USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress Vol. III > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
Such was the beginning. Once more a race of soldiers seemed to have peopled New York. The alacrity with which men of all classes offered their personal services was unexanipled. Scions of the oldest and wealth- iest families esteemed it an honor to serve as private soldiers. Foremost in the field was the Seventh Regiment, composed of the best and most influential citizens of the metropolis. The tidings thrilled the city and State, and other cities and States, that this famous body, the flower of the citizen soldiery, would march to Washington without delay. Thirty- five merchants contributed one hundred dollars each on the morn- April 17. of the 17th, for its camp equipage and other necessaries for active service.1. Its march down Broadway on the 19th was like a triumphal
1 The names of these donors are an index to the sentiment of the foremost families of New York at this crisis : Moses H. Grinnell, George B. De Forest, L. G. Cannon, C. R. Robert, Royal Phelps, S. Wetmore, R. M. Blatchford, Thomas Addis Emmet, A. C. Gray, W. B. Duncan, Phelps, Dodge & Co., Charles H. Russell, Edwin Bartlett, Charles Christmas, Ed- ward Minturn, S. B. Chittenden, Moses Taylor, Theodore Dehon, Ogden Haggerty, William M. Evarts, G. S. Robbins, George Griswold, John A. Stevens, James Gallatin, E. Walker & Son, H. R. Dunham, Hamilton Fish, Robert B. Minturn, D. F. Manice, George W. Blunt, James H. Titus, William Curtis Noyes, Shepherd Knapp, Charles H. Marshall, A. V. Stout, W. Whiteright, Jr., John L. Aspinwall, J. F. D. Lanier, Henry Chauncey, Jr., Stewart Brown, Andrew Foster, Joseph W. Alsop, Joseph Gaillard, Jr., Henry Chauncey, James S. Wadsworth, August Belmont, John Bridge, Clark & Mosely, Benjamin' F. Breeden, Ben- jamin Nathan, P. S. Forbes, W. W. De Forest, Charles Davis, Isaac Bell, Frederick Bronson, Howell L. Williams, B. H. Hutton, Almon W. Griswold, New York Stock Exchange, Rufus Prime, Washington Coster, Aymar & Co., Bleecker Outhout, Levi E. Morton, C. B. Loomis, R. Alsop, G. C. Ward, Benjamin L. Swan. - Swinton.
423
774
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
procession. Many thousands joined the moving column, preceding the march in escort or following in its rear. Street, sidewalks, areas, fences, stoops, balconies, windows, roofs, trees, lamp-posts, awnings -every foot of available space held spectators, and for long distances on the side streets the compact throngs struggled for a glimpse. The cheering never for a moment ceased. "It was worth a life, that march," wrote Theodore Winthrop. "We knew that our great city was with us as one man, utterly united in the cause we were marching to sustain." Other regi- ments were quickly on the wing. Announcement being made one morn- ing in the Chamber of Commerce that funds were needed for several regiments about to march, a collection was instantly taken up, and twenty- one thousand dollars raised in ten minutes. The banks, after having loaned one hundred and fifty millions in coin to the government, sus- pended specie payments. During the year a million and a half dollars were appropriated to the relief of the families of volunteers in the city. Mayor Opdyke, in his annual message in January, 1863, said that the peo- ple of the metropolis had contributed in taxes, gratuities, and loans to the government, since the beginning of the war, not less than three hundred millions of dollars, and had furnished over eighty thousand volunteers.
During each year of the war repeated large out-of-door manifestations were made in support of the government, of which those in Union Square, July 15, 1862, and April 11, 1863, were the most conspicuous. Mean- while the ladies of the city were at work by thousands for the soldiers, and many of the most tenderly reared were in training for hospital nurses. David Dudley Field presided over a great meeting of ladies at Cooper Institute before the end of the first month of the war, which was addressed by Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin, and oth- ers, and which resulted in an organization with Dr. Valentine Mott as presi- dent and Howard Potter treasurer, that proved to be the germ of the United States Sanitary Commission. Numberless associations were soon formed for the relief of the soldiers. The Emancipation Proclamation, which virtually blotted slavery from the soil of the Republic took effect
on the first day of January, 1863. This was an eventful year.
