USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 21
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1807. tions in New York City, and calls attention particularly to the efforts of the ladies to provide for poor widows and orphan chil- dren as worthy of imitation in Great Britain.1
A medical society was incorporated in 1806 to regulate the practice of physicians and surgery in the State. All practitioners henceforward must be examined, and receive a diploma from a board of censors ap- pointed by this body, before they could legally collect any debts incurred in the duties of their calling. A College of Physicians and Surgeons was chartered by the Regents of the University in 1807, the Legislature having sanctioned the act sixteen years prior to that date. It was opened in November with such success that the State immediately appropriated twenty thousand dollars for its support. The importance and usefulness of an institution devoted exclusively to the cultivation and diffusion of
1 These institutions, or benefit societies, were : The Free School Society, Tammany Society, Provident Society, incorporated in 1805, Mutual Benefit Society, Benevolent Society, Albion Benevolent Society, Ladies' Society for the Relief of Widows with Small Children, New York Manufacturing Society, Fire Department Society, Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, The Dispensary, instituted in 1790 for the relief of the sick poor who were unable to procure medical aid at their dwellings - and incorporated in 1795, the Lying-in Hospital, founded in 1798 by Robert Lenox, Dr. Hosack, and others, the Manumission Society, the Marine So- ciety, chartered April 12, 1770, Sailors' Snug Harbor, Kine-pock Institution, City Hospital, Almshouse, House Carpenters' Society, Bellevue Hospital, founded by the city upon the old estate of Lindley Murray for an occasional infirmary, Marine Hospital at Staten Island, Hu- mane Society, Masonic Society containing thirteen lodges, German Society, Society of United Brethren for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, First Protestant Episcopal Charity School Society, St. George's Society, St. Patrick's Society, St. Andrew's Society, the New England Society, and the Cincinnati .- Hardie's Description of New York ; The Picture of New York, or Traveler's Guide, by Dr. Mitchell, 1807 ; Corporation Manual, 1870, p. 855
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medical science was highly appreciated by the community, and fifty- three students the first, and seventy-two the second year, bore testimony to the ability with which courses of instruction were delivered in all the branches of medicine. In September, 1813, a great event occurred in the medical annals of New York: the medical faculty and medical school of Columbia College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons were con- solidated, becoming one of the most distinguished schools of practical medicine at that time in the country.
The demand for classical learning in New York was so great at this period that many excellent private seminaries were sustained where boys were prepared for college under able teachers. The publishers and book- sellers were numerous, and generally men of property. In 1802 the first social gathering of American publishers occurred at the old City Hotel in Broadway, under the auspices of Matthew Carey. From that time a "literary fair," as then called, was held every year, alternating between New York and Philadelphia. It promoted acquaintance, encouraged the arts of printing and book-binding, and facilitated the circulation of books through the nation. The high taxes and prices of paper and labor in Great Britain were favorable to authorship and the publication of books in America. English works of celebrity were reprinted and sold for one fourth the original price. Latin editions of the writings of Cæsar, Cicero, and Virgil were printed in beautiful style, and some remarkable editions of the Bible were issued. Three or four public reading-rooms were supported by subscription, and several of the booksellers established circulating libraries.
Nineteen newspapers, of which eight were dailies, together with several monthly and occasional publications, entertained New York in 1807.1 The expansion of the press during the eventful years since the adoption of the constitution of the State, when the editor of an almost solitary news- paper was content to be compositor, pressman, folder, and distributor, and considered himself doing a fair business if he sold three or four hundred copies of one issue, seems marvelous. But it was only the healthful indi- cation of the brilliant future for journalism in New York, which in the
1 The morning newspapers in 1807 were The American Citizen, The New York Gazette, The Mercantile Advertiser, The Morning Chronicle, The People's Friend ; and the evening newspapers were The Commercial Advertiser, The Evening Post, and The Public Advertiser. Twice every week The Republican Watch-Tower was issued from the office of The American Citizen, The Spectator from the office of The Commercial Advertiser, The Express from the office of The Morning Chronicle, The Herald from the office of The Evening Post, and The People's Friend from the office of The People's Friend. The weeklies were The New York Price Current, The Weekly Museum, The Weekly Visitor, The Independent Republican, The Weekly Inspector, and The New York Spy.
