USA > New York > New York in the nineteenth century. A discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, on its sixty-second anniversary, November 20, 1866 > Part 4
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of nurture, and trusted more to direct conversion. The New Yorker, whether Dutch or English, brought over the old Christian year with its educational dis- cipline, and New York still keeps the habit, and is decidedly a Churchman's, and not a Puritan, city. The Dutch retained the Christian year with its Pinx- ter and Paas festivals, and great was the wrath of many when Dr. Laidlie denounced their old church ways, and drove scores of old Dutch families into the Episcopal church by his Puritanic radicalism.
The two churches are, indeed, wonderfully draw- ing near each other, the Puritan and the Churchman, as we shall see, and blending the calm method of church nurture with the Puritan method of indi- vidual conversion ; yet these distinctions are never- theless real, and are essential to a fair study of our subject. The Puritan has made up for the narrow- ness of his Semitic theism, by the new science and insight that discern God's immanence in nature and man ; and the Churchman has quickened his objec- tive conservatism by a large infusion of Puritan in- dependence, intuition, and fire. In this and in other respects the elements of civilization are combining in our city, and are giving us promise of the imperial city and the imperial mind that shall be. Our liter- ature shows the same process, and whilst all types of thought and styles of diction here centre, the most memorable combination is that of Puritan anal- ysis and intuition with catholic largeness and re- pose. Irving well represents the calm, cheerful, old conservatism from his Sunnyside on the Hudson ; and, perhaps, Hawthorne, at his old Puritan manse
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NEW YORK
on Concord River, is his contrast in introversial in- sight and mystical fancy. How much their works are read here, and their tempers cross and modify each other! It seemed as if our people felt the worth and also the large affinities of their idol, by inviting good examples of Puritan intellects to honor his memory, when our leading Yankee poet and historian were called to pay their tributes at the obsequies of Irving. Then the two elements, the actual and the ideal, met together, and the two poles of the American mind were in unison. Our patriarch- poet was fitly chosen to give the eulogy over those fathers of our literature, Cooper and Irving; and the fact and the occasion brought the New York and the New England mind into striking contrast and also he.mony. I may name him, William Cullen Bryant, without reserve here to-night, since age and absence from the country lift him into historical dignity, and I may characterize him as the noble and venerable exemplar of New England in New York-the prophet of Liberty as well as the poet of Nature, and com- bining in rare union the old Hebrew reverence with our modern largeness and freedom. Well may the nation honor him for singing so grandly the Dirge of Slavery, and at the same time protesting against all trespass upon the constitutional rights of our States and people, and all wrong to trade and com- merce by unjust taxation and centralization. All honor to our poet and patriot for his service to our liberty and our law !
This affinity between the Puritan and Church- man mind, or between the New England subjective
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scholasticism and the New York Dutch-English ob- jective institutionalism, has shown itself from the beginning. Jonathan Edwards, the Plato, as Frank- lin was the Aristotle, of New England thought, the first metaphysical mind of America, undoubtedly felt it, when, in 1722, a youth under nineteen, he came to preach to a little knot of Presbyterians in a hall in William Street ; when he saw the face of God very near to him, as he mused on the banks of the Hud- son ; and when a ship arrived, "his soul eagerly catched at any news favorable to the interest and advancement of Christ's Kingdom." He much wished to stay here, and undoubtedly was as much cahned by the wholesome old-fashioned repose of Dutch and English institutions as cheered by the devotion and kindness of the people.
