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 44
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in 1858, and in 1864 he was chosen president of the corporation. After his death, in 1877, his son, William II. Vanderbilt, was elected presi- dent, and his son Cornelius was chosen vice-president. J. H. Rutter was chosen president in 1883.
boat business, in which he so profitably engaged. Atter serving twelve years he pur- chased the vessel he commanded of the owner, and became master in the business in 1529.
During the next twenty years Vanderbilt built steamboats, established opposition hnes to various monopolies, and drove some of his competitors from the field. It was during this time that he received the title of " Commodore." When the discoveries of gold in California caused a line of steamships to be established between New York and Panama, Vanderbilt proceeded to form an opposition line to San Francisco by way of Nicaragua, having first obtained valuable charter privileges from that government. The Transit Company was formed. Vanderbilt constructed first class steamships on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the isthmus, and a semi-monthly line between New York and San Fran- cisco was put into operation in 1851. In 1853 Vanderbilt sold his vessels to the Transit Company.
Mr. Vanderbilt was now a very rich man, and in 1853 he made a tour of European ports in his fine steamship North Sur, with his family. His reception everywhere partook of the character of an ovation. His voyage occupied about four months, and the distance travelled was about 15,000 miles, The Rev. Mr. Choules, a Baptist clergyman, accom- panied them, and wrote an account of the trip. Mr. Vanderbilt afterward established a line of steamships between New York and Havre, building a number of superb vessels for the purpose. Among them was the Vanderbilt, which cost $800,000. When, in 1862, his country was in peril and in distress for want of means for transportation, he gen- erously presented to his government this magnificent vessel of 5000 tons burden, for which patriotic and munitieent gift Congress thanked him in the name of the nation. Mr. Vanderbilt had then disposed of all his ships. He had been the owner of more than one hundred water craft, from his hundred dollar sail-boat to his $800,000 steamship.
Mr. Vanderbilt now turned his attention to railroad matters ahnost exclusively, and became the controlling owner of the Harlem, the Hudson River, and the New York Cen. tral railroads. In this species of property and in other railroad securities he chiefly " operated." He made the roads which he managed the best paying and the best equipped roads in the country. Under his direction the Grand Central Depot at Forty- second Street, and the vast improvements between it and the Harlem River, were con- structed. His financial career was successful until the last, and he left, as we have said, property valued at $100,000.000.
In August, 1868, Mrs. Vanderbilt, one of the noblest of women, died. Thirteen chil- dren had blessed their union. In August. 1869. Mr. Vanderbilt married Miss Frances Crawford, of Mobile, Alabama, whose devotion to and religious influence over her hus- bandl was most salutary. He became interested in the ministrations of Dr Deems, pastor of the Church of the Strangers, in Mercer Street, and when the church edifice was sold in 1873 Mr. Vanderbilt bought it for $50,000, and gave it to the minister for the use of his congregation. The same year he munificently endowed a university at Nashville, Ten- nessee, the name of which was changed to Vanderbilt University, Subsequent dona- tions by him made his aggregate gifts to the institution $1,000,000.
In person Mr. Vanderbilt was erect until the last. In his diet he was simple and even abstemions. He was one of the finest specimens of manly vigor until past fourscore years of age. His equanimity of temper was remarkable, and at the age of eighty years the wear and tear of an exceedingly active and excitable life seemed not to have affected him.
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CHAPTER XXII.
A LMOST simultaneously with the invention of the recording telegraph in the city of New York was the discovery of the ยท daguerreotype process of producing pictures, which began a wonderful revolution in the arts of design and its great and momentous improve- ment by citizens of New York. The process was so named from its discoverer, L. J. M. Daguerre. a French scene and panorama painter. born in 1789, and who died in 1851. Ile was the inventor of the dio- rama about 1822.
Daguerre made improvements in the effect of pictures by the skilful use of sunlight, and for several years he experimented in efforts to pro- duce fac-similes of pictures and other objects by means of the chemical action of sunlight and the scientific toy known as the camera-obscura. At the same time another Frenchman, N. Niepce was making similar experiments for the same purpose. He made the partial discovery, and late in 1829 Daguerre and Niepce united to develop and perfect it.
