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 33
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1 Mrs. Maria Sophia Morton, mother of General Morton, who died at the house of her son-in-law, President Quincy of Harvard University, in 1832,
aged ninety-four years. From a portrait made by Charles Balthazar Julien Fèvre de St. Mémin in New-York in 1797. EDITOR.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
sprang up in different sections of the city with marvelous celerity; and the wharves, no longer green with mold, and tenanted solely by the water-rat, were lined with ships waiting only for favoring gales to whiten the ocean with their sails, and bear the flag of the United States into ports where for so long it had been unseen and almost totally forgotten. The city, no longer a "de- In : Frescura 1 serted village," presented the appearance of an immense hive teeming with human bees, in which no drones were either known or allowed. Squalor had given place to splendor, poverty to affluence; a full tide of prosperity had set in, and shrewd speculators, who knew how to take advantage of its flood, were making rapid fortunes.
In short, notwithstanding the terrible drain upon the financial resources to which she had been subjected during the war, and the crippling of her commerce, New-York bore the strain nobly. In this same year (1815) Mr. Isaac Bronson, in a pamphlet entitled "An Appeal to the Public," stated the active capital of the banks of the city to be $13,515,000. It may also be truly said of the New-York banks at this period, as well as in 1839, 1857, and the late civil war, that they spared no effort to keep the country on a specie basis, and to avert the calamities which have fallen upon it from excessive issues of paper-a disaster to which the old quotation may fitly be applied:
facilis descensus Averni ;
Sed revocare gradum, Hoc opus, hic labor est.
No sooner was the treaty of peace signed than the great continental powers hastened to stretch forth a helping hand to the republic; and every nation in Europe was anxious to solicit her trade. Great Britain alone, chafing under her defeat, remained for a long time sullen, and by unfriendly legislation endeavored to cripple the commerce of the United States in general, and that of New-York city in particular.
Indeed, almost ruined as the city had been by the war, such were her internal resources that she recovered rapidly. On March 26, 1819,
1 The influential political opponents of De Witt Clinton succeeded, in 1815, in displacing him as mayor and having John Ferguson, who was grand sachem of the Tammany Society, appointed in his place. This was done with the understanding that Ferguson was shortly to resign, be made surveyor of the port, and that Jacob Radcliff was to be named as mayor. Accordingly Ferguson occu- pied the position only from March to June. Rad- cliff, who had been mayor in 1810, continued in the office till 1818, when Cadwallader David Colden received the appointment. He was the grandson of the lieutenant-governor, and was born at the family seat near Flushing, L. I. The grandfather, and David Colden, the father, were loyalists, the
latter removing to England in 1784. The grand- son, however, returned, practising law in New- York city, and about 1796 was appointed district attorney. In the war of 1812 he served actively as a colonel of volunteers. Upon relinquishing the mayoralty he was elected a member of Con- gress. He cordially encouraged all movements for the promotion of educational or industrial ob- jects, published a memoir of the Erie Canal, was superintendent of the Morris Canal, and wrote the life of Robert Fulton, to whom he had given sub- stantial support when so many ridiculed his great invention. Mr. Colden married Maria, youngest daughter of Bishop Provoost, and died in 1834. EDITOR.
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RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 299
the first savings-bank was incorporated. Its name was the "Bank for Savings of the City of New-York," and its plan was devised by John Pintard, to whose sagacity New-York owes so many of its most useful and thriving institutions. The deposits of this savings-bank from July 3 to December 27, 1819, reached the sum of $153,378, representing 1527 depositors. Three years after (1822) the first life insurance was also es- tablished in the city, under the name of the "Mechanics' Life Insur- ance and Coal Com- pany." Its act of incor- poration, which bears date February 28 of that year, carried with it the "power to make insurance upon lives, to grant annuities, and to open, find out, discover, and work coal beds within this State." A MRS. MURRAY'S HOUSE, MURRAY HILL.1 further example, moreover, of the rapidity with which the city, as well as the United States generally, recovered from the baneful effects of the war may be found in the fact that the amount of revenue collected by the United States government rose from $4,415,362 in 1814, to $37,695,625 in 1815, of which $16,000,000 was derived from the port of New-York alone.2 In 1816, also, the famous "Black-Ball Line" of packets to Liverpool was established, and in 1824 the line to Havre, the latter employing twelve ships; in addition to which there were weekly lines to Savannah, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans. The average time taken by the "Black-Ball" packets out- ward was twenty-two days, and the homeward voyage twenty-nine days. Steam, however, was in a very short time to change the en- tire mode of ocean navigation, as well as that of land travel.
