USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume III > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
.
131
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
peculiarities and temperaments for his purposes. The indifferent he succeeded in placing at work; to the zealous he gave direction in their enthusiasm. The republican victory in the spring foreshad- owed a republican victory on national issues in the autumn, and if New-York were gained for the anti-federalists, the federal- ist candidates were doomed to failure. Hence Burr was re- warded for his energetic con- duct of the State campaign by being placed in nomination for the national office of president or vice-president. It was at this time never quite certain who would become president and who vice-president. The intention might be to relegate a man only to the lower dig- nity; but if a few more of the electors had another purpose in mind, or even another man for president, the intended vice- president would be returned MRS. WILLIAM JACKSON.1 finally as chief magistrate. So real was this danger that Hamilton was at one time afraid that Adams might be elected in place of Washington, and his advice to divert a few votes from Adams to prevent this false step was the ground for the subsequent unhappy differences between these two great men, involving the final over- throw of the federalist power.
Burr had his mind set on securing the presidency himself, and to beat Jefferson, and largely to his efforts, questionable and otherwise, the success of the republican party was due. Hamilton exerted him- self to the utmost to counteract these efforts; but in Burr's line of action he was more than a match for Hamilton. He was a master of intrigue and quite unscrupulous. Ward politics were bound to play an important part in an election which was to turn upon the vote of the State or city of New-York; and in ward politics Hamilton was helpless and Burr a giant. "Hamilton was no match for his an- tagonist. . .. With voice and pen Hamilton maintained the conflict.
1 Mrs. William Jackson, nee Elizabeth Willing, was a sister of Mrs. Bingham, of Philadelphia. Both ladies were distinguished for their beauty and accomplishments. The above picture is copied from the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Her husband, Major Jackson, was born in Eng- land in 1759, came to America; was educated in
Charleston, S. C., appointed aide to General Ben- jamin Lincoln, and fought on the patriot side in the Revolution, He was one of Washington's aides while president, in New-York; and Surveyor of the Port in Philadelphia in 1796. From 1800 till his death he was secretary of the Society of the Cincinnati.
132
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
ORDER OF THE
FUNERAL PROCESSION
The gift of DECEMBER, 1799. By direction of the . Commitee of. Arrangement.
Officer and
Civil Oficers of the City. Civil Officers of the State.
Eight Dragoons.
Sixth Regiment, in Platoons, by the left.
Lieutenant Governor. Civil Officers of the United States Government.
Eight pieces of Field Artillery.
Cavalry.
His Catholic Majefty's Conful and Gentlemen of that Nation.
Rifle Company.
Militia Officers.
His Britannic Majefty's Conful and
Oficers of the Navy of the United States.
Gentlemen of that Nation. Mùfic.
Officers of the Army of the United States.
Anacreontic and Philharmonic So. cieties. .
Clergy.
Major Gen. Hamilton and Suite. Citizens.
Twenty-four Girls, in White Robes.
St. Stephen's Society.
Committee of Arrangement. Bier.
The Horfe in Mourning.
Mechanic Society.
Mafonic Lodges.
Cincinnati as Chief Mourners, and other Officers of the late war.
Grand Lodge:
Manhattan Company.
Corporation of the City. Eight Dragoons. Officer.
New- York Infurance Company.
ALL the Proceffion to march
United Infurance Company. Branch Bank.
four deep, except the Military.
Bank of New-York.
Chamber of Commerce.
General. HUGHES is charged with the execution of the above or. der, fubject to fuch further difpo- fition as he fhall judge expedient.
Marine Society. Regents of the Univerfity. Truftees of Columbia College.
Jas. M. Hughes, Chairman, ? Ebenezer Stevens, Jacob Morten, James Farlie, Jobn Stagg, junior,
Committee.
Prefident and Profeffors of ditto. Phyficians and Surgeons.
Gentlemen of the Bar.
New- York. December 29 1799.
Tammany Society.