After the death of Niepce, in 1833, Daguerre prosecuted his experi- ments and researches alone, and made sach great improvements in the process that Niepce's son consented that the discovery and invention should be known as Daguerre's, instead of the names of both, as had been agreed.
At a session of the Academy of Sciences in January, 1839, M. Arago. the eminent French philosopher, announced the discovery. Profound interest was at once excited. This was intensified by the exhibition. soon afterward, of pictures taken from statues by the process. In the summer of the same year Daguerre offered the French Government to make the invention public for an annuity of four thousand francs for Niepce's son, and the same amount for himself. The offer was accepted, and the sum to be paid to Daguerre was increased to six thousand francs on condition that he should also make public the secret method of producing dioramas, and any improvement he might make in the daguerreotype. Daguerre was also made an officer of the Legion of Honor.
At the time of this wonderful revelation. Professor Morse was in
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Paris seeking official recognition for his more wonderful invention. Through the kindness of Mr. Walsh, the American consul at Paris. Morse and Daguerre had a personal interview, and exhibited their respective inventions to each other. Daguerre promised to send to Morse a descriptive publication he was to make so soon as his pension should be secured.
Daguerre kept his promise. By the hand of M. Segur he sent a copy of his pamphlet to Morse, who was undoubtedly the first recipient of the work in this country. It contained illustrative diagrams, and these the writer of these pages reproduced for Professor Mapes's " American Repository of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures." This was in the autumn of 1839 .*
Professor Morse took the description and drawings to George W. Prosch, an instrument-maker in the basement of No. 142 Nassau Street. In less than a month after the pamphlet was received, or in October, 1839, the instrument was finished, and the first daguerreotype ever produced in the United States was by Professor Morse. He placed the camera-obscura on the steps leading down to Prosch's shop, and the picture taken was that of the Brick Church (Dr. Spring's) and the City Hall. In the foreground was a hackney-coach and horses, and the driver asleep on the seat. This picture was a great curiosity.
The process was very slow. Dr. John W. Draper t took great in-
* James J. Mapes, LL.D., a practical chemist, was born in the city of New York in May, 1808, and died in Newark, N. J., in January, 1866. . He was a man of varied learning and accomplishments, with a genius for art, a love for science, a taste for mechanics, and eminently social in his habits. He was a very popular and highly esteemed citizen. He was a professor of chemistry and natural philosophy in the National Academy of the Arts of Design. In the later years of his life he devoted his talents to the pursuit of agricultural science, with great success as a farmer, near Newark. Professor Mapes edited the Working Farmer. He manufactured a fertilizer called " nitrogenized super- phosphate." His lectures and essays on agriculture and cognate sciences were exceed. ingly useful, and his " American Repository of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures," in four volumes, attest his industry and judgment.
+ John William Draper, M.D., LL.D., was born near Liverpool, England, in May. 1811 ; was educated in scientific studies in the University of London, and came to America in 1833. At the University of Pennsylvania he continued his medical and chemical studies, and there took his degree of M.D. In 1836-39 he was professor of chemistry, natural philosophy, and physiology in Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia. Dr. Draper was connected, as professor, with the University of the City of New York from 1839 until his death, which occurred on the 4th of January, 1882. He aided in establishing the University Medical College, of which he was appointed professor of chemistry in 1841. From 1850 he was president of the medical faculty of the University until his death. In 1874 he was chosen president of the scientific department of the institution.
Dr. Draper was one of the most patient, industrious careful, and acute scientific
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terest in the discovery, and believed in its great possibilities. Ile and Morse experimented together. There seemed hardly a possibility of taking a picture of the human form without some material modifications of the process. The first thing of importance was to get a good work -. ing achromatic lens, and the second, chemicals more sensitive to the action of light than iodine, which Daguerre had used in preparing the plates. To this end Dr. Draper brought his knowledge of chemistry and the property of light to bear, and succeeded. He took the first portrait from the living human face with the eyes open by the daguer- rian process.
