USA > New York > New York City > Old New York : a journal relating to the history and antiquities of New York City, Vol. II > Part 2
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From Chatham street the course of this great thoroughfare was westward, or nearly so. The ground was low, and it was not speedily built upon. On Lyne's Map of 1728 it had not been be- gun. In Maerschalck's Map of 1763 the low grounds are shown as beginning a block or two east of Chatham street, and Pearl street, to avoid them, skirted a little north of where it is now. West of Chatham street were tan yards, and beyond was the negroes' burial ground. This extended to Broadway. North of it was the Collect, and between the south arm of this pond and the main body was an island upon which there was a powder maga- zine. Over and by this was the Magazine street, probably impass- able at most times, on account of the water, but ending in high grounds opposite the New York Hospital. Since the demolition of that edifice and the sale of its land Thomas street has been cut through to Hudson street. This still further prolongs this street, and with a slight jog it follows Duane street to the river.
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The Corporation Manual for 1866 describes at some length the condition of the neighborhood where Pearl street crosses Park row (late Chatham street). Just south of Pearl was a consider- able hill, known generally as Catiemuts, but also called Fresh- water Hill and Windmill Hill. The windmill was west of Chat- ham street, and a little north of Duane street. "The earliest men- tion of this mill is found in a contract made by Jan De Witt, the miller, with one Hartogvelt for its erection in 1662." This mill was in existence over half a century, and appears upon the city map made in 1729, soon after which it seems to have been re- moved. On the summit of the hill was a public house with a. pleasure garden attached, which was long a resort from the city. As early as 1726 there is to be found among the advertisements of the day a subscription plate to be run for on the course at New York; horses to be entered with Francis Child, at Freshwater Hill. This public garden, known generally as Catiemut's Gar- , den, was in existence at a period approaching the time of the Revolution.
At Catiemut's Hill was a line of palisades which crossed the city from one side to the other. It is not generally known that this city has been twice encircled with palisades. As is men- tioned elsewhere, one line ran on the northern side of Wall street, and lasted till about the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury. The other was erected in 1745, to defend the city against a possible incursion of the French and Indians. This line began a little north of James street, at the water's edge, and ran nearly west. At Broadway it followed nearly the line of Chambers street. None of these thoroughfares were then in fact laid out, and when they appeared on maps or plans this constituted their sole existence. It had six blockhouses built for refuges for oldiers, and to command the entrances. At the east the first was at the corner of Batavia and James streets; the next one was opposite the end of Chestnut street, on Madison; the next was at the Five Points; another where the Stewart building is, at the corner of Chambers street and Broadway ; the next at West Broad- way and Chambers street, and the last at Greenwich street and the North River. There were gates at Chatham street, Broadway, and Greenwich street. It will thus be seen that so far as Queen
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street and Magazine street extended they were the streets just within the line of defenses. Palisades, such as were then put up, were very commonly placed on the outside of all American towns that were exposed to attacks from Indians. They were the trunks of straight young trees, of nine or ten inches in diameter, sharpened at both ends, the upper end being sharper than the other. They were driven into the earth as close to each other as was possible, and on the inside there were posts or cleats to stiffen them. Their length in various towns was from ten to six- teen feet. Those in New York were planted in a trench three feet deep, and were pierced for musketry.
Just west of Catiemut's Hill, and along the line of Magazine street, was where the executions of the victims of the negro plot had taken place. It does not seem to the disinterested reader of this series of trials that there ever was any plot among the in- offensive blacks. But the public, growing excited as the reports of insurrection and arson reached it, demanded victims, and the judges and juries yielded to them, as they did to the accusers of the so-called witches in Salem. Mr. Grim stated that the location of the executions was at a point in the centre of the present City Hall place, midway between Pearl and Barley streets. Here executions took place for many years. Just beyond was the negroes' burial ground.
