USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 32
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in the act, comprised DeWitt Clinton and the twelve gentlemen who had first met at the house of Mr. Murray. DeWitt Clinton was chosen president; John Murray, vice president ; Leonard Bleecker, treasurer ; and Benjamin D. Perkins, secretary, of the Public School Society, which did noble pioneer work. School No. I was opened on Pearl Street, near Madison Street, May 17, 1806, with forty scholars. Some of the scholars were instructed gratui- tously, and others paid a nominal sum for tuition. The Public School Society sent its agents all over the city to find destitute and uninstructed children and bring them into the schools.
The system soon commended itself to public approval, though it was not without opponents, some of whom thought that those who were prob- ably foredoomed to a life of drudgery were better without education, and others being very fearful that the system would "pauperize" its benefi- ciaries. But these objections practically disappeared. In 1808 the corpora- tion of New York donated to the society the old State arsenal, at the corner of Chatham Street and Tryon Row, on condition that they should educate the children in the Almshouse. School No. 2 was built in Henry Street, on ground donated for the purpose by Colonel Henry Rutgers, and later School No. I was removed to William Street. Several schoolhouses were added by the society prior to 1842, when a new law was passed, providing for the maintenance of ward schools, to be entirely gratuitous, and sup- ported by taxation. The two systems worked harmoniously together under the supervision of a board of education, until 1853, when the Public School Society completed arrangements for merger, and turned over their schools and property to the city corporation, relinquishing their charter.
The appointive offices of the State were at this period not vested in the governor alone, but in a Council of Appointment, composed of a senator from each of the four districts of the State, with the governor as chairman of the council. De Witt Clinton was the originator of this plan, intended to solidify the power of the Republican party, and for his work in that direc- tion he has sometimes been designated as "the father of the spoils system." In 1806 the election in the State had resulted in a majority of the Council of Appointment adverse to Mayor Clinton, who was, therefore, removed, and Colonel Marinus Willett was appointed in his stead. The Revolution- ary hero was personally very popular, and it is noteworthy, also, that he was great-great-grandson of Thomas Willett, the first mayor of New York, appointed by Governor Nicolls after the capture of New Amsterdam, in 1664.
It was not a Federalist victory that brought about the change. There was within the Republican party a political feud between the Livingston and Clinton families. In the campaign of 1804, Governor George Clinton
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had been elected Vice President of the United States for the second Jef- ferson administration. Morgan Lewis, who had been attorney-general, in succession to Aaron Burr, and later chief justice of the Supreme Court, and who was a brother-in-law of Chancellor Livingston, was elected governor, and when the election of 1806 increased the Federalist vote in the legisla- ture and the Council of Appointment, he gave his vote for Willett. The following year, however, the Clintonians again secured a majority, and De Witt Clinton became mayor again, in 1807. In 1809 the Federalists car- ried the State, and for their first act the Council of Appointment, at Albany, removed Clinton and appointed Jacob Radcliff, but in the election of 1810 the Republican party again triumphed, and Clinton became mayor again, until 1815.
The most important event of the first decade of the Nineteenth Century in relation to the future development of New York and the building up of its commerce was the success achieved in applying steam to the propulsion of vessels. There has been much discussion, a good deal of it, in the earlier years of the controversy, quite acrimonious, in regard to the extent to which Fulton borrowed the ideas of predecessors, but that he built the first steam- boat that made regular trips with freight and passengers, and the first that was commercially profitable, is beyond dispute.
