The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  The first priest to officiate regularly in New York was a Jesuit, the Reverend Ferdinand Steenmayer. During the war he donned a disguise, called himself Mr. Farmer, and slipped into the city to minister secretly to Catholics in a house on Wall Street. When the British left, he appeared openly, gathered his scattered flock, and celebrated mass in a loft over a carpenter’s shop on Barclay Street, then in the suburbs. In 1784 the state legislature repealed the law of 1700 banning “Papish priests and Jesuits,” and the next year New York’s first Catholic church was incorporated. On October 5, 1785, the cornerstone was laid for St. Peter’s Church at Barclay and Church streets. By this time 2,000 Catholics lived here.

  As Catholic prospects brightened, Trinity Corporation dimmed. The state legislature disestablished the Church of England and put all religious sects on an equal footing. The Revolution had all but extinguished Trinity Parish because most of its clergy and parishioners had been loyalists. A change of name and form seemed necessary, so Trinity became a Protestant Episcopal Church within the Anglican community, which included the Church of England. But Trinity still owned valuable Manhattan real estate and in time struggled back to power. However, it lost its influence over King’s College, which reopened as Columbia College.

  Commerce was crippled now by many adverse factors. Trade between New York and the West Indies was cut off by English regulations. American goods could not enter British ports except in English ships. Britain dumped its manufactures here.

  Casting about for new markets, New Yorkers sent a ship, called the Empress of China, to Canton and opened up trade with the Orient. Then too, Alexander Hamilton established the Bank of New York, the first bank in this city and the third in the nation. Its first home was the Walton Mansion, called the most beautiful house in America and located near what today is the western end of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Chamber of Commerce, born in 1768 and staunchly loyalist throughout the war, was reorganized as the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. A young Scotsman, named Duncan Phyfe, later to become America’s best cabinetmaker, labored amid wood shavings as an apprentice to a local coachmaker.

  Even as New Yorkers pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they found time for fun. Incredible though it may seem, buffalo hunts were held in New York City with buffalo imported from Kentucky.

  Visiting Europeans marveled at the speed of the city’s postwar recovery. Most of the city still lay to the east of Broadway. Pearl Street (then Queens Street) had buildings from four to six stories high along its mile and one-half length. Most new houses were “framed buildings with brick or stone fronts and the sides filled in with brick.” Luxuriously dressed damsels took the afternoon air in painted carriages, flocked to the theater, and doted on dances.

  They were the daughters of the landed gentry who now controlled the city. For the time being, land remained the chief source of wealth. Then, in historic progression over the next many decades, economic power passed from landlords to shipping merchants to bankers to railway magnates to industrial trusts. In the era immediately after the Revolution rich property owners tried to prevent the laboring class from having any say in government. Not until 1804 was the city charter amended to allow all male New Yorkers paying twenty-five dollars’ rent a year to vote for aldermen. Not until 1833 could these citizens vote for their own mayor.

  The situation bred discontent. In 1785 journeymen shoemakers went on strike, and a General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen was formed. Its members were butchers, hatters, potters, carpenters, masons, tallow chandlers, sailmakers, coachmakers, coopers, rope-makers, stonecutters, tailors, cutlers, tanners, bookbinders, saddlers, bakers, and ship carpenters.

  Even though Philadelphia was still the largest city in the country, New York’s population doubled between 1783 and 1786. However, in 1788, 1 out of every 7 men in the city was jailed for debt. The next year, at a dinner given by the mechanics’ society, loud applause greeted this ominous toast: “A cobweb pair of breeches, a porcupine saddle, and a hard-trotting horse to all the enemies of freedom!” In 1790 only 1,303 of the 13,330 male residents of the city owned enough property to entitle them to vote for governor.

  No formal political party existed, the people being loosely grouped into the rich and the poor. Each group had its own idea of what freedom meant. This class struggle colored the question of what kind of federal government Americans should have.