1863. The project of arming the slaves roused the bitterest opposition. Then followed the conscription law, passed March 3, which was denounced on every hand. In May President Lincoln ordered a draft of three hun- dred thousand men.
At this juncture the enemy invaded Pennsylvania, and the governor entreated assistance from the adjoining States ; Governor Seymour of New York responded by directing General Sandford, commander of the city militia, to send every available regiment at his disposal to the seat
424
775
THE DRAFT RIOT.
of war for thirty days' service. While the troops were absent, the United States authorities attempted to enforce the draft, which caused a terrible insurrection. The elements of disorder and crime united their forces, and were joined by thousands of frenzied workmen and July 11. idlers. For three days and three nights the rioters maintained a reign of terror. They sacked houses in great numbers, demolished the offices of the provost marshal, burned the colored orphan asylum, attacked the police, and chased negroes - women and children even - wherever they appeared on the streets, and when caught hanged them on the nearest lamp-post. They tore down and trampled under foot the national flags, and robbed stores in open day ; all business was suspended, street-cars and stages did not dare to run, plate and property were concealed, and residences fortified. The Secretary of War ordered home the regiments doing duty in Pennsylvania, but ere they arrived the climax of atrocities had been reached, and through the combined action of the police and the citizens, together with the slender military force at the disposal of July 16. the authorities, the riot, one of the most formidable in the annals of riots, had been substantially quelled. The police displayed admirable address and undaunted bravery, against overwhelming numbers ; they were under the command of Thomas C. Acton, president of the police board, who issued orders with the coolness and skill of a trained military veteran. The arrival of the Seventh Regiment on the 16th was hailed with delight by all law-abiding citizens, and with execrations by the mob, which still in some places prolonged the carnival of crime from sheer love of it. In the afternoon the Seventh marched through several of the districts where fighting was in progress, including that between Third Avenue and the East River - the hot-bed of the riot. It was a trying ordeal, the soldiers being assailed with missiles and scattering shots from windows, doors, and house-tops ; but the rioters fled before them to the houses and fences. Saturday, the sixth day of the disturbance, found the city nearly as tranquil as usual, except that the military forces were in constant motion through the streets. Two million dollars of property had been destroyed, and it is believed one thousand of the rioters had fallen.
On the 19th of the following October the corner-stone of the New York Academy of Design was laid, in Twenty-third Street, corner of Fourth Avenue, which cost some two hundred thousand dollars, 1863. chiefly contributed by wealthy citizens who were lovers of art. The edifice was built. of white Westchester County marble banded with gray stone, and presents a capricious but beautiful blending of the white and gray. William Cullen Bryant, for many years president of the New York Gal-
425
.
776
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
lery of Fine Arts (established in 1844), made a memorable speech on this occasion, in which he said : "For more than a third of a century the Academy has had a nomadic existence, pitching its tent now here and now there, as convenience might dictate, but never possessing a perma- nent seat. It is at last enabled, through the munificence of the citizens of New York - a munificence worthy of the greatness of our capital and most honorable to the character of those who inhabit it -to erect a building suitable for its purposes and in some degree commen- surate with the great- ness of its objects. When this institution came into existence
I could count the eminent artists of the country on my fingers ! Now what man among us is able to enumer- ate all the clever men in the United States who have devoted the efforts of their genius to the Fine Arts ?"
