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 33
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From the beginning the Lancastrian system of popular education and school government had been in operation in the public schools of New York. It was so called from Joseph Lancaster, an Englishman, who at the beginning of this century introduced into England a method adopted by Dr. Bell at the English hospital in Madras in 1795. It consisted of the employment of monitors, or really assistants of the teacher, composed of some of the brightest boys and girls in school. who each had charge of the discipline and tuition of a section of the schools. They enforced discipline by watchfulness and prompt report- ing to the teacher, and taught by rote under his instruction.
This system was intended to secure the public teaching of children in the most economical way, and so well effected its purpose for years that its power and usefulness were much praised. Ordinarily a teacher could not well manage over seventy or eighty pupils in well- organized classes ; by the monitorial system one teacher could manage a school of three or four hundred children.
While the Free School Society in New York was preparing to begin operations, one of its members being in England visited a school near London, which Lancaster had opened in 1801. He was deeply im- pressed with the great value of the new system, and on his return he succeeded in persuading the society to adopt the system. Lancaster was a Friend or Quaker, and when he came to New York in 1820 the members of the Society who were Friends, and many others, received him most cordially. But he had nothing new to offer. The system bearing his name had been tested for years. It had many adherents
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and as many opponents. It had not borne the anticipated fruit. Ile acknowledged that he had only trodden in the footsteps of Dr. Bell, and was not the originator of the system. Personally he was not very agreeable, and his residence in this country did not advance the spread of his system. It gradually declined in favor, and was finally aban- doned.
Meanwhile an innovation in education had begun to develop itself in New York. It was a practical testing of the system of Pestalozzi, who sought to educate infants by a combination of industrial, enter- taining, intellectual, and moral instruction, without the use of books, and by oral and object teaching entirely-the fundamental ideas of the kindergarten system of Froebel.
This system was put in practice in New York by an association of ladies called the Infant School Society, of which Mrs. Joanna Bethune was the chief manager. The ages of the children instructed ranged from two to six years. At that time the public schools were not graded, and the youngest children were taught with the oldest in one department, promiscuously. The trustees, pleased with the Pestaloz- zian system, ventured upon the experiment of separating the younger children from the older pupils, and in May, 1828, an infant department was opened in a basement of one of the public schools, and the counsel and assistance of ladies of the Infant School Society (then having a school of one hundred and seventy pupils in Canal Street) solicited.
In the new organization of the public schools, begun in 1832 on a positively free basis, the schools were graded. They were classed- first, as " public schools," having the more advanced boys and girls in separate departments ; second, " primary departments," which were modified infant schools ; and third, "primary schools." Both the lower orders of the school were to make regular promotions to the public schools. Radical changes were made in the upper departments. The course of study was greatly extended, assistant teachers were om- ployed, and separate recitation-rooms provided. Paid monitors were retained. Late in 1832 the managers of the Manumission Society proposed to transfer the six or seven African schools, as they were called, with a register of nearly fourteen hundred pupils, to the Public School Society. This was effected in 1834.
In the summer of 1832 the medical fraternity and the various methods of therapeutics in New York were severely tested on the invasion of the city by a dreadful scourge called the Asiatic cholera. Its approach westward from the Orient had been slow, and had been watched with great interest by medical men in Western Europe and in
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the United States. It seems to have started westward from nearly the same point in Central Asia whence the great Indo-European migra- tions proceeded. It was several years before it entered Europe. It reached England in 1831, and ravaged the United Kingdom. It was carried to Quebec in the spring of 1832 in Irish emigrant ships. It spread along the St. Lawrence River to the great lakes, and fearfully scourged the north-western region of the United States.
