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 37
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On the following day the mob spirit broke out with fresh vigor. In the Bowery, near Broome Street, was a tavern called the Green Dragon, a favorite resort of the Irish. A mob of the baser sort of Americans attacked it, broke in the doors and windows, and sacked the house. The mayor, Police-Justice Lowndes, and a strong force of police hastened to the scene. Several prominent citizens also interfered in trying to quell the riot. Several of these were wounded (Justice Lowndes severely so) by missiles hurled by the mob. . Such scenes occurred the next day, when public notice was given by the proprietors of the Bleecker Street House that a meeting of the O'Connell Guard would not be hell there. Peace and order soon succeeded this an- nouncement.
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1
In the year 1834 a change was made in the aspect of a portion of the City Hall Park. On its eastern border stood a building of rough stone, comely in its style of architecture, three stories in height, with dormer windows and a cupola. It was the Debtors' Prison. The building had been erected for a prison before the Revolution, and was known as the New Jail. During the occupation of the city by the British (1776-83) it was used as a prison for notable American captives. and was called the Provost. It was in charge of the notorious William Cunningham, the British provost-marshal, who made it famous by his crimes.
After the Revolution the Provost was used as a debtors' prison. common felons being confined in the Bridewell, which stood in the Park between the City Hall and Broadway. In 1830 this old prison was converted into a building for the safe keeping of the county records. All above the second story was demolished ; a roof with very little pitch and covered with copper was substituted for the old one ; a Grecian portico was added to the northern and southern ends, giving it, with other modifications, an imitation of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and was stuecoed in imitation of blocks of marble.
While yet in an unfinished state, this Hall of Records, as it was named, was used as a hospital while the city was afflicted with the cholera scourge in 1832. When it was completed in 1834 the offices of the register, comptroller, street commissioner, and surrogate were estab- lished in it. Gradually the various kinds of public business so increased that in 1869 the whole building was given up to the use of the register. It has been repaired at heavy expense from time to time.
The year 1835 was made memorable by the most disastrous confla- gration that ever afflicted the city. There had been some famous fires before, which had figured in the history of the town.
The first of these notable conflagrations was a series of fires that occurred almost simultaneously in different parts of the little city in the spring of 1741, the time of the so-called Negro Plot, already de- scribed on page 21.
The next most notable fire occurred on the 21st of September, 1776, just after the British army had invaded Manhattan Island and were about to enter the city from the north. mentioned on page 41. Dur- ing the British occupation of the city a destructive fire. occurred. laying sixty-four houses, besides stores, in ashes. See page 43.
. The famous " Coffee-House Slip fire" broke out at Murray's Wharf. foot of Wall Street, between one and two o'clock on the morning of December 9, 1796, and before it was arrested laid in ashes about fifty
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buildings well stocked with merchandise. The destruction was com- plete in the space of about four hours. The fire extended from Wall Street to Maiden Lane.
C'offee-House Slip was the scene of the beginning of another destruc- tive conflagration, which was kindled in a grocery-store in Front Street on the night of December 18, 1804. The air was keenly cold, the wind high, and the flames spread so rapidly that before they were checked forty buildings had been consumed, with most of their con- tents, the whole valued at nearly 82,000,000. Among the buildings destroyed was the famous old Coffee-House. At that time the popula- tion of the city was about seventy thousand. It possessed twenty- seven fire-engine companies and four hook-and-ladder companies.
On the morning of May 19, 1511, a very destructive fire began in a coachmaker's shop in Chatham Street, corner of Duane Street. The now venerable merchant, John Degrauw, a boy at the time, was pass- ing, when, discovering the fire, he ran down Chatham Street crying Fire ! and soon had the bell of the Debtors' Jail a-ringing. It was Sunday morning, and the church-bells were ringing, calling the people to worship. Many, supposing the fire-alarm to be a part of the tintin- nabulation, were tardy in appearing on the scene of the conflagration. The wind was high, and a drought was prevailing. Cinders were car- ried to the steeple of the Brick Church in Beekman Street, which was set on fire, but was soon extinguished. Before the flames were sub- dued, at three o'clock in the afternoon, more than one hundred build- ings of various kinds were consumed. Flakes of fire had ignited forty- three different buildings at some distance from the conflagration, but the flames did not spread .*
From 1811 until the great fire in New York in 1835, there were ser- eral pretty severe conflagrations, but none very extensive. The most notable was the burning of the widely known City Hotel in April, 1833, which had so long been the leading inn of the city.