The winter of 1817 was unusually severe. As late as February 15 the Hudson River was frozen over from the city to the New Jersey
1 Mrs. Murray was the wife of Robert Murray, and mother of Lindley Murray, the grammarian. Her husband was one of the foremost Quakers in commercial circles in the city. His country-seat (represented above) was near Fourth Avenue and Thirty-seventh street, amid spacious grounds,- the present Grand Central Station occupying what was then one of his corn-fields. It was here that the chief British officers were so charmingly entertained by Mrs. Murray for two hours, while General Putnam with a large detachment of the
Continental army, retreating in great haste be- fore & superior force, successfully reached the main body at Harlem Heights. The section of the city from Thirty-fourth to Forty-second streets and from Lexington to Sixth avenues is generally known as Murray Hill. EDITOR.
2 In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, the total amount of the revenue from customs for the United States was $157.167,722, of which $109,207,- 786 was received from the port of New-York - more than two thirds of the total amount.
300
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
side, so that people crossed on the ice from shore to shore. "Several gentlemen," records the "Evening Post" for February, "set out for a sleigh-ride on the ice from Flushing to Riker's Island, where they arrived in safety. This was the first sleigh that was ever known to visit the island, and, as it passed down the bay, it drew forth numbers of people on the shore to view so singular an event."1 The succeed- ing year (1818) also witnessed the same intensity of cold, Long Island Sound being entirely closed by ice between Cold Spring and the Con- necticut shore. The Hudson like- wise was again frozen so firmly that heavy teams crossed to the Jersey side. Many persons, like the Cana- dians when the ice-pont forms on the St. Lawrence between Quebec Lindley Murray and Point Levi, sought to make gain out of this unusual circumstance. Accordingly, they erected tents on the ice, and sold in them liquor, roasted clams and oysters. An attempt was also made to roast an ox, but the experiment failed, on account of the ice becoming weak near the furnaces where the cooking was done .?
In the same year (1818) the legislature of New-York-De Witt Clinton, Governor-ordered the remains of General Montgomery to be removed from Canada to New-York city.3 This was in accordance
1 In this connection it will be recalled that in the winter of 1780-81 the cold was so intense as to freeze the bay solid from New-York city to Staten Island -thus enabling Sir Henry Clinton to bring up heavy artillery from Staten Island to New-York.
2 An amusing anecdote was told at this time of a certain Jeremiah Batman, around whose tent the ice had become quite thin from the effects of the stove and several days of mild weather. One of his customers, happening to step upon a weak spot outside the tent, broke through, and was struggling in the water, when a friend put his head inside of Batman's tent, saying: "Jerry, there is a man gone down your cellar!" "Is it sof" asked Jerry. "Then it is about time for me to leave these premises." The man, however, was finally extricated, the tent struck, and all were safely taken to the New-York shore on a sled.
On account of this severe winter provisions were considered very dear. At the present day, however,-and let the reader notice in any news- paper the daily prices obtaining in Washington Market, for instance,-the prices that then ruled
would be considered remarkably cheap. The fol- lowing are quotations taken by the writer from the "Columbian " of December 5, 1818: . .12120.
Best beef, per Ib. =
cwt
.$7 to $12
Pork, per lb.
10c.
" " cwt.
.$8
Veal, per lb.
.10c.
Mutton, "
8c.
Turkeys (good), apiece.
.$1.56
Fowls, per pair.
56c.
Geese, apiece
50c. to 56c.
Butter, fresh.
33c.
in firkins.
23c. to 26c.
Potatoes, per bbl
56c.
Turnips, "
.31c.
Cabbages, per 1000.
