USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 16
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About this time The Evening Post first made its bow to the public, edited by William Coleman, a lawyer and a versatile writer; it was the organ of Hamilton. The American Citizen was the organ of the Repub- lican party in New York, and was under the immediate management of a cousin of De Witt Clinton. Its editor was James Cheetham, a wit and a great tactician, who acquired no little distinction for his editorial ability. He was a tall, athletic man, and was soon personally concerned in many violent political quarrels. Burr and his friends, not to be out- done, established The Morning Chronicle, which supported the administra- tion, but was particularly friendly to the Vice-President. It was edited by Dr. Peter Irving, and in its columns Washington Irving, a youth of nineteen, the editor's younger brother, first appeared as a writer under the name of Jonathan Oldstyle. Burr often clipped these essays from the journal and inclosed them in his letters to Theodosia. The three newspapers entered upon a paper war in which they were ably sus-
1 Eacker died of consumption in 1804, and was buried in St. Paul's Churchyard, near Vesey Street.
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tained by the leading men of their respective parties. Their columns teemed with personal invective and low satire. Several duels were the result. On one occasion Matthew L. Davis sallied forth in Wall Street, pistol in hand, expecting to shoot Cheetham at sight, who, however, kept out of the way, and the affair ended without bloodshed. When Philip Hamilton was killed, Coleman, shocked by the occurrence, denounced in the Evening Post the practice of dueling as a "horrid custom," and strongly urged "legislative interference." Yet Coleman and Cheetham were both duelists. And it was a period when dueling was a fashion- able recreation. Cheetham was some years younger than Coleman, and gloried in encountering difficulties. He appeared in public with bold face and majestic bearing. Coleman was smaller, of delicate structure, and looked grave and pensive. Cheetham had cultivated his mind by historical reading, and was familiar with the poets; his writings were curt and concise, Coleman's often verbose. Cheetham could fell at one blow ; Coleman delighted in protracted torture. Neither was deficient in pointed epithets and lacerating remarks. Cheetham was ardent, pas- sionate, and forgiving. Coleman was self-poised, cold, and long harbored an imaginary injury. Each delighted in the prostration of a victim, but Coleman was the more politic and prudent of the two. The idols of Cheetham were Jefferson and George Clinton; the idol of Coleman was Hamilton. Burr had no chance with either, and was offensive to both. Dr. Francis writes of these two editors : "With all their faults, they diffused much truth as well as error; they advanced the power of the press in talents and in improved knowledge; and they aided the progress of literary culture." 1
On one occasion a duel between Coleman and Cheetham was arranged, but after considerable negotiation between the friends of the parties Judge Brockholst Livingston, in order to prevent the meeting, had the principals arrested. Thus hostilities ended. But out of the affair grew another quarrel which led to one of the most diabolical duels in the annals of dueling. Thompson, one of Cheetham's friends, the brother of Jeremiah Thompson, once collector of the port, threw some doubt on Coleman's courage, and said he "had shown the white feather." Where- upon Coleman challenged Thompson. Washington Morton carried the fatal missive. Cheetham acted as Thompson's second. The duel took place in Love Lane, now Twenty-first Street.2 It was in the year 1803.
1 Old New York, by Dr. Francis, p. 335 ; History of Journalism, by Hudson, p. 146, 217 ; Hildreth, II. 453. The New York Evening Post was first issued November 16, 1801.
2 The place of this duel has been variously located. Some writers say it was at or near Washington Square, then the Potters' Field, but Love Lane is undoubtedly correct.
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An anonymous letter was received in the morning by a well-known physician and surgeon, stating that at nine o'clock of the evening of that day he would find on the south side of the Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, a horse and gig, which he was desired to appropriate and drive to a spot designated, where his services might be required. It was a moonlight night, and finding the gig as stated, he obeyed the request, reaching the point in time to hear pistol-shots, and see one man holding up another. A voice called to him : " Are you Dr. - ? " He replied in the affirmative. "This gentleman requires your assistance," continued the speaker, who was no other than Cheetham, " be good enough to take charge of him and place him with his friends "; then gently laid the figure he held upon the ground, and disappeared in the same direction as Cole- man and his second. The surgeon raised the bleeding man, stanched his wound as well as he was able, but saw that it was mortal. He bore him dying to the house of his sister in the city, laid him upon the door- step, rang the bell, and departed. When the family found him, he was alone, and with a heroism worthy of a better cause refused to disclose the name of his antagonist, or give any account of the affair. He simply said he had been honorably treated, and requested that no effort should be made to find or molest the parties concerned. He died, and Coleman attended to his business as usual.
