.44 D I A R Y li OF A LITTLE felRl IN OLD NEW YOrI 'i I 1 II 1 lii'l 11 Class JEi__£jiL_ Book.__^4_i_____ CiiEifRIGHT DEPOSI-n DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK AITIIOK AM) HER FATHER. I'rom a\ OLD • ;rafh taken- at Brady's l)A<;rEKREA.\ (iAi.r.ERV. 1( AXD Broadway, in 1847. DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL INOLDNEVVYORK BY CATHERINE ELIZABETH HAVENS PUBLISHED By HENRY COLLINS BROWN 15 East 40th Street New York ■hiss COPYRIGHTED, 1919, H. C. BROWN J£C lyig Press of Tile Ciiauncey Hoi Company ©CI.A5yG7i9 TO MY DEAR NIECES AND NEPHEWS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS I DEDICATE THESE :ME:\I0IRS OF MY CHILDHOOD FOREWORD I THINK there are many New Yorkers wiio, like myself, have spent most of a lonji- life in this delio'htful old town, tliat love to <>'o back in memory to tlie quaint little eity of their childhood wliicli has so completely disappeared in the <>'reat metropolitan com- munity of to-day. Perhaps this little book which is a faith- ful record of events as seen by childhood eyes and recorded in childhood fashion may o-ive an hour or two of pleasure to old friends of the city far and near, and al- thouo'h they may not any more see the tree embowered streets of lono- a OLD NEW YORK Deriii«>' and Mrs. L 'Hommedieu, on Shel- ter Island. We had to sleep two nights on the sloop, and had to wash in a tin basin, and the water felt gritty. These aunts live in a very old house. It was built in 1733 and is called the Manor House, and some of the floors and doors in it were in a house built in 1635 of wood brought from England.* The next thing I remember is going with my nurse to the Yauxhall Gardens, and riding in a merry-go-round. These Gar- dens were in Lafayette Place, near our house, and there was a gate on the Lafay- ette Place side, and another on the Bowery side. Back of our house was an alley that ran through to the Bowery, and there was a livery stable on the Bowery, and one time * Note — This house is now in possession of Miss Cornelia Horsford, of Cambridge, Mass.. and was the subject of an article by tlie late Mrs. INlartha J. i^amb, in the Xovembei- number of the Magazine of American History for 1887.— Editor. DIARY OF A LITTLE GIUL IN OLD NEW YORK my brother, who was full of fun and mis- chief, got a pony from the stable and rode it right down into our kitchen and gal- loped it around the table and frightened our cook almost to death. Another time he jumped onto a new barrel of flour and went right in, boots and all. He was so mischievous that our luirse kept a suit of his old clothes done up in a bundle, and threatened to put them on him and give him to the old-clothes man when he came along. The beggar girls bother us dreadfully. They always have the same story to tell, that ''my father is dead and my mother is sick, and there's five small children of us, and nary a hapo." The hapo means money. They come down the steps to the kitchen door and ring the bell and ask for cold victuals; and sometimes they peek through the window into the basement, which is DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD XEW YORK my nursery. And one day my brother said to one of them, ' ' My dear, I am ver}^ sorry, but our victuals are all hot now, but if you will call in about an hour they will be cold. ' ' And she went away awfully angry. We moved from Lafayette Place to Brooklyn when I was four years old, but only lived there one year. My brother liked Brooklyn because he could go crab- bing on the river, but I was afraid of the goats, which chased one of my friends one day. So we came back to New York, and my father bought a house in Ninth Street. He bought it of a gentleman who lived next door to us, and who had but one lung, and he lived on raw turnips and sugar. Per- haps that is why he had only one lung. I don't know. I am still living in our Ninth Street house. It is a beautiful house and has glass sliding doors Avith birds of Paradise sitting on palm trees painted on them. 6 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK And back of our dining room is a piazza, and a grape vine, and we have lots of Isa- bella grapes every fall. It has a parlor in front and the library in the middle and the dining room at the back. On the mantel piece in the library is a very old clock that my father brought from France in one of his ships. It has a gilt head of Virgil on the top, and it is all gilt, and stands under a big glass case, and sometimes I watch my father when he takes off the case to wind the clock, and he has to lift it up so high and his hands tremble so, I am afraid he will break it. Sometimes I think we shall never move again. I think it is delightful to move. I think it is so nice to sh\it my eyes at night and not to know where anything will be in the morning, and to have to hunt for my brusli and comb and my books and my et ceteras, but my mother and my nurse do not feel that way at all. 7 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK We know a lot of our iicig'libors who live on Ninth Street. Down near Broadway lives Dr. DeWitt. He is a clergyman, and he and Dr. Chambers and Dr. Knox and Dr. Vermilyea take turns in preaching in the four Dutch Churches. On the corner of University Place lives Mr. James Brown, and above our church on the corner of Tenth Street is Mr. William H. Aspin- wall's house, and back of it he has a big picture gallery. On our block on Ninth Street, beginning at University Place on the upper side, is Mr. Jasper Grosvenor, and Mr. Aquilla Stout, and Mr. Cyrus Cur- tis, and Mr. Henry G. Thompson, and Mr. Gumming, and ]\Ir. Calvin G. How, and Dr. Borrowe. On our side of Ninth Street is Mr. Coddington and the Buckners, and on the corner across Fifth Avenue is a big open lot with a high board fence, and next beyond that lives ]\Ir. Quincy, and then Mr. George D. Phelps. Ever so many 8 niARY OF A TJTTKE CIRl. IN OLD NEW YORK of tlie e-hildreii of these neighbors come to our school. There is another school for girls on onr street, kept by Miss Sedgwick. I forgot to say I have a little niece, nearly as old as I am, and she lives in the country. Her mother is my sister, and her father is a clergyman, and I go there in the summer, and she comes here in the winter, and we have things together, like whooping-cough and scarlatina. Her name is Ellen and she is very bright. She writes elegant compositions, but I beat her in arithmetic. I hate compositions unless tliey are on subjects I can look up in books. Beside my little niece, I have a dear cousin near my age. Her father died in