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 8
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A few minutes after this demonstration the large and new steamboat Washington, bearing aloft the great banner of the corporation display - ing the arms of the city on a spotless white field, proceeded to the anchored fleet. On her taffrail was displayed a beautiful design, made especially in honor of Washington and Lafayette. In the centre was a trophy of various emblems of war and peace. This was surmounted by a bald eagle. On the right side of the trophy was the portrait of Washington, and on the left the portrait of Lafayette. The former was crowned with the civic wreath and laurel, the latter with the laurel only. The Genius of America was in the act of crowning Wash- ington, and the incarnated Spirit of Independence, waving a flaming torch, was binding the brow of Lafayette. Near each of these por- traits was a medallion bearing emblems of agriculture and commerce. The whole rested on a section of the globe, and the background was a glory from the trophy. Each corner of the taffrail was filled with a cornucopia completing the whole design, " on which," wrote Colonel Stone, the historian of the celebration, " neither painting nor gilding had been spared to enhance the effect."
The Washington, with a committee of the corporation and the officers of the governor's guard, proceeded to the fleet. When she came
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within hailing distance of the Seneca Chief, one of her officers inquired of the strange craft :
" Where are you from, and what is your destination ?"
The reply was sent back :
" From Lake Erie, and bound for Sandy Hook."
The Washington then ran alongside the Chancellor Livingston, when the committee went aboard the latter and tendered congratulations to the governor in behalf of the citizens of New York, represented by the corporation. These congratulations were presented in a speech by Alderman Cowdry. He finally welcomed the governor and his fellow- travellers, who had come all the way by water from Lake Erie through the heart of the State of New York. They were the pioneers in that new aqueous highway of commerce.
At an early hour the waters at the mouth of the Hudson and of New York Harbor were dotted with floating craft of every kind, from the stately British sloop-of-war to the pirogue and skiff, all alive with human beings. The fine packet-ship Humlet, prepared by the Marine and Nautical Societies, and dressed in the flags of various nations and private signals, appeared in the Hudson River at sunrise. Commodore Chauncey sent an officer and twenty men from the Navy-Yard at Brooklyn to assist Captain Collins in the duties of the ship during the day. The two societies went on board of her soon after eight o'clock.
At about nine o'clock the corporations and invited guests proceeded to the steamboats Washington, Fulton, and Providence, lying at the foot of Wall Street. There was also the steamboat Commerce, with the elegant safety-barges Lady Clinton and Lady Van Rensselaer. These barges had been prepared by the corporation for the use of invited ladies and their attendants. The Lady Clinton was profusely decorated with evergreens hung in festoons, interwoven with roses and other flowers. In a niche below the upper deck was a bust of Governor Clinton, with a wreath of laurel and roses encircling the brow. On this barge were the wife of the governor and a crowd of distinguished ladies in their best attire.
The fleet from Albany in the Hudson River, led by the Chancellor Livingston, went around to the East River to the Navy- Yard, where a salute was fired. The flagship here took on board the officers of the station with their fine band of music, and were greeted by the officers from West Point, who had been received on the Livingston the previous evening. They also were accompanied by their celebrated band. At this time the wharves and buildings and the heights of Brooklyn and the shores of New York from Corlear's Hook to the Battery were
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densely crowded with eager spectators. It was an outpouring of the population such as had never been seen on the shores of the East River.
The fleet proceeded to the waters between the Battery and Governor's Island, where it was joined by the gayly-decorated Hamlet, in tow by the Oliver Ellsworth and Bolivar. Other steamboats towed pilot ves- sels and a small flotilla belonging to Whitehall boatmen. At that point the admiral of the fleet for the occasion (Mr. Rhind) signalled the different vessels to take their appointed stations. This was a most in- teresting spectacle, and these movements were continually applauded by loud huzzas from the crowded vessels of every kind.
