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 21
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1 "Narrative and Critical History of the United States," 7: 368, et seq. VOL. III .- 12.
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Minutes of the New York Historical Society.
New York. Nov 20th 1004 The following Porsons , vix' Eybert Benson, Dewitt Clinton, Rev+ William Linn, Rev & Samuel Miller. Nav& John N. abeel. Rev. John M. Mason. Doctor David Forach, anthony Bleecker, Samuel Bayard, Peler Buquesant and John Finland, being assembled in the Picture Room of the City Hall of the City of New York, agreed to form themselves into a Society the principal design of which should be to collect and preserve whatever may relate to the natural, civil or ecclesiastical History of the! United States in general and of this State in particular and appointed W . Benson , Doctor Miller and Mr . Pinkand a Committee to prepare and report a draft of a Conste. tution
The meeting then adjourned until Monday evening the 10 th of December next .
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The laying of the corner-stone of the present City Hall, in 1803, has already been alluded to. In 1804 was founded the New-York Historical Society, through the enlightened enthusiasm for historical research entertained by Judge Egbert Benson and the merchant John Pintard, whose name stands also honorably associated with the pro- gress of the New-York Society Library. It was not, however, till the celebration on an elaborate scale of the two-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson (to be duly noticed in the next chapter), that the society attracted any very general attention. Its timely erection and intelligent work have been of incalculable benefit in the preservation of the earliest records of the his- tory of the State and city. Indeed, its design embraced even a wider scope, being, as ex- pressed by the founders, "to collect and pre- serve whatever may relate to the natural, civil or ecclesiastical History of the United States in general and of this State in particular." It may be worth while to call attention also to the fact that in 1803 the ancient Huguenot Church-"the Reformed Church of France"- changed its ecclesiastical order (to comply with JamBayards a condition attached to a generous benevolence) to that of the "Reformed Church of England," becoming a part of the Protestant Episcopal communion; but it assumed a French name,-"L'Eglise du Saint Esprit,"-and has continued to worship in that tongue to this day.
Again, among this medley of items may be inserted that in 1801 was added to the banks and other financial institutions already con- gregating in Wall street, the Washington Fire Insurance Company. It was the third organization of this nature, having been preceded by the Marine Insurance Company and the Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany, organized just before the close of the previous century. Of the seven newspapers that gloried at this time in a daily issue, we notice two whose names, if not their management, have continued till now- the "Evening Post" and the "Commercial Advertiser." The "Even- ing Post," in fact, dates (so far as its designation goes) back to 1746; being the third in order of establishment after Bradford's "Gazette" (1725) and Zenger's "Journal" (1733). But it was discontinued for lack of patronage before the Revolution. On November 16, 1801, came forth the first issue of its present namesake.
A glimpse at the social aspect or condition of the city may serve as a proper conclusion to this chapter. The Dutch city was now enter- ing upon its third century of life, yet more than a few vestiges of its foreign origin remained. The domestic architecture still bore faint
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witness to it here and there. Until 1803, as was noted, every Sab- bath day found worshipers in the Garden street church listening to Dutch preaching, and singing heartily the Gregorian chant of Dutch psalmody. But after this sign of the past had been done away, still upon the market-places,' where congregated the countrymen from
NEW-YORK STAGE-COACH.º
their farms on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Westchester County, one had great need of a knowledge of Dutch to be quite safe in a bargain. Thither came the Vanderveers, and Ryders, and Ra- paljes; the Bogerts, and Hoppers, and Van Emburgs; the Blauvelts and Van Houtens,-just as the observant New-Yorker of to-day may still see those names upon the huge farm-wagons crossing by the ferries in the early hours of morning, or standing all night along Greenwich street, between Washington and Clinton markets. This "persistence" of the Dutch "type" also brought about a unique and
I The markets in 1806 were the following: 1. the Exchange market. foot of Broad street: 2. the Bear market, foot of Veary street, and on Green- wich. between Vever and Fulton (them Fair) streets : 3, the Oswego market, on Maiden Lane. wear Broadway : 4. the Fly market, consisting of three market-houses on Maiden Lane. from Pearl street to the East River: and 3. the Catharise market. with two market-house. at the foot of C'tbarine street.
