USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 47
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Among the destitute about one in ten were found suffering from physi- cal ills and maladies. A hospital was founded for the ruptured and crippled in 1864, although the real inception of the institution antedates by many years its incorporation ; an elegant and spacious edifice was erected in Lexington Avenue, corner of Forty-second Street, through private contributions, at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The president for many years was John C. Green; the vice-presidents were James Lenox, Robert B. Minturn, John David Wolfe, Stewart Brown, and Apollos R. Wetmore ; the treasurer was Jonathan Sturges, and the two secretaries were Robert M. Hartley and Joseph B. Collins. Among the original corporators were James W. Beekman, George Griswold, Dr. James Knight, Luther R. Marsh, Henry S. Terbell, Nathan Bishop, Thomas Denny, John W. Quincy, Enoch L. Fancher, and Charles N. Talbot.
The Presbyterian Hospital, founded by James Lenox in 1868, origi- nated in the pressing need for enlarged hospital accommodations to meet the increasing wants of the sick and disabled of the rapidly increasing population. The beautiful site for the edifice, on Seventieth Street, with its ample grounds, valued at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was the gift of Lenox - who also gave two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money towards the erection of a structure which should embrace all the modern improvements in hospital architecture at a cost of about one million. Other wealthy philanthropists contributed generously, and the property and concerns of the institution were vested in and managed by a board of thirty managers, prominent among whom were James Lenox president, John C. Green vice-president, Aaron B. Belknap, Robert M. Hartley, Henry M. Taber, Jonathan Sturges, James Brown, William M. Vermilye, brother of Rev. Dr. Vermilye, Alexander Van Rensselaer, Rob- ert L. Stuart, Morris K. Jessop, John Taylor Johnson, Dr. Willard Parker, William E. Dodge, Edward S. Jaffray, Henry Parish, and Washington R. Vermilye.
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In the mean time hospitals, both general and special, were multiplying under other auspices. There are at present in the city not less than sixty kindred institutions - inclusive of nearly a score of medical dispen- saries for supplying the sick poor gratuitously with medicines and surgical aid. Many of the hospitals are denominational in origin and polity, and patronized according to the affinities of race, language, and religion. The Mount Sinai Hospital in Lexington Avenue, near Sixty-seventh Street, was founded by a wealthy Hebrew in 1852, and although sufferers of any creed are admitted, it is sustained by the Jews. The buildings are of the Elizabethan style of architecture, embodying all the improvements of modern art. The Roman Catholics have three incorporated hospitals, and one has been established by the Germans. St. Luke's, in Fifth Avenue, founded in 1846 by Rev. William A. Muhlenburg, the Episcopal divine, receives patients of all religious denominations. Roosevelt Hospital, in- corporated in 1864, and opened for patients of every sect, nationality, and color, in 1871, is a magnificent charity for which New York is indebted to the millionaire, James H. of brick, constructed on the modations for one hundred medical staff includes some cialists. Thus the Roose- identified in New York tion, with politics, states- ity for some two centuries, ing monument. Among the city, with their varied QUI PLANTAVIT CU sources, the Five Points AB a field of wide-reaching Roosevelt Arms.
