Class El^=M-, Book t^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK AND MY SUMMER ACRE BEING THE RECREATIONS OF BY JOHN FLAVEL MINES, LL.D. " Nothing is so reaily tuiu as thtit which is oU" ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK '^IIIT^^C HARPER & BROTHERS. FRANKLIN SQUARE 1893 ^ I .3 Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. AU rig-Mis rttrrved. INAVGLKATION OK I'RKSIDENT \V.\>111M; ION \.\0 /NGTOM ^\^<# TO ^V" MY DEAR SON MASTER FELIX OLDBOY, Jr. WHO HAS BEEN THE PLEASANT COMPANION OP' THESE ROADSIDE RAMBLES AND DAYS OF SUNSHINE, AND TO WHOM I COMMIT THE PLEASANT TASK OF WRITING UP FORTY YEARS HENCE THE SCENES HIS EYES HAVE WITNESSED IN OUR WALKS THROUGH THE CITY WHICH ^ WE BOTH HAVE LEARNED TO LOVE THIS VOLUME Us DeDicateO By Transfer D. C. Public Library OCT 3 - 1939 PREFATORY NOTE The sketches gathered in this volume were written by the late Colonel John F. Mines for newspaper publication, and appeared, first, the "Tour," in the New York Evefiiiig Post, and afterwards the " Summer Acre," in the New York Com- mercial Advertiser. From their beginning they had singular good-fortune in engaging public attention and exciting in- terest, and many requests for preservation of them in per- manent form were received by their author and his editors. After the death of Colonel Mines the sketches were found among papers in possession of his family, and are here presented in the order of arrangement which he had in- dicated. The text remains after revision substantially as it was written ; a few passages have been transferred to new relations for the sake of congruity, a few have been reduced to foot-notes ; duplications have been avoided, and some al- lusions to mere news of the day have been removed. The passage on Governor Morgan Lewis, in Chapter XX., is taken, by kind permission of the Rev. Dr. Dix, from a paper by Colonel Mines in a late number of the Trinity Record. Editorial notes are marked by the letter " L." The work has been enriched by many pictures of scenes referred to by the author, and further illustrations not directly called for by his text have been introduced, that the volume may be made Viii PREFATORY NOTE more complete pictorially ; all of them, it is believed, will be welcome to New Yorkers who find pleasure and pride in the history of their city. The reader of these ingenious and instructive papers may find it useful to identify the time of their production as in the years 1886-90 inclusive. James E. Learned. New York, September, 1892. CONTENTS AROUND NEW YORK CHAPTER I Suggestions from an Anniversary Celebration — New York near Half a Century Ago — A Reminiscence of the Days when Trinity Church was New — Preachers and Laymen of a Past Generation . . . Page i CHAPTER II An Obliterated Park— Some Old Churches — Departed Glories of Varick and Laight Streets — Mr. Greenough's School — Riley's Museum Ho. tel— The " Troop A" of the " Forties" lo CHAPTER III Columbia College as It Was — A Commencement Forty Years Ago — Riots that Cost Life — Landmarks of Chelsea — An Ecclesiastical Romance 23 CHAPTER IV To Albany by Sloop— An Incident of Steamboat Competition— The Romance of a Convict — Genesis of Fashionable Parks — The " Pro- fessorship of New York " 34 CHAPTER V Echoes of the Streets— Merchants of a Past Generation— Solid Men who Enjoyed Life — Museum Days— The Old Auctioneers —The Heroes of Commerce 43 CHAPTER VI Broadway in Simpler Days — Among the Old-time Theatres— May Meet- ings at the Tabernacle— The First Sewing-machine— Broadway Gar- dens and Churches— A Night with Christy's Minstrels— The Ravels at Niblo's 55 CONTENTS CHAPTER VII The Poetry of Every-day Life — A Protest Against the Goth — My Grand- mother's Home — An Era Without Luxuries — Stately Manners of the Past Page 73 CHAPTER VIII Ecclesiastical Raids by Night — Bowery Village Methodists — Charlotte Temple's Home — A Book-store of Lang Syne — Old Lafayette Place — The Tragedy of Charlotte Canda — A Reminder of Tweed . 86 CHAPTER IX Eccentricities of Memory — Queer Street Characters — The Only Son of a King — Idioms of a Past Generation — Old Volunteer Firemen — A Forgotten Statesman 98 CHAPTER X Christmas in the Older Days — A Flirtation Under the Mistletoe — Six- penny Sleigh-rides — Literature of Our Boyhood — Santa Claus in Our Grandmothers' Homes — Decorating the Churches 11 1 CHAPTER XI A Metropolis of Strangers — Some Old Mansion-houses on the East Side — Characteristics of Bowery Life — Bull's Head and the Amphitheatre — The Stuyvesant Pear-tree — A Haunted House 124 CHAPTER XII Our City Burial-plots — Illustrious Dust and Ashes — A Woman's Fifty Years of Waiting — Three Hebrew Cemeteries — The Burking Epi- sode — Slaves of the Olden Time 135 CHAPTER XIII Echoes of Sweet Singers — Old Theatres on Broadway — An Accidental Thoroughfare — Evolution of Union Square — A Street that was Not Opened — History of a Church Bell 147 CHAPTER XIV Summer Breezes at the Battery — A Soldier of the Last Century — Knick- erbockers and their Homes — An Old-time Stroll up Broadway . 161 CONTENTS Xi CHAPTER XV Life at Eighty-seven Years — Memories of Robert Fulton — What the First Steamboat Looked Like — Sunday in Greenwich Village — A Primitive Congregation — Flirting in the Galleries . . . Page 175 CHAPTER XVI On the East Side — The Old Shipping Merchants — Jacob Leisler — A Paradise of Churches — The Dominie's Garden — Moral and Religious Sanity of Old New York 184 CHAPTER XVII When Harlem was a Village — Fishing for Flounders — The Canal Mania — An Ancient Toll-bridge — Twenty Years After — Mott's Canal and His Haven 201 CHAPTER XVIII The First Brass Band — " The Light Guard Quickstep " — General Train- ing-day — A Falstaffian Army — Militiamen in their Glory — Our Crack Corps 213 CHAPTER XIX Colonial Footprints — Haunts of Washington and Howe — Country-seat of Alexander Hamilton — East Side Journeyings — Old Days in York- ville and Harlem — The Beekman Mansion 225 CHAPTER XX A Civic Pantheon — First Blood of the Revolution — Merchants who were Statesmen— The Disinherited Daughter— In an Old Tavern . 242 CHAPTER XXI Teakettles as Modes of Motion — Two Leaves from an Old Merchant's Itinerary — Quaker Nooks and Covenanters' Haunts — City Farm- houses — Up Breakneck Hill — Harlem Lane in Its Glory — Summer Attractions of Manhattan Streets 259 CHAPTER XXII The Ancient Mill at Kingsbridge— Marching with Washington — A Pa- troon in the Hay-field— Ghosts of Old Houses — The Stryker and Xll CONTENTS Hopper Mansions — Richmond Hill — The Warren and Spencer Homesteads — -Ancient Earthworks Page 272 CHAPTER XXni Politicians of the Olden Time — Samuel Swartwout's Strange Career — Thurlow Weed and Horatio Seymour — Statesmen of the New School — Harmony in Old Tammany Hall 287 CHAPTER XXIV Public Opinion Opposed to Banks — Birth and Growth of the System — The Yellow-fever Terror — Personal Reminiscences — Origin of Some New York Banks — Circumventing the Legislature — Wild-cat Banking 297 CHAPTER XXV Pudding Rock — An Ancient School-house — A Temperance Hamlet gone Wrong — Landmarks and Memories of the New Parks — Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay — The Unknown Land of the Bronx — Rural Scenes in a City's Boundaries 309 CHAPTER XXVI Manhattan Island — Some Ancient Homesteads — Work of the Wood- man's Axe — A Mystery of Dress and Architecture — Block-houses and Earthworks — A Sacred Grove 322 CHAPTER XXVII An Unexplored Region — Traces of Cowboys and Hessians — Lords of the Manor — Through a Glass Darkly — Old Homes and Haunts . . 336 CONTENTS Xill MY SUMMER ACRE CHAPTER I Felix Oldboy's Hot Weather Home — On the East River, Facing Hell Gate — A Stately Mansion of Seventy-five Years Ago — Solitude in the City Page 349 CHAPTER II The Dark Phantom which Dogged a Postman's Feet — A Garden Calen- dar — Notes of the Farm Acre 358 CHAPTER III The New World Venice — Panorama of East River Islands — A Lovely Water Journey — An Old-time Sheriif in his Home .... 365 CHAPTER IV Happiness in a Canal-boat — Pulpit Criticisms — The Story of Ward's Island — In the Days of the Redcoats 373 CHAPTER V Manhattan Birds and Fishes — Feathered Denizens of Hell Gate — Pri- meval Haunts on the City's Islands — A Matter of Piscatorial Con- science 381 CHAPTER VI The Battle Story of the East River — Monuments of Revolutionary Days — A Defeat at Randall's Island — The Patriotism that Clustered about Hell Gate — Catching a Snook 390 CHAPTER VII Panorama of Ancient East River Homes — A Low Dutch Farm-house —At Turtle Bay Farm— The Grove in the Woods— Old Graves at the Water-side 403 CHAPTER Vlli The Hell Gate Colony— Glimpses of East River Homes— St. James's Church — The Astor Country-house — Where Irving wrote "Astoria" —The Home of Archibald Gracie— New York and its Visitors 420 CONTENTS CHAPTER IX Unsolved Problems of Life — The Old Post -road and its Hell Gate Branches — Homes of Merchant Princes — Manhattan's Biggest Tree Page 435 CHAPTER X A Glance at Harlem — The Lesson of the Woodpecker — A Great Mill- pond that has Disappeared — The Otter Track and Benson's Creek — Grist-mills on Third Avenue — Old Dutch Homes and Names . 447 CHAPTER XI Rambles Around Harlem — In My School-boy Days — Early Settlers and Their Homes — An Interior View — The Stage-coach Era — A Village Alderman of the Olden Time 459 CHAPTER XII Indian Raids and Massacres — A Roll of Honor — The Old Dutch Church — St. Andrew's Parish — Days of Pestilence and Death . 477 CHAPTER XIII Wrestling with Harlem Genealogies — Changes in Old Dutch Names — The Village Patentees and Their Descendants — Governor Nicolls Changes the Name to Lancaster — The Ancient Ferry-man and His P'ees 495 CHAPTER XIV Criticised by a Crow — Farewells to the Old House by the River — Con- vinced that One Acre is Enough — An Old-time Harlem Letter — Our Family Dinner — The Last Night of " My Summer Acre " . . 508 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Inauguration of President Washington Frontispiece Trinity Church 3 Trinity Church (second edifice) 5 St. John's Chapel and Park 13 The French Church in Pine Street 15 Riley's Fifth Ward Hotel i3 Statue of the Earl of Chatham 19 Fort foot of Hubert Street 20 The Jersey Prison Ship 22 The General Theological Seminary 23 Columbia College in 1850 25 The Moore House 32 Old Fire Bucket 33 King's Bridge 35 Map of New York, 17S2 37 The State Prison 39 The Kennedy, Watts, Livingston, and Stevens Houses .... 45 View in New York, 1769 48 The Jail (now the Hall of Records) 51 Seal of New York City 54 St. Paul's Chapel 58 The Burning of Barnum's Museum (Ji Washington Hall ''63 The Residence of Philip Hone, Broadway near Park Place . . . ' 67 Lispenard Meadows 72 The Federal Hall in Wall Street 74 City Hall Park, 1822 81 St. George's Church, Beekman Street 89 Grave of Charlotte Temple 9^ Grave of Alexander Hamilton 94 The Fire of 1835 99 "The Race" io7 XVI ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Illumination in New York on the Occasion of the Inaugura- tion of President Washington iig Copper Crown from Cupola of King's College 123 The Walton House in Later Years 125 Doorway in the Hall of the Walton House 127 An Old Goose-neck Engine 129 The Stuyvesant Pear-tree 134 Coenties Slip in the Dutch Times 136 Tomb of Albert Gallatin 138 Tomb of Captain Lawrence 140 Grave of George Frederick Cooke 142 Webb's Congress Hall, 142 Broadway 149 Masonic Hall 152 The Middle Dutch Church 160 The Fort at the Battery 163 The Old McComb Mansion 165 Trinity Church (first edifice) 168 Ruins of Trinity Church 170 City Hotel, Broadway, 1812 172 Monument to General Montgomery 173 Sir Peter Warren's House, Greenwich Village 177 The Clermont 179 In Broad Street 185 No. 2 Broadway, 1798 1S8 Fraunce's Tavern, Broad and Pearl Streets igo The Stadt Huys 191 North Dutch Church, Fulton Street 193 Presbyterian Church, Wall Street 194 Methodist Church, John Street 195 Lutheran Church, William and Frankfort Streets 196 The Brick Church, Park Row 197 View of New York from the North-east 202 View of New York from the South-west 203 Mill Rock Fort 207 Shakespeare Tavern 214 View of New York Bay from the Battery, 1822 221 Apthorpe Mansion, Bloomingdale 226 The Jumel Mansion 230 The Hamilton House 233 The Gates Weeping Willow, Twenty-second St. and Third Ave. . 235 ILLUSTRATIONS XVli PAGE Van der Heuvel (afterwards " Burnham's " House) 237 Fort Clinton, at McGowan's Pass 239 The Beekman House 240 Fire in Olden Times, from a Fireman's Certificate 241 Fort George, from the Water Front of the Present Battery . . . 243 Plan of Fort George, Battery 245 The Royal Exchange, Broad Street 247 A Plan of the City of New York, from an Actual Survey, 1728 . 