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 42
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While taking his breakfast. before it was fairly light, the next morn- ing, a waiter told him there was a young lady in the parlor who de- sired to see him. There he met Miss Anna Ellsworth, a daughter of
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his good friend Henry L. Ellsworth, the Commissioner of Patents She extended her hand, and said :
" I have come to congratulate you !"
" Upon what ?" inquired the professor.
" Upon the passage of your bill."
.
"Impossible ! its fate was sealed at dusk last evening. You must be mistaken."
"I am not mistaken," responded the earnest young girl ; " father sent me to tell you that your bill was passed. He remained until the session closed, and yours was the last bill acted upon. It was passed just five minutes before twelve o'clock, the hour of final adjournment, and I am so glad to be the first one to tell you. Mother says, too, you must come home with me to breakfast."
Grasping the hand of his young friend, the grateful professor thanked her again and again for bringing him such pleasant tidings. HIe assured her that the only reward he could offer her was a promise that she should select the first message to be sent over the telegraph.
A little more than a year after this interview a line of telegraph was constructed between Washington and Baltimore. The instruments were ready at each end; the one at Washington, managed by Professor Morse, was in the Supreme Court room ; the one at Baltimore, man- aged by Mr. Alfred Vail, was in the Montclair depot. Morse sent for Miss Ellsworth to bring her message. She gave him words from the lips of Balaam : " WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT !''
And this was the first and appropriate message ever transmitted by a recording telegraph. The first public message was the announcement from the Democratic National Convention sitting in Baltimore, to Silas Wright, in Washington, that James K. Polk was nominated for the Presidency of the United States. The Johnsons, the Houstons, and the sneering Speaker were astounded. Doubters were soon ready to bring garlanded bulls to sacrifice to it as a god, and a poet wrote :
" What more, presumptuous mortals, will you dare ? See Franklin seize the Clouds, their bolts to bury ; The Sun assigns his pencil to Daguerre, And Morse the Lightning makes his secretary."
The regular business of the Morse electro-magnetic telegraph was begun in a small basement room, No. 46 Wall Street, New York, in 1844, for which a rent of $300 a year was paid. There was a single telegraphic instrument in the room and a solitary operator, who was idle most of the time for want of business .* But the invention was
* The only survivor of the first operators of the Morse telegraph is Captain Louis MI.
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soon appreciated by thoughtful and enterprising men. Several tele- graph companies were organized to use it. So early as 1546 Henry O'Reilly, one of the energetic citizens of New York, formed a project for using all the companies for a general system of telegraphic opera- tions, and he actually established a system extending over a line eight thousand miles in length." Within seven years from the time when the first message passed over the wires between Washington and Balti- more, there were more than fifty separate telegraph organizations within the limits of the United States. The most important of these companies were consolidated in 1851, the year in which the Western Union Telegraph Company was formed. That is the leading company in this country. It occupies the greater portion of an immense building which was erected about ten years ago on the corner of Broadway and Dey Street, New York, at a cost of over 82,000,000. In that building about six hundred operators and clerks are employed. They are divided into relief gangs, so that work never ceases. A large portion of this force is composed of young women. They all work entirely by the ear, for the telegraph has, for them, a distinct language of its own.
In the summer of 1844, less than forty years ago, three men per- formed the entire telegraph service in the United States. In 1882 the
Chasteau, who was living in Philadelphia in August, 1883, the commander of the Park Guard, and an old journalist. At the beginning of operations, after the line between Washington and Baltimore was completed, Professor Morse was the superintendent at Washington, with Alfred Vail as his efficient assistant superintendent there. Henry J. Rogers was the assistant superintendent at Baltimore. Lewis Zantzinger was the opera. tor at Washington, and Mr. Chasteau at Baltimore. Of the persons here mentioned, only Mr. Chasteau, as we have observed, now lives on the earth.
The telegraphic line between Washington and Baltimore was then a copper wire wrapped in cotton. The instruments were all very large : the relay magnet was kept in a box three feet long, locked, and the key in Superintendent Vail's pocket. No insulators were then known, but sealing-wax, glass, oiled silk, and an imperfect preparation of asphaltum were used. All connections were made with glass tubes filled with mercury, and all operators during thunder-storms held in their hands large pieces of oiled silk.
