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 5
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+ Mrs. Bennett was the author of "Walks of Usefulness," "Wrought Gold." and " Women's Work Among the Lowly," a memorial volume of the first forty years of the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Murray. They practically asserted the equality of all men in the sight of their Maker.
Miss Shotwell and Miss Murray resolved to gather in from the haunts of vice and misery little colored orphans. They appealed to the public for contributions to that end. Patiently they told their story from house to house, amid much coldness and ridicule, and finally gathered, by small contributions, about 82000 and a band of twenty ladies who were willing to undertake the work with them.
These women organized a society in 1836, entitled The Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans. The board of officers consisted of Martha Codwise, first directress ; Sarah C. Hawxhurst, second direct - . ress ; Anna H. Shotwell, secretary, and Mary Murray, treasurer. These were all members of the Society of Friends. There were twenty-four managers ; also an advisory committee, composed of Will- iam T. Mott, Robert 1. Murray, Charles King, Robert C. Cornell, and Dr. Proudfit. They established a Colored Orphans' Home.
At the very outset these good women encountered deep prejudice. They sought a building to hire in which to begin their work. but prop- erty owners would not have their buildings used for such a purpose, though tenements for rent were in abundance. After a vain search of three months for a building, the pursuit was relinquished, and they managed to purchase a small wooden building for $9000, mortgaging . it for $6000.
The Home was opened in 1837, but so dreadful was the financial pressure that at times it seemed as if they must relinquish the enter- prise. The utmost economy in management was practised, and at the close of seven months' experience. with a family of twenty-two chil- dren, they had expended only $254. The house had been furnished with the discarded property of their friends. and the table was largely supplied from the same source. The managers, on visiting the alms- house at Bellevue, had found the colored children in charge of an in- temperate and sometimes crazy man. At other times they were crowded in with degraded adults in unhealthful buildings. Some of these children were taken to the happy Home, but most of them were incurably diseased.
The association was incorporated in 1838. In 1842 the common council granted the association twenty-two lots on Fifth Avenue. be- tween Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets. Thereon a suitable build- ing was erected, and for many years the institution struggled against prejudice and indifference, yet continually gaining friends and more liberal support.
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FIRST DECADE, 1S30-1840.
In July, 1863, when the Civil War was at its height, a dreadful riot ocurred in the city of New York, which will be noticed hereafter. The rioters were largely foreign-born persons, chiefly Irish of the lower class, whose prejudices against the colored people had been stimulated and their naginations inflamed by designing demagogues. In this riot they directed their blind fury against the colored people, and sacked the colored Home, where such noble work was in progress. Though it will anticipate history somewhat, it seems to be appropriate here to introduce, in a foot-note, a brief narrative of that event, for it is an unportant part of the history of the institution we are considering .*
* At four o'clock in the afternoon of July 13, 1863. while the 233 inmates of the asylum were quietly seated in the school-room, playing in the nursery, or lying on sick-beds in the hospital, a roaring mob. composed of several thousand men, women, and children, armed with clubs bricks, and other missiles. suddenly attacked the institution. The Home was stored with good furniture. dry-goods, bedding, clothing, and provisions, and the parlor had just been newly carpeted. The institution was out of debt, and rejoicing mu prosperity and usefulness.
Dr. Barnett, the physician of the asylum. had watched the movements of the mob with great anxiety for the safety of the institution. He gave the first alarm. The matron went to every room and notified each occupant to assemble at a given place, where the children were requested to engage in silent prayer to God for protection. Then, with streaming eyes, they were led down stairs, and very soon their ears were greeted with the yells of the approaching rioters.
The managers had generally left the city for summer residences, and none but the superintendent and his usual assistants were there. About five hundred of the mob entered the building, after breaking down the front door with an axe. At this moment brave John Decker, chief engineer of the fire department, appeared, with ten or fifteen men. He was a man of powerful frame and iron will. His principal force was at a large fire in Broadway.
Perceiving the situation, Decker said to his men. " Will you stick by me?" To a man they promptly said, " We will." Already the building had been set on fire in a dozen places. The firemen attempted to extinguish the flames, when they were threatened with death if they did not desist.