Roosevelt. The edifice is pavilion plan, with accom- and eighty patients. The of the most eminent spe- velt name, which has been with commerce and inven- manship, science, and char- is engraved upon an endur- the other charities of spheres of action and re- House of Industry occupies usefulness. Several hun- dred children are constantly in its schools, who are also fed and clothed ; while fifty or more women each month are passed through the house to situations, and from seventy to one hundred families supplied with daily bread. Out-of-door relief is given to applicants, often reaching three hundred thousand meals per year. A regular hospital is attached to the building, in which the children not only of the school, but of the whole neighborhood, are treated when sick. The institution was established in 1850, and incorporated in 1854. Its origin and success was due mainly to the efforts of Archibald Russell, who was its president for seventeen years. The corporators included such men as Horace B. Claflin, Anson G. Phelps, Hugh N. Camp, Washington R. Vermilye, Henry Sheldon, Henry C. Bowen, Marshall Lefferts, George F. Betts, D. Lydig Suydam, Charles Tracy, and Morris Reynolds. Archibald Russell was a Scotch
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gentleman of wealth who came to reside in New York in 1836, and devoted his life to the cause of education and philanthropy. He was one of the organizers of the American Geographical Society in 1852, of which Hon. George Bancroft was the first president ; and he was an active mem- ber and officer of the New York Historical Society.1
1 Archibald Russell (born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1811, died in New York City, 1871) was graduated from Edinburgh University, studied law with Sir Fraser Tytler, and completed his education at Bonn, Germany. He was the son of James Russell, president of the Royal Society, Edinburgh, and cousin of the metaphysician, Sir William Hamilton. He was of the Kingseat and Slipperfield family of Russell (see Burke's Peerage), and cousin to Lord Sinclair and Sir Archibald Little. Through his mother he was descended from the Rutherfords of Edgerston, and his maternal great-grandmother was Eleanor Elliot, of the family of the Earl of Minto, who trace in unbroken succession from James II. of Scotland, and is connected with the Dukes of Buccleugh and the Earls of Angus. Coming to reside in New York in 1836, he married Helen Rutherford Watts, daughter of Dr. John and Anna Rutherford Watts, and granddaughter of Robert Watts and Lady Mary, daughter of Lord Stirling. (See pp. 156, 206.) He thus becane connected with families who had played an important part in the history of the city. Naturally a philanthropist, he resolved to devote his energies to the welfare of the home of his adoption. The inscription upon the tablet erected to his memory by the trustees of the Five Points' House of Industry is, "This Institution is his Monu- ment." He was one of the active members of the Christian Commission which did such noble work during the late war, and at its close was chairman of the "Famine Relief Committee." He was for many years a vestryman of the Church of the Ascension, and was instrumental in erecting a church near "Glen Albyn " his country-seat in Ulster County. He also founded and was president of the Ulster County Savings Institution. Children : 1. Anna Rutherford Russell, married Henry, Lewis Morris, of the Morris family of Morrisania ; 2. Eleanor Elliot, married Arthur J. Peabody, nephew of the great philanthropist, George Peabody ; 3. John Watts Russell, A. M., LL. B. ; 4. Archibald Douglass Russell ; 5. Wil- liam Hamilton Russell, A. B. - Family Archives.
The children of Robert and Mary Alexander Watts were : 1. Sarah M., married (1) Nich- olas Romain, M. D., (2) Bertram P. Cruger ; 2. Anne, married John W. Kearny ; 3. Cath- arine, married Henry Barclay ; 4. Robert, married Matilda Ridley, related to the martyr bishop whose seal is in the possession of the family, and had four sons, Robert Watts, M. D., married Charlotte Deas of South Carolina ; Ridley Watts, married Sarah, daughter of Henry Grinnell ; Alexander Watts, married Miss Sedgwick of Stockbridge, Massachusetts ; Essex Watts, married his cousin, Mary Kearny ; 5. Dr. John Watts, married Anna, daughter of Hon. John Rutherford (see p. 300), and their only daughter, Helen, married Archibald Russell.
The Rutherfords of New York and New Jersey descended from Sir John Rutherford, of Edgerston, Scotland, whose grandfather, John Rutherford, married Barbara Abernethy, daughter of the Bishop of Caithness - the ancestor also of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Sir John was the sixteenth in descent from Hugo de Rutherford, a Scottish baron, A. D. 1225; Walter, the sixth son of Sir John, came to New York, and married Catharine, daughter of James Alex- ander, grandson of the Earl of Stirling, and sister of Lord Stirling. (See Vol. I. 503, 599 ; Vol. II. 207, 304, 418. ) Their son, John (born 1760, died 1840), graduated from Princeton College in 1775, married Helen, daughter of Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, was United States Senator from 1791 to 1798, and filled important posts in New York City. (See pp. 284, 566.) Children : 1. Mary ; 2. Catharine; 3. Robert Walter, mar- ried Sabina, daughter of Colonel Lewis Morris, and had five children - John, who married Charlotte, daughter of James K. Livingston, Walter, who married Isabella, daughter of Cap-
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The year 1856 was marked by the purchase of the site of Central Park, now the pride of the city, at a cost of nearly five and one half millions of dollars - the largest sum ever expended in the purchase of ground for a similar purpose. In 1857 the control of the improvements was placed in the hands of eleven commissioners, who in their work of landscape-garden- ing seem to have followed the wise counsel of the Laird of Dumbiedikes - " When ye hae naething else to do ye may aye be sticking in a tree ; it'll be growing when ye are sleeping." The park covers eight hundred and sixty-two acres, and has forty miles of roads, bridle-paths, and walks, and forty-three bridges and archways. It was not accomplished without great opposition. But time and experience have changed public sentiment, and it is now admitted that fifteen millions of dollars were never invested more judiciously. This park, occupying a central position on Manhattan Island, has already proved a great civilizer, and its mission has but just begun. When it was first established no other park existed in the country, and without it we probably should not have had in this generation Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, and a dozen kindred undertakings of noble proportions. It is two and one half miles in length and one half mile wide, but long ere its completion it was found too small for the immediate demand ; continuous park accommodations are now being extended in park-ways of extraordinary width and beauty to the Harlem River and beyond.
