Project Gutenberg's Peculiarities of American Cities, by Willard Glazier
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Title: Peculiarities of American Cities
Author: Willard Glazier
Release Date: March 14, 2011 [EBook #35575]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Willard Glazier]
PECULIARITIES
OF
AMERICAN CITIES.
BY
CAPTAIN WILLARD GLAZIER,
AUTHOR OF "SOLDIERS OF THE SADDLE," "CAPTURE, PRISON-PEN AND
ESCAPE," "BATTLES FOR THE UNION," "HEROES OF THREE WARS,"
"DOWN THE GREAT RIVER," ETC., ETC.
Illustrated.
PHILADELPHIA:
HUBBARD BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
No. 723 CHESTNUT STREET.
1886.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by
WILLARD GLAZIER,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
To her
WHO IS NEAREST AND DEAREST;
WHOSE HEART HAS ENCOURAGED;
WHOSE HAND HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE
ILLUSTRATION AND EMBELLISHMENT
OF ALL MY LITERARY WORK,
This Volume
IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED
BY
_THE AUTHOR_.
PREFACE.
It has occurred to the author very often that a volume presenting the
peculiar features, favorite resorts and distinguishing characteristics,
of the leading cities of America, would prove of interest to thousands
who could, at best, see them only in imagination, and to others, who,
having visited them, would like to compare notes with one who has made
their PECULIARITIES a study for many years.
A residence in more than a hundred cities, including nearly all that
are introduced in this work, leads me to feel that I shall succeed in
my purpose of giving to the public a book, without the necessity of
marching in slow and solemn procession before my readers a monumental
array of time-honored statistics; on the contrary, it will be my aim, in
the following pages, to talk of cities as I have seen and found them in
my walks, from day to day, with but slight reference to their origin and
past history.
WILLARD GLAZIER.
22 Jay Street,
ALBANY, _September 24, 1883_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Portrait of the Author (Steel) FRONTISPIECE.
PAGE
State Street and Capitol, Albany, N. Y. 34
Boston, as Viewed from the Bay 38
Soldiers' Monument at Buffalo, N. Y. 62
View of Baltimore, from Federal Hill 92
View of the Battery, Charleston, South Carolina 108
Garden at Mount Pleasant, opposite Charleston, S. C. 112
Custom House, Charleston, South Carolina 116
Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina 120
Public Square and Perry Monument, Cleveland, Ohio 150
Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 156
Bird's-eye View of Chicago, from the Lake Side 160
Burning of Chicago, the World's Greatest Conflagration 164
Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago 170
Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 192
Harrisburg and Bridges over the Susquehanna 200
Jackson Square and Old Cathedral, New Orleans 274
Mardi Gras Festival, New Orleans 278
Bird's-eye View of New York 296
New York and Brooklyn Bridge 318
Pittsburg and its Rivers 336
Night Scene in Market Square, Portland, Maine 360
Old Independence Hall, Philadelphia 370
Masonic Temple, Philadelphia 378
Girard Avenue Bridge, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia 394
View of Providence, Rhode Island, from Prospect Terrace 400
Tabernacle and Temple, Salt Lake City 440
Seal Rocks from the Cliff House, near San Francisco 462
Levee and Great Bridge at St. Louis 492
Shaw's Garden at St. Louis, Missouri 502
University of Toronto, Canada 524
East Front of Capitol at Washington 538
State, War and Navy Departments, Washington, D. C. 546
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--ALBANY.
From Boston to Albany.--Worcester and Pittsfield.--The Empire
State and its Capital.--Old Associations.--State Street.--
Sketch of Early History.--Killian Van Rensselaer.--Dutch
Emigration.--Old Fort Orange.--City Heights.--The Lumber
District.--Van Rensselaer Homestead.--The New Capitol.--
Military Bureau.--War Relics.--Letter of General Dix.--
Ellsworth and Lincoln Memorials.--Geological Rooms.--The
Cathedral.--Dudley Observatory.--Street Marketing.--Troy and
Cohoes.--Stove Works.--Paper Boats.--Grand Army Rooms.--Down
the Hudson. 25-37
CHAPTER II.--BOSTON.
Geographical Location of Boston.--Ancient Names.--Etymology
of the Word Massachusetts.--Changes in the Peninsula.--Noted
Points of Interest.--Boston Common.--Old Elm.--Duel Under
its Branches.--Soldiers' Monument.--Fragmentary History.--
Courtship on the Common.--Faneuil Hall and Market.--Old State
House.--King's Chapel.--Brattle Square Church.--New State
House.--New Post Office.--Old South Church.--Birthplace of
Franklin.--"News Letter."--City Hall.--Custom House.--
Providence Railroad Station.--Places of General Interest. 38-56
CHAPTER III.--BUFFALO.
The Niagara Frontier.--Unfortunate Fate of the Eries.--The
Battle of Doom.--Times of 1812.--Burning of Buffalo.--Early
Names.--Origin of Present Name.--Growth and Population.--
Railway Lines.--Queen of the Great Lakes.--Fort Porter and
Fort Erie.--International Bridge.--Iron Manufacture.--Danger
of the Niagara.--Forest Lawn Cemetery.--Decoration Day.--
The Spaulding Monument.--Parks and Boulevard.--Delaware
Avenue.--On the Terrace.--Elevator District.--Church and
Schools.--Grosvenor Library.--Historical Rooms.--Journalism.--
Public Buildings.--City Hall.--Dog-carts and their Attendants. 57-71
CHAPTER IV.--BROOKLYN.
Brooklyn a Suburb of New York.--A City of Homes.--Public
Buildings.--Churches.--Henry Ward Beecher.--Thomas De
Witt Talmage.--Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.--Justin D. Fulton,
D.D.--R. S. Storrs, D.D.--Navy Yard.--Atlantic Dock.--
Washington Park.--Prospect Park.--Greenwood Cemetery.--
Evergreen and Cyprus Hills Cemeteries.--Coney Island.--
Rockaway.--Staten Island.--Glen Island.--Future of Brooklyn. 72-84
CHAPTER V.--BALTIMORE.
Position of Baltimore.--Streets.--Cathedral and Churches.--
Public Buildings.--Educational Institutions.--Art
Collections.--Charitable Institutions.--Monuments.--Railway
Tunnels.--Parks and Cemeteries.--Druid Hill Park.--Commerce
and Manufactures.--Foundation of the City.--Early History.--
Bonaparte-Patterson Marriage.--Storming of Baltimore in
1814.--Maryland at the Breaking-out of the Rebellion.--Assault
on Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, in April, 1861.--Subsequent
Events during the War.--Baltimore Proves Herself Loyal.--
Re-union of Grand Army of the Republic in Baltimore,
September, 1882.--Old Differences Forgotten and Fraternal
Relations Established. 85-106
CHAPTER VI.--CHARLESTON.
First Visit to Charleston.--Jail Yard.--Bombardment of the
City.--Roper Hospital.--Charleston During the War.--Secession
of South Carolina.--Attack and Surrender of Fort Sumter.--
Blockade of the Harbor.--Great Fire of 1861.--Capitulation
in 1865.--First Settlement of the City.--Battles of the
Revolution.--Nullification Act.--John C. Calhoun.--Population
of the City.--Commerce and Manufactures.--Charleston Harbor.--
"American Venice."--Battery.--Streets, Public Buildings and
Churches.--Scenery about Charleston.--Railways and Steamship
Lines.--An Ancient Church.--Magnolia Cemetery.--Drives near
the City.--Charleston Purified by Fire. 107-120
CHAPTER VII.--CINCINNATI.
Founding of Cincinnati.--Rapid Increase of Population.--
Character of its Early Settlers.--Pro-slavery Sympathies.--
During the Rebellion.--Description of the City.--Smoke and
Soot--Suburbs.--"Fifth Avenue" of Cincinnati.--Streets,
Public Buildings, Private Art Galleries, Hotels, Churches
and Educational Institutions.--"Over the Rhine."--Hebrew
Population.--Liberal Religious Sentiment.--Commerce and
Manufacturing Interests.--Stock Yards and Pork-packing
Establishments.--Wine Making.--Covington and Newport
Suspension Bridge.--High Water.--Spring Grove Cemetery. 121-139
CHAPTER VIII.--CLEVELAND.
The "Western Reserve."--Character of Early Settlers.--
Fairport.--Richmond.--Early History of Cleveland.--Indians.--
Opening of Ohio and Portsmouth Canal.--Commerce in 1845.--
Cleveland in 1850.--First Railroad.--Manufacturing
Interests.--Cuyahoga "Flats" at Night.--The "Forest City."--
Streets and Avenues.--Monumental Park.--Public Buildings
and Churches.--Union Depot.--Water Rents.--Educational
Institutions.--Rocky River.--Approach to the City.--Freshet of
1883.--Funeral of President Garfield.--Lake Side Cemetery.--
Site of the Garfield Monument. 140-156
CHAPTER IX.--CHICAGO.
Topographical Situation of Chicago.--Meaning of the Name.--
Early History.--Massacre at Fort Dearborn.--Last of the Red
Men.--The Great Land Bubble.--Rapid Increase in Population
and Business.--The Canal.--First Railroad.--Status of
the City in 1871.--The Great Fire.--Its Origin, Progress and
Extent.--Heartrending Scenes.--Estimated Total Loss.--Help
from all Quarters.--Work of Reconstruction.--Second Fire.--
Its Public Buildings, Educational and Charitable Institutions,
Streets and Parks.--Its Waterworks.--Its Stock Yards.--Its
Suburbs.--Future of the City. 157-175
CHAPTER X.--CHEYENNE.
Location of Cheyenne.--Founding of the City.--Lawlessness.--
Vigilance Committee.--Woman Suffrage.--Rapid Increase of
Population and Business.--A Reaction.--Stock Raising.--
Irrigation.--Mineral Resources.--Present Prospects. 176-181
CHAPTER XI--DETROIT.
Detroit and Her Avenues of Approach.--Competing Lines.--
London in Canada.--The Strait and the Ferry.--Music on the
Waters.--The Home of the Algonquins.--Teusha-grondie.--
Wa-we-aw-to-nong.--Fort Ponchartrain and the Early French
Settlers.--The Red Cross of St. George.--Conspiracy of
Pontiac.--Battle of Bloody Run.--The Long Siege.--Detroit's
First American Flag.--Old Landmarks.--The Pontiac Tree.--
Devastation by Fire.--Site of the Modern City.--New City
Hall.--Public Library.--Mexican Antiquities. 182-193
CHAPTER XII.--ERIE.
Decoration Day in Pennsylvania.--Lake Erie.--Natural
Advantages of Erie.--Her Harbor, Commerce and Manufactures.--
Streets and Public Buildings.--Soldiers' Monument.--Erie
Cemetery.--East and West Parks.--Perry's Victory. 194-198
CHAPTER XIII.--HARRISBURG.
A Historic Tree.--John Harris' Wild Adventure with the
Indians.--Harris Park.--History of Harrisburg.--Situation
and Surroundings.--State House.--State Library.--A Historic
Flag.--View from State House Dome.--Capitol Park.--Monument
to Soldiers of Mexican War.--Monument to Soldiers of Late
War.--Public Buildings.--Front Street.--Bridges over the
Susquehanna.--Mt. Kalmia Cemetery.--Present Advantages and
Future Prospects of Harrisburg. 199-206
CHAPTER XIV.--HARTFORD.
The City of Publishers.--Its Geographical Location.--The New
State House.--Mark Twain and the "None Such."--The "Heathen
Chinee."--Wadsworth Atheneum.--Charter Oak.--George H. Clark's
Poem.--Putnam's Hotel.--Asylum for Deaf Mutes.--The Sign
Language.--A Fragment of Witchcraftism.--Hartford
_Courant_.--The Connecticut. 207-215
CHAPTER XV.--LANCASTER.
First Visit to Lancaster.--Eastern Pennsylvania.--Conestoga
River.--Early History of Lancaster.--Early Dutch Settlers.--
Manufactures.--Public Buildings.--Whit-Monday.--Home of
three Noted Persons.--James Buchanan, his Life and Death.--
Thaddeus Stevens and his Burial Place.--General Reynolds
and his Death.--"Cemetery City." 216-221
CHAPTER XVI.--MILWAUKEE.
Rapid Development of the Northwest.--The "West" Forty
Years Ago.--Milwaukee and its Commerce and Manufactures.--
Grain Elevators.--Harbor.--Divisions of the City.--Public
Buildings.--Northwestern National Asylum for Disabled
Soldiers.--German Population.--Influence and Results of German
Immigration.--Bank Riot in 1862.--Ancient Tumuli.--Mound
Builders.--Mounds Near Milwaukee.--Significance of Same.--
Early Traders.--Foundation of the City in 1835.--Excelling
Chicago in 1870.--Population and Commerce in 1880. 222-235
CHAPTER XVII--MONTREAL.
Thousand Islands.--Long Sault Rapids.--Lachine Rapids.--
Victoria Bridge--Mont Rèal.--Early History of Montreal.--
Its Shipping Interests.--Quays.--Manufactures.--Population.--
Roman Catholic Supremacy.--Churches.--Nunneries.--Hospitals,
Colleges.--Streets.--Public Buildings.--Victoria Skating
Rink.--Sleighing.--Early Disasters.--Points of Interest.--
The "Canucks." 236-247
CHAPTER XVIII.--NEWARK.
From New York to Newark.--Two Hundred Years Ago.--The
Pioneers.--Public Parks.--City of Churches.--The Canal.--
Sailing Up-Hill.--An Old Graveyard.--New Amsterdam and New
Netherlands.--The Dutch and English.--Adventurers from New
England.--The Indians.--Rate of Population.--Manufactures.--
Rank as a City. 248-255
CHAPTER XIX.--NEW HAVEN.
The City of Elms.--First Impressions.--A New England Sunday.--
A Sail on the Harbor.--Oyster Beds.--East Rock.--The Lonely
Denizen of the Bluff.--Romance of John Turner.--West Rock.--
The Judges' Cave.--Its Historical Association.--Escape of
the Judges.--Monument on the City Green.--Yale College.--Its
Stormy Infancy.--Battle on the Weathersfield Road.--Harvard,
the Fruit of the Struggle. 256-263
CHAPTER XX.--NEW ORLEANS.
Locality of New Orleans.--The Mississippi.--The Old and the
New.--Ceded to Spain.--Creole Part in the American Revolution.
Retransferred to France.--Purchased by the United States.--
Creole Discontent.--Battle of New Orleans.--Increase of
Population.--The Levee.--Shipping.--Public Buildings,
Churches, Hospitals, Hotels and Places of Amusement.--
Streets.--Suburbs.--Public Squares and Parks.--Places
of Historic Interest.--Cemeteries.--French Market.--
Mardi-gras.--Climate and Productions.--New Orleans during
the Rebellion.--Chief Cotton Mart of the World.--Exports.--
Imports.--Future Prosperity of the City. 264-280
CHAPTER XXI.--NEW YORK.
Early History of New York.--During the Revolution.--Evacuation
Day.--Bowling Green.--Wall Street.--Stock Exchange.--
Jacob Little.--Daniel Drew.--Jay Cooke.--Rufus Hatch.--
The Vanderbilts.--Jay Gould.--Trinity Church.--John Jacob
Astor.--Post-Office.--City Hall and Court House.--James Gordon
Bennett.--Printing House Square.--Horace Greeley.--Broadway.--
Union Square.--Washington Square.--Fifth Avenue.--Madison
Square.--Cathedral.--Murray Hill.--Second Avenue.--Booth's
Theatre and Grand Opera House.--The Bowery.--Peter Cooper.--
Fourth Avenue.--Park Avenue.--Five Points and its Vicinity.--
Chinese Quarter.--Tombs.--Central Park.--Water Front.--
Blackwell's Island.--Hell Gate.--Suspension Bridge.--Opening
Day.--Tragedy of Decoration Day.--New York of the Present and
Future. 281-318
CHAPTER XXII.--OMAHA.
Arrival in Omaha.--The Missouri River.--Position and
Appearance of the City.--Public Buildings.--History.--Land
Speculation.--Panic of 1857.--Discovery of Gold in Colorado.--
"Pike's Peak or Bust."--Sudden Revival of Business.--First
Railroad.--Union Pacific Railroad.--Population.--Commercial
and Manufacturing Interests.--Bridge over the Missouri.--
Union Pacific Depot--Prospects for the Future. 319-325
CHAPTER XXIII.--OTTAWA.
Ottawa, the Seat of the Canadian Government.--History.--
Population.--Geographical Position.--Scenery.--Chaudière
Falls.--Rideau Falls.--Ottawa River.--Lumber Business.--
Manufactures.--Steamboat and Railway Communications.--Moore's
Canadian Boat Song.--Description of the City.--Churches,
Nunneries, and Charitable Institutions.--Government
Buildings.--Rideau Hall.--Princess Louise and Marquis
of Lorne.--Ottawa's Proud Boast. 326-331
CHAPTER XXIV.--PITTSBURG.
Pittsburg at Night.--A Pittsburg Fog.--Smoke.--Description of
the City.--The Oil Business.--Ohio River.--Public Buildings,
Educational and Charitable Institutions.--Glass Industry.--
Iron Foundries.--Fort Pitt Works--Casting a Monster Gun.--
American Iron Works.--Nail Works.--A City of Workers.--
A True Democracy.--Wages.--Character of Workmen.--Value of
Organization.--Knights of Labor.--Opposed to Strikes.--True
Relations of Capital and Labor.--Railroad Strike of 1877.--
Allegheny City.--Population of Pittsburg.--Early History.--
Braddock's Defeat.--Old Battle Ground.--Historic Relics.--
The Past and the Present. 332-347
CHAPTER XXV.--PORTLAND.
The Coast of Maine.--Early Settlements in Portland.--Troubles
with the Indians.--Destruction of the Town in 1690.--Destroyed
Again in 1703.--Subsequent Settlement and Growth.--During the
Revolution.--First Newspaper.--Portland Harbor.--Commercial
Facilities and Progress.--During the Rebellion.--Great Fire
of 1866.--Reconstruction.--Position of the City.--Streets.--
Munjoy Hill.--Maine General Hospital.--Eastern and Western
Promenades.--Longfellow's House.--Birthplace of the Poet.--
Market Square and Hall.--First Unitarian Church.--Lincoln
Park.--Eastern Cemetery.--Deering's Woods.--Commercial
Street.--Old-time Mansion.--Case's Bay and Islands.--
Cushing's Island.--Peak's Island.--Ling Island.--Little
Chebague Island.--Harpswell. 348-365
CHAPTER XXVI.--PHILADELPHIA.
Early History.--William Penn.--The Revolution.--Declaration
of Independence.--First Railroad.--Riots.--Streets and
Houses.--Relics of the Past.--Independence Hall.--Carpenters'
Hall.--Blue Anchor.--Letitia Court.--Christ Church.--Old
Swedes' Church.--Benjamin Franklin.--Libraries.--Old Quaker
Almshouse.--Old Houses in Germantown.--Manufactures.--
Theatres.--Churches--Scientific Institutions.--Newspapers.--
Medical Colleges.--Schools.--Public Buildings.--
Penitentiary.--River Front.--Fairmount Park.--Zoölogical
Gardens.--Cemeteries.--Centennial Exhibition.--
Bi-Centennial.--Past, Present and Future of the City. 366-398
CHAPTER XXVII.--PROVIDENCE.
Origin of the City.--Roger Williams.--Geographical Location
and Importance.--Topography of Providence.--The Cove.--
Railroad Connections.--Brown University.--Patriotism of Rhode
Island.--Soldiers' Monument.--The Roger Williams Park.--
Narragansett Bay.--Suburban Villages.--Points of Interest.--
Butter Exchange.--Lamplighting on a New Plan.--Jewelry
Manufactories. 399-404
CHAPTER XXVIII.--QUEBEC.
Appearance of Quebec.--Gibraltar of America.--Fortifications
and Walls.--The Walled City.--Churches, Nunneries and
Hospitals.--Views from the Cliff.--Upper Town.--Lower Town.--
Manufactures.--Public Buildings.--Plains of Abraham.--Falls of
Montmorenci.--Sledding on the "Cone."--History of Quebec.--
Capture of the City by the British.--Death of Generals Wolfe
and Montcalm.--Disaster under General Murray.--Ceding of
Canada, by France, to England.--Attack by American Forces
under Montgomery and Arnold.--Death of Montgomery.--Capital
of Lower Canada and of the Province of Quebec. 405-414
CHAPTER XXIX.--READING.
Geographical Position and History of Reading.--Manufacturing
Interests.--Population, Streets, Churches and Public
Buildings.--Boating on the Schuylkill.--White Spot and the
View from its Summit.--Other Pleasure Resorts.--Decoration
Day.--Wealth Created by Industry. 415-420
CHAPTER XXX.--RICHMOND.
Arrival in Richmond.--Libby Prison.--Situation of the City.--
Historical Associations.--Early Settlement.--Attacked by
British Forces in the Revolution.--Monumental Church.--
St. John's Church.--State Capital.--Passage of the Ordinance
of Secession.--Richmond the Capital of the Confederate
States.--Military Expeditions against the City.--Evacuation
of Petersburg.--Surrender of the City.--Visit of President
Lincoln.--Historical Places.--Statues.--Rapid Recuperation
After the War.--Manufacturing and Commercial Interests.--
Streets and Public Buildings.--Population and Future
Prospects. 421-432
CHAPTER XXXI.--SAINT PAUL.
Early History of Saint Paul.--Founding of the City.--Public
Buildings.--Roman Catholics.--Places of Resort.--Falls of
Minnehaha.--Carver's Cave.--Fountain Cave.--Commercial
Interests.--Present and Future Prospects. 433-487
CHAPTER XXXII.--SALT LAKE CITY.
The Mormons.--Pilgrimage Across the Continent.--Site of Salt
Lake City.--A People of Workers.--Spread of Mormons through
other Territories.--City of the Saints.--Streets.--Fruit and
Shade Trees.--Irrigation.--The Tabernacle.--Residences of
the late Brigham Young.--Museum.--Public Buildings.--Warm
and Hot Springs.--Number and Character of Population.--
Barter System before Completion of Railroad.--Mormons and
Gentiles.--Present Advantages and Future Prospects of Salt
Lake City. 438-447
CHAPTER XXXIII.--SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco.--The Golden State.--San Francisco Bay.--Golden
Gate.--Conquest of California by Fremont, 1848.--Discovery of
Gold.--Rush to the Mines, 1849.--"Forty-niners."--Great Rise
in Provisions and Wages.--Miners Homeward Bound.--Dissipation
and Vice in the City.--Vigilance Committee.--Great Influx of
Miners in 1850.--Immense Gold Yield.--Climate.--Earthquakes.--
Productions.--Irrigation.--Streets and Buildings.--Churches.--
Lone Mountain Cemetery.--Cliff House.--Seal Rock.--Theatres.--
Chinese Quarter.--Chinese Theatres.--Joss Houses.--Emigration
Companies.--The Chinese Question.--Cheap Labor.--"The Chinese
Must Go."--Present Population and Commerce of San Francisco.--
Exports.--Manufactures.--Cosmopolitan Nature of Inhabitants. 448-472
CHAPTER XXXIV.--SAVANNAH.
First Visit to Savannah.--Camp Davidson.--The City During
the War.--An Escaped Prisoner.--Recapture and Final
Escape.--A "City of Refuge."--Savannah by Night.--Position
of the City.--Streets and Public Squares.--Forsyth Park.--
Monuments.--Commerce.--View from the Wharves.--Railroads.--
Founding of the City.--Revolutionary History.--Death of
Pulaski.--Secession.--Approach of Sherman.--Investment of
the City by Union Troops.--Recuperation After the War.--
Climate.--Colored Population.--Bonaventure, Thunderbolt,
and Other Suburban Resorts. 473-486
CHAPTER XXXV.--SPRINGFIELD.
Valley of the Connecticut.--Location of Springfield.--
The United States Armory.--Springfield Library.--Origin
of the Present Library System.--The Wayland Celebration.--
Settlement of Springfield.--Indian Hostilities.--Days of
Witchcraft.--Trial of Hugh Parsons.--Hope Daggett.--
Springfield "Republican." 487-491
CHAPTER XXXVI.--ST. LOUIS.
Approach to St. Louis.--Bridge Over the Mississippi.--View
of the City.--Material Resources of Missouri.--Early History
of St. Louis.--Increase of Population.--Manufacturing and
Commercial Interests.--Locality.--Description of St. Louis
in 1842.--Resemblance to Philadelphia.--Public Buildings.--
Streets.--Parks.--Fair Week.--Educational and Charitable
Institutions.--Hotels.--Mississippi River.--St. Louis During
the Rebellion.--Peculiar Characteristics.--The Future of the
City. 492-510
CHAPTER XXXVII--SYRACUSE.
Glimpses on the Rail.--Schenectady.--Valley of the Mohawk.--
"Lover's Leap."--Rome and its Doctor.--Oneida Stone.--The
Lo Race.--Oneida Community.--The City of Salt.--The Six
Nations.--The Onondagas.--Traditions of Red Americans.--
Hiawatha.--Sacrifice of White Dogs.--Ceremonies.--The Lost
Tribes of Israel.--Witches and Wizards.--A Jules Verne
Story.--The Salt Wells of Salina.--Lake Onondaga.--Indian
Knowledge of Salt Wells.--"Over the Hills and Far Away."--
A Castle.--Steam Canal Boats.--Adieux.--Westward Ho! 511-521
CHAPTER XXXVIII--TORONTO.
Situation of Toronto.--The Bay.--History.--Rebellion of
1837.--Fenian Invasion of 1866.--Population.--General
Appearance.--Sleighing.--Streets.--Railways.--Commerce.--
Manufactures.--Schools and Colleges.--Queen Park.--
Churches.--Benevolent Institutions.--Halls and Other
Public Buildings.--Hotels.--Newspapers.--General
Characteristics and Progress. 522-527
CHAPTER XXXIX.--WASHINGTON.
Situation of the National Capital.--Site Selected by
Washington.--Statues of General Andrew Jackson, Scott,
McPherson, Rawlins.--Lincoln Emancipation Group.--Navy Yard
Bridge.--Capitol Building.--The White House.--Department
of State, War and Navy.--The Treasury Department.--Patent
Office.--Post Office Department.--Agricultural Building.--
Army Medical Museum.--Government Printing Office.--United
States Barracks.--Smithsonian Institute.--National Museum.--
The Washington Monument.--Corcoran Art Gallery.--National
Medical College.--Deaf and Dumb Asylum.--Increase of
Population.--Washington's Future Greatness. 528-558
CHAPTER I.
ALBANY.
From Boston to Albany.--Worcester and Pittsfield.--The Empire
State and its Capital.--Old Associations.--State Street.--Sketch
of Early History.--Killian Van Rensselaer.--Dutch Emigration.--
Old Fort Orange.--City Heights.--The Lumber District.--Van
Rensselaer Homestead.--The New Capitol.--Military Bureau.--
War Relics.--Letter of General Dix.--Ellsworth and Lincoln
Memorials.--Geological Rooms.--The Cathedral.--Dudley
Observatory.--Street Marketing.--Troy and Cohoes.--Stove
Works.--Paper Boats.--Grand Army Rooms.--Down the Hudson.
An exceedingly cold day was February fourth, 1875, the day which marked
our journey from Boston to Albany. My inclination to step outside our
car and tip my hat to the various familiar places along the route was
suddenly checked by a gust of cutting, freezing, zero-stinging air. A
ride of between one and two hours brought us to Worcester, a stirring
town of about forty thousand inhabitants. Worcester is noted principally
for its cotton factories, and as a political center in Eastern
Massachusetts.
Springfield, Westfield and Pittsfield follow in succession along the
route, in central and Western Massachusetts, the first of which has been
made the subject of a special chapter in this book. The last I remember
chiefly as the place where, in the summer of 1866, I took my first steps
in a new enterprise. Pittsfield has large cotton mills, is a summer
resort, and is the nearest point, by rail, to the Shaker community at
Lebanon, five miles distant. At Westfield the Mount Holyoke Railroad
joins the main line, and semi-annually conveys the daughters of the land
to the famous _Holyoke Female Seminary_.
Leaving Pittsfield we soon reached the State line between New York and
Massachusetts. I sometimes think that after a residence in almost every
State of the Union, I ought to feel no greater attraction for my native
State than any other, yet I cannot repress a sentiment of stronger
affection for good, grand old New York than any other in the united
sisterhood. The Empire State has indeed a charm for me, and a congenial
breeze, I imagine, always awaits me at its boundary.
A ride of another hour brings to view the church spires of Albany, and
with them a long line of thrilling memories come rushing, like many
waters, to my mind. Here, in 1859, I entered the State Normal School;
here I resolved to enter the army; and here the first edition of my
first book was published, in the autumn of 1865. The work, therefore, of
presenting this chapter upon the peculiar features of the Capital City
of New York, may be regarded as one of the most agreeable duties I have
to perform in the preparation of these pages.
The traveler now entering Albany from the east crosses the Hudson on a
beautiful iron railroad bridge, which, in the steady march of
improvements, has succeeded the old-time ferry boat. He is landed at the
commodious stone building of the New York Central and Hudson River
Railroad, which is conveniently sandwiched between the Delavan House and
Stanwix Hall, two large, well known and well conducted hotels.
My first night in a city and a hotel was spent here, at the old Adams
House, located at that time on Broadway just opposite the Delavan. I was
awakened in the morning by the roll and rattle of vehicles, and the
usual din and confusion of a city street. The contrast to my quiet home
in the Valley of the St. Lawrence was so marked, I can never forget the
impression I then received, and as I walked up State street toward the
old Capitol, I almost fancied that such a street might be a fit road to
Paradise. Albany was the gate through which I entered the world, and to
my boyish vision the view it disclosed was very wide, and the grand
possibilities that lay in the dim distance seemed manifold. It is the
oldest city, save Jamestown, Va., in the Union, having been settled in
the very babyhood of the seventeenth century, somewhere about 1612 or
1614. It was originally, until the year 1661, only a trading post on the
frontier, the entire region of country to the westward being unexplored
and unknown, except as the "far west." The red warriors of the Mohegans,
Senecas, Mohawks and the remaining bands of the "Six Nations" held
undisputed possession of the soil, and kindled their council fires and
danced their "corn dances" in peace, unmolested as yet by the aggressive
pale-faces.
The baptismal name of the embryo city of Albany was Scho-negh-ta-da, an
Indian word meaning "over the plains." The name was afterwards
transferred to the outlying suburban town now known as Schenectady. An
immense tract of land bordering the Hudson for twenty-four miles, and
reaching back from the river three times that distance, included Albany
within its jurisdiction, and was originally owned by a rich Dutch
merchant, one Killian Van Rensselaer, from Amsterdam. The land was
purchased from the Indians for the merest trifle, after the usual
fashion of white cupidity when dealing with Indian generosity and
ignorance. Emigrants were sent over from the old country to people this
wide domain, and thus the first white colony was established, which
subsequently grew into sufficient importance to become the Capital city
of the Empire State.
Before the purchase of Killian Van Rensselaer, a fort was built
somewhere on what is now known as Broadway, and was named Fort Orange,
in honor of the Prince of Orange, who was at that time patroon of New
Netherlands, as New York was at first called. Old Fort Orange afterwards
went by various names, among which were Rensselaerwyck, Beaverwyck and
Williamstadt. In 1664 the sovereignty of the tract passed into the hands
of the English, and was named Albany, in compliment to the Duke of
Albany. In 1686 the young city aspired to a city charter, and its first
mayor, Peter Schuyler, was then elected. In 1807 it became the Capital
of the State. As an item of interest, it may be mentioned that the first
vessel which ascended the river as far as Albany was the yacht Half
Moon, Captain Hendrick Hudson commanding.
Albany, like ancient Rome, sits upon her many hills, and the views
obtained from the city heights are beautiful in the extreme. The
Helderbergs and the Catskill ranges loom blue and beautiful towards the
south, Troy and the Green Mountains of Vermont can be seen from the
north, while beyond the river, Bath-on-the-Hudson and the misty hill
tops further away, rim the horizon's distant verge. The city has a
large trade in lumber, and that portion of it which is known as the
"lumber district" is devoted almost exclusively to this branch. One may
walk, of a summer's day, along the smooth and winding road between the
river and the canal, for two miles or more, and encounter nothing save
the tasteful cottage-like offices, done in Gothic architecture, of the
merchant princes in this trade, sandwiched between huge piles of lumber,
rising white and high in the sun, and giving out resinous, piney odors.
Not far from this vicinity stands the old Van Rensselaer homestead,
guarded by a few primeval forest trees that have survived the wreck of
time and still keep their ancient watch and ward. The old house, I have
been told, is now deserted of all save an elderly lady, one of the last
of the descendants of the long and ancient line of Van Rensselaer.
Numerous points of interest dot the city in all directions, from limit
to limit, and claim the attention of the stranger. Among the most
prominent of these is, of course, the new Capitol building now in
process of construction at the head of State street. A very pretty model
of the structure is on exhibition in a small wooden building standing at
the entrance to the grounds, which gives, I should judge, a clever idea
of what the future monumental pile is to be like. Its height is very
imposing, and the tall towers and minarets which rise from its roof will
give it an appearance of still greater grandeur. It is built of granite
quarried from Maine and New Hampshire, and is in the form of a
parallelogram, enclosing an open court. Had I a sufficient knowledge of
architecture to enable me to talk of orders, of pilasters, columns,
entablatures and façades, I might perhaps give my readers a clearer
idea of the magnificence of this new structure, which will stand without
a rival, in this country at least, and may even dare to compete with
some of the marvellous splendors of the old world.
The Old Capitol and the State Library stand just in front of the new
building, and obscure the view from the foot of State street. The Senate
and Assembly chambers in the old building have an antiquated air, with
their straight-backed chairs upholstered in green and red, and the rough
stairways leading to the cupola, through an unfurnished attic, are
suggestive of accident. In this cupola, once upon a time, in the year
1832, a certain Mr. Weaver, tired of life and its turmoil, swung himself
out of it on a rope. So the cupola has its bit of romance. In this
neighborhood, on State street, above the Library, is located the Bureau
of Military Statistics, which is well worth a visit from every New
Yorker who takes a pride in the military glory of his native State. One
is greeted at the entrance with a host of mementos of our recent civil
war, which bring back a flood of patriotic memories. Here is a
collection of nine hundred battle flags, all belonging to the State,
most of them torn and tattered in hard service, and inscribed with the
names of historic fields into which they went fresh and bright, and out
of which they came smoked and begrimed, and torn with the conflict of
battle. Here are old canteens which have furnished solace to true
comrades on many occasions of mutual hardship. Here, too, is the Lincoln
collection, with its sad reminders of the nation's loved and murdered
President; and in a corner of the same room the Ellsworth collection is
displayed from a glass case. His gun and the Zouave suit worn by him at
the time of his death hang side by side, and there, too, is the flag
which, with impetuous bravery, he tore down from the top of the Marshall
House at Alexandria, Virginia. In the same case hangs the picture of his
avenger, Captain Brownell, and the rifle with which he shot Jackson. In
another part of the room may be seen the original letter of Governor,
then Secretary, Dix, which afterwards became so famous, and which
created, in a great measure, the wave of popularity that carried him
into the gubernatorial chair.
The letter reads as follows:--
"TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
January, 29th, 1861.
"Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command of
the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Captain Breshwood,
after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter,
tell Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer and treat him
accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot
him on the spot.
"JOHN A. DIX, _Secretary of the Treasury_."
The captured office chairs used by Jeff. Davis, in Richmond, the lock
from John Brown's prison door at Harper's Ferry, pieces of plate from
the monitors off Charleston, torpedoes from James River, the bell of the
old guard-house at Fort Fisher, captured slave chains, miniature pontoon
bridges, draft boxes and captured Rebel shoes, may be mentioned as a few
among the many curiosities of this military bureau. Here, too, may be
seen the pardon, from Lincoln, for Roswell Mclntire, taken from his dead
body at the battle of Five Forks; and near by hangs the picture of
Sergeant Amos Humiston, of the 154th New York Regiment, who was
identified by means of the picture of his three children, found clasped
in his hand as he lay dead on the field of Gettysburg. In this room,
also, is the Jamestown, New York, flag, made by the ladies of that place
in six hours after the attack on Sumter, and which was displayed from
the office of the Jamestown _Journal_. Mr. Daly, the polite janitor of
the building, is always happy to receive visitors, and will show them
every courtesy.
The Geological Rooms, on State street, are also well worthy the time and
attention of the visitor. Large collections of the various kinds of rock
which underlie the soil of our country are here on exhibition, as, also,
the coral formations and geological curiosities of all ages. In an upper
room towers the mammoth Cohoes mastodon, whose skeleton reaches from
floor to ceiling. This monster of a former age was accidentally
discovered at that place by parties who were excavating for a building.
In these rooms, also, there are huge jaws of whales, which enable one to
better understand the disposition of the Bible whales, and how easy it
must have been for them to gulp down two or three Jonahs, if one little
Jonah should fail to appease the delicate appetite of such sportive
fishes. I couldn't help thinking of the lost races that must have
peopled the earth when this old world was young--when these fossils were
undergoing formation, and these mastodons made the ground tremble
beneath their tread.
Where are these peoples now, and where their unrevealed histories? Shall
we never know more of them than Runic stones and mysterious mounds can
unfold? These reminders of the things that once had an existence but
have now vanished from the face of the earth, and well nigh from the
memory of men--these things are full of suggestion, to say the least,
and are quite apt to correct any undue vanity which may take possession
of us, or any large idea of future fame. We may, perhaps, create a
ripple in the surface of remembrance which marks the place where our
human existence went out, and which, at the furthest, may last a few
hundred years. But who can hope for more than that, or hoping, can
reasonably expect to find the wish realized? "There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy."
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, on Eagle street, is one of
the finest church structures in Albany. It is built of brown freestone,
in the Gothic style of architecture, and its two towers are each two
hundred-and-eighty feet in height. Its cost was six hundred thousand
dollars. The interior decorations are beautiful, and the rich stained
glass windows are the gifts of sister societies. On Easter mornings the
Cathedral is sure to be crowded by people of all sects and creeds,
brought there to witness the joyous Easter services which terminate the
long fast of Lent.
About a mile and a half from the city, on Patroon's Hill, is situated
the Dudley Observatory, where on clear summer nights Albanians come to
gaze at the stars and the moon, through the large Observatory
refractor. The structure is built in the form of a cross, eighty-six
feet long and seventy feet deep.
One of the first peculiarities which attracts the attention of the
non-resident of Albany is the appearance of the business portion of
State street, in the forenoon, from eight o'clock until twelve. Any time
between these hours the street, from the lower end of Capitol Park down
to Pearl street, is transformed into a vast market-place. Meat-wagons,
vegetable carts, restaurants on wheels, and all sorts of huckstering
establishments, are backed up to the sidewalk, on either side, blocking
the way and so filling the wide avenue that there is barely room for the
street-car in its passage up and down the hill. The descendants of
Killian Van Rensselaer and the aristocratic Ten Eycks and Van Woerts, of
Albany, should exhibit enterprise enough, I think, to erect a city
market and spare State street this spectacle.
[Illustration: STATE STREET AND CAPITOL, ALBANY, NEW YORK.]
The manufacturing interest of Albany consists largely of stove works, in
which department it competes with its near neighbor, Troy. This
flourishing city, of about forty-eight thousand souls, is seven miles
distant from Albany, up the river, and is in manifold communication with
it by railroads on both sides of the Hudson, as well as by street
railway. Steam cars run between Albany and Troy half hourly, during the
day and far into the night, and one always encounters a stream of people
between these two places, whose current sets both ways, at all times and
seasons. Troy is at the head of navigation on the Hudson and
communicates by street car with Cohoes, Lansingburg and Waterford.
Cohoes is a place of great natural beauty, and the Cataract Falls of
the Mohawk River at that place add an element of wild grandeur to the
scenery. One of the large, rocky islands in the river, known as Simmons'
Island, is a popular resort for picnic excursions, and is a delightful
place in summer, with its groves of forest trees, and the pleasant noise
of waters around its base. The place seems haunted by an atmosphere of
Indian legend, and one could well imagine the departed warriors of the
lost tribes of the Mohawk treading these wild forest paths, and making
eloquent "talks" before their red brothers gathered around the council
fire.
The Mohawk and Hudson rivers unite at Troy, and seek a common passage to
the sea. Mrs. Willard's Seminary for young ladies is located in this
city, and is a standard institution of learning. Many of the streets of
Troy are remarkably clean and finely shaded, and handsome residences and
business blocks adorn them. The city is also a headquarters for
Spiritualism in this section of the country. The Spiritualistic Society
has, I am told, a flourishing, progressive Lyceum, which supersedes,
with them, the orthodox Sunday school, and the exercises, consisting in
part of marches and recitations, are conducted in a spirited and
interesting manner.
Foundries for hollow-ware and stoves constitute the leading branch of
manufacture in the city of Troy. To one not familiar with the process by
which iron is shaped into the various articles of common use among us, a
visit to the foundries of Troy or Albany would be full of interest and
instruction. Piles of yellow sand are lying in the long buildings used
as foundries, while on either side the room workmen are busily engaged
fashioning the wet sand into moulds for the reception of the melted
iron. Originally the sand is of a bright yellow color, but it soon
becomes a dingy brown, by repeated use in cooling the liquid metal.
Each moulder has his "floor," or special amount of room allotted him for
work, and here, during the forenoon, and up to three or four o'clock in
the afternoon, he is very busy indeed, preparing for the "pouring"
operation. Pig iron, thrown into a huge cauldron or boiler, and melted
to a white heat, is then poured, from a kettle lined with clay, into the
sand-moulds, and in a remarkably short space of time the greenish-white
liquid which you saw flowing into a tiny, black aperture is shaken out
of the sand by the workmen, having been transformed into portions of
stoves. These go to the polishing room, and thence to the finishing
apartment, where the detached pieces are hammered together, with
deafening noise.
Troy rejoices also in a paper boat manufactory--the boats being made
especially for racing and feats of skill. They find sale principally in
foreign markets, and at stated seasons divide the attention of the
English with the "Derby." The boats are made of layers of brown paper
put together with shellac.
There is a large society of Grand Army men in Albany, one Post numbering
five or six hundred members. Their rooms are tastefully decorated, and
hung with patriotic pictures, which make the blood thrill anew, as in
the days of '61. A miniature fort occupies the centre of the room, and
emblematic cannon and crossed swords are to be seen in conspicuous
places.
A trip down the Hudson, in summer, from Albany to New York, is said to
afford some of the finest scenery in the world, not excepting the
famous sail on the castled Rhine; and the large river boats which leave
Albany wharf daily, for our American London, are, indeed, floating
palaces. The capital city of the Empire State is not, therefore, without
its attractions, despite the fact that it was settled by the Dutch, and
that a sort of Rip Van Winkle sleep seems, at times, to have fastened
itself upon the drowsy spirit of Albanian enterprise.
CHAPTER II.
BOSTON.
Geographical Location of Boston.--Ancient Names.--Etymology
of the Word Massachusetts.--Changes in the Peninsula.--Noted
Points of Interest.--Boston Common.--Old Elm.--Duel Under its
Branches.--Soldiers' Monument.--Fragmentary History.--Courtship
on the Common.--Faneuil Hall and Market.--Old State House.--
King's Chapel.--Brattle Square Church.--New State House.--
New Post Office.--Old South Church.--Birthplace of Franklin.--
"News Letter."--City Hall.--Custom House.--Providence Railroad
Station.--Places of General Interest.
Boston sits like a queen at the head of her harbor on the Massachusetts
coast, and wears her crown of past and present glory with an easy and
self-satisfied grace. Her commercial importance is large; her ships
float on many seas; and she rejoices now in the same uncompromising
spirit of independence which controlled the actions of the celebrated
"Tea Party" in the pioneer days of '76. Her safe harbor is one of the
best on the Atlantic seaboard, and is dotted with over a hundred
islands. On some of these, garrisoned forts look grimly seaward.
Boston is built on a peninsula about four miles in circumference, and to
this fact may be attributed the origin of her first name, Shawmutt, that
word signifying in the Indian vocabulary a peninsula. Its second name,
Tremount, took its rise from the three peaks of Beacon Hill, prominently
seen from Charlestown by the first settlers there. Many of the colonists
were from old Boston, in Lincolnshire, England, and on the seventh of
September, 1630, this name supplanted the first two.
[Illustration: BOSTON, AS VIEWED FROM THE BAY.]
In this connection may be given the etymology of the word Massachusetts,
which is somewhat curious. It is said that the red Sachem who governed
in this part of the country had his seat on a hill about two leagues
south of Boston. It lay in the shape of an Indian arrow's head, which in
their language was called Mos. Wetuset, pronounced _Wechuset_, was also
their name for a hill, and the Sachem's seat was therefore named
Mosentuset, which a slight variation changed into the name afterwards
received by the colony. Boston, as the centre of this colony, began from
the first to assume the importance of the first city of New England. Its
history belongs not only to itself, but to the country at large, as the
pioneer city in the grand struggle for constitutional and political
liberty. A large majority of the old landmarks which connected it with
the stormy days of the past, and stood as monuments of its primeval
history, are now obliterated by time and the steady march of
improvements. The face of the country is changed. The three peaks of
Beacon Hill, which once lifted themselves to the height of a hundred and
thirty feet above the sea, are now cut down into insignificant knolls.
The waters of the "black bay" which swelled around its base have receded
to give place to the encroachments of the city. Made lands, laid out in
streets and set thick with dwellings, supplant the mud flats formerly
covered by the tide. Thousands of acres which were once the bed of the
harbor are now densely populated.
The house on Harrison avenue where the writer is at present domiciled is
located on the spot which once was occupied by one of the best wharves
in the city. The largest ocean craft moored to this wharf, on account of
the great depth of water flowing around it. The land has steadily
encroached on the water, until the peninsula that was is a peninsula no
longer, and its former geographical outlines have dropped out of sight
in the whirl and rush of the populous and growing city. A few old
landmarks of the past, however, still remain, linking the _now_ and the
_then_, and among the most prominent of these are Faneuil Hall, the Old
South Church, which was founded in 1660, King's Chapel, the Old Granary
Burying-ground, Brattle Square Church, quite recently demolished, the
old State House, and Boston Common. The Common antedates nearly all
other special features of the city, and is the pride of Bostonians. Here
juvenile Boston comes in winter to enjoy the exciting exercise of
"coasting," and woe to the unwary foot passenger who may chance to
collide with the long sleds full of noisy boys which shoot like black
streaks from the head of Beacon street Mall, down the diagonal length of
the Common, to the junction of Boylston and Tremont streets. This winter
(1874-5), owing to several unfortunate accidents to passers-by across
the snowy roads of the coasters, elevated bridges have been erected, to
meet the wants of the people without interfering with the rights of the
boys. The Common was originally a fifty-acre lot belonging to a Mr.
Blackstone. This was in 1633. It was designed as a cow pasture and
training ground, and was sold to the people of Boston the next year,
1634, for thirty pounds. The city was taxed for this purpose to the
amount of not less than five shillings for each inhabitant. Mr.
Blackstone afterwards removed to Cumberland, Rhode Island, where he
died, in the spring of 1675. It is said that John Hancock's cows were
pastured on the Common in the days of the Revolution. On the tenth of
May, 1830, the city authorities forbade the use of the Common for cows,
at which time it was inclosed by a two-rail fence. The handsome iron
paling which now surrounds the historic area has long since taken the
place of the ancient fence.
Perhaps the most noticeable, certainly the most famous object on Boston
Common, is the Great Tree, or Old Elm, which stands in a hollow of rich
soil near a permanent pond of water, not far from the centre of the
enclosure. It is of unknown age. It was probably over a hundred years
old in 1722. Governor Winthrop came to Boston in 1630, but before that
period the tree probably had its existence. It antedates the arrival of
the first settlers, and it seems not unlikely that the Indian Shawmutt
smoked the pipe of peace under its pendent branches. In 1844 its height
was given at seventy-two and a half feet--girth, one foot above the
ground, twenty-two and a half feet. The storms of over two centuries
have vented their fury upon it and destroyed its graceful outlines. But
in its age and decrepitude it has been tenderly nursed and partially
rejuvenated. Broken limbs, torn off by violent gales, have been replaced
by means of iron clamps, and such skill as tree doctors may use. In the
last century a hollow orifice in its trunk was covered with canvas and
its edges protected by a mixture of clay and other substances. Later, in
1854, Mr. J. V. C. Smith, Mayor of the city, placed around it an iron
fence bearing the following inscription:--
"THE OLD ELM."
"This tree has been standing here for an unknown period. It is
believed to have existed before the settlement of Boston, being
full-grown in 1722. Exhibited marks of old age in 1792, and was
nearly destroyed by a storm in 1832. Protected by an iron
inclosure in 1854."
What a long array of exciting events has this tree witnessed! In the
stirring days of the Revolution the British army was encamped around it.
In 1812 the patriot army occupied the same place, in protecting the town
against the invasion of a foreign foe. Tumultuous crowds have here
assembled on election and Independence days, and its sturdy branches
have faced alike the anger of the elements and the wrath of man. Public
executions have taken place under its shadow, and witches have dangled
from its branches in death's last agonies. Here, in 1740, Rev. George
Whitfield preached his farewell sermon to an audience of thirty thousand
people; and here, also, at an earlier date, old Matoonas, of the Nipmuck
tribe, was shot to death by the dusky warriors of Sagamore John, on a
charge of committing the first murder in Massachusetts Colony. An
incident of still more romantic interest belongs to the history of the
Old Elm. On July third, 1728, this spot was the scene of a mortal combat
between two young men belonging to the upper circle of Boston society.
The cause of dispute was the possession of an unknown fair one. The
names of the young men were Benjamin Woodbridge and Henry Phillips, both
about twenty years old. The time was evening, the weapons rapiers, and
Woodbridge was fatally dispatched by a thrust from the rapier of his
antagonist. Phillips fled to a British ship of war lying in the harbor,
and was borne by fair breezes to English shores. He did not long survive
his opponent, however, dying, it is said, of despair, shortly after his
arrival in England.
Frog Pond, or Fountain Pond, near the Old Elm, has been transformed from
a low, marshy spot of stagnant water, to the clear sheet which is now
the delight of the boys. October twenty-fifth, 1848, the water from
Cochituate Lake was introduced through this pond, and in honor of the
occasion a large procession marched through the principal streets of the
city to the Common. Addresses, hymns, prayers, and songs, were the order
of the day, and when the pure water of the lake leaped through the
fountain gate, the ringing of bells and boom of cannon attested the joy
of the people.
Near the Old Elm and the Frog Pond, on Flagstaff Hill, the corner-stone
of a Soldiers' Monument was laid, September eighteenth, 1871. Some idea
of the style of the monument may be gathered from the following
description:--"Upon a granite platform will rest the plinth, in the form
of a Greek cross, with four panels, in which will be inserted
bas-reliefs representing the Sanitary Commission, the Navy, the
Departure for the War and the Return. At each of the four corners will
be a statue, of heroic size, representing Peace, History, the Army, and
the Navy. The die upon the plinth will also be richly sculptured, and
upon it, surrounding the shaft in alto-relievo, will be four allegorical
figures representing the North, South, East and West. The shaft is to be
an elegant Doric column, the whole to be surmounted by a colossal statue
of America resting on a hemisphere, guarded by four figures of the
American eagle, with outspread wings. 'America' will hold in her left
hand the national standard, and in her right she will support a sheathed
sword, and wreaths for the victors. The extreme height of the monument
will be ninety feet. The artist is Martin Millmore, of Boston."
In the year 1668, a certain Mr. Dunton visited Boston, and wrote the
following letter to his friends in England. It will serve to show the
custom of Bostonians on training day, and recall some of the scenes
which transpired over two hundred years ago on the historic Common. "It
is a custom here," he says, "for all that can bear arms to go out on a
training day. I thought a pike was best for a young soldier, so I
carried a pike; 'twas the first time I ever was in arms. Having come
into the field, the Captain called us into line to go to prayer, and
then prayed himself, and when the exercise was done the Captain likewise
concluded with a prayer. Solemn prayer upon a field, on training day, I
never knew but in New England, where it seems it is a common custom.
About three o'clock, our exercises and prayers being over, we had a very
noble dinner, to which all the clergymen were invited."
In 1640, Arthur Perry was Town Drummer for all public purposes. There
being no meeting-house bell in town, he called the congregation together
with his drum. "He joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in
that capacity, for which yearly service he received five pounds. The
second additional musical instrument was a clarionet, performed on by a
tall, strapping fellow with but one eye, who headed the Ancient and
Honorable a few strides." The first band of music used in Boston was in
1790, at the funeral of Colonel Joseph Jackson. Yearly, for a period of
between two and three hundred years, this military company has appeared
on the Common, to be received by the Governor of the State, with his
aides, who appointed the new commissions for the year to come and
received those for the year just past. Their anniversary occurs on the
first Monday in June.
The Brewer Fountain, the Deer Park and the Tremont and Beacon Street
Malls complete the list of conspicuous attractions on the Common. The
Beacon Street Mall is perhaps the finest, being heavily shaded by
thickly-set rows of American elms. A particular portion of this mall is
described as the scene of at least _one_ courtship, and how many more
may have transpired in the neighborhood history or tradition tells us
not!
The "Autocrat of the Breakfast-table" loved the schoolmistress who
partook of her daily food at the same board with himself and listened
quietly to his wise morning talks, with only an occasional sensible
reply. The schoolmistress returned his passion, but the young Autocrat,
uncertain of his fate, rashly determined that if she said him "nay" to
this most important question of his life, he would take passage in the
next steamer bound for Liverpool, and never look upon her face again.
The fateful hour which was to decide his fate approached, and the
Autocrat proposed a walk. They took the direction of the Beacon Street
Mall, and what happened next his own charming pen-picture best
describes:
"It was on the Common that we were walking. The _mall_ or boulevard of
our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in different
directions. One of these runs down from opposite Joy street, southward,
across the length of the whole Common, to Boylston street. We called it
the long path, and were fond of it.
"I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came
opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think I tried to speak
twice without making myself distinctly audible. At last I got out the
question:--'Will you take the long path with me?'
"'Certainly,' said the schoolmistress, 'with much pleasure.'
"'Think,' I said, 'before you answer; if you take the long path with me
now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!' The
schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had
struck her.
"One of the long, granite blocks used as seats was hard by, the one you
may still see close by the Ginko tree. 'Pray, sit down,' I said.
"'No, no,' she answered softly, 'I will walk the _long path_ with you.'"
Propositions to convert the Common into public thoroughfares have ever
met with stout resistance from "we the people"--the Commoners of
Boston--and only this winter a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall for the
purpose of protesting against this causeless desecration. The occasion
of the meeting was a clique movement to have a street-car track run
through the sacred ground. One of the speakers--a workingman--waxed
eloquent on the theme of the "poor man's park, where in summer a soiled
son of labor might buy a cent apple and lounge at his ease under the
shady trees."
In 1734, by vote of the town, a South End and North End Market were
established. Before this the people were supplied with meats and
vegetables at their own doors. In 1740, Peter Faneuil offered to build a
market-house at his own expense, and present it to the town. His
proposition was carried by seven majority. Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of
Liberty," was first built two stories high, forty feet wide, and one
hundred feet in length. It was nearly destroyed by fire in 1761, and in
1805 it was enlarged to eighty feet in width and twenty feet greater
elevation. "The Hall is never let for money," but is at the disposal of
the people whenever a sufficient number of persons, complying with
certain regulations, ask to have it opened. The city charter of Boston
contains a provision forbidding the sale or lease of this Hall. For a
period of over eighty years--from the time of its erection until
1822--all town meetings were held within its walls. It is "peculiarly
fitted for popular assemblies, possessing admirable acoustic
properties."
The capacity of the Hall is increased by the absence of all seats on the
floor--the gallery only being provided with these conveniences.
Portraits cover the walls. Healy's picture of Webster replying to Hayne
hangs in heavy gilt, back of the rostrum. Paintings of the two Adamses,
of General Warren and Commodore Preble, of Edward Everett and Governor
Andrew, adorn other portions of the Hall. Nor are Washington and Lincoln
forgotten. The pictured faces of these noble patriots of the past seem
to shed a mysterious influence around, and silently plead the cause of
right and of justice. The words which echoed from this rostrum in the
days before the Revolution still ring down from the past, touching the
present with a living power whenever liberty needs a champion or the
people an advocate.
Faneuil Hall Market, or Quincy Market, as it is popularly called, grew
out of a recommendation by Mayor Quincy, in 1823. Two years later the
corner-stone was laid, and in 1827 the building was completed. It is
five hundred and thirty-five feet long, fifty feet wide, and two stories
high. Its site was reclaimed from the tide waters, and one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars were expended in its erection.
The capital for its construction was managed in such a judicious way
that not only the market was built, but six new streets were opened and
a seventh enlarged, without a cent of city tax or a dollar's increase of
the city's debt.
The Old State House was located on the site of the first public market,
at the head or western end of State street. It was commenced with a
bequest of five hundred pounds from Robert Keayne, the first commander
of the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company." It was known as the
Town House, and was erected about the year 1670. The present Old State
House was built in 1748, on the same site. Its vicinity is historic. The
square in State street below the Old State House, was the scene of the
Boston massacre, March fifth, 1770. "The funeral of the victims of the
massacre was attended by an immense concourse of people from all parts
of New England." About the same year also, in front of this Town House,
occurred the famous battle of the broom, between a fencing master just
arrived from England and Goff, the regicide. This English fencer erected
an elevated platform in front of the Town House and paraded, sword in
hand, for three days, challenging all America for a trial of his skill.
At this time three of the judges who signed the death warrant for
beheading Charles the First, of England, had escaped to Boston, and were
concealed by the people of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Their names
were Goff, Whalley and Dixwell, for whom, dead or alive, Parliament
offered one hundred pounds each. The fencing master made such a stir
about his skill that Goff, hearing of it at his place of concealment in
the woods of Hadley, came to Boston and confronted the wordy hero. His
sword was a birch broom, his shield a white oak cheese slung from his
arm in a napkin. After he had soaked his broom in a mud-puddle he
mounted the platform for battle. The fencing master ordered him off, but
Goff stood his ground and neatly parried the first thrust of the
braggart. The battle then commenced in earnest, and the cheese three
times received the sword of the fencing master. Before it could be
withdrawn, Goff each time daubed the face of his antagonist with the
muddy broom, amid the huzzas of the crowd which had gathered from all
quarters to witness the contest. At the third lunge into the huge cheese
the swordsman threw aside his small blade, and, unsheathing a
broadsword, rushed furiously upon Goff.
"Stop, sir!" exclaimed Goff; "hitherto, you see, I have only played with
you, and have not attempted to hurt you, but if you come at me with the
broadsword, know that I will certainly take your life!"
"Who can you be?" replied the other; "you are either Goff, Whalley or
the devil, for there was no other man in England could beat me!"
Goff immediately retired, amid the plaudits of the crowd, and the
subdued fencing master slunk away with chagrin.
The interior arrangement of the Old State House has been entirely
remodeled, and is now used exclusively for business.
King's Chapel, at the corner of Tremont and School streets, is another
noteworthy point of interest. The corner-stone was laid in 1750, and
four years were occupied in its construction, the stone for the building
material being imported. Its church-yard was Boston's first
burial-ground, and some of the tombstones date back as far as 1658. Mr.
Isaac Johnson, one of the founders of Boston, is said to have here found
his last resting place. John Winthrop, his son and grandson--all
governors of Connecticut, lay in the same family tomb in this yard. Four
pastors of the "First Church of Christ in Boston" are also buried here.
The body of General Joseph Warren was placed in King's Chapel before it
was re-interred at Cambridge, and "dust to dust" has been pronounced
over many other distinguished men at this stone church. The edifice is
constructed in a peculiar way, with Doric columns of gray stone, and is
sure to attract the attention of the stranger. It was the first
Episcopal, as well as the first Unitarian church in Boston, and its
pulpit is now the exponent of Unitarian doctrine, added to the Church of
England service.
Going down Washington street towards Charlestown, we come to the famous
Brattle Square, and its church, which once consecrated the spot. Here
Edward Everett preached to his listening flock, and here, on July
thirtieth, 1871, Dr. S. K. Lothrop pronounced the last sermon within its
walls. Its ancient bell has ceased to ring, and the old-fashioned pulpit
echoes no more to the tread of distinguished men.
The first Brattle Square Church was built in 1699. It was torn down in
1772, and the next year rebuilt on the same site, the dedication taking
place July twenty-fifth.
On the night of March sixteenth, 1776, the British under Lord Howe were
encamped in this neighborhood, some of the regiments using Brattle
Square Church as a barrack. A cannon ball, fired from Cambridge, where
the American army was then stationed, struck the church, and was
afterwards built into the wall of the historic edifice, above the porch.
On the next night ten thousand of Lord Howe's troops embarked from
Boston. In 1871 the building was sold by the society, and a handsome
granite block now takes its place.
The new State House on Beacon street is one of the most prominent
geographical points in all Boston, and the view from its cupola is
second only to that obtained from the glorious height of Bunker Hill
monument. Its gilded dome is a conspicuous object far and near, and
glitters in the sunlight like veritable gold. The land on which the
State House stands was bought by the town from Governor Hancock's heirs,
and given to the State. The corner-stone was laid July fourth, 1793, the
ceremony being conducted by the Freemasons, Paul Revere, as Grand
Master, at their head. The massive stone was drawn to its place by
fifteen white horses, that being the number then of the States in the
Union. Ex-Governor Samuel Adams delivered the address. The Legislature
first convened in the new State House in January, 1798. In 1852 it was
greatly enlarged, and in 1867 the interior was entirely remodeled.
Chantry's statue of Washington, the statues of Webster and Mann, busts
of Adams, Lincoln and Sumner, and that beautiful piece of art in marble,
the full-length statue of Governor Andrew, in the Doric Hall--all
attract the attention of the visitor. In this rotunda there are also
copies of the tombstones of the Washington family of Brington Parish,
England, presented by Charles Sumner, and the torn and soiled
battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments, hanging in glass cases. In the
Hall of Representatives and the Senate Chamber, relics of the past are
scattered about, and the walls are adorned with portraits of
distinguished men. The eastern wing of the State House is occupied with
the State Library Large numbers of visitors yearly throng the building
and climb the circular stairways for the fine view of Boston to be
obtained from the cupola.
The new Post Office is accounted one of the finest public buildings in
New England. It has a frontage on Devonshire street, of over two hundred
feet and occupies the entire square between Milk and Water streets. It
was several years in building, being occupied this winter for the first
time since the great fire. Its cost was something like three millions of
dollars. Its style of architecture is grand in the extreme. Groups of
statuary ornament the central projections of the building, and orders of
pilasters, columns, entablatures and balustrades add to it their elegant
finish. Its roof is an elaboration of the Louvre and Mansard styles, and
the interior arrangement cannot be surpassed for beauty or convenience.
It has three street façades, from one of which a broad staircase leads
to the four upper stories. On these floors are located important public
offices. The Post Office corridor is twelve feet in height and extends
across two sides of the immense building. At the time of the great fire
of 1872 this structure was receiving its roof, and became a barrier
against the onward sweep of the flames. The massive granite walls were
cracked and split, but they effectually stopped the work of the fire
fiend.
In the heart of the city, at the corner of Milk and Washington streets,
stands one of the most famous buildings in Boston, and perhaps the most
celebrated house of religious worship in the United States. It was
founded in 1669, and received the name of the Old South Church. The
first building was made of cedar, and stood for sixty years. In 1729 it
was taken down, and the present building erected on the same spot. The
interior arrangement is described as having been exceedingly quaint,
with its pulpit sounding board, its high, square pews, and double tier
of galleries. During the Revolution it was frequently used for public
meetings, and Faneuil Hall assemblies adjourned to the Old South
whenever the size of the crowd demanded it. Here the celebrated "Tea
Party" held their meetings, and discussed the measures which resulted in
consigning the British tea, together with the hated tax, to the bottom
of Boston Harbor. Here Joseph Warren delivered his famous oration on the
Boston Massacre, drawing tears from the eyes of even the British
soldiery, sent there to intimidate him. In 1775 the edifice was occupied
by the British as a place for cavalry drill, and a grog-shop was
established in one of the galleries. In 1782 the building was put in
repair, and has stood without further change until the present time,
nearly a hundred years. In 1872 it was occupied as a Post Office, and
has only been vacated this winter. Its day of religious service is
doubtless over. It will probably be used for business purposes, but
never again as a society sanctuary.
Opposite the south front of the Old South Church, on Milk street, stood
the house in which Benjamin Franklin was born. Here, on the seventeenth
of January, 1706, the great philosopher was ushered into existence, and
on the same day was christened at the Old South. When he was ten years
old, he worked with his father in a candle manufactory, on the corner of
Union and Hanover streets, at the sign of the Blue Bell. He was
afterwards printer's devil for his brother James, and at eighteen
established the fourth newspaper printed in this country. It was
entitled "The New England Courant."
The first newspaper of Boston was also the first in the colonies, and
was printed on a half sheet of Pot paper, in small pica. It was entitled
"The Boston News Letter. Published, by authority, from Monday, April
seventeenth, to Monday, April twenty-fourth, 1704." John Campbell, a
Scotchman and bookseller, was proprietor.
Now the Boston press stands in the front rank of the world's journalism,
and is commodiously accommodated; as the elegant buildings of the
_Transcript_, _Globe_, _Journal_, _Herald_ and other papers, testify.
The _Advertiser_ is the oldest daily paper in the city.
It is impossible to properly describe Boston within the limits of so
short a chapter, and only a glance at a few other points of interest
will therefore be given.
The City Hall, on School street, is on the site of the house of Isaac
Johnson, who lived here in 1630, and who has been styled the founder of
Boston. The corner-stone of the new building was laid December
twenty-second, 1672. It is of Concord granite, and is in the finest
style of modern architecture. Here, under the arching roof of the French
dome, the fire-alarm telegraph centres, and the sentinel who stands
guard at this important point never leaves his post, night or day. The
mysterious signal, though touched in the city's remotest rim, is
instantly obeyed, and in less time than it takes to tell it the brave
firemen are rushing to the rescue. A fine bronze statue of Benjamin
Franklin stands in the inclosure in front of the building.
The Custom House, on State street, is built of granite, even to the
roof. It is constructed in the form of a Greek cross, and is surrounded
by thirty-two granite columns, a little over five feet in diameter. The
site was reclaimed from the tide waters, and the massive building rests
upon about three thousand piles. Over a million dollars were expended in
its erection.
The Old Granary Burying-ground, once a part of the Common, received its
name from a public granary which formerly stood within its limits. Some
of the most distinguished dust in history is consigned to its keeping.
Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, the victims of
the Boston Massacre, the parents of Franklin, the first Mayor of Boston,
and a long list of other names famed in their day and ours, lie buried
within this ancient ground. Near by, between the Common and the Granary
Cemetery, stands the celebrated Park Street Church, of which W. H. H.
Murray, the brilliant writer and preacher, was, until lately, the
pastor. It used to be known as "brimstone corner." This winter we
attended Park Street Church on the same day with the _brunette_ monarch,
Kalakaua and suite.
One of the most commodious and elegant stations in New England, or this
country, is that of the Boston and Providence Railroad. It is about
eight hundred feet in length, and is built of brick, with two shades of
sandstone. The track house is seven hundred feet long, covering five
tracks, and has a span of one hundred and twenty-five feet. Its cost is
somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred thousand dollars. The
interior arrangement is quite novel in style. The waiting-rooms open out
of an immense central apartment with a balcony reaching around the
entire inner circumference. Theatre tickets, flower and cigar stands, a
billiard room and a barber shop, are some of the special features of the
station. Refreshment rooms and dressing rooms, in oak and crimson, are
also an integral part of the building.
Hundreds of interesting places in this singular and devious city of
Boston must go unnoticed in these pages. The beautiful Tremont Temple
and its Sunday temperance lectures; Music Hall, with its big organ of
six thousand pipes, through one of which Henry Ward Beecher is said to
have crawled, before its erection; the Parker House, one of the crack
hotels of the city; the Revere House, where all the distinguished people
stop, with its special suite of rooms upholstered in blue satin, where
King Kalakaua smoked his cigars in peace; the beneficent Public Library;
the Boston Athenæum, home of art; the Boston Theatre, the new and
elegant Globe Theatre, and the suburban limits, including Charlestown
and famous Bunker Hill, Cambridge and Harvard University, Mt. Auburn,
Dorchester Heights, Roxbury and East Boston, which was formerly known as
Noddle's Island, and where now the Cunard line of steamers arrive and
depart--all these tempt my pen to linger within their charmed
localities. But it is a temptation to be resisted. When, after many
weeks' sojourn in the intellectual "Hub," I was at last seated in the
outward bound train, ticketed for the west, a regret, born of pleasant
associations and a taste of Boston atmosphere, took possession of me.
The farewells I uttered held an undertone of pain. But the train sped
onward, unheeding, and the city of the harbor seemed to dissolve and
disappear in the smoke of her thousand chimneys, like a dream of the
night.
CHAPTER III.
BUFFALO.
The Niagara Frontier.--Unfortunate Fate of the Eries.--The
Battle of Doom.--Times of 1812.--Burning of Buffalo.--Early
Names.--Origin of Present Name.--Growth and Population.--
Railway Lines.--Queen of the Great Lakes.--Fort Porter and Fort
Erie.--International Bridge.--Iron Manufacture.--Danger of the
Niagara.--Forest Lawn Cemetery.--Decoration Day.--The Spaulding
Monument.--Parks and Boulevard.--Delaware Avenue.--On the
Terrace.--Elevator District.--Church and Schools.--Grosvenor
Library.--Historical Rooms.--Journalism.--Public Buildings.--
City Hall.--Dog-carts and their Attendants.
Buffalo is a kind of half-way house between the East and the West--if
anything may be called west this side of the Mississippi River--and it
partakes of the characteristics of both sections. It was once the chief
trading post on the Niagara frontier, and its vicinity has been the
scene of many a hotly contested battle between dusky races now forever
lost to this part of the world, and almost forgotten of history. Long
ago, the Eries, or the Cat Nation, lived on the southern shores of the
same lake whose waters now lap the wharves of Buffalo. They left it the
heritage of their name, and that is all.
The race, in its lack of calculation, did not greatly differ from many
isolated instances of the paler race of mankind around us now; for it
died of a too o'erreaching ambition. Jealous of the distant fame of the
Five Nations, the Eries set out to surprise and conquer them in deadly
battle, and themselves met the fate they had meant for the Iroquois.
They were exterminated; and few returned to the squaws in their lonely
wigwams, to tell the tale of doom.
The noble race of Senecas succeeded the Cat Nation on the shores of Lake
Erie, and after them, from across the great seas, came the dominant,
pushing, civilizing Anglo-Saxons.
When the war of 1812 broke out, Buffalo was an exceedingly infant city,
and did not promise well at all. Nobody would have then predicted her
importance of to-day. Later, in 1813, the battle of Black Rock was
fought, and while a few old soldiers made a determined stand against the
onset of the solid British phalanx, most of the raw recruits fled down
Niagara street in a regular Bull Run panic, chased by the pursuing foe.
The village was then fired by the enemy, and every building except one
was burned to the ground. The description of the suffering and flight of
women and children, during that harrowing time, draws largely on the
sympathies of the reader, and sounds strangely similar to the newspaper
accounts of the burning of Western and Pennsylvania towns, of more
recent occurrence.
But, though Buffalo was destroyed by fire, it shortly evinced all the
power of the fabled phoenix, and rose from its ashes to a grander
future than its early settlers ever dreamed of prophesying for it. The
young city, however, suffered in its first days from a multiplicity of
names, struggling under no less than three. The Indians named it
Te-osah-wa, or "Place of Basswood;" the Holland Land Company dragged the
Dutch name of New Amsterdam across the ocean and endeavored to drop it
at the foot of Lake Erie; and finally, it took its present name of
Buffalo, from the frequent visits of the American Bison to a salt
spring which welled up about three miles out of the village, on Buffalo
creek.
I think Buffalonians have reason to be grateful that the last name
proved more tenacious than the other two. Think of the "Queen City" of
the most Eastern West being overshadowed by the tiled-roof name of New
Amsterdam!
It was not until 1822, on the completion of the Erie Canal, that Buffalo
began the rapid advance towards prosperity that now marks its growth,
the muster-roll of its population, at this writing, numbering the round
figures of one hundred and sixty-one thousand. It now rejoices in
business streets three and four miles long--full-fledged two-thirds of
the distance, and the remainder embryonic. The harbor-front, facing the
ship canal and the Lake, bristles with the tall tops of huge grain
elevators--a whole village of them. A network of railroad lines, and the
commerce of the great Lakes, have combined to build up and carry on a
vast business at this point, and to make it a station of much importance
between the East and the West. The rails of the New York Central, the
Great Western, the Lake Shore, and the Buffalo and Philadelphia roads,
besides many other lines, all centre here, carrying their tide of human
freight, mainly westward, and transporting the cereals of the great
grain regions in exchange for the manufactured products of less favored
localities. When the representative of New York or New England wishes to
go west, he finds his most direct route by rail, via Buffalo; or, if he
desires a most charming water trip, he embarks, also via Buffalo, on one
of the handsome propellers which ply the Lakes between this city and
Chicago, and steaming down the length of Lake Erie, up through the
narrower St. Clair and the broad Huron, he passes the wooded shores of
Mackinac's beautiful island, surmounted by its old fort, and entering
Lake Michigan, in due time is landed on the breezy Milwaukee banks, or
is set down within that maelstrom of business, named Chicago. Indeed,
after Chicago, Buffalo is the ranking city of the Lakes, and is said to
cover more territory than almost any city in the country outside the
great metropolis--the distance, from limit to limit, averaging seven and
eight miles. Its suburban drives and places of summer resort, owing to
the superior water localities of this region, are much out of the usual
line. Niagara River, famous the world over, allures the daring boatman
from Fort Porter onward, and the wonderful Falls themselves are only
eighteen miles beyond that. Fort Porter, about two miles out from the
heart of the city, is located just at the point where Niagara River
leaves the lake in its mad race to the Falls. Here the banks are high
and command a wide water prospect. Away to the westward the blue lake
and the blue sky seem to meet and blend together as one; and in the
opposite direction the rushing river spreads out like another lake,
towards Squaw Island and Black Rock. One or more companies of United
States Regulars are stationed here, and the barracks and officers'
quarters surround a square inclosure, which is used as a parade ground.
Graveled walks are laid out around it, and a grassy foot-path leads from
the soldiers' quarters to the site of the old Fort on the brow of a
gentle elevation just beyond. The Fort was built for frontier defence,
in 1812, and the interior, now grass-grown and unused, is so deep that
the roof of the stone structure, once appropriated as a magazine, is
nearly on a level with the high ground at your feet. During our last
war the building was occupied as a place of confinement for Rebel
prisoners. It is now in a state of advanced collapse, and the battered
walls and open windows expose to view the ruin within. A small, square
outhouse, near one of the embrasures higher up, which was used for
firing hot shot, is still intact. Field pieces, pointing grimly towards
the Lake, and little heaps of cannon balls lying near, bring freshly to
mind the nation's last war days, when "the winding rivers ran red" with
the mingled blood of comrade and foe. The sunset gun boomed over the
waters while we lingered at the old Fort, and the fading glow of day
bridged the river with arches of crimson and gold.
Diagonally opposite from this point, one looks across into the Queen's
dominions, where lies the little village of Fort Erie, historic as the
place from which the British crossed to our shores on the night
preceding the burning of Buffalo.
At Black Rock, about two miles below Fort Porter, the great
International Railroad Bridge, a mile in length, spans the mighty river,
having superseded the old-time ferry. This bridge is the connecting link
on the Grand Trunk Road, between Canada and the States.
Near its terminus, on the American side, are located the immense
malleable iron works of Pratt & Letchworth, said to be the largest
manufactory of the kind in the world. Their goods certainly find a
world-wide market, taking in New England and the Pacific coast, Mexico,
England and Australia. A pretty picture of the country seat of Mr.
Letchworth, at Portage, New York, may be seen at the Historical Rooms.
It is named Glen Iris, and is surrounded by handsome grounds, groves
and fountains.
Boating on the Niagara is much in vogue here, notwithstanding the rapid
current and the dreadful certainty of the Falls in case of accident. The
keeper of a boat house at Black Rock, opposite Squaw Island, told me
that the proportion of accidents on the river was frightfully large--far
greater than ever got into the public prints.
[Illustration: SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK.]
Forest Lawn Cemetery--Buffalo's city of the dead--is one of the
loveliest burial places between Brooklyn and Chicago. It is picturesque
with hill and dale and grove, not to mention a large artificial lake
lapped in one of its grassy hollows, and a winding, wide and
rocky-bedded creek running through it. The name of the creek is spelled
S-c-a-j-a-q-u-a-d-a and pronounced Kon-joc'-e-ta. The Pratt monument, in
a remote portion of the grounds, is perhaps the handsomest in the
cemetery. It looks like a gothic gateway with fluted pillars of Italian
marbles. A sculptured image of a child of one of the Fargos--of the
famous Wells, Fargo & Co.--rests under a glass case on the lap of earth
which marks her grave. The head is peculiarly noble, reminding one of
that of the Belvidere Apollo. It is said to be a truthful likeness.
