE aged men have told me that fortune-tellers and conjurors had a name and an occupation among the credulous ; Mr. Brower said he remembered some hint- self. Blackbeard's and Kidd's money, as pirates, was a talk understood by all. He knew of much digging for it, with spells and incantations, at Corlear's Hook. leaving there several pits of up-turned ground. Dreams and impressions were fruitful causes of stimulating some to thus "try their fortune" or " their luck."
There was a strange story, the facts may yet be re- collected by some, of " the haunted house," somewhere out of town ; I have understood it was Delancey's.
But a better ascertained case is that of " the screach- ing woman ;" she was a very tall figure, of masculine
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dimensions, who used to appear in flowing mantle of pure white at midnight, and stroll down Maiden lane. She excited great consternation among many. A Mr. Kimball, an honest praying man, thought he had no occasion to fear, and as he had to pass that way home one night, he concluded he would go forward as fearless as he could ; he saw nothing in his walk before him, but hearing steps fast approaching him behind, he felt the force of terror before he turned to look ; but when he had looked, he saw what put all his resolutions to flight-a tremendous white spectre ! It was too much ; he ran or flew with all his might, till he reached his own house by Peck's Slip and Pearl street, and then, not to lose time, he burst open his door and fell down for a time as dead. He however survived, and always deem- ed it something preternatural. The case stood thus :- When one Capt. Willet Taylor of the British navy coveted to make some trial of his courage in the matter, he also paced Maiden lane alone at midnight, wrapped like Hamlet in his "inky cloak," with oaken staff be- neath. By and bye he heard the sprite full-tilt behind him intending to pass him, but being prepared, he dealt out such a passing blow as made "the bones and nerves to feel," and thus exposed a crafty man bent on fun and mischief.
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. MISCELLANEOUS FACTS.
" All pay contribution to the store he gleans."
THE Indians, in the year 1746, came to the city of New York in a great body, say several hundreds, to hold a conference or treaty with the governor. Their appearance was very imposing ; and being the last time they ever appeared there for such purposes, hav- ing afterwards usually met the governor at Albany, they made a very strong impression on the beholders. David Grim, then young, who saw them, has left some Mss. memoranda respecting them, which I saw, to this effect :- They were Oncidas and Mohawks ; they came from Albany, crowding the North River with their ca- noes ; a great sight so near New-York ; bringing with them their squaws and papouses (children) ; they en- camped on the site now Hudson's Square, before S: John's church, then a low sand beach ; from thence they marched in solemn train, single file, down Broad- way to Fort George, then the residence of the British governor, George Clinton. As they marched, they dis. played numerous scalps, lifted on poles by way of flags or trophies, taken from their French and Indian ene- mies. What a spectacle in a city !
In return, the governor and officers of the colonial government, with many citizens, made out a long pro- cession to the Indian camp, and presented them there the usual presents.
The Indians were remembered by Mr. Bogert's grand-
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mother to be often encamped at "Cow-foot Hill," a continuation of Pearl street ; there they made and sold baskets.
An Indian remains, such as his bones and some orna- ments, were lately found in digging at the corner of Wall and Broad streets. Half-Indian Jack died at Hersimus, N. J., on the 2d February, 1831, at the ex- treme age of 102 years. In the revolutionary war he acted as a spy for the British.
The palisades and block houses erected in 1745, were well remembered by Mr. David Grim. There was then much apprehension from the French and In- dians ; £8,000 was voted to defray the cost. Mr. Grim said the palisades began at the house now 57 Cherry street, then the last house out on the East RI- ver towards Kip's Bay ; thence they extended direct to Windmill Hill, [that is, near the present Chatham the- atre] and thence in the rear of the poor house to Do- minie's Hook at the North River.
The palisades were made of cedar logs, of fourteen feet long and ten inches in diameter : were placed in a trench three feet deep, with loop-holes all along for mus- ketry ; having also a breast-work of four feet high and four feet wide. There were also three block houses of about thirty feet square and ten feet high : these had in each six port-holes for cannon ; were constructed of logs of eighteen inches thick, and at equi-distances be- tween the three gates of the city, they being placed on each road of the three entrances or outlets ; one was in Pearl street, nearly in front of Banker street ; the other in rear of the poor house; and the third lay between Church and Chapel streets.
