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 24
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* William E. Dodge was an eminent merchant and philanthropist. . He was born in Hartford, Conn., September 4, 1805 : went to New York in 1818, and became a clerk in a wholesale dry-goods store. In 1827 he began business for himself in the same line. The next year he married Melissa, a daughter of Anson G. Phelps, a dealer in metals. They celebrated their golden wedding June 24, 1878, at their country-seat in Tarrytown-
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The retail trade was mostly in William Street and Maiden Lane, excepting a few fashionable houses on Broadway. The cheap retail stores were in upper Pearl and Chatham streets. The trade was mostly divided by sections, some selling almost entirely to Southern merchants, others to Northern and Western merchants, and others to Eastern and Long Island merchants. A " jobber" before 1830 was con- sidered sound and had good credit if he had invested in business $15,000 to $20,000. Probably not over a half dozen persons in New York sold goods to the value of over $1,000,000 a year ; now there are some who sell a million a week .*
on-the-Hudson, where their seven children, all sons, were present. In 1833 Mr. Dodge sold out his dry-goods business and became a partner with his father-in law, under the firm name of Phelps, Dodge & Co. He accumulated a large fortune, continuing in busi- ness until his death, February 9, 1883.
Mr. Dodge was singularly active in various business enterprises and in religions and philanthropic movements. For twelve years he was a director of the Erie Railway Com- pany ; was president of the Houston and Texas Railroad, and one of the founders of the Central Railroad of New Jersey and of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. He was a director in other railroad companies, in banks, and in insurance, trust, and telegraph companies. He was a member of the famous Peace Congress at Washington in 1861, and of the Indian Commission appointed by President Grant. Mr. Dodge was a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress, in which he served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 1866 he was a delegate to the Loyal Convention held in Philadelphia. He was also for many years an active member of the Union League Club. In 1855 he became a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, was its vice-president four years, elected president in 1867, and re-elected for three successive terms.
He was connected with the Presbyterian Church, and was an elder and for twenty years a Sabbath-school superintendent. In his early days he assisted in the organization of the Young Men's Bible Society of New York, and was at his death a manager of the American Bible Society. He was deeply interested in Young Men's Christian Associa- tions, in foreign missions, in the cause of temperance, and in various organizations for the promotion of religion and morality, and in the physical comfort of his fellow-men. He was president of the American Branch of the Evangelical Alliance, of the National Temperance Society, and of the Christian Home for Intemperate Men, and was largely instrumental in providing a similar institution for women. He was a director of the Union Theological Seminary, and did much for educational institutions, especially, of late years, among the freedmen. A strict sabbatarian, he left the direction of the Central Railroad of New Jersey because they allowed trains to run on Sunday.
Mr. Dodge's hand was always open, and his charities are said to have amounted an- nually to $100,000. His remains were buried in the family vault in Woodlawn Cemetery. * Address by William E. Dodge, at Association Hall, April 27, 1880.
CHAPTER XI.
THE various industrial pursuits in New York about 1830 were stimulated by the increased activity in commercial business. The shipbuilding interest especially felt the thrill of the new life. The ship- yards, as the places of business of the shipbuilders were called, were clustered on the shores of the East River, from Catharine Street to Thirteenth Street.
Chief among the shipbuilders at that time was Christian Bergh, father of Henry Bergh the philanthropist, whose vard was near the (present) Grand Street ferry. He was a native of Rhinebeck, Duchess County, N. Y., where he was born, in April, 1763. His ancestors had come to America from Germany in the seventeenth century. Having learned the business of marine architecture thoroughly, and being very expert and very honest, he never lacked employment for a day.
The United States Government appointed him to superintend the construction of the frigate President, a 44-gun ship built at New York, and at the beginning of the second war for independence (1812-15) he was sent to Oswego, on Lake Ontario, where, with Henry Eekford, he built the brig Oneida, under the direction of Lieutenant Melancthon Woolsey, of the United States Navy. After the war he established a shipyard at the foot of Scammel Street, on the East River, where he built packet-ships for American lines for European ports. There for many years Mr. Bergh's tall and commanding figure might be seen, in blue coat and trousers and white neckcloth. He was very popular be- cause of his suavity of manner and inflexible integrity.
Christian Bergh was a bright light in Tammany Hall, and often pre- sided with dignity at the meetings of the sachems, but persistently refused to take a public office of any kind. His dislike of debt was almost a passion with him. In his last illness he became impressed with the idea that his physician's bill had not been paid. He desired his son Henry to fill out a check. On being reminded that it was not yet presented nor vet due, he nevertheless persisted, and to quiet him a check was filled out, and with trembling hand he signed it. A few days afterward the famous shipbuilder and honest citizen died (June 24,
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1843), at the age of eighty years. Christian Bergh was the first ship- builder who had the courage, the humanity, and the common-sense to employ colored men in his yard.
