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 27
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Now came a struggle for " municipal independence-for home rule." Fernando Wood was then mayor of the city of New York. He had strenuously opposed the bill while it was before the Legislature ; now he determined to resist its operation, and to test its constitutionality to the uttermost. He refused to relinquish his control of the city police. and for a while there was the curious spectacle of a dual government in one part of the municipal system-the Metropolitan Police under the commissioners, and the Municipal Police under the mayor. These contended for the mastery. After exhausting all resources to evade the act. the mayor and the city government referred the matter to the Court of Appeals. Before a decision came down, violent scenes had occurred in the city.
Governor King had appointed D. D. Conover a street commissioner to fill a vacancy caused by death. When he attempted to take posses- sion of his office, on June 16, he was met by an appointec of the mayor, who had possession, and who refused to give up the place, and Conover was violently ejected from the City Hall. Conover immedi- ately procured a warrant from the recorder for the arrest of the mayor on a charge of inciting a riot, and another from Judge Hoffman for the
* The board of commissioners appointed under this law consisted of Simeon Draper. James W. Nye, and Jacob Caldwell, of New York : James S. T. Stranahan, of Kings County, and James Bowers, of Westchester County. The mayors of New York and Brock lyn were re-oficin members of this board.
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violence offered him personally. The mayor had filled the City Hall with armed policemen under his control, and when an officer attempted to gain access to the mayor to serve the warrant, and Conover was at the City Hall with his documents and fifty Metropolitan Police, they were attacked by the mayor's force inside. A fierce affray ensued, in which a dozen policemen were seriously injured.
Meanwhile a large crowd of the disorderly classes, who were parti- sady of the mayor, had assembled in the Park and the neighboring streets, and a serious riot was threatened. A more noisy, riotous, and desperate mob was never seen in the streets of New York.
At this critical moment the Seventh Regiment National Guard was passing down Broadway on its way to Boston. By order of General Hall. it marched into the Park and soon forced its way through the mob to the steps of the City Hall. A wholesome remembrance of the lesson taught the mob at the Astor Place Riot in 1849 restrained the crowd.
General Sandford, accompanied by the sheriff and Conover, now entered the City Hall, remonstrated with the mayor upon his revolu- tionary conduct, and told him that unless he immediately submitted to arrest. the whole military force of the city would be used. if neces- strv. to secure his submission. The mayor, seeing further resistance to be futile, submitted. On the first of July the Court of Appeals decided that the Metropolitan Police act was constitutional. The mayor seemed disposed to acquiesce, and it was supposed there would be no more disturbance.
Not so. The dangerous classes, who keenly perceived the weakness of the police force, proceeded to act without fear of restraint, filling the whole city with alarm and anxiety. Organized gangs of rowdies patrolled the streets that evening, and opposing roughs had a fearful fight the next morning in Bayard Street, near the Bowery. The pave- ments were torn up, and stones, clubs, and firearms were freely used. They seized drays, trucks, and whatever else they could lay their hands on. to make barricades. A small police force sent to quell the disturb- ance was driven away, and the rioters ceased their infernal sport only when they became exhausted, late in the afternoon. Six men had been killed and about one hundred wounded.
On the afternoon of the next day (Sunday) mob violence broke out furiously at the Five Points. All attempts of the Metropolitan Police to quell the disturbance were in vain. The Seventh Regiment was summoned to arms. The bare knowledge of its approach frightened away the rioters, and when it reached the arsenal on Elm Street the
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mob had dispersed. But the riotous clement in the city was still ram- pant, and a week later the regiment was called upon to quell a danger- ous mob in Mackerelville, in the eastern part of the city, where a fierce attack had been made on the Metropolitan Police. At ten o'clock in the evening it was assembled in Lafayette Hall, but its services were . not needed. Before it was summoned several persons had been killed and many wounded. The peace of the city was gradually restored, and from 1857 to 1863 military assistance was not required to preserve order.