The justly called great fire of 1835 was kindled in the store of Com- stock & Andrews, fancy dry-goods jobbers at No. 25 Merchant Street. corner of Pearl Street. The latter was a very narrow street, then recently opened, in the rear of the Exchange. The fire broke out about nine o'clock in the evening of December 16, 1835. The weather was intensely cold-so cold that water sent up from the fire engines feil in hail. The mercury marked several degrees below zero.
The conflagration seems to have been started by an overheated
* See Sheldon's " Story of the Volunteer Firemen of New York," pp. 174-194
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stove-pipe in the counting-room, where the flames were first discor. ered. The contents of the store were very combustible, and soon the interior of the building was a mass of flame.
The fire streamed out of the doors and windows, and the heat and burning cinders were carried by a strong wind against the stores on the opposite side of Pearl Street.
The fire department had labored nearly all the previous night in fighting a large conflagration at Burling Slip, where several stores were burned, and were less prompt in their arrival upon the scene of duty than usual, and it was more than half an hour before a stream of water was poured on the menaced buildings in Pearl Street. The hydrants, too, were mostly frozen, and the water in the slips was so low, owing to a long-continued north-west wind, that the firemen were unable, from the docks, to reach the water with their suction-pipes. The engines froze tight if not continually kept at work, and many of them were rendered useless from this cause. Under these circum- stances the fire rapidly gained headway, and narrow Merchant Street soon presented an impassable wall of fire. The only way to reach the focus of the conflagration was through William and Water streets and Old Slip.
With the engines bound by the frost and an inadequate supply of water, the firemen had nothing better offered them to do than to endeavor to save property by removal. To this task they actively and effectively devoted their strength. They were joined by merchants and citizens. Goods in immense quantities were carried out of igniting stores and piled in the Merchants' Exchange in Wall Street, in the Dutch Reformed Church in Garden Street, in Okl Shp, and in Hanover Square. But the fierce dragon of flame soon overtook them in these places of fancied security, and devoured the edifices with their precions contents. The splendid Exchange, with its beautiful interior arrange. ments and decorations, its grand colonnade, its lofty dome, and the fine marble statue of Alexander Hamilton by Ball Hughes, was soon reduced to a ghastly skeleton, blackened and broken. In the space of a few hours millions of dollars' worth of property which had been removed from stores, from place to place, for safety, had been destroyed in the places of refuge.
Many of the stores were new, supplied with strong. iron shutters, their roofs covered with copper and supplied with copper gutters, and were considered absolutely fire-proof. But the fervid heat crept from building to building under the roofs, and shot down with fury to the lower floors, setting everything ablaze within. When the shutters.
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warped with heat, were unfastened and flew open, the interior of these great stores appeared like huge glowing furnaces. The copper on their roofs was melted and fell like drops of burning sweat to the pave- ment.
The large East India warehouse of Peter Reisen & Co., standing on the northerly side of Hanover Square, was for a time an object of absorbing interest. It was filled with a full stock of valuable goods. Before the fire reached it, goods were cast out of the windows in the upper stories into the street, and with merchandise from the lower floors were piled in a huge mass in the square, which was thought to be a place of absolute safety. The roaring flames came swiftly on; Pearl Street on both sides was a sheet of fire, and a shower of living einders rained upon the pyramid of India goods in Hanover Square, and they disappeared like the figures in a dissolving view.
" Suddenly a terrible explosion occurred near by, with the noise of a cannon," wrote an eye-witness of the appalling scene. " The earth shook. We ran for safety, not knowing what might follow, and took refuge on the corner of Gouverneur Lane. Waiting for a few minutes, a second explosion took place, then another and another. During the space perhaps of half an hour shock after shock followed in rapid suc- cession, accompanied with the darkest, thickest clouds of smoke imagi- nable. The explosions came from a store in Front Street, near Old Slip, where large quantities of saltpetre in large bags had been stored. Suddenly the whole ignited, and out leaped the flaming streams of these neutral salts in their own peculiar colors, from every door and window. " *
At midnight the spreading of the fire was checked in one direction by the impassable barrier of the East River, across which a firebrand was carried by the wind and set fire to a house in Brooklyn! It was soon extinguished. The fire meanwhile spread toward Broadway. It was soon evident that the marble Exchange building was in great jeop- ardy. The Post-Office occupied a portion of it. After a consultation between the mayor, the postmaster, and others, its contents were removed to a place of safety just in time to avoid destruction. Scores of men tried to save the fine statue of Hamilton, but did not succeed, and that portrait of the great statesman soon became a part of the common ruin of the edifice which the merchants of New York were so proud of.