Below Bergh's shipyard was that of Thorn & Williams, at the foot of Montgomery Street ; of Carpenter & Bishop, near the foot of Clinton Street. Adjoining the latter were the yards of Ficket & Thomas ; of Morgan & Son, at the foot of Rutgers Street, and one or two others below. Above Bergh were the yards of Sneedon & Law- rence, near the foot of Corlears Street ; Samuel Harnard's, near the foot of Grand Street ; Brown & Bell's, from Stanton to Houston Street (a part of which Henry Eckford had formerly occupied, and part by Adam and Noah Brown) ; Smith & Dimon's, from Fourth to Fifth Street ; Webb & Allen's, from Fifth to Seventh Street ; Bishop & Simonson's, from Seventh to Eighth Street, and higher up were the yards of Steers Brothers, William H. Brown, and Thomas Collyer. There were smaller establishments, the whole numbering more than thirty.
The shore of the East River above the northernmost vard, at the foot of Thirteenth Street, presented a fine sandy beach, where and at the foot of Corlears Street the Baptists immersed their converts in the limpid water, and where, in summer twilight, groups of men and boys, women and girls, at a place called Dandy Point, might have been seen enjoying salt-water baths. They often arrived in big wagons, holding more than a dozen of both sexes, who at different places, the inen at one spot the women at another, changed good garments for old ones, without the convenience of bathing-houses. Near by was a house for plain refreshments, kept by a Scotchman named Gibson-" Sandy Gibson." Williamsburgh, opposite, was then a straggling hamlet of cottages, with orchards and gardens.
Two of the shipbuilders here mentioned were apprentices to Henry Eckford, who in the carly part of this century was the most eminent marine architect in the country. He was a native of Scotland, who came to New York in 1796, when he was twenty-one years of age. Ile and Bergh became acquainted at an early day, and were ever after- ward fast friends. They lived near each other, Bergh on the north- east corner of Scammel and Water streets, and Eckford in Water Street. Their chief happiness outside their homes was in visiting each other. On a hill near by Miss MacLaughlin kept a dairy farm, and supplied the shipbuilders with milk. Two of Eckford's apprentices, Thomas Megson and William Bennett, are vet living in the city of New York.
Eckford established a shipyard near the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, in
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1801, and soon acquired an excellent reputation. He built a ship of 1100 tons for John Jacob Astor, and was employed by the United States Government in building vessels for the navy during the war of 1812-15. After the war he was made superintendent of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard. He was a faithful public officer. One day he found the blacksmith of the yard shoeing the commodore's horses. He ordered them to be immediately removed, saying, " The business of this shop is to repair government vessels, not to shoe commodore's horses."
Eckford built the steamship Robert Fulton, which in 1822 made the first successful ocean voyage, by steam, to New Orleans and Havana. He also built six ships of the line for the goverment, made a plan for the reorganization of the navy, at the request of President Jackson, and in 1831 constructed a ship of war for the Sultan of Turkey. He entered the service of the Turkish Government as naval constructor at Con- stantinople, but died within a year after his arrival there-November 12, 1832.
Among the eminent shipbuilders of that day who survived to the period of the present generation may be named Isaac Webb, the great builder of packet-ships, born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1794, and died in 1843 ; Stephen Smith, a native of the same town ; David Brown, who died in 1852 ; Jacob Bell, and Jacob AA. Westervelt, a native of New Jersey, the son of a shipbuilder, an apprentice with Bergh, and afterward his partner in business, and engaged in building Havre and London packets before the year 1837. He was mayor of the city of New York in 1852, and immediately afterward built the United States steam-frigate Brooklyn.
Another of the old shipbuilders of New York is John Inglis, born in 1SOS, and became an apprentice to Stephen Smith. He built the steamships Milwaukee and Red Jacket on Lake Erie in 1837, and on his return to New York established an immense shipyard at the foot of East Fourth Street, where he sometimes employed between 400 and 500 men. ITis specialty was steamship building. Ile constructed gov- ernment vessels during the Civil War. He also built river and Sound steamers of great speed. Before 1866 he had built 56 large steam ves- sels .* The later shipbuilders and the business of shipbuilding will be considered hereafter. About the year 1844 began the most important era in shipbuilding. t
* A bronze medal was awarded to John Inglis & Sons, by the American Institute in 1863, for a model of the revenue cutter Ashuelot, which was lost in the East Indies in 1882.
