USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 39
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82
OLD NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Bradley chamberlain, while Richard B. Connolly continued as comptroller. The Board of
Audit was to be composed of the mayor, comptroller and commissioner of public works (Hall, Connolly and Tweed). This Board of Audit held one five minute session and ordered that all outstanding liabilities should be collected, delegating their auditing powers to the county auditor, James Watson, who afterward audited all of the bills, sometimes carrying the audit around to the different members of the board for their sig- nature, and sometimes auditing them without that formality. Within less than four months from this meeting of the Board of Audit the sum of $6,312,000 was paid out of the city treasury, of which $5,710, 130 was for fitting up and furnishing the new Courthouse. One of the writers about this period makes an estimate that the carpets purchased by the city for the Courthouse would have carpeted Union Square three times over. The many peculations of the ring became a public scandal, and several news-
390
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
papers, notably the Tribune, Times and Harper's Weekly, published strong articles against the waste of the people's money; one of the most notable features of the campaign being the cartoons of Thomas Nast, who made much of Tweed's jeering reply to criticisms, "What are you going to do about it?"
The exposure of the ring came through William S. Copeland, a clerk who had been placed in the auditor's office through the recommendation of Sheriff James O'Brien. Copeland was looking up some records in the office one day, when he came across a secret list headed "County Liabilities." This list seemed to Copeland to be very suspicious, so he made an exact copy of it, which he carried to his patron, Sheriff James O'Brien. O'Brien saw at once that the list indicated crooked work on the part of the ring, and he thereupon attempted to use it as a means to compel the ring to pay a claim which he held against the city. By the advice of Sweeney, payment of O'Brien's claim was refused, and the sheriff left them, threatening to publish the list in the New York Times. After thinking over the matter a while, the ring members concluded that it would be better to try to pacify O'Brien, and in the after- noon sent over Watson to the Bertholf's Hotel, sporting headquarters in Har- lem Lane, to negotiate with O'Brien. The sheriff was accidentally detained, and on his way home Watson was thrown from his carriage, which had run into another vehicle, receiving injuries so severe that he died a few days after- ward. Around the death bed of Watson flocked the members of the ring and their agents, for the twofold purpose of preventing any damaging confession and also trying to secure the transfer of a large amount of property belong- ing to them which Watson held in his name; but as he never again regained consciousness, his widow succeeded to the property. O'Brien continued to press his claim on the gang, but as he got nothing out of them, he carried the fraudulent accounts in his possession to the Sun, which did not buy them, and afterwards took them to George Jones, proprietor of the New York Times, telling him to use them as he would. The publication of these figures caused intense excitement in the city, mass meetings were held, and a Committee of Seventy was appointed to investigate the frauds. William F. Havemeyer, Samuel J. Tilden, Joseph H. Choate, Charles O'Connor, Richard O'Gorman, and many other prominent citizens, took up the matter, while the ring, which had become thoroughly alarmed, made ineffectual offers of large bribes to editors and others endeavoring to stop the attacks made upon them. Finally they thought to straighten up matters by laying the whole blame upon Con- nolly, who was asked to resign, but he refused to do so. Judge Barnard issued an injunction against Connolly, and soon after, on September 10, 1870, the comptroller's office was entered and a large number of vouchers were taken. This act, while it was profitable to all of the members of the gang, by
391
TWEED CONVICTED AND JAILED
destroying much evidence against them, was used by the others against Con- nolly, in order to lay the entire blame upon him. Mayor Hall wrote to Con- nolly, September 12, 1870, saying that he did not have power to remove the head of any department, but he would ask him as a favor, under the circum- stances, to resign. Mr. Connolly went to Mr. Tilden for advice, on Septem- ber 15th, and was told by him that while he could not be removed until convicted, there was in the charter a provision by which the comptroller could appoint a deputy to act in full power during his absence, and induced him to appoint Andrew H. Green as such deputy. Then the mayor endeavored to remove Connolly in order to, at the same time, get his deputy out of the way; but Charles O'Connor upheld Mr. Green's title, and the gang concluded that it would not be safe to interfere with him. Mr. Green stopped payment to all public officials who were in arrears and refused payment on any of the exor- bitant bills that were brought in; and with the aid of the evidence in the comptroller's office enabled Mr. Tilden to expose the system of the ring for division of plunder, which showed that Tweed received twenty-four per cent., Connolly twenty per cent., Sweeney ten per cent., and Watson and Woodward each five per cent. of the stealings. Connolly, Sweeney and many of their associates fled to Europe, while Tweed remained, and was arrested and lodged in the Ludlow Street jail. He was indicted, February 10, 1872, for forgery and grand larceny, but the jury disagreed. On the second trial, No- vember 5, 1853, he was found guilty of all of the fifty-one counts of the indict- ment, and on November 22d, he was sentenced to twelve years in the peniten- tiary and to pay a fine of $12,300.18 for each of twelve counts of the indict- ment and $250 for each of the other thirty-nine counts.
