USA > New York > New York City > Walks in our churchyards; old New York, Trinity Parish > Part 2
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membered capital lying at its base. A generation later the corporation of Trinity Church determined to remove the remains to the more conspicuous position which they now occupy, and the hand- some mausoleum, surrounded by eight trophy cannon attached by chains, which stands close by the southernmost entrance to the Church, is the first object that attracts the eyes of visitors. The cannon were selected from the arms captured from the English during the war of 1812-15, and, as in accordance with the law, each gun bore its national insignia, and an inscription declaring the time and place of capture, the vestry of Trinity Church, with a courtesy worthy the imitation of all Christian bodies, directed that they should be buried so deep that no evidence of triumph should be paraded before the public eye so as to seem unfriendly to the stranger within our gates. It was a fitting return for the gratifying respect paid to the remains of Captain Lawrence and Lieuten- ant Ludlow on their arrival at Halifax, when the entire British garrison marched in the funeral procession, and the navy furnished the pall- bearers and guard of honor.
It is in this spirit that all the world can keep
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Decoration Day, and stand with bowed head and proud tears by the grave of any man who gave up life for love of country or humanity. Those who were among the men who marched down Broadway on their way to the front during the long, dark struggle of thirty years ago can recall how the flag waved from the spire of old Trinity, and made them stronger with the remembrance that the prayers of good men and tender women would follow them to camp and field and burial trench. There was no one to question the pa- triotism of Trinity Parish then, for these graves of heroes-from Alexander Hamilton's at Trinity to Gen. Richard Montgomery's at St. Paul's-had for four-score years been preaching eloquently of the unflinching virtue of men trained up on the plain old-fashioned lines of "My duty to God" and " My duty to my neighbor."
I have spoken of this churchyard as a pure democracy. Look around and you will find it SO. Actors and artists, soldiers and lawyers, mer- chants and firemen, two former federal Secretaries of the Treasury, three men who filled the office of Chief Justice in colonial times, two in New York and one in New Jersey, a score of aldermen
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and assemblynien, printers, clergymen and sailors without limit, are close together here, but never jostle one another. Their tombstones were all familiar to me once, for boyish curiosity led me on from grave to grave to decipher the inscrip- tions, and I used to spend hours on my knees be- fore them, poking the moss out of the letters and out of the eyes of the graven cherubs above the inscriptions, a rosy, merry antiquarian, and the antithesis of Walter Scott's restorer of tomb- stones. The graves were familiar to my eye, but I had a deep reverence for the people who occu- pied them; an awe, partly born of the inscrip- tions, which in former days always had the tend- ency of a funeral sermon and sought to flatter the deceased, somewhat as modern art rouges the lips of a corpse and seeks to rob death of its ter- rors. But there is one grave which lies so close to Broadway that a keen eye can catch upon the memorial stone its legend, which used to have a different effect upon me. I felt that I would have liked to know the occupant, and pictured him to myself as a gentleman of rotund build and rosy cheek, whose face beamed with good nature and who would have been tolerant of boys, even if
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they were inclined to mischief. The stone is the memorial of a New York merchant, once an offi- cer in the English army, one of whose descend- ants, Samuel F. B. Morse, was the father of the world's telegraph system, and beneath it rests earth that was once Sydney Breese, who died in 1767, and before death wrote the inscription which he desired on his tombstone. Here it is :
Ha, Sydney, Sydney !
Lyest thou Here ? I here Lye, "Til time is flown To its Extremity.
A quaint soul he must have been, and staunch withal, for he was ancestor of an eminent line, to some of whom he bequeathed sparkling bits of his humor.
