USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 10
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On State Street were the fine residences of leading business men of the day. No. 6 was the dwelling of Mr. Howland (Howland & Aspin- wall). Next to it was the house of a son of Bishop Moore. Near the corner of State and Bridge streets Washington Irving lived, and at 29 Whitehall Street was the dwelling of James K. Paulding, a large double frame house. At 13 State Street was the residence of General Jacob Morton, the chief commander of the city militia, and directly in front of his house, on the Battery, was the Hollow-a little shallow pond in winter whereon the boys skated, and which was a dry, grassy playground in summer.
General Morton always reviewed the city troops-the "Tompkins Blues," the " Pulaski Cadets." and others-on the Battery. Indeed that little irregular park was a favorite rendezvous for the military on
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" training days" until the Washington Parade-Ground (now Washing- ton Square) was established. When General Morton became too feeble to mount his horse he reviewed the troops from his balcony, and on these occasions received from them the compliment of a marching salute.
On State Street, near Pearl, in the later days of Knickerbocker life in New York, was a modest two-storied house, the inn of Peter Bayard, himself a pure Knickerbocker of Huguenot descent. For many years it was the popular resort of well-to-do people of the town and country, who were always sure of finding there most unexceptionable turtle-soup and other gastronomic delicacies. The house was always full, for tran- sient sojourners in New York from distant cities well knew the house of Peter Bayard.
Castle Clinton (now known as Castle Garden) stood near the western end of the Battery, and was reached by a bridge. It has undergone many transformations, while the Battery has been enlarged and is now known as Battery Park. At its eastern extremity is a station of an elevated railway, a contrivance for rapid transition from one part of the city to another which the Knickerbockers never dreamed of. These will be considered hereafter.
In the later days of Knickerbocker life in New York, Broadway, from the Battery to Prince Street, was the fashionable street prom- enade. Few strolled above Canal Street, for it was then on the north- ern border of the business domain.
Broadway was then a modest, quiet lane compared with the great bustling and crowded business thoroughfare of to-day. Where now commercial buildings from six to ten stories in height rise in splendor and grandeur, and are seen miles away, into what was then the green and wooded country toward Bloomingdale, plain brick (and many wooden) buildings, the loftiest three stories high, were seen. These were not only places for merchandise and traffic, but largely for dwell- ings, for in those days it was the almost universal practice for the fami- lies of merchants to occupy the apartments above the stores, and to board the few clerks. These buildings were ornamented only with green blinds, and the front door of entrance to the family apartments was garnished with a huge and shining brass knocker and door-plate. The tinkling door-bell was vet an undiscovered luxury.
Below Park Place were clustered the fashionable retail stores of the city, distinguished for style and high prices. Among these the more elderly reader will remember the famous furnishing store of Clark & Saxton, where only the fashionable young man could be sare of being
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equipped in an irreproachable manner with minor articles of his toilet, after being clothed in exquisite style at the establishment of Tryon, Wheeler & Derby, booted by the manufactures of Kimball & Rogers, and crowned with a St. John hat.
Costume in the latter days of Knickerbocker life in New York, say fifty years ago, was so strictly conventional as to modes and colors that any departure from the prescriptions of fashion was regarded almost as a transgression of the laws of taste. In this matter the inexorable tyrant fashion ruled supreme.
Black was the prevailing color for men, whether in the counting- room, the parlor, or the church ; at dinner, at the theatre, or at a ball. In the street the heads of inen were covered with heavy, high, bell- crowned hats of real fur (the light, shining plush silk hat was then unknown), long-napped and abundant. Their necks were encircled with broad satin stocks, which tightly inclosed high standing sharp linen collars that seemed to support the head by the ears, and were pointed like the cutwater of a steamboat. They wore short-waisted, long and narrow-skirted black frock-coats, with high collars and tight sleeves ; black pantaloons, skin-tight, the legs kept in place by straps beneath the boots ; and boots, high-heeled, narrow and pointed toes, and made so tight that only by the free use of hooks and soap could they be drawn on. Black kid gloves, and among the extremely fash- ionable young men known as " dandies" a small black cane, completed the costume.