+ The labors and the wages of workmen in the shipyards (and indeed everywhere else) fifty years ago and now appear in strong contrast. The mechanic then worked from
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The manufactures in the city of New York at the beginning of this decade were neither extensive nor various, but very soon circumstances produced a rapid increase in the kinds and products of the mechanic arts. The people of our country depended largely upon Europe for the products of the loom and the forge, for foreign labor was so low that American mechanics could not profitably compete with it.
To remedy this disability tariffs on foreign goods were established. So early as 1816 Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun were associated in establishing the " American system"-that is, stringent tariffs for the protection of American manufacturers of every kind. The tariff of 1816 did not effect much in the way of encouraging our manufacturers, neither did a more stringent tariff law in 1824, but that of 1827-28 was effectual, and greatly stimulated the growth of the mechanic arts and textile manufactures. It did more : it awakened the hostility of the cotton-growers of the South, and led to the intense and dangerous political disturbance known in history as the Nullification movement in South Carolina.
At the beginning of this decade there were in the city of New York a score or more of incorporated manufacturing companies, organized under a State law of 1811, allowing any "five or more persons" to form a company for the manufacture of certain specified articles. The principal of these companies were :
The Eagle Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of cotton, woollen and linen goods ; the Copper Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of copper and brass ; the Patent Oil Company, for press- ing and straining oil ; the New York Gas-light Company, for manu- facturing illuminating gas ; the New York Laboratory Association, for the manufacture of white and red lead and other paints ; the New York Company, for the same purpose ; the New York Steel Company, Steam Saw-mill Company, the Linen Company, the New York Manu- facturing Company, the New York Sugar Refining Company, and the New York Chemical Company. There were also two chartered coal companies, " for the purpose of exploring and working mines of coal and other valuable minerals, and for delivering at New York coal for
sunrise to sunset, or from four o'clock in the morning until half past seven o'clock in the evening, for $1.25 a day. He was allowed an hour for breakfast and two hours for dinner. Then in the shipyards the heaviest timbers, now handled by steam or horse power, were carried on the shoulders of men ; and many hours were consnmed in sawing a stick of live oak by hand, one workman standing in a ditch below, his face protected from the sawdust by a veil, while now a circular saw driven by steam or horse power would do the same work in about one minute.
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fuel, from the Ohio River," etc. These oval companies had been organized and chartered in 1814, when anthracite first became publicly known as fuel. It was not generally introduced into the city of New York before 1825.
About 1832 English mechanics, disheartened by " dull times" at home and attracted by " flush times" in New York and Philadelphia, began to come over in quite large numbers. They introduced new branches of mechanical business. These took permanent root. Inventive genius was stimulated in a remarkable degree, and from small beginnings fifty years ago New York has become the leading manufacturing city in the Republic. In 1880 the number of its manufacturing establishments was 11,339, employing over $181,000,000 of capital, and producing in that year goods of the value of $472,926. 437.
The increase in the commercial and manufacturing operations in the city at that time demanded an increase of banking facilities for furnish- ing currency and aiding a universal credit system. There were then sixteen banks of issue and deposit in the city of New York, including a branch of the United States Bank, with an aggregate capital of $17,640,000. They were : The U. S. Branch Bank, $2,500,000 ; Bank of New York, incorporated in 1791, $1.000,000 ; Manhattan Bank, incorporated in 1799, 82,050,000 ; Merchants' Bank, incorporated in 1803, $1,400,000 ; Mechanics' Bank, incorporated in 1810, $1,500,000 ; Union Bank, incorporated in 1811, $1,000,000 ; Bank of America, chartered in 1812, 82,000,000 ; City Bank, incorporated in 1812, $1,250,000 ; Phoenix Bank, chartered in 1$12. 8500,000 ; Franklin Bank, incorporated in 1818, $500,000 : North River Bank, incorpo- rated in 1821, 8500,000 ; Tradesmen's Bank, chartered in 1823. $600,000 ; Chemical Bank, incorporated in 1524, $500,000 ; Fulton Bank, incorporated in 1824, 8500,000 : Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, incorporated in 1825, 81,000,000, of which $500,000 was employed in banking ; and the New York Dry Dock Company, char- tered in 1825, 8700,000. Eleven of these banks are in existence in 1883.
There was then only one savings bank in the city, located in Cham- bers Street, and open only on Monday afternoons from four to six o'clock, and on Saturday afternoons from four to seven o'clock ; on quarter days, from eleven to one o'clock. The genesis of this first sav- ings bank in the city of New York is interesting. It was the offspring of the active brain and benevolent nature of John Pintard.
