NEW GEOGRAPHIES

Continued from June 23, 2012

When traveler James Stuart is informed by the New York State secretary of state's office in Albany in September, 1829, that all copies of the annual Auburn Prison report have been given away, he's also told that the nearby state printer's office may have a copy. Off he heads down the hill and enters the print shop. "The printer doubted whether he had more than one copy to keep, and he rummaged everywhere without success. I told him this was very provoking for me, who had got the previous reports, and wished to have the last report put up with them, that I might carry them together to Britain. My last remark put things at once to rights. The printer could not think of allowing me to go home without the paper; and he absolutely deprived himself of the only copy he had, in order to complete my set. I stupidly neglected to mark the name of this very obliging person."

His quest fulfilled, the Stuarts prepared to set out down the west bank of the Hudson on their way back to their temporary New Rochelle home. We'll dispense with their guide services at this point to explore the northern, central and western parts of the state on our own. The couple, along with their hack driver Hugh Duffie, will stop for meals and/or lodging at New Baltimore, Catskill, Saugerties (on October 1), Kingston, and Newburgh, then crossing the river back into New York at New Jersey. The entire ten-day journey had cost them $98.00 including Duffie's services.

Their boarding house was closing for the winter so they move to another nearby, staying until December and making a visit to the cottage of the late (1809) Thomas Paine. Then they're off again, really long-distance, traveling through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, returning to New York the following summer, where we'll have a reunion with them at some future date. But now we're on our own.

Back at the beginning of the year Albany's mayor Charles Edward Dudley had been elected to the United States Senate, to take the place of Martin Van Buren, who was now governor. Banker John Townsend was chosen by the voters to serve in Dudley's office and a short time later had laid the cornerstone for the new City Hall (a fire would destroy it 61 years later). This year also saw the election of a new Albany County sheriff. His name is tucked away somewhere in the county archives but it's the name (and nationality) of the person he defeated that's of most interest. War of 1812 veteran James Maher lost the election by an extremely narrow margin. One of the first Irish candidates for any local office (there would be many more to come) his near-miss was another signal of the slowly weakening influence of the Dutch patrician families in the state's capital region.

New political-geographical landscapes were forming as well. Part of the funding for the new city hall had been secured in May, when the state government paid $175,000 to the city of Albany to relinquish rights to the land where the state capital building stands and to the park surrounding it. Of greater importance is the growing feeling that the state's capital should be moved out of Albany to some city closer to the geographical center of the state. Hasn't happened yet, of course.

© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

IT JUST DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER

Continued from May 23, 2012

[1829]

Mr. and Mrs. James Stuart continue their exploration of 1829 Troy, New York, climbing toward the summit of Mount Ida (most locals call it Ida Hill). He commends the view of the city, river and countryside, commenting that the land, covered in pine and cedar, was considered until recently to be infertile, but similar land nearby in Kinderhook has proved to be quite productive when managed well and manured properly.

Partway to the top their climb is interrupted by a fence, so they head for a cottage to request permission to continue further. The tenants prove to be fellow Scots who, like Stuart, arrived last year, but several months earlier. The Stuarts chat for a while with the Craigs, who had found work superintending the farm on the hillside for the owner shortly after their arrival here. It can't be an easy job, since the hill is mainly formed of clay - although Stuart doesn't mention the latter fact - but the Craigs are making a go of it. Later in the century the unstable clay will result in several landslides, reducing the overall size of the hill somewhats.

Sometime before exploring the hill, excuse me, mountain, and heading north to Lansingburgh, our Scotsman has made a few real estate inquiries and discovered that a 65 x 25-foot tenement building has recently sold for $4,000. Untempted, he and his wife climb back into their carriage and, after short ride, cross the Hudson on the twenty-year-old Union Bridge, an 800-foot covered wooden affair that had originally cost $20,000. Later it would also be known as the Waterford Bridge. They head inland a few miles to view the falls at Cohoes, which they missed seeing last year during their brief ride on the Erie Canal. He mentions seven locks in three-and-a-half miles and he should know - they had convinced him then that canal travel wasn't for James Stuart.

On his visit to Albany last year Stuart found the rooms at the Eagle Hotel to be rather meagrely funished, so he decides on a change, putting up at the boarding house run by Leverett Cruttenden, further uphill on Capitol Sqaure, where Lafayette had stayed five years earlier. Good enough for a marquis it proved equally satisfying to Stuart, who mentioned, "comfortable accommodation . . . and as good a tea and supper as we had seen anywhere." Best of all, "I was asked . . . for the first time in the United States, whether we preferred to sleep on a mattrass or feather bed."

