USA > New York > New York City > History of New York city from the discovery to the present day, V. 2 > Part 15
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" Many times during the day a scattering fire was heard from the pickets. The troops then sprang to arms, while the volunteer citizens were placed in position to support the artillery. The guns were wheeled round to command the threatened point, and everything seemed to indicate an immediate and desperate attack. In most instances, however, the demonstration was quelled by the discharge of a volley into the air, when the crowd, which in many instances was largely composed of women and children, instantly disappeared after firing a few stones at the soldiers.
" At five o'clock Colonel Sherwood's battery of rifled six-pounders and a strong force of infantry, under com- mand of Colonel Meyer, were ordered to the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, to quell a serious disturbance which had broken out at that point. On arriving there, they found the people busily engaged in rifling and gutting the stores and private houses. Flames were issuing from the windows, and the scene resembled closely many similar ones which our citizens during the last few days have been called to look on. Suspended from a lamp-post was the body of a black man who had been hung up a few minutes before. The fire- men made their appearance on the ground at the same time as the military. The people who had been engaged in the work of destruction retired behind the firemen, thus placing a barrier of our brave firemen between themselves and the military. It was this circumstance only which prevented the discharge of the rifled field-pieces. From the housetops the usual salute of brickbats and stones
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was showered down on the military. Several citizens stepped up to Colonel Meyer and informed him that men were stationed on the housetops, with rifles in their hands, ready to fire on his men. The Colonel thereupon ordered his men to keep a sharp lookout, and if any shots were fired from the housetops, to deliver a volley in- stantly. At this time Judge McCunn appeared on the scene, and entreated the Colonel ' to spare those innocent people.' The Judge informed the Colonel that he had, by authority from Governor Seymour, been using his influ- ence to quell the disturbance. Colonel Meyer replied that he, as a military man, had but to obey orders, and if the people attempted to advance or fire on his men, he should certainly order it to be returned by a volley. The infantry and artillery then slowly retired, and had hardly reached the Arsenal ere the disturbance broke out with renewed vio- lence, and word was brought to General Sandford that two more negroes were dangling in mid air from the lamp-posts.
" The pickets brought in a large number of prisoners, dirty, ragged, and bloody in appearance, but sullen and determined in demeanor.
" The colored folks in the Twentieth Ward suffered very severely. Numberless were the atrocities perpe- trated on them. They were hunted from their houses by the score. When caught, they were hung up to lamp- posts, or beaten, jumped on, kicked, and struck with iron bars and heavy wooden clubs. At one time there were between fifty and sixty of these people in the Arsenal. Many of them were horribly maimed and disfigured. No respect had been paid either to sex, age, or condition. One woman was burned out of her house who had only been confined on Tuesday. * Many affecting scenes took place between different members of the same family who had given each other up as lost, and met unexpectedly in the Arsenal. One poor fellow had been obliged to run for
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- his life, and in about an hour his wife arrived in deep dis- tress ; but when she saw her 'old man' alive and all right, * except a ghastly wound on the head, her joy was bound- less, and could find no better vent for it than by flinging her arms around her husband's neck."
" Between seven and eight o'clock P. M.," says a news- paper reporter, "about one hundred soldiers, dressed in citizens' clothes and accompanied by a portion of Haw- kins's Zouaves, who were in uniform, with one field-piece, marched up the First Avenue. The crowd, at the time, were congregated in the street, corner Nineteenth Street, not doing anything very obnoxious. While the soldiers were orderly marching along, all at once the military were fired upon by some man of the crowd in the rear. The soldiers turned and killed the man who had fired.
Thursday, July 16th, opened more cheerfully. Sev- eral of the militia regiments which had been absent on service had returned to the city, and its inhabitants felt more confident of security. The mob, though somewhat awed by the arrival of fresh troops, was still defiant and occasionally resisted the soldiers, who, however, succeeded, after several severe encounters in which many lives were lost, in establishing their ascendancy.
