USA > New York > Staten Island > History of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York : from its discovery to the present time > Part 60
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
telescope, surgeon and captain in the war of the rebellion, author of numerous papers, articles and books on scientific sub- jects, resided in boyhood in the Cherry lane house with their father.
Alexander Del Mar, author of " A History of the Precious Metals," a " History of Money in Ancient Times," "The Science of Money," and other works, probably the greatest ever written on political economy, and certainly the ablest and most labor- ious ever written by an American, lived both at New Brighton and Stapleton. At one time he was financial editor of eight different journals, and founded also the flourishing " Commer- cial and Financial Chronicle and New York Daily Bulletin." As director of the bureau of statistics he reorganized the United States commerce and navigation returns so as to make them re- liable, which was a herculean task; and by one sharp exposure lie prevented, in 1868-9, the plunder of the United States treas- ury to the extent of one hundred millions of dollars. As orig- inator and officer of the United States monetary commission of 1876, he brought the country back to the use of both silver and gold as currency, and thns greatly aided to prevent the threat- ened disaster of a vast paper inflation.
Dr. Samuel Mackenzie Elliott, whose discoveries in occulism largely advanced that art and brought him an income of $30,000 a year, also founded the settlement along Bard avenue which still bears his name; built, and for years maintained, an astronomical observatory, whose dome may still be seen on the roof of his former residence, on the hill above Stapleton. Under liis care at Elliottville, among many remarkable cures, sight was restored to Professor Edward L. Youmans, whose enthusi- astic lectures and writings on chemistry and kindred branches, delivered to audiences all through the country, widely spread the knowledge and interest on these subjects which are now common. He founded the " Popular Science Monthly," made that great thinker, Herbert Spencer, known to Americans, and saved his wondrous system of philosophy from suppression.
Dr. John Swinburne, too, whose discoveries in the art of healing broken bones and dislocated joints, and wliose success- ful application of those discoveries to thousands of sufferers in civil life, in the war of the rebellion, and in the siege of Paris (1870), earned for him unnumbered blessings and amazed the skilled surgeons of France; who as health officer saved New
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
York from a plague, and who was elected mayor and congress- man in Albany by large majorities in a community strongly op- posed to him politically, was long a resident of Tompkinsville.
Dr. Carl C. Schmidt, publisher of the " Leipsic Medical An- nual," and other valuable publications, a scholar and physician of unusual attainments and singular dignity and beauty of person, driven from Germany in the revolution of 1848, settled at Willow Brook in Northfield, and there ended his days.
Dr. Frederick Hollick, whose books and lectures on physi- ology did much a generation since to spread knowledge of that science in America, has long been a resident of the island, as has Dr. A. L. Carroll, formerly editor of the " Medical Gazette," translator and anthor of several scientific works, and secretary of the state board of health.
Prof. N. L. Britton of Columbia College, a native of West- field, though still a young man, has made a name among scien- tists by several works on topics in natural history.
Sir Edward Cunard, American manager of the singularly careful and successful ocean steamship line which bears his name, long lived on the hill overlooking the Narrows, where he could see from his window every vessel of his line come in sight of New York and disappear thence.
William H. Aspinwall, long a leader in developing trade with California, and for whom the city of Aspinwall in Panama is named, was long a dweller at New Dorp.
M. B. Brady, the famous photographer, long dispensed a generous hospitality to distinguished guests from many climes, at a residence on Grymes hill.
Daniel B. Allen and Samuel Barton, agents of Commodore Vanderbilt's steamship lines; Jeremiah Simonson, a prominent shipbuilder; Bernhard Westermann, the leading German book- seller of America, have also been residents of Staten Island.
George Cabot Ward, American agent of the famous banking house of Baring Brothers & Co., dwelt on Bard avenue, as did Robert B. Minturn the younger, of the widely known house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., and president of the American Free Trade League.
At Clifton lived Jolin A. Appleton, of the immense publish- ing house of D. Appleton & Co., and Nathaniel Marsh, presi- dent of the Erie railroad ; at New Brighton-Daniel L. Apple- ton, of the celebrated Waltham " American Watch Company,"
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
and at different times president of the Mercantile Library and of the New England Society ; at West Brighton-Hiram H. Lamfort, president of the ubiquitous Continental Fire Insur- ance Company ; on Grymes hill-George Law, who succeeded Cornelius Vanderbilt as the leading steamboat owner of the har- bor, and after Law's death John J. Cisco, the banker, for years United States assistant treasurer ; Hugh J. Jewett, president of the Erie Railroad ; Roderick W. Cameron, of the Australian steamship line ; Erastus Wiman, head of the original mercan- tile agency, which reaches all over the country, and promoter of other business enterprises ; William T. Garner, head of the great Cohoes Mills, and commodore of the New York Yacht Club. The list of Staten Islanders who have been commercially distinguished is far too long for insertion here.