He remained on Blackwell's Island while his case was under appeal, until June 13, 1875, when a decision was made that the court erred in sentencing Tweed on so many counts for the same offense and ordering his release. He was taken to court June 22, 1875, and gave bail for $18,000 on the remaining criminal indictments, but on his release under the bail bond he was arrested again on a civil suit for the recovery of $6,000,000, which had been charged in the "County Liabilities" and was held to bail in the sum of $3,000,000, which he was unable to give. He was locked up in the Ludlow Street jail and while there arranged with some of his friends to plan an escape. While he was out with Sheriff O'Brien, on December 4, 1875, taking an airing, he persuaded his keepers to permit him to visit his wife, on Madison Avenue, and from there succeeded in making his escape. He passed through many hardships in getting away, his health being bad and his corpulence of body also being a great im- pediment; but he lived in concealment at Vigo, Spain, until 1876, when he was discovered and brought back again to the Ludlow Street jail. Meanwhile the civil suit had resulted in a verdict against him for $6,537,117.38, prin-
392
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
cipal and interest. He lived in the jail until, his health becoming worse, he died in that institution, April 12, 1878, at the age of 55.
The operations of the Tweed Ring, during the five years of its domination, added over $100,000,000 to the bonded debt of the city, doubled its annual expenditures, and cost the taxpayers the sum of $160,000,000.
As the result of the Tweed exposure there was an agitation for a reform in politics, and in December, 1872, William F. Havemeyer, who had been pre- viously twice elected mayor of New York, in 1845 and 1848, was again selected for the head of the city government. He did not, however, live out his term, but died of apoplexy, in the mayor's office, in 1874.
An amendment of the city charter, passed June 13, 1873, abolished the Board of Assistant Aldermen, which had been revived in 1869, and in its place
OLD CUSTOM HOUSE
constituted a new Common Council of twenty-one aldermen and changed the city election to come on the same day as the State election, on the first Tues- day after the first Monday in November. Under that provision William H. Wickham was elected mayor in 1874.
In 1872 there occurred the greatest strike that there had ever been up to that time in the history of New York City, which, beginning with the effort of the house painters to have their working days reduced to eight hours, spread to the carpenters and bricklayers, and finally included many other classes of workingmen, so that in its worst phase there were forty thousand men idle, and it was estimated that $5,620,000 was lost in the strike. The workingmen were not successful, but finally returned to work without receiving any of the benefits for which the strike had been inaugurated.
In 1873, a great panic struck New York City, and all other cities, result- ing chiefly from excessive railroad development and large speculations, which
393
BLOWING UP ROCKS AT HELL GATE
had greatly increased the debts of many corporations; and when, in May, 1873, it was found impossible to place an issue of American bonds in Europe, there came an immediate stringency in the market-banks failed, railroads went into bankruptcy, and there was a general lack of confidence all over the country. In September, 1873, the failure of the Canada Southern Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway caused the suspension of three of the leading banking firms of the city, those of Robinson, Cox & Company, Jay Cooke & Company, and Fiske & Hatch. Soon after, the Union Trust Company failed, and on September 20th, thirty- five of the largest firms in New York suspended. The situation was one of disaster, the Stock Exchange remained closed from September 22d to Septem- ber 30th, and the number of houses that failed received new additions month by month. After a time there was some slight recovery, but business did not become really active in New York for several years afterwards.
