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 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
The Historical Society clearly owes its conception to the active mind and energetic character of John Pintard, a New Yorker by birth, of Huguenot descent. He was a graduate of the College of New Jersey. at Princeton, where he was a favorite of President Witherspoon ; had a wide circle of learned friends in his own State and other common- wealths, and was not only familiar with classical and elegant literature. but by the means of a natural enthusiasm in the acquirement of knowl- edge and a most retentive memory, he was possessed of a large fund of historical and geographical information. Of Mr. Pintard Dr. John W. Francis wrote :
" He was versed in theological and polemical divinity, and in the progress of church affairs among us ever a devoted disciple. You coukl scarcely approach him without having something of Dr. Johnson thrust upon you. There were periods in his life in which he gave every unappropriated moment to philological inquiry, and it was curious to see him ransacking his formidable pile of dictionaries for radicals and synonyms, with an earnestness that would have done honor to the most eminent student in the republic of letters." Again : " Everybody consulted him for information touching this State's transactions, and the multifarious occurrences of this city, which have marked its
T
157
FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
progress since our Revolutionary struggle. Persons and things, indi- vidualities and corporations, literary, biographical, ecclesiastical, and historical circumstances, municipal and legislative enactments, internal and external commerce-all these were prominent among the number ; and his general accuracy as to persons and dates made him a living chronology."
Such were salient points in the character of the man who was the chief founder of the New York Historical Society. He long cherished the idea of such an institution before attempting to give it a practical influence. While secretary of his uncle, Lewis Pintard, a merchant and commissary of American prisoners in the city of New York during the latter period of the old war for independence, he became power- fully impressed with the importance of preserving records of events, for he was living in the midst of most momentous occurrences. After the war he bought from Dr. Chandler, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, a large collection of documents relating to the Revolution, and gradually a plan for the establishment of an antiquarian society took tangible shape in his mind.
In 1789 Pintard visited Boston, and communicated his ideas concern- ing an antiquarian or historical society to the eminent theologian, biogra- pher, and historian, Jeremy Belknap, who warmly approved his plan. " This day," he wrote to Ebenezer Hazard, the Postmaster-General; " this day Mr. Pintard called to see me. He says he is an acquaint- ance of yours, and wants to form an antiquarian society." Several months later Belknap wrote to Hazard : " I like Pintard's idea of a society of American antiquarians, but where will you find a sufficiency of members, of suitable abilities and leisure ?" The theologian appears to have acted energetically on the hints given him by Pintard, for in less than two years after the New Yorker's visit we find Belknap at the head of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Pintard seems to have acted promptly and energetically in attempts to put his cherished scheme into practical operation in New York. He was an active member of the Tammany Society or Columbian Order, and was its first sagamore, and he connected his antiquarian scheme with that society. Writing to Belknap in the spring of 1791, he said :
" This [the Tammany] being a strong national society, I engrafted an antiquarian scheme of a museum upon it. It makes small progress with a small fund, and may possibly succeed. We have a tolerable collection of pamphlets, mostly moderns, with some history, of which I will send you an abstract. If your society [the Massachusetts Histori-
:
158
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
cal] succeeds well, will open a regular correspondence. If m: plan once strikes root, it will thrive." *
Not very much seems to have been accomplished in the matter in con nection with the Tammany Society during many succeeding years, but Pintard did not allow his project to slumber. He finally created a lively interest in his scheme in the minds of leading men in the city, and at his request nearly a dozen of them met. by appointment, in a room in the City Hall, in Wall Street, on the afternoon of November 20, 1501. These gentlemen were John Pintard, Egbert Benson, then late judge of the United States District Court ; De Witt Clinton, then mayor of the city, the Rev. Drs. Samuel Miller, John M. Mason, John N. Abeel. and William Lewis, all distinguished clergymen ; Dr. David Hosack. Anthony Bleecker, Samuel Bayard, and Peter Gerard Stuyvesant. Mr. Pintard, Judge Benson, and Dr. Miller were appointed a commit- tee to draft a constitution. All present evinced a lively interest in the matter.