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This general description of the line of defence was confirmed to me by old Mr. Tabelee, aged eighty seven. He described one gate as across Chatham strect, close to Kate-Mutz's garden, on Windmill Hill. The block house on the North River, he supposed stood about the end of Reed street.
The great fires of '76 and '78 are still remembered with lively sensibility by the old inhabitants. They occurred while the British held possession of the city, and excited a fear at the time that the " American Rebels" had purposed to oust them, by their own sacri- fices, like another Moscow. It is, however, believed to have occurred solely from accident. . Mr. Brower thought he was well informed by a Mr. Robins, then on the spot, ' that it occurred from the shavings in a board yard on Whitehall Ship; but Mr. David Grim, in his MSS. notes, with his daughter, is very minute to this effect, saying :- The fire began on the 21st of September, 1776, in a small wooden house on the wharf, near the Whitehall Slip, then occupied by women of ill fame It began late at night, and at a time when but few of the inhabitants were left in the city, by reason of the presence of the enemy. The raging element was ter- rific and sublime, it burned up Broadway on both sides until it was arrested on the eastern side by Mr. Har- rison's brick house ; but it continued to rage and destroy all along the western side to St. Paul's church ; thence it inclined towards the North River, (the wind having changed to south-east) until it run out at the water edge a little beyond the Bear Market, say at the present Barclay street.
Trinity church, though standing alone, was fired by the flakes of fire which fell on its steep roof, then so steep that none could stand upon it to put out the fall-
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ing embers. . But St. Paul's church, equally exposed, was saved, by allowing citizens to stand on its flatter roof and wet it as occasion required.
In this awful conflagration four hundred and ninety- three houses were consumed ; generally in that day they were inferior houses to the present, and many of them were of wood.
Several of the inhabitants were restrained from going out to assist at night from a fear they might be arrested as suspicious persons. In fact, several decent citizens were sent to the Provost Guard for examination, and some had to stay there two or three days, until their loyalty could be made out. In one case, even a good loyalist and a decent man, sometimes too much inclined " to taste a drop too much," (a Mr. White) was by mis- apprehension of his character, and in the excitement of the moment, hung up on a sign post, at the corner of Cherry and Roosevelt streets. Mr. N. Stuyvesant told me he saw a man hanging on his own sign post, pro- bably the same person before referred to by Mr. Grim.
Mr. Grim has given to the Historical Society a topo- graphical map showing the whole line of conflagration.
The next fire, of August, 177S, occurred on Cruger's wharf, and burnt about fifty houses. On that occasion the military took the exclusive management, not suffer- ing the citizen-firemen to control the manner of its ex- tinguishment. It was afterwards ordered by the Com- mander in Chief that the military should help, but not order, at the suppression of fires.
The Slips, so called, were originally openings to the river, into which they drove their carts to take out cord wood from vessels. The cause of their several names has been preserved by Mr. D. Grim.
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HISTORIC TALES
Whitehall Slip took its name from Col. Moore's large white house, or hall; it adjoined the Slip, and was usually called " Whitehall."
Coenties Slip took its name from the combination of two names-say of Coenract and Jane Ten Eycke- called familiarly Coen and Anties.
The Old Slip was so called, because it was the first or oldest in the city.
Burling's Slip was so called after a respectable family of that name, living once at the corner of Smith's Vly (now Pearl street) and Golden Hill.
Beekman's Slip, after a family once living there.
There was only one Slip on the North River side, · which was at the foot of Oswego street, now called Liberty street.
Corlear's Hook, which means a point, was originally called Nechtant by the Indians, and was doubtless from its locality a favourite spot with them. There Van Cor- lear, who was trumpeter at the fort under Van Twiller, had laid out his little farm, which he sold in 1652 to William Beekman, for £750.
. The Negro Plot of 1741, was a circumstance of great terror and excitement in its day ; aged persons have still very lively traditionary recollections of it. One old man showed me the corner house in Broad street, near the river then, where the chief plotters con- spired. Old Mr. Tabelee says, new alarms were fre- quent after the above was subdued. For a long time in his youth citizens watched every night, and most people went abroad with lanterns.
