USA > New York > Essex County > Bloomingdale > The New York of yesterday; a descriptive narrative of old Bloomingdale, its topographical features, its early families and their genealogies, its old homesteads and country-seats, the Bloomingdale Reformed church, organized in 1805 > Part 2
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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
The Dutch colors-blue, white, and orange-embel- lish the cover.
It should be added that this work frankly amounts to more than a history of the Bloomingdale Reformed
xxvi
Introduction
Church. The broadest kind of an historical and genea- logical background has been taken, extending over the entire region of the Bloomingdale of old.
H. S. M.
CITY OF NEW YORK,
BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN,
June, 1906,
After being arrayed in battle panoply for five years in an effort to have the name affixed to some location within its confines, it is with unfeigned pleasure that the announcement is made that the Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance which was approved by Mayor McClellan and became a law on the 9th day of January, 1907, designating the triangular plot at the junction of Broadway, West End Avenue, 106th and 107th Streets, " Bloomingdale Square."
The new Dork of Desterday
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I
Bloomingdale
In the good old days, sometime after the settlement of this island by our Holland ancestors, the middle west section thereof received from the place of that name near Haarlem, in Holland, the name " Bloemen- dael." Its earliest history is lost in tradition. Indian trails led over and across it. Where the tepees were located, how the wild creatures which prowled through its woods disappeared, and how and when the terri- tory, densely covered with the denizens of the forest, became denuded, we are left to conjecture. At a later date its pastoral scenes were apostrophized by Irving, whose magic pen has immortalized the "River of the Mountains," as "a sweet and rural valley, beautiful with many a bright wild flower, refreshed by many a pure streamlet, and enlivened here and there by a delectable little Dutch cottage, sheltered under some sloping hill and almost buried in embowering trees." The derivation of the name is in itself descriptive of the territory to which it was
I
2
The new Dork of Desterday
applied. Even in our day it was "a vale of flow- ers," the equivalent in the vernacular of the Dutch designation. The extent of territory covered by the appellation has ever been a mooted question; such authorities as mention the subject at all differ essen- tially. We know to a certainty that the road which gave access much later to the locality ran its length through "the Bloomingdale District" from present loth23d Street and Broadway and was known as the Bloomingdale Road. It wound o'er hill and dale, over a picturesque country, passing beautiful country- seats and farmhouses, making an ensemble which vied with the splendors of the lordly Hudson lapping its shores. Let us trace the name by successive stages as applied to territory below 59th Street, at which point many authorities limit it. An old resident and occu- pant of a homestead which stood until 1897 at 54th Street and the river, the author can testify that letters to his family as early as the end of the 18th century were addressed to Bloomingdale. The blocks between 55th and 57th Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues constituted the original Bloomingdale Square and con- tained somewhat over eighteen acres. It was closed on the establishment of Central Park, by Chapter 73, Laws of 1857. The abstract of title of the Wm. L. Rose tract, on the east side of the road between 46th and 47th Streets, denominates it as lying in Blooming- dale. Rose's name appears attached to the articles of incorporation of the Church as the witness. He had other plots in the locus in quo and was the husband of Charlotte, the sister of Mrs. Jacob Coles Mott. A part of Wolfert Webber's farm, hereinafter described, which John Jacob Astor and William Cutting acquired under foreclosure in 1803, the southern boundary of which
3
Bloomingdale
was south of 43d Street on the Road and extended to the river at a point north of 48th Street, was platted thereafter. On the map it is entitled "The farm at Bloomingdale," belonging to those individuals. Por- tions of it fronting on Verdant Lane became the prop- erty of Colonel Anthony Post and Francis Feitner, mentioned hereafter. In the Mercantile Advertiser of Dec. 10, 1814, appeared this advertisement:
TO LET for one or more years
The Farm at Bloomingdale, near the four mile stone, known by the name of Eden's Farm, consisting of about 22 acres of Land, on which are two Dwelling Houses and 2 barns, and to which may be added 2 pieces of pasture land of about ten acres each. Apply to
JOHN JACOB ASTOR, corner Pine & Pearl-Street.
