*Mackerelville stretched from Tenth to Fourteenth Street between Second Avenue and the East River.
*Kennedy was born and raised in Maryland, a slave state, and was "an old-fashioned Jacksonian Democrat," according to Thomas Acton, so he knew Eagan and other Tammany figures personally. However, Kennedy publicly opposed slavery and the extreme views on states' rights espoused by Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina.
*The Board of Supervisors was a legislative body for the county and city, with functions that overlapped those of city officials. The supervisors, who were supposed to discourage graft among the oldermen, indulged in corruption themselves.
† The arsenal in Central Park is now the headquarters of the Parks Department. See the Walking Tour in the appendix.
*Fort Hamilton overlooks the Narrows from the Brooklyn shore, as does Fort Richmond (now Fort Wadsworth) from the Staten Island side. Fort Lafayette stood in the Narrows, where the eastern pier of the Verrazano Bridge now stands.
CHAPTER 9
"Chased, Stoned, and Beaten" : " A
Crusade Against Negroes "
The Seamen's Home for black seamen on Vandewater Street was owned by Albro Lyons, who lived there with his wife and children and had made the large brick building a station of the Underground Railroad. Over the years, the Lyons family "fed and furnished new disguises to upwards of a thousand fugitive slaves."1Lyons also owned an outfitting store for seamen, which served as an employment agency too, finding jobs and collecting wages for black sailors, while providing captains and shipowners with "good Stewards, Stewardesses, Cooks & Seamen at the shortest notice."2
Like his friend James McCune Smith, the best man at his wedding and godfather to his children, Albro Lyons saw the vitality and strength of the American people stemming from a rich amalgam of races: His fair-haired, blue-eyed mother had Dutch and Native American blood, while his wife Mary's mother "was distinctly a poor white of English descent."3
Albro's daughter, Maritcha Lyons, then a teenager, recalled that on Monday afternoon "a rabble attacked our house, breaking window panes, smashing shutters, and partially demolishing the main front door. Had not the mob's attention been suddenly diverted, further damage would certainly have ensued." Her parents' determination and resourcefulness also fended off the rioters. "The stones thrown in were utilized as material to form a barricade for the otherwise unprotected main front doorway," Maritcha Lyons wrote, and her parents braced themselves for the next assault.4
Because of his religious convictions, fellow abolitionist William Powell was unwilling to shed blood to defend his business and personal property, the Colored Sailors' Home nearby on Dover Street. He had founded it almost twenty-five years earlier "on the strict principles of temperance, and the moral and religious elevation of my brethren of the sea" to protect them from the "snares and temptations which unhappily beset them on shore." Along with Cornish, Wright, Williams, and the Tappans, Powell had been a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society thirty years earlier, and his seamen's home, aside from being a profitable enterprise, served as a distribution center for abolitionist literature—making it a prime target for the rioters.
Albro Lyons
Writing to William Lloyd Garrison, Powell recalled an anniversary meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society years earlier that was "mobbed, and driven out of the Broadway Tabernacle and other public buildings by the notorious Capt. [Isaiah] Rynders and his hellish crew." Powell hoped that such outrages were a thing of the past. Instead, he told Garrison: "From 2 p.m. till 8 p.m. myself and family were prisoners in my own house to king mob, from which there was no escape but over the roofs of adjoining houses. About 4 p.m., I sent a note to Superintendent Kennedy for protection, but received none, from the fact that he had been seriously injured by the mob in another part of the city. Well, the mob commenced throwing stones at the lower windows until they had succeeded in making an opening." Powell sent his wife, Mercy, and their children, including an invalid daughter Sarah, to wait on the next-door neighbor's roof while he remained in the house, "determined not to leave until driven from the premises."5
Mary Lyons
Like Albro and Mary Lyons, eight African American women on Thompson Street were prepared to fight back. They had filled large tin containers with water, soap, and ashes and heated the mixture they called "the King of Pain" on a massive antique stove. When the prominent black abolitionist William Wells Brown entered the room, it was filled with a "dense fog" from the steaming pots, and the "octet of Amazons" stood by, "armed with dippers."