$6 to $7
Wood, oak, per load
$2.25
walnut, "
3.50
46 pine,
1.624
3 A correspondent of the New-York " Commer- cial Advertiser " of July 7, 1818, writing from Quebec, and referring to this event, says: "After resting in peace for forty-two years within the
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with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in 1776, had voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands in the front (or rather the rear') wall of St. Paul's Church in Broadway. When the funeral cortege reached Whitehall, N. Y., the fleet stationed there received it with appropriate honors; and on Saturday, July 4, they arrived in Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sun- day, the remains were taken to New-York, and on Wednesday, July 8, deposited, with military honors, in their final resting-place at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton, with that delicacy for which he was always remarkable, had informed Mrs. Montgomery when the steam- boat Richmond, with the body of her husband, would pass her mansion on the North River. At her own request, she stood alone on the portico at the mo- ment that the boat passed. It was now more than forty years since she had parted from her husband, and they had been married only two years; yet she had remained as faithful to the memory VAN CORTLANDT SUGAR-HOUSE.2 of her "soldier" (as she always called him) as if alive. The steamboat halted before the mansion, the band played the "Dead March," a salute was fired, and the ashes of the venerated hero and the departed husband passed on. The attendants of the Spartan widow now appeared, but, overcome by the tender emotions of the moment, she had swooned and fallen to the floor.3
The gallant dead, though surrounded by the turmoil of a busy city,
walls and under the sod of this garrison, the skeleton of General Montgomery was on Saturday last raised from its place of deposit, and took its departure for New-York, where it is destined to a more distinguished place of interment in the Church of St. Paul of that city."
1 It is really the rear wall of St. Paul's, since the church was intended when built to front on the Hudson River.
2 The Van Cortlandt sugar-house was used as . prison during the Revolution. It stood adjoin- ing the northwest corner of Trinity churchyard. Of the three sugar-houses which became historic by reason of this usage, Livingston's, on Liberty street, was destroyed in 1840; Van Cortlandt's was demolished in 1852; and Rhinelander's, as noted in the preceding volume, was not torn down till the present year - 1892. EDITOR.
3 Janet Livingston, the sister of the distin- guished Chancellor Livingston, and the wife of General Montgomery, met the latter when he was a captain in the British army, on his way to a dis- tant frontier post. The meeting left mutual tender impressions. Returning to England soon after, Montgomery disposed of his commission, and, emigrating to New-York, married the object of his attachment. But their visions of anticipated happiness, upon a farm at Rhinebeck-on-the-
Hudson, were soon ended. He was called upon to serve as one of the eight brigadier-generals in the Continental army. He accepted sadly and with misgivings, declaring that "the will of an op- pressed people, compelled to choose between lib- erty and slavery, must be obeyed." His excellent wife made no opposition; and, accompanying him as far as Saratoga (now Schuylerville, N. Y.), re- ceived his last assurance, "You shall never have cause to blush for your Montgomery." Nor did she; for he fell bravely at Quebec. In person General Montgomery was tall, graceful, and of manly address. At the time of his death he was only thirty-nine years of age. Shortly after the occurrence narrated in the text Mrs. Montgomery wrote to a niece as follows: "However gratifying to my feelings, every pang I felt was renewed. The pomp with which the funeral was conducted added to my woe. When the steamboat passed with slow and solemn movement, stopping before my house, the troops under arms, the dead march from the muffled drum, the mournful music, the splendid coffin canopied with crape and crowned with plumes-you may conceive my anguish, I cannot describe it. Such voluntary honors were never before paid to an individual by a Republic, and to Governor Clinton's munificence much is owing."
302
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
is still (1892) permitted to rest beneath the turf made radiant by the unsullied blossoms of early spring. The brave Wolfe, who fell on nearly the same spot sixteen years previous, sleeps within the splen- did mausoleum of Westminster Abbey. But as we stand over the unpretentious grave of Montgomery, we recall the quaint and beau- tiful language of Os- borne: "He that lieth under the herse of heavenne is convert- ible into sweet herbs and flowers, that maye rest in bosoms that wolde shrink from the ugly bugs which may be found crawling in The Shakespeare the magnificent tomb of Henry the VII."
On February 22, 1819, a grand ball was given by the Fourteenth Regiment, in honor of General Andrew THE SHAKESPEARE TAVERN.1 Jackson, at the City Hotel.2 The ball was attended by the general in person, and was far ahead, in elegance and brilliancy, of anything of the kind before known in the city. The large dining-room of the hotel was crowded, and the toast "To General Jackson: so long as the Mississippi rolls its waters to the ocean, so long may his great name and glorious
1 The Shakespeare Tavern stood on the corner of Fulton and Nassau streets, where, until lately, was situated the "Commercial Advertiser" building, recently destroyed by fire. "It was originally a low, old-fashioned, massive edifice, built of small, yellow bricks, two stories high, with dormer-win- dows on the roof. . . . The building was erected many years before the Revolution, but in 1822 a modern extension on Fulton street, three stories high, was added. Thomas Hodgkinson, whose brother John was at one time manager of the Old Park Theater, bought the house in 1808, and under him it soon became and long continued a great resort for the wits of the day. . . . The 'Shakespeare Tavern,' in fact, was to New-York what the 'Mermaid' was to London in the days of Shakespeare, or later the 'St. James Coffee- house,' and the 'Turk's Head,' in the time of Reynolds, Garrick, and Goldsmith. . . . Here De Witt Clinton was wont to discuss his pet pro- ject, the Erie Canal; here Fitz-Greene Halleck, and Sands, and Percival, and Paulding, and Willis Gaylord Clark met in social converse, and passed many a merry jest and brilliant repartee.
