USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 33
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Sion Gardmany, T
November 6, 1636, are given above. Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. VII. Fourth Series, pp. 52-64 ; (see fac-similes of signatures and seals in Appendix). Becoming dissatisfied with the man- agement of affairs on both sides of the Atlantic, he coveted an empire of his own and pur- chased the island which bears his name, nine miles long by one and a half wide, containing thirty-three hundred acres, four miles from the eastern extremity of Long Island and full thirty miles from the nearest European settlement at the time. (See Vol. I. pp. 93, 238, 262, 442, 570 ; Vol. II. pp. 40, 199, 243.) He built a house to which he took his wife and two children, the youngest, Mary, subsequently becoming the wife of Jeremiah Conckling, an- cestor of the notable New York family of Concklings. The island was constituted "an en- tirely separate and independent plantation, " in no wise depending upon either New England or New York, and was in reality an isolated miniature principality. Forty-four years after- ward it was erected into a lordship and manor, with all the privileges accorded to such in- stitutions in England. The influence of the founder of this domain over the Indians was remarkable ; and it is an interesting fact worthy of preservation, that no conspiracy, even of a single tribe, was ever formed by the Long Island Indians against intruding civilization.
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really as much surprised as themselves, and entirely ignorant of the pres- ence of the Americans until the skirmish occurred in his own door-yard.
Gardiner escaped captivity through the presence of mind and ingenuity of his wife.1 He went to bed in the "green room," feigning sickness, and being a delicate man the reflection of the green curtains of the bed- stead and windows gave him a sickly look. A little round table was placed by his bedside with medicines, glasses, and spoons. When the officers appeared and insisted upon seeing their victim, Mrs. Gardiner came forward, tearfully and whisperingly asking them to make as little noise as possible, and admitted them to her husband's room. They were
1 John Lyon Gardiner, eldest son of David, the sixth lord of the manor, (born November, 1770, died November 22, 1816) received Gardiner's Island by entail, and married March 4, 1803, Sarah, daughter of John Griswold, of Old Lyme, Connecticut, granddaughter of Gov- ernor Matthew Griswold and Ursula Wolcott. Mrs. Gardiner was the sister of John and Charles C. Griswold, New York merchants who owned the London line of packets, important rivals of their merchant cousins, George and Nathaniel Lynde Griswold. (See pp. 612, 613.) In this connection it is interesting to note the hereditary influence of old Italian genius and temperament. The mother of Lady Gardiner was Sarah Diodati, daughter of Rev. Stephen and Elizabeth Diodati Johnson, the descendant through a long line of nobility from Cornelio Diodati, who settled in Lucca in 1300. In possession of the Diodati family in Geneva is a superb folio bound in crimson velvet, of fourteen pages in seal of Joseph II. (1765 1790) which recites the dignities nificent terms, and confirms to pire. One of the pages is oc- of the family-arms, the shield eagle. A copy of this folio is descendants of the Diodatis. gave his own name to one of the lordship of two counties, DEU quartering from the imperial European sovereigns author- DEDIT double eagle by any branch of Diodati Arms. datis was Præfectus Militum, vellum, with the imperial hanging from it in a gilt box, of the Diodati family in mag- it the title of Count of the Em- cupied with a fine illumination being placed on the imperial in possession of the New York In 1541, Emperor Charles V. the Diodatis, together with an insignia of diamonds, and a arms. Royal grants from other ized the use of the imperial the family. One of the Dio- or General, to Charles III. of Spain - who reigned from 1759 to 1788. Another was the Rev. John Diodati of Geneva, born in 1576, who produced before he had completed his twenty- seventh year an Italian version of the Bible, and whose fame and influence as a theologian and author extended all over Europe ; it was his father who built the Diodati villa a little way up Lake Leman from Geneva, occupied by Lord Byron, and which is still in the family. - Family Archives. Professor Edward E. Salisbury's Discourse - to which is appended a genealogical chart with all the ramifications of the Diodati family.
The children of John and Sarah Diodati Griswold were : 1. Diodati J. a young divine of great promise who died at the age of twenty-eight ; 2. Ursula W. who married Richard McCurdy, and was the mother of Judge Charles Johnson McCurdy, lieutenant-governor of Connecticut, minister to Austria, etc., etc., and of Robert H. McCurdy the distinguished merchant of New York ; 3. Elizabeth, married Jacob B. Gurley ; 4. Sarah, married John Lyon Gardiner ; 5. John, married first, Elizabeth M. Huntington, second, Louisa Wilson of Newark, New Jersey ; 6. Mary Ann, married Levi H. Clark ; 7. Charles C. married his
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completely deceived, and not wishing to be encumbered with a sick man on board ship, turned away, but demanded his oldest son, David, as hostage, a little boy of ten years - who was fortunately away at school.
