The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  These strongholds held artillery practice. Training their guns on an old hulk of a ship anchored in the Upper Bay about 1,000 yards distant, they blasted away for 2 hours. The Southwest Battery missed only 3 of the 40 rounds it fired, while Castle Williams scored all but 3 of the 30 shots it discharged.

  This markmanship was comforting, but what was to prevent the British from slipping in via Long Island Sound and dropping down the East River or from launching a land attack from the north? Two more forts were erected at Hell Gate. A line of other forts, blockhouses, and entrenchments was constructed across upper Manhattan, and still more forts were built in the offshore waters. Shipyards hummed, and within four months after the declaration of war twenty-six privateers were outfitted here.

  Matthew L. Davis of Tammany Hall was now the army’s commisary general. He called for bids to provision the New York forts. Boatmen vied for the contract in the hope of escaping military service, submitting outrageously low bids. Not so twenty-year-old Cornelius Van Derbilt, who had become the most ambitious boatman in the city. “Corneel,” as he spelled his name, entered the highest bid of all—and got the contract. When Davis was questioned about letting the contract to the highest bidder, he growled about boatmen trying to escape duty by submitting absurd bids.

  The tireless Van Derbilt profited greatly during the War of 1812. By day he ferried passengers back and forth between Manhattan and Staten Island. By night he supplied the forts with provisions.

  Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, who also held the rank of major general, had called up the militia to protect the city. Among those summoned was twenty-two-year-old Peter Cooper, a frail and lanky lad, who was sent to Brooklyn to drill. This was a tedious chore. Besides, it took him away from his business when the country was short of clothing, and Cooper had just invented a machine for shearing cloth. At last he found a substitute, whom he paid to take his place in the ranks.

  In addition to the militia, several volunteer companies were formed in the city. For the most part they consisted of the town’s young elite. Perhaps the most elegant outfit was the light infantry known as the Iron Grays. These well-bred men elected their own captain, six-foot-two-inch Samuel Swartout. One junior officer was thirty-one-year-old Washington Irving, the personable literary chap, who was five feet six inches tall.

  One evening Irving headed for Albany aboard a Hudson River steamboat, which stopped at Poughkeepsie to pick up passengers. From these newcomers Irving learned that the British army had captured Washington, D.C., and burned several public buildings, including the White House. A man, lolling in the dark on a settee, overheard this news and blurted, “Well, I wonder what Jimmie Madison will say now?” Flushing with rage, Irving swung at the man, but his glancing blow did little damage. “Sir!” Irving stormed. “Do you seize on such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me tell you, it is not now a question about Jimmie Madison or Johnny Armstrong. The pride and honor of this nation are wounded. The country is insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal citizen should feel the ignominy and be eager to avenge it!” When the boat docked at Albany, Irving bounded ashore and offered Governor Tompkins his services. The governor made the author his aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel.

  Irving’s anger may have been due to guilt, for despite membership in the Iron Grays, he was lukewarm about the war until he heard that the nation’s capital had been burned. Just as this news jolted him into action, so did it jar other indifferent New Yorkers. Now they feared that their own city might be attacked. Panic set in. Newspapers once critical of the administration now shrilled defiance of the British. Tammany members, Freemasons, and other volunteers helped complete Fort Greene on Brooklyn Heights. Even a seventy-two-year-old woman pushed a wheelbarrow.

  The city was not attacked. The British failed in their attempt to invade New York State via Lake Champlain. On land the War of 1812 was fought along the Canadian frontier, around the Great Lakes, and at Washington and New Orleans. Much action took place on water, and Americans scored notable victories. During the war 120 privateers sailed from New York Harbor and captured 275 enemy ships.