A meeting was held on the 10th of December, at the same place. when several other prominent citizens were present, among them Judge Brockholst Livingston, the Rev. Benjamin Moore, then bishop of the Diocese of New York ; Daniel D. Tompkins, Rufus King, and Rer. John HI. Hobart, afterward bishop of the same diocese. The constitu- tion presented was adopted, and the title given to the association was " The New York Historical Society." It was organized on the 14th of January following, when Judge Benson was chosen president, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Moore first vice-president, Judge Brockholst Livings- ton second vice-president, the Rev. Dr. Miller corresponding secretary. John Pintard + recording secretary, Charles Wilkes treasurer, and John Forbes librarian.
* Mr. Pintard was really the founder of Barnum's Museum. The corporation granted a room in the City Hall for the use of the Tammany Society Museum. It was open every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. A document in existence, dated May 1, 1791, reads :
" AMERICAN MUSEUM, under the patronage of the Tammany Society or Columbian Order.
" Any article sent on these days, or to Mr. John Pintard, No. 57 King Street, will be thankfully received."
Mr. Pintard was the secretary of the American Museum, and Gardner Baker keeper. It became the sole property of Baker in 1808. He sold it to Dr. Scudder, and it was finally sold to Barnum.
+ John Pintard, son of John Pintard, a New York merchant, was then in the prime of manhood, having been born May 18, 1759. Both his father and mother died before he was one year old. The babe was taken by his uncle. Lewis Pintard, a thriving merehats in New York, as his foster child. He was sent to a grammar school at Hempstead, L. I .. and became the best Latin scholar in the seminary. He was graduated at Princeton in 1776. He drilled soldiers every day, and when the professor entered the army and the
150
FIRST DECADE, 1820-1840.
The New York Historical Society occupied a room in the old City Hall. in Wall Street, from 1804 till 1809. It received its charter from the State Legislature in the latter year. It then became migratory for almost half a century. In 1809 its collections were removed to the Government House, on the south-east side of the Bowling Green. In 1816 they were taken to the New York Institution, where they
institution was broken up, he went too, after he had received his degree. After serving a while in the army, young Pintard became deputy commissary for American prisoners in New York, under his uncle, for whom he acted as secretary. He was in that office about three years, doing nearly all the business most of the time. Elias Boudinot, his brother- in-law, was then commissary-general of prisoners.
When Pintard left the office in 1780 he went to Paramus, New Jersey, where resided Colonel Brashear, a stanch Whig and distant relative of the young man. He fell in love with the colonel's daughter, and they were married in 1785. " He was handsome, and she was the loveliest girl in the land, " says " Walter Barrett, clerk."
Up to that time John Pintard was a clerk for his uncle ; then he began business for himself, at No. 12 Wall Street, in the India trade. One of his ships (the Jay) was among the first vessels that brought cargoes from China. In 1789 he was elected alderman of the East Ward, which took in Wall Street below William Street. In 1790 he was elected to the State Legislature.
In 1792 John Pintard, out of debt, rich and prosperous, had his name on the back of notes drawn by William Duer, son-in-law of Lord Stirling, who was regarded as one of the greatest financiers of the day, for a full million dollars. Duer failed. Pintard gave up ships, cargoes, houses, furniture, library, everything, to partially pay the notes he had indorsed. He settled in Newark, where he found employment as a commissioner for building bridges. Duer's creditors followed him, and confined him in Newark jail four- teen months.
The general bankrupt law of 1800 relieved Mr. Pintard, and he returned to New York, where he first became a book auctioneer. In 1801 his uncle bought for him the Daily Advertiser, but he did not conduct it long. In 1802 he went to New Orleans, but soon returned. He became city inspector, and in 1809 secretary of a fire insurance company, which position he filled until 1829, when, at the age of seventy, he resigned. He became almost blind and deaf, and his world was inside of himself for several years. He died on June 21, 1844, at the age of eighty-five years.
