USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 38
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The Union League Club, organized in 1863, was a very strong factor in support of the Union cause. One of the offshoots of the league was the Loyal Publication Society, organized February 14, 1863, which issued a series of eighty-eight publications on subjects connected with the war, or the issues of the campaign of 1864. The Union League raised three regiments of negro troops for the war, in December, 1863, and January, 1864.
In the December election of 1863, C. Godfrey Gunther, a New York fur merchant, was elected mayor of New York on the Democratic ticket.
In the spring of 1864 the United States Sanitary Com- mission held a series of fairs in all the large cities, for the benefit of their work, and the most important of these was the great Metropolitan Fair, held in April, in two specially erected buildings, one in Fourteenth Street, near Sixth Avenue, and the other in Seventeenth Street, near Union Square. Many interesting COOPER INSTITUTE, MERCANTILE LIBRARY AND BIBLE HOUSE booths were in both of the buildings, and the most beautiful and accomplished dames and young ladies of New York were in charge of the stalls. The fair netted $1, 100,000, and a similar one, previously held in Brooklyn (in February), realized over $500,000 for the commission.
From the beginning of the war to October 1, 1864, New York furnished to the war 126,310 men. The presidential election of 1864 came on, the can- didates being Lincoln and Johnson on the Republican, and McClellan and Pendleton on the Democratic tickets. It had been feared that there would be a resumption of rioting, but the election was very quiet.
The victories which crowned the efforts of the Union Army, in 1865, cheered the people of New York, and especially when Richmond fell, and Lieu- tenant De Peyster, of New York City, a descendant of one of the oldest and most distinguished Dutch families of the city, for the first time raised the Stars
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and Stripes over the erstwhile Confederate capitol. Cannon boomed, bells chimed and flags were displayed everywhere in the city. Lee surrendered on April 9th, and the joy increased and continued until six days later, when the news came of the assassination of the great and good President Lincoln. New York, as all other cities of the North, sincerely mourned the dead Presi- dent. The route taken in returning the body of Lincoln to its last resting place, at Springfield, was practically the same as that he had traveled in the other direction when, over four years before, he had gone to Washington to assume the duties of the presidency.
On April 24th, the remains were escorted from the Cortlandt Street Ferry by a great procession. The body laid in state in the City Hall for twenty- four hours, during which time, day and night, the ceaseless procession passed to give a last look at the corpse of the most honored dead our nation has known. On the 25th the funeral cortège took up its mournful yet triumphant journey toward the home town of the great leader, followed from the City Hall to the railroad depot by a procession five miles in length. In the after- noon of that day a large assembly listened, in Union Square, to a funeral ora- tion by Hon. George Bancroft, the distinguished historian and diplomat, and to an eloquent eulogy by William Cullen Bryant, the gifted poet and jour- nalist.
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NORTHWESTERN VIEW OF BROOKLYN From near Peck Slip
CHAPTER THIRTY - FOUR
RETURN OF PEACE AND TRADE-ATLANTIC CABLE BRIDGE TO BROOKLYN-WESTCHESTER TOWNS ANNEXED-THE TWEED RING
The war was over, and New York City, which had borne its full share of the burdens of the conflict, welcomed back its veterans, who now relin- quished, for the most part, the military career for the arts and vocations of peace. Many who had gone away never came back, but had died for the cause of Union, on Southern fields. Some came back maimed from the con- flict; some, matured and steadied by the experience, came back to be leaders in the citizenship and business of the city.
Not all that came to the city from the South, after war, were from the Union side, though of course, the majority were. But many who had fought for the Lost Cause of the Southland also found their way to New York to seek, in this metropolis, a business career under circumstances more favorable to success than was possible in the devastated South.
