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 26
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The night guardians of the peace and of the property of the citizens of New York before 1831 were a few watchmen, stationed upon pre- scribed "beats" and subject to certain rules. They were appoint- ed by the common council. A prescribed number of men - trust- worthy men-were chosen from among the householders who were citizens, as " captains of the watch." These, under the Watch Com- mittee of the corporation, fixed the rounds of the watchmen, who were also appointed by the common council. prescribed their duties, visited the stations, reported delinquencies, suspended an offending watchman till the pleasure of the common couneil should be known, and made a return every morning to the police justices of the names and number of watchmen on duty the preceding night, and the delinquents, if any. For these services each captain of the watch received $1.873 as a com- pensation for each night's service.
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The watchmen were divided into companies, and to each company were added twelve substitutes, to aet in case of absence of the regular watchmen. The watchmen were summarily dismissed if found sleep- ing or intoxicated while on duty, or absent without sufficient excuse. It was their duty to arrest offenders and detain them until discharged. In addition to these routine services, the watchmen were required, in case of a riot or disorder, or on any extraordinary occasion, to assist those in other districts. For all this prescribed vigilance, for exposure to the vicissitudes of weather and to the danger of encounters with desperate men, the watchmen in the city of New York fifty years ago were paid the munificent sum of St cents for every night's service !
The most notable man among the officers appointed to administer justice and preserve order in the city of New York fifty or sixty years ago was Richard Riker, a sort of vicar-general of the police, night- watch, and fire departments, when exercising the functions of his office. He was an upright and sagacious judge at the head of a court, and an estimable citizen. He served as recorder of the city twenty years, at three different times, beginning with 1815 and ending with 1838. Mr. Edwards, in his interesting volume, " Pleasantries about Courts and Lawyers of the State of New York," gives most agreeable glimpses of the character and career of Recorder Riker.
"No one," says Mr. Edwards, " can take up works containing crim- inal trials of the period when Mr. Riker was presiding judge without being satisfied that he was a sound criminal lawyer. His decisions were generally correct, and what is not common with a criminal magis- trate, he rather softened toward the erring as his years on the bench increased-perhaps even a weakness was exhibited in the familiar style he used. But with him it was honesty of heart. He was the last man to wound by word or manner." #
Recorder Riker was remarkably courteous and gentlemanly in his deportment, treating all persons of high or low degree with equal suavity. Hle was so childlike in his confidence, that when sitting at chambers to grant orders, for which judges were then paid a fee by fixed statute, he seldom looked over the papers, but signed his name ahnost as a matter of course. It is related that Anthony Dey, who loved the recorder, made a small wager that he would induce Mr. Riker to grant an order for his own commitment to prison. Dey took a mittimus to him to that effect. He signed it, and took the prescribed fee for his signature. The paper he had signed authorized the sheriff
* " Pleasantries," p. 389.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. .
of New York City and County to " commit Richard Riker, Esq., recorder and supreme court commissioner, to the common jail !"
At the beginning of the century, when Mr. Riker was a young man and political party spirit was fierce between Republicans and Federal- ists, after the election of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, a duel had been fought between De Witt Clinton, then mayor of New York, and Colonel John Swartwout. Riker, then about thirty years of age, was a warm political partisan and an ardent personal friend and admirer of Clinton. They had studied law together, and were as intimate as brothers. He had been Mr. Clinton's second in the duel. After that event Clinton was scandalously maligned in the opposition newspapers. He was satirized and caricatured. Mr. Riker was indignant, and pub- lished his sentiments in defence of his friend so freely that it caused a challenge to fight to be sent to him by Colonel Swartwout's brother Robert.
Young Riker, brave as he was generous, accepted the challenge .. They fought at Weehawken, near where General Hamilton fell a few months later. Mr. Pierre C. Van Wyck was Mr. Riker's second. At the word given Riker fell, severely wounded in the right leg a little above the ankle joint.
The wounded man was taken on a litter to his house in Wall Street, near the old City Hall, where he then kept bachelor's hall with his brother. Dr. Richard Kissam, his warm friend, was in immediate attendance.
