USA > New York > New York City > In olde New York; sketches of old times and places in both the state and the city > Part 5
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
73
A New York Curiosity Shop
moon, and the sign of the zodiac. Some also gave the evening and morning star, and nearly all had the alarm movement.
The Moll or Maule clock by the door was the most valuable of all the stock, historically considered. On the 10th of July, 1680, John Moll, a Swede, received from the Indians of Delaware a deed for much of the land now comprising Delaware and Eastern Pennsyl- vania. This he subsequently conveyed to William Penn. From timber cut on this tract he made, or had made, the case of this old clock, now standing so modestly in the corner, and sent it to his relatives, the Maule family in Holland, as a present from the New World to the Old. They valued it so highly that they had the family arms inlaid in the solid oak, and deco- rated it very prettily with vines, leaves, and birds of plumage; furthermore, to show its American origin, they had impaled in the arms the names of the six Indian chiefs from whom John Moll had made his purchase. The shop-keeper who goes every year to the cities of Holland and Germany to replenish his stock chanced to catch sight of the arms on the clock as he was mousing about a second-hand store in Amsterdam and purchased it.
Another very notable clock was that on which Christopher Huggins experimented in the invention of the pendulum. Huggins, as the legend is, was an ingenious clock-maker of Amsterdam in 1689, who
74
In Olde New York
gave so much time to evolving his idea of the pendulum that he got into financial straits, and borrowed 600 guilders of Jacobus Van Wyck, a wealthy manufac- turer of clocks and watches in that city. The inventor, however, was never able to pay the debt, and so turned the clock over to his creditor. To prove that this is the identical clock the owner points to the letters "C. H. to J. V. W." engraved on the metal frame. The mechanism has but one hand, and is a quaint array of wheels and chains.
There was much other furniture of rare and curious interest - carved, stiff-backed chairs with figured cushions, square and half-round tables, sideboards, secretaries, all of solid oak, quaintly carved and richly inlaid. A wardrobe, the largest piece of furniture in the room, seven feet high and as many wide, has a curious history. Without and within it contains no less than ten thousand pieces of inlaid work, and was made by the Guild of Cabinet Workers of Amsterdam and presented to Nicholas Oppermier, Burgomaster of that city from 1681 to 1684. A writing-desk and bureau combined was of interest from having once belonged to the Coxe family, who came over with William Penn. The family arms - a sheaf of wheat or, on a green field - is inlaid on the lid. There was an ancient looking-glass, too, with a carved frame and long arms on either side, furnished at their extremities with candle- sticks in order that the glass might be serviceable by
75
A New York Curiosity Shop
night as well as by day. Two groups of rare old china on a shelf would attract the attention of collectors. The first group is the identical teapot, milk pitcher, and cup - plain, rather coarse ware - used by the' first Napoleon in his campaigns - at least the merchant who owns it was so assured by the old servant of Joseph Bonaparte, King of Holland and brother of Napoleon, of whom he bought them. The only ornament is the initial N. on a blue ground surrounded by a coronet. The companion group which belonged to Joseph Bonaparte is much prettier; the ware is finer, more delicate, and the white ground is relieved by blue figures.
There were several notable portraits in the collection. One of these was a very ancient portrait of Calvin, picked up for a trifle in an old picture store, but which the merchant, by comparison with several authentic portraits in Europe, had established to be genuine. Another was the only portrait in existence of Jan Jans, father of the celebrated Aneke Jans, and the last sur- vivor of the famous siege of Haarlem. There was the picture too of a modest round-faced comely Quaker lady, in a plain brown dress, with a white handkerchief thrown carelessly over her head, the wife of William Penn. "Penn was partly of Dutch extraction," the merchant remarked, referring to the portrait, "his father, Admiral Penn, having married a member of the old Dutch family of Callowhill. Callowhill Street,
76
In Olde New York
in Philadelphia, is named after her." There was also a portrait of De Groot, and a strong picture of an old nude man by Barneveldt. The merchant showed also the genealogical records of eighty-six thousand Dutch and Belgian families, a part of his business being the construction of family records.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OLD JUMEL MANSION1
V ISITORS to High Bridge - the pretty little village which stands at the northern limit of Manhattan Island - cannot have failed to observe the stately, somewhat antiquated mansion standing in the midst of a pretty park of some fifty acres, and overlooking city and river and the varied Westchester plains. It is the chief in point of interest as it is the sole survivor of the many historic houses that once graced the island, but is so environed with city en- croachments and improvements that its destruction seems likely to be but a question of time. Even now the shrill whistle of the metropolitan locomotives is heard beneath its eaves. Tenth Avenue passes but a block away, and eager speculators have staked out city lots at its very gates, so hardly is it pressed by the great city in its eager outreaching for new territory.