Decoration Day at Forest Lawn was a picture long to be remembered. On a
little knoll under the trees at the entrance to the grounds the military
and civic processions assembled to listen to the eloquent words of Rev.
Mr. Barrett, of Rochester. When the brief address was concluded, and the
band music and singing were over, we followed the committees of
decoration to the scattered graves of the patriot dead, and witnessed
the strewing of flowers upon their sacred dust. A hushed circle above
the mound of earth, a few fitly-spoken words from one of their number
who knew the soldier-hero, and the floral tributes were tenderly placed
above the sleeper's head. Thus, oh heroes, shall your memory be kept
forever green! The flowers were wrought into every symbolic shape by
which the language of affection could be translated. Crowns, and
crosses, and stars, and anchors of hope, spoke their love and solace.
The graves of the Confederate dead were also decorated, and side by
side, under a common mantle of flowers, the Blue and the Gray received
alike the benediction of the hour.
"Then beautiful flowers strew,
This sweet memorial day,
With tears and love for the Blue,
And pity for the fallen Gray."
At Forest Lawn, also, on the historic seventeenth of June--the Bunker
Hill Centennial--a monument was dedicated to the memory of nine
Spauldings who fought at that battle, one hundred years before. The
granite cenotaph was erected by E. G. Spaulding, of Buffalo, descended
from the same blood with the heroic nine. The names of the list
inscribed on the Western front of the monument were headed by that of
his grandfather, Levi Spaulding, who was captain of the ninth company,
third regiment, under Colonel Reed, of the New Hampshire troops, engaged
on that day.
"For bright and green the memory still
Of those who stood on Bunker Hill,
And nobly met the battle shock,
Firm as their native granite rock."
Speeches reviving Revolutionary memories, and fresh descriptions of the
Bunker Hill contest, were in order. There was a semi-military
procession, and the interest felt in the occasion was general. A grand
reception at Mr. Spaulding's residence in the evening, concluded the
patriotic anniversary.
The large park adjoining Forest Lawn is plentiful in attractions,
including the delights of boating on the Konjoceta and loitering in the
shadowy coolness of the primeval woods. In addition to these, Buffalo is
completing a grand boulevard system which encircles half the City,
beginning at what is called the Front, in the neighborhood of Fort
Porter, and making the circuit of the outskirts through Bidwell and
Lincoln and Humboldt parkways to the intersection of Genesee street with
the Parade, on the opposite arc of the circle. One is sure to find cool
breezes along this drive, though the day be the hottest of the season.
Indeed, the summer heats are, at all times, shorn of their fervor in
this Queen City of the Lakes, and its climatic advantages are,
therefore, superior.
Delaware Avenue is the leading street of Buffalo for private residences,
and here much of the aristocracy do congregate. It is about three miles
long, and double rows of shade trees line either side. Fast driving on
this avenue is licensed by city authority, and racing down its gentle
incline is much in vogue. In winter, when sleighing is good, this is
carried to greater excess, and the snowy road is black with flying
vehicles. Main street, the principal business thoroughfare of the city,
at least for retail trade, is wide, well paved and straight, and is
built up with substantial business blocks. Its sister thoroughfare on
the east, Washington street, towards the lower end as it approaches the
lake, degenerates into manufacturing, and the buzz of machinery and
incessant din of hammers break in on the maiden meditations of the
passive sight-seer.
As one approaches the Terrace, which is an elbow of blocks at one end
and a diagonal at the other, one is confronted by a confusion of cross
streets, which look as if they had been gotten up expressly to
demoralize one's points of compass. They all look out on Buffalo harbor
and the sea-wall beyond. Ohio street, following the bend of the harbor,
is the great elevator district of the greatest grain mart in the world.
Here, when business is at high tide, between two and three million
bushels of grain per day are transferred by these giant monsters with
high heads. The business places of this department of Buffalo enterprise
are located principally on Central Wharf, in this vicinity, which fronts
the harbor and which is crowded with offices two tiers deep.
Along the wharf the very air is charged with bustle and activity.
Vessels of all descriptions are arriving and departing at all hours, and
the commerce of the great lakes pours its flood tide into Buffalo
through this gateway.
As for churches and schools, the city overflows with them. It is
sprinkled in all directions with handsome religious edifices, like
interrogation points, in stone and brick, asking the questions of a
higher life. And there are thirty-six public schools, besides the State
Normal, the Central, and the Buffalo Female Academy. This last is under
the able guidance of Dr. Chester. But even these do not complete the
list, as I understand there are numerous other private institutions of
learning.
In one of the triangular pieces of ground where the three streets of
Niagara, Erie and Church make their entrance into Main street, stands
the picturesque structure of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral. It is
built of brown stone, and the creeping ivy nearly covers one end of it,
from the crosses and minarets at the pinnacle to the trailing vines on
the ground. The gray, gothic edifice of St. Joseph's Romish Cathedral,
fronting on Franklin street, is also very large, and the interior is
rich in architectural design.
As for the immeasurable realm of books, Buffalo furnishes her children
access to this, through her libraries. Chiefest among them is the
Grosvenor, which has a bit of history all by itself. It was founded by a
retired merchant of New York, who had lived in Buffalo during the
earliest infancy of the city, and whose property had been destroyed when
the then frontier village was fired by the British and Indians, in
retaliation for the burning of Newark. This generous gentleman also left
thirty thousand dollars to found a reference library for the High School
of New York City. His will provided a legacy of ten thousand for
Buffalo, to be applied towards a fire-proof building for a library, and
the sum of thirty thousand, the interest of which was to be used for the
purchase of books. The building fund having been on interest ever since,
now amounts to twenty-eight thousand, and in addition the city has
donated what is known as the Mohawk street property, used at present for
police purposes, which will sell for an amount sufficiently large,
together with the deposit already on hand, to erect a handsome building.
The library is now located over the Buffalo Savings Bank, facing a
pleasant little park between Washington and Main streets.
In 1870 the interest had more than doubled the donation, and the
Trustees then commenced the work of making the library a living
institution. After a great deal of trouble, they at last secured the
services of Alexander J. Sheldon, who was willing, without any certain
compensation, to undertake the task of organizing and superintending the
library. Mr. Sheldon, who is an expert in books, is native to the city,
and from boyhood has been connected with this line of business. The
first year of his hard labor at the Grosvenor was rewarded by the large
sum of five hundred dollars! It was well for the institution, however,
that Mr. Sheldon was not dependent on his salary for support. He entered
into the work with an enthusiasm which surmounted all difficulties, and
which has brought the library to its present state of progress, making
it a credit to the city of Buffalo.
The large reading room is neatly fitted up with black walnut cases, nine
feet in length, and eight feet high, opening on both sides, and capable
of holding eight or nine hundred average volumes. There are about thirty
of these cases in the room, with reading tables and easy chairs
interspersed between them. The style of alcove and arrangement, which
was also Mr. Sheldon's suggestion, produces a very handsome effect. The
cases stand on black walnut platforms six inches in height, and are
surmounted by a pretty cornice. The shelves are interchangeable, and are
of such moderate height that the necessity for step-ladders is entirely
avoided. There are also dummy volumes, made to resemble books and
properly titled, which, if their mission is to deceive the uninitiated,
certainly accomplish that task. The number of volumes has now
accumulated to about eighteen thousand, and includes the choicest works
in art, science, literature and the professions. The fiction department
comprehends all the recognized standard works, but the mass of worthless
novels, which pass current in some of our circulating libraries, is
unhesitatingly excluded. The bindings are nearly all morocco, with gilt
or marbled tops, and the back of each book, as it is added to the
library, is given a coat of white shellac varnish, which prevents it, in
a great degree, from fading, and renders it easy of renovation.
The small ante-room which is used by the librarian and committeemen
contains several hundred volumes on bibliography, which is a very
important feature of such an institution. The rooms in summer are
breezy, from the lake winds, and in winter are heated by steam
radiators. A heavy cocoa matting deadens all sound on the floors, and
absolute quiet is thus secured. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Sheldon,
the Grosvenor is undoubtedly the best library for a student west of the
Hudson.
The Historical Rooms deserve notice as one of the salient points of
Buffalo, and though the Society is young and not by any means wealthy,
yet it is fairly started on its road to distinction. It was founded in
1862, and subsists principally by donations, as it is yet too poor to
make purchases of books or relics. The Rooms are located at the corner
of Main and Court streets, nearly opposite the ancient site of the old
Eagle Tavern. A picture of this hotel as it looked fifty years ago may
be seen among their collection. A huge gilt eagle surmounted the main
entrance, and an enclosed porch, or what looks like it, at one end of
the building, bore the inscription "_Coach Office_," in large letters
over the doorway. Here also is the noble looking portrait of Red Jacket,
the great Seneca Chief, together with the grand-daughter of Red Jacket's
second wife--Nancy Stevenson--taken at sixteen. This bright-eyed, brown
maiden married an Indian named Hiram Dennis, and was still living in
1872. Belts of wampum, war hatchets and pipes of peace, besides numerous
pictures, in oil, of celebrated red warriors, are among the Indian
mementoes connected with Buffalo's early history. The war of 1812 also
contributes its scattered waifs to keep alive the memory of that time.
The sword of Major-General Brown, worn at the battle of Sackett's
Harbor, and a piece of timber from Perry's ship, on which is traced the
legend "We have met the enemy and they are ours," are among the
heirlooms of history. Here, too, is a Mexican lance from the field of
Monterey, and the clarionette used in Buffalo's first band of music,
whose strains helped swell the chorus during the triumphal march of
Lafayette through her streets in 1824. A representation of the first
boat on the Erie Canal, named "Chief Engineer of Rome," looks quaint
enough. The walls of the large apartment devoted to historical
collections are covered with pictures of Buffalo's prominent men, and at
one end of the room hangs a handsome portrait of Millard Fillmore, set
in heavy gilt. Their list of books and directories is also quite large.
The story of a city's growth is always one of deep interest, and the
generations of future years will, no doubt, be grateful for these
landmarks of their early history.
Journalism in Buffalo rides on the top wave, and her leading papers have
achieved an enviable fame. Eight dailies swell the list, four of which
are German, besides ten weeklies and seven monthly papers. The history
of the _Commercial Advertiser_ dates back to October, 1811. It was
issued at that time, under the name of the _Buffalo Gazette_, by the
Salisbury brothers, from Canandaigua. With the exception of a paper at
Batavia, begun in 1807, the _Gazette_ was the only paper published at
that time in Western New York. It afterwards changed its name to the
_Buffalo Patriot_, and since 1836 it has been issued as the _Daily
Commercial Advertiser_. The _Courier_ and _Commercial_ are the ranking
papers of the city, in point of influence.
Buffalo doesn't seem to be ambitious of display in her public buildings,
judging from the quality of those already on hand. The new City Hall,
however, is a noble exception to the general rule. It is built of Maine
granite, in the form of a double Roman cross, and the tower, which is
two hundred and forty-five feet high, is surmounted by four pieces of
statuary. Its estimated cost is over two millions of dollars.
St. James' Hall and the Academy of Music are the chief places of
amusement in the city, the latter place being conducted by the Meech
brothers, two young gentlemen of acknowledged ability. Many noted stars
of the stage whose names have blazed forth in histrionic glory have here
made their first conquests, before applauding audiences. The stock
company is unusually good, Ben Rogers, stage manager and first comedian,
being a host in himself.
The fire department of the city is said to be exceedingly efficient, and
the police system has gained a reputation for thorough work which ought
to be the terror of the criminal class. It embraces a body of mounted
police, a corps of detectives and of patrolmen, besides the regular
force stationed at the harbor.
Among the minor peculiarities of Buffalo may be mentioned the
superabundance of dog carts to be seen in her streets; not the
conventional kind that goes rolling down Fifth Avenue, among the
bewildering array of splendid equipages--coupes, landaus, landaulets,
drags and what not--that daily make their way to Central Park; not any
of these; but the original dog cart, with the dog attached. He is to be
seen in all the varieties of the species, from a muddy yellow to the
fierce-looking mastiff. He is usually harnessed in company with a
collapsed old woman or a cadaverous looking little boy, and he carries
all kinds of mixed freight, from an ash barrel to a load of sticks. The
undercurrent of Buffalo society does not seem to look upon the dog in a
purely ornamental light.
This chapter on a place so fertile in suggestion might be prolonged
indefinitely; but we are gazing westward, along a line of cities whose
terminus does not end until it reaches the Golden Gate and the most
famous centre of population on the Pacific coast. Our steps are bent
toward that far-off goal, and we must say good-bye to the ancient land
of the Eries and the former haunts of the buffalo.
CHAPTER IV.
BROOKLYN.
Brooklyn a Suburb of New York.--A City of Homes.--Public
Buildings.--Churches.--Henry Ward Beecher.--Thomas De Witt
Talmage.--Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D.--Justin D. Fulton, D.D.--
R. S. Storrs, D.D.--Navy Yard.--Atlantic Dock.--Washington
Park.--Prospect Park.--Greenwood Cemetery.--Evergreen and
Cyprus Hills Cemeteries.--Coney Island.--Rockaway.--Staten
Island.--Glen Island.--Future of Brooklyn.
New York holds such supremacy over the other cities of the United States
that she almost overshadows Brooklyn, which lies so near her as to be
separated only by the narrow channel of the East River. Yet Brooklyn in
any other locality would be a city of the first importance, ranking, as
she does, the third in the Union as to size and population, and
numbering not less than six hundred thousand inhabitants. Practically
New York and Brooklyn are but one city, with identical commercial
interests, and a great deal else in common. Many of the most prominent
business men of the former city find their homes in the latter; and by
means of the numerous ferries and the great Suspension Bridge there is a
constant interchange of people between them. The time may come when they
will be united under one municipal government; though, no doubt, many of
the older residents of Brooklyn, who have helped to build her up to her
present extent and prosperity, would object to losing her name and
identity. But should such a union ever take place, there will be at once
created, next to London, the largest city of the world, with a
population of not less than two millions of people.
Brooklyn is situated on the west end of Long Island, and overlooks both
the East River and the Bay. It extends nearly eight miles from north to
south, and is about four miles from east to west. Its business is not so
extended or so important as that of New York, nor, as a rule, are its
business edifices so imposing, though some of them present a very fine
appearance. It is, in fact, a great suburb of the metropolitan city,
composed more largely of dwellings than of commercial houses. Its
business men, each morning, make an exodus across the East River to Wall
street, or Broadway, or other streets of New York, and then return at
night. It is, in fact, a great city of homes, all of them comfortable
and many of them elegant. There is no squalor, such as is found in Mott
or Baxter streets and the Five Points and their neighborhood, in its
sister city. Handsome mansions, tasteful cottages and plain but neat
rows of dwellings are found everywhere, and the streets are beautifully
shaded by avenues of trees.
The public buildings of Brooklyn worthy of notice are few, compared to
those of New York. Fulton street is its principal thoroughfare, and
contains occasional handsome edifices. The City Hall, on an open square
at the junction of Fulton court and Joraleman street, is a fine, white
marble building, in Ionic style, with six columns supporting the roof of
the portico. It is surmounted by a tower one hundred and fifty-three
feet in height. Just back of this, to the southeast, and facing toward
Fulton street, is the County Court House, with a white marble front, a
Corinthian portico, and an iron dome one hundred and four feet high.
Beside the Court House, to the westward, stands the Municipal Building,
also of marble, four stories in height, with a mansard roof, and a tower
at each corner. The Post Office is in Washington street, north of the
City Hall. The Long Island Historical Society has a fine edifice at the
corner of Clinton and Pierrepont streets, and possesses a large library
and collection of curiosities. The Academy of Design, on Montague
street, has a handsome exterior; opposite is the Mercantile Library, a
striking Gothic structure, containing two reading rooms and a library of
forty-eight thousand volumes. The building of the Young Men's Christian
Association is on Fulton street, at the corner of Gallatin Place, and
contains a library and free reading room. The Penitentiary is an immense
stone structure on Nostrand avenue, near the city limits. The County
Jail, in Raymond street, is constructed of red sandstone, in castellated
Gothic style. The Long Island College Hospital is an imposing building,
surrounded by extensive grounds, on Henry street near Pacific.
Brooklyn is, preëminently, the City of Churches, of which she is said to
contain not less than one hundred. She has secured the services of the
most eminent clergymen in the country, and thousands of people each year
make a pilgrimage thither, for the sole purpose of listening to some one
or other of those whom they have long admired and appreciated at a
distance. Most prominent among all these clergymen is Henry Ward
Beecher, who has been the pastor of Plymouth Church ever since its
organization in 1847. Mr. Beecher came of a noted family, his father,
Rev. Lyman Beecher, being one of the theological lights of his day and
generation, while his brothers and sisters have all distinguished
themselves in some way. The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was his
sister, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, while all of his brothers are, like
himself, in the ministry.
Mr. Beecher's popularity has been unparalleled. Besides the hundreds who
listen to him every Sunday, each sermon is reported in full and read by
thousands of people throughout the country. He has been a leader of
liberal thought in the Protestant churches; and it is largely due to his
bold and advanced utterances that the church in which he holds communion
has taken a long step ahead of the position which it occupied early in
the present century.
Plymouth Church is a plain edifice, in Orange street, near Hicks. It has
a large seating capacity, yet every Sunday it is filled. A goodly
proportion of the audience is composed of strangers, who are not
permitted to take seats until the pewholders are provided for. These
visitors stand in long rows at each of the doors, the rows sometimes
extending out upon the sidewalk, waiting their turns to be seated. Ten
minutes before the hour of service they are conducted to seats, and the
pewholders who come after that time must take their chances with the
rest. On pleasant Sundays every seat is occupied, and the aisles and
vestibules are crowded.
Mr. Beecher occupies no pulpit, in the strict sense of the word. In
front of the organ and choir is a platform, upon which are three chairs
and three small tables, or stands. On one of the latter is a Bible, and
on the others a profusion of flowers. One realizes in this church the
grandeur of congregational singing, which is led here by a choir of one
hundred voices, and accompanied by a magnificent organ. When the entire
congregation join in some familiar hymn, the singing is exceedingly
impressive. Mr. Beecher, albeit his reputation is that of a sensational
preacher, makes little attempt at sensationalism in his manner of
delivery. He reads well and speaks well, with a clear, distinct
enunciation, which is heard in every part of his church. He talks
directly to his point, using plain but forcible language, his sermons
sparkling with original thought and brilliant language, all based upon a
foundation of plain, practical common sense. He has great dramatic
power, yet manifests it in so unstudied a manner that it is never
offensive. He imitates the voice and manner of the man of whom he is
speaking; the maudlin condition of the drunkard, the whine of the
beggar, the sanctimoniousness of the hypocrite; and keeps his audience
interested and on the alert. The Friday evening lectures are also
features of this church, and are conducted without formality, yet in a
decorous manner.
The Brooklyn preacher who is a rival of Beecher, in the popular
estimation, is Thomas De Witt Talmage, whose church is in Schermerhorn
street, and known as the Tabernacle. It is built in Gothic style,
semi-circular in form, like an opera house, and is capable of seating
5,000 persons. It is the largest Protestant place of worship in the
United States, yet every Sunday it is filled nearly, if not quite, to
its utmost capacity.
Talmage was born at Bound Brook, New Jersey, in 1832. After graduating
at the Theological Seminary, at New Brunswick, he preached in
Belleville, New Jersey; Syracuse, New York; and Philadelphia, until
1869, when he came to Brooklyn to be pastor of the Central Presbyterian
Church. Within a year he had become the acknowledged rival of Beecher.
His church was crowded, and in 1870 a large amphitheatre, called the
Brooklyn Tabernacle, capable of seating four thousand persons, was
built. This building was destroyed by fire in 1872, and while it was
being rebuilt in its present size and form, Talmage preached in the
Academy of Music, to immense crowds. The great organ used in the Boston
Coliseum, during the Musical Peace Jubilee, accompanies the singing at
the Tabernacle, which is principally congregational, though a choir of
four male singers give one or more voluntaries. The singing was led by
Arbuckle, the celebrated cornetist, but he died in May, 1883, and was
buried on the day of the opening of the Suspension Bridge.
In 1879, Talmage visited Great Britain, and made a most successful
lecture tour, receiving from five to six hundred dollars for each
lecture, and netting about fifty thousand dollars for the tour. In this
country he has not been so popular as a lecturer as Beecher. He is a
tall, angular man, with dark hair, red whiskers, light complexion, large
mouth and blue eyes. His pulpit is merely a platform, about thirty feet
in length, built in front of the organ, between the pipes and the
performer; and back and forth on this he paces while delivering his
sermon, frequently making forcible gestures, which have caused him to be
caricatured as a contortionist or gymnast. He is fluent in his style,
with much originality of expression, yet with a certain drawl in the
middle of his sentences, and snarl at their end, which renders his
elocution not entirely pleasing. He carries his audience with him
through the heights and depths of his oratory, now provoking to smiles,
again affecting to tears.
Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., has been pastor of the Lafayette Avenue
Presbyterian Church since 1860. He was born at Aurora, New York, on
January tenth, 1822, and preached in Market street church, in New York
City, from 1853 to 1860. The church edifice where he now ministers is
one of the most spacious and complete, in all its arrangements, in
either New York or Brooklyn, having seats for two thousand people, while
the Sabbath-school hall will accommodate one thousand.
Dr. Cuyler, during the thirty-seven years of his ministry, has delivered
five thousand three hundred and forty discourses, and a multitude of
platform addresses. He has received four thousand and forty-one persons
into church membership, of whom about one-half have been on confession
of faith. He has published several volumes and over two thousand
articles in the leading religious newspapers. The present membership of
the Lafayette Avenue Church is nineteen hundred and twenty persons. His
congregations are very large on every Sunday, and he is an untiring
pastor, especially zealous for temperance. He preaches the old orthodox
gospel, with no "modern improvements." His discourses are able and
eloquent, while his chief aim in the pulpit is to reach the heart.
Justin D. Fulton, D.D., is still another eminent clergyman of Brooklyn.
He was born in 1828, in Sherburne, Madison County, New York, and
literally worked his way through college and to the ministry. He began
his public life in St. Louis, where he was engaged as editor of the
_Gospel Banner_. Preaching in the Tabernacle Baptist Church of that
city, he delivered the first Free-state sermon ever heard in St. Louis.
He also put his anti-slavery sentiments into his paper, and was shortly
deposed from his position as editor because he would not believe
slavery to be right and defend it. From St. Louis he went to Sandusky,
Ohio, preaching there a short period; and from thence, in 1859, to
Albany, New York, where he became pastor of the Tabernacle Church. In
1863 he received a call from the Tremont Temple Church of Boston, and
labored with that church for ten years, increasing its membership from
fifty to one thousand. In 1873, he became pastor of the Hanson Place
Church, of Brooklyn, leaving it, however, in 1875, to organize the
Centennial Baptist Church, in the same city. His popularity as a
preacher became so great that it was presently found necessary to seek a
larger place of worship. Therefore, in 1879, the Rink was purchased, for
much less than its original cost, and was consecrated as a People's
Church. The Rink is an immense edifice, capable of seating nearly six
thousand persons.
Dr. Fulton is an able writer, having published a number of volumes, the
most prominent among which is "The Roman Catholic Element in America."
In the old days of slavery he was a most able and eloquent anti-slavery
advocate, and as such created strong prejudice against himself in
certain quarters. He preached the funeral sermon of Colonel Ellsworth,
in Tweddle Hall, Albany, in which he said that the war must go on until
the musket should be put in the hands of the black man, and he was
permitted to prove his manhood on the battle field. This drew down upon
him the denunciation of the conservative press; but he was appointed
Chaplain of Governor Morgan's staff, and served in hospital and camp. He
is no less famous as an advocate of temperance, and devotes much of his
energies to work in this field.
In person, Dr. Fulton is tall, stout, finely formed, with black whiskers
and moustache, and a somewhat bald forehead. His manner in the pulpit is
full of earnestness and impetuosity. He sometimes overwhelms his
audience with a whirlwind of words. He has strong magnetic and nervous
power, while he impresses his listeners with his sincerity and candor.
He makes frequent and expressive gestures, and combines in his oratory
the carefulness of art with the fire of genius. In belief he is
thoroughly orthodox, having no leanings toward the so-called
"liberality" of many popular clergymen.
R. S. Storrs, D.D., is pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims, at the
corner of Remsen and Henry streets. He is one of the most noted
clergymen of the city, and was selected to assist in the opening of the
New York and Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, making one of the addresses of
the occasion.
The Unitarian Church of the Saviour, at the corner of Pierrepont street
and Monroe Place, is an elaborate Gothic edifice, as is also St. Ann's
Episcopal Church, at the corner of Clinton and Livingston streets. The
Roman Catholic Church of St. Charles Borromeo, in Sidney Place, is
famous for its music. The Dutch Reformed Church, in Pierrepont street,
is of brown stone, in the richest Corinthian style, and the interior
elaborately finished.
The United States Navy Yard is one of the features of Brooklyn, and is
the chief naval station of the country. It is on the south shore of
Wallabout Bay, and contains forty-five acres. The yard is inclosed by a
high brick wall, and contains numerous foundries, workshops and
storehouses. Vessels of every kind used by the navy may be seen at
almost any time at the yard, and it has also a large and varied
collection of trophies taken in war and relics of earlier times, which
prove of interest to the visitor.
At the other extremity of Brooklyn, a mile below South Ferry, is the
Atlantic Dock, which covers an area of forty-two and one-half acres, and
deserves special attention. It is surrounded by piers of solid granite,
upon which are spacious warehouses.
In the heart of the city, a little south of the Navy Yard, between
Myrtle and DeKalb avenues, is Washington Park, or old Fort Greene. It is
on an elevated plateau, contains thirty acres, and commands extensive
views. Its name of Fort Greene dates back to the time of the Revolution,
when it was the seat of extensive fortifications.
The special pride of Brooklyn is Prospect Park, one of the finest in
America, where art and the landscape gardener have assisted rather than
thwarted nature in her efforts to produce beauty. It is situated on an
elevated ridge on the southeastern borders of the city, and from certain
localities commands broad views of Brooklyn, New York, the inner and
outer harbor, and the Jersey shore. It contains five hundred and fifty
acres, which embrace broad, green lawns, grassy slopes, groves, wooded
hills, beautiful with ferns and wild flowers, lakes and rocky dells. It
contains eight miles of drives, four miles of bridle paths, and eleven
miles of walks. At the main entrance, on Flatbush avenue, is a large,
circular open place known as the Plaza, paved with stone and bordered by
grassy mounds. A fountain of novel design furnishes the welcome sound of
splashing, trickling water, and not far distant from it is a bronze
statue of President Lincoln. Within the Park, on an eminence overlooking
the cottages and dell, is a monument, erected in 1877, to the memory of
John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home."
On Gowanus Heights, overlooking Gowanus Bay, in the southern portion of
Brooklyn, is situated Greenwood Cemetery, one of the most beautiful
"cities of the dead" in the world. It was laid out in 1842, and contains
over five hundred acres. At least two hundred thousand interments have
been made in it. It is a perfect wilderness of beauty. The surface of
the ground is uneven, and hills and valleys, grassy slopes, beautiful
little lakes with fountains playing in their midst, overshadowing trees,
a profusion of brilliant flowers, and the white or gray gleam of a
thousand monuments, varied and beautiful in design, all unite in forming
an exquisite spot for the resting place of the dead, which is a fitting
embodiment and expression of the loving remembrance in which they
continue to be held by the living. Among the many elegant and expensive
monuments which this cemetery contains, not one will attract more
attention for its beauty and elaborateness than that erected to
Charlotte Canda, a young French girl, whose fortune was expended in the
marble pile above her grave. The main entrance to Greenwood, near Fifth
Avenue and Twenty-third street, has a magnificent gateway in the pointed
Gothic style, and opens upon a most enchanting landscape. On an
elevation to the right of this entrance, within this cemetery, is
obtained an extensive view of Brooklyn and the bay. The cemetery
contains nineteen miles of carriage roads, and seventeen miles of
footpaths.
Four miles to the eastward of Greenwood are the cemeteries of the
Evergreen and Cypress Hills, both beautiful spots, and the latter
especially celebrated as containing the grave of a large number of
soldiers of the late war.
Radiating from Brooklyn, in almost every direction, are routes leading
to some of the most frequented pleasure resorts of the country. On the
southern coast of Long Island, just east of the Narrows, is Coney
Island, four and a half miles long, with a firm, gently-sloping beach.
The island is divided into four distinct places of resort: Coney Island
Point, or Morton's, at the west end, the oldest of the four; West
Brighton Beach, or Cable's, where there is an iron pier one thousand
feet long, extending out into the ocean, and an observatory three
hundred feet high; Brighton Beach, connecting with West Brighton by a
wide drive and promenade, known as the Concourse; and Manhattan Beach,
the most fashionable resort on the island. At the latter place are two
vast hotels, and an amphitheatre, with three thousand five hundred
seats, upon the beach, for the accommodation of those who wish to watch
the bathers.
Rockaway Beach is to the westward of Coney Island, and is about four
miles long, with surf bathing on one side and still bathing on the
other. A colossal tubular iron pier, twelve hundred feet long, extends
out into the ocean, affording a landing for steamboats.
Staten Island, the western boundary of the Narrows, is a sort of earthly
paradise, which separates the Lower Bay from the Upper. It is a
beautiful island, having an area of nearly sixty square miles, and
rising boldly from the waters of the bays. It commands extensive views
over harbor and ocean, and is a favorite summer home or place of
temporary resort.
Along the shores of the Sound are many places for summer rest and
recreation. Glen Island, lying in the East River, is a famous and
attractive picnicing spot for both New Yorkers and Brooklynites.
Brooklyn is a beautiful and an extensive city, a fitting suburb of the
metropolis. The additional facilities for transit between the two cities
afforded by the completion of the Suspension Bridge will tend to her
material advantage, drawing thither a still larger class of people to
make their homes in its quiet suburban streets and avenues, out of the
noise and whirl of the great city. Her prosperity must keep pace with
that of her elder sister, and so close is the bond of common interest
between them, that whatever benefits one must benefit the other.
CHAPTER V.
BALTIMORE.
Position of Baltimore.--Streets.--Cathedral and Churches.--
Public Buildings.--Educational Institutions.--Art Collections.--
Charitable Institutions.--Monuments.--Railway Tunnels.--Parks
and Cemeteries.--Druid Hill Park.--Commerce and Manufactures.--
Foundation of the City.--Early History.--Bonaparte-Patterson
Marriage.--Storming of Baltimore in 1814.--Maryland at the
Breaking-out of the Rebellion.--Assault on Sixth Massachusetts
Regiment, in April, 1861.--Subsequent Events during the War.--
Baltimore Proves Herself Loyal.--Re-union of Grand Army of
the Republic in Baltimore, September, 1882.--Old Differences
Forgotten and Fraternal Relations Established.
The first in commercial and manufacturing importance of all southern
cities is Baltimore, situated on the north branch of the Patapsco River,
fourteen miles from its entrance into the Chesapeake Bay, and one
hundred and ninety-eight miles from the Atlantic. It embraces an area of
nearly twelve square miles, about one-half of which is built up solidly
with residences and business houses. The city is divided into East and
West Baltimore, by Jones' Falls, a small stream running nearly north and
south, and spanned by numerous bridges. The northwest branch of the
Patapsco also runs up into the heart of the city, forming a basin, into
which small vessels can enter. The outer harbor, or main branch of the
Patapsco, is accessible to the largest ships. The harbor is a safe and
capacious one, capable of furnishing anchorage to a thousand vessels. At
the point of the peninsula separating the two branches of the river is
situated Fort McHenry, which defends the entrance, and which was
unsuccessfully bombarded by the British fleet in the War of 1812.
The general appearance of the city is striking and picturesque. It is
regularly laid out, the streets for the most part crossing one another
at right angles, but there is sufficient diversity to prevent sameness.
Thus while the main part of the city is laid out with streets running
north and south, crossed by others running east and west, large sections
show streets running diagonally to the points of the compass. The
surface of the ground upon which the city is built is undulating, and
its streets are moderately wide. Baltimore street, running east and
west, is the main business thoroughfare, containing the principal retail
stores and hotels. North Charles street is the most fashionable
promenade, while Mount Vernon Place, and the vicinity of the Monument
and Broadway are favorite resorts.
The city abounds in handsome edifices. A generation ago, the Catholic
Cathedral, at the corner of Mulberry and Cathedral streets--a large
granite edifice in the form of a cross, one hundred and ninety feet
long, one hundred and seventy-seven feet at the arms of the cross, and
surmounted by a dome one hundred and twenty-seven feet high--was the
especial pride and boast of Baltimoreans. At its west end are two tall
towers with Saracenic cupolas, resembling the minarets of a Mohammedan
mosque. It contains one of the largest organs in America, and two
valuable paintings, "The Descent from the Cross," the gift of Louis XVI,
and "St. Louis burying his officers and soldiers slain before Tunis,"
presented by Charles X, of France. Now other buildings are found equally
as magnificent. The Roman Catholic churches of St. Alphonsus, at the
corner of Saratoga and Park Streets, and of St. Vincent de Paul, in
North Front Street, are fine in architectural design and interior
decorations. The Unitarian Church, at the corner of North Charles and
Franklin streets, is a handsome edifice, faced by a colonnade composed
of four Tuscan columns and two pilasters, which form arcades, and
containing five bronze entrance doors. Grace Church, Episcopal, at the
corner of Monument and Park streets, and Emmanuel Church, also
Episcopal, at the corner of Reed and Cathedral streets, are handsome
gothic structures, the former of red and the latter of gray sandstone.
Christ's and St. Peter's Episcopal churches, the one at the corner of
St. Paul and Chase streets, and the other at the corner of Druid Hill
avenue and Lanvale street, are both of marble. The Eutaw Place Baptist
Church, at the corner of Eutaw and Dolphin streets, has a beautiful
marble spire one hundred and eighty-six feet high. The First
Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Park and Madison streets, has a
spire two hundred and sixty-eight feet high, with side towers,
respectively seventy-eight and one hundred and twenty-eight feet in
height, and is the most elaborate specimen of Lancet-Gothic architecture
in the country. The Westminster, at the corner of Green and Fayette
streets, contains the grave and monument of Edgar Allan Poe. Mount
Vernon Church, which fronts Washington Monument, at the corner of
Charles and Monument streets, and is in the most aristocratic residence
quarter of Baltimore, is built of green serpentine stone, with buff Ohio
and red Connecticut sandstone, and has eighteen polished columns of
Aberdeen granite. The Hebrew Synagogue, in Lloyd street near Baltimore
street, is a large and handsome edifice.
The City Hall, filling the entire square bounded by Holliday, Lexington,
North and Fayette streets, built of marble, in the Renaissance style,
was completed in 1875, and is one of the finest municipal edifices in
the United States. It is four stories in height, with a French roof, and
an iron dome two hundred and sixty feet high, with a balcony elevated
two hundred and fifty feet above the sidewalk, from which a magnificent
view of the city may be obtained. The Masonic Temple, in Charles street,
near Saratoga, is a handsome building, completed in 1870, at a cost of
$200,000. The Exchange, in Gay street, between Second and Lombard
streets, is an extensive structure, surmounted by an immense dome, one
hundred and fifteen feet high, and fifty-three feet in diameter, which
overarches a spacious and brilliantly frescoed rotunda. Six Ionic
columns, the shafts of which are single blocks of Italian marble, form
colonnades on the east and west sides. It contains the United States
Custom House, Post Office, Merchants' Bank, and a fine, large
reading-room. The Corn and Flour Exchange, the Rialto Building, Odd
Fellows' Hall, Y. M. C. A. Building, are all modern and elegant
structures. The Merchant's Shot Tower, which stands at the corner of
Front and Fayette streets, is two hundred and sixteen feet high, and
from sixty to twenty feet in diameter, and is one of the landmarks of
the city. One million, one hundred thousand bricks were used in its
construction.
Peabody Institute faces Washington monument, on the south, and was
founded and endowed by George Peabody, the eminent American-born London
banker, for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. It contains a
free library of fifty-eight thousand volumes, a conservatory of music,
lecture hall, and a Department of Art, which includes art collections
and an art school. The Athenæum, at the corner of Saratoga and St. Paul
streets, contains the Merchants' Library, with twenty-six thousand
volumes, the Baltimore Library, with fifteen thousand volumes, and the
collections of the Maryland Historical Society, comprising a library of
ten thousand volumes, numerous historical relics, and fine pictures and
statuary. The Johns Hopkins University, which was endowed with over
three millions of dollars, by Johns Hopkins, a wealthy citizen of
Baltimore, who died in 1873, has a temporary location at the corner of
Howard street and Druid Hill avenue, but will probably be permanently
located at Clifton, two miles from the city on the Harford road. The
Johns Hopkins Hospital, to be connected with the Medical Department of
the Johns Hopkins University, and endowed with over two millions of
dollars by the same generous testator, is in process of construction at
the corner of Broadway and Monument street, and will be the finest
building of its kind in America. The Maryland Institute is a vast
structure at the corner of Baltimore and Harrison streets, and is
designed for the promotion of the mechanical arts. The main hall is two
hundred and fifty feet long, and in it is held an annual exhibition of
the products of American mechanical industry. It contains a library of
fourteen thousand volumes, a lecture room, and a school of design. The
first floor is used as a market. The Academy of Science, in Mulberry
street, opposite Cathedral street, has a fine museum of natural history,
embracing a rich collection of birds and minerals, and including a
complete representation of the flora and fauna of Maryland.
Not only is Baltimore noted for free educational institutions, but for
her art collections as well. Annual exhibitions of American paintings
are held in the Athenæum, and the Academy of Art and Science contains a
fine collection of paintings, engravings and casts. The private art
gallery of William T. Walters, of No. 65 Mount Vernon Place, is one of
the finest in America.
There are numerous charitable institutions in the city, prominent among
which are the Hospital for the Insane, in East Monument street;
Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, in North avenue near
Charles street; State Insane Asylum, a massive pile of granite
buildings, near Catonsville, six miles from the city; Bay View Asylum,
an almshouse, on a commanding eminence near the outskirts of the city,
on the Philadelphia road; Mount Hope Hospital, conducted by the Sisters
of Charity, on North avenue, corner of Bolton street; Episcopal Church
Home, in Broadway near Baltimore street; Sheppard Asylum for the Insane,
founded by Moses Sheppard, a wealthy Quaker, situated on a commanding
site near Towsontown, seven miles from the city, and Mount Hope Retreat
for the insane and sick, four miles from the city, on the Reistertown
road.
But her monuments are the special pride of Baltimore, and from them she
derives her name of "The Monumental City." Chief among them is
Washington Monument, whose construction was authorized by the
Legislature in 1809, the land being donated for the purpose by Colonel
John Eager Howard. The site is one hundred feet above tide-water, in
Mount Vernon Place, at the intersection of Monument and Washington
streets. It is a Doric shaft rising one hundred and seventy-six and
one-half feet, from a base fifty feet square by thirty-five feet in
height, and is surmounted by a colossal figure of Washington, fifteen
feet high, the whole rising more than three hundred feet above the level
of the river. It is built of brick, cased with white marble, and cost
$200,000. From the balcony at the head of the shaft, reached by a
winding stairs within, a most extensive view of the city, harbor and
surrounding country may be obtained. Battle Monument stands in Battle
Square, at the intersection of Calvert and Fayette streets, and is
commemorative of those who fell defending the city when it was attacked
by the British in 1814. A square base, twenty feet high, with a pedestal
ornamented at four corners by a sculptured griffin, has on each front an
Egyptian door, on which are appropriate inscriptions and basso relievo
decorations illustrating certain incidents in the battle. A fascial
column eighteen feet in height rises above the base, surrounded by bands
on which are inscribed the names of those who fell. The column is
surmounted by a female figure in marble, emblematic of the city of
Baltimore. The Poe Monument, raised in memory of Baltimore's poet, Edgar
Allan Poe, stands in the churchyard of Westminster Presbyterian Church,
at the corner of Green and Fayette streets. The Wildey Monument has a
plain marble pediment and shaft, surmounted by a group representing
Charity protecting orphans, and has been raised in honor of Thomas
Wildey, the founder of the order of Odd Fellows in the United States. It
is on Broadway near Baltimore street. The Wells and McComas Monument, at
the corner of Gay and Monument streets, perpetuates the memory of two
boys bearing those names, who shot General Ross, the British Commander,
on September twelfth, 1814.
The railway tunnels, by which the railroads on the north side of the
city are connected with tide water at Canton, are among the wonders of
Baltimore. That of the Baltimore and Potomac Road is second in length
only to the Hoosac Tunnel, in America, it being 6969 feet long, while
the Union tunnel is half the length. They were completed in 1873, at a
cost of four million, five hundred thousand dollars. Previous to their
construction, passengers and freight were transferred through the city
by means of horses and mules attached to the cars.
Federal Hill is a commanding eminence on the south side of the river
basin, and from it extensive views are obtained of the city and harbor.
It was occupied by Union troops during the civil war, and now contains a
United States Signal Station. It has been purchased by the city for a
park. Greenmount Cemetery, in the northern part of the city, and Loudon
Park Cemetery, both have imposing entrances and contain handsome
monuments. Patterson Park, at the east end of Baltimore street, contains
seventy acres handsomely laid out, and commanding extensive views.
[Illustration: VIEW OF BALTIMORE FROM FEDERAL HILL.]
The people of the present day can scarcely comprehend the grand scale on
which landscape gardening was attempted a hundred or more years ago. The
landed gentry, themselves or their fathers immigrants from England,
considered a well-kept park, like those of the immense English estates,
an essential to an American one. To this day may be seen traces of their
efforts in this direction, in stately avenues of venerable trees, which
the iconoclastic hand of modern progress has considerately spared. In
some rare instances whole estates have remained untouched, and have
become public property, and their beauties thus perpetuated. Bonaventure
Cemetery, near Savannah, is a notable instance of this, where a
magnificently planned Southern plantation has been transferred from
private to public hands, and its valuable trees remain, though the hand
of art, in attempting to improve, has rather marred the majestic beauty
of the place. Lemon Hill, the nucleus of Fairmount Park, in
Philadelphia, was, in revolutionary times, the estate of Robert Morris,
and though the landscape gardener has been almost ruthless in his
improvements (?), he has been considerate enough to spare some of the
century-old trees. To the same private enterprise, love of the
picturesque and appreciation of beauty, Baltimore is indebted for Druid
Hill Park, in the northern suburbs of the city. Colonel Nicholas Rogers,
a soldier of the Revolution and a gentleman of taste and leisure, when
the war was over, retired to his country residence, a little distance
from Baltimore, then a city of some ten thousand inhabitants, and
devoted the remainder of his life to improving and adorning its
extensive grounds. He seemed a thorough master of landscape gardening,
and all his plans were most carefully matured, so that the trees are
most artistically grouped and alternated with lawns; dense masses of
foliage are broken into by bays and avenues, and beautiful vistas
secured in various directions. Also in the selection of his trees a
careful consideration was had of their autumn foliage, so that fine
contrasts of color should be produced at that season of the year. The
result of all this care and labor was one of the most charming and
enchanting private parks which the country afforded. It contained an
area of nearly five hundred acres.
When Colonel Rogers died, his son, Lloyd N. Rogers, who seemed to have
inherited only in part the tastes of his father, devoted himself solely
to the cultivation of fruit, doing nothing to add to or preserve the
beauty of his domain, but, on the other hand, allowing it to fall into
neglect and decay. However, the harm that he wrought was only negative,
for he did nothing to mar it, and preserved, with jealous care, the
grand old trees which his father had planted, and with unremitting
vigilance warded off interlopers and depredators. The estate was
secluded from the outside world by fringes of woodland, and though the
city had gradually crept to within a quarter of a mile, few people knew
anything of its beauties. When, therefore, the Commission appointed to
select the site for a new park decided upon Druid Hill as the most
available for that purpose, it was absolutely necessary to detail its
advantages. Mr. Rogers reluctantly consented to accept one thousand
dollars an acre for his estate, and it became city property.
Subsequently, other small pieces of adjoining property were bought, and
Druid Lake and grounds were finally added, and the people of Baltimore
found themselves in the possession of a park embracing an area of six
hundred and eighty acres, which needed not to be created, but only to be
improved, to be one of the most beautiful in the country.
There has been but little attempt at architectural decoration. A costly
and imposing gateway, a Moorish music stand, bright with many colors, a
boat-house crowning a little island in a miniature lake, a pretty bridge
and a Moorish arch thrown across a ravine, a few handsome fountains,
and, finally, the old mansion, renovated and enlarged, standing out
against the densely-wooded hill from which the park takes its
name--these are about all which have been attempted in that line. The
surface of the Park is gently undulating, with occasional bold
eminences from which fine views may be obtained of the city and
surrounding country. Its special attractions are its secluded walks,
well-kept drives and tree-arched bridle-paths, its smooth, velvety turf,
and the venerable beauty of its trees, which are the oldest of those of
any park in the country. Its glades and dells have been left as nature
made them, having been spared the artificial touches of the landscape
gardener; and its little trickling springs and cool, secluded brooks,
have a sylvan, rustic beauty which is surpassingly delightful.
The future care and improvement of the Park are well provided for. About
the time that it became a matter of public interest, the charter for the
first line of street passenger railways was granted, and this charter
stipulated that one-fifth of the gross receipts of the road, or one cent
for each passenger carried, should be paid to the city, to constitute a
Park Fund. This amount, small at first, but gradually increasing until
it now amounts to more than a hundred thousand dollars annually, was
devoted first to paying the interest on the Park bonds, and finally to
the preservation and improvement of the Park. The Park Commissioners,
who receive no pay for their services, have most judiciously
administered the fund entrusted to their care.
The foreign and coasting trade of Baltimore are both extensive. Two
lines of steamships leave the port weekly for Europe, and she commands a
large share of the trade of the West and Northwest. Her shipments to
Europe are principally grain, tobacco, cotton, petroleum and provisions.
The city contains rolling mills, iron works, nail factories, locomotive
works, cotton factories and other industrial establishments, numbering
more than two thousand in all. The rich copper ores of Lake Superior are
chiefly worked here, and nearly four thousand tons of refined copper are
produced annually. The smelting works in Canton, a southern suburb of
the city, employ one thousand men. There are also extensive flouring
mills, while oysters, fruit and vegetables, to the value of five million
dollars, are canned annually. Five hundred thousand hides are also
annually made into leather and sent to New England. Baltimore oysters
are renowned as being among the best the Atlantic seaboard produces, and
no one should think of visiting the city without testing them. The
Chesapeake oyster beds are apparently exhaustless, and supply plants for
beds all along the coast.
Although the first settlements in Maryland were made early in the
seventeenth century, the present site of Baltimore was not chosen until
1729, and in 1745 the town was named Baltimore, in honor of Lord
Baltimore, a Catholic, to whom the patent of the province of Maryland
had been originally made out. In 1782 the first regular communication
with Philadelphia, by means of a line of stage coaches, was established,
and Baltimore was chartered as a city in 1787, having at that time a
population of twenty thousand, which, by 1850, had increased to nearly
two hundred thousand; and, according to the census of 1880, the
population was 332,190 inhabitants. In 1780 the city became a port of
entry, and in 1782 the first pavement was laid in Baltimore street.
In 1803 Baltimore became the scene of a romance which is even yet
remembered with interest. Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest brother of
Napoleon, born in Ajaccio, November fifteenth, 1784, found himself, in
the year just mentioned, while cruising off the West Indies, on account
of the war between France and England, compelled to take refuge in New
York. Being introduced into the best society of that and neighboring
cities, he made the acquaintance of Miss Elizabeth Patterson, daughter
of a merchant of Baltimore. The manner of their introduction was
peculiar. In a crowded saloon the button of young Bonaparte's coat
caught in the dress of a young lady, and as it took a little time to
disengage it, the future King of Westphalia had opportunity to see that
the lady was young, surpassingly beautiful and charming. This interview,
by some who knew the lady and who were acquainted with her ambition,
thought to be not entirely accidental, resulted, on the twenty-seventh
of December of the same year, in a marriage between the two, the
bridegroom being but nineteen years of age. Being summoned back to
France by his Imperial brother, he was quickly followed by his young
wife, who, however, was not permitted to land in France, and retired to
England, where she shortly afterwards gave birth to a son, whom she
named Jerome, after his father. Napoleon annulled the marriage, on the
ground that it had been made contrary to French law, which stipulates
that the consent of parents must be gained in order to legalize a
marriage. Jerome was compelled, after he succeeded to the Westphalian
crown, to marry Sophia Dorothea, daughter of King Frederick I, of
Wurtemburg. Madame Patterson, as she was called to the day of her death,
though she maintained her title to the name of Bonaparte, having an
utter scorn for America and its democratic institutions, spent much of
her life in Europe, where at first her beauty, and to the last her wit
and charming manners, secured her admission to the most exclusive
salons, and a sort of acknowledgment of her claims. She never saw her
husband again, save on one occasion, when she came face to face with him
in a European picture-gallery.
Madame Patterson's aristocratic prejudices were greatly shocked when her
son married a most estimable American lady, the mother's ambition
seeking for him an alliance among the royal or at least noble families
of the Old World. During the reign of Napoleon III, the Pope recognized
the first marriage of Jerome Bonaparte, and the Emperor, who had taken
offence at his cousin, the son of Jerome by his princess wife, also
legitimatized the son, and took him into his service. Madame Patterson
lived to be nearly a hundred years old, having spent her last days in
her native city, and dying but a few years ago. Her son Jerome survived
her not many years, leaving two sons, who are known as the
Patterson-Bonapartes.
In December, 1814, Baltimore was made the object of attack by the
British forces, then at war with the United States. On the eleventh of
that month the fleet reached the mouth of the Patapsco, and on the next
day six thousand men landed at North Point, and proceeded, under command
of General Ross, toward the city. An army of over three thousand men met
them and kept them in check, in order to gain time to put the forts and
batteries of Baltimore in proper condition for defence. A battle was
fought, and the Americans defeated, with considerable loss. Among the
killed and wounded, which numbered one hundred and three, were many of
the most prominent citizens of Baltimore. The next morning the British
advanced to the entrenchments about two miles from the city, and at the
same time a vigorous attack was made by the fleet, upon Fort McHenry, at
the entrance of the harbor. The fort was vigorously bombarded during the
next twenty-four hours, but without visible effect. The troops which had
landed, after hovering at a respectful distance from the city, until the
evening of the thirtieth, then retired to their shipping, and set sail
down the river, leaving behind them their commander, General Ross, who
had been killed in the battle of the twelfth. It was during the siege of
Baltimore, while the British fleet lay off Fort McHenry, and the bombs
were raining upon it, that Philip Barton Key wrote the "Star Spangled
Banner."
From 1814 to 1861, nearly half a century, Baltimore had nothing to do
but develop her resources and extend her commerce, which she did so well
and so thoroughly, that in 1860 her inhabitants numbered more than
212,000, and she stood in the front rank as a manufacturing and
commercial town.
At the inauguration of President Lincoln, in 1861, the sentiments of the
people assimilated rather with those of Virginia and the South, than
with those of Pennsylvania and the North. Had it not, by its
geographical position, been so completely in the power of the Federal
government, Maryland would probably have seceded with Virginia. Great
excitement was aroused by the attack on Fort Sumter, and the State was
with difficulty made to retain her old position in the Union. The only
line of railway from the north and east to Washington passed through
Baltimore, and when, on the fifteenth of April, the President made his
call for seventy-five thousand men, it was necessary that, in reaching
the seat of war, they should pass through that city. Apprehensions were
felt that they might be disturbed, but the Marshal of Police, on the
eighteenth of April, maintained perfect order in the city, and summarily
quieted all attempts at riot. He also received from the State Rights
Association a most solemn pledge that the Federal troops should not be
interfered with. The Mayor issued a proclamation invoking all good
citizens to uphold and maintain the peace and good order of the city.
On the nineteenth, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, the first to
respond to the President's call, arrived, by the Philadelphia and
Baltimore Railroad. A crowd of two or three thousand persons had
gathered at the depot early in the day, to witness their arrival. Soon
after eleven o'clock in the morning twenty-nine cars arrived from
Philadelphia, filled with soldiers. Horses were attached to the cars,
which were driven along Pratt street to the Camden station. The
multitude hooted and yelled after the first six cars, but did not
otherwise molest them. The horses becoming frightened by the uproar,
were detached from the seventh car, which moved without their aid nearly
to Gay street, where a body of laborers were removing the cobblestones
from the bed of the street, in order to repair it. Some thirty or forty
men had followed the car to this point, cheering for President Davis and
the Southern Confederacy, and applying contemptuous and insulting
epithets to the troops. The latter received these taunts in perfect
silence; and when the horses were again attached, and the car commenced
moving off, a proposition was made to stone it. Almost instantly, acting
on the suggestion, nearly every window was smashed by projectiles
snatched from the street. The eighth car was treated in a like manner.
The ninth car was suffered to pass unmolested, as it was apparently
empty. When the tenth car approached, after an ineffectual attempt to
tear up the track, it was heaped with paving stones, and a cartload of
sand dumped upon them, and four or five large anchors, dragged from the
sidewalk, completed the barricade. Progress was impossible, and the car
returned to the President Street Depot.
Two-thirds of the cars still remained, filled with troops, besides
others loaded with ammunition and baggage. Mayor Brown hastened to the
depot, in order to prevent any disturbance. The troops were ordered to
leave the cars and form into line. While forming they were surrounded by
a dense mass of people, who impeded their march, threw great quantities
of stones, and knocked down and severely injured two soldiers.
Marching through the city, from the President Street Depot to the Pratt
Street Bridge, they were pursued by the excited crowd, who continued to
throw stones, and even fired muskets at them. When they reached Gay
street, where the track had been torn up, they were again violently
assaulted by a fresh mob, and a number knocked down and wounded. At the
corner of South and Pratt streets a man fired a pistol into the ranks of
the military, when those in the rear ranks immediately wheeled and fired
upon their assailants, wounding several. The guns of the wounded
soldiers were seized, and fired upon the ranks, killing two soldiers.
Reaching Calvert street, the troops succeeded in checking their pursuers
by a rapid fire, and were not again seriously molested until they
reached Howard street, where still another mob had assembled.
The police did their utmost to protect the troops from assault, but
were pressed back by the excited crowd. The soldiers left the Camden
station about half-past twelve o'clock, and a body of infantry, about
one hundred and fifty strong, from one of the Northern States, which had
arrived meantime, next attracted the malevolence of the crowd. The
excitement was now intense. A man displayed the flag of the Confederate
States, and a general panic ensued. As many as twenty shots were fired,
happily without injury to any one, and cobblestones fell like hail. At
last the soldiers gained refuge in the cars. Other troops, by order of
Governor Hicks, were sent back to the borders of the State, and the
military was called out and quiet restored, by evening. Nine citizens of
Baltimore had been killed, and many wounded; while twenty-five wounded
Massachusetts troops were sent to the Washington Hospital, and their
dead numbered two.
Thus Baltimore shares with Charleston the doubtful honor of being first
in the great civil war which devastated the country and sent desolation
to many thousand homes, both north and south. Charleston fired the first
gun, and Baltimore shed the first blood.
During the succeeding night, a report reaching the city that more
Northern troops were on their way southward, the bridge at Canton, the
two bridges between Cockeysville and Ashland, also the bridges over
Little Gunpowder and Bush rivers were destroyed, by order of the
authorities of Baltimore. Upon a representation of the matter to
President Lincoln, he ordered that "no more troops should be brought
through Baltimore, if, in a military point of view, and without
interruption or opposition, they can be marched around Baltimore." The
transmission of mails, and removal of provisions from the city, were
suspended, by the order of the Mayor and Board of Police. Four car-loads
of military stores and equipments, sufficient to furnish a thousand men,
belonging to the Government, were thus detained. On the twenty-fourth of
the month the city had the appearance of a military camp. Twenty-five
thousand volunteers had enlisted, and four hundred picked men left the
city for the Relay House, on the Baltimore and Ohio Road, for the
purpose of seizing and protecting that point, in order to cut off
communications with Washington by that route.
For a week an unparalleled excitement prevailed in Baltimore, which was
succeeded by a counter-revolution, when the volunteer militia were
dismissed, and a large number of troops landed at Fort McHenry and
shipped for Washington, from Locust Point. On the fifth of May General
Butler removed a portion of his troops to Baltimore, and they were
permitted to enter and remain in the city without disturbance. As they
proceeded on their way to Federal Hill, they were even greeted with
cheers, while ladies at windows and doors waved their handkerchiefs and
applauded. On the sixteenth of May the passenger trains between
Baltimore and Washington resumed their regular trips. On the
twenty-seventh of June, Marshal of Police Kane was arrested and escorted
to Fort McHenry, on the charge of being at the head of an unlawful
combination of men organized for resistance to the laws of the United
States and the State of Maryland. On the first of July the Commissioners
of Police were arrested, for having acted unlawfully. On the sixteenth
of July General Dix was put in command of the troops stationed at
Baltimore, and the city thenceforth remained tranquil. At the fall
elections a full vote was cast, which resulted in the Union candidates
receiving a very large majority. At the meeting of the Legislature, it
appropriated seven thousand dollars for the relief of the families of
the Massachusetts troops killed and wounded at Baltimore on April
nineteenth.
On June thirtieth, 1863, Major General Schenck, in command at Baltimore,
put that city and Maryland under martial law. The value of merchandise
exported that year from Baltimore was $8,054,112, and her imports during
the same time were $4,098,189, showing that although on the borderland
of strife, her commerce was in an exceedingly healthy condition. During
July a number of her citizens were arrested, on a charge of being
disloyal to the government. On the Fourth of July all citizens were
required by the Commander to show their colors, from ten o'clock A.M.
to six o'clock, P.M.; an absence of the national flag being considered
tantamount to a confession of disloyalty. In 1864 the State adopted a
new Constitution, which conferred freedom upon the slaves within her
borders, and in November a Freedman's Bureau was established by Major
General Wallace, having its headquarters at Baltimore.
The following year saw the close of the war, and Baltimore, which had
not suffered like her sister cities at the South, her port being free
from blockade, but had rather witnessed increased prosperity arising
from the demands of the war, continued her prosperous career. Although
many violent disunionists had found their homes within the city, the
popular sentiment had grown strongly in favor of the North, and
Baltimore had come to see that she had little to lose and much to gain
by the reestablishment of the Union.
The bitterness of the old war times has passed away, and, as if to
emphasize this fact, the Grand Army of the Republic was invited to hold
a reunion in Baltimore in September, 1882. Accepting the invitation, her
citizens vied with each other in honoring the veterans of the war, and
made their visit a regular ovation. Of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment,
who had passed through Baltimore on that fateful day in April,
twenty-one years before, and who suffered from the fury of an ungoverned
mob, only one member attended the reunion, Captain C. P. Lord, a
resident of Vineland, New Jersey. He was lionized on every hand.
This Grand Army reunion had many pleasant and amusing features. Here men
met each other again who had last parted on the battlefield or in a
Southern prison. Here the dead seemed to come to life, and the lost were
found. Many officers and soldiers of the Confederate army were also
present, and it was as satisfactory as curious, as more than once
happened during this occasion, to have two men meet and clasp hands in a
cordial greeting, as one of them said to the other, "The last time we
met I tried to put a bullet hole through you on a battlefield;" or, "I
took you prisoner when I saw you last;" or, "This empty sleeve, or these
crutches, I must thank you for."
The gathering was one which will long be remembered by Union and
Confederate soldiers, and by the citizens of Baltimore as well. It was
the inauguration of an era of good feeling between the North and the
South. All personal and sectional enmity had died out, and this
gathering joined those who had represented, on one side the North and on
the other the South, in that great intestine struggle which is now so
long past, and the terror of which, thank God, is being gradually
obliterated by time from our memories, in new fraternal bonds, which are
a good augury for the preservation of our Union. When soldiers who
suffered so much at each other's hands, who were stirred by all the evil
passions which war develops, and who bore the brunt of the conflict,
offering all, if need be, as a sacrifice on the altar of the cause they
had espoused, can so forget the past, and shaking hands over the chasm
which divided them, look forward to a happy and concordant future,
surely civilians should be willing to bury the hatred and prejudice
which has so embittered the past, and live only for a common country,
made of many parts whose interests are identical.
CHAPTER VI.
CHARLESTON.
First Visit to Charleston.--Jail Yard.--Bombardment of the
City.--Roper Hospital.--Charleston During the War.--Secession of
South Carolina.--Attack and Surrender of Fort Sumter.--Blockade
of the Harbor.--Great Fire of 1861.--Capitulation in 1865.--
First Settlement of the City.--Battles of the Revolution.--
Nullification Act.--John C. Calhoun.--Population of the City.--
Commerce and Manufactures.--Charleston Harbor.--"American
Venice."--Battery.--Streets, Public Buildings and Churches.--
Scenery about Charleston.--Railways and Steamship Lines.--An
Ancient Church.--Magnolia Cemetery.--Drives near the City.--
Charleston Purified by Fire.
My first introduction to the city of Charleston can scarcely be said to
have been under propitious circumstances. True, a retinue of troops
conducted my companions and myself, with military pomp, to our quarters
in the city. But these quarters, instead of being any one of its fine
hotels, were none other than the Charleston Jail Yard, for the year was
1864, and we were prisoners of war.
After a varied experience of prison life at Richmond, Danville, Macon
and Savannah, I had been sent, with a number of others, to Charleston,
South Carolina, to be placed under the fire of our batteries, which were
then bombarding the city. We had received more humane treatment at
Savannah than at any previous place of detention; therefore it was with
a sinking of the heart that we found ourselves, when we arrived at our
destination, thrown into the jail yard at Charleston, which was the
grand receptacle of all Union prisoners in that city. The jail was a
large octagonal building, four stories high, surmounted by a lofty
tower. A workhouse and a gallows also occupied the yard. The jail
building was for the accommodation of criminals, military prisoners, and
Federal and Rebel deserters, all of whom at least had the advantage of
shelter from sun and storm. The war prisoners were permitted the use of
the yard only, which was in the most filthy condition conceivable,
having been long used as a prison-pen, without receiving any cleaning or
purification whatever. The only shelter afforded us were the remnants of
a few tents, which had been cut to pieces, more or less, by former
prisoners, to make themselves clothing.
This jail yard was in the southeastern portion of the city, and
apparently directly under the fire of our batteries on Morris Island.
But though the shells came screaming over our heads, and proved a
subject of interest, discussion, and even mathematical calculation among
the prisoners, who were thankful for anything which should take their
minds, even momentarily, from the misery which they endured, so
carefully were they aimed, not to do us mischief, that though they
exploded all about us--in front, behind, and on either side--not one of
them fell within the prison enclosure. The scene at night was of
peculiar beauty. These messengers of death presented the spectacle of
magnificent fireworks, and every explosion sounded as the voice of a
friend to us, assuring us that the great Northern army was still
exerting itself to crush out the rebellion and open our prison doors and
set us free.
[Illustration: VIEW ON THE BATTERY, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.]
Reaching Charleston and its jail yard September twelfth, 1864, on the
twenty-ninth I was transferred to the Roper Hospital, having given my
parole that I would not attempt to escape. The quarters here were so
much more comfortable that it was almost like a transition from hell to
heaven. Leaving behind me the filthiness of the jail yard, and my bed
there on the chill, bare ground, where I had protection against neither
heat nor cold, storm nor sunshine, to be permitted the freedom of the
beautiful garden of the hospital, and to sleep even upon the hard floor
of the piazza, were luxuries before unenjoyed in my experience of
southern prisons. And here the Sisters of Charity, those angels among
women, did what they could to alleviate the sufferings of the sick, and
to add to the comfort of us all. Their ministrations were bestowed
indiscriminately on Rebels and Federals, with a charity as broad and
boundless as true religion.
On October fifth we were ordered to leave Charleston, and were sent, in
the foulest of cattle cars, to Columbia, the Capital of the State. We
left Charleston without a regret. It was the breeding place of the
rankest treason, the cradle of the Rebellion, and the scene of untold
cruelties to Union prisoners. At the time of our brief visit to the
city, it was undergoing all the horrors of an actual siege. About
one-third of its territory had been destroyed by fire during the early
part of the war, caused by shells thrown from the Union batteries on
Morris Island. This portion of the city was deserted by all its
inhabitants save the negroes, who, during every brief cessation in the
bombardment, flocked in and took possession, rent free, to scatter as
quickly when one or more of them had been killed by the sudden
appearance and explosion of shells in this quarter. The balance of the
city was forsaken by non-combatants, and the blockade had put an end to
all her commerce. The quiet industries of peace had given place to all
the turmoil of war. Her streets were filled with military, while the
boom of the distant batteries, the whiz of the flying shells, and the
noise of their explosion, were daily and familiar sounds.
During the four years of the war, Charleston was one of the chief points
of Federal attack, though it remained in possession of the Confederate
forces until the beginning of 1865. These were four terrible years to
the city. Yet her sufferings she had brought upon herself. The first
open and public movement in favor of the dissolution of the Union was
made in that city. South Carolina was the first to call a State
convention, and to secede from the Union. This convention was held at
Columbia, the Capital of the State, but was adjourned to Charleston,
where the Ordinance of Secession was unanimously passed on the twentieth
of December, 1860. Fort Sumter, which was one of the largest forts in
Charleston, a massive fortress of solid masonry, standing on an island
commanding the principal entrance, at the mouth of Charleston Harbor,
was in command of Major Robert Anderson, with a garrison of eighty men.
On the twenty-seventh of December he ran up the stars and stripes.
Governor Pickens immediately demanded a surrender of the fort, which was
promptly refused. Early on Friday morning, April twelfth, 1861, the
initial gun of the terrible four years' war was fired by the Rebel
forces from the howitzer battery on James Island, west of Sumter. Fort
Moultrie, on Sullivan Island, on the northeast, the gun battery at
Cumming's Point, the northwest extremity of Morris Island, and other
batteries and fortifications which the Confederates had seized and
appropriated to their own use, all followed in a deadly rain of shells
upon Sumter. The firing was kept up for thirty-five hours, and Sumter
made a vigorous defence, until the quarters were entirely burned, the
main gates destroyed by fire, the supplies exhausted, and the magazine
surrounded by flames, when Major Anderson accepted the terms of
capitulation offered by General Beauregard.
Upon the surrender of the Fort, which was received as a good omen by the
South, troops began to pour into the city, so that by the sixteenth of
the same month as many as ten thousand had arrived. The blockade of the
port was commenced on the tenth of May, and continued until the close of
the war. In the latter part of 1861 an attempt was made by the Federal
government to seal up the channel of the harbor with sunken ships, to
prevent the egress of privateers. On the twenty-first of December
seventeen vessels were sunk, in three or four rows, across the channel.
But this attempt at blockade proved a failure. The current washed some
of them away, and many passages in a water front of six miles were left
unobserved, and more vessels ran the blockade and reached the city, than
at any other southern port.
On the tenth of December, 1861, a fire broke out in the city, which
destroyed nearly all its public buildings, banks and insurance offices,
and several churches, besides many dwellings, reducing thousands to
homelessness and the extremity of want. The loss occasioned by this
conflagration was estimated at ten millions of dollars.
In 1863, the women, children and other non-combatants were ordered out
of the city, and free transportation, food and lodgings were furnished
those unable to pay for them. Morris Island had been captured by the
Federal Army, who used it as a point of attack against Sumter and the
city. Its shells had wrought destruction in all parts of the city,
especially in its lower portions. On February seventeenth, 1865,
Charleston, which had withstood all attacks from the seaward,
capitulated to the Union forces, Columbia having been captured by
Sherman.
The history of Charleston goes back to earliest colonial times. In 1671
a few persons located themselves on Ashley River, at Old Charleston. But
in 1680 this settlement was abandoned, and the foundations of the
present city laid, several miles nearer the sea. The whole country, up
to 1671, between the thirtieth and thirty-sixth parallel of latitude,
was called Carolina, having received the name in honor of Charles IX, of
France. In that year the division was made between the Northern and
Southern provinces. In 1685 the young settlement received a considerable
influx of French Huguenot refugees.
During the early part of the eighteenth century the war of Queen Anne
against France and Spain greatly disturbed the young colony; and a
little later the Indians threatened its existence. All the inhabitants
of the region took refuge at Charleston, which was vigorously defended.
In 1700, the same year that Kidd was captured and taken to England, no
less then seven pirates were secured, and executed at Charleston.
Subsequently others shared the same fate.
[Illustration: GARDEN AT MOUNT PLEASANT, OPPOSITE CHARLESTON, SOUTH
CAROLINA.]
South Carolina was among the foremost of the American colonies to strike
for independence. On the twenty-eighth of June, 1776, Charleston was
attacked by the British, an attempt being made to destroy the
military works on Sullivan's Island. But Colonel Moultrie, in honor of
whom the fort was subsequently named, made a gallant defence and
repulsed them. In 1779 they made a second attack upon the city, this
time approaching it by land, but were again compelled to retreat. Sir
Henry Clinton, with seven or eight thousand men, opened his batteries
upon Charleston on the second of April, 1780. Fort Moultrie, on
Sullivan's Island, was compelled to surrender on the fourteenth, and the
city yielded on May eleventh. The British retained possession of the
city until the close of the war.
Charleston took a prominent part in the passage of the nullification act
by the State, which maintained that any one of the States might set
aside or nullify any act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional or
oppressive. The occasion of this nullification act was the Tariff Laws
of 1828, which were not considered favorable to the Southern States. A
convention of the State declared them null and void, and made
preparations to resist their execution. John C. Calhoun, who was at that
time Vice-President under Andrew Jackson, resigned his office, became a
leader in the nullification movement, and was the father of the doctrine
of State Sovereignty, the legitimate outcome of the principles of which
was the late attempt to dissolve the Union.
The population of Charleston in 1800 was 18,711; in 1850, 42,985
inhabitants; in 1860, 40,519; in 1870, 48,956; and in 1880, 50,000
inhabitants. It has not made so rapid a growth as other cities, even in
the South, but is, nevertheless, a prosperous town, with large
commercial, and since the war, large manufacturing interests. It is one
of the chief shipping ports for cotton, and also exports rice, lumber,
naval stores and fertilizers. Immense beds of marl were discovered in
the vicinity of the city in 1868, and now the manufacture of fertilizers
from marl and phosphate is one of its principal industries. There are
also flour and rice mills, carriage and wagon factories and machine
shops. The city is learning that the surest foundation stone for its
future prosperity is its manufacturing interests; and, probably, the
political battle of 1861, could it be fought over again to-day, in that
city, would find the nullifiers largely in the minority. The city which
was so marred and blemished during its long state of siege, has been
rebuilt, and all traces of the fratricidal conflict removed; and though
Charleston would not be true to her traditions if she did not still
cherish a strong Southern sentiment, the years which have passed since
the cessation of hostilities have done much toward softening the
asperities of feeling on both sides.
As a seaboard city, Charleston is most favorably situated. It has an
excellent harbor, seven miles in length, with an average width of two
miles, landlocked on all sides, except an entrance about a mile in
width. This entrance is blocked by a bar, which, however, serves both as
a bulwark and a breakwater. Of its two passages, its best gives
twenty-two feet in depth at flood tide, and sixteen feet at ebb.
The harbor of Charleston is impregnable, as the Union troops learned to
their cost during the late war. Standing directly in the channel are
forts Ripley and Sumter. On a point extending out into the strait,
between the two, is Fort Johnson. Directly in front of the city, one
mile distant from it, is Castle Pinckney, covering the crest of a mud
shoal, and facing the entrance. Sullivan's Island, a long, low, gray
stretch of an island, dotted here and there by clumps of palmettoes,
lies on the north of the entrance of the harbor, with Fort Moultrie on
its extreme southern point, as a doorkeeper to the harbor. On the
southern side is Morris Island, long, low and gray also, with tufts of
pines instead of palmettoes, and with batteries at intervals along its
whole sea front, Fort Wagner standing near its northern end. Sullivan's
Island, the scene of fierce conflict during the Revolution, and later,
during the Rebellion, is to-day the Long Branch or Coney Island of South
Carolina, containing many beautiful cottages and fine drives, and
furnishing good sea bathing. The village occupies the point extending
into the harbor.
As one approaches Charleston from the sea, the name which has been
applied to it, of the "American Venice," seems not inappropriate. The
shores are low, and the city seems to rise out of the water. It is built
something after the manner of New York, on a long and narrow peninsula,
formed by the Cooper and Ashley rivers, which unite in front of the
city. It has, like New York, its Battery, occupying the extreme point of
the peninsula, its outlook commanding the entire harbor, bristling with
fortifications, so harmless in time of peace, so terrible in war. The
Battery contains plots of thin clover, neatly fenced and shelled
promenades, a long, solid stone quay, which forms the finest sea-walk in
the United States, and has a background of the finest residences in the
city, three storied, and faced with verandahs. The dwelling-houses
throughout the city are mostly of brick or wood, and have large open
grounds around them, ornamented with trees, shrubbery, vines and
flowers. The city is laid out with tolerable regularity, the streets
generally crossing each other at right angles. King street, running
north and south, is the fashionable promenade, containing the leading
retail stores. Meeting street, nearly parallel with King, contains the
jobbing and wholesale stores. Broad street, the banks, brokers' and
insurance offices. Meeting street, below Broad, Rutledge street, and the
west end of Wentworth street, contain fine private residences.
The City Hall, an imposing building, standing in an open square, the
Court House, the Police Headquarters, and the venerable St. Michael's
Church (Episcopal), all stand at the intersection of Broad and Meeting
streets. St. Michael's was built in 1752, after designs by a pupil of
Sir Christopher Wren. The view from the belfry is very fine, embracing
the far stretch of sea and shore, the shipping, fortresses of the
harbor, and near at hand buildings as ancient as the church itself. It
is the church of the poem--a favorite with elocutionists--"How he saved
St. Michael." Says the poem, in one of its stanzas, its spire rose
"High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball
That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall,
First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor round,
And last slow fading vision, dear, to the outward bound."
Next in interest among the churches of Charleston is St. Philip's
Episcopal Church, in Church street, near Queen. The building itself is
not so venerable as St. Michael's, though its church establishment is
older. The view from the steeple is fine; but its chief interest centres
in the churchyard, where lie some of South Carolina's most illustrious
dead. In one portion of the churchyard is the tomb of John C. Calhoun,
consisting of a plain granite slab, supported by brick walls, and
bearing the simple inscription "Calhoun." The ruins of St. Finbar's
Cathedral (Roman Catholic) stand at the corner of Broad and Friend
streets. The building, which was one of the costliest edifices of
Charleston, was destroyed by the great fire of 1861, and the walls,
turrets and niches still standing are exceedingly picturesque. Other
handsome church edifices abound. The old Huguenot Church, at the corner
of Church and Queen streets has its walls lined with quaint and elegant
mural entablatures.
[Illustration: CUSTOM HOUSE, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.]
The Post Office, at the foot of Broad street, is a venerable structure,
dating back to the colonial period, the original material for its
construction having being brought from England in 1761. It received
considerable damage during the war, but has since been renovated.
The new United States Custom House, which, when completed, will be the
finest edifice in the city, is of white marble, in very elegant
Corinthian style, and is situated south of the market wharf, on Cooper
River.
The old Orphan House of Charleston is one of the most famous
institutions in the country. It stands in spacious grounds between
Calhoun and Vanderbuist streets, and a statue of William Pitt, erected
during the Revolution, stands in the centre of the grounds. John Charles
Fremont, the conqueror of California, and once a candidate for the
Presidency, and C.C. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury of the
Confederate States, were both educated here. The Charleston Library, at
the corner of Broad and Church streets, founded in 1748, and the College
of Charleston, located in the square bounded by George, Green, College
and St. Philip streets, and founded in 1788, are both spacious and
commodious buildings.
One of the most characteristic sights of Charleston is to be seen
between six and nine o'clock in the morning, in and about market Hall,
in Meeting street, near the Bay. The Hall is a fine building in temple
form, with a lofty portico in front, and a row of long, low sheds in the
rear.
There is nothing picturesque in the country around about Charleston. On
the contrary, it is low, flat and uninteresting. Looking across the
Ashley River, which is more than a quarter of a mile wide here, there is
on the opposite side a long, low line of nearly dead level, with
occasional sparse pine forests, interspersed with fields of open sand.
There are no palmettoes, but here and there are gigantic oaks, hung with
pendants of gray Spanish moss, and occasional green spikes of the
Spanish bayonet. The view across the Cooper is very similar. Large
extents of country in the neighborhood of Charleston, especially that
lying along the streams, and stretching for many miles inland, are low
and swampy. The region is sparsely settled, and furnishes no thriving
agricultural or manufacturing population, which, seeking a market or a
port for its productions, and wanting supplies in return, helps to build
up the city. Several railways connecting with the North, West and South
centre here; and she is also connected, by means of steamship lines,
with the principal Atlantic seaports and some European ones. She is also
the centre of a great lumber region, and annually exports many million
feet of lumber.