Cruttenden stops by to chat with Stuart, who describes his host as, "a frank, John Bull-looking personage, very fond of Scotch songs and of Burns's poetry." Like the good Scotsmen they are, they discuss local prices, "A goose sometimes to be had for a shilling Sterling, and a turkey for two shillings."

The next morning Stuart - probably with future publication of his travels in mind - has a quest to take up again, his current holy grail, this year's annual report on Auburn Prison. Following the Ossining bookseller's suggestion he pays call on the office of the state's secretary of state. The great man (whom Staurt neglects to identify by name) is apparently not there, but a clerk fields Stuart's request. Albany's reputation for complicating the simplest of matters is not unearned; Stuart is told that all the copies have been given away. We'll follow up on his mission next time.

© 2012  David Minor / Eagles Byte

BARRISTERS AND BOOKS

Continued from April 23, 2012
[1829]

After being legally deprived of some sleep (chatty lawyers nearby in the hotel) the Stuarts arose early the next morning and plowed ahead, breaking their fast at Lewis's Hotel in Kinderhook, lunching fourteen miles further on, at Richardson's Hotel across from Albany, then making Troy by evening, where they checked into Troy House, a hotel near the river on First Street, run by Platt Titus. Stage lines to Albany had been departing from in front of Troy House since the early days of the century, so the Stuarts were staying right in one of the main hubs of activity. He briefly describes Troy, "a considerable city, and the greatest erected upon the alluvial banks of the Hudson, — in fact, it is not above eight or ten feet above the level of high water-mark about six miles above Albany. The population has increased from 3000 or 4000 in 1810, to 11,000 or 12,000 at the present time." He also mentions Mount Ida, rising to the east above the city to a height of about 400 feet.

Stuart considers the Titus establishment well-run and adds, "for the first time, since we left New York, we found bells in the house — which are a positive annoyance to those for some time unaccustomed to their noise." Meaning himself, we presume. "There are also male waiters here." And he hadn't escaped voluble night-owl lawyers either, circuit court having followed him here to Troy. In spite of bells and briefs pushers he seemed to manage to sleep well enough this time. At seven the following morning the Stuarts had breakfast in the dining room, surrounded by, "those engaged in the business, judges, clerks, lawyers. . . .  I had no conversation with any of the lawyers at breakfast; but in the course of the forenoon I looked into the court. Three judges were upon the bench; and a proof was taking in presence of a jury respecting a mill-dam. As soon as I was observed in the interior of the court, though merely as a stranger, one of the clerks, or other officers of the court, beckoned to me, and then rose and insisted I should have a seat close to the table. He explained to me the particulars of the case, which were not sufficiently interesting to detain me long." Us either. He does insert a little treatise on court procedures, the main difference between here and Scotland being the use of civilians in New York rather than other lawyers, as assistant-advisers to the judges. In both countries the juries still make the final determination. He mentions that the court building is old and quite run down but that construction is under way on a new one. Building had begun last year but completion was still some months off.

Stuart and his wife wander off to do a bit of exploring. No more able to stay out of a bookstore than I am, he heads across the street from the hotel and down a few doors to pay a visit to Parker and Bliss's establishment, enters and stops to chat with William Parker. The co-proprietor is an agent of New York City's G. & C. Carvill company, publisher of the Library of Useful Knowledge. When Parker learns his visitor is British (How did he tell?) he asks about Henry Peter Brougham, English abolitionist and one of the reference works' chief authors. Stuart would not have known Brougham but is flattered for his countryman that Parker considers the Englishman's works the finest in the language, second only to the Bible (he IS a salesman, after all). The work has sold close to 10,000 copies in New York, Stuart's told. A number probably can be found here in Troy, what with Parker's zeal and the city's Willard Female Seminary, Rensselaer School (later RPI) and Lyceum of Natural History. We'll continue our Trojan education next time.

© 2012  David Minor / Eagles Byte

HISTORY IS MESSY

Continued from March 23, 2012

After leaving Fishkill, New York, the Stuarts and their driver headed north again. Stuart found that the hilly road to Poughkeepsie reminded him of his home country. With some differences. "Many of the passes are narrow, and remind a traveller of defiles of the same kind in the Highlands of Scotland. The mountains of Scotland are far more magnificent, for there is no elevation here above 1500 or 1600 feet in height; but there is no such river in the Highlands of Scotland as the Hudson."