The Potter's Field-" a place to bury strangers in," otherwise paupers -- first occupied (present) Washington Square. In 1823 the remains in that field were removed to the site of the distributing reser- voir, Fifth Avenue and Fortieth and Forty-second streets. After- ward, when this site was selected for the reservoir, they were again removed to a new Potter's Field, between Fourth and Lexington avenues, in the vicinity of Fiftieth Street. This ground was granted to the Woman's Hospital by the corporation, and in 1857 the remains of 100,000 paupers and strangers were transferred from the city limits to Ward's Island, where seventy-five acres had been set apart for a pauper cemetery.
The WOMAN's HOSPITAL, above mentioned, was incorporated in 1855, and is among the noble institutions founded during this decade. The incorporators were seven benevolent ladies of New York City, and its sole object was the treatment of those diseases only that are peculiar to women, especially the surgical cure of vesico-vaginal fistula discovered by Dr. J. Marion Sims, which had been previously regarded by the medical profession as incurable. Dr. Sims was the chief founder of this hospital. He died in New York in November, 1853, at the age of nearly seventy years.
This hospital is not designed by its founder's as a free institution, but. to be made self-sustaining from the board and washing of the patients, the beds in the wards, and the private rooms. For these, charges are made according to the ability of the patients to pay. The full capacity of the establishment was one hundred and thirty beds.
All women, of every grade and position in society, the humble and the exalted, who, from pecuniary disability or from whatever cause, are unable to employ a surgeon for the treatment of those diseases peculiar · to the sex, have the right of admission to the institution without any charge for surgical or medical treatment, their whole expenses being limited to charges for board and washing and their medical supplies. To this great privilege women of every nationality are admitted.
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Its board of surgeons embrace some of the most distinguished of their profession in this specialty, whose services are rendered gratuitously. The clinics are open to invalids every day excepting Sunday.#
* The officers of the Woman's Hospital for 1882 were : Edwin D. Morgan, president : George T. M. Davis, vice-president ; Charles N. Talbot, secretary ; Clinton Gilbert, treas- urer ; and a board of governors, twenty-seven in number. There is also a board of lady supervisors, twenty-five in number, and of managers, six in number. Of this board Mrs. Lewis C. Jones is president, Mrs. Joseph M. Cooper vice-president, Mrs. Henry Day secretary, and Mrs. Russell Sage treasurer.
Dr. Sims, the chief founder of this hospital, was born in Lancaster District, South Carolina, on January 25, 1813. He graduated at the South Carolina College, Columbia, and in 1835 he was graduated at the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia. He settled as a physician and surgeon in New York City in 1853. Dr. Sims ranked among the fore- most surgeons of our time. After patient study and many experiments he made the discovery mentioned in the text, which gave him very great reputation in both hemi- spheres. Dr. Valentine Mott once said to Dr. Sims : " You will have, in all time, an enduring monument ; that monument will be the gratitude of women." Dr. Sims's death was very sudden, caused by a disease of the heart.
CHAPTER VI.
T THE Cooper Union, an institution specially devoted to the intellect- ual and temporal well-being of the young of both sexes in the metropolis, was founded by Peter Cooper, the philanthropist. It was incorporated on February 17. 1857, with the title of THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART. The founder erected for this institution a building of brown freestone, rhomboidal in shape, and seven stories in height. It is situated on a block of ground bounded on the north by Astor Place, east by Third Avenue, south by Seventh Street, and west by Fourth Avenue. The building was erected at a cost of 8630,000, and the institution was, at the beginning. endowed with $200,000 for the support of a free library and reading- room. For its administration and government a body corporate was instituted by the Legislature, consisting of the founder, his son, Edward Cooper ; his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt ; Daniel F. Tiemann, Wilson G. Hunt, and John E. Parsons ; no member of the board to receive any compensation for his services. These trustees were empowered to associate with themselves other persons, if they should see fit, and organize a society with the title of The Associates of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the purpose of which should be the encouragement of science, arts, manu- factures, and commerce ; the bestowal of rewards for useful inventions and improvements, for meritorious works in various departments of the fine arts, and by lectures and other means to assist in the practical application of every department of science in connection with the arts, manufactures, and commerce of the country. The trustees of the Union were empowered to confer degrees and diplomas for proficiency , in the studies pursued in the institution, and its graduates should con- stitute a portion of the membership of the association. By a deed of trust, executed on April 29, 1859, Mr. Cooper and his wife Sarah dedicated the institution, with all its property, to the use of the working classes of the city of New York forever.
