USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 56
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
silver ; also acts for the punishment for bribery at election ; for general business incorporations ; for the prevention of cruelty to children ; for rapid transit in the city of New York ; for creating a State Board of Audit, and for the suppression of intemperance.
During the recess of the Legislature several committees of investiga- tion performed their tasks. One committee investigated the affairs of the quarantine, the Board of Health, and the management of emigrants and emigration at Castle Garden, New York ; another sought to ascer- tain the causes of the rapid increase of crime in the city of New York, and another to investigate charges concerning the debtors' prison in the county of New York. Perhaps the most important committee of in- quiry was appointed on the recommendation of Governor Tilden in a special message for an investigation concerning the management of the canals of the State. In that message he showed that for five years, end- ing September 30th, 1874, the total receipts for tolls had been $15,058,- 361, while the expenses for operating and for ordinary repairs had amounted to $9,202,434, leaving an apparent surplus of $5,855,927. During the same period the disbursements for extraordinary repairs had amounted to $10,960,644, causing a real deficiency of $5,104,697. Add- ing to this the payment on the canal debt and other outlays on account of the canals, an aggregate of over $11,000,000 was obtained as the amount expended by the State in five years for these works. The gov- ernor declared that the expenses for both ordinary and extraordinary re- pairs had been greatly in excess of what was required, and that there had been corrupt and fraudulent contracts for work and materials by which the State Treasury had been systematically plundered, something after the methods employed by the " Tweed Ring" in the city of New York.
The investigation showed among others as flagrant exhibitions of fraud, that the State had paid on ten contracts $1,560,769, while the amount to be paid upon the quality of materials exhibited in the pro- posals, at contract priees, would have been only $+24,735. The gov- ernor recommended the adoption of measures at once for ascertaining the exact financial condition of the canals. It was done, and reforms in their management ensued.
There are thirteen eanals in the State, two of them belonging to cor- porations .* Their total length, with navigable feeders and lakes and
* These are the Erie, Champlain, Oswego, Chenango, Chemung, Cayuga and Seneca, Genesee Valley, Oneida Lake, Chenango Extension, Crooked Lake Canal and Ithaca Inlet. The Delaware and Hudson and the Junction canals belong to corporations. The amount of work remaining to be done on the State canals, at the close of 1875, was con- tracted for at an aggregate of $892,397.
ɔ̃ɔ̃5
FACILITIES OF TRANSPORTATION.
rivers artificially connected therewith, is 1393 miles. The length of the canals proper, with navigable feeders, is 907 miles. The number of tons of freight transported over these canals in 1874 was 5,804, 588. The cost of this freight transportation was $4,335,536, and the receipts for tolls and freights were $6,882,921. The canals (excepting two) are the actual property of the people of the commonwealth, and had cost them up to 1875, for original construction and subsequent enlargements, fully $101,000,000. The aggregate cost of the canals and railroads of the State, with their equipments, at that time, was $735, 862,282, which was equal to one third of the gross taxable property of the common- wealth, real and personal.
The railroads within the State are of far more value as vehicles of transportation for freight and passengers than the canals. The total length of steam railways in 1875 was 5210 miles, many of them with double tracks. There were seventy-six horse railroads, the aggregate length of which was 400 miles. The number of passengers carried on the steam railways within the State in 1874 was 34,719,018, and on horse railways, 228,372,112, making the total number of passengers 263,091,130. The receipts from freight carried on steam railroads within the State that year amounted to $65,085,604, and from passengers, $25,369,850. The receipts from passengers on horse railways were $12,003,654, making a total for passengers and freight of $109,342,029. The cost of transportation of freight and passengers on both steam and horse railroads in one year was $76,027,413.
These railways and their enormous business had been created in the space of forty-four years. The first railway put into operation in the State, as we have observed, was completed in 1831, and connected Albany and Schenectady by rail .*
The admirable common-school system of the State, so essential to the moral, intellectual, and social welfare of the people, has been fre- quently alluded to in preceding pages. It has been the object of the special care of the electors and the Legislature, and a topic for sugges-
* The first locomotive engine constructed in the United States was built by a native of New York, the late Peter Cooper, in 1830, at his Canton Iron Works, near Balti- more. It was made from his own designs, and was named "Tom Thumb." It was a very small tractor engine-too small for practical use. On a trial trip it drew a car with several Baltimorians in it from Baltimore to the Relay House, a distance of nine miles.
