A Story of Old New Yo.Rk Henry Collins Brown
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A STORY OF OLD NEW YO.RK By HENRY COLLINS BROWN I NEW YORK VALENTINE'S MANUAL I 9 2 8 THIS BOOK WAS DONE AT THE SIGN OF T-HE THREE BLACK SWANS HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON WHICH IS IN THE SLEEPY HOLLOW REGION OF SUNNYSIDE BY HENRY COLLINS BROWN AND MARK RAFALSKY COPYRIGHT 1928 DELMONICO'§ ~/;'.:, ~ ' . ._;, , .... 1.1') 00 1--1 DELMONICO'§ CHAPTER I "HE was born-no or:e knows exactly where or when. He died -no one knows when or how. He comes into our view on the quarterdeck of a little shallop of scarcely ninety tons' burden. He goes out of it in an open boat with seven sick sailors cast adrift in the Arctic seas to perish miserably, the victim of a cruel mutiny." So writes one historian of Hendrik Hudson, whose name is so closely identified with New York. He appears to have vanished into nothingness when his great work was done, and even his portraits and autographs are not generally believed to be genuine. No one knows his age at the time he made his discoveries,. but that he was of mature years is shown by his having an eighteen-year-old son. \Vhether he was a hale mariner of forty or a grizzled veteran of seventy has never been settled. Hudson had made two attempts to find the Northwest passage, both unsuccessful. This caused the company to abandon further work along this line, and as an explorer Hudson seemed a failure. Just when it looked as if he would sink into oblivion the Dutch West India Company gave him the opportunity of his life, and by his immortal voyage in the "Half Moon" to the mouth of the great river which now bears his name, he achieved undying fame as one of the great discoverers of the world. For his perilous journey, in the frail est of frail crafts, Hudson received the munificent sum of $320, and in case he never came back, the directors of the company agreed to pay his widow a further sum of $80 in cash. "Hudson," John Fiske tells us, "was a notable instance of the irony. of human destiny. In all that he attempted he failed, yet he achieved great results that were not contemplated in his. original plans. He started two immense industries-the Spitzenbergen whale fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade, now the world renowned Hudson Bay Company; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No real ization of his dreams, however, could have approached the astonishing [ 7 ] '!}~~i:'l~S-•'ill . ·1~~-~..v~~~l'.]tml.lffll!~v:lSmt''!DfJMiffit~,.~g.11 5 1 i;l:Tf ~;>ii±tlc~ · · .,, ;tr: ·i~t; }j~ ~·:-=,.;\~!·•.:~~,f".: : '-:~? \ \ mntt:!) r~111;·t~~r,•qf~ ,•:-:• :\'.f.. ,,_~ '- ,.. , g -~:1. .~ .. lv, ~!\:·~i '· .,. K•'':il~ 1·· ·· .. ·rt~ ·,t•, ...... •.-:; .. _, r,·J. '· '. • '-..-11,,,_ :t·•1•.. •:r>'1, ..;.1 ~~•I•'•.';'•'. ' ,. '. /,:~,.,, .... ~'<1•~,'{,,M; "1 ' ·h, \,•.,." .,,!, ,.,,,,,~ ' •:, ., ' ' . • ' -~ d•'· ''i•1T · '. ' · • f ''it' ~ 1 ,, ,. •.. '\j/, ·.{ ~. 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'·'. · .. ,:,!.• l r',!..,,_.-:t.:f;..lt,.f• :.,!\,~ ._,. ,J ~ . •.• :· 11;,, .. ·,,\' .,. ·. ' •. ,: ... ·,.... .., , ,""\ ·: r·r - , -~-... ...,,q .. ._,.,.,,,, .,;,..:. ., .. ,· ... ,J', . ''.! .. \,. ,111, ·, .,., ., . ,, ••,•·••;,( ~ ( .·. .·,; . ,.. , t1 ,\lt ,, .:) :;! , , ' . .,. • /. (\A/1? ~::t lfJ:, ;,::tJ.'l 01 i ',,,,,~.. ·.,: • .....·. ) ,·• ;,·•.'-~-~I < ,. '.-''" • .. • 1 ,! ',., i. ;/' \ ,~((:t,:,,:,-1. 1.• --~--:·. ',·:•:,J . >~11;,;. , . li1i~; : :. ... •.. · >: ,: :· i ,. :.:- .,, ,. ,. : :i.. ,,:;,; ,! ·;.• t;,,, - > ·~····t;/, ••. ~ ,1:\~ '. '•·. ,. , : ;_,.. •' "-~-· ✓;; ¾ ; " , .... ~~·_,_.. {l\•\ ..' · ,,... ~ . ,,.,,._,,,;,•, ,,...,~M;\> ~ ll y: 1 1 1,)~'.J /••.~•: .•~. •• I • ' , •7 -.~ 'ff,, l f1 ,\~ H' ~ .. (.' ' . '•• '< • • • i ,, '. l ' \ . •. \ ?; t> i.. C ... ::·~.? 1: :!:~-( :.1i. ~~r:~ .-(j{;~• fl. ,:,c,.,- )';.:{ ,::~1.i .i .b ~ 4 .._,1':-r? ·...,.~/ ,~ •~, ···i !... /'· 1.1.,. ~ ,il BROADWAY FROM BOWLING GREEN, 1825 Delmonico's second location was in the Stevens House opposite Bowling Green 011 the site now occupied by the Cunard Line. Otu· view· is looking ttp Broadway from ·in front of the Custom I-louse in 1825, The houses at left now form the new Steamship Row. D E L M · 0 N I C .0 ' S actuality which would have greeted him could he have looked through the coming centuries and caught a glimpse of what the voyager now beholds in sailing up the bay of New York." "But what, perhaps, would have surprised him most of all would have been to learn that his name was to become part of the folk lore of the beautiful river to which it is attached; that he was to figure as a Dutchman instead of an