  Great Britain and the United States signed a treaty in Ghent, Belgium, on December 24, 1814. This guaranteed America’s independence but didn’t even mention the issues for which the war had been fought—impressment of sailors, the right to search ships, and the status of neutral trade. All three had become academic because of Napoleon’s downfall. In those days ocean trips took so long that word of the signing didn’t reach New York until February 11, 1815. In the blue smudge of twilight a pilot hopped out of a boat at a wharf and ran uphill through foot-deep snow toward the New York Gazeteer. He reached the office just as it was about to close. When he caught his breath, he whispered hoarsely, “Peace! Peace! An English sloop of war is below with news of a treaty of peace!”

  People whooped and dashed out into the snow and shot off fireworks and drank rum and danced in glee. They continued to celebrate for several days, staging a succession of dinners and balls and illuminations, building fancy Temples of Concord and Bowers of Peace. Soon the price of sugar fell from $26 per hundredweight to $12.50, and tea dropped from $2.25 to $1 a pound. Jacob Astor, grown soft and flabby, let the little people enjoy their little delights. By cleverly arranging to get news of the peace treaty ahead of everybody else, he had unloaded his wares at wartime prices. He had also made $500,000 lending money to the federal government at steep interest rates. Next to Stephen Girard, the Philadelphia merchant and financier, Astor was the richest man in America.

  Now Broadway had been built north a distance of 2 miles, now the city boasted 100,000 inhabitants, and now New York had become the largest city in the United States.

  Chapter 17

  SAWING OFF MANHATTAN ISLAND

  TWO SAILORS scampered up the rigging of a ship idled by embargoes and war. When they got to the top, they unlashed an empty tar barrel capping the mast for protection from the elements. As they lifted it off, one seaman cried, “Have a care below! Off comes Madison’s nightcap!” Then the sailors heaved the barrel down onto the wharf, where a waiting crowd made a bonfire of it.

  The mast-capping barrels were called Madison’s nightcaps because many people blamed President Madison for the trade-crippling war. Now that the conflict was over, now that American ships might again plow the seas, the uncapping ceremony was repeated day after day. It symbolized the good times everyone felt were at hand. New Yorkers drank toasts to Peace and Plenty and to Peace, Commerce, and Prosperity. Jacob Astor soon had three fleets scouring the seas. Washington Irving didn’t tarry to watch the beginning of the boom but sailed in 1815 for Europe, where he remained the next seventeen years. He was surprised to feel a lump in his throat as he left his hometown.

  The city’s first St. Patrick’s Cathedral was dedicated on May 6, 1815, on Mulberry Street just north of Prince Street, an area then so wild that foxes were caught in the churchyard. Despite some bigotry, life was becoming easier for Irish Catholics. It was decided in court that priests did not have to reveal secrets of the confessional. Pope Pius VII had created the diocese of New York, consisting of the state of New York and the eastern part of New Jersey. St. Peter’s Church was unable to accommodate the city’s growing Catholic population, so this second Catholic edifice was erected. Not merely a church but a cathedral, it was named for St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

  Another current attraction was the busy waterfront. Thousands of spectators watched the work of calkers, riggers, and sailmakers, who earned four dollars for a ten-hour day. Shipyards rang with hammer-blows and cries as keel after new keel was laid. Vessels couldn’t be built fast enough to meet the demand. As soon as they were finished, crews were hired, manifests were drawn up, and shipping clerks bustled about self-importantly.

  During the war, when foreign trade had come to a standstill, domestic manufacturing had expanded, and Americans had been proud to wear homespuns. Now they hungered for the superior products of Great Britain,
which led the United States in the Industrial Revolution. They yearned for Yorkshire cloth, Scotch muslins, silks, bedcovers, and toothbrushes—everything they could buy.

  Because war-impoverished Europe was unable to absorb the huge inventories piled up in British warehouses, English manufacturers dumped their goods in America. They didn’t even wait for orders. To these shores they dispatched not just a few ships but great fleets. Never before had such heaps of merchandise been sent abroad. In one three-day period sixty-five cargo-laden vessels tied up in New York. In a single week auction sales of British wares exceeded $460,000. During April, May, and June, 1815, the duties paid at the New York customhouse came to $3,900,000. The city swarmed with buyers eager to pay any price asked of them.