Meanwhile Professor Morse had been experimenting. From a window of the University he took a fair picture of the tower of the Church of the Messiah, on Broadway, and surrounding buildings, on a plate the size of a playing-card. Afterward, in a studio which he and Professor Draper had erected on the roof of the University, he suc- ceeded in taking likenesses from the human figure. The process was so slow it took nearly fifteen minutes at a sitting, and the subject had to have the eyes closed. In this way he took the likeness of his daughter and a young lady (his kinswoman, whom he afterward mar- ried, and who survives him), who sat with their bonnets on and their eyes closed. This picture and others taken at the time are in the pos- session of Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie. The discovery of Professor Draper, in the autumn of 1839. greatly facilitating the process, is the real beginning of the wonderful and useful art now known as photog- raphy, the legitimate offspring of the daguerreotype invention.
Operators immediately appeared. Prosch, who made the first daguerreotype instrument. opened the first daguerrian gallery on the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street, and his first sitter was Professor Charles E. West, of the Rutgers Female Institute. The sunlight was reflected full on his face by a mirror suspended outside
investigators. His industry in experimental researches was marvellous, and his publica- tions through various vehicles on scientific subjects are very voluminous. To him is due the knowledge of many fundamental facts concerning the phenomena of the spec- trum, of light and heat. His researches materially aided in developing the great dis- covery of Daguerre. In 1876 the Rumford gold medal was bestowed upon him by the American Academy of Sciences for his researches in radiant energy.
Dr. Draper was equally industrions in researches and expositions in other departments of learning. His " History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," " Thoughts on the Future Policy of America," " Philosophical History of the Civil War in America," and " History of the Conflict between Science and Religion," are all works which attest his profundity of knowledge. philosophical tone of mind, and grasp of intellect- nal forces.
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the window. One of the most successful of the early operators was A. S. Wolcott, who had his establishment on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street.
The honor given Dr. Draper has been claimed by others, but with- out substantial proof of correctness. Dr. Draper first gave an account of his improvement in a note to the editor of the London Philosophical Magazine, in March, 1840, in which he announced that he had proven it to be possible, by photogenic process, such as the daguerreotype, to obtain likenesses from life.
The daguerreotype process was soon succeeded by the photographic process ; indeed the latter speedily superseded the former altogether in the production of sun-pictures, because the images made by it were capable of indefinite multiplication from the original or " negative," as it is termed, which is on glass.
Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy, in experimenting, had been successful in making " negatives" on leather imbued with a solution of nitrate of silver and exposing it under the images of a magic-lantern slide. But these images were evanescent, and their experiments were useless.
So early as 1835 Dr. Draper began a series of papers in the Journal of the Franklin Institute on the subject of photogenic methods. In his experiments thus reported he had used bromide of silver and other com- pounds much more sensitive to light than any that had hitherto been used. The discoveries of Daguerre and Niepce, publicly announced in 1839, aroused the attention of scientists to the subject of photogeny. and in England William II. Talbot, who had made the discovery of & method for photographing on paper in 1833 or 1834, at once announced a process which he called Calotype or photogenic writing. It was also called Talbotype. It consisted essentially in covering a sheet of paper with a changeable salt of silver. exposing it on a camera, and develop- ing the latent image by a solution of gallic acid. The result was a "negative" -- that is, a photograph in which the light sand shadows answer respectively to the shadows and lights of the original. These negatives are now made on plate glass. It had the advantage over Daguerre's process, that it was capable of multiplication ; vet the daguerreotype had an advantage, which it has to the present day- namely, its images were exquisitely defined and sharp, and given with microscopie minuteness.
Since the introduction of the photograph, vast and valuable improve- ments have been made in its methods and products, not only in beauty but in permanence ; and to-day it is playing a most important part in
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the realm of the fine arts, in literature, in science, the useful arts, and in common, every-day life. Photography is now followed by thou- sands and tens of thousands as an industrial pursuit, and enters largely into literary productions and various processes of the graphic art.