" Then you will have to pass over our dead bodies," replied Decker, and their exer- tions were renewed, but in vain. After the sacking and pillage were accomplished, the infuriated rioters strewed combustible materials over the floors. piled straw beds in the garret, and set them on fire, and very soon the whole building was in flames.
During these proceedings the superintendent and matron and other employes had quietly collected the children. The boys were hidden under the back piazza, the girls were gathered in the dining-room. The sight of these poor children as they left the building in procession subdued for a moment the savage feelings of the mob. An Irish- man standing in the street as the children passed along shouted with a loud voice :
" If there is a man among ye with a heart in his bosom, come and help these poor children." A young Irishman named Paddy McCaffrey, with four stage-drivers and the members of Engine Company No. 18, resened some twenty of the orphan children, who were surrounded by the mob, and in defiance of the threats of the cowardly rioters Scorted them to the precinct station-house.
The wrath of the rioters was kindled by this appeal. The man was seized and cruelly
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Provision was made for the admission of the children to shelter on Blackwell's Island. These were in a forlorn plight. They had left their pleasant home in ruins, without caps, bonnets, and shoes. They were accompanied in their journey by a large number of colored refugees, who had sought safety at the station-house. With a police force at their front and rear, and flanked by fifty Zouaves with loaded muskets and glittering bayonets, the forlorn procession moved, men- aced on the way by the mob, who were kept harmless by a wholesome fear of bullets and cold steel. Arrived at their destination, the Mer- chants' Relief Committee gave them aid, and they were made comfort- able on the island for months. A commodious dwelling at Carmans- ville was hired, altered, and repaired, and in October following these feeble, wearied wanderers were again in a pleasant home.
The officers and servants of the institution lost all their clothing and other property, for they were so intent upon saving the children that they did not care for themselves. The records of the asylum, which were kept by the same secretary twenty-seven years, were also de- stroyed.
The lots on Fifth Avenue were disposed of, and the present home was erected on One Hundred and Forty-third Street and Tenth Avenue. It is now in a flourishing condition." During the year 1882 there were 402 children in the Home, of whom 295 were there at the close of 1881. During the year 109 were released from the Home.
beaten, but the children were allowed to pass on unmolested. The superintendent and matron took them to the Thirty- fifth Street station-house, where the whole company were protected for three days and three nights. The building was near the Seventh Avenne Arsenal, and they were guarded by volunteer soldiers.
At first the children were stowed comfortably in a tier of cells, but when a large num- ber of the rioters were brought in, some of them covered with blood, the little ones were turned out and compelled to stand in the passage-way, for there was not room for them to lie down. When the captain beheld the forlorn condition of these helpless, frightened, almost starving children, he burst into tears.
At length a place was found for the little ones to lie down. At midnight they were suddenly awakened by the loud voice of the chief of police calling ont the men. The children, supposing the order was for them to turn out and be exposed to the mob. rushed to a window with a simultaneous scream. They were soon quieted, and yielded that implicit obedience which they had been taught. Food was abundantly supplied by their friends living in the neighborhood. The superintendent was given the office of provost-marshal over the large assemblage of colored people who had fled to the station- house for protection. These were fed by the surplus food sent in to the children.
* The officers of the institution for 1883 are : Mrs. Augustus Faber, first directress ; Mrs. William H. Onderdonk, second directress ; Mrs. Sarah S. Murray, secretary, and Mrs. S. B. Van Dusen, treasurer. There are twenty-nine lady managers and cleven gen- tlemen advisers. O. K. Hutchins is superintendent.
En . Daly
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
The average number of children in the Home during the year was 282. The whole number received since June 9, 1837, is 2640. There is a flourishing school in the institution.
The two originators of the association, Misses Anna H. Shotwell and Mary Murray, have gone to their reward. Miss Murray married Lindley Murray Ferris, and after her marriage lived many years in Poughkeepsie. She had been the treasurer of the institution until she left the city. In the midst of her varied duties as wife and mother and great activities in church affairs in her new home, she always maintained the deepest interest in the asylum. Mrs. Ferris died on September 26, 1881. One of the founders of the association, Miss Sarah F. Underhill, still lives. She has been a manager from the first.