  Congress—poorly attended, lacking money, without the means of raising revenue—degenerated into a debating society. A speaker in the Massachusetts house of delegates actually spoke of Congress as a foreign government. The new nation was coming apart at the seams. To avert this catastrophe, our forefathers drafted a federal Constitution, calling for a strong central government. It had to be ratified by nine of the thirteen states before it could become effective. Thorny questions were posed: How could the rights of man be reconciled with the protection of property? Did the Constitution assure government strong enough to save the Union without destroying the states?

  The debate over ratification became so intense that two political factions arose. Adoption of the Constitution was urged by the Federalist party, representing the rich and wellborn. This party was led by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and John Jay. The Anti-Federalist party, headed by Thomas Jefferson, drew its strength from the poor and humble. It insisted that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution should be reserved to the states.

  Most citizens of New York City favored the Constitution. However, Governor Clinton, a majority of state legislators, and most up-staters preferred a confederation. The entire state bubbled with political fermentation. The campaign for ratification was fought largely in newspapers. On October 27, 1787, New York’s Independent Journal, or Weekly Advertiser published the first of a series of articles explaining and defending the Constitution. A total of eighty-five essays were printed, each signed Publius but actually written by three men—Hamilton, Jay, and James Madison. These Federalist Papers are considered the most important contribution to political thought ever made in America.

  Before enough states had ratified the Constitution to make it the law of the land, the doctors’ riot broke out here. In 1788 the town’s only shelter for the ill was New York Hospital, a three-story structure atop a small hill west of Broadway between Duane and Reade streets. However, it was still not used as a hospital because British troops occupying it during the war had left the building in a sorry condition. Medical professors from nearby Columbia College had converted two of its rooms into a dissecting laboratory for their students. Human corpses were needed for this work. Although it was illegal to possess any part of a body, the students dug up corpses from city cemeteries—public and private alike. As more and more graves were violated, townspeople hired guards to protect their dead the first few nights after burial. Rumor distorted facts, excitement mounted, and every physician in town fell under suspicion.

  Such was the mass mood one April morning in 1788, when some boys began playing in the rear of the nearly deserted hospital. Looking up, one lad saw a huge sausage dangling at a laboratory window. Looking more closely, he realized it was a human arm. With a scream like ripping silk, he fled. The other boys looked, screamed, and ran. Clattering through the streets, they told everyone they met about the fearsome thing they had seen. Soon startled men took up their cry. Individuals clustered into knots, the knots merged into a crowd, and the crowd churned into a mob that marched up the hill to the hospital. The rabble broke in and found that the boys had told the truth.

  Enraged men now fell on doctors and students. They tore the laboratory apart. They smashed valuable medical equipment. Respectfully, they scooped up bits of human organs and arms and legs. Staff members were saved from death only by the timely arrival of Mayor Duane, Sheriff Robert Boyd, and other city fathers. For their own safety they were hustled off to jail in City Hall Park. Then city officials persuaded the mob to bury the specimens of human flesh and to di
sperse. No blood was shed.

  The next morning, however, a muttering crowd again gathered near the hospital. As more and more people arrived, the muttering rose to hoarse shouts. One man cried that the hospital should searched a second time. Another suggested that other cadavers were being used in Columbia College. So the mob swarmed into the hospital. Next, the college was combed. Now someone shouted that corpses were being hidden by doctors in their own homes. Shrieking people fanned throughout the city and broke into private dwellings. Some rowdies passed the residence of Sir John Temple, the British consul general. Mistaking “Sir John” for “surgeon,” they ransacked his home.

  That afternoon the mob converged on the jail to chant threats against the physicians and medical students who had found asylum behind bars. Voices roared, “Bring out your doctors! Bring out your doctors!” Frenzied citizens tore down a fence surrounding the jail, smashed its windows, and battered its stout oak doors. They screamed that they would kill every doctor in town. Up scurried Mayor Duane and other officials to plead with the mob, only to be howled down. The mayor then called for the militia. A dozen helmeted musket-carrying militiamen arrived on the double, but the maddened throng drove them back down Broadway under a shower of stones and brickbats. The mayor sent for reinforcements. Eighteen more militiamen responded, faltered, and fell back.