Few persons who pass the place know, perhaps, the many points of historic and romantic interest that it has: how it occupies historic ground, being built on
1 Written about 1880. The old mansion is now owned by the Daughters of the Revolution and maintained as a Museum.
78
In Olde New York
the far-famed Harlem Heights, within a mile of the site of old Fort Washington; that it was built for the dower of a lady of such beauty and grace that she was able to win the heart of the Father of his Country himself; that within its walls Washington established his headquarters while the mastery of the island was in dispute with the British, and that thither Washing- ton came again in 1790 with all his Cabinet, on his return from a visit to the battlefield of Fort Washing- ton; or that afterward, a once famous Vice-President of the United States was married in its parlors. Yet these and many other noteworthy incidents in its his- tory are quite within the line of research of the indus- trious investigator. It will not be time misspent, per- haps, if we devote an idle hour to a more particular narration of some of these events in its history.
In 1756 no belle in New York society was more courted and caressed than Miss Mary Phillipse. She was the daughter of Frederick Phillipse, lord of the manor of Phillipsburg (now Yonkers), and is admitted to have been one of the most beautiful and charming women of colonial times.
Washington, during one of his frequent visits to the city, met her at the house of his friend Beverly Robin- son, and was so deeply smitten with her charms that, if the old traditions are correct, he became a suitor for her hand.
A rival claimant for the hand of Miss Phillipse was
THE JUMEL MANSION IN 1854
Washington's Headquarters in 1776, and the home of Colonel Roger Morris. From a Valentine's Manual (1854) print in the collection of John D. Crimmins of New York
79
The Old Jumel Mansion
Roger Morris, a gallant captain in the British army then garrisoning New York. The reader's sympa- thies are with the young Virginian no doubt, but it was remarked by the gossips of the day that he was a slow wooer, and that the odds seemed in favor of his more ardent rival, when, unfortunately, the exigencies of Indian warfare called him to the frontier, and he was forced to depart, leaving the gallant captain in undis- puted possession of the field. When he had been absent some months a friend in New York (whether in the confidence of the lady or not is not known) wrote to him that "Morris was laying close siege to Miss Phillipse," and that if he had any interests in that quarter he could best serve them by a visit to the city - a bit of friendly advice which was not accepted, possibly because the recipient was too much occupied with measures for the protection of the frontier, but probably because his chances of success seemed too small to warrant the venture.
In the meantime, his rival out of the field, Captain Morris, pressed his suit with military ardor, and so successfully that in 1756 the polite society of the town was pleasantly electrified by the news of the betrothal of Captain Roger Morris to Mary Phillipse. The match was evidently approved by the lady's father, for he proceeded to bestow on her as a dowry five hundred acres of land on Manhattan Island, which included the site of the present dwelling.
80
In Olde New York
The year 1776 found the colonists in arms against the mother country, Roger Morris a colonel in the British army, and George Washington commander- in-chief of the forces of the colonies. Mrs. Morris occupied her home until the attack of the British on the city in August, 1776, when, finding that it was likely to become the theater of war, she left it hastily and found a refuge with the Tory people among the Highlands. A few days later General Washington arrived and made the house his headquarters dur- ing his operations on the island, holding stern councils of war in the drawing-room of the former mistress of his heart, and devoting to the repose of martial thews and sinews the downy beds and silken canopies that had been intended for far daintier uses. But this military occupation lasted only a short time, although the mistress of the mansion never returned to her charming retreat. At the close of the war her estates were confiscated, and she went with her husband to England, where she lived to a good old age.