It was soon after made clear to the mind of Commodore Hardy that Gardiner was in no way responsible for what had occurred. On the 31st of July he wrote to him, "As it is probable that the government of the United States may call you to account for permitting refreshments to be taken by the British squadron from your place, I think it necessary for your satisfaction, and to prevent your experiencing the censure of your govern-
cousin, Elizabeth Griswold. Of the two daughters of Charles C. and Elizabeth Griswold Griswold, Elizabeth Diodati married Judge William B. Lane, son of Chief Justice Lane of Ohio ; and Sarah J., married Lorillard Spencer of New York, whose daughter, Eleonora, mar- ried Virginio Cenci, Prince of Vicovaro, the grand chamberlain to the king of Italy.
John Lyon and Sarah Griswold Gardiner's children were : 1. David Johnson, died unmar- ried in 1829 ; 2. Sarah Diodati, married David Thompson of New York City ; 3. Mary Brainard, died unmarried in 1833 : 4. John Griswold, died unmarried ; 5. Samuel Buell, married Mary Gardiner Thompson, and their children were : 1. Mary, married William R. Sands ; 2. David J. ; 3. John Lyon, married Coralie Livingston Jones ; 4. Sarah G. married her cousin John Alexander Tyler. The children of David and Sarah Diodati Gardiner Thompson, 1. Sarah G. married her cousin David Lion Gardiner ; 2. Elizabeth ; 3. Gardi- ner ; 4. David G. ; 5. Charles G. ; 6. Mary G. ; 7. Frederick Diodati.
The Thompsons, who have in several generations intermarried with the Gardiners, descended from Rev. William Thompson of Lancashire, England. John Thompson (born 1597, died 1666), one of the fifty-five original proprietors of the town of Brookhaven, was graduated from Oxford in 1619, and removed to Long Island in 1634. He married Hannah Brewster, sister of Rev. Nathaniel Brewster of Setauket . their youngest son, Samuel, married Hannah, daughter of Rev Nathaniel Brewster (whose wife was the daughter of the " Wor- shippful Roger Ludlow," deputy governor of Massachusetts), and settled upon the valuable estate of his father. One of his daughters married Thomas Strong, and was the mother of the notable Judge Selah Strong ; the eldest son, Jonathan Thompson, married Mary Woodhull (first cousin of General Woodhull of justice of the peace forty or Judge Isaac Thompson, born in daughter of Colonel Abraham two sons of the latter, Jonathan merchants and citizens of New beth Havens of Shelter Island, & ducted a heavy West India im- pointed Collector at New York by Monroe, and again by John dren, of whom, Mary Gardiner IN LUMINE diner, as mentioned above, the LUCEM Island : and David, cashier of Fulton Bank and Bank of Amer- Thompson Arms.
the Revolution), and served as more years ; he was the father of 1743, who married in 1772, Mary, Gardiner of Easthampton. The and Abraham, became prominent York. Jonathan married Eliza- and with Nathaniel Gardiner con- porting business ; he was ap- by Madison in 1813, reappointed Quincy Adams. He had six chil- married Hon. Samuel Buell Gar- present proprietor of Gardiner's the Custom House, and of the ica, holding also other important trusts, married Sarah Diodati Gardiner, the sister of Hon. Samuel Buell Gardiner of Gardi- ner's Island.
Of the numerous descendants of Colonel Abraham Gardiner of Easthampton, one grand- daughter, Mary, became the wife of Philip G. Van Wyck (see p. 409, Vol. II.) and a great- granddaughter, Julia Gardiner, married John Tyler, President of the United States.
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ment, for me to assure you, that had you not complied with my wishes as you have done, I should certainly have made use of force, and the consequences would have been the destruction of your property, yourself a prisoner-of-war, and whatever was in the possession of your dependents taken without payment. But it is not my wish to distress individuals on the coast of the United States who may be in the power of the British squadron."
Experiments with torpedoes in the New York waters induced the ut- most caution on the part of the British. Several attempts were made to blow up the Ramillies ; and Hardy was rendered so uncomfortable that he not only kept his ship in motion, but caused her bottom to be swept with cable every two hours night and day. Boats of every description were sharply watched. Those of Gardiner were always manned by negroes, that the British guards might know instantly to whom they belonged and allow them to pass and repass without question.