The city had changed in many respects as the result of the war. Especially noticeable was the fact that the ships engaged in foreign trade had ceased to fly the American flag. At the beginning of the war, when the Confederates were issuing letters of marque and sending out privateers, it was dangerous to appear on the high seas with the American flag flying, and so great American lines transferred their ships' registry and their offices to Liverpool or London. In 1864 the writer of these lines sailed a voyage out of London in the British clipper ship Elphinstone. An inquiry of the captain revealed the fact that she was Maine-built. Several months later, in Melbourne, the writer visited the ship, which the men were repainting. The name of the ship had been scraped off to be renewed, and the scraping revealed the old name, H. B. Mildmay-Boston. This was a common occurrence. The ships had gone to Britain and had not returned, because the laws in force after the war made it practically impossible to return to American registry. So that many of the old ship-owning families who were American, a half century ago, became and have remained British.
There had not been any great increase in the population of New York City during the war. Newcomers had made their homes in Brooklyn, or the New Jersey suburbs, because the transportation facilities on Man- hattan Island were so poor that few could afford to live far away from the business district. Brooklyn or Jersey City, which could be reached by ferry, were much more convenient than could any place be, so far up town as Fiftieth Street.
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The houses were low, so low that Trinity spire towered up, the most conspicuously tall structure in the downtown district, and the Astor House was looked upon as something prodigious, with which the rural visitor was expected to be duly impressed because of its great size. The first apartment house, a small one, was built on the West Side, in 1865, and two large apartment houses, the Stuyvesant buildings, were erected, one in 1870, on Eighteenth Street, and the other in 1871, on Thirteenth Street. They grew in popularity and increased in size, until nearly two hundred of them were erected, in 1873. Looked upon at first as a fad which would soon pass away and ruin those who had spent their money in the experi- ment, that class of buildings soon became general, and apartments have increased year by year, until the tenants of private houses form a very decided minority of the families of the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx.
The winter of 1866-1867 was an excep- tionally cold one, and as the number of those who went to business in New York and lived in Brooklyn had become very much greater than ever before, the interruption to ferry traffic was seriously felt by many people. Many crossed the East River, from New York to Brooklyn, on the ice, but the inconveniences of the situation emphasized the need for the bridge, which had been one of the day dreams of the optimistic for sev- eral decades. So the question came up in the legislative session of that winter, in TRINITY CHURCH Albany, and three East River bridge bills were enacted. One of them, on April 16, 1867, incorporated the New York Bridge Company, which later in the year selected for its archi- tect John A. Roebling, who had demonstrated his ability by designing and building the Cincinnati-Covington bridge across the Ohio, and the Niagara suspension bridge, who at once drew plans for the largest sus- pension bridge that had ever been built. As the East River was a navigable stream and subject to Federal control, these plans were approved by act of Congress, March 3, 1869, and by the secretary of war, June 21, 1869. The great architect died, July 22, 1869, and his son, Washington L. Roebling, who had been associated with his father in planning the bridge, took up the entire work and supervised it to completion.
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The great problem of the city was that of rapid transit, and many were the attempts in that direction during the years that followed, of which more in detail will be told in a later chapter. As the various routes of transportation northward were improved, the trend of population in the same direction became more strongly emphasized. In 1873 the area of the city was nearly doubled, being increased from fourteen thousand to twenty- seven thousand acres, in round figures, by the extension of the city boundary, to meet, at a distance of sixteen miles from the Battery, the south boun- dary of the city of Yonkers. This was accomplished through the medium of a bill which passed the Assembly, annexing to the city a part of West- chester County, including the villages of Kingsbridge, Morrisania and West Farms. The jocose found much incitement to merriment by this extension of the metropolis to the region "up among the goats," but the area then annexed is now densely populated in sections, and is becoming a region of homes. In that new section of the city at the time of annexation, there were wisely reserved public parks on a generous scale, which add most mate- rially to the attractions of the borough of the Bronx, which will in a few years, in all probability, be the most populous of the five boroughs which compose Greater New York.