* Mr. O'Reilly yet lives in the city of New York, and at the age of seventy-seven years possesses remarkable vigor of mind and body. He is a native of Ireland, where he was born an 1806. He came with his parents to America in 1816, was apprenticed to a printer in New York, and at the age of seventeen years became assistant editor of a lead- ing New York newspaper. Before he was twenty-one he was chosen editor of a daily paper at Rochester, N. Y., the first established between the Hudson River and the Pacific Ocean. During a long life he has ever been an advocate and promoter of the most important measures tending to the prosperity of the country, whether State or national, and was, a pioneer in many movements to that end. He has deposited in the New York Historical Society abont two hundred manuscript volumes, which comprise valuable anthentie materials for a history of the public improvements in the State of New York. For a biography of Mr. O'Reilly, see Lossing's " Cyclopidia of United States History."
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Western Union Telegraph Company alone,* which has a capital stock of $80,000,000, had 131,060 miles of poles and 374,368 miles of wire employed ; had 12,068 offices ; had sent out during the year 35, >42 .- 247 messages ; received as revenue $17, 114, 165 ; expended $9,996,095, and secured a profit of $7,118,070. This is the substance of a report from only one of the telegraph companies now (1883) existing in our country. Over this great corporation Dr. Norvin Green presides. t
* The officers of the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1882-83 are : Norvin' Green, president ; Thomas T. Eckert, vice-president and general inanager ; Augustus Schell, Harrison Durkee, and John Van Horne, vice-presidents ; D. H. Bates, acting vice-president and assistant general manager ; J. B. Van Every, acting vice-president and auditor ; A. R. Brewer, secretary ; R. H. Rochester, treasurer ; Clarkson Carey, at- torney.
+ Norvin Green, M.D., the president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, is a native of Kentucky, where he was born in 1818. In 1840 he graduated in the medical department of the University of Louisville. Active and energetic, he early took part in political movements, and was several times elected to a seat in the Kentucky Legislature, in which he served with distinction. Dr. Green was appointed, in 1853, a commissioner in charge of the building of a new custom-house and post-office at Louisville. The next year he became interested in telegraphy, and showed such administrative ability that he was soon chosen president of the South-Western Telegraph Company. Dr. Green was not only held in highest esteem by business men, but he was exceedingly popular with all classes, and is especially noted for his kindness of heart. He won great success for his telegraph company, which was finally merged into the American Telegraph Company, organized some twenty-five years ago by Peter Cooper, Cyrus W. Field, Wilson G. Hunt, and others, of which Peter Cooper, Abram S. Hewitt, and Edwards S. Sanford were succes- sive presidents. It became a constituent part of the Western Union system in 1866, and in recognition of his services and ability Dr. Green was made vice-president of the latter company, which position he filled with great ability until the death of the president. William Orton, in 1878.
Dr. Green was chosen to succeed Mr. Orton in the presidency of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and has performed the functions of that important position with rare ability ever since. He combines two essential qualifications for that office, namely, a thorough practical knowledge of the telegraph system, and experience in public life and a knowledge of public men. While he was vice-president of the company he was one of three candidates for a seat in the Senate of the United States, and was only defeated by a blunder in counting the votes.
In the summer of 1883 Dr. Green visited England, and on August 3d, just before his departure for home, a dinner was given in his honor in London by the directors of the Eastern Telegraph and Eastern Telegraph Extension companies, at which John Pender, a member of Parliament, presided.