On Friday, the 17th day of July, Mayor Opdyke pro- claimed :
" The riotous assemblages have been dispersed. Busi- ness is running in its usual channels. The various lines of omnibuses, railway, and telegraph have resumed their ordinary operations. Few symptoms of disorder remain, except in a small district in the eastern part of the city, comprising a part of the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Wards. The police is everywhere alert. A sufficient military force is now here to suppress any illegal move- ment, however formidable."
The Federal Government, in the meantime, had pre-
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pared to vindicate its contemned authority. Major-Gen- eral Dix was relieved of his command at Fortress Monroe and ordered to New York, as commander of the Depart- ment of the East in place of General Wool, and General Brown was superseded by General Canby in the command of the United States troops in the city and harbor. A large force was, at the same time, ordered to New York, and soon some thirty thousand Federal soldiers occupied the city and neighborhood, when public halls were turned into barracks and parks into camping-grounds. With its authority thus fortified, the Government disclaimed all responsibility for the suspension of the draft, and declared its determination to prosecute it. The civic authorities, too, became less disposed to conciliate the violations of the law, and Mayor Opdyke vetoed the aldermanic ordinance. The supervisors of the State and county, however, made a compromise by voting a large sum to relieve the fami- lies of conscripts and to pay bounties to volunteers. The President of the United States, after a disputatious cor- respondence with the Governor of New York, agreed to. modify the quotas, but refused to postpone the draft until a decision might be obtained in regard to its legality. The draft accordingly took place in New York during the month of August, without the least attempt to resist it.
The exact number of persons killed in this riot is not known. The police estimated it in round numbers at over one thousand. The mob and the negro population were naturally the greatest sufferers, the losses of the military and police force being comparatively slight. The city subsequently paid about one million five hundred thousand dollars as an indemnity for the losses sustained during the riot .*
* The greater portion of the account of this riot has been derived from The War with the South (published by Virtue & Yorston), which, in turn, was mostly taken from the accounts of newspaper reporters who were on the spot, and in most instances eye-witnesses of the incidents they describe.
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· This is the history of the DRAFT RIOT so far as can be ascertained, for in all probability its secret history, as well as the real instigators who, from behind the curtain, pulled the wires, will never transpire. But a foul blot upon the fair escutcheon of New York must ever remain the " Draft Riot "-a riot which differs in every particu- lar from those which have been narrated in preceding pages. Unlike the "Negro Riot," the city was in no apparent danger from the torch of the incendiary; un- like the "Doctors' Riot," the graves of relatives had not been despoiled; unlike the "Election Riot," the excite- 'ment of a political canvass could not be pleaded in exten- uation ; unlike the " Flour " and the " Bread Riots," people were not clamoring for bread ; unlike the "Stone-cutters' Riot," no trade or interest was threatened by supposed destruction ; unlike the "Five Points " and the "Astor Place Riots," the pride of nationality was not touched ; unlike the "Police Riot," there was no prospect of per- sons being thrown out of employment; unlike the " Quarantine Riot," there was no fear that the seeds of a dire contagion would be scattered over a community. The "Draft Riot " was in no respect like any of these, bit was gotten up simply to gratify shameful, wanton, and wicked passions, and ended in a crusade against an inoffensive race who had done their murderers no harm. Utterly unprovoked, and without the shadow of excuse or palliation, the " Draft Riot" stands out, and shall for- ever stand out, black and hideous in the city's history.
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CHAPTER XII.