One of the distinguished citizens who became Chief Justice of the colony of New York, was James De Lancey, who was also Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, and during vacancies administered the gov- ernment for several years. He was found dead in his library, at his handsome country-seat on the Bowery road, in 1760, and was buried in the
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middle aisle of Trinity .Church. Daniel Horse- manden, who married the widow of the Rev. William Vesey, rector of Trinity Church, was ap- pointed Chief Justice in 1763. At the outbreak of the Revolution he espoused the royal cause, having been born and educated in England, but died in this city in 1778, and was buried in Trin- ity churchyard. David Jamison, who was at one time Chief Justice of New Jersey, and afterward Attorney-General of the Province of New York, and Recorder of this city, belonged to an earlier period of colonial history, having begun to hold office in 1693 as Clerk of the Council. A Scotch- man by birth, he had been banished to America because he had become identified with a religious society called the " Sweet Singers," who believed in burning all books except the Bible. His re- ligious views changed with his advancing years, and he became one of the leading vestrymen of Trinity Church, had a notable funeral, and was " very decently " interred in the graveyard.
One of the most noteworthy tablets in the whole assemblage of stones is that which covers the dust of William Bradford, fifty years printer to the colonial government, the first to print the
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English Prayer-Book, and to issue proposals to print the English Bible here, and always an ex- ample of piety, integrity and patriotism. Revered as the earliest champion of the freedom of the press in this country, he left to his descendants an inheritance of love of country and undaunted couarge in its cause which bore fruit in the gallant career of his grandson, Colonel William Bradford, also a printer, who sacrificed life and fortune in the war for independence. Very tame by the side of such a record is the story of John Law- rence, an eminent merchant, who married a daugh- ter of Philip Livingston, and whose body was in- terred in the family vault of the Earl of Sterling. He died in 1765, and the celebrated George Whitfield, then in the zenith of his renown,
preached his funeral sermon. But peace has her victories no less than war, and who shall say that the stainless life of the upright man of business is not as proud a trophy in the eyes of the Creator as the patriotic sacrifice of the soldier's life, or the triumph that is won over the oppressor by the wisdom of patriotic statesmanship ?
Of all the inscriptions in the churchyard of old Trinity, the most pathetic, as well as the most of
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a poem in stone, is that which tells of the death of the widow of Captain Lawrence of the Chesa- peake. More than fifty years of lonely life elapsed between the bright May morning in which she had kissed her brave young husband good-bye and the quiet September evening in which she set out to meet him again. She was in the bloom of her youthful beauty when they parted, and he passed beyond the veil in the glory of his early manhood, stalwart and rosy and un- wrinkled ; now, as she laid down her burden of life she was bent, withered and white-haired. Did they know each other when they met eye to eye, and face to face ? Are these wrinkles and crip- pling pains but marks of earth which we throw off as we enter the portal of the house with many mansions ? Will not the eye which is spiritual, and not natural, see in its dear dead, only the loveliness of the soul and the radiant beauty of the heart which never grows old ? The fountain of eternal youth was sought by Ponce de Leon in vain, but the priests who bore the standard of the cross in his expedition might have told him that it lies just within "the gate beautiful " of the tem- ple eternal in the heavens. If it were possible
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that it should be otherwise, the disappointment would imply the deception of a doomed world. I know, as I look at this brief, but most pathetic, story of woman's unforgetfulness carved on the stone mausoleum, that some one who had been listening long, but with no count of years, heard her footsteps, and, hastening to clasp her hand found her even lovelier than he had remembered And to this belief every flower and leaf of May answers back, " Amen !"
III.
IF I were a physician, and one of those busy men of Wall Street, who complain of the wear and tear of an unresting brain which brings sleep- lessness and prostration in its train, came to me for advice, I should prescribe a daily half-hour walk in the churchyard of old Trinity. As a panacea, I believe that garden of the dead to be worth its value in gold every year to the public whose eyes turn from the dusty street to its trees and flowers, and from grimy pavements to the coverlet of white which is drawn by unseen hands over the unconscious sleepers. The sight of its green grasses that recall distant and half- forgotten meadows; of its banks of snow that bring back the old farm-house of childhood and the trees that waved their bare arms above it in the wintry wind; of the graves that are al- ways tenderly eloquent of vacant chairs at every hearthstone, changes the current of the blood, quickens the sluggish beating of the heart and breathes peace and healing into the tired and overworked brain.