The women were a little less restricted as to color, but in form were no less slaves to the dressmaker and the milliner. They appeared in the streets with a hideous-appearing bonnet with high crown, in shape not unlike a coal-scuttle, and often trimmed with huge bunches of arti- ficial flowers, sometimes with a full-blown peony. From their shoul- ders depended loose cloaks or shawls which effectually hid all charm of figure, and under these, plain untrimmed skirts reaching only to the ankles. Below the skirts appeared spotless white hose and black slip- pers, kept in place by black silk strings wound around the ankles. Their heads were canopied with a spacious parasol of silk deeply fringed, and with a ponderous carved ivory handle. From their arms depended bags of richly colored silk embroidered with many-hued beads. In their hands they carried a pocket-handkerchief trimmed with lace and daintily held at the middle by the forefinger and thumb, so that its whole dimensions and quality might be seen, for upon these was often estimated the pecuniary standing of the family. In winter their necks were encircled with serpentine rolls of fur called a
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Janus Process
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" boa," with the long ends dangling in front ; in summer its comple- ment was a long thin scarf.
Indoors the belles of that day appeared in rather low-necked dresses, sometimes fashioned over the bust in the form of a bodice, stiff as steel and whalebone could make it, with an elastic, steel or hickory " corset- board." Generally there was a broad waist-belt, fastened with a large and sometimes highly ornamented buckle. The sleeves were very large, full, and puffed above the elbows into a pattern styled " mutton- leg," which gave undue breadth to the shoulders and the appearance of small span to the waist. The " mutton-leg," it is said, was intro- duced by an English duchess to conceal an enormous wen on one of her arıns. Below the elbow the sleeves were very tight. The skirt, as in the walking-dress, was short and composed of ample materials. Flow- ing over the shoulders was a broad and elaborately wrought collar of cambric muslin and fine needlework, and the hair was arranged in many "puffs" surmounted by a bunch of artificial flowers or a tiny lace cap. Around the neck was coiled a massive gold chain, having a pendant of sufficient length to secure a gold watch, which was slipped into the waist-belt.
In those days Contoit's Garden, on the west side of Broadway, be- tween Leonard and Franklin streets, was a fashionable resort for all reputable citizens of both sexes, young and old, on summer afternoons and evenings. The garden was comprised in a long narrow lot densely shaded with trees-so densely that the rays of the sun could rarely enter. It presented a cool retreat on sultry afternoons and evenings, where the most delicious ice-cream in ample dishes and ice-cold lemon- ade with pound-cake, served by very black waiters wearing very white aprons, might be had for a moderate sum of money. It was dimly lighted at evening by tiny tapers swimming in sperm oil in hanging glass globes, appearing but little brighter than so many fire-flies on a June evening. On each side of the garden were stalls painted white and green, with a narrow table in the middle of each and furnished with seats for four -- if packed, for six. Contoit's was regarded by pru- dent parents as an eminently proper resort for young people as well as elders to have refreshments, for no liquor was sokl there, and there were never any naughty scenes enacted there.
It was at about this time, or perhaps a few years carlier, that the families of the wealthier and more aristocratie citizens were pushed out of Broadway by the pressure of encroaching business, and found more quiet residences away from the turmoil of trade and the din of vehicles on the cobble-stones. Cedar and Liberty. John and Fulton streets had
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been given up almost wholly to business ; yet in all of these some fam- ilies-scions of the old Knickerbocker race-still remained, even then clinging to homes in Wall Street. The dwellings in Cortlandt, Vesey, and Dey streets were rapidly becoming boarding-houses, while in Park Place, Murray, Warren, and Chambers streets many members of the oldest families occupied fine residences, such as the Crugers, Pauldings, Lees, Bayards, De Peysters, Allens, Clintons, Van Cortlandts, Lau- renses, Beekmans, Duanes, and others-men who had assisted in laying the broad foundations of the amazing prosperity of the city of New York since that time.
Some of these men removed farther away from the business portions of the city and built fine residences on Leonard, Franklin, and White streets, also on St. John's Park, in front of St. John's Chapel. White Street was the most direct way from Broadway to the chapel, and very soon elegant brick dwelling-houses were built on it. It was for many years the fashionable part of the city.