Among the living and active photographers in the city of New York, Mr. C. D. Fredricks and Mr. William Kurtz have possibly done more to develop the advantages and illustrate the true character, mission, and influence of the art than any of their compeers. Mr. Fredricks may properly be classed as a veteran and a benefactor of the photo- graphic art. Ilis earlier life was an eventful one, and the outline of it, which is given below, is full of hints for a romance .*
* Mr. Fredricks was born in the city of New York in 1823. When he was a lad his father sent him to Havana, where he remained a year and acquired a knowledge of the Spanish language, which was afterward of great service to him. On his return he in- tended to complete his collegiate studies, but the financial crash of 1837 swept away his father's fortune, and young Fredricks was compelled to seek some occupation for a livelihood. With a South Street mercantile firm he was engaged about two years, when he entered the banking-house of Cammann & Whitehouse, in Wall Street.
Fredricks had a brother in Venezuela. Having received from him glowing accounts of business prospects in that country, and stimulated by a love of adventure and the expectation of speedily winning a large fortune there, he purchased an assortment of goods suitable to that market, and with $400 cash-his whole fortune at that time-he sailed for Angostura in 1843. He had wisely reflected that the bright dream might pos- sibly prove delusive, that he might lose his venture, and before he started he received some lessons in daguerreotyping from Mr. J. Gurney, the knowledge of which might be a resource to fall back upon in case of a failure of his mercantile operation. He took with him a complete daguerreotype apparatus and a small stock of plates.
At Angostura Fredricks went through the usual process of paying duties on his goods, but when the custom-house officer came to his daguerreotype instrument he was puzzled. He had never seen nor heard of such a thing before, and he refused to let it pass unless Mr. Fredricks would pay a heavy daty on it. This he would not do, and was making arrangements to reship it to New York, when a singular circumstance changed his plans, and perchance his whole subsequent career.
Mr. Fredricks was the guest of the principal merchant of Angostura. While he was making arrangements for sending his goods up the river to San Fernando, where his brother resided. a child of his hospitable friend died. One of the merchant's clerks had informed his employer of the nature of Mr. Fredricks's daguerreotype instrument, and of its detention at the custom-house. The merchant went immediately to the latter. paid the duty demanded, and had the apparatus sent to the room of his guest. He then asked Mr. Fredricks to take a picture of his dead child. Though rather doubting his ability to make a satisfactory likeness, he said, " I'll try."
Information of the intended operation spread over the town, and at the hour appointed the room was filled with the principal inhabitants of Angostura to witness the event. The operation was perfectly successful. The people were astonished. Few had oven heard of the great discovery, and none had seen its work. The operator received the most tempting offers to induce him to stay and take the likenesses of everybody. He dil so. He sent his goods up the river to the care of his brother, and in three weeks he
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After long and varied experience in the business of photography, as set forth in the subjoined foot-note, Mr. Fredricks, on returning to the city of New York from Paris in 1853, formed a partnership with Mr.
earned $4000 with his daguerreotype instrument. Then he sent to New York for a large supply of materials. While waiting for their arrival he went up to San Fernando, ex- changed his goods for hides, which he shipped to New York, and returning to Angostura he proceeded to visit the islands of Tobago and St. Vincent, where he was very success- ful in his new profession.
Mr. Fredricks desired to go to Brazil, but there was no coastwise conveyance from Angostura, to which place he had returned There he made the acquaintance of the gov- ernor of the province of Rio Negro (a wild country inhabited by many Indian tribes), who suggested a plan of going up the Orinoco River and down the Amazon. He guaran- teed to Fredricks thousands of dollars' worth of Indian portraits. He also agreed to forward Mr. Fredricks and his brother, who accompanied him, to Brazil. The journey was undertaken, and a series of wild and dangerous adventures was experienced. The journey consumed nine months.
Ascending the Orinoco in a big canoe, with Indian attendants, they came to the rapids of Maypures, where the Indians unloaded the vessel in order to carry it and its contents to still water above. The brothers occupied a hut that night. In the morning, to their dismay, they found the Indians were all gone, with the canoe and the provisions ! After suffering twenty days from hunger, fever and ague, swarms of biting insects, and dangers from alligators and venomous snakes, they were picked up by some government officials and soldiers from Caracas, and taken to the mouth of the Amazon, where they embarked for New York, to recruit their strength.