Believing the dreadful scourge would pass across the continent and disappear without touching the more southerly States, very few sani- tary measures were adopted in the city of New York, where its twin pestilence, yellow fever, had often done fearful work. But when the footsteps of the destroyer were heard in the valley of the Upper Hud- son, making its death-march from Montreal in the direction of the sea. the city authorities of New York took measures to prevent its advent there by cleaning the streets. But this was not done until the grim visitor was at the threshold. So late as the middle of July one of the city papers said :
" The corporation have not done their duty. The streets have at length been cleaned : how long they will continue to be kept so we know not. This laudable event was accomplished, not as it should have been, when the dreaded scourge was evidently rolling westward -to Newcastle, London, Paris, Liverpool-not even when it blazed forth in Canada; but when it startled us by rising up actually in the midst of us, then efficient numbers of men began to appear with brooms, and the streets looked less filthy. We would like to see a man with such decision as Napoleon in this crisis. He would not sit in his arm-chair and recommend people to do this and to do that. He would never rest until he saw it done."
Over three thousand five hundred persons were swept from the earth in the city of New York by the cholera in 1832. It came so suddenly and unexpectedly, after all, that it created a fearful panic, a flight of the inhabitants to the country, and a great paralysis of business. It reappeared in 1834, killing about one thousand persons, and again in 1849, when a very large number perished from this pestilence. In 1855 three hundred and seventy-four persons died of the disease in New York. Its last appearance there, with power, was in 1866, when more than twelve hundred persons died of the disease.
The prominent physicians in the city of New York at that time were Drs. Hosack, Franeis, Mott. Maeneven, Post, Griscom, Stearns, Willard Parker, Gray, and others. Some were veterans : some physicians not here named were then aspirants for the fame they afterward enjoyed.
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During the quarter of the century previous to the dreadful pesti- Ince medical science had made wonderful strides toward perfection in the city. Medical institutions had vastly increased the means for diffusing professional enlightenment, and collateral branches of science had come to the aid of the medical profession with generous power, with improved apparatus, and with positive knowledge taught by phi- losophy. Medical and scientific literature had been far more extensively and persistently cultivated than before, and the practical displays of clinical science had begun to furnish instruction to the masters of the medical art abroad. Collegiate education among practitioners had become far more extensively diffused than formerly, and the profession had become fully awake to the wisdom of Dr. Abernethy's words : " The hospital is the college to build up the practitioners."
At the time of the outbreak of the cholera in New York City the skill, zeal, and benevolence of the medical faculty were conspicuous ; but these qualities were not properly complemented by vigilance and energy wisely directed on the part of the municipal authorities. To this allusion has already been made. Had the city then, as now, pos- sessed an energetic and enlightened sanitary commission, or board of health, to co-operate with the physicians by diminishing the causes of disease, probably one half of the victims of cholera might have been saved from death. The city then, as now, possessed great topographi- cal advantages for the conservation of health, but either from igno- rance or indifference the public mind seemed stupefied, and could not, even by such dreadful shocks as those given by yellow fever and the cholera, comprehend the vital importance of employing every sanitary remedy in their power for foiling the destructive dragon of disease.
There was, indeed, a Health Department of the city government, which had been established by an act of the Legislature passed March 26, 1813, to " provide against infectious diseases." Its functions were divided into two classes of operation-one to guard against the recur- rence of pestilential diseases from abroad, and the other to guard against their origination from any domestic cause. The first class was composed of the health officer, the health commission, and a resident physician, all appointed by the governor and having cognizance of the affairs at Quarantine and the Marine Hospital on Staten Island. The other' class-the guardians of the health of the city against internal dangers originating' there-was composed of the mayor, recorder, and aldermen, appointed annually by the common council. It might con- sist of as many persons as should be thought proper, but as a rule only the functionaries mentioned composed the Health Department of the
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city proper. Their duties consisted in enforcing the State and munici- pal laws which related to the public health, and the enacting of laws and ordinances respecting the removal of nuisances and the preserva- tion of cleanliness.
In the spring of 1834 the mayor of New York City was elected by the people for the first time in its history. Party polities then ran high. Never since the marshalling of the hosts of the Federal and Republican parties for the mighty conflict for the prize of the Presi- dency of the United States at the close of the last century had party spirit appeared so virulent and uncompromising.