The general plan of the Cooper Union includes free schools of science and art, and a free reading-room and library. There are evening
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schools, attended mostly by young men from the mechanical trades and other occupations in the city. None are admitted to these schools who are under fifteen years of age, and who are not acquainted with the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Girls and women ar. admitted to the lectures and the scientific classes, but not to the art . clases, as a special art school is provided for women in the daytime. "
The basement of the building is occupied by a large hall. in which a course of free lectures is given during the winter months every Sat under night. The library contains about 15,000 volumes, among which is a complete set of Patent Office roports, which are constantly consulted. The average number of readers daily is about 2500. The reading-room contains over 100 domestic and foreign magazines. and Iso daily and weekly newspapers.
A portion of the Union building is devoted to an exhibition of machinery in motion, steam being the motor. The income of the insti- tution is derived from the rental of the ground floor and other apart- ments for business purposes, and from the endowments of Mr. Cooper.}
* The course of study in the scientific department embraces a very thorough prelimi- Lary cours of mathematies. The regalar course of five years includes algebra, geometry, tr :: hometry, analytical and descriptive geometry, differential and integral calenlus. mond philosophy, elementary and analytical chemistry, astronomy, mechanics, and Indehammond drawing.
In the art school for boys and young men are taught drawing from casts, forma, per- spretive, mechanical, architectural, industrial, ornamental, figure and rudimenti draw- ing, and modelling in day. Several prizes have been instituted by individuals is the varions departments.
In the women's art school about 350 pupils receive gratuitous instruction every year. The pupils are divided into drawing, photo-crayon, photo-color, on-color painting, re- touching, normal teaching, wood-engraving, and pottery painting. In these in the morning hours free instruction is given. The pupil areally to carne mail rable i will by their labor while under instruction. The aggregate of these earnings for a your, in- "Inding those of the former graduating class, ending with May, 1542, amounted to about 829,000. There was such a pressure of applicants for this department that an amateur class has been formed of those who can afford to pay $15 for a course of thirty b sonst) be given in the space of ten weeks. These and a pott rx class, where the fois Stora r orse of lessons, are the only classes of any kind in this institution in which instruction is tiot absolutely free.
In the English department of the institution instruction is given in belles-lettres, rlintorie, uwel elocution. There is also a school of telegraphy.
The trustees of the Cooper Union in 1883 were : Peter Cooper, president : Wilson G. Hant, treasurer : Abram S. Hewitt, secretary, and Peter Cooper, Daniel F. Tima, John E. Parsons, Wilson G. Hunt. Edward Cooper, and Abram S. Hewitt, trustees. There is an advisory council of the School of Design for Women, consisting of . ightech ladies. The curator is Dr. J. C. Zachos, and the clerk is W. H. Powell.
Inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist. These are titles given to Peer Cooper, one of the most distinguished citizens of our Republic, whose refil lite extended over
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The private and public buildings in the city of New York nearly two generations ago exhibited the sudden flowering of a kind of architecture which was a feeble imitation of the Greek temple. This style became
nearly a century of years. These characteristics constitute the proudest patent of genuine nobility.
Peter Cooper was born in New York City on February 12, 1791. His father was an officer in the Continental Army ; his mother was a daughter of John Campbell, who was also an officer during the old war for independence, and was an alderman of the city of New York. He received a meagre English education, and at an early age began to learn hat-making with his father. He was industrious and studious, ardently seeking knowl- edge from books and personal observation. He grew up a most earnest young man. In very early life experiencing the hindrances of a lack of education, he resolved that if he should prosper he would devote a portion of his means and energy to the assistance of young men in the pursuit of knowledge.