Mr. Pintard was the enlightened and active friend of every great enterprise for the benefit of the city, and in every good work. He was not only the founder of the New York Historical Society, but one of the originators of the free school system in the city, an active promoter of the Erie Canal project from the beginning, a most efficient mem- ber of the Chamber of Commerce, serving it as secretary ten consecutive years, and infusing into it new vitality ; one of the founders of the American Bible Society, active in the foundation of the General Theological Society of the Episcopal Church in the diocese, and the chief mover in the establishment of the first savings bank in the city of New York, of which he was president thirteen years, retiring when he was nearly eighty- two years of age. Mr. Pintard has an undoubted and clear right to the title of progenitor of the historical societies in the United States.
The body of Mr. Pintard was buried in the family vault in St. Clement's Church, in Amity Street. Very few citizens of the great metropolis to-day have even the most remote idea of how much it owes to John Pintard for its prosperity and good name.
160
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
remained until 1832, when they were deposited in the Reisen build- ing, on Broadway. In 1837 they were taken to the Stuyvesant Insti- tute, on Broadway. There they rested only four years, for in 1>41 they were removed to the New York University. There they took a longer rest, and finally, in 1857, took up their abode in a building erected by the society on the corner of Eleventh Street and Second Avenue.
The members and friends of the Historical Society exhibited much zeal from the beginning, in efforts to secure for its collections manu- scripts, books, rare pamphlets relating to American history. autograph letters and unpublished documents, files of American newspapers, espe- cially of those published in the city of New York ; specimens of American archeology, coins and medals, works of painters, sculptors. and engravers, and everything suitable for a museum of historical treasures.
For more than twenty years the society labored on with slender pecuniary means, continually adding to its list of members some of the best men in New York society, with its offices filled by persons of dis- tinction in literature, science, and art. Its pecuniary power was so inadequate to the noble task it had undertaken that it found itself, at the beginning of the new era in the history of New York City, bur- dened with a debt amounting to about $5000.
It was at this juncture that the society was strongly beset with a temptation which yielded to might have caused its annihilation. It was a supreme crisis in the history of the institution. At that time a number of gentlemen had associated in the formation of a society with the avowed purpose of encouraging and promoting the study of popular science, belles-lettres, and the fine arts. They named the association The New York Athenaeum. Its members were some of the leading intellectual lights of the city. They had conceived the design of unit- ing all the literary societies of New York under the appropriate title they had chosen. for the purpose of creating an institution, by such a combination, which should be the most distinguished and powerful in the United States.
Members of the New York Historical Society, considering its pecuni- ary embarrassments, almost vehemently urged the propriety and even the necessity of joining such a combination, and to merge it into The New York Atheneum. At a meeting of the Historical Society. Dr. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, a prominent member, offered a resolution that in consideration of a sum sufficient to pay off its indebtedness the entire property should be transferred to the Athenum.
i
161
FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
An energetic and clear-headed young lawyer, a scion of one of the oldest and most distinguished Knickerbocker families in the city of New York, had recently been elected a member of the Historical Society, and took great interest in its affairs. Ile carnestly opposed Dr. Van Rensselaer's resolution, urging that such a sale of the treas- ures of the society would be dishonest, and in violation of the solemn pledges given to the public by its founders, for they represented that all donations, of whatever kind, should be held as part of the archives of the society, and for historical purposes. That young lawyer was the late Frederic de Peyster, LL. D., who, from that hour, was one of the most energetic and influential members of the Historical Society, dying while holding its presidential chair, at the age of eighty-six years .*
# Frederic de Peyster, LL.D., was born in Hanover Square, New York, on November 11, 1796. His ancestors were Huguenots who fled from persecution in France in the sixteenth century and settled in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Holland. The first of the name who emigrated to America was Johannes de Peyster, the possessor of much in- herited wealth, who came to New Amsterdam with his wife about 1645, when he was twenty-five years of age. He became a successful merchant and a distinguished citizen, being in succession sheriff, alderman, and burgomaster of New Amsterdam, and in 1677 deputy mayor of New York. Two of his sons were afterward mayors of the city. The de Peyster family have ever held the highest social position in New York City.
