USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 37
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
At the lower end of Broadway stood the Kennedy House, now the Washington Hotel, built in 1760 by Captain Kennedy, afterward Earl of Cassilis, and bequeathed by him to his son Robert, from whom it passed into the possession of the late Nathaniel Prime. This house was the headquarters of Putnam prior to, and of Howe and Clinton during the Revolutionary War, and the scene of Andre's last interview with the British general previous to his departure on the fatal West Point mission. Just above this was the King's Arms Tavern, a double house, two stories in height, with a front of yellow Holland brick, and a steep roof, covered with shingles in front and tiles in the rear, the headquar- ters of General Gage during his residence in the city. This afterwards became known as Burns' Coffee House, the well-known rendezvous of the Sons of Liberty, and the place from which emanated many of the patriotic resolves of the New York citizens. It was in this house that the first non-importation agreement of the colonies was signed by the merchants of the city of New York on the even- ing preceding the execution of the Stamp Act, and the first step thus taken toward the rebellion which ripened into their future independence. Here Arnold resided after the discovery of his treason, and it was from the
623
CITY OF NEW YORK.
garden, which extended down to the river, that the chi- valric Champe proposed to abduct the traitor and carry him off in triumph to the American lines in the Jerseys.
Above this, on the site of 39 Broadway-the reputed site of the first building ever erected on the island-was the Bunker Mansion House, the residence of Washing- ton during the second session of Congress.
But a volume would scarce suffice to note all the land- marks, rendered interesting by some association of the past.
The penal institutions of the island were the New Jail,* chiefly used for the imprisonment of debtors ; the Bridewell, in which vagrants and minor offenders were confined, as well as criminals, while awaiting their trial, and the State Prison in Greenwich village on the shores of the North River, for convicts of a higher grade. The latter was a large stone building, surrounded by a high wall on which an armed sentry was constantly pacing. It was opened for the reception of convicts in August, 1796, and was the second State Prison in the United States. In the course of a few years, the number of prisoners in this institution, as well as in the Bridewell, became so great that it became necessary to erect another building for their reception, and a Penitentiary for the imprisonment of minor offenders was accordingly built on the shores of the East River at Bellevue. This
* The first building used for a jail was on the corner of Dock street and Coen- ties Slip. After the erection of the City Hall in Wall street, the criminals were confined in dungeons in the cellar, while the debtors were imprisoned in the attic apartments, from the dormer-windows of which they used to hang out old shoes and bags to solicit alms of the passers by.
624
HISTORY OF THE
institution, which was opened on the 16th of May, 1816, was a stone building, one hundred and fifty feet in length by fifty in breadth, and three stories high. In close proximity to it stood the New Alms House, opened in the spring of the same year ; a blue stone building, three hundred and twenty-five feet in front, with two wings of a hundred and fifty feet in depth each. In 1826, the Bellevue Hospital was built near by, and the three build- ings, inclosed by a stone wall, including twenty-six acres, were known henceforth as the Bellevue Establish- ment. The criminals in these institutions were set to work for the benefit of the State at breaking stone, picking oakum, etc. Through the efforts of Stephen Allen, then mayor of the city, and others, the tread-mill system was introduced into the Penitentiary in 1822, but after a few years' trial, was found inexpedient and abandoned. Upon the opening of the new State Prison at Sing Sing in 1828, the convicts were removed to it from the prison at Greenwich, and their places supplied by the prisoners from the Bridewell and the New Jail. In 1838, the Bridewell was demolished, and the stone of which it was composed was worked up into the Tombs, then in process of erection. The New Jail had some time previously been transformed into the modern Hall of Records. When this change was made, the fire alarm bell, which had hung in the belfry during the Revolution, was taken down and placed upon the Bridewell, where it remained until the demolition of the latter. A cher- ished relic of the firemen, it was then transferred to the engine house of the Naiad Hose Co., in Beaver street, where it remained until it rung out its own funeral knell
625
CITY OF NEW YORK.
for the great fire of 1835, which swept it to the ground and destroyed it forever.