: The store illustration represents a stage- coach in uso in the early years of the century. It is reduced from a drawing mode " with the
camera lucida by Captain B. Hall. R. N .. " in Lis "Forty Sketches in North America." London 1:29. In this connection it is of interest to add that, besides the stages to Boston, Altany. and other places outside the limits of Manbertaz Le- and. there were those running regularly to ac from Greenwich Village. Harlem, and Manbertan rille. The stage to Greenwich started from Bak- er's Tavern in Wall street. corner of New: the other two from the Ball's Head in the Bowery. nearly opposite the Bowery Theater of Inter dayx The Greenwich line was the first to adupt stares entered by a dove in the rear.
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curious feature-the street cries of venders. Any one who has been in Holland, and has given any attention to the cries - rich in variety of pitch and volume, if not in melody-heard upon the streets of its larger cities, may gain some idea of what the long-suffering ears of the earlier dwellers in New-York had to endure, when, in addition to the scope in shrieks and calls afforded by the mother-tongue, com- binations with the imperfectly possessed English furnished a wider range for this emission of strange sounds.
Passing from such "genre" or familiar aspects of society to its more dignified conditions, at the beginning of this century, perhaps no more concise summary of these can be presented than in the words of another: "The divisions between the upper, middle, and lower classes were sharply marked. The old families formed a rather exclusive circle, and among them the large land-owners still claimed the lead, though the rich merchants, who were of similar ancestry, much outnumbered them, and stood practically on the same plane. But the days of this social and political aristocracy were numbered. They lost their political power first. . . . The fall of this class, as a class, was not to be regretted; for its individual members did not share the general fate unless they themselves deserved to fall. The descendant of any old family who was worth his salt still had as fair a chance as any one else to make his way in the world of politics, of business, or of literature; and according to our code and standard, the man who asks more is a craven." 1
THE WEEHAWKEN DUELING-GROUND.
Few strangers came to New-York fifty years ago without visiting the celebrated dueling-ground on the romantic bank of the Hudson, about two miles above the Hoboken Ferry. It was a grassy ledge, or shelf, about twenty feet above the water, and only sufficiently large for the fatal encounters that frequently occurred there in the old dueling days, being about two yards wide, by twelve in length. From this celebrated spot there was a natural and almost regular flight of steps to the edge of the rocky shore where a landing was effected. This singularly isolated and secluded spot was reached by small boats, being inaccessible to foot-passengers along the shore, except at very low tide. No path led to it from the picturesque heights of Wee- hawken, whose beauties have been sweetly sung by Halleck, and are familiar to all, or nearly all, New-Yorkers; but the ground was sometimes reached from above by ad- venturous persons who descended the steep, rough, and wooded declivity.
1 Theodore Roosevelt's "New-York," pp. 166, of an old New-York family, "who is worth his 167. Mr. Roosevelt is himself an illustration of salt," in the estimation not only of his native city or State, but also in that of the nation. how far ability and worth may carry a descendant
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It was to this spot that the fiery Tybalts resorted for the settlement of difficulties according to the " code of honor " prevailing at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. These single combats were, chiefly by reason of the inflamed state of political feeling, of frequent occurrence, and very seldom ending without bloodshed. Here occurred the meetings referred to by Byron, when he says :
It is a strange quick jar upon the ear, That cocking of a pistol, when you know A moment more will bring the sight to bear Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so: A gentlemanly distance, not too near, If you have got a former friend or foe; But, after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish and less nice.
It was at the Weehawken dueling-ground that Philip Hamilton, at the age of twenty, was killed, November 23, 1801, in an "affair of honor," by George J. Eacker, like his victim, a promising young lawyer of New-York; it was here, in the year fol- lowing, that a Mr. Bird was shot through the heart, and, springing up several feet from the ground, fell dead; here Benjamin Price was killed by Captain Green, of the British army; and it was in this justly celebrated place that Alex, ander Hamilton fell, at seven o'clock on Wednesday morn- ing, July 11, 1804, on the very spot where his eldest son had been killed. Several months after the duel, the St. Andrew's Society of New-York, of which the lamented patriot had been the president, erected upon the ground a marble monument, and surrounded it with an iron rail- ing. Every summer thousands of strangers visited the spot. As the years glided past, the railing was torn down HAMILTON MONUMENT. by vandal hands, and the whole structure gradually re- moved, piece by piece, as souvenirs, till at length no ves- tige of it remained on the ground which it commemorated. Two granite blocks, inscribed with the names of Burr and Hamilton, deeply cut in the stone, and the former dated 1804, marked the positions where they stood face to face on that bright but fatal July morning, sixty-five years ago.