They halted their journey in Poughkeepsie at the end of the morning, eating at Swift's Hotel, "as handsomely furnished as any country hotel I have seen anywhere. A piano-forte is in the parlour." By this time the village had a population of close to 7,000 people. There were three weekly newspapers in town, but in order to save on the cost of delivery all three came out on Wednesdays. Which kept carrier John Cornish busy just once a week. It would be a while before the publishers would catch on to the fact that they could collectively sell more papers each week if they didn't all three carry the same news. Cornish and his successors would do better financially as well. The Stuarts were probably unaware of all this; they moved on right after their midday meal.

As they passed Hyde Park on their way towards Rhinebeck, Stuart apparently knew that his recent acquaintance, Dr. David Hosack, was not just then in residence, for he mentions no effort to accept Hosack's offer of hospitality. He does comment on the site's beauty and mentions, "views, ending with the Catskill mountains in the distance, that can hardly be surpassed." He notes that, "A great number of workmen are at present employed by him in extensive improvements upon the grounds, and the enlargement of his mansion-house." A later tourist named Harriet Martineau, who traveled through the state in the mid-1830s, comments on the Hosack mansion. "Dr. Hosack's good taste led him to leave it alone, and to spend his pains on the gardens and conservatory behind." Martineau, by the way, seems to be a soul-mate of James Stuart, also very interested in Auburn Prison.

With September giving way to October (Stuart doesn't give exact dates) the nights were quite bit cooler, especially here in the upper elevations, and the air was cold as they arrived at Jacob's Hotel at Rhinebeck, in time for dinner. Reading that in Stuart's published journal and being a curious person (put your own interpretation on THAT), I started poking around in some old Rhinebeck histories to see if I could find who this Jacob was. I didn't find anything which, of course, proves nothing. However. If you know Rhinebeck at all, you're familiar with the Beekman Arms. In 1766, Arent Traphagen moved his father's inn from the fringes of Ryn Beck to the main intersection, several miles uphill from the river. The southwest corner. At the time of the Revolution it was run by a man with the rather rhythmic name of Everadus Bogardus and called the Bogardus Inn. In the early 1800s it was run by a couple with the last name of Jacques. Today it's still in operation as the Beekman Arms and claims to be the oldest, continually operating tavern in the United States. Fans of the Wayside Inn of Massachusetts strenuously believe otherwise, and bar bets over that question will never be settled to everyone's satisfaction. What I'm wondering is this. When Stuart sat down to publish his travels four years after his stay here, did he perhaps rely on an only-human memory, and Scot-icize (or his equivalent of Anglicize) the name Jacques into Jacob? We may never know.

© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

VERPLANCK SHOPPING SPREE

Continued from February 23, 2012

The Mr. Verplanck that the Stuarts met in late September 1829, helping his hired hands spread manure from the back of a wagon, would have been a Mr. Philip Verplanck. One of several with the same given name, his family had owned Verplanck's Point since the 1680s when Dutch fur trading partners Gulian Verplanck and Francis Rombout purchased 85,000 acres of land from the Wappinger Indians in today's Dutchess County. Around this time Verplanck also bought a point of land at the northern end of the Hudson's Haverstraw Bay, which he passed on down the byways of the family tree. Philip Verplanck had inherited the land last year as well as some land at Stony Point, across the Hudson. Since then he had been making improvements to the property, perhaps with an eye to a future sale.

Learning the Stuarts were visiting from Britain he left the manure wagon to the hands and accompanied his drop-in guests over to the river bank, inviting them to park on the wide lawn in front of the large house. The property contained close to twenty outbuildings, many used as offices. After a brief visit the Stuarts left him to his work, headed back to the main road and headed north again. They stopped for their midday meal at Peekskill, Stuart topping it off with a brandy. He notes that most inns they stopped at had a small library. Always interested in what people found important, he noted here an eclectic mix of the ever-popular Pilgrim's Progress, the works of Byron (very fashionable in these few years after the poet's death in Greece), two English prayer books and Nathan Smith's recent "Practical Essays on Typhus Fever".

It was early evening when they arrived at Phillipstown, in today's Cold Spring, after spending nearly four hours in the coach, traveling east of Anthony's Nose through orchard-strewn hillsides. After a simple late supper of coffee, bread and butter, grape and peach jelly, and cheese at an apparently indifferent hostelry, they were off to bed. The next morning as they headed out, Stuart learned that had they gone just another mile further they could have stayed at Horseborough's house, a splendid home that had once belonged to the loyalist Beverly Robinson. (Beverly being a more common man's name in that century). Forty-nine years earlier George Washington had arrived late for a meeting here with the then current resident Benedict Arnold, busy escaping across the river on his way to becoming a household name.

