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 II > Part 24
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Through the munificence of Mr. A. B. Stone, one of the trustees. the society is possessed of a charming seaside home for the children, at Bath, Long Island. There are four and a half acres of ground which Mr. Stone presented. The spot is known as Bath Park. There, in the summer of 1852, upward of 4000 children (averaging about 300 a week) enjoyed the benefits of salubrious air.
Since the beginning of the work the society had furnished (to November 1, 1882) 1,343,166 lodgings and 1,359,728 meals, 14,832 wandering boys have been returned to their relatives and friends, and it has sent to homes in the West and South 67,287 boys and girls. Benevolent individuals have also sent many at their own expense under the care of the society. Within four years Mrs. J. J. Astor has sent over 1000 .*
* It having been publicly asserted that homeless children sent West by the Children's Aid Society were " crowding the Western prisons and reformatories," and that their prisons and houses of refuge were " half full of these children," a special agent was sent to the prisons of Michigan, flinois, and Indiana to make a thorough investigation. The agent reported that in Michigan and Illinois, where over ten thousand children had been
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THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
The good results of reformatory efforts of various institutions in New York City, of which the Children's Aid Society is the most efficient, is conspicuously shown by the police reports in 1860 and 1550. In 1860 the population of the city was 814,224, and the number of comunit- ments of girls and women that year was 5880. The population in Iss0 was over 1,200,000, and the number of such commitments was only 1854-that is, the commitments in 1860 were 1 in every 1383 of the population ; in 1850 the commitments were 1 in 647.
The old associations of criminal youths of New York, such as Dead Rabbits, Short Boys, Nineteenth Street Gang, and others of a score of years ago, have been broken up and have not reappeared. They have been broken up or prevented, not by punishment but by associa- tions of reform and education. Organized crime has been met and checked by organized virtue."
THE WILSON INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, planted by Mr. Brace and nurtured into vigorous life by a few earnest women, was opened in a small upper room at No. 118 Avenue D, in April, 1853. Its plan was simple and has been adhered to in its essential elements. It con- sisted of a morning session for instruction in the common English branches, a warm dinner at midday, and an afternoon session for sewing. The work supplied was in the form of garments for the pupils, which they were to earn by a system of credit-marks. The institution was incorporated in May, 1854. It was named in honor of Mrs. James P. Wilson, who was chiefly instrumental in establishing it.
Voluntary contributions soon enabled the managers to purchase a building on Avenue A for the accommodation of the rapidly increasing school. A dressmaking department was added to the curriculum. under the charge of an expert dressmaker. Wages were paid to the pupils after they had attained a certain degree of skill in the art. This silenced the objections of parents, who found in the simple intellectual education of the children no source of revenue. Classes were formed for training in housework of various kinds, with a view to exerting a reflex influence upon the homes of the children as well as to fit them for family service. An outfitting department was established, which provided instruction in the more difficult kinds of needlework and also sent, not a single boy or girl sent from the society could be found in all the prisons, and that in Indiana, where six thousand had been sent, one girl was found in a reformatory, and four boys had been sentenced for vagrancy only.
* The officers of the Children's Aid Society in 1882 were : William A. Booth, presi- dent ; George S. Coe, treasurer ; Charles L. Brace, secretary. The trustees were : Robert Hoe, Jr., Howard Potter, E. P. Fabbri, W. B. Cutting, A. B. Stone, William A. Booth, G. Cabot Ward, Robert J. Livingston, D. W. James, and Lucius Tuckerman.
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. remunerative employment. It was designed also to draw in girls from the street whose ages excluded them from the regular school classes.
A flourishing Sunday-school has been in operation in connection with the institution from the beginning, and in February, 1866, prayer- meetings on Sunday and Wednesday evenings were established. With all this enlarged work the accommodations became too straitened, and the managers erected a spacious building, four stories and a high base- ment in height, on the corner of St. Mark's Place and Avenue A. It was completed in 1869, and there the good work, constantly enlarging, has been carried on ever since. A refuge was offered there for home- less girls at any hour ; also a nursery, in which babies may be cared for while their mothers are out at service during the day. Kinder- garten instruction was opened with abundant success. The idea was caught by Miss Emily Huntington, its matron in 1883, and applied to housework instruction. It was elaborated into an admirable system under the name of Kitchen-Garden. That department has realized the most sanguine hopes of its originator and superintendent. There is also a boys' club, which is very popular. It comprises about fifteen hundred members. In the basement is a reading-room and library, where amusing and instructive games are furnished to the children. There is also a hall, in which the more studious boys may read in quiet."