133
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
His eloquence was unrivaled; his arguments, written and spoken, were unanswerable; but Burr had the votes. New-York was lost to the federalists, and ruin stared them in the face." 1
But there was one special circumstance, of which Burr rightly or wrongly took advantage, whereby Hamilton was made to stultify his own best eloquence and argument. As a culmination of many years of personal embitterment between President Adams and General Hamil- ton, the latter imprudently allowed himself to be goaded into writing a letter to Adams in which he severely arraigned the president's public conduct. It was intended to be privately printed and judi- ciously circulated, so that the other federalist candidate, Charles C. Pinckney, might have votes in excess of Adams and thus be made president. Burr resided at 11 Nassau street, and there three gentle- men met with him one day to read over together the proof-sheets of a remarkable production. It had been procured from the printer, so it is charged, by one of these three, Matthew L. Davis, the friend and con- fidant and later the biographer of Burr. These four friends carefully noted the contents, and made extracts from it for the press; indeed, according to some authorities, reprinted the whole and sowed it broad- cast over the land. It was the most effective campaign document in favor of the republicans that could have been desired. Jefferson and Burr came out of the contest far in advance of the federalist candidates. They each had 73 votes in the electoral college; Adams had 65, Pinckney 64, and Jay 1. There was thus a tie between Jeffer- son and Burr, throwing the election upon the House of Representa- tives. How this was conducted, and how it resulted in Jefferson being made president and Burr vice-president, belongs to the story of the next century.
The only other matter of national import which specially involved New-York city, was the brief cloud of impending war with France. After bearing with commendable patience numberless indignities, after making every effort to preserve the peace, the crisis at last came, when no more could be borne with honor, and when all parties agreed that arms must be taken up against the former ally. Then Washington was called from retirement, made lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief; and his first thought was to make as a con- dition of his acceptance that Hamilton be his next in command. Ham- ilton's genius had already created the treasury of the United States; he now laid the lines along which must be constructed the navy and army, the militia system of the country, and their mobilization in the event of a war. And among the first things which this illustrious citi- zen of New-York wished to provide for was the fortification of that seaport. There seemed to be nothing of which his fellow-citizens did
1 Henry Cabot Lodge, "Alexander Hamilton," p. 227.
134
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
not deem him capable. Although not quite within his province in the position to which Washington had called him, Hamilton was requested to draft a plan for these defenses and to superintend their construction. But the war-cloud blew over; except for some brilliant achievements by a few of our men-of-war, no actual hostilities were reached.
Ere the peace was formally restored, the great figure which this warlike episode had once more bidden to the forefront passed away from the midst of his fond and admiring countrymen. On December 14, 1799, Washington expired at his own home, Mount Vernon. The news of the sudden and unlooked-for de- mise reached New-York on the 19th, and everywhere the signs of mourn- ing became evident. On the day after Christmas the Chamber of Com- merce met in special session "to con- sider of some appropriate mode of testifying regret for the irreparable loss sustained by the nation." A committee of three was appointed to confer with committees of other organizations and arrange for a pub- lic demonstration. This took place on the last day of the year. An im- posing procession, the order and composition of which are indicated Mary Morris' upon the preceding fac-simile of a broadside of that very day, marched to the chapel of St. Paul's. The funeral urn was carried by eight soldiers upon a bier in the form of a palanquin six feet long by four wide. Bishop Provoost read appro- priate prayers, and the oration was delivered by Gouverneur Morris. It was in St. Paul's that the religious exercises of the inauguration had been held, and here Washington had taken a pew and regularly wor- shiped during his stay in the Franklin House. While living in the Macomb House, near Trinity Church, he attended divine service in the latter edifice. In February, when President Adams had appointed a day of devotion and prayer in commemoration of the great life
1 Mary Philipse Morris was the wife of Roger Morris, who served under Generals Braddock and Loudoun during the French and Indian War. She married him in 1758, and shortly after they occupied the well-known Morris or Jumel man- sion, Washington's headquarters in 1776. As her husband was a loyalist, this property was confiscated. She went with her husband to England, and died there in 1825, at the age of
ninety-five. She was the daughter of Freder- ick Philipse, the second lord of the manor. Mrs. Morris was possessed of great force of character, as well as of remarkable beauty of person. It has been said, without much foun- dation, that Washington himself was at one time greatly impressed with her charms. If he had married her, some think she would have made him a loyalist. EDITOR.
135
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
begun in that month in 1732, all business was suspended in the city. The corporation and the members of the Cincinnati Society attended the Dutch Church, and one of the pastors, Dr. William Linn, said to be the most eloquent preacher in the United States at that time, de- livered a eulogy on Washington.
