USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 35
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ceeded in getting credit from Horace Greeley and Francis Story. two young men who had just set up a printing business: they had no faith in his newspaper experiment at all. Dr. Sheppard met with no success, and the foresight of the young printers was vindicated. But his idea lived: eight months later, in September, 1833, Benjamin H. Day, a practical journalist, issued the first number of the Sun, sold at a penny by newsboys, who in the first hour or two had sold all the copies he had given them. Success was soon assured; in less than a year the Sun had a circulation of 8,000, and publisher and newsboys both found that they were making money. Its example was soon fol- lowed. Horace Greeley was now convinced that the young medical man was right, and in March, 1834. he, with two partners, began the publication of the New Yorker. James Gordon Bennett also came for- ward again, publishing the first number of the New York Herald on May 6, 1835, selling it at the price of two cents a copy. On April 10. 1841, appeared the Tribune, published by Horace Greeley and edited by Henry J. Raymond, who ten years later started the New York Times ; while the World began its career in 1860.
We have already noted the migration of churches from down town to up-town in the previous chapter. and that the Abolition Riot pur- sned two Presbyterian Churches to their location pretty nearly in Greenwich. Another Presbyterian Church ventured still nearer the outskirts, and built on Bleecker Street on the corner of Downing, where the Universalists later held forth. In 1833 the Jews built a synagogue on Crosby Street, an advance upward also from their old sanctuary on Mill Street (South William). Emigration from Catholic Ireland and Catholic centers of Germany greatly swelled the num- bers of the Catholic congregations in New York. Unfortunately the peace between them and the Protestants became disturbed by rea- son of disputes over the share that should fall to Catholic Parochial schools from the State funds devoted to public schools throughout the State. As many of the Democratie voters belonged to their faith the Catholic leaders conceived the idea of mixing up this sectarian question with politics. They songht to form a party in 1841 upon this issue, pledging support only to such candidates as would favor an appropriation from the State funds to their church-schools, which was against the fundamental principles of both the State and Federal Constitutions. This only stimulated sectarian antipathies on the other side, and led to the formation of the Native American party, of a kin with the national " know-nothings," whose main watchword was opposition to Rome, a ery that should never have been heard in the American Union, and would not if Washington's ideas on reli- gious matters could have been strictly adhered to. That it was raised was largely the Romish Church's own fault. In the course of the re- criminations the Catholics retorted that the Public School Society's schools were sectarian because the Protestant Bible was read at their
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sessions; and thus the unhappy opposition to the reading of Scripture in schools, as being a sectarian book, was added to the other conten- tion, and by the aid of infidel hostility to the sacred volume, the read- ing of it was finally abolished altogether.
New York State, from an early date, interested itself in the cause of education. In 1784 the Board of Regents of the University of New York was instituted, who were to advance the interests of learning throughout the State, and especially take into consideration the ex- tension of a common school system. In 1789 and 1795 measures were taken by the Legislature to create a fund for the support of education. In 1805 a law was passed by which the proceeds of 500,000 acres of public domain were to be accumulated until its income should reach the sum of $50,000, which should then be applied to the uses of the the schools of the State. In 1819 the accumulation had risen to $1,- 200,000. In 1822 the consti- tution then adopted con- tained a clause making this school fund inviolable and inalienable to other pur- poses. The trouble with Kieft in the early days had been that he perpetually used moneys raised for school purposes to meet the expenses of the war against the Indians he had exas- perated. In the year 1842 the school fund amounted to a productive capital of ten millions of dollars. A study of the origin of the Public School Society gives consid- erable countenance to the charge of the Romanists that ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, 1815. their schools were practi- cally sectarian. They were intended to benefit children who were in no connection with churches, the schools heretofore being in- separably connected with the churches; and whether they took pay or were gratuitous, they were only to embrace children of the church. It was the children destitute of religious privileges, and thereby destitute of educational advantages, whom the benevolent gentlemen who met at Mr. Murray's house in 1805 had in view, and, of course, the instruction provided for them was not unmixed with religious teaching, and that from the nature of the case was of the Protestant order. When the Roman Catholics came to count for