There is nothing sad but everything that is
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cheering in a walk among these graves. It was the last survivor of the apostles, who, after nearly a century of life, heard a voice from Heaven which said: "Blessed are the dead." The dew and the sunshine rest upon their sleeping places ; the birds sing their sweetest songs to them as
they perch upon their crumbling tombstones, and the din and tumult of the outer world is unable to mar the slumber of the tenants of the sod who now rest from their labors. So quiet, so peaceful, so sure of a sweet awakening is their sleep, that many an unresting laborer for riches in the busy streets on which the shadow of the church-spire falls, could envy them their dreamless rest, if but his work were done and the eventide had come to release him.
On a bright October afternoon, not many days ago, I took my own prescription of a half-hour's stroll in Trinity churchyard ; having full faith in the medicine that I recommend to others. The leaves had fallen from many of the trees, but the grass was green and there was a radiant touch of autumn in the foliage that remained. A blue bird that had come in March, and who with his com- rades had passed the skirmish line of the advanc-
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ing army of birds sat piping a farewell song on the branch of a little maple. It was not like his merry melody in the spring, full of violets, run- ning brooks and warm southwest winds, but was a lament that the birds had gone and that he must follow them. I heard him afterwards going round from tree to tree, erecting his altar now here, now there, in his leafy cathedral and making his offer- ing, and I knew that he meant to come back with another March. For it seems to me that the same omnipotence which puts an unerring com- pass in the head of the little feathered bunch of melody to guide him, must also put there dreams of the shadows and sunshine, the trees and flow- ers of the old churchyard which is every year vocal with the songs of birds, and so when spring returns, they come back and cradle their young on the branches in which they swung in their in- fancy.
On the trunks of the elms the woodpeckers were at work, like so many sextons, digging count- less graves in the dark, hard bark. I watched one who wore a red velvet cap and white underclothes and seemed to have wrapped a silken shawl about him and who was boring away at a decayed por-
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tion of the tree, hitching around, hammering and digging, without paying the slightest regard to my existence. I felt as insignificant in the pres- ence of the busy, bustling little fellow as if I had intruded upon the business hours of a Wall street broker. He is as reticent as the bluebird is talk- ative, but I have a profound respect for that noisy activity of his, which I have never been able to imitate. Presently both woodpecker and bluebird will be gone and then the senseless chattering of the ubiquitous sparrow will alone be heard until the warm winds once more blow from the south. Now do you understand, O wearied man of cease- less activities, how the song of that bluebird and the sight of the redcapped woodpecker did me more good that day than could have been accom- plished by the contents of an entire apothecary shop ?
Yet birds and trees are but incidents of a half hour's walk in the old city graveyard. To the New Yorker who takes patriotic pride in the place of his birth and to the American citizen who has made his home here, there is not a crumbling tombstone in the consecrated enclosure that does not bring up recollections to stir his heart to the
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core. There is a complete history of New York, from the day when it passed into the possession of those who spoke our language and professed our creed, written on these stones, and in the names graven on the slabs that cover the en- trances to family vaults, there are links that con- nect with the time of Governor Petrus Stuyvesant and reach back almost to the day when Governor Minuit purchased from the red man the title to the territory of Manhattan Island.
Come with me to the southwest corner of the building where in the pavement is inserted a slab which bears the inscription " Anthony Lispenard Bleecker, 1790." Five generations of the family sleep there, and though the stone is but a century old, it has nearly two centuries and a half of new world history attached to it. Jan Jansen Bleecker came to New Amsterdam in 1658, but he settled at Albany and became mayor of that town and the father of ten children. It was an era of abun- dant olive branches around the family table, and when his grandson, Jacobus Bleecker, who mar- ried a daughter of Anthony Lispenard, of New Rochelle, looked around to see how he should dispose of his nine children, one of the flock 3
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struck out for himself and came to New York, where fame and fortune awaited him.