In New York Harbor were two British sloops-of-war, Sirallow and Kingfisher. When everything was in readiness, the fleet, saluted by the guns at the Battery and of the castle on Governor's Island, made a sweep toward Jersey City around these vessels. The latter saluted them with their heavy guns and cheers and the tune of " Yankee Doodle." In response to this compliment the bands on the Chancellor Livingston played " God save the King." Then the whole procession, led by the Livingston, composed of twenty-nine steam-vessels, and sail- ing ships, schooners, barges, canal-boats and sail-boats, moved toward Sandy Hook, within which the United States schooner Dolphin was moored. As the grand procession emerged from the Narrows after receiving a salute from Forts Lafayette and Tompkins, it was ap- proached by the Dolphin, as a deputation from Neptune, to inquire who the visitors were, and what was the object of their coming. A satisfactory answer having been given, the whole fleet formed a circle around the schooner, about three miles in circumference, preparatory to the crowning and most important ceremony of the occasion, namely, the commingling of the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Sencea Chief had borne from Buffalo two handsome kegs. painted green, with gilded hoops, and having the device of a spread eagle carrying in its beak a ribbon on which were the words " WATER OF LAKE ERIE." One of these kegs was taken to the Chancellor Lir- ingston and received by the governor, when Admiral Rhind addressed his excellency, saying he had a request to make. He was desirous, he said, " of preserving a portion of the water used on that memorable occasion, in order to send it to our distinguished friend and late illus- trious visitor, Major-General Lafayette," to be conveyed to him in bottles in a box made from a log of cedar brought from Lake Erie in the Seneca Chief. The governor thanked Mr. Rhind for his suggestion,
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and said that a more pleasing task could not have been imposed upon him.
There was now silence and eager watching among the vast multitude floating on the unruffled bosom of the Atlantic Ocean near Sandy Hook. It was the supreme moment of the occasion. Governor Clin- ton, lifting the keg of Erie water in full view of the spectators, stepped to the side of the Chancellor Livingston and poured its contents into the sea, saying :
"This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable communication which has been accomplished between our Mediter- ranean seas and the Atlantic Ocean in about eight years to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, pub- lic spirit, and energy of the people of the State of New York ; and may the God of the heavens and the earth smile most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the best interests of the human race. " *
The eminent Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New York, who possessed water from many countries, concluded the ceremonies on the sea by pouring into its bosom small vials of water from the Ganges, Indus, and Jordan in Asia ; the Nile and the Gambia in Africa ; the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, and the Danube in Europe ; the Mississippi and Columbia of North America ; and the Orinoco, La Plata, and Ama- zon of South America. Dr. Mitchill then delivered a long address.
" While the fleet was here at anchor." says. Colonel Stone in his narrative of the celebration, "a deputation from the members of the Assembly from different parts of the State, who were on board one of the steamboats as guests of the corporation, preceded by Clarkson Crolius, Esq .. + then Speaker, paid a visit to the Seneca Chief', to recip.
* The keg from which water from Lake Erie was poured into the Atlantic Ocean is preserved, as a precious memento of the great event, among the collections of the New York Historical Society.
+ Clarkson Crolius, Sr., was born in the city of New York just previous to the breaking out of the war for independence-October 5, 1773. His ancestors came from Germany and settled at New York at the close of the seventeenth century. They settled in the ward (the Sixth) in which he was born, which he represented in the municipal legislature, and in which he died. His grandfather established the first stoneware man. ufactory in the colonies, and that business was pursued by his descendants for several : generations. His father was an ardent Whig, and when the British took possession of the city, in the fall of 1776, he left the city. His property fell into the hands of the in- vaders, and was not recovered by the family until the evacuation of the city by the Brit- ish troops late in 1783. His brother John was a soldier in the war of the Revolution, and lived to the age of more than 80 years, dying about the year 1835.
+
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rocate congratulations with the Buffalo Committee on the Completion of the Grand Canal, to which the Legislature, of which they were members, had made the last and finishing appropriation."
The great fleet, after several vessels had fired a salute, returned to the city in triumphal procession, the passengers of the steamboats par- taking of a collation on the way. Again the grand flotilla swept
Mr. Crolius pursued the business of his father, the manufacturing of pottery, and being of an active temperament and possessed of positive convictions, entered the arena of political strife soon after attaining to his majority. He espoused the cause of the Democratic (or Republican, as it was called) party, founded by Jefferson, and was active in the canvass which raised that great Virginian to the Presidency of the Republic in 1801. He was also an active member of the Tammany Society.