  Most imports were sold by auctioneers, many of whom became rich overnight. Although auctions had been common before the war, they had been used chiefly to dispose of damaged goods. Now British manufacturers sent their best goods to New York agents, who turned them over to auctioneers. Consumers got better bargains this way than by buying from local merchants. The governor and state council of appointments granted licenses to only a few auctioneers; in 1816 there were just twenty-nine of them in New York.

  One auctioneer got rich so fast that he retired at the age of forty. This was Philip Hone, who served one term as mayor, took part in civic affairs, was a Whig leader, hobnobbed with celebrities, and set the style in fashion—but is best remembered for his 2,000,000-word diary. Hone was tall and fastidious, an arrestingly handsome man, with blue eyes and a clean-cut face.

  At first the British were willing to sell here at a loss. Apparently they hoped to stifle the American manufacturing that had sprung up during the war. Then too, beef, tallow, butter, hams, and potatoes from Galway and Newry undersold local produce. When American buyers ran out of money, the auctioneers gave them credit. Thus, many consumers went into debt. While flooding American markets with British manufactures and produce, England closed its ports to American ships. So British manufacturers and shipowners and American auctioneers flourished as American manufacturers and wholesale merchants and importers withered. By the autumn of 1815 the American wool and cotton industry was prostrated, and eventually three-quarters of American factory owners failed.

  Among those forced to the wall was Peter Cooper, who lost out as a manufacturer of shearing machines. Resignedly turning first to cabinetmaking and then to the grocery business, he vowed that he would always oppose free trade. Congress passed the nation’s first protective tariff in 1816, but by then most of the damage had been done. Moreover, the British destroyed this tariff wall by fairing sales and invoices.

  The depression gripping New York was aggravated by immigration. From the beginning of the American Revolution to the end of the Napoleonic wars only a trickle of Europeans had left home. When the continent settled into temporary peace, though, foreigners began to arrive in the United States by the thousands, and New York was the favorite port of entry. Between 1820 and 1920 about 70 percent of all aliens entered America through the port of New York, many of them settling in the city. The population grew fast, but poverty and crime grew faster.

  One-seventh of New York’s population soon lived on charity, and the debtors’ prison overflowed. This gloomy jail had a cellar honeycombed with dungeons for solitary confinement. The first floor was occupied by the families of the jailer and the keepers. It also had a bar, where prisoners lucky enough to own a few coins bought liquor at outrageous prices. The second floor was filled with relatively well-to-do debtors, who called themselves the Middle Hall Society. Most debtors, however, were confined on the third floor, which lacked light at night and sometimes fire in winter. Since neither the city nor the state gave them so much as a crust of bread, they depended on private charity for their food.

  Poor people outside debtors’ prison tried to escape their misery by frequenting the city’s 1,900 licensed grogshops and the 600 other establishments where rum was sold without a license. Dead cats and dogs polluted the air, dust and ashes were thrown into the streets, and except for the most popular thoroughfares the streets were cleaned only once a month.

  The sorry state of affairs caused conscientious New Yorkers to take stock of themselves. Not so Jacob Astor, who was scooping up Manhattan real estate at bargain prices, or Cornelius Van Derbilt, who was prospering as a steamboat captain. High-minded citizens studying the situation leaned more to a moral than to an economic interpretation. They decided that the whole problem was due to drunkenness, together with ill-advised and ill-regulated charity.

  In his History of the Great American Fortunes, Gustavus Myers said: “A study of the names of the men . . . who comprised the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 1818-1823, shows that nearly all of them were shippers or merchants who participated in the current commercial frauds. Yet this was the class that sat in judgment upon the poverty of the people and the acts of poor criminals and which dictated laws to legislatures and to Congress.”

  One man who owed a debt of only fifty dollars was kept in debtors’ prison and fed by a humane society for three years before death ended his misery. Another spent six years in that fetid jail. At last the state legislature forbade the imprisonment of debtors for sums of less than twenty-five dollars. Justice of another kind was meted out to a certain Lawrence Peinovie, who got two years in jail for biting off his wife’s nose. “This,” cried the mayor, “is the first offense of its kind to blur the escutcheon of the republic!”