Pintard called a meeting of a few gentlemen at the City Hotel, on November 29, 1816. The philanthropist. Thomas Eddy, was called to the chair, and J. H. Coggeshall was chosen secretary. L'intard had
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
prepared the following resolution before he went to the meeting, which was offered by John Griscom, and unanimously adopted :
"Resolved, That it is expedient to establish a savings bank in New York City."
Pintard had also prepared a constitution. It was offered by Zacha- riah Lewis, and adopted. The association was organized by the choice of twenty-eight directors, with De Witt Clinton at their head. The officers chosen were William Bayard, president ; Noah Brown, Thomas H. Smith, and Thomas C. Taylor, vice-presidents .*
The institution did not go into operation until Saturday evening, July 3, 1819, at six o'clock, in a basement room in Chambers Street. The office of deposit was kept open that evening until nine o'clock, when the sum of $2807 had been received from eighty-two depositors. The largest deposit was $300, the smallest $2.+ Within the following six months there had been received $153,378, from 1527 depositors.
This first Bank for Savings, the firstorganized in the city of New York, is yet a flourishing institution, occupying an elegant banking- house built of white marble, in Bleecker Street. In 1883 there were twenty-three savings banks in the city of New York. The original Bank for Savings, established in 1819, had received, during 633 years, from 490,541 depositors, the sum of $162,032,515 ; to which add interest up to January 1, 1883, $20,501,761, making an aggregate of $191,534,277.4
When this savings bank was firmly established, Mr. Pintard, in pur- suance of his usual custom when he had achieved a great success, with- drew, but in 1828 he accepted the presidency of it, and held that office until 1841, when he was eighty-one years old, and was growing blind. It has been well said, " There never was a man in the city who could start great measures as John Pintard could. He could indite a
* The following named gentlemen were chosen directors : De Witt Clinton, Archibald Gracie, Cadwallader D. Coiden, William Few, John Griscom, Jeremiah Thompson, Duncan P. Campbell, James Eastburn, John Pintard, J. H. Coggeshall, Jonas Mapes, Broekholst Livingston, Richard Varick, Thomas Eddy, Peter A. Jay, J. Murray, Jr., John Slidell, Andrew Morris, Gilbert Aspinwall, Zachariah Lewis, Thomas Buckley, Najah Taylor, Francis B. Winthrop, William Wilson.
+ John Pintard, John E. Hyde, Duncan P. Campbell, William Bayard, Colonel William Few. James Eastburn, Thomas Eddy, Zachariah Lewis, John Mason, Jacob Sherrel, William Wilson, and JJeremiah Thompson were present that evening.
# The officers of this Bank for Savings for 1883 were : Robert Lenox Kennedy, presi- dent : Wyllis Blackstone and Benjamin H. Field, vice-presidents ; George Cabot Ward, Secretary : David Olyphant, treasurer ; William G. White, comptroller, and Jame; Knowles, accountant at the bank.
1
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Daniel appleton
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handbill that would inflame the minds of the people for any good work. He could call a meeting with the pen of a poet, and before the people met he would have arranged the doings for a perfect success."
At the time we are considering there were ten marine-insurance companies and twenty-eight fire-insurance companies in the city of New York, with the agencies of four outside companies-namely, the Duchess and the Orange County, the Western (at Buffalo), and the Utica fire-insurance companies.
The marine-insurance companies were : the New York. the Ocean, the American, the Pacific, the Union, the Atlantic, the Mohawk (for marine, canal, lake, and river insurance), the Neptune, and the Niagara, with an aggregate capital of $4,600,000.
The fire-insurance companies were : the Mutual, the Washington, the Eagle, the Hope, the Globe, the Franklin, the Merchants', the Mercantile, the Mechanics', the Manhattan, the Fulton, the Farmers', the North River, the Chatham, the Equitable, the Phoenix, the New York Contributorship, the Jefferson, the United States, the _Etna, the Sun, the Protection, the Howard, the Traders', the Tradesmen's, the Firemen's, and the Lafayette, with an aggregate capital of over $10,000,000.
The fire department was then a volunteer association, and remained so until the year 1865. It was an ancient institution in the city-as ancient as the beginning of the administration of Peter Stuyvesant of the goverment of New Netherlands.