At about the opening of the present century Mr. Crolius was elected a member of the common council, representing the Sixth Ward, in which he was born. As such he offici- ated at the laying of the corner stone of the new City Hall, in the Fields, afterward known as City Hall Park, or the Park. In 1842 he was the last surviving member of the common council who were present on that occasion. The city was then divided into nine wards. De Witt Clinton was mayor, and John B. Prevost was recorder. The fol- lowing are the names of the aldermen and assistant aldermen then present :
Aldermen .- Wynaudt Van Zandt. Philip Brasher, John Bogert, John P. Ritter, Jacob de la Montagnie, George Janeway, Mangle Minthorne, Jacob Martin, Jacob Hansen. Assistants .- Andrew Morris, Caleb S. Riggs, Jacob Le Roy, Robert Bogardus, Clarkson Crolius, John Beekman, Whitehead Fish, James Striker.
Mr. Crolius remained in the council several years. He was the grand sachem or saga- more of the Tammany Society in 1811, and as such laid the corner-stone of Tammany Hall ; and early in the war of 1812 he was major of the "' Adjutant-General's Regiment." lle soon afterward was appointed to the same rank in the regular service, and assigned to duty on Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York. During the absence of his superior officer he held command of that post, also of Bath and Sandy Hook. At the close of the war he resumed his business, He was a very popular leader in the Democratic party, and for ten years was a representative of the city of New York in the Assembly of the State. Mr. Crolius was, with many other members of the Legislature, opposed to the Canal scheme, chiefly under a conviction that the State was not then in a condition to sustain the expense or to assume the inevitable heavy debt its construction would create. When it was begun he was among the first to join in voting means for its completion.
Being a favorite with the country members of the Assembly, he was chosen Speaker of that body in 1825, by a manimons vote, an unprecedented circumstance. He soon after- ward retired from active political life, but official stations under the city authorities and the general government were conferred upon him. He was one of the most active of the fonnders of the American Institute, and was one of its vice-presidents for seven years. He died in the city of New York in the ward in which he was born, on October 3, 1843. Ile married, in 1793, Elizabeth Meyer, who survived him many years.
As an honorable and energetic business man, a promoter of the best interests of his native city, as a patriotie soldier, and as a faithful representative of his fellow-citizens in the city and State legislatures. Clarkson Crolius, Sr., was an eminently representative citizen. His son. Clarkson Crolins, Jr., now living in the city, venerable in years, has also been an alderman in New York, a member of the State Senate, and over active in the promotion of measures for the benefit of his fellow-men.
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around the British war-vessels, receiving a salute from them. Each party complimented the other with cheers and the playing of " God save the King" and " Yankee Doodle" by their respective musicians. The passengers were all landed at about four o'clock.
Meanwhile a vast civic procession, such as had never before been seen in the city of New York, had been formed and paraded through the principal streets, under the direction of the marshal of the day, Major- General Flemming. It was composed of representatives of every re- spectable class of society, arranged in organized groups. There ap- peared the several benevolent and industrial societies, the Volunteer Fire Department, the literary and scientific institutions, the members of the bar. the officers of the State artillery and infantry in uniform. and the members of many occupations and callings not formally organized into societies, accompanied by bands of music.
This procession, six abreast, was formed in Greenwich between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, the right resting on Marketfield Street, near the Battery. It moved up Greenwich Street (then a fashionable place of residence) to Canal Street : through Canal Street to Broad- way ; up Broadway to Broome Street (then the upper part of the city proper) : up Broome Street to the Bowery : down the Bowery to Pearl Street ; down Pearl Street to the Battery : over the Battery to Broadway ; and thence to the new City Hall, in the Park. At the Battery the procession was joined by the voyagers returning from the ocean-the mayor and common council and distinguished guests.