No figure has been more familiar to New William Cullen Bryant .. York of the present generation than that of the poet and journalist, William Cullen Bryant. He was a short, slender man, yet such was the effect of his presence that few ever thought of calling him small. His life in the city, spanning fifty-three years, was identified with the rise of authorship, and American literature recognizes in him one of its greatest founders and most famous builders. His natural gifts were successfully trained and cultured. He was satisfied with nothing less than the widest and deepest study of poetry in all literatures, young and old, in all languages and schools ; thus he kept his verse in perfect finish for sixty successive years. His active and practical pursuits kept him meanwhile in full sympathy with every- day affairs ; and the dignity, beauty, and purity of his private character endeared him to society. He occupied the front rank among distin-
426
777
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
guished Americans, and his name is a household word wherever the English language is spoken. During the last decade prior to his death in 1878, no citizen of New York was oftener called to preside in public meetings, to pronounce welcomes to honored strangers, or speak at literary and charitable festivals ; and his refined intellectual face, in its setting of white hair and full beard, was as well known, particularly in the higher social circles of the metropolis, as his name.1
Details of the civil war occupy too wide a space for insertion in this volume. The high purpose and noble liberality of New York, 1864. foreshadowed by the early movements, continued even to the end. The great sanitary fair, opened on the 5th of April, which netted up-
1 The following autobiographical letter from William Cullen Bryant, dated March 5, 1869, will be treasured with interest. The original, in his own well-known hand, is in possession of the author, and is printed verbatim : "I was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, Novem- ber 3, 1794. I began to write verses early, and at the age of ten one of my poems was pub- lished in the county paper - the Hampshire Gazette. At the age of thirteen a poem of mine, entitled 'The Embargo, a Satire ' was published at Boston, which the next year appeared in a second edition with other poems. After leaving college I studied the classics and mathe- matics awhile, but about that time wrote my poem entitled 'Thanatopsis.' I am not quite cer- tain whether this was in my eighteenth or in my nineteenth year, probably the latter. I then began the study of law with Judge Howe in the neighboring town of Worthington, and com- pleted it at Bridgewater in the office of the Hon. William Baylies. I was admitted to the bar in 1815. I practiced law in Plainfield one year and at Great Barrington nine years. ‘Than- atopsis ' and one or two other poems were sent by my father in 1816 to the North American Review, and published. In 1821 I delivered at Cambridge, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a poem entitled 'The Ages,' which was published the same year, along with several smaller poems. In 1820 I wrote several poems which appeared in the Boston Literary Gazette. In 1825 I removed to New York and became one of the editors of a monthly entitled the New York Review. The same year I was temporarily employed in the Evening Post, a situation which became permanent the next year. The New York Review was merged that year in the United States Review, published both at New York and Boston, in which I was associated with Mr. Charles Folsom of Cambridge. It lived but a year. In 1827 and the two following years I was associated with Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck and Mr. Robert C. Sands in an annual publication called the Talisman, consisting of miscellanies written almost exclusively by us three. In 1832 I published a collection of my poems in New York, which has since been re-published in many enlarged editions. I went abroad in 1834, returning in 1836. I went abroad again in 1845, and a third time in 1849, and on returning published a volume entitled ' Letters of a Traveler.' In 1852 I went to Cuba, and the same year again to Europe, extend- ing my journey to Egypt and the Holy Land. I made a fifth voyage to Europe with my family in 1857, when I visited Spain and Algiers, and on my return published a volume en- titled 'Letters from Spain.' In 1864 I published a separate volume of verse entitled 'Thirty Poems.' In 1867 I again visited Europe, when I traveled in Spain for the second time.
"I was married in Great Barrington in the year 1821 to Miss Fanny Fairchild of that place. She was taken from me in July, 1866. I have held no public office except some small local offices in Great Barrington, except that I was one of the electors at large of the State of New York at Mr. Lincoln's first election as President. I have now been forty-four years a journalist."
427
778
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
wards of a million of dollars for the relief of the soldiers, and the re-elec- tion of Lincoln to the Presidency were the chief events of 1864. The assassination of Lincoln in April following, just as his work was finished, and the enemies of the Republic suing for peace, and the attack 1865. upon the Secretary of State, William H. Seward of New York, and his son, both of whom were wellnigh murdered, struck the New York heart with keenest anguish. The news came at half past seven April 15. in the morning, and before ten business was entirely suspended,
stores were closed, except where a half-door was left ajar to ac- commodate persons seeking mourning, and the whole city was draped, from the most sumptuous edifices to the humblest tenements. A few days later, and the citizens tenderly received the sacred remains of the martyred April 25.
