USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, Vol. II > Part 24
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
Mrs. Tuckermau,
Mrs. John Jay,
846
HISTORY OF THE
Another was the "Protective War-Claim Association "and Employment Bureau for Discharged and Disabled " Soldiers," under the direction of Messrs. Howard Pot- ter, Wm. E. Dodge and Theo. Roosevelt.
A happy thought happily executed in November, was that of providing a thanksgiving dimer for our soldiers and sailors. Gen. Grant afforded every assistance for the distribution of the gifts to the Army of the Shenan- doah, to the Atlantic Squadron, to the Armies of the Potomac and the James, and to some fifteen forts and hospitals, remarking that "it was not the bit of turkey " that the soldiers would care for, but the thought that " they were kindly remembered at the North."
In January, 1865, the before-mentioned Soldiers' Rest was established in New York for the comfort of soldiers passing through the city, under the care of Messrs. Dale, Hayes, Schultz, Lawrence, Bliss and Howe ; and the same month the Club despatched a committee to Washington to urge the adoption of the Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The committee remained at the capital until that great work was accomplished, and in their report sketched the memorable scene in the House on the adoption of the amendment.
After the murder of President Lincoln, the Club was represented at his funeral at Washington, and the com- mittee the next day waited upon President Johnson, the secretaries of the departments and the chief justice, giving assurance that the Club on that momentous occa- sion renewed its engagements of loyalty and service towards the government and the country. In reply to an address made him by Mr. Jay, on behalf of the Club,
847
CITY OF NEW YORK.
President Johnson, after thanking the Club for their encouragement as "especially appropriate," assured them that " the idea that justice should be observed " was one that had strongly impressed him," that "all "erimes were submerged in treason, and that we must " look to it in this light in the carrying out of stern, " inflexible justice."
In July the Club took effective measures for the suit- able care and reception of regiments returning from the war, and Gov. Fenton, in returning thanks to the Club on behalf of the State and of the soldiers, whose welfare it had largely promoted, said :
"It is a source of grateful feeling and pride that the " wise and humane provisions of the State have been "encouraged and advanced by your body. An associ- "ation which had its origin in the patriotic impulse " stimulated by the war and the necessity of systematized "effort, may properly receive the thanks of an apprecia- "tive people, and be proud of a record which declares "it faithful in the beginning, hopeful, watchful and " unwearied during the period of greatest despondency "and gloom, and devoted, sympathizing and humane to " the brave defenders of our Union in the end."
In the work of reconstruction the Club spoke and acted with the same distinctness and promptitude as it had done during the war.
In June, 1865, with but one dissenting voice, it "in- " voked the influence of the national authorities in the "establishing of a system of suffrage in the late rebel- "lious States, which shall be equal and just to all with- "out distinction of color," and soon afterwards it ap- pointed a committee to co-operate with the "New York
848
HISTORY OF THE
" National Freedmen's Relief Association," in securing among the negroes the general diffusion of education.
In March, 1865, it gave its approval to the action of Congress on the subject of reconstruction, in April it endorsed the passage of the Civil Rights Bill, and in September, 1866, the Club invited and entertained at New York the Convention of Southern Loyalists who had met at Philadelphia.
In January, 1866, the main object of the Club, the preservation of the country, having been accomplished, it adopted a new article making it "the duty of "the Club to resist and expose corruption and promote "reform in our national, state and municipal affairs, and "to elevate the idea of American citizenship."
The influence of the Club has already secured for New York a Paid Fire Department and a Board of Health, and it has spoken with great effect upon the subject of legislative corruption, rousing the attention of the State and the nation to the fatal consequences of permitting government to be converted by lawless poli- ticians into a machine for plundering and oppressing the people. In pursuance of the latter object, a committee of eleven was appointed by it to suggest changes in the government of the city to the Constitutional Convention.