On White Street, near Broadway, lived Francis Depau, the owner of a line of Havre packets, whose wife was Silvie, one of the daughters of Count de Grasse. They had a family of most beautiful daughters. One of these married Washington Coster. She was pronounced " the most beautiful girl that ever trod Broadway."
Hotel and boarding-house life for families was almost unknown fifty or sixty years ago. A family who, from choice and without pressing necessity, took up their permanent abode in a hotel or boarding-house lost caste ; and those who were compelled to do so by circumstances were objects of pity and commiseration. The consequence was that the few hotels in the city at that time depended for support on transient visitors and unmarried men.
The grandest inn and the most noted boarding-house at that time were the City Hotel, which occupied the entire front between Cedar and Thames streets, and the boarding-house of Miss Margaret Mann, popularly known as " Aunt Margaret," at 61 Broadway. Her house, in size and accommodations, might have been called an inn. There from time to time distinguished persons found comfortable temporary homes. Among these were John Sinclair, the famous Scotch vocalist (father of Mrs. Edwin Forrest), at his first appearance at the Park Theatre in the fall of 1831. There, too, Tyrone Power, the inimitable Irish come- dian, was a " guest" for a time, when he first appeared in America, in the summer of 1833. " Aunt Margaret" will be remembered by some of the older citizens as a driving business woman, maseuline in appear- ance and manners, thick-set and stout, but nimble of foot and more
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nimble of tongue when it was loosened by provocation. But under her rough exterior was concealed as kindly a heart as ever throbbed in the breast of woman, and those who knew her best respected her most.
The City Hotel was a plain brick structure four stories in height, and pierced in front by nearly forty windows. It was the most noted hotel in the Union, and magnates from everywhere visiting the city found an agreeable home there. It was almost without adornment, inside and outside. Tight inside shutters at the windows excluded light and air, the furniture was plain but substantial, and the table was always a model of cleanliness and abundance. While Jennings and Willard were its proprietors the City Hotel was the theatre of public banquets, receptions of distinguished persons, the fashionable rendezvous of dancers at balls or assemblies, and concerts ; indeed it was a focal point of public entertainments outside the theatres.
Dancing was indulged in to a very moderate extent in the later days of Knickerbocker life in New York. It was discountenanced by the Church, was considered almost improper by fastidious people, and plain cotillons and even the more exacting Spanish dance were regarded by the gayer people as too tame to be very attractive.
At that time John Charaud was the great " dancing-master" in the city, and taught the art to many of the elderly men and women of to-day who were natives of New York. He used the ladies' dining- room of the City Hotel for giving instructions in dancing, and there, with its eminently respectable surroundings, he gave " publies," or gatherings of the parents of boys and girls who were his pupils, at stated times, to witness the scientific movements of their children. Charaud used this room until he built his famous ball-room in White Street, between Church and Chapel streets. He lived until he was about fourscore and ten, and danced until the last. He had lived to see the best population of the town flee before rapacious business, miles to the northward and yet within the thronging city, and his famous ball-room became a dog-pit, where the dregs of society herded.
The ladies' dining-room of the City Hotel was hired for concert pur- poses by foreign artists who came to New York. A little later than the time we are considering, Henry Russell, an English vocalist, sang in that room, and there he first introduced to the public General Morris's famous song, " Woodman, Spare that Tree."
Russell, though regarded by educated musicians and musical critics as an inferior artist, became quite a " lion" in New York. He and the author of " Woodman, Spare that Tree," often met in social circles.
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It is related that on one of these occasions, when Captain Marryat, the eminent English novelist, was of the company, Russell was invited to sing the popular song. As he was singing the closing stanza, Marryat approached the piano and laid before the vocalist the following para- phrase of the first stanza, written in pencil :
" Lady, give me tea, And I will make a bow ; In youth it pleased me, And I do love it now. 'Twas my old mother's hand That poured it from the pot ; Pray, lady, let it stand, For it is too d-d hot !"
Russell sang the paraphrase amid great merriment, in which the author heartily joined.
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CHAPTER III.