Thomas Thompson Eckert, who is virtually the managing head of the Western Union Telegraph system, was born at St. Clairsville, Ohio, April 23, 1825. He learned teleg- raphy in 1849, beginning at the bottom of the ladder, and had made such a reputation for ability in that field that at the breaking out of the war he was summoned to Wash- . ington and placed in charge of the military telegraphs of the Department of the Potomac, with the rank of captain. In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of major, and given charge of the military telegraph department at Washington. In 1864 he had successfully
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
It was at about this period, when the three great elements which have contributed so largely to the growth and prosperity of New York ('ity-the railway, the express, and the telegraph systems-were in the
organized the entire military telegraph system, and had in so many ways shown his ability that he was chosen for Assistant Secretary of War, with the rank of lienten- ant-colonel. In 1865 he was selected for the duty of conferring with the commissioners of the Southern Confederacy at City Point, and for his services was breveted brigadier- general. He resigned the secretaryship to accept the responsible post of general super- intendent of the eastern division of the Western Union Telegraph Company. In this position he organized all the connecting lines for the new cables and the supervision of the transatlantic correspondence, which began with the successful laying of the first cable.
In 1875 he accepted the presidency of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, and inade it so prominent a factor in the telegraph business of the country that the Western Union Company made overtures for a pooling arrangement between the companies, which resulted in an arrangement satisfactory to both. After a year or two of inactive work as president of the Atlantic and Pacific Company, General Eckert withdrew from its service, and in 1879, in conjunction with Jay Gould and others, organized the American Union Telegraph Company. In 1881, when Mr. Gould became one of the largest owners of the Western Union Company, it and the American Union Company were merged, and General Eckert was unanimously chosen for the position of general manager of the consolidated companies, in which position he has added largely to the reputation of the company for prompt and efficient service, and, if possible, to his own reputation of being the most vigorous, straightforward, and able practical telegraph man of the day. In Dr. Green's absence in Europe, during the great strike of telegraph operators and linemen, in July and August, 1883, the general was in full command of the company, and while he was uncompromising in yielding anything to the strikers during its progress, he acted with great magnanimity toward them as soon as it was over.
William Orton, the predecessor of Dr. Green in the presidency of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was a man of rare gifts. He was a native of Allegany County. N. Y., where he was born in June, 1826. He died at his residence in New York City, April 22, 1878. Receiving a meagre common-school education, young Orton entered the Normal School at Albany, graduated with honor, and began school-teaching in Geneva, N. Y. Ile became a bookseller, first in Geneva, then in Auburn, and finally in New York. He was a warm Republican in politics and a thorough patriot, and in 1862 he was appointed a collector of internal revenue in New York City. In this position he showed his great executive ability, and, without being a lawyer, he displayed such legal skill that he was strongly commended to the favor of Secretary Chase. He was called to Washington as commissioner of internal revenue at the seat of government because of his " administrative ability and his power of grasping details." His health giving way, he resigned. Almost immediately he was offered the presidency of the United States Telegraph Con pany, at a salary of $10,000 a year. He accepted it. In this position he showed such remarkable ability that when his company united with the Western Union Company in 1866, Mr. Orton was made vice-president of the new organization. On the retirement of its president on account of failing health, in 1867. Mr. Orton was chosen his successor, and he immediately brought to bear'upon its business his wonderful organizing powers and administrative ability with what success its history fully attests. He was at once its president, its cham- pion on all occasions, and its vigilant and untiring servant. Overwork broke him down. At
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first stages of their development, between 1835 and 1840, that Samuel Woodworth, a printer by profession and a poet of much excellence, wrote a remarkable poem .*
the time of his death Mr. Orton was president of the International Ocean Telegraph Company (the Cuban line), the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, and the Pacific and Southern Atlantic Telegraph companies. He was a member of the Union League Club. of the Board of Trade, and of the Chamber of Commerce.
* This poem, which is inserted below, seems to have been designed to call the atten tion of the citizens of New York, who were then witnesses of the amazing growth of the metropolis --- its marvellous transformations, its inventions, and its wonderful promises for the future-to the contrast of the then aspect of the city and that of the more feeble town, when the poet's "old house was new." The poem, written when the author was partially paralyzed, lay hidden in manuscript until brought to public notice in the New York Evening Post, by Mr. J. Barnitz Bacon, a zealous antiquarian. Woodworth died in 1842.
" THE HOUSE I LIVE IN.
"Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- brance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle."-2 PETER 1 : 13.
" When this old house was young and new, Some fifty years ago,
Before this thriving city grew In population so ; The Revolution was just past, Our States were weak and few, And many thought they could not last, When this old house was new.