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something among the sects in the city, then unsectarian education. which at first had meant only an absence of bias as between Presby- terians, or Dutch Reformed, or Baptists, or Methodists, or Lutherans, or Episcopalians, had also to mean an absence of bias as between Romanists and Protestants. Hence in 1842 Governor Seward recommended to the Legislature a law extending the common school system of the State, which was strictly non-sectarian. to the city. This resulted in the erection of the Board of Edu- cation, and rendered the bestowal of the State funds perfectly impartial as between Romanists and Protestants, allowing each to have their own church-schools if they pleased, but not permit- ting them to claim for these any share of the public money. Gradually the friends of education saw the wisdom of the new state of affairs. In 1853 the Public School Society was no longer a necessity, and all its belongings naturally passed into the hands of the Board of Education. It made education the right of all and a charity to none. In 1825 the " free " schools had been changed into pay schools, each child being charged twenty-five cents to one dollar per quarter, and presumably the poor children's expenses were paid by the society. All these distinctions were now abolished. and no child needed to pay; the State and city bound themselves to educate their youthful citizens. In October, 1830. a convention of persons in- terested in learning of a higher order met at the call of Albert Galla- tin. They made him chairman of the meeting, and its deliberations led to the founding of the University of New York. The clergy pre- vailed more than Gallatin had intended: and perhaps as a reaction against Columbia, which had fallen into Episcopal hands. New York University was as thoroughly delivered into the hands of the Presby- terians, as it is to this day. In 1835 a handsome building was erected on Washington Square, causing the " Stone-cutters' Riot." as we saw. but now no more, an immense mercantile structure occupying its site. while a number of edifices are being put up on Fordham Heights. As for private schools, preparatory for college, and for refining the minds of young ladies, the memory of a few of these abides. There was Professor Charles Anthon's Grammar School for Boys, on Mir- ray Street, near Columbia College. There was a famous Institut Fran- cais on Bank Street. kept by two French gentlemen. Lonis and Hya- cinth Peuquet, who tanght the true Parisian accent to the recalci- trant Yankee tongue. And in Barclay Street a young ladies' school of a high order was kept by Mrs. Mary O'Kill. a daughter of Sir James Jay, a physician, and the oldest brother of John Jay, who had been knighted for his industry and success in raising money for Kings Col- lege in the days when it was still so called.
When Albert Gallatin came to New York in 1829 he was at once in- vited to join a coterie of literary people who had been meeting to-
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gether for social and intellectual purposes since 1827. The number was limited to twelve. so as to secure perfectly congenial companion- ship, which larger numbers do not always permit. They called them- selves the " Club " without further designation, and among its mem- bers were those representing the legal and medical professions; an Episcopal and a Presbyterian clergyman; and three professors of Co- lumbia. One of this choice company was a " Mr. Morse," President of the National Academy of Design. He was then in Europe, on his return trip from which he was to have the talk which led to his im- mortal invention, as will be told in the next chapter. It was to fill the vacancy caused by his absence in Europe that Gallatin was in- vited to join. It must have been congenial society to him, and he an exceedingly valuable accession. The " Club " met once a week. had no officers, was without formalities. A light collation was indulged in at the end, and the sessions broke up before eleven o'clock. For the rest of human- ity entertainments of other kinds were multiplying. In ad- (lition to the Park Theater, one was built in the Bowery in 1826. In 1837 eight theaters were busy catering to the public taste, in various ways, more or less ele- vating, as is true of every period or city. Richmond Hill had been converted into a theater. and at its opening a prize was offered to the anthor of the best ' dedicatory poem. Gulian C. Verplanck was one of the judges. and he was selected to read the Albert Gallatin successful poem. The seal of the envelope identifying the an- thor was not to be broken until the poem had been read in the hearing of the people, and it was to be opened in their presence. When this impressive part of the exercises was reached. it appeared that the prize-winner was none other than Fitz-Greene Halleck.