Among the duties early assumed, and always grace- fully performed by the Club, has been that of extending a cordial welcome to all entitled to such an honor. It thus received, during and since the war, Lieutenant- General Grant and his most eminent commanders ; Admiral Farragut, Dupont, Rogers, Winslow, after destroying the Kearsarge, and Cusbing, after sinking the
CITY OF NEW YORK. 849
Albemarle ; the governors of States ; Fessenden, Sher- man and others of the Senate ; and Speaker Colfax and prominent members of the House. Among the honors paid at the Club House to foreigners, the break- fast to Professor Goldwin Smith was perhaps the most memorable, from the brilliancy of the circle then assem- bled. Some of the ablest of the statesmen and publi- cists of Europe are occasional correspondents of the Club, and among the portraits that adorn its walls are those of Cobden and Bright, Laboulaye and Gasparin. The artists of New York, than whom there was no more loyal class during the war, are prominently represented, and an Art Committee, composed of Messrs. Putnam, Kensett, Cropsey, Colyer, Butler, Stone and Holbrook, adorn the club room at the monthly meetings with works of art from the studios of the city, which are left open for inspection by the wives and daughters of the members. The Club has recently resolved, on the sug- gestion of Mr. Alexander T. Stewart, to raise half a million dollars for the erection of a new Club House, and the work is entrusted to a committee of which Mr. Stewart is the chairman. The presidents of the Club have been Robert B. Minturn, Jonathan Sturges, Charles H. Marshall and John Jay. Of these Messrs. Minturn and Marshall are deceased.
It has been well said that the community, with pride and affection, recognizes in the Club "a great power " employed with generous and earnest zeal in the pro- "motion of patriotism, humanity and justice. . . Ever " foremost in duty, it has never broken ranks. . . . The "Club has. no long history to point back to, but it has "lived long enough to see every principle and every
54
850
HISTORY OF THE
"measure which it has vindicated honorably suc- cessful."
The year 1865 opened brilliantly with the fall of Fort Fisher. Victories crowded upon each other ; the capture of Columbia and Savannah, the brilliant raid of Sheridan, the successful advance of the Army of the Potomac, and, last of all, the fall of Richmond on the 3d of April, dazzled the public mind. A New Yorker, Lieutenant De Peyster, a member of one of the most distinguished of the Knickerbocker families, was the first to raise the National flag anew over the Confede- rate Capitol. The news of the fall of Richmond was received in New York with unbounded rejoicing. The whole city seemed intoxicated with delight. The streets were thronged with joyous crowds, flags were displayed everywhere, and the air rang with the booming of cannon and the chimes of bells in honor of the virtual termination of the great conflict. The surrender of Lee, on the 9th of April, left only a hand- ful of insurgents in the field, who were subdued in the course of a few months.
The interval between joy and mourning was short. On the morning of the 15th of April the whole com- munity was paralyzed by the announcement that the President of the United States had been stricken down, the night before, by the bullet of an assassin, and that the secretary of state and his son had been attacked and well nigh murdered. As if by a spontaneous impulse, scarcely was the news received at half-past seven, that the President had breathed his last, when the whole city, from the most sumptuous edifices to the humblest tenements, appeared draped in mourning.
851
CITY OF NEW YORK.
Business was entirely suspended, the stores were closed, and the streets were thronged with crowds bewailing the loved head of the nation, and breathing forth vengeance on his murderers. Never before was such a scene beheld in busy New York, thus suddenly trans- formed into a city of mourners. At twelve o'clock, an immense meeting assembled at the Custom House. Simeon Draper, the collector of the port, was chosen president, Moses Taylor and Moses H. Grinnell, vice- presidents, and Henry M. Taber and S. B. Chittenden, secretaries. The meeting was addressed by Generals Wetmore, Garfield and Butler, Ex-Governor King, Daniel S. Dickinson, Judge Pierrepont, and several others, and a committee of thirteen/citizens of New York was appointed to be sent to Washington to attend the funeral of the President, and to tender all needful aid and sympathy to the government. This committee consisted of Moses Taylor, Jonathan Sturges, William E. Dodge, Hamilton Fish, Moses H. Grinnell, William M. Evarts, Charles H. Russell, Edwards Pierre- pont, Samuel Sloan, John J. Astor, Jr., F. B. Cutting, R. M. Blatchford, and Charles H. Marshall. It was also recommended that all places of business and of public amusement should remain closed until after the funeral of the President. 1
At one o'clock, a meeting was held at the Chamber of Commerce, at which Charles H. Marshall acted as chairman, and Jolm Austin Stevens as secretary. The rooms of the Chamber were hung with mourning. Resolutions expressive of respect for the memory of Mr Lincoln, and of condolence with his family, and that of Mr. Seward, were unanimously adopted, and
852
HISTORY OF THE
the meeting joined with that at the Custom House in recommending the closing of all places of business and amusement until after the obsequies of the President. The Boards of Stock Brokers and Gold Brokers adjourned at once, without transacting any business. In Nassau street, in front of the Post Office, a large concourse of citizens was addressed by General Burn- side. The Courts and Boards of Aldermen, Councilmen and Supervisors adjourned, after passing resolutions of condolence with the nation in its affliction. The chief of the police acted on the recommendation of the merchants, and issued an order directing that all places of amusement should remain closed until after the burial of the President, a course which had been previ- ously resolved upon by the Association of New York Managers. The pervading thought of the city was grief and indignation at this base assassination ; and it is just to say that this indignation seemed universal, and with scarcely an exception, was shared by those who had sympathized with the South during the struggle.