The last part of the present Pearl street to be built upon was that known as Magazine street. Its location was determined by the natural topography of the country. All Manhattan Island was once covered with hills. Those at the north were chiefly of rock, while those at the lower end of town were sand hills and gravel hills .. Between these prominences were plains, more or less extensive. The largest of these in the lower part of the city was known as Lispenard's meadows. It reached entirely to the North River shore, the present Canal street forming the centre line. It crossed Broadway, and extended as far as Baxter street. One wing of the meadows extended southward, West Broadway being the centre, to Reade street. On the north it almost reached Spring street. This ground was low and wet, and in seasons of flood or heavy rains water passed from it in both directions, to the North River and the East River. But in the southeastern corner
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there was something more than a meadow. The ground de- scended rapidly here, and formed a very pretty little pond, known to citizens as the Collect. This was a corruption of the word Kalchhook or Shell Point. It is supposed to be so named from piles of shells upon the shore. This pond, says Miss Booth, was at. the close of the Revolution " deep, clear, and sparkling-a miniature sea in the heart of the city. Its waters still furnished food for the angler, and rumors were rife of strange sea monsters which had been seen therein, one of which had carried off a Hes- sian trooper in the days of the Revolution. It was a man-trap, too, for the unwary traveler, and from time to time a citizen, who had mistaken his way in the darkness or had drank too deeply, fell from its banks and was drowned where now is solid ground. The possibility of such a transformation had not yet occurred to the busy speculators ;. but schemes were projected to convert the beautiful lake into a means of ornament and profit. One com- pany proposed to buy up the lands around it, and, preserving the lake in its primitive condition, to lay out a portion of the grounds as a public park and realize their expected profit from the en- hanced value of the remainder. But this project was scouted as visionary by the cautious capitalists, who could not credit that the city would ever extend so far ; the proprietors of the land, join- ing in the belief, were unwilling to risk their property in so wild a scheme ; and the plan which would have preserved an inland sea in the heart of the city, a natural feature shared by no other, was finally abandoned by its enterprising projectors."
It could not have been otherwise. No pond of that size would have been anything else than a receptacle of the filth of the neigh- borhood. Look at the brook which flows through Hartford, or look at the Tiber in Washington. The Collect was too small to be an ornament of itself, unless the shores were also left in their native beauty. As soon as the Revolution ended, in fact before that time, it began to be filled up, and the street which led from the hospital to Chatham street and Queen street, although only a muddy lane, year by year grew more solid. Houses were put up on either side. In 1807 the Scotch Presbyterians had a church there, and the streets were completed on paper, instead of being interrupted as they were ten years before. Reade and Duane
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streets were opened through in 1794. A survey of the pond and the land about it was made in 1790, and the next year the corpora- tion purchased the claims of the heirs of Anthony Rutgers for one hundred and fifty pounds sterling. Soil was taken from the hills in the neighborhood, and the area of the pond became less, while its waters were shallower. Yet so slow was the progress that there are . men yet living who have skated upon its surface and fished in its depths. It was there that the first steamboat was tried, the one invented by Fitch, twenty years before Fulton set sail with the Clermont.
To the east of the Collect there was a little brook known once as the Old Kill or the Old Wreck Brook. It followed its devious way down to the East River at James street, crossing Chatham street at Pearl. Here was a bridge, the first of the kissing bridges. The title was afterwards transferred to other structures, but this was the original kissing bridge. When on sleigh rides the swain was crossing the stream with his fair one, custom allowed him to take toll from her lips, and it is said that when sometimes the young man, with more modesty or less assurance than usual, refrained from exacting the penalty his companion would sulk and pout for the remainder of the drive. This was the end of the town in pre-Revolutionary days, and municipal ordinances recognized the fact. To the north of the bridge was what is now Chatham square, then a hill with one farmhouse upon it. The water connection on the east by this brook to the Collect. was continued on the west by another stream, which crossed Broadway at Canal street, and it was for a long time con- templated to straighten their outlets, cut them deeper, put banks to them, and thus make a canal which would extend completely across the city. Such a plan would have been of advantage to us had New York remained a little provincial town of one or two hundred thousand population, but it would have been a bar to progress to us as we are now. Cincinnati has closed up the ending of the Miami Canal, and Chicago in the future will have no open, stagnant streams in the centre of her area. Closely connected with this water course was the great spring on Chatham street, the tea water pump. It was undoubtedly supplied by the same sources that the Collect was. Up to fifty years ago it was an es-
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tablished feature of the thoroughfare just below the intersection of Pearl and Chatham. A continual succession of carts took the water away in barrels, and no housewife would use any other water when she could procure this. The water supply of the Manhattan reservoir came from the same underground spring. At one time this supplied twenty-five hundred families with water, but the number of houses gradually diminished until, fif- teen years ago, there were only four. Five years ago the last one dropped off, yet the well is there, the great cast-iron tank is there, and the steam engine is there. All are kept up to make good the charter of the Manhattan Company, which stands ready to sell water to whoever desires it. Once a year the directors make a solemn pilgrimage to the water works, tap the walls of the tank with their canes, shake their heads and return to the bank again. They see no more of it till the next annual inspection.