There are few points of interest about the city. Besides Sullivan's
Island, Mount Pleasant, on the northern shore of the harbor, so named,
probably, because the land is sufficiently high to escape being a swamp,
is a favorite picnic resort. The antiquarian will find interest in the
old Church of St. James, about fifteen miles from Charleston, on Goose
Creek. It is secluded in the very heart of the pine forest, entirely
isolated from habitations, and is approached by a road scarcely more
than a bridle-path. The church was built in 1711, and the royal arms of
England, which are emblazoned over the pulpit, saved it from destruction
during the Revolutionary War. On the walls and altars are tablets in
memory of the early members of the organization, one dated 1711, and
another 1717. The pews are square and high, the pulpit or reading desk
exceedingly small, and the floor is of stone. On the other side of the
road, a short distance from this church, is a farm known as The Oaks,
approached by a magnificent avenue, a quarter of a mile in length, of
those trees, believed to be nearly two hundred years old. They are
exceedingly large, and form a continuous archway over the road, their
branches festooned with long fringes of gray moss, which soften and
conceal the ravages of age.
Magnolia Cemetery lies just outside the city, on its northern boundary.
It is beautified by live oaks and magnolias, and contains, among other
fine monuments, those of Colonel William Washington, of Revolutionary
fame, Hugh Legaré and Dr. Gilmore Simms, the novelist. The roads leading
out of the city by the Cooper and Ashley rivers afford attractive
drives. What the scenery lacks in grandeur and picturesqueness is made
up in beauty by the abundance of lovely foliage, composed of pines,
oaks, magnolias, myrtles and jasmines, exhibiting a tropical
luxuriance.
On the twenty-seventh of April, 1838, Charleston was visited by a fire
which proved exceedingly disastrous. Nearly one-half the city was swept
by the flames, which raged for twenty-eight hours, and were finally
averted only by the blowing up of buildings in their path. There were
1158 buildings destroyed, involving a loss of three millions of dollars.
The most shocking feature of the catastrophe was that, in the
carelessness of handling the gunpowder in blowing up these buildings,
four of the most prominent citizens were killed, and several others
injured. The fire of 1861 exceeded this in destructiveness, and to it
were added the terrific effects of a four years' besiegement. So that it
can be truly said that Charleston has been purified by fire. She is
to-day fully recovered from the effects, and as prosperous as her
geographical position will permit.
[Illustration: MAGNOLIA CEMETERY, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.]
CHAPTER VII.
CINCINNATI.
Founding of Cincinnati.--Rapid Increase of Population.--
Character of its Early Settlers.--Pro-slavery Sympathies.--
During the Rebellion.--Description of the City.--Smoke and
Soot.--Suburbs.--"Fifth Avenue" of Cincinnati.--Streets,
Public Buildings, Private Art Galleries, Hotels, Churches
and Educational Institutions.--"Over the Rhine."--Hebrew
Population.--Liberal Religious Sentiment.--Commerce and
Manufacturing Interests.--Stock Yards and Pork-packing
Establishments.--Wine Making.--Covington and Newport
Suspension Bridge.--High Water.--Spring Grove Cemetery.
Cincinnati, whether we consider what its past history has been, or
whether we regard it as it is to-day, is probably the most
matter-of-fact and prosaic of all our western cities. A generation ago
it derived its chief importance from the pork-packing business, in
which, though it once stood at the head, it is now completely distanced
by Chicago. Its extensive factories and foundries give it material
wealth, while its geographical situation guarantees its commercial
importance. Unlike most of the towns and cities of this western world,
no interesting historical associations cling around its site. The
Indians seem to have been troublesome and treacherous here, as
elsewhere; but the records tell no stories of famous wars, terrible
massacres, or hairbreadth escapes. In all the uninteresting accumulation
of dry facts and statistics regarding the founding and subsequent growth
of the city, there is just one exceptional romance.
In early times three settlements were made along the banks of the Ohio
River, on what is now the southern boundary of the State of Ohio. The
first was at Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami River, in
November, 1788, on ten thousand acres, purchased by Major Benjamin
Stites, from Judge Symmes. The second settlement was commenced but a
month later, on the north bank of the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of
the Licking River, Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, being the leading
spirit in the new undertaking, he having purchased about eight hundred
acres, also from Judge Symmes, for an equivalent of fifteen pence an
acre. Judge Symmes himself directed the third settlement, which was
founded in February, 1789, and gave it the name of North Bend, from the
fact that it was the most northern bend of the Ohio River, below the
mouth of the great Kanawha.
A spirit of rivalry existed between these three settlements, which lay
but a few miles apart. Each one regarded itself as the future great city
of the west. In the beginning, Columbia took the lead; but North Bend
presently gained the advantage, as the troops detailed by General Harmer
for the protection of the settlers in the Miami Valley landed there,
through the influence of Judge Symmes. This detachment soon took its
departure for Louisville, and was succeeded by another, under Ensign
Luce, who was at liberty to select the spot, for the erection of a
substantial block-house, which seemed to him best calculated to afford
protection to the Miami settlers. He put up temporary quarters at North
Bend, sufficient for the security of his troops, and began to look for a
suitable site on which to build the block-house. While he was leisurely
pursuing this occupation, he was attracted by a pair of beautiful black
eyes, whose owner was apparently not indifferent to his attentions. This
woman was the wife of one of the settlers at the Bend, who, when he
perceived the condition of affairs, thought best to remove her out of
danger, and at once proceeded to take up his residence at Cincinnati.
The gallant commander, still ostensibly engaged in locating his
block-house, felt immediately impelled to go to Cincinnati, on a tour of
inspection. He was forcibly struck by the superior advantages offered by
that town, over all other points on the river, for a military station.
In spite of remonstrance from the Judge, the troops were, accordingly,
removed, and the erection of a block-house commenced at once. The
settlers at the Bend, who at that time outnumbered those of the more
favored place, finding their protection gone, gave up their land and
followed the soldiers, and ere long the town was almost deserted. In the
course of the ensuing summer, Major Doughty arrived at Cincinnati, with
troops from Fort Harmer, and established Fort Washington, which was made
the most important and extensive military station in the northwest
territory. North Bend still continued its existence as a town, and was
finally honored by becoming the home of General Wm. H. Harrison, ninth
President of the United States, and there still rest his mortal remains.
Farms now occupy the place where Columbia once stood.
The unsettled condition of the frontier prevented Cincinnati from making
a rapid growth in its early years. In 1800, twelve years after the first
colonist landed on the shore of the Ohio opposite the Licking River,
there were but 750 inhabitants. In 1814 the town was incorporated as a
city. In 1820 its inhabitants numbered 9,602, and in 1830, 16,230. About
this time the Miami Canal was built, running through the western portion
of the State of Ohio, and connecting Cincinnati with Lake Erie at
Toledo. This gave an impetus to trade, and during the next ten years the
population increased nearly three hundred per cent., numbering in 1840,
46,382 inhabitants. In 1850 it had again more than doubled, amounting to
115,436. In 1860 the number was 161,044; in 1870, 216,239; while
according to the United States census returns of 1880 the population in
that year was 255,708.
The career of Cincinnati will not compare in brilliancy with that of
Chicago. It has not displayed the same energy and activity. Outwardly,
it has not made the most of its superior natural advantages, and
intellectually, although it boasts some of the most readable and
successful newspapers in the country, it has fallen behind other cities.
Settled originally by emigrants from Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
descendants of Germans, Swedes and Danes, its inhabitants were plodders
rather than pushers. They lacked the practical and mental activity of
New Englanders and New Yorkers. By habits of industry and economy they
were sure to accumulate wealth; but they cared little for outward
display, and less for educational and intellectual advancement. The
churches met better support than the schools, "book learning" being held
in small estimation by this stolid yet thrifty race. They patterned
their city after Philadelphia, the most magnificent city their eyes had
ever beheld, and anything more splendid than which their imaginations
were powerless to depict; called their streets Walnut, Spruce and Vine,
and felt that they should be commended for having built them up with a
view to substantiality rather than to display.
Yankee capital and enterprise, in the course of time, found their way to
Cincinnati, to build up its factories and stimulate public improvements.
But, on the line between freedom and slavery, its population largely
southern by immigration or descent, and by sympathy, Cincinnati up to
the time of the war was more a southern than a northern city. Her
leading families were connected by marriage with Kentucky, Virginia and
Maryland; many of her leading men had immigrated from those States; and
her aristocracy scorned the northern element which had helped to build
up the city, and repudiated all its tendencies.
Public sentiment had been, from its earliest history, intensely
pro-slavery. In 1836 a mob broke into and destroyed the office of the
_Philanthropist_, an anti-slavery paper, published by James G. Birney,
scattered the type, and threw the press into the river, having
previously resolved that no "abolition paper" should be either
"published or distributed" in the town. In 1841 the office of the same
paper was again raided and destroyed, and a frenzied mob, numbering at
one time as many as fifteen hundred men, engaged in a riot against the
negro residents in the city, until, to secure their safety, it was found
necessary to incarcerate the latter, to the number of 250 to 300, in the
county jail. Houses were broken into and furniture destroyed, several
persons killed, and twenty or thirty more or less seriously wounded. Yet
at this very period, Salmon Portland Chase, the future statesman and
financier, but then an obscure young lawyer, was living in Cincinnati,
and was already planning the beginnings of that Liberty party which,
after many vicissitudes, and under a different name, finally
accomplished the abolition of slavery; and in this same city, but ten
years later, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
When the war began, Cincinnati found itself in an anomalous position.
Geographically it was on the side of the north, while to a large extent
its social and business relations allied it with the south. Many of the
leading families furnished adherents to the southern cause; but the
masses of the people, notably the Germans, who had already become an
important factor in its population, were stirred by the spirit of
patriotism, and casting aside once for all their conservatism, they
identified themselves with the cause of the Union. Trade was greatly
disturbed. The old profitable relations with the south were broken up
for the time being, but Cincinnati did not find herself a loser. Army
contractors made fortunes, and the business of supplying gunboats,
military stores and provisions to the army gave employment to immense
numbers, and stimulated all branches of trade. From this period
Cincinnati dates her new life. Heretofore she had stagnated in all but a
business sense. With the steady increase of her population came a new
element. Southern supineness and Middle State stolidity were aroused and
shaken out of themselves, when slavery no longer exerted its baleful
influence over the country and the city. Fresh life was infused into her
people, and the war marked the dawn of a new era for the city, an era in
which public spirit took a prominent place.
The name, Cincinnati, was bestowed upon the city at its foundation, as
tradition has it, by General St. Clair, who called it after the society
of that name, of which himself and General Hamilton were both members.
The county was subsequently named in honor of General Hamilton. The
young town barely escaped the name of Losantiville, a word of original
etymology, compounded by a pedantic schoolmaster, who, wishing to
indicate the position of the future city as opposite the mouth of the
Licking River, united _os_, mouth, _anti_, against or opposite to, and
_ville_, as meaning city, prefacing the whole with L, the initial letter
of Licking; hence "Losantiville." But the name, although accepted for
several months, was not permanently adopted.
Cincinnati is nearly in the centre of the great valley of the Ohio,
being only fifty-eight miles nearer Cairo, at its junction with the
Mississippi, than to its head waters at Pittsburg. It occupies the half
circle formed by an outward curve of the river, which bends continually
in one direction or another. The plateau upon which the business part of
the city is built is sixty feet above the low-water mark of the river.
Back of this is a terrace some fifty feet higher yet, graded to an easy
slope, the whole shut in by an amphitheatre of what appears to be hills,
though when one mounts to their summits he finds himself on an
undulating table-land, four or five hundred feet above the river, which
extends backward into the country. The river flows through a wide and
deep ravine, which the raging floods have, in the long ages since they
began their course, cut for themselves, through an elevated region of
country. In the remote west these ravines, chiseled through the solid
rocks, are bordered by steep precipices; on the Ohio the yielding soil
has been washed away in a gradual slope, leaving the graceful outlines
of hills.
The city proper is occupied by stores, offices, public buildings,
factories, foundries, and the dwelling houses of the poorer and middle
classes, over all which hangs a pall of smoke, caused by the bituminous
coal used as fuel in the city. Cleanliness in either person or in dress
is almost an impossibility. Hands and faces become grimy, and clean
collars and light-hued garments are perceptibly coated with a thin layer
of soot. Clothes hung out in the weekly wash acquire a permanent yellow
hue which no bleaching can remove. The smoke of hundreds of factories,
locomotives and steamboats arises and unites to form this dismal pall,
which obscures the sunlight, and gives a sickly cast to the moonbeams.
But beyond the city, on the magnificent amphitheatre of hills which
encircle it, are half a dozen beautiful suburbs, where the homes of
Cincinnati's merchant princes and millionaires are found, as elegant as
wealth combined with art can make them, surrounded by enchanting
scenery, and commanding extensive views over the city and surrounding
country. Cincinnati has no Fifth Avenue like New York, but it has its
Mount Auburn, its Walnut Hills, its Price's Hill, its Clifton and its
Avondale, which are as much superior to Fifth Avenue as the country is
superior to the city, and as space is preferable to narrowness. As far
as the eye can reach, on these billowed outlines of hills and valleys,
elegant cottages, tasteful villas, and substantial mansions, surrounded
by a paradise of grass, gardens, lawns, and tree-shaded roads, are
clustered. Each little suburb has its own corporation, and its own
municipal government, while even its mayor and aldermen may do daily
business in the large city below it.
In the city itself Pearl street is noted for its wholesale trade, and
for the uniform elegance of its buildings. Third street, between Main
and Vine, contains the banking, brokering, and insurance offices. Fourth
street is the fashionable promenade and business street. Freeman street,
in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, is also a favorite promenade. Both
the East and West Ends contain many fine residences. Along Front street,
at the foot of Main, is the public landing, an open space one thousand
feet long and four hundred and twenty-five feet wide. The city has a
frontage of ten miles on the river, and extends back three miles.
The United States Government building, occupying the square bounded by
Main and Walnut, and Fifth and Sixth streets, and accommodating the
Custom House, Post Office, and United States Courts; the County Court
House, in Main street, near Canal street; the City buildings occupying
an entire square on Plum street, between Eighth and Ninth; the Chamber
of Commerce, on Fourth street between Main and Walnut; and the Masonic
Temple, at the corner of Third and Walnut streets, are among the most
imposing buildings of the city. The Exposition buildings, in Elm street,
fronting Washington Park, cover three and one-half acres of ground, and
have seven acres of space for exhibiting. The Exhibition opens annually,
during the first week in September, and closes the first week in
October. The Springer Music Hall will seat 5,000 persons, and contains
one of the largest organs in the world, having more pipes, but fewer
speaking stops, than the famous Boston organ. Pike's Opera House, in
Fourth street, between Vine and Walnut, is a very handsome building.
Cincinnati is noted for its appreciation and encouragement of fine
music. The Emery Arcade, said to be the largest in America, extends
from Vine to Race street, between Fourth and Fifth. The roof is of
glass, and in it are shops of various kinds, and the Hotel Emery.
The late Henry Probasco, on Clifton Heights, and Joseph Longworth, on
Walnut Hills, each had very fine private art galleries, to which
visitors were courteously admitted, and the city itself occupies a high
standard in art matters. The Tyler-Davidson fountain, in Fifth street,
between Vine and Walnut, the gift of Mr. Probasco, exhibits a series of
basins, one above another, the shaft ornamented by figures, and the
whole surmounted by a gigantic female figure, from whose outstretched
hands the water rains down in fine spray. The fountain was cast in
Munich, and cost nearly $200,000.
The Burnet House has been, for more than a quarter of a century, the
principal hotel in Cincinnati. The Grand Hotel is newer and more
elegant. The Gibson House is large and centrally located. There are
various opera houses, theatres, variety and concert halls, a gymnasium,
a Floating Bath, and Zoölogical Gardens, with a collection of birds and
animals, among the best in the country.
St. Peter's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), in Plum street, between Seventh
and Eighth, is the finest religious edifice in the city. Its altar of
Carrara marble was carved in Genoa, and its altar-piece, "St. Peter
Delivered," by Murillo, a work of art of world-wide reputation. Many of
the Protestant churches are elegant, and some of them actually
magnificent. The Hebrew Synagogue on Plum street, opposite the
Cathedral, and the Hebrew Temple, at the corner of Eighth and Mound
streets, both handsome edifices, one in Moorish and the other in Gothic
style, have each of them brilliant interiors.
Among the educational institutions of Cincinnati are the University of
Cincinnati, having in connection with it a School of Design and a Law
School, St. Xavier's College (Jesuit); Wesleyan Female College; Seminary
of Mount St. Mary's, a famous Roman Catholic College; Lane Theological
Seminary, of which Dr. Lyman Beecher was once president, and where Henry
Ward Beecher once studied theology for three years; several medical
colleges, and scientific, classical and mechanical institutes.
A number of parks surround the city, furnishing fine pleasure grounds,
and containing magnificent views of the river and its shores.
More than a third of the residents of Cincinnati are of German birth or
descent. Besides being scattered all through the city, they also occupy
a quarter exclusively their own, on the north of the Miami Canal, which
they have named "the Rhine." "Over the Rhine," one seems to have left
America entirely, and to have entered, as by magic, the Fatherland. The
German tongue is the only one spoken, and all signs and placards are in
German. There are German schools, churches and places of amusement. The
beer gardens will especially recall Germany to the mind of the tourist.
The Grand Arbeiter and Turner Halls are distinctive features of this
quarter of the city, and specially worthy of a visit.
The Jews also constitute a proportion of the inhabitants, respectable
both as to numbers and character; and, what is worthy of remark, there
is an unwonted harmony between Christians and Hebrews, so that an
exchange of pulpits between them has been among the actual facts of the
past. Dr. Max Lilienthal, one of the most eloquent and learned rabbis of
the country, presides over one of the Jewish congregations, and has
preached to Christian audiences; and Mr. Mayo, the Unitarian clergyman,
has spoken by invitation in the synagogues. The Jews of the city are
noted for their intelligence, public spirit and liberality, and are
represented in the municipal government, and on the boards of public and
charitable institutions. Quite as worthy of note is the fact that the
Young Men's Christian Association of Cincinnati is not influenced by
that spirit of narrow bigotry which in certain other cities of the Union
excludes Unitarians from fellowship.
The venerable Archbishop Purcell, who for half a century had been at the
head of the Roman Catholic Church in this diocese, was a man of genial
manners, sincerely beloved by all. But the closing days of his life were
sadly clouded by a gigantic financial failure, amounting to several
millions of dollars, with which he was connected. As heavily as the blow
has fallen upon many of his flock, the only blame they impute to the
dead prelate is that of most faulty judgment and general incapacity in
financial affairs. The most singular part of it all was that the
difficulties should have remained so long undiscovered, until such an
immense amount of property was involved.
Cincinnati's commerce is very extended, and so are her manufacturing
interests. Steamboats from all points on the Mississippi and the Ohio
lay up at her levee, which extends five or six miles around the bank of
the river in front of the city. The traveler may take his ticket for St.
Paul, New Orleans, Pittsburg, high up the Red River, or any intervening
point. The staple article of trade is pork, though she exports wine,
flour, iron, machinery, whisky, paper and books. In addition to the
water ways, a large number of railways, connecting the city with every
section of the country, centres here.
The stock yards of Cincinnati are on an extended scale, though not
equaling those of Chicago. The Union Railroad's Stock Yards, comprising
fifty acres on Spring Grove avenue, have accommodations for 25,000 hogs,
10,000 sheep, and 5,000 cattle. In the pork packing establishments,
thousands of hogs from the farms of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, are
slaughtered daily. In a single establishment fifty men will slaughter
and dispose of 1,500 hogs a day. Each man has his own special line of
work, the labor being divided among pen-men, knockers-down, stickers,
scalders, bristle-snatchers, scrapers, shavers, hangers or "gamble-men,"
gutters, hose-boys, slide-boys, splitters, cutters with their
attendants, weighers, cleavers, knife-men, ham-trimmers,
shoulder-trimmers, packers, salters, weighers and branders, lard-men,
bookkeepers, porters and laborers, of whom fifty will unitedly dispose
of a hog once in every twenty seconds. The old saying is that it takes
nine tailors to make a man, but it takes fifty men, belonging to all the
professions named above, to make one complete butcher. The work is
accomplished so rapidly that the creature has no time to realize what
has happened to him, before the different portions of his dissected body
are slipping down wooden pipes, each to its appropriate apartment below,
to be finally disposed of.
Nowhere east of the Rocky Mountains are grapes cultivated to such an
extent, and such quantities of wine manufactured, as on the southern
slopes of the hills which hem in the city of Cincinnati. This business
is mostly engaged in by Germans, who make excellent wine, which has
acquired a world-wide celebrity. But the grape-rot, which has especially
affected the Catawbas, from which the best wine is produced, has of late
years rather checked the industry. Some of the wine cellars of
Cincinnati are famous, not only for the quantity of native wine which
they contain, but for its quality as well.
Looking across the river, which at low water is, perhaps, a third of a
mile wide, to the Kentucky side, one sees, on the right bank of the
Licking River, the city of Covington, a mass of black factories and tall
chimneys, from which dense smoke is always ascending, and spreading out
over the valley. On the left or opposite bank of the Licking is Newport,
the two towns connected by a suspension bridge. Covington is also
connected with Cincinnati by a suspension bridge, 1,057 feet long from
tower to tower, its entire length 2,252 feet, and elevated by two iron
cables above the river, at low water, one hundred feet. Its weight is
600 tons, but it is estimated that it will sustain a weight of 16,000
tons, and is one of the finest structures of its kind in the world. This
bridge was nine years in construction, and cost nearly two millions of
dollars. There are also two pier railroad bridges across the Ohio at
Cincinnati.
Along the summit of the steep levee, close to the line of stores, there
is a row of massive posts, three feet thick and twenty feet high, and
forty or fifty feet above the usual low water mark. The stranger will be
puzzled to imagine their use. But let him visit the city during the
spring freshet, and he will speedily discover their purpose. The
swelling of the river at that period brings the steamboats face to face
with the warehouses on the levee, and they are secured to these huge
posts by means of strong cables, to prevent them being swept down the
stream by the mighty rush of waters. The usual difference between the
high and low water mark of the Ohio River at Cincinnati is about forty
feet, though a flood has been known to mark a much higher figure than
that. When this occurs, which it does once or twice in a generation, the
overflowing water carries desolation to all the lower parts of the city.
The ground floors of houses are submerged, cellars filled, merchandise
damaged or destroyed. People betake themselves to the upper stories, and
make their way about the streets in boats.
The latest and most disastrous flood on record was that of 1883, when,
on February fifteenth, the river indicated sixty-six feet and four
inches above low water mark. Furious rain storms throughout the Ohio
Valley had swollen all the streams to an unprecedented height, and
caused terrible disaster to all the towns and cities on the shores of
the Ohio River. For seven miles along the water front of Cincinnati the
water overflowed valuable property, reaching from two to eight blocks
into the city, so that the great suspension bridge, entrance to which is
from the top of the decline, could not be reached except in boats. A
thousand firms were washed out. In Mill Creek Valley are the large
manufacturing establishments, which employ over thirty thousand men,
women, and children, and these were all cut off by water. Twelve wards
in the city, and seven townships in the country, were more or less
affected by the flood. The entire population of the flooded city
districts is nearly 130,000, and one quarter of these, exclusive of
business interests, were sufferers by the flood, their houses being
either under water or totally destroyed. The waterworks were stopped,
and the city was left in darkness by the submergence of the gasworks.
On Tuesday, February thirteenth, although the flood had not yet reached
its height, the freight depot of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad was
undermined by the bursting of a culvert under it, and fell into the
surrounding water, carrying with it, to certain death, several people.
More than twenty railroad tracks were submerged, some of them to a depth
of twelve feet, so that nearly all communication was cut off. Policemen
patrolled the streets in boats. The churches were thrown open to receive
the homeless, and nearly every organization in the city, from the
Chamber of Commerce to the ladies' sewing societies, entered upon the
work of relieving the sufferers. Contributions poured in most liberally
from abroad, the Free Masons of Cleveland alone shipping twelve large
boats, with a generous supply of stores. Before relief could come to
them, many persons suffered severely, from both cold and hunger. They
were rescued from their flooded homes by the aid of skiffs, some of them
with barely enough clothing to conceal their nakedness.
It is estimated that eight square miles of Cincinnati were under water,
five of which were in the Mill Creek Valley. Provisions became scarce,
and commanded high prices. Newport, on the Kentucky shore, was in even a
more deplorable condition than Cincinnati. Supplies became entirely
exhausted, and on the night of the fourteenth, fifteen thousand people
there were without fuel or provisions.
On the sixteenth of February the waters had begun to subside, and
gradually regained their normal level, making more apparent, as the
flood decreased, the ruin and desolation which had attended it. A vast
deposit of mud was left upon the streets, many premises had been
undermined by the sucking currents, malaria haunted the wet cellars, the
destruction of merchandise was found to be very heavy indeed, while
thousands of men were compelled to remain out of employment until the
factories and mills could be put in working condition. The great flood
of 1883 will long be remembered by the citizens of Cincinnati.
The breaking up of the ice in the river, in the spring, is also a time
of great peril to property. There is usually more or less rise in the
river at that period, with a swifter current, and the floating blocks
sometimes drag boats away from their moorings, and crush them to either
partial or utter destruction. The Ohio River, known to the French as _La
Belle Riviere_, so called because of its high and picturesque banks, is,
like the Mississippi, a capricious stream, and neither life nor property
is always safe upon its bosom or along its shores.
The pride of Cincinnati is Spring Grove Cemetery, five miles northwest
of the city, which is one of the most beautiful in the West. It is in
the valley of Mill Creek, and is approached by a handsome avenue, one
hundred feet wide. It contains six hundred acres, well wooded, and so
laid out as to present the appearance of a park. The boundaries of the
lots are indicated by sunken stone posts at each corner, there being
neither railing, fence, nor hedge within the cemetery, to define these
lots. The graves are leveled off, even with the ground, and the
monuments are remarkable, for their variety and good taste. The Dexter
mausoleum, which represents a Gothic chapel, will attract special
attention; while one of the principal objects in the cemetery is the
bronze statue of a soldier, cast in Munich, and erected in 1864, to the
memory of the Ohio volunteer soldiers who died during the War.
In spite of many changes for the better since the war, Cincinnati still
retains her distinctive character. She has taken long strides in the
direction of intellectual development, and has now numerous and
extensive public libraries, of which any city might be proud. The
theatres and other places of amusement, which, not long since, were
represented by shaky buildings, third-rate talent and a general dearth
of attractions, and patronized more largely by the river men than by any
other single class, have risen to take rank among the best in the
country. But she is still a city noted for her wealth; for her solid
business enterprises and scrupulous honesty, rather than for that spirit
of speculation in which, in other cities, fortunes are quickly made, and
even more quickly lost. Her prosperity has a solid foundation in her
factories, her foundries, her mills and engine shops. A man, to be
successful in Cincinnati, must know how to _make_ and to _do_, as well
as how to buy and sell. Men have risen from the humblest ranks by dint
of industry and energy alone, while they were yet young, to be the
masters of princely fortunes. Even a newspaper publisher in that city, a
few years since, estimated his property at five millions of dollars, an
instance which, probably, has not a parallel in the civilized world.
Nicholas Longworth died worth twelve millions of dollars, and her
living millionaires are to be counted by hundreds.
Cincinnati stands in the front rank of the manufacturing cities of
America, and the secret of her financial success is that she has made
what the people of Ohio and other States needed and were sure to buy.
Receiving their products in return, and turning these to account, her
merchants have made a double profit. As long as the Ohio River sweeps by
the city's front, and as long as the smoke of her factories and her
foundries ascends to heaven and obscures the fair face thereof, and
corn, transformed into pork, is sent away in such quantities to the
Eastern cities and to Europe; so long as the cotton of the South, the
hay of the blue grass region, and the grain of the North and West, find
a market on her shores, her prosperity is secure; and the Queen City of
the West, as she proudly styles herself, will go on increasing in
population and in prosperity.
CHAPTER VIII.
CLEVELAND.
The "Western Reserve."--Character of Early Settlers.--
Fairport.--Richmond.--Early History of Cleveland.--Indians.--
Opening of Ohio and Portsmouth Canal.--Commerce in 1845.--
Cleveland in 1850--First Railroad.--Manufacturing Interests.--
Cuyahoga "Flats" at Night.--The "Forest City."--Streets and
Avenues.--Monumental Park.--Public Buildings and Churches.--
Union Depot.--Water Rents.--Educational Institutions.--Rocky
River.--Approach to the City.--Freshet of 1883.--Funeral of
President Garfield.--Lake Side Cemetery.--Site of the Garfield
Monument.
In early colonial times, out of utter ignorance of the boundless
territory extending westward, the first American Colonies were chartered
by the Kings of England with permission to extend westward indefinitely.
After the close of the Revolutionary War, while negotiations were in
progress in regard to the final treaty of peace with the United States,
which was ultimately signed at Paris on November thirtieth, 1782, Mr.
Oswald, the British Commissioner, proposed the Ohio River as the western
boundary of the young nation, and had it not been for the firmness and
persistence of John Adams, one of the American Commissioners, who
insisted upon the right of the United Colonies to the territory as far
westward as the Mississippi, it is probable that the rich section of
country between these two rivers would still have formed a portion of
the British dominions, or have been the source of subsequent contention
and expense. When the Colonies had become independent States, many of
them claimed the right of soil and jurisdiction over large portions of
western unappropriated land originally embraced in their charters.
Congress urged upon these States to cede these lands to the general
government, for the benefit of all. They all yielded to this request,
except Connecticut, who retained a small tract of land in the
northeastern portion of the present State of Ohio, which was
subsequently divided up five counties in length along the lake, with an
average width of two counties. The lower boundary of this tract of land
was 40° 22´ north latitude, and it extended from the Pennsylvania line
on the east, one hundred and twenty miles westward, to a line running
north and south, a little west of the present location of Sandusky City.
This tract of land was called the "Western Reserve of Connecticut."
In 1801 Connecticut ceded all her jurisdictional claims over the
territory, but it continues to be known, to this day, as the
"Connecticut Reserve," the "Western Reserve," or simply as the
"Reserve." This "Western Reserve" is like a little piece of New England
in a mosaic, representing many sections and many peoples. It is a
peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon race, that in emigrating it usually moves
along parallels of latitude, and rarely diverges much either northward
or southward. We find to the eastward of Ohio, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and
Virginia, and all of these States have contributed to her population.
Thus, below the Reserve, the people are largely from Pennsylvania; still
further south, from Maryland and Virginia; and the lower section of the
State is allied more by kindred and sympathy with the South than with
the North. But on the Western Reserve, the cosmopolitan character of the
inhabitants is at once lost. It is New England in descent and ideas. The
little white meeting house, and the little red school house not far off,
both as bare and homely as a stern Puritan race could conceive of, were
everywhere met in the early days of its settlement, after the log cabin
epoch had passed away. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont furnished
the principal immigrants, and they built their neat and thrifty little
New England towns over again, and maintained their New England
sturdiness and simplicity.
The inhabitants of the Reserve have been, and are still, noted for their
thrift, their intelligence and their superior culture. That section has
furnished many distinguished public men, and one President, to the
country. It was, in the old slavery days, spoken of contemptuously as
"the hotbed of abolitionism," and gave both Giddings and Wade to fight
the battle against Southern dominion in the United States Congress. Here
Garfield was born, and here he is buried. Howells, the novelist, was a
native of the Reserve, and passed his life until early manhood in its
northeasternmost county.
The northern shores of the Reserve are washed by Lake Erie, one of the
shallowest, most treacherous and least picturesque of the chain of lakes
which form our northern boundary. It embraces the "Great Divide" between
the north and the south, its waters flowing to the sea by both the St.
Lawrence and the Mississippi. Summit and Portage counties, by their
names, indicate the locality of this Divide.
Very early in the present century, the sturdy New England pioneers,
looking for a suitable harbor upon the lake, discovered the mouth of
Grand River, about thirty-five miles northeast of the Cuyahoga River;
and in 1803, two miles up this river, the first warehouse on the lake
was built.
In 1812 the town of Fairport, at the mouth of this river, was laid out,
and was destined by its founders to be the future great lake city of
Ohio. It had one of the best harbors on the lake, if not the best, well
defended from storms, and easy of access, so that vessels entered it
without difficulty when they could not make other ports. The water was
deep enough for any large craft, and in the course of time the
government expended a considerable sum of money in improving the harbor.
A line of boats was speedily established between Fairport and Buffalo,
which in those railroadless days were liberally patronized. Nearly all
the lake steamers bound for other ports stopped there, and its business
constantly increased. A lighthouse was built, and its future prosperity
seemed assured.
During the great period of land speculation, between 1830 and 1840, the
town of Richmond was laid out on the opposite bank of the Grand River,
by wealthy eastern capitalists, who established their homes there, and
transported to the infant city the wealth, magnificence and luxurious
social customs of the east. During their brief reign, they gave
entertainments such as were not equaled in that section of the country
for many long years afterwards. A large village was built and a
steamboat was owned there.
Meantime, a little town had been growing up on the banks of the
Cuyahoga. The first permanent settlement had been made as early as
1796, and named Cleveland, in honor of General Moses Cleveland, of
Canterbury, Connecticut. At that period the nearest white settlement was
Conneaut, on the east, and another at the mouth of the River Raisin, to
the west. Immigration at that period did not march steadily westward,
each new settlement being in close proximity to an older one, but it
took sudden jumps over wide extents of territory, so that for many years
isolated families or small neighborhoods were far apart. Each little
settlement had to be sufficient unto itself, since, to reach any other
involved a long, difficult and often dangerous journey. Up to nearly
1800 each house in Cleveland had its own hand grist-mill standing in the
chimney-corner, in which the flour or meal for the family consumption
was slowly and laboriously ground each day. In the spring of 1799
Wheeler W. Williams and Major Wyatt erected the first grist and saw mill
on the Reserve, at Newburg, a few miles above the mouth of the Cuyahoga.
The first ball ever given in Cleveland was on the Fourth of July, 1801,
in a log cabin, the company numbering thirty, of both sexes. The first
militia muster was held at Doane's Corners, on the sixteenth of June,
1806. The spot is now incorporated in the city of Cleveland. Never
before had been so many whites collected together in this region as on
this occasion, which was one of general excitement. The militia
consisted of about fifty privates, with the usual complement of
officers, but a surveying party and a number of strangers were present
and added to the spectators.
In the beginning of the century the Indians were in the habit of meeting
every autumn, at Cleveland, piling their canoes up at the mouth of the
Cuyahoga, and scattering into the interior of the country, which
constituted their great winter hunting ground. In the spring they
returned, disposed of their furs, and entering their canoes, departed up
the lake for their villages, in the region of Sandusky and Maumee, where
they raised their crops of corn and potatoes. Many local names are of
Indian origin; Cuyahoga means "crooked river." Geauga, the name of an
adjoining county, signifies "raccoon." Their encampment on going and
returning was usually on the west bank of the river, and in their
drinking bouts, in which they occasionally indulged, they were sometimes
quarrelsome and dangerous, but do not seem, on the whole, to have given
the settlers much trouble. On the twenty-sixth of June, 1812, an Indian
named McMic was hanged for murder, on the public square of Cleveland.
There were fears that the Indians would rally to his rescue, and a large
number of citizens from Cuyahoga and adjoining counties, armed
themselves and attended the execution, prepared for any outbreak. The
Indians remained peaceable, but the prisoner, at the last moment,
refused to ascend the scaffold. Finally, his scruples were overcome by a
pint of whisky, which he swallowed with satisfaction before yielding to
the inevitable.
In 1813 Cleveland became a depot for supplies and troops during the war,
and a permanent garrison was established here, a small stockade having
been erected on the lake bank, at the foot of Ontario street. The return
of peace was celebrated in true American style. The cannon which was
fired in honor of the occasion was supplied with powder by one Uncle
Abram, who carried an open pail of the explosive material on his arm.
Another citizen bore a lighted stick with which to touch off the gun.
In the excitement, the latter swung his stick in the air; a spark fell
into Uncle Abram's powder, and that worthy, whether from astonishment or
some other cause, suddenly sprang twenty feet into the air, his ascent
being accompanied by a deafening report. When he came down again, his
clothing was singed off, and he vociferously protested that he was dead.
But the multitude refused to take his word for it, and it was not a
great while before he had completely recovered from the accident.
The Ohio Canal, which connects Lake Erie at this point with the Ohio
River at Portsmouth, was completed in 1834, and from that date her
prosperity seems to have been established. She was incorporated a city
in 1836. About this time the great western land bubble burst, and with
it the hopes of Fairport and Richmond. The latter city speedily
disappeared from the face of the earth, and its name from the map. Its
houses were taken up bodily and removed to adjacent towns. Boats still
continued to stop at Fairport, but they began to stop more frequently at
Cleveland, and while the business of the former point was at a
standstill, that of the latter continued to increase. In 1840 its
population was over 6,000, and its supremacy fairly established. In 1850
Fairport was still a little hamlet, the boats passing her far out in the
lake without giving her so much as a nod of recognition; while the
wharves of Cleveland were lined with shipping, and her population did
not fall far short of 20,000.
Besides the Cleveland and Portsmouth Canal, which opened up a line of
traffic with the south and southwest, communication was also had with
the East, by means of canal to Pittsburg and to New York, and the lakes
were a highway, not only to the East but to the North and West.
Cleveland became the great mart of the grain-growing country. Its harbor
was extended and improved by the erection of piers each side of the
mouth of the river, two hundred feet apart, and extending out several
hundred feet into the lake, furnishing effective break-waters, and ample
room for the loading and unloading of vessels. A lighthouse was erected
at the end of each pier, and one already stood upon the cliff.
In 1845 the number of vessels which arrived by lake was 2,136; and of
these 927 were steamers. The tonnage then owned at that port amounted to
13,493, and the number of vessels of all kinds eighty-five. The total
value of exports and imports by the lake for that year was over
$9,000,000. Cleveland occupied a small region on the cliff at the mouth
of the Cuyahoga. Ontario street was filled with boarding-houses and
private residences. Euclid avenue and Prospect street extended for a few
squares, and were then lost in the country. The flats through which the
river wound its devious way were occupied as pastures for the cows of
persons living in the heart of the city. The business portion of the
town was contained, for the most part, in the two squares on Superior
street, west of Ontario. Ohio City was a separate corporation, a
straggling, dilapidated town, looking like a country village, on the
western bank of the Cuyahoga, connected with Cleveland by means of
drawbridges.
In the fall of 1852 the first whistle of the locomotive was heard down
by the river side, in the city of Cleveland. It started the city into
new life, and woke all the farmers within the sound of its hoarse
screech into renewed energy. That fall and winter there was a butter
famine in all that region. The market being opened to New York, butter
went suddenly up from eight and ten cents a pound, to twelve, sixteen,
and then to twenty cents. Buyers could afford to pay no such fancy price
for an article which might be dispensed with; and producers were equally
unwilling to put upon their own tables anything which would yield them
such a handsome profit on selling. And so many families, not only of
mechanics, but of farmers as well, went without butter that winter; the
latter happy in receiving, first twenty, then twenty-two, and finally
twenty-five cents per pound for the products of their dairies.
This first railroad gave the city a fresh start, and presently others
found their terminus here. Population and business have both steadily
increased since then, until in 1880 the former was 160,142, and its
commerce immense, especially with Canada and the mining regions of Lake
Superior. Since 1860 the city has rapidly developed in the direction of
manufacturing industries. The headquarters of the giant monopoly, known
as the Standard Oil Company, Cleveland is the first city of the world in
the production of refined petroleum. The old pasture grounds of the cows
of 1850 are now completely occupied by oil refineries and manufacturing
establishments; and the river, which but a generation ago flowed
peaceful and placid through green fields, is now almost choked with
barges, tugs and immense rafts. Looking down upon the Cuyahoga Flats,
from the heights of what was once Ohio City, but is now known as the
West Side of Cleveland itself, the view, though far from beautiful, is a
very interesting one. There are copper smelting, iron rolling, and iron
manufacturing works, lumber yards, paper mills, breweries, flour mills,
nail works, pork-packing establishments, and the multitudinous
industries of a great manufacturing city, which depends upon these
industries largely for its prosperity. The scene at night, from this
same elevated position, is picturesque in the extreme. The whole valley
shows a black background, lit up with a thousand points of light from
factories, foundries and steamboats, which are multiplied into two
thousand as they are reflected in the waters of the Cuyahoga, which
looks like a silver ribbon flowing through the blackness.
Cleveland is acknowledged to be the most beautiful city of the many
which are found upon the shores of the great lakes. It stands on a high
bluff overlooking Lake Erie. It is laid out, for the most part, with
parallel streets, crossed by others at right angles; and even in the
heart of the city nearly every house has its little side and front yard
filled with shrubbery and shaded by trees, a large majority of the
latter being elms. The great number of these trees fairly entitle
Cleveland to be known as the "Forest City." The streets are very wide,
and the principal ones are paved.
The main business thoroughfare and fashionable promenade is Superior
street, which is one hundred and thirty-two feet wide, and lined with
handsome hotels and retail stores. From the foot of this street, and on
a level with it, was completed, in 1878, a great stone viaduct,
connecting the East Side with the West Side, reaching the latter at the
junction of Pearl and Detroit streets. This roadway is 3,211 feet long,
and cost $2,200,000. Some years before a bridge had been constructed in
the same locality, at a sufficient elevation to permit the passage
under it of various craft; but even at this height there was quite a
descent to reach it, and an equal ascent on leaving it on the other
side. The drawbridge near the mouth of the river was totally inadequate
to meet the needs of business, and was often open for long periods of
time while vessels were passing through.
Ontario, Bank, Water, Mervin and River streets and Euclid avenue are
other important business streets on the East Side. Detroit, Pearl and
Lorain are the principal thoroughfares on the West Side.
Monument Park is a square ten acres in extent, in the centre of the
city, crossed by Superior and Ontario streets. It is divided by these
streets into four sections and is shaded by fine trees. In the southeast
section stands a monument to Commodore Perry, the hero of the battle of
Lake Erie, erected in 1860, at a cost of $8,000. It contains a colossal
statue of the Commodore, in Italian marble, standing on a pedestal of
Rhode Island granite, the entire monument being about twenty feet in
height. In front of the pedestal is a marble medallion, representing
Perry in a small boat passing from the Lawrence to the Niagara, in the
heat of battle. In the southwest corner of the Park is a pool and
cascade, and in the northwest a handsome fountain. In this park was
erected the large catafalque under which the casket containing the
remains of the late President Garfield was laid in state until and
during the grand public funeral, after which it was taken to the
cemetery. This park is surrounded by very handsome churches and public
buildings, among which latter are the Custom House, Post Office, Federal
Courts, County Court House and City Hall, all magnificent edifices.
Case Hall, near the park, contains a concert hall capable of seating
fifteen hundred persons, a library, reading room, and the rooms of the
Cleveland Library Association. The Opera House, a new and handsome
building, is on Euclid avenue. There are, besides, an Academy of Music
and the Globe Theatre and several minor theatres.
[Illustration: PUBLIC SQUARE AND PERRY MONUMENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO.]
The business portion of Euclid avenue extends from the Park to Erie
street, beyond which it is lined with handsome residences, elegant
cottages and superb villas, the grounds around each being more and more
extensive as it approaches the country. It is one of the finest avenues
in the world, and is not less than ten miles in length, embracing during
its course several suburbs which a generation since were remote from the
city, and are now considerably surprised to find themselves brought so
near it. Euclid avenue crosses the other streets diagonally, and was
evidently one of the original roads leading into the city before it
attained its present dimensions. The majority of the streets are
parallel with the lake front, which pursues a course from the northeast
to the southwest. But Euclid avenue runs directly eastward for about
three miles, to Doane's Corners, one of the historic spots in the
neighborhood of Cleveland, and then turns to the northeast, following
nearly parallel to the course of the lake. Prospect street runs parallel
to Euclid avenue, and is only second to it in the beauty and elegance of
its residences. St. Clair street is also a favorite suburban avenue,
extending parallel to the lake, a little distance from it, far out into
the country, and containing many handsome residences.
Newburg, once three miles from the city, and the site of the first saw
and grist mill on the Reserve, is now included as a suburb of
Cleveland, and contains extensive iron manufactories.
The Union Depot, erected in 1866, is one of the finest and largest in
the country. It is built on the shore of the lake, below the bluff, and
near the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Streets more or less steeply graded
furnish access to it for carriages and vehicles of all descriptions,
while a long flight of massive stone steps conduct the pedestrian
directly to the summit of the cliff, where horse-cars, leading by
various routes to all quarters of the city, are waiting for him. All the
railroads leading out of the city centre here. In the keystone over the
main entrance of the depot is a bas relief portrait of Mr. Amasa Stone,
under whose supervision it was built. Similar portraits of Grant and
Lincoln are found upon keystones at either end of the building.
The waterworks stand near the lake, west of the river, and by means of a
tunnel extending some six thousand feet out under the lake, pure water,
forced by two powerful engines into a large reservoir upon the cliff, is
supplied to the entire city. This reservoir is a popular resort for
pleasure seekers, and furnishes a fine view of the city, lake and
surrounding country.
Cleveland enjoys superior educational facilities. Her schools are not
excelled by any in the country, and she has, besides, several large
libraries. The Western Reserve College, until recently located at
Hudson, a small village about twenty miles to the southeast, has been,
within the last few years, removed to this city. The Medical College, a
branch of the Western Reserve College, founded in 1843, occupies an
imposing building at the corner of Erie and St. Clair streets. Near this
college, on the shore of the lake, stands the extensive United States
Marine Hospital, surrounded by grounds nine acres in extent, beautifully
laid out and well kept.
There are a number of parks and gardens in the suburbs of Cleveland, one
of the most extensive having been a donation to the city by Mr. Wade,
one of her millionaires. The favorite drive, however, next to the
avenue, is across the Cuyahoga and seven miles westward to Rocky River,
which flows into the lake through a narrow gorge between perpendicular
cliffs which project themselves boldly into the lake. Here a park has
been laid out, and all that art can do has been done to add to the
natural beauties of the place. From this point a distant view of the
city may be obtained, its spires pointing to the sky out of a billow of
green. To the west is Black River Point, with its rocky promontories,
and on the north stretches out an unbroken expanse of water, with here
and there the long black trail of a steamer floating in the air, its
wake like a white line upon the water; or white specks of sails dotting
the horizon. The coast between Cleveland and Rocky River is high and
precipitous, the emerging streams rushing into the lake by means of
rapids and waterfalls. On this inhospitable coast, which affords no
landing for even a small boat, more than one frail bark came to grief in
the early days of the white man's possession of the land, and nearly all
its living freight found a watery grave. In 1806 a man by the name of
Hunter, his wife and child, a colored man named Ben, and a small colored
boy, were driven by a squall upon these rocks. They climbed up as far as
possible, the surge constantly beating over them, and finally they died,
one after the other, from exposure and hunger, and after five days only
the man Ben was rescued alive. A similar occurrence transpired the
following spring. Of the eighteen deaths which took place at Cleveland
during the first twelve years after its settlement, eleven were caused
by drowning.
Twenty or thirty years ago nothing more desolate or devoid of beauty can
be imagined than was the lake and river approach to Cleveland. The cars
ran along the foot of the cliff, while the space between the tracks and
the table land upon which the city is built was given up to rubbish and
neglect. Little huts, the size of organ boxes, were perched here and
there, swarming with dirty, half-clad children and untidy women, and
festooned with clothes-lines, from which dangled a motley array of
garments. Blackness, dirt and decay were visible everywhere; and the
vestibule of the most beautiful city in America presented to the visitor
the opposite extreme of repulsiveness. But now all this is changed; one
enters the Forest City through a continuous park. Coming from the east,
the waves of the beautiful inland sea almost wash the tracks. On the
left the steep slope is covered by green grass, shrubbery and trees, the
line broken here and there, perhaps, by private grounds no less
beautiful, while the United States Marine Hospital crowns the cliff, at
Erie street, with its ample and well-kept grounds. Reaching the depot
the traveler at once ascends the cliff, and avoids the necessary
ugliness of the immense railroad yard, with its gridiron of tracks. Even
the river, once so unsightly, presents to view the ceaseless movements
of multifarious business, all of which indicate the prosperity and
thriving industry of the city.
It is a peculiarity of western cities that they give so much thought and
spend so much money in public improvements, and especially those which
are merely decorative. Cleveland is in no wise behind the rest. No city
in the east, though many of them boast extensive and expensive public
parks, bestows so much thought, labor and money, to make her general
appearance beautiful and attractive to the stranger. If first
impressions count for much, as it is said they do, then Cleveland has
proved herself wise. She possesses many natural advantages of position.
She is not in a slough, like Chicago, being built on a gravelly plain
about one hundred feet above the lake. Nor is she subject to inundation,
like Cincinnati, most of her business sites and residences being far
above the water. The Cuyahoga River sometimes, however, does damage to
the manufacturing establishments along its shores. In February, 1883, a
freshet occurred, which raised the river ten feet above its ordinary
level, and flooded all its valley. Enormous quantities of lumber and
shingles were washed from the lumber yards. The Valley Railroad was
several feet under water; paper mills, furnaces and other property
submerged nearly to the top of the first story. The Infirmary Farm,
further up the river, was under water, and the damage of the flood was
estimated at not less than a million dollars. The water was higher than
at any period since 1859, when a similar disaster occurred.
All eyes were turned towards Cleveland, when, in September, 1881, a
mournful cortege proceeded thither, accompanying the remains of the
murdered Chief Magistrate. A mighty concourse of people assembled in the
park to assist at the last sad rites, and then the funeral procession
passed out the beautiful Euclid avenue to Lake View Cemetery, where the
casket was deposited in a vault prepared for it, and was guarded by
soldiers night and day; and there, on a spot overlooking the lake, and
surrounded by a lovely country, varied by hill and dale, cultivated
farms and elegant suburban residences, all that is mortal of James Abram
Garfield has found its last resting-place, while his memory lives in
fifty millions of hearts, and his fame is immortal. The youngest son of
his mother, and she a widow, reared in poverty and obscurity, by dint of
his unswerving integrity and overmastering intellect, he rose to occupy
the highest position which man can accord to his fellow man, that of
being the chosen head of a free, intelligent and powerful people. Cut
off as he was, in the prime of his life, a nation mourned her dead, and
Lake View Cemetery is to-day a spot of national interest. It is five
miles from the city, contains three hundred acres, and lies two hundred
and fifty feet above the level of the lake. It commands extensive views,
and though opened as late as 1870, is already very beautiful. It was
here that Garfield expressed his desire to be buried. Here, on a knoll
commanding one of the finest views the cemetery affords, his tomb will
be eventually constructed, and a monument reared to him, as a mark of
the nation's appreciation of his character and sorrow at his untimely
death.
[Illustration: EUCLID AVENUE, CLEVELAND, OHIO.]
CHAPTER IX.
CHICAGO.
Topographical Situation of Chicago.--Meaning of the Name.--Early
History.--Massacre at Fort Dearborn.--Last of the Red Men.--The
Great Land Bubble.--Rapid Increase in Population and Business.--
The Canal.--First Railroad.--Status of the City in 1871.--The
Great Fire.--Its Origin, Progress and Extent.--Heartrending
Scenes.--Estimated Total Loss.--Help from all Quarters.--
Work of Reconstruction.--Second Fire.--Its Public Buildings,
Educational and Charitable Institutions, Streets and Parks.--Its
Waterworks.--Its Stock Yards.--Its Suburbs.--Future of the City.
"See two things in the United States, if nothing else--see Niagara and
Chicago," said Richard Cobden, the English statesman, to Goldwin Smith,
on the eve of the departure of the latter to America. And truly, if one
would obtain a proper sense of America's wonders and achievements, then
Niagara and Chicago may be accepted as respectively the highest types of
each. Niagara remains the same yesterday, to-day and forever. But if it
were a desirable thing to see Chicago at the time of the visit referred
to, how much more so is it to-day, when, Phoenix-like, she has arisen
from her own ashes, turning that which seemed an overwhelming disaster
into positive blessing; drawing her fire-singed robes proudly about her,
crowning herself with the diadem of her own matchless achievements, and
sitting beside her inland sea, the queenliest city of them all.
Situated upon a flat and relatively low tract of country, Chicago is yet
upon one of the highest plane elevations of our continent. Lake
Michigan represents the headwaters of the great chain of American lakes,
through which, in connection with the St. Lawrence, much of the rainfall
of that city finds its way to the Atlantic; while through the canal to
the Illinois River, its sewage is borne to the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps
no more hopeless site could have been selected for a city than that
seemed half a century ago. A bayou or arm of the lake penetrated the
land for half a mile or more, but a sand-bar across its mouth prevented
the ingress of all but the smallest craft. This bayou, called by
courtesy the Chicago River, separated into two branches, the course of
one of which was in a northerly direction, and of the other in a
southerly one. The land was barely on a level with the lake, and at
portions of the year was a vast morass, some parts of it being entirely
under water. Teams struggled helplessly through the black ooze of its
prairies, and a carriage would sink three or four feet in mud and mire
within two miles of where the court house now stands. Sometimes in this
slough a board would be set up, with a rude inscription: "No bottom
here." But American enterprise has found a bottom and reared a city, the
history of whose seemingly magical building almost rivals the tales of
the Arabian Nights.
Chicago is an Indian word, signifying the widely-varying titles of a
king or deity, and a skunk or wild onion. In its early history, while
drainage it had none, and its water supply was mere surface water, foul
with all the accumulated impurities of the soil, and while from the
lagoon, which lay stagnant for twelve or fifteen miles, a horrible,
sickening stench constantly arose, the latter appellations seemed
singularly appropriate, and no doubt originated in these conditions.
But since the city has been purified by fire, and its sanitary
conditions made such as they should be, it has earned its right to the
nobler titles.
The first white visitors to the site of Chicago were Joliet and
Marquette, who arrived in August, 1673. The year following his first
visit Pere Marquette returned and erected a rude church. Later the
French seem to have built a fort on the spot, but no traces of it now
remain. Very early in the nineteenth century John Kinzie, an Indian
trader, and agent of the American Fur Company, having traded with the
Indians at this point for some time, probably influenced the government
to build a fort here. Accordingly, in 1804, Fort Dearborn was built and
garrisoned with about fifty men and three pieces of artillery. Mr.
Kinzie removed his family to the place the same year.
In 1812, Fort Dearborn was the scene of a bloody Indian massacre.
Captain Hull, then in command of the fort, having placed too great
confidence in the professions of fidelity of the Pottawatomie tribe, and
trusting to an escort of that tribe to convey the soldiers and
inhabitants of the fort to Fort Wayne, saw his entire party either
killed or taken prisoners, and found himself a prisoner. The fort stood
at the head of Michigan avenue, below its intersection with Lake street.
Abandoned and destroyed at this period, it was rebuilt in 1816, and
finally demolished in 1856.
For four years the place was deserted by the whites, and even the fur
traders did not care to visit it. In 1818 two families had established
themselves upon the spot. In 1820 some dozen houses represented the
future city, and in 1827 a government agent reported the place as a
collection of pens and kennels, inhabited by squatters, "a miserable
race of men, hardly equal to the Indians." The population numbered
seventy in 1830. In 1832 there were six hundred people in the miserable
little town. In September, 1833, the United States purchased of the
Indians 20,000,000 acres of land in the northwest, the latter pledging
themselves to remove twenty days' journey west of the Mississippi. Seven
thousand redskins attended the making of this treaty, which was ratified
by the chiefs in a large tent on the bank of the river. A year later
four thousand Indians returned to receive an annuity of $30,000 worth of
goods. The distribution of these goods was the occasion of, first, a
fierce scramble, followed by a bloody fight, in which several Indians
were killed and others wounded; the scene closing by a wild debauch, so
that on the following morning few of the recipients were any better off
for the property which had been given them. Similar scenes, with similar
results, were enacted in 1835. But that was the last Chicago saw of the
red men. In September, a train of forty wagons, each drawn by four oxen,
conveyed away on their far westward march the children and effects of
the Pottawatomies, while the squaws and braves walked beside them. It
took them twenty days to reach the Mississippi, and twenty days longer
it took them to attain a point which can now be reached from Chicago in
fifteen hours.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF CHICAGO, FROM THE LAKE SIDE.]
In 1827, Major Long, a government agent sent to visit the place, spoke
of the site as "affording no inducements to the settler, the whole
amount of trade on the lake not exceeding the cargoes of five or six
schooners, even at the time when the garrison received its supplies from
the Mackinac." In 1833 the tide of immigration began. At the end of
that year there were fifty families floundering in the Chicago mud. In
1834 there were nearly two thousand inhabitants of the town, and at the
close of 1835 more than three thousand. In 1835-6 Chicago became the
headquarters of a great land speculation. Multitudes of towns sprang up
in every direction, on paper. The country was wild with excitement. Even
eastern capitalists were seized with the mania, and fortunes were made
and lost in this wild gambling in prospective cities. The bubble shortly
burst, resulting in great business depression. The State was bankrupt,
and Chicago languished. But not for long. Turning from the frenzy of
speculation, its inhabitants wisely gave their attention to developing
legitimate business interests. The United States had, in 1833, spent
$30,000 in dredging out the Chicago River, and in the spring of 1834 a
most timely freshet had swept away the bar at the mouth of the river,
making it accessible for the largest craft. In 1838 a venturesome trader
shipped from that port seventy-eight bushels of wheat. In 1839 four
thousand bushels were sent. In 1842 the amount of wheat exported arose
all at once from forty thousand bushels to nearly six hundred thousand
bushels. In 1839 three thousand cattle were driven across the prairies,
and sent to the eastern market; and every year thereafter showed a
surprising increase. Yet with all this accumulating commerce, the
streets of the city were still quagmires, and many a farmer came to
grief with his load of grain within what is now city limits. Before
there was a railroad begun or a canal finished, Chicago exported two and
a quarter millions of bushels of grain in a year, and sent back on the
wagons which brought it loads of merchandise.
The Illinois River is connected with the Chicago River, and through that
to Lake Michigan, by a canal which enters it at La Salle, ninety-six
miles from Chicago. This canal was begun in 1836 and completed in 1848.
It gave a fresh impetus to the youthful western town, and established
its future prosperity. Connected as it already was with the east by the
magnificent lake and river system of our northern borders, this canal
opened up communication with the south and west, and made Chicago the
portal, so to speak, between the different sections of our country.
In 1849 the first railroad had approached within ten miles of the city.
In 1852 direct communication with the east was gained by the completion
of the Michigan Central and Michigan Southern railroads, while more than
one western railroad was projected, and some of them were in actual
progress of construction. To-day, Illinois and its adjoining States are
literally gridironed with iron roads, nearly all of which centre at
Chicago. In 1857 there were living beside the still stagnant waters of
the Chicago River one hundred thousand people.
In 1871 Chicago was the fourth city of the country, claiming a
population of 334,000 persons. By a _chef d'ouvre_ of engineering, the
waters of the river had been turned backward, and made to carry away its
sewage to fertilize the shores of the Illinois and the Mississippi. The
streets had been drained, hollow places filled up, and their grade had
been gradually raised, until it stood twelve feet higher than at first.
Some of the buildings were raised at once to the latest established
grade, and others remained as they had been built. The consequence was
that the plank sidewalks became a series of stairs, adapting themselves
to the buildings which they fronted. The principal streets were paved
with stone or with the Nicholson pavement. The triple river was spanned
by no less than seventeen drawbridges, while two tunnels afforded
uninterrupted travel between the opposite sides. Efficient waterworks
had been constructed to provide pure water for the use of the city. The
total trade for the year previous to the great fire was estimated at
$400,000,000. Its grain trade had reached such enormous proportions that
seventeen large elevators, with an aggregate capacity of 11,580,000
bushels were required for its accommodation. Eighteen banks were in
operation, with an aggregate capital of $10,000,000 and with nearly
$17,000,000 of deposits. The city was beginning to give its attention
largely to manufactures, and its lumber trade had grown into something
almost fabulous. Miles of lumber yards extended along one of the forks
of the river, and its harbor was sometimes choked with arriving lumber
vessels. In a single day, three or four years before the fire, a
favorable wind blew into port no less than two hundred and eighteen
vessels loaded with lumber. One hundred passenger and one hundred and
twenty freight trains arrived and departed daily; and seventy-five
vessels unloaded and loaded at her wharves every twenty-four hours.
Chicago _Redivivus_ should bear upon her shield a cow rampant. On the
evening of the eighth of October, 1871, Mrs. Scully's cow kicked herself
into history, and Chicago into ruin and desolation. Chicago is divided
by the river and its branches into three different sections, known as
the north, south and west sides. The principal business portion of the
city is on the south side, and along the margins of the lake and
streams. The "burnt district," which even yet the Chicagoan will outline
to the visitor with peculiar pride, was confined almost wholly to the
south and north sides.
On the evening of October seventh a planing mill had caught fire on the
west side, and the conflagration had spread over a territory embracing
about twenty acres, destroying a million dollars' worth of property.
This fire, terrible as it seemed, probably saved the west side from
destruction on that fatal night of the eighth, imposing as it did a
broad banner of desolation, when the flames essayed to leap across the
river.
At about nine o'clock in the evening of Sunday, October eighth, 1871, a
cow kicked over a lantern among loose, dry hay, in a stable at or near
the corner of Jefferson and DeKoven streets, on the west side. There had
been no rain of any consequence for fourteen weeks, and roofs and wooden
buildings were as dry as tinder. There was a strong wind blowing from
the southwest, and before the engines could reach the spot, half a dozen
adjoining buildings were wrapped in flames. The buildings of that
quarter were mostly of wood, and there were several lumber yards along
the margin of the river. The flames swept through these with resistless
fury, and then made a bold and sudden leap across the river into the
very heart of the business portion of the south side. Many of the
buildings here also were of wood, while the wooden sidewalks, and wooden
block pavements, the latter filled with an inflammable composition,
seemed constructed especially to aid and hasten the work of the flames.
The fire marched steadily toward the north and east, destroying
everything in its course. Even fireproof buildings seemed to melt down
as it touched them.
[Illustration: BURNING OF CHICAGO. THE WORLD'S GREATEST
CONFLAGRATION.]
The wind increased to a gale, and all night long the fire wrought its
terrible will, like a devouring demon; and at sunrise it had already
leaped the narrow barrier of the river, and was devastating the northern
side, sweeping away block after block of the wooden structures which
occupied to a large extent that quarter of the city. The flames seized
upon the shipping in the river, and when it left it only blackened hulls
remained. The water supply, upon which the city had founded hopes in
case of such extremity, failed. The walls of the buildings, weakened by
the overpowering heat, had fallen in upon the engines, and hope was
quenched in that quarter.
The flames spread southward as far as Taylor street, and to the
northward they only paused when, at Fullerton avenue, the broad prairie
lay before them, and there was nothing more to burn. The track of the
fire was nearly five miles in length, running north and south, and
averaged a mile in width. It continued from nine o'clock on Sunday night
until daybreak Tuesday morning, and then nothing was left of all the
business portion of Chicago, save a vast blackened field on which the
flames still smouldered, with piles of rubbish, formed by fallen
buildings, and here and there portions of walls still standing. Every
bank, insurance office, hotel, theatre, railroad depot, law office,
newspaper office, most of the churches, all but one of the wholesale
stores, and many of the warehouses and retail stores, six elevators,
fifty vessels, and sixteen thousand dwellings, including many elegant
mansions, besides numberless humble homes, were destroyed; two hundred
persons killed, and a hundred thousand people suddenly found themselves
homeless and penniless, without food to eat or clothes to wear.
The scenes accompanying the fire were terrible and heart-rending. They
were a mingling of the horrible and grotesque, the tragic and the
ridiculous, such as was probably never witnessed before on so grand a
scale, and we trust will never be repeated; and over it all the smoke
hung like a pall, stifling and blinding, and the flames cast a baleful
glare, which lit up the scene and made it seem like a literal inferno.
The fire spread with a rapidity which baffled all attempts to check it.
Many made a feeble effort to save their household goods, an effort which
was too often futile, while others barely escaped with their lives, clad
only in their scant night garments. The streets were filled with a
frantic multitude; vehicles of every description, laden with movable
property; men, women and children, some of them burdened with their
belongings, and others nearly naked, forgetful of all but the terrible
danger of the hour, all wild with the insanity born of fear, and all
fleeing from the pursuing demon which pressed on behind them, and whose
hot breath scorched their garments and singed their hair. Many took
refuge in the river or the lake; but the hissing flames stooped down and
licked the water, and the poor victims were made to feel the tortures of
a double death. Very few of these escaped with their lives.
The progress of the flames was so swift that many were overwhelmed by
the crumbling walls of their houses or workshops before they had time to
escape, and found in them a fiery tomb. Others were suffocated by the
smoke. Children were separated from parents, and young and old sought
safety wherever they could find it, and a mad panic reigned everywhere.
Many saloons were thrown open, and whisky flowed freely, and the
turbulent riot of drunkenness was added, to increase the confusion and
despair of the dreadful night. Sneak thieves and larger depredators
found spoil on every hand. In this terrible calamity each one seemed to
throw off his mask, and become what he really was--the brave man, the
noble gentleman, the selfish coward, the bully or the thief.
A single leaf of a quarto Bible, charred around its edges, was all that
was left of the immense stock of the Western News Company. It contained
the first chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which begins with the
following words: "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of
people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the
nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among
all her lovers she hath none to comfort her."
The amount lost by the insurance companies, American and foreign, by the
Chicago fire, was $88,634,133. More than 2,200 acres were swept by the
flames in the space of thirty hours. The value of buildings alone
consumed was estimated at $75,000,000, while their contents were at
least as much more. The total loss probably was not much less than
$200,000,000.
No sooner had the news of the dreadful calamity gone abroad to the
world, than the spirit of generosity prompted efficient aid from all
quarters. St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Cleveland, New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Montreal, cities and towns in the north,
south, east and west, sent generous, and some of them princely,
donations. Even China forwarded $1,290. By December first the public
cash donations had reached $2,508,000. The naked were clothed, the
hungry fed, the homeless housed in at least temporary quarters, and
Chicago set herself to the task of reconstruction.
The smouldering ruins were yet glowing with heat, and the smoke was
still ascending here and there, when, on Wednesday morning, the work of
regeneration began. Within a month, five or six thousand temporary
tenements had been erected. Meantime the foundations for the permanent
structures were being laid, on a scale far surpassing those of the past.
In a year not a trace of the fire remained.
Nearly three years later, on July fourteenth, 1874, another great fire
swept over the devoted city, destroying eighteen blocks, or sixty acres,
in the heart of the city, and about $4,000,000 worth of property. Over
six hundred houses were consumed, but by far the larger number were mere
wooden shanties.
To-day Chicago counts her great fire as one of her chief blessings. The
city is entirely rebuilt, but not with rickety wooden structures, the
previous plenitude of which had rendered her so easy a prey to the
devouring element. Solid, substantial, handsome, and in many instances
magnificent, the stranger can scarcely realize that these blocks of
buildings are not the growth of a century, or of a generation even, but
have sprung from the ground almost in a night. The new Chicago is
surpassingly beautiful and grand. The visitor will walk through squares
and squares of streets, each teeming with life and commercial activity,
and bearing no trace, save in increased elegance, of the disaster of
little more than a decade ago; and is forced to the conclusion that, for
courage and enterprise, Chicago has proved herself unsurpassed by any
city in the world.
Chicago has a water frontage of thirty-eight miles, of which twenty-four
are improved, without including the lake front, where an outer harbor is
in process of construction. The rivers are now spanned by thirty-five
drawbridges, while a tunnel, 1,608 feet long, with a descent of
forty-five feet, connects the south and west sides of Washington street,
and another tunnel, with a total length of 1,854 feet, connects the
north and south sides on the line of La Salle street.
State street, on the south side, is the Broadway of Chicago. Randolph
street is famous for its magnificent buildings, among which are the city
and the county halls. Washington street is one of the fashionable
promenades, lined with retail stores, though Dearborn street closely
rivals it. The United States Custom House and Post Office, a magnificent
structure, costing upward of $5,000,000, occupies the square bounded by
Clark, Adams, Jackson and Dearborn streets. The Chamber of Commerce, a
spacious and imposing building, with elaborate interior decorations, is
at the corner of Washington and La Salle streets, opposite City Hall
Square. Its ceiling is frescoed with allegorical pictures representing
the trade of the city, the great fire and the rebuilding. The Union
Depot, in Van Buren street, at the head of La Salle, is among the finest
buildings of the city. The Exposition Building is a vast ornate
structure of iron and glass, occupying the lake front, extending from
Monroe to Jackson street, and with a front of eight hundred feet on
Michigan avenue. The centre of the edifice is surmounted by a dome one
hundred and sixty feet high and sixty feet in diameter. Annual
expositions of the art and industry of the city are held here every
autumn.
Among the hotels of Chicago the Palmer House takes the lead. This house
was destroyed by the fire, but has been rebuilt with a magnitude and
elaborateness far exceeding its former self, and constituting it one of
the finest, if not the finest, in the world. It is entirely fireproof,
being constructed only of incombustible materials, brick, stone, iron,
marble and cement. It has three fronts, on State and Monroe streets and
Wabash avenue, and the building and furnishing cost $3,500,000. It is
kept on both the American and European plans, and continually
accommodates from six hundred to one thousand guests. The Grand Pacific
Hotel is but little inferior to the Palmer House. It occupies half the
block bounded by Jackson, Clark, Adams and La Salle streets. The Sherman
and Tremont Houses are fine hotels and centrally located.
There are about three hundred churches in Chicago, including those
untouched by fire and those which have been since rebuilt. The great
Tabernacle, on Monroe street, where Messrs. Moody and Sankey held their
meetings, is used for sacred concerts and other religious gatherings,
and will seat ten thousand persons.
In literary and educational institutions Chicago holds a foremost place.
Its common schools are among the best in the country, with large,
handsome, convenient and well-ventilated buildings. The University of
Chicago, founded by the late Stephen A. Douglas, occupies a beautiful
site overlooking the lake, and boasts the largest telescope in America.
It has a Public Library containing 60,000 volumes. The Academy of
Sciences lost a valuable collection of 38,000 specimens in the fire, but
has erected a new building and is slowly gathering a new museum and
library. There are three Theological Seminaries, and three Medical
Colleges, three hospitals, and a large number of charitable institutions
within the city. The fire department is most efficiently organized, and
its annual expenses are scarcely less than $1,000,000.
[Illustration: GRAND PACIFIC HOTEL, CHICAGO.]
Chicago has the most extensive system of parks and boulevards of any
city in the United States. Lincoln Park, lying upon the lake to the
northward, contains 310 acres, and served, during the great fire, as a
place of refuge for thousands of people driven thither by the raging
element. The Lake Shore Drive, the great north side boulevard, extends
from Pine street to Lake View, and is one of the finest drives in the
world. Humboldt Park, Central Park and Douglas Park extend along the
western boundaries of the city, are large, contain lakes, ponds, walks,
drives, fountains and statuary, and are connected with each other by
wide and elaborately ornamented boulevards. The great South Parks are
approached on the north by Drexel and Grant Boulevards. Drexel Boulevard
is devoted exclusively to pleasure, all traffic over it being forbidden.
The most southerly of the two south parks extends upwards of a mile and
a half along the shore of the lake. Union Park is located in the very
centre of the residence portion of the west side.
Whatever Chicago accomplishes is on so gigantic a scale that strangers
almost hold their breath in astonishment. Among the titanic achievements
of this youthful giant are the waterworks, which supply pure drinking
water to its six hundred thousand population. The water supply is by
means of a tunnel sent out under Lake Michigan for a distance of two
miles, the water being forced by numerous engines into an immense
standpipe, 154 feet high. The works are situated at the foot of Chicago
avenue. In tunneling under the lake, excavations went on simultaneously
at the land end and two miles out in the lake; and so accurate were the
calculations that when the two tunnels met in the centre, they were
found to be but seven and one-half inches out of the line, and there was
a variation of but three inches in the horizontal measurements. This
tunnel, which is made of iron, protected by heavy masonry, is large
enough for a canoe to pass through it when it is but partially filled
with water, it being nine feet in diameter. The exit at the lake end of
the tunnel is protected by a breakwater, and securely anchored to its
place by means of heavy stones. Storms never affect it, save sometimes
to produce a light tremor; and even large fields of ice, which grate by
it with a fearful, crunching noise, have thus far failed to shake its
foundations.
Chicago ships a considerable portion of her grain in the shape of flour,
there being extensive flouring mills in the city. The present annual
export of flour is probably not less than 3,000,000 barrels. Chicagoans
have also found it possible to pack fifteen or twenty bushels of corn in
a single barrel. "The corn crop," remarks Mr. Ruggles, "is condensed and
reduced in bulk by feeding it into an animal form, more portable. The
hog eats the corn, and Europe eats the hog. Corn thus becomes incarnate,
for what is a hog but fifteen or twenty bushels of corn on four legs?"
The business of pork-packing has attained enormous proportions in
Chicago. It has entirely superseded Cincinnati, the former "Porkopolis,"
in this branch of trade. Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Indianapolis
and Milwaukee do not together furnish a total number of head slaughtered
equal to that of Chicago.
The stock yards, just outside the city limits on the southwest, are the
largest in the world. They cover hundreds of acres, and constitute what
has been styled "The Great Bovine City of the World." This bovine city
is regularly laid out in streets and alleys crossing each other at right
angles. The principal street is called Broadway, and it is a mile long
and seventy-five feet wide. On either side are the cattle pens, and it
is divided by a light fence into three paths, so that herds of cattle
can pass one another without wrangling, and leave an unobstructed road
for the drovers. These yards are connected with all the railroads in the
west centering in Chicago. The company have twenty-five miles of track.
A cattle train stops along the street of pens; the side of each car is
removed, and the living freight pass over a declining bridge into clean,
planked inclosures, where food and water is quickly furnished them. A
large and comfortable hotel furnishes accommodation for their owners;
there is a Cattle Exchange, a spacious and elegant edifice; a bank
solely for the cattle-men's use; and a telegraph office, which reports
the price of beef, pork and mutton from all parts of the world. The
present capacity of the yards is 25,000 head of cattle, 100,000 hogs,
22,000 sheep, and 1,200 horses. A town of five thousand inhabitants has
grown up in the immediate vicinity of these stock yards.
In some of the yards not less than five hundred beeves are slaughtered
daily. Much of this beef is sent in refrigerator cars to the Atlantic
cities, while enormous quantities are cooked and packed in cans and sent
all over the world.
Suburban towns have spread out from Chicago, in every direction, over
the prairie. South Chicago, one of the principal of these, is twelve
miles to the southward, at the mouth of the Calumet river, and has a
large amount of capital invested in iron and steel works. The sloughy
morasses which still exist between the parent city and its thrifty
offshoots are fast being filled up, and bridged over with pavements, so
that the mud, which a generation ago was the chief distinguishing
feature of Chicago and its vicinity, but which is now confined to
outlying sections, will soon be a thing of the past. Chicago is itself
extending rapidly in all directions, and numberless suburban streets are
lined with pretty cottages, whose rural surroundings have given to the
city its appropriate name of "The Garden City."
Taking its past as a criterion, who shall dare to predict the future of
Chicago? It has by no means come to a stand-still, but is to-day
increasing its population, developing its resources, and extending its
commercial enterprises to a degree that is scarcely credible, save as
one is faced by actual facts and figures. These miles of streets, filled
with the incessant roar of business; these lofty temples, magnificent
warehouses and elegant residences; these public institutions of
learning; this gigantic commerce, this high degree of civilization; all
of which have been attained by older cities after a prolonged struggle
with adversity, are here the creations and accumulations of less than
two generations. Up the Chicago River, where considerably less than a
century ago the Indian paddled his solitary canoe, and John Jacob Astor
annually sent his single small schooner to bring provisions to the
garrison and to take away his furs, there swarms a fleet of vessels of
all descriptions, bringing goods from, and sending them to, every
quarter of the world. Where, no later than 1834, a grand wolf hunt was
held, and one bear and forty wolf scalps were the trophies of the day,
the bears of the Stock Exchange alone rage and howl, and the only wolves
are human ones. Chicago is a great and a magnificent city, embodying
more perfectly than any other in the world the possibilities of
accomplishment of the Anglo-Saxon race, given its best conditions of
freedom, independence and intelligence.
CHAPTER X.
CHEYENNE.
Location of Cheyenne.--Founding of the City.--Lawlessness.--
Vigilance Committee.--Woman Suffrage.--Rapid Increase of
Population and Business.--A Reaction.--Stock Raising.--
Irrigation.--Mineral Resources.--Present Prospects.
Cheyenne is the half-way house, on the Union Pacific Railroad, between
the civilization of the East and that of the West. It is situated on
Crow Creek, a branch of the South Platte River, just at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains. A few miles away to the westward the ascent of the
Black Hills begins, the road ascending over the rugged granite hills,
and winding in and out of miles of snow sheds. It is five hundred and
sixteen miles from Omaha, and has an elevation of more than six thousand
feet above the sea, being one thousand more than Denver, and with an
atmosphere proportionately rarer and dryer.