New Orleans, and her mother then came to New York to live. She brought all her six children with her, and also the bones of seven othei' litth' cliildren of liers, wlio had died in their infancy. Slie brought them 9 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD Ts^EW YORK in a basket to put in the family vault on Long Island. I think spelling is very funny, I spelt infancy inf antsy, and they said it was wrong, but I don't see why, because if my seven little cousins died when they w^ere infants, they must have died in their inf antsy; but infancy makes it seem as if they hadn't really died, but we just made believe. I have three little sisters who died before I was born and they are buried in the Marble Cemetery, and one day Maggy took me to see their grave, and the cemetery has a high iron railing around it and we had to open a gate and walk through the long grass. The oldest child was named Anna, and she was seven years old, and she went with my oldest sister to Miss McClenahan's school, and she was taken sick in school and my sister brought her home, and she died in forty-eight hours of scarlet fever. 10 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK My aunt and my cousins came to New- York tliree years ago. I was in my trun- dle-bed one nigiit and woke up and saw my mother putting on her hat and shawl, and I began to cry, but she told me to be a good girl and go to sleep, and next day she would take me to see some little cousins. So the next day she took me, but first we went to Mrs. May's toy store, just below Prince Street on Broadw^ay, to buy some presents for me to give to my three little girl cousins. They were living in a nice house in Bleecker Street, near McDougal Street, and are named Anna Maria and Eliza Jane and Sarah Ann. I took Anna a basket made by some of the people at the Blind Asylum. It w^as made of cloves strung on ware in diamond shapes, and where the wires crossed there was a glass bead. She keeps her big cop- per pennies in it. Anna is my dearest friend. She and I n DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK are together in school, but now they have moved way up to Fifteenth Street; but I walk up every morning- to meet her and we walk down to school together. Sometimes we get some of the big girls' books, and carry them in our arms, with the titles on the outside, so the people we pass will see them. I like to take Miss D's geometry. There is a Miss Lydia G. wlio goes to our school, and she is very sweet and beautiful, and one day our min- ister's son was walking to school with her and carrying her books, and I was just behind them and I saw him give her a beautiful red rose, and I guess he was making love to her and perhaps asking her to marry him, for she blushed when she said good-by. He is going to be a clergy- man like his father. I hope they will be happy. Saturdays I go up to Anna's, and on Irving Place, between Fourteenth and Fif- 12 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD XEW YORK teeiith Streets, there is a rope walk, and we like to watch the men walk back and forth niaking" the rope. It is very inter- esting/ Some Saturdays we go to see our grand- mother, who lives witli our aunt on Abing- don Square, and she sends Bella her maid out to buy some candy for us, and she tells us about what she did when she lived way down town in Maiden Lane. She is our mother's mother. Anna's parents and my parents were married in the Maiden Lane house, and my father took my mother to his house at 100 Chambers Street to live with him. It was a handsome house, and before they were married, my father took out the wooden mantel pieces, and put in white marble ones to please my mother. My grandmother's mother lived in Fletcher Street, and she had a sister who lived on Wall Street, opposite the old 1 The Academy of Music now stands where the rope walk was. 15 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK Tontine Coft'ee-IIouse. They loved each other very much, and were both very sick and expected to die; but my great-grand- mother got up off her sick bed and went down to see her sister, and she died there an hour before her sister died, and they were buried together in their brotlier Augustus Van Horn's vault in Trinity Church Yard. I love to hear my grand- mother tell about these old times. She says Mr. R., who married her aunt, was a Tory; whicli means he was for the Eng- lish in the Revolutionary War. He was a printer and came from England, and Riv- ington Street was named for him. My father's father lived on Shelter Is- land, and had twenty slaves, and their names were : Africa, Pomp, London, Titus. Tony, Lum, Cesar, Cuff, Odet, Dido, Ziller, Hagar, Judith, and Comas, but my grand- father thought it was wicked to keep slaves, so he told them they covdd be free, but 36 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIKL I.N OLD NEW YORK Tony and Comas stayed on with liini. After he died Tony and Comas liad a fi<>ht and Comas ent Tony, and my grandmother told Tony he must forgive Comas, for the Bible said "by so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," and Tony said, ''Yes, Missy, de nex' time Comas hit me, I'll heap de coals ob fire on his head and burn him to a cinder." Tony and Comas used to make brooms out of the broom corn, and pound corn into samp, and send them to my father in New York by Capt. Mumford's sloop. New York is getting very big and build- ing up. 1 walk some mornings with my nurse before breakfast from our house in Ninth Street up Fifth Avenue to Twenty- third Street, and down Broadway home. An officer stands in front of the House of Refuge on Madison Square, ready to arrest bad people, and he looks as if he would like to find some. 17 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK Fifth Avenue is very muddy above Eighteenth Street, and there are no blocks of houses as there are downtown, but only two or three on a block. Last Saturday we had a picnic on the grounds of Mr. Wad- dell's country seat way up Fifth Avenue,^ and it was so muddy I spoiled my new light cloth gaiter boots. I have a beauti- ful green and black changeable silk visite,'^ but my mother said it looked like rain and I could not wear it, and it never rained a drop after all. It has a pinked ruffle all around it and a sash behind. Miss Carew makes my things. She is an old maid, and very fussy, and Ellen and I don't like her. She wears little bunches of curls behind her ears, and when she is cutting out she screws up her mouth, and we try not to laugh, and my mother says 2 Corner of Thirty-seventh Street and Fifth Ave- nue, where the Brick Church now stands. — Editor. 