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 57
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place as to the necessity of a system of rapid transit for New-York, and, if they should find such necessity to exist, to fix upon proper routes. On July 1 of that year the commission was formed by ap- pointment of the mayor, consisting of Joseph Seligman, Lewis B. Brown, Cornelius H. Delamater, Jordan L. Mott, and Charles J. Canda Its first meeting was held on July 13, and after deliberating through the summer, it decided "that elevated steam railways are not only more likely than any other steam railways to be actually constructed in this city, but are the best for the pur- pose in view." On December 11 they reported that their work was at an end, and that the task of building the roads upon the assigned streets- namely, Ninth, Sixth, Third, and Second avenues-had been assigned to the Gilbert road and to the New- York road, the corporation then operating the little elevated road on Greenwich street. Construction and litigation were now renewed. 6.Le Roy Mester! In 1876 the New-York company had extended its road to Fifty-ninth street, and, in the words of its pub- lished announcements, was running "40 through trains each day." In the spring of the following year a controlling interest in it was pur- chased by Cyrus W. Field, who thenceforward showed the same tire- less energy and zeal in pushing it to completion that had characterized his connection with the Atlantic telegraph-cable. In September, 1877, by unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, the charters of both roads were declared constitutional, and all injunctions dissolved. Work was at once pushed on both lines, and on June 5, 1878, the one on Sixth Avenue was opened from Rector street to the park. It had by this time passed out of Dr. Gilbert's control, and its name had been changed to the Metropolitan Elevated Road. On August 26 the Third Avenue route was opened as far as Forty-second street, and in 1880 the Second Avenue road was opened to Sixty-seventh street. In the same year the lines on both sides of the city had reached Harlem. The two companies had been consolidated in 1879, under the title of the Manhattan Railway Company, and thus the close of the decade
1 Caroline Le Roy, daughter of Herman Le Roy, was born in New-York city, where her father re- sided at No. 7 Broadway. In 1829 she married Daniel Webster, who was then a widower with children. She accompanied him on his various tours in this country and abroad, assisted him in
his correspondence, and her good judgment and discretion were of invaluable aid to him in many important affairs, notably when he was secretary of state under Tyler and Fillmore. The Le Boy family have been residents of New-York city for nearly two hundred years. EDITOR
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saw New-York in possession of as full a share of rapid transit as she was destined to enjoy for many years. It seemed ample at first, but the growth of the city soon overtook the capacity of the roads, and at the present writing it is conceded by all that the problem has not yet been permanently solved.
In this brief sketch of the progress toward its solution, which for the sake of the connected narrative has necessarily run far ahead of the general history of the city, no mention has yet been made of what was really the first practical gain in the way of rapid transit. Until 1871 the Hudson River, New-York and New Haven, and Harlem railroads had their termini in what was fast growing to be the cen- tral district of the city,-the first-named at Thirtieth street and Ninth Avenue, the two others at Madison and Fourth Avenues, and Twenty- sixth and Twenty-seventh streets. To reach these points trains were obliged to run slowly, and even then accidents were frequent. On October 9, 1871, the Grand Central Station at Forty-second street, forming a joint terminus for all three of these roads, was opened, and the summer of 1875 saw the completion of the great engineering work that separated the street and railroad grades from that point to the Harlem River. For four miles and a half the tracks run through tunnels or open cuts, or over a stone viaduct. The cost was $6,000,000, of which half was paid by the roads and half by the city. This im- provement saved many human lives annually, and added to the avail- able space of the city by opening upper Fourth Avenue for residence sites, but it also made rapid transit an assured fact between Forty- second street and Harlem by making possible the running of frequent trains, with stops at short intervals, at a reasonably high rate of speed.
Before the realization of any of these schemes, however, the city had already grown not only in population, but in area, so as to make their ultimate extension imperative. In 1873 part of Westchester County, including the villages of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge, were incorporated with the city, pushing its northern boundary as far as the city of Yonkers, and making its greatest length sixteen miles. By this annexation the area of the city was nearly doubled, being in- creased from 14,000 acres to about 27,000 acres. Transit facilities in this district were provided for by extensions and connections of the existing roads on both sides of the city, and portions of its territory were reserved for public parks, which bid fair to rank in the future among the most attractive features of the city.
