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 38
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Novin Green
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min L. Swan, Jacob Lorillard, and Stephen Allen. The following equally eminent citizens were appointed secretaries : Jonathan Good- hue, Prosper M. Wetmore, John S. Crary, John 1. Stevens, Jacob Harvey, Reuben Withers, Dudley Selden, Samuel B. Ruggles, George Wilson, Samuel Cowdrey, James Lee, and John L. Graham. The meeting, on motion of James G. King, the banker,
"Resolved, That while the citizens of New York lament over the ruin which has left desolate the most valuable part of the city, and deeply sympathize with the numerous sufferers, it becomes them not to repine, but to unite in a vigorous exertion to repair the loss ; that the extent of her commerce, the number, wealth, and enterprise of her citizens, justify, under the blessings of Divine Providence, a primary reliance upon her own resources ; that we consider it the duty of our citizens and moneyed institutions who stand in the relation of creditors to those who have directly or indirectly suffered by the late fire, to extend to them the utmost forbearance and lenity."
The meeting, on motion of Dudley Selden. appointed a committee of one hundred to ascertain the extent of the loss and probable value of the property destroyed, also how far the sufferers were protected by insurance. They were also authorized to apply to Congress for relief, by extending credit for debts due to the United States, and for a return or remission of duties on goods destroyed by the fire ; also to solicit the general, State, and city governments to extend their aid if deemed expedient. They were also empowered to institute an investigation with a view to the adoption of measures to prevent the recurrence of such a calamity, and to take measures for the immediate relief of those who were reduced to want by the conflagration. The then leading men of the city engaged in the various fields of business activity were placed on this important committee.# Only two of the members of
* The following named gentlemen constituted that committee : Cornelius W. Lawrence, Albert Gallatin, Preserved Fish, Samuel Hicks, Benjamin L. Swan, Dudley Selden, Jonathan Goodhue, Saul Alley, Prosper M. Wetmore, John T. Irving, John Pintard, George Newbold, Samuel B. Ruggles, James G. King. William B. Astor, George Gris- wold, Enos T. Throop, Samuel Cowdrey, Thomas J. Oakley. George Wilson. William T. MeCoun, John G. Coster, Walter Bowne, James F. Bowman, Louis MeLane, Jacob Lorillard, John S. Crary, Jacob Harvey, Reuben Withers, Ogden Hoffman, Charles King, Edward Sanford, John W. Leavitt. Adam Treadwell, John Leonard, George S. Robbins, William Neilson, Stephen Whitney. Joseph Burchard, Jacob Morton, John Wilson, Mordecai M. Noah, Philip Hone, William L. Stone, Rensselaer Havens, Charles W. Sanford, William Van Wyck, D. F. Manice, John Kelley, H. C. De Rham, Isaac Bronson, Campbell P. White, John A. Stevens, James Lee, George Douglass, Stephen Allen, John Fleming, John B. Lawrence, William B. Townsend, Charles H. Russell. James Heard, Charles Graham, George Ireland, John Y. Cebra, Samuel Jones, Charles Angustus Davis, Robert C. Wetmore, James D. P. Ogden, Andrew Warner, David Hall, James Conner, Robert White, Richard Pownell, Joseph Blunt, Samuel Ward, F. B. Cutting,
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that committee of one hundred citizens appointed forty years ago now (1883) survive. These are General James Watson Webb and Colonel Andrew Warner.
The recuperative energy displayed by the business men at this time was marvellous to behold. They seemed to rebound from sudden depression with wonderful elasticity. The newspapers at home and abroad greeted them with words of sympathy and encouragement. The business ramifications with almost every city and village in the country made that sympathy assume the feature of a personal emotion. After the first shock was over no gloom pervaded the community, though almost every family was more or less affected by the disaster.
" That portion of the city which has been destroyed," said the New York Mirror, a fortnight after the fire, "contained more of talent, respectability, generosity, industry, enterprise, and all the qualities that ennoble and dignify our race. than the same space, perhaps, in any other city in the world. The former occupants of that spot gave employment and subsistence to more of their fellow-creatures. and were the dispensers of more good, more liberal benefactions to their kind. more useful citizens of the community of which they were among the leading members, than probably any other class of men. They were liberal encouragers of the arts. the supporters of literature, the fosterers of native talent in every branch of science. In a short time. we trust, by the goodness of that Providence which produceth benefit out of evil, that this dispensation will be recounted as a curious event and as an historical fact, whose effects are unfelt, and whose results have terminated in improvement and beauty."