Gen. Antonio Lopez Santa Anna, styled the ablest of Mexican generals, and the wiliest of Mexican politicians, repeatedly president and dictator of Mexico, and as often expelled from that country, during his last exile lived for a considerable time at West Brighton, on the Manor road, just north of Cherry lane.
Gen. Richard Delafield, of the United States army, was long stationed at Fort Tompkins, and as colonel of engineers had charge of the construction of Fort Wadsworth. Gen. Joseph G. Totten, chief engineer of the army, is said to have been a resident of Tottenville.
To the navy Staten Island has contributed: Alban C. Stimers, chief engineer, who took personal charge of the engines of the "Monitor," in her fight with the "Merrimac ;" Commodore Stephen Decatur, the younger, who, struck with blindness through the terrible blunder of a physician at the outset of a fine career, resided long at Elliottville, in the vain hope that Doctor Elliott's skill might succeed in nndoing the injury; and Commodore A. Colden Rhind, whose daring exploits in the cap- ture of New Orleans, and the ascent of the Mississippi by Far- ragut and Porter, made him renowned. Commodore James Mc- Intosh was also long a resident of Clifton. William W. Win- throp, judge advocate, general of the army, was for some time a resident of West Brighton.
To the revolutionary volunteers Northfield contributed Capt. Joseph Mersereau ; to the tory forces Westfield furnished Col- onel Billop. It also contributed to the side of liberty the de-
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
voted patriot, Mrs. Disosway, of Tottenville, who refused to urge her brother to cease his attacks on the British, though promised the release of her husband from captivity if she would do so.
To the war of 1812 Richmond county, so far as known, did not supply many prominent actors; but Capt. Benjamin Wood, who raised and largely equipped a company for the defense of New York, becoming captain in the Twenty-seventh regiment, United States infantry, as such boarded, in 1815, the British frigate (at Sandy Hook, where he was stationed) that brought the news of peace, being the first American to receive this glad news ; who mounted and fired the first gun placed on Fort La- fayette at the Narrows ; was twenty years (1821-41) revenue boarding officer at the quarantine station, a resident of Tomp- kinsville, and a leader in county affairs.
To the volunteer service in the rebellion the island contrib- uted, besides those heretofore named : Robert Gould Shaw, of Bard avenne, colonel of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts colored regiment, who fell, with scores of his command, at the storming of Fort Wagner, and whose remains lie with those of the dusky comrades whom he led, his generous parents deeming that com- panionship their fittest sepulture ; and Major Theodore Win- throp, the explorer, novelist and orator, whose country saw him last by the flashes of musketry against the black night of a Virginian forest, standing on a gun, striving to rally the Union troops whom surprise had confused and disordered, and who, while going to his death, wrote to a companion of his country walks, "Ah, me ! in these sweet, balmy May days I miss my Staten Island."
When the Union army set out to reach Richmond. Va., by way of the James river, Mariners' Harbor furnished a hundred skilled pilots, who knew every foot of the way, selected from its oyster fleet by Capt. John J. Housman. Before the war Gen. Francis C. Barlow, said to be the bravest man in the Army of the Potomac, afterward attorney general, secretary of state and United States marshal, was a tutor in a private family of Staten Island.
In literature, besides those heretofore mentioned, there are many, too many to specify all; but above all stands George Wil- liam Curtis, author of the " Nile Notes," which soon after its publication became a text book in Oxford for students of a pure
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
English style, and whom Charles Dickens declared to be much the finest speaker he had ever heard ; author of other notable books, such as "Prue and I," and "Trumps." As orator, journalist and statesman, ever unselfishly striving to lead pub- lic sentiment toward justice and purity, no man since the days of Governor Tompkins has so won the hearts or aroused the pride of his fellow islanders. In this connection, too, must be remembered the scholarly, eloquent and kindly Erastus Brooks, forty years editor of the "New York Express," and longer than any other man the representative of Richmond county in the state legislature.