3 A visite was a loose fitting, unlined coat. — Editor. 18 DIARY OF A T,ITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK Miss Carew is well bom and much thought of and only works for the best families. There is another person called Miss Piatt who comes to sew carpets, and although we don't despise her, which would be very wicked, for my mother says she comes of an excellent old Long Island family, yet Ellen and 1 don't like to have her use our forks and drink out of our cups. She is very tall and thin and has a long neck that reminds Ellen and me of a turkey gobbler, and her thumb-nails are all flat- tened from hammering down carpets, and she puts up her front hair in little rings and sticks big pins through them. Ellen and I try to pick out a nicked cup for her to use so that we can recognize it and avoid it. Mr. Brower makes my shoes and brings them home on Saturday niglit and stays and tries them on. My sisters go to C^ant- rell on the Bowery, near Bleecker Street. 19 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIKL IX OLD XEW YORK One time Ellen came down to visit me, and we were both invited to a party at my sister's friend, Mrs. Downer's on 19th Street, and Ellen had not brought her slip- pers, and so my mother said I must wear my boots, so Ellen would not feel uncom- fortable. I did not want to, and asked my sister to persuade her to let me wear my slippers but she only said my mother was perfectly right, so I had to wear my boots. The wife of one of my brothers thinks I am too fond of pretty clothes, and she sent me a A^alentine about a kitten wanting to have pretty stripes like the tiger, and how the tiger told the kitten that she had a great deal nicer life than he did, out in the cold, and that she ought to be con- tented. I will copy it just as she wrote it. I don't know whether she made it all up, but she made up the verse about me. This is it : 20 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD TS^EW YORK A kitte'u one day, 111 a weak little voice To a ti<>er did say: "How much I rejoice "That I am permitted In you to beliold One of my own family, So great and so bold ! " I'd walk tifty miles, sir, On purpose to see A siji'ht so refresh iii<^' And pleasant to me ! "With your luay. striped dress. You must make a .ureat show, And be very much courted Wherever you g'o ! "Every beast, n NEW YORK and Paris and all over Enrope, only the people look like giants, and the horses as big as elephants. Once we stayed to see the play. Maggy says whenever the statue on St. Paul's Church hears the City Hall Clock strike twelve, it comes doAvn. I am crazy to see it come down, but we never get there at the right time. My mother remembers when the City Hall was being built; and she and Fanny S. used to get pieces of the marble and heated them in their ovens and carried them to school in their muffs to keep their hands warm. She loves to tell about her school days, and I love to hear her. December 10. My eyes are better and I will write a little while I can. Ellen and I went out shopping alone. We went to Bond's dry-goods store on Sixth Avenue, just below Ninth Street, to buy a yard of calico to make an apron for 4H DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK Maggy's birthday. We hope she will like it. It is a good quality, for we pulled the corner and twitched it as we had seen our mothers do, and it did not tear. Ellen and I call each other Sister Cynthia and Sister Juliana, and when we bought the calico, Ellen said, "Sister Cynthia, have you any change? I have only a fifty- dollar bill papa left me this morning," and the clerk laughed. I guess he knew Ellen was making it up ! Sometimes we play I am blind and Ellen leads me along on the street, and once a lady went by and said to her little girl, "See that poor child, she is blind," and perhaps when I get old I may be really blind as a punishment for pretending. But once Maggy was walking behind us, and she called out, ' ' Hurry, children, don 't walk so slow," only she always called us by our names out loud, Katy and Ellen. I don't think grown-up people understand 51 UIAUY OF A LITTLE GIKL IX OLD NEW YOUK what children like — we love to dress up in long frocks, and I guess all little girls like to, for my mother did. When she was about twelve years old she put on her mother's black lace shawl and walked out on Broadway in it, and her cousin, Katy Lawrence, met her in front of St. Paul's Church and saw the shawl dragging on the sidewalk and my mother looking be- hind to see if it dragged, and she told my grandmother about it, and my mother was punished. I know it was wrong, but it must have been lovely to think that it really dragged and that people were look- ing at it. I am afraid I should have for- gotten it Avas wrong, but I don't know, for we all have an inward monitor, my sister says. There is a bakery kept by a Mr. Walduck on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eightli Street, and they make delicious cream puffs, and when I have three cents to spare, 1 52 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL I.X OLD NEW YORK run down there right after breakfast, be- fore school begins, and buy one and eat it there. On the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street is a chocolate store kept by Felix Effray, and I love to stand at the window and watch the wheel go round. It has three white stone rollers and they grind the chocolate into paste all day long. Down Broadway, below Eighth Street is Dean's candy store, and they make molasses candy that is the best in the city. Some- times we go down to Wild's, that is way down near Spring Street, to get his Iceland moss drops, good for colds. My mother says Stuart's candy store down on Greenwich and Chambers Streets used to be the store in her day. When she was a little girl in 1810, old Kinloch Stuart and his wife Agnes made the candy in a little bit of a back room and sold it in the front room, and sometimes they used to 53 DIARY OF A IJTTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK let my mother go in and stir it. After they died their sons, R. and L. Stuart, kept up the candy store in the same place, and it is there still. When my mother lived at 19 Maiden Lane, Miss Rebecca Bininger and her brother lived across the way from her, and they had a store in the front of their home and sold fine groceries, and their sitting room was behind the store. They were Moravians and they used to ask my mother sometimes to come over and sing hymns