The city is a child of the Pacific Railroad, being, during the building
of that road, its winter terminus. When it was found that Cheyenne was
probably to become an important railroad point, there was a grand influx
of roughs, of all classes and of both sexes, to the spot. Habitations
sprang up as if by magic, and were of the rudest construction, some of
them being mere dug-outs in the sand hills. Town lots ran up to fabulous
prices. The first city government was organized in August, 1867, and the
first newspaper, the _Cheyenne Leader_, published on the nineteenth day
of the following month. On the thirtieth of November, 1867, the track
layers reached the city limits, and were greeted by music and a grand
demonstration on the part of the people. The first passenger train
arrived the next day.
In the winter of 1868 Cheyenne contained not less than six thousand
inhabitants. Lawlessness was the order of the day, and gambling,
drinking and shooting were the favorite recreations. Knock-downs and
robberies were matters of course, and murders of too frequent occurrence
to cause special excitement. During these early days of its history the
young city acquired two names, both of which were exceedingly
suggestive, not to say appropriate. Its rapid growth fastened upon it
the name of "Magic City of the Plains;" the desperate character of its
inhabitants, that of "Hell on Wheels."
When the city was but six months old, the patience of the order-loving
people was tried beyond endurance. A Vigilance Committee was formed, and
justice came swift and sure, without the intervening and delaying
processes of the law. Its first public demonstration occurred in the
following manner. Three men had been arrested on January tenth, 1868,
charged with stealing $900, and put under bonds to appear at court. On
the morning of the day after their arrest they were found on Eddy
street, walking abreast and tied together, with a placard attached to
them, bearing the following inscription, in conspicuous lettering: "$900
stole; $500 returned; thieves, F. S. Clair, W. Grier, E. D. Brownville.
City authorities, please not interfere until 10 o'clock A. M. Next case
goes up a tree. Beware of Vigilance Committee." During that year no less
than twelve desperadoes were hung and shot, and five sent to the
penitentiary, through the agency of the Vigilance Committee. The
condition of affairs was at once materially improved.
In 1871 the Territorial Legislature passed a bill giving universal
suffrage, without distinction of sex. The ladies at once made use of
their newly-acquired political right, with an earnestness and
universality entirely unexpected by those who had conferred its exercise
upon them. In their capacity as grand jurors, they closed every gambling
saloon and brothel in the city, put restrictions upon the liquor
traffic, brought criminals to justice who had heretofore defied the law,
and, in brief, made a clean sweep of the city, raising its social and
moral standard. Women of all classes voted, and, strange to say, even
the worst women voted for law and order. Political parties found it
necessary to put up men with a good moral record, as well as those
politically sound, for the women would not vote for a bad man. All
classes recognized the good results of woman suffrage, and all
opposition to it was speedily overcome.
Cheyenne is now one of the best governed and most orderly cities in the
country; and every Governor of the Territory, whatever his political
complexion, has given his unqualified testimony in favor of women at the
polls. Women not only deposit their ballots unmolested, but are treated
with the utmost courtesy, and the polling places are made comfortable,
and even elegant, for their reception. It is no uncommon thing for
husband and wife to vote opposing tickets, but no divisions or even
disturbances in families have resulted, thus far.
On the first of July, 1867, there was but one house in Cheyenne,
standing on what is now Eddy street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth
streets, built of logs, smoothly plastered outside and in, and owned by
Judge J. R. Whitehead. Six months thereafter there were no less than
three thousand houses in the city. The first lots were offered for sale
in July, 1867, at one hundred and fifty dollars. Thirty days afterward
they sold at one thousand dollars each, and in two or three months later
for two thousand five hundred and three thousand dollars. Stores were
erected with marvelous rapidity, in its early history, a good-sized and
comparatively substantial warehouse being put up in forty-eight hours.
The business of the first six months was enormous, single houses making
sales of from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars per month. In two
months after the Post-Office was established, it averaged twenty-six
hundred letters a day.
As the railroad progressed westward across the mountains, and finally
reached the Pacific, Cheyenne suffered a reaction from its sudden and
wonderful prosperity. The road took much of its business with it, and
the town fell dead. But the discovery of gold in the Black Hills gave a
fresh impetus to its business interests. It is also located in the midst
of a great stock-raising region, and is surrounded by ranches of
stock-men engaged in raising cattle, horses and sheep for market. The
cattle and horses find sustenance the year round in the native grasses,
and Cheyenne is the natural centre and trading post of these ranch-men.
Each year the business increases, and the shipments from the city become
larger. Wool is becoming an important export, being produced in great
quantities on the large sheep farms.
The railroad has constructed extensive machine and repair shops at
Cheyenne, which furnish employment for a large number of workmen. The
rickety structures of its early days are fast giving place to
substantial brick buildings. There is a fine Court House and Jail, a
City Hall, Opera House, and several Public School buildings. In
proportion to its population, Cheyenne has now more substantial and
handsome business houses than any other western city.
Stock raising is the only agricultural pursuit for which Wyoming is
adapted. The soil about Cheyenne is barren, and in no way suited for
farming purposes. The rainfall during the year is very slight, and it
has been found necessary to resort to irrigation. Therefore, ditches run
through the streets, supplying water for the gardens throughout the
city, and, by means of this irrigation, what was once a desert is
becoming green with trees and shrubbery.
The mineral resources of Wyoming are very rich. Silver and gold are both
found in the ranges of hills and mountains to the north and west. Moss
agates, opals, topaz, garnets, amethysts, onyx and jasper have all been
found in the immediate neighborhood of Cheyenne, and some of the
specimens are exceedingly beautiful.
The high elevation of the city gives it a delightful climate. The
winters are mild, and the summers free from excessive heat.
Cheyenne has a special niche in my memory, since, in making my horseback
journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in 1876, it was the last place
at which I dined before entering the Black Hills and falling into the
hands of the treacherous Arrapahoes.
The rapid growth which Cheyenne made at the beginning of her existence,
and the feverish activity of her business enterprises, have given place
long since to a slower but more healthy life and development. Her trade
interests are being placed on a firmer foundation, and when the
resources of the surrounding country are utilized to the fullest
advantage of the city, its prosperity will be assured.
CHAPTER XI.
DETROIT.
Detroit and Her Avenues of Approach.--Competing Lines.--London
in Canada.--The Strait and the Ferry.--Music on the Waters.--The
Home of the Algonquins.--Teusha-grondie.--Wa-we-aw-to-nong.--
Fort Ponchartrain and the Early French Settlers.--The Red
Cross of St. George.--Conspiracy of Pontiac.--Battle of Bloody
Run.--The Long Siege.--Detroit's First American Flag.--Old
Landmarks.--The Pontiac Tree.--Devastation by Fire.--Site of
the Modern City.--New City Hall.--Public Library.--Mexican
Antiquities.
Four lines of railway leading westward from Niagara, place Buffalo and
Detroit _en rapport_ with each other, through their connecting steel
rails, and compete for the patronage of the traveler. In addition to
this, there are not less than two lines by water, thus affording the
tourist--if he develops a desire to tempt the waves of Old Erie--ample
scope for his choice. The Lake Shore route takes one through a
continuous succession of ever-changing landscapes on the southern shore
of Lake Erie, and skirts the two great States of Ohio and Pennsylvania
before reaching Michigan. It is, perhaps, the preferable route by rail,
looking at it from a purely æsthetic standpoint. The Great Western Road
crosses, at Suspension Bridge, the famous chasm cut by Niagara, in its
recession from Ontario, and gives a faint conception, as seen in the
distance, of the glorious Falls themselves. The roar and rush of
water--at the rate of twenty-five million tons per minute--is borne
down the deeply-cut channel, and clouds of spray are visible from the
car windows. Below the bridge the swift drifts and eddies can be seen
foaming on their way to the whirlpool, a mile and a half further down.
This route also takes the traveler through London, Canada, a quaint old
English town of twenty thousand inhabitants, on the Thames River. The
place is brimming over with localities the names of which, carried in
the affections of her settlers across the ocean, serve as reminders of
the old London left forever behind them on Britannia's Isle.
Blackfriar's Bridge and Westminster Bridge both cross the new Thames,
and Kensington and Covent Garden market belong also to the transplanted
nomenclature. On Saturdays the great square in the heart of the town is
filled with marketers and hucksters of all descriptions, and every kind
of merchandise, from a feather bed to a table knife, is there bought and
sold. Squaws and Indians and quaintly dressed women commingle with the
crowd and sell their various wares. The scene is very picturesque, and
wears an atmosphere of being a hundred years old.
The Grand Trunk Road--the most northerly of the three routes leading
through Canada--has nothing except its easy-going time to recommend it
to favor. The traveler on this road stands a fair chance of missing his
connecting links in the great railway chain which interthreads the
continent east and west, or of being delayed for hours at a time by
running off the rails. The Canada Southern is a newly completed road,
and is said to be the most direct and shortest of all the competing
lines. This route follows the windings of the northern shore of Lake
Erie, just opposite from the Lake Shore Road on the southern side, and
the shifting landscapes are perhaps quite as full of natural beauty.
Detroit, the fair "City of the Strait," spreads itself along the river
front for miles, and the approach from Windsor, on the opposite shore,
is suggestive of the pictured lagoons of Venice, Queen of the Adriatic.
The Detroit River, or strait, is one of the most beautiful water avenues
west of the Hudson. It is from half a mile to a mile wide, is always of
a clear green color, and is never troubled by sand bars or anything
which might affect its navigation. It has an average depth of
twenty-five feet at the wharves and perhaps forty or fifty feet in the
centre of the river bed. No floods disturb its calm flow or change the
pervading green of its waters. It is, with reason, the pride of the
city, and the ferry boats of the several lines plying between Detroit
and Windsor are of the most attractive type. In summer a corps of
musicians are engaged for the regular trips, and are considered as
indispensable to the boat's outfit as the captain or pilot. Their syren
strains entice the lounger at the wharf, and he may ride all day, if he
chooses, for the sum of ten cents. Whole families spend the day on the
river, in this way, taking their dinner in baskets, as they would go to
a picnic. The people of Detroit, perhaps, inherit the pleasure-loving
characteristics of their French ancestors, or at least they do not seem
to have their minds exclusively concentrated on the struggle after the
almighty dollar.
Detroit, as the principal mart of the Peninsular State--the nucleus
which gradually crystallized into the heart of Michigan--has an early
history of thrilling interest; the site of the present populous city of
a hundred and twenty thousand souls was long ago, in the shadowy years
of its Indian lore, the home of a dusky tribe of the Algonquin family--a
race which was once as populous and widespread as the waves of the
ocean.
In 1610 the first white man who set foot on these wild and unexplored
shores found it occupied by the clustered wigwams of a peaceful Indian
village named _Teushagrondie_.
"Beside that broad but gentle tide
* * * * *
Whose waters creep along the shore
Ere long to swell Niagara's roar,
Here, quiet, stood an Indian village;
Unknown its origin or date;
Algonquin huts and rustic tillage,
Where stands the City of the Strait.
* * * * *
From dark antiquity it came,
In myths and dreamy ages cast."
Another of its ancient names was "Wa-we-aw-to-nong," meaning _round by_,
in allusion to its circuitous way of approach.
"No savage home, however rare,
If told in legend or in song,
Could with that charming spot compare,
The lovely Wa-we-aw-to-nong."
In 1679, the _Griffin_, under La Salle--the first vessel that ever
sailed these inland seas--anchored off the group of islands at the
entrance to Detroit River. Peaceful Indian tribes were scattered along
the banks, and the white man was received with friendly overtures.
In 1701, La Motte Cadillac founded Detroit. He erected a military fort
on the site of the future city, which he named after his French patron,
_Pontchartrain_. It was surrounded by a strong stockade of wooden
pickets, with bastions at each angle. A few log huts with thatched
roofs of straw and grass were built within the enclosure, and as the
number of settlers increased the stockade was enlarged, until it
included about a hundred houses closely crowded together. The streets
were very narrow, with the exception of a wide carriage road or
boulevard which encircled the town just within the palisades. The object
of the establishment of this military post was to aid in securing to the
French the large fur trade of the northwest, and it was also a point
from whence the early Jesuit fathers extended their missionary labors.
The little military colony was the centre of the settlement, and the
Canadian dwellings were scattered up and down the banks above and below
the fort for miles. The river almost washed the foot of the
stockade--Woodbridge street being at that time the margin of the
water--and three large Indian villages were within the limits of the
settlement. Below the fort were the lodges of the Pottawattomies, on the
eastern shore dwelt the Wyandots, and higher up Pontiac and the Ottawas
had pitched their wigwams.
Fort Pontchartrain remained in the possession of the French until 1760,
when, by the fall of Quebec, it fell into the hands of the British, and
was surrendered to Major Robert Rogers on the twelfth of September. The
Red Cross of St. George now supplanted the _Fleur-de-lis_ of France, and
the change to British rule was ill relished by the surrounding Indian
tribes, who had been the firm friends and allies of the French. The well
known Pontiac conspiracy grew out of this change of administration, and
a general massacre of the whites was determined upon. Pontiac, chief of
the Ottawas, was the leading spirit of the bloody plot, and so well
laid were his plans that ten out of the thirteen posts which were
simultaneously attacked fell before their savage onsets. The post at
Detroit, at that time under command of Major Gladwyn, was only saved
through the timely betrayal of Pontiac's plot, by Catherine, a beautiful
Ojibway girl, who dwelt in the village of the Pottawattomies, and who
had become much attached to Major Gladwyn, of the Fort. The day before
the intended massacre she brought him a pair of moccasins which she had
made for him, and then revealed the intended surprise of Pontiac. The
garrison and occupants of the fort were supported by two small vessels,
the Beaver and the Gladwyn, which lay anchored in the river.
On the morning of May sixth, 1763, a large flotilla of birch canoes,
filled with warriors lying flat on their faces, crossed the river above
the Port, landing just beyond the banks of Bloody Run, or Parent's
Creek, as it was then called. About ten o'clock, sixty chiefs, with
Pontiac at their head, marched to the Port and demanded admittance. It
was granted, but all preparation was made on the part of Gladwyn to
repel the first sign of treachery. Every soldier was armed to the teeth,
and the eagle eye of Gladwyn watched every movement of Pontiac, as that
brave made a speech of mock friendship. When the savages discovered the
failure of their plans, their disappointed rage knew no bounds, and
after passing out of the gates of the Fort, their mad thirst for blood
was only glutted by massacres of isolated families, and the tomahawk and
scalping knife sealed the doom of many an unhappy victim who that day
crossed the path of Pontiac's warriors.
From this hour Detroit was in a state of siege, and for eleven long
months the siege continued. Bravely the little band at the Fort held out
until reinforcements arrived--Captain Dalzell, with a force of three
hundred regulars, coming to their aid. A few days afterwards--at two
o'clock on the morning of July thirty-first--an attack was made on the
Indians, who were stationed along the banks of Parent's Creek, about a
mile and a half from the Fort. The troops neared the narrow, wooden
bridge which spanned the creek, when suddenly, in the gloom of night,
the Indian war-whoop burst on their ears, and a blaze of leaden death
followed. Captain Dalzell rushed to the front across the bridge, leading
his men forward, but their foes were not to be seen.
Bewildered in the gloom, the English troops were obliged to fall back to
the fort and wait for daylight before renewing the attack. Hundreds of
Indians lay in ambuscade along the river, whither the soldiers were
obliged to pass on their way to the Fort, and the creek ran red with
their blood. The waters of the little stream, after this crimson
baptism, were re-christened with the name of Bloody Run. The survivors
entered the Fort next morning with a loss of seventy killed and forty
wounded.
During the war of the Revolution, Detroit was subjected to greater
annoyance from Indian tribes than before, but this was the only way in
which the war affected it. Through the treaty of Greenville, made by
General Wayne with the red men, in August, 1795, Detroit and all the
region of the northwest became the property of the United States, and in
1796 Captain Porter, from General Wayne's army, took possession of the
post, and flung to the breeze the first American banner that ever
floated over the soil of the Peninsular State.
"Pontiac's Grate" was the eastern entrance to the town, and occupies the
site of the old United States Court House. In 1763, a rude chapel stood
on the north side of St. Ann street--nearly in the middle of the present
Jefferson avenue--while opposite was a large military garden, in the
centre of which stood a block house, where all the councils with the
Indians were held. These were the only public buildings in the town.
The "Pontiac Tree," behind which many a soldier took shelter on the
night of the bloody battle at Parent's Creek, and whose bark is fabled
to have been thickly pierced with bullets, stood as an old landmark for
years, on the site of the ancient field of conflict, and many a stirring
legend is told of it.
On June eleventh, 1805--just five months after Michigan was organized as
a territory--Detroit was laid in ruins by a wholesale conflagration,
which left only two houses unharmed. An act of Congress was passed for
her relief, and thus, through baptisms of fire and blood, and through
tribulation, has she arisen to her present proud estate. The stranger
landing on these shores now is struck with the handsome general
appearance of the city--its clean, wide streets, varying in width from
fifty to two hundred feet--its elegant business blocks and pervading air
of enterprise. The ground on which the city stands rises gradually from
the river to an elevation of thirty or forty feet, thus affording both a
commanding prospect and excellent drainage. Detroit is an authorized
port of entry, and is about seven miles distant from Lake St. Clair and
eighteen miles from Lake Erie. Ship and boat building has been an
extensive branch of business here, and in 1859 there were nine steam saw
mills located in the city, sawing forty million feet of lumber annually.
There are also works for smelting copper ore two miles below the city,
or rather within that suburban portion of the city known as Hamtramck.
Among the first objects of interest which attract the stranger's
attention are the new City Hall and the Soldiers' Monument. The City
Hall, fronting on one side of the square known as the Campus Martius, is
a structure of which any city in the land might be proud. It is built of
Cleveland sandstone, and faces on four streets,--being two hundred feet
long on Woodward avenue and Griswold street, with a width of ninety feet
on Fort street and Michigan avenue.
It is built in the style of the Italian renaissance, with Mansard roof
and a tower rising from the centre of the building, adorned at its four
corners with colossal figures fourteen feet high, representing
"_Justice_," "_Industry_," "_Arts_," and "_Commerce_." Its height from
the ground to the top of the tower is a hundred and eighty feet, and the
three ample stories above the basement furnish accommodation to the city
and county offices, in addition to the Circuit and Recorder's Courts.
The walls are frescoed, the floors laid in mosaics of colored marbles,
and the Council Chamber and other public rooms are furnished with black
walnut chairs and desks, and paneled in oak. With these exceptions,
there is no woodwork about the immense building. Everything, from
basement to dome, is brick and iron and stone. Even the floors are built
in delicate arches of brick and iron, and iron staircases follow the
windings of the tower to its dizzy top. It is reckoned fireproof. The
exterior is curiously carved, and two large fountains adorn the
inclosing grounds. The estimated cost of the building is about six
hundred thousand dollars.
From the airy outlook of the City Hall Tower, Detroit appears like a
vast wheel, many of whose streets diverge like spokes from this common
centre, reaching outward until they touch, or seem to touch, the wooded
rim of the distant horizon. The hub of this immense wheel is the
triangular open space called the Campus Martius, and the Soldiers'
Monument, occupying the centre of the Campus Martius, is also the centre
of this imaginary hub. Michigan avenue--one of the long arms of the
wheel--loses itself in the western distance, and is called the Chicago
road. Woodward avenue leads into the interior, toward Pontiac, and
Gratiot avenue goes in the direction of Port Huron. Fort street, in yet
another direction, guides the eye to Fort Wayne and the steeples of
Sandwich, four miles away. Toward the southern or river side of the
city, the resemblance to the wheel is nearly lost, and one sees nothing
but compact squares of blocks, cut by streets crossing each other at
right angles and running parallel and perpendicular to the river.
Between the Campus Martius and Grand Circus Park there are half a dozen
or more short streets, which form a group by themselves, and break in
somewhat on the symmetry of the larger wheel, without destroying it.
This point gives the best view of Detroit to be obtained anywhere about
the city.
The Soldiers' Monument is a handsome granite structure, fifty-five feet
in height, the material of which was quarried from the granite beds of
Westerly, Rhode Island, and modeled into shape under the superintending
genius of Randolph Rogers, of Rome, Italy. It is surmounted by a massive
allegorical statue, in bronze, of Michigan, and figures of the soldier
and sailor, in the same material, adorn the four projections of the
monument; while bronze eagles with spread wings are perched on smaller
pedestals in the intermediate spaces. Large medallions, also in bronze,
with the busts of Grant, Lincoln, Sherman and Farragut, in low relief,
cover the four sides of the main shaft, and higher up the following
inscription is imprinted against the white background of granite:--
"ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN
IN HONOR OF THE MARTYRS WHO FELL
AND THE HEROES WHO FOUGHT
IN DEFENCE OF LIBERTY AND UNION."
The bronzes and ornaments were imported from the celebrated foundry at
Munich, Bavaria, and the cost of the monument--donated exclusively by
private subscription--amounted to fifty-eight thousand dollars. The
unveiling of the statue took place April ninth, 1872.
Another feature of the city is the Public Library, founded in March,
1865, and at present occupying the old Capitol, until the new and
elegant Library building now in process of construction is completed.
[Illustration: WOODWARD AVENUE, DETROIT, MICHIGAN.]
Beginning entirely without funds, ten years ago, it can now exhibit a
muster roll of twenty-five thousand volumes, and is fairly started on
the high road to fortune. There is a kind of poetic justice in the fact
that its principal source of revenue accrues from county fines and
penalties. Here is a knotty question for the divinity doctors, for in
this case, at least, good is born of evil. The library is under the
control of the Board of Education, and was given an existence from the
State constitution. Some very rare volumes of Mexican antiquities have
recently been purchased from England by the School Board and added to
the library, at a cost of four hundred dollars. They contain a pictorial
and hieroglyphic history of the Aztec races occupying Mexico when Cortes
came over from a foreign shore with his Spanish galleons. The earliest
date goes back to 1324, and the strange figures in the centre of the
page are surrounded by devices indicating cycles of thirteen years, four
of which made a great cycle, or a period of fifty-two years. The deeds
of the Aztec king, _Tenuch_, and his successors, are here recorded, and
through the efforts of an English nobleman who devoted his life to these
researches, we have the translation rendered for us.
The city has a scientific association, two years old, and also a
Historical Society, in which her citizens manifest considerable pride.
Detroit has been called, with reason, one of the most beautiful cities
of the West. Transformed from the ancient _Teushagrondie_ into the
present populous "City of the Strait," she sits like a happy princess,
serene, on the banks of her broad river, guarding the gates of St.
Clair. Backed by a State whose resources are second to none in the
Union, emerging from an early history of bloody struggle and battle,
rising like the fabled Phoenix, from the ashes of an apparent ruin,
contributing her best blood and treasure to the war for liberty and
union, she may well be proud of her past record, her present progress,
her advancement toward a high civilization and her assured position.
CHAPTER XII.
ERIE.
Decoration Day in Pennsylvania.--Lake Erie.--Natural Advantages
of Erie.--Her Harbor, Commerce, and Manufactures.--Streets and
Public Buildings.--Soldiers' Monument.--Erie Cemetery.--East and
West Parks.--Perry's Victory.
I took my fourth ride from Buffalo westward, on the Lake Shore Road, on
the afternoon of May twenty-ninth, 1875, the day set apart that year by
the patriotic citizens of Pennsylvania, for the decoration of her
soldiers' graves. Passing the State line or boundary between New York
and Pennsylvania, a little beyond Dunkirk, an unusually large assemblage
of citizens and soldiers, with bouquets and a great profusion of
flowers, at nearly every station, betokened the earnest patriotism of
the old Keystone State. Pennsylvania will never be behind her sister
States in doing honor to the brave men who gave up their lives while
fighting her battles; and the demonstrations of each Decoration Day are
evidences that she will not soon forget their deeds, or their claim upon
her deepest gratitude.
A beautiful sight opens to the view of the tourist as he turns his eye
toward the broad, blue expanse of the lake, which may be seen at
intervals from the car windows, from Buffalo to Toledo. The mind is
quite naturally occupied with grand commercial schemes, on viewing such
wonderful facilities for the promotion of enterprise. We have here, in
Lake Erie, the connecting link in a chain of fresh-water oceans, which
stretch from the Atlantic, westward, almost to the Rocky Mountains. Our
internal prosperity is largely due to this great chain of lakes, which
secure and facilitate cheap transportation, and have made possible the
great inland cities, the pride of our Middle States.
Erie is an intermediate point between Buffalo and Cleveland, and having
a most excellent harbor, would seem destined to take rank among the
first cities of America. But by that inscrutable law which, seemingly
beyond reason, governs and controls the foundation and growth of cities
and towns, natural advantages do not always seem to count; and as a
large fish swallows a smaller one, so has Erie been dwarfed by her older
rivals, who, getting an earlier foothold upon the shore of the lake,
have absorbed its trade, and continued to maintain the advantage they at
first secured. An increase of commerce on Lake Erie will undoubtedly
throw a share to the city of Erie, and thus she may eventually succeed
in occupying the position to which her harbor and railroads entitle her.
Erie is on the lake, about midway of the brief stretch of shore which
the narrow section of Western Pennsylvania, jutting up between New York
and Ohio, secures to that State. It is her only lake town of any
importance, is a port of entry, and has a population of nearly thirty
thousand inhabitants. The harbor is the largest and best on Lake Erie.
It is about four miles in length, one mile in width, and in depth
varying from nine to twenty-five feet, thus permitting access to the
largest lake vessels. It is formed by an island four miles in length,
which lies in front of the city, and which, from its name of Presque
Isle, indicates that within the memory of man it has been a peninsula.
The bay is known as Presque Isle Bay. It is protected by a breakwater,
and three lighthouses guard the entrance. Several large docks, furnished
with railroad tracks, permit the transfer of merchandise to take place
directly between the vessels and the cars. The terminus of the
Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, and connected by the Lake Shore Railroad
with all important points in the east and west, the city is fast
developing into a strong commercial centre. A canal connecting with
Beaver River, a tributary of the Ohio, facilitates commerce in the
western section of Pennsylvania, and furnishes extensive water-power, of
which various kinds of mills avail themselves. These mills and the many
factories and foundries of the city--for Erie is a manufacturing town of
considerable importance--produce iron ware, cars, machinery, organs,
furniture, brass, leather, boots and shoes, and send them, by the
various methods of transportation, to markets in the States and Canada.
The great forest and mining regions of Pennsylvania find, at Erie, an
outlet for their lumber, coal and iron ore; while the numerous
productive farms which lie in the vicinity of the lake send quantities
of grain to be shipped at this port.
The city is built upon an elevated bluff, commanding an extensive view
of the lake. It is regularly laid out, with broad streets crossing each
other at right angles, and its general appearance is prosperous and
pleasing. In the centre of the city are the Parks, two finely shaded
inclosures, intersected by State street, and surrounded by handsome
buildings. A Soldiers' Monument stands in one of them, erected to
commemorate the memory of the brave men who fell in the War of the
Rebellion. It is surmounted by two bronze statues of heroic size. There
are also two handsome fountains within the Park inclosure. Near by is
the classic structure used as a Court House. The Custom House is erected
in a substantial style, near the shores of the lake. A new Opera House
is also one of the features of the city. The Union Depot is an immense
building, nearly five hundred feet in length, in the Romanesque style,
two stories in height and surmounted by a cupola forty feet high. State
street is the principal business thoroughfare.
The Erie Cemetery, on the south side, is one of the most beautiful in
the country. It is on a bluff overlooking the city and the lake, and
comprises seventy-five acres, in which tree-shaded walks, elegant
drives, velvet turf, running water, masses of shrubbery and brilliant
flowers, together with the plain white headstones and the elaborate
monuments which mark the resting-places of the dead, are united in a
harmonious effect, which is most satisfactory to the beholder. Erie is
very proud of this cemetery, and spares no pains to perfect it, while
every year adds to its beauty.
East and West Parks lie, as their names indicate, in opposite directions
within the city, and are beautiful breathing places where its citizens
resort for rest and recreation. Art has joined with nature in rendering
these places attractive, and their trees, shrubbery, lawns, walks and
drives, and general picturesqueness, combine to make them very charming
spots.
Erie has historical associations which render her of interest to one who
would gather facts concerning his country. Lake Erie was the scene of a
naval engagement between the British and Americans, on September tenth,
1813, in which the latter were victorious. Commodore Perry, in command
of the American fleet, sailed from this port on the memorable day, and
when the engagement was concluded, brought thither his prizes. Several
of his ships sunk in Lawrence Bay, and in fair weather the hull of the
Niagara is still visible.
The development of Western Pennsylvania is contributing more and more,
as the years go by, to the prosperity of Erie. Her exceptionally fine
harbor is already beginning to be recognized by commerce, and though the
city may never rival Cleveland or Buffalo, the time may come when Erie
will take rank as only second to them on Lake Erie, in commercial
importance.
CHAPTER XIII.
HARRISBURG.
A Historic Tree.--John Harris' Wild Adventure with the
Indians.--Harris Park.--History of Harrisburg.--Situation
and Surroundings.--State House.--State Library.--A Historic
Flag.--View from State House Dome.--Capitol Park.--Monument
to Soldiers of Mexican War.--Monument to Soldiers of Late
War.--Public Buildings.--Front Street.--Bridges over the
Susquehanna.--Mt. Kalmia Cemetery.--Present Advantages and
Future Prospects of Harrisburg.
A century and a half ago, John Harris, seeking traffic with the red men
of the Susquehanna, built a rude hut, dug a well, and thereby began a
work which, taken up by his son, led to the founding of the Capital City
of Pennsylvania, a city destined to take rank among the first of a great
State. The stump of an old tree, in a beautiful little park which skirts
the Susquehanna, on a line parallel with Front street, marks the scene
of an early adventure of Harris with the Indians, and tells the stranger
of his birth and death. About 1718 or 1719, Harris, who had settled at
this point on the Susquehanna, as a trader, was visited by a predatory
band of Indians returning from the "Patowmark," who made an exchange of
goods with him, for rum. Becoming drunken and riotous, he finally
refused them any more liquor, when they seized him and bound him to a
tree, dancing around their captive, until he thought his last day had
come. His negro servant, however, summoned some friendly Shawnees from
the opposite side of the river, who, after a slight struggle with the
drunken Indians, rescued Harris from his bonds and probably from a death
by torture. The stump referred to is that of the historical tree, which
was a gigantic mulberry, eleven feet seven inches in circumference. Here
also is the grave of Harris, which is surrounded by a strong iron fence,
and a young mulberry tree has been planted, by one of his descendants,
to take the place of the one whose trunk alone stands as a monument of
the past.
During the summer months this romantic spot is the favorite resort of
the boys and girls of the neighborhood, and whenever the weather is
favorable, a large troop of juveniles may be seen spinning their tops,
rolling their hoops and playing at croquet on the lawn. What a contrast
is here unfolded to the imagination, as we stand at the grave of the
venerable pioneer, and contemplate the wonderful change that has
characterized the progress of events during the past hundred years. But
little more than a century ago there was a solitary trader with his
family upon the borders of a great river in the wilderness. His goods
were brought on a pack-horse, and his ferry was a row boat. To-day a
thriving, beautiful city takes the place of the log cabin; children
sport where once the treacherous Indian sought the life of the hardy
frontiersman; the river is spanned by wonderful bridges; and a hundred
railroad trains pass through its streets in the course of twenty-four
hours.
Harrisburg was laid out by John Harris, Jr., the son of the pioneer, in
1785; it was incorporated as a borough in 1791; became the State Capital
in 1812; and received a city charter in 1860. Its population in 1880
numbered more than thirty thousand persons.
[Illustration: HARRISBURG AND BRIDGES OVER THE SUSQUEHANNA.]
Harrisburg is most picturesquely situated, on the Susquehanna River,
at the eastern gateway of the Alleghenies. The river is here a mile
wide, shallow at most seasons of the year, but capable of becoming a
turbulent torrent, carrying destruction along its banks. On the opposite
side of the river to the south are the Conestoga Hills; while to the
northward are the bold and craggy outlines of the Kittatinny or Blue
Mountains. But five miles away is the gap in these mountains through
which the Susquehanna forces its way, and the summits of these sentinels
are plainly visible. Although on the very threshold of the mountainous
region of Pennsylvania, the pastoral beauty of landscape which
characterizes eastern Pennsylvania creeps up to meet the ruggedness
which predominates beyond; and the two are here blended with most
charming results; the softness of the one half veiling the ruggedness of
the other; while the picturesqueness of each is heightened by contrast.
The handsomest and most noticeable building of Harrisburg is the State
House, which is conspicuously placed on an eminence near the centre of
the city. It is T-shaped, having a front of one hundred and eighty feet
by eighty in depth, and with an extension of one hundred and five feet
by fifty-four feet. It is built of brick, and is three stories high,
including the basement. A large circular portico, sustained by six Ionic
columns, fronts the main entrance. The building is surmounted by a dome,
reaching an altitude of one hundred and eight feet. A State Library,
with accommodation for one hundred thousand volumes, and possessing at
the present time thirty thousand volumes, is one of the features of the
Capitol. This library contains a number of portraits, curiosities and
art treasures, prominent among which are two small portraits of
Columbus and Americus Vespucius, the work of a celebrated Florentine
artist; a picture of the event already narrated in the life of John
Harris; and a reflecting telescope, purchased by Benjamin Franklin, and
through which was taken the first observation in the western hemisphere,
of the transit of Venus.
In the Flag Room of the State House, where are preserved the
Pennsylvania State flags used by the different regimental organizations
in the war for the Union, is a flag captured by the Confederates at
Gettysburg, and afterwards recaptured in the baggage of Jefferson Davis.
We find the following brief account of the capture of this flag in the
"Harrisburg Visitors' Guide," prepared by Mr. J. R. Orwig, Assistant
State Librarian, to whom we are indebted for favors in our literary
work. "It was on the evening of the first day; all the color guard were
killed, the last being Corporal Joseph Gutelius, of Mifflinburg, Union
County. When surrounded, and almost alone, he was commanded to surrender
the flag. His mute reply was to enfold it in his arms, and he was
instantly shot dead through its silken folds." He lies buried at
Gettysburg.
The view from the State House dome is exceptionally grand. I stood on
that eminence one bright morning, during the early part of my sojourn at
Harrisburg, in the spring of 1877. To eastward is a picturesque, rolling
country, varied by hill and dale, field and woodland, with villages or
isolated farmhouses nestling here and there in their midst, the
brilliant green tint of the foreground melting imperceptibly away into
the soft purple haze of the far distance. In front of the city to the
westward lies the broad river, gleaming like a ribbon of silver in the
sunlight, dotted with emerald islands, and winding away to the
southeast, between sloping banks and rocky crags, until it at last loses
itself in the misty horizon. To the northward is distinctly seen the gap
in the mountains through which the river approaches the city. The bold
and abrupt outlines of the mountains are plainly traced, and the scenery
in this region is exceptionally grand. Immediately surrounding the State
House is the city, spread out with its labyrinth of streets, its
factories and furnaces, its stately public buildings, and its elegant
private residences, presenting a panorama fair to look upon, and
evidencing the prosperity and industry of its people. To obtain a view
from this dome is well worth a visit to Harrisburg.
The State House is surrounded by Capitol Park, embracing thirteen acres,
and inclosed by an iron fence. These grounds gently slope from the
centre, and are ornamented with stately trees, beautiful shrubbery and
flowers and closely-shorn greensward. The site was set apart for its
present purpose before Harrisburg was a city, by John Harris, its
public-spirited founder. Fine views are obtained from it of the suburb
of East Harrisburg and the Reservoir, Mt. Kalmia Cemetery, the tower of
the new State Arsenal, and the dome of the State Insane Asylum. The
prominent feature of this park, next to the State House, is, however,
the beautiful monument erected to the memory of the soldiers who fell in
the Mexican War. It is one hundred and five feet high, with a sub-base
of granite, a base proper, with buttresses at each corner surmounted by
eagles, and a Corinthian column of Maryland marble, surmounted by a
statue of Victory, the latter executed at Rome, of fine Italian marble.
The sides of the base are paneled, and contain the names of the
different battles of the Mexican War. The monument is surrounded by an
inclosure constructed of muskets used by the United States soldiers in
Mexico. In front of the monument are a number of guns, trophies of the
Mexican war, and several others presented by General Lafayette.
Another monument, at the intersection of State and Second streets, is in
its design purely antique, being founded on the proportions of the pair
of obelisks at the gate of Memphis, and of that which stands in the
Place Vendome at Paris. It contains the following inscription: "To the
Soldiers of Dauphin County, who gave their lives for the life of the
Union, in the war for the suppression of the Rebellion, 1861-5. Erected
by their fellow-citizens, 1869."
In East Harrisburg, or "Allison's Hill," as it is called, will be seen
Brant's private residence, built in the style of the Elizabethan period,
the massive stone Catholic Convent, and St. Genevieve's Academy. On
State street is Grace M. E. Church, one of the most costly and beautiful
churches in the State. Not far away is St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral. The
State Lunatic Asylum is a vast and imposing edifice, a mile and a half
north of the city.
Front street, which overlooks the river, is the favorite promenade of
the city. Here may be seen the broad river, with its craft and numerous
islands, the villages on the opposite shore, and the delightful
landscape beyond. Here the citizens often congregate on fine evenings,
to watch the sunset views, which are especially fine from this point. On
the ridge opposite, is Fort Washington and the line of defenses erected
in 1863, in expectation of an invasion of the Southern army. Front
street is by far the finest street in the city, containing the most
imposing residences, being bordered by trees, and forming a most
attractive drive. From State street to Paxton, it presents an almost
unbroken range of palatial buildings of brick, stone, marble or granite.
On this street is found the residence of the Governor, presented to the
State by the citizens of Harrisburg, in 1864, as the Executive Mansion.
A more desirable location for a residence can scarcely be imagined than
that of Hon. J. D. Cameron, on the southeast corner of State and Front
streets, overlooking the Susquehanna. Near the corner of Front street
and Washington avenue is the old "Harris Mansion," originally erected in
1766, by John Harris, and remaining in the Harris family until 1840, but
now the home of Hon. Simon Cameron.
The Market street bridge spans the river, resting midway on Forster's
Island, the western end being an ancient structure, dating back to 1812,
while the eastern end, having once been destroyed by flood, and once by
fire, was rebuilt in modern style in 1866. The second bridge across the
river is at the head of Mulberry street, but it is used for trains
alone. This bridge is also divided by Forster's Island. It has once been
destroyed by fire, and was entirely remodeled in 1856.
Mt. Kalmia Cemetery is a charming resting-place of the dead, on the
heights overlooking the city. Its natural beauties are many, and they
have been enhanced by art. It is reached from East State street.
Harrisburg has extensive iron manufactories, and is the centre of six
important railways. More than one hundred passenger trains arrive and
depart daily, and few cities have a greater number of transient
visitors. It is one of the most prosperous cities of the Commonwealth;
situated in a fertile valley, in view of some of the grandest scenery in
America, with railroads, canals and macadamized roads, diverging in all
directions, and connecting it with every section of the country; with
important business interests, and an intelligent, industrious and
prosperous population; the political centre of one of the chief States
of the Union; it has much to congratulate itself upon in the present,
and more to hope for from the future. Another decade will see vastly
increased business interests, and a population nearly if not quite
double that of to-day.
CHAPTER XIV.
HARTFORD.
The City of Publishers.--Its Geographical Location.--The New
State House.--Mark Twain and the "None Such."--The "Heathen
Chinee."--Wadsworth Atheneum.--Charter Oak.--George H. Clark's
Poem.--Putnam's Hotel.--Asylum for Deaf Mutes.--The Sign
Language.--A Fragment of Witchcraftism.--Hartford _Courant_.--
The Connecticut River.
Having decided to pitch our tents in Hartford, we moved from New Haven
by rail, on the afternoon of September eighth, 1874. A hot, dusty day it
was, indeed, with mercury at ninety-two in the shade, and dust enough to
enable passengers of the rollicking order to inscribe monograms on the
backs of their unsuspecting neighbors.
The distance, according to recent time tables, is one dollar, or an hour
and fifteen minutes. The scenery encountered on this route is less
varied than that from New York to New Haven, and yet there is much to
interest the careful observer. The only town of any importance between
these rival cities is Meriden, an enterprising city of twenty thousand
souls, standing midway between them.
Hartford, the capital of nutmegdom, is the second city of Connecticut,
having, as shown by the last census, a population of thirty-seven
thousand. Pleasantly situated on the Connecticut River, and enjoying now
the advantage of exclusive legislation for the State, Hartford is
destined to become one of the most important cities of New England.
Authors, artists and publishers have ever found Hartford a fruitful
field for the development of brains and enterprise. It is, perhaps, not
exaggeration to say that in no other city of the United States of the
same size is there so large a proportion of the population devoted to
literature. The American and Hartford Publishing Companies, the firms of
Burr, Scranton, Worthington, Dustin, Gilman and Company, and many others
of less note, are located here.
The new State House, now in process of erection, is destined to be one
of the finest buildings in the country. The site commands a view of the
city and its surroundings for many miles. Among the objects of interest
to be found here are the residence of "Mark Twain" and the State Insane
Asylum. "Mark's" house is at the end of Farmington avenue, on a little
eminence, at the foot of which flows a nameless stream.
Its style of construction is so unlike the average house that it has won
for itself the characteristic title of "The None Such."
It is still in the hands of the architect, and will probably not be
ready for occupancy before November. If this building is not regarded as
a marvel, then I will confess that, after nearly twenty years of travel,
I have yet to learn the meaning of that term as applied to architecture.
The plat of ground on which the house and adjacent buildings stand was
selected and purchased by Mrs. "Twain"--so said the gentlemanly
architect who replied to our inquiries. As the genial "Mark" desires the
maximum quantity of light, his apartments are so arranged as to give him
the sun all day. The bricks of the outer walls of the house are painted
in three colors, making the general effect decidedly fantastic.
Taking it all in all, I have nowhere seen a more curious study in
architecture, and hope, for the satisfaction of its eccentric owner,
that it will quite meet his expectations.
The Celestials, or representatives from China, are now so often seen,
from California eastward to New England, that they have ceased to be
considered objects of special interest in any part of the United States.
I have met them more or less in my journeyings during the last two
years, and have often wondered if others see their strange
characteristics from the same standpoint that I do. To me, Ah Sin is
ingenious, enterprising, economical, and the essence of quiet good
humor.
Opposite my quarters here in Hartford are two of these odd-looking
Chinamen, whom I will, for convenience, name Ching Wing Shing and Chang
Boomerang.
My rooms being directly opposite the store of Boomerang and Company, an
excellent opportunity is afforded me for witnessing their varied devices
to invite trade and entertain their customers. Although only tea and
coffee are advertised, Chang's store will be found, on close inspection,
to strongly resemble the "Old Curiosity Shop," described by Dickens,
there being a small assortment of everything in their line, from tea and
coffee to watermelons.
Chang and Ching invariably wear a smile upon their "childlike and bland"
features. School children passing that way seem to take pleasure in
teasing these mild-mannered China merchants, and unfortunate indeed is
the firm of Boomerang and Company, if their backs are turned on their
youthful tormenters; for these mischievous urchins seem to think it no
crime to pilfer anything owned or presided over by their pig-tailed
neighbors. Should Chang or Ching discover their sportive enemies gliding
away with the tempting fruits of their stands, it is useless to pursue,
for a troop of juvenile confederates will rush into the store the moment
it is vacated and help themselves to whatever may please their fancy.
THE WADSWORTH ATHENEUM.
While taking a stroll down Main street the other day my attention was
arrested by a three-story brownstone building, standing on the east side
and back some distance from the street. I had only to glance at the
large, bold lettering across its front to be told that it was the
Wadsworth Atheneum. Deciding to take a look at the interior of this
receptacle of antiquities, I soon made the acquaintance of W. J.
Fletcher, the gentlemanly assistant librarian of the Watkins Library,
who seemed to take an especial pleasure in showing me everything of
interest, and who spared no pains in explaining everything about which I
had a question to ask.
There were so many curiosities of ancient as well as modern pattern,
that it would be impossible to notice all in a work of this magnitude,
and hence I shall content myself with presenting a few subjects which,
to me at least, were of striking interest. Stepping into the Historical
Rooms my attention was first called to the stump of the famous Charter
Oak, which will ever form an interesting chapter in Connecticut history.
A very comfortable seat or arm-chair has been moulded from this aged
relic, and while sitting within its venerable arms, I copied the
following poem by George H. Clark, the manuscript of which is framed and
hung up over the chair. I cannot endorse the sentiment of the poet, but
will record his lines.
September 10th, 1858.
DEAR SIR:--You seem to take so much interest in my lines on the
destruction of the old oak, that I have thought you might be pleased
with a copy in the author's handwriting, and accordingly inclose one.
Yours,
GEO. H. CLARK.
THE OAK.
1. "Yes--blot the last sad vestige out--
Burn all the useless wood;
Root up the stump, that none may know
Where the dead monarch stood.
Let traffic's inauspicious din
Here run its daily round,
And break the solemn memories
Of this once holy ground.
2. "Your fathers, long the hallowed spot
Have kept with jealous care,
That worshippers from many lands
Might pay their homage there;
You spurn the loved memento now,
Forget the tyrant's yoke,
And lend Oblivion aid to gorge
Our cherished Charter Oak.
3. "'Tis well, when all our household gods
For paltry gain are sold,
That e'en their altars should be razed
And sacrificed for gold.
Then tear the strong, tenacious roots,
With vandal hands, away,
And pour within that sacred crypt
The garish light of day.
4. "Let crowds unconscious tread the soil
By Wordsworth sanctified,
Let Mammon bring, to crown the hill,
Its retinue of pride,
Destroy the patriot pilgrim's shrine,
His idols overthrow,
Till o'er the ruin grimly stalks
The ghost of long ago.
5. "So may the muse of coming time
Indignant speak of them
Who Freedom's brightest jewel rent
From her proud diadem,--
And lash with her contemptuous scorn
The man who gave the stroke
That desecrates the place where stood
The brave old Charter Oak."
It appears to me that no more sensible thing could have been done after
the tree fell to the ground, August twenty-first, 1859, than to preserve
it here, where it will outlive, by centuries, its rapid decay in an open
field, exposed to sun and storm. Thousands may now see the famous oak
that otherwise might never know its location or history. It stood on the
grounds formerly owned by Samuel Wordsworth, near Charter Oak Avenue,
and its top having been blown down and broken during a violent storm, it
was afterwards dug up and taken to the Historical Rooms of the Wadsworth
Atheneum.
After occupying two hours in looking through the Historical Department,
we came to a corner of the room devoted to an exhibition of the relics
identified with the history of General Israel Putnam, the Revolutionary
patriot, who was commander-in-chief of the American forces engaged at
the battle of Bunker Hill.
Connecticut takes a lively interest in anything that pertains to her
favorite hero, and we were engaged not less than half an hour in an
examination of the various articles impersonating "Old Put." Most
Americans are familiar with the story of his early life and adventures,
but I think few are aware of the fact that at one time he was a country
landlord. Here at the Atheneum they have the very sign-board that
attracted the traveler to "Putnam's Hotel." A life-size portrait of the
gallant General Wolfe, who was slain while leading his army against
Quebec, is painted on the board, which is three feet long by two and a
half wide. Imagine now, the hero of a hundred battles and adventures,
performing the duties of "mine host"--at once hostler, bartender and
perhaps table girl in the dining room.
The character of the man who had the ability to rise from the position
of an humble farmer and inn-keeper to that of Senior Major-General of
the United States armies, is an index to the character of the American
people. Often on the battle-field were the titled nobility of Great
Britain compelled to fly before the crushing blows of this sturdy
yeoman, who, leaving his plow in the furrow, rushed to the field of
danger and glory. Casting aside the habiliments of the farmer, he
buckled on his armor and dared to lead where the bravest dared to
follow. Israel Putman
"Sleeps the sleep that knows not breaking,"
but his glorious deeds will never be forgotten while the blessings of
liberty are appreciated by the descendants of that galaxy of devoted
patriots who rallied around the standard of George Washington.
The Deaf and Dumb Institute, situated on Asylum Hill, is the oldest
institution of the kind in the United States, having been established in
1817, by Rev. F. H. Gallaudet, a noble and generous philanthropist, who
devoted his life and fortune to the elevation and enlightenment of the
afflicted. A monument recently erected to his memory, in front of the
Institute, attests the regard in which he is still held by those who
revere him as their benefactor.
It was my pleasure, while in Hartford, to attend a lecture in the sign
language, by Professor D. E. Bartlett, who is reputed to be the oldest
teacher living, and who commenced work at this institute forty years
ago. I shall never forget my emotions as I eagerly watched sign and
gesture, and at the same time noted its effect upon the features of each
face in his attentive audience. What a noble mission, to thus lead these
children of silence from the prison darkness of ignorance into the
beautiful light of knowledge? May those who devote their lives to such a
cause reap the rich reward which their benevolence deserves!
In 1652 Hartford had the _honor_ of executing the first witch ever heard
of in America. Her name was Mrs. Greensmith. She was accused in the
indictment of practicing evil things on the body of Ann Cole, which did
not appear to be true; but a certain Rev. Mr. Stone and other ministers
swore that Greensmith had confessed to them that the devil possessed
her, and the righteous court hung her on their indictment.
What would that court have done with the spiritual manifestations rife
in these parts to-day? It is a bitter sarcasm on our Plymouth Rock
progenitors that, having fled from the old country on account of
religious persecution, they should inaugurate their freedom to worship
God on the shores of the new world by hanging witches!
The leading paper of the city is the Hartford _Courant_, which is ably
edited by General Joseph R. Hawley, and is a powerful political organ
throughout New England. General Hawley distinguished himself during the
late war as a brave officer, entering the army as captain and rising to
the rank of brigadier general. The _Courant_, like its soldier-editor,
may always be found fighting in the van.
The Connecticut River at Hartford is about a quarter of a mile wide, and
sweeps onward in a swift current, through sinuous banks, until it
mingles with the waters of the Sound at Saybrook. The valley through
which this river seeks a passage to the sea is one of the loveliest to
be found anywhere, and gazing down upon it from the surrounding heights,
as it lies veiled in blue distance, is like looking upon a dream of
Arcadia.
CHAPTER XV.
LANCASTER.
First Visit to Lancaster.--Eastern Pennsylvania.--Conestoga
River.--Early History of Lancaster.--Early Dutch Settlers.--
Manufactures.--Public Buildings.--Whit-Monday.--Home of three
Noted Persons.--James Buchanan, his Life and Death.--Thaddeus
Stevens and his Burial Place.--General Reynolds and his
Death.--"Cemetery City."
My first visit to Lancaster was made on a bright morning in the early
part of April, 1877. We rode out of the West Philadelphia Depot in the
eight o'clock accommodation, which we were told would make sixty-five
stops in a short journey of seventy-three miles. I did not count the
stations, but should have no hesitancy in fully indorsing my informant.
The frequency of the halts gave us an excellent opportunity to explore
the surrounding country, and reminded one of street-car experiences in
metropolitan cities, where one is brought to a stand at every crossing.
Eastern Pennsylvania is beyond question the finest section of the State;
and the tourist who sojourns at Bryn Mawr, Downingtown, Bird-in-Hand,
and many of their sister villages, will see abundant evidences of the
wealth and prosperity of an industrious people. The country is
sufficiently rolling to be picturesque, without any of the ruggedness
which characterizes the central and western portions of the State.
Sometimes from the car windows the roofs and spires of several villages
may be seen in different directions, while substantial farmhouses with
their commodious out-buildings, are on every hand. The land is brought
to a high state of cultivation, and the entire region seems almost like
an extensive park.
Lancaster, the county-seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is
situated on the Conestoga River, seventy-three miles from Philadelphia.
This river, which is a tributary of the Susquehanna, is made navigable
by nine locks and slack-water pools, from Lancaster to its mouth at Safe
Harbor, eighteen miles distant. Considerable trade is brought to the
city by its means; while Tidewater Canal opens up navigable
communication to Baltimore, by way of Port Deposit. Lancaster was, from
1799 to 1812, the seat of the State government; it was incorporated in
1818, and was at one time the principal inland town of Pennsylvania. The
oldest turnpike in the United States terminates at Lancaster, connecting
that city with Philadelphia. It has now something more than twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, largely descended from the early Dutch settlers,
whose names are still borne, and whose language, corrupted into
"Pennsylvania Dutch," is still a most familiar one in that region.
The city is principally a manufacturing one, producing locomotives,
axes, carriages and cotton goods, and being particularly celebrated for
its rifles. It has many fine buildings, both public and private. The
Court House and County Prison will both attract attention, the former
being in the Corinthian and the latter in the Norman style of
architecture. Fulton Hall, near the Market-place, is a large edifice
used for public assemblies. Franklin and Marshall College, organized in
1853 by the union of Marshall College with the old Franklin College,
founded in 1787, is found on James street, and possesses a library of
thirteen thousand volumes. It has a large number of both daily and
weekly newspapers, and not less than fifteen churches.
Whit-Monday is by far the greatest social holiday with the Germans of
Lancaster city and county, and, as such, is the scene of general
festivities among the city folk and a large influx of country visitors.
On the return of this day in Lancaster, the venders of beer, peanuts,
colored lemonade and pop-corn are stationed at every corner, and are
unusually clamorous and busy. The pic-nics, shows and flying horses are
well patronized; but I am told that the scene in the public square is
not so animated as in former days, when soap venders and the razor strop
man monopolized the attention of the rustic lads and lasses. Public
ceremonies have no apparent place in the observance of this anniversary.
Lancaster is noted for having been the residence of three persons who
have played an important part in the affairs of the nation: James
Buchanan, our fifteenth President; Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, the champion
of the slave; and General Reynolds, the gallant soldier, who fell at
Gettysburg. These all sleep their last sleep within the city limits.
James Buchanan, though born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, made his
home at Lancaster during all the years of his statesmanship, finding at
Wheatland, his country residence, in the vicinity of the city,
relaxation from the cares of public life. Born in 1791, in 1814 he was
elected a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. In 1820
he was elected Congressman, holding that position until 1831, when he
was appointed ambassador to Russia. In 1834 he was made Senator; in 1845
Secretary of State under President Polk, and Ambassador to England in
1854. In 1856 he was elected President of the United States, the close
of his administration being signalized by the secession of South
Carolina, and the incipient steps of the Rebellion. He died at his home
at Wheatland, in Lancaster, on June first, 1868.
The remains of Thaddeus Stevens, for so many years one of the most
fearless champions of the anti-slavery cause in Congress, lie buried in
"Schreiner's Cemetery," in a quiet and retired corner at the side
furthest from its entrance on West Chestnut street. An exceedingly plain
stone, with a simple but expressive inscription, tells the stranger the
date of his birth and death, and the reasons which led him to request
that his remains should be laid in this, the most unpretentious cemetery
I have ever seen within the limits of any city. The word Stevens is
clearly cut in large letters on the west end of the stone. On the
opposite end I noticed a gilt star. On the north side is the following
inscription:--
"THADDEUS STEVENS,
BORN AT DANVILLE, CALEDONIA CO., VERMONT,
APRIL 4TH, 1792.
DIED AT WASHINGTON, D. C,
AUGUST 11TH, 1868."
On the south side of the monument are found these words:--
"I repose in this quiet and secluded spot,
Not from any natural preference for solitude,
But finding other cemeteries limited as to race,
By charter rules,
I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death
The principles which I advocated through a long life:
Equality of man before his Creator."
General Reynolds was among the first to fall at the battle of
Gettysburg. On the evening of June thirtieth, 1863, while commanding the
First, Third and Eleventh Corps of the Army of the Potomac, he encamped
near the village of Emmetsburg, Maryland. He was ordered by General
Meade to move early in the morning, with his First and Third Corps, in
the direction of Gettysburg. The Third Cavalry Division, under General
John Buford, was attacked on Wednesday morning, on the Chambersburg
pike, about two miles west of the village, by the vanguard of the Rebel
army, which, however, were driven back upon their reserves, but advanced
again and, with greatly augmented numbers, drove the Union troops before
them. General Wadsworth, hearing the sound of the conflict, came up with
his men and seized the range of hills in the direction of Chambersburg,
overlooking the battle ground from the northwest. While Wadsworth was
getting into position, Reynolds rode forward, unattended, to gain an
idea of the position and numbers of the enemy. He discovered a heavy
force not far distant, in a grove, and, while reconnoitring through his
field-glass, one of the enemy's sharpshooters took aim at him, with
fatal effect. He fell to the ground, never to rise again. He was a brave
and dauntless soldier, who had already won such distinction on the
battlefield that few were entrusted with as heavy responsibilities as
he. Had his life been prolonged, no doubt he would have been promoted
still higher, and his name might have been written among those of the
successful generals of the war. His ashes repose at Lancaster, where due
honor is done them.
Lancaster might not inappropriately be called the Cemetery City, for
every principal street seems to lead to a cemetery. Here, in these
cities of the dead, lie those who have passed away for many generations
back. Numerous venerable stones record, in Dutch, the names and virtues
of Herrs and Fraus who lived and died in the last century, while more
modern tombstones and monuments are erected over the later dead. Few
places are more interesting to one who would study a people and their
history, than an old graveyard; and few cities furnish the visitor more
numerous or better opportunities than Lancaster.
CHAPTER XVI.
MILWAUKEE.
Rapid Development of the Northwest.--The "West" Forty Years
Ago.--Milwaukee and its Commerce and Manufactures.--Grain
Elevators.--Harbor.--Divisions of the City.--Public
Buildings.--Northwestern National Asylum for Disabled
Soldiers.--German Population.--Influence and Results of German
Immigration.--Bank Riot in 1862.--Ancient Tumuli.--Mound
Builders.--Mounds Near Milwaukee.--Significance of Same.--Early
Traders.--Foundation of the City in 1835.--Excelling Chicago in
1870.--Population and Commerce in 1880.
There is no more astonishing fact connected with the history of our
country than the rapid settlement of the Northwest, the development of
its vast agricultural and mineral resources, and the almost magical
growth of towns and cities along the margins of its lakes and rivers. A
person who has not passed middle age can remember when the "West"
indicated Indiana and Illinois, which were reached by the emigrant after
many days of weary travel in his own rude-covered wagon, and before
starting on his journey to which he bade kindred and friends a solemn
adieu, scarcely hoping to meet them again in this world. Then the
present great trade centres of the west were mere villages, with
ambitious aspirations, it is true, but contending for a successful
future against fearful odds. A man who has reached threescore and ten
can remember when most of these towns and cities had no existence save
as Indian trading posts, and when most of the country west of the
Mississippi was as yet unexplored and regarded either as a desert waste
or a howling wilderness. Only the brave Jesuit missionaries had at that
period dared the perils of something even more dangerous than a frontier
life, and established missions throughout the Northwest, on the sites of
what are to-day thriving towns.
But the genius and daring of the Anglo-Saxon race have changed all this.
Civilization has impressed itself so deeply on our Northwestern
territory, that were it, by any unfortunate contingency, destroyed or
removed to-day, it would take longer time to obliterate its footprints
than it has required to make them.
Among the cities of the West remarkable for rapid growth, Milwaukee, on
the western bank of Lake Michigan, is especially prominent. First
settled in 1835, and not chartered as a city until 1846, she has made
such rapid strides in both population and commerce, that in 1880 her
inhabitants numbered 115,578, and in 1870 she claimed the rank of the
fourth city in the Union in marine commerce, a rank which she has since
lost, not by any backward steps on her own part, but because of the
sudden and astonishing development of other cities.
A rival of Chicago, Milwaukee shares with that city the commerce of the
lakes, and is connected by steamboats with many points on the opposite
side of Lake Michigan and with more distant ports. She is the lake
terminus of a large number of railroads which drain an agricultural
region of great extent and fertility; while her nearness to the copper
mines of Lake Superior and the inexhaustible iron mines distant but from
forty to fifty miles to the northward, contribute to make her a
manufacturing centre. A single establishment for the manufacture of
railroad iron was established, at a cost of a million of dollars. She
has other iron works, and manufactures machinery, agricultural
implements, car wheels and steam boilers, large quantities of tobacco
and cigars; furnishes the Northwest with furniture, and has extensive
pork packing establishments, while the products of her flouring mills
and lager beer breweries find markets in every quarter of the United
States, and have a reputation all their own. The rolling mill of the
North Chicago Rolling Mill Company is one of the most extensive in the
West.
As a grain depot, Milwaukee takes high rank. There are six immense
elevators within the limits of the city, with a united capacity of
3,450,000 bushels; the largest one, the grain elevator of the Milwaukee
and St. Paul Railroad, being one of the largest on the continent, and
having a storage capacity of 1,500,000 bushels. The flour mills of E.
Sanderson & Company have a daily capacity of one thousand barrels of
flour.
The harbor of Milwaukee is the best on the south or west shore of Lake
Michigan. It is formed by the mouth of the Milwaukee River, and the
largest lake boat can ascend it for two miles, to the heart of the city,
at which point the Menomonee River unites with the Milwaukee. The course
of the Milwaukee River is nearly due south, while that of the Menomonee
is nearly due west; and by these two rivers and their united stream
after their junction, the city is divided into three very nearly equal
districts, which are severally known as the East, being that portion of
the city between the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan; the West, that
portion included between the two rivers; and the South, or the territory
south of them both. The city embraces an area of seventeen square miles,
and is laid out with the regularity characteristic of western cities.
The business quarter lies in a sort of hollow in the neighborhood of the
two rivers, whose shores are lined with wharves. The East and West
portions of the city are chiefly occupied by residences, the former
being upon a high bluff, overlooking the lake, and the latter upon a
still higher bluff west of the river.
Milwaukee is known as the "Cream City of the Lakes," this name being
derived from the cream-colored brick of which many of the buildings are
constructed. It gives to the streets a peculiarly light and cheerful
aspect. The whole architectural appearance of the city is one of
primness rather than of grandeur, which might not inappropriately
suggest for it the name of the "Quaker City of the West." The residence
streets are shaded by avenues of trees, which add to the cheerful beauty
of the town. The principal hotels and retail stores are found upon East
Water street, Wisconsin street and Second avenue, which are all three
wide and handsome thoroughfares. The United States Custom House stands
on the corner of Wisconsin and Milwaukee streets, and is the finest
public building in the city. It is of Athens stone, and contains the
Post Office and United States Courts. The County Court House is also a
striking edifice. The Opera House, used for theatrical purposes, is
worthy of mention; while the Academy of Music, which was erected in
1864, by the German Musical Society, at a cost of $65,000, has an
elegant auditorium, seating two thousand three hundred persons. The
Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John, and the new Baptist Church, are
fine church edifices, but the finest which the city contains is the
Immanual Presbyterian Church. A Free Public Library possesses a
collection of fourteen thousand volumes, and a well-supplied reading
room. Several banking houses have imposing buildings. The most prominent
among the educational institutions of the city is the Milwaukee Female
College, which was finished in 1873. There are three Orphan Asylums, a
Home for the Friendless, and two Hospitals. One of the chief points of
interest to the visitor is the Northwestern National Asylum for disabled
soldiers, which furnishes excellent accommodation for from seven hundred
to eight hundred inmates. It is an immense brick edifice, located three
miles from the city, in the midst of grounds four hundred and
twenty-five acres in extent, more than half of which is under
cultivation, and the remainder laid out as a park. The institution has a
reading room, and a library of two thousand five hundred volumes, for
the use and benefit of its patriot guests.
No one who visits Milwaukee can fail to be struck with the semi-foreign
appearance of the city. Breweries are multiplied throughout its streets,
lager beer saloons abound, beer gardens, with their flowers and music
and cleanly arbor-shaded tables, attract the tired and thirsty in
various quarters. German music halls, gasthausen, and restaurants are
found everywhere, and German signs are manifest over many doors. One
hears German spoken upon the streets quite as often as English, and
Teuton influence upon the political and social life of the city is
everywhere seen and felt. Germans constitute nearly one-half the entire
population of Milwaukee, and have impressed their character upon the
people and the city itself in other ways than socially. Steady-going
plodders, with their love for music and flowers, they have yet no keen
taste for display, and every time choose the substantial rather than the
ornamental. Milwaukee is a sort of rendezvous for the Scandinavian
emigrants, who are pouring in like a mighty tide to fill up the States
of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Danes and Swedes, and especially Norwegians,
stop here, and it may be, linger for a longer or shorter period, before
they strike out into the, to them, unknown country which is to be their
future home. Domestic service is largely supplied by the Norwegians, who
prove themselves honest, industrious and capable.
This mighty influx of the Germanic and Scandinavian races into our
Northwest is certain to produce a permanent impression upon the social
condition of those States. Yet our system of government is adapted to
the successful management of such immigration. It cannot, perhaps, do so
much with the immigrants themselves. Many of them intelligent, but more
of them ignorant and stupid, they remain foreign in their habits and
ideas to the end of their lives. But it makes citizens of their sons,
trains them up with an understanding of democratic institutions, gives
them an education, for the most part, forces them to acquire our
language, and instead of making them a separate class, recognizes them
as an undivided part of the whole population. In brief, it Americanizes
them, and though habits and traits of character and race still cling to
them in some degree, their original nationality is soon lost in the
great cosmopolitan tide of civilized humanity which swells and surges
around them. Different races intermarry and blend, and form a composite
of personnel and character which is fast becoming individualized and
recognized as the type of the true American. After a few generations but
little remains save the patronymic to remind the descendants of these
immigrants of their original descent.
Wherever the German race has settled it has taken substantial prosperity
with it. The members of that race have proved themselves honest,
industrious, and preëminently loyal. To the "Dutch" St. Louis owed her
own modified loyalty during the late civil war. The German element of
Cincinnati also turned the tide of popular sentiment in favor of the
North, and secured for that city, during war times, an immunity from
disturbance, and a prosperity unexampled during her previous history.
They bring with them not only thrift, but an appreciation for the
refining arts which is not found in any other class of immigrants. The
German quarter of a city may nearly always be discovered by the
abundance of flowers in windows and balconies, and growing thriftily in
secluded courts. The German better appreciates his beer when sipped in
the midst of natural beauties, and to the sound of music. To this
music-loving characteristic of her German population Milwaukee owes her
finest music hall, the Academy of Music already described. They are not
quick of thought, but even their stolidity, when it is offset and
modified by the almost supernatural sharpness and quickness of wit of
other nationalities which also look to America as a refuge from
oppression, produces a useful counter-balance, and the offspring of the
two will be apt to possess stability of character with intellectual
alertness. The Germans have their faults, undoubtedly, but they are less
obnoxious than those of some other classes of immigrants, and when
modified often become virtues.
Milwaukee, since her existence as a city, has had a comparatively
uneventful history. She has not been ravaged by flood, like Cincinnati,
nor by fire, like Chicago, nor by pestilence, like Memphis, nor by
famine, like many cities in the old world. She has moved on in the even
tenor of her way, increasing her commerce and adding to her industries,
perfecting her school system and enlarging her own domain. The only
disturbance which is recorded against her in the chronicles of her
existence, occurred in June, 1862, when there was a riot, in consequence
of the rejection, by the bankers of Milwaukee, of the notes of most of
the banks of the State. The banks of Wisconsin being governed, at that
time, by a free banking law, modeled, in a great measure, after that of
New York, had purchased largely the bonds of different Southern States,
and deposited them with the State Comptroller as a security for their
issues, the bonds of said States usually being lower than those of the
Northern States. When the Southern States withdrew from the Union there
was, in consequence, a rapid reduction of the value of these securities,
and an equally rapid depreciation of the value of the bank notes based
upon them. Their issues were finally curtailed, occasioning severe loss
and great bitterness of feeling on the part of those who held them. The
riot consequent on this state of affairs resulted in a considerable
destruction of property, though no lives were lost. It was finally
quelled by the State authorities.
Of the original inhabitants of Wisconsin, we have no knowledge whatever.
The only traces they have left of their existence are numerous ancient
mounds or tumuli, which are scattered at various points all over the
State. Their antiquity is attested by the fact that trees of four
hundred years' growth are found standing upon them. Discoveries in the
Lake Superior copper regions, of mines which had once been worked, over
which trees of a like age were growing, seem to indicate that the same
people raised the mounds and worked the mines. In all probability their
antiquity extends further backward than this. The Indians, improperly
called the aborigines, have no traditions concerning the construction of
these mounds, which are evidently none of their handiwork, but belong to
a race which has been supplanted and disappeared from the globe. The
similarity of these mounds to those discovered in Central America leads
to the conclusion that they were both the work of one and the same race;
but whether they were constructed as tombs or as places for altars,
there is a division of opinion. Those in Central America were evidently
once surmounted by temples or places of worship and sacrifice.
These mounds vary in size, shape and height. At Prairie du Chien one of
the largest of these tumuli was leveled to furnish a site for Fort
Crawford. It was circular in form, having a base of some two hundred
feet, and was twenty feet high. The circular form is the most common in
those mounds, although there are many different shapes. Some appear like
wells, inclosing an open space; others like breastworks with angles;
still others have a space through them, as if they formed a sort of
gateway. On the dividing ridge between the Mississippi and Wisconsin
rivers mounds are found in the form of birds with their wings and tails
spread; of deer, rabbits and other animals. One even bears a marked
resemblance to an elephant. There are also a few mounds representing a
man lying on his face. They are three or four feet high at the highest
points, rounding over the sides.
One of the most singular characteristics of these mounds is that they
seem invariably to be composed of earth brought from a greater or less
distance. The surface of the surrounding ground usually comes up to the
base of the mound in a smooth level, when it does not already possess a
natural elevation; but there is no evidence of the ground anywhere in
the neighborhood having been disturbed to furnish the earth for their
construction. In some instances the soil of these tumuli is of an
actually different character, the like of which has not been discovered
within several miles of the mounds.
These antiquities constitute the only mementos and annals transmitted to
us, of the mysterious race which once peopled our western territory, and
extended as far east as the shores of the Ohio, as far north as the
great lakes, and westward and southward to Central America. It seems a
pity that no systematic effort has been made to perpetuate them, if not
for the benefit of future generations whose interest and curiosity
should be excited at beholding them, at least out of a consideration for
the unknown race whose work they are, and as enduring monuments to whose
numbers and industry they have remained up to the present time, when all
else has perished. The plow, the hoe and the spade, those iconoclastic
weapons of civilization, are fast effacing them from the surface of the
country. When the plow once breaks the sod which has covered them and
preserved their form, the wind and rain each lend speedy assistance to
the work of destruction, and but a few years will elapse before most of
them will have disappeared altogether, and the places which have known
them for untold centuries will know them no more forever.
It is a fact worthy of mention that these mounds have most frequently
been found on sites selected for modern towns and cities, as though
ancients and moderns alike had instinctively chosen for their abiding
places those localities most favored by nature for the uses of man.
Numerous earthworks about Milwaukee attest the favor in which the
locality of that city was held by this pre-historic race. These works
extend from Kinnickinnic Creek, near the "Indian Fields," where they are
most abundant, to a point six miles above the city. They occupy high
grounds near but not in immediate proximity to the lake and streams, and
are most varied in their form, while many are of large extent. They are
chiefly from one hundred to four hundred feet in diameter, and represent
turtles, lizards, birds, the otter and buffalo, while a number have the
form of a war club. Occasionally, a mound is elevated so as to overlook
or command many others, as though it was a sort of high or superior
altar for the observance of religious or sacrificial rites. Milwaukee is
to be commended for her failure to manifest that spirit of modern
vandalism which, in other sections, has sacrificed the relics of a
by-gone age and people to the fancied utility of civilization. The
Forest Home Cemetery incloses a number of these mounds, and so they are
preserved for the benefit of the antiquary and curiosity seeker. We
trust she will continue to cherish sacredly these few monuments left as
the sole legacy of the ancient inhabitants of the West.
The early Indian name of the river upon which the city of Milwaukee now
stands was Mellcoki. So says one tradition. Another gives the name as
Man-a-wau-kee, from the name of a valuable medicinal root known as
Man-wau; hence, the land or place of the Man-wau. Still another gives
the Indian name as Me-ne-wau-kee---a rich or beautiful land. The Indians
had a village on the site of the present city. The Milwaukee tribe were
troublesome and difficult to manage. About the first trader who ventured
to establish a post among them was Alexander Laframboise, who came from
Mackinaw and located on the spot previous to or about 1785. This trading
post, having been mismanaged, was discontinued about 1800, and another
soon took its place. A succession of trading posts and fur stations
followed, until about 1818, when Solomon Juneau, a Frenchman,
established himself there permanently, with a little colony of
half-breeds, who built themselves log cabins on the banks of the stream,
two miles from the lake, near the junction of the Menomonee. Below them,
on the river flats, where now extend the business streets of the city,
the low marshy ground was overgrown by tall reeds and rushes, while away
back from the river stretched the boundless prairie. The place was
known, thenceforth, as Juneau's Settlement. This settlement gradually
attracted, first, other traders, and finally immigrants. In 1825 it was
still nothing more than a trading station, but ten years later it had
become a settlement and called itself a town, taking the name of
Milwaukee, from the river upon which it was built.
Chicago had already begun her marvelous growth, and was at that very
time extending herself to extraordinary dimensions--on paper. The little
town of Milwaukee had then no thought of rivalry, but was content to
plod along for eleven years more before it received its city charter. By
1850 its growth had been remarkable, and it numbered more than twenty
thousand inhabitants. In 1860 it had more than doubled this population,
recording over forty-five thousand inhabitants, and in 1870 it had
almost doubled again, the census reporting more than seventy-one
thousand persons for that year. In the same year Milwaukee received
18,466,167 bushels of wheat, actually exceeding Chicago by about a
million of bushels. The shipments of wheat the same year were 16,027,780
bushels, and of flour 1,225,340 barrels. Her exports for that year also
included butter, hops, lumber, wool and shingles, of all which
commodities she shipped immense quantities. From 1870 to 1880 the
increase of population and commerce was equally astonishing, while her
manufactures had grown in like proportion.
The vast lumber regions to the northwest help to build up her business;
new towns which spring up throughout the State become tributary to her;
and the farms which are multiplying in that fertile region send a share
of their products to find a gateway through her to the eastern markets
and to Europe. She divides with Chicago the trade which, by means of the
great lakes and the great railway trunk lines, is busy going to and fro
in the land, from east to west and from west to east. When the Northern
Pacific Railway furnishes a continuous route of travel and freight
between Lake Superior and the Northern Pacific States, the business of
Milwaukee will be naturally augmented. But her future prosperity depends
largely upon the prosperity of the agricultural population which
surrounds her, which fills her elevators and warehouses, and furnishes
freight for her boats with its products, and has need of her
manufactures in return. And thus we see illustrated the fundamental
principle of political economy, that that which concerns one must
concern all; that one class or section of people cannot suffer without
affecting in some degree all classes and sections. All are
interdependent, and all must stand or fall together.
CHAPTER XVII.
MONTREAL.
Thousand Islands.--Long Sault Rapids.--Lachine Rapids.--Victoria
Bridge.--Mont Rèal.--Early History of Montreal.--Its Shipping
Interests.--Quays.--Manufactures.--Population.--Roman Catholic
Supremacy.--Churches.--Nunneries.--Hospitals.--Colleges.--
Streets.--Public Buildings.--Victoria Skating Rink.--
Sleighing.--Early Disasters.--Points of Interest.--The
"Canucks."
The traveler who visits Montreal should, if possible, make his approach
to that city by a descent of the St. Lawrence River, that he may become
acquainted with some of the most beautiful scenery in America. Leaving
Kingston, at the outlet of Lake Ontario, he will wind his way through
the mazes of the Thousand Islands, which will seem to him as if
belonging to an enchanted country. These islands, situated at the head
of the St. Lawrence, extend down the river for a distance of thirty
miles, and are innumerable and of every size and shape. Wolf Island,
about fifteen miles in length, is the largest; while some of the
smallest seem like mere flower-pots rising out of the water, with but a
single plant. They are most picturesque in appearance, their rocky
foundations being veiled and softened by the trees and shrubbery which
cover them. In past ages mythology would have made these islands the
sacred abodes of the gods, and peopled their woods and dells with nymphs
and fauns, while the intervening channels would have been presided over
by naiads. A little more than a generation ago, a single inhabitant, a
freebooter, who levied toll upon the passers up and down the river, and
who concealed his ill-gotten booty in his numerous lurking-places in the
islands, turned this terrestrial paradise into a pirate's den. To-day
the Thousand Islands have become famous summer resorts for the denizens
of our northern cities; and large and small are studded with attractive
cottages and imposing villas; while nature, already so beautiful in its
wild state, has been trained into the tamer beauty of modern landscape
gardening.
Beyond the islands the majestic St. Lawrence rolls on until it reaches
the rapids, celebrated in song by Thomas Moore. Here the river narrows,
and the current rushes impetuously over and between the rocks which jut
from its bottom; while the pilot, with watchfulness and skill, guides
the boat through the treacherous channel, and lands her safely in the
smoother waters beyond. These rapids are known as the Long Sault Rapids,
and are nine miles in length. A raft will drift this whole distance in
forty minutes. The passage of boats down these rapids was considered
impossible until 1840, when the famous Indian pilot, Teronhiahéré, after
watching the course of rafts down the stream, attempted it, and
discovered a safe channel for steamboats. Many of the pilots are still
Indians, who exhibit great skill and courage in the undertaking. There
has never yet been a fatal accident in shooting these rapids. The
Cornwall Canal, eleven miles long, permits vessels to go around the
rapids in ascending the river.