At the beginning of this decade Henry Grinnell, an opulent mer- chant of New York, touched by feelings of humanity and moved by most generous impulses characteristic of his nature, undertook a noble task which excited universal admiration. That task was a search for Sir John Franklin (an English arctic explorer) and his party, who sailed from England with two vessels, the Erebus and Terror, in May. 1845, in an attempt to make a north-west passage to the Pacific Ocean. The two vessels were seen, sixty-eight days later, moored to an iceberg in the middle of Baffin's Bay, and were never heard of afterward.
In 1848 anxiety about Sir John and his party was painfully excited in England, and the British Government and Lady Franklin sent fruit- less expeditions in search of them. In 1850 Mr. Grinnell fitted out two of his own vessels, at his own expense, to proceed in the holy · quest, and when ready for the task they were proffered to our govern- ment gratuitously, for use in the search. Congress took the expedition under its charge, and Lieutenant De Haven, of the United States Navy, was placed in charge of the expedition. It consisted of the two vessels, named Adcance and Rescue, strengthened for war with
* Mrs. Jonathan Sturges is the president or first directress of the Wilson Industrial School, and Miss H. W. Hubbard is secretary.
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THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
pack-ice and polar storms. They left New York harbor on May 220. The pilot-boat Washington, with Mr. Grinnell and his two sons on board, bore them company far out to sea, and bade them farewell on the 25th. The expedition re-entered the harbor of New York on the last day of September, 1851, and Henry Grinnell was the first to wel- come the returned heroes, on the pier-head.
Though the explorers did not succeed in the accomplishment of the main object of their efforts, they were fortunate in making important additions to existing geographical knowledge of the polar regions. They discovered the extensive tract of land divided by Smith's Sound from Greenland. A British expedition had discovered the same terra firma and named it Prince Albert's Land. A sharp controversy arose with English geographers and explorers as to priority of discovery. It was finally decided in favor of the American expedition, and the name of "Grinnell Land " was permanently affixed to maps and charts in place of "Prince Albert's Land."
In 1833 Mr. Grinnell, with the aid of George Peabody, fitted out the Advance for another searching expedition under the command of Dr. Kane. It did not find Sir John Franklin and his crews, but it accomplished more than any expedition which had preceded it, for it discovered the first trustworthy evidence of an open polar sea, defined the coast-line, and explored the interior of hitherto unknown lands.
Out of the interest in geographical studies and discoveries created by the Grinnell expeditions sprang the American Geographical Society. incorporated in 1834, of which Henry Grinnell was one of the active founders. He was a native of New Bedford, Mass., where he was born in 1799. Having acquired an academic education, he entered upon a mercantile career in early life. With his brother, Moses II .. and his brother-in-law, Robert B. Minturn, he formed the great com- mercial house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co. It took that title in 1829. though the house was founded in 1815 by their elder brother Joseph and Preserved Fish, under the firm name of Fish & Grinnell .*
* Mr. Fish when a baby had been picked up at sea by a New Bedford whaling vessel. and from that circumstance was named Preserved Fish. Joseph Grinnell, who returned to New Bedford when he withdrew from active mercantile life in New York, represented his district in Congress from 1844 to 1852. He had previously served as a member of the council of the governor of Massachusetts. He was living in 1882, at the age of ninety- four years.