to them, and my mother says they were so clean and neat that even their pot-hooks and trammels shone like silver, and by and by Miss Rebecca would go into the store and my mother would hear paper rustling, and Miss Rebecca would come back and bring her a paper filled with nuts and raisins for a present. Sometimes my mother gives us a shilling to go and get some ice cream. We can get 54 1)1 AKV OK A I.n Tl.E GIKl. IN OLD NKW YORK a half plate for sixpence, and once Ellen dared to ask for a lialf plate with two spoons, and they ^-ave it to \is, but they laughed at us, and then we eaeh had three cents left. That was at Wagner's, on the other side of Broadway, just above Eighth Street. There is another ice cream saloon on the corner of Broadway and Waverly Place, called Thompson's. I hope Ellen will stay all winter. She is full of pranks, and smarter than I am if she is younger, and I hope we wdll have lots of snow. When there is real good sleighing, my sister hires a stage sleigh and takes me and a lot of my schoolmates a sleigh ride down Broadway to the Bat- tery and back. The sleigh is open and very long; and has long seats on each side, and straw on tlie floor to keep our feet warm, and tlie sleigh bells sound so cheer- ful. We see some of our friends taking 55 DIARY OF A I-ITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK their afternoon walk on the sidewalk, and I guess they wish they were in our sleigh ! Stages run through Bleecker Street and Eighth Street and Ninth Street right past our house, and it puts me right to sleep when I come home from the country to hear them rumble along over the cobble- stones again. There is a line on Four- teenth Street too, and that is the highest uptown. I roll my hoop and jump the rope in the afternoon, sometimes in the Parade Ground on Washington Square, and sometimes in Union Square. Union Square has a high iron railing around it, and a fountain in the middle. My brother says he remem- bers when it was a pond and the farmers used to water their horses in it. Our Ninth Street stages run down Broadway to the Battery, and when I go down to the ferry to go to Staten Island, they go through Whitehall Street, and just opposite the 56 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL l.\ OLD NEW YORK Bowling Green on Whitehall Street, there is a sign over a store, ''Lay and Hatch," but they don't sell eggs. e c ^ o o c ) C O r> 9 ( ) c 3 (^ircyv. -January 2, 1850. Yesterday was New Year's Day, and I had lovely presents. We had 139 callers, and I have an ivory tablet and I write all their names down in it. We have to be dressed and ready by ten o'clock to re- ceive. Some of the gentlemen come to- gether and don 't stay more than a minute ; but some go into tlie back room and take some oysters and coffee and cake, and stay and talk. My cousin is always the first to come, and sometimes he comes before we are ready, and we find him sitting be- hind the door, on the end of the sofa, be- cause he is bashful. The gentlemen keep dropping in all day and until long after I have gone to bed ; and the horses look 58 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIBL IN OLD NEW YORK tired, and the livery men make a lot of money. Mr. Woolsey Porter and his brother, Mr. Dwight Porter always come in the even- ing- and sit and talk a long time. They are very fond of one of my sisters. They keep a school for boys in 13th Street, and it is called Washington Institute, and one of my brothers goes to it. Mr. William Curtis Noges is another gentleman who always comes and stays awhile, and he calls us '' cousin," but we are not real cousins. Next January we shall be half througli the nineteenth century. I hope I shall live to see the next century, but I don't want to be alive when the year 2000 comes, for my Bible teacher says the world is coming to an end then, and perhaps sooner. January 14. My mother said she could not afford to get me another pair of kid gloves now, 59 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK but my sister took me clown to Seaman and Muir's, next door to the hospital on Broadway, and bought me a pair. I like salmon color, but she said they would not be useful. Strang and Adriance is next door to Seaman and Muir's and we go there sometimes. We get our stockings and flannels at S. and L. Holmes' store, near Bleecker Street. They are two brothers and they keep Ger- man cologne. Rice and Smith have an elegant store on the corner of Waverly Place, and they keep German cologne too. We go sometimes to Stewart's store, way down on the corner of Chambers Street, but I like best to go to Arnold and Con- stable's on Canal Street, they keep elegant silks and satins and velvets, and my mother always goes there to get her best things. She says they wear well and can be made over for me or for Ellen sometimes. My Staten Island sister gave me a nice CO I'ORTI AIT OF LITTLK MiSS PlVMPTON AND HE. STYLE OK children's ATTIRE ERS. — Editor. SHOWING THE QUAIN DAYS OF OUR GRANDMOT DIARY OF A LITTLE C4TKL IN OLD NKW YORK silk dress, only it is a soft kind that does not rustle. I have a green silk that I hate, and the other day I walked too near the edge of the sidewalk, and one of the stages splashed mud on it, and I am so glad, for it can't be cleaned. On Canal Street, near West Broadway, is a box store, where my mother goes for boxes. They have all kinds, from beauti- ful big band boxes for hats and long ones for shawls, down to little bits of ones for children, and all covered with such pretty paper. Maggy, my nurse, is a very good woman, and reads ever so many chapters in her Bible every Sunday, and she said one day, "Well, Moses had his own troubles with these Children of Israel." I suppose she was thinking about the troubles she has with us children. I have a little bit of a hymn book that was given to one of my sisters (not ow^n) ''by her affectionate G3 DIARY OF A LITTr,E GIRT- IX OLD NEW YORK mother." It was printed in 1811 and is called "The Children's Hymn Book," and some of the hymns are about children sleep- ing in church, and they are very severe, and I don't have to learn them, but Maggy teaches me some pretty verses sometimes to sing. I will copy down one of the hymns about sleeping in church. It is called ' ' The sin and punishment of children who sleep in the House of God. ' ' This is the hymn : Sleeper awake ! for God is here Attend his word, his anger fear; For while you sleep his eyes can see, His arm of power can punish thee. This day is God's, the day He blest. His temple this, His holy rest ; And can you here recline your head, And make the pew or seat your bed? Jehovah speaks, then why should you Shut up your eyes and hearing too? In anger He might stop your breath, And make you sleep the sleep of death! 