The scene along the line of the procession presented a most imposing spectacle. Each society seemed emulous to excel in the richness and beauty of its banner and the respective badges and decorations. Many of the banners displayed exquisite art in design and execution. Many of the industrial societies (twenty-two in number) had furnished them- selves with large cars, upon which their respective artisans were busily engaged in their several occupations.
The most attractive performance of the kind was on the printers car, on which was a printing-press constantly at work striking off copies of a long " Ode for the Canal Celebration." written for the occasion at the request of the printers of New York, and distributed te the populace. The following are the opening stanzas :
" 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! The mighty chain Which joins bright Enie to the MAIS, For ages shall perpetuate The glory of our native State.
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" 'Tis done ! Proud Ant o'er NATURE has prevailed ! GENIUS and PERSEVERANCE have succeeded ! Though selfish PREJUDICE in strength assailed, While honest PRUDENCE pleaded.
"'Tis done ! The monarch of the briny tide, Whose giant arms encircle Earth,
To virgin ERIE is allied, A bright-eyed nymph of mountain birth.
" To-day the Sire of Ocean takes A sylvan maiden to his arms, The Goddess of the crystal Lakes, In all her native charms !
" She comes, attended by a sparkling train ; The Vaiads of the West her nuptials grace ; She meets the sceptred Father of the Main, And in his heaving bosom hides her virgin face."
Some of the cars were beautifully ornamented and profusely deco- rated with evergreens. Turkey or Brussels carpets covered the floors of some of them, and some fairly glittered with gilding in the light of the unclouded sun on that fair November day.
In that procession was appropriately carried a bust of Christopher Colles, " an Englishman who came to New York before the Revolu- tion, and was undoubtedly the first man who suggested the possibility and the advantage of an artificial water-communication between the Hudson River and the Lakes. He lectured on canal navigation in New York so early as 1772. He actually made a survey of the Mohawk River and the country to Wood Creek, that empties into Lake Ontario. Hle had been in his grave four years when this grand canal celebration occurred.
The gallant Colonel Stone, the appointed historian of the event, was so deeply impressed with the whole affair that his pen, with seeming
* Christopher Colles was born in Ireland about 1738 ; studied under Richard Pococke, un eminent Oriental traveller, and became an expert linguist and man of science. On the death of his patron, in 1765, he came to America, and first appeared in public here as a lecturer on canal navigation about the year 1772. He was a good civil engineer, and proposed to the authorities of the city of New York schemes for supplying the city with pure water. But his projects were never carried out. Colles constructed and published a series of sectional road maps, which were engraved by his daughter. . He was a land surveyor, made paper boxes, and assisted almanac-makers in their calenlations. Colles also manufactured painters' colors, and at length was made actuary of the Academy of the Fine Arts. Eminent men in New York City highly esteemed him, but he died in com- parative obscurity in New York in 1821. Only Dr. J. W. Francis and John Pintard, with the officiating clergyman, Rev. Dr. Creighton, accompanied his body to its burial in the little cemetery on Hudson Street.
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spontaneity, recorded almost grandiloquent expressions when dwelling on the subject of the participation of the fairer sex in the unrivalled pageant. He wrote :
"The eye of beauty, too, gazed with delight upon the passing scene ; for every window was thronged, and the myriads of handker- chiefs which fluttered in the air were only rivalled in whiteness by the delicate hands which suspended them ; while the glowing cheeks, the ingenuous smiles of loveliness and innocence, and the intelligence which beamed brightly from many a sparkling eye, proclaimed their posses- sors worthy of being the wives, mothers, and daughters of freemen. It was, in fine, a proud spectacle ; but language fails in attempting its description-much more in imparting to paper the sensations which it created. It is not difficult to describe individual objects correctly, but it is impossible to portray their general effect when happily grouped together. It is amid scenes like these-a faint gleam of which can only be conveyed to the future antiquary or historian-that the mind is absorbed in its own reflections, musing in solitude, though surrounded by the gay and the thoughtless, and literally lost in its own imagin- ings." #
The festivities of the day were closed in the evening by the illumina- tion of the public buildings, the principal hotels, the theatres, museums, and many private dwellings. On several of these were transparencies with appropriate devices. conceived by good taste and intelligence, and artistically executed. The City Hall was the chief point of attraction. No expense had been spared by the corporation in making its illumina- tion and attendant fireworks unsurpassed in brilliancy. There was an immense transparency on its front, exhibiting views of the canal and a variety of emblematical figures. The fireworks exceeded the public expectations. The Park was crowded with delighted spectators, of both sexes and of all ages, from the crowing infant to the tottering old man, from eight to ten thousand being the computed number. At the Park Theatre an interlude composed for the occasion by M. M. Noah was performed, and elicited great applause. A similar production pre- pared by Samuel Woodworth, the printer-poet, for the occasion was performed at the Chatham Theatre.