" Would you like a consultation of surgeons ?" asked Kissam.
" What would be the result ?" inquired Riker.
" The result would be that the leg must be taken off, " was the reply.
" What chance do I stand for my life by keeping my limb ?" in- quired the sufferer.
'. One chance in ten," was the reply.
" I accept the chance cheerfully," said Riker ; "' so now, my friend, do what you can, and by the aid of the Almighty and a fine constitu- tion I may vet save both limb and life."
This duel was fought on November 14, 1803. When Swartwout was afterward asked how Riker appeared on the field he replied, " As brave as Julius Caesar."
, Mr. Riker's political enemies tried to have the wounded man arrested for the misdemeanor of fighting a duel, but his friend General Hamilton persuaded the law officers to stop the proceedings. At that time Mr. Riker was deputy attorney-general of the State. The wound made him lame all his life.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
". It is a pity," says Edwards, " Halleck, so full of heart himself, should, in mere playfulness, have penned and allowed the following incorrectness to go in type in his poem, ' The Recorder,' published in 1-28 :
"' The Recorder, like Bob Acres, stood Edgewise upon a field of blood, The why and wherefore Swartwont knows ; Pulled trigger, as a brave man should, And shot, God bless them, his own toes.'"
In the same poem Halleck wrote :
" My dear Recorder, you and I Have floated down life's stream together, And kept unharmed our friendship's tie, Through every change in Fortune's sky, Her pleasant and her rainy weather."
As an instance of Mr. Riker's engaging manner, it is related that when John Van Wyck took Swartwout's challenge to him (who was apprised of the errand), he cheerfully invited the bearer into his office, saying unconcernedly that he had an interesting law case, and would like to have Van Wyck's views upon it. So pleasant and kindly was the impression which was made of Riker in the mind of Swartwout's messenger that he went back and told his principal he would not act as his second.
Recorder Riker's methods in quelling riots-using kindness instead of ball and bayonet-were marvellously successful. Undoubtedly his own personal character had much to do in his achieving success.
On one occasion there was a riot in the Five Points, then the worst sink of iniquity in the city. Men, women, and children were hurling missiles of every kind in a fearful manner. The recorder was urged to call out the military to suppress the disturbance. The mob was com- posed largely of Irish. He called on the aged Father O'Brien, a Roman Catholic priest. and invited him to assist in quieting the mob. The good priest put on his stole, and with a missal in hand walked arm-in-arm with the recorder to the scene of excitement. The priest went reading his book. In an instant after he appeared the mob began to disperse, and very soon disappeared down cellar steps and through narrow alleys. Before the two had reached the Points, not a person was to be seen.
On another occasion, returning in the evening from his almost daily visit to his aged mother, "up-town," near Canal Street, the recorder
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
saw a crowd of white men in Broadway, near Anthony (now Worth) Street, fiercely attacking a house occupied by colored people, and pelting them with missiles as they attempted to leave the house. The occasion for the attack was the marriage of a white girl to a negro. The frightened inmates rushed to the street for safety just as the recorder appeared. He went into the midst of the colored people and told them to gather around him and he would protect them. Missiles were flying thick and fast. Mr. Riker called on the assailants to stop. A voice cried out :
" That's the recorder ; don't throw those stones !"
The assailants obeyed, and then shouted, " Hurrah for the recorder ! let him pass."
Mr. Riker led the colored people in safety to the City Hall, where they were kept in security until morning .*
At this period the Tammany Society or Columbian Order, at first organized as a patriotic, benevolent, and social institution at the begin- ning of Washington's first term as President, was a controlling power in the Democratic party in the city of New York, and has been ever since.
It was founded chiefly through the exertions of William Mooney, an upholsterer in New York City. Its first meeting was held on May 13, 1789, about a fortnight after Washington's inauguration in the New York City Hall. The society took its name from St. Tammany or Tammanend, a noted Delaware chief, supposed to have been one of those who made the famous treaty with William Penn. It was a tra-
* Richard Riker was born at the family homestead on the shore of Bowery Bay, L. I .. just opposite Riker's Island, on September 9, 1773. The tract of land on which his birth- place stood was given by William, Prince of Orange, in 1630, to Geysbert Riker, the pro- genitor of the family in this country. The house in which he was born was burned by the British during the old war for independence ; for his father, Samuel Riker, was a leading patriot in that region, and his mother, Anna Lawrence, was the daughter of an- other zealous patriot, Thomas Lawrence. It was rebuilt at the close of the Revolution.