64 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK Dear children then of sleep beware! To hear the sermon be your care; For if you all God's message mind, For sleep no season will you find. Remember Eutychus of old, He slept while Paul of Jesus told ; In sleep he fell, in Acts 'tis said, That he was taken up for dead. Hear this ye sleepers and be Avise, And shut no more your slumbering eyes, For 'tis an awful truth to tell That you can never sleep in Hell ! There is another hymn called Hell, but my mother does not like me to learn it. She thinks it is too severe. We use the book "Watt's & Select" in our church, and I know lots of them. It is the University Place Church. There is one hymn I have learnt, and in it, it says : Like young Abijah may I see That good things may be found in me. 65 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD ^'EW YORK and my sister says when she was a little girl and learned it, she always thongrht that when Abijah died, they cnt him open and found sugar plums in him. Sometimes when the sermon is very long, Ellen and I count the bonnets, to keep our- selves awake. She chooses the pink ones and I take the blue, and she generally gets the most, but some ladies wear lovely white ones of uncut velvet. Last winter I had a gray beaver, faced with cherry colored satin, and it had a row of narrow cherry colored satin ribbon rosettes like a wreath around it, and cherry colored satin strings to tie it under my chin, and I had a plaid woolen coat, and gray and white furs, and I left the muff in Randolph's book store, and when I went back for it, some one had taken it, and I never got it again. January 20. Last Sunday my mother let me go with Maggy to her church. It is called the 66 DIARY OF A LITT I.E (JIRI. IN Oil) NEW YORK Scotch Seceders' Church. Mr. Harper is the minister. The church is in Houston Street. In the pew were her father and mother. They live in Greenwich village, and once she took me there, and her mother gave me elegant bread and butter with brown sugar thick on it. Maggy has a sister married to a weaver, and his name is George Ross, and he is growing rich by buying land and selling it, and soon he is to be an alderman. Her other sister is Matilda, and she is my sis- ter's maid. Our other servants are col- ored people. The man waiter is colored, and we hear him asking our cook on Sun- day if she is going to Zion or to Bethel to church, and her name is Harriet White, but she is very black. We have a Dutch oven in our kitchen beside the range, and in the winter my mother has mince pies made, and several baked at once, and they are put away and 67 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK heated up when we want one. My mother makes elegant cake, and when she makes rieh plum cake, like weddmg- cake, she sends it down to Shaddle's on Bleecker Street to be baked. January 25. This is my mother's birthday and my grandmother came to dinner. My mother is forty-nine to-day, and I hope she will live to be a hundred. She has a lovely voice and sings old songs, and plays them herself. She went to a big school in Litchfield kept by a Miss Pierce, but was only there three months. Her father thought it was too cold for her to stay there. While she was there she boarded at Dr. Lyman Beecher's and his wife died and her coffin stood below the pulpit, and he preached her funeral sermon, and my mother heard him. She says a Mr. Nettleton came there to preach once, and at breakfast he and 68 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK Dr. Beecher had mii^^s of cider with pear- lash in it, and they heated a poker and put it in the cider to make it fizz. It must have been horrid. My oldest aunt went to Miss Pierce's school, and got acquainted with a young gentleman who was at Judge Gould's Law School in Litchfield, and she married him in 1811, and he became a clergyman, and Queen Victoria ordered him to come to Edinburgh to try to get an estate. That was in 1837. He took my aunt and their children and went away in a ship, and it took them ninety days to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and when they get the estate they will live in the castle, and my mother and I will go and visit them. My aunt was sixteen and my uncle was nineteen when they were married, and he was born in Beaufort in South Carolina, and had a good deal of money. I do hope they will live in the castle ! This is called 69 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL I.N OLD NEW YORK a law suit they are having to get the estate. This aunt took dancing lessons when she was a girl of Mr. Julius Metz, and she danced the shawl dance, and was very graceful, and she and my mother took music lessons on the piano, of Mr. Adam Geib, and he played the organ in Trinity Church, and he and his brother, George Geib, sold pianos. A young lady in Edin burgh told one of my Scotch cousins that she supposed all the Americans were cop- per colored, and he said, "Well, you know my father is a Scotchman, so that is why I am white." February 14. I have had a lot of Valentines to-day. Once when I was six years old I teased one of my brothers (not own) for a valen- tine, and he sent me one written on a sheet of Icjvely note paper with a rose bud in the corner. It is pretty long to copy, and 70 DIAKY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OT,D .NEW YORK 1 don't know all it means, bnt it sounds tinkly, like music. This is it : Little Kitty one day, In her wheedling way, With her kisses and cmiles And twenty such wiles, Did a valentine request ; That somehow or other My brain I should bother And verses indite In stupidity's spite. To comply with her simple behest. Now, thoug'h it may seem But a trifling affair To fill up a ream Of paper so fair AVith words that will jingle in rhyme, Yet to put them together In proper connection And give them a meaiiing And useful directioji Wit is quite as essential as time. DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK And here, little Kitty, Will please to observe That speech, to be witty, Must ever deserve The aids of reflection and sense ; And careless, gay prattle And voluble talk. Though making much rattle Will scarcely be thought Very witty or worthy defense ! But as verse that is fired With passion and truth. From a fancy inspired By beauty and worth, Hath a charm that no heart can resist, So the thoughts of a