On the following day (Saturday, the 5th) committees from the West were entertained at a dinner given in their honor on board the Chan-
Colonel William L. Stone's narrative of the celebration, published by the common council of the city of New York, under the title of " The Grand Erie Canal Celebration." This was accompanied by a memoir of the great public work, by Cadwallader D. Colden. Stone's narrative has furnished the materials for our sketch.
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allor Livingston. They enjoyed the hospitalities of the citizens in great plenitude. The public institutions were thrown open to their visits and inspection, and they returned to their respective homes deeply impressed with the vast importance of the Grand Canal in the promotion of the prosperity, not only of the city of New York, but to the whole State and the region drained by the Great Lakes. One of them (Dr. Alexander Coventry, of Utica) wrote to the mayor of New York in behalf of the several committees, saying :
" The Erie Canal insures to us a reward for industry ; to our posterity an antidote for idleness ; nor is it the least valuable of our acquired privileges to have in the future our prosperity closely identified with the city, our connection with which has always been our proudest boast."
The festivities in the city were concluded on Monday evening, the Tth, by a grand ball given by the officers of the militia associated with a committee of citizens. For that occasion the vast rooms of the Lafayette Amphitheatre, in Laurens Street near Canal Street, was used. The hippodrome was floored over for the occasion, and with the stage used for dramatic entertainments formed the largest ball-room in the United States. It was divided into three compartments, the whole being about two hundred feet in length, and from sixty to one hundred feet in breadth. The dancing-room was the most spacious of any. At one end was an immense mirror, composed of thirty pier-glasses without frames and neatly joined together. At the other end of the room, on the removal of drapery at a proper time, a beautifully supplied supper- room was revealed. From the roof was suspended many chandeliers, and from it the " Stars and Stripes" hung in gay festoons. The whole of the interior of the Amphitheatre was brilliantly lighted with scores of chandeliers, lamps, and candles, and on every side were seen elegant and costly decorations. The front of the building was illuminated, and across it, over the doors, were the words, " THE GRAND CANAL," formed by the light of burning lamps.
A brilliant assemblage appeared in the Amphitheatre that night. It was estimated that fully three thousand persons were present, among them Governor Clinton and his wife. The gallant chronicler (Colonel Stone) again grew warm as he described the scenes on that eventful evening, and referred to the ladies. He wrote :
" But entrancing above all other enchantments of the scene was the living enchantment of beauty-the trance which wraps the senses in the presence of loveliness when woman walks the hall of beauty- magnificence herself-the brightest object in the midst of brightness and
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beauty. A thousand faces were there, bright with intelligence and radiant with beauty, looking joy and congratulation to each other, and spreading around the spells which the loves and the graces bind on the breast of the sterner sex."
To every guest of the corporation of the city of New York, both ladies and gentlemen, a beautiful medal was presented, bearing on one side images of Pan and Neptune in loving embrace, also a well-filled cornucopia showing the production of the land and sea, with the words. " UNION OF ERIE WITH THE ATLANTIC ;" and on the other side the arms of the State of New York -- the State which had borne the whole burden in the construction of the great work-and a representation of a section of the canal, its locks and aqueducts, and a view of the harbor of New York. On this side were the words, " ERIE CANAL, COMMENCED 4TH OF JULY, 1817 ; COMPLETED 26TH OCTOBER, 1825. PRESENTED BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK. "
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