An event which, though it was not connected with the internal growth of the city, profoundly affected its relations with the great world across the sea, may fitly be noticed here. On July 13, 1866, the steamer Great Eastern set sail in a final effort to connect this country with England by telegraph-cable. She had renewed her efforts, aban-
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doned since the brief triumph of 1858, on July 23 of the previous year, but the cable had snapped 1200 miles from shore. This time, however, the success was complete. Not only was the new cable laid, but the lost one was picked up and spliced, and telegraphic com- munication between the two continents has never been interrupted since that time. The event was celebrated by a banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce on November 15, and Cyrus W. Field was again the hero of the hour. He was presented by Congress with a gold medal, and the prime minister of England declared that had he been a citizen of Great Britain, he would have received the highest honors in the power of that nation to bestow. John Bright crystal- lized the feeling of the time in the saying that Field was " the Colum- bus of modern times, who by his cable had moored the new world alongside the old." In the following year he received the grand medal of the Paris Exposition. Though these events belong properly to the general history of the country, they were of peculiar interest to New-York, not only because of the unique benefits she received from the establishment of cable communication, on account of her com- mercial preeminence, but also because the success of the enterprise was due to the energy, and the refusal to succumb under defeat, shown by one of her own citizens. A grateful memory of his services to the two nations has ever been cherished on both sides of the ocean, as was amply proved by the comments of the press at his death, more than a quarter of a century afterward.
In July, 1866, Congress passed a law creating the grade of admiral, which had never hitherto existed in the navy, the office being at once conferred upon David Glasgow Farragut, the hero of so many naval battles; and in 1867 he was placed in command of the squadron which was to sail for European waters. The vessel selected for the admiral's flag-ship was the Franklin, 39 guns, a noble frigate of four thousand tons, carrying a complement of seven hundred and fifty men. The date set for the departure of the fleet from New-York was June 28; and a few days previously, on the 17th, the admiral gave a grand reception on board the flag-ship, which was attended by President Andrew Johnson and his cabinet, and many of the most distinguished people in the city, including several hundred ladies. The president was received with all the honors, the French and American men-of- war in the harbor saluting with twenty-one guns and manning their yards. After a most successful cruise in foreign waters, where Far- ragut was received with the greatest honor and attention by the . crowned heads of Europe, the Franklin returned to New-York, No- vember 10, 1868. An interesting journal of the cruise was published in 1869 by the admiral's secretary.1
1 " The Cruise of the Franklin," by James E. Montgomery. New-York.
1
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Among events that betokened the entry of the city on a broader life were the reorganization of some of its departments, and the crea- tion of new ones. First of all came the organization of a paid fire department. On May 2, 1865, in pursuance of an act passed by the egislature in March previous, the old volunteer department gave way o the present system, and at the same time the old hand-engines were replaced by modern steam appliances. The old volunteer force was corrupt and unreliable. Its engine-houses were frequented by nany idle, vicious young men, and citizens were aroused at all hours of the night by the noisy clatter of some fire-company running to
TERRACE AND LAKE, CENTRAL PARK.
inswer what was as likely to be a false alarm as a true one. The hange was attended with friction similar, in a smaller way, to that which hindered the establishment of the new police system nearly a lecade before. The new commissioners were loudly denounced as inconstitutional, and some of the volunteers refused to give up the property of the department; but an affirmative decision from the Court of Appeals soon effected the change. When the effort to prevent the change had proved vain, there was an attempt to punish the citizens by disbanding the volunteer department, leaving the city without protection against fire; but many of the volunteers would not join in such a movement, and as there were numerous old firemen among the metropolitan police force, vacancies were quickly filled, so hat from July to November, 1865, 3810 volunteers were quietly re- VOL. III .- 34.
