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 23
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Parties having cases to be adjudicated in this court-controversies or matters of difference arising within the port of New York, or relating to a subject matter situate or coming within that port-may voluntarily submit the same to this Court of Arbitration, by written submission or by personal appearance in the court and an oral submission. This measure works with success in avoiding protracted litigation in the ordinary courts of law .*
A MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE-a gathering-place for merchants for con- ference and an exchange of ideas and values-has an intimate relation to a Chamber of Commerce, in its chief mission. These exchanges originated in the commercial cities of. Italy, Germany, and the Nether- lands, and were introduced into England by Sir Thomas Gresham at a little port in the middle of the seventeenth century. Ile resided some time in Antwerp, and he chose the Bourse, or Merchants' Exchange building, of that city as his model for the great London Exchange edifice which he erected.
The first Merchants' Exchange in New York City was in a building at the foot of Broad Street in 1752. When the Tontine Building was completed, at the corner of Wall and Pearl streets, it was removed to that fine edifice, which was erected for the express purpose of a Mer- chants' Exchange. In 1825 a fine structure of white marble from Westchester County, for a Merchants' Exchange, was begun in Wall Street, below William Street, and was completed in 1827. At that time it was the finest building in the city excepting the City Hall, +
" The officers of the Chamber of Commerce for 1882-83 were : Samuel D. Babcock, president, and George Wilson, secretary.
t The City Hall standing in the Park was erected early in this century - 1803 to 1808 -at a cost of more than half a million dollars. When completed it was on the outskirts of the city. It is built on three sides of white marble, and on the fourth side (the north) of brown freestone. It is in the Italian style of architecture, two hundred and sixteen feet long and one hundred and five feet wide. The City Hall is the headquarters of the municipal government. Below are the offices of the mayor and clerk of the common council, the common council chamber and other city offices, and the library. Above (second story) is the " Governors' Room," containing portraits of all the governors of the State, of the mayors of the city, and of men of national renown, and used for official receptions. The building is surmounted by a cupola containing a four-dial clock, which is illuminated at night. The City Library is in the east wing of the City Hall.
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not excepting the Masonic Hall, on Broadway, nearly opposite the City Hospital. It had a front of 115 feet on Wall Street, and was three stories high above the basement, which was considerably elevated. It extended through to Garden Street, 150 feet. The designs and plan of the building were furnished by M. E. Thompson, one of the founders of the National Academy of the Arts of Design.
The first and second stories of the Exchange comprised one order, which was the Ionic, in imitation of the Temple of Minerva at Priene, in Ionia. A recessed portico about forty feet in width, in an elliptical form, was introduced in front. A screen of four large columns and two antæ extended across the front of the portico nearly on a line with the front of the building. These columns were 30 feet high and 3 feet 4 inches in diameter at the base. The shaft of each column was com- posed of a single block of marble. They supported an entablature, upon which rested the attic or third story, making a height of about 60 feet from the ground.
The interior of the Exchange was chaste and classic in architecture. The building was surmounted by a cupola 2+ feet in diameter, and about 60 feet in height from the root of the Exchange to the top of the lantern which stood on this superb dome. The observatory was circu- lar, and was supported externally by Ionic columns. From this observ- atory was an extensive view of the whole city and the rich and varied scenery on every side. This fine edifice, with a marble statue by Ball standing in the centre of the Exchange room, was destroyed by the great fire in New York in December, 1835.
The MASONIC HALL above alluded to was, next to the Merchants' Exchange, the finest edifice in the city of New York (excepting the City Hall) in 1830. It was designed by Hugh Reinagle, and was in the pure pointed Gothic style. The ornamentation of the interior was after that of the chapel of Henry VII. The corner-stone of the building was laid on St. John's Day (the summer solstice), June 24, 1826. It had a front of 50 feet on Broadway, and a depth of 125 feet. The entrance hall, at the centre of the building, was 10 feet in width, and was enriched with arches, pendants, open friths on the spandrels, and a beautiful frieze of raised Gothic ornaments. On each side of this hall were stores in front, and places for refreshments in the rear.