THE year 1865 was marked by the substitution of a paid for a volunteer Fire Department. The history of this branch of municipal organization, from the
time of its origin in the early Dutch period up to 1865. the present day, is replete with so much interest that it has been deemed best to wait until the present year before considering it as a whole .*
In 1662, an incident occurred of no ordinary impor- tance. This was the importation by New York city of two fire-engines from London. There was no subject upon which, at that time, the inhabitants of the city felt a deeper interest than the most effectual means of extin- guishing fires; for the loss of property by conflagrations was a calamity to which the city, from its first settlement, had been peculiarly exposed. The ground upon which it was originally built was very irregular. Great inequal-
* The exceedingly interesting account of the origin and history of the Fire Department, to which the present chapter is devoted, is taken from Chief-Justice Daly's address delivered in 1871, and entitled The Origin and History of the New York Fire Department. This address has never been printed; and I cannot sufficiently thank Judge Daly for his kindness in allowing me the use of it for this work. Without this chapter the history of the city would be very incomplete. This address also contains such a vast amount of clas. sical and curious information in regard to the fires in ancient times, and the mode of extinguishing them, that it is to be hoped that the author will allow it to be published in pamphlet form. The address is given verbatim.
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ity of surface was produced by hills or elevated ground, the communication between which was interrupted by natural obstructions ; for when the water did not find its way through the valley in streams, it collected between the elevated ground in numerous places, in ponds and marshes. These difficulties presented formidable obsta- cles even to the hardy race that founded the city, so that little effort was made at the outset to level it.
The houses were at first huddled together in close proximity to the fort which had been built near the site of the present Battery, for the common protection, and 'were afterward distributed here and there, as the interest and convenience of each proprietor dictated. As the set- tlement grew larger, and streets and lanes became requi- site to facilitate communication, they were necessarily narrow, crowded, and short, with but two exceptions,-the Hooghe Straat (the present Pearl Street), which ran along the water, and the Heere Straat (the present Broadway), which, following the ridge of an ascending hill, extended in a straight line from the Fort to the City Wall, or Wall Street. A city so irregularly distributed, from the diffi- culties of its natural situation, presented numerous obstruc- tions to that ready communication and rapid action which are so necessary in a time of fire ; in addition to which, the houses, for many years, were built exclusively of wood, the roofs were thatched with reeds or straw, and the chimneys were also of wood. Exposed during the long heat of the summer to the action of the sun, they ignited quickly and burned rapidly ; while, during the winter, the cold at that period was usually so intense that it was necessary to keep huge logs blazing in the great open Dutch fire-place, which carried up through the wooden chimney a large volume of heat, making it in time exceedingly combustible; so that the catching on fire of a chimney, or the burning-down of a building, or of many, was a very
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ordinary occurrence .* The means for extinguishing fire, moreover, were very inadequate. There was no want of water. The little settlement was surrounded on three sides by the bay, the East and North Rivers; and a stream deep enough for market-boats to ascend, extended through the middle of it, flowing in from the bay up through the center of the present Broad Street as far as Exchange Place ; in addition to which there was generally a well or cistern in the garden of each house.
But, though water was abundant, the transportation of it quickly and in sufficient quantity was no easy matter. It had to be carried by hand; and as it was many years before any public regulation was established to secure a prompt supply of it in such emergencies, it may be im- agined a scene of confusion must have ensued when tubs, pails, or other means of conveying water had to be hastily improvised to stay the progress of a fire. To remedy this, measures were taken in 1648. Four firewardens were appointed by Governor Stuyvesant and his council, whose duty it was declared to be to prevent all accidents by fire ; to visit all around, and see that every one kept his chimney clean by sweeping ; and, in case any one was found to be deficient, to demand immediately a penalty of three guild- ers-about $1.30; and the ordinance further declared that if any house was burned through the carelessness of the occupant, he was to be subjected to a fine of thirty guild- ers-about $11; from which fines a fund was to be created for the purchase of leather buckets and hooks and ladders in Holland.
It might naturally be supposed that a sense of common danger would have made every inhabitant vigilant to guard against the occurrence of such calamities, and that a regulation of this nature would have met with very general approval. But our Dutch ancestors were pro-
* Vide account of the " Negro Plot " in the first part of this work.