Jefferson regarded the religion of the country as no better than a mis- chievous delusion. John Jay, Hamilton, and other leading men of the Federal party believed that religion furnished the only solid support for morality. Jefferson detested the clergy, who were constantly twitting him about his infidel opinions. The Federalists respected the clergy as men of superior education, intelligence, and character, who in conjunction with the lawyers were as much the natural leaders of New England opinion as the slaveholding planters were the natural political leaders in Virginia. Jefferson commiserated the unfortunate priest-ridden communities, led by the nose by a body of men at enmity against science and truth and popu- lar rights; while the Federalists requested to be informed in what respect the religious bigotry of the clergy was at all worse than Jefferson's political bigotry ?
Jefferson abolished levees, lest the custom introduced by Washington lead to the ceremonials of a court. The Federalists said it was because the new city of Washington was nothing but a little village in the woods, where there was no occasion for levees. Mrs. Madison revived the usage eight years later, and it has continued to the present time. Jefferson abolished the kingly custom of speeches and answers at the opening of Congress, substituting a written message to be read by the clerk. The
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Federalists maliciously suggested it was on account of Jefferson's tall ungainly figure, and total destitution of gifts as a public speaker. It was told in France that Jefferson on the day of his inauguration " rode on horseback to the capital without a single guard or even a servant in his train, dismounted without assistance, and hitched the bridle of his horse to the palisades." However that may have been, he was scarcely less fond of fine horses than Washington himself. Within two months after becoming President he purchased four fiery full-blooded bays for the use of his carriage in Washington. His coachman, Joseph Dougherty, writes Miss Randolph, Jefferson's great granddaughter, " was never so happy as when seated on the box behind this spirited and showy team." On his journeys to Monticello Jefferson usu- ally traveled in his phaeton, or in a one-horse chair - a favorite vehicle at that time in New York City. Hamilton possessed a similar horse chair in which he drove daily from his place of busi- ness in the city to his country-seat on Washington Heights during the last two years of his life.
One-Horse Chair, 1802.
It seems that Jefferson, while giv- ing up many of the forms, clung with instinctive tenacity to the sub- stance of power. His theories were not absolutely practical. He found it wise and well in the constructive part of politics to copy the models he had so vigorously criticised. And as regards the machinery of govern- ment prepared by the Federalists, it was adopted by the Republicans without essential change.
Hamilton had purchased an estate and built a country mansion on the upper part of Manhattan Island, then eight or more miles from the city, "which he called "The Grange," from the ancestral seat of his grandfather in Scotland. The tiniber for the house is said to have been a present from Mrs. Hamilton's father, General Schuyler. Its situation was com- manding, about half-way between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. It was a square wooden structure of two stories, with large roomy basement, ornamental balustrades, and immense chimney-stacks. Its rooms were spacious and numerous, its drawing-room doors were mirrors, and its workmanship generally solid and substantial. To this pleasant home Hamilton removed his family in the spring of 1802. He attended 1802. personally to the embellishment of his grounds, the planting of flowers, of shrubbery, and of trees. He wrote to Pinckney for some Caro- lina melon-seeds for his new garden, and some paroquets for his daughter,
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remarking, " A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge for a disappointed politician." He planted a grove of thirteen gum-trees a few rods from the
house, to symbolize the thirteen original States of the Union - which, having reached majestic proportions, still survive, and are deftly shown in the sketch.