President Nott of Union College, in an address on the death of Hamilton, delivered at the time, thus referred to the dueling-ground : "Ah! ye tragic shores of Hoboken, crimsoned with the richest blood, I tremble at the crimes you record against us, the annual register of murders which you keep and send up to God! Place of inhuman cruelty ! beyond the limits of reason, of duty, and of religion, where man assumes a more barbarous nature, and ceases to be man. What poignant, lingering sorrows do thy lawless combats occasion to surviving relatives! Ye who have hearts of pity. ve who have experienced the anguish of dissolving friendship, who have wept, and still weep, over the mouldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter into this reflection."
A few summers since, the writer visited the romantic and secluded spot, in com- pany with the poet Halleck, who was well acquainted with all the actors in the tragedy except General Hamilton, and who pointed out the positions of the principals. and the old cedar-tree under which Hamilton stood while the seconds, Judge Na- thaniel Pendleton and William P. Van Ness, a young lawyer, were arranging the pre- liminaries, and Dr. David Hosack, Matthew L. Davis, and the boatmen sat in the two boats, awaiting the result of the duel which ended so tragically. Perhaps, since the world began, no hostile meeting in an "affair of honor" ever created greater
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excitement - certainly none that have occurred in this country -than the deadly en- counter between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
On a bright May morning of the present year we revisited the ancient dueling- ground; but, alas, it had been swept out of existence by that " villainous alteration miscalled improvement." Nothing remains to mark the spot but a weather-beaten stone on which the name Hamilton has been almost obliterated by the winds and rains of heaven. In place of the narrow ledge, there is now a broad track, over which the trains of the West Shore railroad will soon be thundering northward to Fort Lee and farther on to Albany, awakening the echoes from the picturesque Wee- hawken heights and the lofty Highlands of the Hudson.
"Let me hope, I pray you," wrote Fitz-Greene Halleck to a lady friend at Fort Lee, a few years ago, "that, while I live, you will not allow any person, whom I refrain from naming (the same person who entered, of old, the only paradise on earth to be compared to Fort Lee, in the shape of a rattlesnake, and played the very devil there), to come, in the shape of a railroad locomotive, screaming his way through your garden, up to a crystal palace on the top of the Palisades, at the rate of forty miles an hour." The poet's prayer was realized ; he did not live to witness this much- needed modern improvement, and to have his heart saddened by what he would have deemed a desecration of the fondly cherished scene so indelibly impressed upon his memory.
The venerable cedar-tree against which Hamilton leaned, as he gazed sadly for the last time on the distant city which held all that was dear to him in this world, has been cut down and thrown into the river, and the place changed beyond all recognition. Looking around for the memorials of past days, we at length discovered the granite block inscribed with the name of Hamilton; but the other was not to be found, nor the numerous rocks, which we had seen on our former visit, decorated with the names or initials of persons who had made pilgrimages to the place.
A gang of laborers were at work near the spot, and to their foreman we addressed an inquiry about the granite block inscribed "Burr, 1804." The conversation ran as follows:
Writer .- Have you seen a large stone here similar to this one marked Hamilton?
Foreman .- Yes.
Writer .- Was it marked with the name of Burr, and dated 1804?
Foreman .- It was.
Writer .- Do you know where it is!
Foreman .- Yes.
Writer .- Can you point it out to me?
Foreman .- Well, I guess not, seeing it 's underground. It's been used as a cover- ing-stone in a culvert just above here.
Writer .- Could you not have made use of another stone, and allowed the interest- ing memorial to remain ?
Foreman .- Why, yes; and I told the boss he'd better lay it alongside of t'other granite block; but he said that Burr was a mean cuss, anyhow, and not of much account, and he guessed it would be more useful doing duty as a covering-stone than perpetuating his memory .- THE EDITOR, in "Appleton's Journal," June, 1869.