Englishman in both legend and story; that when it is thun~der weather in the Catskills children would say it is Hudson playing at skittles with his goblin crew. Perhaps it is not an unkindly fate. Even as Milton wished for his dead friend Lycidas, that he might become the genius of the shore, so the memory of the great Arctic navigator will re·main a familiar presence among the hillsides which the gentle fancy of Washington Irving has clothed with undying romance." It is not my purpose to relate in detail these cradle days of New York. Our imperial city at its beginning was imperial in name only. Cruel scourges attacked it with relentless regularity, threatening at times its almost total extinction. Water was scarce and much of it undrinkable; it was hawked about the streets in carts and sold by the. pennysworth. Plank roads were on one or two of the principal streets, but dirt paths were the rule, while here and there an attempt had been made to improve the condition by cobble stones and brick, but only in occasional sections. · During the Revolution, V\."hen frs population dwindled to less than twelve thousand, the eight years' occupation by the British left the city desolate and in ruins. A disastrous conflagration in I 7 7 6 almost leveled it to the ground, and a second fire in 1778 destroyed the few buildings that had escaped the first visitation. Streets which had been opened and partly graded had been suffered to lapse again into idle waste. The wharves, to which no ships had come, had crumbled, and were covered with barnacles and sea weed. The ruins left by the two fires presented a dismal and melancholy sight; practi cally all of Broadway from Wall Street to Bowling Green stood spectre-like, gaunt and foreboding. The revenues of the city had vanished and the machinery for law and order had practically ceased to exist. A ~ore doleful and hopeless outlook could hardly be imagined than New York confronted in t~e autumn of I 783. With the departure of the last British ship, however, and the entrance into the city of the victorious .,American troops with Washington, com- ;~t r ~.r ':-'"'.· ..,; , ;; f' 17:4 0 E-4z 0 &! z ... 1-1 ~4: !;.~g;•. }{ "-· '• .,,.' . -2:>:~;~:~;~-~t):·.1~~-;., D E L 1\,1 0 N I C O ' S mander-in-chief, at the head, accompanied by Hamilton, Lincoln, Knox and other famous generals of the Continental Army, the citi zens regained their courage and viewed the future cheerfully. In 1789, James Duane was appointed first ·Mayor of the city and New York was finally started on that career which has since become the · wonder of the world. It became the first capital of the United States, showing thus early its importance in the eyes of its sister provinces. The background from which New York emerged in 1800 was one which staggers the imagination. The burden of an untamed con tinent rested on the shoulders of less than seven million people, nearly half of whom were slaves. Except upon a narrow stretch along the seaboard, the land was uninhabited save by wild animals and still wilder savages, and nowhere beyond this narrow strip could the wants of civilized life be sustained. Communication was by means of virgin paths through forests, frequently impassable by freshets and torrential rains. Commerce was confined to small vessels that made infrequent trips to seaboard towns and the exchange of commodities was irregular and uncertain. Th_e denizens of the deep furnished the oil which lighted the cabins at night. .i\.:float and ashore, disaster beset the traveler at every turn. Comforts there were none and life was a con stant stn1ggle for bare existence. Wayfarers overtaken by night were privileged to_ claim food and shelter at any house they reached, as the wilderness still stretched to the very doors of the city and predatory animals roamed the streets. Nevertheless, with resistless energy, the new city began its career. Post roads were established, connecting the nearby important cities and some small taverns sprang up along these roads so that settlers were no longer expected to play "mine host" to the belated traveler. These little taverns sprang up all over the country and were soon to be found in eYery place where the stages stopped to change horses. They rejoiced in fancy names and still fancier signs. "The Kings Arms" or the "Queens Arms" was a general favorite; others popular were "The White Swan," the "Blue Boar," the "Black Horse," "The Buckthorn." Sometimes they took the name of their proprietors "Cato," "Fraunces," etc. The latter, by the way, is the only one which has survived to this day and is now the headquarters of the Sons of the Revolution, who bc;>ught the old building and remodeled it.