Richard Adams Locke, author of the famous "Moon Hoax " in the " New York Herald," which, before the days of transat- lantic steamers and cables, led Americans to believe that Sir John Herschel, peering with his great telescope through the clear air of South Africa, had discovered men and women in the moon, lived long at Tompkinsville. Mrs. Laura Winthrop John- son, the poet-sister of Theodore and William Winthrop; Chris- topher Pearse Clanch, one of the most exquisite of American poets and artists; Gabriel P. Disosway, author (in the columns of the "Staten Island Union") of the first history of the island, and of other historical works; his daughter, Miss Ella Taylor Disosway, the novelist; and many others mentioned in other connections, form an army of literary workers of which Richmond county may well be proud.
Charles Mackaye, the well-known English poet, was for some years a resident of Clifton, and of Dr. Elliott's observatory cot- tage on Grymes hill. Mrs. Catherine N. Sinclair, long a prom- inent actress under the name of Mrs. Forrest, lived a long time in the opposite cottage with her brother-in-law, Mr. Henry Sedley, of the New York " Times." Henry D. Thoreau, author of " Walden," etc., an uncommonly able writer and thinker, who was for some time tutor in the family of Judge William Emerson, brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson; Clarence Cook, the author, journalist and critic; Maria J. McIntosh, the novel- ist; Rev. John F. Hurst, since president of Drew Theological seminary and now bishop of Iowa, who published his "History of Rationalism" while pastor of Trinity Methodist church, West Brighton; Richard L. Dugdale, author of the famous work on crime and pauperism called "The Jukes," for a long time assistant secretary of the Prison Association, also secre-
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
tary of the Society for Political Education, the Civil Service Reform Association and the Sociologic Section of the New York Association for Advancement of Science, and treasurer of the New York Liberal Club, much of whose closing years were passed on Bard avenue; may be added to the list.
Among painters may be mentioned William Page, delineator of "Venus" and many other skillful pictures; and among musical men, Max Maretzek, the effective manager, resided here. Among inventors should be mentioned William F. Cas- ton, deviser of the "Night Signals" system used by the gov- ernment ; Prof. John M. Hawkins, contriver of vivid and startling optical effects of the "Thaumascope"; Horace Board- man, inventor of the Boardman boiler; and Antonio Meucci, one of the early contrivers of the telephone and the host of Garibaldi in that hero's exile.
When the New York draft rioters of 1863 came to be tried, the foreman of the jury which convicted them, Hugh Auchin- closs, was a former Staten Islander.
Caleb Lyon, at one time representative in congress and after- ward governor of Montana, was for a time resident of Rossville, Judge George C. Barrett, just unanimously re-elected to the bench of the supreme court for another term of fourteen years, was for a tinie a resident of West Brighton. Frederick Law Olm- sted, whose architectural and landscape engineering skill trans- formed a mass of shanties, pigsties and rocks into the resplen- dent beauty of the Central park, and also turned the capitol grounds at Washington into charming surroundings instead of the eyesore and public disgrace they had been, author of "A Journey Through the Seaboard Slave States," and other able works, was long a resident of the south shore. Dr. Bedell, Episcopal bishop of New Jersey, was a native of Staten Island.
Besides all these, there is a class of Staten Islanders whom we should hold especially dear, because their efforts were sig- nally directed to abolishing oppression and wrong, and to pro- moting virtue and freedom, The Latourettes, Dupuys, Freneaus and other Huguenots and Waldenses, who bore imprison- ment for conscience's sake, took part in the heroic defense of Rochelle and other points in France, more than two centuries ago, and afterward left their homes forever, rather than lose their liberty, should always have a place in our hearts.
As the writer once stood on the walls of the ancient strong.
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hold Perpigman, with the Pyrenees towering behind and on either hand, while before stretched away the sunny plains of France, it seemed for a moment the world had rolled back two centuries, and from those plains rose the sad sound of the lament of many exiles who afterward became Staten Island's colonists :-
" Alas ! we must leave thee. Dear, desolate home. To the spearmen of Uri, The slavelings of Rome ; To the serpent of Florence, The vulture of Spain, To the pride of Anjou, And the guile of Lorraine.
"One look, one last look, To the streams and the bowers,
To the fields and the trees, To the cots and the towers ;
To the church where the bones Of our fathers decayed, Where we fondly had hoped That our own should be laid.
" Farewell to thy fonntains, Farewell to thy shades,
To the song of thy youths, And the dance of thy maids;
To the cool of thy garden, The hum of thy bees, And the long, waving line Of the blue Pyrenees.