Love of adventure and a hope of gain took Fredricks back to Para the next year, where he established a gallery, and was very successful. He visited other places with equal success. After a flying visit to New York he went back, visited Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and other places. He crossed the province of Rio Grande in company with Edward Hopkins and George A. Brandreth (a son of Dr. Brandreth), of New York, who were on their way to Paraguay. They transported their baggage in an ox-cart, stopping long enough at each village to take the likenesses of the principal inhabitants. Coin being scarce, a horse was generally given in exchange for each picture, and at the end of the journey our photographer appeared in patriarchal style, surrounded by an immense drove of horses, which he sold for $3 each.
At San Borja Fredricks met Bonpland, the celebrated naturalist and the companion of Humboldt. With this traveller he embarked in a small boat to descend the river to Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. On the way Bonpland paul a visit to the governors of Corrientes and Entre Rios. One of them desired Fredricks to take his likeness. He asked Bonpland what remuneration he should make the artist
. . " None whatever," said the traveller ; " it is a compliment to your Excellency."
This did not satisfy the governor, and as the travellers were about to leave the shore, some Indians came, leading a large tiger, which they chained securely in the bow of the boat, saying. " A present from the governor to the young American." This was to pay for the daguerreotype of the governor What to do with the animal was a serious ques- tion ; it would not do to decline to receive it Bonpland was in mortal fear of the animal. It was harmless, however, and died at Buenos Ayres.
Fredricks returned to New York in 1853 and proceeded to Paris, where the photographic art was much inferior in its development to the art in New York. There he made a great advance in the art, taking portraits hfe size and finishing them with crayons. He
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Gurney, a skilful operator. They were together about ten years, when, in 1855, Mr. Fredricks opened a large photographic gallery on Broadway, opposite the Metropolitan Hotel, with a corps of French artists whom he had brought from Paris, and introduced photography on a grand scale, making life-size portraits. There he remained twenty years, until burned out in 1876, when he removed to his present quar- ters, No. 770 Broadway. In 1857 Mr. Fredricks married Miss Marie Laura Barron, and has five children.
It has been asserted that only a fixed proportion of the population has an inborn taste for the fine arts, and that the widespread demand for art productions now observed in the city of New York, as else- where, indicates only the increase in the numbers of the population. This theory does not seem to be sustained by facts. Fine-art produc- tions placed before the public have certainly multiplied the lovers of art in much greater proportion than the increase of population, in a given time, than ever before, either by creating a taste or developing a taste for the fine arts in individuals. In this good work Mr. Kurtz, one of the leading photographers of New York City, has borne and is bearing a conspicuous part.
Mr. Kurtz is a German by birth, having been born in a village in the Grand Duchy of Darmstadt, in May, 1834, where he received a common-school education. He was the eldest of seven children. Ilis father dying when he was fourteen years of age, his mother placed him as a clerk with a merchant at Frankfort-on-the- Main. The busi- ness was distasteful to him, for he had a taste and talent for art, and he was a failure as a merchant's clerk. At the end of two years he was apprenticed to a lithographer at Offenbach for four years. The story of his subsequent career is interesting .*
was the first who made photographs of this kind. He remained in Paris about six months, when, believing that the novelty of life-size portraits painted by French artists would be very popular and become a profitable business in New York, he deter- mined to establish himself permanently in that city.
* At twenty years of age young Kurtz was drafted into the infantry service at Worms, and leaving Germany joined the British-German Legion and engaged in the Crimean war. At the conclusion of peace he went to London and unsuccessfully sought employ- ment as a lithographer. He became a teacher of drawing and foreman in a carmine factory The financial revulsion in 1857 deprived him of employment, and he went to sea as a green sailor before the mast, making several voyages. Finally, while on a voyage from England to California with a cargo of coal, his vessel was wrecked below the equa- tor. The crew were picked up by an English ship bound for Calcutta. They were speedily transferred to an American ship bound for Hampton Roads. Virginia. From that port he, with other seamen, went to the Sailors' Sung Harbor in New York, in Christmas week, 1859. When he arrived there he had just ten cents in his monkey-
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