At this time the Essex was in far distant seas, making one of the most remarkable cruises on record. Commodore Porter's first prize was a British packet with fifty-five thousand dollars on board. Reach- 1813. ing the Pacific, he captured every British whale-ship known to be off the coasts of Peru and Chili, depriving the enemy of property to the amount of some two and a half millions, and found himself, eight months after, sailing from the Delaware, in command of a squadron of nine armed vessels ready for formidable action. The President, Commodore Rodgers, was cruising through the summer in the Northern Atlantic ; he made the complete circuit of Ireland, kept more than twenty British vessels in search of him for weeks, and reached Newport late in the autumn, having captured eleven merchantmen and the British armed schooner Highflyer. His prisoners had been nearly all paroled and sent home in captured vessels. He sailed again, December 5, in the direction of the Barbadoes, captured four British merchantmen, and suddenly dashed through the vigilant squadron of blockaders off Sandy Hook, entering New York harbor triumphantly on the evening of February 18, 1814. A little more than a month later (March 28), the Essex was captured after a severe fight in the neutral waters of Valparaiso, by the two British vessels, Phobe and Cherub.
The brig Enterprise, Captain Burrows, captured the British gun-brig Boxer off the coast of Maine, on the 5th of September, after a spirited combat in which both commanders were mortally wounded. But in connection with the cheering news came that of the loss of the Asp off the Chesapeake, and of the Argus in St. George's Channel ; hence darkness prevailed rather than light. The Argus, commander Allen,
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had managed to slip out of New York in June, with the Hon. William H. Crawford on board (Minister to France in place of Joel Barlow, deceased), and after landing him safely on French soil about the middle of July, spread consternation through commercial England by a series of audacious exploits in the British and Irish channels ; destroying, within thirty days, twenty-one British merchant-ships valued at two million dollars. So many were burned off the Irish coast that the inhabitants said the water was on fire. But on the 13th of August the British sloop Pelican at- tacked and captured the Argus, and Allen was killed.
The new year dawned cheerlessly for New York in the midst of a blinding storm of snow and sleet. Rumors had reached the city of great disasters to Napoleon at Leipsic on the 18th of October. His downfall was unquestionably near at hand, an event that would 1814. give Great Britain opportunity to send immense forces against the United States. Russia's proffered mediation, which had induced the sending of Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard to St. Petersburg to act with John Quincy Adams in treating for peace, was refused by Great Britain ; she seemed less inclined than ever to recede from her assumptions concern- ing the right of search and impressment.
To add to the general gloom, a courier, thirty-one days on the road from the region of the Indian war in Georgia and Alabama, instigated the year before by Tecumseh, reported British fleets in the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans menaced, and Mobile and St. Augustine in imminent danger. General Andrew Jackson had responded to the fearful cry for help in the South, when the Creek savages, like demons, fell at noon, August 20, 1813, upon Fort Mims, a frontier post in Alabama, massacring three hundred and thirty men, women, and children, in a manner so horrible that history recoils from the recital. Jackson had, in turn, fallen upon the Indian villages with destructive fury, and fought many bloody battles. But when the year went out he was in want of means and forces, and uncer- tain of the future. It was not until the 27th of March, 1814, that the last great struggle of the Creeks occurred at the bend of the Tallapoosa, where six hundred of their warriors were left slain upon the field ; and the residue of the wasted nation sued for peace.
New York at the same moment was painfully agitated over the Embargo Act of Congress, which, in accordance with the confidential advice of Mad- ison, passed into a law on the 17th of December. It was fiercely opposed everywhere by the Federalists. It was aimed at the New England people, who, it was alleged, sold supplies to the British vessels, and thereby saved their coast from devastation. The provisions of this act were excessively stringent ; nothing whatever, in the way of goods, live-stock, or specie,
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could be carried from one point to another upon water-craft of any de- scription. Thus the sea-board towns were suddenly deprived, in the heart of winter, of fuel and other necessaries, which they had been in the habit of obtaining from the coasters.