" Farewell, and forever, The priest and the slave
May rnle in the halls Of the free and the brave; Our hearths we abandon; Our lands we resign; But, Father, we kneel To no altar bnt thine."
General John C. Fremont, who saved California from the curse of slavery, was one of its first senators, and in 1856 bore the banner of free soil as candidate for president, was at the latter time, as he has repeatedly since been, a resident of Staten Island.
Joseph Kargé, a Polish nobleman, for seeking the liberty of his country, was condemned by the Russian government to
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
death. Escaping to America, he found a home at Elliottville; in the war became a general of cavalry, and later a member of the faculty of Princeton College.
When Lonis Kossuth, driven from Hungary for defending his country's liberty, found a refuge in America, Staten Island was the first American soil he trod, and a Staten Island regi- ment gave him his first welcome. Gustav Struve, the colleague of Frederick Hecker in establishing a republic in Baden in 1848, driven from Germany, and afterward from Switzerland, found a home, and opportunity to write his "History of the World," on the Northfield plankroad near Graniteville. Many yet living recall liis venerable and dignified form, and the electric eloquence and wonderful mastery of English where- with he advocated the election of Lincoln. Delia Tudor Stewart Parnell, daughter of Admiral, Charles Stewart (commander of the famous frigate "Constitution," who bore the name of " the bravest man in the American navy "), wife of an Irish country gentleman, seeing the misery of the people of her adopted country, trained her son Charles Stewart Parnell to become the leader of his countrymen in peaceful, legal and resistless move- ment toward self government; and when his great work in the house of commons began, she, with her daughters, whom she had reared in the same noble spirit, traveled, spoke and per- formed enormous labor in organizing and teaching the great Irish population of America to co-operate with the great work which hier son was guiding. In the thick of this work, mother and daughters resided for some time at New Brighton.
But of all the lofty and heroic souls who have hallowed our island's soil, who will deny the first place to him who for his country's weal refused a crown, and gave away a realm, and whose life and sword were ever at the call of freedom, in his own or other lands? Forced to leave his native soil by the pressure of organized numbers wielded by despotic hands; in exile and poverty, the house of a compatriot at Clifton afforded a refuge and home to Joseph Garibaldi. In the dwelling of that friend, the faithful Antonio Meucci, hangs still a portrait painted then; and the worn, weary face, the sunken, melan- choly eyes and the well nigh despairing expression, tell a touching tale of the sufferings the hero had borne, and of his feelings in that terrible hour, when throughout the European continent liberty was crushed by armed hosts; while the look of
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fearless and immovable resolve bespeaks the leader who within ten years returned at the head of conquering armies, drove out tyrants, and made Italy united and free. When Garibaldi died, how new the world must have seemed to him, with justice and self-government everywhere growing up, compared to what it was when he wandered through Clifton's groves beneath our summer skies.
Truly, "Freedom's battle, once begun, though baffled oft, is ever won." America may be proud to have given Garibaldi an asylum, and for ages to come Italia's sons and daughters shall revere his name as that of one of the noblest in her long line of lieroes.
The truth is that Staten Island's soil has been trodden by numbers of men and women whose lives and deeds have done them honor, and made this ground historic. Our air is full of memories of worthy souls and acts; and these memories should nerve us all to equal and outdo the characters and achievements that make these men and women remembered and admired.
BRANCH OF THE MISSION OF THE IMMACULATE VIRGIN, NEW YORK
MT. LORETTO, S. I
FMG
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHARITIES AND PUBLIC WORKS,
The S. R. Smith Infirmary .- The Seamen's Fund and Retreat .- Home for Desti- tute Children of Seamen .- County Poor House .- Staten Island Diet Kitchen, -Cemeteries .- Staten Island Water Supply Company .- The Crystal Water Works .- The Sailors' Snug Harbor .- The Police and Fire Department.
B ENEVOLENT movements of all kinds have ever found hearty supporters on Staten Island. Whether in time of peace to provide succor for the unfortunate or distressed, or in time of war to provide for the destitute, and supply the lan -. guishing with what comforts human aid can provide, the people of the island have proved themselves ready to sympathize with their suffering fellows, and to take a hand in whatever benevo- lent work may from time to time present itself for their atten- tion.
