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 32
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* John Adams Dix was born at Boscawen, N. H., July 24, 1798, and died in New York April 21, 1879. He was educated at Exeter Academy, N. H., at a college in Montreal, and while his father, an officer of the army, was stationed at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, he pursued his studies at St. Mary's College. He entered the army as a cadet in 1812, and was appointed an ensign in 1813. He was soon promoted, and made adjutant of an independent battalion of nine companies. After the war he remained in the army, and in 1825 was commissioned captain. In 1828 he left the military service. His father died, November 14, 1813, of inflammation of the lungs, at French Mills, on the Salmon River, on the frontier of Canada, while with his regiment, the Fourteenth U. S. Infantry, of which he was lieutenant-colonel, the regiment being then in winter quarters. Upon his father's death the care of the family and the paternal estate de- volved on him.
While in the army Captain Dix had studied law. His health became impaired, and he visited Enrope for its recovery. On his return he settled in Cooperstown, N. Y., as a practising lawyer, and soon became warmly engaged in politics. Governor Throop appointed him adjutant of the State in 1830, and in 1833 he was appointed Secretary of State of New York. That office made him an ex-officio member of the board of regents of the State, in which capacity he rendered efficient service. It was chiefly through his exertions that public libraries were introduced into the school districts of the State, and the school laws systematized. In 1842 he was a member of the State Assembly, and from 1845 to 1849 he was a member of the United States Senate. In the discussion of the subjects of the annexation of Texas and of slavery he was an exponent of the views of the Free-Soil party, and became its candidate for governor in 1818. In 1859 he was appointed postmaster of the city of New York.
When, early in 1861, Buchanan's Cabinet was dissolved, General Dix was called to fill the office of Secretary of the Treasury. In that capacity he issued the famous order above alluded to. In May following he was commissioned major-general of volunteers. He was in command first at Baltimore, then at Fortress Monroe, and then in the Virginia Peninsula. In September, 1862, he was placed in command of the Seventh Army Corps. He also was chosen president of the Union Pacific Railway. In 1866 he was appointed minister at the French Court, which position he filled until 1862. In
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Lawson Valentine
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
At that time Fernando Wood was again mayor of the city of New York, elected by the Democratic party. He sympathized with the secessionists. In a message which he sent to the common council on January 7, 1861, he virtually recommended the secession of the city of New York from the rest of the State and the establishment of an independent sovereignty of its own .*
The mayor, having made the revolutionary suggestions mentioned in the note below, seems to have been startled by his own treasonable words, for he immediately added : " Yet I am not prepared to recoin- mend the violence implied in these views." The common council, in sympathy with the mayor, ordered three thousand copies of this message to be printed in pamphlet form for free circulation among the people.
The loyal citizens of New York condemned this revolutionary movement with severity of utterance and by patriotic deeds. Four days afterward the Legislature of the State, by a series of resolutions, tendered to the President of the United States " whatever aid in men and money might be required to enable him to enforce the laws and uphold the authority of the National Government." A few days later General Sandford offered the services of the whole First Division of the militia of the State of New York (in the city) in support of the government.
The seditious suggestions of the mayor and the patriotic action of the Legislature alarmed the commercial classes, and large capitalists hastened to seek some method for pacifying the Southern insurgents. Without such pacification war seemed inevitable. Such a calamity
1872 he was elected governor of the State of New York, and at the end of two years of service in that office he retired to private life.
General Dix was a fine classical scholar, as several translations by him testify. In 1883 a most interesting biography of him was published in two volumes, prepared by his son, the Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, New York.
* " Why should not New York City, " he asked, " instead of supporting by her contri- butions in revenues two thirds of the expenses of the United States, become also equal- ly independent ? As a free city, with but a nominal duty on imports, her local govern- ment could be supported without taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free from taxes, and have cheap goods, nearly duty free. In this we should have the whole and united support of the Southern States as well as of all other States to whose interests and rights under the Constitution she has always been true. . . . When disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master-to a people and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin her commerce, taken away the power of self-government, and destroyed the confederacy of which she was the proud empire city . . . New York as a free city may shed the only light and hope for a future reconciliation of our beloved confederacy."