This farm was owned by Medcef Eden, an English- man, and extended as far south as 4Ist Street. It was acquired by Astor under foreclosure in 1803, for $25,000. The prevalent notion that this new centre of the city's hotel and theatre district was ever known as the Long Acre Farm is fallacious. The mural painting over the bar in the Hotel Astor labelled with this name tends to foster false history. The name Long Acre grew into usage after Brewster & Company removed from Broome Street to 47th Street, in 1872. Other firms in the same line of business followed them to the new loca- tion, whereupon one of the trade publications compared New York's carriage building community to Long Acre Street in London, where the leading firms of the busi- ness are centred, and termed the locality, which at that time was without name, "New York's Long Acre."
4
The new Dork of Desterday
This designation seemed apt and was finally adopted by the authorities.
The high eminence at present Greeley and Herald Squares gave the name of Strawberry Hill to territory thereabouts. When the Institution for the Blind was removed in October, 1833, to the entire block between 33d and 34th Streets, Eighth and Ninth Avenues, it was to Strawberry Hill that it came. This advertise- ment from the Columbian of January 6, 1815, brings the Bloomingdale name to a point farther south and as low as we have yet been able to prove:
A STRAY STEER
was found on the premises of the subscriber on the 5th of August last. The owner may have the said steer by proving property and paying all reasonable charges.
ISAAC VARIAN JUN. Bloomingdale-3 mile stone.
This stone was located on the Old Post Road just north of its junction with the Bloomingdale Road at a spot about opposite 24th Street, and measured the third mile from Federal Hall in Wall Street.
"The Road to Bloomingdale," the continuation of Bowery or New York Lane, began at 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, crossed diagonally Union Square, and proceeded northerly to its junction with the Old Post Road, which swerved northeasterly across present Madison Square, and followed much of the bed of Third Avenue to Harlem. The Bloomingdale Road was opened under the Act of June 19, 1703, as stated in the preamble of the Act of November 25, 1751, which provided for keeping said road in repair. Therein it is mentioned that the road had been laid out of the
5
JBloomingdale
breadth of four rods from the house of John Horn (23d Street and Fifth Avenue), through the "Bloomingdale District" to the house of Adrian Hooglandt (115th Street and Riverside Drive), terminating at the " barn of Nicholas de Peyster" (about 116th Street). Prior to the opening of this road, which meant so much to the district it traversed, the only means of access from the city seems to have been by water, the great natural highway to the region. There were a number of lanes which deflected from the Post Road to distinctive sec- tions of the West Side, some of the more important being Hopper's Lane in the fifties, Harsenville Road in the seventies, and the Cross Road to Harlem, afterwards Apthorp Lane, in the nineties. All of those named were opened many years after the Bloomingdale Road.
In the process of evolution by which New York has reached its proud position as the second city of the world, it has come about that the farm on which "the house of John Horn" was situated and its vicinage has become the retail centre and the best known and most conspicuous locality of the metropolis. Its situation in the heart of the city, its fabulous wealth in hotels, amusement and business structures, the beautiful Madison Square Park which lies opposite, the width of the plaza between them, and the crossing of two of the main arteries of travel, all have served to call atten- tion to this section. The national and local characters to be met on that swirling centre of trade and traffic- the junction of 23d Street and Fifth Avenue-accen- tuates this feature, and the political meetings held in the neighboring hotels, with the conduct and contest of parties fought out thereabouts, have focussed the thought of the nation for many years on this terri- tory. The vast assemblages which concentrate here
3 e
1
6
The new Dork of Desterday
on occasions have become a part of metropolitan existence.
Horn acquired title to the tract in 1716 in conjunc- tion with his brother-in-law Cornelius Webber, the latter's sister Rachel having married the former three years previously. The house, which became the start- ing point of the Bloomingdale Road, was located be- tween 22d and 23d Streets, in the present centre of Fifth Avenue, on the exact spot where the "Isle of Safety" has been placed, and immediately west of the Flatiron Building. It became later the residence of Christopher Mildeberger, a merchant in the Swamp, who had married Margaret Horn in 1808 and removed to this dwelling in 1820 from Vandewater Street. Ven- erable and stately sycamore trees lined the then country road, and also divided the farm from the house plot. Fifth Avenue was ordered opened in 1837, and the same year the park called Madison was declared a public square. In 1839 Mildeberger petitioned that his house should be allowed to remain on its site until the actual necessity arose for its removal, and by resolution of the Common Council, it was permitted to stay until November Ist. The homestead was removed to the northwest corner of the avenue and street where the Fifth Avenue Hotel stands, and was used as a tavern known as Madison Cottage under lease to Corporal Thompson. It became a noted resort and half-way house for turfmen and other sporting characters under the management of this boniface and remained on this corner for thirteen years (1839-1852), when it was superseded by Franconi's Hippodrome.