248 Foot of Wall Street and Ferry-house, 1629 252 Foot of Wall Street and Ferry-house, 1746 253 The Sugar-house, Liberty Street 255 Sugar-house in Liberty Street 258 Pearl Street House and Ohio Hotel 261 The Independent Battery, Bunker Hill 271 Phillipse Manor-house 273 Washington House, foot of Broadway 276 The Stryker Homestead 278 Richmond Hill » 280 Map of the Fortifications around New York, 1814 2S3 Tammany Hall, 181 1 293 Tammany Hall in Later Times 295 Old Walton House in 1776 299 Tontine Coffee-house 301 Manhattan Water-works, Chambers Street 303 Van Cortlandt's Sugar-house 308 Van Cortlandt Manor-house 317 Distant View of the Palisades from Van Cortlandt Park . . . .319 Petersfield, Residence of Petrus Stuyvesant 323 Claremont 327 House of Nicholas William Stuyvesant 331 Block-house Overlooking Harlem River, i860 332 Flag-stafT, Fort Washington 334 Plan of Fort Washington 335 Confluence of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Hudson 337 The Lane in Van Cortlandt Park 341 Van Cortlandt Manor-house 343 New York from Brooklyn Heights, 1822 353 An Old-time Fire-cap 357 Dutch Houses , 363 Pulpit, St. Paul's 375 XVIU ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Mill Rock 377 Reservoir 385 Kip's House 393 Plan of New York Island and Part of Long Island, showing the po- sition of the American and British Armies, August 27th, 1776 . 395 Turtle Bay 396 Old Storehouse at Turtle Bay 397 Tower at Hallett's Point 397 Fort Stevens and Mill Rock 398 Fort Clinton and Harlem Creek 399 Fort Fish 401 Mechanics' Bell-tower 405 The Walter Franklin House 407 Jacob Harsen House 408 Jacob Arden House 411 The Beekman Greenhouse 414 Colonel Smith's House 415 Richard Riker's House 422 Atlantic Garden, No. 9 Broadway 427 The Gracie House 432 Hell Gate Ferry 437 Monument to Thomas Addis Emmet 441 I and 3 Broadway in 1828 443 A Dutch House 446 View from Mount Morris 451 Courtney's (Claremont) from Harlem Tower 455 Head over Window of the Walton House 458 The Rotunda, City Hall Park 461 McGowan's Pass in i860 468 Works at McGowan's Pass, War of 18 12 470 Bull's Head Tavern, on the Site of the Bowery Theatre .... 472 Rose Street Sugar-house 473 The Old Federal Hall before Alteration 4S1 King's College 485 The Federal Hall on Wall Street 491 An Old Advertisement 494 The Exchange, foot of Broad Street 499 Old Bridge and Dock at the Whitehall Slip 505 Broad Street and Exchange Place, about 1680 513 Tomb of William Bradford, Trinity Church-yard 518 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK CHAPTER I SUGGESTIONS FKOM AN ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION — NEW YORK NEAR HALF A CENTURY AGO — A REMINISCENCE OF THE DAYS WHEN TRINITY CHURCH WAS NEW — PREACHERS AND LAYMEN OF A PAST GENERATION I AM not a very old boy, but already the events of years gone begin to stand out with a vividness which does not belong to these later days, and I find myself more than eager to recall them. In passing Trinity Church on a soft June morning of 1886, 1 found the services of Ascension Day in prog- ress, and this brought back the recollection of the part I had taken in the consecration services that were held there forty years ago that day. I was then one of the foundation scholars of Trinity School. This amply endowed academy held its sessions in a large building on Varick Street, near Canal, and numbered 150 pu- pils. Its rector was the Rev. William Morris, LL.D., a stalwart graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and a rigid disciplinarian. Solomon's rod in his hands meant something. On that eventful day he marshalled his pupils in the school, and then, placing himself at the I «. 2 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK head in Oxford cap and resplendent silk gown, marched them down Broadway to the Globe Hotel, where the procession was formed. The boys led the van in the stately march to the church. Then followed theological students, vestry- men, and a long line of clergymen, ending with the Bishop of the diocese, Dr. Benjamin T. Onderdonk. At the chancel rail we stopped, opened ranks, and the rest of the procession passed up the broad centre aisle between our lines, reciting the grand psalm of conse- cration, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates!" Of the long service that followed I remember only the read- ing of the first lesson by Dr. Morris — the consecration prayer of Solomon's Temple — and at this lapse of time I can still hear his sonorous voice repeating its magnificent petitions. Dr. Hodges presided at the organ, and he had prepared for the occasion an ap- pare"htly interminable " Te Deum," which I had the pleasure of learning when I became a member of the choir. The consecration of Trinity Church was a great event in New York, and gave rise to no end of discus- sion. It had been darkly whispered in private circles that some of the parish clergy intended to " turn their backs upon the people," as they all do now, and the public were ready to protest against the innovation. Up to that time the chancel arrangements that existed in St. John's Chapel, where I usually attended church, had been the prevailing ecclesiastical fashion. A cir- cular chancel rail surrounded a wooden structure com- posed of a reading-desk below and pulpit above, and with a little square white wooden altar in front of the desk in which prayers were read. Into this desk each TRINITY CHURCH afternoon two clergymen, one arrayed in a surplice and the other in a black silk gown, would shut them- selves, carefully closing the door, apparently from the fear that one of them might fall asleep and tumble out. At the proper time the black -robed minister would go out and reappear in the pulpit, while his companion apparently enjoyed a nap. But in the 4 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK new Trinity Church only the altar was to stand within the railing. The pulpit was to be outside and oppo- site to the prayer- desk. This was a change, indeed. But when it was understood that a brazen eagle was to support the Bible from which the lessons of the day were to be read, criticism took up the cudgels and went to work. Bishops and sectarian preachers, lay- men and professors, sought the columns of the news- papers to vent their opinions, and the liveliest kind of a controversy was waged for a while. It ended in a laugh, when a bogus letter from Bishop Chase of Illi- nois was published, in which he was made to say that he knew nothing of the merits of that particular •eagle, but if they would fill his pockets with good golden American eagles for the benefit of Jubilee College, he would be content to drop all controversy. As the son of a clergyman it was my good -fortune to know all the eminent clergymen of that day — at least, to know them as an observant boy does. Our family were ardent supporters of Bishop Onderdonk through all his troubles: he had a patriarchal way with us children which seemed to leave a benediction be- hind him. Dr. Berrian, rector of Trinity Parish, was personally all kindness, but I thought him the poorest preacher I was compelled to hear. It was said of the good old man that when a country clergyman, half starved on a salary of $500, came to him and asked his influence to get him another charge, he remarked, " I do not see why you young clergymen want to change so often. Why, I have been in Trinity Church forty years, and never have thought of leaving." A poor preacher, he was a fine executive officer. His assistants were courtly Dr. Wainwright, who had the A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK famous newspaper con- troversy with Presby- terian Dr. Potts on the text, "A Church with- out a bishop, a State without a king;" Dr. Higbee, an eloquent Southerner, scholarly Dr.Ogilby,and Dr. Ho- bart, son of a former bishop of New York. Dr. Higbee was the favorite in the pulpit, TRINITY CHURCH [The second edifice, erected in 1788] and divided his preaching laurels with Dr. Tyng, who had recently come to old St. George's, in Beekman Street, to succeed Dr. Milnor, and Dr. Whitehouse of St. Thomas, afterwards called to be Bishop of Illinois. 6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK These clergymen were all present at the consecra- tion of Trinity Church ; and there were many other famous divines there also, including Dr. Thomas House Taylor, rector of the new Grace Church, at the head of Broadway ; Dr. Lyell, rector of Christ Church, in Anthony (now Worth) Street ; Dr. Haight, the able theologian who presided over All Saints', in Henry Street, and who subsequently decHned the mitre of Massachusetts ; Dr. Creighton, of Tarrytown,who might have succeeded Bishop Onderdonk, had he so desired ; Drs. Potter, Vinton, Cutler, Dufifie, etc. Chief among the bishops who were present was Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, who looked every inch the prelate in his robes, and who, in my judgment, was the finest orator in the Church. Speaking of pulpit orators recalls an anecdote which I caught as a boy from the lips of confidential clerical critics. At one time Drs. Onderdonk, Wainwright, and Schroeder were the three chief preachers in Trin- ity Parish, and a witty layman undertook to give the style of the dogmatic Onderdonk, flowery Schroeder, and courtly Wainwright, as exemplified in brief ser- mons on the text " Two beans and two beans make four beans," somewhat as follows : Dr. Onderdonk loquitur: "The Church in her wisdom has decreed that if two beans be added unto two beans, the prod- uct shall be four beans ; and if any self-sufificient mor- tal shall presume to question this conclusion of the law and the prophets, together with the canons, let him be anathema." Dr. Schroeder, after enunciating his text, was supposed to wake at sunrise, wander into the dewy fields, and pluck one pearly bean after an- other, and finally go into ecstasies over the quartet of A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 7 shining beauties which he held in his hand. But the point of the satire was reached in Dr. Wainwright's case, who was made to say : " It has generally been conceded, and nowhere that I know of denied, that if two beans be added unto two beans, their product shall be four beans. But if there be in this intelligent and enlightened audience any who may venture to have conscientious doubts upon the subject, far be it from me, my brethren, to interfere with such a per- son's honest convictions." Dr. Wainwright was a cold, didactic preacher in his parish pulpit, but when elected bishop he astonished everybody by warming up into an earnest evangelist, and he died universally regretted. Bishop Onderdonk passed away under a cloud which had hung over him for many years, and whose gloom was never dissipated. At one time Dr. Schroeder was the favorite preacher of the city, and it was said of him that if you wanted to know where Schroeder preached on a Sunday, you had only to follow the crowd. But his fame was eva- nescent, and when he resigned in a pet he was aston- ished to find that his resignation was accepted by the vestry of Trinity, and was still more astonished to find himself a failure when he attempted to set up a church of his own. The building he reared faces Lafayette Place on Eighth Street ; afterwards it was for some time occupied by St. Ann's (Roman Catholic) con- gregation, and has recently proved a failure as a theatre. Forty years ago the vestrymen of Trinity Parish were a famous race of men. Philip Hone, the most courtly Mayor that New York ever had, was one of them. Major-general Dix, Cyrus Curtiss, John J. 8 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK Cisco, Major Jonathan Lawrence, of the Revolutionary Army, and other men of note were of the number. Our seat in St, John's Chapel was two pews behind General Dix, and I used to see the present rector of Trinity Parish there — a slender, spectacled youth of severely studious aspect, whom I never remember to have seen smiling except when a strange minister in the reading-desk fell sound asleep and failed to be awakened by the retiring congregation. The families of Gen. Alexander Hamilton and Gen. Philip Schuyler were also attendants, as well as those of Dr. Hun- ter, General Morton, Philip Lydig, Dr. Green, Rob- ert Hyslop, Oscar Smedberg, Lewis Delafield, and Elias G. Drake. They have beautified the chancel end of St. John's Chapel since those days, but they have not improved much on the contents of the pews. The ecclesiastical chronicle of Trinity Church in 1846 would be incomplete without mention of David Lyon, the stalwart sexton, whose robust presence was a standing terror to the small but mischievous boys of the choir. David was an institution. Proud of the church building committed to his care, he grudged the hours he was compelled to spend away from it. His management of the consecration procession was a miracle of unostentatious energy. The clergy always treated him as a friend, and he deserved their confi- dence. In after-years I gratified a laudable ambition by bestowing half a dollar