It was in 1768 that he set up in business at No. IO Pearl Street, on Hanover Square, as a merchant and the only licensed colonial auctioneer. His early advertisements offered for sale puncheons of Jamaica rum and "likely negro boys and wenches," as well as choice bits of city real estate below Wall Street and farms above the canal and the Collect Pond. Like other merchants of his day he lived in the rooms above his store and it was not until his thirteen children demanded more space to turn around in that he settled down at No. 74 Broadway in a house of old-fashioned yel- low brick imported from Holland, which grey- haired men of New York can yet recall. A staunch churchman, he was a vestryman of Trinity Church and his son and grandson have filled the same office. The grandson, Anthony J. Bleecker, was perhaps the most famous of his line. A fine scholar, a courteous gentleman and celebrated for his wit, no social gathering of my boyhood was complete without his presence. He had rounded four-score and four years of a spotless life, when he was called to go up higher. His body was the
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last one interred in the family vault, his funeral taking place January 19th, 1884.
The record of the Bleecker family illustrates what I had in mind to say, that the mossy broken letters carved on these crumbling tombstones are as complete a story of the past of New York as in their way are the countless hieroglyphics on the tombs and public buildings of Pharaohs that aim to tell of the glories of ancient Egypt. A score of lines converge at a single square of brown stone that bears but a name and a date. The earliest of the Bleeckers married into the Rutgers family. One of his sons wedded a daughter of the Schuyler lineage, at Albany. The father of Anthony J. Bleecker took for his bride a daughter of Theophylact Bache, first President of the New York Chamber of Commerce. It is but a step from the Bleecker vault to that of the Lispenards, who were early allied to them by marriage. Both families were originally Huguenot and came natur- ally into the fold of the mother church of Eng- land, defender of the old, pure faith. Leonard Lispenard, most famous of his line, was a member of the Stamp Act Congress and an ardent patriot. The male line has disappeared and the Lispenards
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all sleep in the family vault, but the blood of these brave old Huguenots and churchmen comes through the veins of men and women who bear the names of Stewart, Webb, Livingston, Le Roy and Winthorp, and who have reason to be proud of their lineage. A street which bears the name of the last of the Lispenards is said to have led from Broadway to his country seat, built on a hill near the present junction of Hudson and Des- brosses Street, overlooking the swampy ground . on which St. John's Church was built and the little lake that afterwards formed part of St. John's Park.
South of the Bleecker vault and on the row east of the monument to Albert Gallatin, Secre- tary of the Treasury under Jefferson, is the burial place of the Livingston family. The slab bears the inscription : "The Vault of Walter and Robert C. Livingston, sons of Robert Livingston, of the Manor of Livingston." Among its tenants is the body of Robert Fulton, the builder of America's first steamboat, and he could not sleep in more illustrious company. It is worth while to pause here and look over the gap in the history of the colonies, which this one family filled.
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Robert Livingston, scion of a noble Scotch house, first appears in colonial history with Sir Edmund Andros, as Secretary of Indian affairs. From that time his life reads like a romance. Through Andros he became possessor of a manor and an extensive patent of lands and his fortune seems to be made. Next we see him imprisoned in the fort at the Battery by command of Governor Leisler ; then standing in front of the scaffold on which Leisler and Milborne were executed and denounced by the latter as his murderer ; pres- ently at the Court of King William, in England, introducing Captain Kidd, the renowned privateer and subsequent pirate, to his Majesty ; after a while denounced to the authorities, and his entire possession confiscated to the crown, and in the end dying with his hands full of riches and honors, none of which could the ambitious man carry away with him. His son Philip, while succeed- ing to his father's honors, took life more easily and sought and found enjoyment in his three princely establishments. When in March, 1749, his funeral was celebrated from his imposing town mansion on Broad Street, a pipe of spiced wine was opened, gloves and handkerchiefs were given
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to each of his tenants, and in case of the eight pall bearers, scarfs, mourning rings and monkey spoons were added.