The Lachine Rapids, nine miles above Montreal, although the shortest,
are the most dangerous. It is easy enough to descend these rapids, if
one is not particular as to results; but it is difficult enough to
descend them safely. The faint-hearted had better commit themselves to
the more placid waters of the canal, or take to the railroad. But to the
brave traveler there is a certain exhilaration in thus toying with and
conquering danger. The rapids fairly passed, one can distinguish the
long line and graceful archways of the Victoria Bridge, and the towers
and spires of Montreal.
Montreal is on an island thirty-two miles in length, and with a width at
its widest of ten miles. It is at the junction of the St. Lawrence and
Ottawa, both of them noble rivers, and is connected with the mainland by
two bridges, one of them spanning the Ottawa by a series of immense
arches; and the other, the Victoria bridge, thrown across the St.
Lawrence. The length of the latter bridge is nearly two miles. It rests
upon twenty-three piers and two abutments of solid masonry, the central
span being three hundred and thirty feet long. Its total cost was about
$6,300,000. It was formally opened to the public by the Prince of Wales,
on the occasion of his visit to America during the summer of 1860. The
railway track runs through an iron tube, twenty-two feet high and
sixteen feet wide. The river rolls nearly a hundred feet below, in
summer a sweeping flood, and in winter a sort of glacier, the ice masses
piled and heaped upon one another, as they have been upheaved or hurled
in the contentions between the current and the frost-king.
The city of Montreal is distinctly outlined against Mount Royal or Mont
Rèal, which rises back of it, its edifices showing dark and gray, except
where the sun catches its numerous tin roofs, making them glitter like
burnished steel. It takes its name from Mont Rèal, the mountain already
referred to, which closes it in on one side, and rises seven hundred and
fifty feet above the river. Its eastern suburb, still known as
Hochelaga, was the site of an Indian village when it was discovered, in
1535, by Jacques Cartier, and this explorer it was who gave the name to
the mountain. In 1642, just one hundred and fifty years after the
discovery of America, it was settled by the French, retaining its Indian
name for a century later, when that appellation was replaced by the
French one of "Ville Marie." In 1761 the city came into the possession
of the British, and received its present name. In 1775 it was captured
by the Americans under General Montgomery, and held by them until the
following summer.
Montreal was, under both French and British rule, an outpost of Quebec
until 1832, when it became a separate port. The shallower parts of the
river being deepened above Quebec, Montreal became accessible to boats
drawing from nineteen to twenty-two feet of water. It is now the chief
shipping port of Canada. It is five hundred miles from the sea, and
ninety miles above tidewater; and being at the head of ship navigation
of the St. Lawrence, and at the foot of the great chain of inland lakes,
rivers and canals which connect it with the very centre of the American
continent, its commerce is very important. At the confluence of the
Ottawa with the St. Lawrence, it is also the outlet of a vast lumber
country. It feels, however, the serious disadvantage of being, for five
months in the year, blockaded, and made, to all intents and purposes, an
inland city, by the closing of navigation during the winter. Then, by
means of the Grand Trunk and other railways, it becomes tributary to
Portland, Maine, and finds, at that city, a port for its commerce. Its
two miles of quays, including the locks and stone-cut wharves of the
Lachine Canal, all built of solid limestone, would do credit to any city
in the world; while a broad wall or esplanade extends between these
quays and the houses which overlook the river. Montreal takes a front
rank in its manufacturing interests, which embrace all kinds of
agricultural and mechanical implements, steam engines, printing types,
India-rubber shoes, paper, furniture, woolens, cordage and flour. In
1874 its exports were valued at over twenty-two millions of dollars.
The population of Montreal in 1779 was only about seven thousand
inhabitants. In 1861 it had increased to 70,323; and in 1871 the census
returns made the population 115,926. Of these inhabitants, probably more
than one-half are Roman Catholics, representing a great variety of
nationalities, among which, however, French Canadians and Irish
predominate. The Catholics were, at first, under French dominion, in
exclusive possession of the city, and the different religious societies
gained vast wealth. Ever since Canada has passed into the hands of
England they still hold their own, and exercise an influence over the
people, and display a magnificence in their edifices and appointments,
unknown in other sections of America.
No city of the same size in the United States has such splendid
churches. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame, fronting on the
Place d'Armes, is the largest on the continent. It is two hundred and
forty-one feet in length, by one hundred and thirty-five feet in width,
and is capable of seating more than ten thousand persons. It is a
massive structure, built of stone, in the Gothic style with a tower at
each corner, and one in the middle of each flank, numbering six in all.
The towers on the main front are two hundred and twelve feet high, and
furnish to visitors a magnificent view of the city. In one of these
towers is a fine chime of bells, the largest of which, the "Gros
Bourdon," weighs twenty-nine thousand four hundred pounds. But as large
as is this cathedral, it will be surpassed in size by the Cathedral of
St. Peter, now in process of erection at the corner of Dorchester and
Cemetery streets, and built after the general plan of St. Peter's at
Rome. This cathedral will be three hundred feet long by two hundred and
twenty-five feet wide at the transepts, and will be surmounted by five
domes, the largest of which will be two hundred and fifty feet in
height, supported on four piers and thirty-two Corinthian columns. The
vestibule alone will be two hundred feet long by thirty feet wide, and
will be fronted by a portico, surmounted by colossal statues of the
Apostles. It will, when completed, be by far the finest and largest
church edifice in America. St Patrick's Church at the west end of
Lagauchère street, is noticeable for its handsome Gothic windows of
stained glass, and will seat five thousand persons. The Church of the
Gesü, in Blewry street, has the finest interior in the city, the vast
nave, seventy-five feet in height, being bordered by rich composite
columns, and the walls and ceilings beautifully frescoed.
The Roman Catholic churches undoubtedly exceed in size and number those
of the Protestants, though some of the latter are worthy of note. Christ
Church Cathedral--Episcopal, in St. Catherine street, is the most
perfect specimen of English Gothic architecture in America. It is built
of rough Montreal stone, with Caen stone facings, cruciform, and
surmounted by a spire two hundred and twenty-four feet high. St.
Andrew's Church--Presbyterian, in Radegonde street, is a fine specimen
of Gothic architecture, being an imitation, on a reduced scale, of
Salisbury Cathedral. Zion Church--Independent, in Radegonde street, near
Victoria Square, was the scene of the riot and loss of life on the
occasion of Gavazzi's lecture in 1852.
Like Quebec, Montreal is famous for its nunneries. The Gray Nunnery,
founded in 1692, for the care of lunatics and children, is situated in
Dorchester street. This nunnery owns Nun's Island, in Lake St. Louis,
above Montreal, once an Indian burial ground, but now in a high state of
cultivation. In Notre Dame street, near the Place d'Armes, is the Black
or Congregational Nunnery, which dates from 1659, and is devoted to the
education of girls. At Hochelaga is the Convent of the Holy Name of
Mary. The Hôtel Dieu, founded in 1644, for the cure of the sick, and St.
Patrick's Hospital, are both under the charge of the Sisters of St.
Joseph. The Christian Brothers have control of numerous schools, and
render material aid to morality and religion. The Seminary of St.
Sulspice is a large and stately building, devoted to the education of
Catholic priests. Nuns and priests are familiar objects upon the
streets, and not always a welcome sight to the Protestant eye;
nevertheless, the good works in which they engage are numerous and not
to be undervalued.
The number of hospitals, scientific institutions, libraries,
reading-rooms, schools and universities of Montreal is remarkable. Many
of them are under Catholic control, and all are worthy of a highly
civilized and prosperous community. First among the educational
institutions of the city is McGill College, founded by a bequest of the
Hon. James McGill, in 1811, and erected into a university, by royal
charter, in 1821. It is beautifully situated at the base of Mount Royal,
and, besides a large corps of able professors, possesses one of the
finest museums in the country.
Montreal is a beautiful city. Its public buildings are constructed of
solid stone, in which a handsome limestone, found in the neighborhood,
predominates. Its churches, banks, hospitals and colleges are all
edifices of which to be proud. Its private dwellings are, a majority of
them, substantially built, while many of the roofs, cupolas and spires
are covered with metal, which, seen at a distance, glitters in the sun.
The most elegant private residences are found upon the slope of Mont
Rèal, surrounded by ample grounds containing fine lawns, trees and
shrubbery. From these hillside residences the scenery is most lovely,
looking over a panorama of city, river and country, with the blue tops
of the mountain ranges of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire plainly
perceptible on clear days.
St. Paul street is the chief commercial thoroughfare, and extends nearly
parallel to the river, but a square or two back from it, the whole
length of the city. Commissioner street faces the quays and monopolizes
much of the wholesale trade. McGill, St. James and Notre Dame are also
important business streets. Great St. James and Notre Dame streets are
the fashionable promenades, while Catherine, Dorchester and Sherbrook
streets contain the finest private residences. At the intersection of
McGill and St. James streets, in a small public square, called Victoria
Square, is a fountain and a bronze statue of Queen Victoria. A number of
fine buildings surround this square, prominent among which are the
Albert buildings and the beautiful Gothic structure of the Young Men's
Christian Association.
Bontecour's Market, a spacious stone edifice in the Doric style, is one
of the handsomest buildings in the city. It fronts the river at the
corner of St. Paul and Water streets, is three stories high, surmounted
by a dome, from which the view is exceptionally fine. The new City Hall,
at the head of Jacques Cartier Square, containing the offices of the
various civil and corporate functionaries, is an elegant structure,
spacious and perfect in all its appointments. The Court House, in Notre
Dame street, is three hundred feet long by one hundred and twenty-five
feet wide, in the Doric style, and erected at a cost of over three
hundred thousand dollars. It includes a law library of six thousand
volumes. Back of it is the Champs de Mars, a fine military parade
ground. The Custom House is between St. Paul street and the river, on
the site of an old market-place, and is a massive structure with a fine
tower. The Post Office is an elegant building near the Place d'Armes, in
great St. James street. In the Place d'Armes, is the Bank of Montreal
and the City Bank, Masonic Hall, the headquarters of the Masons of
Canada, and several other of the principal banks of the city. Mechanics'
Institute, in great St. James street, though plain externally, has an
elaborately decorated lecture room. The principal hotels are the
Windsor, in Dorchester street, one of the finest of its kind in America;
the St. Lawrence, in Great St. James street; the Ottawa House, corner of
St. James and Notre Dame streets; Montreal House, in Custom House
Square; the Richelieu Hotel, and the Albion.
One of the principal points of attraction in both winter and summer is
the Victoria Skating Rink, in Dominion Square. This extensive building
is used during the milder months of the year for horticultural shows,
concerts and miscellaneous gatherings. In the winter the doors of this
place are thronged with a crowd of sleighs and sleigh drivers, while
inside, skaters and spectators form a living, moving panorama, pleasant
to look upon. The place is lighted by gas, and men and women, old and
young, with a plentiful sprinkling of children, on skates, are
practicing all sorts of gyrations. The ladies are prettily and
appropriately dressed in skating costumes, and some of them are
proficient in the art of skating. The spectators sit or stand on a
raised ledge around the ice parallelogram, while the skaters dart off,
singly or in pairs, executing quadrilles, waltzes, curves, straight
lines, letters, labyrinths, and every conceivable figure. Now and then
some one comes to grief in the surging, moving throng; but is quickly on
his or her feet again, the ice and water shaken off, and the zigzag
resumed. Children skate; boys and girls; ladies and gentlemen, and even
dignified military officers. Some skate well, some medium, some
shockingly ill; but all skate, or essay to do so. It is the grand
Montrealese pastime, and though the ice is sloppy, and the air chill and
heavy with moisture, everybody has a good time.
There is one other amusement of the public, and that is sleighing. The
winter in the latitude of Montreal is long and cold, and sometimes the
snow falls to a depth of several feet, lying upon the ground for
months. When winter settles down upon the city, the river freezes over,
leaving the island an island no longer, but making it part and parcel of
the surrounding continent. Then the people wrap themselves in furs and
betake themselves to their sleighs, and glide swiftly along the
well-beaten roads, between the white drifts. Vehicles of every
description, from the most elegant appointed sleigh down to the rough
box sled, are seen upon the road, and the jingle of bells is everywhere
heard, as the sledges follow, pass and repass one another on the snowy
track. Ladies closely wrapped in furs and veils, and their cavaliers in
fur caps with flaps brought closely around ears and chin, alike bid
defiance to the temperature, which is not infrequently in the
neighborhood of zero; and the blood seems to course more quickly for the
keenness of the atmosphere.
During its long history, Montreal has had disasters as well as
successes. Something over a hundred years after its founding as a French
colony it was nearly destroyed by fire, and a little later it became a
favorite point of attack during the two American wars. But to-day it is
the most thriving city of the British provinces. It has pushed its
railway communications with great energy, and so long as peace is
maintained between Canada and the United States it will continue to
prosper. In the event of war, the city lies in an exposed position, and
during the winter its only outlet, by rail to Portland, would be cut
off.
The Nelson Monument in Jacques Cartier Square, and near it the old
Government House, will prove objects of interest to the visitor, though
the former is in somewhat of a dilapidated condition. The city is
supplied with water by works which are situated a mile or so above it,
in the midst of beautiful scenery. Mount Royal Cemetery is two miles
from the city, on the northern slope of the mountain. One of the most
beautiful views in the neighborhood of Montreal is the famous around the
mountain drive, nine miles in length, and passing by Mount Royal Park.
First settled by the French, their descendants, the French Canadians,
form a considerable proportion of the population of Montreal. But
whatever they may have been in the past, they have degenerated into an
illiterate, unenterprising people. The English, Irish and Scotch, who
during the past century have been emigrating to Canada in such numbers,
have monopolized most of the business, and have rescued Montreal, as
well as Lower Canada generally, from a stagnation which was sure to
creep upon it if left in the hands of the descendants of the early
French settlers. Arcadian innocence and simplicity have developed, or
rather degenerated, into indolence, stolidity and ignorance. The priests
do the thinking for these people, who, apparently have few ambitions in
life beyond meeting its daily wants. Thus, though the streets of
Montreal still bear the old names, and though its architecture still
retains much of the quaintness which it early assumed, the business is
largely in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, who are its later
settlers; and English pluck, Irish industry, Scotch thrift and American
push, are all brought into marked contrast with the sluggishness and
lethargy of the "Canucks." The names over the principal business houses
are either English, Scotch or Irish; and the sympathies of the
intelligent people are entirely in harmony with the government under
which they live.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NEWARK.
From New York to Newark.--Two Hundred Years Ago.--The
Pioneers.--Public Parks.--City of Churches.--The Canal.--
Sailing Up-Hill.--An Old Graveyard.--New Amsterdam and New
Netherlands.--The Dutch and English.--Adventurers from New
England.--The Indians.--Rate of Population.--Manufactures.--
Rank as a City.
Nine miles, in a westerly direction, from New York, on a lovely morning
in the early autumn of 1880, by the comfortable cars of that most
perfect of all railways, the "Pennsylvania," brought our little party to
Newark, which I had often heard spoken of as the leading commercial and
manufacturing city of New Jersey.
Situated in the northeastern corner of the State, on the west bank of
the Passaic, three miles from its entrance into Newark Bay--the city of
Newark occupies the most delightful spot in a State famed for its
beauty. In our short journey from New York we passed over broad, level
meadows, bearing some resemblance to a western prairie. The Passaic and
the Hackensack rivers traverse these prairie-like meadows, while rising
abruptly in the distance you behold the historic Bergen Heights.
Disembarking at the conveniently located Market Street Depot, we sought
and found a temporary home, and then lost no time in gratifying our
native curiosity, by exploring the city and learning something of its
origin and history.
Newark is over two hundred years old, and yet is regularly laid out; its
wide and well paved streets are adorned and shaded with grand old
elms--some of them coeval with the founding of the city. Its chief
business thoroughfare, Broad street, running north and south, through
the central part of the city, has many fine business blocks, and a finer
avenue cannot be found than the south end of Broad street, lined with
wide-spreading elms, and extending, apparently, into infinitude. One
peculiarity that absorbed my attention, was the vast number of
manufacturing establishments here, located, for the most part, outside
of the central streets, and these are doubtless the source of her
prosperity.
About two hundred years ago Newark was an obscure hamlet of some sixty
odd settlers. Since that time it has grown into a city of one hundred
and thirty thousand inhabitants. The handful of original settlers were,
for the most part, upright, earnest and sturdy mechanics, of Anglo-Saxon
blood, and they laid the foundation of what is now one of the most
important cities of the Union, ranking, indeed, among the foremost of
the world's industrial bee-hives--a monster workshop, whose skilled
labor cannot well be surpassed anywhere. They called their village after
the old English town of Newark-on-Trent; and Newark-on Passaic has now
grown into a city ten times greater than its ancient namesake.
The public parks possess a startling interest to the stranger visiting
Newark for the first time. Seldom have I found so many, and of such
extent, in a city that measures only five miles long, by five broad.
Possessed of such breathing places, a town must of necessity be healthy,
and I accordingly found this strongly indicated in the faces of all I
met, more especially of the blooming young maidens and their mammas. We
are told that when the first settlers purchased the site of Newark and
its surrounding lands, of the native Indians, and laid out their embryo
city, they wisely reserved certain tracts for public purposes, and that
most of these still exist as ornaments of the city. Besides those set
apart for churches and graveyards, the principal reservations were the
"Training-place," the "Market-place," and the "Watering-place." The
Training-place is now Military Park, on the east side of Broad street,
near its centre; and the Market-place is now Washington Park. These and
several others in various parts of this favored city, form delightful
retreats from the sun's rays--shaded by majestic elms--a veritable _rus
in urbe_. The suburbs also are passing beautiful, extending to Orange on
the west, and to within a mile of Elizabeth on the south--both busy
towns.
Like Brooklyn, Newark may be called a city of churches, and its
enlightened and industrious citizens are a church-going people. The
Reformed Dutch Church dates from 1663; and the First Presbyterian from
1667. These were the parent churches, and their progeny are manifold and
prosperous, as noted in the exceptionally high standard of morality that
generally characterizes the peaceful workers in this hive of industry.
I was especially struck with the canal which flows under Broad street,
and the ingenuity displayed in surmounting a hill that crosses it, by
the barges navigating its waters. Here it may be almost said that among
their numberless other inventions, the inhabitants of Newark have
discovered the art of sailing up a hill! Instead of a lock, by which
similar difficulties of inland navigation are usually overcome, the
barges are drawn in a cradle up an inclined plane, by means of a
stationary steam engine placed at the top of the hill, where the canal
recommences, and the barges are re-launched to continue their course
westward.
In my rambles down Broad street, on its well-paved sidewalk, flanked by
flourishing stores, in which every commodity, from a five hundred dollar
chronometer down to a ten cent pair of men's socks, is presented for
sale, I stopped at an arched gateway on my right, my attention being
arrested by a patch of green sward behind it. The gate stood invitingly
open, and passing through, I found myself in a venerable and disused
graveyard.
"This is the oldest of the city graveyards," said an elderly gentleman,
to whom I addressed myself for information, "and is of the same age as
the city itself. It is the resting-place of many of the original
inhabitants. The first church of Newark stood here, and around, you will
observe, are tombs, bearing dates of two centuries ago." Such, I found,
on investigation, to be the case. These old stones--most of their
inscriptions now undecipherable,--were erected to commemorate the dead
colonists' names and virtues, more than one hundred years before
Washington was born, or they had dreamed of casting off the authority of
mother England. I reflected: what was Newark like in those far-away
days, two hundred years ago? How did she compare with Newark in the year
of grace 1880?
In 1608 Henry Hudson descended the noble river which bears his name, and
the settlement of _New Amsterdam_ by the Hollanders soon followed. Next,
_New Netherlands_ was added to the territory of the Dutchmen, then a
great maritime people. Down to the beginning of the seventeenth century
the colonization of New Netherlands, on the western banks of the Hudson,
had made but little progress. It was all a wilderness, peopled only by
Indians. The white man had scarcely penetrated its fertile valleys. The
story is told, however, that some of Hudson's hardy crew had sailed in
their boats through the _Kill-von-Kule_, at the north of what is now
Staten Island, and passed northward into the Passaic River. The
enterprising Dutch traders were no doubt fully cognizant of the
boundless possibilities of the country, whose fairest spot was destined
to form the site of the city of Newark.
But these Dutchmen were only lawless adventurers. By right of discovery,
a priority of title to all the lands in North America was claimed by
England, who declared war upon Holland and all her reputed possessions.
_New Amsterdam_ and the province of _New Netherlands_ were among the
first to succumb, and in 1664 England obtained complete command of the
Atlantic coast. _New Amsterdam_ then became _New York_, in honor of the
Duke of York, brother of King Charles II; and _New Netherlands_ became
_New Jersey_, in compliment to the Countess of Jersey, a court favorite.
To this conquest by England we owe our English tongue, for had the
Hollanders vanquished the English, and retained possession, we should
doubtless all be speaking "low Dutch" to-day, instead of English. But
this is a digression.
Colonization rapidly followed when the phlegmatic Dutchmen were turned
out, and the first English governor of the province of New Jersey
inaugurated a very liberal form of government. This induced many
adventurers from New England to unite their fortunes with the colonists
of New Jersey. Under the leadership of the enterprising Captain Treat,
these New Englanders proceeded to select a site for their new town. They
soon found a spot exactly suited to their wishes; a fertile soil,
beautiful woodlands, and a navigable stream; while away to the eastward
was a wide and sheltered bay.
In May, 1666, about thirty families, John Treat being their captain,
laid the foundation of Newark. A conference was held with the Indians,
which resulted satisfactorily to all. They transferred the land to the
white men, and received in payment for what now constitutes the county
of Essex, "Fifty double-hands of powder, one hundred bars of lead,
twenty axes, twenty coats, ten guns, twenty pistols, ten kettles, ten
swords, four blankets, four barrels of beer, two pairs of breeches,
fifty knives, twenty hoes, eight hundred and fifty fathoms of wampum,
two ankers of liquor, or something equivalent; and three troopers'
coats, with the ornaments thereon."
A few years later a second purchase was made, by which the limits of the
city they were building were extended westward to the top of Orange
Hill, the equivalent being "two guns, three coats and thirteen cans of
rum."
For many years, Newark grew and prospered. In 1681 she was the "most
compact town in the province, with a population of 500." In 1713 Queen
Anne granted a charter of incorporation, thus making the township of
Newark a body politic, which continued in force until the Revolution.
With the successful close of the war, Newark entered on a new and
prosperous era, and the population increased very largely. In 1795
bridges were built over the Passaic and the Hackensack. In 1810 the
population is given as 6,000, and in 1830 it had increased to 11,000.
From this date its rate of progress has been very rapid, and at the
present time Newark ranks as the thirteenth city of the Union in
population.
I cannot conclude this chapter without a few words on the manufactures
of Newark. The early settlers were, as we have said, in the main,
mechanics and artisans, and from this circumstance the growth of the
city lay in the direction of manufactures. Newark, to-day, is among the
foremost cities of the Union in intelligent industry. So early as 1676
efforts were made to promote the introduction of manufactures. The
nearness of the city to New York, the chief market in the Union, with
shipping facilities to every quarter of the globe; with the great iron
and coal fields easy of access, and a thrifty and industrious people,
Newark drew to her mills and factories abundant capital and skilled
workmen. She has contributed more useful inventions to industrial
progress than any other American city. The Newark Industrial Exposition
was originated in 1872, for the purpose of holding an annual exhibition
of her local manufactures. The enterprise met with signal success. We
have counted no less than four hundred distinct manufactories in
operation in this extraordinary city, a list of which would occupy too
much of our space. Hardware, tools, machinery, jewelry, leather, hats,
and trunks seem to predominate. Of the last-named indispensable article,
Newark has the most extensive manufactory in the world, 7,000 trunks per
week, or about 365,000 yearly being produced here. It is said that in
the manufacture of the best steam fire-engines, Newark ranks first. The
number of persons finding employment in the factories is about 25,000,
and the amount of wages paid weekly averages $250,000, or about
$13,000,000 per year. The annual value of the productions of all her
manufactories amounts to about $60,000,000.
Thus it is seen that Newark has developed into one of the principal
producing cities of the United States, the value of her diversified
manufactured products making her, in this respect, the third, if not the
second city of the Union.
CHAPTER XIX.
NEW HAVEN.
The City of Elms.--First Impressions.--A New England Sunday.--
A Sail on the Harbor.--Oyster Beds.--East Rock.--The Lonely
Denizen of the Bluff.--Romance of John Turner.--West Rock.--
The Judges' Cave.--Its Historical Association.--Escape of the
Judges.--Monument on the City Green.--Yale College.--Its Stormy
Infancy.--Battle on the Weathersfield Road.--Harvard, the Fruit
of the Struggle.
Leaving New York by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, we
found ourselves, at the end of a three hours' ride, in New Haven, the
beautiful "City of Elms."
Everything here bears the impress of New England, with the special
peculiarities of Connecticut, land of smart sayings and of the
proverbial wooden nutmegs and oak hams. Stepping from the cars, my ears
were first saluted by the salutations of two genial Yankees, one of
whom, I inferred from the conversation, had just arrived from
Bridgeport, and the other at the depot had awaited his coming.
Compliments were passed by the latter, who saluted his friend with--
"Well, old boy, where have you been all summer? I see you have got your
dust full of eyes."
The reply to this salute was in entire harmony with the interrogation,
and both walked away from the station, amusing each other with odd
maxims and witty retorts.
It being our intention to remain several weeks in New Haven, we decided
to take up our abode at a private house, and with this object in view
we started in pursuit of suitable accommodations. It was soon discovered
that in the matter of board we were competing with "Old Yale," students
always being preferred, owing to the prospect of permanency.
A reconnoissance of several hours, during which we saw more stately elms
than I ever expect to see again in so short a period, brought us to 66
Chapel street, where we were pleasantly lodged, with an excellent table,
and favored with a Yankee landlord from the classic banks of the Rhine.
Universal quiet on the streets, and an inexhaustible supply of brown
bread and beans at the breakfast table, was an unmistakable evidence
that we had reached a New England Sunday. After breakfast, the weather
being fine, I was invited to accompany some young gentlemen in a sail
down the harbor. Being uncertain as to the propriety of such a
proceeding on the seventh day, I was promptly assured that the Blue Laws
of Connecticut would not be outraged in case I had taken a generous
ration of brown bread and beans before starting.
A ride of half an hour, with but little wind in our sails, carried us
down through the oyster beds, to a point nearly opposite the lighthouse
at the mouth of the harbor. A novel sight, in my judgment, is a
multitude of oyster plantations staked out in such a manner as to show
the proprietor of each particular section his exact limit or boundary.
To those of my readers who are familiar with hop-growing regions, I
would say that an oyster farm is not unlike a hop field which seems to
have been suddenly inundated by water, leaving only the tops of the
poles above the surface. Oyster raising is one of the leading features
of New Haven enterprise, and the Fair Haven oysters, in particular, are
regarded among the best that are cultivated on the Atlantic coast. On
our return trip up the harbor the tide was going out, and as the water
was extremely shallow in many places, and also very clear, we could see
oysters and their less palatable neighbors, clams, in great abundance. I
was strongly tempted to make substantial preparation for an oyster
dinner, but on being informed that such a course would be equivalent to
staking out claims in a strange water-melon patch, I concluded to
desist, and contented myself with seeing more oysters in half an hour
than I had seen in all my life before.
EAST ROCK.
One of the famous places of resort in the neighborhood of New Haven is
East Rock, an abrupt pile of red-brown trap rock, lifting itself up from
the plain to a height of four hundred feet. The summit of this
monumental pile spreads out in a wide plateau of twenty-five or thirty
acres, sloping gradually back towards the meadow lands which border the
winding Quinnipiac River. It is owned and occupied by a somewhat
eccentric individual, rejoicing in the name of Milton Stuart, who
related to me the story of his life in this strange locality since
taking up his abode here, some twenty years ago. On being told that I
would commit to paper some account of my wanderings about New Haven, he
seemed to take an especial pleasure in showing me his grounds and
telling me everything of interest concerning them.
With ready courtesy he pointed out a heap of stones on the western
slope of the bluff, which he said was all that remained of a hut
formerly occupied by one John Turner, who made a hermit of himself on
this rock, years ago, all because the lady of his love refused to become
Mrs. Turner. He met her while teaching in the South--so the story
ran--and all his energies seemed to be paralyzed by her refusal to
listen to his suit. He came to East Rock and built this wretched hovel
of stone, where he lived in solitude, and where one morning in that long
ago, he was found dead on the floor of his hovel. How many romances like
this lie about us unseen, under the every-day occurrences of life!
WEST ROCK
is a continuation of the precipitous bluff of which East Rock is one
extremity, and is about a mile further up the valley. It is not so high
nor so imposing as East Rock, and the view from its wooded top fades
into tameness beside the remote ocean distance and the flash of city
spires to be seen from East Rock. But it makes up in historical interest
what it may lack in other attractions; for here, about a quarter of a
mile from its southernmost point, is located the "Judge's Cave," famous
as the hiding-place of the regicides who tried and sentenced King
Charles the First, in the seventeenth century.
On the restoration of Charles II to the throne of his father, three of
the high court which had condemned the first Charles wisely left England
for the shores of the New World. Their names were Goffe, Whalley and
Dixwell. Whalley was a lieutenant-general, Dixwell was a colonel, and
Goffe a major-general. These noted army officers arrived at Boston, from
England, July twenty-seventh, 1660, and first made their home in
Cambridge. Finding that place unsafe, they afterwards went to New Haven.
The next year news came from England that thirty-nine of the regicide
judges were condemned, and ten already executed, as traitors. An order
from the king was sent to the Colonial governors of Massachusetts and
Connecticut, for the arrest of the judges. They were thus compelled to
fly for their lives, and sought refuge in the cave on West Rock, which
afterwards bore their name. Here they lived concealed for some time,
being supplied with food by Richard Sperry, who lived about a mile west
of the cave. The food was tied up in a cloth and laid on a stump near
by, from which the judges could take it unobserved.
One night they beheld the blazing eyes of a catamount or panther,
peering in upon them at their cave, and were so frightened that they
fled in haste to the house of Mr. Sperry, and could not again be induced
to return. Several large boulders, from twenty to thirty feet in height,
thrown together, doubtless, by some volcanic convulsions, unite to form
the cave.
Dixwell afterwards lived in New Haven, under an assumed name, and the
graves of all three may now be seen, at one side of Centre Church, on
the City Green.
The following inscription is on a marble slab over the ashes of Dixwell,
erected by his descendants in 1849:--
"Here rests the remains of John Dixwell, Esq., of the Priory of
Folkestone, in the county of Kent, England. Of a family long
prominent in Kent and Warwickshire, and himself possessing large
estates and much influence in his county, he espoused the popular
cause in the revolution of 1640. Between 1640 and 1660 he was
Colonel in the Army, an active member of four parliaments, and
thrice in the Council of State; and one of the High Court which
tried and condemned King Charles the First. At the restoration of
the monarchy he was compelled to leave his country, and after a
brief residence in Germany, came to New Haven, and here lived in
seclusion, but enjoying the esteem and friendship of its most
worthy citizens, till his death in 1688-9."
The little brown headstone which first marked his resting place bore
only his initials and the date of his death:--
"J. D. Esq.
Deceased March Y^e 18th in Y^e 82^D Year of his age 1688/9."
That was all--his name being suppressed, at his request.
The headstones of Goffe and Whalley are marked in the same obscure way.
Yale College adds largely to the importance of New Haven, and the
elegant new College buildings now in process of erection, built of brown
freestone, cannot well be surpassed in style of architecture. "Old Yale"
was originally a small school, established in Saybrook by Rev. Thomas
Peters, who lived at that place, and who bequeathed his library to the
school at his death. It soon acquired the title of the "Illustrious
School," and about the year 1700 was given a charter of incorporation
from the General Assembly, making it a college.
It was named Yale, after its greatest benefactor, who was at that time
governor of one of the West India islands. The historian, Dr. Samuel
Peters, who wrote nearly a hundred years ago, said that Greek, Latin,
Geography, History and Logic were well taught in this seminary, but it
suffered for want of tutors in the Hebrew, French and Spanish languages.
He remarks, incidentally, that "oratory, music and _politeness_ are
equally neglected here and in the Colony." The students, numbering at
that time one hundred and eighty, were allowed two hours' play with the
foot ball every day, and were seated at four tables in the large dining
room. This ancient historian says the college was built of wood, was one
hundred and sixty feet long and three stories high, besides garrets. In
1754 another building, of brick, one hundred feet long, with double
rooms and a double front, was added. About 1760 a chapel and library
were erected, which was described as being "very elegant." The "elegant"
structure of a hundred years ago will soon be discarded for the new one
of brown freestone.
In the year 1717 the seminary was removed from Saybrook to New Haven,
but it had a hard time in getting there. A vote was passed to remove the
college from Saybrook, because, as the historian says, Saybrook was
suspected of being too much in sympathy with the Church of England and
not sufficiently alienated from the mother country. But there was a
division in the vote, the Hartford ballot being in favor of removing the
college to Weathersfield, while the New Haven party declared in behalf
of their own city. A small battle grew out of this split between the
Weathersfield and New Haven factions. Hartford, in order to carry its
vote into execution, prepared teams, boats and a mob, and privately set
off for Saybrook, seizing upon the college apparatus, library and
students, which they carried to Weathersfield.
This redoubled the jealousy of the "saints" at New Haven, who thereupon
determined to fulfill their vote, and accordingly, having collected a
mob, they set out for Weathersfield, where they seized by surprise the
students and library. On the road to New Haven they were overtaken by
the Hartford faction, who, after an inglorious battle, were obliged to
retire with only part of the library and part of the students. From this
affair sprang the two colleges, Yale and Harvard.
The Massachusetts Bay people acted the part of peacemakers, and settled
the difficulty between these two hostile factions, which resulted
finally in placing the college at New Haven. So it seems our Puritan
ancestors had their little disputations then, much as our Alabama and
Arkansas brothers do now.
What a flaming head-line that college battle doubtless furnished the
bulletin boards and colonial press of 1717! Imagine a column beginning
with this:--
_Sharp Fight on the Weathersfield Road!_
_Large Captures of Students!_
_New Haven Victorious!_
But out of revenge for the victory, the sons of Hartford were not sent
to Yale College to be educated. No, rather than go to Yale they went
much further away, at greater expense, and where fewer educational
advantages could be obtained. What were such disadvantages, however,
compared to the satisfaction of standing by their party and ignoring the
New Haven vote?
But old Yale grew and flourished, despite the stormy days of its
childhood, and has now a world-wide reputation. Many distinguished men
of letters call her "Alma Mater," and in all their wanderings carry her
memory green in their hearts.
CHAPTER XX.
NEW ORLEANS.
Locality of New Orleans.--The Mississippi.--The Old and the
New.--Ceded to Spain.--Creole Part in the American Revolution.--
Retransferred to France.--Purchased by the United States.--
Creole Discontent.--Battle of New Orleans.--Increase of
Population.--The Levee.--Shipping.--Public Buildings, Churches,
Hospitals, Hotels and Places of Amusement.--Streets.--Suburbs.--
Public Squares and Parks.--Places of Historic Interest.--
Cemeteries.--French Market.--Mardi-gras.--Climate and
Productions.--New Orleans during the Rebellion.--Chief Cotton
Mart of the World.--Exports.--Imports.--Future Prosperity of
the City.
As the traveler proceeds down the Mississippi, from its source to its
mouth, a unique phenomenon strikes his attention. The river seems to
grow higher as he descends. The bluffs, which on one side or the other
rise prominently along its banks in its upper waters, grow less bold,
and finally disappear as he progresses southward. And if it should be
the season of high water, he will find himself, as he nears New Orleans,
gliding down a river which is higher than its bordering land, and which
is restrained in its penchant for destruction, by massive dykes, or
levees, as they are termed in this section.
New Orleans, the commercial metropolis of Louisiana, known as the
"Crescent City," is situated on the eastern, or, more correctly
speaking, the northern bank of the Mississippi River, which here, after
running northward several miles, takes a turn to the eastward.
Originally built in the form of a crescent, around this bend in the
river, it has at the present time extended itself so far up stream that
its shore line is now more in the shape of a letter S. It is one hundred
and twelve miles from the mouth of the Mississippi, 1,200 miles south of
St. Louis, and 1,438 miles southwest of Washington. The city limits
embrace an area of nearly 150 square miles, but the city proper is a
little more than twelve miles long and three miles wide. It is built on
alluvial soil, the ground falling off toward Lake Pontchartrain, which
is five miles distant to the northward, so that portions of the city are
four feet lower than the high water level of the river. The city is
protected from inundation by a levee, twenty-six miles in length,
fifteen feet wide and fourteen feet high. The streets are drained into
canals, from which the water is raised by means of steam pumps, with a
daily capacity of 42,000,000 gallons, which elevates it sufficiently to
carry it off to Lake Pontchartrain.
The geological history of this section of the country is extremely
interesting. The whole region south of New Orleans is made land, having
been brought down from the Rocky Mountains and the western plains, by
that tireless builder, the Mississippi, which has heaped it up, grain by
grain, probably changing the entire course of its lower waters in doing
so, filling up old channels and wearing itself new ones, until it
finally extends its delta, like an outstretched hand, far out into the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The river has a history and a romance, all
its own, beginning with the time when French and Spanish, alike, were
searching for the "Hidden River"--that mysterious stream which,
according to Indian tradition, "flowed to the land from which the sweet
winds of the southwest brought them health and happiness, and where
there was neither snow nor ice," and which was known by so many
different names--and ending with the construction of the gigantic
jetties, which have given depth and permanence to the channels of its
delta.
The visitor finds the city very unlike northern towns with which he has
been familiar. To the Creole quarter especially there is a foreign look,
which is intensified by the frequent sound of foreign speech. It is as
if one had stepped into some old-world town, and left America, with its
newness and its harshness of speech, far behind. But it is not so far
away, either. It is only around the corner, or, at best, a few squares
off. New Orleans of the nineteenth century jostles New Orleans of the
eighteenth on every hand. It has seized upon the old streets, with their
quaint French and Spanish names, and carried them to an extent never
dreamed of by those who originally planned them. It has reared modern
structures beside those hoary with age, and set down the post common
school building and the heretical Protestant church beside the venerable
convent and the solemn cathedral.
The main streets describe a curve, running parallel to the river, and
present an unbroken line from the upper to the lower limits of the city,
a distance of about twelve miles. The cross streets run for the most
part at right angles from the Mississippi River, with greater regularity
than might be expected from the curved outline of the river banks. Many
of the streets are well paved, and some of them are shelled; but many
are unpaved, and, from the nature of the soil, exceedingly muddy in wet
weather, and intolerably dusty in dry. The city is surrounded by cypress
swamps, and its locality and environments render it very unhealthy,
especially during the summer season. Yet, notwithstanding its
insalubrity, it is constantly increasing in population and business
importance. Certain sanitary precautions, adopted in later years, have
somewhat improved its condition.
New Orleans has a history extending further back than that of most
southern towns. While others were making their first feeble struggles
for existence with their treacherous foes, the red-skins, New Orleans
was stirred by discontent and insurrection. In 1690, d'Iberville, in the
name of France, founded the province of Louisiana, and Old Biloxi, at
the mouth of the Lost River, as the Mississippi was still termed, was
made the capital. The choice of site proved a disastrous one, and the
seat of government was moved to New Biloxi, further up the river.
Meantime, Bienville, his younger brother, laid out a little
parallelogram of streets and ditches on a crescent-shaped shore of the
river, in the midst of cypress swamps and willow jungles. A colony of
fifty persons, many of them galley slaves, formed this new settlement.
Houses were built, a fort added, and the little town received its
present name, in honor of the Regent of France, the Duke of Orleans. In
the same year John Law sent eight hundred men from La Rochelle. They had
no sooner landed than they scattered to the four winds, a number of
Germans among them alone remaining in or near the promised city. Amid
many discouragements the town prospered, and when, one after another,
three cargoes of women were sent out from the old country, to furnish
wives for the new settlers, their content was complete. Thus many of the
proudest aristocrats of New Orleans trace their descent from these
"_Filles de Casette_," as they were called, each one being endowed with
a small chest of property.
Here the French Creoles were born, and lived a wild, unrestrained life,
valorous but uneducated, and became such men and women as one would
expect to find in a military outpost so far from the civilized world.
For sixty-three years the little colony struggled for life, enduring
floods and famines, and the terrors of Indian warfare, when, in 1762,
the province of Louisiana was transferred by an unprincipled king to
Spain. The news did not reach the remote American settlement until 1764.
It was hardly to be expected that a colony so separated by time and
distance from the mother country should be intensely loyal, but the
people felt themselves to be French and French only, and they resented
this unwitting transfer of their allegiance as an unendurable grievance.
The Spanish Governor, Ulloa, did not land in New Orleans until two years
later; and though he showed himself to be a man of great discretion, and
inclined to adopt a conciliatory policy, the people made the little town
so hot for him, that in two more years he was glad to return to Spain.
They sent a memorial after him, which, being a most unique document, is
worth recording, in substance. Says a recent historian, Mr. George W.
Cable:--
"It enumerated real wrongs, for which France and Spain, but not Ulloa,
were to blame. Again, with these it mingled such charges against the
banished Governor as--that he had a chapel in his own house; that he
absented himself from the French churches; that he inclosed a fourth of
the public common to pasture his private horses; that he sent to Havana
for a wet nurse; that he ordered the abandonment of a brick-yard near
the town, on account of its pools of putrid water; that he removed
leprous children from the town to the inhospitable settlement at the
mouth of the river; that he forbade the public whipping of slaves in the
town; that masters had to go six miles to get a negro flogged; that he
had landed in New Orleans during a thunder and rain storm, and under
other ill omens; that he claimed to be king of the colony; that he
offended the people with evidences of sordid avarice; and that he added
to these crimes--as the text has it--'many others, equally just and
terrible!'"
In 1769 the colony was in open revolt, and was considering the project
of forming a republic. But the arrival of a Spanish fleet of twenty-four
sail checked their aspirations towards independence, and paralyzed their
efforts, and they yielded without a struggle.
In 1768 New Orleans was a town of 3,200 persons, a third of whom were
black slaves. After the establishment of Spanish rule, although the
population was thoroughly Creole, and opposed to the presence of English
traders, the government at first winked at their appearance, and finally
openly tolerated them, so that English boats supplied the planters with
goods and slaves, and English warehouses moored upon the river opposite
the town disposed of merchandise.
In 1776, at the breaking out of the American Revolution, the Creole and
Anglo-American came into active relations with each other, a relation
which has since qualified every public question in Louisiana. The
British traders were suddenly cut off from communication, and French
merchants commanded the trade of the Mississippi. Americans followed
close after the French, and the tide of immigration became Anglo-Saxon.
France was openly supporting the American colonies in their rebellion
against England, and in 1779 Spain declared war against Great Britain,
so that the sympathies of the Creoles were led, by every tie, to the
rebels. Galvez, then Governor of Louisiana, and also son of the Viceroy
of Mexico, a young man, brave, talented and sagacious, who had adopted a
most liberal policy in his administration, discovered that the British
were planning the surprise of New Orleans. Making hasty but efficient
preparations, with a little army of 1,430 men, and with a miniature gun
fleet of but ten guns, he marched, on the twenty-second of August, 1779,
against the British forts on the Mississippi. On the seventh of
September, Fort Bute, on Bayou Manchac, yielded to the first assault of
the Creole Militia. The Fort of Baton Rouge was garrisoned by five
hundred men with thirteen heavy guns. On the twenty-first of September,
after an engagement of ten hours, Galvez reached the fort. Its
capitulation included the surrender of Fort Panmure, a place which, by
its position, would have been very difficult of assault. In the
Mississippi and Manchac, four English schooners, a brig and two cutters
were captured. On the fourteenth of the following March, Galvez, with an
army of two thousand men, having set sail down the Mississippi, captured
Fort Charlotte, on the Mobile River. On the eighth of May, 1781,
Pensacola, with a garrison of eight hundred men, and the whole of West
Florida, surrendered to Galvez. One of the rewards bestowed upon her
Governor for his valorous achievements was the Captain-generalship of
Louisiana and West Florida. He never returned to New Orleans, however,
and four years later succeeded his father as Viceroy of Mexico. Thus,
while Andrew Jackson was yet a child, New Orleans was defended from
British conquest by this gallant Spanish soldier.
In 1803 Louisiana was transferred to France by Spain, and great was the
rejoicing of the Creole colonists, who, during the forty years of their
Spanish domination, had never forgotten their French origin. But their
joy was quickly turned to bitterness by the news which speedily
followed, that Louisiana had been sold, by Napoleon I, to the United
States. The younger generation, and those who had a clear apprehension
of all in the way of prosperity which this change might mean to them,
were quickly reconciled, and set about the business of life with renewed
interest. But to the French Creoles, as a class, who, during their long
alienation had still at heart been thoroughly French, to become a part
of a republic, and that republic English in its origin, was intensely
distasteful. This was the deluge indeed, which Providence had not kindly
stayed until after their time. They withdrew into a little community of
their own, and refused companionship with such as sacrificed their caste
by accepting the situation, and adapting themselves to it. But in spite
of these disaffected persons, the prosperity of the city dated from that
time. Its population increased, and its commerce made its first small
beginnings.
New Orleans was incorporated as a city in 1804, having then a population
of about 8,000 inhabitants. In 1812 the first steamboat was put upon the
Mississippi, though it was not until several years later that, after a
period of experiment and disaster, success was attained with them. Yet
without steamboats the development of the great Mississippi Valley, and
the creation of the extended cities upon its banks, would have been
well-nigh impossible. Its winding course, its swift current, its
shifting channel, and the snags which line its bottom, make navigation
by other craft than steamboats well-nigh impossible. Canoes, batteaux
and flat-boats might make the voyage down the river with tolerable speed
and safety, but to return against the current was a difficult thing to
do; and a trip from St. Louis or Louisville to New Orleans and return
required months. Where, then, would have been the mighty commerce of the
West, but for the timely invention of the steam engine, and its
application to water craft?
On January eighth, 1815, New Orleans was successfully defended against
the British by General Jackson, who threw up a strong line of defences
around the city, protected by batteries, and who, with a force of
scarcely six thousand men, defeated fifteen thousand British, under Sir
Edward Packenham, the enemy sustaining a loss of seven hundred killed,
fourteen hundred wounded, and five hundred taken prisoners, while the
American loss was but seven men killed and six wounded. The old battle
field is still retained as a historic spot. It is four and one-half
miles south of Canal street, washed by the waters of the Mississippi,
and extends backward about a mile, to the cedar swamps. A marble
monument, seventy feet in height, and yet unfinished, commemorative of
the victory, overlooks the ground. In the southwest corner of the field
is a national cemetery.
The old city bears the impress of the two nations to which it at
different times belonged. Many of the streets still retain the old
French and Spanish names, as, for instance, Tchapitoulas, Baronne,
Perdido, Toulouse, Bourbon and Burgundy streets. There are still, here
and there, the old houses, sandwiched in between those of a later
generation--quaint, dilapidated, and picturesque. Sometimes they are
rickety, wooden structures, with overhanging porticoes, and with windows
and doors all out of perpendicular, and ready to crumble to ruin with
age. Others are massive stone or brick structures, with great arched
doorways, and paved floors, worn by the feet of many generations,
dilapidated and heavy, and possessing no beauty save that which is lent
them by time.
The city is made up of strange compounds, which even yet, after the
lapse of more than three-quarters of a century since it became an
American city, do not perfectly assimilate. Spanish, French, Italians,
Mexicans and Indians, Creoles, West Indians, Negroes and Mulattoes of
every shade, from shiny black to a faint creamy hue, Southerners who
have forgotten their foreign blood, Northerners, Westerners, Germans,
Irish and Scandinavians, all come together here, and jostle one another
in the busy pursuits of life. The levee at New Orleans represents all
spoken languages; and the popular levee clerk must have a knowledge of
multitudinous tongues, which would have secured him a high and
authoritative position at Babel. The Romish devotee, the mild-faced
"sister," in her ugly black habiliments and picturesque head-gear, the
disciple of Confucius, the descendant of the New England Puritan, the
dusky savage, who still looks to the Great Spirit as the giver of all
life and light, the modern skeptic, and the black devotee of Voodoo, all
meet and pass and repass each other. All nationalities, all religions,
all civilizations, meet and mingle to make up this city, which,
upholding the cross to indicate its religion, still, in its municipal
character, accepts the Mohammedan symbol of the crescent. Added to the
throng which comes and goes upon the levee, merchants, clerks, hotel
runners, hackmen, stevedores, and river men of all grades, keep up a
general motion and excitement, while piled upon the platforms which
serve as a connecting link between the water-craft and the shore, are
packages of merchandise in every conceivable shape, cotton bales seeming
to be most numerous.
Along the river front are congregated hundreds of steamers, and
thousands of nondescript boats, among them numerous barges and
flat-boats, thickly interspersed with ships of the largest size, from
whose masts float the colors of every nation in the civilized world. New
Orleans is emphatically a commercial town, depending in only a small
degree, for her success, upon manufactures.
[Illustration: JACKSON SQUARE AND OLD CATHEDRAL, NEW ORLEANS.]
New Orleans is not a handsome city, architecturally speaking, though it
has a number of fine buildings. Its situation is such that it could
never become imposing, under the most favorable circumstances. The
Custom House, a magnificent structure, built of Quincy granite, is, next
to the Capitol at Washington, the largest building in the United States.
It occupies an entire square, its main front being on Canal street, the
broadest and handsomest thoroughfare in the city. The Post Office
occupies its basement, and is one of the most commodious in the country.
The State House is located on St. Louis street, between Royal and
Chartres streets, and was known, until 1874, as the St. Louis Hotel. The
old dining hall is one of the most beautiful rooms in the country,
and the great inner circle of the dome is richly frescoed, with
allegorical scenes and busts of eminent Americans. The United States
Branch Mint, at the corner of Esplanade and Decatur streets, is an
imposing building, in the Ionian style. The City Hall, at the
intersection of St. Charles and Lafayette streets, is the most artistic
of the public buildings of the city. It is of white marble, in the Ionic
style, with a wide and high flight of granite steps, leading to a
beautiful portico. The old Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Louis is the
most interesting church edifice in New Orleans. It stands in Chartres
street, on the east side of Jackson Square. The foundations were laid in
1793, and the building completed in 1794, by Don Andre Almonaster,
perpetual _regidor_ of the province. It was altered and enlarged in
1850. The paintings in the roof of the building are by Canova and Rossi.
The old Ursuline Convent, in Conde street, a quaint and venerable
building, erected in 1787, during the reign of Carlos III, by Don Andre
Almonaster, is one of the most interesting relics of the early Church
history of New Orleans. It is now occupied as a residence by the Bishop.
The Charity Hospital, on Common street, was founded in 1784, has stood
on its present site since 1832, and is one of the most famous
institutions of the kind in the country. Roman Catholic churches,
schools, hospitals and asylums abound, some of them dating back for
nearly or quite a century.
The St. Charles Hotel is one of the institutions of New Orleans, and one
of the largest and finest hotels in the United States. It occupies half
a square, and is bounded by St. Charles, Gravior and Common streets. The
city has a French opera house, an academy of music, and several
theatres and halls. Like those of St. Louis, its inhabitants are
passionately fond of gayety, and places of amusement are well
patronized. Sunday, as in all Catholic cities, is devoted to recreation,
and the inhabitants, in their holiday garments, give themselves up to
enjoyment. Theatres, concert rooms and beer gardens are filled with
pleasure-seekers.
Canal street, the main business thoroughfare and promenade of New
Orleans, is nearly two hundred feet wide, and has a grass plot
twenty-five feet wide, in the centre, bordered on each side by trees.
Claiborne, Rampart, St. Charles and Esplanade streets are similarly
embellished. They all contain many fine stores and handsome residences.
Royal, Rampart and Esplanade streets are the principal promenades of the
French quarter. The favorite drives are out the Shell Road to Lake
Pontchartrain, and out a similar road to Carrollton. The lake is about
five miles north of the city, forty miles long and twenty-four wide, and
is famous for its fish and game. Cypress swamps, the trees covered with
the long, gray Spanish moss peculiar to the latitude, lie between the
lake and the city, and render the drive in that direction an interesting
one.
Carrollton, in the north suburbs, has many fine public gardens and
private residences. On the opposite shore of the river is Algiers, where
there are extensive dry docks and ship-yards. A little further up the
river, on the same side, is Gretna, where, during Spanish rule, lay
moored two large floating English warehouses, fitted up with counters
and shelves, and stocked with assorted merchandise.
New Orleans has a few small, tastefully laid out squares, among which
are Jackson, Lafayette, Douglass, Annunciation and Tivoli Circle. The
City Park, near the northeast boundary, contains one hundred and fifty
acres, which are tastefully laid out, but which is little frequented.
Jackson Square has a historic interest, it having been the old Place
d'Armes of colonial times. It was here that Ulloa landed in that
ill-omened thunder storm, and here that public meetings were held and
the colony's small armies gathered together. The inclosure, though
small, is adorned with beautiful trees and shrubbery, and shell-strewn
paths, and in the centre stands Mills' equestrian statue of General
Jackson.
The city is not without other objects of historic interest. During the
Indian wars barracks arose on either side of the Place d'Armes, and in
1758 other barracks were added, a part of whose ruin still stands, in
the neighborhood of Barracks street. Then there is the battle field,
already referred to, and many buildings belonging to a past century,
some of which have distinctive historic associations. Near Jackson
Square is the site of the oldest Capuchin Monastery in the United
States. Sailing down the Mississippi, the voyager will reach a portion
of the stream which flows almost directly south. Here is a point in the
river which bears the name, to this day, of the English Turn. Up the
mouth of the Mississippi sailed one day, in the seventeenth century, a
proud English vessel, bent on exploration and acquisition of territory
to England. Threading for a hundred miles the comparatively direct
course of the stream, it had then made two abrupt right-angled turns,
when, coming around a third point, in advance of it, it saw a French
ship, armed and equipped, and bearing down stream under full sail. The
English ship was given to understand that the Mississippi was "no
thoroughfare" for boats of its nationality, and commanded to turn and
retrace its course, which it reluctantly, but no less surely did. Hence
the name "English Turn."
The Cemeteries of New Orleans are most peculiar in their arrangement and
modes of interment. The ground is filled with water up to within two or
three feet of the surface, and the tombs are all above ground. A great
majority of them are also placed one above another. Each "oven," as it
is called, is just large enough to admit a coffin, and is hermetically
sealed when the funeral rites are over. A marble tablet is usually
placed upon the brick opening. Some of the structures are, however,
costly and beautiful, being made of marble, granite or iron. There are
thirty-three cemeteries in and near the city, and of these the Cypress
Grove and Greenwood are best worth visiting.
The most picturesque and characteristic feature of New Orleans is the
French Market, on the Levee, near Jackson Square. The gathering begins
at break of day on week-days and a little later on Sunday morning, and
comprises people of every nationality represented in the city. French is
the prevailing language, but it will be heard in every variety, from the
pure Parisian to the childish jargon of the negroes.
Mardi-Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, is observed in New Orleans by peculiar
rites and ceremonies. Rex, King of the Carnival, takes possession of the
city, and passes through the streets, accompanied by a large retinue,
his staff and courtiers robed in Oriental splendor. The city gives
itself up to mirth and gayety, with an abandon only paralleled by that
witnessed in Italy on the same occasion; and the day is concluded by
receptions, tableaux and balls.
[Illustration: NIGHT PARADE OF THE MYSTIC CREW--MARDI-GRAS FESTIVAL,
NEW ORLEANS.]
New Orleans boasts a semi-tropical climate, being situated in latitude
29° 58´ north. The summers are oppressively hot, but the winters are
mild and pleasant, with just sufficient frost to kill any germs of
disease engendered by her unhealthful situation. Semi-tropical fruits,
such as the orange, banana, fig and pine-apple, grow readily in her
gardens, where are also cultivated many of the productions of the
temperate zone. The neighboring country is clothed with a rich and
luxuriant semi-tropical vegetation, and forests of perennial green, in
which the cypress and live-oak predominate.
New Orleans had a population, in 1820, of 27,000. In 1850 it had
increased to 116,375, and in 1860 to 168,675. In common with other
cities of the South, New Orleans suffered in her business interests
severely during the war of the Rebellion. Louisiana having seceded from
the Union in 1861, New Orleans was closely blockaded by the Federal
fleet, and on April twenty-fourth, 1862, the defences near the mouth of
the river were forced by Commodore Farragut, in command of an expedition
of gunboats. On the surrender of the city General B. F. Butler was
appointed its military Governor, and held possession of it until the
close of the war. Its commerce was entirely destroyed during that
period, its business interests crushed, and many of its leading men
impoverished, and, in addition, the State was disturbed by intestine
troubles, which kept affairs in an unsettled condition. New Orleans did
not rally as quickly as St. Louis from the effects of the war.
Nevertheless, in 1870 its population had increased to 191,418, and in
1874 the value of its exports, including rice, flour, pork, tobacco,
sugar, etc., but excepting cotton, were estimated at $93,715,710. Its
imports the same year were valued at more than $14,000,000. It is the
chief cotton mart of the world, and its wharves are lined with ships
which bear this commodity to every quarter of the globe. In the amount
and value of its exports, it ranks second only to New York, though its
imports are not in the same proportion, which always speaks well for the
business prosperity of a city. The census of 1880 gave it a population
of 216,140, showing that its progress still continues. No longer cursed
by the presence of the "peculiar institution," its former slave marts
turned into commercial depots or abolished altogether, and its
population numbering to a greater degree every year the industrious
class, New Orleans will do more in the future than maintain her present
prosperity; she will build up new industries, and originate new schemes
of advancement; so that she is certain to continue her present supremacy
over her sister cities in the South.
CHAPTER XXI.
NEW YORK.
Early History of New York.--During the Revolution.--
Evacuation Day.--Bowling Green.--Wall Street.--Stock Exchange.--
Jacob Little.--Daniel Drew.--Jay Cooke.--Rufus Hatch.--The
Vanderbilts.--Jay Gould.--Trinity Church.--John Jacob Astor.--
Post-Office.--City Hall and Court House.--James Gordon
Bennett.--Printing House Square.--Horace Greeley.--Broadway.--
Union Square.--Washington Square.--Fifth Avenue.--Madison
Square.--Cathedral.--Murray Hill.--Second Avenue.--Booth's
Theatre and Grand Opera House.--The Bowery.--Peter Cooper.--
Fourth Avenue.--Park Avenue.--Five Points and its Vicinity.--
Chinese Quarter.--Tombs.--Central Park.--Water Front.--
Blackwell's Island.--Hell Gate.--Suspension Bridge.--Opening
Day.--Tragedy of Decoration Day.--New York of the Present and
Future.
Less than three hundred years ago the narrow strip of territory now
occupied by what its wide-awake and self-asserting citizens delight to
term "The Metropolis of the New World," was a broken and rugged
wilderness, which the foot of white man had never trod, not, at least,
within the memory of its then oldest inhabitants, a few half-naked
savages of the Manhattan tribe, from whom the island derives its name of
Manhattan. In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English navigator in the service of
the Dutch East India Company, landed near the present site of the
Battery, securing, by right of discovery, the territory to the States of
the Netherlands. Dutch traders soon followed, and in 1614 a small fort
and four houses were erected in the neighborhood of what is now Bowling
Green. The infant metropolis was christened New Amsterdam, and Peter
Minuits sent out, in 1626, as its first Governor. He purchased the
island from its native owners, for goods, about twenty-four dollars in
value. Minuits was recalled in 1631, his successors being Wonter Von
Twiller, 1633; William Krift, 1638; and Peter Stuyvesant, 1647. In 1644
a fence was built nearly along the line of what is now Wall street, and
in 1653 palisades and breastworks, protected by a ditch, were added
along this line. These palisades remained in existence until near the
beginning of the present century.
Peter Stuyvesant was the last of the Dutch Governors. In 1664 Charles
II, of England, gave the territory to his brother James, Duke of York,
and an expedition was sent out under the command of Colonel Richard
Nicholls, to take possession of it. The fort was easily captured, and
the name of the settlement changed to New York. In 1673 the town was
recaptured by the Dutch, who again changed its name to New Orange; but
the following year it was restored to the English by treaty.
In 1689 Jacob Leister instituted an insurrection against the unpopular
administration of Nicholls, which he easily overthrew, and strengthened
the fort by a battery of six guns outside its walls. This was the origin
of the "Battery." In 1691 he was arrested and convicted on a charge of
treason and murder, condemned to death, and executed.
Negro slavery was introduced into New York at an early period, and in
the year 1741 the alleged discovery of a plot of the slaves to burn the
city and murder the whites resulted in twenty negroes being hanged, a
lesser number being burned at the stake, and seventy-five being
transported.
From the very first the mass of citizens of New York took an active part
in the struggle for independence. In 1765 the "Sons of Liberty" were
organized to resist the Stamp Act; in 1770 a meeting of three thousand
citizens resolved not to submit to this oppression; and in 1773 a
Vigilance Committee was formed to resist the landing of the tea, by
whom, in the following year, a tea-laden vessel was sent back to
England, while eighteen chests of tea were thrown overboard from
another. On the eighteenth of September, 1776, as a result of the
disastrous defeat of the American troops, under General Washington, on
Long Island, New York fell into the hands of the British, who held it
until the twenty-sixth of November, 1783, when they evacuated it. The
day is still annually celebrated, under the name of "Evacuation Day."
From 1784 to 1797 New York was the Capital of the State, and from 1785
to 1790 the seat of government of the United States. The adoption of the
National Constitution was celebrated in grand style in 1788; and on
April thirtieth, 1789, Washington was inaugurated at the City Hall, as
the first President of the United States.
In 1791 the city was visited by yellow fever. In 1795 and 1798 it
reappeared, with added violence, over two thousand persons falling
victims to it during the latter year. It made visits at intervals until
1805, after which it did not reappear until 1819. It came again in 1822
and 1823, occasioning considerable alarm, but since then its visits in
an epidemic form have ceased.
In 1820 the surveying and laying out of Manhattan Island north of
Houston street, after ten years of labor, was completed. The opening of
the Erie Canal, in 1825, gave the city a fresh impetus on the road to
prosperity. The first steam ferry between New York and Jersey City was
started in 1812. In 1825 the city was first lighted by gas; while the
great Croton Aqueduct, through which it receives its immense water
supply, was not completed until 1842.
In December, 1835, the most disastrous fire ever known in the city
destroyed over $18,000,000 worth of property. In July, 1845, a second
conflagration consumed property to the amount of $5,000,000. Both these
great fires were in the very heart of the business portion of the city.
In July, 1853, an industrial exhibition was opened, with striking
ceremonies, in a so-called Crystal Palace, on Reservoir Square. This
building, in the form of a Greek cross, was made almost wholly of iron
and glass, being three hundred and sixty-five feet in length each way,
with a dome one hundred and twenty-three feet high. The flooring covered
nearly six acres of ground. This structure was destroyed by fire in
1858.
New York has been the scene of several sanguinary riots within the past
half century. In 1849, when Macready, the English tragedian, attempted
to play a second engagement at the Astor Place Opera House, the friends
of Forrest attacked the building, resulting in calling out of the
military, the killing of thirty-two persons, and wounding of thirty-six
others. In July, 1863, a mob, made up of the poorer classes of the
population, rose in fierce opposition to the draft rendered necessary by
the requisition for troops by the general government. For several days
this mob was in practical possession of the city, and it was dispersed
only by a free use of military force. This mob resulted in the death of
one thousand persons, and the destruction of $1,500,000 worth of
property. In 1871 a collision occurred between a procession of Irish
Orangemen, who were commemorating the Battle of the Boyne, and their
Catholic fellow-countrymen, during which sixty-two persons lost their
lives.
The summer of 1871 was made memorable by the discovery that the most
stupendous frauds upon the public treasury had been carried on for
several years, by certain city officials, some of whom had been
extraordinarily popular. A mass meeting, called at Cooper Institute on
the fourth of September, appointed a committee of seventy-six to take
measures for securing better government for the city. The elections in
November following resulted in a complete sweeping out of the obnoxious
officials, many of whom were subsequently prosecuted, convicted and
imprisoned, or obliged to fly the country.
New York City, the greater portion of which lies on Manhattan Island, is
situated at the mouth of the Hudson River, some eighteen miles from the
Atlantic Ocean. Its extreme length north from the Battery is sixteen
miles, while the average breadth of the island is one and three-fifths
of a mile. The city has an area of about 27,000 acres, of which 14,000
are on Manhattan Island, and about 12,000 on the main land; while the
remainder is in the East River and the Bay, and includes Ward's,
Blackwell's, Randall's, Governor's Ellis', and Bedloe's Islands. It is
bounded on the north by the town of Yonkers; on the east by the Bronx
and East Rivers; on the south by the Bay; and on the west by the Hudson
River. Manhattan Island is separated on the north, from the main land,
by Spuyten Duyvel Creek and Harlem River, both names recalling the Dutch
origin of the city.
The more ancient portion of New York, from Fourteenth street to the
Battery, is laid out somewhat irregularly. As far north as Central Park,
five miles from the Battery, it is quite compactly built. Various
localities in the more northern and less densely built-up part of the
island are known by different names; as Yorkville, near Eighty-sixth
street; and Harlem, in the vicinity of One-hundred-and-twenty-fifth
street, on the eastern side; and Bloomingdale and Manhattanville,
opposite them, on the western. North of Manhattanville, near
One-hundred-and-fiftieth street, is Carmansville, and a mile and a half
further north are Washington Heights; while Inwood lies at the extreme
northwestern point of the island. All these are places of interest, and
offer numerous attractions to the visitor.
That part of New York lying on the mainland, comprising the twenty-third
and twenty-fourth wards, was added to it in 1874, and contains many
thriving towns and villages. Prominent among them is Morrisania, with
avenues running north and south, and streets crossing them at right
angles, and numbered in continuation of those of Manhattan Island.
Numerous other towns, with a host of beautiful country residences, are
scattered over the high and rolling land of which this late addition to
the area of the city is composed; but with the exception of Morrisania
it has not yet been regularly laid out for building purposes. The whole
country in this section of the city, with a romantic natural beauty, to
which wealth and artistic taste have largely contributed, is a perfect
paradise of picturesqueness.
The foreigner who visits New York usually approaches it from the lower
bay, through the "Narrows," a strait lying between Staten Island on the
left and Long Island on the right. From the heights of the former, a
beautiful island, rising green and bold from the water's edge, frown the
massive battlements of Fort Wadsworth and Fort Tompkins; while on the
latter is Fort Hamilton; and in the midst of the water, gloomy and
barren, is Fort Lafayette, famous as a political prison during the late
war. New York Bay is one of the most beautiful, if not _the_ most
beautiful, in the world. Staten Island rises abruptly on one shore, with
hills and valleys, green fields and trees, villages and villas; and on
the other shore are the wood-crowned bluffs of Long Island. Within the
bay Ellis' Island is near the Jersey shore; Bedloe's Island is not far
from its centre, and is the selected site of the colossal statue of
Liberty which France has presented to New York; while Governor's Island,
the largest of the three, lies to the right, between New York and
Brooklyn. Each island is fortified, the latter containing Castle William
and old Fort Columbus.
The bay is dotted with the shipping of every nation. Ocean steamers are
setting out on their long journeys, or just returning from foreign
shores. The finest steamboats and ferry boats in the world dart hither
and thither, like water spiders on the surface of a glassy pool. Tugs,
oyster boats, and sailing vessels of every size and description, are all
represented. It is a moving panorama of water craft. As the city is
approached, gradually, from the distant haze which broods over it, is
evolved the forms of towers, spires, and roofs, and all its varied and
picturesque outlines. The city presents a beautiful view from the bay.
It rises gradually from the water's edge, some portions of it to a
considerable elevation. A prominent feature in its outline is the
graceful, tapering spire of Trinity Church, while higher still rises the
clock-tower of the Tribune building. Other towers, spires and domes,
break the monotony of roofs and walls. Approaching the mouth of the East
River, the most striking objects are the massive towers of the
Suspension Bridge, one on either shore, while between them is the
bridge, swung upon what seem at a distance like the merest cobwebs.
At the extreme southern end of Manhattan Island is the Battery, already
referred to, a park of several acres, protected by a granite sea wall.
It presents a beautiful stretch of green turf, fine trees and wide
pathways. On its southwest border is Castle Garden, a circular brick
structure, which has a history of its own. It was originally constructed
for a fort, and was afterwards converted into a summer garden. A great
ball, to Marquis Lafayette, was given in it in 1824; and General Jackson
in 1832, and President Tyler in 1843, held public receptions there. Then
it was turned into a concert hall, and is chiefly famous, as such, as
being the place where Jenny Lind made her first appearance in America.
It is now an emigrant depot, and on days of the arrival of emigrant
ships, it is very entertaining to watch the troops of emigrants, with
their quaint gait, unfamiliar language, and strange, un-American faces,
passing out of its portals, and making their first entrance into their
new life on the western continent.
Just east of the Battery is Whitehall, the terminus of numerous omnibus
and car lines, and the location of the Staten Island, South and Hamilton
ferries. There, too, is the depot of the elevated railways, which extend
in four lines, two on the eastern side and two on the western, the
entire length of the city. The Corn Exchange, an imposing building, is
at the upper end of Whitehall. At the junction of Whitehall with
Broadway is a pretty, old-fashioned square, shaded with trees, and
surrounded by an iron fence, called Bowling Green. This was the
aristocratic quarter of the city in its early days. No. 1 Broadway,
known as the "old Kennedy House," was built in 1760, and has been,
successively, the residence and headquarters of Lords Conwallis and
Howe, General Sir Henry Clinton and General Washington, while Talleyrand
lived there during his stay in America. Benedict Arnold concocted his
treasonable projects at No. 5 Broadway. At No. 11 General Gates had his
headquarters. A few of the old buildings still remain, but they have
many of them already given way to more modern and more pretentious
structures. The posts of the iron fence around Bowling Green were once
surmounted by balls, but they were knocked off and used for cannon balls
during the Revolution. An equestrian statue of King George III, which
once ornamented the Square, was melted up during the same period, and
furnished material for forty-two thousand bullets.
The stranger in New York sometimes wonders why its principal business
street is called Broadway, since there are many others which are quite
as broad, some of them even broader. But if he will visit the extreme
southern portion of the city, he will quickly comprehend. The old
streets are narrow, being scarcely more than mere alleys, with pavements
barely broad enough for two to walk abreast, so that Broadway, when
originally laid out, seemed a magnificent thoroughfare.
As already described, Wall street formed the northern boundary of the
young colonial city. In that early day, as now, wealth and fashion
sought to avoid the more plebeian business streets, and so withdrew to
the neighborhood of this northern boundary, and established, first their
residences, and then their commercial houses. Wall street then became
what it has since remained, the monetary centre of the city, only that
now it is more than that; it is the great monetary centre of the entire
country. On it and the blocks leading from it, all embraced in
comparatively a few acres, are probably stored more gold and silver than
in all the rest of the United States put together, while the business
interests represented extend to every section, not only of the
continent, but of the world.
Nowhere else in America are there such and so many magnificent buildings
as in this section of the city. The streets are narrow, and overshadowed
as they are by edifices six or more stories in height, seem to be
dwarfed into mere alley-ways. Nearly every building is worthy of being
called a temple or a palace. White marble and brown stone, with every
style of architecture, abound. The United States Sub-Treasury Building,
at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, is a stately white marble
structure in the Doric style, occupying the site of the old Federal
Hall, in which Washington delivered his first inaugural address.
Opposite is the white marble palace, in the style of the Renaissance,
known as the Drexel Building. A little further down the street, at the
corner of William, is the United States Custom House, formerly the
Merchants' Exchange, built of granite. It has a portico supported by
twelve massive columns, and its rotunda in the interior is supported by
eight columns of Italian marble, the Corinthian capitals of which were
carved in Italy. Opposite this building is the handsome structure of the
Bank of New York. Banks, and bankers' and brokers' offices fill the
street, and are crowded into the side streets.
On Broad street, a short distance below Wall, is the Stock Exchange, a
handsome, but not large building, which in point of interest towers over
all others in the locality. Here are daily exacted the comedies and
tragedies of financial life, and here fortunes are made and fortunes
lost by that system of gigantic gambling which has come to be known as
"dealing in stocks." The operations of the Stock Exchange and Gold Room
concern the whole country, both financially and industrially. Here is
the true governmental centre, rather than at Washington. Wall and Broad
streets dictate to Congress what the laws of the country concerning
finance shall be, and Congress obeys. The Bankers' Association holds the
menace over the government that if their interests are not consulted,
they will bring ruin upon the country; and it is in their power to
execute the threat. This power was illustrated on the twenty-fourth of.
September, 1869, a day memorable as Black Friday in the history of Wall
street. By a small but strong combination of bears, gold was made to
fall in seventeen minutes, from 1.60 to 1.30, after a sale of
$50,000,000 had been effected, and thousands of men, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, were ruined. Money was locked up, and could not be
obtained even at a premium of one hundred per cent. This was the
forerunner of the panic which came four years later, in 1873. Then the
Union Trust Company failed, carrying with it Jay Cooke, Fisk and Hatch,
Henry Clews, Howe and Macy, and other houses. For the first time during
its existence the Stock Exchange was closed. Without its closing, not a
merchant or banker could have survived. With its doors shut no contract
could be completed nor stocks transferred, and it gave people time,
which was absolutely needed, to do what they could; or else universal
and overwhelming ruin would have swept over the country. As it was, not
less than twenty thousand firms went under, and the stringency of the
times was felt throughout the nation, depressing business and checking
industry, until Congress took measures for its relief.
The names of Jacob Little, Leonard W. Jerome, Daniel Drew, Jay Cooke,
Augustus Schell, Rufus Hatch, James Fisk, Jr., Jay Gould, Commodore
Vanderbilt, Wm. H. Vanderbilt, and others, are permanently associated
with Wall street. Jacob Little was known as the "Great Bear of Wall
street." He originated the daring, dashing style of business in stocks,
and was always identified with the bears. Meeting many reverses, he died
at last, comparatively poor, the Southern Rebellion having swept away
his little remaining fortune.
Leonard W. Jerome was at one time financially the rival of Vanderbilt
and Drew, with a fortune estimated at from six to ten millions. He
assumed an unequaled style of magnificence in living; but reverses came,
and his splendid property on Madison Square, including residence, costly
stables and private theatre, passed into the hands of the Union League
Club, and was occupied by them until they went to their new quarters in
Fifth Avenue. He himself is now forgotten, although a man scarcely past
the prime of life; but his name is perpetuated in the Jerome Race
Course.
Daniel Drew came to New York a poor boy, and, by persistent industry and
business capacity, worked his way up to the highest round of the
commercial ladder. In 1838 Drew put an opposition boat upon the Hudson,
with fare at one dollar to Albany; and shortly afterward established the
People's Line, which has been so successful. The panic of 1873 affected
him seriously, but he staved off failure until 1875. He died in 1879,
leaving next to nothing of the millions he had made during his lifetime.
St. Paul's Church, in Fourth avenue; the Methodist Church at Carmel,
Putnam County, New York, his native place; and Drew Theological
Seminary, are monuments of his munificence while money was at his
command.
Jay Cooke, having been already tolerably successful in business, amassed
his millions by negotiating the war loan. He was regarded as one of the
most prominent and safe financiers in the country; but in 1873 his
failure was complete, and he has not since been heard of in financial
circles.
Rufus Hatch is one of the successful stock operators of New York.
Beginning life with nothing, and meeting reverses as well as successes,
he is now known as one of the boldest and most gigantic of street
operators.
The name of James Fisk, Jr., is associated with that of the Erie
Railroad. He commenced life as a peddler. In 1868 he was appointed
Comptroller of the Erie Road, and immediately set about building up the
fortunes of that corporation. He appeared on Wall street as an assistant
of Daniel Drew; made himself master of the Narragansett Steamship
Company, and changed the condition of its affairs from disaster to
success. He was one of the conspirators on Black Friday of 1869. He
purchased the Opera House and the Fifth Avenue Theatre, finding them
both good investments. He was shot by Edward S. Stokes, both himself
and Stokes having become entangled with a woman named Helen Josephine
Mansfield. After his death his supposed great private fortune dwindled
into a comparatively small amount.
Commodore Vanderbilt also started in life a penniless boy, and became,
eventually, the great King of Wall street. He built up the Harlem River
Railroad, originated gigantic enterprises; sent a line of steamships
across the ocean; gained control of the Hudson River Railroad and other
roads; and died in 1877, worth not far from $100,000,000, the bulk of
which he left to his eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt
name has lost none of its lustre in the hands of the second generation.
