USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 4
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1 Brockholst Livingston was appointed, in 1802, judge of the Supreme Court of New York, and in 1806 one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. The grand- father of Brockholst Livingston was Philip, second Lord of the Manor. The grandfather of the Chancellor was Robert, younger brother of Philip, to whom was granted the property at Clermont. Thus the two Livingstons, Brockholst and the Chancellor, were second cousins. 2 Washington's Diary.
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and all that was most distinguished in the world of politics and letters, were entertained under its roof ; and on numerous occasions, as, for in- stance, when a brilliant reception was given to Lafayette, the shining waters of the Hudson, as far as the eye could reach, were white with vessels freighted with gay visitors. While New York was the capital of the nation, Washington, more particularly after his removal from the Walter Franklin to the McComb man- sion, in Broadway, was in the practice of dropping in to see the Chancellor informally at any hour suiting his con- venience, the resi- dence of the latter being only a few rods distant.
Justice Iredell reached New York with his family af- ter a tiresome and protracted journey Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. First President of the Academy of Fine Arts. [From a painting by Vanderlyn in possession of the New York Historical Society.] through the South- ern States, and established his residence at 63 Wall Street. Born in Eng- land, he came to North Carolina at the age of seventeen, and studied law with Governor Samuel Johnston, whose sister he married in 1773. Two of his brothers were clergymen in England; and his son, James, became a statesman of distinction-at one time governor of North Carolina. Judge Iredell was on intimate social terms with Dr. Hugh Williamson, who resided with his wife's family at the Apthorpe mansion. The favorite drive for the New-Yorkers of 1790 was what Washington styled "the four- teen miles' round," the route being over the "Old Boston Road," on the line of Third Avenue, crossing Murray Hill nearly on the line of Lex- ington Avenue, and bearing westward to McGowan's Pass, thence to the Bloomingdale region, where the beautiful country-seats were like a villa
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of villas, and so down on the Hudson River side of the Island. The President's chariot and six horses were on this road nearly every pleasant day, with many other imposing equipages. Dr. Williamson drove into town every morning, and Judge Iredell often returned with him in the afternoon, to discuss politics and the climate of America, the learned doctor being about to write his celebrated octavo volume on that subject. Iredell was invited to dine with the President soon after his arrival, and writing of the occasion, he said, "We had some excellent champagne ; and after it I had the honor of drinking coffee with Mrs. Washington."
During the controversy over the site of the permanent seat of govern- ment the President was incessantly active and observant. Harlem Heights, Westchester, and portions of Long Island were from time to time suggested as suitable localities for the proposed district. Brooklyn and Kingston were both discussed as eligible. "Where could a situation be found for the capitol and other public buildings comparable to the heights of Brooklyn ?" One great objection was its exposure to hostile invasion. Yet the harbor was claimed to be as capable of defense as that of Philadelphia or Georgetown. Kingston was declared admirably adapted for the site of a great city, and secure from the attacks of an enemy. The gentleman from Connecticut, who broached the subject, was asked if he had forgotten that Kingston was sacked and burnt by the British in the War of Independence ? New York City was preferred by the majority ; the members from the East could reach it with ease, and it was accessible by sea to those from the South. But neither the State nor the city authorities, writes Duer, were willing to cede the territory and the jurisdiction of the ten miles square which must include it. Washington having previously sent over his servants, horses, and carriage, crossed to Brooklyn, and drove through the Long Island towns of Flat- bush, New Utrecht, Gravesend, Jamaica, and beyond for many miles. He breakfasted at Henry Onderdonk's, on the shore of Hempstead Bay, at what is now the pretty village of Roslyn, and dined at Flushing, twelve miles distant. Mrs. Jay wrote to her husband, whose duties as chief justice had carried him as far as Boston on his first circuit through New England, saying : "Last Monday the President went to Long Island to pass a week there. On Wednesday, Mrs. Washington called upon me to go with her to wait upon Miss Van Berckel, and on Thursday morning, agreeable to invitation, myself and the little girls took an early breakfast with her, and then went with her and her little grandchildren to break- fast at General Morris's at Morrisania. We passed together a very agree- able day, and on our return dined with her, as she would not take a refusal. After which I came home to dress, and she was so polite as to