New York actively participated in the exhibits that were shown at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and one of the immediate results of that exhibi- tion was the offer by the great French sculptor, Bartholdi, that he would, if the proper base was furnished for it, present to the people the Statue of Lib- erty Enlightening the World, and some years later, in New York harbor, the statue was placed, and is one of the most treasured monuments of the repub- lic. By the same sculptor also was the statue of La Fayette which now stands at the south border of Union Square, and was presented by French residents to the city.
King Kalakaua, of the Hawaiian Islands, visited New York in 1875, being the first reigning monarch that ever set foot on American soil. In the centennial year of 1876, the Emperor and Empress of Brazil were visitors in New York.
In 1876, the presidential election was a very exciting one, the contestants being Rutherford B. Hayes, as the candidate for President of the Republican party, and Samuel J. Tilden, as the candidate of the Democratic party. The dispute as to which of these had been elected was especially acute in New York, because Tilden had received a large majority of the votes in his State, and the decision in favor of Hayes was by no means popular here. At the same election Smith Ely was elected mayor of New York, and served with ability in that office until 1878.
One of the great engineering feats of that period was the blowing up of Hallet's Point Rocks at Hell Gate, in East River, one of the most extensive operations of its kind ever executed, which was successfully carried out at the end of ten years of hard work under the supervision of General John New- ton. Fifty-two thousand pounds of explosives were fired off at one touch of a button by General Newton's little daughter, greatly reducing the obstruc-
394
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
tion to navigation in East River. This explosion occurred on September 24, 1876. The many fears that had been entertained of great destruction of prop- erty from the explosion all proved to be groundless.
The Seventh Regiment of the National Guard, which from its organiza- tion has been the leading military establishment of New York City, and which formerly had its armory at Tompkins Market, found those premises too small and inconvenient for regimental use, and in the autumn of 1877, the corner stone of the new Seventh Regiment Armory, on the block bounded by Lexing- ton and Seventh Avenue and Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets, was laid. The Seventh Regiment is the continuation of an organization made in 1824, being the outgrowth of the Eleventh Regiment of State Artillery, which con- sisted of two battalions, one of artillery and one of infantry. On May 6, 1826, the infantry battalion was organized as a separate regiment under the title of the "Twenty-seventh Regiment of Artillery," but it was long known as "The National Guards," a title which afterwards became common to the entire mili- tary force of the State. The name of the Seventh Regiment was bestowed upon it, July 27, 1837, by Governor Young. It has always attracted to it young men of good families, and its services were called for many times in the preservation of public peace. It was the first regiment to leave New York for the Civil War, and when it needed a new armory, the subscription for the pur- pose was very liberal, and the present armory was occupied on April 1, 1880.
An event which created considerable excitement in the city was the dese- cration of the grave of A. T. Stewart, in St. Mark's churchyard. Mr. Stewart had been the leading merchant of New York, and probably its most wealthy citizen at that time. Upon his death, April 10, 1826, his remains had been temporarily interred there, pending the completion of the mausoleum in St. John's Cathedral, at Garden City, Long Island, for which his widow had sup- plied the building fund as a memorial to her husband. The thieves escaped with his body, but were disappointed in their effort to procure the reward which they expected.
In 1878, the trains of the Metropolitan Elevated Railway began running on the Third Avenue and Sixth Avenue routes. A further account of this, and other of the rapid transit facilities of New York, will be found in a subse- quent chapter.
In November, 1874, Samuel J. Tilden, one of the foremost citizens and greatest lawyers of New York, was elected to the governorship of the State. In 1876 he was nominated by the Democratic party to the presidency of the United States, but in the subsequent election there was a dispute as to whether Governor Tilden or Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, the Republican candidate, had been elected, and the country was in considerable turmoil for several months until the matter was finally left to an electoral commission of
395
EGYPTIAN OBELISK IN CENTRAL PARK
fifteen members, which decided, by a vote of eight to seven, that Hayes had succeeded in the election.
In November, 1876, Lucius Robinson was elected governor under a law enacted in 1874, extending the governor's term from two to three years, and in 1879 Alonzo B. Cornell, Republican, was elected.