THE COLORED HOME AND HOSPITAL .- About the year 1837 Miss Mary Shotwell and Mrs. W. W. Chester, two benevolent ladies, obtained support for several colored persons in a dwelling-house. Afterward they hired a large frame house in Eleventh Street, where they sup- ported twelve to sixteen persons until they were removed to Woodside, a home afterward provided by an association of women.
In the autumn of 1839 Mrs. Maria Banyar, Miss Jay, Mrs. William W. Chester, Miss Few. Mrs. Mott, Miss Miller, Mrs. Chrystie, Mrs. Goddard, Mrs. Innis, and Miss M. Shotwell met at the house of Mrs. Banvar, No. 20 Bond Street, to take into consideration the condition of the colored population of the city, and to devise a plan for an alle- viation of their sufferings. Miss Shotwell suggested a plan, and Miss Jay made a donation of $1000 for carrying it out.
At a subsequent meeting of these earnest women a board of man- agers was appointed, a constitution was adopted, and a society was organized under the title of The Society for the Relief of Worthy Aged Colored Persons. The officers chosen were Mrs. Anna Mott, first directress ; Miss Mary Shotwell, second directress ; Miss Few, treasurer : Miss A. II. Livingston, secretary, and Mr. Parsons, adviser. There were, besides, seven managers appointed.
At the first meeting of the board twelve persons were presented as worthy of relief, and for the first four years the pensioners were accommodated in a building on the shore of the Hudson River, called Woodside. In 1842 Mr. Ilorsburgh gave the society 82000. This was the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a permanent building.
In 1845 the society was incorporated under the title of The Society for the Support of the Colored Home, and the Legislature appropri- ated $10,000 for the erection of a permanent building. The next year an arrangement was made with the commissioners of the poor for the
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
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Home to receive all the colored paupers of the city at a very low rate of compensation. In 1847 Mrs. Maria Shatzel bequeathed to the Home $10,000 for the support of a lying-in department.
In 1848 the society purchased forty-four lots of ground on First Avenue, between Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth streets, and began the erection of some of the buildings since occupied by the institution. The good work has been carried on successfully, and its field of useful- ness has constantly widened.
In view of its thoroughly organized medical department, the Supreme Court of New York granted the society the privilege of hav- ing the word " hospital " appended to its corporate title, and it has since been known as the Colored Home and Hospital. It being the only hospital, for colored people in the city, its duties (as well as its usefulness) have greatly increased.
The Home and Hospital consists of four distinct departments- namely, hospital, home for the aged and indigent, nursery, and lying- in department. The nursery embraces children over three years of age who cannot be admitted into the Colored Orphan Asylum. The average number in that department in 1882 was about twenty. No special religious denomination is represented in the government of the institution. The greater number of the inmates being Methodists, the chosen chaplain is a Methodist minister. Ministers of other denomina- tions are invited to the performance of religious services .*
The SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF HALF ORPHAN AND DESTITUTE CHIL .- DREN in the city of New York was organized in the year 1835. At that time there were two orphan asylums in the city. One was Prot- estant, admitting full orphans only, and the other was Roman Catho- lic, which was open alike to those who had lost one or both parents. There was not at that time any institution in the United States which aimed to care for that important class of children who, by the loss of one parent, were frequently left as helpless and destitute as if both had been removed by death.
Attention was first called to this necessity by the story told of a de- voted mother-a servant-woman who became a widow. She had two small children depending upon her earnings for their support. They
* The officers of the Colored Home and Hospital in 1882 were : Miss Mary W. Booth, first directress ; Mrs. William E. Dodge, second directress : Mrs. James B. Colgate, treas- urer ; Miss Monell, corresponding secretary, and Mrs. Frederick A. Booth, recording secretary. It has twenty-one lady managers, an executive committee, an advisory board, and physician. Dr. Thomas W. Biekerton was superintendent, and Mrs. E. Hagar, matron.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
will not be taken into the family where she lived, and she procured Iwant for them elsewhere. For this she was compelled to pay the full amount of wages she was earning, leaving nothing wherewith to buy .Inthing for herself or children. So she left her place of service in the vity and went with her children into the country.