CHAPTER VI
BEGINNING OF STEAM NAVIGATION 1807-1812
HE great event of the first decade of the century in its bearing upon the interests of New-York was the success- ful application of steam to the propulsion of vessels. Indeed, so great an influence did this exert upon the city's subsequent growth that we feel justified in giving in detail the successive steps of its development. The problem had engaged the attention of mechanicians for centuries. Papin, as early as 1690, in a printed book, had advocated steam as a universal motive-power, and had given a rough draft of a paddle-wheel steamer. He even went so far as to construct a model steamboat, which was tried in 1707 upon the river Fulda, near Cassel, but does not seem to have been successful, as nothing farther was heard of it.
The next attempt of the kind was the "marine engine" of Jona- than Hulls, 1736, intended for towing ships. This craft was notice- able for its use of the stern-wheel, still common on Western steam- boats, power being conveyed to it by means of bands. William Henry, a native of Chester County, Pennsylvania, moved a model boat by steam on Conestoga Creek, near its entrance into the Susque- hanna River, in 1763.
Two years later, in 1765, there was born of humble parents at Ful- ton, Pennsylvania, near the scene of this experiment, a boy, Robert Fulton, who, combining and improving upon the efforts of all who had gone before him, invented the first successful steamboat, and inaugurated a new era of commercial development and prosperity. Fulton was, no doubt, familiar with the model built and tried by Henry near his home in 1763. In 1779, at the age of fourteen, he began his experiments with boats by affixing a paddle-wheel to his fishing-boat, the latter being moved by man-power. At the age of seventeen, having exhibited fine powers as an artist, he removed to Philadelphia to study art, and there gained the friendship of Ben- jamin Franklin and other important persons, by whom he was en- couraged to proceed to London and pursue his art studies under the
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patronage of Benjamin West, the famous American painter. By West he was introduced to two noblemen-the Duke of Bridgewater and the Earl of Stanhope; the former owner of extensive coal-mines at Worsley, to which he had constructed a canal from Manchester; the latter inventor of the Stanhope printing-press and greatly inter- ested in mechanics and engineering.
Stanhope had invented several improvements in canal-locks, and with the Duke of Bridgewater turned Fulton's attention at this time to the subject of canals and steam navi- gation. The latter published during this period a treatise on canals, and frequent reference is made in his manuscript to the subject of steam navigation. Copies of the treatise were sent to the Presi- dent of the United States, the Secre- tary of the Treasury, and the Governor of New-York, with a letter calling the attention of those officials to the advan- tages that canals would confer on the United States. In his letter to the gov- ernor he pointed out the superiority of canals over turnpike-roads, then rapidly being constructed, for the transportation of freight. It was claimed by his bio- grapher, Mr. Reigart, that Fulton first Nobre fulla conceived the idea of a canal connecting the head waters of the Hudson with the great lakes, and published it in a letter to the American government on the subject of a projected canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.
In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, and there meeting Joel Barlow, the American poet, philosopher, and diplomat, was invited by him to take up his residence in the latter's mansion. Barlow was as much inter- ested in the development of the steamboat and the canal as Fulton. He had the acumen early to discern how both, by facilitating speedy and cheap communication between distant ports, would prove of vital im- portance to his country, and now entered heartily into Fulton's experi- ments with the steamboat, advancing the necessary funds. A model boat was constructed, and soon after Barlow, visiting the national depot of machines, saw there an exact model of this trial boat, as he wrote, the latter, "in all its parts and principles, a very elegant model. It contains your wheel oars precisely as you have placed them except that it has four wheels on each side to guide round the endless chain instead of two. The two upper wheels seem to be only to support the chain; perhaps it is an improvement. The model of the steam-engine
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is in its place, with a wooden boiler, cylinder placed horizontal, every thing complete. I never saw a neater model. It belongs to a com- pany at Lyons who got out a patent about three months ago." Mont- golfier, whom he encountered in the depot, told him that the company had issued stock to the amount of two million francs for building boats and navigating the Rhone, and had already spent six hundred thousand francs in establish- ing their works at Lyons. The enterprise, however, proved a failure.