In the steps of municipal progress after the close of the Civil War, the first of importance was the change from the volunteer to the paid system in the fire department. The old system had been exceptionally good of its kind, but had many drawbacks. Many brave and heroic deeds had been done by the volunteers who "ran with the machine." But the zeal which had at first engendered a friendly rivalry between the companies had intensified into animosities which frequently resulted in fighting, where there should have been cooperation. When the city was small, the flower of its manhood was proud to attach itself to the fire-fighting force, but with the growth of the city and the consequent increase of fires, the duties of the firemen proved too great a tax on the time of those engaged in busi- ness, and the personnel of the fire companies deteriorated. The companies would not admit improvements, but persisted in dragging out machines by hand, for years after the introduction of horses in other cities; and in addi- tion, the company houses became, in some cases, loafing places for the idle and vicious, and breeding places of disorder in the promotion of the shady schemes of the lower class of ward politicians. So on March 30, 1865, the Legislature passed the bill providing for a board of four fire commissioners, who were to have control of the new Fire Department of the City of New York. Charles C. Pinckney, James W. Brown, Philip W. Engs and Martin H. Brown were appointed commissioners, and, on May 2d, the paid fire department was started. There was violent opposition to the law, at
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first, on the part of the members of the volunteer companies, who attacked the new system in the courts as unconstitutional, but the case was quickly decided by the Court of Appeals, which fully sustained the new law, and soon the department was in working order, and the opposition subsided. The most serious fire the department was called upon to contend with that year was that in Barnum's Museum, at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, which was burned July 13, 1865. The New York Herald built upon the site, and had its headquarters there until its present handsome build- ing in Herald Square was erected. The modernization of the fire-fighting system in BOOTH'S THEATRE New York quickly followed the change to the paid depart- ment. Steam engines took the place of the old hand machines in the city proper, the use of the telegraph was greatly extended, and from that time on the department has become more and more efficient, until it is now without a rival as a fire-fighting force.
In the city election of December, 1865, the Democratic candidate for mayor, John T. Hoffman, was elected for the term beginning January I, 1 866.
A former chapter has told of the completion of the first Atlantic cable through the efforts of Cyrus W. Field, of the messages transmitted between the two continents and of the breaking of the cable on the very day when New York was doing honor to Mr. Field's achievement. Such a setback would have crushed a man of less heroic mold, but Mr. Field, in spite of contumely, of enmity and derision, persevered. He labored in spite of financial depression and civil war, to raise the money to resume the gigantic task, and succeeded in reviving interest. The great steamship Great Eastern started with the cable, July 23, 1865, but although precau- tions had been taken which seemed to make failure impossible, a fault in the cable, when it had been laid for twelve hundred miles, caused it to snap and go down. Back to England went the great ship. Three million dollars were raised, a new cable was made, and another start was made, July 13, 1866. This time success came; the two continents were united, and to add
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to the final triumph of the undertaking, the Great Eastern succeeded in fishing up from the bottom of the sea, two miles deep, the cable it had lost, splicing it and completing it as a second connection between the Old World and the New. Once more Mr. Field was showered with honors ; the Chamber of Commerce gave a public banquet in his honor; the Thirty- ninth Congress presented him with a gold medal, with the thanks of the nation; and John Bright, the great English statesman, in an address at Leeds, eulogized Mr. Field as "the Columbus of our time." To the faith and zeal of this great New York merchant is due the work that has since connected the world's ends together and revolutionized the commercial and social intercourse of the nations.
Another important event of 1866 was the organization of a Metro- politan Board of Health to be composed of four health commissioners, to be appointed by the governor, the health officer of New York and the Metro- politan Police Board. Such a board had often been projected, but there had always been considerable objection to vesting in such an organization powers sufficient to make its work effective. But dread of a visitation of cholera had been aroused, because, in November, 1865, the emigrant steam- ship Atlanta, from Europe, came into New York with several cases of Asiatic cholera on board. As there had been no provision for such cases since the destruction of the Quarantine Buildings, on Staten Island, the patients were taken to a floating hulk in the bay, which had been used during the previous summer for yellow fever patients. A few weeks afterward several deaths from the disease occurred on Ward's Island. Cold weather came on, and no further cases had appeared, but it was expected to return in the spring, and the Legislature created the new board February 26, 1866, and Doctors James Crane, Willard Parker, Jackson S. Schultz and John O. Stone were appointed to membership in the board.