The farms which collectively came to be known as Bloomingdale were settled by Hollanders. They stretched some four miles along both sides of the road,
GREAT KILL DIST.
W 36
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EIGHTH AVE.
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7
Bloomingdale
which in 1795 was extended from 115th to 147th Streets, where it merged in the Kingsbridge Road. In this territory were a number of hamlets, one at the Great Kill, the longest and deepest stream which in- dented the west shore of the island, the outlet of which was at 42d Street. The settlement at this spot ex- tended into the fifties. Harsenville was located in the seventies, Striker's Bay in the nineties, and Blooming- dale centred at rooth Street. Here was the nucleus of a village which received this name for want of a better one, and in which the Bloomingdale Asylum was the main raison d'être. Each of these was a dis- tinet locality. Up to the opening of the Civil War there was yet a semblance of village life therein.
Cbe Great kill
Branches of the Great Kill rose as far north as 58th Street and the road. as far cast as 48th Street and Sixth Avenue, where there was a lake, and as far south as 39th Street east of Seventh Avenue. Two larger ponds were on this branch between 36th and 38th Streets near this avenue. The dominating feature in this neighborhood was the "Great Kill Farm," located near the creek's mouth and on the north side thereof. It was owned in 1714 by Matthys Adolphus Hoppe, the ancestor of Andrew Hopper, an original deacon of the Church at Harsenville. There was located the house of Matthew Hopper. His sons advertised it for sale in 1786 and John Leake, the founder of Leake and Watts Orphan Home, a distinctive Bloomingdale insti- tution, purchased it that year for £1000. He dwelt on an adjoining farm which he called "The Hermitage." and both these properties were inherited by his grand- nephews, the Norton brothers. Most of the property
8
The new Dork of Desterday
in the hamlet contiguous to this stream was owned by the Hopper family and its connections. Matthys Adolphus, the settler, was the youngest of the four children of Andries Hoppe, the pioneer, and Gertje Hen- dricks, his wife, who reached this country from Holland in 1652. He lived but six years after his arrival and yet his name is conspicuous in the records of the time. He owned a number of lots in the lower city and lived on the east side of Broadway, north of Beaver Street. Just before his death in December, 1658, he entered into a contract to purchase Bronck's Land (Morrisania), from which agreement his widow sought relief on the ground that the owner, one Stoll, could not deliver it free from Indian claims. The grave and learned seig- neurs, the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens, one of the members of which was Jacobus Strijcker, the ancestor of another of the original elders of the Har- senville Church, declared the title merchantable. So Mrs. Hoppe or Hoppen (in both of which ways the good dame spelled her name) owned the whole of Bronck's Land, five hundred acres in extent, by deed of record dated 1662. This property was eventually patented by Governor Andros to Colonel Lewis Morris, second Proprietor of Morrisania, in 1676.
The "Hopper Farm," which has become famous in legal annals, as confined within city streets, stretched from 48th to 55th Streets, both east and west of the Bloomingdale Road, lying diagonally across the city and along the river from 50th to 55th Streets. The homestead of Matth "s Adolphus Hoppe was located on the north side of Hopper's Lane. the only way through the farm to the river, just west of the Albany apartment house at 51st Street and Broadway. His son Johannes, known in the records as John Hopper
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Que.
RiThomasch
REMNANT OF THE HOPPER BURIAL GROUND, 1884 Southwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 50th Street
9
Bloomingdale
the Elder, inherited this property. He was a member of Captain Gerard Stuyvesant's company, of N. Y. Militia, and served as Lieutenant in General Harmer's campaign against the Indians. He married, in 1728, Maria van Orden, and their seven children were born in the homestead. A remnant of the family burial-ground was to be seen until 1885 at the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 50th Street, in which interments took place until 1840, the last being that of an old negro slave by whom the members of the last generation had been nursed.
John Hopper the Elder, besides the house he built for his son Matthew heretofore mentioned, constructed one at 50th Street and Broadway for his son Andrew, and another at the terminus of the Lane (53d Street and the river) for his son John the Younger, who was born in 1734, and whose first wife was Wyntie Dyck- man. Their only child, Maria, became the first wife of James Striker of Striker's Bay. Hopper's second wife was Sarah Cozine, and he as well as Sarah and her mother Catharine, widow of Balaam Johnson Cozine, were buried in the Hopper plot. He devised his farm to his grandchildren for life, viz .: Ann Striker, Winifred, wife of Jordan Mott, and General Garrit Hopper Striker.