on David for permitting me with a friend to mount up the steeple. The New York of forty years ago was a different community from what it is now. When Dr. James Milnor, rector of St. George's, in Beekman Street, died, A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 9 the city newspapers turned their column rules and went into mourning. The dead preacher had resigned his seat in Congress to enter the ministry. The Cou- rier and Enquirer published the controversial letters between Dr. Potts and Dr. Wainwright, and made a great sensation out of it. The reason for this neigh- borly state of affairs was that the city had then devel- oped only the rudiments of its present glory. People of wealth still clustered about the Battery and Bowl- ing Green, or built solid up-town homes of brick on Bond, Bleecker, and Great Jcaes streets, or facing Washington Square. The rector of Trinity kept open house with his wife and three handsome daughters at No. 50 Varick Street, opposite St. John's Park, which was then the most aristocratic quarter of the city. Dr. Wainwright lived in Hubert Street and Dr. Hig- bee in Chambers Street. The residence of Bishop Onderdonk was in Franklin Street, between Church Street and West Broadway. Trinity, St. Paul's, and St. John's had large and fashionable congregations, who lived within walking distance of the churches, and the Battery had a highly select circle of fre- quenters, and was the starting-point of many a love- match among Knickerbocker circles. Fourteenth Street was far up-town. The site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel was vacant lots roughly fenced in with boards. Stages crept along leisurely every hour to the pleasant rural hamlets of Yorkville, Harlem, Bloomingdale, and Manhattanville ; and, strange as it may seem, honesty was so much the rule that people who rode in Kipp and Brown's stages were allowed to pay their fare at the end of the ride, instead of being compelled to stand and deliver at the start. lO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK CHAPTER II AN OBLITERATED PARK— SOME OLD CHURCHES — DEPARTED GLORIES OF VARICK AND LAIGHT STREETS — MR. GREENOUGH'S SCHOOL — RILEY'S museum hotel — THE "TROOP A" OF THE " FORTIES" At the time when the present century was born a wide sandy beach extended from the foot of Duane Street to the mouth of the estuary by which the brook that ran from the Collect Pond, at the present site of the Tombs, through Canal Street, issued to the Hud- son River. The adjacent land, sandy for the most part and barren, was laid out in streets and dotted here and there with the comfortable homes of solid burghers. The infant city had just recovered from the untoward effects of its long occupation by the British troops and the removal of the seat of Government, and, mindful of this progress. Trinity Church began, about ninety years ago, the erection of the handsome and commodi- ous church known as St. John's Chapel, located on Varick Street — so named after one of the early Mayors, who was also an officer in the Revolutionary Army. The chapel was so large and situated so far up-town that the neighbors all wondered when the time would come that a congregation would be found to fill its pews. In front of the chapel a wide beach of sand, unshaded by a tree, stretched down to the river. In order to attract settlers to the neighborhood, the vestry of Trinity Parish, to which most of the adjacent land be- A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK II longed, determined to lay out a large square directly in front of the chapel as a private park, for the benefit of those who should build homes fronting upon it. Trees were planted, broad gravelled walks laid out, flower-beds and vases of shrubbery set at intervals, a greensward was cultivated, and the wilderness was made to blossom as the rose. Thus was St. John's Park born. It was a thing of beauty in its day. " Old Cisco," who had been a slave in the family of that name, was made its keeper, and warned to keep a sharp eye upon the boys of the period. The park became a paradise for birds ; robins and wrens and bluebirds abounded, and the Baltimore oriole hung its nest on the branches of the sycamores. The loveliness of St. John's Park soon attracted many of the best citizens of the young metropolis to its vicinity. They reared substantial houses of brick, plain on the outside, but luxuriously furnished within, and in the gardens they built cisterns and sank wells. The city had no water-works, but at every convenient corner they dug and found water, and erected wooden pumps. There was wealth enough on the square to pay for all these improvements, and most of the names of the householders had been known in colonial days. The families of Alexander Hamilton, General Schuyler, and General Morton were among them, as were also the Aymars, Drakes, Lydigs, Coits, Lords, Delafields. Randolphs, and Hunters. They owned their houses, and had their own keys to the massive gates of the park, from which all outsiders were rigorously excluded. The neighborhood formed an exclusive coterie, into which parvenu wealth could find no passport of ad- mission. 12 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK There was no trouble now to gather a congregation that filled St. John's Chapel. Indeed, there arose a demand for other churches in the neighborhood. The Presbyterians erected a house of worship on Laight Street, at the corner of Varick, facing the park, and here for for a number of years the Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox ministered. He was the inveterate foe of slavery, and when the abolition troubles began and developed into riots that threatened life and proper- ty, the congregation took alarm, Dr. Cox resigned his charge, and they called as their pastor the Rev. Flavel S. Mines, a Virginian, who a few years subsequently became an Episcopal clergyman, and was followed into the church by so many of his congregation as practically to end its existence. Both of Dr. Cox's sons became Episcopal clergymen also, and one of them is now Bishop of Buffalo. Roe Lockwood, the publisher, Henry A. Coit, Daniel Lord, and Mr. Ay- mar, the great shipping merchant, were elders and pillars of the flock ; but the one of all others whom the children loved most was " Grandma " Bethune, mother of the distinguished divine of that name. In the closing years of her life she used to gather a class of forty or fifty children at her home every Sunday, and we were all eager to go and sit at the feet of the dear old lady. The late Charles F. Briggs, well known in journalism years ago, and the " Harry Franco " of the past genera- tion of novelists, used to attend Laight Street Church very often, and in the congregation were a bevy of his pretty cousins, daughters of a famous ship-owner of that day — one of the Marshalls. It was long before the dawn of aesthetic taste ; art was looked upon in A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 5 solid commercial circles as the luxury of idle hours, and the profession of artist as a mere excuse for lazi- ness. No merchant would have dreamed of allowing his daughter to marry "a painter." Yet a young art- ist had dared to avow his love to the prettiest of the above-named bevy of young girls, and she had boldly ventured to say that she loved him in return and in- tended to marry him. Society was shocked. It mat- tered not that the young man had talent (and, indeed, eventually he made a name for himself that all de- lighted to honor) ; society drew the line at artists, and did not recognize them as eligible. One day, as Mr. Briggs entered the house, the entire chorus of its women threw^ themselves upon him and begged him to remonstrate with Emily and save the family honor. " The family honor," said Briggs, with the gruffness he assumed on such occasions, and that was only relieved by a telltale twinkle of the eye ; , " what has Emily been doing now?" " Doing!" shrieked the chorus, " she's going to disgrace us all by marrying an artist." " Pooh !" came the quick reply, " he isn't enough of an artist to make it anything of a disgrace.'' The w^omen folk were indignant at his apparent indifference, but when the sibylline utterance of Briggs was carried to the father, he was so amused by it that he withdrew his opposition to the marriage. Other churches were scattered about in the vicinity of the park. There were Methodist houses of worship in Duane and Vestry Streets ; a Dutch Reformed THE FRENXH CHfRCH IN PINH STREET l6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK church in FrankHn Street ; a Presbyterian church in Canal Street, and the portly white marble edifice of the old Huguenot Congr^ation that had emigrated from Pine Street to the corner of Church and Frank- lin^ and had united its destinies with the Episcopalians. These churches have either disappeared or have fol- lowed the exodus of the church-going population up- town. They were practically put hors de combat when St. John's Park was obliterated from the city map. It was a cruel act. In my eyes it seemed an outrage wholly unjustifiable. The only public execution I ever witnessed was the slaying of those great trees under which my sisters and I had played, and I would as soon have seen so many men beheaded. A fatal fascination drew me to the spot. I did not want to go, but could not help going out of my way to pass it by. The axes were busy with the hearts of the giants I had loved, and the iron-handed carts went crashing over the flower-beds, leaving a trail of death. The trees lay prone over the ploughed gravel-walks, and a few little birds were screaming over their tops, bewail- ing the destruction of their nests. It was horrible. As I looked upon the scene I knew how people must feel when an army passed over their homes, leaving desolation in its wake. It boots not to ask who was at fault for blotting out this oasis. There are some who do not want to know, because they do not want to withhold forgiveness from the barbarians. If the pretty little garden, fragrant with so many memories of old loves and domestic joys, had given place to a block of homes, it would not have been so bad ; but to rear in its place a coarse pile of bricks for use as a freight depot, to make it a centre of ceaseless noise A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK IJ and riot, was to create in an earthly paradise the abomination of desolation. Many years ago, previous to the outbreak of the war with Mexico, Jeremiah J. Greenough had a small select school at 82 Franklin Street, and when a very small boy I attended it. Among the pupils were Col. H. S. Olcott, the American apostle of Buddhism; George De Forest Lord, Bowie Dash, and Dr. George Suckley, who was chief surgeon of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler's army corps. Mr. Greenough wielded the ruler and rattan with considerable force and persistency, but he was more than rivalled by Dr. Morris, of Trinity School, and Mr. William Forrest, who had a large acad- emy for boys on Franklin Street, west of Church. It was always a point of dispute between the pupils of these latter institutions as to whether " Billy " Forrest or "old Morris" could whip the most boys in a day. There are those who still lament the disappearance of the good old race of school-masters. Who knew them in the flesh fail to join in the lamentation. On our way to and from Mr. Greenough's modest temple of literature we used to pass a structure that had far more interest for us than the halls of Congress, or of the Montezumas either. It occupied the west corner of West Broadway and Franklin Street, and was widely known to fame as Riley's Fifth Ward Museum Hotel. Its interior was the prototype of the modern bric-a-brac " saloon," with its paintings from the Paris Salon, except that there was nothing on the walls or in the glass cases which stood on all sides of the main room, which was reached by an ample flight of stairs and were always open to inspection, that a child might not look at and inquire about. That was 2. A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK a wonderful room indeed. It held original portraits of great statesmen and warriors, and displayed their swords and portions of their uniforms. Among its RILEY S FIFTH WARD HOTEL curiosities were a two-headed calf eloquently stuffed, the pig that butted a man off the bridge, one of the Hawaiian clubs that dashed out the brains of Captain Cook, Tecumseh's rifle, a pipe that General Jackson had smoked, and a large number of genuine relics of A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 19 STATUE OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM the colonial days of New York. Riley was a connoisseur in relics, and had good reason to congratu- late himself on his collection. He liked to have appreciative visitors, and his hotel