HEY SUILORSHOME
HOUSE ON FRANKLIN SQUARE.
In that part which leads from Chat- ham street to Franklin square great changes have been made within forty . years. The New Bowery and Chambers street have been cut through since that time, and later the Brooklyn Bridge was erected. New streets hewn through where blocks of buildings were have given an appearance to the street corners much unlike those anywhere else, and many edifices were torn down for the convenience of the new approach to Brooklyn. On the square was one house in which Washington had dwelt, a fine, stately mansion, abundantly described in the journals and diaries of a hundred years ago. Others of more moderate pretensions were also cut away. Since the Walton house has been razed to the ground, only one other house is left
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which in its day made any pretensions. It is the New Sailors' Home. Its prosaic use, the dirt in the neighborhood, the sport- ing temple next door, and the elevated railroad before it, all combined, do not destroy the evidence that it was well planned and well built, and was once the home of some wealthy citizen. Inside the structure are to be found several fine pieces of work. Tradition says this house was occupied by George Clinton, when Governor of this State, not immediately subsequent to the evacuation, but a considerable time after. Of this, however, we have been able to obtain no confirmation, but on the contrary
INTERIOR DECORATION IN THE SAILORS' HOME.
explicit denials from those who ought to know. It is well recollected, however, that he was a resident of Pearl street, opposite the end of Cedar, as soon after the close of the war as he could obtain possession. The building was a three and a half story structure, with dormer windows. Here the Governor dis- pensed his hospitality, and here all distinguished strangers came to pay their respects to this great patriot. Later he removed to the Government house on the Battery, where one of his daughters was married.
A little further down Franklin square than the Sailors' Home was the spacious dwelling of William Walton, which when built
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was regarded as the handsomest in the city. Its width was great, and it abounded in carved work and fine decorations. It is said that a banquet given at this house was the immediate cause of the Revolutionary War. Mr. Walton made one day a dinner to the principal inhabitants of the town and to the military officers who were here. The greatest profusion was exhibited. Luxuries from every clime were there; the napery was of the finest, the service unequalled, while the tables groaned with the weight of gold and silver plate upon them. The food was unsurpassed, for no English town could then match New York in its supply of fish, fowl and game. The officers were delighted with their recep- tion, and were never tired of telling about the profusion and wealth there exhibited. One of them re- peated the story to a minister of the Crown, and the latter deter- mined to bring in a bill for taxation of the Americans. No plea of poverty could be made if they were able to afford such banquets. The bill was brought in, its execu- tion was resisted, hard feelings became common, and in the end there was armed opposition. Thus the independence of America was due to the lavishness of a New Yorker. So runs the story, at any rate. In this building the first New York bank was organized.
In one of the illustrations which we give is shown Hague street, look- ing down from Pearl street. It is a dark and narrow alley, making a HAGUE STREET, VIEWED FROM PEARL. half turn in its course, and remark- able only for the great explosion there thirty-eight years ago, by which many lives were lost. Our view is ended by the Brooklyn Bridge.