In the summer of 1857 financial disaster swept over both hemi- spheres. New York, as the great commercial centre of the nation, 1857. was the first to feel the effects of the storm, which rapidly spread with devastating fury over the entire country. Prior to the end of December there were nine hundred and eighty-five failures among the merchants of the metropolis, involving liabilities exceeding one hundred and twenty millions. Many more subsequently suspended for large amounts. Enterprises of every description came to a stand-still, indus- tries were paralyzed, and the working classes were thrown into a state of
tain David Brooks, U. S. A., Anna E., Lewis M., the eminent astronomer, who married Margaret Stuyvesant - daughter of Rev. John W. Chanler, Robert W., who married Anna L., daughter of Phineas H. Buckley ; 4. Helena Sarah (born 1789, died 1873), the second wife of Peter Gerard Stuyvesant, whose first wife was Susan Barclay ; 5. Louisa ; 6. Anna, married John Watts, M. D. - the parents of Mrs. Archibald Russell. John Rutherford, M. P., brother of Walter Rutherford, who settled in New York, married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, and sister of Andrew Elliot, Lieutenant-Governor of New York ; he was ancestor of Archibald Russell, and of the female line of the present William Oliver Rutherford of Edgerston. Mary, daughter of Walter and Catharine Alexander Ruther- ford, married General Matthew Clarkson, and their daughter, Mary, married the distin- guished Peter Augustus Jay, son of the chief justice. - Haldane ; Clarkson ; Family Archives ; Douglass ; Burke.
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extreme destitution, to which a severe winter added fresh terrors. It was estimated that twenty-five thousand industrious men and women, repre- senting in their helpless families probably four times that number, were deprived of the means of earning their subsistence. The common council destributed food, and furnished labor for large numbers of the unem- ployed on the Central Park and other public works, while private associ- ations were formed, in addition to the regularly established charities, to relieve the suffering. In one district alone ten thousand persons were fed, one December day, by public and private charity - few of whom were American born. But aid could not reach all, and many perished. Serious danger was apprehended for a time. Crowds assembled and warned the common council that "they must find bread for the people." Bakers' wagons were seized by the mob in the streets. The hungry labor- ers threatened to break open provision-stores and help themselves. The Arsenal was protected by a strong police force, and United States troops were placed in charge of the Custom House and Assay Office.
It had been a year of riots and disturbances. The Legislature in April passed a bill to transfer the control of the police department from the city to the State, which interfered with the municipal reforms of Mayor Fernando Wood, who had been training the police into military obedience while inaugurating a war against the liquor traffic, and who resolved at once to test the constitutionality of the law to the utmost and resist its execution. The State created a police district, and appointed police com- missioners to manage the police force and secure the peace and protec- tion of the city. Mayor Wood refused to surrender the police property or disband the old police. For a time the novel spectacle of two depart- ments of police striving for mastery diverted attention. The question was referred to the courts ; but before it was settled a street commissioner, appointed by Governor John Alsop King to fill a vacancy caused by death, was forcibly ejected from the City Hall by Mayor Wood, who claimed the appointing power. Matters quickly assumed an ominous aspect. Two warrants for the arrest of the mayor were obtained, one on the charge of inciting a riot and the other for the personal violence inflicted upon the State appointee, with which a large force of the new police attempted to gain an entrance to the City Hall. A fierce affray ensued, the old police being well armed and stationed in every part of the building. The Sev- enth Regiment was at the moment marching down Broadway in full feather to take a steamer for Boston, it having accepted an in-
vitation to participate in the Bunker Hill Monument celebration June 16. of that year, and being summoned, turned promptly into the Park and stood in imposing array facing City Hall. Its presence instantly quelled
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the disturbance. The mayor supposed it had been ordered to enforce the State enactments, and submitted with the best grace possible. Quiet was temporarily restored, and the gallant Seventh resumed its journey.