The father of the subject of this sketch was Captain Frederic de Peyster, an ardent loyalist during the old war for independence, and an officer in the king's Third American Regiment, or New York Volunteers. He married a daughter of Commissary-General Hake, of the British army. Frederic was a student in Columbia College during the war of 1812, and became captain of the students' corps known as the "College Greens." They assisted in the construction of field works at McGowan's Pass and Manhattanville. He was graduated in 1816, and began the study of law with the Hon. Peter 1. Jay, the eldest son of Governor John Jay. He concluded his legal studies under the tuition of Peter Van Schaack, of Kinderhook, one of the most learned lawyers in the State. De Peyster was admitted to practice as an attorney in the Supreme Court in 1819, and the same year he became a solicitor in chancery. It is said his reports in the latter capacity never revealed an error.
Young de Peyster was fond of military matters, and was active several years in the militia of the State, serving as brigade major in the Tenth Brigade, as aide-de-camp to Major-General Flemming, and as aide, with the rank of colonel, on the staff of Governor De Witt Clinton in 1825. Not long before he had raised the question whether an officer holding one military position could be legally elected to another-a salaried one -- with- out thereby vacating the former office. It was decided by competent authority that he could not, and thus a test case, argued by de Peyster and won, gained him notoriety, and settled a vexed question in military circles.
From his early life Mr. de Peyster took an active interest in public affairs. So early as 1810, when he was fourteen years of age, he became a member of the Free School Society of New York, in which, in after years, he was a trustee. He possessed a decided literary taste, and he became prominently connected with several literary and learned seieties. Joining the Historical Society of New York about 1526, he became its corre- sponding secretary in 1527, and was recording secretary from 1829 till 1837. He became
162
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The resolution of Dr. Van Rensselaer was warmly discussed. The arguments of Mr. De Peyster prevailed, and the resolution was no: adopted. After the adjourment of the meeting, Charles King (after- ward president of Columbia College), seven years the senior of D .. Peyster, said to the latter :
"Sir, you have caused a serious harm to both the Historical Society and the Athenaeum by defeating that resolution. You have frustrated a laudable object, and by rejecting the proposed union this society will soon be a hopeless bankrupt."
" If the society will give me authority," replied De Peyster, " I will go to Albany as its representative and procure from the Legislature au appropriation sufficient to pay all its debts."
" If you shall do that," responded King; " interest the State Legis- Jature so substantially in our affairs, you will make the New York Historical Society one of the leading institutions of our country."
Mr. De Peyster was invested with proper authority. He went to Albany, laid a petition for the relief of the New York Historical Society before the Legislature, with a large number of whose members
corresponding secretary again in 1838, and remained in that position until 1843. In 1864 he was elected president of the society ; held the office two years ; was re-elected in 1873, and continued to hold the position until the time of his death, August 17, 18-2. His gifts to the society were many and valuable. Some of the choicest books and works of art in its collection are his contributions. One of the most attractive of the latter is Crawford's colossal marble statue of an Indian sitting in a contemplative attitude, enti- tled " The Last of His Race." He purchased it after Crawford's death for $4000. Mr. de Peyster was also a generous patron of art, as his home in University Place attested. and was always ready to contribute to funds for the erection of statues of eminent men in his native city. On anniversary and other celebrations of important events he was always active, and was frequently called upon to address the assemblage, which was always done in a happy manner. He was also active in all benevolent movements, and held an office of some kind in a score of different societies. He was also an earnest promoter of the cause of popular education, and his interest in his alma mater (Columbia College) was warm and active until the close of his life.
While Mr. de Peyster was master in chancery he was employed by a committee of the Tontine Coffee-House Association as an expert to ascertain the value of the lives of the nominees. He soon afterward became a member of that association, and was one of the last, if not the very last, survivors of that famous organization. He was elected a trustee of the New York Society Library, and was its president from 1870. He was vice president of the Home for Incurables, and one of the directors of the Institution for the Instruc- tion of the Deaf and Dumb. For more than fifty years he was clerk of the board of trustees of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, founded by his father-in-law, John Watts. He was an active and most efficient member of the St. Nicholas Society and president of the St. Nicholas CInb. Our space will not allow the mention of more of the objects of his care and untiring labors.