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take coffee with me in the evening." In another letter Mrs. Jay wrote : " Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton dined with me on Sunday and on Tuesday." She also mentioned having entertained Mrs. Iredell and her daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Munro. In the brilliant circle which gathered about Mrs. Hamilton's table was Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon, who was the newly elected State senator, although scarcely twenty-six, a model of masculine beauty and courtly manners, and the husband of Margaret, Mrs. Hamilton's sister. His only brother, Philip, had recently married Ann, the daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt. In the early part of July a pleasure-party was inaugurated for a drive and a dinner at the Roger Morris mansion, which, with its extensive acres sur- rounding, had been confiscated, and was in the hands of a common farmer. Washington, the gentlemen of his family, Mrs. Lear, the children, Vice- President and Mrs. Adams, the son of the Vice-President and Miss Smith, Secretary and Mrs. Hamilton, Secretary and Mrs. Knox, and Secretary Jefferson, proceeded in carriages to Harlem Heights, and visited the battle-fields and the old position of Fort Washington, discussing the fine views to be obtained from the picturesque elevation.
While New England was content to have New York remain the capital of the nation, Pennsylvania clamored for its establishment on the banks of the Delaware; and Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia were anxious that it should be on the Potomac. The South Carolinians objected to Philadelphia because her Quakers "were eternally dogging Southern members with their schemes of emancipation." The Philadelphians would not listen to a thought of New York, because "it was a sink of political vice." Dr. Rush wrote to Speaker Muhlenberg, upon hearing that the discussion had turned upon the Susquehanna, "Do as you please, but tear Congress away from New York in any way ; do not rise without effecting this business."
" The question of residence is continually entangling every measure proposed," wrote Wolcott from New York in the early part of July, "and a party which is gained by one proposition is frequently lost by the re- sentment which another party can excite in bringing up some other question." The Assumption Bill and the site of the future capital of the Union were the main points at issue. But the subject of slavery, intro- duced by a petition from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, that the negroes should receive their freedom, signed by many persons from other States, created no little warmth ; and laws of great variety and significance, pen- sions for Revolutionary services, the patenting of useful inventions, reg- ulation of the mercantile marine, securing to authors the copyright of their works, forming the groundwork for a criminal Code, and making
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provision for embassies, light-houses, and a "military establishment," were among the problems to be studied and solved by this Congress. The Assumption Bill created such feuds, that when it was lost in the House by a vote taken one hot July afternoon, the whole business of the nation was in a dead-lock. The Northern members threatened secession and dissolution of the Union. Congress actually adjourned from day to day because opposing parties were too much out of temper to discuss or do business together. Hamilton was in despair. Even Washington was alarmed, and begged Jefferson to act as a peace-maker among the members.
He was on his way to see the President one morning when he met Hamilton on the street, and the two walked arm in arm backward and forward in front of the President's house in Broadway for half an hour, Hamilton explaining with the utmost earnestness the anger and disgust of the creditor States, and the immediate danger of disunion, unless the excitement was calmed through the sacrifice of some subordinate principle. Hamilton appealed so directly to Jefferson for aid in silencing the clamor which menaced the very existence of government, that the latter yielded, and afterwards said he " was most innocently made to hold the candle " to Hamilton's " fiscal manœuvre " for assuming the State debts. He pro- posed that Hamilton should dine with him the next day, inviting two or three other gentlemen ; and at the dinner-table the situation was dis- cussed in all its bearings. It was finally agreed that two of the Virginia members should support the Assumption Bill, and that Hamilton and Robert Morris should command the Northern influence sufficient to insure the location of the seat of government on the Potomac.