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The street was ravaged by the great fires of 1776, 1778 and 1835. In the latter, which was the greatest in America until the Chicago fire, and surpassed even that in relation to the means of the people, Pearl street was the centre. In every direction from Hanover square the flames extended. It was at first thought that this open space would be a good place in which to store goods, and that the Garden Street Church would afford another good place. Its yard was filled with costly merchandise. There was no possibility of controlling the conflagration, however, except with gunpowder, SMYTH& CAKES N. YOR and silks from France, lace DESTILOY HD, 1835 from Belgium and teas IN THE CONFLAGRATION 15 9 17 OF CMPR from China were burned in LOSS 80.000.000 DOLLARS REBUILT IS3G these two places as easily as if they had been in a wooden building. Directly south of Hanover square, upon Pearl street, is an inscription which shows where the flames were ESTBORED BY HIRE stopped. The ruins smoked until Spring, the fire being in December. TABLET IN MEMORY OF THE GREAT FIRE.
The greatest trade in New York is now dry goods. Sales of single houses have reached as high as seventy-five millions of dollars a year, and at the present day there are a number who go much beyond ten millions. The wholesale district is now on the west side of. Broadway, from Duane street north half a mile. It was once on the lower part of Broadway and on Pearl, Pine, Cedar, and William streets. Pearl street was the chief. In the last century all goods of this kind were brought from England and France,
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and displayed on this thoroughfare. But as the city grew larger and older it was supplied to some extent from New England. Com- mission houses began, and the dry goods trade assumed somewhat the appearance it has now. That this was one of the chief indus- tries of Pearl street can be inferred from the fact that in 1834 the following numbers were of those who traded in dry goods : Nos. 61, 100, 115, 118, 122, 126, 140, 157, 158, 160, 164, 165, 166, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181, 181, 188, 190, 191, 195, 208, 214, 217, 226, 231, 234, 242, 250, 252, 254, 255, 2693, 271, 283, 284, 307, 438 and 464. So important had this trade become fifty years ago a book was written entitled the " Perils of Pearl Street," which told the dangers that might be met with there in the same way that we would now use, if we were disposed to moralize, concerning Wall street or New street. This street was also the hardware centre. In that year there were on its line the following banks and other noted places of commerce :
The Fulton Bank, corner of Fulton; the Leather Manufact- urers' Bank, No. 334 ; Dry Dock Company, office No. 33S, bank corner Avenue D and 10th street ; Jefferson Insurance Company, corner of Chatham street; Eastern Pearl Street House, No. 309; Holt's Hotel, corner of Fulton, by Stephen Holt; Pearl Street House and Ohio Hotel, No. 88, by Mahan & Peck; United States Hotel, Nos. 178 and 180; and the Walton House, No. 328.
The one above called Holt's Hotel, but now the United States Hotel, was in its day one of the wonders of the New World. It was the largest and most magnificent inn that up to that time had been erected, and its prices, a dollar and a half a day, were thought to be exorbitant by many who had accumulated con- siderable property. Two terms are used in a description con- temporary with its building which have now gone out of use. "In the relish room," it says, "there can be found superior accommodation on terms as reasonable as at any establishment in this city." It further says that in the second story, on the Water street side, "is a large room in which there is daily a public ordinary, and to which resort many of the most respectable and influential men of the city." On the roof there was a promenade, and in the basement there was an artesian well, which at that time was over five hundred feet deep. It subsequently went
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down much further. Here was probably the first steam engine which was used in a hotel to facilitate the labor. Passenger elevators,had not then been thought of, but baggage was carried upstairs by steam power, and it was also used for turning spits, grinding and cleaning knives. Its main purpose was, however, digging the artesian well. The front shown by us is the Water street side.