Mr. Riker's father was an active member of the Committee of Correspondence of the town of Newtown, a lieutenant of a troop of light-horsemen, and the first supervisor of the town elected by the people at the close of the war, 1783. It is related that when Richard was three years of age a British officer and some of his men were quartered upon the family of Mr. Lawrence, Mrs. Riker's father. She was then an inmate of the house. One day the little boy was playing on the grass, near where the officers were sitting, watched by his mother. The boy, perceiving a small ornamented dirk in the officer's belt, suddenly seized it, drew it from its sheath, and thrusting it toward the officer, said :
" Dis is the way my papa 'ticks the Reg'lars. "
The officer, amused by the spirit of the boy, playfully caught him in his arms and said :
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dition that he "loved liberty more than life," and he was therefore chosen to be the tutelar saint of the new patriotic organization. Tam- many was canonized by his admirers during the old war for indepen- dence, and he was established as the tutelar saint of the new Republic.
In imitation of a similar society which had been formed in Philadel- phia. the officers consisted of a grand sachem and thirteen inferior sachems, representing the President of the United States and the governors of the thirteen States. Besides these there was a grand council, of which the sachems were members. It very soon became exceedingly popular, and its membership included most of the best men of New York City. No party politics were allowed to be discussed at its meetings.
But circumstances soon changed the character of the association. On account of the violent resistance to law of the secret Democratic societies at the time of the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794, President Washington denounced "self-constituted societies." Nearly all the members of the Tammany Society, believing they were included in this condemnation, withdrew from it. Mooney and others adhered to the organization, and from that time it became a political society, taking sides with Jefferson and the Democratic party, of which he was the father. They first met as such at Martling's Long Room, on the south-east corner of Nassau and Spruce streets.
In the year 1800 the Tammany Society determined to build a " wig- wam, " and Tammany Hall, after considerable delay, was erected, on the site of Martling's. The corner-stone was laid in May, 1811, and the
" If I meet your father in battle, I will spare him for your sake, my brave little fellow !"' Richard received a good English education, and studied law with Samuel Jones. A fellow-student was De Witt Clinton. They there formed a mutual friendship, which was warm and unbroken until death.
In early manhood Riker was deputy attorney-general of the State of New York, and afterward a Supreme Court commissioner. General Hamilton was his personal and political friend. At past thirty years of age he married a daughter of Daniel Phoenix, a leading man in New York City. He was one of a party who received General Washing. ton at Fraunce's tavern, and read an address of the citizens to him after the evacuation of the city by the British, in November, 1783. Mr. Pha nix was for many years treasurer of the city. Mr. Riker was married (probably) at Mr. Phonix's country residence at Greenwich Village, on Manhattan Island.
. Mr. Riker was first chosen recorder of the city in 1815, and served four years. He was again chosen in 1821, and served two years, and being appointed recorder again in 1824, he served fourteen years successively. He died at " Arch Brook," his country residence, at the foot of Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth streets ( East River), in New York City, on October 16. 1842. He has two daughters living in the city of New York-Mrs. Samuel Spring and Mrs. Harris Wilson.
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hall was finished the next year. The venerable Jacob Barker, who died in Philadelphia in 1871 at the age of ninety-two years, was the last survivor of the building committee of thirteen. This hall was abandoned a few years ago (now occupied by the Sun newspaper estab- lishment), and a new building was erected in Fourteenth Street, not far from Irving Place.
