USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 2
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was an exiled wanderer from the land of his birth. Her sister, Mrs. John Watts, resided in Broadway ; and during the first session of the first Congress entertained Senator Izard and his family in the spacious Watts mansion. While Mrs. Izard was in London her portrait was painted by Gainsborough. One of Copley's finest pictures represents both Mr. and Mrs. Izard in a Roman palace, with a window in the back- ground looking out on one of the most interesting parts of the Eternal City.
Washington's note-book affords further bewitching glimpses of the inner life of the city at this period. On the 10th of December Mrs. Rufus King, Colonel and Lady Kitty Duer, Senator and Mrs. William Few, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, Miss Brown, Oliver and Mrs. Wolcott, Cyrus Griffin, former President of Congress, and Lady Christiana and daughter were guests at the President's table. On the 12th he " exer- cised with Mrs. Washington and the children in the coach between break- fast and dinner - went the fourteen miles round." On the 14th, "walked round the Battery in the afternoon." On the 16th, "dined with Mrs. Washington at Governor Clinton's, in company with the Vice-President and Mrs. Adams, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, Mayor Richard Varick (recent- ly elected) and wife, and the Dutch Minister, Van Berckel, who had just returned from Europe with his daughter. It would seem that the Presi- dent's family rarely dined alone. On the 17th the company consisted of Chief Justice and Mrs. Jay, Senator Rufus King, Colonel and Mrs. Law- rence, Egbert Benson, Bishop Provost, Rev. Dr. Linn and his wife, and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry. On Christmas, which was Friday, the following entry is characteristic of the great man who penned the lines : "Went to St. Paul's Chapel in the forenoon. The visitors to Mrs. Washington this afternoon were not numerous, but respectable." On Saturday, the 26th, the President mentions exercise on horseback, and tells us that Chief Justice Morris, Mayor Varick, and their ladies, Judge Hobart, Colonel Cole, Major Gilman, Miss Brown, Secretary Samuel A. Otis of the Senate, . and Mr. Beekley dined with him. On the Tuesday following he records a storm, and " not a single person appearing at his levee." On the last day of the outgoing year his dinner-table was enlivened by the Vice- President and Mrs. Adams, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, Chancellor and Mrs. Livingston, and Miss Livingston, one of the Chancellor's sisters, Baron Steuben, Elbridge Gerry, George Partridge, Thomas Tudor Tucker, and Alexander White from North Carolina.
New Year's day brought a cessation of all kinds of labor. During the early morning hours the streets were pervaded with a Sabbath stillness. But as the day waned handsome equipages laden with gentle-
Jan. 1. men in the showy costume of the day moved rapidly from
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NEW YEAR'S DAY.
point to point, and the narrow sidewalks were filled with pedestrians stepping briskly along as if impelled by some unusual and agreeable impulse. The custom of making New Year's calls was one of the peculiar institutions of New York. It was a novelty to Washington. It had been introduced by the Dutch with the first settlement on Manhattan Island, and the Huguenots had helped to perpetuate the pleasant ob- servance. No other American city or town had then even so niuch as thought of borrowing the fashion - and it was likely to find little favor in places more purely of English origin and population.
Between the hours of twelve and three o'clock the President was visited by the Vice-President, the governor, the senators, and representa- tives, foreign public characters, and all the principal gentlemen of the city, either in public or private life. Later in the afternoon a great number of gentlemen and ladies visited Mrs. Washington, as usual, the day being Friday. In the evening such guests as remained were seated and served to tea, coffee, and plum and plain cake. We can almost see Washington in the flesh, as, balancing in his hand one of the exquisite cups and saucers for which his table was famous, he asked of a New- Yorker near him whether such usages were casual or otherwise, and being told that New Year's visiting had always been maintained in the city, observed : " The highly favored situation of New York will, in the process of years, attract numerous emigrants, who will gradually change its ancient customs and manners ; but whatever changes take place, never forget the cordial and cheerful observance of New Year's Day."