. . . Henceforth let no one say that New-York has no memories save those of the temples of the money-changer." (History of New-York City, by William L. Stone, Jr., pp. 488-490.) The Shake- speare Tavern, upon [the death of Hodgkinson, passed into the hands of his relative, James C. Stoneall, "by whom the interior was remodeled and modernized, and it continued to maintain its wonderful reputation and popularity until the building was demolished in 1836. For more than a quarter of a century the Shakespeare Tavern was a favorite place of resort of the first citizens of the city, and was distinguished for the superior character of its refreshments and the quiet com- fort which pervaded the entire establishment. Merchants, politicians, and artists of distinction gathered, by day and by night, beneath its hospi- table roof, and it was the acknowledged military headquarters of all the leading organizations in the city" (History of the Seventh Regiment of New-York, by Colonel Emmons Clark). EDITOR.
2 The City Hotel, the principal public house in the city, and called before and during the Revo- lution the City Tavern, belonged to the De Lan-
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 303
deeds be remembered," was replied to by the general, who proposed " De Witt Clinton, Governor of the great and patriotic State of New- York," to the utter confusion of the "Bucktails," who regarded Clin- ton as their bit- terest foe. Gen- Mr El Genet presents her Compliments to W Little eral Jackson, per- fectly independ- ent of all parties,
had conceived a great admiration for Mr. Clinton, although he was at that time personally unacquainted with him-hence the toast. Upon this toast being given, the greatest confusion ensued, amid which the general left the room.1
Nor was this ball the only compliment paid to Jackson. On his first arrival in the city he was received with great éclat by the muni- cipal authorities, and with well-deserved honors at the hands of the people. A military review was given him on the Battery, and the freedom of the city in a gold box in the park. He was afterward escorted by a regiment of cavalry to visit the venerable General Ebe- nezer Stevens, then living, at an advanced age, on Long Island, near Hell Gate. Stevens had commanded the American artillery during the battles preceding the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and Jackson had defeated Sir Edward Packenham and a greatly superior force at New Orleans. More than half a century had elapsed between the two great events, and the visit of the young and popular general was a graceful compliment paid to the venerable warrior of another age.
cey estate, and was situated on the west side of (the editor of which was Fitz-Greene Halleck, the celebrated "quiz" and satirist of that day). In Broadway, occupying the present site between Cedar and Thames streets. It is said that John . the first number of the "Croaker " appeared the Adams, when a delegate to the first Continental following lines by Drake: Congress, stopped here on his way through New- " I'm sick of General Jackson's toast; Canals are naught to me; Nor do I care who rules the roast, Clinton or John Targee." York to Philadelphia. It then bore the sign of "The Bunch of Grapes." During the Revolution- ary war it was also known by the name of "Ruba- let's," and was a great and favorite resort of the military. In 1784 it passed into the hands of Halleck, also, took his full share in the fun. One of his earliest contributions to the "Croaker," en- titled "The Freedom of the City in a gold box to a great General," is in his happiest vein. One stanza from another of his productions on the same topic is here given. The poem is entitled "The Secret Mine, sprung at a late supper." John Cape, and was called in his advertisements the "State Arms of New-York." The house had a large ball-room where dancing assemblies were held, as were also subscription balls under the direction of managers. The assemblies were re- newed at the close of the Revolution, the first being held on the evening of Thursday, December 18, 1783. The celebrated loyalist editor, James "The songs were good, for Mead and Hawkins sung 'em, Rivington, in announcing this ball, stated that he had "for sale a supply of white dancing gloves The wine went round, 't was laughter all and joke; When crack ! the General sprung a mine among 'em, for gentlemen, silk stockings, dress swords and elegant London cocked hats." It was sarcasti- cally remarked at the time that these "were prob- ably the stock of the outgoing officers of the British army."