Varick and Charlton streets were still too far out of town for the theater-going public. hence in 1842 Richmond Hill Theater closed its doors. In this year Park Theater, always the leading play-house, was put to a different use on St. Valentine's Day. Dickens had come to America on his first visit, and a ball was given in his honor in the theater. All dur- ing the evening, in the intervals of dancing, representations of scenes
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in Dickens's novels were displayed upon the curtain. Mayor Robert H. Morris, ex-Mayor Philip Hone, James Watson Webb, and William HI. Appleton, of the publishing firm, were instrumental in organizing the ball; and Washington Irving graced with his presence a dinner given to the novelist a few days later by more than two hundred ladies and gentlemen. It is well known that Dickens published his impressions of his visit in " American Notes," and embodied them also in the novel " Martin Chuzzlewit." His reflections on Yankee manners were not very complimentary, and what was to be found of etiquette in rather common boarding houses was unfairly made to im- ply the general amenities of social intercourse in New York. Yet in his " Notes " Dickens had said of New York: " The tone of the best society in the city is like that of Boston: here and there it may be with a greater infusion of the mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always most hospitable." It sounds like the accounts of travelers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: New York hospitality conspicuous from beginning to end.
In the place of the houses swept away by the fire of 1835, other and greater rose within a brief period, but none could exceed the glory of the Merchants' Exchange. Its rebuilding was begun in 1836, but it proceeded very slowly, and was not finished till late in 1842. Wher- ever a wooden structure had stood in the way of the fire, one of brick or stone now went up. In other sections of the city rose noble edi- fices. Washington Hall occupied the block from Chambers to Reade on Broadway, where Stewart's wholesale store stood later. On al- most the next block, opposite the Hospital, stood Masonic Hall, con- sidered handsomest next to Merchants' Exchange. The University Building, further out, was a noble specimen of architecture. Wash- ington Square, in front of it, was used as a parade ground for the militia. Union Square was laid out, and Gramercy Park was fin- ' ished in 1840. St. John's Park and the Battery also furnished breath- ing places for the people. Omnibuses ran through the populated parts of the city; stages started from the City Hall Park. on east or west sides, for Harlem, Greenwich, Bloomingdale. Horse cars began to run in 1831, the first carrying the Mayor and Common Conneil. The earliest line ran from Prince Street to Fourteenth. In 1837 the tun- nel through Murray Hill, on Fourth Avenue, between Thirty-fourth and Forty-second streets, was completed, and the newspapers and citizens congratulated themselves that they had the most wonderful achievement of engineering skill right in their own great city. A sen- tence in the Mirror of that day reminds us of the experience on emerg- ing from the West Shore Railroad tunnel near Haverstraw: " We know of nothing in any city of the Union to compare with the magnificent view that opens upon yon when emerging from the upper end of the artificial ravine that has been cloven down
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through the solid rocks of Mount Prospect "-i.c., Murray Hill. In 1832 Harlem was gratified in having one of its streets paved and sidewalks flagged. This favored street was One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street, the pavement extending from Third to Eighth avenues. For the rest, the furthest uptown streets paved were Clin- ton Place (Sth Street), on the west side, and St. Mark's Place, on the east.
CHAPTER XII.
INCREASING THE FACILITIES OF COMMUNICATION.
F to Irving we owe a tutelary genins or patron saint whose name and figure instantly call up a personification expres- sive of our city-viz., " Father Knickerbocker,"-so to his happy and kindly vein of humor we are indebted for another term that serves the purposes of good-natured badinage. One of the papers composing " Salmagundi," published conjointly by Irving and Paulding, intended to " correct the town and cas- tigate the age," was entitled "Chronicles of the Renowned and Ancient City of Gotham." The " three wise men of Gotham " had already been immortalized by Mother Goose, and was a par- ticularly piquant phrase because the denizens of that north-country parish in England were rather more naïvely simple in their mental make-up than those of most other parishes. It snited the humor of the two friends to fix upon the New York of their day this familiar and expressive title of Gotham, and it has cling to our city ever since.