"How will you manage if they attempt to come into this room?" asked Brown.
"We'll fling hot water on them, and scald their very hearts out."
"Can you all throw water without injuring each other?"
"O yes, Honey, we've been practicing all day."6
• • •
Anna Shotwell, founder and director of the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, reflected on its progress shortly before the riots and how its fortunes had stabilized over the years. "No debts tarnished the records of the Society, and a small balance was found on hand—an unusual occurrence in its history." The house was well supplied with food, clothing, linens, and furniture, including new carpeting in some of the rooms. Most of the managers had left for the summer, while a few who lived nearby tried to make weekly visits.7
Shotwell proudly described the spacious, healthful building, prominently placed on Fifth Avenue not far from the city's opulent marble mansions, the antithesis of the fetid slums of lower Manhattan.
It is situated on the very eligible piece of ground . . . near the Croton Reservoir, at Forty-second street. The building is one hundred and forty feet in front, varying from forty-two to fifty feet in depth. The cellar or basement, which, at the north end is level with the ground, has two fine play rooms, beside ample space for coal, vegetables, &c. On the first floor are the kitchen, laundry, dining-room, bathing-room, and two infirmaries: the latter may be entirely cut off from communication with the rest of the house. The second story has a large, airy and cheerful school-room in each wing, beside an infant school-room in the main building.
On the third floor, one wing served as the girls' dormitory, and the other the boys'. Shotwell noted that "ventilation has been very carefully and successfully studied," and that "the dining-room, one of the infirmaries, and the school-rooms now in use, are heated by the circulation of hot water in iron pipes."8
Its very success in the past twenty years had made the asylum a highly visible symbol of white philanthropy toward blacks. Funds from the city and state and private donations from whites all supported the asylum.9 The asylum was also an example of blacks helping themselves, since the city's black elite contributed significantly. A year earlier, for example, the Ladies' Union of Brooklyn and New York held a bazaar as part of a broader effort that resulted in a donation of almost $1,500 from African American women.10
"At 4 p.m., the children, numbering 233, were quietly seated in their school-rooms, playing in the nursery, or reclining on a sick bed in the hospital," Anna Shotwell wrote about the first day of the riots.11 "The physician in attendance, Dr. [James] Barnett, had through the day of the mob felt great anxiety as to the safety of the Institution. He was carefully watching and gave the first alarm."*
Schoolyard of the Colored Orphan Asylum
From the mass of several thousand men, women, and children, some five hundred armed rioters surged forward, broke down the front door with an ax, and entered the orphanage, shouting, "Burn the niggers' nest!"12 The staff hurried from room to room, gathering the children in one place, and one of the teachers rallied them. "Children, do you believe that Almighty God can deliver you from a mob?" The children all said they did. "Then I wish you now to pray silently to God to protect you from this mob; I believe that he is able, and that He will do it. Pray earnestly to Him and when I give the signal, go in order, without noise, to the dining-room." When the teacher rang a bell and the children raised
their heads, tears were streaming down their cheeks, but they made no noise. As they proceeded down the stairs and through the halls, "the yells and horrible sounds" from the front of the building grew louder.
At this point, John Decker, the chief engineer of the fire department who had tried to save the Third Avenue draft office that morning, arrived with only a dozen men and two fire hoses, since his main force, with two steam engines, was fighting a large fire on Broadway and Twenty-ninth Street. The Eighth District draft office was consumed in that fire, and the rioters there moved on to loot the houses of blacks in the West Thirties; General Sandford and his troops were a few blocks away at the Thirty-fifth Street arsenal but did nothing.13
"Will you stick by me?" Decker asked his men, and they promised to as they entered the asylum and began putting out some fifteen fires, set by the rioters all over the building. "This was of little avail, for the mob had decreed its destruction, and had saturated the floors with inflammable substances to facilitate their infamous design;" Shotwell wrote, "and Decker was told if he repeated this act, he should be killed. His men replied: 'In that attempt you will have to pass over our dead bodies.' "
While the flames spread through the building, the mob plundered the "furniture, bedding, clothing, dry goods, etc., etc.," Shotwell recalled. Decker then saw fire coming out of the roof, where the "straw beds in the garret had been heaped together and set fire to, as well as the desks, books, maps, etc., in the school-rooms, and, having no apparatus at hand capable of reaching the roof, he was finally obliged to consign to the flames this work of faith and love, and prayer and praise." Within twenty minutes the orphanage was consumed. The staff had gathered the children and marched them out the north end of the building into Forty-fourth Street, which was nearly filled with rioters.
