USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 55
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John Quincy Adams, then eighteen, had just returned from Europe to complete his education at Harvard College. He had accompanied his father to Holland and France, and served as private secretary to Francis Dana, who from his secretaryship with John Adams was sent as plenipotentiary to Russia in 1781. Young Adams was the recipient of many civilities in New York. He dined with Secretary Jay, with Theodore Sedgwick, and with Governor George Clinton; breakfasted with Elbridge Gerry, who married Miss Thompson of New York; and wrote to his sister of taking tea, July 20, with David Ramsey, the historian and author from South Carolina, where he met the Spanish Minister, and also Van Berckel, the first Dutch Minister to the United States. . He visited Rufus King, member of Congress from New England, who married, in 1786, Mary, the only daughter of John Alsop, and made New York his permanent residence. " I am pleased with these intermarriages," wrote Secretary Jay to John Adams, in May of the last-named year ; " they tend to assimilate the States, and to promote one of the first wishes of my heart, to see the people of America become one nation in every respect." John Adams upon receipt of the intelligence, imme- diately wrote a letter of congratulation to Mr. King, in which he said, " Your marriage, as well as that of Mr. Gerry, gives me the more pleasure, probably, as a good work of the same kind, for connecting Massachusetts and New York in the bonds of love, was going on here "; and proceeds to announce the marriage of his daughter Abigail to William Stephens Smith of New York, the ceremony having just been performed in London by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Asaph.
Secretary and Mrs. Knox gave an elegant dinner at their residence four miles out of the city, at which John Quincy Adams met several celebrities. He described Lady Kitty Duer, the daughter of Lord Stir- ling, who was present, as "neither young nor handsome "; " but," writes
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Griswold at a later date, "she would not have been thought old by a man over eighteen, and she had been, if she was not then, one of the sweetest looking women in New York City." The accompanying por- trait, copied from an exquisite miniature-painting, executed not far from the same date, possesses exceptional interest, from the fact that Lady Duer was a genuine New-Yorker, descended from the famous James Alexander, and the first De Peyster of New York, and through her mother from the Livingstons and Schuylers, and was herself the mother of two of New York's great jurists and men of letters, William Alexander Duer, President of Columbia College, and Judge John Duer. Young Adams visited the Smith family, at Ja- maica, Long Island, into which his sister was about to marry, and writes of six daughters, saying, " Sally strikes most at first sight ; she is tall, has a very fine shape, and a vast deal of vivacity in her eyes, which are of a light blue. She has the ease and elegance of the French ladies, without their lo- quacity." She afterwards married Charles Adams, the brother of John Quincy Adams.
While the social and business as- pects of the city were brightened Lady Kitty Duer. [ From a miniature painting.] [Copied through the courtesy of William Betts, Esq. ] by the presence of Congress, the loyalist controversy increased in bitterness. Attempts to recover con- fiscated property were vigorously upheld by one party and rancorously opposed by the other. Alexander Hamilton never wavered in his ef- forts to soften the malice of those who would place the adherents to the Crown beyond the pale of human sympathy. The magnanimous General Philip Schuyler battled, in the New York senate, for moderation and mercy. William Samuel Johnson, who had himself been imprisoned by his neighbors in Stratford, Connecticut, in the summer of 1779, on sus- picion of friendship for the enemy while making use of his personal acquaintance with Tryon to prevent the burning of the town, was in Con- gress, and exerted a powerful influence in New York towards harmonizing conflicting interests. But the hate and passions of the hour prevailed. The effects of a bloody war could not be obliterated in one decade. Men
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who had suffered were inexorable. The laws which were by many pronounced vindictive remained unrepealed. Under an "Act for the speedy sale of the confiscated and forfeited estates," passed by the Legis- lature of New York, May 12, 1784, the city estate of James De Lancey, eldest son of Lieutenant-Governor James De Lancey, was sold in lots, for $234,198.75. This vast property, in the neighborhood of Grand Street, had a water-front of over a mile on the East River. The purchasers were former tenants of De Lancey, citizens, and speculators. Its assessed real value at the present day is upwards of sixty-three millions of dollars.1
James De Lancey was on one of his accustomed summer visits to England when the war began, and, unwilling to take up arms against his native land, he did not return to New York. As the prospect darkened he sent for his family. His wife, whom he married in 1771, was Marga- ret, daughter of Chief Justice William Allen of Pennsylvania, and grand- daughter of the celebrated lawyer, Andrew Hamilton.2 Her sister Ann was the wife of Governor John Penn; 3 her brother James married Elizabeth Lawrence, and their daughter Mary wedded (in 1796) Henry Walter Livingston, of Livingston Manor,4 and was known as "Lady Mary" in New York society, where for upwards of half a century she was famed for her graceful and profuse hospitality, and esteemed one of the most lovely characters of her time. The De Lanceys were the strongest and most conspicuous loyalists of the Revolution, as the Livingstons were leaders in the cause of America. The De Lanceys were an extensive as well as a powerful family, held posts of honor under the Crown, were men of enormous wealth, of which one instance has been given above, and were active, high-spirited, and brave to a fault. Their attachment to the Crown was peculiar from the fact that the race was a mixture of Dutch and French blood without any English alloy.