John H. Howland, John Lang, Daniel Jackson, J. Paliner, Richard Riker, James Roose- velt, Jr., James Monroe, Richard McCarthy, Isaac S. Hone, Peter A. Jay, Amos Butler, Joseph D. Beers, David Bryson, Samuel Swartwout, Walter R. Jones, Philo L. Mills, Morris Robinson, Benjamin MeVickar, John Haggerty, Charles Dennison, George W. Lee, William Churchill, George Lovett, G. A. Worth, Edwin Lord, B. L. Woolley, William Mitchill, Burr Wakeman, William Leggett, James B. Murray, Peter A. Cowdrey. John L. Graham, George D. Strong, Jonathan Lawrence, Cornelius Ileyer, James Lawson, Samuel S. Howland, James Watson Webb, William M. Price, John Delafield, James MeCride. M M. Quackenboss, B. M. Brown, William B. Crosby, Gulian C. Verplanck. William Beach Lawrence, Joseph L. Josephs, S. H. Foster, T. T. Kissam, Robert Bogaruns, William Howard, Luman Reed, Robert Smith, M. Ulshoefer, Samuel Thompson, Robert C. Cornell, Peter G. Stuyvesant, David Hadden, Benjamin Strong, William P. Hall, Isaac Townsend, Charles P. Clinch, Rufus L. Lord, J. R. Satterlee, David S. James, David Austen, Seth Geer, Robert Lenox, Perez Jones, William Turner.
To this committee was added the following committee, appointed by the Board of Trade, to co-operate with the Committee of One Hundred: Gabriel P. Disosway. Robert Jaffray, Silas Brown, N. H. Werd, George Underhill, D. A. Cushman, Meigs D. Benjamin. Marens Wilbur, and Thomas Denny.
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It was even so. As has been remarked, the rebound was marvellous. Before many months had passed away this portion of the city-the " burnt district"-literally arose from its ashes. "Improvement and beauty" had done their perfect work. " Business, trade, and com- merce revived more rapidly than before, " said Mr. Disosway. "In vain do we search for a chapter in ancient or modern history of such a conflagration and its losses, and of rapid recovery from all its evils, with increasing prosperity, as we find in the great fire of New York in December, 1835."
The spirit of the business men of the city which prompted immediate reaction was well illustrated by a circumstance related by the late William E. Dodge concerning the conduct of James E. Lee, who was a dry-goods importer, and was subsequently chiefly instrumental in pro- curing the erection of Brown's fine equestrian statue of Washington in Union Square.
" As I saw him, covered with dirt," said Mr. Dodge, " the day after the fire, trying with a gang of men to dig out his iron safe, I said :
"' Well, this is very hard.'
"' Yes," said Lee, straightening himself up, 'but, Dodge, thank God, he has left me my wife and children, and these hands can support them.' And he lived and died one of the time-honored merchants."
That fire began the exodus of the dry-goods business from Pearl Street, and it has never returned. It has gradually gone up town, and the finest stores may now be found miles north of the Battery.
CHAPTER XIX.
T THE great fire in the early winter of 1835 was a strong confirma- tion of the popular wisdom evinced at the spring election that year, by casting an overwhelming majority of votes in favor of a pro- ject for securing an abundant supply of water for domestic and public use in the city. Let us take a brief glance at methods which had been employed for furnishing water for the city before that period.
The first public well constructed in New York (then New Amster- dam) was in front of the fort at the foot of Broadway. It was put in operation about 1638, and was the resort of the inhabitants, not other- wise supplied, during the remainder of the Dutch rule.
This seems to have been the only public well in the city until 1677, after the final occupation of the town by the English, when it was ordered by the municipal authorities that "wells be made in the following places, by the inhabitants of the streets where they are sever- ally made, namely : One opposite Roelf Jansen, the butcher ; one in Broadway, opposite Van Dyck's ; one in the street opposite Derick Smith's ; one in the street opposite John Cavalier's ; one in the yard of the City Hall, and one in the street opposite Cornelius van Bor- sum's."