In 1825, the penal institutions of the city were increased by the establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile offenders, which was founded under the auspices of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, an outgrowth from the Society for the Pre- vention of Pauperism, organized in 1818 by a number of the prominent philanthropists of the city. The House of Refuge was incorporated in 1824, and opened on the 1st of January, 1825, in the United States Arsenal in Madison Square, with nine inmates-six boys and three girls. On the destruction of the building by fire in 1839, the institution, now grown into considerable impor- tance, was transferred to the fever hospital at the foot of Twenty-third street on the East River, where it remained for fifteen years, when, its increasing wants demanding enlarged accommodations, the present institution was erected on Randall's Island, and the inmates removed to it in 1854 .*
In 1801, the New York Hospital, the charter of which had been granted by Lord Dunmore, in 1771, to Peter Middleton, John Jones, and Samuel Bard, the three most eminent physicians of the day, and the corner stone of which had been laid in 1773, by Governor Tryon, was the only institution of the kind in the city. This build- ing, which had been almost consumed by fire before its completion, then transformed into barracks for the British troops during the Revolutionary War, was
* For many of these details we are indebted to Israel Russell, Esq.
40
.
626
HISTORY OF THE
enlarged and repaired after the restoration of peace, and opened for the reception of patients in 1791. In
N.QRR-CO.
The Tombs.
1807, a Lunatic Asylum was erected on the southerly side of the Hospital grounds, near the main edifice, and corresponding with it in the style of architecture, which was opened in the following year. This was used for its original purpose during fourteen years, when an asylum was built at Bloomingdale, overlooking the North River, on the west side of Tenth Avenue, near One Hundred and Seventeenth street, to which, in 1821, the patients were removed. The single dispensary for the aid of the out-door sick was the City Dispensary, located in a small building in the rear of the City Hall, fronting on Tryon Row, which had formerly been occupied by the Health office. This was instituted in 1790, and incorpo- rated on the 8th of April, 1795, under the name of the New York Dispensary.
627
CITY OF NEW YORK.
The only medical school in the city in the beginning of the nineteenth century was the Medical Faculty of Columbia College, organized in 1768 through the efforts of Drs. Bard, Middleton and others. In the Revolution, which followed soon after, the association was scattered and the college converted into a military hospital. In 1792, it was again revived, with Dr. Samuel Bard as dean of the faculty, and remained the only school of the kind in the city until the institution of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, with Dr. Romayne at the head, in 1807, under the patronage of the Regents of the Uni- versity. In 1813, a fusion was effected between the two rival schools, who continued to work together until 1826, when differences arose, which finally resulted in a sepa- ration of the college, and the foundation of the Rutgers Medical College, located in Duane street near Broad- way, with Drs. Hosack, MacNeven, Mott, Francis, Godman and Griscom as its first professors. Drs. John Augustine and Joseph M. Smith, Dana, Beck, Stevens, and Delafield formed the professorial staff of the rival college.
At the foot of Park Place, was the venerable Colum- bia College, opened in 1755 under the presidency of the Rev. Samuel Johnson ; then abandoned by its presi- dent, Myles Cooper, in the Revolution, and converted first into barracks and afterward into a military hos- pital. Upon the restoration of peace, a number of gentlemen were appointed by the Legislature, under the title of Regents of the University, to superintend the literary institutions of the State, and empowered to act as Trustees of the College. In 1787, the institu-
628
HISTORY OF THE
tion was reorganized, the royal charter confirmed by the legislature, and William Samuel Johnson, LL.D., appointed first president under the new régime. In 1801, he was succeeded by the Rev. Charles Wharton, who resigned the office a few months after, when it was bestowed upon Bishop Moore, who had acted as presi- dent pro tem. in 1775, during the absence of Cooper.
MILLER. DE L.
JSON+
Columbia College at the foot of Park Place.