Moses H. Grinnell was born in New Bedford, Mass., in March, 1803. He was educated at private schools and at the Friends' Academy. Bred a merchant, he frequently went abroad as supercargo until he became a partner in the firm of Grinnell, Minturn & Co .. in New York, in 1529, with his brother Henry and brother-in-law Robert B. Minturn
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The American Geographical Society was incorporated in April, 1554, by the Legislature of New York, under the title of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, for the purpose of "collecting and diffusing geographical and statistical information." The name of the corporators mentioned in the charter were : George Bancroft, Henry Grinnell, Francis L. Hawks, John C. Zimmerman, Archibald Russell, Joshua Leavitt, William C. H. Waddell, Ridley Watts, S. De Witt Bloodgood, M. Dudley Bean, Hiram Barney, Alexander I. Cotheal, Luther B. Wyman, John Jay, J. Calvin Smith, Henry V. Poor, Cambridge Livingston, Edmund Blunt, and Alexander W. Bradford.
This charter was amended by act of April 8, 1871, when the title was changed to the American Geographical Society, and its objects were more minutely defined, as follows : " The advancement of geographical science ; the collection, classification, and scientific arrangement of statistics, and their results ; the encouragement of explorations for the more thorough knowledge of all parts of the North American conti- nent, and of all other parts of the world which may be imperfectly known ; the collection and diffusion of geographical, statistical, and scientific knowledge, by lectures, printed publications, or other means ; the keeping up of a correspondence with scientific and learned societies in every part of the world, for the collection and diffusion of informa- tion and the interchange of books, charts, maps, public reports, docu- ments, and valuable publications ; the permanent establishment in the city of New York of an institution in which shall be collected, classi- fied, and arranged, geographical and scientific works, voyages and travels, maps, charts, globes, instruments, documents, manuscripts, prints, engravings, or whatever else may be useful or necessary for supplying full, accurate, and reliable information in respect to every part of the globe, or explanatory of its geography, physical and de- scriptive ; and its geological history, giving its climatology, its produc- tions, animal, vegetable, and mineral ; its exploration, navigation, and commerce ; having especial reference to that kind of information which should be collected, preserved, and be at all times accessible for public uses in a great maritime and commercial city."
This ample definition of the purposes of the American Geographical Society is a fair epitome of its work. The society from the beginning has been marked by extraordinary zcal and energy in every depart-
Mr. Grinnell represented a district of the city of New York in Congress one term (1839-41, and in 1856 he was chosen a Republican presidential elector. Mr. Grinnell died in November, 1877.
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THIRD DEGADE, 1850-1860.
ment. It receives as guests the most eminent travellers and scientists who visit the great metropolis. The papers read before it from the to time by learned and scientific men are of the highest order and interest. It owns the building it now occupies (No. 11 West Twenty- ninth Street), and has there a library containing over 14,000 geograph- iral and statistical works, over 6000 that are not strictly geographical. and a superb collection of maps and charts, more than 8000 in number. Many of its books and charts are of the rarest character and value. The publications of the society. in a series of bulletins, are very valuable. The American Geographical Society has had but three presidents -. namely, George Bancroft. LL. D., the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D .. I.L. D.,# and the present incumbent of the office, Chief-Justice Charles P. Daly, LL. D., who has filled the position since the death of Dr. Hawks in 1866. Judge Daly is one of the most studious, learned, and
# Francis Lister Hawks, D.D., LL. D., was born in New Berne, N. C., in June, 1798, and died in New York City in September, 1866. He was graduated at the University of North Carolina in 1815, studied law, and was admitted to the bar when he was twenty- one years of age. He practised a few years in North Carolina, was a member of his State Legislature, and was ordained a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1827, in which he served as an able and eloquent preacher the remainder of his life. For a while he was the assistant of the Rev. Harry Crosswell, D.D., of New Haven, Conn. In 1829 he was chosen assistant minister of St. James's Church, Philadelphia, and was rector of St. Stephen's in 1831, when he was called to the rectorship of St. Thomas's Church, New York, where he remained from 1832 to 1843. He was authorized by the General Con- vention of his Church to go to England and obtain copies of important papers in rela- tion to the early history of the Church in America. In 1837, in connection with Dr. C. S. Henry, he founded the New York Review, and was for some time its editor and principal contributor. He founded, at Flushing, L. I., St. Thomas's Hall, a school for boys, which was an unsuccessful enterprise, and the founder was deeply involved in debt. For two years (1)40-12) he conducted the Church Review, in which much of the historical matter he had collected in Europe was printed. In 1843 he made his abode in Mississippi, and was elected bishop of the diocese, which office he declined. The next year he became rector of Christ Church in New Orleans, and remained there five years, during which time he was chosen president of the University of Louisiana.