In 1687 seven other public wells were constructed, and for the pur- pose of defraying the expense, assessments of designated property- owners were made, the city goverment paying one half the expense.
During the earlier part of the last century the city government con- tributed annually about 820 for the construction of new wells, while the inhabitants living in the neighborhoods of the wells paid the remainder of the expense. None of them were allowed the use of the well until they had contributed a fair proportion of the expense.
In the year 1750 pumps first came into use in the public wells, and the General Assembly of the province passed an act to enable the city to raise a tax for the construction and keeping in repair of the pumps in public wells.
So early as 1771. when the population was but twenty-two thousand. an attempt was made to establish a uniform water-supply, under the
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
direction of Christopher Colles. He suggested to the city authorities the construction of water-works on the easterly side of Broadway, north of (present) Pearl Street. They were to consist of a large well, pumping machinery, and a reservoir, the well to be near the edge of the Collect Pond, and the site of the city prison called the Tombs. The reservoir was to be upon the high ground opposite (present) Worth Street. City bonds were issued to the amount of $12,500. This amount was increased the next year to $13,000. The land was pur- chased for a little more than $5000, but the breaking out of the old war for independence put an end to the project.
Immediately after the close of the war the subject engaged the public attention, and from that time until 1832 various measures for supplying the city with an abundance of pure water were proposed. Only two were tried, and these proved inadequate. These were the Manhattan Water Works in Chambers Street, and a reservoir near Union Square. In each case the source of the water supply was an immense well.
In 1832 Colonel De Witt Clinton, in response to a resolution of the common council, reported that in his judgment the city of New York should rely upon the Croton River for its supply of wholesome water for all purposes. Ile set forth very fully all the advantages of the Croton-its purity and unfailing abundance, its superior elevation, and the ease with which it might be introduced. Not having made sur- veys of the route, Colonel Clinton's estimates, summarized below, were very inadequate. They were as follows :
" From the best opinion I can form, I am satisfied that the waters of the Croton River may be taken at Pine's Bridge and delivered on the island for a sum not exceeding $750,000, in an open canal and with stone linings, ditchings, and walls, and including drainages and other contingencies it may swell the cost to $850,000. The expense of dis- tribution and reservoirs on the island may amount to $1,650,000 more, which would make the whole cost of the work $2,500,000."
In January, 1833, the Legislature. at the request of the com- mon council, passed an act authorizing the governor to appoint five water commissioners for the city of New York to examine and consider all matters in relation to supplying the city with a sufficient quantity of pure and wholesome water, the commissioners to employ ยท the necessary engineers, surveyors, etc. Under this act the governor appointed as commissioners Stephen Allen, B. M. Brown, S. Dusen- bury, Saul Alley, and W. W. Fox. The common council appropriated $5000 for their use. They employed Canvas White and Major D. B.
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Douglass, formerly professor of engineering at West Point, to make surveys, plans, and estimates, and instructed them to make examina - tion of the Croton, Sawmill, and Broux rivers in the counties of West- chester and Putnam, together with their several tributaries, and to furnish the commissioners with a map and profile of the country, and their opinion of the quality of the water, the supply that might be depended upon in all seasons, and the practicability of conveying it to the city at sufficient elevation to preclude the use of machinery, and answer all the purposes contemplated. Also to designate the most feasible route and the best manner of conducting the conduits and reservoirs, the probable amount required to pay for lands, water- rights, damages, and cost of construction.
In his report to the common council, in October, 1834, Major Doug- lass (who alone was able to make this survey) recommended the Croton River as the source, a masonry aqueduct for the conduit. and described two routes-the " inland route" and the " Hudson River route"-the former being forty-three miles and the latter forty-seven miles long from the proposed dam on the Croton to the distributing reservoir on Murray Hill. He estimated that a minimum supply of twenty-seven million gallons a day might be delivered into the reservoir by either route, at an elevation of one hundred and seventeen feet above tide- water. The cost of the inland route he estimated at $4,500,000, and of the Hudson River route at $4, 768, 197.