At the age of seventeen years Peter Cooper was apprenticed to a coachmaker. During his apprenticeship he invented a mortising-machine, which was of great use and profit to his master. Soon after his majority he engaged in the manufacture of patent machines for shearing cloth, and prospered during the war of 1812. At its close the business was broken up, when young Cooper engaged in cabinet-making. Not being successful in this he became a grocer, in which business he continued about three years, and then began the manufacture of glue and isinglass. This business he carried on for more than thirty years. Meanwhile his attention had been called to iron manufacture, and about 1828 he bought a large traet of land within the city limits of Baltimore, and established the Can- ton Iron Works. There, in 1830, he built, after his own design, a small tractor engine, which drew a car with a number of Baltimoreans out to the Relay House on a trial-trip. It was the first American-built locomotive put in use on a railroad, and this track was the beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
In 1845 Mr. Cooper removed his iron works to Trenton, N. J., where he established the largest rolling mill in the United States, and manufactured railroad iron and iron beams for fire-proof buildings. He was one of the founders of the system of ocean teleg- raphy, having been one of the six capitalists who, at the house of Cyrus W. Field, formed the first Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1854. Mr. Cooper was its first president. He also became deeply interested in the land telegraph of the country.
In his native city Mr. Cooper was always active in the promotion of every good work for public benefit. He served in the common council in both branches, was an carnest advocate of the Croton Aquednet. was one of the earliest trustees of the Public School Society, and afterward a commissioner of education. His success in business finally enabled him to found the institution which bears his name, for the benefit of the work- ing classes forever of New York, both masculine and feminine, and to erect for its use a costly building. Besides large expenditures upon the institution almost every year, he * gave it, on the occasion of his golden wedding, in 1863, $10,000 ; on his eightieth birth- day he gave it $150,000 ; and on his ninetieth birthday, $10,000, and receipts in full for $70,000 which he had expended upon it. The Cooper Union is the crowning glory of Peter Cooper's long life, the realization of a dream of his youth.
Mr. Cooper steadily refused nominations for any political office other than municipal, until 1876, when he was eighty-five years of age. He then accepted a nomination for the office of President of the United States, from a party in a hopeless minority, known as the Greenback party, an organization which advocates legal tender by paper currency. He made a vigorous canvass, but was defeated, of course.
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a craze in England and the United States, and town and country alike were dotted with these structures. - This craze lasted for nearly a gen- «ration, when it was supplanted by another, the Mansard style. Now another style, highly ornate, called the Queen Anne, for some inexpli- vable reason, is " all the rage." It may be seen in all its extravagance, its hranties, and its monstrosities, as specimens of art, between Fifty- wFond Street and Central Park, and the fashionable avenues.
. In all the period alluded to stood the classic City Hall-classic and chaste in style of architecture-as a model and a rebuke, but its teach- ings and its censure seem to have been little heeded for a long time past. The buildings in New York City have appeared to be largely under the control of uneducated architects, and it was not until the erection of Trinity Church, after designs by Mr. Upjohn, and Grace Church, after designs by Mr. Renwick, in 1845, that the genius of a truly educated architect was manifest in the domestic, commercial, and ecclesiastical architecture of the city for many years.
Trinity Church edifice, on lower Broadway, is the third building erected on that site for the congregation. The first was completed in 1697. The second was almost an entirely new one, constructed in 1737, and stood until the Revolution. It was destroyed in the great vonflagration of 1776. It was not rebuilt until 17s. the congregation worshipping in the mean time in St. Paul's Chapel. The edifice created iu 175 stood until 1839, when, being proved unsafe, it was taken down, and the present elegant structure was erected in its place. It was completed in 1845.
Trinity Church is still one of the finest specimens of Gothic archi-
In 1813 Mr. Cooper married Sarah Bedell, of Hempstead, L. I., by whom he had six children. Four of them died in childhood ; the other two (the late mayor, Edward S. Cooper, and Mrs. Abram Hewitt) now (1883) survive him. Mrs. Cooper died in 1867. She was followed by her husband on April 4. 1883, whose death was sincerely mourned by every class of citizens. His private benefactions for the relief of the destitute poor were multitudinous. He was a Christian in the highest sense. In theology he was a Unitarian, and he was a member of All Saints' Church.