It will be remembered that in the early part of this history reference was several times made to a dispute about the exact boundary line between the States of New York and Connecticut, and it will be interesting to note that the matter was finally decided in 1880, when a Joint Boundary Commission, ap- pointed by the Legislatures of the two States, awarded to New York a small strip, 4.68 square miles in area, called the "Oblong Tract," and finally settled the boundary question.
On January 22d, there was a great addition made to the attractions of Central Park, by the erection of the Egyptian Obelisk, which was brought from Alexandria to New York by the steamer Dessoug, under the command of Com- mander Henry H. Gorringe, U.S.N., which sailed from Alexandria, June 12th, reaching New York, June 20, 1880. This great monolith, which dates back to the days of the ancient Pharaohs, is now one of the unique ornaments of New York's great park. It is supposed to have been made in the years between 1591-1565 B. C., and erected at Heliopolis, whence it was removed to Alexandria in the year 22 B. C. Its total height is ninety feet, the shaft itself being sixty-nine feet high and weighing 443,000 pounds. The total expense of removal and erection of this shaft, amounting to $103,732, was defrayed by William H. Vanderbilt.
In the early eighties there was considerable political turmoil, due to the division of the Republican party into factions, known in the parlance of that day as "Stalwarts" and "Half-breeds." In 1880, the Republicans nominated James A. Garfield for President, and Chester A. Arthur for Vice President of the United States. In the convention, however, there were 106 members who from first to last voted for the nomination of General U. S. Grant for a third term as President. The opposing faction was under the leadership of James G. Blaine, who had been the speaker of the House of Representatives. The votes had fluctuated among various candidates and finally centered on Garfield, who received the nomination. The party leaders, in order to secure harmony, offered to the leaders of the so-called Stalwart faction the choice of vice president, whereupon General Arthur, then collector of the port of New York, was named by Senator Conkling, who was the recognized head of the Stalwart wing. After the inauguration of President Garfield, James G. Blaine was appointed secretary of state and became a dominant figure in the administration. Through his influence and in opposition to the wishes of Sen- ators Conkling and Platt, of New York, William H. Robertson was appointed
396
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
HARLEM LANE From Central Park to Manhattanville
397
SENATORS CONKLING AND PLATT RESIGN
to the collectorship of the port of New York, and after vainly attempting to prevent the confirmation of Robertson, Messrs. Conkling and Platt resigned their seats in the Senate, May 16, 1881, expecting, it was supposed, that they would be immediately reelected by the New York Legislature, then in session, and thereby secure an endorsement of the position they had taken in regard to the nomination of Robertson. As it turned out, however, they were dis- appointed in this expectation, for the Legislature, though Republican in both houses, elected as their successors men who represented the other wing of the Republican party, Warner Miller and Eldridge G. Lapham, who were selected, after a heated contest in the Legislature, on July 17, 1881. The death of Garfield, at the hands of an assassin, made General Arthur President, on September 22, 1881.
The notable death of that year was that of Thurlow Weed, long known as one of the politicians and journalist of the State, who died on November 22, 1882.
After the death of Mayor William F. Havemeyer, in 1874, S. B. H. Vance was acting mayor until after the fall election, at which William H. Wickham was elected. He was succeeded by Smith Ely, in 1877; he by Ed- ward Cooper, in 1879, and he by William R. Grace, in 1881. Franklin Edson was elected in 1883, and William R. Grace was elected for another term, 1885- 1886.
As a result of the dissension in the Republican party, Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, was elected governor in 1882, making such an excellent record in that office that he was nominated for President of the United States, by the Democratic party, at the National Convention in Chicago, on July 8, 1884. He was elected President the following November, defeating James G. Blaine, who was the nominee of the Republican party. There was great excitement over the election in New York City, and the result was so close in the State that for a time there was some doubt as to who had carried this State, and with it the country.
CHAPTER THIRTY - FIVE
THE PAST THREE DECADES-CREATION AND PROGRESS OF THE GREATER CITY
Beginning with the opening to traffic of the East River bridge, May 24, 1883, there began a marked expansion of the population of New York toward Brooklyn and its suburbs, and from that time many investors, who had fore- sight, began to see that the union of the two cities was inevitable. That was not to come, however, until fifteen years later.