The story of this loving mother was told to a few benevolent ladies, who conceived a plan for a Protestant asylum for children similarly situated. At an appointed day seven of them met to digest and arrange their plans. They organized a society, appointed managers, opened a subscription, which netted $75, and with that small sum began the enterprise. That organization took place on the evening before the privat fire of December 16. 1835. A basement room in White Street was hired for the beginning of the benevolent work, a matron was engaged, and she began her duties in taking care of four children.
The lady in whose family the poor widow lived, and who related the story to friends, was Mrs. William A. Tomlinson.
The following ladies formed the first board of officers of the Half Orphan Asylum : Mrs. William A. Tomlinson, first directress ; Mrs. James Boorman, second directress ; Mrs. J. W. Wheeler, secretary ; Mrs. N. Littlefield, treasurer. The executive committee was composed of Mrs. Tomlinson, Mrs. Boorman, Mrs. Wheeler, Mrs. E. Wainwright, and Mrs. Levi Coit. A board of managers composed of twenty-six ladies was organized.
Within a few months a house was hired on Twelfth Street, and the number of children had increased to fifty-nine. This enterprise soon found generous supporters-among the most munificent of these was the late James Boorman. The institute was incorporated in April, 1837. under the name of The Society for the Relief of Half Orphan and Destitute Children in the City of New York. In the following year the society purchased a house on Tenth Street. It was soon too small. and finally the present home was erected at No. 67 West Tenth Street.
The Protestant Half Orphan Asylum is doing a noble work in its special sphere of duty. Its means have enlarged with its growth in usefulness. Its officers for 1882 were : Mrs. George D. Phelps, first dirretress ; Mrs. M. W. Bradley, treasurer, and Mrs. J. M. Campbell, superintendent.
SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
K
CHAPTER I.
" THE population of the city of New York at the beginning of the Second Decade (1840) was 312,700, an increase in ten years of nearly 110,000. The business of the city in almost every department had increased in proportion, and. it was giving a sure promise of be- roming one of the most populous and prosperous cities of the world. London then contained nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants, including its sub- urls, and Paris about 920,000. The total foreign commerce of New York City proper had expanded in value from about $35,000,000 in 1-Co to over $100,000,000 in 1840.
Within twenty years the city had doubled in size by the erection of new buildings, and a large proportion of the older part of the city had bren rebuilt, particularly its stores and warehouses. Many of these were of granite and marble, and brown freestone was beginning to be used in veneering the fronts of the better class of new-built resi- dences. Of the latter many elegant houses had been erected in East Broadway, St. Mark's Place, Bond Street, and on Washington Square, of fine brick, with white marble trimmings and marble steps and porti- These localities were then contending for the honor of being the exclusively fashionable portion of the city in its newest part. The city was then partly lighted with gas and partly with oil.
The public squares and promenades in the compact part of the city were vet very few. The Battery still held its pre-eminence as a fash- tonable as well as popular resort for cool shade and fresh air in sum- mer-time, but it was becoming too far away from the upper borders of the city to hold that pre-eminence long. The only other squares or malls in the city at that time were the City Hall Park, St. John's Park, Washington and Tompkins squares. St. John's Square was not open to the public, but was held for the exclusive use of property- owners around it. It was then a beautifully shaded park, the trees having been selected for their affinities by the elder Michaud. The northern boundary of the compact portion of the city had now ex- tended to Twelfth Street.
The year 1840 was marked by one of the most excitable and de-
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moralizing political campaigns ever known in this country, not only in the city of New York but throughout the Republic. It was a canvass for the office of President of the United States. The rival candidates were Martin Van Buren, then in the Presidential chair, and General William Henry Harrison, the popular military leader in the North-West in the war of 1812-15. Van Buren was the candidate of the Demo- cratic party, and General Harrison of the Whig party. Ex-Governor John Tyler, of Virginia, was the Whig candidate for Vice-President.
