USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 3
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Vernon, china and glass were imported, much of it having been made to order, and the old family plate was melted and reproduced in more elegant and shapely style. The tea-service was particularly massive, the salver twenty-two inches long by seventeen wide, and every piece bore the family arms. The President's birthday, for the first time being celebrated in nearly all the large cities of the Union, and honored by the "Tammany Society or Columbian Order," in New York,1 with resolutions to commem- orate the occasion forever afterward, was chiefly employed by him in super- intending the transfer of his furniture; and on Tuesday the 23d, after
1 Shortly after Washington's inauguration, May 12, 1789, the "Tammany Society or Columbian Order " was founded. It was composed at first of the moderate men of both politi- cal parties, and seems not to have been recognized as a party institution until the time of Jefferson as President. William Mooney was the first Grand Sachem ; his successor in 1790 was William Pitt Smith, and in 1791 Josiah Ogden Hoffman received the honor. John Pintard was the first Sagamore. De Witt Clinton was scribe of the council in 1791. It was stictly a national society, based on the principles of patriotism, and had for its object the perpetuation of a true love for our own country. Aboriginal forms and ceremonies were adopted in its incorporation ; the year was divided into seasons of blossoms, fruits, and snows, and the seasons into moons. Its officers were a Grand Sachem - chosen from thirteen sachems - a Sagamore, and a Wiskinskie. This was done partly to conciliate the numerous tribes of Indians who were devastating our defenseless frontiers, and partly to counteract the anti-republican principles of the Society of the Cincinnati. It was named from Tammany, the celebrated Indian chief whose legendary history has been curiously sketched by Dr. Mitchell. To John Trumbull, the author, belongs the distinction of first originating the desig- nation "St. Tammany." He thought, it is said, it not worth while to let Great Britain monopolize all the saints in the calendar, and so chose a genuine American guardian.
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INDIAN CHIEFS IN NEW YORK.
dinner, he wrote, " Mrs. Washington, myself, and children removed and lodged in our new habitation."
The Indians about this time appeared determined to prevent through barbarous depredations the existence of towns beyond the Ohio River. A New England company, formed in 1787, had purchased a large ter- ritory from the general government, and commenced settlements the following year, of which Marietta was the first. But the savages ha- rassed the settlers so perpetually that Congress directed Knox to investi- gate the whole subject, who, in his able report, stated that over fifteen hundred persons had either been murdered or carried into captivity during the two years since 1788, and an immense amount of property destroyed. Vigorous steps to check the mischief were at once taken. Washington had hoped to give security to the pioneers of Ohio by pacific arrangements, but found it necessary to institute offensive operations in that direction, which, beginning in the summer of 1790, were not termi- nated until after the signal victory of General Wayne in 1794.
In the Carolinas and Georgia the Indians quarreled with their white neighbors ; and the Spaniards tampered with the Creeks of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, furnishing them with fire-arms and clothing. Sev- eral attempts had been made hitherto by the government, without suc- cess, to treat with these latter tribes. An ingenious plan was devised in February to lure their great chief, Alexander McGillivray, an educated half- breed, to New York City, for the purpose of convincing him of the propri- ety of a treaty to avert the calamities of war, about to be precipitated by the disorderly and disreputable people of both nations. On the
10th of March Washington held a long conversation with Colonel March 10. Marinus Willett, who had agreed to undertake a mission to the Creeks which must necessarily be conducted in the most delicate manner, and who shortly started for their country at the South. On the 1st of July official information reached the President that Willett was on his return, accompanied by McGillivray and twenty-eight of his principal chiefs and warriors, and had advanced as far as Hopewell, in South Carolina. Messages were at once sent to the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, requesting them to show every possible respect to the travelers, at the public expense.