The compact thus entered into resulted in the adoption of Hamilton's funding system by a small majority in both houses, and in the decision that founded the city of Washington on its present site. The residence of government for the ten coming years was to be in Philadelphia, to give opportunity for the erection of public buildings and such private dwellings as would be required for the accommodation of persons engaged in public affairs.
Hamilton's original proposition concerning the State debts was modified in the process of bloom. The specific sum of twenty-one and a half millions of dollars was assumed, and apportioned among the States in a proximate ratio to the amounts of the debts of each. An act was passed by which the whole of the domestic debt became a loan to the nation, redeemable at various times and at various rates of interest.
When the great national debt had been brought into tangible shape, steps were taken for its payment; but some years elapsed before the
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THE PERMANENT SEAT OF GOVERNMENT.
system was completed. The public credit, however, was immediately improved, and the effect upon the prosperity of the country was magical. Commerce was invigorated, and men entered into agricultural and other pursuits with hopeful and brightening views. In allusion to Hamilton's financial scheme and its bearing on the public welfare, Daniel Webster, a half-century afterward, exclaimed : " He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth."
Meanwhile the experiment was to be tried, and half the nation doubted its success. Jefferson honestly believed the whole system fraught with mischief. Party discords and personal enmities, local interests and State jealousies, jarred Congress, disturbed the harmony of Washington's cabi- net, and retarded the execution of every measure. The adversaries of any plan are not prone to cease hostility after having strenuously opposed and suffered defeat. In all free communities there must be two parties, they are a balancing necessity, and every man must belong to one or an- other ; therefore his motives and principles should be judged by his con- duct and character, rather than by the side he takes. " An empire so circumstanced," wrote Judge Iredell, "requires to be discussed with the joint aid of the most enlarged and comprehensive minds, and with the utmost moderation and candor to make allowances for those unavoidable differences of opinion, which on such momentous and difficult subjects will arise among men of the greatest abilities and the purest and most candid intentions." 1 Washington had refrained from expressing his sentiments in regard to the act for funding the public debt, while it was under debate in Congress, but he was a decided friend to the measure. He was also silently in favor of the bill which located the future seat of government within easy drive of his own Virginia estate.
The newspapers of New York during the summer abounded with pun- gent paragraphs for and against the removal of the government. When the final decision was announced, a caricature print appeared representing Robert Morris marching off with the Federal Hall upon his shoulders, its windows crowded with members of both Houses encouraging or anathe- matizing this novel mode of deportation, while the devil from the roof of the Paulus Hook ferry-house beckoned to him patronizingly, crying, "This way, Bobby !"
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1 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, by G. J. McRee. Iredell was the justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was quoted in England as " a judge who could ride nineteen hundred miles upon a circuit." When he removed his residence from the metropolis to Philadelphia, Robert Lenox, a distinguished merchant and citizen of New York, who had acted as his agent, wrote to him : " It was never my intention to make charge for any service I have been so fortunate as to render you. I am sufficiently repaid in the acquaint- ance of a gentleman for whom I have so much respect ; and if I have been so fortunate as to have laid a foundation for your friendship also, I am repaid indeed."
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Congress adjourned on the 12th of August, to meet 'n Philadelphia in
December ; both Houses having passed resolutions thanking the
Aug. 12.
corporation of the city of New York "for the elegant and con- venient accommodations which had been furnished them." The day following, Federal Hall was the scene of the famous Indian treaty ratifi- cation described upon a former page. This was the last time that President Washington drove to Federal Hall in an official capacity. His
six prancing horses with their painted hoofs, and his cream-colored Aug. 13. state coach, ornamented with cupids supporting festoons, and with borderings of flowers around the panels, would no longer be the admira- tion of Wall Street. But the principles upon which alone the govern- ment could live had been determined in that great heart of the nation, and the initiatory questions of interpretation settled. The blended acute- ness and argumentation of thinkers, philosophers, orators, jurists, and statesmen had rendered the locality memorable. More complex, intricate, or profound subjects, or of greater importance than those debated in 1790, never came before a body of legislators. Illustrious memories will ever be cherished, in spite of the changes which have placed the marble structure which guards the golden treasures of our government upon the site of Federal Hall, and converted Wall Street into the vital business point where all the life pulses ebb and flow of a great community, which has its financial, commercial, social, and domestic roots stretched to the re- motest quarters of the globe.