In 1849 Dr. Hawks returned to New York and became rector of the Church of the Mediator. A subscription of $15,000 relieved him from pecuniary embarrassment. His church was afterward merged into Calvary Church, of which he was rector several years. In 1854 he was elected bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, but declined. His syt- pathies being with the Southern people when the rebellion broke out in 1861, he resigned the rectorship of Calvary, and hal charge of a parish in Baltimore during the Civil War. In 1865 he was recalled to New York, and became rector of the Chapel of the Holy Saviour.
Dr. Hawks was an able and prolific writer, and left behind him numerons contribu- Tions to the literature of his country in its various departments, historical, ecclesiastical. scientific, and educational. At the time of his death he was preparing a work on the " Ancient Mounds of Central and Western America" and a physical peugrophy. His valuable library forms a part of the rich collections of the New York Hlvtorical Society.
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efficient workers in the field of human knowledge in our country, and he imparts to the members of the Geographical Society much of his own enthusiasm .*
Perhaps the greatest achievement in physical science was accom- plished by the enterprise of citizens of New York at about the middle of the third decade, in the successful establishment of an electro- magnetic communication between Europe and America. The belief that such a communication might and could be effected was, as we have seen, expressed by Professor Morse in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury so early as August, 1843, nine months before the comple- tion of the first land telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington. Almost a dozen years afterward an attempt was first made to establish such a communication by means of an insulated metallic cable stretched between the continents under the sea.
To the enterprise and energy of Cyrus W. Field, an eminent merchant of New York City, the world is chiefly indebted for this wonderful achievement, this incalculable boon. Submarine telegraphy was first conceived and accomplished by Professor Morse. Its feasi- bility was tested by him in 1842, by means of a cable stretched be- tween Castle Garden and Governor's Island. Ten years later the. Newfoundland Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of con- necting that island with the American main by means of a submarine telegraph. It failed, and its chief officer, F. N. Gisborne, came to New York in January, 1854, and tried to interest Matthew D. Field. an engineer, in the project. Matthew laid the matter before his brother Cyrus W., who invited Gisborne to his house. An evening was spent in the discussion of the subject.
After Mr. Gisborne had left his house, Mr. Field took a terrestrial globe, and while studying it in reference to the practicability of con- necting Newfoundland with the American main and New York, the
* The membership of the society now numbers about twelve hundred, including honorary and corresponding members and fellows. There are also er-officio members. composed of all foreign diplomatic representatives and consuls resident in the United States, and United States diplomatie representatives and consuls abroad. The fellows are the paying members of the society. The list of honorary members is headed by the name of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, and followed by men of great distinction in the scientific world. The society is in correspondence with about 140 foreign and domestic geographical and other scientific bodies.
The officers of the society for 1883 were : Charles P. Daly, president ; George W. Cullum, Francis A. Stout, Roswell D. Hitchcock, vice-presidents ; J. Carson Brevoort. foreign corresponding secretary : James M. Bailey, domestic corresponding secretary : Elial F. Hall, recording secretary ; George Cabot Ward, treasurer ; Robert Curren, chief clerk, and fifteen councillors.
THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
question flashed across his mind like an inspiration, Why not crossthe ocean as well, and connect Europe and America ? The idea took com plete possession of Mr. Field's mind. He wrote to Professor More. (then in Poughkeepsie) and Lieutenant Maury for their opinion -. Morse responded that he had perfect faith in the feasibility of such au enterprise, and Maury wrote of a discovery of a plateau extending from Newfoundland to Ireland which deep-sea soundings had disclosed. He said, " On that plateau a cable would lie as quietly as on the hot- tom of a millpond." This settled the question in the mind of Mr. Field, who with his usual pluck and energy at once proceeded to act. Ile engaged his brother, David Dudley Field, as legal adviser. and invited four other gentlemen to a conference on the subject. Thes. were Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, and Chandler White. They first met at the house of Mr. Field, in Gramercy Park. on the evening of March 7th, 1854, around a table in his dining-room. covered with maps, charts, and plans, and for four successive even- ings the whole subject was discussed and careful estimates of cost sub- mitted and examined. There these gentlemen signed an agreement to form a company to carry out the project,, which they called the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company.