In less than ten years, after a career of unequaled brilliancy in the
financial world, William H. Vanderbilt retired, with a fortune probably
double that of his father.
Jay Gould also achieved success from small beginnings. He was in company
with Fisk in the control of the Erie Railroad, and an associate in
bringing about the disasters of Black Friday. Soon after the death of
Greeley he secured a controlling interest in the New York _Tribune_. He
is still a power in Wall street, and a great railroad magnate.
Broad street still has historical associations clinging about it. At the
corner of Broad and Pearl streets is the famous De Lancy House, built
early in the last century by Stephen De Lancy, a Huguenot refugee from
Normandy. In this house, on the evening of November twenty-fifth, 1783,
Washington and his staff, with Governor Clinton, celebrated the
evacuation of the city by the British troops, and a few days later
Washington bade his officers farewell, before departing for Annapolis to
resign his commission. The house, having passed through successive
stages of degeneration, had at one time sunk so low as to have become a
German tenement house, with a lager beer saloon on the third floor. It
has recently been renovated, and has again put on an air of
respectability. It still bears upon it the words: "Washington's
Headquarters." All about it are, here and there, the relics of the past,
in the shape of houses which once were homes of the gentility, in
colonial times.
Pearl street is said to have been originally a cow-path, and it is
certainly crooked enough to justify such an origin. It is the locality
of the Cotton Exchange and the cotton brokers.
On Broadway, at the head of Wall street, is Trinity Church, whose spire
was, until a recent period, the highest in the city, being two hundred
and eighty-four feet in height. In the early days, when the aristocracy
were seeking the select neighborhood of Wall street, this church
corporation established itself upon the utmost northern confines of the
city. Its original edifice was destroyed by fire, and the present one
was erected in 1846. It is of brown stone, in pure gothic architecture,
and one of the most beautiful in New York. In the rich carving of the
exterior numerous birds have built their nests. It has stained glass
windows, and the finest chime of bells in America. Within the church is
a costly reredos in memory of John Jacob Astor. A venerable graveyard
lies to its north, where repose the remains of Alexander Hamilton,
Captain Lawrence, of the Chesapeake, Robert Fulton, and the unfortunate
Charlotte Temple. Some of the headstones, brown and crumbling with age,
and bearing grotesque carved effigies of angels, date back for more than
a century. In the northeast corner is a stately monument erected to the
memory of the patriots who died in British prisons in New York during
the Revolution. Trinity Parish is the oldest in the city, and fabulously
wealthy, the corporation having been granted, by Queen Anne, in 1705, a
large tract of land west of Broadway, extending as far north as
Christopher street, known as the "Queen's Farm." The land, at that time
remote from the city, now embraces some of its most valuable business
portions. It is all leased of Trinity Church by the occupants, and the
church, when the leases expire, becomes possessed of the buildings and
improvements upon the ground, and is thus constantly augmenting its
wealth. The claims of the Jans Anneke heirs involve this vast estate. It
has three chapels, one of which, St. Paul's, is a few blocks above, on
the corner of Broadway and Vesey streets, and is surrounded by a
graveyard almost as ancient as that of Trinity.
At the northwest corner of Vesey street and Broadway is the Astor House,
which, when it was built, something more than a generation ago, was a
marvel of size and splendor, though it is now thrown in the shade by
more modern structures. John Jacob Astor, its builder, was born near
Heidelberg, in Germany, in 1765, and came penniless to the new world, to
seek his fortune. After serving as a clerk, he then engaged in a small
way in the fur business, which eventually grew to the proportions of the
American Fur Company, and brought to its founder a large fortune, though
no one outside his family ever knew its exact amount. He settled most of
his affairs before his death, selling the Astor House to his son
William, for the consideration of one dollar. Much of his property was
in real estate, which constantly increased in value. He died in 1848,
and his senior son being an imbecile, William B. Astor, the younger
brother, inherited most of his father's fortune. The son became vastly
richer than his father, dying in 1875, leaving behind him a fortune of
$50,000,000, which was mostly bequeathed to his eldest son, John Jacob,
who is now the head of the house.
[Illustration: BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF NEW YORK.]
The Post Office stands opposite the Astor House, on the east side of
Broadway, at the southern extremity of City Hall Park. It is a massive
structure, of Doric and Renaissance architecture, four stories in
height, beside a Mansard roof, costing $7,000,000.
Half a century ago the City Hall Park was the chief park of New York,
and the elegance and aristocracy of the city gathered around it. The
City Hall stands in the park, and back of it is the new Court House,
still unfinished, a massive edifice in Corinthian style, which, when
completed, will have a dome two hundred and ten feet above the sidewalk.
On the western side of Broadway, opposite St. Paul's, is the splendid
building of the New York _Herald_. The _Herald_ is the representative
newspaper of New York, and is probably the most enterprising sheet in
the world. James Gordon Bennett, its founder, was born in Scotland in
1795, and came to America in 1819. After various literary ventures, he
decided to establish a paper which should embody his ideal of a
metropolitan journal. On the sixth of May, 1855, the first number of the
New York _Herald_ was issued, being then a small penny sheet. Mr.
Bennett was editor, reporter and correspondent. He was his own
compositor and errand boy, mailed his papers and kept his accounts. His
rule, from the very first, was never to run a dollar in debt. He
succeeded in establishing a paper which has no parallel in history,
while, since his death, his son's enterprise has still further increased
its scope and popularity. Young Bennett, the present proprietor of the
_Herald_, named after his father, was trained especially for the duties
which were to devolve upon him. He is thoroughly at home in French,
German, Italian and Scotch. He is a skilled engineer, and can run either
the engines or presses of his establishment. He is a practical printer,
and can also telegraph with skill and accuracy. He gives strict personal
supervision to the affairs of his immense establishment, which yields
him a yearly income equaling that of a merchant prince.
Extending from the _Herald_ Building northward, on the eastern side of
City Hall Park, is what is known as Printing House Square, including the
offices of the principal daily and weekly papers. The magnificent
granite structure of the _Staats Zeitung_ faces this square on the
north. The immense _Tribune_ Building, nine stories high, with its tall
clock tower, flanks it on the east, on Nassau street. The _Sun_ modestly
nestles in the shadow of the _Tribune_. The _Times_ Building is found on
Park Row, where also is the _World_ office. _Truth_ lurks in a basement
on Nassau street. But a square or two below is the _Evening Post_
Building, where the venerable poet Bryant labored at his editorial
duties for so many years. A statue of Franklin occupies a small open
triangular space in the midst of the square.
Horace Greeley's name is inseparably associated with that of the
_Tribune_, which he founded. Honest and single-minded, he wielded a
mighty influence, and his paper was a great political power in the
country. He often made enemies by his honesty and straight-forwardness;
but both enemies and friends respected him. In 1872 the Liberal
Republican and Democratic parties nominated him as their choice for
President. Believing that he could rally around him men of all parties
who desired to see reform in political methods, he accepted the
nomination; and was attacked so bitterly by those whom he had supposed
to be his friends, and met such overwhelming defeat in the contest,
that, taken with the death of his wife within a week of the election, he
was crushed completely, his reason left him, and before the end of a
month he died a broken-hearted man.
North of the City Hall Park, on the corner of Chambers street, is the
old wholesale house of A. T. Stewart, now devoted to other purposes, and
having two stories added to its top. Here, a generation ago, the belles
of New York City came to do their shopping, it having been originally
built for the retail trade, as a few years later they flocked to the new
retail store on Broadway, between Ninth and Tenth. The name of A. T.
Stewart is no longer heard in New York, save in connection with the
past. It was a power in its day and generation. Few men had more to do
with Wall street than Stewart, and his mercantile business was carried
on in the Wall street style. He "cornered" goods, "sold short," "loaded
the market," and "bought long." Having emigrated from the north of
Ireland, he first opened business in a small way, himself and wife
living in one room over their store. Beginning at the very lowest round
of the ladder, he worked with the fixed resolution of becoming the first
merchant in the land. He always lived within his income, and never
bought a dollar's worth of merchandise that he could not pay cash for.
In the days of his prosperity he built for himself and wife a marble
palace, at the corner of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street, the most
finely-finished and elegantly-furnished residence in the country. He
died in 1876, worth, probably, $50,000,000. The theft of his remains
from the graveyard of St. Mark's Church, at Ninth street and Second
avenue, was the nine days' wonder of the time; and the vault prepared
for their reception, in the fine Cathedral at Garden City, Long Island,
remains empty.
Broadway, almost from the Battery, is bordered by magnificent
structures. The lower end of this thoroughfare is devoted principally to
insurance, bankers' and brokers', railway and other offices, and to the
wholesale trade. Above Canal street the retail stores begin to appear at
intervals, and as one approaches Ninth street ladies multiply on the
western pavement. From Ninth street up, the retail trade monopolizes the
street, and on pleasant afternoons the pavement is filled with elegantly
dressed ladies who are out shopping. At Tenth street Broadway makes a
bend to the westward, and on the eastern side of the way, facing
obliquely down the thoroughfare, is Grace Church and parsonage, both
elegant structures. Grace Church is a fashionable place of worship, and
the scene of the most exclusive weddings and funerals of the city.
Union Square is reached at Fourteenth street. It is oval in form, with
beautiful green turf, trees and walks, and contains a fine fountain in
the centre, a colossal bronze statue of Washington on a granite
pedestal, and statues of Hamilton and Lafayette. Along its northern end
is a wide plaza for military parades and popular assemblies. Union
Square was once a fashionable residence quarter, but it is now occupied
almost wholly by business. At Twenty-third street, Broadway runs
diagonally across Fifth avenue, touching the southwestern corner of
Madison Square--not so very long since the most genteel locality in New
York, but now, like Union Square, becoming occupied by hotels and
business houses.
Fifth Avenue, the most splendid avenue in America, makes a beginning at
Washington Square, a lovely public park embowered in trees, which was
once Potters' Field, the pauper burying ground, and where one hundred
thousand bodies lie buried. New York University and Dr. Hutton's Church
face the square on the east. The southern side is given up to business,
but the north and west are still occupied by handsome private
residences. Fifth Avenue is a continuous line of palatial hotels,
gorgeous club-houses, brownstone mansions and magnificent churches. No
plebeian horse cars are permitted to disturb its well-bred quiet, and
the rumble of elegant equipages is alone heard upon its Belgian
pavement.
Business is already invading the lower portion of the avenue, piano
warehouses being especially prominent. On Madison Square are the Fifth
Avenue Hotel and the Hoffman House. Opposite the latter house is a
monument erected to General Worth, a hero of the Mexican war.
Delmonico's and the Café Brunswick, rival restaurants, occupy opposite
corners of Twenty-sixth street. The Stevens House is an elegant family
hotel on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh street, running to Broadway. At
Twenty-ninth street is the Congregational Church, a stately granite
edifice; and on the same street, just east of the Avenue, is the Church
of the Transfiguration, popularly known as "the little church around the
corner," a name bestowed on it by a neighboring clergyman, who, refusing
to bury an actor from his own church, referred the applicant to this. At
the corner of Thirty-fourth street is the Stewart marble palace already
referred to. From Forty-first to Forty-second streets is the
distributing reservoir of the Croton Water-works, with walls of massive
masonry in the Egyptian style. The Crystal Palace of 1853 occupied this
square. The Avenue has at this place ascended to a considerable
elevation, and the locality, embracing several streets and avenues, is
known as Murray Hill, the most wealthy and exclusive quarter of the
city. At Forty-third street is the Jewish Temple Emanuel, the finest
specimen of Moorish architecture in the country.
Occupying the block between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets is the
Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick, commenced in 1858, and with the
towers still incomplete. It is of white marble, in decorated Gothic
style; and the largest and handsomest church in the country. It is
elaborately carved, the numerous rose windows seeming almost like lace
work. When completed it will have two spires, ornamented with
buttresses, niches with statues, and pinnacles, and three hundred and
twenty-eight feet in height. The interior is as beautiful as a dream. It
is entirely of white marble. Massive pillars with elaborately carved
capitals support the arched roof, while the light is softened and
subdued by beautiful stained-glass windows. The building is in such
perfect proportion that one does not realize its immense size until he
descries the priest at the altar, so far away as to seem a mere child.
But eight squares away is Central Park, the great breathing-place of the
city. Looking back, down the Avenue, from the entrance to the Park,
there is seen a forest of spires rising from magnificent churches which
we have had no space to mention, and blocks upon blocks of palatial
residences, the homes of the millionaires of the city. The eastern side
of Fifth Avenue, facing the Park for a number of blocks, is occupied by
elegant private residences.
Madison Avenue starts from Madison Square, running through to
Forty-second street. It, with parallel avenues and places, shares the
prestige of Fifth Avenue, as being the aristocratic quarter of the city.
Fourteenth street, once a fashionable thoroughfare, is now fast being
occupied by large retail stores.
The avenues, commencing at First, and numbering as high as Eleventh, run
north and south, parallel to Fifth Avenue, already described. They are
supplemented on the eastern side, at the widest part of the island, by
avenues A, B, C, and D. Most of these avenues commence on the eastern
side at Houston street, the northern boundary of the city in the early
part of the present century. On the western side, with the exception of
Fifth and Sixth, they commence but little below Fourteenth street. They
are mostly devoted to retail trade, and, on seeing their miles of
stores, one wonders where, even in a great city like New York, all the
people come from who support them.
Second Avenue is almost the only exception among the avenues. Early in
the century it was what Fifth Avenue has become to-day, the fashionable
residence avenue; and even yet some of the old Knickerbocker families
cling to it, living in their roomy, old-fashioned houses, and
maintaining an exclusive society, while they look down with disdain upon
the parvenues of Fifth avenue. Stuyvesant Square, intersected by Second
avenue, and bounded on the east by Livingston Place, and on the west by
Rutherford Place, is one of the quarters of the _ancient régime_. Here
still live the Rutherfords and the Stuyvesants. Here is the residence of
Hamilton Fish and William M. Evarts. St. George Church, with the largest
seating capacity of any church in the city, faces this square.
Booth's Theatre is on the corner of Sixth avenue and Twenty-third
street. It is the most magnificent place of amusement in America; built
in the Renaissance style, with a Mansard roof. Opposite is the Masonic
Temple, in Ionic and Doric architecture. At the corner of Eighth avenue
and Twenty-third street is the Grand Opera House, once owned by James
Fisk, Jr.
New York is at once spendthrift and parsimonious in the naming of her
streets. Thus, she sometimes repeats a name more than once, and again,
bestows two or three names upon the same street. There is a Broadway, an
East Broadway, a West Broadway, and a Broad street. There is Greenwich
avenue and Greenwich street. There are two Pearl streets. There is a
Park avenue, a Park street, a Park row, and a Park place. On the other
hand, Chatham becomes East Broadway east of Bowery; Dey street is
transformed into John street east of Broadway; Cortlandt becomes Maiden
Lane at the same dividing line; and other streets are in like manner
metamorphosed. Fourth Avenue, beginning at the Battery as Pearl street,
changes to the Bowery at Franklin Square. At Eighth street, without any
change in its direction, it becomes Fourth Avenue; from Thirty-fourth to
Forty-second streets it is Park Avenue, and then relapses into Fourth
Avenue again. This is one of the most interesting avenues in the city;
as Pearl street, its windings and its business occupations have been
referred to.
Bowery has a character all its own. It takes its name from Peter
Stuyvesant's "Bowerie Farm," through which it passes. In it is probably
represented every civilized nation on the globe. It is unqualifiedly a
democratic street. While Fifth Avenue represents one extreme of city
life, the Bowery represents the other. Here are the streets and shops of
the working classes, consisting of dry and fancy goods, cigar shops,
lager beer saloons, shoe stores, confectionery stores, pawnbrokers'
shops, and ready-made clothing, plentifully besprinkled with variety and
concert saloons and beer gardens. There are no elegant store fronts or
marble stores here. The buildings are plain brick edifices, three or
four stories in height, the upper stories occupied by the families of
the merchants, or as tenement houses. The Germans visit the beer gardens
with their wives and families, to listen to what is sometimes excellent
music, and to drink beer. The concert saloons are, some of them, the
resorts of the lowest of both sexes. Near Canal street is the site of
the old Bowery Theatre, which, having been thrice destroyed by fire, has
been thrice rebuilt, the last time, quite recently, and is now known as
Thalia Theatre. A generation and a half ago the gamins of New York
reigned supreme in the pit. Now that they have been relegated to the
gallery, they still criticise the performance with the frankness and
originality of expression characteristic of the "Bowery boys" of old.
One should visit the Bowery at night, when the workmen and shop girls,
having finished their daily labor, are out for recreation and amusement.
Then he will gain an idea of one phase of city life and people which he
would not obtain otherwise.
At Seventh street, where Third avenue branches off, looking down the
Bowery, and occupying the entire block to Eighth street, is Cooper
Institute, containing a free library, free reading-room, free schools of
art, telegraphy and science, and a hall and lecture room. Peter Cooper
was one of the representative men of New York. Acquiring a large fortune
by strictly honorable methods, he devoted a generous portion of it to
charitable objects, and this Institute is one of the lasting monuments
of his generosity. He was a true philanthropist, a man of broad thought
and kindly impulses, whose name was honored by all classes of the
community. He died in April, 1883, at a ripe old age.
Occupying the block between Third Avenue and the Bowery, which is now
dignified by the name of Fourth avenue, is the Bible House, the largest
structure of its kind in the world, except that of London. Here the
Bible is printed in almost every known language, and here are
congregated the offices of the various religious societies of the city
and country. The Young Men's Christian Association and Academy of Design
occupy opposite corners at Twenty-third street, on the west side of the
avenue. The exterior of the latter is copied from a famous palace in
Venice, and it is peculiar as well as beautiful in its appearance. From
Thirty-second to Thirty-third streets is the immense structure intended
by A. T. Stewart as the crowning charitable object of his life, to be,
perhaps, in some sort, an atonement for injustice of which he may have
been guilty toward the working classes. It was designed as a hotel for
working women, but in its very plan indicated how little its founder
understood the nature or needs of that class. At its completion, after
his death, it did not take many weeks to demonstrate that working women
preferred a place more home-like, and fettered by less restrictions than
this palace-prison; and so the edifice was turned into an ordinary
hotel.
Park avenue commences at Thirty-fourth street, being built over the
track of the Fourth avenue car line. In the centre of this avenue, over
the tunnels, are little spaces inclosed by iron fences, and containing a
profusion of shrubbery and flowers. The avenue abounds in elegant
churches and equally fine residences. At Forty-second street is the
Grand Central Depot, seven hundred feet in length, its exterior
imposing, and with corner and central towers surmounted by domes. At
Sixty-ninth street, between Fourth and Lexington avenues, is the new
Normal College, an ecclesiastical-looking building, the most complete of
its kind in America.
Retracing our steps to near the foot of Bowery, we come to Chatham
street, where the Jews reign supreme, and which is the vestibule of the
worst quarter of the city. Passing along a pavement festooned with
cheap, ready-made clothing, one comes to Baxter street, and from thence
to the Five Points, once the most infamous locality of New York. Here, a
generation ago, a respectable man took his life in his hands, who
attempted to pass through this quarter, even in broad daylight. It was
the abode of thieves, burglars, garotters, murderers and prostitutes.
Hundreds of families were huddled together in tumble-down tenement
houses, living in such filth and with such an utter lack of decency as
is scarcely to be credited. But home missionaries visited the quarter,
established mission-schools and a house of industry, tore down the
disgraceful tenement-houses and built better ones in their place; and
to-day the old Bowery, Cow Bay and Murderers' Alley are known only in
name. The Five Points is at the crossing of Baxter, Worth and Parker
streets, and is really five points no longer, the carrying through of
Worth street to the Bowery, forming an additional point. The locality is
still dreadful enough, with all its improvements. Drunken men, depraved
women, and swarms of half-clad children fill the neighborhood, and even
the "improved tenement houses," as viewed from the outside, seem but
sorry abodes for human beings. This is the heart of a wretched quarter,
which extends westward to Broadway, and almost indefinitely in other
directions. Mott, Mulberry, Baxter, Centre, Elm and Crosby streets are
all densely populated, containing numberless tenement houses. It is
possible to walk through some of these streets and never hear a word of
English. Mulberry and Crosby streets are especially the homes of
Italians, who on Sunday mornings pour out of the tenements upon the
pavement and street below in such throngs that a stranger can scarcely
elbow his way through. The Chinese have taken possession of the lower
part of Mott street, and established laundries, groceries, tea-houses,
lodging-houses, and opium-smoking dens. The latter are already
attracting the attention of the public, and a feeble effort has been
made by the city government to put a check upon their evil influence.
These streets are a festering sore in the very heart of the city, and
require attention.
The Tombs, the city prison, famous in the criminal history of New York,
is located in the midst of this quarter, on Centre street, occupying an
entire block. It is a gloomy building, constructed of granite, in
imitation of an Egyptian temple. Within these forbidding walls is the
Tombs Police Court, where, early each morning, petty cases are disposed
of by the magistrate upon the bench; and here prisoners are kept
awaiting trial. Eleven cells of special strength and security are for
murderers awaiting trial or punishment. There is also a special
department for women. In the inner quadrangle of the building murderers
are made to suffer the utmost penalty of the law, and the last act of
many a tragedy which has excited and horrified the public has been
performed here.
It will be a relief to turn from the gloom and wretchedness of the Tombs
to the sunshine and freedom of New York's great breathing place. Central
Park contains eight hundred and forty-three acres, and embraces an area
extending from Fifth to Eighth avenues, and from Fifty-ninth to
One-hundred-and-tenth streets. Originally, it was a desolate stretch of
country in the suburbs of the city, varied by rocks and marshes, and
dotted by the hovels of Irish and Dutch squatters, its most picturesque
features being their goats, which picked up a scant living among the
rubbish with which it was covered. Its whole extent is now covered with
a heavy sod, planted with trees and shrubbery, and furnishes many miles
of drives and walks. Every day in the year it has numerous visitors, but
on Sunday, one must fairly elbow one's way through the crowds. In the
southeast corner are the Zoölogical Gardens and the old State Arsenal;
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recently opened, is north of Belvidere,
on the east side of the Park. The Egyptian Obelisk stands on an eminence
west of the museum. Winding paths conduct the visitor to the Mall, a
stately avenue shaded by double rows of elms, and ornamented at
intervals with bronze statues of celebrated American and European
statesmen and poets; also a number of groups which are especially fine.
The Terrace is at the northern terminus of the Mall, and leads by a
flight of broad, stone stairs to Central Lake, the prettiest body of
water in the Park, dotted by gondolas. A fountain, with immense granite
basins, and a colossal statue of the Angel of Bethesda, stands between
the terrace and the lake. Beyond the lake is the Ramble, consisting of
winding, shaded paths, and covering thirty-six acres of sloping hills.
From the tower at Belvidere, a magnificent piece of architecture, in the
Norman style, may be obtained a fine bird's-eye view of the Park. Just
above Belvidere are the two reservoirs of the water works, extending as
far north as Ninety-sixth street. Beyond that the Park is less
embellished by art, and is richer in natural beauties. From the eminence
upon which stands the old Block House, on the northern border of the
Park, a magnificent and extensive view may be obtained of the hills
which bound in the landscape, and including High Bridge.
One should visit the water front of New York, which circles the city on
three sides, to gain an idea of its immense commerce. A river wall of
solid masonry has been commenced, which, when completed, will make the
American metropolis equal to London and Liverpool in this respect. A
perfect forest of masts lines the wharves, representing every kind of
craft, and almost every nation that sails the seas. Twice a week
European steamships leave from the foot of Canal street; while from
various points along the wharves, indicated by handsome ferry or
shipping houses, boats go and come, to and from every port on the river
or on the Atlantic coast. At Desbrosses and Cortlandt streets ferries
connect with Jersey City. South, Wall and Fulton ferries give access to
Brooklyn; while other ferries convey passengers to other points on the
rivers and bay.
Passing up the East River, with the ship-thronged wharves and docks of
New York on one hand, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the other, the
visitor soon obtains a view of Blackwell's, Ward's and Randall's
islands. Blackwell's Island is at the foot of Forty-sixth street, and is
one hundred and twenty acres in extent. Upon it are located the
Almshouse, Female Lunatic Asylum, Penitentiary, Work House, Blind
Asylum, Charity, Smallpox and Typhus Fever hospitals. These buildings
are all constructed of granite, quarried from the island by convicts.
They are plain but substantial in appearance.
Leaving Blackwell's Island, the boat passes cautiously through the
swirling waters of Hell Gate, once the terror of all sailors, but now
robbed of most of its horrors. It was originally a collection of rocks
in mid channel, which, as the tides swept in and out, caused the waters
to rush in a succession of whirlpools and rapids. But a few years ago
United States engineers undertook and accomplished a gigantic
excavation, directly under these threatening rocks and reefs. When it
was completed a grand explosion, effected by means of connecting wires,
blew up these dangerous obstructions, and left a comparatively clear and
safe channel for vessels. The few remaining rocks which this explosion
failed to disturb are being removed, and with its dangers, much of the
romantic interest which attached to Hell Gate will pass away.
Ward's Island, embracing two hundred acres, and containing the Male
Lunatic Asylum, the Emigrant Hospital, and the Inebriate Asylum, divides
the Harlem from the East River. Randall's Island is separated from
Ward's Island by a narrow channel, and is the last of the group. It
contains the Idiot Asylum, the House of Refuge, the Infant Hospital,
Nurseries, and other charities provided by the city for destitute
children.
The visitor in New York should, if possible, make an excursion to High
Bridge, a magnificent structure by which the Croton Aqueduct is carried
across Harlem River. It is built of granite, and spans the entire width
of valley and river, from cliff to cliff. It is composed of eight
arches, each with a span of eighty feet, and with an elevation of a
hundred feet clear from the surface of the river. The water is led over
the bridge, a distance of fourteen hundred and fifty feet, in immense
iron pipes, six feet in diameter. Above these pipes is a pathway for
pedestrians. At One-hundred-and-sixty-ninth street, a little below the
High Bridge, is the site of the elegant mansion of Colonel Roger Morris,
and the head-quarters of General Washington during active operations in
this portion of the island. The situation is one of picturesque and
historic interest.
Rising grandly above all the shipping of the East River, on both its
sides, are the massive towers of the Suspension Bridge, connecting the
sister cities of New York and Brooklyn. Ponderous cables swing in a
single grand sweep from tower to tower, supporting the bridge in its
place. It does not seem very much elevated above the river, and you feel
that a certain majestic sailing vessel which is bearing down upon it
will bring the top of her masts in contact with it. But she sails
proudly beneath the structure, never bowing her head, and there is
plenty of room and to spare; for the bridge is one hundred and
thirty-five feet above high water mark. The distance from tower to tower
is one thousand five hundred and ninety-five feet, while the entire
length of the bridge, from Park Place to its terminus, on the heights in
Brooklyn, is six thousand feet, or a little more than a mile. Its width
is eighty-five feet, affording space for two railways, besides two
double carriageways, and one foot-path. It was commenced in 1871, and
cost $15,000,000. Its formal opening took place on May twenty-fourth,
1883. The day was a rarely beautiful one, and was observed as a general
holiday by the people of both cities. President Arthur and his Cabinet,
the governors of New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, with many other
distinguished persons, were among the guests, while the honors of the
occasion were done by the Mayors of New York and Brooklyn. Every street
in the neighborhood of the bridge was packed with a dense throng of
spectators, while windows, balconies and roofs were filled with curious
sight seers.
Shortly after noon the procession moved down Broadway, and a little
after one o'clock the President and other distinguished guests entered
the gateway of the bridge, preceded by the Seventh Regiment, the
procession headed by a company of mounted policemen, while Cappa's band
played "Hail to the Chief." When the party reached the New York tower,
they were met by President Kingsley of the bridge trustees, and there
were introductions and welcomes, and the march was resumed. At the
Brooklyn tower Mayor Low met the President, and the Seventy-third
Regiment presented arms. In announcement of the fact that the bridge was
crossed, cannons thundered forth salutes, the steam whistles of vessels
and factories screamed, bells rang, and deafening cheers went up from
the watching multitude. The further ceremonies of the day took place in
a pavilion on the Brooklyn end, when Mr. William E. Kingsley, the
President of the Bridge Association, Mayor Low, of Brooklyn, Mayor Edson
of New York, Hon. Abram S. Hewitt and Rev. B. S. Storrs, made able
addresses. A reception was tendered in the evening, at the Academy of
Music, by the City of Brooklyn, to the President and the Governor of the
State, previous to which there was a fine display of fireworks from the
bridge.
During all the excitement of the day, while cannon thundered and the
multitude cheered, an invalid sat alone in his house on Columbia
Heights, and regarded from afar the completion of his toil of years.
John A. Roebling, the elder of the two Roeblings, first conceived and
planned the bridge which connects New York and Brooklyn. He had built
the chief suspension bridges in the country, and to him was intrusted
the task of putting his own plans into tangible form. While testing and
perfecting his surveys, his foot was crushed between the planking of a
pier; lockjaw supervened, and the man who had designed the bridge lost
his life in its service. He was succeeded by his son, Colonel Washington
A. Roebling, who was equally qualified for the undertaking. He labored
with zeal, giving personal superintendence to his workmen, until in the
caissons he contracted a mysterious disease, which had proved fatal to
several men in his employ. From that period he was confined to his home,
a hopeless invalid, his intellect apparently quickened as his physical
system was enfeebled. He has never seen the structure, save as it stands
from a distance; but from his sick-room he has directed and watched over
the progress of the enterprise, his active assistant being his wife, of
whom Mayor Edson, in his address on the occasion, spoke in the following
terms: "With this bridge will ever be coupled the thought of one,
through the subtle alembic of whose brain, and by whose facile fingers,
communication was maintained between the directing power of its
construction and the obedient agencies of its execution. It is thus an
everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of woman." After
the conclusion of the address, the President and his Cabinet, the
Governor, and hundreds of others, paid their respects to Colonel
Roebling, and did honor to the man the completion of whose work they
were celebrating. After it was over Roebling replied, to the suggestion
that he must be happy, "I am satisfied."
The great bridge was opened to the public at midnight, and the waiting
throng, which even at that hour numbered about twenty thousand persons,
were permitted to enter the gates and cross the structure. A
representative of the New York _Herald_ was the first to pay the toll of
one cent demanded, and the first to begin the passage across. With the
completion of this bridge the continent is entirely spanned, and one may
visit, dry shod and without the use of ferry boats, every city from the
Atlantic to the Golden Gate.
But the great bridge was not to be consecrated to the use of the public
without a baptism of blood. On Decoration Day, which occurred the
seventh day after the opening of the bridge, there was a grand military
parade in New York, reviewed by President Arthur from a stand in Madison
Square, and impressive ceremonies at the various cemeteries in Brooklyn.
From early morning a steady stream of pedestrians poured each way,
across the bridge. About four o'clock in the afternoon there came a lock
in the crowd, just at the top of the stairs on the New York side,
leading down to the concrete roadway Men, women and children were wedged
together in a jam, created by the fearful pressure of two opposing
crowds, extending to either end of the bridge. Some one stumbled and
fell on the stairs. The terrible pressure prevented him or her from
rising, and others fell over the obstacle thus placed in the pathway.
Those immediately behind were hopelessly forced on over them. A panic
ensued. Women screamed and wrung their hands; children cried and called
pitifully for "help!" Men shouted themselves hoarse, swore and fought. A
hundred hats and bonnets were afterwards found upon the spot, trampled
into shapelessness. Clothes were torn off, and many emerged from the
crush in only their undergarments. Parents held their children aloft to
keep them from being trampled upon. Hundreds of men climbed with
difficulty on the beams running over the railroads, and dropping down
were caught by those in the carriage-way beneath. A number of women also
escaped in that manner.
At last, after almost superhuman efforts, the crowd was pressed back
sufficiently to gather up the prostrate bodies, which were taken to the
roadway below, and ranged along the wall, waiting for ambulances to
convey them away. Twelve persons were found dead, some of them bruised,
discolored, and covered with blood, and others apparently suffocated to
death. The list of injured was very much larger--how much will probably
never be known, since many, assisted by their friends, returned to their
homes without reporting their hurts. The dead and wounded were most of
them conveyed to the City Hall Police Station, and were there claimed by
their friends; and the day which had begun so joyously ended in gloom.
New York is one of the most wonderful products of our wonderful western
civilization. It is itself a world in epitome. Thoroughly cosmopolitan
in its character, almost every nationality is represented within its
boundaries, and almost every tongue spoken. It is the great monetary,
scientific, artistic and intellectual centre of the western world.
Containing much that is evil, it also abounds with more that is good. It
is well governed. Its sanitary arrangements are such as to make it
peculiarly free from epidemic diseases. The record of its crimes is
undoubtedly a long one; but when the number of its inhabitants is
considered, it will be found to show an average comparing favorably with
other cities. Thousands of happy homes are found throughout its length
and breadth. Hundreds of good and charitable enterprises are originated
and fostered within its limits, and grow, some of them, to gigantic
proportions, reaching out strong arms to the uttermost confines of the
country and even of the world, comforting the afflicted, lifting up the
degraded, and shedding the light of truth in dark places. It is already
a great city, a wonderful city. But what it is to-day is only the
beginning of what those who live fifty years hence will behold it. There
is still space upon Manhattan Island for twice or thrice its present
population and business; and the no distant future will undoubtedly see
this space fully occupied, while it is among the possibilities that New
York will become, in point of inhabitants and commercial interests, the
first city in the world.
[Illustration: NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.]
CHAPTER XXII.
OMAHA.
Arrival in Omaha.--The Missouri River.--Position and Appearance
of the City.--Public Buildings.--History.--Land Speculation.--
Panic of 1857.--Discovery of Gold in Colorado.--"Pike's Peak
or Bust."--Sudden Revival of Business.--First Railroad.--Union
Pacific Railroad.--Population.--Commercial and Manufacturing
Interests.--Bridge over the Missouri.--Union Pacific Depot.--
Prospects for the Future.
On the afternoon of October twenty-first, 1876, I sat in the saddle upon
the eastern bank of the Missouri River, opposite Omaha, Nebraska, having
that day accomplished a horseback journey of twenty-two miles, on my way
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Paul Revere, the faithful horse who
had borne me all the way from Boston, declined entering the ferry boat,
it being his firm conviction that rivers should either be crossed by
bridges or forded. At last, being gently coerced, the horse reluctantly
consented, and the muddy current of the river was soon crossed. At three
o'clock I entered the city of Omaha, the half-way house across the
continent, it having been a little more than five months since I dashed
out of the surf, my horse's hoofs wet and dripping with the brine of the
Atlantic.
Omaha lies on the eastern boundary of Nebraska, opposite Council Bluffs,
on the western bank of the Missouri River, a turbulent stream, which is
never satisfied with its position, but is constantly shifting and
changing, and making for itself new channels. A bottom land about three
miles wide stretches out between Omaha and Council Bluffs, and through
this the Missouri rolls, a swift, muddy stream, slowly but surely
carrying the Rocky Mountains down to the Mississippi, which, in its
turn, deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico, and helps to extend our Gulf
coast. The Missouri vibrates like a pendulum, from one side of this
bottom land to the other; now being near one city, and then near the
other. At the period of my visit its current washed the front of Omaha,
leaving Council Bluffs some distance off on the opposite side; but it
was already beginning its backward swing. Thus the boundary line between
Nebraska and Iowa is being continually shifted, and one State is
augmented in territory at the expense of the other.
Omaha is built in part upon the low bottom lands which border the river,
and which may at any time be menaced by the swollen and angry stream,
unless precautions are taken, in the building of high and substantial
stone levees along the river front. The town lies also in part upon the
table lands beyond, and is extending to the bluffs which rise still
further away. Its business is chiefly confined to the lower portion,
where magnificent blocks attest the prosperity of the city. Streets of
substantial dwellings, and numerous most elegant private residences,
with large and handsomely ornamented grounds, are discovered as one
passes through the city. A striking edifice, of Cincinnati freestone,
four stories high, is occupied as a Post Office and Court House. Its
High School building is one of the finest in the country. When the State
Government was, in 1866, removed from Omaha to Lincoln, the Legislature
donated the Square and Capitol Building at the former place for High
School purposes. The old Capitol was demolished, and a magnificent
school building erected on its site, at a cost of $250,000, while other
fine school edifices, aggregating in cost about $150,000 more, were
erected in other sections of the city. The High School building is on
the summit of a hill, overlooking a large extent of country, and has a
spire one hundred and eighty-five feet high. The Depot of the Union
Pacific Railroad is also a noteworthy edifice.
Omaha was first laid out in 1853, and thus named, after a now nearly
extinct tribe of Indians. The first house was built, and the first ferry
established in that year; and a year later the first brick-kiln was
burned, and the first newspaper--the Omaha Arrow--established. Where
Turner Hall now stands, in 1854 was dug the first grave, for an old
squaw of the Omaha tribe who had been left by her kindred to die.
Whittier's description of the growth of western cities seems
particularly applicable to Omaha:--
"Behind the squaw's light birch canoe
The steamer smokes and raves,
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves."
The first Legislature of Nebraska convened in Omaha in the winter of
1854-5; and in 1856 the Capital was definitely located in that city, and
the erection of the capitol building commenced. For a year or two there
was a great land-boom, and city property and "corner lots" were held at
fabulous prices. But in 1857 a crash came, and for a time the infant
town was prostrated. However, in 1859 the discovery of gold in Colorado
gave it a fresh impetus. The miners who marched in a perpetual caravan
across the plains, in white-topped wagons, marked "Pike's Peak or bust,"
made Omaha their final starting-point, taking in at that place supplies
for their long journey. Two years previous all who could get away from
the apparently doomed town had gone to other sections, to begin anew the
fight for fortune. Only those remained who were too poor to go, but
these were now in luck. Fortune came to them, instead of their being
compelled to undertake an ignis fatuus chase after her. At that time the
business men of the city laid the foundations of their wealth and
prosperity.
In 1857 the town was incorporated as a city; but up to 1867 its only
means of communication with the east was by stage-coach, across Iowa,
and by steamers on the Missouri, which latter ceased running in winter.
In 1865 the population of the town was but four thousand five hundred
persons. In 1867 the first train of cars arrived in the city, on the
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. It was not long before other
railroads, one after another, made it their western terminus, and its
prosperity was established. Then came the Union Pacific Railroad, which
started on its long journey across the plains and mountains from this
point. The trade to the Pacific coast thus necessarily passed through
Omaha, which became a gateway on the route, while many travelers and
emigrants paused to breathe and rest before proceeding further, and to
take in large quantities of supplies. In 1875 its population had
increased to twenty thousand inhabitants, and in 1880 had run up to
thirty thousand.
Strange as it may seem, the building of the Union Pacific Railroad has
diminished rather than increased the local trade of the city. In
overland times single houses sometimes traded as much as three million
dollars' worth in a year; but the railroad has so dispersed and
distributed business, that now none reach even half that amount. The
city, however, does an immense manufacturing business. Within its limits
is located the largest smelting works in America, employing nearly two
hundred men, and doing an annual business of probably not less than five
millions of dollars. One distillery alone, in 1875, the year previous to
my visit, paid the government a tax of $316,000; while there are
extensive breweries, linseed-oil works, steam-engine works, and
pork-packing establishments. The engine shops, car-works and foundry of
the Union Pacific Road occupy, with the round-house, about thirty acres
of land, on the bottom adjoining the table land upon which the city is
built. Over one million dollars is paid out annually in these
establishments, for manual labor alone, without including payments for
merchandise and supplies. A notable industry is the manufacture of
brick, over five millions being turned out annually from the four
brick-yards of Omaha. The city is also the headquarters of the Army of
the Platte, which annually distributes nearly a million of dollars.
The first postmaster of Omaha used his hat for a post office, and
carried around the mail matter in that receptacle wherever he went,
delivering it by chance to its owners. Twenty years later the city
possessed the finest government building west of the Mississippi, while
the post office receipts are to-day upwards of a million dollars
annually. Hides, buffalo robes, and furs, to the value of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, are annually collected and shipped from
Omaha; while two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the extent in a
single year of the sewing machine business. The Pacific Railroad ships
from Omaha vast quantities of grain to the Salt Lake Valley, and brings
back in return supplies of Utah fruit, fresh and dried. The first
shipment of fruit, made in 1871, amounted to three hundred pounds. In
four years the quantity had increased to nine hundred thousand pounds,
and is still greater to-day. The Grand Central Hotel was the finest
hotel between Chicago and San Francisco, having been erected in 1873, at
a cost of three hundred thousand dollars; but it was destroyed by fire
in 1878.
The visitor to Omaha will probably reach that city by means of the great
bridge across the Missouri River. This bridge is two thousand seven
hundred and fifty feet long, with eleven spans, each span two hundred
and fifty feet in width, and elevated fifty feet above high water mark.
One stone masonry abutment, and eleven piers, each with two cast iron
columns, support this bridge. Its construction was commenced in
February, 1869, and completed in 1872, during most of which time not
less than five hundred men were employed upon it. Each column was sunk
in the bed of the river until a solid foundation was reached. One column
penetrated the earth eighty-two feet below low water, before it rested
on the bed-rock. The approach to the bridge from the Council Bluffs side
is by means of a gradually ascending embankment, one mile and a half in
length. This bridge was constructed at a cost of two million six hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and brings an annual revenue of about four
hundred thousand dollars. It is now, by act of Congress, considered a
part of the Union Pacific Railroad, making the eastern terminus of that
road really at Council Bluffs. Its total length, including its necessary
approaches by embankment on the eastern shore, and by lengthy
tressel-work on the western shore is nine thousand nine hundred and
fifty feet, or nearly two miles.
The old depot grounds of the Union Pacific Railroad were on the bank of
the river, directly under the present bridge. In order to complete the
connection between the bridge and the road, a branch line, seven
thousand feet in length, was laid down directly through the city, and a
new, spacious and most commodious depot constructed, on higher ground.
And from this depot the westward-bound traveler takes his departure for
that western empire toward the setting sun, and may, perhaps, continue
his journey until he has reached and passed the Golden Gate, and only
the solemn immensity of the ocean lies before him.
Situated midway of the American continent, on a navigable river, which
drains the northwest, and opens communication with the east and south; a
prominent point on the great road which clasps a continent and unites
the Atlantic with the Pacific; and at the same time a terminus for
lesser roads which open up to it the trade and commerce of the interior;
and on the borders of two states rich in agricultural and mineral
wealth, and settled by a thrifty, intelligent and enterprising people;
Omaha can scarcely fail to become the greatest city west of St. Louis.
Founded but a generation ago, its business is already stupendous, though
it is really but a beginning of what it promises to be in the future. As
Iowa, Nebraska, and the States and Territories still further to the
northwest, become more thickly settled, with their resources developed,
it will form their natural commercial centre, to which they will look
for supplies, and where they will find a market or a port for their
produce and manufactures. With such an outlook, who will dare to limit
Omaha's possibilities in the future, or say that any flight of the
imagination really exceeds what the actuality may prove?
CHAPTER XXIII.
OTTAWA.
Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian Government.--History.--
Population.--Geographical Position.--Scenery.--Chaudière
Falls.--Rideau Falls.--Ottawa River.--Lumber Business.--
Manufactures.--Steamboat and Railway Communications.--Moore's
Canadian Boat Song.--Description of the City.--Churches,
Nunneries, and Charitable Institutions.--Government Buildings.--
Rideau Hall.--Princess Louise and Marquis of Lorne.--Ottawa's
Proud Boast.
Ottawa was, in 1858, selected by Queen Victoria as the seat of the
Canadian Government. When, in 1867, the British North American
Possessions were reconstructed into the Dominion of Canada, Ottawa
continued to be the Capital city. It was originally called Bytown, after
Colonel By, of the Royal Engineers, who was, in 1827, commissioned to
construct the Rideau Canal, and who laid out the town. In 1854 it was
incorporated as a city, and its name changed to Ottawa, from the river
upon which it stands. Since that time it has increased rapidly in
population and importance, and has at the present time not far from
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It is situated on the south bank of
the Ottawa River, at the mouth of the Rideau, one hundred and twenty-six
miles above Montreal. The scenery around it is most magnificent, and is
scarcely surpassed by any in Canada. At the west end of the city the
Ottawa rushes, in a magnificent cataract, over a ragged ledge, two
hundred feet wide and forty feet high, in what is known as the Chaudière
Falls. Chaudière signifies caldron, and in the seething caldron of
waters at the base of the falls a sounding line three hundred feet in
length has not touched bottom. Immediately below the falls is a
suspension bridge, from which a most satisfactory view can be obtained.
At the northeast end of the city the Rideau tumbles, in two cataracts,
into the Ottawa. These cataracts are very picturesque, but are exceeded
in grandeur by the Chaudière. The Des Chênes Rapids, having a fall of
nine feet, are found about eight miles above Ottawa.
The Ottawa River is, next to the St. Lawrence, the largest stream in
Canada. Rising in the range of mountains which forms the watershed
between Hudson Bay and the great lakes, it runs in a southeasterly
direction for about six hundred miles before it empties into the St.
Lawrence. It has two mouths, which form the island upon which Montreal
is situated. The entire region drained by it and its tributaries
measures eighty thousand square miles. These tributaries and the Ottawa
itself form highways for, probably, the largest lumber trade in the
world. The clearing of great tracts of country by the lumbermen has
opened the way for agriculturists; and numerous thriving settlements are
found upon and near their banks, all of which look to Ottawa as their
business centre. As these settlements increase in number and size, the
prosperity of Ottawa will multiply in proportion. The navigation of the
river has been much improved by engineering, especially for the
transportation of lumber, dams and slides having been constructed for
its passage over rapids and falls.
This immense supply of lumber is, much of it, arrested at Ottawa, where
the almost unequaled water power is utilized in saw-mills, which furnish
the city its principal employment, and from which issue yearly almost
incredible quantities of sawed lumber. There are also flour mills, and
manufactories of iron castings, mill machinery, and agricultural
implements, which give it commercial importance, and a sound basis of
prosperity.
Ottawa is connected by steamer with Montreal, and by the Rideau Canal
with Lake Ontario at Kingston, while the Grand Trunk Railway sends a
branch line from Prescott. The Ottawa River is navigable for one hundred
and eighty-eight miles above the city, by steamers of the Union
Navigation Company, but there are numerous portages around falls and
rapids. The last stopping place of the steamer is Mattawa, a remote port
of the Hudson Bay Company. Beyond that outpost of civilization there is
nothing but unexplored and unbroken wilderness. Moore's Canadian boat
song makes mention of the Ottawa River:--
"Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing, at St. Ann's, our parting hymn.
"Ottawa's tide, this trembling moon
Shall see us afloat on thy waters soon."
Ottawa is divided into Upper and Lower Town by the Rideau Canal, which
contains eight massive locks within the city limits, and is crossed by
two bridges, one of stone and iron, and the other of stone alone. The
streets of the city are wide and regular. Sparks street is the
fashionable promenade, containing the principal retail stores. Sussex is
also a prominent business street. The principal hotels are the Russell
House, near the Parliament Buildings; Windsor House, in the Upper Town;
and the Albion, on Court House Square.
The most prominent church edifice in the city is the Roman Catholic
Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is of stone, with double spires two
hundred feet in height. The interior is very fine, and contains as an
altar piece Murillo's "Flight into Egypt." St. Patrick's, Roman
Catholic, and St. Andrew's, Presbyterian, are also striking churches. At
the corner of Bolton and Sussex streets is the imposing stone building
of the Grey Nunnery, while the group of buildings belonging to the Black
Nunnery is to the eastward of Cartier Square. There are, besides, in the
city, two convents, two hospitals, three orphan asylums, and a Magdalen
asylum, all under the control of the Roman Catholics. The Ottawa
University is also a Roman Catholic institution, and has a large
building in Wilbrod street. The Ladies' College, in Albert street, is a
Protestant school.
But all these structures sink into insignificance when compared to the
Government Buildings, which constitute the most prominent feature of the
city of Ottawa. They are situated on an eminence known as Barrack Hill,
which rises one hundred and fifty feet above the river, and were erected
at a cost of about four millions of dollars. They form three sides of a
vast quadrangle, which occupies nearly four acres. The Parliament House
is on the south side or front of the quadrangle, and is four hundred and
seventy-two feet long, and the same number of feet deep, from the front
of the main tower, to the rear of the library. The Departmental
Buildings run north from this main structure, forming the east and west
sides of the quadrangle. The eastern side is five hundred and eighteen
feet long, by two hundred and fifty-three feet deep, and the western
side is two hundred and eleven feet long, by two hundred and
seventy-seven feet deep. These latter buildings contain the various
government bureaus, in the west block being also found the model room
of the Patent Office, and the Post Office. The entire structure is of
cream-colored sandstone, with arches and doors of red Potsdam sandstone,
and the external ornamental work of this sandstone. Its architecture is
in the Italian-Gothic style. Green and purple slates cover the roof, and
the pinnacles are ornamented with elaborate iron trellis work. The
columns and arches of the legislative chambers are of marble. These
chambers are capacious and richly finished, and have stained glass
windows. The Chamber of Commons is reached by an entrance to the left of
the main entrance, under the central tower, and the marble of its
columns and arches is beautiful. The Senate Hall, which is entered from
the right of the main entrance, contains the vice-regal canopy and
throne, and a portrait of Queen Victoria. There are also full-length
portraits, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of George III, and Queen Charlotte.
The Library is a circular structure, on the north front of the
Parliament House, with a dome ninety feet high, and contains about forty
thousand volumes. A massive stone wall incloses the fourth side of the
quadrangle, and the inclosure is laid out with tree-shaded walks.
Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, is in New
Edinburgh, a suburban town on the opposite side of the Rideau River,
connected with Ottawa by a bridge. Rideau Hall has been for several
years past the home of the Marquis of Lorne, Governor General of the
Dominion of Canada, and the Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen
Victoria. The love which the Canadians bear their Queen was most loyally
manifested on the arrival of the Governor General and the Princess, his
wife. Every honor was shown the Marquis which was due his official and
hereditary rank; but the most extravagant marks of affection and
veneration were lavished upon the Princess, who was regarded as a
representative of her mother. Whenever she proceeded through the
Dominion, her progress was a triumphal procession. The people crowded to
catch but a glimpse of her face, or to hear the tones of her voice. She
is described as an extremely affable lady, the beauty of Her Majesty's
family, caring less for the traditions and observances of royalty than
her imperial mother, with great native shrewdness and marked ability as
an artist. She has traveled extensively throughout the dominion of
Canada, having reached its extreme western limit, and crossed the United
States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is said she does not greatly
admire Canada, and proposes to spend as little time at Ottawa as
possible, regarding the somewhat primitive society there as almost
semi-barbaric. But when she returns permanently to the island of her
birth she will go with greatly enlarged views, and a knowledge of the
world, and especially of the people of the new world, which ought to
constitute her an efficient counsellor in affairs of state.
The Marquis of Lorne, Governor General of Canada, is described as an
extremely handsome gentleman of the Scotch type, with large literary
attainments, and with a desire to conciliate the people over whom he has
been sent to rule. For many generations to come it will undoubtedly be
Ottawa's highest boast that it has numbered among its citizens the son
of one of the proudest nobles of the British realm, and a princess of
the blood.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PITTSBURG.
Pittsburg at Night.--A Pittsburg Fog.--Smoke.--Description of
the City.--The Oil Business.--Ohio River.--Public Buildings,
Educational and Charitable Institutions.--Glass Industry.--
Iron Foundries.--Fort Pitt Works.--Casting a Monster Gun.--
American Iron Works.--Nail Works.--A City of Workers.--
A True Democracy.--Wages.--Character of Workmen.--Value of
Organization.--Knights of Labor.--Opposed to Strikes.--True
Relations of Capital and Labor.--Railroad Strike of 1877.--
Allegheny City.--Population of Pittsburg.--Early History--
Braddock's Defeat.--Old Battle Ground.--Historic Relics.--
The Past and the Present.
By all means make your first approach to Pittsburg in the night time,
and you will behold a spectacle which has not a parallel on this
continent. Darkness gives the city and its surroundings a
picturesqueness which they wholly lack by daylight. It lies low down in
a hollow of encompassing hills, gleaming with a thousand points of
light, which are reflected from the rivers, whose waters glimmer, it may
be, in the faint moonlight, and catch and reflect the shadows as well.
Around the city's edge, and on the sides of the hills which encircle it
like a gloomy amphitheatre, their outlines rising dark against the sky,
through numberless apertures, fiery lights stream forth, looking angrily
and fiercely up toward the heavens, while over all these settles a heavy
pall of smoke. It is as though one had reached the outer edge of the
infernal regions, and saw before him the great furnace of Pandemonium
with all the lids lifted. The scene is so strange and weird that it
will live in the memory forever. One pictures, as he beholds it, the
tortured spirits writhing in agony, their sinewy limbs convulsed, and
the very air oppressive with pain and rage.
But the scene is illusive. This is the domain of Vulcan, not of Pluto.
Here, in this gigantic workshop, in the midst of the materials of his
labor, the god of fire, having left his ancient home on Olympus, and
established himself in this newer world, stretches himself beside his
forge, and sleeps the peaceful sleep which is the reward of honest
industry. Right at his doorway are mountains of coal to keep a perpetual
fire upon his altar; within the reach of his outstretched grasp are
rivers of coal oil; and a little further away great stores of iron for
him to forge and weld, and shape into a thousand forms; and at his feet
is the shining river, an impetuous Mercury, ever ready to do his
bidding. Grecian mythology never conceived of an abode so fitting for
the son of Zeus as that which he has selected for himself on this
western hemisphere. And his ancient tasks were child's play compared
with the mighty ones he has undertaken to-day.
Failing a night approach, the traveler should reach the Iron City on a
dismal day in autumn, when the air is heavy with moisture, and the very
atmosphere looks dark. All romance has disappeared. In this nineteenth
century the gods of mythology find no place in daylight. There is only a
very busy city shrouded in gloom. The buildings, whatever their original
material and color, are smoked to a uniform, dirty drab; the smoke
sinks, and mingling with the moisture in the air, becomes of a
consistency which may almost be felt as well as seen. Under a drab sky a
drab twilight hangs over the town, and the gas-lights, which are left
burning at mid-day, shine out of the murkiness with a dull, reddish
glare. Then is Pittsburg herself. Such days as these are her especial
boast, and in their frequency and dismalness, in all the world she has
no rival.
In truth, Pittsburg is a smoky, dismal city, at her best. At her worst,
nothing darker, dingier or more dispiriting can be imagined. The city is
in the heart of the soft coal region; and the smoke from her dwellings,
stores, factories, foundries and steamboats, uniting, settles in a cloud
over the narrow valley in which she is built, until the very sun looks
coppery through the sooty haze. According to a circular of the Pittsburg
Board of Trade, about twenty per cent., or one-fifth, of all the coal
used in the factories and dwellings of the city escapes into the air in
the form of smoke, being the finer and lighter particles of carbon of
the coal, which, set free by fire, escapes unconsumed with the gases.
The consequences of several thousand bushels of coal in the air at one
and the same time may be imagined. But her inhabitants do not seem to
mind it; and the doctors hold that this smoke, from the carbon, sulphur
and iodine contained in it, is highly favorable to lung and cutaneous
diseases, and is the sure death of malaria and its attendant fevers. And
certainly, whatever the cause may be, Pittsburg is one of the healthiest
cities in the United States. Her inhabitants are all too busy to reflect
upon the inconvenience or uncomeliness of this smoke. Work is the object
of life with them. It occupies them from morning until night, from the
cradle to the grave, only on Sundays, when, for the most part, the
furnaces are idle, and the forges are silent. For Pittsburg, settled by
Irish-Scotch Presbyterians, is a great Sunday-keeping day. Save on this
day her business men do not stop for rest or recreation, nor do they
"retire" from business. They die with the harness on, and die, perhaps,
all the sooner for having worn it so continuously and so long.
Pittsburg is not a beautiful city. That stands to reason, with the heavy
pall of smoke which constantly overhangs her. But she lacks beauty in
other respects. She is substantially and compactly built, and contains
some handsome edifices; but she lacks the architectural magnificence of
some of her sister cities; while her suburbs present all that is
unsightly and forbidding in appearance, the original beauties of nature
having been ruthlessly sacrificed to utility.
Pittsburg is situated in western Pennsylvania, in a narrow valley at the
confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and at the head of
the Ohio, and is surrounded by hills rising to the height of four or
five hundred feet. These hills once possessed rounded outlines, with
sufficient exceptional abruptness to lend them variety and
picturesqueness. But they have been leveled down, cut into, sliced off,
and ruthlessly marred and mutilated, until not a trace of their original
outlines remain. Great black coal cars crawl up and down their sides,
and plunge into unexpected and mysterious openings, their sudden
disappearance lending, even in daylight, an air of mystery and diablerie
to the region. Railroad tracks gridiron the ground everywhere, debris of
all sorts lies in heaps, and is scattered over the earth, and huts and
hovels are perched here and there, in every available spot. There is no
verdure--nothing but mud and coal, the one yellow the other black. And
on the edge of the city are the unpicturesque outlines of factories and
foundries, their tall chimneys belching forth columns of inky blackness,
which roll and whirl in fantastic shapes, and finally lose themselves in
the general murkiness above.
The tranquil Monongahela comes up from the south, alive with barges and
tug boats; while the swifter current of the Allegheny bears from the oil
regions, at the north, slight-built barges with their freights of crude
petroleum. Oil is not infrequently poured upon the troubled waters, when
one of these barges sinks, and its freight, liberated from the open
tanks, refuses to sink with it, and spreads itself out on the surface of
the stream.
The oil fever was sorely felt in Pittsburg, and it was a form of malaria
against which the smoke-laden atmosphere was no protection. During the
early years of the great oil speculation the city was in a perpetual
state of excitement. Men talked oil upon the streets, in the cars and
counting-houses, and no doubt thought of oil in church. Wells and
barrels of petroleum, and shares of oil stock were the things most often
mentioned. And though that was nearly twenty years ago, and the oil
speculation has settled into a safe and legitimate pursuit, Pittsburg is
still the greatest oil mart in the world. By the means of Oil Creek and
the Allegheny, the oil which is to supply all markets is first shipped
to Pittsburg, passes through the refineries there, and is then exported.
[Illustration: PITTSBURGH AND ITS RIVERS.]
The Ohio River makes its beginning here, and in all but the season of
low water the wharves of the city are lined with boats, barges and tugs,
destined for every mentionable point on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The Ohio River is here, as all along its course, an uncertain and
capricious stream. Sometimes, in spring, or early summer, it creeps up
its banks and looks menacingly at the city. At other times it seems to
become weary of bearing the boats, heavily laden with merchandise, to
their destined ports, and so takes a nap, as it were. The last time we
beheld this water-course its bed was lying nearly bare and dry, while a
small, sluggish creek, a few feet, or at most, a few yards wide, crept
along the bottom, small barges being towed down stream by horses, which
waded in the water. The giant was resting.
The public buildings and churches of Pittsburg are, some of them, of
fine appearance, while the Mercantile Library is an institution to be
proud of, being both handsome and spacious, and containing a fine
library and well-supplied reading room. The city boasts of universities,
colleges, hospitals, and asylums, and the Convent of the Sisters of
Mercy is the oldest house of the order in America. There are also two
theatres, an Opera House, an Academy of Music, and several public halls.
But it is not any of these which has made the city what she is, or to
which she will point with the greatest pride. The crowning glory of
Pittsburg is her monster iron and glass works. One-half the glass
produced in all the United States comes from Pittsburg. This important
business was first established here in 1787, by Albert Gallatin, and it
has increased since then to giant proportions. Probably, not less than
one hundred millions of bottles and vials are annually produced here,
besides large quantities of window glass. The best wine bottles in
America are made here, though they are inferior to those of French
manufacture. A great number of flint-glass works turn out the best
flint glass produced in the country.
In addition to these glass works--which, though they employ thousands of
workmen, represent but a fraction of the city's industries--there are
rolling mills, foundries, potteries, oil refineries, and factories of
machinery. All these works are rendered possible by the coal which
abounds in measureless quantities in the immediate neighborhood of the
city. All the hills which rise from the river back of Pittsburg have a
thick stratum of bituminous coal running through them, which can be
mined without shafts, or any of the usual accessories of mining. All
that is to be done is to shovel the coal out of the hill-side, convey it
in cars or by means of an inclined plane to the factory or foundry door,
and dump it, ready for use. In fact, these hills are but immense coal
cellars, ready filled for the convenience of the Pittsburg
manufacturers. True, in shoveling the coal out of the hill-side, the
excavations finally become galleries, running one, two or three miles
directly into the earth. But there is neither ascent nor descent; no
lowering of miners or mules in great buckets down a deep and narrow
shaft, no elevating of coal through the same means. It is all like a
great cellar, divided into rooms, the ceilings supported by arches of
the coal itself. Each miner works a separate room, and when the room is
finished, and that part of the mine exhausted the arches are knocked
away, pillars of large upright logs substituted, the coal removed, and
the hill left to settle gradually down, until the logs are crushed and
flattened.
The "Great Pittsburg Coal Seam" is from four to twelve feet thick, about
three hundred feet above the water's edge, and about one hundred feet
from the average summit of the hills. It is bituminous coal which has
been pressed solid by the great mass of earth above it. The thicker the
mass and the greater the pressure, the better the coal. It has been
estimated as covering eight and a half millions of acres, and that it
would take the entire product of the gold mines of California for one
thousand years to buy this one seam. When we remember the numerous other
coal mines, anthracite as well as bituminous, found within the limits of
the State of Pennsylvania, we are fairly stupefied in trying to
comprehend the mineral wealth of that State.
The coal mined in the rooms in these long galleries is conveyed in a
mule-drawn car to the mouth of the gallery, and if to be used by the
foundries at the foot of the hill, is simply sent to its destination
down an inclined plane. Probably not less than ten thousand men are
employed in these coal mines in and near Pittsburg, adding a population
not far from fifty thousand to that region. Pittsburg herself consumes
one-third of the coal produced, and a large proportion of the rest is
shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, some of it as far as New
Orleans.
The monster iron works of Pittsburg consume large quantities of this
coal, and it is the abundance and convenience of the latter material
which have made the former possible. No other city begins to compare
with Pittsburg in the number and variety of her factories. Down by the
banks of the swift-flowing Allegheny most of the great foundries are to
be discovered. The Fort Pitt Works are on a gigantic scale. Here are
cast those monsters of artillery known as the twenty-inch gun. Not by
any means a gun twenty inches in length, but a gun with a bore twenty
inches in diameter, so accurate that it does not vary one-hundredth
part of an inch from the true line in its whole length. The ball for
this gun weighs one thousand and eighty pounds, and costs a hundred and
sixty-five dollars. The gun itself weighs sixty tons, and costs fifty
thousand dollars, and yet one of these giants is cast every day, and the
operation is performed with the utmost composure and absence of
confusion. The mould is an enormous structure of iron and sand, weighing
forty tons, and to adjust this properly is the most difficult and
delicate work in the foundry. When it is all ready, three streams of
molten iron, from as many furnaces, flow through curved troughs and pour
their fiery cataracts into the mould. These streams run for twenty
minutes, and then, the mould being full, the furnaces from which they
flow are closed with a piece of clay. Left to itself, the gun would be
thirty days in cooling, but this process is expedited to eighteen days,
by means of cold water constantly flowing in and out of the bore. While
it is still hot, the great gun is lifted out of the pit, swung across
the foundry to the turning shop, the end shaven off, the outside turned
smooth, and the inside hollowed out, with an almost miraculous
precision. The weight of the gun is thus reduced twenty tons.
The American Iron Works employ two thousand five hundred hands, and
cover seventeen acres. They have a coal mine at their back door, and an
iron mine on Lake Superior, and they make any and every difficult iron
thing the country requires. Nothing is too ponderous, nothing too
delicate and exact, to be produced. The nail works of the city are well
worth seeing. In them a thousand nails a minute are manufactured, each
nail being headed by a blow on cold iron. The noise arising from this
work can only be described as deafening. In one nail factory two hundred
different kinds of nails, tacks and brads are manufactured. The
productions of these different factories and foundries amount in the
aggregate to an almost incredible number and value, and embrace
everything made of iron which can be used by man.
George F. Thurston, writing of Pittsburg, says, it has "thirty-five
miles of factories in daily operation, twisted up into a compact tangle;
all belching forth smoke; all glowing with fire; all swarming with
workmen; all echoing with the clank of machinery. Actual measurement
shows that there are, in the limits of what is known as Pittsburg,
nearly thirty-five miles of manufactories of iron, of steel, of cotton,
and of brass alone, not mentioning manufactories of other materials. In
a distance of thirty-five and one-half miles of streets, there are four
hundred and seventy-eight manufactories of iron, steel, cotton, brass,
oil, glass, copper and wood, occupying less than four hundred feet each;
for a measurement of the ground shows that these factories are so
contiguous in their positions upon the various streets of the city, that
if placed in a continuous row, they would reach thirty-five miles, and
each factory have less than the average front stated. This is
"manufacturing Pittsburg." In four years the sale and consumption of pig
iron alone was one-fourth the whole immense production of the United
States; and through the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their
tributaries, its people control the shipment of goods, without breaking
bulk, over twelve thousand miles of water transportation, and are thus
enabled to deliver the products of their thrift in nearly four hundred
counties in the territory of fifteen States. There is no city of its
size in the country which has so large a banking capital as Pittsburg.
The Bank of Pittsburg, it is said, is the only bank in the Union that
never suspended specie payments.
Pittsburg is a city of workers. From the proprietors of these extensive
works, down to the youngest apprentices, all are busy; and perhaps the
higher up in the scale the harder the work and the greater the worry. A
man who carries upon his shoulders the responsibility of an
establishment whose business amounts to millions of dollars in a year;
who must oversee all departments of labor; accurately adjust the buying
of the crude materials and the scale of wages on the one hand, with the
price of the manufactured article on the other, so that the profit shall
be on the right side; and who at the same time shall keep himself posted
as to all which bears any relation to his business, has no time for
leisure or social pleasures, and must even stint his hours of necessary
rest.
Pittsburg illustrates more clearly than any other city in America the
outcome of democratic institutions. There are no classes here except the
industrious classes; and no ranks in society save those which have been
created by industry. The mammoth establishments, some of them perhaps in
the hands of the grandsons of their founders, have grown from small
beginnings, fostered in their growth by industry and thrift. The great
proprietor of to-day, it may have been, was the "boss" of yesterday, and
the journeyman of a few years ago, having ascended the ladder from the
lowest round of apprenticeship. Industry and sobriety are the main aids
to success.
The wages paid are good, for the most part, varying according to the
quality of the employment, some of them being exceedingly liberal. The
character of the workmen is gradually improving, though it has not yet
reached the standard which it should attain. Many are intelligent,
devoting their spare time to self-improvement, and especially to a
comprehension of the relations of capital and labor, which so intimately
concern them, and which they, more than any other class of citizens,
except employers, need to understand, in order that they may not only
maintain their own rights, but may avoid encroaching on the rights of
others.
Too many workmen, however, have no comprehension of the dignity of their
own position. They live only for present enjoyment, spend their money
foolishly, not to say wickedly, and on every holiday give themselves up
to that curse of the workingman--strong drink. While this class is such
a considerable one, the entire ranks of working men must be the
sufferers. And while ignorance as well as vice has been so prevalent
among them, it is not to be wondered at that they have been constantly
undervalued, and almost as constantly oppressed.
The prosperity of the country depends upon the prosperity of the masses.
With all the money in the hands of a few, there are only the personal
wants of a few to be supplied. With wages high, work is more plentiful,
and everybody prospers. The gains of a large manufacturing
establishment, divided, by means of fair profit and just wages, between
employers and employed, instead of being hoarded up by one man, make one
hundred persons to eat where there would otherwise be but one; one
hundred people to buy the productions of the looms and forges of the
country, instead of only one; one hundred people, each having a little
which they spend at home, instead of one man, who hoards his wealth, or
takes it to Europe to dispose of it. It means all the difference between
good and bad times, between a prosperous country, where all are
comfortable and happy, and a country of a few millionaires and many
paupers.
No description of Pittsburg would be complete without a reference to the
Knights of Labor, which has taken the place of the old trades unions and
guilds. While the latter were in existence, that city was often the
scene of violent and disastrous strikes. The great railroad strike of
1877, in which a number of lives were lost, and millions of dollars'
worth of property destroyed, culminated at Pittsburg, and for days the
city was stricken with panic. The cause of this strike was the decision
of the railroad corporation to reduce to one dollar a day the wages of a
certain class of its employees, which were already too low. The cause of
these strikers was just, but their methods were reprehensible. The
institution and spread of the Knights of Labor has rendered such another
strike an impossibility, as that Order, which has a large membership
among the workmen of Pittsburg, aims to settle, as far as possible, the
difficulties between employers and employees by arbitration; and its
spread will, we trust, if it does not pass under the control of
demagogues, eventually result in a better understanding between capital
and labor, and in a recognition of the fact that their real interests
are identical.
Pittsburg has no park or public pleasure ground. Its people are too busy
to think about such things, or to use them if it had them. On Saturday
nights its theatres and variety halls are crowded, to listen to
entertainments which are not always of the best. When its people wish
to visit a public park, they must cross to Allegheny City, on the west
bank of the Allegheny River, where there is a park embracing a hundred
acres, containing a monument to Humboldt, and ornamented with small
lakes. The Soldiers' Monument, erected to the memory of four thousand
men of Allegheny County who lost their lives in the war of the
Rebellion, is also in this latter city, on a lofty hill near the river,
in the eastern part of the city. Many of the handsome residences of
Pittsburg's merchants and manufacturers are to be seen in this city,
which is also famous for its manufacturing interests, and is connected
with Pittsburg by five bridges. Birmingham is a flourishing suburb on
the opposite bank of the Monongahela River, containing important glass
and iron manufactories.
The present population of Pittsburg is 156,381 inhabitants. The first
settlement upon the site of the city was in 1754, when a French trading
post was established and named Fort Duquesne. On July ninth, 1755,
General Braddock, in command of two thousand British troops, accompanied
by Colonel Washington with eight hundred Virginians, marched toward Fort
Duquesne with the intention of capturing it. When within a few miles of
the fort, they were surprised by a large party of French and Indians in
ambush, and Braddock, who angrily disregarded Washington's advice, saw
his troops slaughtered by an invisible enemy. The English and colonists
lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men, killed and wounded, while the
enemy's loss was scarcely fifty. Braddock himself was mortally wounded,
and died upon the battle field, and in order that his remains might not
be disturbed, Washington buried him in the road, and ordered the wagons
in their retreat to drive over his grave. Washington himself escaped
unhurt, though he had two horses shot under him, and had four bullets
sent through his clothes. An Indian who was engaged in this battle
afterwards said that he had seventeen fair fires at Washington during
the engagement, but was unable to wound him.
In 1758, Fort Duquesne was abandoned by the French, and immediately
occupied by the English, who changed its name to Fort Pitt, in honor of
William Pitt. As a town its settlement dates from 1765. In 1804 it was
incorporated as a borough, and in 1816 chartered as a city. Its
population in 1840, was a little more than 20,000. In 1845 a great part
of the city was destroyed by fire, but was quickly rebuilt, its
prosperity remaining unchecked.
A little less than ten miles from Pittsburg is the village called
Braddock's Field, which, in the names of its streets, perpetuates the
old historic associations. The ancient Indian trail which led to the
river is still preserved, and the two shallow ravines in which the
French and Indians lay concealed when they surprised Braddock's troops
are still there, though denuded of the dense growth of hazel bushes
which at that period served the purpose of an ambush. From an old oak in
this neighborhood many bullets have been pried out by persevering relic
hunters; while in the adjacent gardens the annual spring plowing
invariably turns up mementoes of that historic event, in the shape of
bullets, arrow heads, and even bayonets. A sword with a name engraved
upon it has also been found.
The Pennsylvania Railroad now crosses the location of the thickest of
the fight, and at the time of its construction a considerable number of
human bones were dug up and reinterred, the place of the later interment
being surrounded by a rough fence of common rails. Children now play
where once the forces of their nation engaged in deadly warfare. The
hillside, which was then pierced by bullets, is now perforated near its
summit by large openings, through which emerge car-loads of coal. Thus
the present and the past strike hands across the century, and modern
civilization, with its implements of industry and its appliances of
commerce, supersedes and obliterates the traces of savagery, and of the
deadly enmity of man toward man. The sword is turned into the plowshare,
and peace triumphs over bloodshed.
CHAPTER XXV.
PORTLAND.
The Coast of Maine.--Early Settlements in Portland.--Troubles
with the Indians.--Destruction of the Town in 1690.--Destroyed
Again in 1703.--Subsequent Settlement and Growth.--During the
Revolution.--First Newspaper.--Portland Harbor.--Commercial
Facilities and Progress.--During the Rebellion.--Great Fire
of 1866.--Reconstruction.--Position of the city.--Streets.--
Munjoy Hill.--Maine General Hospital.--Eastern and Western
Promenades.--Longfellow's House.--Birthplace of the Poet.--
Market Square and Hall.--First Unitarian Church.--Lincoln
Park.--Eastern Cemetery.--Deering's Woods.--Commercial
Street.--Old-time Mansion.--Case's Bay and Islands.--Cushing's
Island.--Peak's Island.--Long Island.--Little Chebague Island.--
Harpswell.
The hungry ocean has gnawed and ravaged the New England coast, until
along almost its entire length it is worn into ragged edges, forming
islands, capes, promontories, bold headlands, peninsulas, bays, inlets
and coves. In this coast are united the grand, the picturesque and the
beautiful. Soft masses of foliage are in close juxtaposition with rugged
rocks and dashing surf. Violet turf sweeps down to meet the sands washed
up by the sea. Bays cut deeply into the land, forming safe harbors, and
emerald islands innumerable dot their surface.
In 1632 George Cleve and Richard Tucker landed on the beach of a
peninsula, jutting out into a broad and deep bay, and sheltered from the
ocean by a promontory at the south, now known as Cape Elizabeth, and by
a guard of islands which clasped hands around it. Here Cleve built, of
logs, the first house on the site of what is now the city of Portland.
After a time other colonists came, devoting themselves to fishing and
buying furs of the Indians. When the people of this distant colony
wanted to go to Boston, they rode horseback along the beach, which
formed the original highway. The settlement was first known as Casco,
but its name was changed to Falmouth in 1668, though a portion of it,
where Portland now stands, continued to be known as Casco Rock. In 1675
there were but forty families in the town, and the Rock was still almost
covered by a dense forest. In that year the Indians, who had long borne
grievous wrongs at the hands of the settlers with patient endurance,
arose, under King Philip, to avenge them. The inhabitants of Falmouth
were either killed or carried into captivity, and the little town was
wiped out of existence.
Three years later Fort Royal, the largest fortification on the coast,
was erected on a rocky eminence, near the present foot of India street,
where the round-house of the Grand Trunk Railway now stands, and
settlers began to return. A party of French Huguenots settled there,
mills were set up, roads cut into the forest, and trade established
between Falmouth and Massachusetts towns. The little settlement existed
under varying fortunes until 1690, when the French and Indians, after a
few days' siege, captured the fort, destroyed the town, and carried the
commanding officer and his garrison captives to Quebec. The war
continued until 1698, during which time the place was only known as
"deserted Casco." In 1703 the war broke out again, and what few
inhabitants had straggled back were killed, and the place remained
desolate until 1715, when the re-settlement began. Three years later
twenty families had banded themselves together for mutual defence,
clustering about the foot of India street, and eastward along the beach.
The second meeting-house of the town was erected at the corner of India
and Middle streets, where Rev. Thomas Smith, in 1727, commenced his
ministry, which extended over a period of sixty-eight years.
The town was incorporated in 1718, and at that time the Neck above Clay
Cove was all forest and swamp. A brook flowed into the Cove, crossed by
bridges at Fore and Middle streets. The old bridge at Middle street
remained until early in the present century. The trails stretching out
into the forest gradually grew into streets, and the three principal
ones were named Fore, Middle and Back streets. The name of the latter
was, late in the century, changed to Congress street.
After a period of sixty years of steady growth, the town had extended
only as far westward as Centre street, and the upper portion of the Neck
was still covered with woods. The Indians gave the town little trouble
after 1725, having made peace in that year, and gradually dwindled away,
and emigrated to Canada. In 1755 it was no longer a frontier post. Its
population had increased to nearly 3,000 inhabitants, commerce had been
established, and the town was a most peaceful and a prosperous one. At
the commencement of the Revolution 2,555 tons of shipping were owned in
Falmouth.
When the colonies began to resist the encroachments of England, Falmouth
took a prominent and patriotic stand. In October, 1775, Captain Henry
Mowatt, with a fleet of five vessels, opened his batteries on the town,
and, firing the houses, laid it in ashes. Over four hundred buildings
were destroyed, leaving only one hundred standing. The place was again
deserted, the people seeking safety in the interior.