The feud, long-fed and well-fanned, between the De Lanceys and the Livingstons, which the reader will remember covered the period of nearly a quarter of a century prior to the Revolution, burned fiercely at this juncture from a thousand directions. Little flames illumined the Nova Scotia skies, shot across the Canadian boundaries, lighted the dreary
1 See map of De Lancey's estate, Vol. I. 616. " Abstract of Sales," with purchasers' names and prices paid, may be found in De Lancey's Notes to Jones's History of New York in the Revolution, Vol. II. 540 - 559.
2 See portrait of Andrew Hamilton, Vol. I. 551.
3 A fine painting by Benjamin West is preserved among Chief Justice Allen's descendants, which represents a family fête in the grounds of Governor John Penn, at his seat on the Schuylkill, Philadelphia, the site of the Centennial Exposition of 1876, which contains por- traits of Penn and his wife, of all the Allen family, and of West himself -who said " he never executed a better painting."
4 See sketch of Livingston manor-house, built by Henry Walter Livingston, Vol. I. 320.
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coasts of Newfoundland, raged under the tropical sun of the Bahamas and the Bermudas, and sent forth a lurid glare from England, Scotland, and Ireland. Each party endeavored to blacken the character of the other by every known means. Attached to both, as in all civil wars, were persons whose crimes against humanity deserved swift punishment. Instances were innumerable where such escaped, and men of candor, veracity, and honor bore the obloquy. If the termination of the war could have been followed with an oblivion of its offenses, New York would have been spared years of internal agitation. James De Lancey was the agent of the committee of loyalists chosen from each State to obtain compensation from the English government for losses " sustained by the faithful subjects of the Crown during the late unhappy dissensions in America." In 1788 he drafted a formal address to the commission organized under the four several acts of Parliament, passed in the years 1783, 1785, 1786, and 1787, for investigation into the merits of each particular claim, with a petition to Parliament for information " concerning the general rules and principles adopted in pushing inquiries so interesting to the public." Five years' weary working for the liquidation of claims in England, amounting to many millions, was not calculated to soften anger towards kinsmen and countrymen who had been instrumental in enacting con- fiscation laws in America. These were denounced as partial, unjust, malicious, and avaricious. England admitted the wrong perpetrated upon the colonies. But the loyalists, wounded upon all sides, were ap- parently beyond the pale of healing influences. Of the seven sons of Peter De Lancey of Westchester, James, before the war high sheriff of the county, was the famous commander of the "Cow Boys," and retired to Nova Scotia, where he was appointed counselor to the governor. It is said that when he turned his back forever upon his large possessions in the beautiful valley of the Bronx his iron heart was torn with emotion and he wept aloud. His brother Oliver, next younger than himself, was a lieutenant in the British navy, which position he resigned because he would not fight against his native land. Of their five sisters, Anne was the wife of John Cox, of Philadelphia ; Alice was Mrs. Ralph Izard ; Jane was Mrs. John Watts; and Susanna was Mrs. Thomas Barclay -the mother of six sons, Henry, De Lancey, Thomas, George, Sir Anthony, and Beverley Barclay, and of four daughters afterwards prominent in society, Mrs. Schuyler Livingston, Mrs. Simon Fraser, Mrs. Peter G. Stuyvesant, and Mrs. William H. Parsons.
John.Peter, fourth and youngest son of Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey - whose son, William Heathcote De Lancey, was the first Bishop of West- ern New York -the brother of James in London, and of Mrs. Judge
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Thomas Jones and Mrs. William Walton, of New York,1 had received a military education in England, and been four years in the regular British army at the commencement of the war ; he was then twenty-two years of age. He returned to America in 1789, having received the Heathcote estate of his mother at Scarsdale, and a small portion of the estate of his father in New York.