The first actual working locomotive built in America was made in New York City in 1830 from plans drawn by V. L. Miller, of Charleston, S. C., and used on a road be- tween that city and Hamburg. It was named "Best Friend." The first projector of a land carriage, to be propelled by steam, was Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
tions and expressions of solicitude by the chief magistrates of the com- monwealth, for almost half a century. Ample provision has always been made for the support and efficiency of the common schools, and for the wide distribution of their benefits. Every inhabited portion of the State has been divided into convenient districts, in each of which a school is taught some portions of the year, is open to all, and is within the reach of all. We have already observed (page 360) the origin of the common-school system in the State, and the methods used in provid- ing funds for its support .*
In his synoptical report to the Legislature (January 5th, 1887), Hon. A. S. Draper, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, says : " The educational work in the State has been a wonderful growth and devel- opment. In 1850 we were spending $1,600,000 annually in the support of our public schools. During the past year we spent $14,000,000." Ile then propounded some pertinent questions suggestive of needed im- provement in the methods of public instruction. He asked : "Is our education as practical as it might be ? Do we reach all the children we ought ? In our ardor over the high schools, which nine tenths of our children never reach, have we not neglected the low schools ? Is there not too much French, and German, and Latin, and Greek, and too little spelling, and writing, and mental arithmetic, and English grammar being taught ? Are not our courses of study too complex ? Are we not under- taking to do more than we are doing well ? Are we educating the whole man ?" Some wise suggestions follow.
The State is divided into sixty counties. The first eight counties were established in 1683-Duchess, Kings, Queens, Orange, Richmond, Suffolk, Ulster, and Westchester. The last one organized was Wyom- ing, in 1841. For an account of the organization of each county, with a delineation of the seals and the population, etc., see pages 97 and 98, and Appendix.
The building of a new State House was authorized in 1868, and work
There were in the State of New York at the close of 1875, 11,787 school-houses ; 11,289 school districts, exclusive of cities ; 19,157 teachers employed for the legal school term, and 29,977 during every portion of the year. There were 1,058,846 children attend- ing public schools, and 185,098 of school age in private schools. There were 6207 per- sons attending normal schools. In the school district libraries there were 812,655 volumes. In the State were 1,579,504 persons between the ages of five and twenty- one years. The School Fund proper amounted on January 1st, 1875, to $3,054, 772, and the revenue from it, $178,813. The total receipts on account of common schools that year were $12,516,362, and the total expenditures were $11,365,377. The amount paid for teachers' wages was $7,843,231. The estimated value of the school-houses and sites was $36,393,190.
557
FINANCES AND POPULATION.
upon it was begun soon afterward. The limestone and granite for the foundation were procured from the Lake Champlain, Adirondack, and Mohawk Valley regions of the State. The corner-stone was laid, with imposing ceremonies, on June 24th, 1871. Already $2,000,000 had been expended on the foundation (which rose seven feet above the ground), besides $650,000 paid for the land on which it was ereeted. It is built of drilled granite, four stories in height, two lmudred and ninety feet wide, and three hundred and ninety feet long. When completed it will be one of the most costly buildings ever constructed in the United States -probably nearly $20,000,000.
The nominal funded debts of the State on September 30th, 1875, were $28,328,686, less the amount of sinking funds pledged for their redemption, which was $13,581,382, reducing the actual debt of the State to $14,747,304. The aggregate amount of the bonded debts of counties, cities, towns, and villages was very large, but was in rapid process of extinction. These debts were largely incurred by giving aid to railroads ; for public buildings ; for war and bounty expenses ; for roads and bridges, and for water-works and fire apparatus.
Let us here go forward five years from our intended resting-point, and take a general view of the Empire State in 1880, as revealed by the Tenth Census.