John Pintard, then a young man of fashion, says many persons took advantage of the day to pay their respects to Washington who were per- sonally unacquainted with him, but no one complained of the stateliness which about this time alarmed a sagacious Virginia colonel for the safety of the Republic. The latter stated at the table of Governor Randolph that Washington's " bows were more distant and stiff" than any he had seen at the Court of St. James! The critic's words reached Washington's ears, who calmly expressed his sorrow that his bows should not have been acceptable, as they were the best he was master of. " Would it not have been better," he asked, "to throw the veil of charity over them, ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to the unskillfulness of my teacher, rather than to pride and dignity of office ?"
New York City was then regarded by all good puritanical New-Eng- landers as a " vortex of folly and dissipation." But the mother of Oliver Wolcott, on the same New Year's evening while Mrs. Washington was dis- pensing. hospitalities, holding an open letter in her hand written from the capital eleven days before by her subsequently distinguished son, read
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as follows: "There appears to be great regularity in the city. Hon- esty is as much in fashion as in Connecticut, and I am persuaded that there is much greater attention to good morals than has been supposed in the country. So far as observance of the Sabbath is a criterion of religion, a comparison between this city and many places in Connecti- cut would be in favor of New York. We have not been able to hire a house, and shall continue in lodgings till the spring. Great expense is not required, nor does it add to the reputation of any person."
As Washington himself, on his late tour through Connecticut, on one occasion passed thirty-six hours at a very poor country tavern because " it was contrary to law and disagreeable to the people of the State to travel on the Sabbath day," and New York did not suffer by comparison in the mind of a keen Connecticut observer, the inference is clear. 1
Oliver Wolcott had been appointed Auditor of the Treasury in Sep- tember, at a yearly salary of fifteen hundred dollars,2 an office which he hesitated about accepting. Hamilton wrote to him, "I am persuaded you will be an acquisition to the department. I need scarcely add that your presence here as soon as possible is essential to the progress of business." Ellsworth furnished him with an estimate of the cost of living in New York, and remarked that he could keep his expenses within one thousand dollars per annum, unless he should change his style, which was wholly unnecessary. Wolcott, after reaching the city and instituting personal investigations, decided to enter the service. He wrote to his wife an- nouncing the fact, saying, " The example of the President and his family will render parade and expense improper and disreputable." Writing a few days later to his father upon the condition of affairs, he said, "What arrangements are in contemplation with respect to the public debt I have not been able to learn, though I believe, from the character and manners of the Secretary, that they will be prudent, sensible, and firm."
The organization of the Treasury Department occupied much time. The machinery must be constructed upon a plan of indefinite expan- sion, suited to every object and exigency of the great untried future. The numberless official forms to be used in every branch of business were
1 Diary of Washington.
2 Oliver Ellsworth wrote to Oliver Wolcott, September 12, 1789, as follows : "The Treasury Department is at length arranged and filled.
Secretary, salary, $ 3,500,
Colonel Hamilton of New York.
Comptroller 2,000, Mr. Eveleigh of South Carolina.
Auditor
1,500, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., of Connecticut.
Register
1,250, Mr. Nourse, Pennsylvania.
Treasurer 2,000, Mr. Meridith, Pennsylvania.
I think your merit would have justified your standing higher on the list, but you are young enough to rise, and I believe you ought to accept the appointment." - Family Archives.
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OLIVER WOLCOTT.
to be prescribed for the first time; custom-houses and loan-offices regu- lated ; provision made for the efficient collection and distribution of the revenue ; the accounts of receipts and expenditures systematized ; in all of which the easy attainment of complete information at the Treasury was to be united with the preservation of central and local accountability. Everything connected with the finance of the country was in a state of almost inextricable confusion. The national debt, originating chiefly in the Revolution, was of two kinds, foreign and domestic. The foreign debt, amounting to nearly twelve millions, was due to France, Holland, and a fraction to Spain. The domestic debt, due to individuals in America for loans to the government or supplies furnished to the army, reached forty-two millions. Another class of debts, amounting to some twenty-five millions, rested upon a different footing ; the States individu- ally had constructed works of defense within their respective limits, and advanced pay, bounties, provisions, clothing, and munitions of war to Continental troops. Hamilton proposed not only that the foreign debt should be paid strictly according to the terms of contract, but that all domestic debts, including those of the particular States, should be funded, and that the nation should become responsible for their payment to the full amount.