Robert Fulton was born at Little Britain, Pennsylvania, of Irish parents, in 1765. While a young lad he was apprenticed to a Philadelphia jeweler, and his leisure time was spent in the study of painting, in which he showed such talent that he was soon painting and selling landscapes and portraits, and in four years bought with his earnings a farm, on which he placed his widowed mother. When twenty-two years old he went to London with letters to Ben- jamin West, the great American painter, from Franklin and other influential persons, and he continued his studies under the patronage of that great artist. Through this connection he was introduced to two noblemen who had taken a great interest in mechanics and engineering: the Duke of Bridgewater, who was owner of coal mines at Worsley, and constructed a canal connecting them with Manchester, and the Earl of Stanhope, inventor of the Stanhope printing press and inventor of several improvements in canal locks. Previous to this Fulton had become interested in mechanical and engineering problems, and his association with these two noblemen greatly intensified his activities along this line. He turned his attention to mechanical invention and was chiefly interested in the subject of canals and of steam navigation. He obtained from the British government, in 1794, a patent for an inclined plane, intended to displace canal locks, and in the same year invented a mill for sawing and polishing marble. He next invented a machine for spinning flax, and also a machine for making ropes. In 1796 he published "A Treatise on
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the Improvement of Canal Navigation," of which he sent copies to the Presi- dent, the secretary of the treasury, and to Governor Jay, with a letter to each calling attention to the benefits to accrue from the construction of canals in the United States.
Going to Paris in 1797, Fulton met Joel Barlow, diplomat and man of letters, and he entered with interest into the ideas of Fulton with reference to canals and steamboats, and advanced the necessary funds for the inventor's experiments with steamboat models, with which he experimented on the Seine.
...*
THE CLERMONT Robert Fulton's First American Steamboat, 1807
In Paris he also had the advantage of meeting and interesting Robert. R. Livingston, who after serving in the Continental Congress, 1777-1781, and as secretary of foreign affairs, 1781-1783, was a member of the New York State Constitutional Convention, 1777, and first chancellor of the State, serving until 1801, then becoming United States minister to France, in which capacity he negotiated, in 1803, the purchase of the territory of Louisiana from the French government. He was a man of broad culture and versatile attain- ments, a famous member of a distinguished family. Like Fulton, he had been an experimenter with the problem of the application of steam to navigation, which was occupying many minds in both continents.
Thinking he had accomplished his object in 1798, he memorialized the legislature to the effect that having discovered a method of propelling a boat by means of steam he could not afford to undertake the expensive experi- ments necessary unless he could obtain an exclusive grant of that mode of
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ROBERT FULTON AND ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON
navigation after he had made it successful. In response to his petition an act was passed in March, 1798, conferring upon Mr. Livingston the exclusive right and privilege of navigating boats which might be propelled by fire or steam upon all waters within the territory or jurisdiction of the State of New York, for twenty years; but there was a proviso that he should, within twelve months from the date of the act, complete such a boat, which must develop a speed of not less than four miles an hour. It is said that the members of both houses, in voting for the bill, regarded it as a joke, and during its passage the measure was ridiculed and made the subject of witticisms, but Livingston was a man of power, and the bill passed easily. Livingston built a steam- boat on his plans, but could not move it so fast as required by the statute.
His departure on the French mission left the subject in abeyance, but meeting Fulton and Joel Barlow in Paris, his interest was revived. Fulton. operating with funds supplied by Barlow, constructed several models at Plom- bières, in the summer of 1802, and in the autumn and winter built on the Seine, at Paris, a steamboat. When it was ready he named a day for the trial, inviting several scientists and friends to see it; but the night before the day fixed for the trial a gale swept down the valley of the Seine, and the boat was capsized, the machinery being too heavy for the hull, and sank in the river. Much disappointed, but not discouraged, Fulton raised the boat. finding the machinery little injured. The hull, however, was a total wreck. and Fulton at once set about building a new one, sixty-six feet long with eight feet beam, which he propelled successfully along the Seine with the use of steam-driven paddle wheels as the propelling device. Many distinguished Parisians, including the officers of the Institute of France, had been invited to witness the trial, which was in all respects a success, except that the vessel did not develop the anticipated speed. Fulton felt that this was due in part to deficiency in power of the engines, and partly to defective construction of the boat itself. He had demonstrated the practicability of steam navigation. and he set to work to improve upon his models so as to get increased speed which, he felt, was a matter of modification and development. He was con- vinced that steam-driven paddle wheels were a thoroughly efficient means of propulsion.
