USA > New York > Staten Island > History of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York : from its discovery to the present time > Part 43
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Brighton Heights seminary for girls is located on St. Mark's place, nearly opposite the Reformed church. The large prop- erty of Horace R. Kelly was purchased for it. It was estab- lished in 1883. Its first principal was Mrs. Hartt, the widow of the late Professor Charles F. Hartt, of Cornell University. It
* The names in Italics were residents of the island.
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was intended to make the school equal to the best New York and Brooklyn schools.
The " Brighton Heights Association" was formed in the spring of 1883, by a number of gentlemen, residents of Staten Island, who purchased property at a cost of $20,000, formerly the resi- dence of George Wetherspoon, Esq. The interior was re- modelled and fitted to the new purpose at a cost of over $3,500. The school was well patronized by all parts of the island, and the building was found too small, so an addition was made at a cost of $6,000, built in 1884, on the south side of the grounds fronting St. Mark's place. It is connected by a covered passage way with the first building. The size of the new addition is forty by forty-one feet, two stories high, The basement is of brick, the building frame. A kindergarten has been added. Preparatory, music, drawing and French are tanght. The pres- ent principal is Dr. George W. Cook.
The Staten Island academy is the fulfillment of a desire long felt and discussed, to provide for this populous suburb of New York a school so organized that it should furnish graded in- struction complete and of a high order, from the primary to the collegiate years, An earnest effort in the spring and sum- mer of 1884, shaped a movement which resulted in the estab- lishment of an incorporated school, planned from the outset to furnish such instruction and especially to give the carefullest preparation for the university or schools of technology.
The school was first opened September 15, 1884. It is char- tered under the laws of the state of New York. Its general management is given to a board of trustees elected by the stockholders. It offers systematic courses of study in all primary and academic grades, with the strictest features of a thoroughly classified school maintained in every department. The school is exclusively for day scholars and receives pupils of both sexes from the primary grade upward.
The building now occupied by the school is on Richmond road, opposite the Lyceum, and stands in one of the quietest and most attractive parts of Stapleton. It is supplied with modern school furniture, electric bells, gas, water, toilet rooms and all that may contribute to the comfort of scholars and the efficiency of their class work.
The trustees of the academy have designed to provide here a complete Froebel kindergarten, and to this end two rooms have
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been furnished with all that relates to kindergarten work. In one of these the children are busy with their various ocenpa- tions, while in the other and larger one they have ample space for the beautiful games and exercises of the Froebel system.
Care is taken that the children shall be surrounded by all that can help develop a taste for the beantiful, and a habit of kindness to the lower animals. An aquarium of fishes, a mini- ature flower garden, singing birds, pictures, and designs, of which many are the specimens of the children's own handiwork, adorn the rooms.
The entire organization of the school property, its courses of study, etc., has devolved npon the present principal, Frederick E. Partington, A. M., of Brown University, who was the first to take charge at the opening in September, 1884. The school registers now over two hundred students, and can admit no more, except when vacancies occur, and it has a list of thirty or forty who are waiting to enter when the chance comes. The trustees have lately acquired a large property, and steps have been taken to erect a large and permanent structure which will accommodate four hundred pupils, and be provided with a fine gymnasium, assembly hall and all the appointments of a modern preparatory school. Among the more prominent citizens of the island closely interested in its development are Hon. George William Curtis, Erastus Wiman, Esq. and Dr. John C. Eccleston.
The present board of trustees are: Augustus Schoverling, Dr. John L. Feeny, Carl von Dannenberg. Hermann Garbe, Frederick W. Graef, August Horrmann, Algernon K. Johnston, Dr. Rudolph Mautner, Anthon G. Methfessel, William Rock- stroth, Reinhardt Siedenberg, Hugo Schering and Erastus Wiman.
St. Austin's School, for boys, at West New Brighton, was established in 1883, through the efforts of Rev. Alfred G. Mortimer, the present rector. From its beginning this school has met with unnsual success. In February, 1885. the property of the late W. T. Garner, on Bard avenne, consisting of fifteen acres of ground with the buildings thereon, was purchased for the school. Class rooms and gymnasium, with a front of one hundred and fifty feet, were erected near the main building. The faculty includes nine resident masters from Brown, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, and Dublin.
