USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 51
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ed to over eight thousand millions, and in 1882 considerably over one hundred and sixteen millions of shares were sold there. The Clearing House also furnishes abundant evidence of what enormous monetary transactions the metropolis was the constant scene. It is recorded that in 1886 the operations there reached the astounding figure of $33.676,830,000, or more than eleven times the highest amount of the National debt after the war. It was noted that when the Clearing House was founded in 1853, London had been before us with its own some sixty years. The operations of 1886 exceeded those of the older English house, and were two and one-fifth times greater than the clearings of all the other cities of the Republic combined. And yet the wonderful year 1881 realized an amount operated by the Clearing House far in excess of that of 1886 --- it then reached the really fabu- lous and inconceivable sum of $50,341,836,373.89! The daily average for the year ending October 1, 1881, was $165,055,201.22; the largest amount cleared for any one day was that on February 28, 1881, namely, $295,821,422.37. Surely the genius that presided over the birth of this city, issuing from a town which had established one of the earliest and most famous banks of the world-the Bank of Amsterdam, founded in January, 1609, the year of Hud- son's discovery-must have been slightly bewildered by the tre- mendous and incalculable results that followed his work in the course of two and a half centuries. For the year ending Octo- ber 1, 1895, the exchanges reckoned up considerably less or about twenty-eight thousand millions. Subsequent to 1881 the times seem to have been steadily less prosperous, or capital less con- fident and more secretive. In manufactures also New York occupied a leading place. "It stands first in the country in the value of its annual production and probably first in the world," declares one who knows. The same authority (speaking of 1880) asserts that the " city manufactures annually more men's clothing than anything else. ex- ceeding $60,000,000 worth. Its second industry is slaughtering and meat-packing, not including the retail butchers, at $29,297,527. Third in value are malt and malt-liquors, $25,000,000. Then follow tobacco and cigars, exceeding $22,000,000. The vast work of its printers and publishers is only fourth in rank, at $21,696,354, and wom- en's clothing is reported at $18,930.553. Other branches in the order of their annual values are foundries and ma-
chine work, lard, sugar and molasses, furniture and upholstering,
boots and shoes, silks, musical instruments, grease and tal- low, flour and grist, shirts, coffee and spices, and jewelry." Commerce and finance so overshadow these homely yet useful industries, that one would hardly have suspected this tremendous manufacturing ac- tivity of the metropolis, even so long ago as 1880. Commerce and in- dustry received another efficient handmaid for the swifter transaction of its business in the shape of the telephone. In 1876 Mr. Bell ex-
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hibited the instrument as a curiosity at Philadelphia, and before the year was ont Edison added a carbon transmitter, which has placed it among the necessities of business and intercourse by the side of the mail and the telegraph. In the spring of 1877 it began this career of practical usefulness, and by JJune 1, two hundred telephozes were in nse over the whole United States. Now the number reaches more than 650,000. The calls and connections in New York City alone daily average fifty thousand. Telephone communication is now an estab- lished fact between New York and Boston and Chicago.
During this period two important societies were organized. One. the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, was incor- porated in 1875. Mr. Bergh, of the society for saving animals from in- human treatment, was appealed to on one occasion to resene a child from the tortures of a drunken mother. His experience in the case led to the formation of the society in question. now supported by statutes in its work, otherwise hopeless of accomplishment because of the nat- ural and legal rights of parents and guardians, even the most un- worthy. The Society for the Prevention of Crime was formed in 1876. It was long under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby, and. after his death, of the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst. It became the determined foe of the excessive saloon, and especially of the liquor business ille- gally carried on under the protection of the police. The Howard Mis- sion, an organization very similar to the Children's Aid Society, was founded in 1861 by the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, at 35 New Bowery. where was established a " home for little wanderers," gathered from off the streets, or from homes where they were rapidly being heathen- ized.