In size the State of New York is only nineteenth in rank. Its area is a thousand square miles less than that of North Carolina, and seven thousand less than Michigan. Although its territory includes less than one sixty- third of the whole country, its inhabitants then formed more than one tenth of the population. Its twenty-five cities contained be- tween one fifth and one fourth of the entire urban population of the United States. *
One half of the inhabitants of the State lived in cities. The number engaged in agriculture was less than in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, or in
* New York had drawn freely from and given liberally to the other States. In 1880 there were within its borders natives of Connecticut enough to make a city as large as Bridgeport ; of Maine, to repopulate Bath ; of Massachusetts, to repeople Lynn or Law- rence ; of Pennsylvania, nearly sufficient to twice repopulate its State capital ; of New Jersey, to fill Paterson, and more natives of Vermont than in Burlington, Rutland, and St. Albans together. New York had given to California people enough to populate two cities as large as Sacramento ; to Connecticut, almost enough to stock Hartford with men and women ; to Kansas, enough to make the three cities of Atchison, Topeka, and Leavenworth ; to Ohio, more than enough to make Columbus or Toledo ; to Wisconsin, in number equal to three fourths of the population of Milwaukee ; to Iowa, enough to fill her four largest cities ; to Pennsylvania, 100,000 ; to Illinois, 120,000, and to Michi- gan twice the population of Detroit. Nearly one fifth of the American-born population of Michigan were natives of New York.
558
THE EMPIRE STATE.
Ohio. In acreage of improved land in farms, it was behind Iowa, Illi- nois, and Ohio ; yet it is second only to Illinois as a farming State, taking as the basis of comparison the total value of all farm products during the year before the census. Illinois, with 26,000,000 acres and 436,000 farmers, produced value of $204,000,000. New York, with less than 18,000,000 acres and 377,000 farmers, produced $178,000,000. The average annual yield of the Illinois farmers was a little less than $8 an acre ; of the New York farmers, a little more than $10 an acre.
New York raised more barley than any other State excepting Cali- fornia ; more oats than any other State excepting Illinois and Iowa, and more rye than any other State excepting Illinois and Pennsylvania. Raising more buckwheat than any other State, it produced more than one third of the entire buckwheat crop of the country.
The hay crop of New York surpassed that of any other State. It was more than one seventh of the entire crop of the country. It also pro- duced one fifth of all the so-called " Irish" potatoes grown in the United States, and more than twice as many bushels as Pennsylvania, the second potato-producing State in rank. It produced more than four fifths of the total hop crop of the country, and more than ten times that of the State next in rank.
New York is a great fruit-growing State. Its orchards yielded in the census year in value one sixth of the total fruit production of the United States, and almost twice that of its most successful rival, Penn- sylvania. It is also pre-eminently a dairy State. In the year before the census it produced more than one seventh of all the butter of the United States, and nearly one third of all the cheese.
New York is the foremost manufacturing State in the Union. It is first in the number of establishments ; second in the amount of capital invested ; first in the number of hands employed ; first in the amount of wages paid, and first in the value of manufactured products. It con- tained more than one sixth of all the mills, manufactories, and work- shops of the United States that produced $500 in 1879. These estab- lishments represented between one sixth and one fifth of all the capital invested in the mechanical and manufacturing establishments of the United States. Those industries gave employment to between one sixth and one fifth of all the hands at work in American mills and shops. The New York manufacturers paid more than one fifth of the total wages given to workingmen and women of this class. The total value of the manufactured products in the State was more than one fifth of the total for the Union.
Let us take a brief glance at the products of some of the vast and
559
PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRY.
varied industries of the State in comparison with the same products in the whole Union, in 1879. New York produced nearly one sixth in value of all the agricultural implements made in the country ; nearly one third of all the baking products ; more than one half of the cheese, and nearly one half of the butter ; between one third and one half of the men's clothing, and nearly two thirds of the women's clothing produced in manufactories ; more than one fifth of the foundry and machine-shop products ; between one fifth and one quarter of the furniture ; more than one third of the hosiery and knit goods ; nearly a quarter of the jewelry ; more than one third of the beer and ale ; more than one half of the millinery and lace goods ; two thirds of the pianos ; between one third and one half of the paints ; more than half the perfumery and cos- metics ; nearly one third of the books and periodicals ; one quarter of the soap and candles ; nearly one half of the refined sugar and molasses ; more than one sixth of the smoking and chewing tobacco and snuff, and between one third and one half of the cigars and cigarettes.