On the 14th of August Washington sailed for Newport, accompanied
by Secretary Jefferson, Governor Clinton, Judge Blair, and other Aug. 14. prominent characters. He was welcomed with great enthusiasm ; after spending a few days he visited Providence, and returned to the city on the 21st much improved in health. He immediately Aug. 21. made preparations for a journey to Mount Vernon. The day be- fore his departure from New York he entertained at dinner the mayor and corporation of the city, and Governor Clinton; also Lieutenant Governor Van Cortlandt, and his son Pierre, a young man of excellent parts who, two years later was a member of the State legislature, and who must have been forcibly reminded of an incident in connection with one of Washington's former dinner invitations -which he was fond of relat- ing in after years. Being a lad of fourteen at the breaking out of the war, he was consigned to the new college at New Brunswick, for his education, his father writing a letter introducing him to Washington, then in New Jersey. Young Pierre presented the letter, but his courage oozed away, to use his own language, in the stately presence, and when invited to dinner the next day he stammered a faint "Yes." As the time drew
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WASHINGTON'S DEPARTURE FROM NEW YORK.
near, however, to appear again before the great personage, he was over- come with timidity, and after marching towards headquarters for a little distance he turned about and ran home. The next morning he acci- dentally met Washington, who, before he could escape, exclaimed, " Master Cortlandt, where were you yesterday ?" The boy tried to articulate an excuse. " Master Cortlandt," interrupted Washington, with grave solem- nity, " Mrs. Washington and myself expected you at dinner yesterday ; we waited a few moments for you; you inconvenienced my family by failing to keep your word ; you are a young lad, Master Cortlandt, and let me advise you, hereafter, when you make a promise or an engagement, never fail to keep it; Good morning, Master Cortlandt ! "
The rules for entertaining company which Washington established in New York were maintained in Philadelphia with little change. On Tuesdays, at three o'clock in the afternoon, his dining-room was thrown open, from which the chairs had previously been removed, and the Presi- dent was seen by the approaching visitor standing before the fireplace in coat and breeches of rich black velvet, with a white or pearl-colored satin vest, silver knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, a cocked hat in his hand, his hair powdered and gathered into a silk bag, and an elegant sword in its scabbard of polished white leather at his side. He was usually sur- rounded by the gentlemen of his cabinet and others of distinction, and citizens and strangers, properly introduced, were always admitted. He never shook hands on these occasions. At the levees of Mrs. Washington on Fridays he appeared as a private gentleman, without hat or sword, and conversed without restraint.
He regretted leaving the McComb mansion, although that of Robert Morris, the handsomest house in Philadelphia, was placed at his disposal. The latter was three stories high, and about thirty-two feet wide, with a front displaying four windows in the two upper stories, and three in the first - two on one side of the hall and one on the other. The door was approached by three heavy steps of gray stone, and on each side of the edifice were gardens filled with trees and shrubbery. Washington thought it would hardly accommodate his family without additions. He was not well pleased with certain difficulties he encountered in trying to ascertain what it would cost him, and fancied the policy of delay with its lessee was to see to what heights rents would rise. After writing to his secretary a detailed account of the manner in which it should be fur- nished if alterations and additions were made, he added : "When all is done that can be done, the residence will not be as commodious as that I leave in New York." As for the stables, he said they were good, but for twelve horses only. There was a room over them which might serve
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the coachman and postilions, and a coach-house which would hold all his carriages. He had also observed a smoke-house which he thought might " possibly be more valuable for the use of servants than the smoking of meats." He gave minute directions for the packing of porcelain, glass, and other articles. And, what is more, he suggested in his written com- munications the precise and particular spot where every household god was to be placed when unpacked in his new home. He told Mr. Lear that he might appropriate "a small room adjoining the kitchen for the Sêvres china, and other things not in common use," and questioned whether a green or a yellow curtain should be " appropriated to the stair- case above the hall."