Another residence, "Mott's Point," the Homestead, which John Hopper the Younger put up, was situated at the river's edge, and built in 1796 for his grand- daughter, whose marriage was then in contemplation. The rocky promontory on which it was located had previously been the site of the family fishing, bathing, and boating houses. For this was a celebrated spot for bass and crabs and the rocks were encrusted with oysters which grew to perfection. The Mott family used the place as a country-seat until 1829, when they
IO
The new Dork of Desterday
removed there permanently. Seven sons were born to them, the youngest being baptized in the Bloomingdale Church. Here, also, lived their grandmother, Anne Coles, the wife of Isaac Mott, a Quaker merchant, whose privilege it was to bear a part in the contest for Amer- ican independence. There is preserved in her family a tablecloth which some officers gave her as a grateful memento of her charitable course in ministering to the wants of the cruelly treated captives who fell into the British clutches. (Vide sketch in N. Y. G. and B. Record of January and July, 1905.) The family attended service at the Church and a number of the sons sang in the choir.
The house of John Horn, Jr., whose mother was Jacomyntie (Jemima) Hopper, is still standing on the edge of the Lane at 51st Street and Broadway. It is now occupied as a saloon and was known until lately as the "Old Homestead," so-called from its proximity to the original homestead. The Cozine and Hege- man families (who intermarried) had houses in the present bed of Eighth Avenue, between 54th and 55th Streets. No pictures of these houses are extant. Sarah Swanser, the daughter of Sarah Cozine, married, as a second husband, John Stake, and his house was located within the lines of old Bloomingdale Square. Among the individuals connected with the Church who lived in this section should be mentioned the Webbers, Posts, and Hardmans.
There were a number of isolated homes located be- tween the Great Kill section and Harsenville, notably the Havemeyer place on the west side of present Colum- bus Circle, and the Cargill, Ward, Nash, and Low houses, all of which were surrounded by more or less extensive grounds. These were all on the great Somer-
II
JBloomingdale
indyck farm, and were acquired from heirs of John Somerindyck, who bid it in at the sale held by the Com- missioners of Forfeiture after the Revolution. The Havemeyer mansion later served as a hospital and home for disabled Union soldiers. The Cargill seat occupied the block between 60th and 6Ist Streets and Ninth and Tenth Avenues, which was bought by David Cargill in 1819, for $3500. He was a member of the firm of Cargill & Sonntag, No. 11 Maiden Lane, importers of musical instruments. The house stood relatively nearer to Tenth Avenue. In 1860, title to the property became vested in Algernon S. Jarvis; consideration, $135,000.
Lebbeus B. Ward, the mechanician, lived in a hand- some Gothic cottage, at the northwest corner of 59th Street and Tenth Avenue, the trap rock of which it was constructed having been brought from his native State of New Jersey. He carried on business at the foot of the street at the river's edge, where he founded the "Hamersley Forge," the first establishment in this country fitted with furnaces and steam hammers of sufficient size to manufacture shafts and cranks for steamer and steamboat use. Here was forged the "Peacemaker," the famous gun which was invented by Ericsson and which was mounted on the U. S. S. Princeton. At its trial on the Potomac River in 1844, it was very successful, but later at a final discharge it exploded, killing two secretaries of Tyler's Cabinet. The President himself narrowly escaped. It is proper to add that Ward disapproved of the method of construction of this gun, which was much larger than had theretofore been used in the navy.
The Nash house now forms a portion of the New York Infant Asylum located at the northeast corner
I2
The new Dork of Desterday
of 6Ist Street and Tenth Avenue. It was built by Daniel D. Nash, the auctioneer, who bought the site in 1848. John Low purchased land on the west side of Tenth Avenue, between 59th and 64th Streets, in 1819, at which time he was cashier of the Union Bank at 17 Wall Street. "Locust Grove," which name dignified the mansion he built near the latter street, was a substantial stone structure of two stories and attic. It was surrounded by a dense forest and Low's woods were famous picnic-grounds even after they were cut off from the water by the advent of the rail- road. Great quantities of wild pigeons consorted there, and hunting was superb until one day the birds disap- peared. The Low house and some of the contiguous land was purchased in 1851 by John Tirburce Gregoire de Milhau, a San Domingan refugee, who occupied it till 1858. It became a beer and dance hall later, a fate which befell so many of the fine country-seats of Bloomingdale.