And now we are prepared to take a closer look at the city itself. Having glanced at the world and its agitations during this period- and it was one of the epoch-making periods of the world's history; having seen what effects these agitations abroad, and the events which affected more particularly the republic and the State of which our city formed a part, produced upon the denizens of the commercial metropolis; the task must now be to regard the city strictly per se, and see what were its appearance, its population, its trials, its tri- umphs, and what its people were doing in their local sphere of action. In September, 1796, one possessed of the keen sensitiveness of the artist - not of the pencil, but in music - traveling through the United States, recorded his impres- sions at the first view of the city in James De Lancey this enthusiastic wise: "The city, as you approach it from the Jersey shore, seems like Venice, gradually rising from the sea. The evening was uncommonly pleasant; the sky perfectly clear and serene, and the sun in setting with all that vivid warmth of coloring peculiar to southern latitudes, illuminated some of the most beautiful scenery in nature, on the North River, and adjacent country. For some min- utes all my faculties were absorbed in admiration of the surround- ing objects! I never enjoyed a prospect more enchanting."1 How- ever true may have been the comparison of New-York to Venice as one approaches the city from the bay, the resemblance, of course, would have ceased as the traveler landed.
The record of another traveler (the Rev. W. Winterbotham) of that period remains to us, and it is pleasant to look upon the appearance of things then through these contemporary eyes. Landing at the southern extremity of the island, the view at once would follow Whitehall street and Broadway, "the most agreeable and convenient part of the city." Ere long the pedestrian would behold on his left, where in former days frowned the fort, an elegant brick building, the governor's house. Beyond it the walk from the Battery led into the broad thoroughfare, seventy feet wide, and rising gently to the north. Besides Trinity Church and Grace Chapel, standing near each other, this street possessed "a number of elegant private buildings." Here dwelt cabinet officers in the days of Washington, and foreign embassies had their homes opposite the Bowling Green. In 1794 the
1 "Travels in the United States of America," William Priest (London, 1802), p. 150.
136
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
City Hotel was in process of building, on the site of the house of Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey, and it was remarked that the slate roof upon it was the first in the country. The roofs were in general tiled, as in the mother-country; but otherwise the Dutch custom of presenting the gable to the street had given way pretty universally to the more modern, or the English, mode of construction. The upper extremity of Broadway was then soon reached. "It terminates, to the northward, in a triangular area, fronting the bridewell and alms- house, and commands from any point a view of the bay and narrows." Beyond the termination of Broadway, possibly beginning at the upper end of the common, or about the present Chambers street, a street ex- tended for a few blocks, to near the present Duane or Worth street, which then was called Great George street. Here on the west side stood the hospital. Broadway impressed not only the English writer we have cited; but Rochefoucauld, fresh from the elegant Paris, is also very enthusiastic in its praise: "There is perhaps in no city of the world a handsomer street than Broadway. By far the greater number of houses are of brick, and many extremely fine. Its elevated posi- tion, and its situation near the river, and the beauty of its propor- tions, render it a choice dwelling-place for the richest citizens"; and of the Battery he says : "This promenade might indeed be kept in better order, and made more agreeable for the purposes for which it is set aside, by the planting of some trees; but even such as it is, its situation places it above all comparison with any other promenade whatsoever." 1
With almost equal commendation Winterbotham mentions Wall street, Hanover Square, Dock street (now Pearl), and William street. This was then the center of the dry-goods trade. Water street and Pearl (only lately Queen) street are complained of as narrow and low in situation; and that which even now lends a flavor of the quaint and antique to this part of the town, was noted by this writer,-the irregularity of most of the streets. Yet soon after the peace of 1783 the corporation had begun to plan the system of parallel streets, cross- ing each other at right angles, which now covers the whole of Manhat- tan Island. At this period, too, the ravages of the fires of 1776 and 1778 had nearly disappeared from view, those parts of the city being "almost wholly covered with elegant brick houses." And care had been taken in grading and paving the streets far beyond previous days; they were "raised in the middle under an angle sufficient to carry off the water to the side gutters, and footways of brick made on each side." Pearl street, however, was too narrow in some places to permit this convenience. 2
1 Voyage dans les E. U. d'A., 7: 132. " W. Winterbotham, "Historical, Geographical, etc., View of the United States of America " (New-York, 1796), 2: 314-320.