  Now the panic-stricken doctors and students at the jail windows hammered at hands trying to drag them to their death. All was turmoil, noise, madness. Alexander Hamilton tried to reason with the mob, but he may as well have debated with a hailstorm. The governor stumbled over his own sword and hurt himself. John Jay, the dignified Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was bashed on the head with a rock. Baron Friedrich Von Steuben, inspector general of the army under Washington, bellowed like a Prussian drillmaster, but without effect.

  The mayor, shouting to make himself heard, ordered out a troop of regular soldiers, who marched toward the rioters. Reluctant to shed blood, Duane hesitated about commanding them to fire. More bricks and stones arched through the air. One laid open the baron’s scalp. As he fell, he screamed, “Fire, Duane! Fire!” The mayor barked an order. Muskets belched. Bodies slumped to earth. Groans soured the afternoon. Five persons were killed, and about eight wounded. Before a second volley could be fired, the rest of the crowd scattered.

  After quiet had been restored, the beleaguered doctors and students were slipped out of prison and sent to the country for a time. The next year the state legislature passed the first American law regulating the practice of anatomy. Doctors could experiment on the bodies of executed murderers, arsonists, and burglars, but the corpses of respectable citizens had to be left alone. In 1791 New York Hospital opened with eighteen patients; but for years thereafter the place was regarded as a chamber of horrors, and because many mistrusted physicians, people turned to quack remedies.

  Meantime, the new federal Constitution was ratified by state after state—but not by New York. Tempers flared as Governor Clinton and his followers dragged their heels. Federalists and Anti-Federalists vilified one another in newspapers and pamphlets, on street corners, and in social gatherings. Local Federalists threatened to secede the city from the state unless New York’s constitutional convention took positive action. When New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, New York had either to unite with the majority or to withdraw from the Union.

  On July 23 townspeople staged a great parade, honoring the adoption of the Constitution. The procession began at 8 A.M. and lasted until 5 P.M., despite showers. Then 5,000 celebrants sat down to an open-air banquet in the Bowery. Three days later New York became the eleventh state to ratify the Constitution.

  State legislators, however, were so avid for power, that they couldn’t agree on a method for choosing Presidential electors. As a result, New York did not vote in the election that made George Washington our first President.

  In 1789, the year Washington was inaugurated, Jacob Astor made his first real estate investment in Manhattan. Now an independent fur dealer who sold musical instruments as a sideline, Astor bought property between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street for forty-seven pounds. Later he picked up two adjoining lots. Shortly before his death, many years afterward, Astor was to wail, “Could I begin again, knowing what I know now, I would buy every foot of land on the island of Manhattan.”

  Chapter 14

  THE CAPITAL OF THE NATION

  GEORGE WASHINGTON was notified on April 14, 1789, of his election as the first President of the United States. He had hoped to end his days at Mount Vernon, preferring the privacy of home to the pageantry of power, but his sense of duty compelled him to accept the office. He declined to accept the salary that went with it. Washington, one of the richest men of his time, was so land-poor that he had to borrow money to pay his travel expenses to New York for the inauguration. On April 16 he left his estate and headed north.

  His trip turned into a triumphal procession. Alexandria, Georgetown, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Trenton—all greeted him with high honors. And in a ceremony of exceeding splendor Washington was received in New York on April 23.

  The nation’s first Presidential mansion stood at 3 Cherry Street just east of the present City Hall; today the site is occupied by one of the granite supports of the Brooklyn Bridge. The house had been erected in 1770 by Walter Franklin, a merchant, for whom nearby Franklin Square was named. When Franklin died in 1780, the house passed to his son-in-law, Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts, whom Washington made our first Postmaster General. Osgood rented the house and its contents to the President-elect for 900 pounds a year.