"Then Chatham Street was Boston Road, Queen Street was changed to Pearl- For we with love no longer glowed For king and queen and earl. The British troops had gone away, And every patriot true Then kept Evacuation Day, - When this old house was new.
"Our country, then in infancy, Had just begun to grow, Oppressed by debt and poverty, Some fifty years ago. But Washington, the first of men, To God and virtue true, Presided o'er the nation then, When this okl house was new.
" We'd thirteen feeble States in all,
* And Congress met, we know, In the old Wall Street City Hall Some fifty years ago. There did our chief, as President, His godlike course pursue. We were not into parties rent, When this old house was new.
'Louisiana was not ours, We merely lined the coast : While colonies of foreign powers Encircled us almost.
We had not then the Floridas, Our coasting ships were few, Though some from China brought us teas, When this old house was new.
"Commerce and agriculture drooped, The arts we scarcely met, Nor had a native pencil grouped Our deathless patriots yet. Genius of literature, 'twas thought, Would never rise to. view, And native poetry was short, When this old house was new.
" Our city then did not extend Beyond the Collect Brook, And one might from its northern end Upon the Battery look. Broad Street was but a muddy creek, And banks were very few ; The Greenwich stage ran twice a week, When this old house was new.
" We once a week from Boston heard, From Philadelphia twice, And oft in summer we got word Of Southern corn and rice, Tobacco, cotton, indigo, Whate'er the planters grew :
The mails all travelled very slow, When this old house was new.
"To visit Albany or Troy Was quite an enterprise : In Tappan Zee the wind was flawy, And billows oft would rise ; And then the Overslangh alone For weeks detained a few : Steamboats and railroads were unknown When this old house was new.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
The allusion in the poem to the Halls of Justice or the Tombs, as the city prison is called, brings us to a consideration of the places in the city provided for the restraint of criminals and debtors at that time.
" Our trade with the West India Isles Was not extremely good,
But we got French and English files Of papers when we could. News-boats were then not known at all, And bulletins were few ;
But there were boatmen at Whitehall When this old house was new.
** An octagon pagoda rose Upon the Battery green, Which we ascended when we chose, If ships were to be seen. 'Twas built some fifty years ago ; There Freedom's banner flew,
And there small beer and ale would flow, When this old house was new.
" No towers with dark Egyptian frown * Graced Centre Street, we know,
Bridewell and Jail were far up town, The courts were far below. Nor did we have such vice and guilt As now disgust the view ;
State prisons had not yet been built When this old honse was new.
"'Tis true our streets were somewhat dark, No gas its Instre shed,
There was no playhouse near the Park, Nor near the Old Bull's Head. And as our journalist records, E'en churches were but few : Our city had but seven small wards When this old house was new.
" Oswego Market, from Broadway Ran down in Maiden Lane, And Barley Street has since that day Been altered to Duane. Duke Street has since been changed to Stone, And Cedar Street, 'tis true, As Little Queen Street then was known, When this old house was new.
"Crown Street is now called Liberty, Prince Street was changed to Rose, Princess to Beaver-thus the free New appellations chose.
ยท The celebrated Doctors' mob, From which some mischief grew, Had nearly proved a serious job, When this old house was new.
" Old Trinity was just rebuilt- "Iwas burnt by British men ; Modern improvement bears the guilt Of razing it again.
We sighed for water pure and sweet, As now we daily do,
And saw them bore for 't near Wall Street When this old house was new.
" The Federal Constitution brought About a great parade --
A grand procession, where they wrought At every art and trade.
The Almshouse, fronting Chambers Street, Had not then risen to view,
Nor Broadway did the Bowery meet, When this old house was new.
" Dire Pestilence, the fiend of wrath, With yellow, withering frown, Scattering destruction in its path, Oft sadly thinned the town. Terror, dismay, and death prevailed, With mourners not a few,
Who friends and relatives bewailed When this old house was new.
" The smallpox, too, would oft assail ; The kinepox was not known ; Societies did not prevail, Though since so numerous grown.
We'd no Academy of Arts, And schools were very few,
With drawings, pictures, maps, and charts. When this old house was new.