mind That's calm, clear and pure. When they utterance find. In words plain and sure. Are generally reckoned the best! This brother is a lawyer, and now he has gone to California too, to a place called Eureka. He has a lovely voice, and so 72 DIAKY OF A L1TTI,E GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK has 1113' own brotlier too, who went to Cali- fornia hist year, and they used to sing rounds with my sister. When my mother sings one of her songs, she has to cross her left hand over her right on the piano to play some high notes, and make what my teacher says is "a turn," and it is beautiful. This song is called "The Wood Robin," and another one begins, "Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer." My mother knows ever so many songs, and some of them were sung before she was born. One of them is called "The Maid of Lodi," and another is "The Old Welsh Harper," and another, "A Social Dish of Tea," and a lot of others. April 12. I have a school mate who lives across the street, and her name is Minnie B. Her father is a doctor, and she has a brother, Sam, and he is fifteen years old and big, 73 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL I\ OLD NEW YORK and to-day I ran over to see her, and Sam opened the front door, and when he saw me, he picked me np in liis arms to tease me, bnt he didn't see liis aunt Sarah who was coming" downstairs, and when she saw him she was very severe, and said, '^ Sam- uel, put tliat child down right away, and come and eat your lunch/' I don't dis- like Sam, but I think he was very rude to- day, and I am glad his aunt Sarah made him behave himself. Minnie B. and Lottie G., who live on the corner of University Place and Ninth Street, and Mary P., who lives on Ninth Street across Fifth Avenue, and I have a sewing society, and we sew for a fair, but we don't make much money. But four years ago there Avas a dreadful famine in Ireland, and we gave up our par- lor and library and dining room for two evenings for a fair for them, and all my schoolmates and our friends made things. jrc.12, Pex-Max-Sii ir = I'l: .\ mansii if. M2.g, CtdAMyOOy UT- /?€ Be- Si EVE- 1 LI. = Be ( T\v(i III- MV brothers charades made for the fair lELD 1\ our library FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE IrISH •AMIXE SUFFERERS. DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK and we sent the poor Irish people over three hundred dollars. My brothers made pictures in pen and ink, and called them charades, and they sold for fifty cents apiece ; like this : a pen, and a man, and a ship, and called it, "a desirable art" Penmanship. The brother who used to be so mischievous, is studying hard now to be an engineer and build railroads. He draws beautiful bridges and aqueducts. One Fourth of July, my father got a carriage from Hathorn's stable and took my mother and my sister and my brother and me out to see the High Bridge. It is built with beautiful arches, and brings the Croton water to New York. My brother says he remembers riding to the place where the Croton aqueduct crossed Har- lem River by a syphon before the Bridge was built, and the man who took charge of it opened a jet at the lowest point, and sent a two-inch stream up a hundred feet. 77 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD TSEW YORK My mother says when she was young, everybody drank the Manhattan water. Everybody had a cistern for rain water for washing, in the back-yards. And when she lived in Maiden Lane, the servants had to go up to the corner of Broadway and get the drinking water from the pump there. It was a great bother, and so when my grandfather built his new house at 19 Maiden Lane, he asked the aldermen if he might run a pipe to the kitchen of his house fi'om the pump at the corner of Broadway, and tliey said lie could, and he had a faucet in the kitchen, and it was the first house in the city to have drinking water in it, and after that several gentlemen called on my grandfather and asked to see his invention. My mother says the Man- hattan water was brackish and not very pleasant to drink. My grandfather had ships that went to Holland and he brought skates home to 78 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK his children, and they used to skate on the Canal that is now Canal Street and on the pond where the Tombs is now, and my mother says that the poor people used to get a rib of beef and polish it and drill holes in it and fasten it on their shoes to skate on. The Canal ran from Broadway to the North River, and had a picket fence on both sides of it, and there were only three houses on its side, and they were little white wooden houses with green blinds. My grandfather used to tell his children that whichever one would be up early enough in the morning could ride with him before breakfast in his gig as far as the stone bridge, and that was the bridge at Canal Street and Broadway. My grandfather bought the lot for his new house from Mr. Peter Sharp, the father of my mother's schoolmate, Fanny. The lot was 28 feet wide, but the house was only 25 feet wide, and there was an alley 81 DIAKY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK 3 feet wide that was used by the shop peo- ple to get to the kitchen at the back of the house. This Mr. Sharp was an alderman and he w^as a Democrat, and my grandfather was a Federalist, and they used to exchange their newspapers so as to read both kinds, and sometimes when my mother was wait- ing for Fanny to go to school, at her house, Mr. Sharp would throw down the paper and say a very wicked word about the Fed- eralists. Another alderman is Mr. John Yates Cebra, a cousin of my mother's. He lives on Cebra Avenue on Staten Island, and once I went there with my sister in her barouche and the grays. The grays are beautiful horses. May 15. I meant to tell in my diary that my sis- ter taught me to sew^ when I was five years old, and to darn little holes in a stocking, and sli(^ tliought I was funny to want to S2 DI ^RY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YOUK do the biggest hole first, but I did, so as to get done with it. She gives me the skeins of sewing silk to wind, and I love to get the knots out of them. When my mother was a little girl she used to go from her house at 84 Beekman Street to Fletcher Street every Saturday, to stay over Sunday at her Grandfather Cebra's, but before she went she had to do some hemming in the morning and do it neat and nice, or her mother would rip it out and make her do it over again. Her Aunt Peggy lived with her grandfather, and when she