A beginning had been made of a Metropolitan Museum of Art early in the seventies, in the Cruger Mansion on Fourteenth Street near Sixth Avenue, where Gen. Di Cesnola's Cypriote collection was the incleus of greater things. The organization was effected by a com- mittee of one hundred and sixteen gentlemen, appointed at a public meeting held on November 23, 1869. On April 13, 1870, the Legisla- ture granted incorporation. Its first acquisition was a number of paintings by old Flemish and Dutch masters, placed on exhibition at 681 Fifth Avenue. In 1872 the Di Cesnola collection was purchased. The Cruger Mansion proving quite inadequate to the purposes of the Museum, permission was obtained to erect the handsome gallery in Central Park. On March 30, 1880, the edifice as it then was, was com- pleted and opened to the public. It has been considerably enlarged since. lu keeping with its purposes, a fine relie of antiquity stands in its immediate vicinity. In 1877 the Khedive of Egypt offered to the city one of the famous Obelisks, or Cleopatra's Needles, placed near the Temple of On by Thothmes HI. Lieutenant Gorringe devised a safe method of shipping it, and the entire expense of conveying it from Egypt and placing it in Central Park was borne by Mr. Vanderbilt.
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the cost of the undertaking reaching about $100,000. The Museum of Natural History in the annex of the Park west of Eighth Avenue between Seventy-seventh and Eighty-first Streets, was formally opened to the public. as then completed, by President Ilaves in Decem- ber, 1877. On the opposite side of the Park, meanwhile, on Fifth Ave- nue, between Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets, private wealth had erected another noble edifice, devoted to high educational purposes- the Library founded by Mr. James Lenox. Mr. Lenox had nsed his im- mense wealth to gratify a highly cultivated taste, and for years he had been an indefatig- able collector of liter- ary and art treasures. These he placed in a magnificent stone building, erected for the purpose of placing the rare books and manuscripts and the valuable paintings. within the reach of the public. It was opened in January, 1877. The building cost $1,000,- 000, and was presented by him to the Lenox Library Association. with a large sum in ad- dition for its permanent endowment.
Three men of note passed from the busy stage of New York life. to which they had con- tributed much that was remarkable and impres- sive. Alexander T. THE OBELISK IN CENTRAL PARK. Stewart. for many years the richest man in America, died in 1876. In 1848 he had bought the old Washington Hall on Broadway between Cham- bers and Reade Streets, and opened there a large drygoods busi- ness. He had come from Ireland a young Protestant school- master, but in New York he took to trade, opened a small store,
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was prosperons, and startled the community by the scale upon which he set up business on the site of the old Hall. He gradu- ally added to the territory and building he possessed there till a store of astonishing size for that day covered the entire block from Cham- bers to Reade Streets and two hundred feet back from Broadway. Not content with that, after the war Mr. Stewart secured the whole square bounded by Broadway and Fourth Avenue, and Ninth and Tenth Streets, and again startled a later generation by erecting upon that vast area a building of iron. Here he opened a retail store. devoting the down-town building to wholesale transactions exclusively. Not many years before his death he erected the most palatial mansion that had yet arisen to adorn the streets of New York, at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. Here he died April 10, 1876. Two years later the city was thrown into a state of great agitation when it was learn- ed that the vault in St. Mark's churchyard had been rifled of Mr. Stewart's body. by ruffians who hoped thus to compel the payment of a large sim for its recovery. A splendid mausoleum was built for the final deposit of the remains in Garden City, Long Island, and there still is some mystery about the question whether his body rests there or not.
On April 4, 1883, death removed the familiar and beloved figure of the venerable Peter Cooper, the founder of Cooper Institute. He was born in a house on Coenties Slip on February 12, 1791, so that he had been permitted to survive by a few weeks his ninety-second birthday. How many New Yorkers remember his benevolent face and active figure, flitting about the platform of the Cooper Union Hall when lectures or other public exercises took place there. He began life very humbly, doing good honest work at a variety of trades, coach- making, cloth-making, keeping a grocery store, manufacturing glue. Finally he became an ironmonger. This brought him to Canton. Md., where he built the first locomotive ever made in this country, for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. In 1845 he removed his works to Tren- ton, N. J. Large fortune came into his possession, which we have seen he used largely for the purpose of aiding youth as lowly as he once was, to gain an education and training for various professions. His connection with the Atlantic Cable has also been related. He be- queathed the Institute as a gift to the city, and upon the square in front of it a handsome memorial has been recently erected in his honor.