The Natural Science Association, growing out of the intel-
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lectual culture of the island, developing in a demand for scien- tific investigation of the works of nature on the island, was organized in November, 1880. Its members are mainly per- sons of enthusiasm and energy in the particular direction in which the investigations of each are absorbed. In the study of the animals, reptiles, insects, birds, fishes, plants, trees, rocks, earths, formation and the Indian relics, the members of this association are performing an amount of labor that is per- fectly bewildering to the mind of an observer, when viewed in the aggregate. The society numbers about fifty active mem- bers, and they hold meetings monthly at the village hall in New Brighton, when the results of the labors of the different mem- bers are reported and notes of information compared. A col- lection of several hundred objects has been made, and this is all the time increasing. The present officers are: Dr. A. L. Carroll, president ; Samuel Henshaw, treasurer ; Ernest A. Congdon, recording secretary ; Arthnr Hollick, corresponding secretary, and William T. Davis, curator. An incorporation, under the provisions of Chapter 319 of the Laws of 1848, was effected by the execution of the required certificate, January 19, 1885, which was duly filed with the county clerk on the 30th of the same month, and with the secretary of state February 19, 1885. The business and objects, as set forth in the certificate, are * to collect and preserve objects of natural science and antiquity, with special reference to local matters, and to diffuse correct knowledge in regard to the same, by means of publications, meetings and public lectures." The management of its business and affairs is in the hands of a board of five trustees, which, for the first year of its incorporation, were: Alfred Ludlow Carroll, M. D., Ernest A. Congdon, Arthur Hollick, Ph. B., William T. Davis and Samuel Henshaw.
The first Staten Island newspaper, of which we have any knowledge, was published on the 17th day of October, 1827; it was called the " Richmond Republican," and was edited by Charles N. Baldwin ; it hailed from Tompkinsville, but was printed in Chambers street, New York. Its publication day was Saturday, and in politics it was rabidly democratic. Its editor announced that he also sold lottery tickets, and solicited orders for sign and ornamental painting. It appears to have continued in existence for several years, but we are not informed at what date its publication closed.
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The " Richmond County Mirror" was published at New Brighton in 1837 and 1838, by Francis L. Hagadorn.
The " Richmond County Gazette" was established at Staple- ton in February, 1859, with Charles Vogt as editor. Its origi- nal name was the "Sepoy," and it had its birth in the excite- ment which followed the burning of the quarantine buildings. Since 1864 it has been edited by Thomas J. Folan, Ernest F. Birmingham, James S. Spencer, Colon K. Urquhart, James E. Lee and William A. Suydam. It was consolidated with the " Sentinel," May 10, 1882.
The " North Shore Adrocate" was started at West New Brighton, by John J. Clute, in June, 1869. It continued under the same management until 1877, when its publication was suspended.
The " Richmond County Sentinel" was started in April, 1876, by Thomas Humphrey and Hans S. Beattie. It was pur- chased in 1881 by Erastus Wiman, and shortly afterward con- solidated with the " Gazette."
The " Staten Island Leader" was first issued in 1866, its publication office being at Stapleton. It publisher has been P. H. Gill. The " Staten Island Advertiser," started in 1877, at West New Brighton, was afterward merged in the " Leader." It is now published by the Macklin Brothers.
" Der Deutsche Staten Islander," a German newspaper, was started at Stapleton, in 1867, by John Schiefer, editor and pub- lisher, by whom it is still continued.
The " Staten Islander Deutsche Zeitung," a German paper, was established in 1876, by Carl Herborn, by whom it was edited and published two or three years, at Stapleton.
The " Richmond County Standard" was established April 9, 1881, by Robert Humphrey and Colon K. Urquhart, in the village of New Brighton. After January, 1884, by the with- drawal of Mr. Urquhart, the proprietorship fell entirely to Mr. Humphrey, and Ira K. Morris was employed as editor, in which position he is still retained.
