Duel with the Devil
Page 22
22 “when one man offered to present”: Dietz, 1913, 120.
23 Minetta Brook … fine trout to be had from it: Mines, Tour Around New York, 22.
24 Ezra Weeks had the contract: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 87.
25 white and yellow pine logs needed: NYMA, 18 May 1799.
26 “People are paying the enormous fee”: NYDA, 23 November 1799.
27 Do you want to go to the Charity Sermon?: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 24.
28 sermon by the Bishop Prevoost … on December 8, 1799: NYDA, 9 December 1799.
29 They stopped off first at Ezra’s: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 34.
30 THE YOUNG QUAKER … THE AGREEABLE SURPRISE: NYMA, 30 November 1799.
31 bone-chilling lack of heat and its rather makeshift orchestra: Monaghan and Lowenthal, This Was New York, 125.
32 he’d asked her to come, too: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 34.
33 carpenter had fallen off a scaffold: NYCA, 16 November 1799.
34 live wolves … had broken out: NYG, 19 November 1799.
35 Thanksgiving, in gratitude to God: Ibid., 29 November 1799.
36 $138 had been collected: NYDA, 9 December 1799.
37 the first snow of the year: Bleecker, Diary, December 1, 4, and 5, 1799.
38 pelting of the house at Garden and Broad: “The Olden Time,” 424.
39 sleigh rides northward … the Kissing Bridge: Janvier, In Old New York, 252.
40 on moonlit nights like this, the city saved: Monaghan and Lowenthal, This Was New York, 246–47.
41 three and a half feet underground, of piped water: Independent Gazetteer (Worcester, Mass.), 7 October 1800.
42 “NOTWITHSTANDING THE INTERVENTION OF A MALIGNANT FEVER”: NYMA, 13 November 1799.
43 “the wish of every citizen”: NYG, 20 November 1799.
44 “of a quality excellent”: NYMA, 13 November 1799.
45 service was to be expanded another twofold: Independent Gazetteer (Worcester, Mass.), 7 October 1800.
46 a primitive pump supplied by one Nicholas Roosevelt: Ibid.
47 he’d sold Roosevelt thousands of acres: Lamb, History of the City of New York, 3:382.
48 $1,500-a-year position of water superintendent: NYMA, 13 June 1799.
49 business partner from years earlier: NYDA, 26 July 1793.
50 brother-in-law of the board’s president: Koeppel, Water for Gotham, 69.
51 ad … had quietly been withdrawn: I do not find any further publication of the ad after the 6 December 1799 issue of Greenleaf’s New-York Journal.
4. THE BLACK VEIL
1 sodden city: Bleecker, Diary, 19 December 1799.
2 “This is a day of mourning to us”: NYDA, 19 December 1799.
3 “He made his exit last night”: NYCA, 20 December 1799.
4 Shaw had a busy wine shop: NYG, 27 May 1799.
5 “It is a pity General Washington had not died”: Bleecker, Diary, 27 December 1799; and Abraham Bancker to Abraham B. Bancker, 12 January 1800, Bancker Papers.
6 British flag over the Merchants’: Columbia Museum and Savannah Advisor, 11 April 1797.
7 “WASHINGTON was our pride”: NYDA, 19 December 1799.
8 A NEGRO MAN TO BE SOLD CHEAP: NYG, 24 December 1799.
9 “It’s a damned lie!”: Abraham Bancker to Abraham B. Bancker, 12 January 1800, Bancker Papers.
10 “What means this melancholy sound of Bells”: NYCA, 24 December 1799.
11 he trooped over to his brother’s: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, 12.
12 Ezra Weeks himself hadn’t: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 86.
13 growing business on Broadway: NYDA, 21 May 1799.
14 a new two-story home: NYEP, 16 December 1803.
15 an order for eight doors: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 86.
16 a gash in his knee: Ibid., 21.
17 “Levi, you won’t be able to go out”: Ibid., 22.
18 followed him upstairs and plastered his knee: Ibid.
19 boardinghouse beds: Watson, Annals and Occurrences of New York City and State, 260.
20 he and Elma were back downstairs: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 22.