Fourteen years later, in 1790, Washington, with a goodly number of dames and cavaliers, paid a second visit to the old dwelling. In his journal he has given us a detailed account of the event. He says, under date of July 10, 1790:
"Having formed a party consisting of the Vice- President, his lady, son and Miss Smith; the Secre- taries of State, Treasury and War and the ladies of
THE RICHMOND HILL MANSION
Washington's Headquarters in 1776, and later the residence of John Adams and of Aaron Burr. Reproduced from a Valentine's Manual (1854) print in the collection of John D. Crimmins of New York
81
The Old Jumel Mansion
the two latter, with all the gentlemen of my family, Mrs. Lear and the two children, we visited the old position of Fort Washington, and afterward dined on a dinner provided by Mr. Mariner, at the house lately Colonel Roger Morris's, but confiscated and now in the possession of a common farmer."
This Captain Mariner was a noted character in the Revolution, and was engaged with Captain Hyler in the somewhat celebrated "whaleboat warfare," which consisted chiefly in making night descents on the enemy's coasts, and making prisoners of such promi- nent persons as came in their way. After the war he kept a tavern at Ward's Island and at Harlem, and became a noted caterer; it was in this capacity that he was employed to prepare the dinner for as imposing a company of guests as the mansion ever entertained.
In 1803 Morris's was again in the market, and for a time it seemed probable that Colonel Aaron Burr, who was then living in splendor at Richmond Hill would become its purchaser. In November of this year he wrote to his daughter Theodosia in regard to the exchange; her letter in reply, dated Clifton, S. C., December 10, 1803, is interesting as showing what one of the most charming and accomplished women of her day thought of the house. She says:
"The exchange has employed my thoughts ever since. Richmond Hill will, for a few years to come, be more valuable than Morris's, and to you, who are
82
In Olde New York
so fond of town, a place so far from it would be use- less; so much for my reasoning on one side; now for the other. Richmond Hill has lost many of its beauties and is daily losing more. If you mean it for a resi- dence, what avails its intrinsic value ? If you sell part you deprive it of every beauty save the mere view. Morris's has the most commanding view on the island; it is reported to be indescribably beautiful. The grounds, too, are pretty; how many delightful walks can be made on one hundred and thirty acres; how much of your taste displayed! In ten or twenty years hence one hundred and thirty acres on New York Island will be a principality; and there is to me some- thing stylish, elegant, respectable and suitable to you in having a handsome country seat. So that, on the whole, I vote for Morris's."
But Colonel Burr did not purchase the property at this time, though thirty years later he married its mistress, and resided there for some time, and met a class of law students in the room formerly occupied by Washington as his sleeping apartment. The later history of the mansion is both varied and interesting, but is so near our own times that it is scarcely neces- sary to repeat it here.
An account of a visit which the writer made to it recently, in company with a gentleman familiar not only with the place but with its history as well, will no doubt prove more acceptable. The main hall,
83
The Old Jumel Mansion
which one enters from the pillared porch, is, with its ancient portraits, its polished oaken floor and great depth and roominess, the nearest approach we have, perhaps, to that of an ancient baronial castle. This hall opens by folding doors into the drawing-room - the same that was used by Wash- ington as a reception-room during his military occupancy. Here he received his visitors, listened to his orderlies' reports and dictated his answers, and here at the last was held the council of war which decided that Manhattan Island should be relinquished. The floor of this room, and indeed of every apartment in the house, is of oak, and so highly polished that it affords an insecure footing to one used to carpeted rooms. The wall paper has a groundwork of green, with raised figures of vine and leaf having the appear- ance and texture of velvet, and its coloring is as fresh and vivid as though nearly a century and a half had not passed since it left the hand of the artisan. In this room also hangs a beautiful chandelier, which was formerly the property of the unfortunate French General Moreau. A winding stairway at the right of the hall leads the visitor to the suite of apartments above, and ushers him first into a hall directly over the one below, and of about the same dimensions. From this hall one may step out upon a balcony which com- mands a magnificent view of city, river, and Sound. Washington's bed-chamber was on this floor, at the
84
In Olde New York
rear of the hall and directly over the drawing-room; there is nothing noteworthy about it except that it con- tains a number of secret doors and closets not all of which are known to the present residents. Two small ante-chambers, one on each side, were occupied by his aids, one of whom was Alexander Hamilton. The old oak bedstead on which Washington slept is still preserved with other treasured relics in the attic of the house.