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lieved. The department thus established has always held high rank for efficiency among the world's fire-brigades, and has enjoyed the distinction among the city departments of being the only one never interfered with by politicians to its detriment. In the same year an act of the legislature authorized the organization of the Fire-insur- ance Patrol, which has rendered very efficient aid to the department, not in the extinguishing of fires, but in removing goods from burning buildings and in the protection of their contents from injury by water.
Having thus provided the means of fighting fire, the city authori- ties were, a few months later, obliged to cope with a more insidious adversary, and devise means for keeping it at bay. In November, 1865, the steam- ship Atlanta arrived in port with several emigrants ill with Asiatic cholera. The city was at that time without a quarantine station, the pre- vious buildings on Staten Isl- and having been destroyed. The sick were transferred to a hulk, and in a few weeks the disease was checked by the approach of winter. CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. Fears lest an outbreak of cholera should take place in the following spring, however, led to the passage of an act by the legislature on February 26, 1866, creating a metropolitan sanitary district and establishing a Board of Health, consisting of four commissioners appointed by the governor, together with the health-officer, the police board, and other ex-officio members. The first commissioners appointed by the governor were Dr. James Crane, Dr. Willard Parker, Dr. John O. Stone, and Jackson S. Schultz, and the board organized, with the last-named gentleman as chairman. It immediately began to clean and purify the territory under its jurisdiction, which included the counties of New-York, Kings, Richmond, and a portion of Westchester. In view of the ar- rival of infected vessels at other ports, the governor granted the board extraordinary powers, but its efforts to provide proper quaran- tine facilities, even, if necessary, by force, failed through the violent opposition of the dwellers near all available points. Meanwhile, on April 18, the steamer Virginia from Liverpool arrived in the harbor with malignant cholera on board, and on May 1 the disease broke out in the city itself. In August it had reached its height, and it then declined till the autumn, when it had practically ceased. The
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efforts of the new health board, hampered as it was, in all probability saved the city from a scourge. Though the cholera was confined to the unsanitary parts of the town, and to the institutions on the isl- ands in the East River, there were 1205 deaths, of which 460 were in the city proper, including the shipping in the harbor. Small as the number of deaths was in comparison with that in other parts of the country, especially in western cities, it has never been exceeded since, owing, in no small degree, to the efficiency of this board and its competent successors.
During this same summer there was a determined effort to resist the en- forcement of a recently passed excise law whose provisions were regarded as unduly severe by liquor-dealers. So strong was the feeling that the authorities suspended its execution, and in July the governor issued a proclamation calling an extra session of the Supreme Court especially to test its constitutionality. The court, in an important decision, sustained the right of the legislature to regulate the traffic, and affirmed that in doing so it did not "interfere or restrain Horace Freely any one of his liberty or property." The claim of the dealers that a license granted previous to the pas- sage of the law was a contract whose obligation could not be impaired, was also expressly denied in the just decision.
In 1870 a separate department was organized to take charge of the docks of the city. It consisted of three commissioners nominated by the mayor for a term of six years. They at once began to carry out a system which contemplates the surrounding of the city with a stone bulkhead wall, at a uniform depth of 20 to 25 feet of water. The ac- quisition of the water-line, however, proceeded very slowly, and in- volved tedious litigation; and the water-front of New-York is not yet in keeping with her unexampled facilities, and her position as a great commercial and maritime city.
The years 1870 and 1871 were marked by disturbances of the pub- lic peace, which, though in themselves insignificant, especially when contrasted with the days of mob rule in 1863, involved events of much importance. The right of a peaceable body of men to parade the streets quietly was then officially called in question, and practi- cally established on so firm a basis that it is doubtful if a second at-
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tempt will ever be made to interfere with it. On July 12, 1870, a party of Orangemen held a picnic at Elm Park, on Eighth Avenue near Ninety-second street, in one of their annual celebrations of the battle of the Boyne. As they marched up the avenue the band that led them played some tunes which roused the anger of a gang of laborers -Roman Catholic Irishmen - on the new Boulevard near by. The laborers promptly attacked the procession with stones, and the Orangemen resisted. Shots were fired on both sides, killing three persons, and wounding others, some of whom died afterward. A strong police force restored order for the time, but the recollection of the affray remained, and as July of the following year ap- proached, it became evident that nothing short of the severest measures could avert a serious riot.