The water commissioners, indorsing the views and conclusions of Major Douglass, submitted a report accordingly to the common council and the Legislature. The water commissioners were reappointed, and the Legislature by act made provision for submitting the question of " water" or " no water" to the electors of the city at the charter elec- tion in 1835. The common council were authorized, in the event of the vote being in favor of water, to issue water stock to the amount of $2,500,000, and to instruct the commissioners to proceed with the work -to purchase lands, water rights, etc .- and to have the work done by contract.
On the 2d of March, 1835, the common council
" Resolved, That a poll be and hereby is appointed to be opened on the days upon which the next annual election for charter officers of this city is by law appointed to be held, to the end that the electors may express their assent or refusal to allow the com- mon council to proceed in raising the money necessary to construct the work aforesaid [the Croton Aqueduct, etc. ], by depositing their ballots in a box to be provided for that purpose in their respective wards, according to the provisions of the act . To provide for supplying the city of New York with pure and wholesome water.'"
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
The election occurred on the 14th. 15th, and 16th of April following. There had been much opposition to the measure among tax-pavers on account of the expense, and so clamorous had been the opposition that friends of the measure were most agreeably surprised at the result. There were 17,380 votes in favor of providing for pure water, and only 5963 against it. Had a vote on the same question been taken immediately after the great fire it would probably have been almost or quite unanimous in favor of water.
The great work was almost immediately begun. On the 7th of May the common council instructed the water commissioners to proceed with the work, and authorized a loan of 82,500,000, at five per cent interest, to provide for the current expenses. The commissioners appointed Major Douglass their chief engineer, and directed him to organize a corps of engineers as soon as practicable. An engineering party took the field on the 6th of July and proceeded to stake out the land required for the lake formed by the Croton Dam and for the line of the aqueduct.
The surveys and resurveys for the above-named purposes were not completed until the latter part of the summer of 1836. During the progress of these surveys the route was in several places amended and shortened, making the distance finally from the Croton Dam to the distributing reservoir on Murray Hill about forty and one half miles.
In October, 1836, John B. Jervis succeeded Major Douglass as chief engineer, and continued in that position until the great work was com- pleted. Under Mr. Jervis's direction, the map, drawings, and working- plans were completed during the winter of 1836-37, and in the spring of 1837 the work of construction was fairly begun by placing a portion of it under contract.
It was originally intended to have the water cross the Harlem River on a low bridge through an inverted siphon, but in 1839 the Legisla- ture passed an act requiring the Harlem River to be passed on a high bridge. The contract for the bridge was made in August of that year. It was constructed of stone, and supported by thirteen arches resting on solid granite piers. The crown of the highest arch is one hundred and sixteen feet above the river surface at high tide. It is fourteen hundred and sixty feet in length, and crosses the Harlem Valley at One Hundred and Seventy-fifth Street. The water is carried over the bridge in a conduit of iron pipes protected by brick masonry. There is a wide footpath across the bridge. to enable visitors to have a view of the fine scenery from the lofty position. When the High Bridge was completed the water commissioners appointed by the governor
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finished their labors, and the whole water system came under the charge of the Croton Aqueduct Board.
On the 27th of June, 1842, with appropriate ceremonies, the water was first conveyed through the aqueduct into the receiving reservoir at Eighty-sixth Street, and on the 4th of July following it was received into the distributing reservoir on Murray Hill. between Fortieth and Forty-second streets and Fifth Avenue.
The celebration of the completion of the Croton Aqueduct occurred on the 14th of October, 1842. That memorable event will be noticed hereafter.
The year 1835 is conspicuous in the annals of New York for the per- fection of an ingenious literary hoax which puzzled the scientific world for a moment, and set journalistic pens in motion in both hemispheres. The chief perpetrator was a modest, genial, unpretentious young Eng- lishman named Richard Adams Locke, who had been employed as a reporter on the Courier and Enquirer, and was then the editor of the Sun newspaper, in the columns of which it appeared, credited to a supplement of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.