VIIE methods in the conduct of funerals in the Knickerbocker era were peculiar. The religious ceremonies were usually performed at the home of the deceased, where, after they were ended, liquors were dispensed to the whole company in attendance. Those who for want of room were compelled to remain outside the house, were served by colored waiters with towels on their arms, and bearing filled decanters with glasses on a salver. These liquors were generally cordials, which exhilarated but did not intoxicate.
The graveyards were usually not far from the dwellings, and instead of employing a hearse the coffin was carried on a bier, on the shoulders of four men, while the pall-bearers walked alongside and held the black tassels of the pall. Each of these pall-bearers, as well as the minister and the physician, was furnished with a fine white linen scarf having sufficient material to make a shirt. This fashion of furnishing scarfs became an arbitrary custom, which often bore heavily upon the resources of families in moderate circumstances. Many worthy people were sorely pinched to provide this apparently necessary mark of respect for deceased relatives.
At length members of the old Tontine Association-the most re- spectable society in the city-resolved to relieve the community of this burden. Some prominent member called a meeting at the old Tontine Coffee-House, in Wall Street, to discuss the subject. Nearly two hundred persons were present-men of weight in social influence-and these all signed a pledge that they would abstain from the custom of supplying scarfs at funerals, except to the clergyman and attending physician. Their action was immediately felt in a rapid decline of the custom, and a happy relief of the community from a grievous burden to many. '
Restaurants (then called "eating-houses") were almost unknown even in the later days of Knickerbocker life in New York. They were among the earlier indications of " foreign influence" in the social System of the city, which has transformed home diners at noon into absentees from the mid-day meal. At the tables of these " eating-
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houses" a curious collection of men, young and old, might be seen. The spruce merchant's clerk, neatly attired, sat silently by the side of a drayman in coarse blouse or a begrimed street laborer in overalls.
For a long time these places were shunned by the conservative and home-loving Knickerbockers as vulgar ; and so they were. No re- spectable woman was ever seen entering their doors. She would faint with hunger before she would risk the social stigma. Even so late as 1835, when James Thompson opened a " saloon" at 117 Broadway for the sale of cakes and other delicacies for the special accommodation of ladies out a-shopping, and presented delicious temptations in his windows, shoppers were seldom beguiled into the attractive room, although the sisters of the proprietor, middle-aged women, were in attendance. Society said it was not proper ; but society, like an individual, changes its opinions. Thompson, after patient waiting in faith and after preparing a palace, richly decorated, up Broadway, near where Contoit flourished, found society yielding. The taboo was gradually removed. Society said ladies and gentlemen, and even ladies alone, might with propriety enter and partake of good things offered. Knickerbocker fastidiousness and shrinking modesty gave way.
After a while, when families left apartments over stores and moved up town, dining-rooms for gentlemen became popular. Among the earlier of these was that of Clarke & Brown, near the junction of Maiden Lane and Liberty Street. It became a daily resort for mer- chants and professional men. For a long time it was visited ahnost exclusively by Englishmen, who there found their favorite rare roast beef, steaks barely warmed through, plum-puddings, and "Burton's stock ale," though brewed by Mr. Vassar at Poughkeepsie or at Phila- delphia. The Knickerbockers did not take kindly to this fare. They were accustomed to thoroughily cooked food, and did not like the crim- son juice as a substitute for gravy. But after a while Knickerbocker prejudice gave way : Knickerbocker taste changed, and the dining- rooms of Clarke & Brown became a cosmopolitan resort for hungry men.
Meanwhile a thoroughly American restaurant, which was dignified with the name of the Auction Hotel, was opened in Water Street, near Wall Street. It derived its title from its proximity to the great aue- tion rooms of Haggerty & Sons, Wilmerding & Co., and other famous auctioneers. The proprietor had been a merchant, failed in business, opened this restaurant, and was very prosperous. One day he invited all his creditors to a bountiful repast. The table was spread in an upper private room. In the napkins placed before each guest was
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found a sealed envelope, which when opened was found to contain a check for the principal and interest of their respective claims. This Honest act brought to the proprietor the substantial reward of vastly increased business, and he died a rich man.