And while men long out of employment were driven to madness by this oppressive enactment, New England threatened to negotiate peace with Great Britain for herself alone, and let the country beyond the Hudson fight until satisfied. In short, open defiance was hurled at the national government, and the cause, origin, conduct, and probable results of the war, discussed with rancorous bitterness. Madison seriously ap- prehended the secession of the New England States. Their doctors of divinity advocated a war for peace, so to speak, from the pulpit. One minister said: "If the rich men persist in furnishing money, war will continue till the mountains are melted with blood - till every field in America is white with the bones of the people ;" while another exclaimed: " Let no man who wishes to continue the war by active means, by vote or lending money, dare to prostrate himself at the altar, for such are ac- tually as much partakers in the war as the soldier who thrusts his bay- onet, and the judgment of God will await them." Finally the clamor for the repeal of the Embargo Act became so general that the President on the 19th of January issued a recommendation to that effect, which was hailed with delight through the length and breadth of the country. The act of Congress for the repeal of the measure became a law April April 14. 14; the event was celebrated with bonfires and speeches, and all the rhymers rhymed ; in the New York Evening Post appeared a cartoon, designed by John Wesley Jarvis, and engraved on wood by Anderson, representing the "Death of the Terrapin, or the Embargo," of which the sketch is a copy, accompanied with some humorous lines, beginning thus :
"Reflect, my friend, as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I ; As I am now, so you may be - Laid on your back to die like me !"
"Death of the Terrapin, or the Embargo."
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PEACE COMMISSIONERS.
CHAPTER XLVI. 1814, 1815.
THE FINAL STRUGGLE.
PEACE COMMISSIONERS. - THE BATTLE OF CHIPPEWA. - BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE .- SORTIE FROM FORT ERIE. - HONORS TO THE HEROIC COMMANDERS. - THE CITY OF NEW YORK IN ALARM. - CITIZENS WORKING ON THE FORTIFICATIONS. - CADWALLADER DAVID COLDEN. - BURNING OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. - NEW YORK CITY CUR- RENCY. - FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. - THE SEPTEMBER OF BLOOD. - THE TEMPER OF NEW YORK. - BALTIMORE ASSAILED. - INVASION OF NEW YORK THROUGH LAKE CHAM- PLAIN. - GREAT VICTORY OF MACDONOUGH AND MACOMB. - PRIVATEERS. - CAP- TAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID. - THRILLING DEFENSE OF THE GENERAL ARMSTRONG. - JACKSON'S DEFENSE OF NEW ORLEANS. - THE FORTIFICATIONS OF NEW YORK CITY. --- NEW ENGLAND'S OPPOSITION TO THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. - NAVAL AFFAIRS. - MILITARY PARADE IN NEW YORK CITY. - DARKNESS AND GLOOM. - THE TREATY OF PEACE. - THE SABBATH OF THANKSGIVING.
"THE pulse of New York beat irregularly as the spring opened. Ap- prehension alternated with uncertainty, dread with a sense of in- security, hope with despair. Every event of the war affected her affairs. Every calamity drew upon her resources. No other city 1814. stood in the same relation to the North and the South, and none other was so much the object of British enterprise and ambition.
Matters seemed approaching an awful crisis: the outlook from every point of view had been altered by the unexpected turn of the wheel of fortune in Europe. Napoleon had fallen. He abdicated the throne of France on the 11th of April, and a prince of the house April 11. of Bourbon reigned in his stead. Thus, large bodies of veteran troops were idle, and Great Britain proceeded without delay to ship them to America. The intimations, in early winter, that commissioners from the United States, to treat directly with Great Britain for peace, would receive respectful attention, resulted in the appointment of the three gentlemen already in Russia, and of Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, to form such a commission. Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard spent two months in London endeavoring to pave the way for peace. Ghent, in Holland, was finally agreed upon as the place of negotiation. But the British government appeared in no hurry to appoint negotiators.
There was a war-party in England, furious and passionate, which had
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suddenly become formidable. "Let us make Madison resign and follow Bonaparte to some transatlantic Elba," it cried, in prophetic arrogance. Prominent statesmen of the realm, who had never seen America except on the maps, thought it extremely easy to surround and conquer the na- tion whose insolence, encouraged by naval successes, was no longer to be tolerated. "Distress the coasts all the way from Maine to New Orleans, invade New York through Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, and strike New York City by approaches from the sea," was the outline of their pro- posed plan of operations. The war, they said, must assume a new charac- ter-that of offense. In short, the British war-party, with the London Times at its head, demanded the signal punishment of a pusillanimous and unnatural nation of Democrats, who had seized the moment of her greatest pressure to force a war upon England.