Chancellor Livingston was also pleased with the experiment, which they decided to repeat, with modification, in New York. An engine of greatly in- creased size and power was ordered from the famous engine works of Boul- ton & Watt, at Birmingham, England. After making and successfully oper- ating a model at Barlow's country seat, near Washington, Fulton set about building the hull in New York, and Chancellor Livingston secured a new grant to himself and Fulton, conferring upon them the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State of New York by steam, provided that they
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should produce a steamboat of at least twenty tons burden capable of moving against the current of the Hudson at a rate of at least four miles per hour. A later act extended the time to April, 1807.
During the progress of the work the experiment was a popular joke. Few expected success, and nearly every man felt himself competent to ridicule the entire project. The building was carried on at Charles Brown's shipyard, on the East River, and the vessel, as completed, was 130 feet long, 161/2 feet wide, 4 feet deep, and of 160 tons burden. The wheels were fifteen feet in diameter, with paddles four feet long, having a dip of two feet. The equip- ment included a boiler twenty feet long, seven feet deep and eight feet wide, and the steam cylinder was twenty-four inches in diameter, and had a stroke of four feet. A preliminary trip from the shipyard to the Jersey shore satis- fied the inventor that he was going to be successful. It was made early in the morning, a few days before the regular trial trip, to the great surprise of those on board the ships anchored in the harbor, who were the only witnesses. On Monday, August 11, 1807, the vessel, which had been named the Clermont, after Chancellor Livingston's country seat, made its trial trip. The wharf from which the start was made was crowded with spectators, many of whom made sarcastic remarks, and the majority expecting a fiasco. Fulton, writing about the occasion to his friend, Joel Barlow, said that there were perhaps not more than thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would move more than a mile an hour, or be of the least utility. But when the hawser was cast off at one o'clock the vessel started, and at once, under perfect con- trol, started up the river, against wind and current, and without any other power than that of steam, and at one o'clock on Tuesday arrived at Clermont, Chancellor Livingston's country house, one hundred and ten miles in twenty- four hours. The next day he left the chancellor's, at nine in the morning, with the steamboat, making the trip of forty miles to Albany in eight hours. On the return trip the Clermont left Albany at nine o'clock on Thursday morn- ing, arriving at the chancellor's at six o'clock, leaving there an hour later and reaching New York at four o'clock the next afternoon, thus making the re- turn trip of one hundred and fifty miles in thirty hours running time, or five miles an hour.
In this trial trip Fulton discovered several alterations and repairs that were necessary for the greater perfection of the Clermont, including changes in the paddle wheels, which had greatly increased the speed, and changes which made the boat more convenient for travelers, and all through the rest of the autumn the steamer made quick and regular pas- sages as a packet. An amusing result of the success of the Clermont was that the owners of sailing vessels combined and sued out an injunction to restrain Fulton from running the Clermont, on the ground that the right
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FULTON'S TRIUMPH AROUSES OPPOSITION
of navigation of the river was theirs by prescription, as from the first the navigation of the river had belonged to them. It seems strange now that such a ridiculous claim should have reached trial, but it did, and Daniel Webster won the case for Fulton and Livingston. The legislature, in 1808, passed a law adding five years to the exclusive privileges of Fulton and Livingston for every new boat added, provided that the entire term should not exceed thirty years.
Reproduced from the original print in the collection of Mr. Percy R. Pyne, 3d VIEW OF WALL STREET, 1825
The jealousy and enmity of others in the river transportation business led to several attempts to destroy the Clermont, by running afoul of her, and in other ways, and special laws, making such action criminal, were passed: Numerous patent suits had to be defended and prosecuted to sus- tain the monopoly granted to Fulton and Livingston, but it was upheld, until 1824, when it was set aside by the Supreme Court of the United States. The City of Neptune, of 295 tons measurement, was built in 1808, and The Paragon, in 1811, and several other vessels were added to the New York- Albany line.
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Another and very valuable part of the steam navigation interest was introduced by Fulton, in 1812. During that year he constructed two steam ferryboats for the North River, and these boats, being each composed of twin hulls, united by a deck or bridge, sharp at both ends, so that they could move backward or forward with equal facility, were such a success that he soon built two others for the East River. Fulton also invented for them the floating or movable dock, and the method by which the boats were brought to them without shock.