The benevolent institutions were the Marine Society, incorporated in 1770, for the improvement of maritime
629
CITY OF NEW YORK.
knowledge, and the relief of indigent sea-captains, their widows and orphans ; the Chamber of Commerce, formed in 1768 and incorporated in 1770, "for the purpose of "promoting and extending all just and lawful commerce " and for affording relief to decayed members, their " widows and children;" the Humane Society, estab- lished in 1787, for the purpose of affording relief to dis- tressed debtors, and afterward extended so as to include the resuscitation of persons apparently drowned, as well as the relief of the poor in general, and incorporated in 1814 ; the Manumission Society, established chiefly by Friends in 1785 for the purpose of ameliorating the con- dition of negro slaves throughout the State and bestow- ing upon them an education, and incorporated in 1808 ; the Sailor's Snug-Harbor, founded by Captain Randall in 1801 for the benefit of worn out and decrepit seamen, and the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, formed in 1784, and incorporated in 1792, for the relief of the necessitous among their number, and for the sup- port of the widows and children of those who might die in indigent circumstances. In 1821, the Mechanics' Institute in Chambers street between Chatham street and City Hall Place was built by the Society, and a school and library established for the education of its protégés. Besides the societies which we have mentioned, were the Society of the Cincinnati, founded at the close of the war by the patriots who, like their Roman namesake, had relinquished the sword for the plough, for purposes of general benevolence, and into which none but Revolu- tionary soldiers and their descendants were admitted ; the Tammany Society or Columbian Order, founded
630
HISTORY OF THE
nearly at the same time, into which, in opposition to the exclusiveness of the former, all were admitted without regard to ancestry ; the St. Andrew's Society, founded in 1756, and several masonic and other societies. Among the most remarkable of these was the Tontine Association,* founded in 1790 and incorporated in 1794 by a company of merchants for the purpose of providing a centre for the mercantile community. By the plan of this association, each shareholder selected a nominee, during whose life he was to receive his equal proportion of the net proceeds of the establishment ; but upon whose death his interest reverted to the owners of the surviving nominees. The original shares were assign- able and held as personal estate, and the whole property was vested in five trustees, who were to hold the pro- perty until the number of the surviving nominees was reduced to seven, when the whole was to be divided among the fortunate seven shareholders depending upon them. Under these regulations, two hundred and three shares were subscribed for at two hundred dollars each, and with this sum the Association purchased a lot of ground a hundred feet square on the corner of Wall and Water streets, and in 1792 commenced the erection of the Tontine Coffee-House, to which, upon its completion in 1794, the Merchant's Exchange was removed from the dilapidated old building in the centre of Broad below
* The plan of this Association originated from the scheme of Lorenzo Tonti, a Neapolitan, who introduced a similar scheme into France in 1653, during the reign of Louis XIV .; whence the word Tontine came to designate a loan advanced by a number of associated capitalists for life annuities with the benefit of survivorship .- See Valentine's Manual for 1852.
.
CITY OF NEW YORK.
631
RICHARD2 N=COX
The Bible House, in Eighth Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues.
Pearl street where it had been located since the Revolu- tion. After the erection of the new Exchange in Wall street, in 1825, the building was let for various pur- poses ; then, in May, 1855, was demolished to make room for the present Tontine Building.
Many other societies sprang into being in the course of the next half century-the Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, instituted in 1809 ; the Protestant Epis- copal Tract Society, founded in 1810, and the American Bible Society, established in 1816. Next came the various Missionary Societies-the New York Sunday School Society, established in 1816-the outgrowth of a
632
HISTORY OF THE
little Sunday School opened in 1811 by a few young women of the Society of Friends for the purpose of teaching adult colored women; the American Tract Society, instituted in 1825, the City Tract Society, founded during the ensuing year, and many more beside.
The Reformed Dutch Church still continued predomi- nant in the city which had been founded by its members. This was, indeed, the oldest denomination in America, having been organized in New Amsterdam with a hand- ful of members as early as 1620. For a long time, the church continued to retain its distinctive customs and even language ; the first English sermon ever listened to by the denomination having been delivered as lately as 1764 by Dr. Laidlie in the Middle Dutch Church in Nas- sau street. Even at this late date, the innovation of a foreign tongue was stoutly opposed by the ancient Knickerbockers, but was sanctioned by the Consistory as a matter of policy-the only means whereby they could restrain the younger members of their congrega- tions, who had well-nigh forgotten the language of their sires, from straying off to listen to the more familiar English tongue as preached in the churches of other denominations. Laidlie, invited to become the English colleague of Domines Ritzma and De Ronde, at that time the officiating ministers of the South and Middle Dutch Churches, at once opened a crusade against the dances and merry holiday amusements which had come down from the genial times of the early settlers, and did much toward infusing the spirit of English asceticism among the descendants of the jovial sires of New Amsterdam. All the ministers who succeeded him preached in English
633
CITY OF NEW YORK.
only, with the exception of Dr. Livingston and Dr. Kuy- pers, the latter of whom preached for many years in both languages. The last sermon in the Dutch lan- guage was preached in 1803.