The Stuarts waited until they got to Fishkill to have breakfast. By the time they arrived at the four-year-old Mansion-house at Fishkill, the other lodgers had already eaten, but the kitchen quickly put together, "one of the best breakfasts I ever saw". For once he didn't provide the gustatory details. Now they were in true Verplanck country, Fishkill being part of the original purchase of 1683. The actual Verplanck family mansion, Mount Gulian, was in nearby Beacon, closer to the river. Last year, about the time the Stuarts were steaming up the Hudson to Albany, another traveler arrived at Mount Gulian. 35-year-old escaped Maryland slave James Brown had fled to New York City and found employment as a coachman and waiter for the Verplancks. They shipped him up to the family country house and hired him to work as head gardener. When he was recognized by a guest this year, the family arranged to purchase his freedom. He would live on at the estate, soon purchase his wife's freedom, and keep a journal until after the Civil War, thus providing the site's most detailed chronicles.                                                                       

© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

UP THE RIVER AND BEYOND

(Continued from January 24, 2012)

We left James Stuart a few weeks ago enjoying his haggis in a Nassau Street tavern. As September 1829 drew to a close, wanderlust once again caught him up and he left Westchester, heading north a third time. He'd made the previous trips by steamboat, thereby missing many of the communities along the way. "I set about preparing for our expedition. The hacks or hackney-coaches of New York are admirably suited for such an expedition as this. They are light, some of them not above 1100 pounds weight, the roof being supported upon a metal frame. Curtains are let down in a moment in case of rain, or for protection from the sun."

Stuart took his wife along this time. Departing from New Rochelle they boarded a hack owned by a Hugh Duffie and set off across Westchester County. Since Stuart doesn't mention passing through Yonkers or White Plains they probably headed straight northwest, hitting the Hudson River south of Tarrytown. Stuart will later recount the story of the capture of Major Andre here at Tarrytown during the American Revolution - his sympathies naturally enough with Andre. The Stuarts didn't tarry in Tarrytown (Sorry!!) but pushed on to Sing-Sing, where Stuart, an avid student of penal systems, notes that the 480-foot-long facility is still not completely finished, the prisoners being put to work all day hewing rock and finishing walls. The main cell building must have looked familiar, having been modeled by architect John Carpenter after one wing of Auburn Prison, which Stuart toured last year. Although the town of Ossining would not be incorporated for another sixteen years, a small community must have already grown up around the prison, for Stuart mentions stopping in at a local bookseller. It wasn't just idle curiosity, he was looking for a copy of this year's annual report on Auburn Prison, required by law for all state penal installations. The bookseller has none in stock but since Stuart mentioned he's on his way to Albany, he should be able to pick up a copy from the secretary of state's office in the capital.

The party pushes on, crossing the Croton River at Van Cortlandt Manor. "We proceeded in the evening to a second rate hotel, near the village of Croton, kept by civil people, of the name of Macleod". Apart from the manor house there would have been little else there except for a Quaker meeting house and a few mills and brickyards. After a simple supper Mrs. Macleod brought in her son and two daughters to see the strangers. The Stuarts found them to be quite well-educated, with the eldest daughter well-versed in geography.

The next day, after a hearty breakfast they were on the road again, heading for Verplanck a few miles further up the Hudson. Stuart had seen the point of land that poked out into the river when he'd come this way by boat earlier and was anxious to check out the area. They soon passed onto private property, in order to get closer to the river, and eventually encountered a fork in the road. Puzzled as to which direction to take, they asked a group of hands spreading manure in a field from the back of a wagon for directions. It turned out that the driver was one of the Verplancks, owner of extensive lands on both sides of the river. Stuart was surprised. He'd expect landowners out in the west to work out in the fields along with their hired hands, but not here in the settled east. Stuart was relieved that Verplanck had the extreme good taste to avoid discomforting his visitor and, "made no allusion whatever to the employment in which we found him engaged". Some things gentlemen just do not discuss.

PASSING THE TORCH

(Continued from November 23, 2011)

Every incoming New York City mayor takes the reins of a different beast than that of his predecessor. As state legislator and canal supporter Walter Bowne prepared to take over from William Paulding at the end of 1829 the city was in its usual state of flux. Street names were changing, usually piecemeal - part of Herring Street became Bleecker, part of Arden became Morton, part of Reason Street (named for Thomas Paine's ”The Age of Reason”) became Barrow.