The second story was one grand Gothic saloon, 90 feet in length, 47 feet in width, and 25 feet in height. It was intended for concerts, balls, and public meetings. The third story was arranged in richly furnished rooms for the use of the Masonic fraternity. A writer of that day describing the edifice put the record of its dimensions in
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italics, with an exclamation-point at the end, for the building seemed of marvellous capacity and beauty. Compared with scores of edifices seen in the city to-day. this Masonic Hall and the Merchants' Exchange appear insignificant in dimensions.
The front of the Masonic Hall was built of light granite. The centre door was made of solid oak, with carved panels and massive frame- work. The central window was a splendid piece of Gothic architecture 22 feet in height and 10 feet in width. The sites of this hall and of the old Tabernacle near by are now covered with commercial buildings.
While the Masonic Hall was a-building, public indignation was vehemently aroused by the alleged murder of William Morgan, in western New York, by the Masons, because he had divulged some of their secrets. Shrewd politicians took advantage of the excitement, formed a political Anti-Masonic party, and endeavored to make the " Masonic order odious in the public mind. They succeeded for a while, and so unpopular became the very name of Masons that as a matter of policy the name of the new edifice devoted to the use of the fraternity was changed to Gothic Hall.
The building of the Merchants' Exchange and the Masonic Hall marked the opening of a new era in domestic architecture in New York City, both in style and materials. These structures were seeds sown in rich soil, and have produced a wonderful harvest. They were prophe- cies of magnificence and of extravagance in expenditure in buildings, when dwelling-houses should be superbly palatial in size and decoration, and mere business houses should vie in spaciousness and elegance with the municipal halls and the gathering-places of the guilds in the old commercial cities of Europe. That prophecy has been fulfilled in our day.
In less than a decade of years after the completion of the structures just mentioned a city newspaper remarked : " New York is undergoing a wonderful transformation, especially Broadway ; and very soon it will be a city of brick instead of wooden buildings." Since that time -a period of fifty years-what marvellous transformations have taken place in the great, growing city ! It is now largely a city of freestone dwellings in its best sections, and of stone and iron in its business streets. The rough cobble-stones that covered the streets have given place to pavements almost as smooth as tile-flooring, and almost as solid as unseamed rock. Already in 1830 the transformation had begun, under the stimulating power of enterprise, prosperity, and rapidly in- creasing wealth.
At the beginning of the first decade (1830-40) the commerce of the
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city of New York had begun to feel the expansive energies of new life. There was marked vigor in all its functions, and the city pre- sented valid claims to the dignified title of the Commercial Metropolis of the Republic. Its foreign commerce (imports and exports) in 1823 was, in value, about $38,000,000 ; in 1830 it exceeded $50,000,000.
Down to the year 1830, and even somewhat later, some of the lead- ing branches of trade had particular localities which were really business centres of each branch. The hatters and fur-dealers were in Water Street, where damp cellars were considered desirable, especially for the raw materials of the hatter's wares. Swift & Hurlburt, who began business in 1835, were the first in the hatter's trade who broke out from the environs of Water Street and opened an establishment on Broadway.
The stove-dealers were also in Water Street, and that is still distin- guished by the numerous establishments of this kind, in the neighbor- hood of the foot of Fulton Street. The wholesale druggists were chiefly in Fletcher Street, which extended from Pearl Street to the East River. The shipping merchants were chiefly in South Street, below Peck Slip. The wholesale grocers were in Front Street. The leather- dealers were in the region known as The Swamp, between Beekman, Cliff, Pearl, William, and Frankfort streets, embracing the area of the old Beekman Swamp, which found an outlet for its surplus water into the East River below Peck Slip. The wholesale dry-goods merchants were in Pearl Street, below Coenties and Peck slips ; the silk mer- chants were in Hanover Square, and the merchants' clothing establish- ments were also in Pearl Street.
South Street still remains the headquarters of shipping merchants and the shipping business of all kinds. About 1830 a few large shippers built wharves and stores on Washington Street, then the Iludson River front of the lower part of the city ; but the river was so frequently filled with ice during a part of the year that they returned to South Street. Among those who thus retraced their steps and amassed large fortunes was the late Jesse Hoyt.