was a model of re- spectability. Outside of the basement door on Franklin Street, surrounded by a little iron railing through which some grasses struggled feebly for existence, stood a relic of the past which I could never bear to pass without reading the inscription on it once again. It had once been a marble statue of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, placed by the grateful people of New York on the steps of the Royal Exchange ten years before the war for independence broke out, and dashed down and mutilated by the British soldiery in revenge for the destruction of the statue of King George on the Bowling Green. The head and one arm of the statue were broken off at the time, and the torso was wheeled away to the corpora- tion yard, where it lay for a quarter of a century among the rubbish, until Mr. Riley disentombed it. After his death the Historical Society got hold of the statue, and retain it in their collection. It was an un- fortunate coincidence for the Earl of Chatham that he incurred the enmity of the British soldiers in New York in 1776 and of the New York Aldermen of 1886. The latter signalized their displeasure by exchanging the name Chatham. Street, which had an historical A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK and patriotic meaning, for Park Row, which is a mis- nomer in its application to a street lying entirely be- yond the City Hall Park. But in these busy days of railroad franchises, it is too much to expect that an alderman would devote any of his time to the study of history. In the early part of the century a round brick fort, fashioned after the style of Fort Lafayette, was erected at the foot of Hubert Street, out in the river, and it stood there during the war of 1812 and for some years afterwards as an alleged tower of defence against for- eign foes. No enemy's foot, however, has pressed the banks of the Hudson for a century, and this fort and a similar one that once stood at the foot of Ganse- voort Street gave way before the rapid march of commerce. The latter was a des- olate ruin forty years ago, and the school - boys of the Fifth Ward used to make Saturday pilgrimages there and play fa- mous games of the period among its ruins. " How many miles to Babylon ?" was the last cry heard there before its walls were torn down and carted away. But there was another demonstration in the way of war which the boys always delighted to witness, of which St. John's Park was a favorite centre. On training days the citizen soldiery made their appear- 1%-2z;^^iii»^ FORT FOOT OF HUBERT STREET A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 21 ance in their Sunday clothes, ckistering gloomily around the official who drilled them with a small bam- boo cane, and swore furiously when they marched, as they usually did, all out of shape. They were an un- tiring source of amusement to the street urchins, who guyed them unmercifully. But the militia — of whom, as quaint John Phoenix remarked, it might be truly said that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these — excited unbounded and genuine admira- tion, whether attired in the uniform of Austria, France, or Italy. The Highlanders, whom old Captain Man- son, a hero of the late war, commanded, generally car- ried most of the boys in their train. The plaids and plumes took the eye, and the great shaggy hats carried an impression of terror with them that made every man look every inch a soldier. Yet of all the militia- men of that time, " Dandy " Marx's hussars most pleased my boyish eye. Young Marx — Henry Carroll — was the Beau Brummel of his generation, and his sisters set the fashions to the ladies. They were an impressive sight as they walked down Broadway from their up-town house on that thoroughfare, near Prince Street, in the afternoons — the handsome and elegantly attired sisters leading their greyhounds by a blue rib- bon, and escorted by their equally handsome brother in a costume that was always faultless. The sisters were devoted to their brother, and none of the three ever married. Harry died years ago, and was buried in Greenwood. The sisters lived many years, and be- came religious devotees in their old age, bequeathing their money in each case to a clergyman — and a law- suit. When the brother started his company of hus- sars all the gilded youth of the city were eager to be 22 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK enrolled, and an enormous amount of wealth was cov- ered by their brilliant jackets. They were a dashing squad, but grew tired of the sport after a while and disbanded. " Troop A" will find it difificult to outshine " Dandy " Marx's men. At the foot of Canal Street a little brook from the Lispenard meadows joined the larger tributary from the Collect Pond. A short distance above, at the foot of Houston Street, once stretched a great swamp, through which the Minetta brook (which has given its name to a street, a " lane," and a " place ") made a tiny thread of silver. The Minetta was a famous stream for trout. The fishermen angling patiently for impos- sible bass at the ends of our wharves would hardly be- lieve the fact, but it is perfectly credible. The brooks and ponds of the Island of Manhattan were always famous for their fish. THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 23 CHAPTER III COLUMBIA COLLEGE AS IT WAS — A COMMENCEMENT FORTY YEARS AGO — RIOTS THAT COST LIFE — LANDMARKS OF CHELSEA — AN EC- CLESIASTICAL ROMANCE Pausing for a moment under the trees of the old Theological Seminary, in ancient Chelsea village, and marking the march of improvement in the construc- tion of the great " quad," with its noble Chapel of the Good Shep- herd, I am re- minded that there is one green spot back in my path to which I have not yet paid my re- spects. From the door of the old Cushman home- stead, opposite the east end of the Seminary grounds, comes one of my old school-mates of that name. A freak of memory recalls him instantaneously in silken gown, in the old chapel of Columbia College. He was slender then and rosy ; now he is more or less gray and robust. His student gown would be a miserable misfit to-day. THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 24 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK In the old programmes of public processions the Faculty and students of Columbia College were al- ways awarded a place of honor. Omnibuses were as- signed for their conveyance, and they were expected to embark in these vehicles in their silken robes. As a very small boy, I used to stand on the sidewalk and look upon these superior beings with envy, wondering if I ever should arrive at the dignity of being exalted to an ofificial omnibus. At this distance of time I have a stray suspicion that the students who rode in the processions were chiefly Freshmen. Later, it was my delight to attend the commencements and semi -an- nuals, and the speakers had always a deeply interested audience of one at least. Columbia College occupied an unbroken block be- tween Barclay and Murray streets and Church Street and College Place. Park Place went only to Church Street, and the street from College Place to the river was called Robinson Street. The buildings were not imposing, but there was a scholastic air about the quadrangle which did not fail to inspire awe. Two Revolutionary cannon partly sunk in the ground guarded the gate-way ; there was a legend to the ef- fect that they had been captured from the British by Alexander Hamilton, once a student of the college — King's College, as it was in his day. It had been my ambition to be graduated at this institution, but fate sent me to an Eastern college. However, I kept up my acquaintance with "the boys," and visited them on all possible occasions. Here it was that my first silk hat met an untimely fate. I had just purchased it, and with its added dignity entered the side gate impressively, when a well-directed kick from the stout A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 25 boot of stout Cutler C. McAllister sent a foot-ball high in air and it came down with a crash directly upon my new tile. A second visit to the hatter was imperative, and I tried to smile, but I never admired the game of foot-ball afterwards. In those days President King was the academical COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN 1850 head of Columbia, but Professor Anthon, " Old Bull " Anthon, as the students irreverently designated him, was a bigger man than all the -rest of the Faculty com- bined. It used to be said of him that he ate a boy for breakfast every morning, so severe was his disci- pline in the grammar-school over which he also pre- sided. In the college class-room his powers of sar- casm made him the terror of the careless or lazy student. His assistant, Mr. Drislcr, had then won no 26 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK special laurels. Venerable Professor McVickar was a favorite with everybody, a gentle, kindly man, whose erudition was proverbial, and of whose kindliness the students were prone to take advantage, even though it were with pangs of penitence. As a boy I had met him often, and been drawn towards him, but the other members of the Faculty inspired me with unspeak- able awe. I remember attending a commencement of Columbia College that was held in the Episcopal Church of the Crucifixion on Eighth Street, between Broadway and Fourth Avenue. It was soon after the Mexican War had closed that I attended the commencement at this church, and General Scott, tall and soldierly, was a conspicuous figure on the platform. One of the speakers, a son of Dr. Schroeder, rector of the church, turned and addressed the general, who bowed in a dignified manner to the plaudits of the audience. But the speaker who most challenged my admiration that day was " Billy " Armitage, whose popularity with his classmates seemed to be unbounded. He was sub- sequently Bishop of Wisconsin, and died in 1873, be- fore he had reached the prime of life. ■ The men of that epoch were my seniors. A few years only intervened between us, but they made a great gulf in those days. Later I knew all the boys. Among these were John H. Anthon, afterwards the eloquent leader of the Apollo Hall Democracy, " Jack " Byron, Cutler C. McAllister, Dr. Thurston, Samuel F. Barger, the railway financier. Col. H. S. Olcott, Gen. Stewart' L. Woodford, since Lieutenant-governor and Congressman ; Bob Chisholm, afterwards a Confeder- ate officer ; a delegation from the neighborhood of A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK St. John's Park, consisting of the Smedbergs, Hamil- tons, Lydigs, Hyslops, and Drakes ; George C. Pen- nell, who lived in Chambers Street, and was popularly reputed to have weighed two hundred pounds when he was born (he had a voice to match, and when he spoke' his great piece " Sampson " he almost literally brought down the house) ; a lot of quiet students who afterwards became parsons, J. S. B. Hodges, Brewer, Dickinson, etc. Why lengthen out the roster.' There is another set of college buildings now, with new brands of professors, and a thousand catalogued stu- dents. We, who remember old Columbia College in the days when a literary atmosphere still lingered about Park Place, and a stray milliner employed a half-dozen pretty apprentices in her fashionable estab- lishment on that thoroughfare, are gray-headed and have nearly finished our story. Moritiiri vos saluta- inus ! The University of New York still keeps its location on Washington Square. Its walls recall one of the early riots of the city, caused by an uprising of work- ing-men against the use of stone cut by State Prison convicts in the construction of the building. The military were called out, but there was no bloodshed. In my undergraduate days there was a feeling of jeal- ousy between the University and the Columbia Col- lege boys (I believe they all spoke of themselves as " men," by the way), and as the superiority of age was on the side of old Columbia, the college took airs upon itself accordingly. Theodore Frelinghuysen was Chancellor of the University then, if I remember, and his name, viewed socially and politically, was a tower of strength. I never pass the University building of A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK late years but I associate it with the " Cecil Dreeme " of Theodore Winthrop (poor fellow, the promise of his brilliant young life was dashed to pieces in the fight at Big Bethel), which has invested the structure with a fascinating interest. Remembrance of the working-men's riot at the Uni- versity induces me to step aside and visit the scene of the Astor Place riot. That was tragedy in dead ear- nest. A school-boy at the time, I remember the ex- citement that pervaded all classes as to the relative claims of Forrest and Macready. As a full-blooded