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three-fourths of a century following 1807, was to result in the record to appear upon a future page.
To measure the situation at this early period of the century, it must be borne constantly in mind that all modern facilities for traveling through the country were yet unknown. Slow, unwieldy stage-coaches, private con- veyances, saddle-horses, and sloops where bodies of water made their use practicable, were the only vehicles for transportation. Country roads were hardly passable, and bridges were almost unknown. Accidents often occurred in solitary places, for the fording of rivers is always perilous, and the scows used for ferry-boats were little better than death-traps in a multitude of instances. In the summer of 1803 a pleasure-party from New York City visited Canada, spending a few days in Ogdensburg, Mon- treal, and Quebec. They traveled in wagons. The party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow Ogden, Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Miss Ann Hoffman, Miss Eliza Ogden, and Washington Irving, then a gay youth of twenty. On one occasion the wagon in which the young ladies, attended by Washington Irving, were riding " stuck fast in the mud, and one of the horses laid down and refused to move." The young people alighted and climbed into the next wagon, which presently mired, and the whole party were compelled to walk. Suddenly it began to rain, and coming upon a little shed of bark laid on crotchets, which had served some hunter for a night's shelter, the ladies were hurried into it ; but one half of it tumbled down upon them in the beginning, and although the gentle- men tried to make a roof with their overcoats, it was in vain to think of remaining, and they toiled along half a mile further, where they found a small hut about sixteen by eighteen feet square. It had but one room, although occupied by eight persons already, and here our New York travelers spent the night, and the next day proceeded on their journey in an ox-cart.
It should furthermore be observed that art and literature could hardly be said to have secured an existence in New York prior to 1807. Through the suggestion of Chancellor Livingston a subscription had been opened in 1801 for raising means to purchase statues and paintings for the in- struction of artists, and a Fine Art Society was finally organized in 1802. A school for drawing and painting had been successfully taught by Rob- ertson for some years. But it was not until February 13, 1808, that an act of the Legislature incorporated the American Academy of Fine Arts. Livingston had secured for it many valuable specimens of art during his residence in France, and was chosen the first president of the institution ; Colonel John Trumbull, the great American artist, was vice-president ; Mayor De Witt Clinton, Dr. Hosack, John Murray, William Cutting, and
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Charles Wilkes were its first directors. Emperor Napoleon presented to the academy valuable busts, antique statues, twenty-four large volumes of Italian prints, and several portfolios of drawings ; he was made an honorary member, as were also his brothers Lucien Bonaparte and Joseph Bonaparte. There was no dearth of literary talent in the city, but it had been almost exclusively directed to political subjects, and to organizing theories and testing untried institutions. Charles Brockden Brown had written a series of remarkable novels, but James Fenimore Cooper, who has the credit of giving the first decided impulse to romantic fiction in this country, and some of whose works are known abroad in almost every liv- ing language, was but eighteen, and striving for promotion in the navy rather than to turn love-stories into bank-accounts. The geography of Morse and the spelling-books of Webster had made their way to public approbation through much opposition. Their success may be classed among the wonders of literary history. But the trepidation of an American publisher when the question was to be decided of reprinting an English poem reveals the lack of practical experience in the publishing world. Sir Walter Scott issued his Lay of the Last Minstrel in 1804. A presentation copy in luxurious quarto was received by Mrs. Divie Bethune, who was intimate with the author in Scotland. The volume circulated widely among friends, and it was observed that the Min- strel was a classic. An American reprint was suggested. The publisher hesitated, then called in a literary coterie, who pronounced the poem too local in its nature, and its interest obsolete ; its measure was thought too varied and irregular, and without the harmony of tuneful Pope. Thus it was rejected by the critical tribunal. Longworth, however, soon brought sufficient resolution to the front, and printed it in his Belles- Lettres Repository of 1805.