New York then (1879) led the country in shipbuilding, both in the number of establishments devoted to the construction and repair of steam and sailing vessels and boats of all kinds, and in the annual value of all the products. While between one fifth and one fourth in value of all American vessels were built in the State, nearly one third of them were owned by New Yorkers.
Of all the steam craft owned in the United States, nearly one quarter belonged to New York, while the tonnage of these vessels was more than a quarter of the tonnage of the whole country, and their value nearly one third of the total value. New York had between one sixth and one fifth of the sailing-vessels of America ; more than one fourth in tonnage and more than one fourth in value. Of the canal-boats of the country, New York owned about five eighths in value. In rank it is first in maritime commerce. *
Let us turn from a consideration of the pre-eminence of New York in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, to that of its rank in intelli- gence and accumulated wealth.
While New York had one tenth of the population of the republic, its expenditures for popular education were more than one eighth of that of the whole Union. So general were the blessings of education dif- fused throughout the commonwealth, that only 4.2 per cent of the adult people were unable to read and 5.5 per cent unable to write. In 1875 the State spent nearly $290,000 in its nine normal schools for the edu-
* I am largely indebted to a writer in the New York Sun, in 1883, for the analysis and comparisons of the statistical facts here given.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
cation of teachers for the public schools, and $18,000 for the aid of teachers' institutes. In the State were then nearly 250 academies or academic departments in Union schools, 27 colleges and universities, 7 scientific schools, 13 schools of theology, 4 law schools, and 14 medical schools.
A trustworthy measure of the intelligence of a large community is the activity of its printing-presses, especially those which distribute in- telligence through newspapers and periodicals. New York produced nearly one third in value of the books published in the United States. It also issued one eighth of all the periodicals published in the country ; also nearly one eightlı of the newspapers issued. Of the aggregate cir- culation of the daily newspapers in the Union, New York furnished be- tween one fourth and one third. Of the aggregate circulation of the weeklies and all other periodicals in the United States, it also furnished between one fourth and one third.
The assessed valuation of real estate and personal property in the State of New York in the census year was equal in amount to one seventh of the valuation of the entire real and personal property of the whole Republic. It was also almost exactly the same in amount as that of the six New England States-$2,651,940,006. One third of the registered bonds of the United States were held in New York-$210, 264,250. But its enormous share of the wealth of the country cannot be computed from facts found in the census reports. Its financial interests are every- where-in railways, in mines, in farms and factories in every State and Territory.
In nearly all the foregoing comparisons the figures of New York's part in the various forms of industry are merely the figures of its investments within its own borders. Great as is New York's ratio to the United States in population, it is greater still in almost every branch of human industry, and in the prosperity resulting therefrom.
New York is truly great in its magnificent and varied charities, public and private, and its provision for the promotion of morality and religion. Its institutions for special education-for the mute and the blind-its numerous reformatories, asylums, hospitals, and charitable foundations of every kind, as well as penal institutions, are of the highest order in equipment and management. The State abounds in literary and scien- tific societies ; in large public and private libraries ; in works and schools of art, and ample appliances for the intellectual and social advancement of every citizen of the commonwealth, of whatever race, color, or condition.
There were in the State, in 1875, 6320 church organizations, 6243
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THE HUDSON RIVER AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
church edifices, 6115 clergymen, 1,177,537 church-members, with an adherent population of 3,934,690. The aggregate value of church property of every kind in the State was nearly $118,000,000.