The death of the martyred President was the general topic of discourse the next day in the Christian churches, as it had been the day before in the Jewish synagogues. From that time until the remains of President Lincoln passed through New York on their way to their final resting place in Illinois, the city was engrossed in preparations to do honor to the illustrious dead. The 19th of April, a date memorable in the annals of America, was observed as a day of mourning by the whole nation. On that day, funeral services were performed at the White House, and the body of
853
CITY OF NEW YORK.
Mr. Lincoln was removed to the Capitol, where it lay in state until the morning of the 21st, when the funeral train set out for Illinois by nearly the same route as that taken by Mr. Lincoln on his way to Washington in 1861. His was a triumphal, though mournful return. The districts which had then been most hostile, now received him with reverence ; Baltimore, through which he had passed secretly by night, and which had justified this precaution by shooting down the Union soldiers a few weeks after, greeted the mournful procession with the deepest respect, as did all other places on the route.
By night and day the funeral train passed through a crowd of mourners. Imposing as were the demonstra- tions everywhere else, they were surpassed by the City of New York. The City Hall had been prepared for the reception of the honored remains, which were es- corted thither from the Cortlandt Street Ferry, upon their arrival on the 24th of April, by a sea of human beings ; while minute guns were fired along the entire route, and the bells of all the churches tolled mourn- fully. The coffin was borne into the rotunda of the City Hall, amid the chanting of eight hundred singers, and placed on the magnificent catafalque which had been prepared for it, where it remained buried beneath flowers until the afternoon of the next day. An im- mense procession of people, miles in length, had already formed, and during the whole twenty-four hours this stream of men, women and children slowly filed through the City Hall, to look for the last time on the face of the dead President. A large military guard kept constant watch over the remains, and at midnight
854
HISTORY OF THE
the German musical societies performed a solemn chant in the rotunda of the City Hall. When the time arrived for departure, thousands who had waited in line for hours to pay their last respects to the dead, were obliged to turn away disappointed.
On the afternoon of the 25th of April New York City took its final leave of President Lincoln. The remains were escorted to the railroad depot by a pro- cession nearly five miles in length, composed of a mili- tary force of more than fifteen thousand men, together with numerous civic officers and societies. Last in the procession marched two thousand colored citizens. Along the whole line the streets were thronged with inourners. Every window and balcony was filled, and every house was shrouded in funereal drapery. Even the denizens of the poorest quarters of the city, who could scarce buy bread, eked out the means to provide shreds of crape, by which to express their sorrow ; while the most tasteful arches, inscriptions and mourn- ing devices lined the streets through which the funeral train passed. A large assemblage met in the afternoon in Union Square to listen to a funeral oration from the Hon. George Bancroft, and an eulogy from William Cul- len Bryant. On the 3d of May, after a journey of more than seventeen hundred miles, the funeral party reached Springfield, Illinois, and on the next day the remains of President Lincoln were laid to rest in Oak Ridge Ceme- tery, near by.