The Orangemen were determined to parade, while their rivals were just as determined to break up the parade should one be attempted. In this crisis the city au- thorities took what seemed to them to be the simplest course, which in this case, as THE FEMALE NORMAL COLLEGE. in so many others, was both weak and unjust. On the day before that appointed for the parade, the superintendent of police, James J. Kelso, issued an order, either by command or with the approval of the mayor, A. Oakey Hall, prohibiting it. But public opinion was well on the side of the Orangemen. Provoking as their public appearance might be in reminding their adversaries of an ancient defeat, it was clearly seen that this constituted no reason for arraying the civil authorities on the side of their assailants - an action which was much like meeting the well-known dislike of bulls for red by a strict prohibition of red dresses, instead of by shutting up the bulls.
The police order was the signal for a general outbreak of indigna- tion. Among other indications of public sentiment, there was a mass meeting at the Produce Exchange, which denounced the course of the
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city authorities. The latter were quick to see that they had made a blunder in transforming the Orangemen from an inconspicuous faction into a body representative of the whole public. Governor Hoffman was telegraphed for, and on his arrival from Albany a con- sultation was held, resulting in the revocation of the objectionable order and the issuance of a proclamation calling on all citizens to keep the peace, and declaring that the full power of the State-civil and military- would be used to protect the paraders in their un- doubted rights. This act of the governor was hailed by the public as a sign that he was determined to have his own way, though it seems doubtful whether it was anything more than a tardy acknowledgment of the sovereignty of public opinion. The "Nation," in an editorial article, gave the governor a somewhat doubtful compliment by calling the act "a totally unlooked-for display of energy and independence." But be that as it may, there is no doubt of its important results. Its wisdom is still called in question by some, but however unwise it may be to allow factions to inflame each other's passions publicly, it would certainly be far more unwise for the city to identify itself wholly with one faction. The fact that the mayor, wearing the in- signia of the Ribbonmen, had headed the last St. Patrick's day pro- cession, could not fail to be commented upon in this connection. Just before the time appointed for the parade to start, the appear- ance of police headquarters reminded the onlookers forcibly of the days of the draft riots. Information was constantly being received that armed bands of men were preparing to oppose the procession, and bodies of police were massed in different parts of the city to re- ceive them. About noon the first demonstration was made in the form of a determined attack on the Fenian armory in Avenue A, but the assailants were beaten off by the police.
On hearing of the order forbidding the parade, most of the Orange lodges had arranged to spend the day outside the city, so that when the procession set out the escort of military and police almost hid from view those they were to accompany and protect. The parade consisted of the Eighty-fourth, Twenty-second, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth regiments, and the Gideon Lodge of Orangemen (numbering less than 100 men). The streets were lined with spectators, but there was sign of neither applause nor disapproval till the parade reached a spot on Eighth Avenue, between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth streets. Here a shot was fired from a tenement-house, and in a mo- ment there was a general assault, stones and other missiles being thrown from the neighboring buildings, and more shots being fired from the crowd. These attacks brought several volleys from the Ninth and Eighty-fourth regiments, which created deadly havoc among the mob; and although the firing by these two organizations
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was unauthorized, it was felt by the public to be justifiable, and of inestimable service, as tending to crush the outbreak at its very be- ginning. It was a matter of regret that innocent persons, attracted by the excitement of the hour, lost their lives by being among the disturbers of the peace at the time of the shooting, but this was an unavoidable sequence to the occasion. The total number of killed and mortally wounded in this brief contest was fifty-four, including three members of the Ninth regiment, while many of the soldiers re- ceived slight injuries. The Orangemen were escorted as far as the Seventh Regiment armory, then situated over Tompkins market, and the several regiments were ordered to clear the adjacent streets. This being done, the Orangemen divested themselves of their regalia, and slipped away quietly, one by one, to their homes, and the trouble was ended. When the news of the assault and its repulse had spread through the city, business was at once suspended, and the citizens, with a shuddering remembrance of the atrocities of 1863, feared that the end was not yet; but the mob had received a severe lesson, and soon disappeared. Governor Hoffman, however, summoned addi- tional regiments from Brooklyn to be ready, and prepared to direct their movements in person.