American, I naturally stood up for home talent, and helped make life unpleasant for a youthful Londoner in my class at school. The sensation made by the bloodshed in Astor Place was like the opening of war at our doors. With a school-boy's curiosity, I was at the scene early the next morning, and sought out with eager interest some little dingy spots of red that were pointed out to sight-seers, and the places on the north- ern wall of the big house at the corner of Lafayette Place which had been chipped out by the bullets of the soldiery. It was not thought safe for my sisters to go to Mme. Okill's school at the corner of Clinton Place and Mercer Street that day, and I had the glory of having visited the seat of war all to myself. The riot left one unanswered conundrum : Who gave the order to fire? No one desired to claim the honor of issuing the command, and the officers of the militia finally settled down to the conviction that the bruised and battered soldiery began the fire themselves. The locality was then a fashionable centre ; the slums in- vaded it, and left their mark upon it in blood. But to return to Chelsea. London Terrace was a A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 29 charming place of residence forty years ago, and still retains much of its old-time beauty. A few years later the solid men of the lower wards on the west side began building in the upper section of Chelsea, be- tween Eighth and Ninth avenues and Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth streets, and this locality to this day re- tains an air of eminent respectability, and its ample rear gardens are a ceaseless source of comfort to the residents. West of this settlement the city is still unattractive. It was a wild place when I was a boy, and the maintenance of the old Hudson River Rail- road depot there still retards public and private im- provements. But the river front is picturesque, and across the stream rise the heights of Hoboken, crowned by the Passionist monastery and church. The heights as they were, where nature left them covered with for- est trees, were still prettier, but one can be grateful that man cannot mar the landscape utterly. Two landmarks of old Chelsea remain unchanged. At the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Ninth Ave- nue stands the old Church of the Holy Apostles — that is, it is old comparatively, though the painters have attired it in a new dress of red with brown trimmings. A generation ago the Rev. Dr. R. S. Howland was the rector, and the late Dr. George J. Geer was his assistant. They were excellent men, both of them, and Dr. Geer was always good com- pany. One of my uncles was a vestryman of the church, and he told me the storj of its foundation. A young man, son of a great ship-builder, determined to study for the ministry of the Episcopal Church, though his father was not of that faith. The son persisted, and the father made his will, cutting off the disobe- 30 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK dient son with the proverbial shilHng. Ordained and in the ministry, but cut ofi from the wealth he should have inherited, the son kept on his way unmoved — but not unwatched by the father. Touched by his consistent conduct, the father made a new will, leaving to the once disinherited boy his entire possessions. Then the old man died. The son divided the prop- erty equally among the heirs, and out of his own share built the Church of the Holy Apostles as a thank-offer- ing. A good lesson for a church-spire to teach. Dr. Geer was always jolly, and dearly loved a good joke. The last time I saw him he told me how one day, some years before, as his sexton helped him to put on his surplice, he noticed that the man had on a most doleful countenance, and he asked him what was the matter. " Oh, Mr. Geer," said the sexton, " I wish we might have some Gospel preaching here. This morning the Methodist preacher at the Chelsea Church is going to improve the flood, and to-night he will im- prove the hanging. Can't you do it, too .''" There had been an execution at the Tombs and a notable rise in the Hudson that week — hence the outburst of ecstasy. The sturdy gray granite tower of old St. Peter's Church also shows no mark of the flight of years. On the contrary, I observe as I pass it with a tourist's eye that it has set itself off with certain modern furbelows in the shape of turreted wooden porticos at the door- ways, as pardonable a vanity as the fresh violet rib- bons with which my grandmother was wont to deco- rate her best Sunday cap. " It doesn't signify, Felix," she would say, " but I do like to see old folks spruce themselves up, and somehow I always want to look my best, even to my grandson." A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 3I There is a pathetic strain of association with the old church, which goes back to a day when a young student of divinity made more noise in the American ecclesiastical world than the whole bench of bishops. It was at the time when Puseyism, so called, was on everybody's tongue, and old-fashioned high and dry churchmen considered it a mortal sin for an officiating clergyman to " turn his back upon the congregation." On the day when Arthur Carey was to be ordained to the ministry, Drs. Smith and Anthon, rectors of St. Peter's and St. Mark's churches, respectively, stood up to object to proceeding with the service. Thence arose the wildest kind of an ecclesiastical circus. It was the beginning of a bitter persecution of the late Bishop Onderdonk, who ordained Mr. Carey, and for a while it divided clergy and people into warring fac- tions, and made the diocesan conventions in old St. John's Chapel a species of theological bear-garden. Poor Carey! He had a short, sad life. A few months afterwards he died at sea, and when a kindly Presby- terian clergyman, who was somewhat suspicious of all ritualists, and knew of Mr. Carey only through the religious press, stood at his bedside and asked him if he placed all his reliance on his Saviour in that hour, the dying youth turned a reproachful look upon him and replied, " Of course I do." The clergyman said afterwards that he had never witnessed a more peace- ful and edifying death, and bore high testimony to Arthur Carey's faith. It was the echo of this terrific ecclesiastical storm, with its wild warrings of good men and its undercurrent of pathos, that seemed to sweep around the turrets of old St. Peter's as I passed by. Not far from the church, and occupying the entire 32 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK block between Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets and Eighth and Ninth avenues, stood, a generation ago, the picturesque home of Clement C. Moore. It had been the country-seat of his father, the second Bishop of New York, and the grading of the streets had left the entire block elevated twelve or fifteen feet above the sidewalk. The cosiest of suburban homes, it was THE MOORE HOUSE hidden by great oaks and elms, and outsiders had only glimpses of the loveliness of its surroundings. Here lived the kindliest of scholars, the most learned of col- lege professors, the most assiduous of bookworms, a writer whose published works were held in highest reverence by the learned men of his day. But he is known to posterity by none of these sound claims to A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 33 reputation. A little rhyme, dashed off under this roof, when the trees were bare of leaves and the rob- ins had departed, and written solely for the pleasure of his grandchildren, has made the name of Clement C. Moore a household word wherever the English tongue is spoken. Here he wrote the nursery rhyme that all childhood has since learned : " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas ;" and by this unsuspected little pathway he mounted up to fame. It is a pity that green fields and bright gardens have to give place to bricks and mortar and bluestone pave- ments ; and old Chelsea, in its prime,. was a very ham-^ let of roses and romance. But, after all, as my grand- mother would say, "It doesn't signify." OLD FIRE BUCKET 34 A TOUK AROUND NEW YORK CHAPTER IV TO ALBANY BY SLOOP — AN INCIDENT OF STEAMBOAT COMPETITION — THE ROMANCE OF A CONVICT — GENESIS OF FASHIONABLE PARKS — THE "PROFESSORSHIP OF NEW YORK" " That was a terrible week." It is my grandmother who is speaking. The old lady sits by the open window in a pleasant little cot- tage in Chelsea. Her best cap adorns her white hair, and the vanity of violet ribbons further sets it off. A lithe and beautiful cat is curled up cosily at her feet ; and on the sofa, curled up in much the same fashion, is the hostess of my grandmother, the daughter of Dr. Cuthbert, who for half a century had a drug-store on Grand Street, half-way between Broadway and the Bowery. " It doesn't signify," says my grandmother, falling gently into one of her favorite modes of expression, " but I shall never forget that week on the Albany schooner. We had a horrible storm in the Highlands, and we were all sea-sick and nearly wrecked ; and then we were becalmed above Poughkeepsie for two days, and it took us just a week to make the voyage. I de- clare, I never see a schooner but it gives me a touch of sea-sickness. I wished afterwards," she added, inno- cently, " that we had got out and walked. And just to think that now the steamboats advertise to carry you to Albany for a shilling !" She has told me often of her voyage up the Hud- A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 35 son, when the country was young. The sloop packet started from a wharf near the Battery. It sailed past the blooming gardens of Greenwich Village ; by the frowning walls of the State prison at the foot of Amos Street ; beyond the green fields that stretched out until the pretty little hamlet of Chelsea was reached, where the gray turrets of the Episcopal Seminary were at that time going up ; and then swept by an unbroken succession of rural villas and manors up to the heights named in honor of Fort Washington, and thence looked back upon historic King's Bridge, the KING S BRIDGE seething waters of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the ample possessions of the Phillipse family and the Van Cortlandts. That was a wonderfully exciting time when the rival steamboats advertised to carry passengers to Albany for a shilling, and an army of " runners " pervaded the streets and thronged the wharves, pulling and hauling at the persons and baggage of the unhappy victims. Racing was rife on the river, and there was always a tinge of excitement in the voyage, through the proba- bility of a boiler explosion or a fire. The wreck of the Swallow and the burning of the Henry Clay are among 36 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK the memories of a day in which the names of the steam chppers of the Hudson (some of which still drag flo- tillas of canal-boats through the waters on which they once walked as queens) were as well known as the pres- ent favorites of the race-tracks. There was a queer genius in my regiment named Bickford. His hair was red, and his stride was un- gainly, but he would have been able to take care of himself either at the Court of St. James's or on a desert island. In search of his fortune, he drifted to New York at the time when the rivalry between steamboats was at its height. Bundle in hand, he suffered himself to be dragged on one of the boats by a runner, where he took his bearings and laid out his campaign. When the supper-bell sounded he seated himself at the table and laid in a square meal. When the steward came for his money, Bickford said he had none and didn't know any was wanted ; that one fellow had offered to take him to Albany for a shilling, another for sixpence, and a third for nothing at all. So he had come along, and supposed he was to be taken care of for the pleas- ure of his company. The captain was summoned, and demanded to see the fool who was travelling free to Albany. Bickford's stolid assumption of ignorance was too much for the captain. " Never travelled be- fore ? Never saw a steamboat, eh ? Well, this is fun ; come right along." Bickford told the story in Libby Prison to a roomful of officers — he was then acting as my orderly — somewhat as follows : " The captain took me to the engine-room, and I was horrified at the sights and sounds there, of course. The engineer turned the steam and water on me, and I shrieked and they roared. I asked the curiousest questions I could 38 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK think of ; asked them to light a candle and take me down-stairs into the kitchen, and up-stairs into the bed- rooms; and they laughed till they cried. Then the cap- tain introduced me to a cabin full of passengers as the biggest fool he had met yet. I never let on that I was anything