On February 9, 1883, another prominent New York merchant. equal- ly a " self-made man," William E. Dodge, died at the age of 78. He began life sweeping and doing errands for a drygoods store on Pearl Street. Later he went into the metal business, and was a lead- ing member of the great firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co. Mr. Dodge was identified with the Young Men's Christian Association, was President of the American Branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and in many
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other ways made himself a force in the religious life of the city. His striet views on the observance of the Sabbath caused him to resign his place as one of the Directors of the Erie Railroad, when it was de- termined to run trains on Sunday. He was one of the earliest pro- moters of the system of Sunday-schools when these were still a nov- elty in the city, and ever remained an active worker in them himself. While New York can number among her citizens a Lenox, a Cooper, a Dodge, she need not want for inspiring examples to her youth, nor fear that the pursuit of great wealth necessarily deadens the sensibili- ties to the finer needs of the human spirit.
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CHAPTER XVIL.
A CENTURY OF UNION.
HE Presidential campaign of 1884 had in it again an element of personal interest for New York. Once before one of her citizens, Horace Greeley, had been selected as a standard bearer to break up the solid ranks of the dominant political party. But the man on the other side had too strong a hold upon the people's hearts and the country's gratitude, and Greeley's defeat was inevitable. Now again a man from New York State, and her Gover- nor. Mr. Grover Cleveland, was fixed upon to accomplish that seem- ingly impossible design. The dominant party had made the mistake of nominating a man who could not rally all his party behind him. So serious was the defection that a meet- ing of Independent Republicans was held in New York on June 16, 1884. which was presided over by George William Curtis. They protested against the nominee at the head of the ticket, and deliberately threw ont the hint that if the other party would nominate " the proper men," support would be given to them. In 1872. in just such an emergency the Demo- erats had been indneed to go outside their party and nominate Greeley, George non Curtis who had often seriously opposed them in some of their most cherished prin- ciples and in which he was still out of harmony with them. At the present juncture they did not ex- actly go outside their party, but they nominated one who could not be wholly claimed as a party man, who they instinctively felt was something more than they could manage, and whom therefore they chose with reluctance. It was actually threatened by the Tammany Hall stripe of party men that they would not vote for him, and that faction at two subsequent nominating con- ventions made desperate efforts to prevent the naming of him for the Chief Magistracy. However no success at either time was possible to
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the party without him, and when he was nominated in 1884, the Independents were satisfied. These received the name of Mng- wump, given in derision and accepted as a badge of honor, like that of Christian, and Beggars, and Yankee, and so many others. More than one New York Republican paper of eminent standing, such as the Times and Evening Post, frankly abandoned the old affiliations and gloried in becoming Mugwump organs in the in- dorsement of Cleveland. New York City by a curious incident is supposed to have become the turning point in the decision of the final result. Late in October, 1884, when Mr. Blaine was in New York, a delegation of nearly a hundred clergymen of vari- ous Protestant denominations, waited upon him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, to express their cordial sympathy with the principles he repre- sented, as well as their heart-felt admiration for him as a man. The Rev. Dr. Burchard, their spokesman, in the utterance of these senti- ments became somewhat reckless in speech, allowing himself to say that the Democrats were the party of " Rum, Romauism, and Rebel- lion." It was a beautiful alliteration, the effect of which Blaine un- fortunately failed to spoil, therefore making it appear as if he in- dorsed the sentiment. The Roman Catholics had before this been de- clared by a Tammany stump-speaker to be disaffected toward Cleve- land. When Blaine did not object to their being put into the same category of contempt and denunciation with Rum and Rebellion, ac- cepting Romanism as synonymous with these, a reaction set in which many consider to have cost him the election. The result depended upon the Electoral votes of New York State, and in New York State there was a plurality of only about one thousand for Cleveland.