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Mr. Holt was a man of decided originality of character. He came here from Salem in 1808, then being employed as a cabinet maker, and shortly after opened a small victualing house, which was managed by Mrs. Holt. In 1814 he had a boarding house for the accommodation of officers of the army, and shortly after took larger premises in Front street, between Burling slip and Fulton street.' Calamity overtook him here, and he was burned out. He was then penniless, but he obtained on credit another house in
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Fulton street, where he was very successful. The point in which he differed from his rivals was making his charges very moder- ate in amount, and depending upon a large trade to reimburse him. It is understood that in his venture on the corner of Pearl street and Fulton he changed his management, asking what other fashionable houses did. The expenses, which were larger than there had been any precedent for, devoured the receipts, and he failed, the hotel passing out of his hands. It was opened in January, 1833, the Astor House, the next large hotel, being erected about three years later.
At 245 Pearl street was the shop of David Felt, the stationer, who for many years was at the head of his calling. His establish- ment was so large that in a Henry Clay parade in 1844 he turned out between three and four hundred employees, and he was long reputed to be the richest of his craft.
STATIONER.S'
Pearl street ends at Broad- il way. The last few hundred HALL feet of its course it climbs a hill, once higher than now. Upon it was a pond, while directly opposite the end of 124515 LIEL Magazine street, as it then VID FELT. on k! EDWARD TAYL( was, was erected the hospital, the one bit of picturesque- ness that the lower part of New York contained twenty years since. The hill cov- ered forty acres. Col. Rut- gers held part of this plot in the middle of the last cen- tury, but towards 1770 it SHOP OF DAVID FELT, THE STATIONER. became the Ranelagh Gar- dens, with dancing platform, music, flowers and refreshments. It was sold in 1770, being bought by the Hospital Association, which proceeded, with help from the Corporation, to build.
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Issues of the Press in New York, 1693-1752.
This was begun September 2d, 1773. In :1775 it was partly destroyed by an accidental fire, but it was sufficiently repaired to serve as barracks for the British soldiers ?during the war. After the peace it again became a hospital. In this neighbor- hood, also, was the first reservoir for supplying the city with water, and later the Broadway Theatre. There was a Scotch Presbyterian Church on the north side of Pearl street, a little west of City Hall place, that we have not mentioned.
ADDITIONS TO A LIST OF THE ISSUES OF THE PRESS IN NEW YORK, 1693-1752.
BY CHAS. R. HILDEBURN.
Since the publication of my List of the Issues of the Press in New York, 1693-1752, the following additional titles have come under my notice. I shall be glad to 'receive further additions and corrections to the "List" from any one interested in the subject.
The most important announcement among these addenda is that of the New York Gazette for 1743 and 1744. It has not hitherto been noted that this newspaper, begun by Bradford in 1725, did not as Thomas states end before 1743, but was in fact continued under its original title till November 1744, and from then as the New York Evening Post until after March 30, 1752. I have seen no numbers of the Gazette between May 4, 1741, No. 803, and July 14, 1744, No. 976. The latter bears the hitherto unknown joint imprint of William Bradford and Henry De Foreest. When this partnership began cannot therefore be learned, but it was probably in 1743, on Bradford's retirement from business, when for some reason he retained a pecuniary interest in the Gazette, the rest of the work done in the office bearing only De Foreest's name. The last number I have met with, No. 990, was issued on Monday, October 29, 1744, and bears the same imprint as No. 976. The New York Evening Post began on Monday, November 26, just four weeks later, and while the last three numbers of the Gazette
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Issues of the Press in New York, 1693-1752.
and the first three of the Post are not now known to exist, it is fair to presume as the two papers were printed from the same type that De Foreest had finally bought out Bradford and simply changed the name of the paper. It is a matter of great regret that the existing files of the Gazette should be so imperfect. Of the two in New York City, that in the New York Society Library, running from No. 21 to 211 lacks 20 intervening numbers, and that in the collection of the New York Historical Society (not including numbers 101, 754, 755 and 803 which it also possesses) running from No. 237 to 669 lacks 198 numbers. The file in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania runs from No. 400 to 563, lacking 16 numbers, and is supplemented by num- . bers 18, 35 to 39, 23 numbers between 657 and 745, 976 and 990. I am not aware of the existence of any other file.
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