The Livingstons were even more numerous than the De Lanceys, with hardly less wealth. They were in power, which inspired anything but love in the breasts of their conquered adversaries. They divided the control of the river counties with the Van Rensselaers and Schuylers, whose great manorial estates lay to the north of their own, and were leaders in commerce and law as well as agriculture. At least nine prom- inent men at this date, of national celebrity, bore the name of Livings- ton. They were of distinguished Scotch lineage, with a proved pedigree of at least seven hundred years, with plenty of republican Dutch blood handed along through intermarriages with the Schuylers, Beekmans, and other Holland families of colonial New York. And besides the Livings- tons themselves, many public men of influence had married Livingston wives, not least among whom were John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and James Duane, Mayor of the city.
It has been sagely remarked that "an intimate knowledge of the do- mestic history of nations is absolutely necessary to the prognosis of political events." It is certain that no correct understanding of the nature of political parties in early New York can be obtained without carefully observing the endless ramifications of kinship. Those who have in former pages traced the great family quarrrel of the De Lanceys and Liv- ingstons until merged in the Revolution, can now see it color the whole loyalist controversy ; and its results are to be felt for many a long year. In no other State had the war made such a division in families as in New York. Two of the Van on opposite sides. General cousin of General Oliver being sisters; he bore also wife of Counselor John
Cortlandts, cousins, fought Philip Schuyler was the first De Lancey, their mothers the same relationship to the Watts, whose daughter was
great merchants of New York both they endeavored to be neutral in the The name William was carried intermarried with the Beekmans, Ogdens, and Morrises. Mrs. Cor- of Dr. William Beekman, a lady
1 The Waltons were among the before and after the Revolution ; contest. See Vol. I. 684, 685, 686. through a full century. The family Verplancks, De Lanceys, Crugers, nelia Beekman Walton, daughter Walton Arms. greatly beloved, who had lived in New Jersey during the war, died at the " Old Walton House " on Franklin Square in 1786.
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the wife of Sir John Johnson. The De Peysters, who, like the De Lan- ceys, were chiefly loyalists, had intermarried with the Van Cortlandts in nearly every generation. And the mother of John Jay was a Van Cort- landt. There was never a more curious mixture of conflicting interests than agitated New York through the remainder of the century ; sharp denunciation, rancorous abuse, heart-burnings, and maledictions, rather than the memory of gallant deeds and heroic sacrifices, long survived the shock of armies.
The lawyers of the city were full of business. They were mostly men of promise, eminence, and conspicuous talents. The community inevita- bly measured every candidate for a professional career, and the unlearned or mediocre aspirant stood at fatal disadvantage. Hamilton had con- menced practice at the bar, and already demonstrated to the world that he was a great lawyer. Aaron Burr, small of stature, with gigantic am- bition, cool, wary, artificial, and imposing of manner, in his arguments curt and severe, confining himself invariably to a few strong and promi- nent points, rarely lost a case. Melancthon Smith was in the high tide of a successful practice. Also Egbert Benson, who was more pro- foundly versed in the principles of philosophy upon which the law rests, and in technical information, than any other lawyer of the period. James Kent, afterwards chancellor, son of Moss Kent, surrogate of Rens- selaer County, was a student in Benson's office ; he was first admitted to the bar in 1787, and soon acquired habits of vast industry and method, and a taste for literary labor. John Sloss Hobart had been elected one of the three justices of the Supreme Court; he was nearly fifty, with perhaps no special distinguishing trait, but possessing an assemblage of qualities which gave him great influence. Samuel Jones, the elder, styled the "father of the New York bar," had been an ardent loyalist, and sub- sequently was appointed Recorder of the city and then Comptroller of the State. Brockholst Livingston, the brother-in-law of John Jay, was admitted to the bar in 1783, at the age of twenty-seven, and was one of the most accomplished scholars, able advocates, and fluent speakers of his time in the city - but violent in his political feelings and conduct. Edward Livingston, youngest brother of the chancellor, who subse- quently acquired world-wide reputation as a jurist, commenced practice in 1785, at the age of twenty-one. Morgan Lewis, whose wife was sister to the latter, soon became attorney-general of the State - in 1791 - and two years later chief justice of New York. Richard Morris was the present chief justice, having succeeded John Jay in 1779; he filled the office until 1790, when, being sixty years of age, he retired, and Robert . Yates was appointed in his stead. John Cozine and Robert
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Troup were both able lawyers, and men of much general information ; Cozine is described as good-humored and amiable, inclined to indolence, corpulence, and high living. Josiah Ogden Hoffman was younger, but rose quickly to distinction. His forte was in the examination of wit- nesses and the management of juries. John Lawrence, John Rutherford, and John Mckesson were among the legal luminaries of the time. Also Jacob Morton, Robert Benson, John Watts, Jr., William Wickham, and Daniel Crommelin Verplanck; the latter was a young man of twenty-five.1
His uncle, Gulian Verplanck, third president of the Bank of New York - appointed in 1790 - was a merchant of excellent parts, and a man of many accomplishments ; he was one of the early graduates from Colum- bia College, and received in Holland his mercantile training.2 His city residence was in Pearl Street, although he subsequently erected a fine mansion in Wall Street.