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
would make the bills receivable of Southern debtors as worthless as soiled blank paper to New York merchants, their creditors, and the losses to the latter might be counted by millions of dollars. This material consideration, with an intense desire for peace, caused a quick movement among business men in favor of every concession to the insurgents consistent with honor. A memorial in favor of compromise measures, largely signed by merchants, manufacturers, and capital- ists, was sent to Congress on January 12, 1861, and suggested the famous Crittenden Compromise. On the 18th a large meeting was held in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce, when a memorial of similar import was adopted, and this was taken to Washington early in February, with 40,000 names attached. On the 28th an immense meeting of citizens at the Cooper Union appointed three commis- sioners-James T. Brady, C. K. Garrison, and Appleton Oakes Smith -to confer with the " delegates of the people" of six seceded States in convention assembled in regard to "the best measures calculated to restore the peace and integrity of the Union."
Meanwhile the pro-slavery element in New York had been aroused into active sympathy with the insurgent slaveholders. An association was speedily formed, styled the American Society for the Promotion of National Union, with Professor S. F. B. Morse as president. Its avowed objects were "to promote the union and welfare of our common country, by addresses, publications, and all other suitable means adapted to elucidate and inculcate, in accordance with the Word of God, the duties of American citizens, especially in relation to slavery." *
The city of New York was like a seething caldron for some weeks. It was determined by loyal citizens to stop the exportation of arms to Southern insurgents, which had been begun. On January 22d (1861) the Metropolitan Police, under the direction of its efficient chief, John A. Kennedy, seized nearly forty boxes of arms consigned to the insur-
* In its programme this society denounced the seminal doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, that " all men are created equal," and said : " Our attention will not be confined to slavery, but this will be, at present, our main topic. Four millions of im- mortal beings, incapable of self-care, and indisposed to industry and foresight, are prov- identially committed to the hands of our Southern friends. This stupendous trust they cannot put from them, if they would. Emancipation, were it possible, would be rebel- lion against Providence, and destruction to the colored race in our land."
How strangely medieval such utterances appear in the light of history to-day, less than a quarter of a century since they were put forth. This New York society was the germ and the powerful coadjutor of the peace faction which played such a conspicuous part during the last three years of the Civil War.
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FOURTH DECADE, 1800-1870.
synts in the States of Georgia and Alabama, which had been placed on board a vessel bound for Savannah. The fact was telegraphed to the governor of Georgia at Milledgeville. Robert Toombs, a private ritizen, took the matter into his own hands, and in an insolent manner demanded of Mayor Wood an immediate answer to his question, whether such a seizure had been made. The mayor obsequiously obeyed, saying, " Yes," but " I have no authority over the police. If I had the power I should summarily punish the authors of this illegal and unjustifiable seizure of private property." Retaliatory measures were adopted, and there was much excitement for a while.
The insurrection spread in the slave-labor States, and in February delegates from the seceded States met in convention at Montgomery, Alabama, formed a provisional government, adopted a provisional con- stitution, chose Jefferson Davis President and Alexander HI. Stephens Vice-President of the "Confederate States of America, " adopted a flag for the new " nation," raised armies, commissioned privateers, proceeded to make war against the United States on land and sea, and endeavored to seize the seat of the National Goverment. In April South Carolina insurgents assailed Fort Sumter, in Charleston Har- bor, with 200 cannon, causing its evacuation and its possession by rebels in arms." This act ended the long forbearance of the National Government, and in the middle of April President Lincoln called upon the several States to furnish an aggregate of 75,000 militia to serve for three months in suppressing the rebellion. A terrible civil war, in the burdens of which the city of New York most generously participated, was then begun in earnest, and lasted four years.