As is usual in such cases, public opinion on the contest was some- what divided, and there was much condemnation of the military for precipitancy, heightened by the knowledge that they had fired without specific orders. In some quarters indignation against them ran high. On the whole, however, it was felt that the soldiers who were killed in the affair had lost their lives not only in defense of a principle dear to all, but in vindicating the right of the decent people of the city not to be dictated to by ruffians. The dead men were buried on the following Sunday, with elaborate ceremony. In strong contrast to the popular sentiment in regard to them was the feeling of mingled amusement and disgust with which the city heard of the desertion of the colonel of the Ninth Regiment, the notorious James Fisk, the partner of Gould,' at the beginning of the affray. Fearing, doubtless, lest he should be a target for the bullets of the mob, he prudently
1 " To treat the late Jay Gould, as some of our contemporaries have done, as a man who achieved his notoriety, and acquired the enormous power which he wielded in the financial world, under or- dinary conditions, is to do our civilization great injustice. He was in reality as much the product of anarchy as Napoleon -to whom he is often compared - or Rosas, or the Greek Hadgi-Stavros. He saw his opportunities, and made his beginnings, in a state of things in which all the institutions of a civilized society - the Legislature, the Judiciary, the Exchanges, the means of carrying on com- merce and even currency - were made to take part in the semi-military contest of two specula- tors for the possession of a railroad, and in which
a Boss, and not a Buccaneer, was preparing to take possession of a great city and loot the tres- sury, not on the Spanish Main, but in a Christian Protestant Anglo-Saxon State. One of Gould's own earliest exploits was storming with an armed force a tannery which was defended by his busi- ness rivals with another armed force, in regular twelfth-century fashion. In short, the community was, between 1865 and 1873, in that revolutionary condition in which Tweeds, Fisks, andGoulds surely appear, apparently in obedience to a law of social development. As you sow so shall you reap, say the Scriptures. Thorn-trees produce thorns and fig-trees figs, and to stand round Gould's grave now, and treat his career as something wonderful,
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slipped away, and perhaps saved his life. Two years later he was shot dead by a rival in a quarrel about a worthless woman.
A word should be said here of John T. Hoffman, whose determined action was the cause of these exciting events. He had already been mayor of the city in 1866. Mr. Hoffman, who was then in his forty- second year, was a native of Sing Sing, a grad- uate of Union College, and active in politics Drm Hoffman from early manhood. At the time of his elec-
tion as mayor, he was best known for the severe sentences he had delivered, while recorder of the city, against persons engaged in the draft riots; but he is perhaps chiefly remembered for his action in re- lation to the riot just described.
In April, 1866, was founded the first of the societies which-all arising within a decade - have for their object the aiding of the city authorities in the enforcement of the law, and the assumption of responsibility for the prosecution of law-breakers in those thousands of cases where investigation is the business of everybody, and there- fore of nobody. This first, however, differed from all the others in that it had first to secure the passage of the laws which it undertook to enforce, and then to create a public sentiment favorable to their enforcement-all in the face of indifference, opposition, and ridicule. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was the creation of a single man, Henry Bergh. Mr. Bergh was the son of Christian Bergh, a ship-builder of German descent, from whom he inherited a competence. In 1862 he was appointed secretary of legation and vice-consul at St. Petersburg, but in 1864 he resigned, and devoted himself to travel. While abroad, the cruelties that he saw inflicted upon dumb animals determined him to devote the rest of his life to bettering their condition. On his return, having interested citizens in his project, he procured by his personal exertions a charter for his proposed society, together with the passage of a law, drawn up by himself, for the proper protection of animals. From that time till his death he labored incessantly -on the lecture platform, in the court-room, and in the street-in his chosen pursuit, and succeeded
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