Mr. David Grim, in his MSS. notices, says, he retained a perfect idea of the thing as it was. He saw the ne- groes chained to a stake and burned to death. The
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OF OLDEN TIME.
place was in a valley, between Windmill Hill, (Chat- ham theatre) and Pot-Bakers' Hill, (now Augusta street, about its centre) and in midway of Pearl and Barley streets. At the same place they continued their executions for many years afterwards.
John Hustan, a white man, was one of the principals, and was hung in chains, on a gibbet at the south-east point of H. Rutger's farm on the East River, not ten yards from the present south-east corner of Cherry and Catharine streets. Since then, the crowd of population there has far driven off his " affrighted ghost," if indeed it ever kept its vigils there.
Cæsar, a black man, a principal of the negroes, was also hung in chains, on a gibbet at the south-cast cor- ner of the old powder house in Magazine street. Many of those negroes were burnt and hung, and a great number of others were transported to other countries.
We must conceive, that on so dreadful a fear, as a general massacre, (for guns were fired, and " many run to and fro,") the whole scenes of arrest, trial, execu- tion, and criminals long hung in chains, must have kept up a continual feverish excitement, disturbing even the very dreams when sleeping. Thank God, better times have succeeded, and better views to fellow men.
" I would not have a slate to tremble when I wake, For all the price of sinews bought and sold !"
Roman Catholics, and the cry of " church and state in danger," was often witnessed on election and other occasions in New- York ; also, " high and low church" were resounded. " No Bishop" could be seen, in capi- tals, on fences, &c. A man did not dare to avow him- self a Catholic, it was odious ; a chapel then would
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have been pulled down. It used to be said, " John Leary goes once a year to Philadelphia to get absolu- tion."
Hallam's company of players, the first on record, played at New-York in 1754.
William Bradford, fifty years government printer at New-York, died at the age of ninety-four, in the year 1752 ; he had been printer a few years at Philadelphia in the time of the primitive settlement.
In 1765 two women, named Fuller and Knight, were placed one hour in the pillory for keeping baudy houses. . If this were again enforced, would not much of the gaudy livery of some be set down ?
A gazette of 1722 hints at the declining whalery along Long Island, saying, " There are but four whales killed on Long Island, and little oil is expected from thence."
But they have, soon after, a generous recompense ; for in 1724 it is announced that at Point Judith, in a pond there, they took 700,000 bass, loading therewith fifty carts, 1000 horses, and sundry boats.
In the old Potters-field there was formerly a beautiful epitaph on a patriot stranger from England, a Mr. Tay- lor, who came to join our fortunes, to wit :-
Far from his kindred friends and native skies, Here mouldering in the dust, poor Taylor hes ; Firm was his mind and fraught with various lore, And his warm heart was never cold before. He lov'd his country, and that spot of earth Which gave a Milton, Hampden, Bradshaw birth ; But when that country-dead to all but gain, Bow'd her base neck and hugg'd the oppressor's chain, Lothing the abject scene, he droop'd and sigh'd- Cross'd the wild waves, and here untimely died.
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About the year 1787, there was much excitement in the city of New-York against the whole fraternity of doctors, called " the Doctors' Riot ;" it was caused by the people's lively offence at some cases of bodies pro- cured for dissection. The mob gathered to the cry of " down with the Doctors," and so pushed to the houses of some of the leading practitioners ; their friends got before them, and precipitate retreat ensued. In the se- quel the most obnoxious sought their refuge in the prison, where the police being quelled, there were some violent assaults. Their friends and the friends of the peace, ranged on the prison side, made some defence ; Col. Hamilton stood forward as champion, and John Jay was considerably wounded in the head from a stone thrown from the mob ; it laid him up some time.