Their arrival in New York created a sensation. The members of the Tammany Society, arrayed in Indian costume, went out to meet them, with the military, and escorted them, to the house of Secretary Knox where they were received with great ceremony. They were then taken and introduced to the President, and from thence to Governor Clinton ; after which they dined at the city tavern, Knox and a great number
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of distinguished men being present. They remained in the city about six weeks. A military review by the President and Secretary Knox, for their benefit, on Colonel Rutgers's grounds, July 27, was rendered mem- orable by the large array of officers in full uniform. On the 2d of August the Indians were entertained with a great banquet, at which were present all the notable statesmen of the day. The Tammany Society enlivened the occasion with songs, and the Creek sachems danced. The orators of both parties made long speeches, and wine flowed freely. Washington dined several of the chiefs one day at his own table, and after the meal invited them to walk down Broadway. Curious to see the effect upon the savage mind of the large full-length portrait of himself which Trum- bull had just completed for the city corporation, he led them suddenly into its presence. They stood stiff and mute with astonishment for some minutes. One of the chiefs finally advanced and touched the cold flat surface with his hand, exclaiming, "Ugh !" Each of the others slowly followed his example, and all turned away, suspicious of the art which could imprint a great soldier, dressed for battle, and standing beside his war-horse, upon a strip of canvas. Trumbull afterwards tried in vain to obtain their portraits. Knox, after some time spent in preliminaries, succeeded in negotiating the terms of a satisfactory and much-desired treaty, which, indeed, ceded to the Indians nearly all the disputed terri- tory, and which was ratified in Federal Hall with great ceremony on the 13th of August. Washington and his suite appeared at noon of that day in the Hall of Representatives, and presently the Tammany sachems ushered in McGillivray and his chiefs, adorned with their finest feathers. The treaty was read and interpreted; and the President in a short forci- ble speech explained the justice of its various provisions -to each of which the Indian potentates grunted approval. McGillivray made a short speech in reply; the treaty was duly signed, Washington presented the chieftain with a string of wampum, for a memorial, with a paper of tobacco as a substitute for the ancient calumet, then came a general shak- ing of hands, and the ceremonies were concluded by a song of peace, in which the Creek warriors joined in their own peculiar fashion.
Early in March the legislature of New York appointed commissioners to settle, if possible, the chronic controversy with Vermont. New York had opposed the petition of Vermont for admission into the confederacy in 1776, and Congress had hesitated until the people became indignant, when the second appeal was made in 1777; again in 1787 New York had interposed a protest to defeat an application, although at that time the population of Vermont was increasing so rapidly that New York found it difficult to establish her jurisdiction in the declared rebellious
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ARRIVAL OF JEFFERSON.
districts. But the commissioners, of whom the scholarly Chancellor Livingston was one of the most conspicuous, were in 1790 empowered to declare the consent of New York to the admission of Vermont into the Union - New York relinquishing all claims to lands in Vermont or jurisdiction over them, upon the payment of thirty thousand dollars ; and the commissioners were also to decide upon the perpetual boundary between the two States. Vermont acceded to the proposition, and in March of the following year had the honor of being the first State ad- mitted into the Federal Union.
Foreign affairs created intense anxiety at this juncture. With Great Britain several points of difference existed; Adams had found it im- possible to negotiate a commercial treaty on favorable terms, and the British Cabinet declined to send a minister to the United States. The old grudges and jealousies of the war had by no means been extinguished, and Americans, regarding the Britons as natural enemies, were ready to take offense easily, as well as eager for an opportunity to retaliate. An effort to treat with Portugal had failed, owing - it was confidently be- lieved - to the adverse influence of England. The Emperor of Morocco had been faithful to his agreements ; but the corsairs of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli plundered American vessels and enslaved their masters, which many attributed, together with the bloody incursions of the western savages, to the machinations of the British. And the intricate and embarrassing disputes with Spain concerning the free navigation of the Mississippi helped to render the commerce of the country more restricted than when it had formed a part of the British Empire.
Washington had just returned from St. Paul's Chapel on the morning of March 21, when Jefferson was announced. "Show him in,", exclaimed the President, his face brightening with real pleasure, March 21. then, not waiting an instant, advanced to meet his guest in the entrance passage. The greeting was one of special warmth and cordiality. Jeffer- son's coming on that day was particularly opportune. Not twenty-four hours had elapsed since Washington and Jay had been engaged in earnest consideration of the course to be pursued with regard to certain captives in Algiers, and the sending of persons in the character of chargés d'affaires to the courts of Europe. Jefferson, fresh from the Old World atmos- phere, and bringing the latest intelligence concerning its public affairs, was welcome indeed. He had been a fortnight on the route from Monti- cello - his beautiful Virginia country-seat - a storm of snow having greatly impeded his progress. Obliged, on account of bad roads, to leave his private carriage in Alexandria, to be sent to New York by water, he had consigned himself to a slow stage, which moved only two or three miles
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an hour by day and one at night; but his horses were led, and he mounted one of them from time to time to relieve his fatigue. At Philadelphia he visited Franklin, who, although in bed and very feeble, listened with excited interest to a detailed account of the French Rev- olution.