Gabriel P. Disosway. in the " History of the City of New York from the Discovery to the Present Day, " by William L. Stone. p. 473.
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The Garden Street Church and its adjoining burying-ground were piled with millions of dollars' worth of merchandise. The flames approached it, and the old fane with its precious contents and those on the surface of the graveyard melted before them like wax. There. too, was lost the venerable bell which called the people of New Amsterdam to worship within the fort during the Dutch rule on Man- hattan Island. It is related by Mr. Disosway that when the church had taken fire some person began to play upon the organ which had given out solemn peals of music at the burial of many citizens. Ile played the funeral dirge of the old organ, and only ceased when the lofty ceiling began to blaze and danger admonished him to fly for safety.
The fire spread rapidly in the direction of Coenties Slip and Wall Street. The firemen were powerless to save any building. At about two o'clock in the morning the mayor (Lawrence) summoned a council of aldermen and others in the street. The late General Joseph G. Swift, an eminent engineer in the public service, had suggested the necessity of blowing up some buildings not yet ignited to arrest the flames. The mayor hesitated to take the responsibility, hence the council of aldermen. Among the latter was Morgan L. Smith, alder- man of the Fourth Ward, who was also colonel of the Twenty-seventh (now Seventh) Regiment National Guard. It was determined to try the experiment. Rufus Lord's store in Garden Street (now Exchange Place) was the first building ordered to be blown up.
The mayor sent an order to General Arcularius, in charge of the arsenal, for gunpowder. The general responded :
" I send you one barrel of gunpowder, all there is in the arsenal."
In the mean time no one could be found who had experience or was willing to undertake the hazardous work of blowing up. It was finally assigned to Colonel Smith,* of the National Guard. The cartman
* Morgan L. Smith was born in Duchess County, N. Y., in 1801. His father possessed an ample fortune for the time, and the son was not bred to any special calling. He finished his edneation at an academy in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 1820. He had desired a cadetship at West Point, but his father preferred to have him engage in some business. After he left school he travelled extensively in the south-western portion of our country. In 1821 he was in New Orleans, then a small town. He returned home by sea.
Mr. Smith established a leather commercial house in New York in 1825 with hi: nephew, Jackson Schultz, now one of the most enterprising merchants and public- spirited citizens. For twelve years he pursued business earnestly and successfully. He was an officer in banks and other institutions, was a member of the Chamber of Com. merce, and an active and efficient officer of the National Guard, as we have observed in the text. He was alderman of the Fourth Ward. After the business revulsion of
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who brought the barrel of powder was so frightened by the shower of burning fragments that he refused to go nearer the conflagration than the corner of Pine and Nassau streets, when the colonel called on some one to aid him in carrying the powder to Garden Street. The late James A. Hamilton immediately stepped forward and said, "1 will."
They covered the barrel with woollen blankets, and these two brave men carried it to the centre of the basement of Lord's warehouse. They made a fuse of calico, slightly twisted so as to burn briskly, about twenty feet in length, fastened one end in the powder, set it on fire at the other end, and retreated, closing the cellar door tightly after them. In a few minutes the explosion demolished the warehouse and made such a chasm that with little exertion the firemen stayed the progress of the flames in that direction. "When the powder was ignited," wrote the venerable John W. Degrauw (an old fireman) to the author early in 1883, " when the powder was ignited, marvellous to relate, I saw the building lifted several feet above its foundations and fall in ruins."
When the mayor learned that there was no more powder at the arsenal, the late Charles King (afterward president of Columbia College) volunteered to go to the Brooklyn Navy- Yard for aid. He crossed the East River among the floating ice in an open boat, and returned with Captain Mix of the navy and some seamen, with powder, who immediately took charge of the work of blowing up other build-
1837 he went to Texas and opened a commercial house at Columbia, on the Brazos. President Van Buren appointed him United States consul, which position he held until annexation abolished the office in 1845.