The course of Great Britain, in respect to the commerce of the United States, was arrogant and exasperating, notwithstanding the treaty of 1795. In the war between England and France, each of the combatants blockaded the ports of the other, and captured all American vessels that attempted to enter, in spite of the neutrality that was strictly maintained by our govern- ment and people. England continued to search our vessels, and to impress into her service American seamen, claiming that English seamen, having once been English subjects always remained such, it being a national motto that "Once an Englishman, always an Englishman." The claim of our govern- ment, on the other hand, was that an English-born subject could become an American by naturalization. One of the reasons impelling English commanders to this course was that many English seamen, on entering American ports, deserted, and after procuring fraudulent naturalization papers, would enter the American service, the reason being that seamen were better treated and better paid on American vessels.
Commanders of English war ships, therefore, insisted on searching American ships and taking off American seamen on the charge that they were deserters; and English cruisers infested our coast and halted vessels as they entered or left the harbors, searching for seamen, so that before the war began over 900 American vessels had been searched, and more than 4000 Americans had been impressed into the English service. The attack made in June, 1807, on the frigate Chesapeake, by the British man-of-war Leopard, off the coast of Virginia, was one of the most flagrant of the insults in this period. An affair of a similar kind occurred at the entrance to the lower harbor of New York, as early as April, 1806, when the British frigate Leander, Captain Whitby, while cruising off Sandy Hook, fired into the American sloop Richard, a coasting vessel, and killed one of her men. The corpse was brought to New York and publicly buried, and public meetings were held, demanding that reparation be made by the British government ; but though Captain Whitby was sent home to England and tried by court-martial, he was acquitted without punishment or even cen- sure. The Leopard's attack on the Chesapeake, the following year, was fol- lowed by a proclamation forbidding British armed vessels to enter Amer-
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EFFECT OF JEFFERSON'S EMBARGO
ican waters until reparation for that attack had been made by the British government, and security given against future aggressions.
Jefferson's policy was opposed to war. He believed that international disputes could be settled by peaceful means, and in the present condition of trade, when American vessels were debarred from trade in France, by the British "Orders in Council," issued in 1806, and from English ports by Napoleon's "Decrees" of 1807, he thought that he could force them to rea- sonable and equitable treatment of the United States by refusal to trade with them. As an expression of this policy he secured the passage, in December, 1807, of the Embargo Act. This was a statute prohibiting all American vessels from leaving the United States for foreign ports and for- eign vessels from taking cargoes out of the United States.
Jefferson was mistaken as to the effect of this policy. The event proved that England and France could do without our trade much better than we could do without theirs. Our ships went out of commission and lay idle at the wharves, commerce was destroyed, business was paralyzed, and failures occurred in every part of the country. Especially disastrous was the working of the Embargo in New England, New York and Philadel- phia, in which nearly all foreign intercourse centered. In New England the sentiment against the measure was especially intense, and some of the Federalist leaders in that section threatened that the Eastern States should secede from the Union. Finally, with Jefferson's consent, the Embargo Act was repealed, just before the close of his term, James Madison becoming President on March 4, 1809. Soon after Madison's inauguration he received from the British minister, Mr. Erskine, a promise that the obnoxious "Orders in Council" should be repealed before the 10th of June, 1809, and, acting on this promise, Mr. Madison proclaimed the resumption of commercial inter- course with England, but as the British government promptly disavowed the pledge of its minister, the President again proclaimed nonintercourse. France, in March, 1810, revoked the Napoleonic "Decrees." and American commerce was resumed with that country.
In the summer of 1809 there was a celebration, under the auspices of the New York Historical Society, of the two-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the island of Manhattan by Henry Hudson. Literary exercises were held in the front courtroom of the City Hall, the principal feature of the occasion being a learned and appropriate address by Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller, one of the founders of the New York Historical Society, which was organized in 1804, and has been a most effective and valuable agency for the preservation of the annals of the city and colony, and the promotion of historical research. In the evening there was a dinner at the City Tavern, where the members of the society and invited guests drank
21
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toasts and listened to addresses on historical and patriotic themes. That the existing international troubles were not forgotten is indicated by the subjects of two of the toasts: "A Speedy Termination of Our Foreign Rela- tions," responded to by Simeon DeWitt, and "The Mouth of the Hudson- May it Soon Have a Sharp Set of Teeth to Show its Defense," responded to by Mr. Galen, Swedish consul.