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verbially slow. They were exceedingly averse to any change which interfered with their personal habits, or settled mode of conducting their affairs; and, when such changes were sought to be brought about by the instru- mentality of law or ordinances, they were very intractable and difficult to manage. · Householders did not co-operate with the authorities `. in giving effect to a regulation so manifestly essential to the public safety. On the contrary, the firewardens experienced the greatest difficulty in performing the duty of inspecting chimneys, the Dutch housewives being 'especially belligerent and abusive. The records of the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens aver that Magdalen Dircks was brought before it; and it was proved, by her own confession, that, as she passed the house of Fire- warden Litschoe, then the principal tavern-keeper, and a very considerable personage, she and her sister called out, as that important individual stood in his own door- way, "There is the chimney-sweep;" and the worshipful court gave it as its judgment that such things could not or ought not to be tolerated, and fined Magdalen two pounds Flemish. But it was not confined to the women. Fven a man of law, Solomon La Chair, afterward a notary and a very prominent official, was brought before the court for abusing the firewardens by calling them chimney-sweepers. " It is not seemly," says the court, " that men should mock and scoff at those appointed to any office-yea, especially to such a necessary office ; " and Solomon was accordingly mulcted.
But it was not, it seems, even in the power of the court to uphold the firewardens. So many indignities were heaped upon them that the office became undesirable, its duties were gradually relaxed, and the ordinance fell into neglect.
As these four firewardens were the pioneers in the
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important duty of saving the city from conflagrations, it may be well to mention who they were. The first, Martin Krieger, kept a famous tavern immediately oppo- site to the Bowling Green, during the early part of the Dutch period. He was afterward, when a municipal government was established, one of the two first Burgo- masters ; was subsequently a member of Governor Stuyve- sant's council ; and, down to the capture of the city by the English, he filled many important offices. The next, Thomas Hall, was an Englishman, who had been taken prisoner by the Dutch, and, being released upon parole, concluded to remain in New Amsterdam, where, in course of time, he became a man of wealth and influence, filling many public stations. He was the owner of a large farm in the vicinity of Spruce and Beekman Streets, which afterward passed into the hands of William Beekman, the ancestor of the Beekman family. The third, Adrian Wyser, was at first one of the officials of the Company by whom New Netherland was founded, and afterward a member of the Executive Council. The last, George Woolsey, was an Englishman, who came here and became the agent of Isaac Allerton, one of the principal Dutch traders, and who afterward became the proprietor of a plantation in Flushing.
It has been stated that the ordinance which led to the appointment of these four firewardens fell into disuse ; and, as a consequence of the neglect of the precau- tionary measures it was designed to enforce, the number of fires greatly increased. At length, in 1657, after nine years had gone by, another ordinance was resorted to, the preamble of which discloses the perilous condition of things, by the passage that " fires were apprehended, even to the ; entire destruction of the city." The authorities were now earnestly aroused. Energetic measures were adopted. All thatched roofs and wooden chimneys were ordered to be
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taken down within four months, under a penalty of twenty- five guilders ($10) for every month's delay; but so difficult was it even then to enforce this indispensable regulation, that the execution of it was postponed-first for four months, then for a year, and afterward for ten years. The difficulty of complying with it was, in fact, very great. There was a want of material for the cover- ing of roofs, and the getting-out of stone for the chimneys . was a laborious and troublesome process. Bricks and tiles · were first imported from Holland in 1659, no doubt in consequence of this very ordinance. In the previous ' year, 1658, the subject of being prepared for the occur- rence of fire was also taken into consideration, and it was decreed that for every house, whether large or small, one beaver, or its equivalent, eight guilders ($3), should be paid, to raise a sum of money to procure from the father-
land one hundred and fifty leather fire-buckets, and for the making of some fire-ladders and fire-hooks. The pre- amble to this ordinance sets forth that it is customary, in all well-regulated cities, to have fire-buckets, ladders, and hooks in readiness at the corners of streets, and in public- houses, in time of need; and that it was then especially necessary in New Amsterdam, as the houses were chiefly of wood, there being but a small number built of stone. But the raising of money then by tax was a very slow process. It probably came in so tardily that the project of sending to the fatherland was given up hopelessly, for the all-sufficient reason that the Amsterdam merchants were not in the habit of fulfilling the orders of the little municipality which bore the name of their city on the other side of the Atlantic, unless they had some better assurance for payment than its promises. The hooks and ladders were made in the city, and were distributed about in different places; but the most essential things of all, the leather buckets, were wanting. The Worshipful