According to Shotwell, an Irishman standing in the street sacrificed himself by shouting, "If there's a man among you, with a heart within him, come and help these poor children." The mob "laid hold of him, and appeared ready to tear him to pieces," while the children and their caretakers proceeded unharmed, "leaving this generous-spirited man in the hands of the ruffians," Shotwell wrote. The children and their teachers headed down Seventh Avenue, not knowing where they would find safety. The superintendent, William Davis, decided the group should go to the Twentieth Precinct station house on Thirty-fourth Street near Ninth Avenue.
About twenty of the children who had been separated from the group and surrounded by the mob were rescued by "a young Irishman, named Paddy M'Caffrey, with four stage-drivers of the Forty-second Street line and the members of Engine Company No. 18," the Times reported. Ignoring threats from dozens of "fiends," who shouted, "Murder the d[amne]d monkeys," and "Wring the necks of the d[amne]d Lincolnites," they brought the orphans to the Twentieth Precinct station house.14
A six-year-old boy wandered from the group between the asylum and the police station and tried to hide in a nearby house. "The poor lady of the dwelling was greatly alarmed," thinking the mob would attack her home because of the boy, "and wringing her hands in agony, she appealed to an Irishman passing by for redress," Shotwell reported. Fortunately for the boy, the man happened to be a mason who had worked for the asylum for more than a decade. "He wrapped [the boy] in a cloth and carried him like a bundle to his own home." From there, his daughter carried the boy safely to Allen Griffin, "a faithful colored officer of the Asylum." Shotwell also mentioned that "a little girl, who in crossing 7th Avenue was lost in the crowd, was kindly protected by a Mr. Osborn who took her to his own house."
The burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum
At the police station, "the children were at first stowed compactly together into a tier of cells. But when a large number of rioters were brought in, some of whom were covered with blood, they were turned out, and stood (for there was not room to lie down,) in the passageway. The captain, on taking a survey of them, sat down and burst into tears." When the captain barked orders for the officers to form ranks and return to the streets, the children all screamed and crowded toward the wall, afraid they were being turned out.
The asylum's superintendent was deputized as a provost marshal and put in charge of not only the children but also the many blacks who took refuge in the crowded station house and were fed with the ample provisions from friends of the asylum who lived nearby. Caps, bonnets, and shoes were also supplied by a concerned woman, since the children had fled without them. Only a sergeant, two doormen, and a few partly disabled officers drawn from the sick list were left to guard the station.15
While the Colored Orphan Asylum burned, Alderman Jacob Long tried to flee uptown in a wagon, presumably toward his home at 11Oth Street and First Avenue, or simply to safety outside the city. Wealthy New Yorkers who were fortunate enough to find a hack driver were paying one hundred dollars or more for a ride to Westchester County, where trains were still in service. Long had just gotten north of the asylum when Richard Lynch, a twenty-one-year-old laborer and volunteer fireman, accosted him.
"Hold up Colonel Long, give me a couple of dollars, or else by Jesus, I'll upset your waggon," shouted Lynch, who was wearing his fireman's hat.
"This is all wrong for a fire laddie to do this kind of business," the alderman replied.
"Give us a couple of dollars anyhow, I want to get something to drink."