1 Conversations by the writer with the late General Prosper M. Wetmore. This ball called forth several squibs and criticisms from " Croaker"
And best a safe retreat amid the smoke. As fall the sticks of rockets when you fire 'em, So fell the Bucktails at that toast accurst, Looking like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,
When the firm earth beneath their footsteps burst."
304
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The following year (1820) witnessed the burning of the old Park Theater (on Park Row, near Ann Street), which occurred on May 25 of that year; and such was the fierceness of the fire that scarcely an article of the wardrobe or the scenery was saved. The flames were so brilliant as to illuminate the entire city, causing the tall spires of Trinity and St. Paul's to stand out in bold relief against the sky. In a very few minutes after the alarm was first given, thousands of the citizens had gathered upon the housetops gazing mournfully upon the scene. The fire department, conscious of the numerous witnesses of its efforts, exerted itself nobly, but to no avail, and the following morning showed nothing but charred ruins. Nor was the sadness with which this calamity was received unreasonable. No spot at that time was surrounded by such hallowed associations, nor conse- crated by so many endeared recollections, as the old Park Theater. Here had Prospero and Caliban, summoned by the wild fancy of Shakespeare, hushed the assembled multitude to silence; or, again, Dogberry convulsed them with laughter. It was at this place that that curious scheme of a " Beefsteak Society "- modeled after its celebrated prototype in London - was first devised by the witty harlequin Rich. Here were held the adjourned meetings of the "Shakespeare Tavern," and the "Belvedere Club,"2 and, in "ye olden tyme," were seen on its boards, Kemble, Babcock, Ludlow, Seton, Hoffman, Kean, Mathews, and the elder Booth. Upon its stage, also, were performed for the first time in America many of the plays of the most distinguished writers whose names were then, as they are now, household words. Sheridan's "School for Scandal," Gold- smith's "She Stoops to Conquer," and Charles Lamb's most witty productions were here first introduced to an American audience. Within its walls, also, diplomatists, authors, scholars, and men cele- brated in every department of life had come to pass away a leisure hour, and while doing so had gleaned many hints that have contrib- uted greatly to their success. That its loss was greatly deplored is evident from the tone of the newspaper press after the event. "But why," said a New-York newspaper in commenting upon and apos- trophizing its loss the day after, "dwell longer upon the event? Thy shrine, around which poets, statesmen and philosophers have loved to linger - the home of the muses, the delight of the gay - no longer meets and cheers our vision. Thy sacred walls, within which have so often been gathered the choicest spirits of the time, have crumbled beneath the hand of the destroyer. No longer shall our
1 Opened on January 29, 1798.
2 Erected in 1792, at the corner of Cherry and Montgomery streets. The club building com- prised a ball-room with a music-gallery, bar-room and bedrooms, and had a large balcony from
which there was a beautiful view of the East River and Long Island. Attached to the house were bowling-alleys with gravel walks and shrub- bery elegantly laid out and cared for. It was a fashionable and popular resort.
RETURN OF PEACE, AND COMPLETION OF ERIE CANAL 305
citizens be permitted to drink from thy classic fountains the sparkling intellectual draughts which thou, a second Ganymede, wast wont to serve; nor shall they ever again gaze upon thy Ionic portals. Yet, it was something noble; it was in harmony with thy character to perish thus gloriously. Time, with his mouldering fingers, was not allowed to pollute thee with his touch, nor yet to wither thy unfad- ing laurels. Think not that thou shalt be forgotten! Thy site is classic ground ! Every stone of thee is im- mortal. Like the Dragon's teeth of old, thy ruins shall rise instinct with life, proclaiming thy undying fame. Thou shalt be a household
JERSEY CITY IN 1820.
word which children shall lisp around the hearth and fireside; and as suc- ceeding ages shall roll away, and the ivy clings to thy mouldering towers, so shall the minds of men cling to thy memory and embalm thee in their heart of hearts."
The writer's prophecy was not, however, destined to be fulfilled, for the ivy of which he so feelingly speaks had not even time to take root-much less to cling to its "mouldering towers"-before a new theater arose, the succeeding year, upon its site, the builders of which were John Jacob Astor and John K. Beekman.1 On account, however, of the yellow fever, it was soon afterward closed, and so remained until the autumn of 1822, when it was again opened by the appearance of the justly distinguished actor Mathews. In com- menting upon this event, the New-York "Commercial Advertiser " of November 8, 1822, says: "We last night paid our dollar to witness this gentleman's far-famed exhibitions, and confess that we do not regret the time or the money spent. The house was so crowded that
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