On the 23d of June Vice-President Burr's beloved daughter Theodosia arrived from South Carolina to spend the remainder of the summer in New York. She wrote to her husband the next day : "I have just returned from a ride in the country and a visit to Richmond Hill. Never did I behold this island so beautiful. The va- riety of vivid greens, the finely cultivated fields and gardens, the neat, cool air of the cit's boxes, peeping through straight rows of tall poplars, and the elegance of some gentlemen's seats, commanding a view of the majestic Hudson and the high dark The Grange. [Hamilton's Country-Seat.] shores of New Jersey, altogether form a scene so lively, so touching, and to me so new, that I was in constant rapture." Two days later she wrote: "I dined the other day with Mrs. Montgomery. The Chancellor (Livingston) has sent her out a list of statues, which are to be so exactly imitated in plaster as to leave the difference of materials only. The statues are the Apollo Belvedere, Venus de' Medicis, Laocoön and his children, Antinous, and some others. The patriotic citizens of New York are now subscrib- ing to the importation of a set here for the good of the public. If they are really perfect imitations, they will be a great acquisition to the city."
Vice-President Burr had for some years lived in a style of ostentatious elegance. He had a handsomely furnished city home in addition to his country residence at Richmond Hill, a numerous retinue of servants, a French cook, half a dozen fine horses, one of the largest and best chosen libraries in the city, and the walls of both his houses were hung with paintings that ministered to a refined and cultivated taste. Richmond
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Hill was without exception the most delightful country-seat on the island. It was a frame building of massive architecture, with a lofty portico supported by Ionic columns, the front walls decorated with pilas- ters of the same order, and distinguished on every side by rich though sober ornament. It was historically attractive, having been the headquarters of Washington in 1776, as the reader will remember; Lord Dorchester, Sir Guy Carleton, and other English noblemen were dwellers under its roof during the war ; it was the home of Vice-President Adams while New York was the capital of the United States; and it had been the scene of many a notable festival. Vice-President Burr, not less than his prede- cessors, had thrown open its doors to distinguished guests. Jerome Bona- parte was entertained at dinner, and at breakfast, by Burr just before his marriage to Miss Patterson, large companies being invited to meet him on both occasions. Talleyrand and Volney were frequent visitors while they were in this country ; and almost every European personage of note was from time to time welcomed by its courtly proprietor.
Theodosia Burr, whose beauty, wit, and melancholy history constitute one of the most romantic chapters of American private life, was the idol of her father, and, after the death of Mrs. Burr, his pupil, confidant, and friend. She became one of the best educated women of her time and country. During her father's public life she translated for his use the Constitution of the United States into the French language. While Burr was a sen- ator in Philadelphia Brant visited the Quaker City, creating a sensation. Burr entertained him at dinner in company with Talleyrand, Volney, and other notable characters. When Brant left for New York he bore a letter from Burr to his daughter Theodosia, who was then fourteen years of age. The graceful girl received the forest chief with courtesy, and tendered the hospitalities of her father's house by giving him a dinner- party, choosing for her guests some of the most eminent gentlemen of the city, among whom were Bishop Moore, Dr. Bard, and Dr. Hosack. She wrote to her father that in marketing for the occasion she was puzzled to know what dishes would suit the palate of a savage warrior! In view of the many tales she had heard of
" The cannibals that each other eat, The anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders,"
" she had a mind," she said, "to lay the hospital under contribution for a human head to be served up like a boar's head in ancient hall barbaric. But after all he was a most Christian and civilized guest in his manners." The marriage of Theodosia in 1801 to Joseph Alston, of South Carolina,
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afterwards governor of his native State, by no means terminated the play- ful, tender, confiding relations between the father and daughter. Their letters were constantly flying backward and forward to each other. Burr still guided her intellectual tastes. " Better lose your head than your habits of study," he wrote. And Theodosia amused her father with her sprightly humor and cheered him with her affection. She visited him frequently, and de- clared on all oc- casions that the society of New York was so supe- rior to that of the South that a wo- man must be a fool who denied. it.
The lovely Theo- dosia was often a Theodosia Burr. guest of Mrs. Han- ilton. Indeed, there had always been friendly visiting between the fami- lies, and Hamilton himself dined at Burr's table occasionally, and Burr at Hamilton's. They met also at the houses of common friends, and con- sulted together on points of law. Theodosia was much petted and caressed by the Livingstons. She was invited with others a few weeks prior to her wedding by Mayor Edward Livingston to visit a frigate then lying in the harbor. One of the mayor's characteristic puns on the occasion is related by his biographer. On the way Livingston, in the liveliest manner, exclaimed, "Now, Theodosia, you must bring none of your sparks on board. They have a magazine there, and we should all be blown up."