The attack on Fort Sumter and the call of the President produced a marvellous uprising of the loyal people in the free-labor States. The response to the President's proclamation was prompt and magnani- mous. New York State was called upon to furnish 13,000 men for the military service ; the Legislature authorized the enlistment of 30,000 men for two years instead of three months, and appropriated $3,000,000 for the war.
The writer was in New Orleans when Fort Sumter was evacuated.
* It is worthy of record that a New York policeman, Peter Hart, serving under Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, saved the American flag in that first battle of the war. He had been a sergeant with Anderson in Mexico. When in the thickest of the fight the flag was shot down, the brave and faithful Hart volunteered to raise it again. He climbed a temporary flagstaff which had been erected, and in the face of a tempest of shot and -hv.l! h. fastened the tattered banner at its top, where it remained until it was taken down by the commander at the evacuation of the fort.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Ile arrived in the city of New York on the first of May. What a transformation since he left it for the South, late in March ! Every- where between Cincinnati and Jersey City he had seen the great upris- ing. The whole country seemed to have responded to " Our Country's Call," by Bryant :
" Lay down the axe, fling by the spade, Leave in its track the toiling plough ; The rifle and the bayonet blade For arms like yours are fitter now ; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field."
When he crossed the Hudson River into the great city of almost a million inhabitants, it seemed to him like a vast military camp. The streets were swarming with soldiers. Among the stately trees in Battery Park white tents were standing and sentinels were pacing. Rude barracks filled with men were covering portions of the City Hall Park, and heavy cannon were arranged in a line near the fountain, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, many of them in the gay costume of the Zouave. Already the blood of Massachusetts patriots, rushing to save the imperilled national capital, had been shed in the streets of Baltimore ; already thousands of volunteers had gone out from among the citizens of New York, or had passed through the city from other parts of the State or from New England ; and already the commercial metropolis of the Republic, whose disloyal mayor, less than four months before, had argued officially in favor of its raising the standard of secession and revolt, had spoken out for the Union at a monster meeting of men of all political views and all religious creeds gathered around the statue of Washington at Union Square. Then and there all partisan feeling was kept in abeyance, and only one sentiment -- THE UNION SHALL BE PRESERVED -- Was the burden of all the oratory."
When the great meeting at Union Square was held (April 20, 1861), the conspirators against the life of the nation were urging their deluded followers onward to seize the national capital. A cry had come up
* The meeting originated in this wise : On the evening of the day when the President's call for troops appeared. several gentlemen met at the house of R. H. MeCurdy, Esq., and resolved to take immediate measures for the support of the government. On the following day they invited, by a printed circular, other citizens to join them in making arrangements for a mass-meeting of citizens of all parties at Union Square, " to sustain the Federal Government in the present crisis." They met at the Chamber of Commerce and made arrangements for the great meeting.
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
from below the Roanoke, " Press on to Washington !" Virginia poli- ticians had passed an ordinance of secession and invited troops from the Gulf States to their soil. Harper's Ferry and the Gosport Navy- Yard were passing into the hands of insurgents, and the national capital, with its treasury and archives, were in imminent peril, for Maryland secessionists at its doors were active.
So large was the gathering at Union Square that the multitude was divided into four sections, with a president for each. At the principal stand General Dix, late of Buchanan's Cabinet, presided. The other presidents were Hamilton Fish, ex-Mayor Havemeyer, and Moses H. Grinnell. General Dix spoke of the rebellion being without provoca- tion, and said : "I regard the pending contest with the secessionists as a death-struggle for constitutional liberty and law-a contest which, if successful on their part, could only 'end in the establishment of a despotie government, and blot out, wherever they were in the ascend- ant, every vestige of national freedom." Other eloquent speakers, most of them veterans in the ranks of the Democratic party, spoke earnestly in the same strain, denouncing the leaders in the rebellion in unmeasured terms. Patriotic resolutions were adopted.
For many months after this great meeting and others of its kind in the cities and villages of our land, the government had few obstacles cast in its way by political opponents. It was only when inferior men -trading politicians, who loved party more than country-came to the front and assumed the functions of leaders of a great organization while the veterans of their party were patriotically fighting the battles of the nation in the forum or in the field, that the government found an organized opposition persistently engaged in thwarting its efforts to save the Republic.