To begin the enterprise, Messrs. Cyrus Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Roberts each put in $20,000 ; Mr. White somewhat less. Afterward Messrs. Cyrus Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Roberts each paid very much more, Mr. Field more than any other one. The brothers Field and Mr. White proceeded to Newfoundland from Boston in a small steamer late in March, encountered a heavy gale, and landed at St. John's, in a terrific snow-storm. They were heartily received by Mr. Archibald (afterward British consul-general at New York), then attorney-general of the colony. They procured from the Colonial Assembly a charter with the exclusive right to land cables on the shores of the island for fifty years, and fifty square miles of land. Twenty-five years after- ward five of the six of these pioneers in submarine telegraphy ( Mr. White having died in 1855) met round the same table, in Mr. Field's dining-room. Since then all but two of them (the Messrs. Field) have died.
To build a line across half-desert Newfoundland swallowed up vast sums of money. When completed, Mr. Field went to England for a cable to span the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Newfoundland to the main. One was sent over in 1855, and was lost in the attempt to Ly it. A new cable was manufactured and successfully laid the tex: year. Up to this time not a dollar had been received out of the United
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States, and little out of the city of New York, in aid of the enterprise. Mr. Field went to England again. At first he was met with genera! incredulity among the highest scientific authorities of Great Britain. Yet there were some who believed, among them the great Faraday. Mr. Field pleaded his cause with such enthusiasm that he made con- verts among capitalists and government officers, and succeeded in form- ing the Atlantic Telegraph Company, with a capital of £350,000. To show his faith by his works, he took one fourth of the stock him- self. The British Government guaranteed £14,000 a year in payment for messages sent, the interest on the capital at four per cent, on con- dition of a cable being laid and worked successfully. The American and British governments also furnished vessels for laying the cable, and in 1857 the first attempt was made, but the cable broke three hundred miles from the coast of Ireland. The next year the attempt was renewed, and, after one failure, when they were almost at the point of despair, a second attempt, made in the face of overwhelming discouragements, proved successful. The cable was laid the whole distance between Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and Valentia, on the west coast of Ireland, a distance of 1950 miles, in water two thirds of the distance over two miles in depth. This success was announced to the Associated Press by Mr. Field on the morning of August 5, 1858.
Congratulations were exchanged between Queen Victoria and Presi- dent Buchanan. The country was wild with delight. The ocean had been abolished as a barrier to intercourse. New York and London could converse with each other with almost the facility of two friends talking face to face. The publie mind seemed disposed to apotheosize Mr. Field. "Since the discovery' of Columbus," said the London Times, " nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human activity."
New York, the birthplace of the enterprise, and in which its com- mercial interests were so deeply involved, responded to the announce- ment of the wonderful news by a hundred guns fired in the Park at daybreak on the morning of August 17th. The salute was repeated at noon. Flags were flung out above all the public buildings, the bells were rung, and at night the city was illuminated. The fireworks at; the City Hall were intensified in brilliancy by the accidental burning of the cupola of that building and the adjoining roof.
The first of September was set apart for a publie ovation by the municipal authorities to Mr. Field and his associates in the enterprise.
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THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
A thanksgiving service was held in Trinity Church in the morning. at which two hundred clergymen officiated. At noon Mr. Field and the officers of the ships landed at Castle Garden and were received with a national salute. A procession was formed at the Battery and marched to the Crystal Palace, where the mayor presented Mr. Field the free- dom of the city in a gold box, with the thanks of the citizens. \t night the firemen had a brilliant torchlight procession in his honor. All over the country were heard cannon-peals and the voice of eulogy, with bonfires and illuminations, when, at almost the same moment, the mighty pulse of the great evangelist of peace and good-will began to flutter, and very soon ceased to beat at all. The expenses up to that date had been $1, 834,500.
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