Structures were springing up on streets old and new. On the north side of the new Washington Square, construction began on architect Martin Thompson's row of Greek Revival townhouses. Thompson, by the way, along with Ithiel Town and Andrew J. Davis, all with offices in the Merchants Exchange building, constituted the entire architectural profession in the city. Over on Macdougal Street, between West 3rd and 4th streets, a row of townhouses in the older Federal style was being built for a real estate investor, a man in his early seventies who'd had few other careers before this - vice-president of the United States for one - man named Aaron Burr. It was a healthy market. Buildings on the better, older streets brought good prices. A two-story house and lot at 17 Broadway, sold for $19,000. The Bowling Green Post Office sits on the site in our own time. But, begin looking over on nearby Hanover Square today and you could find a 625 square foot two-room apartment for a mere $299,000. Plus a $900 per month maintenance fee. Adaptive reuse is not a new concept in our own time. Over near City Hall, the New Gaol building, built in 1755, was converted in 1829 into a hall of records.

All the changes were not architectural and geographical. Among the new institutions springing up were two banks - the National Bank in the City of New York, and the Seamen's Bank for Savings in the City of New York (they didn't believe in short, punchy names back then). The New York City Temperance Society was founded as was the Workingmen's Party of New York. The latter would only last two years, replaced two years later by the General Trades Union, a confederation of the city's smaller labor organizations, which by 1836 would conduct nearly 40 work stoppages. Fire was always a major concern in this city with only a primitive water system. Since 1816 firefighters had been exempted from military and jury duty after serving in their departments for ten years. 1829 saw the required term lowered to seven years; in 1847 it would be reduced to five.

Two newspapers were founded to help New Yorkers keep track of all these changes. Mordecai M Noah, who we met in 1827 founding the Niagara frontier Jewish state of Ararat, was here now, and founded the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, which would later merge with the New York World. He signed on editor James Gordon Bennett. Senior, that is. Junior would make an even bigger name for himself here, in the business later on. The Morning Herald and the Evening Journal also joined the city's media mix. (Make that medium mix).

Many foreign sections of the city's papers probably carried the recent news of a fellow countryman of James Stuart's by the name of William Hare and his friend William Burke. We'll check out their connection with 1829 New York next time.

© 2005 David Minor / Eagles Byte

Script No. 458

(Continued from May 23, 2011)

New Year’s Eve Bash

It had been mid-summer back in 1828 when Scottish traveler James Stuart first arrived in New York City. His timing was such that he had missed the city’s New Year’s Day celebrations by a good eight months. Perhaps fortunately for him. He might have been callithumped. There are a number of possible origins of the obscure word ‘Callithumpian’. Whatever the source, it’s described in “Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words” as, “a noisy demonstration”. The whole thing was a British import, as described by historian Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas. “By beating on tin pans, blowing horns, groaning and shouting catcalls, the music was performed as a gesture of deliberate mockery . . . the callithumpians . . . directed their 'rough music' against those who seemed to be claiming too much dignity or abusing their power."

On January 1, 1828, the entire cacophonous shivaree got out of hand. It had begun up in the theater district along the Bowery, when a contingent of middle-class revelers, armed with all sorts of noisemakers and well fortified with liquid refreshments started tossing limes (don’t ask me where they found limes in early Manhattan during the winter) through the windows of one of the local bars. Then they made their boisterous way over to the City Hotel on Broadway (where the Stuarts would put up in the coming summer). After roughing up attendees at a fancy ball there, they turned next to a nearby African-American church, bursting through the street door, smashing windows, breaking up the pews, and physically assaulting the congregation who were gathered to see in the new year. Heading down Broadway they looted shops all the way down to the Battery Park, where they tore down its iron fence and tossed assorted missiles through windows surrounding the park where the city’s elite had their town houses. Then they presumably scattered, stumbling off to nearby gutters to lie down and make their resolutions.

We don’t hear of repeat performances in the immediately following years. Certainly now, in 1830, the Stuarts apparently enjoyed a much more sedate celebration, since he makes no mention of any merrymaking at all. The sun rose on a quite mellow January 1st; the Stuart party caught a steamboat out of Hoboken and headed off to Brooklyn Heights to watch the various sailing packet boats headed for and returning from Europe. Stuart reports, “I never witnessed a more animating scene. On our return through New York we were surprised to observe the streets more crowded than at any former period . . . it is usual for people of all descriptions to call at each other's houses, were it but for a moment, on the first day of the year. Cold meat, cake, confectionaries, and wines, are laid out upon a table, that all who call may partake; and it seems the general understanding, that such a one's friends as do not call upon him on the first day of the year are not very anxious to continue his acquaintance.”

As we’ve seen repeatedly 19th century Americans really liked to pack away the vittles. Local bakers outdid themselves creating the ‘confectionaries’ Stuart mentions. During the holidays they would each advertise their grandest creations and visitors come around to gawk at the grandest, before they’re cut. One of the bakers would seem to have been going for a Guinness record, had such things existed then. His cake weighed in at 1500 pounds.

© 2006 David Minor / Eagles Byte