The energetic administration of President' Jackson had won for him a host of warm adherents and arraved against him a host of bitter opponents. The heroic methods of his warfare against the United States Bank had intensified the animosity of his political enemies to a degree almost incredible.
Nowhere was party spirit more implacable than in the city of New York, and nowhere were more dangerous elements of society seen menacing the sanctity of the ballot-box than in New York at this juncture. Easy naturalization laws, as we have observed, had created, out of often ignorant and sometimes depraved foreign immigrants, American citizens, endowed with all the tremendous power for good or ill which a secret ballot implies in a republic, and disposed to wield their power as demagogues might direct. Both political parties sought the control of the votes of the new-born citizens. It gravitated to the Democratic side in politics, the idea involved in the name democrat having a potent influence in their decision.
At the time under consideration the Democratic majority in the city was very large, but a feud was then distracting the organization, dis- turbing its harmony, weakening its power, and shaking its integrity to its foundations. Influenced by the teachings of Fanny Wright, a strong-minded Scotch woman who had lectured extensively in the United States in the inculcation of a sort of social communism. an " Equal Rights party," as it called itself, had grown to quite a power- ,ful faction in the Democratic party. It had great influence in the councils of Tammany Hall, the rallying-place of the party, and the result was a split early in 1834. At a meeting at Tammany Hall, where the two factions were assembled. each assumed the leadership.
Bitter strife ensued. Both parties claimed the right to the chair and the management of the meeting. Violent words were speedily followed by violent action. One party made a rush to remove the chairman and his fellow-officers by force. A grand row ensued, and
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considerable personal violence was used. During the fracas some one turned off the gas, leaving the room in darkness. One of the Equal Rights men, or Radicals, having some loco-foco matches in his pocket, relighted the lamps, and the business of the meeting proceeded. "I was one of the vice-presidents." wrote one of the actors, "and was compelled to buy a new suit of clothes the next day, and in a short time the whole Democratic party were known as Loco-Focos."
The opponents of the Democrats were then called Whigs. They had recently been so named by Colonel James Watson Webb, the chief editor and proprietor of the New York Courier and Enquirer. While attending a convention of the Anti-Masonic party at Philadelphia in 1832, which nominated William Wirt for the Presidency of the United States, he wrote a letter to his journal over his own proper signature, giving an account of the convention, in which he pointed out the folly of the opponents of General Jackson wasting their energies by being cut up into different factions, such as Anti-Masons, Anti-Slavery men, Republicans, National Republicans, etc. He set forth the importance of union under one head-one rallying name --- to fight what he deemed the dangerous Democracy. Ile reminded his political friends, aside from the great issues of the tariff and the United States Bank, that they were fighting for the restriction of executive power against those who were laboring to increase it, as Jackson had practised in his war against the bank, the currency, and the tariff ; that they were, in fact, battling for the Constitution against Executive usurpation.
" We are therefore Whigs," he said, "while our opponents are waging war to sustain the Executive in his usurpations of power, and in so doing they are Tories ! Why not, then, take to ourselves the name of Whigs, which represents our principles, and give to cur oppo- nents the name of Tories ?"
Colonel Webb proceeded to show that many of the evils under which the country was suffering emanated from the President being eligible to re-election, and he urgently recommended the great opposition meeting, that was to assemble at Masonic Hall in Broadway, to adopt for those opposed to General Jackson's re-election the name of Whig, and to give to their opponents that of Tory. He also urged the adop- tion of a resolution in favor of the one-term principle.
Colonel Webb's letter was published on the morning of the day that the great meeting at Tammany Hall took place. Philip Hone * pre-
Philip Hone was one of the most distinguished men of New York City, where he was born in 1781, and where he died on May 4, 1851. He exerted a marked influence in
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sided at the meeting, and on taking the chair he read the letter to the people and suggested the adoption of the name of Whig for the great opposition party. The response was unanimous, not only at the meet- ing assembled at Masonic Hall, but by the opposition press and people all over the country. So it was that the great historic political organi- zation known as the Whig party received its name in 1832.