One of the most active members of the Tammany Society for many years was the Hon. Clarkson Crolius, who was the grand sachem or sagamore of the institution. Year after year the political and social power of the Tammany Society increased, and now it is considered the most thoroughly organized body of the kind in the Republic. It ordi- marily polls about half of the entire vote of the city. It has com- mittees in every district in the city, and a central or general com- mittee of over eleven hundred members. This committee is, in theory, the head of the party, but usually the most active and in- fluential member of the party-a " boss"-controls that committee by seeing that only such men as suit his views are chosen by it. The executive body of this central committee is the Committee on Disci- pline, of which, generally, the chief of the party is chairman. Before the Committee on Discipline any member, either of a district committee or of the central committee, may be summoned and tried for party dis- loyalty, and, if found guilty, expelled."
It was at the beginning of this decade that political party spirit, which had been kept partially subordinate to the public good for ser- eral years, appeared in a most aggressive and alarming aspect. It had been aroused, fostered, and stimulated by the events of the presidential election which placed General Andrew Jackson in the chair of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, in the spring of 1829.
A disturbing and dangerous element had now begun to appear prom- inently in our political system. The practical effects of universal suffrage, very little restricted, had opened a wide door for the political
* The device of the certificate of membership adopted by the society was a pointed arch composed of two cornucopias resting on two columns, on each side of which were two figures, one of Liberty, the other of Justice. On a pedestal bearing the former were the figures 1776 ; on that bearing the latter were the figures 1789. Below the foundation upon which the two columns rest is an arch resting upon rocks. The arch is composed of thirteen stones, bearing the respective names of the thirteen original States. The key-stone is Pennsylvania, and it is supposed by some that this feature in the Tammany certificate of membership was the origin of the calling of Pennsylvania the Keystone State. Below this areh is a view of land and water and symbols of agriculture and com- merce. The certificate was designed by Dr. Charles Buxton, and engraved on copper by George Graham.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
influences of a new class of citizens. These were aliens from Europe, most of them illiterate, and all of them strangers to our laws and our free institutions. These immigrants were mostly from Ireland. They were met by naturalization laws which discriminated in their favor, as to native-born citizens.
The American citizen arriving at the "age of accountability" has to wait seven years before he may exercise the great right and privilege of the elective franchise ; the foreigner, however ignorant or debased, might attain that grand acquisition of American citizenship in fire years.
This discrimination had been made by a party in power for the pur- pose of securing the votes of these foreigners, of whom fully ninety per cent could neither read nor write, and who, as a rule, could be bought and sold like " dumb, driven cattle." New York City, into which a greater portion of the tide of foreign immigration was pouring at that time, was the first to experience the pernicious effects of the new order of things. These effects were rapidly developed, and it was not long before sensible and observing men perceived, with anxiety if not alarm, that the elections were becoming more and more mere shad- owy imitations of the grand institution they pretended to represent. Instead of being the theatre for the exercise of one of the holiest rights and privileges of an American citizen, it had become a place of traffic between demagogues and ignorant voters, in which the commodities exchanged were the products of knaves and dupes. The vicious system then developed logically led to the fearful election riots of 1834, which will be considered presently.
Let us now turn to a more pleasant theme.
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CHAPTER XIII.
A WRITER in 1850, alluding to the period of the first decade, said it was "the Augustan age of American literature." It was, in- deed, comparatively so, for there was then a brilliant constellation of intellectual lights of various magnitude in the firmament of letters. A large number of these were then in New York City. Such a cluster had never been seen before. There were veteran writers whose laurels were secure ; there were young aspirants for fame which they after- ward obtained in full measure.
There was also at that time a remarkable cluster of artists in the city of New York : some veterans wearing their laurels proudly, others of rare promise, who then and afterward fully vindicated the claims of American artists to the meed of superior excellence.
The literary men and artists were working together in the spirit of fraternal love. The recent creation of the National Academy of the Arts of Design ; the Sketch Club, with its twofold character, and other pleasant associations had brought the men of letters and of art into closer social communion than they ever had been before. There was then another bond of union still more potent than these. It was the New York Mirror, whose editor-in-chief and proprietor was George P. Morris, the eminent lyric poet. In its pages appeared the contribu- tions of all the leading literary men of the day, and in its few illustra- tions were displayed the genius of the best painters, draughtsmen, and engravers of the time in the city of New York. The Mirror was the most generous patron of literature and the fine arts of that time, and had a deservedly high reputation and wide circulation.