The usual trick of demagogues in formulating a " war-cry" and pro- viding a symbol of the party or the candidate to catch the ear and enlist the sympathies of the illiterate and unthinking multitude was now resorted to. Harrison having been associated with pioneer life in the West, the log-cabin was chosen as his symbol. The fiction was industriously circulated that he was living in a log-cabin in Ohio ; that he was very hospitable ; that the "latch-string" of his door was always " out," and that every guest was regaled with flagons of hard cider. This fiction was coupled with the battle-cry of " TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO," and a log-cabin was adopted as the symbol of Harri- son, and a barrel of hard cider as the symbol of his generous hospital- ity. Log-cabins were erected all over the country-in villages, cities, and in rural districts-as rallying-places for politicians and the electors, in each of which hard cider was dispensed to every comer, young and old, as freely as water.
In the city of New York a log-cabin was erected in nearly every ward, wherein cider flowed in an almost perpetual stream. Horace Greeley, who had been engaged in unsuccessful journalism (pecuniarily) in the city for about seven years, conducting the New Yorker and the Jeffersonian, was engaged by Thurlow Weed and his political friends in Albany to edit a campaign paper, which was called the Log-Cabin, for special effort in the city of New York. It proved to be a mighty partisan power, and with the aid of other agencies it overturned the Democratic party in the city. The course of Van Buren in regard to finances during the distressful times of 1837-38 had made him unpopu- lar with the commercial community, and a political tidal wave, like that of 1882, swept over the country and carried Harrison and Tyler into office. Harrison lived only a month after his inauguration as President, and Tyler became his constitutional successor.
Mr. Greeley's conduct of the Log-Cabin fully attested his pre-eminent ability as a political writer, and the qualities which constitute a skilful journalist. He was then twenty-nine years of age. The great Whig party as a body appreciated his powers. The Whig leaders perceived
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SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
!!... musity of a cheap Whig paper in the city of New York. a !! those then published being " blanket-sheets." Mr. Greeley was gaj» aled to, to establish such a newspaper. Ile pondered the matter o aring the winter of 1840-41. A Whig President would fill the chair of state ; the Whig party was in the ascendency in the Union : the pumpeet seemed encouraging for such an enterprise, and he resolved to undertake it. With a small capital in money, but a large capital of in- An-try, patience, strong will, and faith, he established the New York Tribune immediately after the inauguration of President Harrison, in the spring of 1841.
Mr. Greeley needed a business manager for his newspaper, for in that capacity he was deficient in ability. Hle soon found just the man for the place in Thomas McElrath, a young lawyer by profession, who nad been an active and intelligent book-publisher. He took hold of the business oar of the Tribune in July, 1841, and to his energy, skill. and enterprise in the early management of the paper was due its finan- cial success. The Tribune encountered fierce opposition at the begin- ning from rival publications.
From the beginning the Tribune was conspicuously individual in its course in regard to men, events, and opinions. It was always ready to advocate any measure that seemed to promise benefit to mankind. It was ever a manly champion of new ideas and projects, and when satis- fied that one of its foster-children was unworthy of further support it abandoned it in the same manly way. In consequence of its advocacy or discussion of novel doctrines in morals, religion, politics, and social life, which the critics of its editor grouped under the vague head of " isms," it was often subjected to severe animadversions.
In the year after the Tribune was established there were nine cheap cash journals and seven "sixpenny sheets" published daily in New York. There were also five Sunday papers and six Saturday papers published." The daily papers had an aggregate circulation of 92, 700 : the weekly papers of 38,500. The Sun (one cent) had the largest cir- culation-20,000 ; the Herald (two cents) the next largest-15.000.
* The cheap newspapers in New York in 1842 were the Sun, Herald, Tribune, Autor. Morning Post, Plebeian, Chronicle, Union, and Tafler. The " sixpenny sheets" were the Courier and Enquirer, Journal of Commerce, Commercial Advertiser. Express, American, Even- ing Post, and Standard. The Journal of Commerce had then a daily circulation of 7500. The Saturday papers were the Brother Jonathan, New World, Spirit of the Tanes, Whip. Flash, and Rake. The New World, edited by Park Benjamin, had a weekly circulation of 800). The Sunday papers were the Allus, Times, Mercury, and New Sunday Herald. The litter had a circulation of 9000.
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