On January first, the _Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser_, the
first newspaper of the town, was published by Benjamin Titcomb and
Thomas B. Waite. In 1786 the town was divided, the Neck receiving the
name of Portland, having at that time a population of about two
thousand. In 1793 wharves were extended into the harbor. In 1806, its
commercial business and general prosperity were unexampled in New
England. The duties collected at the Custom House reached, in that year,
$342,809, having increased from $8,109 in 1790. But in 1807, the embargo
which followed the non-intercourse policy of 1806 resulted in the
suspension of commerce and the temporary ruin of the shipping interests.
Commercial houses were prostrated, and great distress prevailed. The
harbor was empty, and grass grew upon the wharves. In the war of 1812
privateers were fitted out here, some of which damaged the enemy, while
others were captured. After the peace of 1815 commerce revived but
slowly, and the population as slowly increased.
In March, 1820, Maine was separated from Massachusetts, and admitted
into the Union as a State; and Portland became its capital. In 1832 the
capital was removed to Augusta. In 1828 the first steamboat anchored in
the harbor of Portland, having arrived from New York to run as a
passenger boat between Portland and Boston. The Portland Steam Packet
Company was organized in 1844, and has continued in successful operation
ever since.
Portland has one of the deepest and best harbors in the world, with a
depth of forty feet at low tide. Its surroundings are exceptionally
favorable for a commercial city, and were it not for its geographical
location, it being so far north of the great areas of population, it
would undoubtedly have gained a prominence over most of the Atlantic
cities. But Boston and New York drew all but the provincial trade and
commerce, and with a sparsely settled country at its back, there was
little to build up Portland and give it great prosperity. In 1850 the
Cumberland and Oxford Canal, connecting the waters of Sebago Lake with
Portland Harbor, was completed. This was not a great enterprise,
certainly, as compared with modern undertakings; but the Portlanders
thought a good deal of it at the time. Between 1840 and 1846, the city
endured another season of depression. Railroads had given to Boston much
of the business that had formerly found a natural outlet through
Portland; but in the latter year a railroad was planned to Canada,
which, when completed, in 1853, brought it into connection with the
cities of the British provinces, and with the vast grain-growing regions
of the west. A winter line of steamers to Liverpool followed, and the
rapidly increasing commerce of the city soon resulted in the
construction of a wide business avenue, extending a mile in length,
along the whole water front of the city. This new street was called
Commercial, and became the locality of heavy wholesale trade. Closely
following, came the opening up of railroads to all sections of the
State, and the establishment of steamboat lines along the coast, as far
as the Lower Provinces. Trade that had hitherto gone to Boston was thus
reclaimed, new manufacturing establishments sprung up, and an era of
prosperity seemed fairly inaugurated.
Portland manifested her patriotism during the war of the Rebellion,
contributing 5,000 men to the army, of whom four hundred and twenty-one
returned. In June, 1863, the United States Revenue cutter, Caleb
Cushing, having been captured by Rebels, and pursued by the officials of
the city, and becoming becalmed near the Green Islands, was blown up by
her captors, the latter taking to the boats, only to be captured and
sent to Fort Preble as prisoners of war.
On the fourth of July, 1866, a fire-cracker, carelessly thrown in a boat
builder's shop, on Commercial, near the foot of High street, resulted in
a fire which laid in ruins more than half the city of Portland. The fire
commenced about five o'clock in the afternoon. The sparks soon
communicated with Brown's Sugar House, and thence, spreading out like a
fan, swept diagonally across the city, destroying everything in its
track, until a space one and one-half miles long, by one and one-fourth
miles broad, was so completely devastated that only a forest of
tottering walls and blackened chimneys remained, and it was difficult to
trace even the streets. The fire was fanned into such a fury by a gale
which was blowing at the time, that the efforts of the firemen were
without avail, and the work of destruction was only stayed when, as a
last resort, buildings in its path were blown up before the flames had
reached them. The entire business portion, embracing one-half the city,
was destroyed. Every bank and newspaper office, every lawyer's office,
many stores, churches, public buildings and private residences were
swept away. Fireproof structures, which were hastily filled with
valuables, in the belief that they would withstand the flames, crumbled
to the earth, as though melted by the intense heat. Only one building
on Middle street stood unscathed, though the flames swept around it in a
fiery sea. The fire did not burn itself out until early in the morning
of the following day, when it paused at the foot of Mountjoy Hill. When
morning came, the inhabitants looked with terror and dismay upon fifteen
hundred buildings in ashes, fifty-eight streets and courts desolated,
ten thousand people homeless, and $10,000,000 worth of property
destroyed.
The work of succor and reconstruction immediately began. The churches
were thrown open to shelter the homeless; Mountjoy Hill was speedily
transformed into a village of tents; barracks were built; contributions
of food, clothing and money poured in from near and far; the old streets
were widened and straightened, and new ones opened; and before the year
had closed many substantial buildings and blocks had been completed, and
others were in process of erection. The new Portland has arisen from the
ruins of the old, more stately, more beautiful and more substantial than
before; and after the lapse of so many years, the evil which the fire
wrought is forgotten, and only the good is manifest. Railroads have
since been built, and travel and commerce is each year increasing. The
population of Portland in 1880 was 33,810.
The approach to Portland is more beautiful, even, than that to New York.
The city is built upon a small peninsula rising out of Casco Bay, to a
mean central elevation of more than one hundred feet. This peninsula
projects from the main land in a northeast direction, and is about three
miles long, by an average breadth of three-fourths of a mile. An arm of
the Bay, called Fore River, divides it on the south from Cape
Elizabeth, and forms an inner harbor of more than six hundred acres in
extent, and with an average depth, at high water, of thirty feet.
Vessels of the largest size can anchor in the main harbor, in forty feet
of water at low tide. The waters of the Back Cove separate it on the
north from the shores of Deering, and form another inner basin, of large
extent and considerable depth.
At the northeasternmost extremity of the Neck, Munjoy Hill rises to a
height of one hundred and sixty-one feet, and commands a beautiful view
of the city, bay, adjacent islands and the ocean beyond. At the
southwestern extremity is Bramhall's Hill, rising to one hundred and
seventy-five feet and commanding city, bay, forests, fields, villages
and mountains. The land sinks somewhat between these two elevations, but
its lowest point still rises fifty-seven feet above high tide. The
elevation of its site, and the beauty of its scenery and surroundings,
are fast attracting the attention of tourists, and drawing to the city
hosts of summer visitors.
The peninsula is covered with a network of streets and lanes, containing
an aggregate length of fifty miles, while it has thirty wharves to
accommodate the commerce of the port. Congress street, the main
thoroughfare of the city, is three miles in length, and extends from
Bramhall to Munjoy. Running parallel to it for a part of its length, on
the southern slope, are Middle street, a business street, devoted
principally to the wholesale and retail trade; Fore street, the ancient
water street of the city, but now devoted to miscellaneous trade; and
Commercial street, which commands the harbor, and is principally devoted
to large wholesale business. At the west end there are other streets
between Congress and Commercial, including Spring, Danforth and York.
Cumberland, Oxford, supplemented on its western end by Portland,
Lincoln, along the shore of Back Cove, also supplemented on its western
end by Kennebec street, are on the northern slope of Congress street.
The cross streets are numerous. India street, at the eastern end, was
the early site of population and business; Franklin and Beal streets are
the only ones running straight across the peninsula, from water to
water; Exchange street, devoted to banks, brokers' offices and insurance
agencies, and High and State streets, occupied by private residences,
are the principal ones. There is partially completed around the entire
city a Marginal Way, one hundred feet in width, and nearly five miles in
length.
Munjoy Hill is a suburb, which is almost a distinct village, being
occupied by residences of the middle class, who have their own schools,
churches, and places of business. From its summit, at early morning, one
may see the sun rising out of the ocean, in the midst of emerald
islands. On this hill, in 1690, Lieutenant Thaddeus Clark, with thirteen
men, was shot by Indians in ambush, the hill being then covered with
forest. On the same hill, in 1717, Lieutenant-Governor Dammer made a
treaty with the Indians, which secured a peace for many years; and in
1775 Colonel Thompson captured Captain Mowatt, in revenge for which the
latter subsequently burned the city. In 1808 the third and last
execution for murder took place here; and in 1866 here arose the village
of tents after the great conflagration. The Observatory, built in 1807,
is upon Munjoy, having been erected for the purpose of signaling
shipping approaching the harbor. It is eighty-two feet high, and from
it one can obtain the best view of the city and its surroundings. Casco
Bay lies to the northeast, dotted with islands. To the eastward, four
miles distant, beyond its barrier of islands, the Atlantic keeps up the
never-ending music of its waves. To the southward is the city, with the
harbor and the shipping beyond. Far away to the northeast is Mount
Washington, faintly outlined upon the horizon, prominent in the distant
range of mountains. Adjoining the Observatory is the Congress street
Methodist Episcopal Church, a beautiful edifice, its slender, graceful
spire being a most conspicuous object from the harbor and the sea, and
rising to the greatest height of any in the city.
The western end, including Bramhall Hill, is the fashionable quarter;
and having been spared in the conflagration of 1866, many ancient
mansions remain, surrounded by newer and more elegant residences. The
houses are in the midst of well-kept lawns and gardens, and the streets
are shaded by stately elms, some of them of venerable age. The views
through these avenues of trees, through some of the streets leading down
to the water, are delightful beyond description, the overarching foliage
framing in glimpses of water, fields, distant hills and blue sky. At
evening, from Bramhall's Hill, one looks over a beautiful and varied
landscape, brightened by the glow of sunset on the western sky. The
Maine General Hospital stands on Bramhall Hill, an imposing edifice, and
one of the most prominent features of the city.
The Western Promenade, a wide avenue planted with rows of trees, runs
along the brow of Bramhall's Hill. The hill is named after George
Bramhall, who in 1680 bought a tract of four hundred acres, and made
himself a home in the wilderness. Nine years later he was killed at the
foot of the hill, in a fight with the Indians. From the summit of the
hill may be seen the waters of Fore River on the one hand, and of Back
Cove on the other. Beyond is a wide stretch of field and forest, broken
by villages and farmhouses, with the spires of Gorham in view, and far
away, behind them, Ossipee Mountain, fifty-five miles distant, in New
Hampshire. To the east is the church of Standish, Maine, and Chocorue
Peak rising behind it; Mount Carrigain, sixty-three miles away, the line
of the Saddleback in Sebago, and far beyond, the sun-capped summits of
the White Mountains.
The Eastern Promenade is on Munjoy's Hill, and commands views equally
beautiful.
The Preble House is in Congress street, shaded by four magnificent elms,
which have survived from the days of the Preble Mansion. Next to it,
sitting back from the street, and also shaded by elms, is the first
brick house built in Portland. It was begun in 1785, by General Peleg
Wadsworth, and finished the following year, by his son-in-law, Stephen
Longfellow. It is known as the Longfellow House, but it is not the place
where the poet was born. He lived here in his youth, and frequently
visited the house in later days; and it is still in the possession of
his family. But Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first saw the light on
February twenty-seventh, 1807, in an old-fashioned wooden house, at the
corner of Fore and Hancock streets. The sea at that period flowed up to
the road opposite the house, which commanded a fine view of the harbor.
New-made land crowds it further away, and the trains of the Grand Trunk
Railway run where the tide once ebbed and flowed. Not far off is the
site of the first house ever built in Portland, by George Cleves, in
1632.
Nathaniel P. Willis was also born in Portland, but a little more than a
month earlier than Longfellow. Both his father and his grandfather had
been publishers, the latter having been apprenticed in the same printing
office with Benjamin Franklin. Sarah Payson Willis, subsequently Mrs.
James Parton, still better known as Fanny Fern, a sister of the poet,
was also a native of Portland. John Neal, born in Portland August
twenty-fifth, 1793, was a man well known as a poet, novelist and
journalist. Seba Smith, author of the Jack Downing Papers, Mrs. E. Oakes
Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Allen, Nathaniel Deering, Rev. Elijah
Kellogg, Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Mrs. Margaret J. M. Sweat, and other
well-known authors, have been either natives of or residents in
Portland. General Neal Dow, who served in the late war, and so famous as
an advocate of prohibition, finds his home in Portland, at the corner of
Congress and Dow streets. William Pitt Fessenden, late Senator and
Secretary of the Treasury, claimed Portland as his home.
Market Square is in the heart of the city, surrounded by stores, hotels,
halls, and places of amusement. Military Hall stands almost in-the
centre of the square, and was built in 1825, as a town hall and market
place. The building contains a history in itself. Here, before the city
charter was obtained, in 1832, town meetings were held, and subsequently
it was the headquarters of the city government. Military companies had
and still have their armories here; and it has been the place of many
exciting political meetings. In it Garrison uttered his anathemas
against slavery, and Stephen A. Foster was assaulted by a brutal
pro-slavery mob. Sumner, Fessenden, and other great orators, have
poured forth their eloquence within its hall, and parties have been made
and unmade. On holidays Market Square is crowded with an animated
throng, and at night, when peddlers and mountebanks take their stands
and display their wares by the light of flaming torches, the scene is
especially picturesque.
On Congress street, not far from Market Square, is the First Parish
(Unitarian) Church, which was rebuilt in 1825, on the site which the old
church had occupied since 1740. This church is remarkable for its long
pastorates, there having been but four pastors from 1727 to 1864, a
period of one hundred and thirty-seven years. The present pastor is the
Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, ex-President of Harvard College.
Lincoln Park is a public square, bounded by Congress, Franklin, Federal
and Pearl streets. It contains a little less than two and one-half
acres, in the middle of which is a fountain. This park is in the centre
of the district swept by the conflagration of 1866, and looking on every
side, not a building meets the eye which was erected previous to that
year.
The largest and most costly church in Portland is the Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception, fronting on Cumberland street. It is one hundred
and ninety-six feet in length, by one hundred in width, with a spire
rising in the air two hundred and thirty-six feet. It is of brick, and
is imposing only on account of its size. Its interior, however, is
finished and decorated in a style surpassed by few churches in the
country.
[Illustration: NIGHT SCENE IN MARKET SQUARE, PORTLAND, MAINE.]
The Eastern Cemetery, on Congress street, is the oldest graveyard in
Portland. For two hundred years it was the common burial ground of the
settlement, and here, probably, all the early colonists sleep their
last sleep, though their graves are forgotten. The oldest tombstone
which the yard seems to contain is that of Mrs. Mary Green, who died in
1717. On the opposite side of the yard, near Mountford street, are the
monuments erected to the memory of William Burroughs, of the United
States Brig Enterprise, and Samuel Blythe, of His Majesty's Brig Boxer,
who fought and died together, on September fifth, 1813, and were buried
here. Lieut. Kerwin Waters, of the Enterprise, wounded in the same
action, lies beside them. Of him Longfellow sung:--
"I remember the sea fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died."
There is a white marble monument to Commodore Preble, and the death of
Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth, uncle of the poet Longfellow, who fell
before Tripoli in 1804, is also commemorated here.
Congress Square, at the junction of Fore street, has an elevated
position, and is surrounded by churches of various denominations. From
Congress street, near its junction with Mellen street, the visitor can
look off to Deering's Woods, which rise on the borders of a creek,
running in from Back Cove. This tract of woodland has come into
possession of the city, and will be preserved as a park. Longfellow
sings of
"The breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods."
Again:--
"And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were
I find my lost youth again."
The reservoir of the Portland Water Works is at the junction of Bramhall
and Brackett streets. It has an area of 100,000 square feet, with a
capacity of 12,000,000 gallons, and is supplied with water from Lake
Sebago, seventeen miles distant.
The extensive premises of the Grand Trunk Railway lie at the foot of
India street, where are wharves for the great freight business between
Canada and Europe, and whence the Dominion and Beaver Line of
steamships, every fortnight, from November to May, send ships to
Liverpool. The scene during the winter season is a busy one, and the
amount of freight handled and shipped is immense. Then begins Commercial
street, the modern business avenue of the city, which runs its whole
water front, with a railroad track in the middle of it. On this street
is the old family mansion of the widow of Brigadier Preble, built in
1786, on the site of his father's house, destroyed by fire in 1775. It
then occupied a beautiful and retired locality, looking out upon the
harbor, and surrounded by ample grounds. But now it is strangely out of
keeping with its neighbors. Opposite it now stands the grain elevator of
the Grand Trunk Railway, having been built in 1875, with a capacity of
200,000 bushels. All around are wholesale shipping and commission
houses, and wharves for ocean steamships extend up and down the shore.
When Captain John Smith, famous in the early history of Virginia, and
the first tourist who ever visited Maine, made his famous summer trip
thither, in 1614, he described the place as follows:--"Westward of
Kennebec is the country of Ancocisco, in the bottom of a deep bay full
of many great isles, which divide it into many great harbors." Ancocisco
was very soon abbreviated to Casco, and the bay is still filled with
many great isles. Casco Bay, extending from Cape Elizabeth, on the
west, to Cape Small Point, on the east, a distance of about eighteen
miles, with a width of, perhaps, twelve miles, contains more islands
than any other body of water of like extent in the whole United States.
It is a popular belief that these islands number three hundred and
sixty-five--one for every day in the year; but a regard for truth
compels us to state, that of the named and unnamed islands and islets,
there are only one hundred and twenty-two, while a few insignificant
rocks and reefs would not swell the number to one hundred and forty.
These islands are divided into three ranges, the Inner, Middle and
Outer. The Inner range contains twenty islands; the Middle range,
twenty-four; and the Outer range, seventy-eight. Besides these islands,
the shore is very much broken, and extends out into the bay in
picturesque points or fringes, the creeks, inlets and tidal rivers
extending far inland. In this bay was discovered, by a mariner named
Joselyn, in 1639, a triton or merman, and the first sea serpent of the
coast. Seals breed and sport on a ledge in the inner bay, off the shore
of Falmouth, and its waters abound with edible fish and sea-fowl.
Ferry boats convey an endless stream of pleasure-seekers to the
different islands, during the summer season. Cushing's Island lies at
the mouth of Portland Harbor, forming one shore of the ship channel. Its
southern shore presents a rocky and precipitous front, culminating in a
bold bluff nearly one hundred and fifty feet high, known as White Head.
The island looks out upon the harbor from smiling fields and low,
tree-bordered beaches. It furnishes good opportunities for fishing and
bathing, and is fast becoming a popular summer resort. It is five miles
in circumference, and commands magnificent sea views.
Peak's Island is separated from Cushing's Island by White Head Passage,
and with the latter forms an effectual barrier to the ocean. Like it, it
presents a bold front to the sea, and smiles upon the bay. It is about a
mile and a half long, by a mile and a quarter wide, and rises gradually
to a central elevation of, perhaps, one hundred feet, commanding
extensive views of the ocean and harbor, and of the mountains, eighty
miles away. It is one of the most beautiful of all the islands of Casco
Bay, and has a resident population of three hundred and seventy persons,
who are largely descendants of the first settlers.
Long Island lies northeast of Peak's Island, and is separated from it by
Hussey's Sound. It has an area of three hundred and twelve acres,
presenting a long, ragged line of shore to the sea. Its population was,
in 1880, two hundred and fifty-two, the men being engaged in fishing and
farming.
Little Chebague lies inside of Long Island, and is connected with Great
Chebague by a sand bar, dry at low water. A hotel and several summer
cottages stand upon the island, and it is an attractive place.
Harpswell is a long peninsula, about fourteen miles down the bay, and is
much resorted to by picnic parties. To the eastward lies Bailey's
Island, one of the most beautiful of the bay, and to the northward is
Orr's Island, the scene of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "The Pearl of
Orr's Island." Rising between Bailey's Island and Small Point Harbor is
the Elm Island of Rev. Elijah Kellogg's stories. Whittier has written a
poem entitled "The Dead Ship of Harpswell," in which he describes a
spectre ship which never reaches the land, and is a sure omen of
death:--
"In vain o'er Harpswell's neck the star
Of evening guides her in,
In vain for her the lamps are lit
Within thy town, Seguin!
In vain the harbor boat shall hail,
In vain the pilot call;
No hand shall reef her spectral sail,
Or let her anchor fall."
CHAPTER XXVI.
PHILADELPHIA.
Early History.--William Penn.--The Revolution.--Declaration of
Independence.--First Railroad.--Riots--Streets and Houses.--
Relics of the Past.--Independence Hall.--Carpenters' Hall.--
Blue Anchor.--Letitia Court.--Christ Church.--Old Swedes'
Church.--Benjamin Franklin.--Libraries.--Old Quaker Almshouse.--
Old Houses in Germantown.--Manufactures.--Theatres.--Churches.--
Scientific Institutions.--Newspapers.--Medical Colleges.--
Schools.--Public Buildings.--Penitentiary.--River Front.--
Fairmount Park.--Zoölogical Gardens.--Cemeteries.--Centennial
Exhibition.--Bi-Centennial.--Past, Present and Future of the
City.
In the year 1610, Lord Thomas de la War, on his voyage from England to
Virginia, entered what is now Delaware Bay, and discovered the river
flowing into it, to which he also gave his name. The Dutch made a prior
claim to the discovery of the land which bordered this river, and
retained possession for a time. But there were difficulties in
maintaining their settlements, and in 1638 the Swedes sent out a colony
from Stockholm, and established a footing on the west bank of the river,
afterwards known as Pennsylvania. The Dutch at New York, however, would
not submit to this arrangement, and under Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of
Manhattan, demanded the surrender of their fort--now called Trinity
Fort--which was yielded. The Dutch authority lasted for a short time
only. In 1664 the English captured Manhattan and expelled the Dutch, and
in the same year an expedition under Sir Robert Carr came to the
Delaware, fired two broadsides into Trinity Fort, landed storming
parties, assaulted the fort, killed three Dutchmen, wounded ten, and in
triumph raised the flag of England, which was thereafter supreme on the
Delaware for nine years.
In 1672 the Dutch tried their strength again, and summoned the English
fort at Staten Island to surrender. This summons was complied with, and
the English of New York swore allegiance to the Prince of Orange. The
people upon the banks of the Delaware soon accommodated themselves to
the change of masters, and welcomed the Dutch. But this was their last
appearance upon the Delaware. In the next year, 1673, their settlements
in America were all ceded, through the fortune of war, to Great Britain,
and this territory once more passed under the English flag.
About this time the name of William Penn enters into American history.
The British Government being largely indebted to his father, Admiral
William Penn, the son found little difficulty in obtaining a grant for a
large tract of land in America, upon which to found a colony. This was
in 1681. He immediately sent out to his wooded possessions, which he
named Pennsylvania, his cousin, Captain William Markham, who had been a
soldier, with a commission to be Deputy Governor, and with instructions
to inform the European inhabitants already settled there of the change
in government, promising them liberal laws. Markham was also to convey a
message of peace to the Indians, in the name of their new "proprietor."
He was soon followed by three commissioners, who had power to settle the
colony, and among other things, to layout a principal city, to be the
capital of the province, which William Penn, who was a member of the
Society of Friends, directed should be called Philadelphia--a Greek
compound signifying "brotherly love." He himself arrived on the great
territory of which he was sole proprietor in 1682, and found the plans
of the city and province to his satisfaction. He at once convened an
Assembly, and the three counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester
were created, and proper laws passed for their government.
In less than two years, however, Penn was obliged to return to England,
and shortly after, in 1692, the British Government took possession of
the colony, and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Governor of New
York. But in 1694, the government was restored to Penn, and Markham was
again made Lieutenant-Governor. Penn, himself, did not return to America
until 1699. He found his capital very considerably improved. Instead of
the wilderness he had left, fifteen years before, there were streets,
houses, elegant stores, warehouses, and shipping on the river. The
population was estimated at four thousand five hundred persons. His
visit was, however, brief. In 1701, he set sail again for England,
intending to return in a few months, but this intention was never
carried out. In 1708, his pecuniary embarrassments were so great, that
he was arrested for debt in London, and thrown into the Fleet Prison,
where he continued for nine years. In 1712 his health and mind gave way,
and during six years he lingered as an imbecile, childish and gentle in
his manners, the sad wreck of a strong mind. He died in July, 1718.
The government of Pennsylvania was administered for a time by his widow,
and subsequently went into the hands of his children and their
descendants, as proprietors. They usually delegated the administration
to lieutenant-governors, though they sometimes exercised their
authority in person, until the American Revolution put an end to all the
colonial governments.
The history of Philadelphia during the period of the Revolution is
largely connected with that of the whole country. At a large meeting
held in the State House in Philadelphia, in April, 1768, it was resolved
to cease all importations from the mother country, in consequence of the
exorbitant taxes levied upon them. In 1773, the British East India
Company being determined to export tea to America, a second meeting was
called at the State House, at which it was patriotically resolved that
"Parliament had no right to tax the Americans, without their consent,"
and that "any one who would receive or sell the tea sent out to America
would be denounced as an enemy to his country."
The ship Polly, Captain Ryers, was to bring the tea to Philadelphia.
Handbills, purporting to be issued by the "committee for tarring and
feathering," were printed and distributed among the citizens. They were
addressed to the Delaware pilots and to Captain Ryers himself, warning
the former of the danger they would incur if they piloted the tea ship
up the river, whilst Captain Ryers was threatened with the application
of tar and feathers if he attempted to land the tea.
Christmas Day, 1773, the Polly arrived. A committee of citizens went on
board, told Captain Ryers the danger he was in, and requested him to
accompany them to the State House. Here the largest meeting was
assembled that had ever been held in the city. This meeting resolved
that the tea on board the Polly _should not be landed_, and that it
should be carried back to England immediately. The captain signified his
willingness to comply with the resolution, and in two hours after, the
Polly, with her freight of tea, hoisted sail and went down the river.
In September, 1774, the first Congress, composed of delegates from
eleven Colonies, met at Carpenters' Hall, on Chestnut street,
Philadelphia, to consider the condition of the Colonies, in their
relation to the mother country. This Congress resolved that all
importations from Great Britain or her dependencies should cease.
Committees of "inspection and observation," were appointed, which
exercised absolute authority to punish all persons infringing the order
of Congress.
On April twenty-fourth, 1775, news of the battles of Concord and
Lexington reached the city. A meeting was immediately called, by sound
of gong and bell, at the State House. Eight thousand persons assembled,
who resolved that they would "associate together, to defend with arms
their property, liberty and lives." Troops were at once raised, forts
and batteries built on the Delaware, floating batteries, gunboats and
ships-of-war constructed, with all the speed possible, and _chevaux de
frize_ sunk in the river, to prevent the passage of British ships. In
May, 1776, the English Frigate Roebuck, and Sloop-of-war Liverpool,
attempting to force their way up the river, the Americans opened fire on
them, and a regular naval action took place. The British managed to
escape, and retired to their cruising ground, at the entrance of the
bay.
[Illustration: OLD INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA.]
On July second, 1776, Congress, sitting at the State House, resolved in
favor of the severance of all connection between the American Colonies
and Great Britain, and independence of that power. On July third and
fourth, the form of the declaration of independence was debated, and
adopted on the latter day. July eighth, the Declaration was read to the
people in the State House yard, and received with acclamations, and
evidences of a stern determination to defend their independence with
their lives. The King's Arms were at once torn down from the court room
in the State House, and burned by the people. Bells were rung and
bonfires lighted, the old State House bell fulfilling the command
inscribed upon it, when it was cast, twenty years before: "Proclaim
Liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof."
In September, 1777, the British army, under General Lord Howe, entered
Philadelphia. October fourth, Washington attacked it at Germantown, and
although he did not win a victory, compelled the British commander to
respect him. The English remained in possession of the city, but the
Americans held the country around. The Philadelphians having closed the
Delaware by the _chevaux de frize_, the royal army was in effect hemmed
in and cut off from communication with the British fleet, which had
entered the Delaware, but was prevented from approaching the city by the
American forts and batteries. It had brought but a moderate supply of
stores, and as these diminished, the troops suffered from scarcity of
food.
On November twenty-sixth, British frigates and transports arrived at the
wharves of the city, to the great joy of the royal troops and of the
inhabitants, provisions having become very scarce and famine threatened.
Beef sold at five dollars a pound, and potatoes at four dollars a
bushel, hard money. The British army remained in Philadelphia until June
eighteenth, 1778, about nine months from its first occupation of the
city. During that time the officers gave themselves up to enjoyment.
They amused themselves with the theatre, with balls, parties,
cock-fights and gambling: and a grand fête was celebrated in honor of
their commander, Lord Howe. This fête, in the style of a tournament of
chivalry, took place in the lower part of the city, and while it was in
progress the Americans in considerable force made an attack upon the
lines north of the city, set fire to the abattis, and brought out the
entire body of the royal troops to repel the attack.
Upon the evacuation of the city, in June, General Benedict Arnold was
immediately sent with a small force to occupy it. He remained in
military command for several months. It was discovered by many that he
had become largely involved in certain speculating transactions, and the
shame of the discovery stimulated the traitorous intentions which
finally carried him over to the British army.
After the inauguration of Washington as President of the new republic,
it was determined by Congress that Philadelphia should be the seat of
the United States government for the ensuing ten years, after which it
should be removed to Washington City. The scheme of the Federal
Constitution was framed and adopted in September, 1787, by the
Convention sitting at the State House, with George Washington as
President. The final adoption of the Constitution of the United States
of America was celebrated in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July, 1788 by
a magnificent procession.
The principal officers of Congress removed their residences to
Philadelphia in the latter part of 1790. At that period Washington lived
in Market street near Sixth, in a plain two-story brick house, which had
been the residence of Lord Howe during the British occupation of the
city. The locality is now occupied, if I mistake not, by the mammoth
clothing house of Wanamaker & Brown. John Adams, Vice-President, lived
in the Hamilton mansion at Bush Hill; and Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of
State, at 174 Market street, between Fourth and Fifth, on the south
side. Congress assembled for the transaction of business on State House
Square.
During the stay of the Federal government in Philadelphia, Washington
and Adams were inaugurated as President and Vice President (March
fourth, 1797), in the chamber of the House of Representatives.
In 1793, 1797, and 1798, a fearful epidemic of the yellow fever, visited
Philadelphia and created great alarm, the mortality being dreadful.
The removal of the Federal government to Washington, in 1800, deprived
Philadelphia of the prominence she had enjoyed as the Capital of the
nation. In the year 1808 steamboats began to ply regularly on the
Delaware River. During the war which commenced in 1812 between the
United States and Great Britain, Philadelphia maintained her loyalty,
and fulfilled her duty to the country. Several volunteer companies were
formed, and there was an engagement in July, 1813, between British war
vessels and the United States gunboat flotilla on the Delaware, in which
the Philadelphians proved themselves brave and patriotic.
The first railroad, running from Philadelphia to Germantown, was built
in 1832. The Pennsylvania Railroad was projected in 1845, and chartered
in the following year.
In 1834 a spirit of riot and disorder which passed over the United
States, reached Philadelphia, and led to disturbances between whites and
blacks. The houses of colored people were broken into, a meeting-house
torn down, and many other outrages committed. Again, in 1835 attacks
were made on the blacks, and houses burned. In 1838 all friends of the
abolition of slavery were violently attacked, and much damage done to
property in the city.
But the most terrible riots which Philadelphia has known occurred in
1844. A meeting of the Native American party was attacked and dispersed.
The "Natives" rallied to a market house on Washington street, where they
were again attacked, and fire-arms used on both sides. Houses were
broken into and set on fire. The Roman Catholic churches of Saint
Michael and Saint Augustine, and a female Catholic seminary, were
burned, and many buildings sacked and destroyed. All the Catholic
churches were in great danger of sharing the same fate. A large number
of persons were killed on both sides. On July fourth, of the same year,
the Native Americans had a very large and showy procession through the
streets of the city. On Sunday, July seventh, the church of Saint Philip
de Neri, in Southwark, was broken into by the mob. In clearing the
streets, the soldiers and the people came into collision. The former
fired into the crowd, and several persons were killed, and others
wounded. This occurrence caused intense excitement. The soldiers were
attacked with cannon and with musketry, and they responded with
artillery and with musketry. The rioters had four pieces, which were
worked by sailors. The battle continued during the night of the seventh
and the morning of the eighth of July. Two soldiers were killed, and
several wounded. Of the citizens seven were killed, and many wounded.
This was the most sanguinary riot, and the last of any importance, which
ever occurred in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia possesses many characteristic features which distinguish
her from her sister cities. The visitor will be at first struck by the
extreme regularity of the streets, and the look of primness which
invests them. They are laid out at right angles, the only notable
exceptions being those roads, now dignified by the name of avenues,
which usually led from the infant city into the then adjacent country.
These avenues, of which Passyunk, Germantown and Ridge are the principal
ones, are irregular in their course, but take a generally diagonal
direction; the first southwest, and the other two northwest. The houses
are mostly of brick, with white marble facings and steps, and white
wooden shutters to the first story. The streets running east and west,
from the Delaware to the Schuylkill, are, in the original city, with few
exceptions named after trees. Thus Cedar, Pine, Spruce, Locust, Walnut,
Chestnut, Filbert, Mulberry, Cherry, Sassafras and Vine. Cedar became
South street, and Sassafras and Mulberry became Race and Arch, the
latter so named because in the early days of the city Front street
spanned it by an arch. Callowhill street was originally Gallowhill
street, the word indicating its derivation. The houses on these streets
are numbered from the Delaware, beginning a new hundred with every
street. Thus all houses between Front and Second streets are numbered in
the first hundred, and at Second street a new hundred begins; the even
numbers being on the southern side, and the odd ones on the northern
side of the street. The streets running parallel to the river are
numbered from the river, beginning with Front, then Second, Third, and
so on, until the furthest western limit of the city is reached. Market
street, originally called High street, runs between Chestnut and
Filbert, dividing the city into north and south. The houses on the
streets crossing Market begin their numbers at that street, running both
north and south, each street representing an additional hundred. With
this naming of streets and numbering of houses, no stranger can ever
lose himself in Philadelphia. The name and number of street and house
will always tell him just where he is. Thus if he finds himself at 836
North Sixth street, he knows he is eight squares north of Market street,
and six squares west of the Delaware River.
The original city was bounded by the Delaware River on the east, and the
Schuylkill on the west, and extended north and south half a mile on
either side of Market street. Even before the present century it had
outgrown its original limits in a northerly and southerly direction, and
a number of suburbs had sprung up around it, each of which had its own
corporation. The names of these suburbs were, most of them, borrowed
from London. Southwark faced the river to the south; Moyamensing was
just west of Southwark; Spring Garden, Kensington, Northern Liberties,
Germantown, Roxborough, and Frankford were on the north, and West
Philadelphia west of the Schuylkill. In 1854 these suburbs, so long
divided from the "city" merely by geographical lines, were incorporated
with it; and the City of Philadelphia was made to embrace the entire
county of Philadelphia--a territory twenty-three miles long, with an
area of nearly one hundred and thirty square miles. It thus became in
size the largest city in the country, while it stands only second in
population.
The old city was laid out with great economy as to space, the streets
being as narrow as though land were really scarce in the new country
when it was planned. Market street extends from the Delaware westward--a
broad, handsome avenue, occupied principally by wholesale stores. It is
indebted, both for its name and width, to the market houses, which from
an early date to as late as 1860, if not later, occupied the centre of
the street; long, low, unsightly structures, thronged early in the
morning, and especially on market days, with buyers and sellers, while
market wagons lined the sides of the street. The same kind of structures
still occupy certain localities of Second, Callowhill, Spring Garden and
Bainbridge streets. But those in Market street have disappeared, and
substantial and handsome market buildings have been erected on or near
the street, instead of in its centre.
A century ago the business of Philadelphia was confined principally to
Front street, from Walnut to Arch. Now Second street presents the most
extended length of retail stores in the country, and business has spread
both north and south almost indefinitely, and is fast creeping westward.
Market street presents a double line of business houses, from river to
river. Chestnut, the fashionable promenade and locality of the finest
hotels and retail stores, is invaded by business beyond Broad, and Arch
street beyond Tenth; while Eighth street, even more than Chestnut the
resort of shoppers, is, for many squares, built up by large and handsome
retail stores. Broad street, lying between Thirteenth and Fifteenth, is
the handsomest avenue in Philadelphia. It is fifteen miles in length,
and one hundred and thirteen feet in width, and contains many of the
finest public buildings and private residences in the city. Ridgway
Library, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, Horticultural Hall, Academy of Music,
Broad Street Theatre, Union League Club House, Masonic Temple, Academy
of Fine Arts, besides some of the most elegant religious edifices, are
located on this street.
At the intersection of Broad and Market, where were once four little
squares left in the original plan of the city, and known as Penn Square,
are being constructed the vast Public Buildings of the city. They are of
white marble, four hundred and eighty-six and one-half feet long by four
hundred and seventy feet wide, and four stories high, covering an area
of four and one-half acres, not including a large court in the centre.
The central tower will, when completed, be four hundred and fifty feet
high, and the total cost of the buildings over ten millions of dollars.
This building presents a most imposing appearance, whether viewed from
Market or Broad streets. The Masonic Temple, just to the north, is one
of the handsomest of its kind in America. It is a solid granite
structure, in the Norman style, most elaborately ornamented, and with a
tower two hundred and thirty feet high. Its interior is finished in a
costly manner, and after the several styles of architecture. The Academy
of Music is one of the largest opera houses in America, being capable of
seating three thousand persons.
[Illustration: MASONIC TEMPLE, PHILADELPHIA.]
Third street is the banking and financial centre of Philadelphia; on
Walnut street are found the greatest proportion of insurance offices;
South street is the cheap retail street, and is crowded with shoppers,
especially on market days, and the Jews reign here supreme.
Bainbridge street (once Shippen) east of Broad represents the squalor
and crime of the city. "Old clo'" and second-hand stores of all
descriptions alternate with low drinking places, and occupy forlorn and
tumble-down tenements. All races and colors, and both sexes mingle here,
and the man who sighs for missionary work need go no further than this
quarter.
Chestnut street is, next to Broad, the handsomest in the city. The
buildings are all of comparatively recent construction, and are many of
them handsome and costly. On Market street the past century still
manifests itself in quaint houses of two or three stories in height,
sometimes built of alternate black and red bricks, and occasionally with
queer dormer windows, wedged in between more stately and more modern
neighbors. It will be some time before the street becomes thoroughly
modernized, and we can scarcely wish that it may become so, for the city
would thus lose much of its quaint interest.
One of the characteristics of Philadelphia which strikes the traveler is
that it wears an old-time air, far more so than Boston or New York.
Boston cannot straighten her originally crooked streets, but her thought
and spirit are entirely of the nineteenth century. New York is intensely
modern, the few relics of the past which still remain contrasting and
emphasizing still more strongly the life and bustle and business of
to-day. Philadelphia is a quiet city. Its people do not rush hither and
thither, as though but one day remained in which to accomplish a life
work. They take time to walk, to eat, to sleep, and to attend to their
business. In brief, they take life far more easily and slowly than
their metropolitan neighbors. They do not enter into wild speculative
schemes; they have no such Stock Exchange, where bulls and bears roar
and paw the ground, or where they may make or lose fortunes in less time
than it takes to eat one's dinner. They are a steady, plodding people,
accumulating handsome fortunes in solid, legitimate ways. There is
little of the rustle and roar of the elder city; save for the continual
ring and rattle of the street cars, which cross the city in every
direction, many of its quarters are as quiet as a country village. Its
early Quaker settlers have stamped it with the quiet and placidity which
is the leading trait of their sect; and though the Quaker garb is seen
less and less often upon the streets, the early stamp seems to have been
indelible.
Philadelphia retains more of the old customs, old houses, and, perhaps,
old laws, than any other city in the country. The Quaker City lawyer
carries his brief in a green bag, as the benches of the Inner Temple
used to do in Penn's time. The baker cuts a tally before the door each
morning, just as the old English baker used to do three centuries ago.
After a death has occurred in it, a house is put into mourning, having
the shutters bowed and tied with black ribbon, not to be opened for at
least a year. There are laws (seldom executed, it is true, but still
upon the statute-books), against profanity and Sabbath-breaking, and
even regulating the dress of women.
Some of the streets of Philadelphia bear strongly the marks of the past.
Those, especially, near the river, which were built up in the early
days, have not yet been entirely renovated; while some ancient buildings
of historic interest have been preserved with jealous care. First and
foremost among the latter is Independence Hall, occupying the square
upon Chestnut street between Fifth and Sixth streets--no doubt,
considered an imposing edifice at the time of its erection, but now
overshadowed by the business palaces which surround it. It was here that
the second Colonial Congress met; here that the Declaration of
Independence was adopted; and here that the United States Congress
assembled, until the seat of the General Government was removed to
Washington, in 1800. In Congress Hall, in the second story of this
building, Washington delivered his Farewell Address. The building is now
preserved with great care. The hall where the Declaration of
Independence was signed is decorated with portraits of the signers, and
contains, among other objects of interest, as before stated, the bell
which pealed out freedom to all.
Next in historic importance is Carpenters' Hall, between Third and
Fourth streets. The first Continental Congress met here, and here the
first words pointing toward a collision with the mother country were
spoken in Philadelphia.
When William Penn made his first visit to Philadelphia, on October
twenty-fourth, 1682, he set foot upon his new possessions at the Blue
Anchor Landing, at the mouth of Dock Creek, in the vicinity of what is
now the corner of Front and Dock streets. Here stood the Blue Anchor
Inn, the first house built within the ancient limits of the city. Then,
and long afterwards, Dock Creek was a considerable stream, running
through the heart of the town. But, in course of time, the water became
offensive, from the drainage of the city, and it was finally arched
over, and turned into a sewer. The winding of Dock street is accounted
for by the fact that it follows the former course of the creek. Sloops
once anchored and discharged their cargoes where now stands Girard Bank,
on Third street, below Chestnut.
Between Chestnut and Market streets, Second and Front, is found Letitia
street, where long stood the first brick house built in the Province,
erected for the use of Penn himself, and named after his daughter
Letitia. He directed that it should "be pitched in the middle of the
platt of the town, facing the harbor." The bricks, wooden carvings and
other materials, were imported from England. At the time of its
construction a forest swept down to the river in front, forming a
natural park, where deer ranged at will. Letitia House became a lager
beer saloon, the front painted with foaming pots of beer. But business
interests claimed the site and the old house was removed and carefully
re-erected in Fairmount Park.
The old Slate Roof House, long one of the ancient landmarks, on Second
street below Chestnut, the residence of William Penn on his second visit
to this country, during which visit John, his only "American" son was
born, and where other noted persons lived and died, or at least visited,
was removed in 1867, to make room for the Commercial Exchange.
Not far off, on Second street, north of Market, is Christ's Church,
occupying the site of the first church erected by the followers of Penn.
The present edifice was begun in 1727. Washington's coach and four used
to draw up proudly before it each Sabbath, and himself and Lady
Washington, Lord Howe, Cornwallis, Benedict Arnold, Andre, Benjamin
Franklin, De Chastellux, the Madisons, the Lees, Patrick Henry and
others whose names have become incorporated in American history, have
worshiped here. In the aisles are buried various persons, great men in
their day, but forgotten now. The chime of bells in the lofty tower is
the oldest in America, and were cast in London. This chime joined the
State House bell on that memorable Fourth of July, when the latter
proclaimed liberty throughout the land. Just opposite this church is a
small street, opening into Second street, its eastern end closed by a
tall block of warehouses. This street contained Stephen Girard's stores
and houses.
The great elm tree, at Kensington, under which Penn made his famous
treaty with the Indians, remained until 1800, when it was blown down. An
insignificant stone now marks the spot, being inclosed by a fence, and
surrounded by stone and lumber yards. An elm overshadows it--possibly, a
lineal descendant of the historic tree.
There is an older religious edifice in Philadelphia than Christ's
Church. It is the old Swedes' Church, erected in 1697, not far from
Front and Christian streets, by early Swedish missionaries. Though
insignificant, compared with modern churches, it was regarded as a
magnificent structure by the Quakers, Swedes and Indians, who first
beheld it. The inside carvings, bell and communion service, were a gift
of the Swedish king. In the graveyard which surrounds it are found the
dead of nearly two centuries ago, some of the slate-stones over the
older graves having been imported from the mother country. Here sleeps
Sven Schute and his descendants, once, under Swedish dominion, lords of
all the land on which Philadelphia now stands. None of his name now
lives. Here lie buried, forgotten, Bengtossens, Peterssens, and Bonds.
Wilson, the ornithologist, was a frequent attendant at this church,
early in the present century, and he lies in the church yard, having
been buried there by his own request, as it was "a silent, shady place,
where the birds would be apt to come and sing over his grave." The
English sparrows have built their nests above it.
An ancient house possessing special historic interest stands on Front
street, a few doors above Dock. It is built of glazed black bricks, with
a hipped roof, and, though it was a place of note in its day, occupied
by one generation after another of the ruling Quakers, it has now
degenerated into a workingmen's coffee-house. To it the Friends
conducted Franklin on his return from England. War was not yet declared,
but there were mutterings in the distance; all awaited Franklin's
counsels, sitting silently, as is their wont, waiting for the spirit to
move to utterance, when Franklin stood up and cried out: "To arms, my
friends, to arms!"
Franklin has left many associations in the city of his adoption. As a
boy of seventeen he trudged up High, now Market street, munching one
roll, with another under his arm, friendless and unknown. Even his
future wife smiled in ridicule as he passed by. To-day statues are
erected to his memory, and institutions named after him. The
Philadelphia Library, the oldest and richest in the city, claims him as
one of its original founders. In 1729, the Junto, a little association
of tradesmen of which Franklin was a member, used to meet in the chamber
of a little house in Pewter-platter alley, to exchange their books.
Franklin suggested that there should be a small annual subscription, in
order to increase the stock. To-day the library contains many thousand
volumes, with many rare and valuable manuscripts and pamphlets. This
library contains Penn's desk and clock, John Penn's cabinet, and a
colossal bust of Minerva which overlooked the deliberations of the
Continental Congress. In an old graveyard at the corner of Fifth and
Arch, a section of iron railing in the stone wall which surrounds it
permits the passer to view the plain marble slab which covers the
remains of Franklin and his wife.
Speaking of libraries, the Apprentices' Library, on the opposite corner
of Fifth and Arch, overlooks Franklin's grave. It was established by the
Quakers, and dates back to 1783. The apprentice system has died out, and
the library is almost forgotten.
As late as 1876, stood the old Quaker Almshouse, on Willings alley,
between Third and Fourth streets, of which Longfellow gives this
description in his poem, "Evangeline:"--
"Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and
woodlands;--
Now the city surrounds it; but still with its gateway and wicket,
Meek in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo
Softly the words of the Lord: 'The poor ye always have with you.'"
Here Evangeline came when the pestilence fell on the city, when--
"Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of
Christ Church,
While intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted
Sounds of psalms that were sung by the Swedes in their church at
Wicaco."
And here Evangeline found Gabriel. The ancient building is now leveled,
and only the poem remains.
Germantown, now incorporated in Philadelphia, is rich in historic
associations. Stenton, a country seat near Germantown, was for
generations the centre of the social life of the Quakers. It was built
in 1731, by James Logan, and was finished with secret passages and
underground ways, to be used in case of attack by Indians and others.
The Chew House at Germantown was, during the Revolution, used by Colonel
Musgrove and six companies, for a long time. The old Johnson House had
its hall door, which is still preserved, riddled by cannon. In many
private lawns and gardens of that suburb royalists and rebels sleep
peacefully side by side. A house, now quaint in its antiquity, at the
intersection of Main street and West Walnut lane, was used during the
Revolution as a hospital and amputating room. The old Wistar House,
built in 1744, played a part in the events of the last century, and
contains furniture which once belonged to Franklin and Count Zinzendorf.
There is a room filled with relics of early times.
In 1755 the corner stone of Pennsylvania Hospital was laid. This
corner stone having been recently uncovered, in making alterations
to the building, the following inscription, of which Franklin was
the author, was discovered: "In the Year of Christ, MDCCLV, George
the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his
people)--Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public
spirited)--This Building, By the Bounty of the Government, and of many
private persons, was piously founded For the Relief of the Sick and
Miserable. May the God of Mercies Bless the undertaking!"
A noticeable and commendable feature of Philadelphia is its many
workingmen's homes. In New York the middle classes, whose incomes are
but moderate, are compelled to seek residences in cheap flats and
tenement houses, or else go into the country, at the daily expense of
car or ferry rides. But in Philadelphia flats are unknown, and tenement
life--several families crowded under a single roof--confined almost
entirely to the more wretched quarters of the city. There are streets
upon streets of comfortable and neat dwellings, marble-faced and
marble-stepped, with their prim white shutters, two or three stories in
height, and containing from six to nine rooms, with all the conveniences
of gas, bath-room and water, which are either rented at moderate rates
or owned outright by single families, who may possibly rent out a room
or two to lodgers. Philadelphia may have less elegant public and
business edifices than New York, but her dwelling houses stand as far
more desirable monuments to the prosperity of a people than the splendor
united with the squalor of the metropolis.
The manufactures of Philadelphia furnish the foundation of her
prosperity. Her iron foundries produce more than one-third of the
manufactured iron of the country, and number among them some of the
largest in America. The Port Richmond Iron Works of I. P. Morris &
Company cover, with their various buildings, five acres of ground. The
Baldwin Locomotive Works, on Broad street, founded in 1831, employ a
large force of men. It takes eighteen hundred men one day to complete
and make ready for service a single locomotive; yet these works turn out
three hundred locomotives a year. Some of the largest men-of-war in the
world have also been built at the navy yards in Philadelphia and League
Island. Among them is the old Pennsylvania, of one hundred and twenty
guns. Besides her iron works there are many mills and factories. Miles
of carpet, of superior quality, are woven every day, besides immense
quantities of other woolen and cotton goods and shoes. Her retail
stores, taken as a whole, will not compare in size and elegance with
those of New York, though there are two or three exceptions to this
rule.
The headquarters of the Pennsylvania Railroad is at Philadelphia, and
there is a grand depot on Broad street, near Market, which is palatial
in its appointments.
Of her places of amusement, the Academy of Music ranks first in size.
There are numerous theatres, among which the Walnut Street Theatre is
the oldest, and the Arch Street Theatre the most elegantly finished and
furnished, and the best managed. With these and other places of
amusement, are associated the names of all the prominent musicians,
actors and actresses of the past and present. The Academy of Music was
not built when Jenny Lind visited this country, but it was ready for
occupancy only a few years later; and has witnessed the triumphs of many
a prima donna, now forgotten by the public, which then worshiped her.
Forrest began his theatrical career in Philadelphia; and the names of
noted tragedians and comedians who have come and gone upon her boards
are legion.
Of churches Philadelphia has many, and beautiful ones. On three corners
of Broad and Arch streets tall and slender spires point heavenward,
rising from three of the most costly churches in the city. Surpassing
them all, however, is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul, on Logan Square. It is of red sandstone, in the Corinthian
style, and is surmounted by a dome two hundred and ten feet high. The
interior is cruciform and richly frescoed. The altar piece is by
Brumidi.
Also, fronting on Logan Square, at the corner of Nineteenth and Race
streets, is the Academy of Natural Sciences, containing a library of
twenty-six thousand volumes, and most extensive, valuable and
interesting collections in zoölogy, ornithology, geology, mineralogy,
conchology, ethnology, archæology and botany. The museum contains over
two hundred and fifty thousand specimens, and Agassiz pronounced it one
of the finest natural science collections in the world. It also contains
a perfect skeleton of a whale, a complete ancient saurian, twenty-five
feet long, and the fossil remains of a second saurian so much larger
than the first that it fed upon it.
Franklin Institute is devoted to science and the mechanical arts, and
contains a library of fifteen thousand volumes. The Mercantile Library
occupies a stately edifice, on Tenth street below Market, and contains
over fifty thousand volumes, exclusive of periodicals and papers. On an
average, five hundred books are loaned daily, from this institution.
The newspapers of Philadelphia rank second only to those of New York.
The _Ledger_ has a magnificent building at the corner of Sixth and
Chestnut, complete in all its appointments, from engine rooms, in the
basement, to type-setting rooms in the top story. The _Times_ building,
at the corner of Eighth and Chestnut, is also very fine. The _Public
Record_ building, newly finished, on Chestnut street above Ninth, near
the new Post Office, surpasses all others. It represents the profits of
a daily penny paper, giving news in a condensed form, to meet the wants
of a working and busy public.
Philadelphia once represented the literary centre of the country. It
took the lead in periodic literature half a century ago, and claimed, as
residents, some of the most brilliant novelists, essayists and poets of
the day. But the glory of that age has departed. The _Continent_, a
weekly magazine, sought to revive the prestige of the city, but soon
removed to New York, where it died.
The Medical Colleges of Philadelphia have long stood in the front rank,
and have attracted students from all parts of the country. A Woman's
Medical College is in successful operation, with a fine hospital
connected with it.
Philadelphia has an educational system embracing schools of different
grades, and a High School. But it pays its teachers less salaries than
most of the other cities, and the standard of the schools is not so high
as it should be, in consequence. Girard College should not be
overlooked, while speaking of educational institutions. Architecturally,
it is a magnificent marble building, in Grecian style. It is located
near the Schuylkill River, on Girard avenue. When Girard selected the
location for his proposed college, it was so far out in the country,
that he never thought the city would creep up to it. But to-day the
college is inclosed by it, and its high stone walls block many a street,
to the inconvenience of the people of the neighborhood. It was
established for the practical education of orphan boys, and one of the
provisions of its founder--himself a free thinker--was, that no
religious instruction should be imparted to the pupils, and no clergyman
be permitted to enter its doors; a provision which is widely
interpreted, to the effect that no sectarian bias is given in the
college.
The United States Mint, located on Chestnut street, above Thirteenth, is
copied from a Grecian temple at Athens. It contains a very valuable
collection of coins, embracing those of almost every period of the world
and every nation. The Custom House is an imitation of the Pantheon at
Athens. The new Post Office is on Ninth street, extending from Chestnut
to Market. It is a spacious granite structure, in the Renaissance style,
four stories in height, with an iron dome, and when completed will cost
about four millions of dollars.
On the opposite corner from the Post Office is the Continentel Hotel, a
spacious structure which, when erected, was the largest of its kind in
the country. It is now exceeded in size by several other hotels in other
cities, but it is noted for the elegance and excellence of the
entertainment it offers its guests. Girard Hotel is immediately
opposite, and ranks second only to the Continental.
The Eastern Penitentiary is on Fairmount avenue, on what was once known
as Cherry Hill. In it is practiced the plan of solitary confinement for
prisoners. When Dickens paid his first visit to America, more than forty
years ago, he visited this prison, and was so moved to pity by the
solitude of its inmates, that he wrote a touching account of one of the
prisoners, in whom he was especially interested. But this very prisoner,
when he was set at liberty, soon committed another crime which sent him
back to his silent and solitary cell, and every subsequent release was
followed by a subsequent crime and subsequent imprisonment. Finally,
when Dickens had been in his grave for years, the old man, still hale
and hearty, but bearing the marks of age, was once more set free.
Attention was attracted to him by the newspapers, as having been the
prison hero of Dickens. The public became interested in him, and an
effort was made to place him beyond the temptation of crime, so that he
might go down to his grave a free man. But before many months had
elapsed, life in the outer world became irksome to him, and he returned,
by his well-beaten path, back to the penitentiary. He was very proud of
the notice which Dickens had bestowed upon him, and it seemed to more
than compensate for the loss of his liberty.
When Penn visited Philadelphia, in its infant days, he wished to
preserve the bluff overlooking the Delaware, to be forever used as a
public park and promenade. But the traffic of Front street now rattles
where he would have had green trees and grass. Philadelphia has no
pleasant outlook upon the river, to correspond with the Battery of New
York. The wharves are lined with craft of every description, and the
flags of many nations are to be seen in her harbor; but commerce creeps
down to the very shores, and Delaware avenue, which faces the river, is
dirty and crowded with traffic. Seen from the river the city makes a
pleasing outline against the sky, with its many spires and domes.
Smith's Island and Windmill Island lie opposite the city, a short
distance away, and Camden is on the New Jersey shore. Ferry boats
continually ply across the Delaware, carrying to and fro the travelers
of a continent.
Philadelphia is not without its public breathing places, where the
residents of its narrow streets may enjoy fine trees and green grass.
When the city was first planned, four squares, of about seven acres
each, were reserved in its four quarters, two each side of Market
street, and are now known as Washington, Franklin, Logan and
Rittenhouse Squares. Washington Square is at Sixth and Walnut, and was
once a Potters' Field. Many soldiers, victims of the smallpox and camp
fever, were buried there during the Revolution. Franklin Square, at
Sixth and Race was also once a burying, ground. A fountain now occupies
its centre. At Eighteenth and Race is Logan Square, where in 1864 was
held the great Sanitary Fair. The entire square was roofed over and
boarded up, the trunks of the trees standing as pillars in the aisles of
the large building. Its companion, Rittenhouse Square, at Eighteenth and
Walnut streets, is the centre of the aristocratic quarter of the city.
It is surrounded by most elegant mansions and costly churches.
Independence Square lies back of Independence Hall.
There are a few other smaller and newer squares scattered throughout the
city, but its great pride is Fairmount Park, which is unsurpassed in its
natural advantages by any park in the world. This park contains nearly
three thousand acres, embracing eleven miles in length along the
Schuylkill and Wissahickon rivers. The nucleus of this park was the
waterworks and reservoir, the former situated on the Schuylkill, in the
northwestern part of the city, and the latter on a natural elevation
close by, from which the entire park takes its name, while a small tract
of land between the two was included in the original park. There was
added the beautiful estate of Lemon Hill, once the country seat of
Robert Morris, with the strip along the Schuylkill which led to it. In
course of time Egglesfield, Belmont, Lansdowne and George's Hill, on the
opposite side of the river, were added, either by gift or purchase, and
eventually the tract of land on the eastern bank, extending from Lemon
Hill to the Wissahickon, and along both banks of the latter as far as
Chestnut Hill. This park, besides the beautiful river and romantic
stream which it incloses, includes hills and valleys, charming ravines
and picturesque rocks.
While the city has gained much, the true lover of nature has lost
something, by the conversion of this tract of land into a park. While it
was still private property, nature was at her loveliest. Wild flowers
blossomed in the dells, and little streams gurgled and tumbled over
stones down the ravines, while vines and foliage softened the rugged
outlines of the rocky hillsides. But the landscape gardener has been
there. The dells are converted into gentle slopes; the wild flowers and
ferns which beautified them have given place to green sward; one of the
prettiest of the brooks has been converted into a sewer and covered
over. The Wissahickon, once the most delightful of wild and wayward
streams, is now, for a considerable part of its way, imprisoned between
banks as straight and unpicturesque as those of a canal. The pretty
country lanes have been obliterated, and the trees which overshadowed
them have disappeared. Primness and stableness is now the rule. Art has
sought to improve nature, and has almost obliterated it, instead. Yet
even the landscape gardener cannot succeed in making the Schuylkill
entirely unattractive; and velvet turf and trees waving in the wind,
even though the latter be pruned into a tiresome regularity, are always
more grateful than the cobble stones and brick pavements of the city
streets, and thousands every day seek rest or recreation at Fairmount.
Belmont Mansion is now a restaurant. Solitude, a villa built in 1785 by
John Penn, grandson of William Penn, and the cottage of Tom Moore, not
far from Belmont where he spent some months during his visit to
America, are among the attractions of the park.
[Illustration: GIRARD AVENUE BRIDGE--FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA.]
The Zoölogical Gardens are included in the park, and are situated on the
western bank of the Schuylkill, opposite Lemon Hill. Here is found the
finest collection of European and American animals in America, and the
daily concourse of visitors is very great. The several bridges which
span the Schuylkill are very picturesque. In the winter, when the river
at Fairmount, above the dam, is frozen over, the ice is covered with
skaters, and the bank is thronged with spectators.
Laurel Hill, one of the most beautiful cemeteries of the country,
adjoins Fairmount Park, and is inclosed by it, seeming to make it a part
of the park. Mount Vernon Cemetery is nearly opposite Woodlands, in West
Philadelphia, and contains the Drexel Mausoleum, the costliest in
America.
Fairmount was the site of the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and
numerous and costly buildings were erected there. Of these many were
removed at once at the close of the Exhibition. The main building, a
mammoth structure, covering eleven acres, was retained for several years
for a permanent exhibition building, but was removed in 1883. Memorial
Hall, erected by the State, at a cost of $1,500,000, standing on an
elevated terrace between George's Hill and the river, and used as an art
gallery during the Exhibition, still remains, and is designed for a
permanent art and industrial collection. North of Memorial Hall stands
the Horticultural Building, a picturesque structure, in the Mooresque
style. It is a conservatory, filled with tropical and other plants, and
is surrounded by thirty-five acres devoted to horticultural purposes.
In October, 1882, Philadelphia celebrated her Bi-centennial, and
commemorated the landing of Penn, who first stepped upon her shores two
hundred years before. This Bi-centennial lasted for three days, which
were celebrated, the first as "Landing Day," the second as "Trades'
Day," and the third as "Festival Day." On the first day, October
twenty-fourth, the State House bell rang two hundred times, and the
chimes of the churches were rung. The ship Welcome, which two hundred
years before had conveyed Penn to our shores, made a second arrival, and
a mimic Penn again visited the Blue Anchor, still standing to receive
him, held treaty with the Indians, and then paraded through the city,
followed by a large and brilliant procession, which presented the
harmless anachronism of the Proprietor of two hundred years ago
hob-nobbing with the city officials and others of the nineteenth
century. On the second day the different trades and manufacturing
interests made a great display. In the evening Pennsylvania history was
represented by ten tableaux; eleven tableaux presented the illustrious
women of history; and ten tableaux gave the principal scenes in the
Romayana, the great poem of India. The display of this night pageant was
gorgeous and beautiful beyond anything ever before seen in this country.
On the third day the morning was devoted to a parade of Knights Templar,
and the evening to a reception at the Academy of Music and Horticultural
Hall. A musical festival was held during the day; also a naval regatta
upon the Schuylkill, a bicycle meet at Fairmount, and archery contests
at Agricultural Hall. During the entire three days Philadelphia held
holiday. Her streets and pavements were crowded with throngs of people
from the country, and elevated seats along the principal streets were
constantly filled, at high prices.
If William Penn could really, in person, have stepped upon the scene,
and beheld the city of his planning as it is to-day, he would
undoubtedly be astonished beyond expression. In magnitude it must exceed
his wildest dreams; in commercial and manufacturing enterprises its
progress reads like some fable of the east. He would look almost in vain
for his country residence upon the Delaware, once surrounded by noble
forests, and we fear he would scorn the Blue Anchor and all its present
associations. Time works wonders. Nearly a million people now find their
homes where, in 1683, one year after Penn's arrival, there were but one
hundred houses. In 1684 the population of Philadelphia was estimated at
2,500. In 1800 it had increased to 41,220. In 1850 it was 121,376. From
this period to 1860, its growth was almost marvelous, at the latter
period its inhabitants numbering 565,529. The census of 1880 gave it a
population of 846,984.
The residents of Philadelphia include every nationality and class of
people. The Quakers are in a small minority, though they have done much
to mould the character of the city. Irish and Germans predominate among
foreigners. Italians, French, Spanish, and Chinese are not so numerous
as in New York. The society of the Quaker City bears the reputation of
great exclusiveness. While culture will admit to the charmed circle in
Boston, and money buys a ready passport to social recognition in New
York, in Philadelphia the door is closed to all pretensions except those
of family. Boston asks "How much do you know?" New York, "How much are
you worth?" but in Philadelphia the question is, "Who was your
grandfather?"
Philadelphia ranks fourth in commerce among the cities of the Union. As
a manufacturing city it occupies the very front rank. With the
inexhaustible coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania at its back, her
manufacturing interests are certain to grow in extent and importance,
maintaining the ascendency they have already gained. Its prosperity has
a firm basis. Like all large cities, there is squalor, misery and crime
within its borders; but the proportion is smaller than in some other
cities, and the aggregate amount of domestic content, owing to its many
comfortable homes, much greater. Thus Philadelphia offers an example, in
more than one direction, which might be emulated by her sister cities.
What she will have become when her tri-centennial comes around, who
shall dare to predict?
CHAPTER XXVII.
PROVIDENCE.
Origin of the City.--Roger Williams.--Geographical Location and
Importance.--Topography of Providence.--The Cove.--Railroad
Connections.--Brown University.--Patriotism of Rhode Island.--
Soldiers' Monument.--The Roger Williams Park.--Narragansett
Bay.--Suburban Villages.--Points of Interest.--Butter
Exchange.--Lamplighting on a New Plan.--Jewelry Manufactories.
In the year 1630, Roger Williams, a clergyman, persecuted and banished
from Massachusetts on account of his peculiar religious views, came to
Rhode Island and laid the foundation of a city, naming it Providence, in
gratitude for his deliverance from persecution. This renowned pioneer
not only laid the corner stone of a great and growing city, but
ineffaceably stamped his character upon all her institutions, public and
private.
Providence is the second city of New England in respect to wealth and
population. It is pleasantly located at the head of Narragansett Bay,
thirty-five miles from the ocean. Its commercial advantages are
unsurpassed, and as a manufacturing town it ranks among the first in the
Atlantic States. The city is divided into two unequal portions by a
narrow arm of the Bay, which terminates near the geographical centre of
the town, in a beautiful elliptical sheet of water, about one mile in
circumference, called the cove, or basin. This basin is inclosed by a
handsome granite wall, capped by a substantial and ornamental iron
fence, and is surrounded by a green about eighty feet in width, filled
with a variety of beautiful and thrifty shade trees.
The eastern portion of the city rises from the water, in some places
gradually, in others quite abruptly, to the height of more than two
hundred feet. This elevated land is occupied by elegant private mansions
surrounded with numerous shade trees and ornamental gardens, making one
of the most delightful and desirable places for residence to be found in
any city.
The western portion of the city rises very gradually until it reaches an
elevation of about seventy-five feet, when it spreads out into a level
plain, extending a considerable distance to the southwest. The northern
portion, recently annexed to the city, is more sparsely populated, and
portions of it are quite rural in appearance and abounding in hills,
numerous springs and small streams of water.
Providence is about forty-three miles from Boston, the same distance
from Worcester, ninety miles from Hartford, fifty miles from Stonington,
and twenty miles from Fall River, with each of which places it is
connected by numerous daily trains. It also has railroad connections
with New Bedford and southern Massachusetts, with Fitchburg, and thence
with Vermont and New Hampshire. There is now in process of construction
another route to Northern Connecticut, Springfield and the west. It is
also closely connected with Newport, and other places on Narragansett
Bay, by steamboats.
[Illustration: VIEW OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, FROM PROSPECT
TERRACE.]
Brown University is one of the distinguishing features of Providence,
and, as an institution of learning, stands in the front rank of American
colleges. Founded more than one hundred years since, this college has
come down from the past, hand in hand with Yale and Harvard. Among the
renowned graduates of Brown University may be mentioned Charles Sumner,
the great statesman, the devoted patriot, the champion of the negro,
whose fame and good works will live while freedom is the heritage of the
American people.
President Wayland, of this institution, was the originator of the public
Library System of New England--a system whose wonderful power for good
is markedly on the increase.
During the war no State of the whole sisterhood evinced more patriotism
than little Rhode Island, and Providence was largely represented in the
Union army. A Soldiers' Monument stands in the triangular space near the
Boston and Providence Railroad Depot, inscribed with the names of Rhode
Island soldiers who were killed in battle. The Monument is surmounted by
a statue in bronze of the Goddess of Liberty, and in niches of the
granite pillar below this figure each arm of the service is represented
by soldiers in bronze. The work is finely executed, and it is one of the
first objects which attracts the attention of the stranger. The
Artilleryman stands behind his cannon in grim silence; representatives
of the infantry, the cavalry and the marine arms of the service are his
coadjutors, and the entire group is sternly suggestive of war's sad
havoc.
About a mile and a half from the heart of the city, along a beautiful
McAdamized road leading to Pawtuxet, is situated the Roger Williams
Park, a tract of land containing about thirteen hundred acres, which was
bequeathed to the city by a descendant of Roger Williams, in
consideration of five hundred dollars, to be raised by the Providence
people, for the erection of a monument to the city's illustrious
founder. The sum to be appropriated for that purpose was equivalent to
twenty-six hundred dollars at the present time.
The embryo park is yet a wilderness, unreclaimed, and primeval
forest-trees fill the wide enclosure. The ground is undulating with hill
and dale, and pleasant driveways under the dark pines and hemlocks are
already laid out.
The memory of Roger Williams is held in great veneration by the citizens
of Providence, and he is ranked with William Penn in the category of
noble pioneers. Plenty of eulogistic essays and poems have been written
concerning him, and his great love of liberty, exemplified in his life,
is a matter of history. The following fragment of verse, by Francis
Whipple, one of Rhode Island's poets, places the memory of the two
heroes side by side:--
"When warlike fame, as morning mist shall fly,
And blood-stained glory as a meteor die,
When all the dross is known and cast away,
And the pure gold alone allowed to stay,
Two names will stand, the pride of virtuous men,
Our Roger Williams and good William Penn."
Many of the suburbs of Providence are of some note as places of summer
resort. The coast scenery along Narragansett Bay is full of charming
water-pictures, and numerous rocky islands may be seen, on which are
erected little white cottages, for summer occupation. The islands are
sometimes connected with the shore by foot-bridges, but often the only
means of communication with land is by boat.
Nayatt Point, six miles distant from Providence by rail, is, as its name
implies, a jutting point of land, reaching out into the bay, where
beautiful drives along the beach and through the neighboring groves,
added to the salt sea air, are the chief summer attractions. Rocky
Point, directly opposite Nayatt, is famous for its clam bakes, and on
moonlight nights in summer, excursion parties from Nayatt, Barrington or
Warren, glide over the smooth waters of the bay to this lovely spot. The
red glow of Rocky Point Light can be seen through the night, for miles
and miles along the coast and down the bay.
Westminster street is the principal avenue of Providence, and is
handsomely built up with substantial and elegant business blocks. A very
large hostelry, to be called the Narragansett Hotel, is in process of
erection at the corner of Dorrance and Broad streets. Just back of this
building, the new Providence Opera House, a structure of recent date,
furnished with all the modern appliances for the stage, opens its doors
to lovers of the histrionic art. The What-Cheer building, the Arcade,
and the Butler Exchange are all well known business centres. The last
named place owes its existence to a clause in a Scotchman's will. A
large inheritance was left to a gentleman in Providence, with a
stipulation that a certain amount of its yearly income should be used in
the erection of public buildings in the city. The Butler Exchange is one
of the children of this proviso.
A recent improvement in Providence is that of lighting the city lamps by
means of electricity. Only one person is required to light the streets
of the entire city. A single turn of the screw which commands the
network of wires leading to the lamp posts, sets every gas jet, far and
near, aflame, in one instantaneous blaze. It is a marvelous advance on
the old way of doing things, and will greatly lessen the expenditures of
the city.
Providence is justly celebrated for its manufacture of jewelry. The
largest establishments of the kind in New England are in operation here,
and the work turned out is of the most skillful pattern. A visit to the
lapidary establishments is full of interest. A shining array of precious
stones, from the white brilliance of the diamond, to the mottled moss
agate, greets the bewildered gaze, and skillful workmen are deftly
transforming them into the beautiful gems which shine in the jeweler's
window.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
QUEBEC.
Appearance of Quebec.--Gibraltar of America.--Fortifications and
Walls.--The Walled City.--Churches, Nunneries and Hospitals.--
Views from the Cliff.--Upper Town.--Lower Town.--Manufactures.--
Public Buildings.--Plains of Abraham.--Falls of Montmorenci.--
Sledding on the "Cone."--History of Quebec.--Capture of the
City by the British.--Death of Generals Wolfe and Montcalm.--
Disaster under General Murray.--Ceding of Canada, by France,
to England.--Attack by American Forces under Montgomery and
Arnold.--Death of Montgomery.--Capital of Lower Canada and of
the Province of Quebec.
Of all the cities and towns on the American continent, not one wears
such an Old-World expression as Quebec. Not even St. Augustine, in
Florida, with its narrow streets, and quaint, overhanging balconies, so
takes the traveler back to a past age, as that fortified city on the
lower St. Lawrence. It is not French in any modern sense. But the city
and its inhabitants belong to a France now passed away, the France of
St. Louis, the _fleur-de-lis_, and a dominant priesthood. An offshoot
from such a France, now blotted out and forgotten in the crowding of
events during the last century, it has remained oblivious of all the
changes in the parent country, and not even British rule, and the
infusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic blood have been able to more than
partially obliterate its early characteristics.
Quebec is situated at the confluence of the St. Charles River with the
St. Lawrence, on the northern side of a point of land which projects
between these two rivers. This point ends in an abrupt headland, three
hundred and thirty-three feet above the level of the river; and its
precipitous sides, crowned with an almost impregnable fortress, have won
for it the name of the "Gibraltar of America." The most elevated part of
this promontory is called Cape Diamond, since at one time numerous
quartz crystals were found there; and upon this is placed the citadel,
occupying forty acres. From the citadel a line of wall runs towards the
St. Charles River, until it reaches the brow of the bluff. Continuing
around this bluff towards the St. Lawrence, it finally completes a
circle of nearly three miles in circumference, by again connecting with
the citadel. This encircling wall originally had five gates, but four of
these were removed some time ago. They are now being replaced by more
ornamental ones. The old St. Louis Gate, opening upon the street of that
name, is being replaced by the Kent Gate, in honor of Queen Victoria's
father, who spent the summer of 1791 near Quebec. Dufferin Gate is being
erected on St. Patrick street; Palace and Hope gates are to be replaced
by castellated gates; while a light iron bridge is to occupy the site of
the Prescott Gate.
The old city is contained within this walled inclosure, and here, in the
narrow, tortuous, mediæval streets, are the stately churches, venerable
convents, and other edifices, many of them dating back to the period of
the French occupation of the city. The houses are tall, with narrow
windows and irregular gables, two or three stories high, and roofed,
like the public buildings, with shining tin. A very large part of the
city within the walls is, however, taken up with the buildings and
grounds of the great religious corporations. Monks, priests, and nuns,
seemingly belonging to another age and another civilization than our
own, are jostled in the street by officers whose dress and manners are
those of the nineteenth century. French is quite as frequently heard as
English; and everywhere the old and the new, the past century and the
present, seem inextricably mingled. The past has, however, set its
ineffaceable stamp upon the city and its people. There is none of the
hurry and push of most American cities, seen even, to a degree, in
Montreal. To-day seems long enough for its duties and its pleasures, and
to-morrow is left to take care of itself. Even the public buildings have
the stamp of antiquity upon them, and are, in consequence, interesting,
though few of them are architecturally beautiful.
The churches of Quebec have none of the grandeur of those of Montreal.
Most prominent among them is the Anglican Cathedral, a plain, gray stone
edifice in St. Ann street. The Basilica of Quebec, formerly the
Cathedral, is capable of seating four thousand persons, and with a plain
exterior, contains some invaluable art treasures in the form of original
paintings by Vandyke, Caracci, Halle and others. The remains of
Champlain, the founder and first governor of Quebec, lie within the
Basilica. The Ursuline Convent is in Garden street, north of Market
Square, and is composed of a group of buildings surrounded by beautiful
grounds. It was founded in 1639, originally for the education of Indian
girls, and is now devoted to the education of girls of the white race.
The remains of Montcalm are buried within the convent grounds, in an
excavation made by the bursting of a shell, during the engagement in
which he lost his life. The Gray Nunnery, the Black Nunnery, and Hôtel
Dieu with its convent and hospital, under the charge of the Sisters of
the Sacred Blood, of Dieppe, are among the Roman Catholic religious
institutions of the city. In the hospital of the Hôtel Dieu ten thousand
patients are gratuitously cared for annually.
Durham Terrace lies along the edge of the cliff overlooking the St.
Lawrence. It occupies the site of the old chateau of St. Louis, built by
Champlain in 1620, and destroyed by fire in 1834. The outlook from this
terrace is one of the finest in the world; though the view from the
Grand Battery is conceded to be even finer. Looking down from an
elevation of nearly three hundred and fifty feet, the lower town, the
majestic St. Lawrence and the smaller stream of St. Charles rolling away
in the distance, and a vast stretch of country varied by hills and
plains, woodlands and mountains, are spread out before the spectator,
making one of the most beautiful pictures of which it is possible to
conceive.
The walled city, with the suburbs of St. Louis and St. John between the
walls to the eastward, and the Plains of Abraham to the westward, is
known as the upper town. The lower town is reached from the upper by the
Côte de la Montagne, or Mountain street, a very steep and winding
street, and lies below the cliff, principally to the northward, though
it encircles the base of the promontory. Here, in the lower town, is the
business portion of the city, with all its modern additions. The narrow
strand between the cliff and the rivers is occupied by breweries,
distilleries, manufactories, and numerous ship-yards; while the many
coves of the St. Lawrence, from Champlain street to Cape Rouge, are
filled with acres of vast lumber rafts. Quebec is one of the greatest
lumber and timber markets in America, supplying all the seaboard cities
of the United States. It also builds many ships, and produces sawed
lumber, boots and shoes, furniture, iron ware and machinery.
The Custom House occupies the extreme point between the St. Lawrence and
St. Charles rivers. It is Doric in architecture, surmounted by a dome,
and has a columned façade reached by an imposing flight of steps. The
Marine Hospital, built in imitation of the Temple of the Muses on the
banks of the Ilissus, is situated near the St. Charles River. The Marine
and Emigrants' Hospital is not far away. The General Hospital, an
immense cluster of buildings further up the river, was founded in 1693,
and is in charge of the nuns of St. Augustine.