Having seen all the objects of interest that the old house contained (although but a very few of them are included in this description) we were invited to a walk in the grounds, which are extensive, comprising about one hundred and thirty acres. Even here the antiquity of the place is apparent. The great locusts that line the main approach to the mansion are dead at the top and hoary with age. A great Madeira-nut tree, with gnarled trunk and wide-spreading branches, and a huge cedar of Lebanon, which was brought a tiny rootlet from its native mountain, could have been nourished to their present proportions only by a century of sun and showers; a hedge of slow-growing trees brought from Andalusia in Spain, which surrounds an ancient fountain's bed on the estate, also gives evidence of extreme age. After passing some time in the grounds and making pilgrimage to several points where charming views may be obtained, we took our leave, remarking on the striking contrast presented by
85
The Old Jumel Mansion
the old dwelling to the great city so near it, and specu- lating as to how long it can be protected from the grasp of the giant which each day is bringing nearer its gates.
CHAPTER IX
TWO AMERICAN SHRINES
W E have a habit of observing each anniversary of the death of Washington Irving by a pil- grimage to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, his last resting- place. It is but an hour to Tarrytown by rail from New York, and then a walk of a mile up the barrier hills to the sunny "Hollow, " the bridge, and the church- yard. The conservatism of wealth and of tradition have united to preserve them as they were. Through the dell flows the silvery Pocantico issuing out of a deep glen to the eastward, and passing on under the arch of the old bridge forever famous as the scene of Ichabod Crane's nocturnal adventures. Near by is the little old Dutch church built of stone by the mighty patroon of Phillipburg half smothered in vines, with wooden belfry, and making weather cock and farm as uncanny as Alloway's Auld Haunted Kirk. In the shadow of its tower are the quaint, brown-stone tombs of the Van Warts, Van Tassels, and other famous families. The churchyard is as beautiful for situation as it is noteworthy in letters, being laid out on the western and southern slope of
87
Two American Shrines
the hill that rises steeply up from the Pocantico. At intervals on the hillside rocky crags protrude, veiled by oak and hemlock, and in and out among these curve the walks and drives. The summit is occupied by more modern memorials in marble and granite,
some quite tasteful and elaborate in design. West of these, perhaps half-way down the declivity, is the Irving plot, characterized by a severe simplicity; it is marked only by a low hedge of evergreens. Its ten or twelve tombstones are equally classic in their sim- plicity. That of the author is on the south side of the enclosure, and is a small, plain slab of marble, bearing only his name, and the date of birth and death. This severe simplicity did not seem to us to be in good taste; it was so incommensurate with the greatness of the man, and the space he occupied in the literature of his country, that it seemed incongruous. It is, how- ever, according to the sleeper's own request. The tomb is distinguished by one mark of public interest, indicating that more than common dust sleeps be- neath. Each of its three faces has been chipped and cut away by relic hunters, who have carried away the fragments as souvenirs of their pilgrimage.
We could but contrast it with another American shrine we had visited a few months previous 1- the tomb of Cooper in Cooperstown, just where the Susque- hanna breakes from Otsego, its parent lake. One can 1 This article was written in 1885.
88
In Olde New York
reach it from Richfield Springs by coach to the head of the lake, and thence by steamer down its winding shores, or he can drive over by private vehicle and not consume a summer day. The village lies quiet and peaceful in its deep cleft among the hills at the foot of the lake. One casily finds the grave of the author in the little Episcopal churchyard. It is almost in the shadow of the sacred edifice, brooded over by somber firs and pines, with the Susquehanna close by mur- muring unceasing requiem! So strong a churchman was Cooper, and attached to this little home church, that I doubt if he could have rested quietly in stranger ground. The novelist's grave is nearly in the center of the plot, and that of the wife is beside her husband's; both are marked by marble tablets resting on granite pillars, and are without ornament save a simple cross cut in the center of the stone. I had interest enough to transcribe the inscription, as follows:
James Fenimore Cooper born September 15th, 1789, died September 14th, 1851. Susan Augusta, wife of James Fenimore Cooper and daughter of John Peter De Lancy born January 28, 1792, died January 20.