" We had no licensed coaches then, Arranged ou public stands ; We'd not two boards of aldermen To vote away our lands. On beef and venison to rogale. With turtle at Bellevue : They'd take their crackers, cheese, and ale When this old house was new.
" No Navy Yard and no Dry Dock, No City Hall in Park. And no illmainated clock To light us after dark. '
No omnibuses thronged Broadway, And ran with furious heat Over the people, night and day, Who tried to cross the street.
* An allusion to the City Prison or "Tombs," which was completed in 1838.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The construction of the Halls of Justice was completed in the year 1838. The building occupies a portion of the site of the old Collect Pond, a sheet of fresh water lving in a hollow between the Bowe- - and Broadway, and receiving the drainage of the surrounding hills. Its outlet was a rivulet that flowed through oozy land (Lispenard's Meadow) into the Hudson River along the route of the present Canal Street, which derives its name from that circumstance.
This pond was filled up in 1836, and the present building of the Halls of Justice was erected upon the site in the course of two years after- ward. The pond for a time seemed to be bottomless. An immense quantity of stones and earth was thrown into it, and when it appeared filled, and the solid matter was above the surface of the water at even- ing, it would be unseen in the morning. And when the builders of the structure, who laid the foundations much deeper than usual, began to pile up the blocks of granite, there was at one time such evident set- tling at the foundation that the safety of the building seemed in peril. But it has stood well-nigh half a century, and seems to rest upon a solid foundation.
Externally the Halls of Justice building is entirely of granite, and appears as one lofty story, the windows being carried above the ground up to beneath the cornice. It is thought to be the best specimen of Egyptian architecture out of Egypt. The main entrance is in Centre Street, and is reached by a flight of wide, dark stone steps, then through a spacious but dark and gloomy portico, calculated to impress
"The wheels of State had fewer cranks, All turned by honest men ;
And we'd no crusade 'gainst the banks And no defaulters then. Virtue and honesty survived, Our offices were few ; Sub-treasuries were not contrived When this old house was new.
" We had no lingering Indian wars To drain the public purse, And Revolutionary sears Were healed by careful nurse.
, . We had no quacks, nor hygeian pills, Nor steam physician then ; No gambling-shops, nor stepping-mills, Nor Graham regimen.
"No tinkers of the currency Had altered bad to worse, For healthy infants then, you see, Were not put out to nurse. We quarrelled not 'bont public lands, For they were wild and new,
As everybody understands, When this old house was new.
" The evil days have come at last, In which few joys I find ; The morning of my lite is past -- I'm lame, and almost blind. The keepers of the house now shake As palsied porters do, And my strong limbs obeisance make Where it was never dne.
" The smallest weight a burden seems, The curbstone is too high ;
How different from my former dreams, When I could almost fly ! My sight is dim, my hearing dull, For music's tones decay ; And ah ! this dome-I mean my skull- Is thatched with silver gray.
" But thongh my sight be dull and dim, My Saviour's love was prized :
In youth I priced my hopes in Him, And now they're realized. Yea, though He slay me, still I'll trust ; His promises are true ;
Though this old house decay, He must Rebuild it good as new."
-
Jonathan There
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
the mind of the unfortunate prisoner with the idea that " who enters here leaves hope behind "-a sort of "Bridge of Sighs." It was this gloomy aspect of the building that gave it the name of " the Egyptian Tombs"-the Tombs-where the worst felons and murderers are con- fined, and where the death-sentences of criminals are executed in the presence of the limited number of persons required by law.
Before the erection of the Halls of Justice there were five public prisons in the city, one of which belonged to the State. These were the Debtors' Prison (now the Hall of Records), east of the City Hall ; the Bridewell, the Penitentiary, the State Prison, and the House of Refuge .*
The Bridewell or old City Prison was devoted to the temporary incarceration of prisoners, where they were held until discharged as innocent or convicted as guilty of charges preferred against them. The building was constructed of stone, and consisted of a central edifice and wings, three stories in height, and stood between the west end of the City Hall and Broadway. Its affairs were directed by five citi- zens, appointed by the common council, with the title of Commission- ers of the Almshouse, Bridewell, and the Penitentiary of the City of New York.
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