In this connection we are prompted to speak of an item which appears in a number of an old paper, printed in 1828. From that we learn that the ladies of Tompkinsville met at the school house on Monday, March 5, 1828. " to purchase and make up clothing for the suffering Greeks," and a few weeks later the " New York Greek Committee " acknowledged the receipt of one hundred and seventy -three garments from the inhabitants of Tompkinsville. But it is more particularly of the home charities that we wish to speak in this chapter. Some of the most prominent institutions of this kind we shall notice.
The S. R. Smith Infirmary grew out of a need that appeared at the outbreak of the late war, in a then prospective increase of the call for means and facilities for the care of the sick poor, and for the reception of casualties, which it was anticipated would follow the departure of so many heads of dependent families to the defense of the country.
The suggestion came from the Richmond County Medical So- ciety in April, 1861. This society had maintained a dispensary
41
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HISTORY OF RICHMOND COUNTY.
for the relief of out-door poor, but were convinced that the charity should be placed on a broader basis in order to meet the increasing demands upon it. They accordingly placed be- fore the public the proposition to establish an infirmary for the reception of the indigent sick, to be called the Samuel R. Smith Infirmary, making the name an appropriate tribute to the mem- ory of a well known and highly esteemed citizen and distin- guished physician, whose reputation for activity in the line of benevolence which the proposed institution should follow, sug- gested his name for this honor. The constitution provided that the payment of $5 should make any one a member, and $25 a life member. The affairs of the infirmary should be managed by seven trustees, four of whom should be members of the medical society, who should be elected at the annual meetings of the members. The attendance at the infirmary was to be under the charge of the medical society.
An organization was more perfectly effected at a meeting called for the purpose, at the Lyceum, on the 28th of April, 1864, when the following directors were elected: Messrs. Shaw, Marsh and Despard, and Doctors Anderson, Lea, Moffatt and Eadie. The commissioners of quarantine granted the use of two of the hospitals on the late quarantine grounds to the in- firmary until such time as the grounds should be sold.
The infirmary was formally opened in this building on Mon- day afternoon, June 20, 1864. Mr. William Shaw presided, and prayer and addresses were made. Since then the institu- tion has gone steadily forward with its work of benevolence, bringing comfort to many a desponding and weary heart. The following trustees were elected at the annual meeting, June 11, 1885 : Livingston Satterlee, Erastus Wiman, C. C. Norvell, George William Curtis. L. H. Meyer, E. C. Delevan, G. S. Sco- field, Sr., Aquilla Rich, S. M. Davis, De Witt C. Stafford, E. C. Bridgman and T. M. Rianhard.
An organization known as the "Ladies' Auxiliary of the S. R. Smith Infirmary " was effected November 20, 1863, and did noble work during the time of the war in supplementing and assisting the work of the infirmary. A constitution was adopted, and under it the following were the first officers elected : Mrs. H. R. Ball, president; Mrs. Rev. T. Skinner, vice- president; Mrs. S. B. Whitlock, secretary; and Miss C. Ehn- niger, treasurer. It was a part of the plan that auxiliary soci-
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eties, as branches of this, should be organized in every congre- gation on the island. Meetings were held monthly and a lively interest was awakened in the society's work.
The ninth monthly meeting was held in the building, June 7, 1864, being the first meeting held there. The building was then being fitted up for their benevolent work. Subscriptions to de- fray the current expenses of the society then amounted to a little more than nine hundred dollars per annum, and the com- mencement was made in the full belief that the one thousand two hundred dollars per annum, which had been thought neces- sary to maintain the work designed, would soon be registered on the treasurer's book. Beds, bedding and articles of furni- ture had been purchased, and a committee was then appointed to supervise the domestic economy of the institution and visit it as frequently as convenience would permit or expediency dictate.
A system was established years ago by which all foreign sail- ors entering the port of New York paid a certain fee for each voyage. The accumulation of these fees became a fund in the state treasury known as the " Seamen's Retreat and Hospital Fund," the object of which was to care for and maintain such seamen when they were sick. For this purpose this " Retreat " was established. A large sum was afterward diverted from this fund to other charitable uses, amounting to three hundred and forty thousand dollars. Subsequently financial embarrassments came upon the retreat, and to recover from them it became necessary to place mortgages upon the property, which mort- gages amounted to fifty-five thousand dollars. The state after- ward liquidated those mortgages, and in 1879 made a further restoration for what had really been a misappropriation of funds, by appropriating fifteen thousand dollars to the retreat. In 1881 the institution asked for sixteen thousand dollars more of its money, in reply to which the state gave eight thousand, and appointed the governor and comptroller a commission to investigate the matter and report what was best to be done with the institution.
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