Yet these men, though born to luxury, were none the less self-sacrificing patriots when the pinch came. Judge Robert R. Livingston, third of his line, was made chairman of the Revolu- tionary Committee of Correspondence and mem- ber of the Stamp Act Congress, while his cousin, Philip Livingston, a merchant of this city, be- came a delegate to the first Continental Con- gress, signed the Declaration of Independence, remained at his post when Congress fled from Philadelphia to York, Pa., and died there, in the harness, before he could see the fruit of his la- bors and sacrifices. The fame of the colonial Livingston family culminated in Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, the intimate friend of Washington and of the great builders of the republic, at whose hands the first President took the oath of office. He did good service in the Continental Congress and in having the federal constitution adopted by his native state, and as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Minister to France developed rare statesmanship. Follow-
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ing these heroic founders of the house of Liv- ingston come an innumerable company who have done good service in field and forum and di- plomacy and in our municipal government. Looking back over their past, one is tempted to say, that nothing better can be told of a good citizen than can be said of them, that the history of their family is the story of the land and city in which they live. And yet there is one thing better still than the civic crown. The shadow of the cross to which they trusted lies over their grave and back from the sod comes an echo to say that these all died in the faith.
There is one of those squares of brown stones which is a special object of interest to thousands with each recurring Decoration Day, because it points out where after life's fitful fever the restless heart of Gen. Philip Watts Kearney is sleeping quietly. His body was placed in the tomb of his ancestors-the Watts family vault-and the vete- rans who recall the hero of Chantilly and many another hard-fought field, gather here year by year and with bared head and proud words of re- membrance cover the stone with the blossoms of May. But apart from the brilliant record of its
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soldier tenant, the tomb deserves honors at the hands of sons of New York. It has its own his- torical renown.
About the year 1710 there came to New York from the ancient family estate of Rosehill, near Edinburgh, a young man of many personal at- tractions and of rare culture, named Robert Watts. He had money of his own, was a friend of the government and in five years' time was appointed a member of Governor Hunter's council. To him was born in 1715 a son who afterwards became the celebrated John Watts, a member of the gov- ernor's council, as his father had been, and recog- nized as one of the leading statesmen of the period. His marriage to a sister of Lieutenant- Governor DeLancey, allied him to the leading families of the little city and linked him to the pioneer history of the colony. Socially he was a power. He built a fine city mansion at No. 3 Broadway, whose gardens extended to the water and his country seat reaching from the East River to Broadway and covering Madison Square was in summer a favorite resort of the then existing Four Hundred of society. As the confidential adviser of the governor he became imbued with
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the spirit of loyalty to the crown and was pro- portionately obnoxious to the Liberty Boys. When the British troops entered New York he prepared to flee. A mob of excited citizens caught him on the steps of his own house and threatened death and destruction. Just at that moment Judge Robert R. Livingston was return- ing from court in his scarlet robes and saw the danger of his friend whom he dearly loved though differing from him politically. Whispering to Watts where to conceal himself, he began a speech to the throng and held them spellbound with his oratory until his friend was safe. That night Watts embarked on a man-of-war and before a year had passed both were dead. The incident came back to me as I turned from the tablet of one family to the other and thought how joyful must have been the meeting of the two friends in the land where there are no wars.
John Watts, son of the exile, apparently did not sympathize with his father's opinions but cast in his lot on the patriot side. In the great Federal procession of 1788, which celebrated the ratifica- tion by the state of the Constitution of the United States we see him, a model of masculine beauty,
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clad as a farmer riding at the head of a troop of gentlemen farmers; later we find him elected Speaker of the Assembly and filling many offices of trust; founding the Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum at the age of eighty and on the eve of his death, seven years later, riding on horseback past old Trinity, erect and graceful, the admira- tion of the pedestrians who thronged the " Mall," as the Broadway promenade between the Battery and St. Paul's was then called.
The matrimonial connections of this family were what society would call brilliant. Robert, the oldest son of the first John Watts, married a daughter of the Earl of Stirling, known in the Republican court of Washington as Lady Mary Watts. One daughter married Archibald Ken- nedy, her next-door neighbor, at No. I Broadway, who became the eleventh Earl of Cassilis. Three other daughters married respectively Sir John Johnson, Philip Kearney and Major Robert Leake. None of the five sons of the second John Watts were married, but one of his daughters married her cousin Philip Kearney, and became the mother of the hero of Chantilly, and another wedded Frederic de Peyster, and her son is the well-
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