Mr. de Peyster was chosen to deliver an address on the occasion of the centennial
Pop hun Ho. Jymy-
163
FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
he was personally acquainted, and urged his suit with so much logic and such weighty reasons for granting the prayer, that a bill speedily passed both houses appropriating $5000 for the relief of the New York Historical Society. The burden of debt was thus removed, and the society started afresh and unembarrassed in its career of usefulness and honor.
The society has ever since gone steadily on in an upward journey, sometimes struggling with poverty, but never with doubt, and some- times cheered by liberal bequests and donations, until it has reached its present high position as one of the leading and most useful institutions of the metropolis.
The New York Historical Society possesses a library of more than 70,000 volumes, and a very large number of pamphlets, maps, and files of newspapers ; also a most valuable collection of inedited manu- scripts, a curious collection of American antiquities, a rare and exceed- ingly valuable collection of Egyptian antiquities, and the largest and rarest permanent gallery of works of art on the American continent.
By the liberality of citizens of New York the society was enabled to
celebration of American independence at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in 1876. Several of his occasional addresses have been published in handsome book form. He was an earnest classical and biblical student ; indeed no department of learning escaped his notice, and often engaged his profound study. In 1867 Columbia College conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D., and in March, 1877, the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain, "in consideration of his eminent services in the cause of historical and antiquarian research," elected him an Honorary Fellow of that society.
Mr. de Peyster was married in his early manhood to the lovely and accomplished Mary Justina Watts, daughter of John Watts, the last royal recorder of New York City. She lived only thirteen months after his marriage, dying on July 28, 1821. She left an infant son, who is General J. Watts de Peyster. It was at Rose Hill, the country- seat of this son, at Tivoli on the Hudson, that Mr. de Peyster died, after a short illness. The funeral services were held at St. Paul's Church, at Tivoli, and were conducted by the rector and the Rev. Dr. Dix, rector of Trinity Church, New York.
General J. Watts de Peyster, his only child, has inherited his name and fortune. He was born in March, 1821. He has attained to much distinction as the author of valuable works on military and historical subjects. The former have won for him the warmest encomiums of military commanders. Some years ago he wrote an interesting biography of the Swedish Field-Marshal Torstenson, famous in the seventeenth century. So pleased with this biography was Oscar I., King of Sweden, that he expressed his pleasure by presenting the general with three handsome medais. Like his father, General de Peyster is well and honorably known, not only in the city but throughout the country. Three of his sons served in the late war for the preservation of the Republic. One of them, Lieutenant J. Livingston de Peyster, had the honor of first hoisting the national flag on the capitol at Richmond on the morning after the Confederate government had fled, which, General Grant said, " put the seal to the termination of the rebellion."
-
164
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
purchase the famous Egyptian collection of Dr. Abbott in 1839. It is by far the most interesting collection of the kind in this country. It contains three mummies of the sacred bull Apis found in the tombs of Dashour. It is said that no other specimen of the preserved animal may be found in the world. The collection also exhibits some rare works of art, and numerous objects which illustrate the social and domestic life of the ancient Egyptians. There are about eleven hun- dred and thirty pieces in the collection, every one of which is a study for the historian and the antiquary.
In 1856 the society determined to enlarge and extend its usefulness by providing a public gallery of fine arts in the city of New York. The plan was devised on the most liberal scale. A committee on fine arts was appointed, and constituted a part of the administration of the society. The result of the labors of that committee is most satisfac- tory. The gallery now embraces, in addition to the society's original collection of paintings and sculpture, the New York Gallery of Fine Arts, which came into the possession of this institution in 1858, through the exertions of the late Jonathan Sturges, an active and liberal mem- ber. That collection is the fruit of the taste, generosity, and muniti- cence of Luman Reed, an enterprising merchant.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.