Meanwhile Vice-President Burr was using every means to create a party of his own. He aimed to be an independent power in politics. He never quarreled openly with the President, although it was well un-
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derstood that the two chiefs were at cross purposes as far as party man- agement was concerned. Burr dined with Jefferson occasionally. He was also on formal terms of friendship with Secretary Madison. Theo- dosia and the beautiful Mrs. Madison were apparently intimate. But Jefferson's distrust was on the increase. Burr was deeply angered when he lost his seat in 1802 through Clintonian influence, after a hotly con- tested election, as director of the Manhattan Bank in New York. Hence- forward the influence and power of that institution were used against the man to whom it owed its existence. John Swartwout, who also lost his seat in the directorship, was one of Burr's most devoted friends, and loudly accused De Witt Clinton of opposing Burr on personal and selfish grounds. Clinton, hearing of it, called him " a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain." The result was a challenge from Swartwout, which ended in a duel at Hoboken, one of the most remarkable conflicts of the kind that ever occurred in this country. Clinton's second was Richard Riker, afterward City Recorder, and Swartwout's was Colonel W. S. Smith. The surgeons were John H. Douglass and Isaac Ledyard. The arrangements were elaborate and positive, being drawn up formally in ten articles July 30. and duly signed. The newspapers of the day described the scene on the ground. The first fire was ineffectual. Clinton through his second asked Swartwout if he was satisfied, who replied in the negative. They fired again without effect, and Clinton made the same inquiries and received the same answers. A third shot was exchanged without injury, although the ball passed through Clinton's coat. Again Clinton dis- claimed having any enmity towards Swartwout and asked if he was satis- fied. Swartwout responded promptly and positively in the negative until a written apology was signed. Clinton read the paper, and handed it back, saying he would sooner fire all night than ask Swartwout's pardon. The parties again took their stations and fired a fourth shot ; Clinton's ball struck Swartwout's leg a little below the knee. Clinton offered to shake hands and bury the circumstances in oblivion ; but Swartwout, standing erect, positively declined anything short of an ample apology, and they fired the fifth shot, Swartwout receiving another ball in the left leg about five inches above the ankle. Swartwout coolly insisted upon taking another shot, but Clinton left his place and refused to fire again. The surgeons dressed Swartwout's wounds, and all returned to the city. It is said that after the last shot Clinton approached Swartwout, and offering his hand said, "I am sorry I have hurt you so much." Then turning to Colonel Smith, added, " I wish I had the principal here," referring to Vice-Presi- dent Burr. The next year De Witt Clinton was challenged by Senator Dayton of New Jersey, another of Burr's adherents, but the matter was
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peacefully arranged. A few months later Richard Riker fought with Robert Swartwout and was severely wounded.
The erection of a new City Hall, only fourteen years from the time of the liberal expenditures upon Federal Hall in Wall Street prior to Wash- ington's inauguration, indicates the extraordinary growth of the city during that short period. Mayor Edward Livingston laid the corner-
stone of the new structure in 1803. The barren and uninviting
1803. common assumed a new character, and the church-goers paused every summer morning, before entering the sanctuary on the corner of Beekman Street, to note the progress of the builders. The front and the eastern and western sides were constructed of white marble, but a dark- colored stone was thought good enough for the rear or northern wall, since "it would be out of sight to all the world."
An appalling visitation of yellow fever not only suspended the work in July. July, but spread consternation throughout the length and breadth
of New York. The first case was announced on the 20th, and by the 1st of August the public alarm was so great and universal that all who could leave the city had fled to places of safety. Mayor Livingston re- mained at his post, regarding himself bound, as by a sacred contract, to face the terrible enemy, and alleviate suffering to the extent of his power. It was a display of heroic philanthropy which a lifetime of ordinary official duty would never have called into exercise. He visited the hospitals every day, required all new cases in any part of the city to be reported to him personally, supplied the needs of the poor, encouraged nurses and physi- cians by his presence and his undismayed cheerfulness, and even went about the streets at night to see for himself if the watchmen were vigilant.