The great war-meeting at Union Square effectually removed the false impression that the greed of commerce had taken possession of the New York community, and that the citizens were willing to secure peace at the sacrifice of principle. It silenced forever the slanders of the misinformed correspondent of the London Times (Dr. Russell), who spoke of his friends as " all men of position in New York society," who were " as little anxious for the future or excited by the present as a party of savans chronieling the movements of a magnetic storm." The patriotism of the citizens was also indicated by the wrath which that meeting excited at the South. The Richmond Dispatch said : "New York will be remembered with special hatred by the South, for all time." At that meeting a Committee of Safety was appointed, composed of some of the most distinguished citizens of New York, of
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
all parties. They met that evening and organized the famous Union Defence Committee, composed as follows : John A. Dix, chairman : Simeon Draper, vice-chairman ; William M. Evarts, secretary ; Theodore Dehon, treasurer ; Moses Taylor,# Richard M. Blatchford,
* Among the greater merchants of the city of New York, the late Moses Taylor appears conspicuous. He was born at the corner of Broadway and Morris Street, in the city of New York, on January 11, 1806. He was of English lineage. His great-grandfather, Moses Taylor, came to New York from England in 1736. In 1750 he was in business " in the corner house, opposite the Fly (Vly) Market." His son Jacob, father of the subject of this sketch, was a prominent citizen, active in the municipal government, and a con- temporary and associate of Philip Hone, Stephen Allen, and other eminent citizens.
At the age of fifteen Moses Taylor became a clerk in the mercantile house of G. G. & S. Howland, who were then extensively engaged in foreign trade. His activity and fidelity won for him the respect and confidence of his employers and many warm personal friends. Having, with the consent of the Messrs. Howland, made some ventures in business on his own account, he found himself, at the age of twenty-six, possessed of a moderate capital, with which, in the year 1832, he established the house of Moses Taylor & Co. His store was in the area swept by the great fire of 1835. He lost much property, but neither hope nor courage. He opened an office for business in his house in Morris Street, and with quick foresight he made importations to supply the deficien- cies in the market caused by the conflagration. His profits soon covered his losses by the fire.
Mr. Taylor's chief fieldl of foreign commerce was the island of Cuba. In that field he concentrated his extraordinary business powers. These, united with unflinching probity and unstained honor and generons dealing on all occasions, gave his house the highest standing in commercial cireles at home and abroad-a standing which it yet maintains in the hands of his business successors.
Mr. Taylor became president of the City Bank in 1855, and held that position until his death. He was ever a wise counsellor, not only of the directors of his own institn- tion, but in financial circles during the storms of panics and business revulsions which have from time to time disturbed the community. During the late Civil War he was untiring in his labors for the salvation of the Republic. As chairman of the Loan Committee he devoted much time and strength to the duties imposed upon him, and in the darkest period of the struggle he labored incessantly with his colleagues in sustain- ing the credit of the government. President Lincoln, the Secretaries of the Treasury. and the Finance Committees of both houses of Congress held intimate relations with him both personally and by letters. Mr. Taylor was one of the most active members of the Union Defence Committee in the city of New York.
Many large corporate enterprises in the city of New York and elsewhere owe their success in a great degree to the wise counsels of Moses Taylor. He was eminently con- servative, yet boldly enterprising in the management of trusts confided to his direction.
In the establishment and management of great railroad and mining enterprises in the coal regions of the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys, Mr. Taylor's name and hand always furnished trustworthy support. Especially was he interested in the promotion of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, and the Lackawanna Coal and Iron Company, and among the later acts of his life was the liberal endowment of the hospital bearing his name at Seranton, in Pennsylvania, for the special benefit of the operatives of those corporations. In the early development of railroads in Texas. and in the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia, his active interest
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
Edwards Pierrepont,# Alexander T. Stewart, Samuel Sloan, John Jacob Astor, Jr., John J. Cisco, James S. Wadsworth, Isaac Bell, James Boorman, Charles HI. Marshall, Robert H. MeCurdy, Moses 11. Grinnell, Royal Phelps, William E. Dodge, Greene C. Bronson,
and capital were generously employed, and in many of the great Western lines of rail- roads he held very large interests. Indeed the principal undertakings of Mr. Taylor's Inter years were directed to the development of the industrial resources of the country.