By this time, the mob had gathered around the wagon, and Long gave Lynch the two dollars in order to extricate himself from the situation. It was not the last robbery Lynch committed that day.16Nor would it be the last dollar extracted by the mob from the city's Democratic politicians.
Rioters on the west side continued their search for weapons, attacking gun shops and private homes, carrying off firearms, furniture, and silverware, while women, children, and servants escaped from burning wreckage or fled before they were attacked.17 On Brevoort Place in Greenwich Village, socialite Caroline Woolsey quickly left a note that captured the chaotic atmosphere as she prepared to flee the city.
The city is in a tumult and Uncle Edward wishes us to go out to Astoria in the 6 o'clock boat. The regulars are all out and the streets are full of rioters. The gas house on Twenty-third Street is blown up and Tenth Street full of black ashes—our doorsteps covered. They say they will blow up the powder mill in Twenty-eighth Street where the Gilmans live and we have told them (if they will) to come all here. Hatty G. was in a minute ago, and Mr. Premiss. There has been a great noise in town all day. The carriage is waiting, but I was afraid you would feel anxious. We would like very much to stay, but Uncle E. insists.18
A family friend of the Woolseys, Lucy Gibbons tried her best to remain unperturbed by the upheaval outside her parents' home on West Twenty-ninth Street. Her mother and eldest sister, Sally, had been away for most of the previous two years, tending to soldiers at the front, and her father had gone, late that morning, to the Fifth Avenue Hotel "to get news about the condition of things in the city," Lucy remembered. He had come home and gone out again in the afternoon to take a houseguest to the train, when "Aunt Sue came in to see me in great trouble and alarm. She told me that the mob was burning the Colored Orphan Asylum and that the colored children were being carried out in people's arms. The horror of this news made us quiet for a minute."
Lucy recalled that her more practical sister, Julia, was away in the country: "In her absence I could think of nothing to do but wander about the house, setting things right and trying to make the rooms look neat against her return. Father did not come home until late in the afternoon, and then said little of his anxiety, not wanting to alarm me . . . He need not have worried . . . I had the feeling that the trouble was only temporary and would quiet down very soon."19
Unfortunately for the Colored Orphan Asylum, it was attacked around 4 p.m., just when reports came in to Acton that a mob was threatening what was to him a higher-priority target: the home of the city's top elected official, Mayor George Opdyke, on Fifth Avenue at Fourteenth Street. As a Republican, Opdyke symbolized both the oppression of
the state legislature and the Lincoln administration, while his wealth and business dealings marked him as a profiteer, benefiting from the protracted war in which the poor were dying on the front lines.
An armed civilian patrol organized by a neighbor had occupied Opdyke's house and fended off another mob earlier in the day, with help from Tammany judge George Barnard, who lived nearby. Greeted warmly by the rioters and invited to speak, Barnard had denounced the draft but urged the crowd to obey the law and trust the courts to protect their rights. A squad of Metropolitans arrived later to drive off a second mob, and by the time the third and largest mob appeared, an artillery unit of eighty-eight U.S. troops from Governors Island had taken up positions in front of the house.20
Having started to gather his forces around 3 p.m., Acton was ready an hour later to dispatch Inspector Daniel Carpenter with two hundred men to protect the mayor's house. Unbeknownst to Acton, the latest mass of five to ten thousand rioters had already been deterred by the sight of the U.S. troops and was headed down Broadway for an assault on police headquarters.21 Detectives mingling with the mobs had learned that the next targets were the financial district, the banks, and the U.S. Sub-Treasury in Lower Manhattan—where the federal government stored its gold in the city.22*
Acton gave Carpenter his final instructions for rescuing the mayor's house and said quietly, "Sergeant, make no arrests."23
Outside on Mulberry Street, Carpenter quickly formed his men in ranks and repeated Acton's orders. "We are to meet and put down a mob. We are to take no prisoners. We must strike quick and strike hard."24 Carpenter then gave the signal to march, Headley reported. "Solid, and silent save their heavy, measured tread on the pavement, they moved down Bleecker Street towards Broadway."25
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