Oliver Wolcott 1 was a young man of thirty, but not without experience in finance, having been for nine years almost constantly employed by his
1 For the origin of the Wolcott family in America, see Vol. I. 593, 594. A tradition exists concerning the Wolcott coat of arms which is of interest to the curious in matters of her- aldry. John Wolcott of Wolcott, who lived in the reign of Henry V., and who married Matilda, daughter of Sir Richard Cornwall of Bere- of chess in a contest with ful uses of the castles ; ognition of the remarkable coat of arms by substitut- place of sheaves of wheat. Windsor.) Henry Wolcott was in 1635 among the participated in the first botlı Massachusetts and nually re-elected to the during life. His daughter Griswold, the first nagis- founder of Lyme, and scendants is the present States, Morrison R. Waite. sons of Henry, married Wolcott Arms. kin, and their fourth son ford, Knight, won a game the king through skill- whereupon Henry, in rec- event, changed Wolcott's ing castles on the shield in (Stiles's History of Ancient came to America in 1630 ; first settlers of Windsor ; legislative proceedings of Connecticut ; and was an- councils of the latter State Anna married Matthew trate of Saybrook, and among her illustrious de- Chief Justice of the United Simon Wolcott, one of the the beautiful Martha Pit- was the famous Governor Roger Wolcott, who rose to highest military and civil honors. Among his numerous children were Governor Oliver Wolcott (born 1726, died 1797), who signed the Declaration of Independence ; and Ursula, who married her cousin, Governor
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native State in public matters of a financial character. Since 1788 he had been Comptroller of Connecticut. He belonged to that line of remarkable men of whom it was said that "none other in America were more honored and trusted." Indeed, as a matter of history, no family on this continent has preserved through all its generations a purer fame.
There was yet no recognized cabinet; and, strictly speaking, no cabinet meetings, according to the usual ministerial consultations at the courts of Europe. The secretaries were the President's auxiliaries rather than counselors. He called them together in council at intervals, but it was chiefly to give them instructions ; for the cabinet as an advisory body was unknown to the Constitution and the laws of Congress. The Presi- dent was made responsible for the administration of the departments, and although he drifted into the habit of consulting with the secretaries, such a course was wholly at his option. In England, according to long- established usages, if the ministers, being the heads of the govern- mental departments, failed to command the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons, a ministerial disruption immediately fol- lowed, and the sovereign intrusted the formation of a new cabinet to a person in favor with that majority. Such change defeated one system of politics and established another. But Congress, although in the prac-
Matthew Griswold of Lyme, and was the mother of Governor Roger Griswold - the lady who had eleven governors among her own immediate family connections and descendants, with at least thirty judges, and numerous lawyers and clergymen of prominence. The Wolcotts have intermarried with many New York families, and their descendants are nearly as numerous in the New York of to-day as in Connecticut.
Oliver Wolcott, the financier, and third governor in the Wolcott family (born 1760, died 1833), was the son of Governor Oliver Wolcott, senior, and a graduate from Yale in 1778. He married Elizabeth Stoughton. He was the Comptroller of the U. S. Treasury from 1791 to 1795, and Secretary of the Treasury from 1795 to 1800, when he was appointed Judge of the United States Circuit Court. In 1802 he removed to New York City, and soon after com- menced an extensive manufacturing enterprise at Wolcottville, near Litchfield, in connection with his brother Frederick, who married Betsy Huntington of Norwich ; among the children of the latter is Frederick Henry Wolcott of Astoria, Long Island. Mary Ann Wolcott, the youngest sister of Oliver and Frederick, was the distinguished beauty who married Chauncey Goodrich. The wife of Oliver Ellsworth, the chief justice, was Abigail Wolcott, cousin of the governor. Nearly all the Wolcott ladies were celebrated for personal beauty. None more so, however, than Jerusha Wolcott, daughter of Samuel, the brother of Governor Oliver Wolcott, senior, who married Epaphras Bissell, a descendant of John Bissell, one of the founders of Windsor, and projector of the first ferry across the Connecticut River ; her sister Sophia married Martin Ellsworth, son of the chief justice. Edward, eldest son of Epaphras and Jerusha Bissell, married Jane Ann Maria Reed in 1823, whose second son, Dr. Arthur Bissell of New York, married Anna Browne, daughter of Judge Browne of Rye, New York, a descendant of Thomas Browne of Rye, England, one of the original founders of the town of Rye, New York, himself a descendant from Sir Anthony Browne, standard-bearer of England, whose wife was daughter of Marquis of Montague-brother of the Earl of Warwick.