Prominent among the events of 1884, affecting the city, was a financial sensation, in May, which attracted international attention. The failure of James R. Keene, who is said to have lost four millions of dollars, was imme- diately followed by the col- lapse of the Marine Bank, the Metropolitan Bank and the firm of Grant & Ward, with which firm General Grant was said to have been connected. General Grant, as it after- ward appeared, had not been actively associated in the operations of the firm, but was really the victim of Ferdinand Ward, the active THE GARGLE ESTATE Sixtieth Street and Tenth Avenue member, who had been engaged in various oper- ations of what we have lately come to regard as "Frenzied Finance," but, at the same time, the loss fell largely upon the ex-President. General Grant borrowed $150,000 from William H. Vanderbilt, in the endeavor to avert the crash, and lost all of his savings. Sympathy for the general and his family was widespread, and they endeavored to satisfy their creditors by mort- gaging all of their property. Although Mr. Vanderbilt desired to cancel his loan, General Grant declined to accept that offer. The general afterward recouped his fortunes somewhat by writing The Personal Memoirs of Gen- eral U. S. Grant, which had a very large sale. In the legal proceedings arising from the failures, James T. Fish, president of the Marine Bank, and Ferdinand Ward, active member of the firm of Grant & Ward, were found to have acted together in various fraudulent transactions and were arrested, con- victed and each sentenced to ten years imprisonment at hard labor in the Sing Sing prison.
399
DEATH AND BURIAL OF GENERAL GRANT
An Arctic expedition, sent out under the auspices of the New York Herald, by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., its proprietor, in the steamer Jeannette, had come to grief, and a relief expedition had recovered the remains of Lieu- tenant Commander George W. De Long, U. S. N., who had charge of the expedition, and others. Largely attended funeral cere- monies over the bodies were held in New York City on February 23, 1884. Another Arctic expedition, which had been under the command of Lieutenant (now Major Gen- eral) A. W. Greely, also was rescued in this year by a relief expedition, under the com- mand of Captain (now Rear Admiral) Winfield S. Schley. THE CASTER ESTATE Formerly near Thirty-sixth Street on Lexington Avenue The Greely expedition had been. sent out, in 1881, to establish one of a chain of thirteen circumpolar stations. The party of twenty-five reached farther north (83ยบ 24') than any previous record. Lieutenant Greely discovered a new land north of Green- land, and crossed Grinnell Land to the Polar Sea. Two relief expeditions having failed to reach the party, he retreated south to Cape Sabine, where, the relief still failing, most of the members of the party perished of starva- tion. Only seven survivors of the party were found under the third (Schley) expedition, which brought them back, as well as the corpses of several of the dead, to New York.
Grover Cleveland, who had been elected President, resigned the governor- ship of New York on January 6, 1885, and David Bennett Hill, the lieutenant- governor, became acting governor. In the November election of 1885 he was elected for a full term of the governorship. He was again elected in 1888, and on January 21, 1891, was elected United States senator from New York, serving until 1897.
General U. S. Grant did not long survive the financial trouble into which he had been forced by the unprincipled acts of Ferdinand Ward, but died July 23, 1885, at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga. He was buried with imposing ceremonies, and afterward the magnificent mausoleum in Riverside Park, for which Congress appropriated $250,000, and a similar amount was raised by popular subscription, was erected, and there his remains now rest, and by his side, those of his wife, who died several years later. In the Grant funeral procession, General William T. Sherman, who was the second greatest Union
400
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
commander of the Civil War, rode side by side with the Confederate Gen- eral, Joseph E. Johnston, who had twenty years before surrendered his army to Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
The corner stone of Bartholdi's statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was laid with Masonic ceremonies, on August 5, 1884, on Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor, and was formally unveiled on October 22, 1886. The cere- monies on the latter occasion included an imposing naval parade and a large land procession. The ceremonies were attended by President Cleveland and his cabinet, the governors of many States, members of the Diplomatic Corps, and many distinguished American guests, also a deputation from France, in- cluding M. Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor, Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, Admiral Jaures, General Pellissier, and others. Addresses were made by Senator Evarts, President Cleveland, Chauncey M. Depew, and M. Lefaivre.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.