At once the board set about cleaning up the city, the streets being swept, tenements disinfected, soap rendering and slaughter houses ban- ished outside of city limits, and the driving of cattle in the streets in the daytime prohibited; and many other sanitary measures were taken. News that the steamship England, from Liverpool, after losing forty dead, had brought 160 cases of cholera into Halifax, and that two vessels bound for New York had been stopped at Bermuda because of the disease, spurred the authorities to action, and the Board of Health petitioned the govern- ment and were granted special authority to provide for the sick and to take sanitary measures within the city. They struck a snag when they attempted to establish a quarantine station. Staten Island would have none of it, and Coney Island, Sandy Hook, and other places, made violent opposition to quarantine stations or cholera hospital. The steamship Vir-
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ginia, from Liverpool, arrived April 18th, with numerous cases of Asiatic cholera aboard. They were transferred to a hospital ship, and those who were well were put into a steamer fitted up specially for them. On May Ist, the first case of cholera broke out in the city, in an unsanitary tenement at Ninety-third Street and Third Avenue, and the next day, in a similar building at 115 Mulberry Street. It grew in the number of cases, until August, and after that decreased. In a hospital on Second Avenue, also at the Battery, the United States Transit Hospital and the Five Points Bar- racks many were cared for. In the city the deaths numbered 460, but the mor- tality in the hospitals and penal institutions on the islands was much greater, bringing the total up to 1212. The number was greater in Brook- lyn, and still higher in the Western cities, where many thousands died. It disappeared from New York in October.
Congestion of the downtown streets was a problem forty years ago. Alderman Charles E. Loew, as a remedy for this condition, proposed the erection of an elevated causeway over Broadway, and the structure, as planned, was built across that thoroughfare at Fulton Street. It was costly, unsightly and useless, for the number of those who would climb to cross was very few. It remained a year and then was taken down.
From 1867 to 1869 was an era of speculation in real estate and in building ; many old land- marks were torn away to SOCIETY LIBRARY make room for more preten- tious structures, and some changes that were made at that time have since been much re- gretted. Among these was the sale, in 1867, of St. John's Park, which had originally been part of the Anneke Jans estate, and had become one of the best of the small parks in the lower part of the city, but which was transferred to the OLD NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY Hudson River Railroad for a freight depot. Another landmark, the New York Hospital, at Broadway and Pearl Street, where it had long stood surrounded by greensward and stately elms, was sold, the institution moving up to its present location in West Fifteenth Street. Besides the activity in real estate and building,
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FORMATION OF THE TWEED RING
there were many wild speculations in stocks, in petroleum and other things. The most notable features of the general excitement were the lavish schemes and plans for municipal improvements fostered and carried out by a ring of politicians who had gained the control of the city gov- ernment. John T. Hoffman was elected mayor in 1865, and during his administration began the nefarious operations of the "Gang" headed by William M. Tweed.
The head and front of the "Ring," was William Marcy Tweed, who was born in New York in 1823, educated in the common schools, and then took up his father's trade of chair-making. Not being overfond of work, he devoted most of his attention to the volunteer fire department, becoming foreman of "Big Six," one of the most popular and politically powerful of the companies. He had much personal magnetism and a knack of attaching to himself a large following, and he had soon become a ward "boss." He was elected to the Common Council of 1850, a body which, because of some of its works, had earned the designation of "The Forty Thieves," and he diligently worked the field of patronage, selling offices for money or to make his following more secure and extensive. Having, with a majority of his fellow councilmen, granted a street car franchise in disobedience to an injunction, he was arrested, but escaped imprisonment, and was elected to a term in Congress. In 1857, the Legislature passed a law making the Board of Supervisors the governing body of the county, consisting of twelve members, six from each party. This arrangement, intended by an even division of party control to secure a businesslike and nonpartisan administration of public affairs, resulted in building up a ring composed of corrupt men of both parties, held together by "the cohesive power of public plunder." Such has at times been the case not only in New York, but also in Chicago, in San Francisco, and other ring-ridden cities. When Tweed left Congress he became chairman of the Board of Supervisors, occupying that office for four terms. He had become all-powerful in the Tammany Society, of which he was elected grand sachem.