In the spring of 1865 an important change was effected in the municipal affairs by the substitution of a paid Fire Department for the volunteer Fire Department that had hitherto existed. On the 30th of March the
CITY OF NEW YORK.
855
Lower Arsenal.
Legislature passed an act providing for the creation of a board of four fire commissioners, to be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who were to have control of the new Fire De- partment. Charles C. Pinckney, James W. Booth, Philip W. Engs and Martin B. Brown were appointed commissioners, and on the 2d of May, the paid Fire Department was organized. A radical change was at once effected in the prevailing system : steam fire-en- gines were everywhere adopted within the limits of the city proper in lieu of the old hand-engines, the telegraph facilities were improved, and many important ameliora- tions were made. The innovation at first called forth the most violent opposition from the members of the former organization, who protested that the act was
856
HISTORY OF THE
unconstitutional. The case was carried before the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the constitutionality of the law. Fears were entertained lest the antagonism of the volunteer firemen, some of whom at first assumed a position of open hostility, and refused to surrender the property of the Fire Department, might endanger the city in case of conflagration ; the opposition, however, was peacefully subdued with no more agitation than might have been expected from so important a trans- formation.
One of the most strikingly beautiful buildings erected in New York during this year was the National Academy of Design, on the corner of Twenty-third street and Fourth Avenue, a tasteful structure of graywacke and white marble, which is one of the architectural orna- ments of the city. The first organized effort to estab- lish an art institution in the city was that of the "New "York Academy of Fine Arts," in 1802, which was char- tered in 1808, under the name of the Academy of Arts, with Robert R. Livingston as president, John Trumbull as vice-president, and De Witt Clinton as secretary, Trumbull being the only artist. The first exhibition was held in Greenwich street, near Morris, in a building formerly used as a circus. In 1825 an association was formed by the artists of the city under the name of the New York Drawing Association, which was afterwards organized under the name of the National Academy of the Arts of Design, with S. F. B. Morse as the first president. The first public exhibition of the new acad- emy took place in May, 1826, in the house on the south-west corner of Broadway and Reade street. The room in which the exhibition was held was in the second
857
CITY OF NEW YORK.
story, and was lighted with gas, six burners in all for the whole exhibition, which consisted of one hundred and seventy pictures. From this small beginning grew the present Academy of Design.
Perhaps the most noticeable fire of the year was that of Barnum's Museum, on the corner of Broadway and Ann street, which was burned on the 13th of July ; an old landmark, which has since been replaced by the Herald building.
A tragic event that occurred in the autumn excited great attention. On the 12th of November, the Hon. Preston King, who had superseded Simeon Draper a short time before in the post of collector of the port of New York, stole from his hotel early in the morning, purchased a bag of shot of twenty-five pounds in weight, suspended it around his neck, proceeded to the Hoboken ferry-boat, and sprang from the deck while crossing the river. The cares of the office had unseated his reason. A diligent search was instituted for his body, which was discovered some time after. Henry A. Smythe, an eminent New York banker, was appointed in his stead.
In December John T. Hoffinan, the democratic candidate, was elected mayor, and was inaugurated in office on the Ist of January, 1866.
After the excitement of the last five stirring years, the chronicle of the opening era of peace seems uneventful. The victories of 1866 were bloodless ones. Chief among them was that attained over the fetters of space by the successful laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, the crowning event, not only of the year, but also of the century ; and this gigantie project originated
858
HISTORY OF THE
in New York City, and was due solely to the energy and perseverance of a New York merchant, without whose untiring zeal and devotion it is scarcely likely that our generation would have seen the continents linked together by an electric bridge. This fact will warrant us in devoting some space to a brief sketch of this miracle of the age, which may in some sort be regarded as belonging peculiarly to New York .*
Whatever visions may have been entertained of a remote possibility that Europe and America might some day be telegraphically united, the first idea of practi- cally effecting this communication belongs indisputably to Cyrus W. Field, a New York merchant, who, after retiring from business to enjoy a life of leisure, entered the arena again for the purpose of securing the triumph of this great scheme to which he devoted twelve years of unheard-of disappointment and fatigue, seeing his hopes dashed to the ground again and again, giving up all the comforts of home and crossing the ocean more than forty times in this anxious interval. Such per- severance is rare indeed, and deserves the highest meed of praise.