1 Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, born in 1762, was twice married. His first wife, Eliza- beth, daughter of President William Samuel Johnson of Columbia College, mother of Gulian C. Verplanck, died in 1789, at the age of twenty-four. His second wife was Ann, only daughter of William and Ann De Lancey Walton ; their children were Mary Ann, Louisa, Samuel, Elizabeth, William Walton, James De Lancey, and Anna Louisa. His father, Samuel Verplanck, born 1739, died 1820, was first on the list of eight from Kings (Columbia) College, in Daniel Crommelin, in Holland, for in 1761, his cousin, Judith Crom- Gulian Verplanck, born 1698, died first of the name in New York ; he and Anna Sinclair Crommelin. from the Earls of Orkney, and Verplanck, sister of Samuel, mar- Verplanck, a second sister, married JT VITA Gulian, the youngest brother of MORS of the Assembly in 1791, and in Verplanck Arms. death was one of the Regents of students, the first class graduating 1758 ; and being sent to his uncle, a mercantile education, married, melin. The father of Samuel was 1751, the great-grandson of the married Mary, daughter of Charles The Sinclair family descended Lords Sinclair of Scotland. Ann ried Gabriel Ludlow, and Mary Charles McEvers of New York. Samuel Verplanck, was Speaker 1796 ; and from 1790 until his the University of the State of New York. Daniel Crommelin Verplanck was member of Congress from 1802 to 1809, and Judge of Common Pleas in Dutchess County until 1828. A sketch of his son, Gulian C. Verplanck, born 1786, died 1870, a graduate of Columbia College in 1801, will appear upon a future page.
2 See Vol. I. 741.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
1787 - 1790.
NEW YORK CITY THE CAPITAL OF THE NATION.
WALL STREET IN 1787. - DIPLOMATIC ENTERTAINMENTS. - SOCIAL AFFAIRS AT THE CAPI- TAL. - CLERICAL CHARACTERS. - MEDICAL CELEBRITIES. - THE CITY HOSPITAL. - THE DOCTORS' MOB. - RESIDENCES. - THE TWO POLITICAL PARTIES IN NEW YORK. - ALEXANDER HAMILTON. - THE INSURRECTION IN MASSACHUSETTS. - REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE CONVENTION. - THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE. - FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. - GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. - THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY THE STATES. -- ACTION OF NEW YORK. - THE FEDERAL CELEBRATION. - NEW YORK CITY. - FEDERAL HALL IN WALL STREET. - THE PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE. - POSTMASTER-GENERAL OSGOOD. - THE ELECTION OF A PRESIDENT. - THE FIRST CONGRESS UNDER THE CON- STITUTION. - ARRIVAL OF WASHINGTON IN NEW YORK CITY. - THE INAUGURATION. - THE FIRST CABINET. - THE INAUGURATION BALL. - THE FESTIVITIES OF THE CAPITAL. - SOCIAL CELEBRITIES. - MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. - PROGRESS OF THE CITY.
T THE city received a sudden, strong, healthful, forward impetus in the spring of 1787, through large accessions to its population. Every dwelling-house was occupied. Rents went up, doubling in some instances ; fresh paint and new shutters and wings transformed old tene- ments, and carpenters and masons found ready employment in erecting new structures. The streets were cleaned and pavements mended. New business firms were organized and old warehouses remodeled; the mar- kets were extended and bountifully supplied, and stores blossomed with fashionable goods. Wall Street, the great centre of interest and of fashion, presented a brilliant scene every bright afternoon. Ladies in showy costumes, and gentlemen in silks, satins, and velvet, of many colors, promenaded in front of the City Hall - where Congress was holding its sessions. At the same time Broadway, from St. Paul's Chapel to the Battery, was animated with stylish equipages, filled with pleasure- seekers who never tired of the life-giving, invigorating, perennial sea- breeze, or the unparalleled beauty of the view, stretching off across the varied waters of New York Bay.