There is less popular appreciation of Cooper's tomb, or is it that it is less accessible ? it bears no marks of
89
Two American Shrines
the relic hunter's hammer, and the grass about it is untrodden by pilgrim feet. Leaving the graves, we strolled down the pleasant village street, in search of the old Cooper Mansion, where the novelist lived and in which much of his later work was done, but learned that it had been burned to the ground some thirty years before and its site made a waste. Some strange fatality seems to attend American houses with a history. The Hancock house in Boston, the tavern of Israel Putnam in Brooklyn, Conn., the Franklin House in Philadelphia, Webster's house at Green Harbor, with scores of others that might be named have been destroyed or so transformed that their interest and identity are lost. Sunnyside, the home of Irving, almost alone remains intact. The pilgrim to Sleepy Hollow cannot better conclude his day than by a visit thither. Leaving the churchyard one passes down the main street of Tarrytown, lined with gray-stone castles and elegant country-seats, quaint Dutch cottages and modern villas, for two miles, and then enters a road turning from it at right angles and leading down to the Hudson. Soon one is lost in a maze of wildwood greenery planted in a little gorge worn by a hillside stream. Fine dwellings, with lawn and copse and hedge, rustic bridges and parks of forest trees, are on either side, and continue until one reaches a plateau separated from the river only by the railroad tracks. On this plateau, sheltered by fine old forest trees, stands
90
In Olde New York
Sunnyside cottage. One realizes the felicity of its builder's description - "a quaint picturesque little pile." It is built of stone in ancient Dutch style, with crow-step gables and an L, and a multitude of nooks, crannies, and angles. The famous Melrose Abbey ivy, honeysuckle, rose vines and eglantines cover it in wilder- ing mass. The main entrance is on the south, but there is a piazza on the west facing the river which, with its view of the broad Tappan Zee, the farther meadows of Tappan, and grim Palisades on the south, was the favorite resort of the author and his family in the long summer evenings. Though its clinging vines and antique style convey the impression of age, the cottage is comparatively modern, having been almost entirely remodeled in 1835. The old Dutch farmhouse which it originally was, is said to have been the Wolferts Roost, from which the partisan armed with his great goose gun stole out for his adventure with the ma- rauders of the Tappan Zee. Later it came into the hands of the Van Tassels, and within its walls is said to have been held the merry-making from which Ichabod Crane departed for his terrible encounter with the Headless Horseman on the bridge by Sleepy Hollow Church.
Needless to add that the old house was the birth- place of those charming tales and sketches which have made the locality classic.
CHAPTER X
THE STORY OF THE PALATINES
T HE period of American colonization was pro- ductive of many tragedies and romantic incidents, few of which have been adequately sketched.
One of the most striking and least known of these was the settlement in New York, in 1709, by the bounty of Queen Anne of England, of a large body of Germans, victims of religious persecution. The original home of these interesting people was in what is known in history as the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine, compris- ing two small states, which had been united previous to 1620. It was a beautiful country of vineyards and gardens, with a soft climate, under the mild govern- ment of an herediary ruler styled the Palatine. Prior to the Reformation its people lived in the utmost plenty and content. But their ruler early espoused the cause of Luther, and, in the fierce religious wars that followed, the Palatinate was in many instances the battle-ground of the contending parties. Yet the people recovered quickly from every blow, and still clung to their land and faith. At length, in 1689, the armies of Louis XIV of France marched into the
92
In Olde New York
country and ravaged it utterly, the pretext being that it was used as a haven of refuge for the king's Huguenot subjects, whom he was then engaged in extirpating. Everything was utterly destroyed except the bare soil, -- churches, houses, public buildings, cattle, fair fields, pleasant vineyards. In that time of terror the Elector from his castle at Mannheim beheld two cities and twenty-five towns in flames. Lust and cruelty were satiated. The people pleading for mercy on bended knees were thrust forth into the fields. Three thou- sand one hundred and fifty square miles of territory were left a blackened waste, and the wretched in- habitants driven into exile. Wandering homeless and friendless through Europe for several years, the thoughts of the more intelligent among them turned at length to England as a possible haven. Good Queen Anne had succeeded to the English throne: ties of blood con- nected her with the hapless Count Palatine, she being a cousin of the first degree: besides, she was known to sympathize deeply with the persecuted Protestants of Europe, of every nationality. And so it happened that in the spring of 1708 a little band of Palatine exiles landed at Whitehall and filed through the Lon- don streets in search of friends among their co-religion- ists. There were forty-one of them, - men, women, and children, - natives of Neuberg on the Rhine, and all bore certificates of good character and that they had been stripped of everything by the army of France,
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.