Congress, meanwhile, labored to increase the army and raise money for its support. Wilkinson was relieved of his command, and the brigadiers, Jacob Brown and George Izard, commissioned major-generals. The latter was the son of Ralph and Alice De Lancey Izard, and the great- grandson of Lieutenant-governor Colden of New York memory. He possessed the military spirit which characterized his Van Cortlandt, Schuyler, and De Lancey ancestors, and, having received a military edu-
cation in Europe, much was hoped when he was placed in com-
May.
mand of the main column at Plattsburg. Alexander Macomb, Winfield Scott, Edmund Pendleton Gaines, Colonel Ripley, Daniel Bissell, and Thomas A. Smith were made brigadiers. Scott was sent to command in the vicinity of the desolated Niagara frontier. The naval commander, Thomas Macdonough, was employed at Otter Creek, superin- tending the construction of war-vessels with which to drive the British from Lake Champlain. Chauncey, at Sackett's Harbor, was confident of securing the mastery of Lake Ontario; he had four new ships on the stocks, two of which were heavy frigates; but the transportation of the guns and equipments from New York to Oswego, and thence by the lake shore to Sackett's Harbor, was a slow and hazardous matter, resulting in several sharp conflicts with the enemy. Oswego was attacked unexpect- edly on the 6th of May, and the fort captured ; after destroying the mili- tary stores, the British returned to Canada.
The reader, for a just estimate of the situation, must bear constantly in mind that there was then no telegraph for the quick transmission of startling news, nor railways over which soldiers might be borne in a night to the relief of the distressed. The greater portion of the frontier was a wilderness, roads were little more than openings, toilsome marches through swamps and forests were chiefly on foot, and the troops were com-
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pelled to lift horses and cannon out of the mire at any moment. The topography and geography of the country were almost as imperfectly known at Washington as in London, hence orders were often amusing enigmas to the officers by whom they were to be executed. General Brown marched from Sackett's Harbor to Geneva, and from Geneva to Sackett's Harbor, then again from Sackett's Harbor to Batavia, where he remained four weeks, before his ambiguous instructions were rendered sufficiently intel- ligible for him to venture to invade Canada - which he was impatient to do before the British should invade New York. An order received by Commodore Woolsey ran thus : " Take the Lady of the Lake and proceed to Onondaga, and take in at Nicholas Mickle's furnace a load of ball and shot, and proceed at once to Buffalo." The perplexed officer's interpretation was, "Go over Oswego Falls, and up the river to Onondaga Lake, thence ten miles into the country by land to the furnace, and returning to Oswe- go, proceed to the Niagara, and up and over Niagara Falls to Buffalo !"
Before the end of June Brown was in Buffalo, which was already rising again from its ashes, and, crossing the river in the night, appeared in sight of Fort Erie on the morning of the 3d of July. The post July 3. was so wanting in the means of defense that its British commander sur- rendered without firing a gun, and the garrison was marched into the interior of New York as prisoners of war.
The next day the Americans advanced into Canada, Scott taking the lead with his brigade. On the 5th, they met the British veterans on the plains of Chippewa, and a decisive battle was fought and gallant- ly won in the open field. The British were driven off in disorder. July 5. Brown wrote to the Secretary of War: " I am indebted to Scott more than to any other man for this victory ; he is entitled to the highest praise our country can bestow. His brigade has covered itself with glory." Scott, in turn, spoke in the warmest terms of the essential services rendered by three young New York officers, members of his military family, who were conspicuous in the field - Gerard D. Smith, George Watts, and William Jenkins Worth - and they were each brevetted. Scott made special mention of Watts, not only in public correspondence, but in pri- vate conversation, saying, "he was bravery itself, and by remarkable cool- ness and courage saved my life at a moment in the beginning of the bat- tle when the Indians were striving to obtain my scalp." Both Watts and Worth greatly distinguished themselves "at critical moments by aiding the commandants of corps in forming the troops, under circum- stances which precluded the voice from being heard, and their conduct was handsomely acknowledged by all the officers of the line." George Watts was the son of Hon. John Watts, grandson of Counselor John
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Watts of colonial memory, and doubly descended, through his mother and grandmother, from the New York De Lanceys. He was the first cousin of Major-general Izard, and also of Stephen Watts Kearny. Worth was then only twenty years of age. He was subsequently in the military service of the United States for a period covering some thirty-six years, including the war with the Florida Indians of 1840-1842, and the great Mexican struggle of 1846-1848. The city of New York erected a granite monument to his memory in the little triangle at the junction of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, fronting Madison Square ; and the name of Anthony Street was changed to Worth Street in his honor.
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