The "Richmond County Democrat " was first issued in Sep- tember, 1880, by William J. and J. H. Browne. The publica- tion office is in the village of New Brighton. In 1883 the paper was enlarged, and a power press and steam were added to the working material of the office. Its publication is still con-
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tinned by the original proprietors. Thomas J. Folan is its editor.
The " Richmond County Herald" was established August 27, 1880, at Stapleton, by Gilbert C. Dean, by whom it has since been continued.
The " Staten Island Star" was established at West New Brighton in 1877. It is still published by Oscar A. Douglas.
The publication of " The Citizen" was begun at Port Rich- mond, in September, 1885, by Ira R. Bamber and George D. Swartwout.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS .- For years it has been the priv- ilege of Richmond county to number among its residents one of the foremost of American authors, journalists and statesmen, George William Curtis. Although Mr. Curtis has never held a political office, he has made a profound study of states. . manship, and possesses a knowledge of public affairs second to that of no other man in the country ; but his greatest and best work has been achieved in the field of journalism. Starting out on his youthful career as the author of several charming books of travel, and afterward drifting into literary engage- ments with the New York " Tribune," "Harper's Weekly," and other journals, he was at an early age, and in common with thousands of earnest young men in the North, driven by conviction to take part in the great moral revolution which cul- minated in the war for the Union and the abolition of slavery in the United States ; and throwing himself with fervor into this new field of activity, he abandoned a profession in which he might have obtained high honors, for the one in which he has achieved his great reputation as a leader and teacher of men. It will be interesting to trace the steps by which he came into his chosen career of work.
Mr. Curtis was born in Providence, R. I., February 24, 1824, but he was partly of Massachusetts descent, his father having been born in Worcester, in that state, of which an ancester was the first settler. His mother was the daughter of James Bur- rill, Jr., at one time chief justice of Rhode Island, and after- ward United States senator. In 1830 he went to boarding school at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, where he remained for four years. Pleasant reminiscences of his school days there are found in the early chapters of his novel, "Trumps," narrated
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with a freshness and enthusiasm which remind the reader of " Tom Brown at Rugby." Meanwhile he lost his mother; and in 1839, his father, who had married again, removed with his family to New York, and, desirous that his son should pursue a mercantile career, placed him, after a year's study with a private tutor, as a clerk in a German importing house in Ex- change place.
But mercantile life was not agreeable to the youth. His tastes were decidedly literary, and in the course of his reading he be- came deeply interested in the transcendental movement in which so many of the best and purest minds of New England were at that time engaged. Accordingly, after about a year of uncon- genial drudgery in the importing house, he went to "Brook Farm," in company with his eldest brother, who shared in his tastes and aspirations. It is unnecessary to repeat the story of failure and disappointment which led to the breaking down of that amiable experiment; but the incident of his taking part in the endeavor to create an ideal society is interesting as show- ing the early tendency of Mr. Curtis' mind. He is still called an idealist by those who use the word as a term of reproach, as though it were folly in the youth to believe that society may. in time and by persistent effort, be organized on a higher and purer basis than at present, and still greater folly in the man to retain such optimistic views. The millennium may be far away; but its coming will not be hastened by deriding the prin- ciples whose application in social and political life may make it possible at some distant period; and men who endeavor to bring society into harmony with those principles are prophets and apostles of the Utopia that is to come.
Mr. Curtis and his brother remained at " Brook Farm " until 1844, and they then passed two years in Concord, Mass., study- ing and farming. Here Mr. Curtis became very intimate with Emerson, Hawthorn and Henry Thoreau, forming warm friend- ships with them which were broken only by death. In his " Homes of American Authors " he has printed some interest- ing notes of his intercourse with the philosopher, the romancer and the hermit.
In 1846 Mr. Curtis determined on making an extended tour in the old world, which, at that time, was a more eventful and important undertaking than it is now, when the " Atlantic Ferry " will take yon across in a little more than a week. In
large William Lustig
PHOT. BY ٢٨٤٫٠ ARTOTYPE, E. BIERSTADT, N. Y.