The customs that prevailed in the Reformed Dutch churches were, indeed, peculiar ; many of them still exist among the denomination, nor are the traditions of any wholly lost. Unlike the plainly attired Puritan preachers, the domines invariably appeared in the high, circular pulpit, clad in a gown of black silk, with large, flowing sleeves ; and so indispensable was this livery deemed, that, at the installation of a domine in the beginning of the nineteenth century, who came unpre- pared with a gown for the occasion, the senior clergy- man peremptorily refused to officiate, and the ceremony would have been postponed for a week, had not a robe been opportunely furnished by a friendly minister.
The tall pulpit was canopied by a ponderous sound- ing-board. The first psalm was set with movable figures, suspended on three sides of the pulpit, so that every one on entering might prepare for the opening chorus. Pews were set aside for the governor, mayor, city officers, and deacons, and the remaining seats were held singly by the members for their life, then booked, at their death, to the first applicant. The clerk occupied a place in the deacon's pew, and prefaced the exercises in the morning by reading a chapter from the Bible, and, in the afternoon, by chanting the Apostolic Creed, to divert the thoughts of the people from worldly affairs. All notices designed to be publicly read were received by him from the sexton, then inserted into the end of a
634
HISTORY OF THE
long pole, and thus passed up to the cage-like pulpit, where the minister was perched far above the heads of the congregation. It was his business, too, when the last grains of sand had fallen from the hour-glass which was placed invariably at the right hand of the domine, to remind him by three raps with his cane that the time had come for the end of the sermon. A story is told of a domine who, one hot summer's day, seeing the clerk asleep and the people drowsy, quietly turned the glass himself, and, after seeing the sands run out for the second time, remarked to the congregation that, since they had been patient in sitting through two glasses, he would now proceed with the third.
Before entering the pulpit, the domine raised his hat before his face, and silently offered a short prayer for a blessing on his labors. After uttering the concluding word of his text, he exclaimed, Thus far ! before pro- ceeding with his sermon. This custom is preserved to this day in some of the country churches.
When the sermon was over, the deacons rose in their places, and, after listening to a short address from the domine, took each a long pole with a black velvet bag attached to the end, from which a small alarm-bell was suspended, and passed about the church to collect alms for the poor. One of the bells used in the old Dutch church in Garden street, is still preserved in the office of the Christian Intelligencer, the present organ of the denomination in the city. In the earlier times, boxes strongly bound with iron, with a hole in the lid, which was fastened by a padlock, were placed at the door to receive the alms of the congregation on their exit.
CITY OF NEW YORK.
635 -
RICHARDSON=COX.S.
Dr. Macauley's Church, Corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first Street.
637
CITY OF NEW YORK.
At the Lord's supper, the communicants, invariably dressed in black, stood round the communion-table at the foot of the pulpit, and received the emblems from the minister's own hands, while the clerk read a suitable selection from the Scriptures. The stone church built by William Kieft in 1642 having been destroyed by fire in the days of the negro plot, the oldest church edifice of this denomination at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was the South Dutch Church in Garden street. This was of an octagonal form, with a brick steeple large enough to afford space for a consistory room. The windows were large, with very small window-panes set in lead, and curiously emblazoned with the coats of arms of the church dignitaries ; several escutcheons also hung. against the wall. In 1766, it was enlarged and repaired, but at the time of which we speak, it was not open for service. In 1807, it was rebuilt and repaired ; then destroyed in the conflagration of 1835 ; when two con- gregations arose from its ashes, Dr. Hutton's church on Washington Square, and the South Reformed Dutch Church on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first street, under the care of Dr. Macauley.