At the time of the municipal election in New York in the spring of 1834, the Whig party, thoroughly organized, was strong in numbers and influence, while the Democratic party was weakened by strife within its ranks. This state of things promised a hot contest for the mayor- alty, and there were foreboding's of personal conflicts at the polls. It that time the election continued three days.
Gideon Lee, the eminent leather merchant of The Swamp. was then mayor of the city, and a Democrat in politics .* Cornelius W. Law-
politics, commerce, and social life in New York for more than forty years. With his brother he was a successful business man, amassed a fortune, and retired from the marts, but not from active citizenship. He was ever ardently devoted to whatever measures tended to the promotion of the prosperity and honor of his native city. He was its chief magistrate in 1825-26, and was a model mayor. He was one of the chief founders of the Mercantile Library, and also of the New York Athenaeum. The latter institution was largely indebted to him for its early prosperity. Mr. Hone was ever an active and abiding promoter of literature and art, and while he lived he was a conspicuous actor in all the more elevated social movements in the city. A genuine New Yorker of the Knicker- bocker race, he was enlightened and progressive. The Hone Club, an association of rare spirits, was so named in his honor. President Taylor appointed Mr. Hone naval officer for the port of New York in 1849, in the duties of which he was engaged at the time of his death.
* Gideon Lee was born in Amherst, Mass., on April 27, 1778. His father died when Gideon was very young, and the boy was apprenticed to a tanner and shoemaker (these pursuits then being carried on together) at fourteen years of age. He worked at tanning in the summer and shoemaking in the winter.
Lee began business on his own account when he was twenty-one years of age, at Worthington, Mass. His early education was very meagre, and the first money he could spare from his young manhood's earnings he spent in acquiring knowledge at Westfield Academy. He formed a partnership with Mr. Hubbard, and Lee & Hubbard tanned leather for the firm of Dwight & Edwards, quite extensive dealers in leather. In 1807 he went to New York to act as agent for the sale of their leather there, at a salary of $1000 a year.
'The next year Mr. Lee hired a store in The Swamp of Jacob Lorillard, and set up in business for himself at the corner of Jacob and Ferry streets, which he called " Fort Lec." The whole business of The Swamp was then small. One firm now does almost as much business in a year as the aggregate firms in that locality did then. The usual practice with the leather dealers then was to make annual settlements. Mr. Lee was the first to depart from the custom, and to sell on time, taking negotiable notes in payment.
In 1809 he became the agent of the Hampton Leather Manufacturing Company, and soon won for himself a high name for energy and fidelity.
In 1817 the New York Tannery was established by a stock company, of which Mr. Lee
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rence. of the auction house of Hicks, Lawrence & Co., was the Demo- eratie candidate for the mayoralty, and Gulian C. Verplanck was the opposing candidate. The election was begun on Tuesday, the 8th of April, and ended on Thursday evening, the 10th. All votes were then polled at one place in each ward. There were then fifteen polling- places in the city ; now there are about two hundred of them, and the election consumes only one day between sunrise and sunset.
The morning of the Sth was dark and stormy. A chilling rain fell
was conspicuous. Its capital was $60,000. The factory was entirely under cover, and could tan 10,000 hides a year. It was planned by Mr. Lee, and was the first so built. Its tirst product was sent to market in 1818, when the novel plan of selling leather by anction was first introduced. He had erected on land bought in 1815, in Ferry Street, what was then regarded as a very spacious warehouse, a two-story brick building, in which the leather was hoisted by horse power-a great novelty then.
Mr. Lee had a clerk of most excellent character. He was energetic in business, and honest and true in all his transactions. Knowing his worth, he took him into partner- ship in 1819. That clerk was the afterward well-known and highly-esteemed Shepherd Knapp. The firm of Lee & Knapp flourished without intermission twenty years. The auction sales became an institution in The Swamp. Other dealers soon followed snit. Manufacturers came from the adjacent States to attend them, to lay in supplies of leather. On the day of sales a table would be spread with plenty of " meat and drink." Lee & Knapp also engaged largely in the business of stocking tanneries with hides and selling the leather on commission.