The hamlet which grew up around the Harsen home- stead, to which the name "Harsenville" attached, will be treated extensively in another chapter. The terri- tory covered by this appellation was composed of the Somerindyke and Dyckman farms and a portion of the Apthorp tract. Generally speaking it stretched from 59th to 80th Streets, an extensive part of which prop- erty was taken for Central Park.
Striker's Bay
The section of Bloomingdale which received the dis- tinctive name of Striker's Bay extended to 99th Street. Gerrit Striker, the grandson of Jacobus Strijcker, one of the magistrates of the original Court of New Amster- dam, assumed the method of spelling his name which
STRIKER'S BAY DIST.
CENTRAL
1
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WIZ
WIE
WED
NORTH
CROTON RESERVOIR.
wrg
NINTH AVE.
MENTH AVE
BOULEVARD.
ELEVENTH AUE.
W97
ELMWOOD
SIDE
W92
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RIVER
200
W95
W96
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PARK.
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PARK
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EIGHTH AVE
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Michael's Church
Striker
RIVER
I3
Bloomingdale
has been retained by the Manhattan branch of the fam- ily, and differentiates it from the rest of the clan. He settled at the head of a "certain cove," located at the foot of present 96th Street, in 1764, and named the mansion he built there "Striker's Bay." This prop- erty descended to his only child, James, who lived the life of a country gentleman on his ancestral estate. During the Revolution it was in the occupation of the enemy. After his death the house became a tavern. " Jogging down a steep lane," says Dayton's Knicker- bocker Life in New York, "we alight at a secluded little snuggery called Striker's Bay, one of the most unpre- tending yet attractive houses on the drive. It was in a nook sheltered from all points, save from the west, where the fine view of the Hudson amply repaid many a visitor." In 1841 Francis was the landlord. During his proprietorship he perfected his celebrated life-boat -the precursor of later designs-which invention made him both famous and rich. The years of his tenantcy were memorable for the number of noted personages who assembled there. Poe and his child-wife, Virginia, spent the summers of 1843 and 1844 in a cottage near by which stood at 84th Street. While he resided in Bloomingdale he wrote that notable poem, The Raven, and it was his habit to wander down the declivity to the shores of the bay. Often did he occupy a seat on Francis's piazza to enjoy the prospect and commune with his friends and familiars, of whom the names of Woodward, Morris, Willis, English, the author of Ben Bolt, and the lawyer-poet, William Ross Wallace, are recalled. Trees of tremendous girth and height were on the ground, one of which, "a grand old elm," in- spired Morris to compose that noble lyric, Woodman, Spare that Tree. In 1837, wrote the poet, he caught
14
The new Dork of Desterday
a tenant of the property in the act of cutting it down for firewood. "The old gentleman" with whom he was walking asked the iconoclast what it was worth when felled, and ascertaining that ten dollars would prevent its destruction, paid the price and exacted an agreement in writing that it should be saved. We have Morris's testimony that in 1862 it was still standing.
Under the tavern's successive bonifaces it became a noted resort for excursions, target-shootings, etc. There was a dock and small station of the Hudson River Railroad on the grounds. The lawn fronting the river made a fine dancing floor, and at the rear of the house were found the targets. A well-known clergy- man is authority for the statement that here was a scene of sylvan beauty unsurpassed, and that he had never in his long life been in so entrancing a spot. The property was sold in June, 1856, and the house was destroyed by fire in the early sixties, when Robert Pennoyer was its landlord.
Situated in the neighborhood of which this house was a nucleus, were many country-seats. The Apthorp mansion is certainly the most noted-as it is of Revo- lutionary renown. The N. Y. Mercury of Monday, May 21, 1764, gives an account of a quarrel among the workmen engaged in the construction of the house, during which one of the participants was killed. Charles Ward Apthorp was one of his Majesty's Coun- cil under Governor Tryon, a leading lawyer of the city, and a man of social distinction in colonial times. He called the Bloomingdale property "Elmwood," and here he dispensed lavish hospitality. He died in the mansion in 1797, and his remains were laid in the family vault in Trinity churchyard. Ten children survived
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