In Nassau street was the Middle Dutch Church, now known as the Post-office. This was at first built with- out pillars or gallery ; the ceiling forming an entire arch without support. On the introduction of the English service in 1784, the pulpit was removed from its original place on the east side to the north end of the church, and galleries were built on the east, west and south sides. Of its use while the city was in the hands of the British, we have already spoken ; in 1789-90, it was
638
HISTORY OF THE
restored to its primitive state, and continued unaltered until 1844, when it was purchased by the United States. On the Sunday evening before its final surrender by the congregation, the old building was thronged to its utmost capacity by those anxious to take a last leave of this relic of the olden times. The farewell exercises were conducted in Dutch and English by Drs. Knox and De Witt, a sermon was preached, a historical sketch of the structure given, a psalm sung, and the benediction pronounced-the last words of prayer that were uttered in the old building, being spoken in the language of the ancient Knickerbockers .*
In William street was the North Dutch Church, a sub- stantial building of brown stone, one hundred feet long by twenty wide, built originally with a tiled roof, for which
* The bell of this church still summons the congregation of the Reformed Dutch Church in Lafayette Place, and has a curious history. It was presented to the church by Col. Abraham De Peyster, who died in 1728, while the edifice was in the process of erection, and directed in his will that the bell should be procured from Holland at his expense. It was made at Amsterdam in 1731, and it is said that a number of citizens cast in quantities of silver coin at the fusing of the metal. When, in 1776, the church was converted into a riding-school for the British dra- goons, the bell was taken down by one of the De Peyster family, and secreted until some years after the evacuation of the city; when the church was repaired and opened again for service, and the bell restored to its rightful position. Upon the transformation of the church into the Post-office in 1844, it was removed to the church in Ninth street near Broadway, where it remained until 1855, when the building changed hands, and the bell was removed to the church in Lafayette Place. The bell is fancifully gilt, and bears the inscription : "Me fecerunt " De Gravæ et N. Muller, Amsterdam, Anno 1731.
" Abraham De Peyster, geboren den 8 July, 1657, gestorven den 8 Augustus, " 1728. Een legat aan de Nederduytsche Kerke, New York. (A legacy to the Low " Dutch Church at New York)." The silver baptismal basin procured for the Garden street church in 1793, is still used in the South Reformed Dutch Church in Fifth Avenue.
CITY OF NEW YORK.
639
WHITNEY
, A+
Reformed Dutch Church in Lafayette Place.
CITY OF NEW YORK. 641
O'BRIEN SCE
Reformed Dutch Church, Corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street. 41
1
643
CITY OF NEW YORK.
shingles were afterwards substituted. This still con- tinues as one of the landmarks of the city. At Harlem was a small wooden church of great antiquity, and at Greenwich village was another, built also of wood in 1782, and afterward enlarged. Drs. Livingston, Kuypers and Abeel were at this time the pastors of the Reformed Dutch churches of the city, consolidated under the title of the Collegiate Church of New York .*
The Episcopalian, the next oldest religious denomina- tion, introduced soon after the cession of the city to the English, had at this time seven churches. Of these, the ancient Trinity, built in 1696, enlarged in 1737, burnt down in 1776, and rebuilt in 1788, was a Gothic edifice of considerable pretensions, surmounted by a tall spire, and furnished with a fine chime of bells, some of which still sound in the ears of our citizens. To this church two chapels were attached-a third was afterward added by the erection of St. John's in 1807-St. Paul's in Broadway, a substantial stone edifice, built in 1766 ; and St. George's in Beekman street, built in 1759 ; of these the Right Rev. Benjamin Moore was rector, with the Rev. Drs. Hobart and Beach as assistant ministers. In Ann street was Christ Church, a stone edifice, built in 1794, now under the care of the Rev. Dr. Lyell ;
* Although many independent congregations of the Reformed Dutch Church have since been formed, the Collegiate Church still exists-the mother church of the denomination in New York and the oldest ecclesiastical organization in the country. Though still considered as a single church, and governed by one Consistory, it has at present four places of worship-the North Dutch Church in Fulton street, the Ninth street church, the church on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth street, and the church in Lafayette Place, under the care of the Rev. Drs. Brownlee, De Witt, Vermilye and Chambers.
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.