In the opening number of the ninth volume of the Mirror (1831-32) appeared a remarkable poetical contribution, in which the literati and the artists (painters, engravers, and musicians) who contributed to its pages were introduced by name. The poem was from the pen of an anonymous correspondent. General T. S. Cummings, who was one of the. leading artists of the day, and now (1883) one of the three sur- vivors of the founders of the National Academy of the Arts of Design, is quite certain the author was A. J. Mason, an Englishman, who was
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one of the most expert engravers on wood of that time. Mr. Mason had come to New York in 1829, and in 1832 was chosen professor of wood engraving in the National Academy of the Arts of Design .*
The poem alluded to was entitled " The Ninth Anniversary : A Dra- matic Medley in one Act." The dramatis persone were, of Immor- tals, the nine Muses, and of Mortals, the editors, collector, and " printer's devil " of the Mirror, and the librarian of Clinton Hall.
Three of the goddesses-Polyhymnia, the muse that presides over singing and rhetoric ; Erato, the presiding genius of lyric and tender poetry, and Terpsichore, the muse presiding over dancing-are first represented in a scene on the Battery, with music in Castle Garden. It is moonlight, and they begin chanting thus :
" Polyhymnia. When shall we three meet again In honor of the Mirror's reign ? Erato. When the present volume's done, When the Ninth is Number One. Terpsichore. That won't be till June has run. Pol. Where's the place ? Era. Within the Park.+ Terp. There to meet with- Era. M-s.t Terp. Hark !
* Abraham J. Mason was born in London, April 4, 1794, and became an orphan at the age of nine years. In 1808 he was bound as an apprentice to the wood engraver, Robert Branston, for seven years. He remained with Branston as assistant five years more. He engraved on metals also, but in 1821 he engaged in engraving on wood, professionally, on his own account. In 1826 he was chosen a member of the Royal Incorporated Artists, and the next year was on the committee of management of the London Mechanics' Insti- tution. He delivered a discourse on the history of wood engraving before members of that body, and was invited to repeat it before the Royal Institution of Great Britain. It was given in the spring of 1820, before the literary men of the country. In the summer he gave a full course of lectures on the subject before the Mechanics' Institution. In the autumn of that year Mr. Mason came to the United States with his family, bringing with him letters of introduction from eminent men (among them Lord Brougham) to Dr. Hosack and other scientific men in the city of New York. He was made an associate of the National Academy of the Arts of Design in 1830, and delivered his course of lectures before that body. In 1832 he was chosen professor of wood engraving to the Academy. He also lectured in Boston. He was an anonymous contributor to the Mirror, and some of his engravings appear in that periodical.
So limited was the demand for wood engravings in this country that Mr. Mason returned to England late in 1838. He was a poet as well as an artist. I have a copy of a little volume entitled " Poetical Essays, by A. J. Mason," illustrated with exquisite wood engravings by himself, and printed in London in 1822. The engravings are from designs by John Thurston.
t The Park Theatre.
# Morris.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Pol. I come, Euterpe. Era. Clio calls From the Castle Garden walls. All. Fair or fonl, we pay no fare, Hover o'er the bridge, and through the air."
1
Euterpe, the presiding genius of music ; Thalia, the muse who pre- sides over comic poetry, and Clio, the genius of history, meet in the Park Theatre, while music is resounding from Peale's Museum. They enter into conversation thus :
" Euterpe. Where hast thou been, sister, say ? Thalia. Strolling up and down Broadway,
Stripping vice of its disguise,
Shooting folly as it flies.
Paulding * now demands my aid ;
That's a call I can't evade.
Halleck + asks no favors, bless him !
All the sisters so caress him.
Cox, # you know, in Albion's isle
Waits for my inspiring smile ;
Thither in a shell I'll sail,
Bannered with a peacock's tail ;
He will folly's emblem view,
And then he'll do, he'll do, he'll do !
Eut. I'll give thee a favoring wind.
Thal. Thank thee, sister, thou art kind.
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