21 The theater had even canceled: NYCA, 21 December 1799.
22 “Which looks best?”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 22.
23 calico gown and a white dimity petticoat: Ibid., 56–57.
24 “Where’s Elma?”: Ibid., 22.
25 their cockeyed door: Ibid., 24.
26 Elias settled into the commons room: Ibid., 22.
27 “The clock has just struck eight”: Ibid., 23.
28 Mrs. Ring … put her ear to the door: Ibid., 24.
29 Levi’s apprentice … was locked out: Ibid., 26. The remainder of this evening’s scene is drawn from this passage of Coleman’s trial transcript.
30 a cold and cloudy sky: Bleecker, Diary, 23 December 1799.
31 expect bread, cheese, preserved apples: Maude, Visit to the Falls of Niagara in 1800, 29.
32 warm beer remained the drink: Koeppel, Water for Gotham, 34.
33 “Is Elma got home?”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 27.
34 Clement, up by Lispenard’s Meadow: Longworth’s American Almanack (1799), 189.
35 “I guess she has gone to be married”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 29.
36 Gideon Washburn got caught in sin with his horse: NYG, 25 September 1799.
37 guides such as Aristotle’s Master-Piece: Bullough, “Early American Sex Manual,” 240.
38 attributed on the title page to “The Company of Flying Stationers”: Aristotle’s Master-Piece, title page.
39 “the action of the clytoris in women”: Ibid., 58.
40 “brifk and vigorous … glafs of rofy wine”: Ibid., 62.
41 “Married or not”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 29. The remainder of this section is drawn from this passage in Coleman’s trial transcript.
42 “Twelve Silver tea SPOONS”: NYDA, 24 December 1799.
43 Female Humane Society: Ibid., 11 December 1799.
44 Breakfast passed uneasily: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 29.
45 “Mrs. Ring, don’t grieve so”: Ibid., 30.
46 German settlers down in Pennsylvania made much: “Christmas in America,” 171.
47 “passionless immoveable countenance”: Stone, History of New York City, 205.
48 “A green Christmas makes a fat Church-yard”: NYDA, 29 December 1800.
49 tradition of slogging out into the swamps: Watson, Annals and Occurrences of New York City and State, 123.
50 shooting on the wing, and had started a new fashion: Ibid., 211.
51 city had tried … to end these hunts: “Journal of Joshua Brookes,” January 1799.
52 she wore a … muff: Bleecker, Diary, 4 January 1800.
5. THE MYSTERY IN THE MEADOW
1 strolls up Greenwich Street: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, 28.
2 warden of the port: Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 3:676.
3 Have you heard of a muff turning up anywhere?: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 75.
4 coming into port from New Orleans and … St. Thomas: NYDA, 7 January 1800.
5 “It’s an odd question”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 75.
6 Ring’s high-pitched voice: Ibid., 74.
7 “A young woman”: Ibid., 75.
8 workers by Norton’s Wharf found a despairing man: NYCA, 19 September 1799.
9 gentleman who had recently stood in Bowery Lane and applied a pair of pistols: Ibid., 18 October 1799.
10 “The nearest dock”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 89.
11 down their cross street of Barclay: NYG, 2
6 May 1801.
12 “Rhinelander’s Battery”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 89.
13 trained as a cooper: Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1885, 222. He is listed as a cooper under “Freeman, 1769.”
14 appointed office of Culler of staves and hoops: Law, New York Directory, 52.
15 ready to man the local fire pumps: New York Common Council, Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 797.
16 many sailors scarcely knew a single stroke: “Fatal Accidents: How Far Preventable,” 109.
17 Ice was forming in the river: Laight, Diaries, 9 January 1800.
18 the decrepit old fortifications: Balance and Columbian Depository, 5 February 1805, 47. The article notes that the state legislature authorized tearing down Rhinelander’s Battery for winter firewood for the city’s poor.
19 a “creeper,” a line dragging a claw: Burney, New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 111.
20 a long tube with a glass bulb … recovery men were hired by smugglers: “Seal Stalking in the Orkneys,” 585.
21 “Levi … give me thy firm opinion”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 31–32.