but a fool, and I got a good bed that night, breakfast the next morning, and four or five dolliars from the passengers to help me on my way. Fool ! I wasn't half as big a fool as the captain, and they could squirt steam on me all night, as long as I was getting pay for it." Queer are the pranks that time plays with old build- ings. The State prison that once stood on Amos Street (West Tenth Street now) has been transformed into a brewery. Its white outside walls alone are unchanged, and serve to mark the locality ; but even these, of late years, have been allied to red brick wings and other im- provements in such a way as to take off much of their old-time bareness. The interior is all changed. The prison yard used to reach down to the river, and outside were sunny fields and a wide stretch of beach. Now, streets have been extended west of the prison site and far into the river, and buildings cover them, while be- yond the new river line the great iron steamships of modern commerce nestle against the wharves. It is half a century since the inmates of the old prison were transferred to Sing Sing ; and the city, excepting a few old people born in Greenwich Village or Chelsea, have forgotten all about the former home of the convict. I never pass by the old prison walls but I think of a little episode that had its scene there, which developed a great deal of human nature. A young man had committed forgery and had been sentenced to A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 39 death. The preparations were all made for the execu- tion, which was to take place in Washington Square, and a large crowd had gathered, when news came that a reprieve had been granted at the last hour. There were many bitter expressions of disappointment from THE STATE PRISON the sight-seers, among whom was a boy who subse- quently told me the story. It appeared that some be- nevolent and active members of the Society of Friends had become interested in the criminal; and had secured the commutation of his sentence to imprisonment for life. Overjoyed at his escape from the gallows, the young man made himself a model prisoner, and was soon placed in charge of a shoe-shop, where he paraded up and down, rattan in hand, between the benches, and proved himself a terror to his fellow-convicts. Virtue has its reward. The kindly Quakers left no stone un- turned until they had secured his pardon, and then the devout convert was set up in a shoe-shop of his own, where he handled the "thee" and "thou" and the cash to perfection. At last he had become a man of consequence among the Quakers and a man of mark in the business community, and then he saw his op- 40 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK portunity and seized it. One day he turned up miss- ing. He had converted all his assets into cash, had gathered in a golden harvest by forging the names of all his business friends, and had crowned his iniquity by eloping with the pretty Quaker daughter of the generous benefactor who had secured his release from the gallows. New York never saw him again. His career had not been without its thorns in the mean time. The shadow of a dangling noose sometimes came athwart the sunshine. One day he had been in a towering passion with one of his workmen because he had not finished a pair of shoes at the time he had promised. He told the man he had no right to break his promise and disappoint him. " Master," said the man, quietly, "you have disappointed me worse than that." " How did I, you rascal? When?" "When I waited a whole hour in the rain to see you hanged !" In the old Dutch colonial days the executions of criminals took place outside the Battery, on the beach. Under the English the scene was transferred to the Commons, the present City Hall Park. In the pres- ent century executions took place in the vicinity of Houston and Wooster streets, and then on the open ground now known as Washington Square. Criminals were buried under the gallows in all these places, and it is a curious fact that most of our smaller parks were not reserved as pleasure places, but for public use in the interment of paupers. The upper portion of the City Hall Park was originally a potter's field, and adjoining it was a negro burial-ground that extended across Chambers Street. Washington Square was used not only as a burial-place for paupers, but also for yel- low-fever patients, and the ashes of the dead lie thick A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 4I under its green patches of sward and stately elms. Subsequently a potter's field was opened at Madison Square, adjoining the public buildings that once stood there — the House of Refuge occupying the site of the Worth Monument. Fashion enjoys the lovely little park, but little recks that it owes its pleasant shade to the tramps and the criminals whose bones lie mould- ering beneath the grass and flowers. It is a grateful incident in connection with this sum- mer tour around New York — begun originally with the idea of showing to the modern race of Gothamites how much there is within their local boundaries to interest and inspire them — that these papers have brought to the writer a number of appreciative letters of encouragement. One suggests that it would be a good thing to tell the story of the old merchants who lived in Pearl and Broad streets, and on lower Broad- way, and whose social habits would form a striking contrast to the club -life of to-day. Another speaks of Washington Square in its ancient glory, when the Alsops, Rhinelanders, Robinsons, and other solid old families had their homes facing its elms, and not far away lived the Grinnells, Bogerts, Leroys, Minturns, and Livingstons. This letter recalled in one of its suggestions a man of mark who but recently passed away in Italy, and who, in his prime, I thought to be the handsomest man in the city. This was James E. Cooley, of the firm of Cooley, Keese & Hill, auction- eers, whose home was on Macdougal Street, near Washington Square, and who was an accomplished scholar as well as genial gentleman. A third letter expresses the hope that, in some future article, the writer will " indulg-e us in a more detailed account of 42 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK the old residents about St. John's Park, and what has become of them and their descendants. Take Beach Street, for instance. There were the Parets, Robert B. Minturn, Wm. Whitlock, the Hyslops, John C. Ham- ilton, the Smedbergs, Tracys, and George Griffin, with his blue side-winged spectacles, and broad shoes con- structed for comfort. And then on Laight Street, Dr. Wilkes, Dr. Green, the Lydigs, and all of them. Let us hear about them all." A writer in the Evening Post once suggested the propriety of founding a "Professorship of New York" at Columbia College, with the idea of imparting to the student of society accurate knowledge of the city in which we move and have our being. That was an ad- mirable idea. The modern writer of press letters or ar- ticles about this city knows in society only the very re- cent Mrs. Potiphar and her friends. For him the old names of the past have no meaning. Yet the Knicker- bocker race is not extinct. It sounds no trumpets and creates no sensations. To its charmed circle the gold- en eagle is no passport of admission. There was a youth of tender years, born in Connecticut, and who had nev- er strayed beyond its borders, who was asked at a school examination which were the principal rivers of the world., He promptly responded, " The Scantic, the Podunck, and the Connecticut." On the same princi- ple the average exotic who chronicles the social doings of the metropolis runs over the gamut of a few mod- ern millionaires and their kin, and does not dream that he has not done full justice to his theme. As for the historical points that could make every nook and cor- ner of the city a romance, they are outside of his knowl- edge. By all means we should have the professorship. A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 43 CHAPTER V ECHOES OF THE STREETS — MERCHANTS OF A PAST GENERATION — SOLID MEN WHO ENJOYED LIFE — MUSEUM DAYS — THE OLD AUCTIONEERS — THE HEROES OF COMMERCE Thurlow Weed once said to me that he regarded the description of the thronging footsteps that beset the house of Dr. Manette, in A Talc of Tzvo Cities, as the most wonderful piece of descriptive writing that Charles Dickens had penned. He quoted, in illustra- tion, this passage : '' The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet ; some, as it seemed, under the windows ; some, as it seemed, in the room ; some coming, some' going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether ; all in the dis- tant streets, and no one in sight." When I walk along lower Broadway in the quiet night, as sometimes hap- pens, I hear the huriy of those footsteps on the de- serted pavement. They bring back to me the faces of the dead — the white-haired patriarchs to whom I looked up with reverence as a boy ; the stalwart men whose sturdy strength seemed to defy all change ; the manly youth who bore the names that commerce, professional life, or literature had delighted to honor. They surely are not dead who have left such pleasant memories behind them. Among the thronging footsteps of those whose memories still haunt lower Broadway are scores of our 44 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK old merchants, whose names I recall as some familiar circumstance or legend of old business days brings them back. It would make a list too long to print if all could be remembered and given the honor due them. When I was a boy the familiar names of the street were Aspinwall,Gracie, Rowland, Coit, Minturn, Aymar, Lenox, Bruce, Griswold, Hoyt, Kortright, Haight, Storms, Morgan, Wilmerding, King, Ingoldsby, Broome, Laight, Dash, Lorillard, Henriques, Wolfe, Ogden, Crolius, and — E hen, jam satis! Looked at from this point of time, they seem to me like men who magnified their position and strove to make the name of merchant great. They were not above taking their share in politics and doing their best to keep politics pure. The first alderman elected after the Revolu- tionary War was a wealthy shipping merchant of this city, John Broome, who was three times elected Lieu- tenant-governor (and the last time without opposition), and in whose honor one of the counties of this State was named. Since his time another merchant and alderman, E. D. Morgan, has been made Governor and United States Senator; but he was not a native of the city, and brought his ambition with him from Connecticut. The Hall of Records, the old sugar-house on Rose Street, and " Sam Fraunce's tavern," on Broad Street, still remain to recall the ante-Revolutionary buildings of this city ; but I have heard old men tell of the time when the east side below Fulton Street was studded with quaint, antique Dutch buildings that had served at once as store and home to the old-time merchants. The great fire of 1835 swept away nearly all of these relics of the city's old life, the last that remained being A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 47 located on William Street, opposite Sloate Lane, and bearing on its front, in sprawling letters, the date 1690. Gabled roofs, wide chimneys, and small windows were the characteristics of these dwellings. Their English successors were more lofty and much more luxurious, in many cases aspiring to marble mantel-pieces and huge mirrors in heavy mahogany frames, but not infrequently retaining the wide fireplace, with its setting of tiles that illustrated usually the stories of the Bible. A fine specimen of these Scriptural tiles, in blue and white, and most quaintly original, can be still seen in the old Van Cortlandt House, above Kingsbridge, within the area of Van Cortlandt Park. It is to be hoped that the Park Commissioners will preserve this ancient structure, erected in 1748, which vividly recalls the days when it was an outpost in the Neutral Ground, and was occupied alternately by Hessian videttes and patriot scouts, from whose doors Washington sallied forth in full uniform when he began his triumphal march to New York on Evacuation Day, 1783. Comparatively little business was done on the east side of Broadway below the City Hall Park when I first began to observe that locality as a boy. There were many boarding-houses there, occupying what had been the stately homes of the Lows, Hamiltons, Dela- fields, Livingstons, Ludlows, Le Roys, Hoffmans, and Coldens. There were several hotels there also, the Howard, Tremont, and National. But that side of the street was immortal among boys as containing Barnum's American Museum, and close by was the store of John N. Genin, the hatter, who made himself fame and fortune by bidding off at a high premium the first seat sold for the first concert given by Jenny VIEW IN