When Governor Marcy was Polk's Secretary of War he requested Colonel Smith, then in Washington, to visit the camp of General Taylor (who had been sent to Texas with a few troops) at Corpus Christi, and furnish him with detailed information about the aspect of affairs in that region, for he could get but little from the general. On his return Mr. Sinith made many inquiries, and wrote to the secretary what he had said to him orally, " There will be no war." Very soon afterward the Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande, and war was actually begun. At its close Colonel Smith was actively in favor of annexa- tion, and was one of a committee of five to hold mass meetings of citizens and learn the mind of the people. A vast majority were in favor of annexation, and it was accom- plished.
From that period until the Civil War Colonel Smith was engaged in business in Texas. but at its close he retired, and has since made his abode at the North. He occupies a fine residence in Newark, New Jersey. He is a devoted member of the Baptist Church. and has generously endowed twenty theological scholarships in Madison University, of which he is a trustee. He is also a trustee of Vassar College at Poughkeepsie, of which he was one of the corporators chosen by the founder.
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ings. The brave and generous act of Colonel Smith was universally applauded .*
Meanwhile the greatest exertions had been made to prevent the destroyer crossing Wall Street. At one time such disaster seemed inevitable. The famous Tontine Coffee-House, on the corner of Wall and Water streets, roofed with shingles, took fire. Only two fire- engines were near, and these were almost powerless from want of water. Seeing the danger impending over a large portion of the city if the great building should be consumed, Oliver Hull, a well-known citizen, standing by, offered to give $100 to the firemen's fund if they would put out the flames on the roof and save the building. The fire- men immediately made a pile of boxes which had been removed from adjacent stores, placed upon it a brandy-puncheon, on which one of the men mounted, and so directed the nozzle of the hose that the water played on the shingles and extinguished the flames. So, the upper part of the city was saved.
Farther up Wall Street much property was saved by the sagacity of Downing, the " oyster king," as he was called, at the corner of Broad and Wall streets. Water could not be had. He had a large quantity of vinegar in his cellar. This he brought out, and by throwing it on the flames carefully with pails, much property was saved.
It was estimated that an area of nearly fifty acres was strewn with the ruins of almost seven hundred buildings and their contents, prostrated and consumed by the dreadful conflagration. In all that area, wherein no one might penetrate until late the next day, on account of the fierce heat, only one building was left entire. It was the store of John .1. Moore, an iron merchant, on Water Street, near Old Slip. Strange to relate, during the awful ravages of the flames not a single human life was lost, nor was there a serious accident of any kind. The extent of the fire was given as follows in the Courier and Enquirer :
" South Street is burned down from Wall Street to Coenties Slip. Front Street is burned down from Wall Street to Coenties Slip. Pearl Street is burned down from Wall Street to Coenties. Alley, and the fire
€ * On the following day Mr. Hamilton (a son of General Alexander Hamilton), who assisted Colonel Smith in carrying the barrel of powder, sent him the following note :
"NEW YORK, December 17, 1535.
"SIR: As an eye-witness to your conduct during the fire of last night, I congratulate you upon the suc- cess of your exertions in arresting its destructive course. Your decision and fearlessness of consequences while in the discharge of your duty are deserving of the highest praise.
" With sincere respect, your obedient servant,
. MORGAN I. SMITH, Esq., Alderman of the 4th Ward."
"JAMES A. HAMILTON.
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was there stopped by blowing up a building. Stone Street * is burned down from William Street to No. 32 on one side, and No. 39 on the other. Beaver Street is burned down half way to Broad Street. Exchange Place is burned down from Hanover Street to within three doors of Broad Street : here the flames were stopped by blowing up a house. William Street is burned down from Wall Street to South Street, both sides of the way : Market House down. Wall Street is burned down on the south side from William Street to South Street, with the exception of Nos. 51, 33, 35, 57. 59, and 61, opposite this office. All the streets and alleys within the above limits are destroyed.