-
137
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
As for the buildings which then adorned these streets, most of them are familiar to the reader of the previous pages. Trinity's tower lifted its tall spire above the rest, and the modest Grace Chapel was almost beneath its shadow. In Garden street the old Dutch Church still stood, and here the mother-tongue was still employed in the ser- vices, Dr. Gerardus Kuy- pers preaching to a stead- ily decreasing number of those who clung to the be- loved tongue. In 1803 even this arrangement was aban- doned, the audiences being too small, and Dr. Kuypers preached in English there- after until his death in 1833. It is unnecessary to remind the reader of the other Dutch churches-the CATO'S HOUSE.1 New (then called the Middle) on Nassau street, and the North Church on the corner of William and Fulton streets. Long before this, too, the Scotch Covenanters had built a church on the south side of Cedar street, near Broadway, almost in a line, therefore, with the earliest Presbyterian Church in Wall street. As an outgrowth of the latter society a new organization was formed which built a church opposite the common, on the spot occupied now by the "New-York Times" building. At the lower end this same open ground was graced by the close proximity of St. Paul's, which, with St. George's in Beekman street, completed the group of "up-town churches" of those days .?
The population of the city toward the close of this century was between fifty and sixty thousand. At the close of the previous cen- tury the number was scarcely forty-five hundred.3 In the year 1756 the number of inhabitants had reached over ten thousand; just before the Revolution (1771) the number was nearly twenty-two thousand; three years after the evacuation it had increased by only about two thousand. But then began a rapid increase, so that in
1 For nearly half a century Cato Alexander kept a house of entertainment on the old Boston post road, about four miles from the City Hall. It was the fashionable out-of-town resort for the young men of the day. EDITOR.
2 The pastors of these churches are mentioned with some particularity in the preceding chapter. 3 Valentine, in the Manual for 1853, places the figure in 1700 at 4,200; but it was more than that. Winterbotham, op. cit., p. 320, says: It is found by a memorandum in one of the old registers that the number of inhabitants in the city, taken by order of the king in the year 1695, was as follows :
WHITES.
Men
946
Women
1,018
Young men and boys.
864
Young women and girls. 899
3,727
NEGROES.
Men.
209
Women
205
Boys and girls
161
575
4,302
138
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
1790 there were over thirty-three thousand; and only ten years later the figures began to approach sixty thousand. This population was compacted together into a space not very extensive. The street farthest up-town was still below Canal street on the west side, and equally so on the east.
The maintenance of sanitary conditions among so many people within so limited a space was ill understood at this time, both in Europe and in America. The better air and less confined conditions on this side of the Atlantic may have prevented, to some extent, the encroachments of a general epidemic. Yet, throughout the eighteenth century, during almost every decade, there was a visita- tion from that dreadful scourge, the smallpox. If possible, a worse and more fatal plague was that of the yellow fever; and during the last decade of the century New-York was more than once vis- ited by it. It was first present within the city in the year 1791, and carried off General Malcolm and some other prominent citi- zens; and when Dr. Jame's Tillary described its symptoms to a number of physicians, they declared that they had never heard of it or seen anything like it. Yet, while it did not cause much loss of life, it created sufficient alarm. For when, in 1793, Philadelphia was visited by the fever, the authorities adopted strenuous mea- sures of quarantine against that city. Ships coming thence were forbidden to approach nearer than Bedlow's Island. A day of fast- ing and prayer was appointed; the proprietors of the stage-coaches were requested to cease running. People were warned against en- tertaining strangers, or buying bedding at auction.
In the year 1795 the scourge came upon the city, with alarming results. On July 19 the first victim died; he was a cabin-boy aboard a ship coming from Port au Prince, West Indies. The surgeon who attended him died; next the crew of another vessel was attacked, and then a family living on Water street. There arose some doubt afterward as to whether the origin of the infec- tion was to be traced thus; but the fact of its presence was not to be doubted. By October 6 five hundred and twenty-five people had died of the dread disease. In November the appear- ance of frost caused it to cease; and in gratitude for this Gov- ernor Jay appointed Thursday the 26th for a Thanksgiving Day, as already noticed. It would seem that the city was not quite free from the plague, even in the next year, for the musician Wil- liam Priest, in the book cited above, tells us that, in passing through New Jersey on his way to New-York, he was warned about the yellow fever. "But," he added, "the disease is chiefly confined to one part of the city, and is effectually prevented from spreading at present by the North West wind, which is set in this
139
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
morning (September 18th) with uncommon severity." As to the efficacy of this wind, he relates a remarkable circumstance occur- ring while he was at Baltimore during the raging of the same fever. Under date of October 2, 1794, he writes: "A violent cold and penetrating North West wind set in, with uncommon sever- ity, which has entirely stopped the infection." And on October 14: "The inhabitants are returned, and trade is restored to its usual course." It is to be presumed, however, that frost accom- panied the wind.