Jay, Hamilton, Knox, Osgood, Livingston, and the circle of New York's principal citizens, hastened to do honor to the new Secretary of State. " The courtesies of dinner-parties," wrote Jefferson, "placed me at once in their familiar society." He tried to obtain a house on Broadway, but not succeeding rented a small cottage in Maiden Lane, near the residence of Thomas Hartley, member of Congress from Pennsylvania. Business had accumulated in expectation of his arrival, and he was quickly immersed in its perplexing details. But he was amazed at the tenor of table con- versations. When he went abroad the democratic tendencies of his own country were at full tide, and he found France heaving with the coming earthquake. His house in Paris had been the resort of the leaders of political reform, and he had taken a deep interest in the success of the revolutionists ; had even traveled through their country on foot, entered the hovels of the peasants, peeped into the pot to learn what the poor woman was preparing for dinner, handled the miserable black bread that mothers gave their hungry children, and felt of the bed, on which he had taken care to sit, to ascertain its material and quality. "My conscien- tious devotion to natural rights cannot be heightened," he wrote, "but it is roused and excited by daily exercise." He had returned home to find the favorite sentiment, according to his observations, a " preference for kingly instead of republican government." He was disappointed with the Constitution. There was, moreover, a practical question before Con- gress, the assumption of the State debts, which disturbed his sense of justice ; and Hamilton's project of a national bank he regarded as an evil of superlative magnitude - a fountain of demoralization.
In personal appearance Jefferson was not altogether prepossessing. He had reached the age of forty-seven, was nearly as tall as Washington, well-built but awkward and loose-jointed, with a fair complexion, cold- blue eyes, and reddish hair. His wife dying many years before, he had filled the place of both parents to his lovely daughters, and was a tender and indulgent father, whom they venerated as wiser and better than other men. He possessed original and solid merit, together with great magnetism of intellect, and matchless intensity of convictions upon all subjects to which he gave his attention.
It was at Hamilton's dinner-table that he first advocated aiding France to throw off her monarchial yoke. Hamilton shook his head and
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THE CITY TREASURER.
declared himself in favor of maintaining a strict neutrality. This ques- tion presently assumed vital importance. Jefferson opposed Hamilton's funding system, and seemed to distrust all his measures. The most stormy discussions were of constant occurrence, trifles were exaggerated, and political excitement spread through the country. Thus developed that division in politics, which, gradually rising to the dignity of party organization, was known as Federalism and Republicanism.
A new edifice had arisen upon the site of the ruins of Trinity Church, which was consecrated on the 25th in presence of a distinguished March 25. audience ; Washington and family were seated during the exer-
cises in the richly ornamented pew set apart by the wardens and vestry- men for the President of the United States, with a canopy over it1; an- other pew was arranged for the governor of New York. On the same evening the Chief Justice and Mrs. Jay, General Philip and Mrs. Schuyler, Secretary Jefferson, Secretary and Mrs. Hamilton, Secretary and Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Greene, Senator Carroll, Senator Henry, Judge Wilson, James Madison, and Colonel William S. Smith dined with the President and Mrs. Washington at their home in Broadway. On the following Thursday we find Governor Clinton, Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt, Speaker John Watts of the New York Assembly, Judge Duane, Baron Steuben, Arthur Lee, Rufus King, Theodore Sedgwick, Mr. Clymer, Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon, Mr. Heister, Dr. Hugh Williamson, and other members of Congress, gathered about Washington's dinner- table.