Tweed's chief associates in the ring were Peter B. Sweeney, one of the Tammany leaders, a lawyer of no great ability, and the son of a saloon- keeper; and Richard D. Connolly, of Irish birth, but a resident of New York from boyhood. He had served as county clerk and afterward as a State sen- ator. He had later served as an accountant in a bank, and had some knowl- edge of money matters, which was found useful in the financing of the trans- actions of the gang. He was of a smooth, insinuating manner, and known to his familiars as "Slippery Dick Connolly."
With Tweed at the head of the Tammany organization, with wires out everywhere connecting him with many experienced workers, the operations of
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the gang were made easy of execution; but they were compelled, of course, to have numerous confederates, and to intrench themselves in power they secured control of three members of the State judiciary. One of these was George G. Barnard, who had at one time been regarded as a reformer, but who eventually turned out to be completely in sympathy with the Tweed ring. Another judge, Albert Cardozo, was an entirely different kind of a man from Barnard, the latter being of overbearing manner, while Cardozo was a lawyer of great ability, and a man of highest culture and the most refined manners, and yet he appears to have been, if anything, the most cor- rupt of the three judges of the ring, of whom John H. McCunn was the third. The latter was of so little learning that he employed various lawyers to write his opinions for him.
Besides the judiciary, the gang secured control of several of the editors of newspapers, who were corrupted by lucrative public positions or by "tips," enabling them to make money by speculation in Wall Street or by advance information in regard to improvements that were made by the city, by which they were enabled to make money by speculation in real estate.
The corruption of the gang was absolute, and extended to all of the de- partments of activity connected with the city government. The building of the New York City Courthouse, which was limited in cost in the original contract to $250,000, was expanded to an expense to the taxpayers of more than $14,000,000, of which fully half found its way into the pockets of the members of the ring and their followers and hangers-on. As appeared in the evidence afterwards, the creative genius of the gang was Sweeney, although Tweed was the one who manipulated the robberies of the city. Bills against the city were increased from forty to sixty-five per cent. more than the real amount, and the excess divided among the gang, upon methods which were made possible only after Sweeney became chamberlain and Connolly con- troller, which was in 1868. In that year John T. Hoffman, who had been mayor, was elected governor of the State, and in his place, under the dicta- tion of Tweed as boss, A. Oakey Hall was elected mayor of the city in place of Hoffman. Although Hall figured largely in the investigation which after- ward came about, there does not seem to be any proof that he profited in a financial way by his connection with it. His ambition seems to have been the cause of his subservience to the ring, without which he could not have been advanced to the mayoralty, because as politics stood then, Tweed was able absolutely to control the situation. Mayor Hall was a man of excellent family, remarkable culture and classical education, a writer of ability, a lecturer who met public approval, and a lawyer of distinction who at the time of his elec- tion to the office of mayor was serving as district attorney of the County of New York. He had formerly been a Republican, afterward becoming a
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Democrat, and finally by the grace of Tweed and Tammany Hall, had reached the mayoralty. In the trial of the charges against the ring, he was acquitted in court, there having been no evidence of his being a party to the taking of the money stolen by the ring, his chief offense being the appointment of Tweed to the important position of commissioner of public works, in 1870. This appointment came as a result of a change in the law which abolished the power of the Board of Supervisors over contracts, by a new city charter which had been introduced by the friends of Tweed and had been piloted through the Legislature, receiving the majority of the votes of the members of both parties. With this charter, the executive power was placed in the hands of the mayor and eleven departments, the heads of which were to be appointed by the mayor. The offices of street commis- sioner and the Croton depart- ment were abolished and their power was given to a new officer, known as the "commis- sioner of public works," who was to hold his office for four years. When this charter took effect, Mayor Hall appointed Tweed commissioner of public works and placed Peter B. Sweeney at the head of the Park Commission, made John J.
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