22 sixteen rifles, marking the dawn of New Year’s Eve: Washington, Washington’s Political Legacies, 169.
23 businesses were closing … and carriages had been barred: NYG, 30 December 1799.
24 “Hope” … “Will you accompany me”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 37.
25 As ten o’clock approached: NYWM, 4 January 1800. This is a particularly long and detailed account of the processions; except where indicated, the details in the remainder of this section are taken from this source.
26 woodcut diagrams of the positions of Washington’s pallbearers: NYCA, 26 December 1799.
27 “this great national calamity”: Washington, Washington’s Political Legacies, 168.
28 “our late brother mechanic”: Meyer Berger’s New York, 154.
29 girls dressed in white robes … dropping laurel leaves: “The Olden Time,” 433.
30 “Bring the laurels”: Sacred Music.
31 “Its appearance was really splendid”: Abraham Bancker to Abraham B. Bancker, 12 January 1800, Bancker Papers.
32 confectioner’s shop on Pine Street: Stone, History of New York City, 207. Along with his account of Singeron, Stone has some fascinating vignettes of refugees from the French Revolution—most notably of a hairdresser dubbed Adonis. Like the rest of New York’s enclave of fine Parisian dressmakers and dancing masters, he’d fled the country along with his noble clientele during the Revolution. Adonis made house calls, but he had one curious trait: He never wore a hat. He’d resolved to never wear one again until France’s king was back on the throne, so he always carried his hat like a purse, with his shears and combs poking out of it (ibid., 221).
33 plum cake, rich with candied oranges: Hudson and Donat, New Practice of Cookery, 226.
34 frosting unaccountably patterned into Cupids: Stone, History of New York City, 209.
35 “Some think it is the first year”: Bleecker, Diary, 1 January 1800.
36 Greenwood had advertised himself as “Dentist to the Late President”: NYMA, 9 December 1799.
37 a portrait of Washington (guaranteed to “afford peculiar satisfaction”): NYCA, 28 December 1799.
38 Washington’s urn (“executed by the original designer”): Ibid., 2 January 1800.
39 debut of “the Washington Minuet”: NYWM, 11 January 1800.
40 in Mayor Varick’s house … “they broke the first cookie”: Thorburn, Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York, 208.
41 laid out the riches of the city: “Journal of Joshua Brookes,” 556.
42 oysters: Fawcett, “New Year’s Day in Old New-York,” 137.
43 pickled in white wine: Hudson and Donat, New Practice of Cookery, 39.
44 cold jellied lamb, plates of macaroons: Fawcett, “New Year’s Day in Old New-York,” 137.
45 “Before the moon sunk behind the blue hills”: Thorburn, Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York, 208.
46 Mrs. Blanck heard the curiously offhanded piece of news … reached among her winter clothing: Bleecker, Diary, 4 January 1800.
47 Ring and his neighbor Joseph Watkins marched up: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 56.
48 Blanck’s house on the Bowery: Longworth’s American Almanack (1800), 138.
49 lunch with James Lent and a fellow named Page: Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 56.
50 a horse … had been stolen nearby: NYS, 18 September 1799.
51 an ownerless steer had just turned up: NYDA, 6 January 1800.
52 The well: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 53.
53 about midway between Broadway and Bowery: Morhouse, “Boy’s Reminiscences,” 339.
54 hadn’t been found suitable for the pipeline: GNDA, 6 January 1800. Most subsequent accounts seem to have assumed that it was a working well for the Manhattan Company, but its disuse is also noted in Stone, History of New York City, 342f.
55 William had found the muff … and had brought it home: Bleecker, Diary, 4 January 1800.
56 “I went to the well the next day”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 53.
57 water … nearly six feet in depth: Ibid., 91.
58 swept it gently through the water, then suddenly stopped: Ibid., 56.
59 Lent tried it as well … there was a mass deep in the water: Ibid.
60 ironmonger banged irons into the wooden poles: Ibid.
61 too heavy … a flash of calico cloth: Ibid.
62 hemp were hurriedly procured: Ibid.
63 now joined in—Lawrence Myer: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, 19.