The city treasurer, or chamberlain, appointed in 1789 was Daniel Phoenix, an eminent and wealthy ++ HOINTE N PrE+NINTY ! + Premife to pay the Bearer, on Demand, One Penny. By Order of the Corporation of the City of New-York. February 20 1790. Id. D. Phonic, City Treafurer. One Penny. JKONE PENNY .; , [ Id.+ ONE PENNTİ ZIONE PENNY.1 New York merchant, who con- tinued to hold the position for twenty years - until compelled to resign from declining health. A specimen of money issued un- der his auspices in 1790 will be seen in the sketch. He had been largely instrumental in placing the New York hospital in a position to fulfill the intentions of its founders ; and he was a trustee as well as
1 The resolution to set apart a pew in Trinity Church for the President was adopted March 8, 1790. The wardens were Chief Justice John Jay and ex-Mayor James Duane. Among the vestrymen were Andrew Hamersley, Hubert Van Wagenen, Thomas Randall, John Jones, John Lewis, William S. Johnson, Robert C. Livingston, Matthew Clarkson, William Laight, James Farquhar, Charles Stanton, Nicholas Kortright, Alexander Aylesbury, George Dominick, Nicholas Carman, Moses Rogers, Anthony L. Bleecker, and Richard Harrison.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
the treasurer of the New York Society Library. He took an active part, indeed, in the inception of many of the city institutions, contributing liberally to their support. He was also connected with almost every mercantile institution of his day. His name is particularly and pleas- antly identified with the history of the Wall Street Presbyterian Church, of which he was a trustee from 1772 to 1812, and the manager, almost exclusively, of its financial concerns.1
The treasurer of the State at this time was Gerard Bancker, of the wealthy Dutch family whose representatives had filled positions of re- sponsibility in city and State affairs during every generation of that remarkable century. The auditor was Peter T. Curtenius. The latter united with many other citizens, as the spring opened, in an indignant protest against cutting away the beautiful trees with which the streets of the city were ornamented in accordance with an order of the corpo- ration to be executed before the first of June. Some medical philoso- pher had convinced the authorities that the public health demanded the sacrifice, but the public taste was wounded in a vital point, for the trees were of a rich variety, and had been selected and planted with care.
The news of the death of Franklin, April 17, produced a profound sen- sation in New York ; a resolution moved in Congress by James April 17. Madison was unanimously adopted, that the members should wear mourning badges for one month as a tribute of respect and veneration.
1 Daniel Phoenix was the son of Alexander Phoenix, and the great grandson of the Alexander Phoenix traditionally reported to have been a younger son of Sir John Fenwick, Bart. of the great Northumbrian family of Fenwicks, who removed to New York City in 1640, and whose descendants have ever since been among the substantial citizens of the metropolis. Daniel Phoenix was born in 1742, and died in 1812. He was liberally educated, and early entered into the business of importing goods from Great Britain, and amassed a large fortune. He was a patriot, and adhered strictly to the non-importation measures, although they fell with special severity upon himself, entirely suspending his business for several years. He was one of the Committee of " One Hundred," and when the British entered the city retired to
Morristown with his family. Upon his return, in 1783, he found his house had been burned and much of his property irretrievably lost. But he soon reinstated himself in the com- mercial world, and was honored by his fellow-citizens with the highest trusts. He married, first, Elizabeth Treadwell ; second, Elizabeth Platt. It is recorded as a curious fact, that at the funeral of the latter, in 1784, " the pall-bearers were ladies." His children were : Gerard, died in infancy ; Alexander, graduated from Columbia College in 1794, and became pastor of the Congregational Church at Chicopee, Massachusetts - born in 1777, died at Harlem in 1863 ; Elizabeth, married Nathaniel Gibbs Ingraham, and was the mother of Judge Daniel P. Ingraham of the Supreme Court of New York ; Rebecca, married Eliphalet Williams of Northampton, Massachusetts ; Amelia, died in infancy ; Jennet, married Richard Riker, the well-known District Attorney and Recorder of New York ; Sydney, died in 1800, unmarried.
The male line of the descendants of Daniel Phoenix was continued only in the children of his second son, Alexander. - Contribution by Stephen Whitney Phoenix, in Chamber of Com- merce Records.
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DEATH OF FRANKLIN.