How far assimilation in its various forms of thought and life is to go, we can only conjecture ; for the process has but begun. Our community, like every other community, must go through three stages of development to complete its Providential evolution : aggregation, accommodation, and assimila- tion. The first stage is aggregation, and that comes of course with the fact of residence. Here we are, about a million of us, aggregated on this healthy and charming island, and here we most of us expect and wish to stay. We are seeking our next stage, and wish accommodation not with entire success, and the city is distressed by prosperity, and is like an overgrown boy, whose clothes are too small for his lin's, and he waits in half nakedness for his fitting garments. In some respects, the city itself is a
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NEW YORK
majestic organism, and we have light, water, streets, and squares, much to our mind, always excepting the dirt. The scarcity of houses, the costs of rent, living, and taxation are grievous, and driving a large portion of our middling class into the country. Yet the city is full and overflowing, and is likely to be. The work of assimilation is going on, and every debate, controversy, and party, brings the various elements together, and we are seeing each other whether we differ or agree. Great progress has been made in observing and appreciating our situa- tion and population. Probably New York knows itself better to-day than at any time since its im- perial proportions began to appear. In politics, police, philanthropy, education, and religion, we are reckoning our classes, numbers, and tendencies, and feeling our way towards some better harmony of ideas and interests. The whole population of the city was, by census of 1860, 813,669; and by the census of 1865, 726,386. The voters number 151,- 838; native, 51,500 ; foreign, 77,475. Over twenty- one years, they who cannot read and write are 19,- 199. Families number 148,683. Total of foreigners by census of 1860, was 383,717; and by census of 1865, 313,417. Number of women by census of 1865 was 36,000 more than of men, and of widows, over 32,000 ; being 25,000 more widows than widow- ers. The Germans, by the census of 1860, numbered 119,984 ; and by the census of 1865, 107,269. This makes this city not the third, but the eighth city in the world as to German population. These German cities have a larger population : Berlin, Vienna, Bres-
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lau, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, and Dresden." The Irish, by the census of 1860, number 203,700; and by the census of 1865, 161,334. New York now, we believe, has a million of residents, and either peculiar difficulties in the census commission of 1865, or peculiar influences after the war, led to the ap- pearance of diminished population. Certainly we have, of late, gained numbers, and have not lost in variety of elements to be assimilated. The national diversities are not hostile, and we are seeking out their best, instead of their worst, qualities. Italian art and French accomplishment we can appreciate without forgetting that we are Americans. We are discerning in our New York Germany, something better than Lager Beer and Sunday Concerts, and learning to appeal to the sterling sense and indom- itable love of liberty of the countrymen of Luther and Gutenberg. The Irish among us, who make this the second if not the first Irish city of the world, and who contribute so largely to our ignorant and criminal returns, we are studying anew, and discerning their great service to industry and their great capacity for organization. We find among them good specimens of the blood of the Clintons and the Emmets, and are bound to acknowledge that in purity, their wives and daughters may be an example to any class in America or Europe. Old
* Population of German cities by the last census (1564) : Vienna, 578,325; Berlin, 600,733; Breslau, 136,644; Cologne, 117,000; Munich, 165,031; Hamburg, 185,339. The population of Hamburg is from the census of Isol as that city does not belong to the Zollverein, and did not come into the Zollverein cens : of 1861. See Illustrirter Kalender, Leipzig, 1867, and Handbuch der Vergl 'chenden Statistik, von G. Fr. Kolb, Leipzig, 1865.
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NEW YORK
Israel is with us too in force, and some thirty syna- gogues of Jews manifest the power of the oldest organized religion, and the example of a people that cares wholly for its own sick and poor; willing to meet Christians as friends and citizens, and learn our religion more from its own gospel of love, than from its old conclaves of persecution. We often see other types of the Oriental mind in our streets and houses, and it will be well for us when Asia is here repre- sented by able specimens of her mystical piety, and we learn of her something of the secret of her repose in God, and give her in return something of our art of bringing the will of God to bear upon this stub- born earth, instead of losing sight of the earth in dreams of pantheistic absorption. In many ways the various elements are combining to shape our ideas and society, and fill out the measure of our practical education.