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Court of Burgomasters and Schepens now bestirred them- selves. The shoemakers of the city, who were then seven in number, were summoned to meet the city authorities on the' Ist of August, 1658, to consider the grave question of the possibility of making the buckets in the city. Four of them attended. The first one to whom it was. proposed declined the arduous undertaking. The second declared that he had no material. The third ventured to make one hundred for six guilders two stivers a piece, or about $2.50; and the fourth was brought to engage to make the remaining fifty upon the same terms. Six months further passed, when at last, on the 20th of January, 1658, the one hundred and fifty buckets were brought to the Stadt House, or City Hall, which then stood upon Pearl Street, facing Coenties Slip; and being regularly numbered, the first fifty were deposited in the City Hall, and the remaining portion were divided in lots of ten and twelve, and placed at the residences of nine of the prin- cipal inhabitants.
The next step was the establishment of public wells- a measure dictated not only by a regard for the public safety in time of fire, but also for the public health. Before the completion of that great work, the Croton Aqueduct, the water required for domestic purposes was probably worse than that of any other city of equal extent in the world. That obtained from the wells of individ- ual proprietors, which were the chief source of supply for the first forty-four years, was so bad that even horses refused to drink it. In the year now under consideration, the first public well was dug in front of the Fort, upon the site of a natural spring ; and affording, as it did, a supply of comparatively wholesome water, it became a great resort of the inhabitants during the remaining period of the Dutch occupation.
This year (1658) and the preceding one were especially 72
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distinguished by energetic measures for the improvement of the city. The Dutch burghers were now in reality aroused. In addition to these precautionary measures for the extinguishment of fires, a rattle watch was established, consisting of eight men, the duty being imposed upon each of the citizens in turn. The city was surveyed and regu- lated. Streets were for the first time paved with stone- one of them, Stone Street, still retaining the name that was then given to it. With the exception of Stone Street, the pavement extended only to the width of ten feet from the front of the houses, the center of the street being left without pavement, for the more easy absorption of the water, as there were no sewers. Names were also given to many of the streets; and, in 1660, a brick-yard was established in the vicinity of the present Park ; and though the enterprise was not profitable to its projectors, it led to the use of brick in the construction of houses. And the progress must have been very rapid ; for Denton, who visited the city ten years afterward, in 1670, records the fact that the houses were then mostly of brick or stone, covered with red and black tiles, giving to the city, he says, "a pleasing aspect, when seen from an elevated height."
This active movement for the improvement of the city was, no doubt, to be attributed to the fact that the inhabitants had obtained from the States-General in Holland, four years previously, what they had long petitioned for, -- a municipal government, and with it the enjoyment of those local privileges to which they had been accustomed in the cities, towns, and villages of their fatherland; or, to express it in different words, the in- estimable right of local self-government. They had been ruled exclusively before this by a governor and by a council selected by him, who administered affairs with special reference to the interest of a trading corporation
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in Amsterdam, by whom New Netherland was founded as a commercial speculation ; and though the inhabitants were nominally under the protection of the Dutch Govern- ment, they were so far away that they were completely subject to the will of governors, who were at times capricious, in some instances grossly incompetent, and generally arbitrary. Such a government was not in harmony with the interest of the individual citizen. It retarded progress by taking away all desire for it; and when the inhabitants were released from its restraint by the establishment of a municipal body, elected by them- selves, which was alike a court of justice and a repre- sentative council clothed with the power of municipal government, the effect was speedily felt in the active movement and public spirit which dictated the improve- ments to which allusion has been made .*
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