If Gotham could afford to laugh at a joke against itself in 1807. it had still more reason to take humorously any reflections upon its shortcomings or failings when it had become assured in its position as by far and away the chief city of the Union. Its natural advan- tages of situation, immensely assisted by the invention of the steam- boat and the enterprise that had pierced the interior with canals as the highways of commerce, had compelled this gratifying result. Be- vond even the promise that was furnished by such favorable condi- tions was the advance of the city to great ness in size and pre-eminence in station, when there were added to these then so wonderful facilities of communication those marvelous annihilators of time and space, the telegraph and railroad. The era of their application to the practical business of life we have now reached, although to an earlier period may belong their invention and exhibition as experiments merely.
It is difficult to transport ourselves back to a generation that knew not the steamboat or the railroad or the telegraph. Yet our fathers or grandfathers were of that generation. These persons, in their youth, or even maturer years, were, so far as concerns the mechanical. industrial, and scientific progress of the world, actually nearer to a date even centuries before their birth than they were to our day. They then had to travel the sea by ships under sail, depending upon fitful winds; or the land by the Imbering stage, or private carriage. or on
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horseback; just as men did at the beginning of the eigh- teenth, or sixteenth, or in- deed the first century. How great an alteration has been realized during the short period of these later decades of the present century, in the very face of the world, in the intercourse of nations. in the conduct of business, in the comforts of existence, in consequence of the habits of living produced by these modern means of locomo- tion and communication, to speak of nothing else; and how vast is the distance, in these respects, between our grandfathers and fathers and ourselves! To quote from one of Prof. Fiske's philosophical works: "We scarcely need to be reminded that all the advances made in locomotion, from the days of Nebuchadnezzar to those of Andrew Jackson, were as nothing compared to the change that has been
wronght within a few years by the introduction of rail- roads. In these times when Puck has fulfilled his boast and put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes, we are not yet. perhaps, in danger of
forgetting that a century has not elapsed since he who caught the lightning upon his kite was laid in the grave.
as well as of the grand- Yet the lesson of these facts,
mother's spinning wheel that stands by the parlor fireside, is well to bear in mind. The
22223
TAL44
446
NEW - YORK
TATTERSALLS
BROADWAY IN 1840.
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change therein exemplified since Penelope plied her distaff. is far less than that which has occurred within the memory of living men." And he also calls attention to the circumstance that by means of the rail- road and telegraph, this great Republic, stretching from ocean to ocean, and from Canada to Mexico and its Gulf, has been rendered as compact for purposes of intercommunication, and therefore also of management and control, as the tiny Republic of Switzerland or the smallest monarchy of Europe. We might have fallen to pieces from the overburdening greatness of our territorial extent had not the tele- graph and railroad appeared. just as we were most expanding. to keep all our extremities well in hand.
Samuel F. B. Morse, a native of Massachusetts, came to live in New York City in 1815, just after the close of the war. He was a young artist, only twenty-four years of age, an enthusiast in his profession. so that he was not only content to put his ideals on canvas, but he was bound to educate a public and encourage other artists in their work. He thus became the founder of the National Academy of Design. and its President. As we learned in the previous chapter. in 1829 he went to Europe in the pursuit of his art. Curiously enough. like that other great inventor. Fulton, he was not only an artist. but an enthusiast in science, and thus he came to tread a path similar to that of his prede- cessor. As Fulton lived till 1817. it is possible that the two men. of the same profession, and with similar tastes apart from their profes- sion, became well acquainted. It is not known whether Morse inter- ested himself in any of the scientific investigations or discoveries of the day while in Europe. In 1832 he returned to America, and during the trip across the ocean met a gentleman who had seen much of the recent experiments conducted in Paris with the electro-magnet. He described its operations to Morse, who inquired as to the length of time it took for electricity to pass from one point to another. The gentleman replied that no matter how long the wires along which the electric fluid was obliged to pass. the transmission seemed to be in- stantaneous, as we now know it must be. traveling as it does with the rapidity of light. These two circunstances: the immense rapidity of electricity, making its effects at distant points practically instantane- ous, and the fact that instantly upon its introduction into a coil of wire wound around an iron bar it would produce magnetic attraction. and instantly upon its cessation the attracted objects would be re- leased. led the inventive mind of Morse to the construction of the electric telegraph. On his return to New York. he at once began ex- perimenting in his studio. As we look at the instrument and devices involved. it does not seem as if many years should have been neces- sary to perfect his scheme. But it is with such matters always as with Columbus and his problem of making the egg stand on end. After it has been accomplished it is very easy to go and repeat it: the simpler the device the longer it takes to hit upon it; and then the