A singular fact occurred a few years ago, on the oc- casion of the explosion of Mr. Sand's Powder Magazine at Brooklyn. An aged citizen, then at the Bull's Head Inn at the Bowery, wearing a broad brimmed hat, perceived something like gunpowder showering upon it ; the experiment was made on what he gathered thereon, and it ignited ! This is accounted for as com- ing from the explosion, because the wind set strong in that direction, and it is ascertained by firing a fusee over snow, that if it be over-charged, the excess of grains will be found resting upon the snow.
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INCIDENTS OF THE WAR AT NEW-YORK.
" this to show Mankind, the wild deformity of war !"
NEW- York city having been held during the term of the revolution as a conquered place, and also as the chief military post of British rule, it becomes matter of interest and curiosity to the present generation to revive and contemplate the pictorial images of those scenes and facts which our fathers witnessed in those days of peril and deep emotion. I give such as I could glean.
The spirit of opposition in us began before the revo- lution actually opened.
The first theatre in Beekman street, (now where stands the house No. 26) was pulled down on a nigh of entertainment there, by the citizens, generally calle ... " Liberty Boys." The cause arose out of some offen" in the play, which was cheered by the British officers present, and hissed and condemned by the mass of the people. Soon after the people seized upon a Pre- Barge, and drew it through the streets to the park co.n- mons, where they burnt it.
After the war had comninenced and New-York was expected to be captured, almost all the Whig families. who could sustain the expense, left their houses and homes to seek precarious refuge where they could in the country. On the other hand, after the city wa- possessed by the British, all the Tory families who felt unsafe in the country made their escape into New-
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York for British protection. Painfully, family relations were broken ; families. as well as the rulers took dif- ferent sides, and " Greek met Greek" in fierce encounter.
Mr. Brower, who saw the British force land in Kip's Bay as he stood on the Long Island heights, says it . was the most imposing sight his eyes ever beheld. The army crossed the East River, in open flat boats, filled with soldiers standing erect ; their arms all glittering in the sun beams. They approached the British fleet in Kip's Bay, in the form of a crescent, caused by the force of the tide breaking the intended line. of boat after boat. They all closed up in the rear of the fleet, when all the vessels opened a heavy canonade.
I shall herein endeavour to mark the localities of po- sition occupied by the British, especially of residences of distinguished officers, and also of those suffering prison-houses and hospitals where our poor countrymen sighed over their own and their country's wo.
All the Presbyterian churches in New-York were used for military purposes in some form or other. I suspect they were deemed more whiggish in general than some of the other churches. The clergymen of that order were in general throughout the war, said to be zealous to promote the cause of the revolution. . The Methodists, on the contrary, then few in number, were deemed loyalists, chiefly from the known loyalism of their founder, Mr. Wesley. Perhaps to this cause it was that the Society in John street enjoyed so much indulgence as to occupy their church for Sunday night service, while the Hessians had it in the morning ser- vice for their own chaplains and people.
The British troops were quartered in any empty
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houses of the Whigs which might be found. Where- ever men were billetted, they marked it.
The Middle Dutch church in Nassau street, was used to imprison 3000 Americans. The pews were all gut- ted out and used as fuel. Afterwards they used it for the British cavalry, wherein they exercised their men. as a riding school ; making them leap over raised wind- lasses. At the same place they often picketed their men, as a punishment, making them bear their weight on their toe on a sharp goad. At the same place, while the prisoners remained there, Mr. Andrew Mercein told me he used to see the " Dead Cart" come every morn- ing, to bear off six or eight of the dead. -
The old sugar house, which also adjoined to this church, was filled with the prisoners taken at Long Island ; there they suffered much, they being kept in an almost starved condition.
This starving proceeded from different motives ; they wished to break the spirit of the prisoners, and to cause their desertion, or to make the war unwelcome to their friends at home. On some occasions, as I shall herein show, the British themselves were pinched for supplies ; and on other occasions the commissaries had their own gain to answer, by withholding what they could from the prisoners. I could not find, on inquiry. that Americans in New-York were allowed to help. their countrymen unless by stealth. I was told by eye- witnesses of cases, where the wounded came crawling to the openings in the wall, and begging only for one cup of water, and could not be indulged, the sentinels saying, " we are sorry too, but our orders have been, ' suffer no communication in the absence of your offi- cer.' "
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