President, with bowed heads and streaming eyes. On the after- noon of the 25th the funeral party was escorted to the depot on its way to Illinois by a procession five miles long, and an immense as- semblage in Union Square listened to funeral orations from George Ban- croft the historian, and William Cullen Bryant. Presently the heroes of the war were on their homeward route. They had accomplished vast re- sults. But they came not as they went, with gay colors and full ranks ; they had poured out their blood in rivers, and left their dead in multi- tudes. No braver men had gone out to battle for the Union than the soldiers of New York.
One of the special outgrowths of the war was the Union League Club, now seventeen years of age. It originated in 1863 with a few prominent gentlemen, chief among whom was the distinguished scientist, Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, grandson of Oliver Wolcott. At a meeting held at his residence in East Twenty-ninth Street, January 30, a committee was appointed to report a scheme of organization whereby a body of influential citizens should discountenance and rebuke by moral and social influences all dis- loyalty to the Federal government - and impress upon the public mind that this was a Nation, not a confederacy. On the 21st of February a constitution was adopted, with seventy-six signatures. Five hundred names were quickly enrolled, and this membership represented the mer- chants, scholars, clergymen, lawyers, scientists, artists, and citizens-in short, the substantial worth of New York. Among those conspicuous in the formation of the club were Hon. Murray Hoffman, Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, George T. Strong, Rev. Dr. Henry Bellows, George C. Anthon, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, Horatio Allen, Dr. John C. Dalton, Rev. Dr. S. H. Weston, William J. Hoppin, William Cullen Bryant, Robert H. McCurdy, and Moses H. Grinnell. The first president was Robert B. Minturn, and the second, Jonathan Sturges. Among the early vice-presi-
428
779
UNION LEAGUE, CENTURY, AND OTHER CLUBS.
dents were William H. Aspinwall, Charles King, Francis B. Cutting, George Bancroft, Alexander T. Stewart, Moses Taylor, Dr. Willard Parker, John C. Green, and James W. Beekman. And upon its pioneer executive committees were George Griswold, George Cabot Ward, Robert Lenox Kennedy, John Jay, grandson of the chief justice, William E. Dodge, Jr., Theodore Roosevelt, and James Boorman Johnston. The club has now over one thousand resident members and nearly five hundred non-resident members. An elegant new edifice is in process of erection in Fifth Avenue, corner of Thirty-ninth Street. Its president in 1880 is our recent Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish.
The Century Club, an association of authors, artists, and men of letters, was founded in 1847, and in 1857 entered upon its existence as a corpo- rate body. Its chief founder was William Cullen Bryant, who died its honored president. Its roll of membership, numbering six hundred, in- cludes some of the most distinguished names in the metropolis - not only in poesy, art, and literature, but in statesmanship and jurisprudence. It has a fine club-house in Fifteenth Street, near Union Square, a collection of paintings, and a library containing principally works on art. Among the many other flourishing and noteworthy clubs are the Knickerbocker, exclusive and aristocratic, of which Alexander Hamilton, grandson of the statesman, is president ; the Manhattan, which originated during the Presi- dential canvass of 1864, and to which none but Democrats are eligible ; the Travelers, which had for its principal object, at its inception in 1865, the reception of noted travelers, as its name indicates, and their introduc- tion to the public ; the Lotus, organized in 1870, to promote social inter- course among journalists, literary men, artists, and members of the theatrical profession; and the St. Nicholas club, founded in 1875, of which the members must all be descendants of families who dwelt in New York prior to the Revolution. Its president at the present time is Fred- erick De Peyster, who is also president of the New York Historical Society, and among its trustees are George G. De Witt, Edward F. De Lancey, E. Livingston Ludlow, Augustus Schell, Eugene Schieffelin, Benjamin L. Swan, Herbert C. Pell, Robert G. Remsen, John Treat Irving, John Schuyler, Benjamin H. Field, James W. Beekman, Bayard Clarke, and Abraham K. Lawrence.