took my mother out to walk, there were only four policemen in New York then, and they were called Constables. They carried a stick like a broomstick, painted white and going up to a gilt point with a blue ribbon at the top, and they knew who everybody was, and used to say, ^'Good evening, Miss Peggy, and how is your father to-night ?" My mother's 83 DIAKY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK grandfather was an episcopalian, and had a pew in Trinity Church, and it was so cold that her Aunt Peggy carried a big martin muff and put my mother's little feet in it to keep them warm. And she remembers old Bishop Hobart, and says he wore his hair in a queue, and spectacles with big brown wooden rims. But my mother's father was a presbyterian and went to the Brick Church, and he joined it when he saw some poor black men go up to the communion table while he sat still in his pew, and he felt he was very wicked. He died in 1817, and a Mr. Jarvis came and took a plaster cast of his face and then painted a portrait from it, and my Aunt took it with her when she went to live in Edinburgh in Scotland. Mr. Jarvis painted portraits of my cousin Annie's father and mother too in New Orleans. My grandfather had a ship called the Snow, and he used to tell people he had 84, DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD XEW YORK seen Snow in June more than three feet deep, and they thought he meant a snow storm, and they wouldn't believe him, but he only meant his ship. He was full of fun. My own father had ships, too, as well as my mother's father. And he gave some of his ships to our Government for them to use in the War of 1812, And one of them was called the General Armstrong, and the Captain was Samuel Chester Reid. And he was a very brave man, and he took his ship into the harbor of Fayal in the Azores Islands, to get some drinking water, and three British ships saw our ship and they fought us, and when Cap- tain Reid saw he could not beat them be- cause they had so many more men and guns than he had, he sank the General Armstrong, and all this fight kept the British from getting to the Gulf of Mex- ico in time to help the ships that were waiting for them, and so the fight helped 85 DIAKY OF A LITTLE GIKL IN OLD NEW YOHK to bring the War of 1812 to an end. This is all told in our Ameriean History book. And my father ought to be paid money by our government, and lie sent Captain Reid to Washington to try to get it a few years ago, but President Polk woukl not let him have it — but they gave Captain Reid a sword because he Avas so brave. 86 July 15. I have not written in my diary for ever so long, bnt now school has just closed foi' the summer, and I have more time. We had a new study last winter, some- thing to strengthen our memories. The teacher was a Miss Peabody from Boston, and she has a sister married to a Mr. Na- thanial Hawthorne, who writes beautiful stories. We had charts to paint on, and stayed after school to paint them, and one-half of the page was a country and the other half was for the people who lived in that coun- try, and the country was painted one color, and the people another color, and this is the wav it will help us to remember; for ^7 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK Mesopotamia was yellow, and Abraham, who lived there, was royal purple, and so I shall never forget that he lived in Meso- potamia, but I may not remember after all which was yellow, the man or the country, but I don't suppose that is really any mat- ter as long as I don't forget where he lived. We did not study it long, but it was fun to stay and paint after school. Professor Hume teaches us natural science, and every Wednesday he lectures to us, and one day he brought the eye of an ox and took it all apart and showed us how it was like our own eyes. And an- other time he brought an electric battery, and we joined our hands, ever so many of us, and the end girl took hold of the handle of the battery, and we all felt the shock, and it tingled and pricked. Sometimes he talks on chemistry, and brings glass jars and pours different things into them and makes beautiful colors. He DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK told US we could always remember the seven colors of the rainbow by the word, V i b g y o r. Professor Edwardes has been teaching us French. He is a little bit of a man, with a big head, and gray hair and a broken nose, and when he recites one of La Fon- taine's Fables, he says, "L 'animal vora-a- ace," and rolls up his eyes until you can only see the whites of them. Mr. Roy comes from the Union Seminary on Uni- versity Place, to teach us Latin. Mr. Dolbear used to teach us writing, but now we have Mr. Hoogland. He wears blue spectacles and is very kind, and some- times gives us 4 which is the mark for perfect, when we don't deserve it. One day he was behind a row of desks next to the wall, and one of the girls pulled the chair out from under him, and down he went between two desks. It was a very cruel thing to do, but perhaps she did not 89 UIARY OF A LITTLE (URL IN OLD NKW YOKK mean to, but I'm afraid she did. I won't tell her name. Both ]\Ir. Dolbear and Mr. Hoogland can take their pen and make a few flourishes, and it will be a beautiful swan or an eagrle on the outside of our copy books. August 6. This is my birthday again, and I am now eleven years old. School will begin again in September and so I will Avrite some more in my diary while I have time. I think I will tell about the school my mother went to. The first school she went to was in P'air Street, and that is now Fulton Street, east of Broadway. It was kept by a Mrs. Mer- rill, an old lady who took a few little chil- dren, and each child brought her own lit- tle chair. Then my mother went to Mr. Pickett's, and she says that was the school of that time. He had two sons who taught in 90 DIAKY OV ' A Lirrr.K oiui. in ()||> m'w voui the school. I will tell about it nnst as she has written it down for me. -The scliool at first was at 148 Cham- bers Street, on the south side near Green- wich Street. Mr. Pickett's residence was in front and the school buildings were in the yard behind, running- up three stories, with a private side entrance for the schol- ars, and a well in the yard. The house was brick, painted yellow, but the school buildings were of wood. The first and sec- ond floors were for the boys, and the third for the girls, beautifully fitted up, and hardwood floors. On the wall in the four corners of the girls' room were oval places painted blue, and on them in gilt