In 1854 Mr. Field conceived the idea of spanning the ocean with the electric wire. Such an undertaking was too vast for the shoulders of a single individual,
* For the accompanying facts, we are indebted to the excellent History of the Atlantic Telegraph, by Mr. Field's brother, Henry M. Field, D.D., the able editor of the New York Evangelist. Mr. Field's whob Bunily is marked by unusual talent. llis father was a distinguishel elerygmen of Stockbridge, Mass. Besides his brothers, David Dudley ad Henry M., whom we have already mentioned. another brother, Stephen J., of California, is the youngest judge of the U. S. Supreme Court, and still another, Matthew, a skilful engineer, aided materially in the success of che cable.
1 CITY OF NEW YORK.
859
Cooper Institute.
and he looked about him for coadjutors in the work. The first interested was his next door neighbor, the philanthropist, Peter Cooper, a native of New York. Moses Taylor, a wealthy New York capitalist, was next enlisted, and through him, Marshall O. Roberts ; both of these gentlemen were natives of New York, and ranked among its most prominent citizens. Chandler White, another New York merchant, filled up the measure ; and at six o'clock on the morning of the 8th of May, 1854, these five New York gentlemen met at the house of Mr. Field's brother, David Dudley Field, in Gramercy Park, and in half an hour organized a company and subscribed a million and a half of dollars
860
HISTORY OF THE
with which to begin one of the most herculean tasks ever undertaken within the memory of man.
The first thing to be done was to establish telegraphic communication from the mainland across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Ray, and thence to Cape St. John's, in Newfoundland, the most easterly point of the American continent. From this point the cable was to be laid along the bed of the ocean to the coast of Ireland. This part of the work had been begun a few years before by a company organized by Frederick N. Gisborne, but which, after constructing a few miles, became bankrupt, and was obliged to abandon the
undertaking. After two years of indefatigable labor the first step was accomplished, and a submarine cable laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and thence four hundred miles overland to St. John's. Thus far it had been purely an American, and, we may say, a New York enterprise, having been accomplished alnost solely by Mr. Field and his associates, the original projectors of the scheme, with some slight co-operation from Professor Morse, Wilson G. Hunt, Robert W. Lowber and John W. Brett. Save the few shares held by the latter gentleman, the father of submarine tele- graphy in Europe, not a dollar had been raised for the enterprise on the other side of the Atlantic. As the Atlantic Telegraph was an international undertaking, however, it was now fitting that Europe should bear her part in the burden. Mr. Field appealed to the British government for assistance, which was granted, and ships were placed at the service of the company. The American gover ment rendered like assistance ; and after much preliminary exploration and study, in
861
CITY OF NEW YORK.
the summer of 1857 the first attempt was made, with the Niagara and the Susquehanna, the two finest ships in the American navy, and the Agamemnon and the Leopard on the part of the British government, to lay the great Atlantic Cable, which snapped when three hundred and thirty-five miles had been successfully laid, and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Nothing daunted, the persevering projector of the enterprise renewed the attempt the following year, and again the cable parted. This time public confidence, which had borne up under the first disappointment, gave way ; men sneered at the folly of casting money into the sea in pursuit of such an utopian aim, and the directors of the new company that had been formed in England became disheartened and were disposed to abandon the undertaking. A last trial was however resolved on ; and on the 17th of July, 1858, the cable expedition sailed for the last time, and landed the wire on the shore of Trinity Bay, August 5, 1858.
The excitement which followed the success of this gigantic scheme was intense everywhere, especially in New York, whose commercial interests were so deeply involved in the enterprise. On the 16th of August the Queen of England transmitted a message of congratula- tion to the President of the United States, who returned an answer. The next morning a hundred guns were fired in the Park at daybreak, in honor of the event, and the salute was repeated at noon. Flags were raised on all the public buildings, the bells were rung. and at night the city was brilliantly illuminated. The City Hall, indeed, was well nigh offered up as a holocaust on this occasion, for the cupola took fire from the lights
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.