" The following will be found a tolerably accurate statement of the number of houses and stores now levelled with the ground : 26 on Wall Street : 37 on South Street ; So on Front Street ; 62 on Exchange Place : 44 on William Street ; 16 on Coenties Slip ; 3 on Hanover Square ; 20 on Gouverneur's Lane ; 23 on Cuyler's Alley ; 79 on Pearl Street : 76 on Water Street ; 16 on Hanover Street ; 31 on Exchange Street : 33 on Old Slip ; 40 on Stone Street ; 23 on Beaver Street ; 10 on Janes's Lane, and 38 on Mill Street. . Total, 674. Six hundred and seventy-four tenements-by far the greater part in the occupancy of our largest shipping and wholesale dry-goods and grocery merchants, and filled with the richest products of every portion of the globe."
The estimated value of the property destroyed by the terrible confla- gration was $18,000,000 to 820,000,000. The portion of the city burned over was quite extensively populated. Hundreds of families were turned into the streets that bitter night, homeless and houseless, and many wealthy or prosperous merchants were reduced to compara- tive poverty in a few hours. A greater portion of the fire-insurance companies were ruined, and therefore much merchandise nominally insured was a total loss to its owners.
The atmosphere on that night was very clear. The light of the great fire was seen at Saratoga, nearly two hundred miles distant. The writer of these pages, then living at Poughkeepsie. seventy-five miles distant, saw its reflection like an aurora glowing dimly above the crests of the Hudson Highlands. The fire raged all that night and nearly the whole of the next day.
It was early perceived that an immense amount of property among and near the ruins not consumed was exposed to the depredations of thieves. There was not then, as now, an insurance patrol, so the
* Stone Street was the first street in the city that was paved (with cobble-stones), and hence its name.
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National Guard was called out by the mayor for the protection of the exposed property. Faithfully, as usual, they stood guard all the remainder of that fearful night, suffering much in the intense cold. During their night vigils refreshments were furnished them from the Auction Hotel, near by, and on the 1Sth, after arduous duties for about thirty hours, these ever-ready and faithful guardians of the city were dismissed .*
As soon as possible after the news of the fire reached Philadelphia. fire companies came on from there to the help of their brethren in New York. Firemen also came from Newark and Brooklyn, and all remained until the danger of a renewed conflagration was overpast. Expressions of the deepest sympathy for the sufferers also came from Philadelphia and neighboring towns and cities. The conflagration was considered by many as a national calamity.
This dreadful blow seemed to paralyze the business community of New York with its benumbing shock. The check to its bounding enterprise was temporary. At noon on the 19th of December, while the ruins were yet smoking, a meeting was held at the City Hall. Judge Irving called the assembly to order, when Mayor Lawrence was chosen to preside. The following eminent citizens were appointed vice- presidents : Albert Gallatin, Preserved Fish, Louis McLane, George Newbold, Isaac Bronson, Enos T. Throop, Campbell P. White, John T. Irving, Samuel Hicks, George Griswold, James G. King.} Benja-
* It was during this year (1835) that the Order of Merit, which originated with Colonel Morgan L. Smith, was established in the National Guard, its object being to increase the efficiency of the regiment by cultivating a desire to excel in drill. The badge of the order was a silver cross worn on a red ribbon. This eross might be conferred on twelve members of the regiment in each year. The first drill for the order took place at the arsenal yard. The Seventh Company won the honor. The contest was renewed the following year ; dissatisfaction arose, much bitterness of feeling was engendered, and finally the Order of Merit was abandoned.
+ James Gore King was an eminent banker and merchant. While his father, Rufus King, was United States minister at the British Court, he had his two sons, Charles and James, educated at the best schools in England. James was born in New York City May,8, 1791. On his return from England in 1805 he entered Harvard University, and graduated in 1810. He studied at the famons Litchfield Law School. In 1812 he mar- ried a daughter of Archibald Gracie, a sister of the wife of his brother Charles, and was afterward established as a merchant in Liverpool, with his brother-in-law, Archibaldl Gracie, Jr. In 1824 he returned to New York and became one of the firm of Prime. Ward & King, bankers. When that firm dissolved Mr. King formed a similar banking house under the name of James G. King & Sons. Mr. King performed service as adjutant in the war of 1812-15. In 1849 he took a seat in Congress, serving one term. He was for many years an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, and was its president at the time of his death, which occurred at his residence at Highwood, N. J., October 3, 1553.
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