Lent's Basin, between Whitehall Street and Coenties Slip, was occu- pied by the largest vessels that brought Western produce from Albany to New York. The larger commission merchants were on the south side of Coenties Slip, such as Suydam, Sage & Co., Samuel Tooker & Co., Peter Nevins, James N. Cobb, and others. On the south side of the slip was the landing-place of the Boston packets. These packets carried most of the merchandise from the West, by the Erie Canal, for the Boston merchants before the railroads were built. " The . Hub '
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has put on a good many airs since it was compelled to go to New York for a barrel of flour," wrote an old New York merchant .*
Old Slip and Coffee-House Slip were often crowded with the larger sailing packets from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, before ocean steam navigation was introduced. Burling Slip was the haven for transient sailing vessels.
The Swamp continues to be the business centre of the leather trade in New York, and now embraces about one hundred business firms. These merchants are towers of strength in the business and financial world.
The tanning of leather was one of the leading industries of New York so early as the period of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan Island. For generations it was always connected with the business of shoemaking. The first tannery and shoe manufactory was established by Coenradt Ten Eyck, on Broad Street, in 1653. He died there in 1680, leaving his business to his three sons. At that time the tanners made up their own leather into shoes.
About 1661 Abel Hardenbroeck carried on the same business at the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place. He appears to have been a rowdy, for he was complained of and brought before the magistrate on charges of " creating an uproar with soldiers," breaking windows, and other disturbances of the peace. He appears to have been a sort of rogue also in business, for he was charged before the burgomaster of New Amsterdam with " making shoes that ripped in the soles." The punishment awarded for the last-named offence was the making of a new pair and paying several guilders to the burgomaster who repri- manded him. Broad Street was for some time the centre of the tan- ning and shoemaking business in the city.
In 1669 (after the first English occupation of the city) a patent was granted to A. & C. Van Laer for a mill for preparing tanning-bark for use. It was not long after this that the business was driven from the city, beyond the palisades at Wall Street. The tanners were assigned sixteen acres of land for their pursuit, extending from the east side of (present) Maiden Lane to Ann Street, between Gold Street and Broad- way, to the site of the New York Herald publishing house. This lot of land was called the " Shoemakers' Portion." Their tanning-pits were near the junction of Maiden Lane and William Street. One of the wealthiest proprietors of the Shoemakers' Portion gave the land on which the North Dutch Church was erected, on the corner of (present) Fulton and William streets.
* John W. Degrauw, in the New York Evening Post.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
When the population spread beyond the city limits of New Amster- dam, and away toward the (present) City Hall Park, the tanners were again compelled to remove their works. They settled along the line of the "Collect" or " Fresh Water Pond," to (present) Canal Street, where they continued to pursue their trade until after the Revolution, when they located within the area of the Swamp, which had been closed up and several streets had been made through it. Ferry Street was so called because it led directly to the Brooklyn ferry.
William Beekman, the original owner of the Swamp, came to New Netherlands in 1647, in the employ of the Dutch West India Company. Ile was an enterprising citizen, became wealthy, and built a residence on the edge of the Swamp, on the high ground near the corner of Beekman and Cliff streets, where St. George's Chapel after- ward stood. 'Ile died there in 1707. His landed property there was first sold in lots in 1717. Balthasar Bayard owned seven acres adjoin- ing Beekman's land, and these acres constituted a part of the Swamp. This included Frankfort and Vandewater streets, and extended to Pearl and Rose streets. A part of Bayard's land was sold in 1783 to the widow of Hendrick van de Water .*
A hundred years ago the vicinity of the Swamp was the most popu- lous part of the city. On its eastern border, Pearl Street, Franklin Square, and Cherry Street formed the extremely fashionable quarter of New York. The Waltons, the Franklins, the Pearsalls and other notable merchants dwelt there. In the residence of Walter Franklin, the first dwelling-place of President Washington, De Witt Clinton was married to that Quaker merchant's daughter.
After the Revolution the tanners began to desert the vicinity of the Collect, and located around Jacob and Frankfort streets, in the Swamp. The old vats at the Colleet were left open, and became a subject of complaint in 1797 as dangerous.
From the time of its first occupation by tanners and manufacturers of leather until now, the occupants of the Swamp have grown in wealth and business and social influence. The Swamp has been trans- formed from a place of manufacturest to a mart. Within the last fifty or sixty years its volume of business has enormously increased. In 1827 the number of hides of sole leather received in New York
* For these facts I am indebted to a series of interesting articles in the Shoe and Leather Reporter, vol. xxiv., written by F. W. Norcross.