64 a fellow teamster: Longworth’s American Almanack (1799), 305.
65 rigged into a makeshift net: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 56.
6. SOME PERSON OR PERSONS AS YET UNKNOWN
1 Levi Weeks is to blame: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 82.
2 Policing largely existed to guard property: Oliver, “Modern History of Probable Cause,” 3.
3 Leatherheads: Costello, Our Police Protectors, 72.
4 tipping the boxes over: Ibid., 73.
5 generally had only two constables apiece: Ibid.
6 Constables were not to investigate: Oliver, “Modern History of Probable Cause,” 9.
7 “Is this the young man?”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 58.
8 “It is very hard to accuse—”: Ibid., and GNDA, 6 January 1800.
9 front of the gathering crowd: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 59.
10 “like a person walking against the wind”: Ibid., 57.
11 “I think I know the gown”: Ibid., 59.
12 auctioneer Jimmy Smith: NYDA, 31 December 1799. The advertisement includes details for the auctions scheduled for Thursday, January 2, 1800.
13 building of gray stone … by Theophilus Hardenbrook: Fifteenth Annual Report, 1910, 394.
14 neglected to provide an open yard … they’d even been given a bell: Stone, History of New York City, 191. After Bridewell was demolished, this bell was moved to a firehouse on Beaver Street, where—after ringing out a final warning—it was destroyed in the great city fire of 1845.
15 central tower: Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York, 455.
16 the jail keeper, Alexander Lamb: Longworth’s American Almanack (1800), 252.
17 flanked on either side: Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York, 455.
18 Bib and Gilbert: NYDA, 10 December 1799.
19 petty larceny … less than $12.50 in goods: Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York, 455.
20 newly captured runaway slaves and apprentices: NYMA, 8 February 1800.
21 son of an upstanding Massachusetts family: Diamond, Episode in American Journalism, 34.
<
br /> 22 a “disgrace to humanity”: Tiedemann and Fingerhut, Other New York, 75.
23 issued … The Rights of Animals: Pelletreau, History of Long Island, 2:512.
24 Burr shrewdly recruited him: Diamond, Episode in American Journalism, 51.
25 and it paid a mere eight dollars a week: Ibid., 52.
26 “An effort was recently made to suppress the AURORA”: Quoted in ibid., 53.
27 Federalists had tried to shut down the Aurora: Blumberg, Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic, 115.
28 “a vile sans-culotte”: Diamond, Episode in American Journalism, 77.
29 “I have long been the object of the most malignant calumnies”: Wharton, State Trials, 650.
30 Greenleaf, claimed to have no authority: Diamond, Episode in American Journalism, 54.
31 “This is not a question that concerned the liberties”: NYG, 5 December 1799.
32 confined for so long that nobody even knew why … “Paul from New Jersey”: Eddy, Report of a Committee of the Humane Society, 12–13. This report, issued in 1810, notes that “Paul from New Jersey” had been in Bridewell for at least a decade at that point, as a jail keeper hired ten years earlier found that even back then nobody knew why “Paul” was there.
33 An inmate’s supper … about five or six cents: Stoutenburgh, Report of the Inspectors of the State-Prison, 4.
34 “a mean, insipid, and musty drink”: Moulton, Sampson, and Fernald, Centennial History of Harrison, Maine, 457.
35 Stagg was spotted near a polling station: NYCA, 3 May 1799.
36 “French Bullies”: Ibid.
37 he’d been heroically pulling it out of the prisoner’s hands: NYS, 15 May 1799.
38 Michaels did not last: He is not listed with Alexander Lamb in the 1800 Longworth’s American Almanack.
39 Michaels crowed that the fellow was a deserter: NYS, 15 May 1799.
40 Prince … saw his colleague: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, 29.
41 Charles Dickinson, the local coroner: NYDA, 4 November 1799.
42 meant a “representative of the crown”: Rapalje and Lawrence, Dictionary of American and English Law, 1:297.
43 such unhelpful causes of death as “horseshoe head”: Paris and Fonblanque, Medical Jurisprudence, 1:145.
44 a leader among Aaron Burr’s faction: Myers, History of Tammany Hall, 41.