It was a pretended account of wonderful discoveries on the surface of the earth's satellite made by Sir John F. W. Herschel at the Cape of Good Ilope, by means of a newly-constructed telescope. It stated that by means of this telescope the moon's surface was brought within the apparent distance of eight miles of the earth, as seen by the naked eye. The topography, vegetable productions, and animal life were all perceived quite clearly. The chief inhabitants-the family of the ** man in the moon"-were described as being something of the form of bats; in a word, Herschel had given to the world a revelation of a hitherto unknown inhabited sphere, the nearest neighbor to our earth. The construction of the telescope was so ingeniously described, and every- thing said to have been seen with it was given with such graphie power and minuteness, and with such a show of probability, that it deceived scientific men. It played upon their credulity and stimulated their speculations ; and the public journals, regarding it as a grave historical fact, felt piqued by the circumstance that an obscure and despised " penny sheet" should have been the first vehicle for announcing the great event to the American people. One journal gravely assured its reader's that it received the " supplement" by the same mail, but was prevented from publishing the article on the day when it appeared in the Sun only because of a want of room !
The newspapers throughout the country copied the article and com- mented on it. Some dishonestly withheld credit to the Sun, leaving
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John Cand bollocksy Archiby - of- new york
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the inference that they had taken it from the famous " supplement." The more stately newspapers - the "respectable weeklies" -- were thoroughly hoaxed. The New York Daily Advertiser, one of the " respectable sixpennys, " said that "Sir John had added a stock of knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name and place it high on the page of science." The Albany Daily Advertiser read " with unspeakable emotions of pleasure and astonishment an article from the last Edinburgh Philosophical Journal containing an account of the recent discoveries of Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Ilope." Some of the grave religious journals made the great discovery a subject for pointed homilies on the " wonders of God's works more and more revealed to man. "
Scientific men were equally deceived at first. On the morning of the appearance of the article in the Sun the late Professor J. J. Mapes had occasion to start for Washington on business. He believed the story, took a copy with him, and handed it to Professor Jones, of the Georgetown College. The learned professor read it with most absorb- ing interest, with a profound belief in its truth, until he came to some statements about the telescope, which presented an impossibility in science, when he dropped the paper and said, with tears starting from his eyes, " Oh, Professor Mapes, it's all a hoax ! it's all a hoax !"
It is said that M. Arago, the great French savant, proposed in the French Institute the sending of a deputation to the Cape of Good Hope to confer with Herschel, and other scientific bodies in Europe were deeply stirred by the idea of the " marvellous discovery."
But it was not even a "nine days' wonder." In a few days the story was discovered to be a pure fiction. Locke had discerned the readiness of belief in theories put forth by men like Dr. Dick and others, who framed them to suit their own religious speculations, and he readily engaged in preparing the " Moon Hoax." as it is known in the realm of literature, for the purpose of testing the extent of public credulity. It was a successful experiment, but the editors of journals and scientific men who had readily swallowed the bait never forgave Locke for this cruel infliction. They were the butt of universal merri- ment for a long time.
The secret history of the " Moon Hoax" is this : Mr. Moses Y. Beach had recently become sole proprietor of the Sun, and Richard Adams Locke was the editor. It was desirable to have some new and startling features to increase its popularity, and Locke, for a considera - tion, proposed to prepare for it a work of fiction. To this proposal Mr. Beach agreed. Locke consulted Lewis Gaylord Clark, the editor
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of the Knickerbocker Magazine, as to the subject. The Edinburgh Scientific Journal was then busied with Herschel's astronomical explora tions at the Cape of Good Hope, and Clark proposed to make these the basis of the story. It was done. Clark was the real inventor o; the incidents, the imaginative part, while to Locke was intrusted the. ingenious task of unfolding the discoveries. Messrs. Beach, Clark, and Locke were in daily consultation while the hoax was in preparation. It was thus a joint product .*
Taking advantage of the public excitement caused by the publication of the Moon Hoax, Mr. Harrington, then exhibiting "moving dio- ramas" in New York, produced one which exhibited scenes in the lunar sphere as described by Locke. It was painted by John Evers, the
* Moses Yale Beach, one of the most enterprising men in the business of journalism in New York forty years ago, was a native of Wallingford, Connecticut, where he was born on January 1, 1800. He was a descendant of one of the first settlers of Stratford, Com., of that name. On his maternal side he was a descendant of a member of the family of the founder of Yale College. He was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker at Hartford. Ener. getic and ambitious, he purchased the remainder of the term of his indentures when he was eighteen years of age, and entered the business world on his own account at North- ampton, Mass. There, with a partner, he opened a cabinet-making establishment, and soon afterward received the first premium of the Franklin Institute for the best cabinet- ware on exhibition.
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