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thing comes at last by a happy inspiration after all, that seems born of the instant, but really has all the previous thinking back of it, and would not have been seen to be so happy otherwise. The brush and the palette received but little attention from our artist now, and the purse grew correspondingly slim. But he was possessed by one idea, and he pursued it to the end, though grim poverty looked in at the win- dow, and the wolf was often very near the door. In 1835, after three weary years, Morse had perfected his instrument; had conceived his alphabetical system of dots and dashes; decided upon the means of producing the electricity, and of conveying it from place to place. He was now ready to exhibit its operation to those most likely to appre- ciate and understand his labors. Even yet many things remained to be corrected, and it was two years longer before he ventured upon a public exhibition. The process and mechanism were so simple that every one in the andience could readily be made to comprehend their working. Taking advantage of the effect of electricity upon iron in making it magnetic, one end of a lever was placed over the electro- magnet, at the other end of which was a pencil moving against a strip of paper. When the electricity passed into the coil of wire around the iron, the little lever was drawn down at one end and up at the other against the paper. The paper was made to move at a uniform rate by clockwork. Did the electricity pass into the magnet for one instant, only a dot was made on the paper: was it held there longer, a line or dash was the result, according to the length of time ocenpied. These dots and lines and dashes constituted a system of letters. By means of a little key with a spring, the electricity could be made to pass into the coil, or released, according as one effected or broke con- nection with the source of the fluid. As in the case of other inven- tions, however, ignorance and incredulity long barred the way to- ward its useful application to the needs of business and intercourse. Not till 1843 could there be secured any legislative action for one of the greatest inventions the world has ever witnessed. Then Mr. Fer- ris, of New York, offered in Congress the following: " Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means be instructed to inquire into the expediency of appropriating $30,000, to enable Professor Morse to es- tablish a line of telegraph between Washington and Baltimore." The inventor had received permission to fit up his instruments and wires in the Capitol, so that Congress might receive a practical demonstra- tion of the feasibility of his design. It came to a tie vote in the com- mittee, but fortunately Governor Wallace, of Indiana, upon whom the deciding vote would fall, determined to investigate the matter, and asked permission to retire for that purpose. He came back fully satisfied and voted in favor of a report recommending the grant. But on the last day of the session of Congress this bill was still the one hundred and twentieth on the docket. It may be imagined with what an agony of suspense Morse watched the tedious progress through
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this heap of petty and uninteresting legislation. He could not en- dure it, and at a late hour went to his boarding house, not in the least expecting that his bill would be reached, and preparing to wait an- other long year for the consummation of his hopes. But the next morning he was greeted by a message delivered in person by Miss Ellsworth, the daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, telling him that his bill had been passed.
As a reward she was promised that she should be given the choice of the first message to be sent over the line when completed. A line of wires on poles was erected from Washington to Baltimore. It was some time, how- ever, before this comparatively inex- pensive device was fixed on and ex- periments were made and much money spent on other plans. One of these was to insert the wires in leaden tubes, insulated by a covering of cotton saturated in shellac. the tubes to be laid under ground. In the month of May. 1844. the line was ready for the first message. Miss Ellsworth was summoned to give her selection, which read. in pious consideration of the providences that had carried the great invention to snecess, as well in praverful expectation FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE CONSTRUCTED. of the great benefits to be derived from it for humanity: " What hath God wrought," the original of which is now preserved by the Hartford Historical Society. Connectiont.
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