But the climax of calamity from yellow fever was reached in 1798. This was true not only because it raged worse than at any time before in our own city, but because it simultaneously visited Philadelphia, Boston, New London, and seventeen other cities along the Atlantic border, entered Vermont, and infected even the Grand Isles in Lake Champlain. Philadelphia was called upon to mourn over thirty-five hundred victims. It began in New York on July 28 or 29, and the first to succumb was no less a person than the eminent citizen and politician Melancthon Smith, who led the forces of the anti-constitu- tional party at the ratification convention at Poughkeepsie just ten years before, and who had nobly acknowledged that he was convinced by the arguments of Hamilton. He lived in Front street, near Coen- ties Slip, on the low made ground which had been rescued from the river. This was, therefore, an unhealthful region generally, and it was no wonder that the fever commenced here. Every one that could fled from the city. Many business men transferred their residences or shops to higher ground, in William street or Broadway, and even this slight change proved of benefit. But as people began to die by the dozen, and two and three dozen, per day, the alarm became wild. The deaths during August amounted to three hundred and twenty- nine. On September 1 twenty-three persons died; on the 19th, sixty- three funerals were counted; for the whole month the death-list ran up to nine hundred and fifty-four. When it was all over, about the middle of November, fifteen hundred and twenty-four people, out of a population of about fifty thousand, had died of the fever; and this did not include those who died after they fled and were attacked out- side the borders of city or island.
Out of these evils, however, grew a good : as a result of the scourge in 1795 a system of underground sewerage was at once proposed and speedily carried out. Yet the plague of 1798 was worse than the other, and a yet more frightful visitation was that of 1822. The causes were hard to determine with exactness. No doubt a bilious condition, superinduced by a malarial state of the atmosphere in low places, favored the yellow fever. Hot days, with cool nights and mornings, were thought to favor the spread of the disease. Sudden
140
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
changes of temperature were deleterious, and these were apt to occur then as well as in these days. Mr. Priest quotes a statement of Jef- ferson's: "Our changes from heat to cold are sudden and great. The mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer has been known to descend from 92 to 47 in thirteen hours." And from a New-York newspaper in June, 1796, he made this extract: " Wednesday, the 14th of May, the mercury in Fahrenheit rose to 91 degrees. The Saturday night following there was a severe frost. The next Tuesday and Wednes- day the mercury rose to 85 degrees; from the 20th to the 26th it has been nearly stationary, varying only from 60 to 64."1 Professor Mac- Master, after a minute study of contemporary accounts, has pre- sented a most vivid picture of the effect of the prevalence of this
Sil You are particularly requested to attend a meeting of the master of the Newyork vacity Library this evening at homming theinn at faren oflocks - Jamestil yours de B livingston Monday May 3:' Mr John Pintora
epidemic upon the popular mind. Speaking of what was thought a sovereign remedy or preventive against the fever, a certain "vinegar," he remarks: "If the purchaser of the vinegar were a nervous man and tormented with hourly fear of being stricken with the fever, the spectacle he presented as he sallied forth to buy was most pitiable. As he shut his house door he was careful to have a piece of tarred rope in either hand, a sponge wet with camphor at the nose, and in his pocket a handkerchief well soaked with the last preventive of which he had heard. As he hastened along the street he shunned the footwalk, kept in the middle of the horseway, fled down the nearest alley at the sight of a carriage, and thought nothing of going six blocks to avoid passing a house whence a dead body had been taken the week before. If he were so unhappy as to meet a friend on the way, neither shook hands, but, exchanging a few words at a distance, each sought, bowing and scraping, to get to the windward of the other as he passed. When at last the shop was reached,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.