The Hudson River, the grand and beautiful " River of the Moun- tains," as we have observed in the first chapter of this work, is clustered with the most interesting legendary and historic associations from the Wilderness to the Sea, a distance of three hundred miles or more. Its upper waters witnessed the fierce strifes for mastery between contending tribes of barbarians before the advent of Europeans, and the struggles
VAN RENSSELAER MANOR HOUSE. (From a drawing made in 1866.)
for dominion of the French and English in later times. Then followed the victories of peace-the gradual blossoming of a large portion of that region into a paradise of beauty under the hand of skilled industry.
The tide-water region of the Hudson for fully sixty miles from the ocean has been for more than two centuries a theatre of most remarkable social and historic events. The principal of these have been briefly noted in preceding pages.
Among the social events on the borders of the great river, the creation of " patroons" and manorial estates and privileges at the earlier period
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
of the history of the commonwealth appear the most conspicuous. Of these the manors of Rensselaerwyck, of Livingston, of Van Cortlandt, and of Philipse are most prominent.
The Van Rensselaer Manor and patroonship was, as we have observed, the first created, and survived all the others, its titles and privileges expir- ing with General Stephen van Rensselaer in 1839. The grant was made to Killian van Rensselaer, of Amsterdam, under a charter of privileges
a
4
JOHN AND MARY LIVINGSTON.
and exemptions passed in 1629. Van Rensselaer had co-partners at first. In 1685 the Van Rensselaer family became sole owners of the vast estate. The Manor House, modified several years ago, stands upon the site of the original Van Rensselaer dwelling, in the northern suburbs of the city of Albany.
The Livingston Manor was created by a preliminary act of Governor Dongan in 1685. Robert Livingston, the first of the name in America, *
* See page 108. The common ancestors of the Livingstons in America were John Livingston and his wife Mary. He was a great-great-grandson of Lord Livingstone, Earl of Linlithgow, Scotland. He was exiled, and went to Rotterdam, in Holland, where Robert learned the Dutch language, afterward emigrated to America, settled at Albany, as we have observed, and became the first Lord of the Manor of Livingston.
The above delineations of the heads of John and Mary Livingston I made many years ago from the original portraits then in the possession of Colonel Henry A. Livingston, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
563
THE MANORS ON THE HUDSON.
married the wealthy widow of Rev. Nicholas van Rensselaer-Alida, daughter of Colonel Peter Schuyler, of Albany-in 1678. He bought of the Indians sixty thousand acres of land on the east side of the Hudson River, opposite the Kaatsbergs (Catskill Mountains). At the time of the creation of the manor, in 1715, it had increased by subse- quent purchases to about one hundred and fifty thousand acres. The
LIVINGSTON LOWER MANOR HOUSE.
patent given by Dongan was confirmed by royal authority, with the title of " Manor of Livingston," and in 1716 the proprietor exercised manorial privileges." He paid an annual tribute to the crown of three dollars and fifty cents. The manor was afterward divided into the Upper and Lower Manor. The latter was called Clermont. It was the home of Robert R. Livingston, the eminent chancellor. The manor house is not far from Tivoli, on the Hudson. t
* The privileges of the patroons have already been defined. Robert Livingston, by virtue of these privileges, took his seat in the Provincial Legislature in 1716. He had already built a substantial manor house of stone on a grassy point upon the bank of the Hudson, at the mouth of Roeleffe Jansen Kill, now Ancram Creek.
t The above picture is that of Clermont, or the Lower Manor House, built by Chan- cellor Livingston, a little below the old Manor House. After the British burnt Kingston in the fall of 1777, they proceeded to Livingston's manor and burnt both of the houses, the chancellor's mother then occupying the older one. They were both soon rebuilt. The chancellor erected a more spacious and elegant dwelling, and, as before, called the place
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
Stephen van Cortlandt," one of the governor's council at New York, purchased large tracts of land in Westchester County, and in 1697 eighty-three thousand acres were by royal authority erected into " the lordship and manor of Courtlandt." The manor and its privileges were held by the tenure of paying an annual tribute to the crown of five
VAN CORTLANDT MANOR HOUSE.
dollars. The Van Cortlandt Manor House was erected at the beginning of the last century by John van Cortlandt, son of the first " lord of the manor." It stands on the right side of the Croton River, near where that stream enters the Hudson.
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