Washington Irving was but twenty-four, and then more distinguished in the city of his birth for being a very heedless law-student than for genius in letters. He was admitted to the New York bar in the autumn of 1806, through the lenity of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, as he says, with whom he had studied, and who examined the candidates. He was living with his mother in William Street, corner of Ann, and wrote clever articles very frequently for The Morning Chronicle, edited by his brother Dr. Peter Irving, but few knew that he was the author of them. On the 24th of January, 1807, Salmagundi first appeared, in the form of a little primer about six and one half inches long and three and one half inches wide, published by Longworth. The editors announced themselves three in number, "all townsmen, good and true," and said their new paper would contain "the quintessence of modern criticism." They further
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proclaimed : "Our intention is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age. As everybody knows, or ought to know, what a Salmagundi is, we shall spare ourselves the trouble of an explanation. . .. Neither will we puzzle our heads to give an account of ourselves, for two reasons : first, because it is nobody's business ; secondly, because, if it were, we do not hold ourselves bound to attend to anybody's business but our own, and even that we take the liberty of neglecting when it suits our inclination. ... We beg the public particularly to understand that we solicit no patronage. We are determined, on the contrary, that the patronage shall be entirely on our side. We have nothing to do with the pecuniary concerns of the paper ; its success will yield us neither pride nor profit, nor will its failure occa- sion us either loss or mortification. The publisher professes the same sublime contempt for money as its authors. As we do not measure our wits by the yard or the bushel, and as they do not flow periodically nor constantly, we shall not restrict our paper as to size, or the time of its appearance. It will be published whenever we have sufficient matter to constitute a number, and the size of the number shall depend on the stock in hand. The price will depend on the size of the number, and must be paid on delivery. The public are welcome to buy or not, just as they choose. But we advise everybody, man, woman, and child, that can read, or get any friend to read for him, to purchase it. If it be pur- chased freely, so much the better for the public, and the publisher - we gain not a stiver. If it be not purchased, we give fair warning : we shall burn all our essays, critiques, and epigrams in one promiscuous blaze ; and, like the books in the Alexandrian Library, they will be lost forever to posterity. For the sake, therefore, of our publisher, for the sake of the public, and for the sake of the public's children to the nineteenth genera- tion, we advise them to purchase our paper. . .. We have said we do not write for money - neither do we write for fame; we know too well the variable nature of public opinion to build our hopes upon it - we care not what the public think of us; and we suspect before we reach the tenth number they will not know what to think of us - we write for no other earthly purpose but to please ourselves, and this we shall be sure of doing, for we are all three of us determined beforehand to be pleased with what we write. If we edify, instruct, and amuse the public, so much the better for the public ; but we frankly acknowledge that so soon as we get tired of reading our own works we shall discontinue them."
Upon the western bank of the Passaic River, a little above the city of Newark, stood a famous old mansion built by the Gouverneurs of New York, who owned an extensive plantation in that vicinity. It was occu-
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WASHINGTON IRVING.
pied by a bachelor and his servants; and thither Washington Irving and James Kirke Paulding, who was a clerk in the loan office and lived with his sister, the wife of Washington Irving's brother William, went nearly every Friday afternoon during the summer and remained until Monday morning with their genial host. Sometimes they were accom- panied by William Irving. It was a quiet retreat, and the stage-ride of nine miles over the corduroy road between Paulus Hook and Newark was not without its influ-
ence in sharpening
their humor. They named the house "Cockloft Hall." A little octagonal sum- mer-house in the yard, where the gay bachelors concocted the witty paperswhich monthly "vexed and charmed the town," with its private wine- cellar, had three win- dows looking inland, that old "Pinder Cockloft," so Irving said, "might have his views upon his own land, and be beholden to no man for a pros- pect." This quaint lit- tle publication was managed with such Washington Irving. [Copied from a rare mezzotint by Turner in possession of the author.] [Engraved in London from the painting by Newton.] dashing, buoyant au- dacity that the sobriety of New York was greatly disturbed, and unusual efforts were made to discover its authorship.