One word about the police force of 1880. It numbers three thousand men, and is governed by a board of four commissioners, who appoint all members of the force from the superintendent down. For patrol service the city is divided into thirty-five precincts, each having its own building containing quarters for the men, cells for prisoners, and lodgings for homeless persons. The police stations are all connected with the central office by special telegraphic wires ; thus the latter is at once notified of any occurrence of any importance in the precinct. A detachment is assigned to harbor duty, occupying a steam-tug. Other detachments guard the City Hall and the Grand Central Depot, and perform various services. With the exception of London and Paris, the police system of New York is the most perfect of any city in the world.
With the coming of spring business slowly revived. The New York banks had taken the initiative in resumption during the early part
1858. of winter. Meanwhile the political atmosphere was severely troubled. The elections turned on the question of slavery - which had agitated the country for twenty or more years. The famous Dred Scott decision in 1857 intensified the already heated controversy. James Buchanan was made President about the same time. The opponents of slavery were united henceforward under the name of Republicans. In May, 1858, Minnesota, the thirty-second State, was admitted into the Union ; and Oregon in February, 1857.
In. August, 1858, the successful laying of the Atlantic cable was an- nounced, and Queen Victoria transmitted a message to President Aug. 16. Buchanan, receiving a response. New York City, where the idea had been conceived of uniting Europe and America by telegraph, was in a whirlpool of excitement. One hundred guns were fired in the morning and at noon, in honor of the event, bells rang in one significant chorus, and flags were everywhere unfurled. In the evening the city was illuminated, and during the display of fireworks the City Hall was badly injured by a conflagration. The 1st of September was set apart for one of the grand- est celebrations on record. Cyrus W. Field was the lion of the hour. To him " more than to any other individual belongs the honor of carrying to completion this great undertaking," said Professor Morse, on the platform in the Academy of Music, June 11, 1871; " he made the ocean but an insignificant ferry by his repeated crossings." In 1853 Field spent six months in South American travel, and on his return projected the hercu- lean enterprise. He interested Peter Cooper, the philanthropist, and
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Moses Taylor, both wealthy New York capitalists, in his scheme, and one evening in May, 1854, met them, together with Marshall O. Roberts and Chandler White, at the house of his brother, David Dudley Field, and in half an hour organized a company and subscribed a million and a half of dollars. Two years later aid in money and ships was procured from both the British and American governments, and several London capitalists became interested. But up to the time of the successful laying of the submarine cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence it had been purely a New York undertaking. Suddenly the cable ceased to perform its part of the programme. It was pronounced a splendid hoax. Many refused to believe that any message had ever passed over it. Field was mercilessly ridiculed. His task was rendered all the more difficult through its momentary success. But with iron will he persisted in his endeavor. In 1866, after nearly thirteen years of unceasing toil, necessitating some fifty passages across the Atlantic, the great electric link between the two continents was triumphantly completed.