The Tammany Society, the Cincinnati, indeed all public bodies, in every part of the Union, adopted similar resolutions, and wore the insignia of mourning. When the news reached France, Mirabeau addressed a silent and sympathetic audience, proposing a decree that the National Assembly should wear mourning three days, for "the genius that could tame tyrants and thunderbolts, which freed America, and rayed forth upon Europe torrents of light - the sage claimed by two worlds, the man for whom the history of science and the history of empires were disputing - one of the greatest men who ever aided philosophy and liberty "; and Lafay- ette and Rochefoucauld seconded the motion, which was adopted by acclamation. The President of the Assembly addressed a letter to the President of the United States on the loss which the human race had sustained ; the Abbé Franchet pronounced a eulogy upon his life and genius in presence of the Commune of Paris; the revolutionary clubs, the Academy of Sciences, the printers, and the municipal authorities of Paris, each held a ceremonial in honor of the departed patriot; and everywhere throughout the kingdom were demonstrations of reverence and of sorrow.1
While France was doing homage to the memory of Franklin, New York was again in mourning. One of her own native statesmen had com- pleted his useful and eventful life. William Livingston, the widely famed New Jersey governor, died at "Liberty Hall," July 25, at the age of sixty-seven. Few of the great men of the Revolution were more truly of heroic mold, or had exerted a more salutary influence over the forming community. He was consigned to the tomb with touching tenderness, and with every mark of distinguished and genuine respect.
Three weeks prior to the sad event Brockholst Livingston, the gov- ernor's son, delivered an oration in St. Paul's Chapel on the occasion of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The President was present, with his retinue, the heads of departments, the members of Con-
1 Sarah, only daughter of Dr. Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, born September 11, 1744, was married October 29, 1767, to Richard Bache ; her eight children were : 1. Benjamin Franklin, 2. William, 3. Sarah, 4. Elizabeth Franklin, 5. Louis, 6. Deborah, 7. Richard, 8. Sarah. Her descendants, numbering at the present time nearly two hundred, embrace many distinguished characters, scientists, physicians, men of letters, and philanthropists. Her seventh son, Richard, married, in 1805, Sophia Dallas, daughter of Alexander James Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury in 1814, and sister of George Mifflin Dallas, Vice-President from 1845 to 1849 ; and one of their sons was Alexander Dallas Bache, the intellectual giant who conceived the scientific methods for the development of the Coast Survey of the United States, a work which conferred benefits upon navigation beyond expression in language, and made his name honored throughout the civilized world ; another son, George, was an officer of the United States Navy, and lost his life in 1846, while in command of an expedition engaged in the hazardous business of sounding the Gulf Stream.
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gress, foreign characters, and all that was notable in the pulpit, halls of learning, or private walks of life in the metropolis. Washington ex- pressed himself greatly pleased with the good sense and eloquence of the speaker,1 the tendency of whose discourse, he said, was to compare "the excellent government of our own choice with what it would have been had we not succeeded in our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to enslave us ; and to show how we ought to cherish the blessings within our reach and cultivate the seeds of harmony and unanimity in our public councils."2 Two years before this, Chancellor Livingston had figured as the orator of the 4th of July celebration in the same sacred edifice, and with keen political foresight pointed out the course in which things were moving, while he enriched with many sagacious reflections and happy aphorisms his varied knowledge of historic and general affairs. Brock- holst Livingston dwelt more definitely upon the results which were then undeveloped, and with the habitual flexibility of a lawyer who had chosen the bar as a pathway to the career of public life, entered with much imagery and humor into the popular spirit of the moment. He was then thirty-three. His cousin, the Chancellor, was forty-three, and without the sparkling fancy and vivacity which were the former's natural gifts, was cultured and accomplished to a degree of elegance not often met at that period even in the higher circles of thought.
The mansion of the Chancellor, in lower Broadway, was sumptuously furnished. Its walls were adorned with Gobelin tapestry of unique design, and beautiful paintings and costly ornaments greeted the eye in every apartment. He was a great lover of art-treasures, and his well-filled purse enabled him to import whatever fancy or inclination suggested. He was subsequently one of the founders of the American Academy of Fine Arts, an association organized in 1801 and incorporated in 1808, of which he was chosen the first president. His table-service was of solid silver valued, it is said, at upwards of thirty thousand dollars; four side-dishes each weighed twelve and one half pounds; the center-piece used on state occasions was one of the most exquisite and costly of its kind. His country-seat at Clermont, on the shore of the Hudson, with its library opening into a greenhouse and orangery, its half-mile lawn, its richly cul- tivated gardens, its blossoming orchards, and its magnificent forests, was for many a long year the seat of a princely hospitality. Foreign notables,
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