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"He drove on Friday to Federal Hall in Wall Street, in a coach drawn by six horses preceded by Colonel Humphreys and Major Jackson in uniform, on horseback, and followed by Messrs. Lear and Nelson." Page 359
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THE PRESIDENT AND HIS SECRETARIES.
tice of requiring the heads of departments to appear in person and give explanations upon any desired subject during Washington's administra- tion, had no power to disturb such officials, and regarded them as under the executive, and of subordinate importance.1
Hamilton was not slow in applying all the skill and method of which he was master to the production of an elaborate report of the condition of the Treasury ; he also unfolded his plans for the maintenance of the public credit, and on Saturday, the 2d of January, submitted both to the President, who, after reading, and conversing for Jan. 2. some time with the secretary on the subject, walked to Chief Justice Jay's residence, with whom he still further discussed the important matter, remaining to drink tea informally with the chief justice and his family. Secretary Knox presented his report of the state of the frontiers to the President on the 4th, the day on which commenced the second session of the first Congress.
It is interesting to note the formalities observed by President Wash- ington in his early intercourse with the legislative branch of the govern- ment. Following the example of the king and parliament of Great Britain, he inaugurated a custom of delivering in person his message on the opening of Congress to the two houses sitting in a joint session - which was subsequently abandoned. Arrangements having been per- fected by a committee, he drove on Friday, the 8th, at eleven o'clock in the morning, to Federal Hall in Wall Street, in a coach Jan. 8. drawn by six horses preceded (quoting his own language) "by Colonel Humphreys and Major Jackson in uniform, on my two white horses, and followed by Messrs. Lear and Nelson in my chariot, and Mr. Lewis, on horseback, following them. In their rear was the Chief Justice of the United States, and the Secretaries of the Treasury and War Depart- ments, in their respective carriages, and in the order they are named. At the outer door I was met by the door-keepers of the Senate and House, and conducted to the door of the Senate-Chamber; and passing from thence to the chair through the Senate on the right, and the House on the left, I took my seat. The gentlemen who attended me followed and
1 " In the month of July the Senate ordered that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs attend the Senate to-morrow, and bring with him such papers as are requisite to give full informa- tion relative to the consular convention between France and the United States. The secretary appeared according to the resolution, and made the required explanations. The secretaries were the creatures of the law, not of the Constitution ; and for that reason Mr. Jefferson was of opinion that neither branch of Congress had a right to call upon the heads of the departments for information or papers, except through the President. That practice has long since been abandoned ; and all communications between the houses of Congress and the departments are by correspondence." - Shaffner's History of America, Div. III.
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took their stand behind the Senators; the whole rising as I entered. After being seated, at which time the members of both Houses also sat, I rose, as they also did, and made my speech ; delivering one copy to the President of the Senate, and another to the Speaker of the House of Representatives - after which, and being a few moments seated, I retired, bowing on each side to the assembly (who stood) as I passed, and de- scending to the lower hall, attended as before, I returned with them to my house."
The importance attached to details in the mind of Washington is curi- ously revealed in his circumstantial diary. When consulted as to the time and place for the delivery of the answers of the Senate and House to his speech, he decided upon Thursday, at the hours of eleven Jan. 14. and twelve, and named his own residence; giving as reasons for choosing this place, that it seemed most consistent with usage and custom, and because there was no third room in Federal Hall prepared to which he could call the gentlemen, and to go into either of the cham- bers appropriated to the Senate or Representatives did not seem proper. Accordingly, "at the hours appointed, the Senate and House presented their respective addresses, the members of both coming in carriages, and the latter with the Mace preceding the Speaker. The address of the Senate was presented by the Vice-President, and that of the House by the Speaker thereof." After the ceremony, twelve members remained to dine with the President.