+ There are, perhaps, persons living who then saw no house in the space bounded by Jacob, Gold, Ferry, and Frankfort streets -- nothing but tan-yards or vats. The houses surrounding these vats were very small, and all built of wood.
.
- Thomas
Cummings. N. A.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
(almost wholly in the Swamp) was 265,000; in 1837, 665,000 ; in 1847, 1,168,000 ; in 1837, 3.248,000 ; in 1867, 3,524,687 ; in 1877, 4,242,570, and in 1SS1, 5.457.417.
Among the "men of the Swamp" were found some of the most valuable citizens of the metropolis fifty years ago, such as Gideon Lee,* Israel Corse, t Abraham Bloodgood.# David Bryson, § Jacob Lorillard, Abraham Polhemus, Peter McCartee, Richard Cunningham, William Kumble, Hugh McCormick, Shepherd Knapp, Jonathan Thorne,1
* Gideon Lee was mayor of the city in 1833-34. A biographical sketch of him will be found on a subsequent page.
+ Israel Corse was a Friend or Quaker, a native of Chestertown, Maryland, where he was born in 1769. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a tanner in Camden, Delaware. When his apprenticeship expired he was worth just seventy-five cents. On that capital he began business, married Lydia Trotts, a farmer's daughter, who brought him quite a fortune, at that day. in money, and a greater fortune in love, prudence, and industry. Only two of their several children (Barney and Lydia) survived. Israel lived in Camden until he amassed a fortune of $10,000, when he came to New York in 1803, where his wife died. He married again. He went into business in the Swamp. His son Barney married a daughter of Samuel Leggett ; his daughter Lydia married Jona- than Thorne, who, on the retirement of Israel from business in 1830, became a proprietor of the concern, with his brother-in-law, Barney Corse. Israel lived several years in Van- dewater Street. He afterward occupied a house in East Broadway, where he died in 1842. Israel Corse was one ot the devoted band who succeeded in ridding New York City of the curse of lotteries and made the selling of lottery tickets a crime.
# Abraham Bloodgood was a remarkable man. He died in 1837. Mr. Bloodgood was an earnest Republican or Democrat, and a bright light in Tammany Hall. At one time, when there was a split in the Backtail party in the city on some local question, he was the leader of the "Swamp Clique" in opposition to the " North River Squad," as the two factions were respectively called.
§ David Bryson, another remarkable man, was a native of Ireland. He came to America after the Irish rebellion in 1798, with Thomas Addis Emmet, Dr. Macneven, and other Irish patriots. He began business in the Swamp as a tanner and currier, became wealthy, and sent funds to Ireland so soon as prosperity was assured, to enable his parents to come to America. David Bryson was a wise business man, and those who knew him best loved him most. He was one of the founders of the Phoenix Bank and a long time, and until his death, one of its directors. His son Peter was its cashier at one time.
| Jonathan Thorne lived in good health of body and mind until 1884. He was born in the town of Washington, Duchess County, N. Y., on April 20, 1801. His great- grandfather, Isaac Thorne, came from Long Island and settled in that region in 1720. He was a member of the Society of Friends or Quakers, and so is the subject of this sketch.
Jonathan Thorne's father, Samuel Thorne, began life as a merchant in Washington in 1794, and continued in that pursuit until 1814, when he purchased a farm not far away, and which now constitutes the famous Thorndale estate. He desired his only son, Jona- than, to be a farmer, and it was for that purpose that the broad acres were bought. The young man, after several years' experience, felt a restless desire to try his fortune in business in New York, Thither he went in 1820, and engaged in the dry-goods trade.
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Thomas Everett, Morgan L. Smith, James, George, and Thomas Brooks, Daniel Tooker, Peter Bonnett, Henry Ottery, and others. The late Charles M. Leupp, a son-in law and partner in business of Gideon Lee, once said :
" The Roman mother, Cornelia, when asked to display her jewels, sent for her sons and pointed to them. So can we to these [hide and leather] fathers, and claim them as our jewels. Let us cherish their example, and emulate their noble qualities, so that hereafter our suc- cessors may, in like manner, be not ashamed of any of us, but be proud to exclaim, ' He, too, was a Swamper.'"