At about this time a colored man named Downing became famous among lovers of oysters-and who is not a lover of oysters ?- because of his rare skill in preparing them for the table. Downing's "oyster cellar" consisted of the basement of two small buildings in Broad Street, near Wall Street. It became the favorite resort of merchants, bankers, brokers, lawyers, and politicians-a sort of social exchange. Downing flourished, was called " Prince Saddleback," accumulated a fortune, and at a ripe old age left the establishment and its " good will " to his son, George T.
Another famous restaurant-keeper was Edward Windust, who occu- pied a basement on Park Row, near the old Park Theatre. It was a favorite resort of theatrical and literary people of every degree. Be- tween the plays at the Park it was always crowded with jolly fellows. The walls were adorned with quaint and curious reminiscences of the drama: musty old theatre bills, a piece of some ancient wardrobe, a frame with a lock of Shakespeare's hair, a sword used on the stage by Garrick, on a shelf a rare volume of plays and other antiquated arti- cles familiar to players. It was an actor's museum.
At Windust's half a century ago, or even within a generation, actors and literary magnates met nightly in social intercourse. There might have been seen, fifty or more years ago, Cooper, Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth (father of Edwin Booth), T. G. Hamblin, the Wallacks (Henry and James), Henry Placide, Simpson, the manager of the Park ; " Old Barnes," and a score of lesser theatrical lights, with leading men in the realm of literature and art in the city at that time.
Windust became rich, and with riches came undue ambition. He left his famous basement in Park Row and opened the Atheneum Hotel, on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street, where his beau- tiful daughters and nieces might have been seen flitting through the halls and up the staircases. Windust had entered waters too deep for him, in trying to keep a hotel. The Athenaeum was soon closed. Ile went back to his basement, but its prestige had departed never to return.
These were the principal restaurant-keepers in New York half a cen- tury ago, and were participants in the social transformation to which allusion has been made.
Another feature of this social transformation in New York appeared
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more than fifty years ago, when Delmonico and Guerin established cafés-a purely European innovation. They were the pioneers in the business in New York. They began on a small scale. Delmonico's establishment was in a small store on William Street, opposite the North Dutch Church. It contained a half-dozen pine tables, and wooden chairs to match, and on a board counter covered with snow- white napkins was ranged the seanty assortment of delicacies to be served. He had earthenware cups and saucers, two-tined forks and knives with buck-bone handles, common "blown" glassware, and a large tin coffee-pot. His tiny bill of fare contained the mysterious words now so common-" filets," "café," "chocolat," "macaroni," " petit verne," and other French names. These were served by Del- monico in person, who was distinguished by a white paper cap and apron. His courteous manner and his novelties soon attracted the young Knickerbockers, who acknowledged his cookery to be superior to any known in the city. But these youths made their visits at in- tervals, generally indulging in the pleasures of the café on a Saturday afternoon, when two or three would agree to meet there, but in a secret way, for it seemed to them as almost forbidden ground.
The customers of Delmonico gradually increased until his little shop became too small for their accommodation, and he removed to Hanover Square, where, in the great conflagration, his continually growing establishment was licked up by the rapacious flames and disappeared in smoke. Phoenix-like, it arose from the ashes rejuvenated, and on the corner of William and Beaver streets he built a spacious restaurant, where he and his brothers, with their sons and nephews, accumulated fortunes. "Delmonico's" to-day is the most extensive, magnificent, and expensive café on this continent.
Delmonico's rival at first was Francis Guerin, a Frenchman, who opened a café on Broadway, opposite the City Hotel. His shop-window was a most inviting temptation to the palate. There was pastry of all kinds, French confectionery in handsome boxes, bottles of cordials. and all kinds of fruit in their season. Inside, on a long table, were dis- played tarts and confections in abundance. Sandwiches, sardines, and the sweet things just mentioned were the staple offerings of the estab- lishment to its customers. It was never a real café, though a little coffee and chocolate were furnished in a small room at the rear of the store ; and there, in summer, ice-cream might be procured. It was never entered by ladies, and it finally degenerated into a cosmopolitan drinking-saloon. As such it became very popular, and Guerin soon
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