The social world was kept in perpetual agitation through distinguished
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arrivals from various parts of the United States, and from Europe. Din- ners and balls were daily occurrences. Secretary and Mrs. Jay entertained with graceful ease, gathering about them all that was most illustrious in statesmanship and letters ; they usually gave one ceremonious dinner every week, sometimes two. Their drawing-rooms were also thronged on Thursdays, Mrs. Jay's day "at home"; and evening parties were given at frequent intervals. The manners of Secretary Jay were de- scribed by Europeans as affable and unassuming; and his purity and nobility of character impressed the whole world in his favor. He dressed in simple black, wearing his hair slightly powdered and tied in the back. His complexion was without color. His eyes were dark and penetrating, as if the play of thought never ceased, but the general expression of his face was singularly amiable and tranquil. Mrs. Jay was admirably fitted, through her long residence in the Spanish and French capitals, and her own personal and intellectual accomplishments, for the distinguished position of leader of society in the American capital. She dressed richly, and in good taste, and observed the most rigid formalities in her inter- course with the representatives of foreign nations.
Nothing better illustrates the spirit and character of this formative period than the movements in its polite and every-day life. But a mere glimpse must suffice. The infant Republic was interesting, and vastly promising, while it had not yet learned to walk. Its capital was the seat of a floating community composed of the most diverse elements. Curiosity, criticism, and cavil were in the air. The importance attached to the doing of national hospitalities in the Old World, could not be ignored in the New. Entertainments were something more than mere profitless amusements ; then, as before and since, they were strong links in the chain which binds nations together.
The Secretary of War and Mrs. Knox lived in a large house and gave munificent banquets. Mrs. Knox was celebrated for her brilliancy in conversation and unfailing good-humor ; she had the tact and talent to convert her home into a resort of the intellectual and cultivated, as well as the diplomatic and fashionable. Sir John Temple made it a point to call upon every stranger of note immediately upon his arrival in New York ; Lady Temple was the daughter of Governor Bowdoin, of Massa- chusetts, and, according to the writers of the day, "very distinguished- looking, and agreeable "; she received guests every Tuesday evening, and gave dinners, notable for their costliness, nearly every week to twenty or more guests. Miss Van Berckel assisted her father, the Dutch ambassa- dor, in dispensing hospitalities. Otto, of the French legation, afterwards Comte de Mosloy, married twice in New York, first Miss Livingston
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in 1782, and, after her death, Miss Crevecœur, in 1790, daughter of the French consul ; he is said to have possessed charming social qual- ities. The Marquis de Moustier arrived in 1787, accompanied by his sister, Madame de Brehan, a clever woman who wrote with spirit and had some skill as an artist, "but with," according to Abigail Adams Smith, "the oddest figure eyes ever beheld." John Armstrong - soldier, statesman, and author - wrote about the same time : " We have a French minister now with us, and if France had wished to destroy the little remembrance that is left of her and her exertions in our behalf, she would have sent just such a man - distant, haughty, penurious, and entirely governed by the caprices of a little, singular, whimsical, hysteri- cal old woman, whose delight is in playing with a negro child and caress- ing a monkey."
The mother of Chancellor Livingston returned with her family to the city from Clermont, residing at 51 Queen Street - now Pearl - a little above Wall Street. Her daughters were highly bred and educated, well versed in public affairs, and fond of discussing the grave questions of the hour. Her drawing-rooms were the center of attraction for a refined and cultured circle, including many French dignitaries. It was not unusual for articles upon finance, politics, diplomacy, and religion, to be read there by their authors before publication. The younger ladies and some of their more habitual guests often played whist - a game not interdicted by the mistress of the household, but which in deference to her religious tastes was never commenced until she retired from the parlors. John Armstrong married Alida, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Livingston, in 1789. It is related of Mrs. Montgomery, the eldest daughter, that on one occasion, after entertaining a guest of the heavy sort, she expressed relief at his departure with an audible sigh. A bright little niece ex- claimed, " Why, aunty, you have not much patience with dull people !" " Ah, no, my dear !" she replied, " I have never been used to them."
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