Mr. Cooper was a continual recipient of grateful expressions, either orally or in writing, from the beneficiaries of the institution. These expressions were generally accompanied by statements that indicated the vast benefits which the institution had bestowed. One or two examples of the grateful acknowledgments of pupils of the art school for women must suffice. " I have come," said a young girl who called on Mr. Cooper, " to tell you I have saved $300 this year by painting photographs, and anything else I could get hold of, and I want to thank you for it." " My daughter," said a plain man in middle life, " has earned $1300 in a year, teaching drawing and painting in a Brooklyn school. I never earned $1200 in a year in my life." A young woman from California called on Mr. Cooper and said, " I came to thank you. I feel as rich as a queen, for I have thirty pupils in wood-engraving."
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tecture in the city of New York. The material used in its construc- tion, brown freestone, gives a fine contrast-not an unpleasant one- to the other buildings in its neighborhood. Its lofty spire rises two hundred and eighty-four feet from the ground. It stands at the head of Wall Street, and through that arena of daily conflict between " bulls" and " bears," the music of its sweet chimes float, it is hoped with hallowing influence. Its doors are almost continually open in the daytime. In the space of a few minutes the weary worker may escape from the bellowing thunder of the Stock Exchange into the sanctuary, where, under the soft gray arches of the interior and the subdued light of the windows, reigns a solemn silence which fills the soul with the thought : "The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him."
Grace Church edifice is next to Trinity Church in the purity of its Gothic style. It is also the possessor of perhaps the wealthiest congre- gation, next to Trinity, among the Episcopal churches of New York City. The congregation first worshipped in a building erected, as we have observed, by the Lutherans, on the corner of Broadway and Rector Street, and therein they worshipped until they took possession of their new edifice. in 1845. The architect was James Renwick. The design was furnished. and accepted by the vestry, when he was only twenty-three years of age. He made all the designs and working drawings with his own hands. This was the excellent beginning of his successful career as an architect .*
* James Renwick, son of Professor James Renwick, of Columbia College, was born at Bloomingdale, in the city of New York, in 1819. He is of Scotch descent, deriving his lineage from the Rev. James Renwick, one of the last of the martyred Scotch Covenanters. His mother was a daughter of Henry Brevoort, one of the best of the Knickerbocker stock. Young Renwick's father, in addition to his varied acquirements, had mastered the study of Greek and Roman architecture, and had furnished plans for and superin- tended the building of edifices for his friends. Perceiving in his son a genius for archi- tecture and a strong desire to " become an architect and to build a cathedral, " he gave him every opportunity to gratify his wishes.
At the age of fourteen he entered Columbia College as a student, lost one year on account of an accident to one of his eyes while experimenting in his father's laboratory, and graduated when he was nineteen. Having served as an engineer for a short time, he accepted the position of assistant engineer on the Croton Aqueduct. He superintended the building of the distributing reservoir, between Fortieth and Forty-second streets. When property-owners around Union Square resolved to place a fountain in it. Mr. Renwick volunteered to furnish a plan and superintend its construction. At about that time he was informed that Grace Church intended to erect a new edifice up town. He was intro- duced to the vestry, and was selected as one of the competing architects. His plans were adopted, and this young architect now saw with joy the beginning of the realization of his fondest dreams. The completed church was satisfactory to all concerned, and be
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The materials of which Grace Church edifice is built is white marble, and its style a chaste but ornamental Gothic. Its position is the best of any church in the city to show its architectural beauties, Standing at the point where Broadway departs from a straight hne, at Tonth Street, and turns to the north-west. The porch and steeple completely close the view from the south. The rectory of the church is of the same material and similar in design, standing back from noisy Boulway. There is also an adjoining building, the gift of Miss Catharine Wolfe, which is used for the daily service. Another building. erroted in 1880, connecting the church and the rectory, is used as a utry. robing-room, and study by the rector and his assistant. Just lack of the church, on Fourth Avenue, is a day nursery, erected by the Hon. Levi P. Morton, in memory of his wife, for the reception of Young children during the hours their mothers are at work. It is known as Grace Memorial Home.
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