  Yellow fever added to the city’s woes. The first new case broke out on June 17, 1822, in Rector Street just below Trinity Church. In those days no one knew that this acute infectious disease is transmitted by a certain kind of female mosquito. However, all soon recognized its symptoms—flushed face, dull pain, a red and pointed tongue, yellowing of the whites of the eyes and the skin of the body, nausea, black vomit, delirium, convulsions, coma, and then death on about the eighth day.

  By the middle of July the epidemic was spreading with fearful rapidity. The city fathers ordered quicklime and coal dust spread in the gutters and set fires to “purify” the air. They fenced off every block in which new cases appeared. Nothing did any good. By August all business had been suspended, and the only sounds in the city were the footsteps of doctors and the rumbling of hearses.

  On the day that 140 persons died, a ship anchored at Governors Island. Among its passengers was Charles Mathews, the great English mimic. When he heard the size of the death toll, he refused to land. Word of his anxiety was sped to Stephen Price and Edmund Simpson, co-managers of the Park Theatre, who had brought Mathews here. Simpson and a physician boarded the vessel to try to persuade the entertainer to come ashore. The forty-six-year-old actor was tall and thin; his face was disfigured, and one leg was shorter than the other as the result of his having been thrown out of a gig in England. All his life he was neurotically melancholy, but this did not lessen his talent as a comedian. Now he limped about deck, muttering that he could feel the pestilence in the air, crying that every cloud carried death, and moaning that each wave in the harbor was charged with poison.

  The producer and the doctor suggested that Mathews might feel safe if he landed in New Jersey instead of in New York. He agreed. Mathews was escorted to a cottage on the road to Hackensack. He paced the floor in terror all that first night. After staying in his bedroom a few days, however, he couldn’t stand further confinement. Strolling out into the chicken yard, he practiced his mimicry before an audience of hens and roosters.

  Mathews was not the only one terrified by the yellow fever. Residents of lower Manhattan fled by the thousands to upper Broadway and to Greenwich Village. The ferry that normally ran between Brooklyn and Manhattan now bypassed the tip of the island and berthed at the Village, which had exploded into a boomtown. At first some people had to sleep in fields. Then wooden buildings rose almost overnight. Business was conducted in temporary booths, and prices soared.

  Living on John Street in lower Manhattan at
the time was an old Negro woman, named Chloe, who sold flowers and cleaned the offices of lawyers along the street. The attorneys were fond of her, and with sick people dropping like flies on the cobblestones, they urged Chloe to join them in their flight to Greenwich Village. She refused to budge. Shrugging, the lawyers left without her.

  For a while there was serious talk of abandoning lower Manhattan entirely and creating a new city in Greenwich Village. What we now know as Bank Street got its name because banking offices, removed from Wall Street, were opened there. One Saturday morning a minister saw corn growing along Hammond (now West Eleventh) Street, but on the following Monday the same site held a house accommodating 300 boarders. A group of Scottish weavers settled in what is today West Seventeenth Street, then a country lane; built a row of modest dwellings; and resumed their handweaving. They called their new street Paisley Place in memory of their hometown of Paisley, Scotland.

  By the end of October the weather had turned cold, and frost diamonded the earth for the first time that season. This dispelled fears. The first part of November New Yorkers flocked back to the city they had considered abandoning forever. Bank Street retained its name, although the countinghouses returned to Wall Street. As the makeshift buildings in Greenwich Village were vacated, laborers moved in, seeking low rents.

  When the lawyers got back to their John Street offices, there was Chloe, still alive, still smiling, her small quarters filled with dogs and cats, goats, and birds. These were pets left behind by attorneys and householders in their frantic flight out of town. Having cared for them throughout the plague, Chloe now returned them to their owners. Everyone was so touched by her courage and compassion that an important artist was commissioned to paint a portrait of her surrounded by the pets whose lives she had saved.