The President's final farewell to New York was extremely touching. He had intended to avoid all ceremony. But as the hour of his Aug. 30. departure approached on the morning of the 30th, Broadway filled with people, and Governor Clinton, Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt, with the principal officers of the State, Mayor Varick and the corporation of the city, the clergy, the society of the Cincinnati, and a large number of distinguished New-Yorkers appeared, to do the final honors, in connec- tion with the officers of the national government. The President passed the threshold of his residence at half past ten o'clock, accompanied by Mrs. Washington and the various members of his family, and was escorted to the beautiful barge which had been presented to him on his arrival at the metropolis the year before. At the wharf he turned and surveyed the scene. The crowd was immense, standing in tearful silence. He spoke a few words, expressive of the sense he entertained of the courtesy and kindness of the citizens during his residence among them, but seemed overcome with emotion. The instant he stepped into the barge thirteen guns announced the fact from the battery ; he stood upright while the boat shoved off, and waved his hat, with the single word, " Farewell,". at which a prolonged shout arose from the multitude which seemed to drown even the echo of the guns. Governor Clinton, Chief Justice Jay, Mayor Varick, and Hamilton, Knox, and Osgood accompanied him to Paulus Hook.
The rough corduroy road from this point to Newark proved very tire- some to the whole party. The coachman showed such want of skill in driving, that before reaching Elizabeth they were obliged "to take him from the coach and put him on the wagon. This he turned over twice," wrote Washington, "and has also got the horses in the habit of stopping."
Many another horse acquired the same habit during the months that followed. The removal of households to Philadelphia commenced imme- diately; and during the whole autumn the roads through New Jersey,
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writes Griswold, " looked like a street in New York on the first of May." The New-Englanders were less pleased with the change than the New- Yorkers themselves. They could not discover that the Quakers were so much better than other men. "Some of them wore powder, silver buckles, and ruffles!" Oliver Wolcott wrote in September from New York: "I have at length been to Philadelphia, and with much difficulty procured a house. The rent is one hundred pounds, which is excessive, being near double what would have been exacted before the question of residence was determined. Philadelphia is a large and elegant city. It did not, however, strike me with all the astonishment which the citizens predicted. I have seen many of their principal men, and dis- cover nothing that tempts me to idolatry."
The family of Vice-President Adams tarried on the bank of the Hudson until frost came. Their furniture was shipped in a small ves- sel for Philadelphia. Mrs. Adams reached the Quaker City to find her new residence, Bush Hill, on the Schuylkill, in possession of painters, brushes in hand. She wrote to her daughter, "It is a beautiful place, but the grand and sublime I left at Richmond Hill." In the midst of the confusion of " boxes, barrels, chairs, tables, trunks," fires that would not burn because of wet fuel, cold, damp rooms, and fresh paint, nearly every member of the household sickened with colds or rheumatism ; "and every day, the stormy ones excepted, from eleven until three, the house was filled with ladies and gentlemen." Mrs. Adams said she endeavored to have one room decent for their reception, and was constantly assured that she was much better off than Mrs. Washington would be upon her arrival, whose house was not likely to be completed before the end of the year. " And when all is done it will not be Broadway !" Mrs. Adams thought if New York wanted any revenge for the removal, her citizens would need only to come to the new capital, where it was not possible for the satellites of government to be half as well accommodated as in the metrop- olis - at least for a long time to come. "Every article has risen to almost double its price," she wrote. "One would suppose that the people thought Mexico was before them and Congress its possessors." " You cannot turn round without paying a dollar," said Jeremiah Smith of New Hampshire. And even James Monroe remarked, "The city seems at present to be mostly inhabited by sharpers."
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