In 1648 Stuyvesant appointed four fire - wardens to inspect the wooden chimneys of the little village of New Amsterdam. A fine of about $1.30 was imposed upon all whose chimneys were found to be imperfectly swept. These fines were to be used for providing leather fire-buckets and hooks and ladders. The fire-warden was among the official dignitaries of the town, and was not to be treated with dis- respect. Madaline Dircks, one of the good dames of New Amsterdam, was fined " two pounds Flemish" for saving to a fire-warden as she passed his door (only in a joking way, she pleaded), " There is the chimney-sweep in the door ; his chimney is well swept." "Such jokes," the court said, "cannot be tolerated," and the dame was made to pay dearly for her fun. One half of the fine went to the church and the other half to the poor.
After the English occupation (1653) the office of " viewer and searcher of chimneys and fire-hearths" was established, and a fine of fifteen shillings was imposed upon those who should allow their chim- neys to take fire : now the fine is 85.
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As the city increased, numerous hooks and ladders were added to tl: scores of fire-buckets. There was no fire-engine in the city before 1731. In May of that year the city authorities ordered the purchase of two engines, and appointed the mayor and two aldermen a commit- tee to " agree with some proper merchant or merchants" to send to London for the same. A room in the old City Hall, in Wall Street, was fitted up for their reception and security. These engines were queer looking machines. Each consisted of a short "oblong-square box, with the condenser in the centre, and was played by short arms at each end, and mounted on four block-wheels, made of thick plank. There was no traveller forward for wheels to play under the box ;" so, when it turned a sharp corner, the engine must have been lifted around .* The engines were filled by means of fire-buckets. No suction-pipes were used before the year 1806.
In 1737 the Legislature of New York, sitting in the city, passed an act for the appointment of twenty-four "able-bodied men, who shall be called the firemen of this city, to work and play the fire-engines, and who shall be exempt from serving as constables, or doing militia duty during their continuance as firemen." This was the beginning of the New York fire companies. This act was passed in consequence of a large fire which had recently occurred in the city. Thirty " strong, able, decent, honest, and sober men" were chosen for the service out of the six wards of the city-five from each ward.t The first engine- house had been erected at the corner of Wall and Broad streets the year before.
Near the close of the last century each engine-house was furnished with long poles, on each of which twelve leather fire-buckets, provided by the city, might be carried, for it was found inexpedient to depend upon private houses for a sufficiency of fire-buckets.
In 179S " The Fire Department of the City of New York" was in- corporated by act of the Legislature. It was to consist of all persons
* In " The Story of the Volunteer Fire Department of the City of New York," by George W. Sheldon, p. 6, may be seen a picture of one of these engines. To that excel- lent work the writer is greatly indebted.
+ The men who composed the first fire company in the city were : John Tiebont, Hercules Wardeven, Jacobus de la Montagne, Thomas Brom, Abraham Van Gelder, William Roome, Jr., Walter Heyer, Johannes Alstein, Evert Pells, Jr., Jacobus Stouten- burgh, Peter Lote, Peter Braner, Albertis Tiebont, John Vredenburgh, John Dunscombe, Johannes Roome, Peter Marschalk, Petrus Kip, Abraham Kip, Andrew Meyer, Jr., Robert Richardson, Rymer Burgns, Barent Burgh. David Van Gelder, Johannes Van Duerson, Martinus Bogert, Johannes Vredenburgh, John Van Suys, Adolphus Brase, and John Mann.
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then or who might be thereafter members of any fire company of the city of New York. This brought the firemen of the city into closer wwwial relations, and the spirit of the corps was very high. They served without pay, excepting in the form of some privileges, and they per- formed the arduous and sometimes dangerous service of the department with the utmost enthusiasm. "The pride and ambition of each fire company," said the now venerable Front Street merchant, Zophar Mills, the president of the Exempt Firemen's Association, to Mr. Sheldon, " were to be the first to reach a fire, and the most efficient in putting it out. We had as much love for that as we possibly could for anything else. We would leave our business, our dinner, our anything, and rush for the engine. The night I was getting married there was a fire. I could see it, and I wanted to go immediately. But the next morning early, before breakfast, there was another fire, and I went to that. So you may judge how we liked it. If we had a parade, we paid the expenses ourselves. We always paid for the painting, repair- ing, and decorating our engines. The engine to which I belonged (No. 13) was silver plated-the first that was so-at a cost perhaps of 82000. We didn't ask the corporation to foot the bill. . . There were few 'roughs' then, as in modern times. Nor were there any salaries, except in the case of the chief engineer and temporarily of the assistant engineer. Firemen now are liberally compensated ; they get $1200 a year each, and are retired on half pay, if infirm, after ten years' service." *
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