The same day Hamilton appeared before Congress with his proposition for the funding of the public debt. He presented the subject clearly, and with such courage and consistency that his arguments carried great weight. He said the foreign debt should be paid strictly according to the terms of the contract, and this no one pretended to deny. But when he touched upon the domestic debt, a multiplicity of objections were im- mediately aroused ; and his fearless advocacy of making no difference between the creditors of the Union and those of the States, because both descriptions of debt were contracted for the same objects, gave rise to some of the most exciting debates ever heard in our Congressional halls. As the national legislators comprised a large portion of the prominent characters of the country, and the two parties, friends and opponents of Federal principles, were about equally balanced, every subject being discussed with direct reference to its bearings on State sovereignty - the original apple of discord - a glimmer of the violence of the tempest may be perceived from the first. Hamilton proposed to open a loan to the full amount of the debt, as well of the particular States as of the Union ; and to enable the Treasury to bear an increased demand upon it, he
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WASHINGTON'S RESIDENCE IN BROADWAY.
recommended an increase of duties on imported wines, tea, etc., and a duty on home-made liquors.
The sharpest controversy hinged on the assumption of the State debts, and the terms as to the period of payment and rate of interest of the general debt thus proposed to be established. The debts of the respec- tive States were very unequal in amount ; and investigations concerning the services rendered by each State brought to the front all the local prejudices of a century, and all manner of invidious comparisons. An- other prominent question upon which the members were almost evenly divided was the payment of the whole amount, rather than the mere market value of the government paper. This paper had in most cases passed through many hands, and was immensely depreciated below its nominal value. The original creditors, therefore, and the subsequent holders, had lost in proportion to the scale of depreciation. The proposal to assume the whole debt as it stood on the face of the paper, and pay it to the present holders, was said to be inequitable, inasmuch as these had purchased it at the depreciated value, and had no claim to be remuner- ated for the losses of the previous holders.
Other business of grave importance came before this session of Con- gress in New York City, not least of which was the enumeration of in- habitants of the Union, the establishing of a uniform rule of naturaliza- tion, the providing of means of intercourse with foreign nations, and for regulating treaties and trade with the Indians, and the location of the permanent seat of government.
Meanwhile the city was gay with all manner of festivities public and private - the balls and dinners were more numerous than the evenings - and the principal statesmen were constantly meeting in social circles, and everywhere discussing the great topics of the hour. Mrs. Washing- ton's levees on Friday evenings were largely attended, and Mrs. Jay, Mrs. Hamilton, and Mrs. Knox each had a special evening, aside from giving dinners every week.
The residence of Washington in Franklin Square proved inconvenient on account of the great distance out of town, and as Postmaster-General Osgood wished to return to his house, having lived at his country-seat three miles to the north during the interim, the President arranged on the 1st of February for removal to the McComb mansion in Broadway, a little below Trinity Church -the former residence of the French minister. On the 3d he tells us that he visited the various apartments of his future home, " and made a disposition of the rooms, fixed on some furniture of the Minister's to be sold, and directed additional stables built"; on the 6th, he walked to the place to decide upon the exact site for the projected
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stables ; on the 13th, walked again down Broadway to the new house and gave directions for the arrangement of the furniture; and on the 20th, entered the following paragraph in his diary : "Sat from nine until eleven for Mr. Trumbull. Walked afterwards to my new house - then rode a few miles with Mrs. Washing- ton and the children before dinner ; after which I again visited my new house, in my coach (because it rained)." The appointments of the Broadway residence were ostensibly arranged for substantial comfort, but such were the tastes and habits of Washington, and the fashion of the times, that the whole mansion when prepared for his occu- pancy had a very luxurious air. Pic- tures, vases, and other articles of orna- The McComb Mansion. [Washington's Residence in Broadway.] ment had been brought from Mount
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