Mr. Lee was uniformly prosperous in his business undertakings, and while he was not a politician in. the common meaning of the term, he was a man of strong political con- victions. In 1822 he represented his district in the Assembly of the State of New York. In 1828-29 and 1830 he was alderman of the Twelfth Ward, and in 1833-34 he was mayor of the city. It was during his mayoralty that the famous " election riots" of 1834 took place, in which trying time he displayed energy and wisdom. He declined a re- election.
In 1835 Mr. Lee was elected a member of Congress, and served two consecutive terms by re-election. - In 1840 he was chosen presidential elector. He had retired from busi- ness in 1839, when the old firm was succeeded by his son-in-law, Charles M. Leupp, and John Burke. In 1830 Mr. Lee built his lofty store in Ferry Street, the first structure over two stories in height built in the neighborhood.
Mr. Lee was twice married-first in 1807 to Miss Buffington, who died in 1818, and in 1823 to Miss Isabella Williams, daughter of a Scotch clergyman. He lived some years in Frankfort Street, afterward near the present Astor Place, and finally built a fine house on Bond Street, which became the fashionable part of the city. During the last few years of his life his residence was at Geneva, N. Y., where he died, August 21, 1841, at the age of sixty-three years, leaving a large estate and an honored and stainless name. Alluding to a report of the failure of his house during the panic of 1837. Mr. Lee said : " I commenced business when I was poor, on credit ; I thrived by credit ; and I will sacrifice my property before that credit shall bo dishonored. I have carried the lapstone, and can do it again, but I will never suffer a promise of mine to be broken."
" Mr. Lee was justly called the ' father of the leather trade,' " says a writer in the Shoe and Leather Reporter, published by Isaac II. Bailey, from which the principal facts in the foregoing sketch were obtained.
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copiously until nearly ten o'clock, but it did not dampen the ardor of the opposing hosts of voters. The popular feeling was at fever heat. and men went through the storm in crowds to the polls, some to de- posit an honest vote, and some to vote "early and often." It was the opening of the most exciting election ever held in the city of New York. Many left their places of business with subordinates, deter- mined to " fight it out" with moral weapons to the bitter end ; many others went from their abodes determined to fight it out with brute force if necessary. The Democrats were determined to elect their' candidate ; the Whigs were determined to elect theirs. "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war."
The Democrats were deeply incensed by the undemocratic name of Tories which the Whigs applied to them, and were especially offended with the editor of the Courier and Enquirer as the originator of the opprobrious title. Much wrath was directed toward him and his pub- lishing establishment, as we shall observe presently.
There were evidences visible at an early hour in the election that there was a determination on the part of some demagogues to use the brute force of ignorant naturalized citizens, in wards where they largely abounded, in driving the Whigs from the polls. The latter had un- fairly, in accordance with the vicious maxim, " All's fair in politics," wrested the words of President Jackson, "Perish credit, perish commerce," from their proper context, and had used them to inflame the business community against him and his supporters.
These words were posted all over the city in large letters, and pro- duced great excitement and determination. The seamen in the port naturally coalesced with the Whigs. They rigged up a little frigate which they named the Constitution, mounted it on wheels, and with Whig banners floating over it paraded it past the polls in different wards. In Wall Street, the focal point of commercial transactions, it was greeted with great enthusiasm. At twelve o'clock the Merchants' Exchange was closed. the national flag was unfurled over its lofty dome, and its inmates and frequenters, with many others, ummindful of the mud and drizzling rain, fell into a procession behind the little vessel.
To counteract the effect of this demonstration, the Democrats hastily fitted up a boat, mounted it on wheels, and raised a flag over it bearing the word " VETO" in large letters. The two vessels went through the streets side by side for a while, the recipients, respectively, of approv- ing huzzas and bitter execrations. It was evident that a collision would occur, but the authorities seemed powerless to suppress these demonstrations.
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