Yet, probably, the most important assimilation, as already hinted, is that which is going on here between the various elements of our American life in this mother-city which is destined, apparently, to be to America what Rome was to the tribes that thronged to its gates. What has been taking place in England is taking place here, and the Independ. ents and Churchmen are coming together here as in England since the Revolution of 1688, when ex- tremes were greatly reduced, and the independency of Milton and Cromwell began to reappear in com- bination with the church ways of Clarendon and Jeremy Taylor. The most significant part of the process is the union here of Puritan individualism
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and its intuitive thinking and bold ideas, with New York institutionalism, and its organizing method and objective mind. The Yankee is here, and means to stay, and is apparently greatly pleased with the posi- tion and reception, and enjoys the fixed order and established paths of his Knickerbocker hosts. It is remarkable that whilst New England numbered only some 20,000, or 19,517 of her people here, which is 7,000 less than the nations of Old England in the city, by the census of 1860, they are so well received and effective, and fill so many and important places in business and the professions. By the census of 1865, New York City has 17,856 natives of New England, and 19,699 natives of Old England; a balance of 1,843 in favor of Old England. Yet, in the Store at large, the result is different, for the population numbers 166,038 natives of New Eng. land, and 95,666 natives of Old England; a balance of 70,372 in favor of New England. It is curious to note that the city had only 825 native Dutch in 1865, and the State 4,254. In a philosophical point of view, it is memorable that the Puritan mind is now largely in power, even in our church establish- ments that so depart from New England independ- ency, and the leading Presbyterian and Episcopal preachers and scholars are largely from the Puritan ranks. Our best informed scholar in the philosophy of religion, who holds the chair of theological in- struction in the Presbyterian Seminary, is a New England Congregationalist, transplanted to New York. Nay, even the leading, or at least the most conspi nous, Roman Catholic theologian of New
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NEW YORK.
York, is the son of a Connecticut Congregationali-t minister, and carries the lineal blood and mental habit of his ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, into the illustration and defence of the Roman creed. It is worthy of note that our most philosophical historian is the son of a Massachusetts Congregational min- ister, and a lover of the old scholastic thinking, and a champion of the ideal school of Edwards and Channing in its faith and independency ; author, too, of perhaps the most bold and characteristic word of America to Europe, the oration of February 22, 1866, that was the answer of our new world to British Toryism, and Romish Obscurantism, whether to the Premier's mock neutral manifesto, or the Pope's En- cyclical Letter. Some of the Puritans who keep their independency, catch the New York organizing pas- sion; and Congregationalism, which, after making four unsuccessful attempts to win a footing, at last found it in 1819, has given to the city a body of clergy who understand the power of institutions as well as ideas. The pastor of the Tabernacle has written his name upon the roll of our patriotic leaders ; and the pastor of All Souls, the First Congregational Church in New York, has led the grandest of our national charities, and written a chapter of humanity, that, in its way, has never been surpassed if equalled on earth, in the Sanitary Commission. On all sides New England independency works into the large organic methods of this metropolis and State. Large, indeed, is the hospitality that has been shown to us New Englanders in this city of our adoption, alike to our thought and our people. The press
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and the parlor have been alike generous, and we can ask no fairer treatment for our literature than has been given our authors in the admirable Cyclo- pedia of American Literature by our fellow-members of the Society-the brothers Duyckinek-one of whom we greet here cordially, and the other we tenderly remember, to-night.
It is not amiss to remember that of the 125 delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1846, forty members were natives of New England, or nearly one third of the whole number-a fact quite remarkable, when we consider that in this State the New Englanders are but about a twentieth part of the population. A distinguished and truly hon- ored historian of Massachusetts once, in the heat of party strife, called New York State a "soulless giant, whose honorable history is yet to be written." Without rehearsing the noble deeds of New York of old and of late, we trust that our excellent friend will remember that a great deal of New England soul has lived in New York, and that the com- munity cannot be soulless that has harbored and honored such men as Rufus King, Postmaster-Gen- eral Osgood, Judge Peck, Henry Wheaton, Silas Wright, Jonathan M. Wainwright, and William Ware, and hosts of other New England men. The honorable history of New York has not indeed been written ; not because the topic is not honorable, but because it has not been fully, except in its early periods, written at all. Honor to old Massachusetts, who still keeps with New York the palm once shared with Virginia, that third of our three oldest States.
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But how much harder the problem to solve here than there-New York here, with great nations pour- ing their immigrant hosts into her domain, whether to stay in her great city, where eighty dialects are said to be spoken, or make their way westward over her roads and canals -- and Massachusetts there, with little comparative interruption of her old work of labor and education, and in comparative quiet aud seclusion with her own sons and daughters about her. Massachusetts and New York ! I name them gratefully and lovingly here to-night, and he is no true American who denies their foremost place among the architects of our Liberty and our Union. Virginia I would gladly name too with her ancient sisters, and God grant that some future orator here may be able in truth to note her new greatness, and restore her lost name. In 1800 she led New York in population by nearly 300,000, and in 1860 fell behind her about 2,300,000, and Pennsylvania suc- ceeds to her honors, and approaches, but does not reach, the greatness of the Empire State. We shall be glad to greet the State of George Washington on the same platform of liberty as the State of William Penn, and so renew the old fellowship with fresh hope.