The common schools of New York have multiplied from the one Free School described upon a former page into three hundred and five. The children now taught in them exceed two hundred and sixty-three thou- sand, at a yearly cost to the city of three and one fourth million dollars. The College of the City of New York, established in 1848, gives complete- ness to the grand system by which the children of parents in all grades of
429
1
780
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
society may acquire a finished education, second to none in general excel- lence. The Normal College for young women registers about sixteen hun- dred pupils, and the curriculum includes Latin, physics, chemistry, German, natural science, French, drawing, and music. It is a model school. The edifice, one of the most complete structures of the kind in this country, is situated in Sixty-ninth Street, near Lexington Avenue. It is built in the secular Gothic style, and has a lofty and massive Victoria tower. It cost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the expense of the institu- tion is one hundred thousand dollars per annum. An eminent statesman said, in 1839 : " History furnishes no parallel to the financial achievements of New York. It has sustained the expenses of its own administration, and founded and endowed a broad system of education, charitable institu- tions for every class of the unfortunate, and a penitentiary establishment which is adopted as a model by all civilized nations." With the manifold improvements since that time in our public school system, it is no matter of wonder that Austria, Prussia, France, and England have borrowed and adopted many of its vital features.
In addition to the public schools, the city abounds with excellent pri- vate seminaries and schools ; there is hardly a block without one or two. All the leading institutions of this character are in charge of accomplished educators - and are admirably supported. The Charlier Institute, for boys, is an example. It is a romantic story, the career of Elie Charlier, who built up a flourishing school and erected an elegant structure over- looking Central Park, at a cost of over four hundred thousand dollars, without calling upon the public for the slightest money aid. He was drilled in the famous college at Neuchatel, in Switzerland, and arrived in the city nearly thirty years ago, with letters of introduction and a cash capital of thirty-six dollars. One of his letters was to the mayor, James Harper, who said to him, "Young man, in this country we are all busy, and we all help ourselves. Use my name for reference if you wish, and go ahead." The advice was followed. Young Charlier opened a school with seven scholars ; and, without trustees or corporation, or funds from charity or State, his untiring industry and vigilant attention to details resulted in a success without parallel in the history of private educational institutions.
In Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park from the east, and occupy- ing nearly the whole space between Seventieth and Seventy-first streets, stands the Lenox Library, a massive and unique stone structure which contains one of the most extraordinary collections of printed books and manuscripts on the globe, the peer, in some important particulars, of the British Museum and the National Library at Paris. It is the noblest of
430
.
781
LENOX LIBRARY. MUSEUM OF ART.
a long series of benefactions for which New York is indebted to James Lenox. He was a son of the rich New York merchant, Robert Lenox, and highly educated and cultured, with discriminating judgment, he spent a long life in collecting the rarest books, paintings, sculptures, and ceram- ics which money could buy. The building and its site, the interior fit- tings and furniture, and the precious treasures within its walls are all his gift - representing not less than a million dollars. In 1870 the institu- tion was placed upon a footing with others of a similar nature by an act of incorporation, nine trustees being authorized to receive all such prop- erty from Mr. Lenox as he might please to consign to their keeping. Among the riches of this library are a large number of specimens of the first products of the typographic art, illustrated manuscript copies of Bi- bles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Shakespeariana, Americana - and the most famous and precious of all books, the Mazarin Bible, the first book ever printed with movable types.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art occupies a structure some half a mile above Lenox Library, in Central Park, near Fifth Avenue, which is but a small portion of a projected gigantic series of buildings for the use of the museum, The movement which resulted in this institution for the art culture of the community was initiated at a public meeting for consulta- tion on the subject, November 23, 1869, when a special committee of fifty gentlemen was appointed; this committee was afterwards increased to over twice its original size, including the principal patrons of art among the wealthy citizens, together with some of the leading artists. The act of incorporation bears date April 13, 1870. Contributions from a variety of sources have laid the solid foundation for an art museum which in course of time will take rank with the older and more famous institutions of the same character in the leading European capitals. In ancient antiquities it is already superior to any of them. The remarkable archaeological col- lection, gathered by General Di Cesnola during several years of explora- tion among the ruins of the island of Cyprus, consists of over ten thousand objects. Under his directorship these, together with the other and varied collections, were admirably arranged in the new building ; the museum was formally opened by the President of the United States, March 30, 1880. The Egyptian obelisk, dating backward to the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is now being erected in Central Park, opposite the Museum of Art, the expenses of the remarkable undertaking being defrayed from the pri- vate purse of one of New York's public-spirited citizens.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.