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August of that year he sailed from New York for Marseilles in a passenger packet. The voyage occupied nearly fifty days. From Marseilles he went by steamer to Leghorn and from that city to Pisa. where he lingered awhile to admire the wonders of the Leaning Tower, the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Campo Santo. From Pisa he passed on through the luscious vintage to Florence. The winter was spent in Rome. In the spring of 1847 Mr. Curtis visited Naples and other portions of Southern Italy, then made his way slowly northward, back to Florence, where he remained some time, finishing the summer by a long and delightful sojourn in Venice, in the congenial society of Kensett, Hicks and other American artists. In the autuum he traveled through Lombardy to Como, and over the Stelvio through the Tyrol and Salzkammergut to Vienna, reaching Berlin in the middle of November. The spring of 1848 found him in Dresden, Pragne and again in Vienna, whence he sailed down the Danube to Pesth, returning to Switzerland for the summer. He traveled through Switzerland with all the delight of leisure, and not with the modern American frenzy, which counts as lost time every hour consumed in passing from place to place. In the same manner he studied the cities, the people and the art of Holland-who indeed could hurry through Holland-and in the autumn sailed from Malta to Alexandria.
Mr. Curtis was fortunate in visiting the land of the Pharoahs when the spirit of modern progress had scarcely begun its devastating work within the shadow of the pyramids. The de- struction of the picturesque is surely not an evil necessarily attendant upon social, political and industrial progress; but progress is very apt, when suddenly aroused, to play sad havoc with things which might better be preserved than destroyed. Were there not quarries of stone in Egypt, that temples old as human tradition must be despoiled to build new cities ? Doubtless the railroad and the steamboat are great conveniences for people who are in a hurry, but they have unmade the Egypt of history and the imagination. They had not done so when our Howadji looked upon the pyramids and sailed slowly up the Nile to the second cataract. The sacred river still flowed "through old hushed Egypt and its sands, like some grave, mighty thought, threading a dream," and the effect of that hnshed and dreamy life upon his imagination found delightful expression in his " Nile Notes," which are full of the flavor and
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perfume of the East. Ten years afterward they could not have been written. Stephens visited the Nile still earlier; but he was a man of merely dry observation. He had no enthusiasm, no imagination, and the record of his journeyings is as dull as a ledger in comparison with the Howadji's dreamy musings and charming descriptions.
A journey across the desert by way of Gaza to Jerusalem, of which he wrote an account in the " Howadji in Syria," ended Mr. Curtis' eastern travels. He spent the early summer of 1850 in England and returned home in August. His pen had not been idle during his wanderings. Besides his journal, he had written letters for the "Courier and Enquirer," of which Henry J. Raymond was then managing editor, and for the New York " Tribune," where his friend, Mr. Charles A. Dana, held the same position. On his return, he entered upon an ac- tive literary life. He became musical critic and editorial writer on the " Tribune," and wrote out his " Nile Notes," which were published in 1851 by the Harpers. In the autumn of that year he wrote a series of picturesque traveling letters to the " Tribune." from the Catskills, Saratoga, Trenton, Niagara, Newport and Nahant, which were published in 1852 as " Lotus Eating," beautifully illustrated by his friend Kensett. In the same year the "Howadji in Syria " was published, and Mr. Curtis wrote some sketches of social life for "Harper's Monthly.