Early in the year of this Presidential campaign New York received ocular evidence of the dangers that attend the pursuit of Arctic ex- plorations,-a subject that had engaged its attention and enlisted its earnest sympathies before the war. In 1879 there had been a re- vival of interest in Polar Regions. At a meeting of naturalists in Germany, a plan of co-operation was suggested whereby ten different stations were to be occupied by expeditions from as many countries, whence, as a basis of supplies, the work could be simultaneously pushed further north. Two of these stations were assigned to and ac- cepted by the United States, one at Point Barrow, on the Coast of Alaska, and the other at Lady Franklin Bay. Lieutenant De Long, in the Jeannette, was sent to the former point, and Lieutenant Gree- ly in the Proteus to the latter. De Long and party got as far as the Lena Delta on the northern coast of Siberia, and there perished. On February 21, 1884, the bodies of the Commander and nine of his men arrived at New York in the Hamburg-American Steamship Frisia. In April and May, 1884, two steamers were sent out from our harbor to attempt the rescue of Greely, who had not been heard from for a long time. The relief expedition came just in time to save the com-
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mander and five of his men: a few hours later and they might not have been found alive.
Through many months of the year 1885 the Nation was anxiously watching for reports from a sick chamber in New York. General Grant, after retiring from the Presidency, and after his extended tour of the world, determined to make New York his home, a decision to which so many men eminent in our country's history have come, no matter where their homes may have been before. A serious misfor- tune in the way of his business relations came to him in 1884, as we shall have occasion to notice a few pages later, and the anxiety and strain seem to have broken his health. Early in 1885 it was an- nouneed that he was suffering from a cancer in the mouth or throat. and that he could not long survive. It was hardly expected that he could pass his birthday. April 27, yet strangely enongh he rallied just about that time, and the fears of the Nation were much allayed. But the dread disease could not be permanently cheated of its rav- ages. A relapse occurred, and the suffering General was removed to Mount MacGregor in the Adirondacks. Here he lingered until July 23, when death put an end to his agonies. After much disenssion as to what city might claim the honor of receiving the deposit of the honored remains, the known wish of the dead hero himself and the choice of his family decided the question in favor of New York, which he had chosen as his home, and where any memorial raised in his hon- or would be more certain to receive the attention of the world. Sat- urday. Angust 8, was fixed for the funeral, the spot for the inter- ment being the one familiar to New Yorkers during the last twelve years, by the side of the Hudson River at the highest point in River- side Park. For several days the body lay in state in the rotunda of the City Hall, where that of his friend Lincoln had lain twenty years before, and countless multitudes passed by and gazed in silence upon the restful countenance of the General, now silent forever. The U. S. Grant Post of the Grand Army had immediate charge of the remains. and comrades of that Post bore the coffin from the rotunda to the catafalque that was to convey it to its resting place up-town, and which was drawn by twenty-four horses heavily draped and led by grooms. At 9 o'clock, precisely, General Winfield S. Hancock took position with his staff in Broadway opposite the City Hall; and at the signal given he began the march at the head of the first division. composed of United States troops and sailors. All the way to Thirty-fifth Street the military and others to take part in the procession stood in the successive streets awaiting their turn to fall into line ; and it took five hours to pass any given point. The city was crowded with people to an extent then unprece- dented. Three hours before the procession was advertised to start, the streets along the line of march began to fill up, points of vantage for viewing the parade being held with eager tenac-
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ity, no matter how uncomfortable the situation. Unfortunately there was some hitch in the arrangements so that sometimes there was so long a break in the procession that the last man had disappeared far up the street before the next rank came into sight from below. The catafalque reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel at about 1 o'clock, and not till 4.25 did it reach the lowly briek structure that was to receive the coffin until a more fitting monument could be reared. As the splendid car bearing the remains came in sight, a sailor stationed for that pur- pose on Riverside Drive waved a flag, and at once salutes of guns boomed from several war vessels lying at anchor in the river opposite the tomb.