But why set any limit to our affinities, and not rather rejoice in the boundless fellowship of State with State, faith with faith, and nation with nation here opened ? Here we may, if we will, find and meet on generous terms leading minds of every type and culture ; and we ought to have a large human- ity, an imperial conscience, purpose, and sympathy,
--
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worthy of our great liberty and opportunity. Here we may not only find the scattered truths that have been, to use Milton's figure, torn asunder like the mangled body of the fabled Osiris; but we ought to have what is better than abstract truth, the broken limbs of our great and glorious manhood here brought together, and in fellowship with the wise and good of every name and race, we should discern the true body of our completed humanity, in a catholic largeness that will not yield the palm to Paris or London, nor need to learn imperial breadth from Rome or Russia. Here already, in its best hours, our New York has glimpses of the true human fellowship, which is the organized liberty of the nineteenth century. We need some effective centre of public fellowship, where all elements of generous thought and life meet together, and bring the present and the past together in love and honor. Where should we find it but here, where sects and parties are ignored, and we meet as citizens and men ?
It is the province of the New York Historical Society to keep up the connection of the New York of the past with the New York of to-day, and zeal- ously to guard and interpret all the historical mate- rials that preserve the continuity of our public life. It is to be lamented that so little remains around us to keep alive the memory of the ancient time; and everything almost that we see is the work of the new days. Sad it is that all the old neighbor- hoods are broken up, and the old houses and churches are mostly swept away by our new prosperity. But
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how impressive are our few landmarks! We all could join in the Centennial Jubilee of St. Paul's, and wish well to its opening future. So, too, we can greet our neighbors of the John Street Church in their Centennial, and thank God for the hundred years of New York Methodism. Who of us can pass without reflection by the old Middle Dutch Church, now our Post-Office, in Nassau Street, and without recalling the years and events that have passed since 1729, when it was opened for worship in the Dutch tongue ? In March, 1764, the preaching there was, for the first time, in English, and in August, 1844, Dr. De Witt gave an outline of its history, and pronounced the benediction in Dutch ; and that old shrine of the Knickerbockers is now the busy binin of the nation and the world, and receives and transmits some forty tons of thought a day. What would one of those old Rip Van Winkles of 1729 have thought, if he could have prolonged his Sunday afternoon nap in one of those ancient pews till now, and awoke to watch the day's mail, with news by the last steamers and the Atlantic cable for all parts of the great continent ! Our Broadway, ever changing, and yet the same old road, is perhaps our great historical monument, and the historical street of America by eminence. All the men of our history have walked there, and all nations and tribes have trodden its stones and dust. In our day what have we seen there-what proces- sions, armies, pageants ! What work would be more an American as well as New York history, than Broadway described and illustrated with text and
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portraits, from the times when Stuyvesant astonished the Dutch with his dignity to the years that have brought the hearse of our murdered President and the carriage of his successor along its stately avenue ? Thank heaven for old Broadway-noble type of American civilization-from the Battery to Harlem River ! and may the ways of the city be as straight as the lines of its direction, and as true to the march of the Providence of God !