NEW YORK, 1769 Lind. My grandmother has told me of the great dry- goods store which Jotham Smith, the A.T. Stewart of his day, opened on the place occupied afterwards by Barnum's Museum, and of its removal to a larger building on the site of the Astor House, where all the ladies in town went to do their shopping. But what are dry goods in comparison with the perennial pleasures of the museum, where I am certain that I had carefully investigated every article on exhibition A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 49 many score of times, and had no more doubt of the authenticity of the club that killed Captain Cook (de- stroyed by fire when the museum was burned, but risen again, like the Phoenix, from its own ashes and still on exhibition) than I had of the doctrines con- tained in the Church Catechism ? I liked also to visit Peale's Museum, on Broadway, opposite the City Hall Park, but not so well as the temple of curiosities at the corner of Ann Street. The former was the suc- cessor of Scudder's Museum, that occupied the old Alms House in the park, and was the first of its kind in the city. In the days when I was on familiar terms of ac- quaintance with the museum, not a few of my school- mates lived in the vicinity, in Beekman and Barclay streets, and on the streets adjacent to the Park, and upon lower Broadway. Their fathers had stores or ofiices down-town, mostly east of Broadway, and they liked to be near to their business, as their fathers had been accustomed to live before them. Business men who lived up-town — that is, between Broome Street and Union Square — rarely rode to their ofifices. They walked and enjoyed the exercise. One could take his stand on Broadway on a pleasant afternoon and call the roll among passers-by of all the remarkable men in town. It came back to me the other afternoon — that busy Broadway panorama of forty years ago came back — when I saw John Jacob Astor striding sturdily down the great thoroughfare towards Wall Street. The "Astor boys" could then be seen daily walking from their Prince Street office, a stalwart pair, pointed out as heirs to wealth that was supposed to be limitless, and marvelled at as miracles of industry amid the 4 50 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK temptations of money. As for the Vanderbilts, they lived quietly on East Broadway, and the Commodore and his brother had offices at 62 Broadway, where they were weaving the maritime web that was to bring them in their millions. As a rule, wealth was not wor- shipped then. The old Knickerbocker spirit still ruled, and demanded blood and brains as the standard of admission to society. Wealth was an honorable and most comfortable addition thereto, but it was not a sine qua non. As I pause on this lower end of the City Hall Park, where the footsteps seem to come thickest, I recall some names among the old auctioneers of the city whose associations, either through school or church or society connections, bring back forms that have long been dust. The names are those of Pell, Hoffman, Lawrence, Haggerty, Draper, Minturn, and Hone, and, earliest of all, the Bleeckers. Fifty or sixty years ago the auctioneers were commissioned by the Governor of the State, and for many a year no one but a Demo- crat could obtain a commission at Albany. Smart young Loco-focos thus managed to force themselves into solid old firms and line their pockets. The auc- tioneer was obliged to give a bond to the State for five thousand dollars, with two good sureties, that he would faithfully pay the duties accruing on his sales. These auction duties formed one of the important items in the canal fund, and amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. As the lists were made public, it became a matter of pride with each house to swell their own duties to as large a sum as possible by way of advertising themselves. The auction houses then centred in Pearl, in the vicinity of Wall Street. I A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 51 recall in the personnel of those firms Lindley M. Hoff- man, the pink of courtesy, and a most devoted church- man ; ex-Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence, a genial and genuine Knickerbocker; handsome Philip Hone, An- thony J. Bleecker, who afterwards headed the list of auctioneers, and David Austen, who, as knights of the hammer, held the field against all opponents. It has seemed to me, as I linger on this old battle- ground of business generations, that our city takes too little pride in its merchants. More is known about our soldiers and our politicians than about our com- mercial champions, and more honor is paid them. Yet i THE JAIL (now the HALL OF RECORDS) if one could gather up the legends and traditions of mercantile lives, it would be found more interesting than the history of our wars, and far more instructive. 52 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK Around their old homes hngers an aroma of quiet ro- mance which history ought to preserve. A sturdy, independent folk, they enjoyed life thoroughly in their own way, and made the most of it. Nor were they a solemn people — far from it. They loved a joke, even at their own expense. When old John Broome kept store at No. 6 Hanover Square he had his residence in the upper part of the same house. On one occasion, after a customer had called, he took him up-stairs for the customary glass of wine. Pianos were rare in those days, and the stranger had never seen one; so Mr. Broome called one of his daughters to play a tune. The visitor lis- tened with delight, but kept fumbling uneasily in his pocket, and when she had finished the tune he pulled a half-dollar out and laid it before the daughter. She blushed, laughed, and glanced at her father, who chuckled, winked, and signed to her to keep it. Odd stories used to be told of eccentric old Stephen Storm, who was in business in Water Street, and with one of whose boys I went to school. He was fond of music, and used to start the tunes at Dr. Matthews's church in Garden Street before it was moved up-town. It occurred to Mr. Storm at one time to learn to play upon the fiddle, and accordingly he inserted an adver- tisement in the papers informing the public of his de- sire to purchase a violin. The next day the whole colored colony of the city was in attendance at his store with violins under their arms, reinforced by a large contingent of foreigners. One by one they were solemnly marshalled in, and each was invited to play a tune. The street grew distracted, and threatened mob law. After a hundred or more instruments had been A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 53 tested, Mr. Storm dismissed the crowd, without his benediction, however. In the years to come Mr. Storm never again ventured to indulge his musical taste, at least in the instrumental line. The name recalls the old Storm's Hotel, which stood on the site of the Slants Zcitung building, and was a noted hostlery in its day. Major Noah used to tell, with many a chuckle, a story that associated the elder Astor with the hotel. One of the old fur merchant's book-keepers had reached the age of sixty, and was to be retired. Mr. Astor gave him the choice of a gift of $1000 in cash or a promise to pay his board bill while he lived. The superannuated clerk chose the promise to pay instead of the cash, and lived for twenty years at the Storm's Hotel at the expense of John Jacob Astor, who failed to find anything amusing in his longevity. No man was better known in New York half a cen- tury ago than this same Major Noah. He was a man of wonderful wit, erudition, and social and political power. The contemporary of James Watson Webb and the older editors, whose down-town sanctums were fully as dreary as the dens of the lawyers and business men of their day, he wielded a pen as keen as his wit. It was he who, when Minister to Algiers, persuaded the Dey to make a most favorable treaty with the United States, on the ground that it was not a Chris- tian nation — which he proceeded to prove by reference to the Constitution. The Dey was delighted to get ahead of France and England, to w^hom he had prom- ised to sign no treaty with another Christian nation. But the tourist cannot linger longer with the ghosts of the past, and so he passes on, with the expression of 54 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK a hope that the time is not distant when the city will build monuments to commemorate its commercial he- roes, and rescue the names of Livingston and Lewis and Broome and their business peers from oblivion. Some day the ghostly cadence of their footsteps will cease on our busy streets, when we, who are gray-haired and learned about them when young, shall have fol- lowed also to their rest. SEAL OF NEW YORK CITY A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 55 CHAPTER VI BROADWAY IN SIMPLER DAYS — AMONG THE OLD-TIME THEATRES — MAY MEETINGS AT THE TABERNACLE — THE FIRST SEWING-MACHINE — BROADWAY GARDENS AND CHURCHES — A NIGHT WITH CHRISTY's MINSTRELS — THE RAVELS AT NIBLO'S " Do you know," I said to a friend, recently, as we dived into a crowded train on the elevated railroad, " I think we take less exercise than we did a generation ago, and are degenerating? In the matter of legs I am quite sure the decadence must be marked. The re- vived fashion of knee-breeches, now impending, will find us unable to cope with the traditionary anatomies of stalwart George Washington, who was a prodigious jumper, and sturdy John Adams, whose lower limbs were solid as the granite hills that stood around his home. The art of walking has gone out of fashion with us, and it has operated to our physical loss." " Do you know," calmly responded my friend, " I think you are growing old, and, as is the way with all who cultivate a sere and yellow acquaintance with old Father Time, are learning to grumble at the present, just because it is somewhat juvenile?" Can this be true ? My old friend Bowie Dash re- marked to a common acquaintance the other day that, judging by my reminiscences, I must be somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety- five. As to Mr. Dash's suggestion of age, I quite scorn it. Did not the same ruler warm us up, anatomically and intellectually, $6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK when we two were neophytes in the temple of learn- ing in Franklin Street, over which Mr. Jeremiah J. Greenough presided ? Indeed, we are both young — comparatively. Yet a newer generation can behold in our reminiscences, as in a mirror, the day when street- cars were unknown, omnibuses a rarity, and when, in the absence of furnaces, heaters, and self - feeding stoves, the boy was solemnly admonished, as winter drew nigh, that pedestrian exercise was the best thing to keep his blood in circulation and help him defy the blasts of December. \ Everybody walked to and from business when I was "^ a boy. That is, everybody except those who lived in the outskirts of Greenwich Village and in Chelsea, who went by stages, and except a few invalids and octogenarians. It told against a man to pamper him- self with sixpenny rides in an omnibus. Besides, one always counted on meeting acquaintances upon the Broadway promenade at certain hours, and the hearty greetings of one's elders were worth something, as we juniors thought. It was a physical pleasure to throw one's self into the tide of human life that swept up the great central thoroughfare every afternoon, and to strike out homeward with it. The white-haired crest upon the human wave disappeared after a while as the club-house, the down-town home, or the political head- quarters drew it in, and then, rosy and radiant, a re- flex tide of feminine loveliness swept in, and the walk became more pleasant than ever. Yes, everybody walked in those days, and, as I grew out of boyhood towards manhood, I used to think that the rosebud garden of Broadway on a crisp autumn afternoon was lovely beyond compare. The tide of pedestrians be- A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 57 gan noticeably to diverge to the left at Chambers Street, and both to right and left above Canal Street, making decided detours towards St. John's Park and Washington Square in turn, and growing more and more scattered as it approached the up -town neigh- borhood above Great Jones Street and Astor Place. I like still on brisk autumn days to turn my face to Union Square, and take up my march from the neigh- borhood of old St. Paul's. If some one is with me who is interested in my gray -haired garrulity about other days, it makes the way lighter. But I never lack com- pany. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, it is when I am alone that I have most companionship. As I walk along, the ghosts of other days trip out to see me. They are no noisome apparitions, but gentle, sweet-voiced spirits, whose eyes are filled with tender recollections, and whose garments bear the scent of the roses and hyacinths of many years ago. From unexpected spots they dart out to give me greeting and to bring to my recollection little occurrences long forgotten, but pleasant to recall. In this spot they recall a rosy night at the theatre ; there they bring back the tender recollection of a school friend who has been dust and ashes these five and thirty years; here they call up Sunday-school days, and the prolonged and inevitable Sunday services beneath the stately spire of St. John's Chapel; here again, just around that corner, lived the incarnate inspiration of my first valentine, whose clustering curls never lived to sleep on any other breast than Mother Earth's ; and there, too, opposite the St. Nicholas, were the mystic rooms in which our college secret society met to initiate white-faced neophytes into the mysteries of sworn fra- ST. PAUL S CHAPEL ternity, while all around the pavement echoes to the feet which are silent to the rest of the world, but to my ears are instinct with a life that can never die. Come with me, then, most patient reader, and as we walk up Broadway this afternoon, close your eyes to present surroundings, and let me picture the thorough- A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 59 fare as it looked forty years ago, when I strolled up from a school-mate's home below the City Hall Park, a rosy-cheeked boy in old-fashioned roundabout and cap. St. Paul's Church has been growing smaller of late years, or is it the effect of the great buildings that sur- round it? It towered up above all the neighborhood when I was a boy, and at one time I had an uncanny dread of the marble figure of St. Paul above the por- tico, which was said to come down and walk the street " when it heard the clock strike twelve at midnight of St. Paul's Day." The late William E. Dodge, who was so earnest a man that he never appreciated a joke, in the course of a familiar lecture to some east- side youth said that his nurse once told him that that same figure of St. Paul "came down and walked around the streets at night," thus wickedly deceiving him, and Mr. Dodge used the occasion to warn his young friends against telling falsehoods. Barnum's Museum, which faced St. Paul's Church at the corner of Ann Street, has disappeared long since, and I fear that I have never ceased to mourn its loss. Wasn't it a wonderful place, though? The oval pictures of impossible birds and beasts that stood between the outside windows were a scientific specta- cle in themselves. But the interior was one vast tem- ple of wonder, and I never would have forgiven the man who should prove to me that the. club which killed Captain Cook was not genuine; that Joyce Heth had not held baby George Washington in her black arms ; and that the dark, dank little amphithe- atre was not a dramatic paradise, in which perform- ances were given upon a cramped and rather dirty 6o A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK stage through so much of the day that Artemus Ward said Barnum's actors could be seen towards 7 A.M. walking down Broadway to work, with their tin din- ner-pails in hand. Broadway, between the Astor House and Chambers Street, has changed less in forty years than almost any other portion of the city. The park has under- gone much more change. The Post-office has blotted out an oasis of grass and trees, and with the old iron fence a small army of hucksters in gingerbread and candy have disappeared. On the Broadway side of the park stood Peale's Museum. I remember only one thing about it : The largest room contained the skeleton of a mastodon, at whose feet stood the tiny skeleton of a mouse. Opposite the museum, on Park Row, the famous Park Theatre was located. I stood in the City Hall Park one night and watched its roof- tree fall into the flames that devoured the building. An engine dashing along the sidewalk of Broadway had nearly run over me as I came. We all ran to fires in those days, and the engines took the sidewalk or the street, just as suited their convenience. I never was inside the Park Theatre, but how have I enjoyed Aminidab Sleek and Captain Cuttle at Burton's Thea- tre in Chambers Street. At one corner of Chambers Street the Stewart Building is a modern innovation. It displaced, among other structures, famous Washington Hall, the polit- ical foe of Tammany Hall, built by the Federalists, and occupied as their fighting headquarters for many years. The building on the opposite corner of Cham- bers Street and Broadway was once the Irving House, a fashionable hostlery, but it has an older memory for ,lll ^]l!!I»Jli,ijj^^^ lite WASHINGTON HALL some of us graybeards. There at one time John C. Colt had his office, and there he murdered Adams, the printer who was getting out a work on book-keeping for him. It was the first tragedy I had ever been able to read about, and I remember vividly all the details of the body that was packed and shipped to South America ; that by adverse winds was brought ashore, and would have brought the murderer to the scaffold had he not committed suicide on the morning of the day set for his execution. Years and years after- wards I met Col. Samuel Colt, who always favored the rumor that his brother had escaped to France, and that the body of a pauper convict had been substi- 64 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK tilted to deceive the authorities. "Is your brother John living in France?" asked a curious Hartford man. The answer was prompt and characteristic : " That is something which only God Almighty and Sam Colt know." Somewhere near Duane Street, on Broadway, where modern progress has as yet made little change in the buildings, the first sewing-machine was exhibited. A young girl used to sit in the Avindow and work the rather primitive machinery, and she actually seemed to sew. Everybody watched the process with inter- est, but all regarded it as a toy, and impracticable for household use. The ladies set their faces resolutely against it. They would have nothing but hand-made goods. Philanthropy argued at all our tables, as I re- member, that the machine would take the bread out of the mouths of the working-women. So the pretty girl kept the pedals going in the window, month in and month out, and Wall Street was not sharp enough to see that there was a fortune in the " toy." It might be made to sew a rufifle — yes, no doubt this had been done — but to argue that it could make a suit of clothes or do the sewing for a household was non- sense. Just above stood the old New York Hospital, its green campus, filled with stately trees, facing Pearl Street. In the rear were the gray granite buildings which had been erected before the Revolutionary War, and which Lord Howe had surrounded with fortifica- tions. It always seemed a pity to destroy this pretty green spot, but perhaps it was inevitable. Its de- struction followed the obliteration of the campus of Columbia College at Park Place, and it was pitiable to A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK. 65 watch the felHng of the sturdy old trees that at both these points had withstood the storms of a century, and had looked down upon the camp-fires alfke of the redcoat of England and the buff and blue soldier of the Continental Congress. Other obliterations were more natural. Here, on the east side of Broadway, between Pearl and Anthony, stood the Broadway Thjeatre, beloved of fashion in its day ; on the next block was the Broadway Tabernacle, the camping- ground of the May meetings, where I stole in often to hear the abolitionists speak when I was a boy — Wen- dell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and the lovely little white- haired Quakeress, Lucretia Mott. I thought these last a horrible crew of fanatics, for I had been bred in the doctrine that slavery was no sin ; but there was a wonderful fascination for me in those gatherings of long-haired, wild -eyed agitators. Time works won- ders, and yet the wildest prophet would not have vent- ured to predict that the boy who looked upon an abolitionist as a special ally of the Evil One would one day command a regiment marching through this city and through the border States to the fields of the South, to strike the shackles from the limbs of the enslaved African. Between Leonard Street and Catharine Lane stood the Society Library building, a handsome structure in its day, which afterwards gave place to the publishing house of D. Appleton & Co. At Leonard Street there was a hotel known as the Carleton House; and there was another at Walker Street, known as Florence's Hotel ; and below, on the other side, at the north cor- ner of Franklin Street, was the famous Taylor's res- taurant, frequented by all the society belles of the day. 5 66 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK More than one local romance has made Taylor's its scene of fashionable dissipation. Fashion has moved miles up-town since then, and would now vote Tay- lor's a very commonplace affair. But a much more attractive place in the early part of the forties was Contoit's Garden, which for more than a generation occupied a large share of the block between Franklin and Leonard streets. Its plain wooden entrance, bear- ing the legend, " New York Garden," was overshad- owed with trees, and inside were shady nooks, dimly lit by colored lanterns, where the young woman of the period found it pleasant to sip her cream and listen to the compliments of the young man of the times. Many a match was made in these old gardens, which to-day would seem to the eye but the acme of rural simplicity, but to the older city offered all that was enjoyable on a moonlight night in the Island of Man- hattan. Crossing Canal Street — where changes are slow in coming on account of the low-lying nature of the land — as soon as one begins to mount the grade beyond Howard Street, the tokens of improvement lie thick on every side. All the landmarks have disappeared save one — the artistic beauty of Grace Church iti the distance. That edifice is just as fresh and attractive to the eye as when its Gothic walls were first reared — more than forty years ago. Other churches along the line have disappeared. Old St. Thomas's, which for many years stood gray and venerable at the corner of Broadway and Houston Street, has long since given place to stores, and few remember where, on the other side of the way. Dr. Chapin ministered to large con- gregations. The church was situated at 548 Broad- A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 69 way. opposite, at 563, the Anglo-American Church of St. George the Martyr held forth, to which we boys of Trinity choir had contributed by singing at a con- cert, but which afterwards, I believe, died a lingering death. The Church of the Messiah was at 724 Broad- way. But the churches of that period for the most part kept out of Broadway, and preferred the seclusion of the more quiet side streets. I have spoken of the old-time theatres, and as I pass the site of Mechanics' Hall a whole host of memories comes trooping out, and with them comes the echo of old plantation songs, most of which were first heard here. It was on this spot that Christy's Minstrels used to entertain the older New York in a decorously jovial manner. There was none of the pinchbeck glare of modern dance-and-song minstrelsy, but there was instead the song that wakened the tenderest chords of the heart and the joke that was not yet worn thread- bare. It happened that when I was twelve years old, or perhaps a little older, I was deputed at home to take six or eight children to Christy's. I was the old- est* boy in the crowd, and hence felt myself the man of the deputation. But there was a thorn to my rose. My very small brother, aged five, was to go, in charge of a stately colored girl of eighteen, whom my father had brought from the West Indies. I remember be- ing just goose enough to be half ashamed to be seen with Ancilla in the street, though she was straight and handsome as an Indian princess in her bright turban, and afterwards captivated and married a wealthy white man in California. At the ticket-office they refused to let us in because there was a " nigger " in the crowd of juveniles. The cold sweat was standing at every pore •JO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK in my body, when there chanced along a belated mem- ber of the troupe, who took my money, led us through the room in which the company were being " corked," and seated us in the little side orchestra gallery which overlooked the long hall. There we were the observed of all observers. The minstrels all cracked their jokes at Ancilla, who leaned over the orchestra rail and grinned back to a delighted audience, who applauded her shrieks of laughter to the echo. To me