The catafalque was drawn close to the tomb, and as it halted, the clergymen and physicians who had occupied the two or three leading carriages immedi- ately behind it. descended to the ground and took up a position be- tween the ear and tomb, standing with uncovered heads. The clergy- men invited to par- ticipate in the ex- ercises were Grant's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Newman, Bishop Harris of the Methodist Episcopal Church, EAST RIVER FROM THE BRIDGE. the Rev. Robert Collyer, Assistant Bishop of New York Potter, the Rev. Drs. T. W. Chambers, H. M. Field, and C. D'W. Bridgman. The phy- sicians were those who had attended Grant in his last sickness, Drs. Douglas, Sands, and Shrady. Next to this group was one composed of President Cleveland and the members of his cabi- net, ex-Presidents Hayes and Arthur, Governors of States and Mayors of cities, Generals, Statesmen, and others. The members of General Grant's family also gathered close to the coffin, which was lowered to the ground by members of the U. S. Grant Post. Before it was carried into the recess a wreath made of oak-leaves gathered in the woods of Mount MacGregor by the General's little grand- daughter, was laid upon it. The ritual of the Grand Army was read, after which Bishop Harris read the burial form of the Methodist Church, and Dr. Newman closed the exercises by reading selections from Scripture and leading in the recital of the Lord's Prayer. When
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the committal services were finished an artilleryman sounded the tattoo on the bugle at Colonel Grant's request, and then strong men lifted the coffin, now incased in a heavier outside casket, and carried it into the vault. The groups near the gate drew back to let the children have a last look at their father's resting-place (Mrs. Grant was not present), the iron gate was closed and the mortal remains of the Gen- eral were left to rest in their humble abode until the present year. The services at the tomb had lasted nearly an hour. As the mourners and visitors were departing the members of the Fifth Artillery from Governor's Island took up their position as guards, a duty that was performed for many a year by detachments of United States troops, who formed here a regular camp for the purpose. Then the Seventh Regiment faced the river and fired three parting volleys of musketry; the Twenty-second followed with three volleys more; which in turn were succeeded by three salvos from the artillery and a Presidential salute of twenty-one guns by the warships in the river. It was esti- mated that for the three days ending on this memorable Saturday the total number of strangers carried into New York City by railroads, ferries, and across the Brooklyn Bridge, amounted to over 440,000. The fact that so many came to do honor to the remains of Grant was in itself fortunate. " The greater the number of those who shared the unique and wondrous spectacle the better was it for American pa- triotism "; and the press of New York rightly argued that thereby was vindicated the wisdom of the decision to bury the departed Gen- eral in the metropolis. The weather also was favorable to the gather- ing of so great a throng. Rain had prevailed on Friday, but Saturday was fair and measurably cool so that but few who exposed themselves for hours to the direct rays of the sun were prostrated by the heat. And not among the least of the lessons of the spectacle, was the prac- tical ocular demonstration it furnished that the war carried to suc- cess for the North by the dead hero's genius, had forever ceased. It would have done his heart good to know that behind his remains. equally plunged into grief at his early demise, and equally eager to do him honor, rode Generals Sherman and Johnston together in one carriage, and Generals Sheridan and Buckner in another; and that to their hands together were assigned honorable duty as pall bearers. It was a vivid evidence that the Nation had heeded the strong and simple exhortation so often upon Grant's lips: " Let us have peace."
Favored by nature with convenient waterways affording miles of wharfage for shipping, and capable of bearing the deepest bottoms laden with the commerce of the world .- there was one point in the remarkable system where navigation was attended with extreme peril. It seems incredible, but the statement is soberly made by re- liable authority, that about two thousand vessels were more or less completely wrecked, cansing over two millions and a half dollars' worth of damage, every year, in the turbulent and treacherous pass-
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age of Hell Gate. Some writers feel squeamish about the name, and have informed a less knowing publie that " hell " in Dutch means beautiful, and " gate" means a pass, so that this really should be understood as rather a celestial designation than one applying to the opposite place. But Dutch sailors had not much of an eye for beauties of landscape, and the ugly rocks and dangerous eddies which could cause ruin to thousands of vessels in later days would be likely to get from them a very blunt appellation. " Hell " is the German word for clear and bright; but in Dutch the word means exactly what it does in English, and " gat" means a hole. So that if we are thrown back upon what the Dutch word " Hellegat " really signifies, we shall come out worse than ever, and must resign ourselves to the harsh term " Hell-hole."
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