Among the local incidents of the decade were the visit of Jenny Lind, and her first appearance at Castle Garden, September 7, 1850; the visit of the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, in 1851, who received an enthu- siastic public welcome; the arrival of Rachel, the great tragedienne, in 1855; the visit of Thackeray, in the autumn of the same year; the visit of the Japanese Embassy, which was entertained in the most lavish man- ner by the municipal authorities, in 1860; and the successive visits dur- ing the same year of the Prince de Joinville, Lady Franklin, and the Prince of Wales - who was officially received with a military display and welcome by an immense concourse of citizens. Lady Franklin came to thank the New Yorkers for their interest in the fate of her husband. The Grinnell expedition to the Arctic regions sailed from New York City in May, 1850. Dr. Elisha Kent Kane went as surgeon and naturalist, and in 1853 commanded the second Grinnell expedition. Henry Grin- nell, whose connection with these grand enterprises helped to widen the mercantile renown of the city, was the brother of Moses H. Grinnell, both of whom were of the famous house of Grinnell, Minturn, & Co., which probably built more ships prior to 1860 than any other mercantile house in this country. They were the sons of Cornelius Grinnell, a well-known shipping merchant of New Bedford. Moses H. Grinnell was forty-eight years a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and for some time its president. He was a member of Congress, a Presidential elector, and collector of the port of New York - a model merchant and pre-emi- nently a public-spirited citizen. He took a prominent part in promoting and conducting the charities of the city, in which his partner, Robert
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B. Minturn, was also deeply interested. His mansion in Fifth Avenue, corner of Fourteenth Street - subsequently rented to Delmonico - was the abode for many years of a generous hospitality.
With the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency in the au- tumn of 1860, the controversies between the slaveholding and non-slave- holding States culminated. Before the end of December South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession. Other cotton States followed in rapid succession. Business was arrested, and the winter was one of apprehen- sion and distress. President Buchanan, in common with many others, thought the government could not use coercive measures to prevent a
1861. State from going out of the Union. In January, 1861, Mayor
Wood recommended to the common council that New York should secede, and become a free city. It is needless to add that the suggestion was scouted with honest indignation. Instead, men and money were freely and speedily offered the President to aid in enforcing the laws. At the same time New York was in no humor for war, as shown by a monster petition from the merchants and others with forty thousand sig- natures, forwarded to Congress, accompanied by a delegation from the Chamber of Commerce, urging for a peaceful settlement of the national difficulties.
But the chasm was too broad and menacing. Events followed each
other too swiftly. Thursday morning, April 12, at half past four April 12. o'clock, the first gun was fired by the secessionists upon Fort Sum- ter. The news stirred the nation like an electric shock. The uprising that followed was without a parallel in history. Men everywhere took sides for or against the Union. The peace-makers were silenced. At the South the loyal citizens were overwhelmed by the war party, and at the North Democrats and Republicans combined for the support of the gov- ernment. President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand troops to serve for three months, the quota for New York being thirteen thou- sand. On the evening of the same day several prominent gentlemen met by invitation at the residence of the eminent merchant, Robert H. McCurdy, in Fourteenth Street, and resolved to call a public meeting of all parties desirous of preserving the Union, which resulted in a meeting upon Union Square, and a demonstration surpassing in magnitude and enthusiasm any public assemblage in this country. Its effects were in-
April 20.
stantly felt in every part of the land. The four presidents of the
meeting were John A. Dix, Hamilton Fish, ex-Mayor Havemeyer, and Moses H. Grinnell. Four stands had been arranged for the speakers, but proving insufficient, the people were addressed from the balconies, and even from the roofs of the houses. Resolutions were adopted, and a
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committee organized under the title of Union Defense Committee, embrac- ing such well-known men as John A. Dix, Simeon Draper, Moses Taylor, A. T. Stewart, James Boorman, Robert McCurdy, Moses Grinnell, Royal Phelps, William E. Dodge, Hamilton Fish, William H. Havemeyer, William M. Evarts, John J. Cisco, Theodore Dehon, Samuel Sloane, James T. Brady, Prosper M. Wetmore, John Jacob Astor, Jr., Edwards Pierrepont, Isaac Bell, Richard M. Blatchford, James. S. Wadsworth, Charles H. Marshall, Abiel A. Low, Green C. Bronson, Rudolph A. Witt- haus, A. C. Richards, and Mayor Wood, with the comptroller and presi- dents of the two boards of the common council of the city. The work of organizing regiments was at once undertaken. The city authorized a loan of one million dollars for the defense of the Union. " The New York bar met and contributed twenty-five thousand dollars, the banks pledged enor- mous sums, and the whole city set itself to the stern suppression of the Southern revolt. In the same breath, as it were, the Legislature responded to Lincoln's call by authorizing the enlistment of thirty thousand men for two years instead of three months, and appropriated three million dollars for the war.
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