Among the improvements of that period was one of engi- neering, which transformed the region about what is now Canal Street. This was, along its whole modern course, low and marshy, and in the wet season partially overflowed, so much so, in fact, that it is stated that sometimes, at exceptionally high tides, the waters of the Hudson and the East River THE STONE BRIDGE, 1800 At Canal Street and Broadway met in the centre of the island. Tiny streams, that had their rise about the present intersection of Broadway and Canal Street, flowed, some east and some west, adding to the dampness of that region. It was difficult to get the landowners and the corporation together, but finally it was proposed to cut a canal which should go one foot below low water mark and run direct from the East River to the Hudson. A special commission, composed of Simeon DeWitt, Gouverneur Morris, John Rutherford and S. Guel, was appointed under an act passed by the legislature, which was given extensive powers, including not only the laying out of this canal, but also exclusive power to lay out streets, roads and public squares of such width, extent and direction as to them shall seem most conducive to the public good, and to shut up streets not accepted by the Common Council within that part of New York north of an irregular line, of which the present Houston Street (then called North Street) is the most southern portion.
The commission laid out Canal Street, with the canal in the centre and broad thoroughfares on each side, both banks of the stream being set with shade trees. It drained the portion of the Collect Pond which had not already been filled in, and it relieved the city from many of the breeding spots of our now familiar foe Anopheles, who, however, was not then known as the author of the malaria which was then especially prevalent in the lower end of Man-
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hattan. But it did not drain all the low places, which finally disappeared in the uniform leveling, filling in and grading of the downtown section. The canal was, several years after, bricked over and became a sewer, and the trees were cut down, making the present wide street.
Canal Street was only one of the results of the commission's labors. The laying out of streets in the lower part of the city had been conducted with very little system and, having full power, they laid out the extensive and then largely rural section of the city between North (Houston) Street and Harlem and from river to river, upon a systematic plan, laying out the present numbered avenues from First to Twelfth, and the four short avenues on the east from A to D, all running north and south and each one hundred feet wide, with transverse streets, also numbered, from First to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth, all sixty feet in width except Fourteenth, Twenty-third, Thirty- fourth, Forty-second, Fifty-seventh, Seventy-second, Seventy-ninth, Eighty- sixth, Ninety-sixth. One Hundred and Sixth, One Hundred and Sixteenth, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth, One Hundred and Thirty-fifth, One Hundred and Forty-fifth and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth, each of which was, like the avenues laid out, one hundred feet wide. The report of the commissioners said that while some might think they should have extended their plans to cover all of Manhattan Island, they had no doubt that in carrying them so far north as One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and thus providing "space for a greater population than is collected at any spot this side of China," they had provided many people with a subject for merriment, but they thought it prob- able that in the course of years considerable numbers might collect at Har- lem before the high hills to the southward of it would be built upon as a city, while it was not at all probable that houses would cover the ground north of Harlem Flats for "centuries to come." The work of the commission was well done. Their views of the future, moderate as they seem, when set alongside of the historic facts of the city's growth, were considered very optimistic in those days, and as the commissioners expected, many a jest was leveled at their projection of the city into the surrounding wilderness. But in their wide plan- ning they builded better than they knew, and it is a pity that their plans were not extended for miles beyond so that there would have been equal coherence in the laying out of what is now the borough of the Bronx. But had they done so they would have been deemed absolutely insane. Nobody in those days had dreams so wild as to picture the Bronx as a possible part of the New York City of the future. The commissioners, in extending their plans to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street had gone the limit in that direction. Optim- ism of that sort was very rare. About the same time, according to Stone's History, a Lutheran church in the downtown district was in need of funds and contributions were solicited from its friends. One of those solicited offered to
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