It was in the latter part of the same year that Washington Irving, assisted by Dr. Irving, who had just returned from Europe, commenced the writing of Knickerbocker's History of New York, intended as an ex- travagant burlesque of Dr. Mitchell's Picture of New York, just published. The felicitous style of the work, which was issued before the end of the following year, and its wonderful humor, sufficiently broad not to be con- founded with realities, gave it a high place in public favor. Everybody
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read and laughed, and everybody wished for more. It is said the great satirist, Judge Brackenridge, smuggled a copy of the book to the bench and exploded over it during one of the sessions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Sir Walter Scott has left his own testimony of the impres- sion the production made upon his mind, in an autograph letter, written to Mr. Henry Brevoort, of New York. He says : " I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have re- ceived from the most excellently written history of New York. I am sensible that, as a stranger to American parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed satire of the work ; but I must own that, looking at the simple and obvious meaning only, I have never seen anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. Scott and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are pas- sages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne. I beg you will have the kindness to let me know when Mr. Irving takes pen in hand again, for assuredly I shall expect a very great treat, which I may chance never to hear of but through your kindness." 1
Although Washington Irving continued to write at intervals, it was a dozen or more years - as late as 1820 - before he began to attract the attention of the whole world by his singularly pure and graceful diction, and the fine pathos and imaginative power of his productions. His genius was artistic, and the color thrown into his pictures indelible. Many a grave scholar at this day turns to the old Holland records, in vain, for the origin of the popular term " Knickerbocker," which is not only applied to the early Dutch inhabitants of New York by universal consent, but is prefixed to nearly every article in the range of industrial products on this side of the Atlantic ; and yet it dates no farther back than the humorous history of Irving, in 1807. It was the name of a highly respectable Dutch family dwelling in New York through many generations, with one member of whom Irving was acquainted. A charm
I The autograph letter of Sir Walter Scott, from which the author has been permitted to make the extract, has been carefully preserved by a member of the family of the gentleman to whom it was written, and is now for the first time given to the public. Washington Irving was born in William Street, New York City, April 3, 1783, the same year that the city was evacuated by the British army. He died in 1859. His father, William Irving, was a native of Scotland. His brother Dr. Peter Irving (born 1771, died 1838) was a man of eminent abilities, and many years editor of a New York journal. His brother William Irving (born 1766, died 1821) was a New York merchant, eminent for wit and refinement. He married the sister of James Kirke Paulding.
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equally potent is thrown into legends from the pen of Irving, until certain localities have come to be like places bewitched. One almost thirsts for a taste of the cool water from the mysterious spring which he tells us the Holland housewife took up in the night before emigrating, unbeknown to her husband, and smuggled to the banks of the Hudson in a churn, being confident in her own mind that she should find no water fit to drink in the new country.
The year 1807 was rendered memorable in the history of New York by the experiment of Robert Fulton in steam navigation, which, 1807. unlike the experiments of his predecessors in that field of enter- prise, was a successful application of the steam-engine to ship pro- pulsion.
The Clermont, built under the direction of Fulton at the ship-yard of Charles Brown, on the East River, was launched in New York waters early in the spring. While its machinery was being placed, its possibilities were denied, and proceedings were watched and criticised with as much incredulity as if the strange craft had been proclaimed a veritable Noah's Ark. In July, while the work was going forward, Fulton tried a notable experiment in the harbor with one of his torpedoes. He exploded an old brig at anchor near Governor's Island. In the next number of Salma- gundi appeared a laughable account of the excitement into which the town was thrown by "an attempt to set the Hudson River on fire."