  New Yorkers called Osgood’s house The Palace. Actually, it was a rather modest square brick building three stories high with a row of five windows across the front. Furthermore, it wasn’t in Manhattan’s fashionable residential area, then near Wall and Broad streets. Its ceilings were so low that a lady’s headdress of ostrich feathers once touched the candles in a chandelier and burst into flame. One wall of the drawing room held a large portrait of Louis XVI in his state robes, a gift to Washington from the French king. The President-elect had eighteen servants, some clad in red and white livery. Although he had rejected a salary, he accepted $25,000 a year for expenses.

  His inauguration was scheduled for Thursday, April 30, 1789. At dawn that great day the skies were overcast. Soon, though, the sun came out. The city’s population of 30,000 was swollen by visitors from all parts of the Union. Private houses overflowed with guests, hotels were jammed, and strangers slept in tents hastily erected in fields and lots.

  That morning all were jolted awake by gunfire heralding the occasion. Donning holiday attire, the people breakfasted on bacon, meat pastries, fish, cheese, and bread and jam, washing all this down with ale. Into town jogged mounted farmers, who nodded at grooms rubbing down horses and oiling harnesses. Packet boats brought multitudes down Long Island Sound and the Hudson River. The Brooklyn-Manhattan ferry was packed. Standing at the rails and gazing at the waterfront, passengers counted 100 ships rocking at anchor. Then, lifting their eyes, they stared at strange flags fluttering from the roofs of foreign legations.

  Business was suspended for the day. By 8:30 A.M. the streets had begun to fill up, and men and boys climbed onto the roofs of buildings near City Hall. This two-story building, with its central cupola, slanting roofs and four thin chimneys, was now known as Federal Hall because Mayor Richard Varick had lent it to Congress.

  At 9 A.M. church bells summoned people to pray for George Washington. Soon afterward John Adams rode into town. Two days previously the crusty Massachusetts lawyer had been sworn in as Vice-President. Adams felt peevish. There had been eleven candidates for Vice-President, and he hadn’t received enough votes to satisfy him. About the same time James Madison, the frail Virginian who considered Adams vain and gauche, emerged from his lodgings at 19 Maiden Lane.

  About 10:30 A.M. Senators and Representatives, still arguing about how to address the new Chief Execu
tive, drifted into Federal Hall. By noon they had taken their seats, the Representatives on the first floor and the Senators on the second. John Adams annoyed some Senators with his fussy questions, such as: “Gentlemen, I wish for the direction of the Senate. The President will, I suppose, address the Congress. How shall I behave?” After a brief discussion a joint Congressional committee went to Washington’s home to escort him to Federal Hall. The delegation, headed by Senator Ralph Izard of South Carolina, reached the mansion at 12:30 P.M.

  The solemn-faced men found Washington clad in a brown suit of homespun broadcloth, presented to him by a Hartford mill. Washington usually wore imported silk, but that day he chose an American product to encourage domestic manufacturing. His somewhat drab appearance was relieved by white silk stockings, metal buttons embossed with eagles, cuff buttons studded with thirteen stars, and a sword encased in a white leather scabbard. Washington’s powdered wig was caught behind in a silk bag.

  Now he bowed to the committee members. Senator Izard announced that Congress was ready to receive him. Washington bowed again, took his cocked hat from an aide, and walked outdoors. A waiting crowd cheered as the tall, stately Virginian stepped into a cream-colored coach, decorated with cupids holding festoons of flowers in their pink hands. Hitched to the carriage were four superb horses, their prancing legs rippling in elongated shadows over cobblestones. A liveried postilion mounted the near horse, and two uniformed coachmen climbed into their rear seats.

  The order of march had been carefully planned. Details were overseen by six mounted masters of ceremonies, led by Colonel Morgan Lewis. After surveying everything critically, Lewis flashed a signal, and the procession moved south to band music. During the half-mile ride to Federal Hall, Washington sat erect, his lips tight over his wooden teeth, his blue-gray eyes masking his emotions, now and then bowing stiffly to shouting spectators massed along the streets.