The scourge continued until the end of October. The fearless mayor did not escape. He was seized with the fever in the latter part of September, but recovered after a severe illness. While he was lying very low he was the object of extraordinary popular gratitude and regard. His physician, calling for Madeira to administer to him, found that not a bottle of that or of any other wine was left in his cellar, he having be- stowed it all upon others. As soon as the fact became known the best wines were sent in from every direction. Young men vied with each other for the privilege of watching at his bedside. And a crowd thronged Broadway near his door or loitered in the Bowling Green to obtain the latest news of his condition.
His convalescence was announced in the newspapers and hailed with joy by the whole city. He had, however, arisen from a sick-bed to encounter a new trial. While the pestilence was raging he discovered
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that a confidential clerk had embezzled a large portion of the public funds consigned to his charge. With too many irons in the fire, he had im- prudently left the management of money affairs to subordinates, and thus, to his keen mortification, found himself indebted to the United States, without means in his possession for the liquidation of the debt. He at once voluntarily surrendered all his property for the security of the gov- ernment. He then resigned both his offices, although offering to discharge the duties of mayor until the restoration of the public health.
In April of the same year the diplomacy of Chancellor Livingston at the Court of France resulted in a national bargain with Napoleon for the purchase of Louisiana - or the Province of Orleans, compris- ing the present States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minne- sota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory - which not only added an enormous territory to the United States, but secured com- pensation for the numerous spoliations by the French on our com- merce. This vast region had been recovered to France from Spain by Napoleon in 1800; and through Chancellor Livingston's masterly man- agement, aided by James Monroe, who arrived in Paris a few days before the negotiation was concluded, it was actually sold to the United States for about fifteen millions of dollars. The American flag was first raised in New Orleans on the 20th of December, 1803.
Edward Livingston had been in close correspondence with his brother on the subject, and the prospect suddenly opening to New Orleans of becoming a great commercial city, and to Louisiana of becoming a mother of many States, he determined to repair to the new territory and try to mend his fortunes. He understood the French language, and in entering upon practice at the New Orleans bar frequently argued his cases in that tongue. The records of the court were kept in English. But it was often necessary, and it was the constant practice, to translate the pleadings and afterwards all the evidence into French, Spanish, or German, and some- times into all these, in order to reach the comprehension of the whole jury. A sworn interpreter was attached to the court, but Livingston spoke all these languages himself, which reflects much credit upon his New York education.
De Witt Clinton was appointed Mayor of New York City in place of Edward Livingston. He was in the Senate of the United States, having been elected to fill a vacancy in 1802 caused by the resignation of Gen- eral John Armstrong, and taken a seat by the side of Gouverneur Morris. But there was a degree and variety of power in the mayoralty of the metropolis at that time for which a senatorship might well be exchanged. Thus he resigned his post as a senator to accept and enter upon his duties
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as a mayor. He was but thirty-four years of age, active, resolute, and eminently progressive. His brain was prolific in civic and philanthropic schemes. What Franklin in his generation did for Philadelphia, De Witt Clinton, half a century later, accomplished for New York. But we will not anticipate.
Vice-President Burr found, as the new year opened, that his political for- tunes were less promising than hitherto. His aspirations for the
1804. Presidency of the nation might as well be buried. In politics he never had any real basis, such as ideas of magnitude, strong convic- tions, or important originations. His peculiar gifts were rather to charm individuals than multitudes. On the 5th of January he Jan. 5. wrote Theodosia of the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte to Miss Patterson of Baltimore, which occurred in December. On the 17th he wrote her again from Washington : "Of my plans for the spring Jan. 17. nothing can be said, for nothing is resolved. Madame Bonaparte passed a week here. She is a charming little woman ; just the size and nearly the figure of Theodosia Burr Alston ; by some thought a little like her ; perhaps not so well in the shoulders; dresses with taste and sim- plicity ; has sense and spirit and sprightliness." On the 30th he Jan. 30.
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