The establishment of " Putnam's Monthly," in 1853, opened a new field to Mr. Curtis, who, in conjunction with Parke God- win and Charles F. Briggs, assumed the editorial management of that periodical, which was destined to a brilliant thoughi brief career. Within the first year of its existence he wrote the papers on Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow and Bancroft, in the series on "The Homes of American Authors." To this magazine Mr. Curtis contributed "The Potiphar Papers," a brilliant satire on certain phases of New York society, and " Prue and I," a series of delightful sketches, rather than a story, which was published in 1857. When the magazine passed into the hands of Messrs. Dix & Edwards, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted became connected with the firm and were involved in its failure. Considering himself morally, if not legally, responsible for a portion of the indebtedness, Mr. Curtis refused to avail himself of the technicalities of the
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law and set himself to the work of paying the creditors. He devoted himself diligently to literary work. The amount of labor he performed was literally enormous. Besides filling the "Easy Chair" of "Harper's Magazine," in which he had just taken his seat, and writing "The Lounger" in "Harper's Weekly," he delivered a long series of lectures, sometimes speaking a hundred nights in a season, and traveling, almost without rest, from place to place at the insatiable call of man- agers and committees. No man was ever more popular as a lecturer. The charm of his manner was irresistible; he had not only something to say which the people wanted to hear, but knew how to say it with the grace and ease which belong to the true orator. One of the most popular of his lectures was that on that perfect soldier of chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney. Scarcely less popular were his Lowell lectures on the mod- ern English novelists, which were repeated in New York, Brooklyn and other places. The physical and mental strain involved in this labor was so excessive that many people wondered that he was willing to undergo it. A few only of his immediate friends knew that the proceeds of all his lectures during a period of almost ten years, and a part of his salary as editor, were devoted to the liquidation of the debt from which the law, but not his high sense of moral responsibility, would have absolved him.
During these years the slavery question had gradually ab- sorbed public attention and had become the paramount theme in the press, the pulpit, and the lyceum. In his Newport loungings Mr. Curtis had noted the effect produced on northern society by the slave power, and his attention had been called to the necessity of combating the evil influence by every popular means. Accordingly, in all his lectures, like many of the ly- ceum speakers at that time, he discussed the subject with great freedom and force. The lecture lyceum, indeed, did much to arouse and enlighten public opinion on this vital question, and to prepare the way for the great revival of anti-slavery feeling in the north which followed the personal assault on Charles Sumner in 1856. It is necessary to recall these times in order to form a just estimate of Mr. Curtis, and his career in public affairs. He was one of a large number of young men who felt, when that assault took place, that there were more imperative duties than the delights of dalliance in the primrose paths of
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literature. In the year just mentioned he delivered a college address at Middletown on the "Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times," in which the situation and the impending crisis were discussed from an anti-slavery point of view. He went on the stump for Fremont, in that year, speak - ing in New York, New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania . and entered actively into politics on Staten Island, where he lived, and where for many years he was chairman of the repub- lican county committee.
Mr. Curtis was a delegate to the second national convention of the republican party, which assembled at Chicago on the 16th of May, 1860. It will be remembered that the construction of a " platform " was a labor of considerable difficulty. There were still many republicans who wished to conciliate the border states, and when Joshua R. Giddings moved in convention to add to the first resolution the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness " clanse from the declaration of independence, the opposition was lond and determined. The motion was lost by a large vote and Mr. Giddings, who had urged its adoption in the most eloquent and impressive manner, proposed to with- draw from the convention ; but Mr. Curtis took an early oppor- tunity to renew the motion, in a slightly modified form. There were again loud cries of opposition. Mr. Curtis asked whether the party was prepared at its second national convention to vote against the great charter of American liberty, and cautioned the delegates to beware how, there in the broad prairies of the west, they receded from the position which the party had occupied at Pittsburg, and refused to repeat the words of the fathers of the revolution. His eloquent periods acted like magic on the convention. The amendment was adopted nnanimonsly amid wild excitement, the great multitude rising and giving round after round of applause. "Ten thousand voices," says a contemporary report, "swelled into a deafening roar, and for several minutes every attempt to restore order was hopelessly vain. The crowd of people outside took up and re-echoed the cheers, making a scene of excitement and enthusiasm unparal- leled in any similar gathering." It was a great popular trinmph, and was of vital service to the party, not only in retaining the influence of Mr. Giddings and his followers, but in swelling the enthusiasm which greeted the platform and the candidates. The same earnestness of purpose which charac-
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terized him in the convention of 1860 was manifested in the action of Mr. Curtis at the convention of 1884. The nomination of Mr. Blaine for the presidency he believed to be a mistake of too grave a nature to be passed by him in silence, and his snb- sequent refusal to support the republican candidates was in simple conformity to the dictates of his conscience.
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