But is not our Society itself an historical monu- ment, and does not the past combine with the present and future in our records and collections ? This Sixty-second Anniversary revives the whole history of our Society since 1804. These busts recall the faces of Hamilton and Jay, George and De Witt Clinton,- and you, Mr. President, are not alone in your office, and we can almost hear the voice of Luther Bradish, and see the forms of your noted predecessors, Egbert Benson, Gouverneur Morris, Dr. Hosack, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Albert Gallatin, with you as you occupy your chair to-night. One aged member is here, whose life bridges over the chasm, and in him old New York and young are one before us now. He was born in 1786, when the city had but 23,000 inhabitants, and now he presides over the bureau of immigration, that some- times receives that number in a month, and averages 16,000 or 17,000 montlily, or 200,000 a year. Stout specimen of a living man-we will not say venerable relic of the eighteenth century; contemporary of Hamilton and Jay, Morris, Livingston, and the Clin- tons; friend of Paulding, Irving, and Cooper; re-
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presentative of the eighteenth century and the nine. teenth; embodiment of the Dutch, English, and Amer- ican times; master of our earliest literature and our last -Gulian Crommelin Verplanck ! we, who are young New York, this goodly company of staunch men and fair women, a thousand strong, with a million behind us, we salute old New York in you to-night, and implore the blessing of God upon your venerable head. Heaven grant that the new generation may be able to transmit some such specimens of the sound mind in the sound body as yours!
What the orator who ushers in the twentieth century here, or who celebrates your One Hundredth Anniversary, may have to say as he reviews the nineteenth century, as Dr. Miller reviewed the eight- eenth, I will not undertake to say. What we should wish and pray for is clear. Clear that we should wish the new times to keep the wisdom and virtue of the old with all the new light and pro- gress ; clear that after our trying change from the old quarters to the new, we may build a nobler civilization on the new base, and so see better days than ever before; that the great city that shall be here, should be not only made up of many men, but of true manhood, and be not only the capital of the world, but the city of God; its great Park, the cen- tral ground of noble fellowship ; its great wharves and markets, the seat of honorable industry and com- meree ; its public halls, the headquarters of free and orderly Americans ; its churches, the shrines of the blessed faith and love that join man with man, and give open communion with God and heaven.
APPENDIX.
THE author has endeavored to gather all important information as to the present condition and prospects of the city, and is grateful to the many citizens and friends who have given him assistance in the effort. To meet the express wishes of judicious advisers, and to give more per- manent historical value to the publication, he is indneed to present in this Appendix the most important statistics in his posses-ion as to the wealth and population, health, crime, charities and corrections, and edu- cation of the city.
I.
THE POPULATION AND WEALTH OF NEW YORK.
CENSUS OF THE CITY.
1860.
WARDS.
POPULATION.
DWELLINGS.
FAMILI ..
First
18,120
778
3,154
Second
2,507
202
353
Third
3,757
407
615
Fourth
21,994
1.015
3,631
Fifth
22,341
1,260
5,192
Sixth.
26,69S
1,386
5,300
Seventh
40,006
2,358
7,354
Eighth
30,722
2,755
8,110
Ninth
44,886
3,792
Tenth
29,051
2.045
0,2-2
Eleventh
59,963
2,743
13,054
Twelfth.
30,617
3.200
1. 31
Thirteenth
32.917
1.529
7.512
Fourteenth
25,087
1,490
5,969
Fifteenth
27,588
2.781
4,210
Sixteenth.
45,182
3,412
3. . 04
Seventeenth
72,775
3,592
15,-37
Eighteenth
57,464
3,685
Nineteenth
32,841
2,950
5.463
Twentieth
67,554
4,307
13,956
Twenty-first.
49,025
4.22
S,621
Twenty-second
61,749
4,029
11,099
Total
814,254
54.538
155.707
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APPENDIX.
POPULATION OF THE CITY AT VARIOUS PERIODS.
1656
1,000
1820
123.769
1673
2,500
1825
1696
4,302
1830
1731
8,628
1535
270.000
1756
10,351
1840
312.452
1773
21,876
1845
371.223
1786
23,614
1850
515.591
1790
33,131
1855
629.510
1800
60,459
1860
814,254
1810
96,373
The falling off of the population, according to the State Censhe of 1865, is ascribed to various causes, such as the alarms and disasters c. the war, and the reluctance of many persons to have their names know", in fear of military conscription. It is certain that the city has mages inhabitants now than ever, and there is no vacant house on the island.
WEALTH OF NEW YORK.
STATEMENT of Valuation of Property in the City and County of New York, from 1805 to 1825, both inclusive.
DATE.
VALUATION.
CITY AND COUNTY TAS.
STATE TAX.
TOTAL OF CITY AND STATE TAX.
CTS. IM LS
1S05. . 825,645.867
$127,094 87
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