In one of his letters to Bar- low, written during this time, Fulton predicted a speed of sixteen miles an hour for his steamboat, to which Barlow replied, "I see without con- sulting Parker that you are mad." In 1805, Mr. Barlow returned to America and took up his residence at Kalorama, a beautiful country-seat in Georgetown, on the outskirts of Washington. Here Fulton joined him early in 1807, and set himself to preparing a Harlow steamboat which should be successful commercially as well as mechanically. In pre- paring this there is little doubt that he made use of the ideas and mistakes of other inventors who had been at work for years on the same idea. Rumsey, an American inventor, in 1784 had propelled a boat by a jet of water forced out of the stern by pumps worked by steam-power. John Fitch, of Philadelphia, had constructed a steam- boat in 1787 which made several passages between Philadelphia and Burlington, at the rate of four miles an hour. But he could find no capitalists willing to furnish the capital necessary to build the pioneer boats, and the inventor died at last in the depths of penury. Nathan Read constructed in 1789 a steamboat with which he crossed an arm of the sea at Danvers, Massachusetts. Elijah Ormsbee, a native of Connecticut, constructed a rude steamboat in 1792, that plied on the Pawtucket River for several weeks, at a rate of three or four miles an hour. But he could secure no funds to construct a larger craft, and, abandoning his idea, went back to his carpenter's bench. Samuel Morey, of Connecticut, is said to have built a steam-
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boat which made the voyage from Hartford to New-York, and was examined there by Chancellor Livingston, Judge Livingston, John Stevens, and others. In 1797 Morey built a steamboat at Borden- town, New Jersey, and ran it to Philadelphia. It had two wheels, one on each side, with a shaft running across the deck, turned by a crank in the center. Morey, who died in 1843, never ceased to claim that Fulton stole the idea of the Clermont's propelling ma- chinery from him. Nicholas J. Roosevelt, in a petition to the legislature of New Jersey, claimed to be the true and THE CLERMONT. original inventor and discoverer of steamboats with vertical wheels. He declared, supporting his statement with an affidavit, that about 1781 or 1782 he constructed a wooden model of a steamboat, the vertical wheels of which were propelled by springs of hickory or whalebone acting upon the wheels by a band.'
One other inventor preceding Fulton claims our attention, from the fact that he proposed to drive his boat by twin screws pro- pelled by a high-pressure engine; thus inventing the screw forty years before it came into general use and before the principle of the paddle had been demonstrated to be successful. This inventor was Captain John Stevens, of Hoboken; his boat was fourteen feet wide by sixty-eight long; its machinery is still preserved in the Stevens Institute at Hoboken, where the curious reader may study it at leisure. Many experiments were also made, as we have seen, in England and on the Continent. That Fulton was familiar with all these devices is doubtful. How much he borrowed from others is a vexed question; but this much is certain : he built the first steamboat to make regu- lar trips, carrying passengers and freight, and proving commercially so profitable to her owners that fleets of successors and rivals soon sprang into being. He is, therefore, fairly entitled to be considered, as he has been called, the father of the steamboat.
Fulton's first successful boat was the Clermont. While in France he had had the good fortune to meet Robert R. Livingston, then American minister to the French court. This gentleman was a mem- ber of that Livingston family many times referred to in these pages, a jurist and statesman of high reputation. Born in the city of New- York in 1746, he was thirty years of age when the second Continental
1 "Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography," 5 : 317.
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Congress sat in Philadelphia, and as a member of that body was one of the committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence. He was unavoidably absent, however, on the Fourth of July, 1776, so that his name does not appear among the signers of that immortal instrument; but he was active in support of the patriot cause, having served as a member of Congress in 1780, and as secretary for foreign affairs from 1781 to 1783. His services to his State were as great as those to his country. He was a member of the convention that, in 1777, framed the first State constitution of New-York; and he was the first chancellor of New-York, holding the office until 1801, from which canse he is generally called in history Chancellor Livingston. In this capacity he will be remembered as having administered the oath of office to Washington at his first inauguration in 1789, the only State official to whom this honor has fallen. He was appointed United States minister to France in 1801, and retained the position until 1804, when he resigned and returned to New-York, having negotiated, in 1803, the purchase of the territory of Louisiana from the French government.
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