At the end of three years his father, needing bis assistance on the farm, induced Jona- than to abandon his business in the city and join him. The young merchant of twenty- three did not return alone, for he had married the amiable Lydia, daughter of Israel Corse. She cheerfully left the city for a home in the country for his sake. But her hus- band yearned for the greater activity of mercantile life, with all its possibilities for larger pecuniary gain than that of farming, and in March, 1830, they returned to New York. His father-in-law, then grown aged and wealthy, desired to retire from business, and offered to transfer it to young Thorne. The latter hesitated, for he was ignorant of tanning, and indeed of other parts of the business. His brother-in-law, Barney Corse, who was his father's business partner, finally induced Thorne to join him. So it was that Mr. Thorne entered upon the business of a manufacturer of leather and a leather merchant in 1830, and continued it without interruption until 1880, a period of fifty years. For forty years he was at the head of the largest house in the business.
The new firm went under the old name of " Israel Corse & Son" until 1832, when Mr. Thorne bought the interest of his brother in-law, and for the first time put up his own name over the door. After that there were several changes in the composition of the firm. For about fifteen years his son Edwin (now of Thorndale) was a member.
No merchant ever enjoyed a better reputation for honor and probity than Jonathan Thorne. He made it a rule from the beginning to win the confidence of his customers in his integrity. There are three kinds of leather-perfect sides, slightly damaged sides, and badly damaged sitles. He always instructed his men when assorting leather to put with the badly damaged sides the slightly damaged ones. This was his invariable habit. Very soon he gained a reputation of immense valne to him. His " damaged " leather, containing so much slightly injured leather, always commanded a higher price than damaged leather in general, and secured for him an enviable reputation. He had the satisfaction of an approving conscience and of illustrating the truth of the maxim that " honesty is the best policy."
Mr. Thorne came into the possession of the estate of Thorndale on the death of his father, in 1849. Ile made it his summer residence. Observing the inferiority of the live-stock even in the fine farming region of Duchess County, he determined to give his country the benefit of an importation of England's finest Shorthorn or Durham cattle .. He paid as high as $5000 for a single animal, but found the venture finally profitable. In time the Thorndale stock became famous among breeders on both sides of the Atlantic, and animals were exported from it to England.
Mr. Thorne left business with an ample fortune, and lives in elegant retirement in Fifth Avenue, New York. His wife died in the city of London, England, in 1872, and in 1874 he married Mrs. Merritt, daughter of George S. Fox.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
About the year 1830 the methods of mercantile life in New York were rapidly changing. Up to about that period railroads for travel were unknown in America. A visit of a country merchant to New York was a marked event in his life. He generally went to the city twice a year (fall and spring) to purchase goods. An advertisement of one of these merchants in a Poughkeepsie newspaper, in the fall of 1824, reads :
" I have been in New York a fortnight making a careful selection of goods, and I now offer for sale, at a moderate profit, a large assortment of articles suitable for the fall and winter."
The wholesale dry-goods merchants, as we have observed, were then chiefly to be found in Pearl Street. The families of many of them lived over their stores and boarded the clerks. and apartments not so occupied were boarding-houses. These were exclusively for country merchants. Those who traded in rural districts kept a variety store --- dry goods, groceries, hardware, crockery, medicines. etc. They remained several days in the city, buying their various goods, and it was an object of jobbers to have one of their best salesmen board at a large lodging-house for country merchants.
Merchants' clerks in those days performed manual services unknown to their class in 1SS3. There were very few carts then used by the dry-goods merchants. Most of their hmited business in city trans- portation was done by street porters, with hand-carts and large wheel- barrows. They stood at street corners ready to t. ke or go for a load. They were regularly licensed, and wore a brass plate with their number on the register engraved upon it. Their charges for any distance below Chambers Street was one shilling (12} cents) ; for any distance above Chambers Street, a pistareen (182 cents). Such heavy trucks as are now seen were never heard of. "When our employer would purchase a lot of goods at auction, " wrote the late William E. Dodge concerning his experience as a dry-goods clerk, " it was our business to go to the auction-rooms and compare them with the bill, and if two of us could carry them home we did so, as it would save the shilling porterage. I remember that while in this store I carried bundles of goods up Broadway to Greenwich Village, near what are now Seventh and Eighth avenues and Fourth to Tenth Street."*
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