letters were inscribed, Attention, Obedience, In- dustry, Punctuality. Mr. Pickett's desk was in the center of the room. The desks were painted mahogany color, and put m groups of four, facing each other. Wooden benches without backs were screwed to the 91 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK floor. On top of the desks were little frames with glass fronts for the copies for writing, and the copies were slid in at the sides. Some of them were, Attention to study. Beauty soon decays, Command your- self, Death is inevitable, Emulation is noble. Favor is deceitful, Grood Humor pleases, et cetera. Quill pens were used, which Mr. Pickett made himself." Some of the girls who went to school with my mother had awfully funny long names. One was Aspasia Seraphina Imo- gene and her last name was Bogardus. She had ten brothers and sisters, and these were some of their names : IMaria Sabina, Wilhelmina Henrietta, Laurentina Adaminta, Washington Augustus, Alonzo Leonidas Agamemnon, Napoleon LePerry Barrister. There were eleven children, and their mother named them after people she had read about in novels. It must 92 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK have been funny to hear their nurse call them all to come to dinner. My name is Catherine Elizabeth. I don't like it very much. It makes me think of Henrietta Maria and Marie An- toinette and all those old queens with long names we study about in history, but my mother calls me Katy, and sometimes Katrintje, which is the Dutch lor "little Katy." Some other schools in New York now are Mme. Cauda s on Lafayette Place, Mme. Okill's on Eighth Street, Mme. Chegary's, the Misses Gibson on the east side of Un- ion Square, Miss Green's on Fifth Avenue, just above Washington Square, and Sping- ler Institute on the west side of Union Square, just below Fifteenth Street. On the corner of Fifteenth Street next to Spingler Institute is the Church of the Puritans. Dr. Cheever is the minister, and he and the church people are called a long 93 DTAKY OF A l-iriLK GIRL IN OLD NEW YOKK name, which means that they think slavery is wicked, and they help tlie black slaves that come from the South, to get to Canada where they will be free. N. B. — My mother has read my diary and corrected the spelling, and says it is very g'ood for a little girl. She has written down her memories of old New York, for me, and she was born in 1801, and can remember back to 1805, some things. 94 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK RULES OF MY SISTER'S SCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES These rules were read aloud to the assembled scholars— from 80 to 90 in number usually— once a year only, at the opening of the school in September. — Editor. 1. Every young lady must be in her seat at 9 o'clock with the Bible in her hand, in readiness for the opening exercises of the school. Each one should bow her head in a reverential manner during prayer. 2. Each scholar is desired to familiar- ize herself with the course of study, that immediately after the opening of the school, she may commence preparation for her first recitation. All unnecessary ques- tions both to teachers and scholars may thus be avoided. 3. All talking and laughing, note writ- ing, conversation by signs, eating, and leaving of seats, are entirely forbidden during study and recitation hours. 97 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK 4. Loud conversation, romping, or rude- ness of manner must not in any ease be indulged in, during the recess. This rule applies also to entering the house in the morning and leaving it after school. 5. Perfect neatness in person is ex- pected of every young lady. No papers or crumbs must be thrown upon the floor. No pencil or other marks must be made upon any part of the house. Desks must not be cut or injured by marks or other- wise, and they must be arranged in per- fect order. Books should be carefully cov- ered and carefully used, and not left to lie upon the outside of the desk at any time. 6. Tn passing to recitations the young lady who sits nearest the door will go first, and in returning the same rule will be observed. 7. No tardiness at school, or failure in ,„.,„v OK A ...TTi.K r.mi, .N oi.n nkxv vobk lessons, will be excused, or permission given to leave before the close of school, except by a \vritteu )iotc from one of the parents of the younfi lady. S. For every perfect U'ssou the scholar will receive four good marks. Two entire failures in answering, or general imper- fect answers, will incur a forfeit mark. 9 Good marks will be given for punc- tuality, neatness, order, and general ex- cellence, and disgrace marks will be m- curred for tardiness, disorder, iniproper naanners, deficiency in studies, and want of amiability. 10. At the end of each month, the marks will ))e counted so that each one may know her standing in her classes. Reports will then be sent to the parents. 11. School will close at a few minutes before 2 o'clock, and when the bell is rung, the youn^ ladies may arrange their books 99 DIARY OF A LITTLE GIRL IX OLD NEW YORK silently for leaving, and remain at their places until they receive permission to leave, and then the young lady who sits nearest the door in each class may lead the way. 12. Finally, we desire that the rules of politeness and good breeding observed in the best regulated society, will uniformly be practiced here. And as the Bible is the great rule of duty, for both teachers and scholars, so it is hoped that that truth and virtue and christian kindness and courtesy, which it inculcates, will, at all times, be the governing principle of con- duct to all the members of this school. 100 DIAKY OF A LITTLE GIUL IN OLD NEW YORK THE WOOD ROBIN A Song of the Eio'liteenth Century 8tay, sweet enelianter of the grove, Jjeave not so soon thy native tree, Oh, warble still those notes of love. While my fond heart responds to thee ! Rest thy soft bosom on the spray, Till chilly Autumn frowns severe. Then charm me with thy parting lay, And T will answer with a tear. But soon as Spring, enriched with flowers. Comes dancing o'er the new drest plain. Return and cheer thy native bowers. Mv robin, with thv notes again ! lOl THE W( j^^T^^a^s^l^^^^UA^-^y^ ^^^ m,':JtiS-\^:^^^sS-\^^t^f ^ fct ^^r^>\rj^^^ -♦— *- \ .v "^^^Z^dt^^'^^^^^^Zf^^^^^^. -TA^ ^^iaa^ ' p^i/}^\ii'^Lt'^ \tP^ f>-g^£#,f _„ ^^^ ||) ROBIN n -^-^t-fftf^ JL .# * J- 4^ v>l^ y^^^ »^?t^ ,;;:»,. /^ ^,4^^^4SL^ e^fe i g^ ^jj^ Z^i^L^. J FJ^^ ^^^u/ fa»< g »^g^^ HBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 220 390 A^ I}l|(