During a long life Mr. Taylor contracted many close, warm, and lasting friendships. His heart and hand were ever open for sympathy and service for those who needed and deserved aid. Of him Freeman Hunt wrote, in his Merchants' Magazine, many years ago : " What he achieved has been done by his own unaided powers. He laid the foundations of his business life so broad and deep that what has been accomplished in it seems to have resulted naturally from what was done at the commencement. He started upon his career with a good name, justice, truth, honor, and uprightness ; these he inherited, and these he never sacrificed." Mr. Taylor died full of years and honors, leaving a widow, two sons, and three daughters to inherit his good name and fortune. His death occurred on the 23d of May, 1882.
* Edwards Pierrepont, LL.D., D.C.L., was one of the most active members of the Union Defence Committee, and zealous and effective in giving aid in raising troops for the war. He is a native of North Haven, Conn., where he was born in 1817. He is a lineal descend- ant of the Rev. James Pierrepont, one of the founders of Yale College. Prepared for college under the instruction of the present president of Yale, the Rev. Noah Porter, he entered that institution as a student, and graduated with very high honor in 1837. Studying law in New Haven, he entered upon its practice in Columbus, Ohio, in 1810. He subse- quently took up his abode in New York, where he rose rapidly in his profession. In 1846 he married the daughter of Samuel Willoughby, of Brooklyn, N. Y. In 1857 he was elected a judge of the Supreme Court of New York City, to succeed Chief-Justice T. J. Oakley, deceased. A philosophical observer of events, Judge Pierrepont predicted the Civil War a year and a half before it broke out, in his first public speech, which was on the death of Theodore Sedgwick. Referring to his prediction, he said : " Sure as the punishment of sin, great troubles are coming in the distance which we shall be called upon to meet. I have said this much, being well aware that I speak in advance of the times ; but I leave the times to overtake these fleeting words, and leave the wisdom or the folly of what I have said to be determined by the years which shall come in our lifetime."
Judge Pierrepont left the bench in October, 1860, and resumed the practice of the law, at the same time taking an active part in public affairs preceding the great crisis of the nation. He was prominent in the stirring scenes in the city of New York in the spring of 1861. In 1862 he was appointed by the President, with General Dix, to try the pris- oners of state then confined in various prisons in the Republic. In 1861 he was zealous in organizing the War Democrats in favor of the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, and all through the war he was an ardent supporter of the measures of the administration. In the convention that framed a new constitution for the State of New York in 1867, Judge Pierrepont was one of the Judiciary Committee. He was employed in the same year by the Secretary of State (Mr. Seward) and the Attorney-General (Mr. Stansbery) of the United States to conduct the prosecution, on the part of the government, of J. HI. Sur- ratt, indicted for aiding in the assassination of President Lincoln. This celebrated trial was begun in Washington on the 6th of June, and lasted until the 10th of August. Successfully engaged as counsel in several other important suits. Judge Pierrepont's services have been eagerly sought after by corporations. In 1809 President Grant
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Hamilton Fish, William F. Havemeyer, Charles HI. Russell, James T. Brady, Rudolph A. Witthaus, Abiel A. Low, Prosper M. Wetmore, A. C. Richards, and the mayor, comptroller, and presidents of the two boards of the common council of the city of New York. The com- mittee had rooms at No. 30 Pine Street, open all day, and at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, open in the evening. The original and specific duties assigned to the committee by the great meeting that created it were "to represent the citizens in the collection of funds, and the transac- tions of such other business, in aid of the movements of the govern- ment, as the public interests may require."
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