One bright midsummer day the Clermont was in readiness for a trial trip to Albany. Very few believed it would ever reach its destination. The gentlemen whom Fulton invited to accompany him on this voyage were present with evident reluctance. They predicted disaster, and wished they were well out of it. They stood around in groups, silent and uneasy, as the signal was given, and the great uncouth wheels, without any wheel-houses, stirred the water into a white foam, and the boat moved forward. Presently it stopped, and the crowd upon the river-banks shouted in derision, while audible whispers of " I told you so " from those on board reached Fulton's ears. He had not been without his own anxieties from the first, as unex- pected difficulties might arise in more than one direction ; but he mounted a platform and assured his passengers that if they would indulge him one half-hour he would either go on or abandon the undertaking for that time. This short respite was conceded without objection. He hurried below, and found the trouble to have been caused by the improper adjustment of some of the machinery, which was quickly remedied. His sensitive nature had been very much hurt by the witticisms of the press, and still more by the lack of faith manifested by his friends; hence the occasion was for him one of keen solicitude. But " the horrible monster " steamed on,
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" breathing flames and smoke." Pine wood was used for fuel, and the blaze often shot into the air considerably above the tall smoke-stack ; and whenever the fire was stirred or replenished immense columns of black smoke issued forth, mingled with sparks and a cloud of ashes. The ter- rific spectacle, particularly after dark, appalled the crews of other vessels, who saw it rapidly approaching in spite of adverse wind and tide; many of them fell upon their knees in humble prayer for protection, while others disappeared beneath their decks or escaped to the shore.
As this new-fangled craft was passing the Palisades, a wall of solid rock twenty miles long, the noise of her machinery and paddle-wheels so startled an honest countryman, that he ran home to tell his wife he had seen " the devil on his way to Albany in a saw-mill."
At Clermont, the country-seat of Chancellor Livingston, Fulton paused to take in wood, and tarried for a short time. He reached Albany in safety and in triumph, having accomplished the distance of one hundred and fifty miles at the average rate of five miles per hour. He returned to New York City in two hours less time than had been consumed in going from New York to Albany. This was the first voyage of any consider- able length ever made by a steam vessel in any quarter of the world.
While Fulton cannot be said to have originated steam navigation, nor, indeed, to have invented the mechanism which rendered steam possible and profitable in navigation, he is justly accorded the great honor of hav- ing been the first to secure that combination of means which brought the steamboat into every-day use. His industry and ingenuity resulted also in the experimental determination of the magnitude and laws of ship resistance, together with the systematic proportioning of vessel and ma- chinery to the work to be accomplished by them.
It is hardly remembered of Fulton that he was an artist of considerable merit, so closely have his name and fame been associated with mechanical achievements. When he first came to New York in 1785 he was only known as a miniature-portrait painter. He had actually bought a small farm with his earnings in Philadelphia prior to that date - which speaks well for his industry, and for the appreciation of the good people of the Quaker City. He went to England and studied several years with Ben- jamin West, during which period he was one of the household of that great artist. He traveled about England with the design of studying the masterpieces of art in the rural mansions of the nobility. It was in the neighborhood of Exeter that he made the acquaintance of the Earl of Bridgewater, the famous parent of the canal system in England. Through his advice and example, and the encouragement of Lord Stanhope, Fulton was led to adopt the profession of a civil engineer. Afterwards, in jour-
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"As this new-fangled craft was passing the Palisades, a wall of solid rock twenty miles long, the noise of her machinery and paddle-wheels so startled an honest countryman, that he ran home to tell his wife he had seen 'the devil on his way to Albany in a saw mill.'" Page 532.
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neying through Europe, he sketched picturesque figures by the wayside ; and in Paris he executed the first panorama in that city.
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