The Plains of Abraham, lying back of Quebec, near the St. Lawrence, and
the scene of the famous encounter between the forces of Wolfe and
Montcalm, are fast being encroached upon by suburban residences, large
conventual establishments, and churches. The Martello towers are four
circular stone structures, erected upon the Plains to defend the
approaches of the city. On the plains, near the St. Foye road, is a
monument composed of a handsome iron column, surmounted by a bronze
statue of Bellona, presented by Prince Napoleon, and erected in 1854, to
commemorate the victory won by the Chevalier de Lèris over General
Murray, in 1760. The Mount Hermon Cemetery, beautifully laid out on the
edge of the precipice which overhangs the St. Lawrence, lies about three
miles out, on the St. Louis road.
It is imperative upon the stranger, in Quebec, to visit the Falls of
Montmorenci, eight miles distant, and among the most beautiful in
America. A volume of water fifty feet wide makes a leap of two hundred
and fifty feet, down a sheer rock face, into a boiling and turbulent
basin. During the winter the spray which is continually flying from this
cataract congeals and falls like snow, until it builds up an eminence
which is known as the Cone. This Cone, in favorable seasons, sometimes
reaches an altitude of one hundred and twenty feet. To visit the Falls
in sleighs, over the frozen river, and to ride down the Cone on
hand-sleds, or "toboggins," as they are locally called, is considered
the very climax of enjoyment by the inhabitants of Quebec. The Cone is
in the form of a sugar loaf, quite as white and almost as firm. Up its
steep sides the pleasure seekers toil with their sleds, and then glide
from the top, impelled by the steepness alone, rushing down the slope
with fearful velocity, and sometimes out on the ice of the river for
hundreds of yards, until the force is spent. The interior of the Cone is
not unfrequently hollowed out in the shape of a room, and a bar is set
up, for the benefit of thirsty pleasure seekers.
About a mile above Montmorenci Falls are the Natural Steps, a series of
ledges cut in the limestone rock by the action of the river, each step
about a foot in height, and as regular in its formation as though it was
the work of man.
There are points of interest nearer Quebec, among which are the Isle of
Orleans, a beautiful and romantic place, laid out with charming drives,
and reached by ferry; _Château Bigot_, an antique and massive ruin,
standing at the foot of the Charlesbourg mountain; and still further
away, Lorette, an ancient village of the Huron Indians.
Quebec, the oldest city in British America, was settled in 1608, the
spot having been visited by Cartier, in 1534. Its history is an
exceedingly interesting and varied one. Twenty-one years after its
founding it was seized by the British, who did not restore it to France
until 1632. In 1690 and in 1711 the British made unsuccessful maritime
assaults upon it It continued to be the centre of French trade and
civilization, and of the Roman Catholic missions in North America,
until, in 1759, it fell into the hands of the British. The Fleur-de-lis
fluttered from the citadel of Quebec for two hundred and twenty years,
with the exception of the three years from 1629 to 1632, when Sir David
Kirke placed the fortification in the hands of England.
In 1759, during the Seven Years' War, the English, under General Wolfe,
attacked the city and bombarded it. An attempt had been previously made
to land British troops at Montmorenci, which had been frustrated by
Montcalm, resulting in a loss of five hundred men. But on the occasion
of the present attack Wolfe had conceived the idea of landing his troops
above the town. He pushed his fleet stealthily up the river, under the
brow of the frowning precipice and beneath the very shadow of the
fortifications. Passing above the city, he effected a landing where the
acclivity was a little less steep than at other places, and the troops
dragged themselves up, and actually brought with them several pieces of
ordnance. All this was under cover of night; and when day dawned the
British army with its artillery was found in line of battle on the
Plains of Abraham. Wolfe had eight thousand men, while the French troops
numbered ten thousand. Montcalm believed he could easily drive the
British into the river or compel them to surrender, and so threw the
whole force of his attack upon the English right, which rested on the
river. But in the French army were only five battalions of French
soldiers, the balance being Indians and Canadians. The French right,
composed of these undisciplined troops, was easily routed and the French
left was ultimately broken. Five days later the British were in complete
possession of Quebec. But before this victory was fairly assured to the
English troops, both the French and English armies had lost their
commanders.
The spot where Wolfe fell in the memorable battle of September
thirteenth, 1759, is marked by an unpretending column. A monument was
shipped from Paris, to commemorate the death of Montcalm, but it never
reached Quebec, the vessel which conveyed it having been lost at sea. A
lengthy inscription upon this monument, after giving the Marquis de
Montcalm's name and many titles, and depicting in glowing words his
character and his brilliant achievements as a soldier, says: "Having
with various artifices long baffled a great enemy, headed by an expert
and intrepid commander, and a fleet furnished with all warlike stores,
compelled at length to an engagement, he fell--in the first rank--in the
first onset, warm with those hopes of religion which he had always
cherished, to the inexpressible loss of his own army, and not without
the regret of the enemy's, September fourteenth, 1759, of his age
forty-eight. His weeping countrymen deposited the remains of their
excellent General in a grave which a fallen bomb in bursting had
excavated for him, recommending them to the generous faith of their
enemies." Whether the "generous faith" of their friends was equally to
be trusted each one must judge for himself; for in the chapel of the
Ursuline Convent of Quebec, among the curiosities exhibited to the
visitor, is the skull of the Marquis de Montcalm.
In April, of the following year, the British very nearly lost what Wolfe
had gained for them. General Murray went out to the Plains of Abraham,
with three thousand men, to meet the French, under Chevalier de Lèris,
losing no less than one thousand men, and all his guns, which numbered
twenty, and being compelled to retreat within the walls. The arrival of
a British squadron brought him timely relief, and compelled the French
to retreat, with the loss of all their artillery. The treaty of peace
made between Louis Fifteenth and England, in 1763, ceded the whole of
the French Canadian possessions to the British. In December, 1775,
during the war of the Revolution, a small American force, under General
Montgomery, made an attack upon the fortress, but was repulsed with the
loss of their commander and seven hundred men. Arnold preceded
Montgomery, making an astonishing march, and enduring untold perils, by
the Kennebec and Chaudière. Following the course pursued by Wolfe, he
placed his troops upon the Plains of Abraham; but when Montgomery joined
him, from Montreal, it was found they had no heavy artillery, and the
only alternatives were, to retreat, or to carry the place by storm.
Deciding on the latter course, two columns, headed by Arnold and
Montgomery, rushed forward. The latter carried the intrenchment, and was
proceeding toward a second work, when he and the officers who followed
him were swept down before a gun loaded with grape. Arnold was carried
from the field, wounded, and the attempt on Quebec was a most disastrous
failure.
Quebec remained the chief city of Canada until the western settlements
were erected into a separate Province, as Canada West, when it became
the Capital of Canada East. In 1867, the British North American
Provinces were united, in the Dominion of Canada. Canada East, or Lower
Canada, as a Province, took the name of the city, and the city of Quebec
became the Capital of the Province. The population of Quebec was, in
1871, 58,699, of whom a large proportion are descendants of the early
French settlers, though many English, Scotch and Irish, have domiciled
themselves within it, and form, really, its most enterprising and
energetic citizens.
CHAPTER XXIX.
READING.
Geographical Position and History of Reading.--Manufacturing
Interests.--Population, Streets, Churches and Public
Buildings.--Boating on the Schuylkill.--White Spot and the
View from its Summit.--Other Pleasure Resorts.--Decoration
Day.--Wealth Created by Industry.
Reading, the seat of Justice of Berks County, Pennsylvania, is
beautifully situated near the junction of the Tulpehocken with the
Schuylkill River, and is midway between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, on
the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. It was named after the ancient
borough of Reading, a prominent market town of Berkshire, England, which
it is said to resemble in some of its geographical surroundings.
Attention was first called to Reading in the fall of 1748, by the agents
of Richard and Thomas Penn, who represented it as "a new town with great
natural advantages, and destined to become a prosperous place." It was
incorporated as a borough in 1783, and as a city in 1847. The original
settlers were principally Germans, who gave character to the town, both
in language and customs. For many years the German tongue was almost
exclusively spoken, and it is still used in social intercourse and
religious worship by more than one-half the present population.
The manufacturing interests of Reading are second to no city of like
population in the United States; while it is the third city in
Pennsylvania in its manufactures, Pittsburg and Philadelphia alone
exceeding it. Among these manufactures the working of iron holds the
first rank. Much of the ore is obtained from Penn's Mountain, on the
east of the town. Rolling mills, machine shops, car shops, furnaces,
foundries, cotton mills and hat factories, from their number and extent,
establish beyond question the claim of Reading to be considered one of
the first manufacturing towns of America. The shops of the Philadelphia
and Reading Railroad alone employ two thousand men. From an early hour
in the morning the eastern bank of the Schuylkill rings out the
discordant music of numberless factories, betokening the enterprise of
her productive industries.
Reading has, at the present time, a population numbering not far from
fifty thousand. It is delightfully situated on an elevated and ascending
plain, which rises to the eastward into Penn's Mountain, and to the
southward into the Neversink Mountain. The city is abundantly supplied
with pure water, by streams flowing from these mountains. It is
surrounded by a rich farming country, which looks to it for supplies.
The streets cross each other at right angles, and the chief hotels and
stores are built around Penn's Square, which occupies the centre of the
city. It contains thirty-one churches, most prominent among which is
Trinity, German Lutheran, an antique building with a spire two hundred
and ten feet in height. Christ Church, Episcopal, is a handsome Gothic
edifice of more recent date, and with a spire nearly as high. The Grand
Opera House and Mishler's Academy of Music furnish amusements for the
pleasure-seekers of the city.
The Schuylkill River is one of the most charmingly picturesque in
America. Taking its rise among the rocky heights of the Blue Ridge,
when it reaches Reading it has left all the ruggedness of the mountain
region behind, and flows between gently sloping banks, which, though
sometimes rising in the background to considerable elevations, never
lose their softness of outline and their pastoral beauty. One evening we
strolled down to this river, and took a most delightful boat ride from
the Lancaster bridge to the dam opposite the White House and Neversink.
Two boats were placed at the disposal of our party. It was a lovely May
evening, the air soft and warm, yet with all the freshness of spring. We
glided down the stream, the trees upon the banks overhanging the water,
and catching reflections of themselves in its depths. Our downward
progress was easy and pleasant. The current aided our efforts, while the
tranquil waters, rippled only by a passing boat, offered no resistance
to us in our course. When we turned and headed up stream, we found it
quite another matter. Then we had to bring all our energies and wills to
aid us in the labor of rowing. This is something that a man is apt to
discover many times in his life, that, in both material and moral
matters, it is easier to float with the current than to make headway
against it.
A call from Mr. W. H. Zeller, of the Reading _Eagle_, paid me early one
day, before the sun was up, was an indication that that gentleman was
ready to pilot me to "White Spot," the famous resort of Reading.
Starting as soon as possible, we walked up Franklin street, crossed
Perkiomen avenue, and took a "bee line" for our destination. Up and up
and up we walked, ran and jumped, over gulches and stones, and from log
to log, halting occasionally for breath, and to discuss the city and
landscape at our feet. It was but half-past five o'clock when we reached
the goal of our walk. Taking in a view from its elevated heights, I felt
that my visit to Reading would have given me a very indefinite idea of
its natural beauties, had I not seen it from this point. White Spot is
upon Penn's Mountain, one thousand feet above the river. I would but
mislead the imagination of the reader, were I to attempt to convey a
faithful impression of the magnificent panorama which, for a while,
almost bewildered me. But let him imagine, if he can, a vast girdle of
far-off, misty, blue hills, faintly defined by the horizon; against them
to the north and west jut rows of towering but withal gently sloping
mountains, purple, black, or darkly blue, just as each drifting cloud
shadows them; within these encircling hills and mountains scatter the
loveliest landscape features of which the human mind can conceive; green
meadows, wooded hills, enchanting groves, dotted here and there with the
most charming irregularity; farmhouses and farms, in themselves a little
Arcadia; roads diverging from a common centre, and winding about until
in the distance they look like the tiny trail which a child's stick
makes in the sand; a clear, silvery river, looking in the sunshine like
liquid light, reproducing on its mirrored surface the wonderful beauty
which clothes either bank, studded with green isles that "blossom as the
rose," spanned by splendid bridges as delicate in their appearance as
lace work or filigree, yet supporting thousands of tons daily; in the
heart of all a city, whose factories, furnaces, churches, majestic
public buildings, handsome private residences, and attractive suburbs
betoken prosperity, intelligence, culture, wealth and constant
improvement; over the whole throw that peculiar _couleur de rose_ with
which the heart in its happiest moments paints all it loves, and he will
have a faint conception of the aspect of Reading and its surroundings as
seen from White Spot.
After resting on the summit, and taking in, to the full, this
magnificent view, we returned to the city by the way of Mineral Spring,
another delightful resort, which lies surrounded by charming natural
beauties, about a mile and a half east of Reading. White House Hotel, a
mile and a half to the southeast, on the Neversink Mountain, three
hundred feet above the river, is still another favorite visiting place,
from which a fine view of the city and surrounding country may be
obtained, though not equal to that of White Spot.
I was particularly fortunate in finding myself still in Reading on
Decoration Day, that day which has become a national holiday, and is
universally observed throughout the northern States. The occurrence of
this anniversary is hailed by the "Boys in Blue" as affording a blessed
opportunity for doing honor to their dead comrades, and renewing their
devotion to the flag which they followed through a four years' war for
the preservation of the Union. Reading manifested her patriotism by a
parade of all her civic and military organizations, and by invitation I
was permitted to participate in the decoration exercises, at the Charles
Evans Cemetery. The people of Reading are truly loyal, as industrious
and order-loving people are sure to be. The perpetuation of the Union
means to them the protection of their homes and the encouragement of
their industries.
Although the manufacturing interests of Philadelphia and Pittsburg are
exceedingly large--those of the latter without parallel on the
continent, if, in the world--a visit to Reading is, nevertheless,
desirable, for one who would gain a comprehensive idea of the industries
of Pennsylvania. The city is not a large one, but it is almost wholly a
city of workers. With the great coal and iron regions of the State at
its back, their products brought to it by river, railroad and canal, its
manufacturing enterprises are multiplied in numbers, and are almost
Cyclopean in their proportions. Here the brawn of the country, with
giant strength united with surprising skill, hammers and fashions the
various devices of an advanced civilization, which its brain has already
imagined and planned. Here wealth is created by the sturdy strokes of
industry, and the permanent prosperity of the State secured.
CHAPTER XXX.
RICHMOND.
Arrival in Richmond.--Libby Prison.--Situation of the City.--
Historical Associations.--Early Settlement.--Attacked by
British Forces in the Revolution.--Monumental Church.--St.
John's Church.--State Capital.--Passage of the Ordinance
of Secession.--Richmond the Capital of the Confederate
States.--Military Expeditions against the City.--Evacuation
of Petersburg.--Surrender of the City.--Visit of President
Lincoln.--Historical Places.--Statues.--Rapid Recuperation
After the War.--Manufacturing and Commercial Interests.--
Streets and Public Buildings.--Population and Future
Prospects.
On the morning of October twenty-third, 1863, a large company of Union
prisoners, including the author, made an entry into Richmond, which was
the reverse of triumphant, we having been, four days before, made
prisoners of war in the cavalry fight at New Baltimore, in Northern
Virginia. A brief stay in Warrenton jail, a forced march on a hot day,
for a distance of thirty miles, to Culpepper, and then a transfer by
march and rail, landed us at last at Libby Prison, Richmond. The
"chivalry" and the descendants of the F. F. V's did not impress us very
favorably, as we marched from the depot, through some of the principal
streets, to the James River. Contemptuous epithets were bestowed freely
upon us, while the female portion of the community was even more bitter
in its expressions of hatred, and a troop of boys followed in our rear,
hooting and yelling like young demoniacs.
Libby Prison was situated at the corner of Fourteenth and Cary streets,
and was an old, dilapidated three-story brick structure, which still
bore upon its northwest corner the sign "Libby & Son, Ship Chandlers and
Grocers." The windows were small and protected by iron bars. The story
of my stay in this prison-house I have recorded in "Capture, Prison-Pen
and Escape." It was my abiding place until the seventh of the following
May, when, in a filthy, rough box-car, a number of prisoners, including
myself, were shipped to Danville. It is needless to say that my
prolonged stay in Richmond did not materially alter or improve my
impressions in regard to the city. True, our view of the city from our
prison windows was limited, but memories only of suffering, privation
and unnecessary barbarity, prompted by the cruel nature of those who had
us in charge, are associated with it. The city was at that time the
heart and centre of the then Southern Confederacy, the seat of the Rebel
government, the rendezvous of troops, and the hatching place of treason
and rebellion.
Yet one who views Richmond at the present day, unbiased by the untoward
circumstances which threw their baleful influence over us, will see much
to admire in and about the city. It is situated on the north bank of the
James River, about one hundred miles by water from Chesapeake Bay, and
the same distance a little west of south of Washington. It is built upon
several eminences, the principal ones being Shockoe and Richmond hills,
separated by Shockoe Creek. Like so many other Southern cities, its
residences are surrounded by gardens, in which are grass plots,
shrubbery and flowers; and in the business quarter are many substantial
edifices.
The Richmond of to-day is very different from the Richmond of war times.
The loyal city has been literally reconstructed upon the ruins of the
rebellious one. There are few cities around which so many historical
associations cluster, as around Richmond. It is on the site of a
settlement made as early as 1611, by Sir Thomas Dale, and in honor of
Prince Henry called Henrico, from which the county afterwards took its
name. An early historical account says it contained three streets of
framed houses, a church, storehouses and warehouses. It was protected by
ditches and palisades, and no less than five rude forts. Two miles below
the city a settlement had been made two years previously. In 1644-5 the
Assembly of Virginia ordered a fort to be erected at the falls of the
James River, to be called "Forte Charles." In 1676 war was declared
against the Indians, and bloody encounters took place between the
aborigines and their white neighbors. Bloody Run, near Richmond, is so
named, according to tradition, on account of a sanguinary battle which
one Bacon had there with the Indians; though it is stated on other
authority that its name originated from the battle in which Hill was
defeated and Totopotomoi slain.
In 1677 certain privileges were granted Captain William Byrd, upon the
condition that he should settle fifty able-bodied and well armed men in
the vicinity of the Falls, to act as a protection to the frontier
against the Indians. Richmond was established by law as a town in May,
1742, in the reign of George II, on land belonging to Colonel William
Byrd, who died two years later. The present Exchange Hotel is near the
locality of a warehouse owned by that gentleman. In 1779 the capital of
the State was removed to Richmond, from Williamsburg, the latter, its
former capital, being in too assailable a position. In 1781 the traitor
Arnold invested the city with a British force. As soon as he arrived he
sent a force, under Colonel Simcoe, to destroy the cannon foundry above
the town. After burning some public and private buildings, and a large
quantity of tobacco, the British forces left Richmond, encamping for one
night at Four Mile Creek. The village at that time contained not more
than eighteen hundred inhabitants, one-half of whom were slaves. In 1789
it contained about three hundred houses. At that period all the
principal merchants were Scotch and Scotch-Irish. Paulding describes the
inhabitants as "a race of most ancient and respectable planters, having
estates in the country, who chose it for their residence, for the sake
of social enjoyments. They formed a society now seldom to be met with in
any of our cities. A society of people not exclusively monopolized by
money-making pursuits, but of liberal education, liberal habits of
thinking and acting; and possessing both leisure and inclination to
cultivate those feelings and pursue those objects which exalt our nature
rather than increase our fortune." In 1788, a convention met in the
city, to ratify the Federal Constitution.
At the corner of Broad and Thirteenth streets stands the Monumental
Church, in commemoration of a terrible calamity which once befell the
city. On the twenty-sixth of December, 1811, a play entitled "The
Bleeding Nun" was being performed in the little theatre of the city, and
proved such a great attraction that the house was crowded, not less than
six hundred people being present on the eventful night. Just before the
conclusion of the play the scenery caught fire, and in a few minutes the
whole building was wrapped in flames. The fire falling from the ceiling
upon the performers was the first notification the audience had of what
was transpiring. A scene of the wildest confusion ensued. There was but
one door through which the entire audience, composed of men, women and
children, could make its exit. The fire flashed from one portion of the
interior to another, catching on the garments of the frantic people. All
pressed in a wild panic toward the door. People jumped and were pushed
out of the windows. Many were rescued with their clothing literally
burned off from them, and no less than sixty-nine persons perished in
the flames, among them George W. Smith, Governor of the State, and many
other prominent men and women. A great funeral was held in the Baptist
meeting-house, and the entire population of the city attended, as
mourners. The remains of the unfortunates were interred beneath a mural
tablet which is now in the vestibule of the church that was subsequently
erected on the site of the theatre.
St. John's Church, on Church Hill, at the corner of Broad and
Twenty-fourth streets, dates back to ante-Revolutionary times, and in it
was held, in 1775, the Virginia Convention, in which Patrick Henry made
his famous speech, containing the words "Give me liberty or give me
death!" It was subsequently the place of meeting of the Convention
which, in 1788, ratified the Federal Constitution. Among the members of
this Convention were James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Patrick
Henry, George Nicholas, George Mason, Edmund Randolph, Pendleton and
Wythe. Rarely has any occasion in a single State presented such a list
of illustrious names as we find here. This church is a plain,
unpretending edifice, built in the style of a century ago, to which has
been added a modern spire.
The State Capitol stands on the summit of Shockoe Hill, in the centre of
a park of eight acres. It is of Graeco-Composite style of architecture,
with a portico of Ionic columns, planned after that of the _Maison
cassée_ at Nismes, in France, the plan being furnished by Thomas
Jefferson. Beneath a lofty dome in the centre of the building is
Houdon's celebrated statue of Washington, of marble, life size,
representing him clad in the uniform of a revolutionary general. Near
by, in a niche in the wall, is a marble bust of Lafayette. This building
has been the scene of many noted political gatherings. In it, on January
seventh, 1861, was read Governor Letcher's message to the Legislature,
in which he declared it was "monstrous to see a government like ours
destroyed merely because men cannot agree about a domestic institution."
Nevertheless, on the seventeenth of the same month, the Capitol Building
witnessed the unanimous passage of the following resolution:--
"_Resolved_, That if all efforts to reconcile the unhappy
differences between sections of our country shall prove abortive,
then every consideration of honor and interest demands that
Virginia shall unite her destinies with her sister slaveholding
States."
And on the thirteenth of February, the same edifice saw a State
Convention meet within its walls; on the sixteenth of April, Governor
Letcher refused the requisition of the Secretary of War for troops to
assist in putting down the Rebellion in South Carolina; and the next day
the Ordinance of Secession was passed, two months having been given to
an active discussion of its expediency, pro and con. The Confederate
flag, with eight stars, was raised from the dome of the Capitol, and the
Custom House, which stands on Main street, between Tenth and Eleventh,
had the gilt sign on its portico, "United States Court," removed. A
citizen writing from Richmond, on April twenty-fifth, says: "Our
beautiful city presents the appearance of an armed camp. Where all these
soldiers come from, in such a state of preparation, I cannot imagine.
Every train pours in its multitude of volunteers, but I am not as much
surprised at the number as at the apparent discipline of the country
companies. * * But the war spirit is not confined to the men nor to the
white population. The ladies are not only preparing comforts for the
soldiers, but arming and practicing themselves. Companies of boys, also,
from ten to fourteen years of age, fully armed and well drilled, are
preparing for the fray. In Petersburg, three hundred free negroes
offered their services, either to fight under white officers, or to
ditch and dig, or any kind of labor. An equal number in this city and
across the river, in Chesterfield, have volunteered in like manner."
A resolution was passed by the Convention inviting the Southern
Confederacy to make Richmond the seat of government. The Ordinance of
Secession having been submitted to the people, the vote in the city
stood twenty-four hundred in favor and twenty-four against, being less
than half the vote polled at the Presidential election in November
previous. Richmond became a general rendezvous for troops.
The Confederate Congress met in Richmond, in the hall of the House of
Delegates, on the twentieth of July, 1861, and the seat of government
continued there until the taking of the city marked the fall of the
Confederacy. A school-house in the vicinity of the rear of Monumental
Church, was at that time known as Brockenburg House, and was the
residence of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy. Two
tobacco warehouses, under their former titles of Libby & Son and Castle
Thunder, together with Belle Isle, were military prisons during the war,
and in the former of these, as already narrated, the writer was confined
for several months.
About the middle of May, 1862, the Federal forces having passed Yorktown
and Williamsburg, began to move directly upon Richmond. Consternation
seized the city, all who could get away packed up everything and fled
southward. Even President Davis took his family and hastened to North
Carolina. It was resolved to destroy the city by conflagration as soon
as the Union troops reached it. The Federal army was, however, compelled
to abandon the Peninsula, and Richmond was safe for the time being. On
February twenty-ninth, 1864, General Kilpatrick, with his division of
cavalry, commenced his march upon the city, and came within six miles,
when he was compelled to withdraw to Mechanicsburg. The next day he made
a second attempt, advancing by the Westham or river road, but was
confronted by superior forces, and again compelled to fall back, and
shortly after he returned down the Peninsula.
From the beginning of the war Richmond had been the objective point of a
series of formidable expeditions for its capture, under Generals
McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade and Grant. The strong
earthworks which were drawn around the city for its protection still
remain as mementoes of the great struggle. On July thirtieth, 1864, the
Union forces advanced as far as Petersburg, and after destroying one
fort, were repulsed. It was not until April second, 1865, that the Rebel
forces were obliged to surrender that outpost, and on the following day,
General Weitzel, with his troops, entered the city of Richmond.
President Davis was attending church at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, at
the corner of Grace and Ninth streets, when a messenger brought him a
dispatch from General Lee, announcing that Petersburg was about to be
evacuated. The officers of the Southern Confederacy stood not on the
order of their going, but went at once. Jefferson Davis took his family
and left the city immediately. The Rebel authorities took with them what
stores and treasures they could convey away, burned what they had to
leave behind, and set fire to the warehouses, public buildings, and
bridges across the James River. The flames communicated to adjacent
structures, and it was thought the entire city would be destroyed. A
large portion of its business section was thus laid waste; the number of
buildings destroyed being estimated at one thousand, and the entire loss
at eight millions of dollars.
On the fourth of April, President Lincoln reached Richmond, and entered
the house which had but two days before been occupied by Jefferson
Davis, but which was now the headquarters of General Weitzel. He came
unattended, and walked up from the river into the city, without parade,
as any ordinary citizen might have done. The news of his presence soon
spread, and the colored people flocked around him, with strong
demonstrations of joy. "God bless you, Massa Linkum!" was heard on every
hand, while the tears rolled down the cheeks of some, and others danced
for joy. And here, perhaps all unconsciously, the second father of his
country emulated the first. It is told of Washington, that, a colored
man having bowed to him, he returned the bow with stately courtesy.
Being remonstrated with for bowing to a colored person, he replied that
he did not wish to be outdone in politeness by a negro. At Richmond a
colored man bowed to Lincoln, with the salutation, "May de good Lord
bless you, President Linkum!" Lincoln returned the bow with cordiality,
evidently, like Washington, determined not to be outdone in politeness
by a negro. But that bow not only indicated the noble nature of the man
who recognized a humanity broader than a color line, and over whom
already hung the dark shadow of martyrdom; but it also was a foretoken
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the Civil Rights
act, which so quickly followed the quelling of the Rebellion.
In the soldiers' section of the Hollywood Cemetery, in the western
limits of the city, overlooking the James River, are the graves of
hundreds of Confederate dead, from the midst of which rises a monumental
pyramid of rough stone. In the same cemetery, on a hill at its southern
extremity, a monument marks the resting-place of President Monroe.
General J. E. B. Stuart, commander of Lee's cavalry, is also buried
here.
The Tredegar Iron Works, which are still in active operation, and whose
buildings cover thirteen acres of ground, were the great cannon
manufactory of the Confederacy. Several battle fields and national
cemeteries are within a few hours' drive of the city. The old African
Church, a long, low building in Branch street, near Monumental Church,
is famous as a place of political meetings, both before and during the
war.
Crawford's equestrian statue of Washington, in the esplanade leading
from the Governor's house to the Capitol Square, will recall the early
days of the Republic. The statue is of bronze, representing a horse and
rider of colossal size, the horse thrown back partly upon its haunches,
on a massive granite pedestal, and around it are grouped bronze figures
of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, George Mason, Thomas
Nelson, and Andrew Lewis, all illustrious sons of Virginia. In the
Capitol Square, north of the Capitol Building, is Foley's statue of
General "Stonewall" Jackson, of heroic size, on a granite pedestal, and
near it a life-size marble statue of Henry Clay. In the State Library,
which contains forty thousand volumes, are many historical portraits.
Richmond has rapidly recuperated since the war. Her streets have been
rebuilt, and, in common with many other Southern cities, she has, since
the abolition of slavery, and the consequent elevation of labor and
attraction of Northern enterprise and capital, developed many industrial
interests. The Gallego and Haxall flour mills are among the largest in
the world. It has a large number of cotton, and a still larger number of
tobacco factories; and contains also forges, furnaces, paper mills, and
machine shops. Its chief exports are, however, tobacco and flour.
Richmond owes its present flourishing condition to its river facilities,
and the immense water power supplied by the falls. It is alike the
manufacturing and the commercial metropolis of the State. Vessels
drawing ten feet of water can come within a mile of the centre of the
city, those drawing fifteen feet, to three miles below. A canal around
the falls gives river navigation two hundred miles further into the
interior. Steamboat lines connect it with the principal Atlantic cities,
and railroads and canals open up communication with the North, South,
and West.
The city is regularly laid out, the streets crossing each other at right
angles. Those parallel with the river are named alphabetically, A street
being on the river. The cross streets are named numerically. The
principal thoroughfare is Main or E street, which is the centre of
business. The fashionable quarter is on Shockoe Hill, in the western
part of the city, where are also the chief public edifices. The
Penitentiary is in the western suburbs facing the river, and is a
massive structure three hundred feet long and one hundred and ten feet
deep. The Almshouse is one of the finest buildings in the city. There
are a large number of churches, thirteen colleges, and an orphan asylum.
Five bridges across the James River connect it with Spring Hill and
Manchester, the latter a pretty town containing two cotton mills.
The population of Richmond, by the census of 1880, was 63,803, which
showed an increase of more than ten thousand persons in ten years.
Unlike Charleston, S. C., it is surrounded by a populous rural region,
whose products find a market here, and whose population look largely to
the city for their supplies. It will never attain the commercial
consequence of Savannah or of Norfolk, but as the centre of the tobacco
region, and the seat of large manufacturing interests, it will always
possess a certain importance and prosperity.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SAINT PAUL.
Early History of Saint Paul.--Founding of the City.--Public
Buildings.--Roman Catholics.--Places of Resort.--Falls of
Minnehaha.--Carver's Cave.--Fountain Cave.--Commercial
Interests.--Present and Future Prospects.
The first white man who ever visited the locality where Saint Paul now
stands, was Father Hennepin, who made a voyage of discovery up the
Mississippi, above the Falls of Saint Anthony, in 1680. But for more
than a century and a half after his visit the entire section of country
remained practically in the possession of the Indians. Eighty-six years
afterwards Jonathan Carver made a treaty with the Dakotas, and in 1837
the United States made a treaty with the Sioux, throwing the land open
to settlement.
The first building in Saint Paul was erected in 1838, but for a number
of years afterwards it remained merely an Indian trading-post. In 1841 a
mission was established on the spot by the Jesuits, and a log chapel
dedicated to Saint Paul, from which the city afterwards took its name.
The land upon which Saint Paul is built was purchased in 1849, at the
government price of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. The same
year the town was made the capital of the State, while it was yet a
hamlet of a few log huts. Four years later it had nearly four thousand
inhabitants, with handsome public buildings, good hotels, stores, mills,
factories, and other constituents of a prosperous town. In 1846 the
town had but ten inhabitants. In 1856 it had ten thousand. Steamers were
coming and going; loads of immigrants were arriving; drays and teams
were driving hither and thither; carpenters and masons were hard at
work; yet could not put up houses fast enough; shops and dwellings were
starting out of the ground, as if by magic. In 1880 the population had
increased to fifty thousand, and was steadily and rapidly multiplying.
Saint Paul originally occupied the western bank of the Mississippi, but
has now extended to the eastern bank as well. It is divided into a lower
and upper town, the former lying on the low shore between the bluff and
the river, and containing the wholesale houses, shipping houses and
factories. The latter occupies no less than four plateaus rising one
above another, in a semicircle around the bend of the river, the first
plateau being nearly a hundred feet in height. Here are the retail
stores, public buildings, churches and private residences. The streets
in the central portions of the city cross one another at right angles,
but become irregular as they approach the boundaries. They are graded
and paved and lighted by gas. Two bridges connect the opposite shores of
the river, and horse cars traverse all sections of the city. Its general
appearance is pleasing in the extreme. Many of the houses are built of
blue limestone, which is found underlying one of the terraces in great
quantities.
The State Capitol building is now in process of construction, and will,
when completed, be a very handsome edifice, occupying an entire square.
The United States Custom House, an opera house, a large number of
handsome churches, and several public school buildings are among the
objects worthy of note in the city.
Although Saint Paul is settled largely by people from New England and
New York State, the Roman Catholics still hold an important place in the
city. The first to take possession of the spot, they will be the last to
relax their hold. They have a number of large and handsomely finished
church edifices, and have established an orphan asylum. There is also a
Protestant orphan asylum, and three free hospitals.
The city boasts an Academy of Sciences, which has a very full museum, a
Historical Society and a Library Association, each of the latter having
fine libraries.
Saint Paul is in the midst of a charming and romantic country, and the
throngs of people who seek a transient home within its borders during
the heat of summer find abundance of delightful drives and places for
picnics and excursions. White Bear Lake and Bald Eagle Lake, but a short
distance away by rail, furnish boating, fishing and bathing for pleasure
seekers, as well as most enchanting scenery for the lovers of nature.
The city park is but two miles away, on the shores of Lake Como, and is
also an attractive place.
All lovers of the romantic should thank Longfellow that by means of his
exquisite poem of Hiawatha he has rescued the beautiful Falls of
Minnehaha, meaning in the Dakota language "laughing water," from being
known as Brown's Falls, a name which some utilitarian egotist had
bestowed upon it. From a high bank, covered with shrubbery, the clear,
silvery stream makes a sudden leap of about fifty feet into the chasm
beneath. A veil of mist rises before the falls, and the sun shining upon
it spans the cataract with a rainbow.
On the eastern side of the city, in Dayton Bluff, near the river, is
Carver's Cave, so named after Jonathan Carver, already referred to, who,
in this cave, in May, 1767, made his treaty with the Indians, by which
he secured a large tract of land. The cave contains a lake large enough
to have a boat upon it.
Two miles above Saint Paul, on a beautiful clear stream that flows into
the Mississippi, is Fountain Cave, a most wonderful and interesting
production of nature. It seems to have been formed by the action of the
stream which finds an outlet through it. It has an arched entrance with
a vaulted roof, the entrance being twenty feet in height by twenty-five
in width, while roof, sides and floor are of pure white sandstone. This
cave contains a number of chambers, the largest being one hundred feet
in length by twenty-five feet in width, and twenty feet in height. The
cave has been penetrated for a thousand feet or more, and still has
unexplored recesses.
Saint Paul stands at the head of navigation of the Mississippi River,
the Falls and Rapids of Saint Anthony, a short distance above,
effectually barring the further upward progress of craft from below,
though above the falls small steamboats thread the waters of the
youthful Mississippi to the furthest outposts of civilization. At this
point the immense grain fields of the northwest find an outlet for their
annual products, and to this point comes the merchandise which must
supply the needs of an already large and constantly increasing
agricultural, mining and lumbering population. Numerous railroads
connect it, not only with the great trade centres of the east and south,
but with a hundred thriving towns and villages in Minnesota and
Wisconsin, who look to it for supplies; and when the Northern Pacific
is completed, the entire northwest will be brought into communication
with Saint Paul, and as the Mississippi will share with the lakes the
transportation of produce, manufactures and ores of an inexhaustible but
now scarcely populated region, Saint Paul will derive immense advantages
from this gigantic enterprise.
Saint Paul is already a town of the greatest importance on the Upper
Mississippi. Her streets teem with business, and boats of all
descriptions lie at her wharves. Already a populous city, what she is
to-day is but the beginning of what the future will behold her. A
generation hence she will count her inhabitants by hundreds where now
she counts them by tens; her business will have increased in like
proportion; and in the no distant future she will be known as the great
metropolis of the Northwest.
CHAPTER XXXII.
SALT LAKE CITY.
The Mormons.--Pilgrimage Across the Continent.--Site of Salt
Lake City.--A People of Workers.--Spread of Mormons through
other Territories.--City of the Saints.--Streets.--Fruit and
Shade Trees.--Irrigation.--The Tabernacle.--Residences of the
late Brigham Young.--Museum.--Public Buildings.--Warm and Hot
Springs.--Number and Character of Population.--Barter System
before Completion of Railroad.--Mormons and Gentiles.--Present
Advantages and Future Prospects of Salt Lake City.
Of all the cities which have sprung into being and grown and prospered,
since the discovery of the American continent, there is not one with
which is associated so much interest, and which attracts such universal
curiosity as Salt Lake City. From the time of the so-called discovery of
the Book of Mormon, in 1827, by Joseph Smith, through all the wanderings
of the adherents of Mormonism, beginning with the organization of the
"Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," in Manchester, New York,
including its removal to Kirtland, Ohio, and the establishment of a
branch church in Jackson County, Missouri; its transplanting to Nauvoo,
Illinois; the temporary sojourn of its adherents in Iowa; and the final
exodus, in 1847, over the then almost unknown and unexplored plains and
mountains of the great west, until they reached the Land of Promise,
lying between the Wasatch Range and the Sierra Nevadas, and there
settled themselves permanently, to build up literally a "Kingdom of
Christ upon the earth," the Mormons have been in more senses than one a
peculiar people. They have been unpleasantly peculiar in their advocacy
and practice of polygamy, and during their early sojourn at Salt Lake,
in their defiance of the United States Government. In some other
respects they have challenged the admiration of the world, and have set
patterns in industry, and in a system of government, which seems to
consider the well-being of all, both of which might be imitated to
advantage by the "Gentiles" who affect to despise them.
After a weary pilgrimage through a wilderness far greater than that
traversed by the Israelites in days of old, the Mormons found their
Canaan in an immense valley, from four thousand to six thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and walled in by mountain ranges which
seemed to furnish natural barriers against the incroachments of an
antagonistic civilization. This valley, the geologist said, was the
bottom of a great, pre-historic sea, which by some mighty convulsion of
nature had been lifted up from its original level, and its outlet cut
off, and, like the Caspian Sea and others, was left to shrink by
evaporation. In the deepest depression of this valley still remained all
that was left of this ancient inland ocean, reduced now to seventy-five
miles in length and thirty in breadth, with an average depth of but
eight feet. Still holding in solution a large proportion of the salts of
the greater sea, its waters form one of the purest and most concentrated
brines in the world, containing twenty-two per cent of chloride of
sodium, slightly mixed with other salts. All through the valley of the
Great Salt Lake there are salt and alkaline deposits, evidencing the
former presence of water. The valley seemed barren and uninviting; yet
in it, as offering a refuge from the persecutions which they had
suffered in the east, the Mormons decided to establish their church and
build their homes. They found the soil, barren as it looked, would grow
grass, grain and fruits; and though the climate is changeable, the
winter cold, with deep snows, and the heat of summer intense, they had
faith to believe that they could endure whatever natural disadvantages
they could not overcome, and that they should in time receive the reward
of their piety and industry.
Their chief town and ecclesiastical capital was located on the eastern
bank of the river Jordan, between Lake Utah, a beautiful body of fresh
water lying to the southward, and Great Salt Lake, lying twenty miles to
the northward. The new settlement was eleven hundred miles west of the
Mississippi, and six hundred and fifty miles east-northeast of the then
scarcely heard of city of San Francisco. Its site extended close up to
the base of the great mountains on the north, while to the southward its
view spread over more than a hundred miles of plain, with a range of
rugged mountain peaks, snow-capped and bold, lying beyond. A grander
outlook could scarcely be imagined.
In the laying out of the city the fact was kept in view that it was for
a people of workers, each one of whom must be self-sustaining. In truth,
the great success of these people is due to the fact that no class of
drones has been recognized and provided for. All, from the highest to
the lowest, were expected to work, church officials as well as laymen;
and prosperity has attended industry, as it always does. The wilderness
and solitary place were glad for them, and the desert was made to
rejoice and blossom as the rose; and a mighty nation within a nation has
been built up in the valley of Utah, protected by its mountain
fastnesses. The Mormons have become a strong and prosperous people, and
have not only possessed themselves of Utah, but have sent out colonies
to Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona, which have
prospered and increased, until they now practically control those
Territories.
[Illustration: MORMON TEMPLE AND TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY.]
It is not my province to speak of the Mormons from either a religious or
political standpoint. Their material prosperity one cannot fail to see,
and a truthful historian must note it. The "City of the Saints," as Salt
Lake City is sometimes called, is doubly interesting, from its history
and from its peculiar features, so unlike those of any other city. The
streets are one hundred and twenty-eight feet wide, crossing each other
at right angles, an eighth of a mile apart, each square thus formed
containing ten acres. Each square is divided into eight lots, measuring
ten by twenty rods, and containing one-fourth of an acre. Several of the
squares in the business quarter of the town have been cut across since
the original laying out, forming cross streets. The streets are lined
with trees, while streams of running water course down each side of
every street, being brought from the neighboring mountains, ten thousand
feet high, furnishing a pure water supply, and irrigating the gardens.
Almost every lot has an orchard of pear, apple, plum, apricot, and peach
trees, and Utah furnishes large quantities of fresh and dried fruit for
the eastern markets. Apricots, which in the east are almost unknown,
sometimes grow as large as eastern peaches, from six to eight inches in
circumference. Locust, maple and box-elder are the favorite shade trees,
and these grow luxuriantly. When, however, their roots strike soil from
which the alkali has not yet been washed, their leaves turn from a dark
green to a sickly yellow. But irrigation washes out this alkali, and the
trouble from it grows less every year.
Salt Lake City is divided into twenty wards, nearly every one of which
has a square. Every ward has its master, who superintends the public
improvements, and sees that every man does his share without shirking.
The houses are generally of adobe (sun-dried bricks), though a few of
the newer business blocks are handsome and commodious stone structures.
Most of the dwelling houses are small, and but a single story in height,
having separate entrances when there is more than one wife in the
family. The city is not an imposing one. The wide streets, large grounds
around each dwelling, and low, small houses, give it more the appearance
of an overgrown village than that of a city. Nevertheless, it cannot be
denied that the plan upon which it is built secures to its inhabitants
the maximum of comfort, health and cleanliness. There are no narrow and
stifling streets, overshadowed by tall buildings; no dirty alleys; no
immense crime and pestilence-breeding tenement houses. Each little
dwelling has its garden and orchard, securing to each family the
blessings of fresh vegetables and fruit, and making each in a measure
self-dependent. The air is pure, blowing down the valley from the
mountain heights; and no foul vapors from half protected sewers or
reeking courts poison it.
The chief business thoroughfares are Main and Temple streets. The former
is entirely devoted to trade, while church edifices are found in the
latter. The Tabernacle is, of course, the most prominent object which
meets the eye of the traveler as he arrives in Salt Lake City, standing
out, as it does, in all its huge proportions, surrounded by the tiny
homes of the people. It is on Temple street, in the heart of the city,
and is entirely without architectural beauty, its predominant features
being its hugeness and its ugliness. It is an enormous wooden structure,
oval in form, with an immense dome-like roof, supported by forty-six
sandstone pillars. It will seat fifteen thousand persons, and is used
for the services of the church, lectures and public gatherings. It
contains one of the largest organs in America. It is inclosed within a
high wall, and a little to the east of it, within the same inclosure,
are the foundations of a new temple, estimated to cost ten millions of
dollars, but which will not probably be finished for many years to come.
An inferior adobe building, also within the walls, is the celebrated
Endowment House, where are performed those sacred and mysterious rites
of the Mormon Church which no Gentile may look upon, and where the
Saints are sealed to their polygamous wives.
On South Temple street, east of the Tabernacle, is the group of
buildings known as Brigham Block, inclosed, like the former, by a high
stone wall, and comprising the Tithing House, the Beehive House, the
Lion House, the office of the _Deseret News_, and various other offices
and buildings. The Beehive House and the Lion House constituted the
residences of the late Brigham Young and eighteen or twenty of his
wives. A handsome structure nearly opposite, the most pretentious
structure in Salt Lake City, and known as Amelia Palace, was built by
Brigham Young, for his favorite wife, Amelia. The theatre is a large
building with a gloomy exterior, but handsomely fitted up inside. It is
a favorite resort of the Saints, who make it a source of innocent
recreation, and entertain no prejudices against it, permitting their
wives and children to appear upon its boards. One of the daughters of
Brigham Young was at one time an actress at this theatre.
On South Temple street, opposite the Tabernacle, is the Museum,
containing interesting products of Mormon industry; specimens of ores
from the mines of Utah, and precious stones from the desert; a fair
representation of the fauna of the Territory; relics of the mound
builders; articles of Indian use and manufacture, and other curiosities,
which the visitor may behold on the payment of a small admission fee.
The City Hall, which is at the present time used by the Territorial
Government, is a handsome building, erected at a cost of sixty thousand
dollars. In its rear is the city prison. A co-operative store in
successful operation will be found occupying a handsome building on East
Temple street. The Deseret National Bank, at the corner of East Temple
and South First streets, is also a fine building. The two principal
hotels of Salt Lake City are the Walker House, on Main street, and the
Townsend House, at the corner of West Temple and South Second streets.
With all its quaintness and want of resemblance to other cities, it has
adopted the system of horse cars, which run on the principal streets,
and make all parts of the city accessible.
About one mile distant from the city are the Warm Springs, issuing from
the limestone rock at the foot of the mountains. The water of these
springs contains lime, magnesia, iron, soda, chlorine, and sulphuric
acid, and their temperature is lukewarm. A bath in them is delightful,
and beneficial, if not prolonged. Private bathing apartments are fitted
up for the use of bathers. A mile further north are the Hot Springs,
also strongly sulphurous, and with a temperature of over 200°. Eggs may
be boiled in these springs in three minutes, ready for the table. The
water from these springs forms a beautiful lake, called Hot Spring Lake,
which practically destroys all agriculture and vegetation for hundreds
of yards within the vicinity. Strange as it may seem, the hot water does
not prevent the existence of some kinds of excellent fish, among which
have been seen some very fine, large trout.
The population of Salt Lake City is something over twenty thousand
persons, of whom about one-third are Gentiles and apostate Mormons. This
population is made up of all nationalities, apostles and missionaries
being continually sent out to nearly every part of the civilized world,
to make proselytes, and bring them to the fold. These converts to the
faith are usually from the lower classes, ignorant and superstitious;
and as a consequence the intellectual and social standards of Salt Lake
City are not high. But with their new faith these people acquire habits
of industry, if they never possessed them before; and the conditions of
the city are favorable for growth in certain directions. Their children
are educated and brought up to a higher position than that occupied by
their parents; so that whatever may be our opinion as to the advantages
or disadvantages, from a religious point of view, in their conversion to
the Mormon faith, materially, intellectually and socially they have many
of them undoubtedly made a change for the better. They are taken away
from the stationary conditions of life in the old world, and
transplanted into a new and growing country, where there is plenty of
room and incentive for progress and expansion. Though the first
generation do not always avail themselves of this room, nor even the
second, to its fullest extent, ultimately these people will come to
compare favorably with other classes of American citizens.
The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, although it deprived the
Mormons of that isolation which they sought, has been of vast benefit to
them in material ways. It is said that when the city was first settled
the whole community could not have raised one thousand dollars in cash.
And up to the completion of the railroad nine-tenths of the business of
the Mormon people was conducted on a system of barter. A writer thus
facetiously describes the condition of things at that period: "A farmer
wishes to purchase a pair of shoes for his wife. He consults the
shoemaker, who avers his willingness to furnish the same for one load of
wood. He has no wood, but sells a calf for a quantity of adobes, the
adobes for an order on the merchant, payable in goods, and the goods and
the order for a load of wood, and straightway the matron is shod. Seven
watermelons purchased the price of a ticket of admission to the theatre.
He paid for the tuition of his children seventy-five cabbages per
quarter. The dressmaker received for her services four squashes per day.
He settled his church dues in sorghum molasses. Two loads of pumpkins
paid his annual subscription to the newspaper. He bought a 'Treatise on
Celestial Marriage' for a load of gravel, and a bottle of soothing syrup
for the baby with a bushel of string beans."
There are not the most harmonious relations existing between the Mormon
and Gentile people of Salt Lake City. Each regards the other with
suspicion. The former look upon the latter as hostile to their faith,
and determined to destroy it. The Gentiles regard certain practices of
the Mormons with abhorrence, and themselves as at heart rebellious to
the government to which they have been compelled to submit. The leading
papers of the two factions are very hostile, and keep alive the feeling
of antagonism.
Lying between two prominent mountain chains, the chief city in a vast
valley which the enterprise of man has demonstrated to be fertile;
furnishing a depot of supplies, and a mart and shipping place for
produce and manufactures; Salt Lake City is destined to become an
important point in the western section of our country. Her future is
assured, even though the people who founded her, together with the faith
to which they cling, should disappear from the face of the earth, and be
forgotten, like the lost tribes of Israel, which they believe themselves
to represent. Essentially American in all her features--since no city of
the Old World, either ancient or modern, furnishes a prototype--and in
her very plan including certain sure elements of success, as our Western
States and Territories become filled up with a thriving and industrious
people, she will find herself the natural centre of a vast agricultural
and mining population, and continue to increase in importance and
prosperity.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco.--The Golden State.--San Francisco Bay.--Golden
Gate.--Conquest of California by Fremont, 1848.--Discovery of
Gold.--Rush to the Mines, 1849.--"Forty-niners."--Great Rise
in Provisions and Wages.--Miners Homeward Bound.--Dissipation
and Vice in the City.--Vigilance Committee.--Great Influx of
Miners in 1850.--Immense Gold Yield.--Climate.--Earthquakes.--
Productions.--Irrigation.--Streets and Buildings.--Churches.--
Lone Mountain Cemetery.--Cliff House.--Seal Rock.--Theatres.--
Chinese Quarter.--Chinese Theatres.--Joss Houses.--Emigration
Companies.--The Chinese Question.--Cheap Labor.--"The Chinese
Must Go."--Present Population and Commerce of San Francisco.--
Exports.--Manufactures.--Cosmopolitan Spirit of Inhabitants.
San Francisco is situated on the best harbor which our Pacific Coast
affords, a little below the 38th parallel of latitude, and about a
degree further south than St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington. It is
the western terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad, American gateway
to Asia and the far East.
As the traveler proceeds thitherward from the Valley of the Mississippi,
on descending the western slopes of the Sierras, he finds himself fairly
within the Golden State; and in more senses than one does California
deserve that name. If it be the summer season the very air seems filled
with a golden haze. In leaving the mountains all freshness is left
behind. Trees and fields are yellow with drouth, which lasts from April
to November. Dense clouds of dust fill the air and settle upon
everything. Whole regions, by the means of extensive and destructive
mining operations, have been denuded of all verdure, and lie bare and
unsightly, waiting until the slow processes of time, or the more
expeditious hand of man, shall reclaim them. But mines have now given
place to vast grain and cattle farms or ranches; and great fields of
golden grain and the cattle on a thousand hills are on either side of
the track. If it be later or earlier in the year there is a wealth of
bloom such as is never dreamed of in the East. The ground, sometimes, as
far as the eye can reach, is brilliant with color, a golden yellow the
predominating hue. In the rainy season the Sacramento valley, the
occasional victim of prolonged drouth, is sometimes visited by a
freshet, which carries destruction with it; a mountain torrent, taking
its rise near the base of Mt. Shasta, and fed by the snows of the
Sierras, it is fitful in its demeanor. It finds its outlet through San
Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate to the Pacific.
San Francisco is on a peninsula which extends between the bay of that
name and the ocean. Its site is nothing more than a collection of sand
hills, which, before the building of the city, were continually changing
their positions. The peninsula is thirty miles long and six wide, across
the city, which stands on the eastern or inner slope.
San Francisco Bay is unsurpassed in the world, except by Puget Sound, in
Washington Territory, for size, depth, ease of entrance and security.
The entrance to the bay is through a passage five miles in length and
about two in width, with its shallowest depth about thirty feet at low
tide. Rocks rise almost perpendicularly on the northern side of the
entrance, to a height of three thousand feet. A lighthouse is placed on
one of these, at Point Bonita. Fort Point, a fortress built on solid
rock, commands the entrance from the south, and beyond it, until San
Francisco is reached, are a series of sand dunes, some of them white and
drifting and others showing green with the scant grass growing upon
them. The entrance to the bay is called the Golden Gate, a name applied
with singular appropriateness, since through its portals have passed
continuous streams of gold since the discovery of the latter in 1848.
Strangely enough, the name was given before the gold discovery, though
at how early a date there seems no means of knowing. As far as can be
ascertained, it first appears in Fremont's "Geographical Memoir of
California," published in 1847. Six miles eastward from its entrance the
bay turns southward for a distance of thirty miles, forming a narrow
peninsula between it and the ocean, on the northeastern extremity of
which the city is built. It also extends northward to San Puebla Bay,
which latter extending eastward, connects by means of a narrow strait
with Suisun Bay, into which the Sacramento River discharges its volume
of water. These three bays furnish ample and safe harborage for all the
merchant fleets of the world.
San Francisco Bay is about forty miles in length, its widest point being
twelve miles. At Oakland, directly east of San Francisco, it is eight
miles in width. Alcatraz Island, in the centre of the channel, six miles
from the Golden Gate, is a solid rock rising threateningly above the
water, and bristling with heavy artillery. It is sixteen hundred feet in
length, and four hundred and fifty feet in width. Angel Island is
directly north of Alcatraz, and four miles from San Francisco, contains
eight hundred acres, and is also fortified. Midway between San
Francisco and Oakland is Yerba Buena, or Goat Island, which, too, is
held as a United States military station. Red Rock, Bird Rock, the Two
Sisters, and other small islands dot the bay.
In 1775 the first ship passed the portals of the Golden Gate, and made
its way into the Bay of San Francisco. This ship was the _San Carlos_,
commanded by Caspar De Portala, a Franciscan monk and Spanish Governor
of Lower California, who set out on a voyage of discovery and
exploration. The same man had six years previously visited the sand
hills of the present site of San Francisco, being the first white man to
set his foot upon them. Portala named the harbor San Francisco, after
the founder of his monastic order, St. Francis. A mission was founded
there six years later, on the twenty-seventh of June, by Friars
Francisco Paloa and Bonito Cambou, under the direction of Father
Junipero Serra, who had been commissioned by Father Portala as president
of all the missions in Upper California. This was the sixth mission
established in California, and up to the year 1800 the Fathers labored
with great zeal and industry, had established eighteen missions,
converted six hundred and forty-seven savages, and acquired a vast
property in lands, cattle, horses, sheep and grain. Presidios or
military stations were established for the protection of these missions,
and the Indians readily submitted themselves to the Fathers, and
acquired the arts of civilization.
The Franciscan friars continued complete sovereigns of the land during
the first quarter of the present century, and increased in worldly
goods. Mexico became a republic in 1824, and in 1826 considerably
curtailed their privileges. In 1845 their property was finally
confiscated and the missions broken up. The priests returned to Spain;
the Indians to their savagery; and only the crumbling walls of their
adobe houses, and their decaying orchards and vineyards, remained to
tell the tale of the past history of California. From that period until
1847 California was a bone of contention between Mexico and the United
States, her territory overrun by troops of both nations. On the
sixteenth of January, 1847, the Spanish forces capitulated to Fremont,
and peace was established.
With the exception of the Mission Dolores, there was no settlement at
San Francisco until 1835, when a tent was erected. A small frame house
was built the following year, and on the fifteenth of April, 1838, the
first white child was born. The population of San Francisco, then known
as Yerba Buena, in 1842 was one hundred and ninety-six persons. In 1847
it had increased to four hundred and fifty-one persons, including
whites, Indians, negroes and Sandwich Islanders. In March, 1848, the
city contained two hundred houses, and eight hundred and fifty
inhabitants. In November of the same year, the first steamer, a small
boat from Sitka, made a trial trip around the bay. In this year the
first public school and the first Protestant church were established.
This year marked the great era in the history of San Francisco. In the
fall of 1847, Captain John A. Sutter, a Swiss by birth, who had resided
in California since 1839, began erecting a saw mill at a place called
Colorna, on the American River, a confluent of the Sacramento, about
fifty miles east of the city of that name. James W. Marshall, who had
taken the contract for erecting the mill, was at work with his men
cutting and widening the tail-race when, on January eighteenth, 1848, he
observed some particles of a yellow, glittering substance. In February
specimens of these findings were taken to San Francisco, and pronounced
to be gold. The truth being soon confirmed, the rush for the gold fields
commenced. People in all sections of California and Oregon forsook their
occupations, and set out for the mines. The news spread, increasing as
it went; until the reports grew fabulous. Many of the earliest miners
acquired fortunes quickly, and as quickly dissipated them. The journal
of Rev. Walter Colton, at that time Alcalde of Monterey, contains the
following paragraph, under date of August twelfth, 1848:--
"My man Bob, who is of Irish extraction, and who had been in the mines
about two months, returned to Monterey about four weeks since, bringing
with him over two thousand dollars, as the proceeds of his labor. Bob,
while in my employ, required me to pay him every Saturday night in gold,
which he put into a little leather bag and sewed into the lining of his
coat, after taking out just twelve and a half cents, his weekly
allowance for tobacco. But now he took rooms and began to branch out; he
had the best horses, the richest viands, and the choicest wines in the
place. He never drank himself but it filled him with delight to brim the
sparkling goblet for others. I met Bob to-day, and asked him how he got
on. 'Oh, very well,' he replied, 'but I am off again for the mines.'
'How is that, Bob? you brought down with you over two thousand dollars;
I hope you have not spent all that; you used to be very saving; twelve
and a half cents a week for tobacco, and the rest you sewed into the
lining of your coat.' 'Oh, yes,' replied Bob, 'and I have got _that_
money yet. I worked hard for it, and the devil can't get it away. But
the two thousand dollars came aisily, by good luck, and has gone as
aisily as it came!'"
Reports of the new El Dorado reached the States, and during 1849, from
Maine to Louisiana came the gold seekers. From every country in Europe,
from Australia and from China, additions were made to the throng of
pilgrims, who, by the Isthmus, around the Horn, across the seas, and by
the terrible journey overland, all rushed pell mell up the Sacramento,
stopping at San Francisco only long enough to find some means of
conveyance. We have no space to tell the story of that time. Men came
and went. Some made fortunes. Others returned poorer than they came.
Many who attempted the overland route left their bones bleaching on the
plains. Some went back to their homes, and others remained to become
permanent citizens of California. What the F. F. V.s are to Virginia,
and the Pilgrim Fathers to Massachusetts, the "Forty-niners," a large
number of whom still survive, will be, in the future, to California.
During 1848 ten million dollars' worth of gold had been gathered on the
Yuba, American and Feather rivers. The city of San Francisco had, in
January, 1849, two thousand inhabitants, and these were in a hurry to be
off to the mines as soon as the rainy season was over. Ships began to
arrive from all quarters, and July of that year found the flags of every
nation floating in the bay. Five hundred square-rigged vessels lay in
the harbor, and everybody was scrambling for the mines. These multitudes
of people, though they thought only of gold, yet had to be fed, clothed
and housed after a fashion. There were no supplies adequate to the
demand, and provisions went up to fabulous prices. Apples sold for from
$1 to $5 apiece, and eggs at the same rates. Laborers demanded from $20
to $30 for a day's work, and were scarcely to be had at those figures.
The miners probably averaged $25 a day at the mines, though some were
making their hundreds. But at the exorbitant prices to be paid for
everything, few were able to lay up much money.
Late in the year of 1849 the reaction came. The steamers were filled
with downcast miners, thankful that they had enough left to take
themselves home. Others having acquired something, stopped at San
Francisco, and plunged into the worst forms of dissipation. The city
during this and the following year held a carnival of vice and crime.
Women there were few or none, save of the worst character, and gambling
dens, dance houses, and drinking hells flourished on every street. In
1850 a Vigilance Committee was organized by the better class of
citizens, which soon exercised a wholesome restraint upon the criminal
classes. In the same year California was admitted to the Union without
the preliminary of a Territorial Government, and San Francisco was
chartered as a city. Courts were established, and the lawless community
came under the dominion of law and order.
By this time the great haste which seized everybody in his eagerness to
obtain gold and return home to enjoy it, had somewhat subsided. Men
began to realize that there were other means of making money besides
digging for it. Gardens were planted and orchards set out, and it was
discovered that the apparently barren soil of the State would yield with
a fruitfulness unparalleled in the East. San Francisco began to be more
than a canvass city. Mud flats were filled in and sand hills leveled,
houses, hotels and stores erected, and a wild speculation began in city
property. Lots which a few days before had been purchased for two or
three thousand dollars, were held at fifty thousand dollars. A canvas
tent, fifteen by twenty feet, near the plaza, rented for forty thousand
dollars per annum. The Parker House, a two-story frame building on
Kearney street, also near the plaza, brought a yearly rent of one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Board in a hotel or a tent was
eight dollars per day, and provisions were proportionately high. To
build a brick house cost a dollar for each brick used. Twenty-seven
thousand people arrived in San Francisco, by sea or land, during 1850.
In 1853 thirty-four thousand gold seekers returned home, the yield of
gold that year having been $65,000,000, the largest annual yield of the
State. The imports of San Francisco in the same year were over
$45,000,000. As early as this period it was the third city in tonnage
entrances in the United States, New York and New Orleans alone exceeding
it. In 1856 the bad state of public affairs again necessitated the
interference of a Vigilance Committee, but since that time the city has
been orderly.
The site of San Francisco was fixed by chance. More desirable places
might have been selected, but the influx of miners dropped upon the
first spot convenient for them to land, from which to start post-haste
to the mines, and that spot is indicated by the present city. Owing to
its location its climate is not in all respects desirable. The general
climate of the coast is tempered, both in summer and winter, by a warm
ocean current, which, flowing northward along the coast of China and
Siberia, takes a turn to the south when it reaches Alaska, and washes
the western coast of the continent of America. It is so warm that it
produces a marked effect upon this coast, just as the Gulf Stream
tempers the climate of the British Islands. But it has been sensibly
cooled by its proximity to Arctic seas, and so sends cool breezes to fan
the land during the heat of summer. These summer sea breezes rushing
through the narrow opening of the Golden Gate become almost gales, and
bring both cold and fog with them. The air of winter is mild and
spring-like. This is the rainy season, but it does not rain
continuously. It is the season of verdure and growth, and frosts are
both slight and infrequent in the latitude of San Francisco. Not a drop
of rain falls during the summer. The mornings are warm and sometimes
almost sultry; but about ten o'clock the sea breeze springs up, growing
more violent as the day advances, and frequently bringing a chilly fog
with it, so that by evening men are glad to wrap themselves in
overcoats, and women put on their cloaks and furs. The sand, which is
still heaped in dunes to the westward of the city, and lies upon its
vacant lots, is lifted and whirled through the air, falling almost like
sleet, and stinging the faces of pedestrians.
Thunder storms are of rare occurrence at San Francisco, but earthquakes
are exceedingly frequent. Probably not a year elapses in which slight
shocks are not felt in the State. Sometimes these shocks extend over
vast areas, and at other times are merely local. On October
twenty-first, 1868, a severe earthquake occurred at San Francisco,
swaying buildings and throwing down numbers in process of erection. The
houses of the city are mostly built with a view to these disturbances of
nature. The dwelling houses are seldom more than two and one-half
stories in height, while the blocks of the business streets do not
display the altitude of structures in the eastern cities.
The climate is so mild and so favorable that the productions of
California embrace those of both temperate and semi-tropical latitudes.
The sand hills of San Francisco were found, with the help of irrigation
to produce plentifully of both fruits and flowers, and the suburbs of
the city display many greenhouse plants growing in the open air. Roses
bloom every month in the year, and strawberries ripen from February to
December. In San Francisco the mean temperature in January is 49° and in
June 56°. The average temperature of the year is 54°.
The California market, between Kearney and Montgomery streets, extending
through from Pine to California streets, displays all the fruits,
vegetables and grains of the northern States, raised in the immediate
neighborhood of the city, while oranges, lemons and pomegranates are
sent from further south. The tenderer varieties of grapes flourish in
the open air, and the State produces raisins which command a price but
little below those of Europe. The thrift of the fruit trees of
California is most remarkable. Most trees begin bearing on the second
year from the slip or graft, and produce abundantly at three or four
years of age. Their growth and the size of their productions are
unequaled on the continent. The above mentioned market is one of the
sights of the city, and should not be missed by the visitor.
Irrigation has been found necessary to render the sand hills about San
Francisco productive, and windmills have become familiar objects in the
landscape, their long arms revolving in the ocean breeze, while little
streams of water trickling here and there vivify the earth. As a result,
though trees are scarce, what few there are being mostly stunted live
oaks, whose long roots extend down deep into the soil, there are flowers
everywhere. On one side of a fence will be a sand-bank, white with
shifting sand, on the other, flourishing in the same kind of soil, will
be an _al fresco_ conservatory, brilliant with color and luxuriant in
foliage.
Montgomery street is the leading thoroughfare, broad and lined with
handsome buildings. Toward the north it climbs a hill so steep that
carriages cannot ascend it, and pedestrians make their way up by means
of a flight of steps. From this elevation a fine view is obtained of the
city and bay. Kearney and Market streets are also fashionable
promenades, containing many of the retail stores. The principal banks
and business offices are found on California street, and the handsomest
private residences are on Van Ness avenue, Taylor, Bush, Sutter,
Leavenworth and Folsom streets, Clay street Hill and Pine street Hill.
The city extends far beyond its original limits, having encroached upon
the bay. Solid blocks now stand where, in 1849, big ships rode at
anchor. It is laid out with regularity, most of its streets being at
right angles with one another. The business streets are generally paved
with Belgian blocks or cobble stones, and most of the residence streets
are planked. The city does not present the handsome and showy
architecture of many cities of the east, though here and there are fine
edifices. It is yet too new, and too hurriedly built, to have acquired
the substantiality and grandeur of older cities. Between fine brick or
stone structures several stories high are sandwiched insignificant
wooden houses of only two stories, the relics of a past which is yet
exceedingly near the present. The public buildings, especially those
belonging to the United States, are fine.
The City Hall will, when finished, be surpassed by few structures in the
country. The Palace Hotel, at the corner of Market and New Montgomery
streets, is a vast building, erected and furnished at a cost of
$3,250,000. It is entered by a grand court-yard surrounded by
colonnades, and from its roof a birds-eye view of the whole city can be
obtained. Baldwin's Hotel, at the corner of Marshall and Powell streets,
is another palatial structure, costing a quarter of a million more, for
building, decorating and furnishing, than the Palace Hotel. The Grand
Hotel, Occidental, Lick House, Russ House and Cosmopolitan are all
established and popular hotels.
The largest and finest church edifice on the Pacific Coast is that of
St. Ignatius, Roman Catholic, in McAlister street. The finest interior
is that of St. Patrick's, also Roman Catholic, in Mission street between
Third and Fourth. The First Unitarian church, in Geary street, is one of
the finest churches in the city, remarkable for the purity of its
architectural design and the elegance of its finish. The Chinese Mission
House, at the corner of Stockton and Sacramento streets, will prove
interesting to strangers. The Roman Catholics, who number among their
adherents all the Spanish citizens, make no concealment of their
intention to gain a majority of the population. But though they are a
power in the community, and have many churches, the different Protestant
sects are largely represented. Indeed, San Francisco is thoroughly
tolerant in matters of religion. Not only do Catholics and Protestants
find their own appropriate places of worship, but the Jews have two
Synagogues, and the Chinese Buddhists three Temples or Joss Houses.
There is but one road leading out of the city, but within the city
limits there are many modes of conveyance. Cars propelled by endless
wire cables, which move along the streets without the assistance of
either horse or steam power, intersect the city in every direction.
Omnibuses run out on the Point Lobos road to the Cliff House; and he who
has not ridden or driven thither and watched the seals on Seal Rock, has
not seen all of San Francisco. This is the one excursion of the city;
its one pet dissipation. Everybody goes to the Cliff. A drive of five or
six miles, on a good road, over and through intervening sand hills,
brings the visitor to the Cliff House. This road leads by Laurel Hill,
or as it was formerly called, Lone Mountain Cemetery, two and one-half
miles west of the city, within whose inclosure a conical hill rises to a
considerable height above the surrounding level country. On its summit
is a large wooden cross, a prominent landmark, and within the cemetery
are several fine monuments, conspicuously that of Senator Broderick, and
a miniature Pantheon, marking the resting place of the Ralston family.
The Lone Mountain possesses an unrivaled outlook over city, bay, ocean
and coast range.
The Cliff House is a large, low building, set on the edge of a cliff
rising abruptly from the ocean, and facing west; and from it you have a
grand view of the Golden Gate, while oceanward you strain your eyes to
catch some glimpse of China or Japan, which lie so far away in front of
you. But you see instead, if the day be clear, the faint but bold
outlines of the Farallon Islands, and the white sails of vessels
passing in and out of the Golden Gate.
Late in the year of 1876 I completed my horseback journey across the
continent, dashing with my horse into the surf to the westward of the
Cliff House. A long and wearisome, but at the same time interesting and
reasonably exciting ride, was at an end, and after viewing San
Francisco, I was free to enjoy those luxuries of modern civilization,
the railway cars, on my homeward route.
[Illustration: SEAL ROCKS, FROM THE CLIFF HOUSE, NEAR SAN FRANCISCO.]
The Farallones de los Frayles are six islets lifting up their jagged
peaks in picturesque masses out in the ocean, twenty-three and one-half
miles westward of the Golden Gate. The largest Farallon extends for
nearly a mile east and west, and is three hundred and forty feet high.
On its highest summit the government has placed a lighthouse, and there
the light-keepers live, sometimes cut off for weeks from the shore,
surrounded by barrenness and desolation, but within sight of the busy
life which ebbs and flows through the narrow strait which leads to San
Francisco. These islands are composed of broken and water-worn rocks,
forming numerous sharp peaks, and containing many caves. One of these
caves has been utilized as a fog-trumpet, or whistle, blown by the force
of the waves. The mouth-piece of a trumpet has been fixed against the
aperture of the rock, and the waves dashing against it with force enough
to crush a ship to pieces, blows the whistle. This fog whistle ceases
entirely at low water, and its loudness at all times depends upon the
force of the waves. The Farallones are the homes of innumerable sea
birds, gulls, mures, shags and sea-parrots, the eggs of the first two
being regularly collected by eggers, who make a profitable business
of gathering them at certain seasons of the year. In 1853 one thousand
dozen of these eggs, the result of a three days' trip, were sold at a
dollar a dozen. Gathering the eggs is difficult and not unattended by
danger, as precipices must be scaled, and the birds sometimes show
themselves formidable enemies. The larger island is also populated by
immense numbers of rabbits, all descended from a few pairs brought there
many years ago. Occasionally these creatures, becoming too numerous for
the resources of the island, die by hundreds, of starvation. Though
their progenitors were white, they have reverted to the original color
of the wild race. The cliffs of these islands are alive with seals, or
sea-lions, as they are called, which congregate upon their sunny slopes,
play, bark, fight and roar. Some of them are as large as an ox and
seemingly as clumsy; but they disport themselves in the surf, which is
strong enough to dash them in pieces, with the utmost ease, allowing the
waves to send them almost against the rocks, and then by a sudden,
dextrous movement, gliding out of danger.
The Cliff House has also its sea-lions, on Seal Rock, not far from the
hotel, and the visitors are never tired of watching them as they wriggle
over the rocks, barking so noisily as to be heard above the breakers.
Formerly numbers of them were shot by wanton sportsmen, but they are now
protected by law. "Ben. Butler" and "General Grant" are two seals of
unusual size, which appear to hold the remainder of the seal colony in
subjection. If two begin to fight and squabble about a position which
each wants, either "Ben" or the "General" quickly settles the dispute by
flopping the malcontents overboard. The higher these creatures can
wriggle up the rocks the happier they appear to be; and when a huge
beast has attained a solitary peak, by dint of much squirming, he
manifests his satisfaction by raising his small pointed head and
complacently looking about him. As soon as another spies him, and can
reach the spot, a squabble ensues, howls are heard, teeth enter into the
contest, the stronger secures the eminence, and the weaker is
ignominiously sent to the humbler and lower regions.
An early drive to and a breakfast at the Cliff House, with a return to
the city before the sea-breeze begins, is the favorite excursion of the
San Franciscan. The road passes beyond this hotel to a broad, beautiful
beach, on which, at low tide, one can drive to the Ocean House, at its
extreme end, and then return to the city by the old Mission grounds,
which still lie in its southwestern limits. The Mission building is of
adobe, of the old Spanish style, built in 1778. Adjoining it is the
cemetery, with its fantastic monuments, and paths worn by the feet of
the Mission fathers and their dusky penitents.
The largest and finest theatre of the city, and one of the finest in the
United States, is the Grand Opera House, at the corner of Mission and
Third streets. Four other theatres and an Academy of Music, furnish
amusements to the residents of the city. Woodward's Gardens, on Mission
street between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, contains a museum, an
art galley, and a menagerie. There are also two Chinese theatres, one at
618 Jackson street, and the other at 625-1/2 Jackson street.
The Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, which has become famous the world
over, occupies portions of Sacramento, Commercial, Dupont, Pacific and
Jackson streets. It is a locality which no stranger should fail to see.
Here he steps at once into the Celestial Empire. Chinamen throng the
streets, dressed in their semi-American, semi-Asiatic costumes, the
pig-tail usually depending behind, though sometimes it is rolled up, out
of sight, under the hat. The harsh gutturals of the Chinese language,
nearly every word ending in ng, are heard on every hand, mingled with
the grotesque pigeon English. The signs exhibit Chinese characters, and
the stores and bazaars are filled with Chinese merchandise.
Women are scarce in this quarter, and only of the courtezan class; but
here and there one meets you, dressed usually in Chinese gown and
trowsers, with hair arranged in the indescribable Chinese chignon, and
carrying a fan--for all the world as though she had stepped off a fan or
a saucer--and not more immodest in demeanor than the same class in our
eastern cities. There are few or no Chinese wives in San Francisco.
Chinese immigration takes the form of an immense bow, beginning at
China, stretching to the Pacific coast of America, and retiring again to
its starting point; for every Chinaman expects to return to his native
land, either alive or dead. He does not take root in American soil. He
comes here to make a little money, leaving his family behind him, and,
satisfied with a very modest competence, returns as he came. If he dies
here, his bones are carried back, that they may find a resting-place
with those of his ancestors. Therefore the women imported are for the
basest purposes.
But to return to this Chinese Quarter. Here is the old St. Giles of
London, the old Five Points of New York magnified and intensified. Here
congregate the roughest and rudest elements, and here stand, shamelessly
revealed, crime and bestiality too vile to name. In one cellar is a
gambling-hell, for John Chinaman's besetting weakness is his love of
gambling. The mode of gambling is very simple, involving no skill, and
the stakes are small; but many a Celestial loses there, at night, his
earnings of the day. Near by is an opium cellar, fitted up with benches
or shelves, on each of which will be found a couple of Chinamen lying,
with a wooden box for a pillow. While one is preparing his opium and
smoking, the other is enjoying its full effects, in a half stupor. The
Chinese tenement houses are crowded and filthy beyond description, and
the breeding places of disease and crime. They are scattered thickly
throughout the quarter. Their theatres, of which there are two, already
referred to, have only male performers, who personate both sexes, and
give what seems to be passable acting, accompanied by the clash and
clang of cymbals, the beating of gongs, the sounding of trumpets, and
other disagreeable noises regarded by the Chinese as music. The entire
audience are smoking, either tobacco or opium.
The Joss houses, or temples of the Chinese, are more in the nature of
club houses and employment bureaus, than of religious houses. The first
floor contains the business room, smoking or lounging room, dining room,
kitchen, and other offices, which are used by the Emigration Company to
which the building belongs. The second floor contains a moderate-sized
hall, devoted to religious rites. Its walls are decorated with moral
maxims from Confucius and other writers, in which the devotees are
exhorted to fidelity, integrity, and the other virtues. The Joss or Josh
is an image of a Chinaman, before whom the Chinese residents of San
Francisco are expected to come once a year and burn slips of paper.
Praying is also done, but as this is by means of putting printed
prayers into a machine run by clockwork, there is no great exhaustion
among the worshipers.
The Chinese have no Sunday, and are ready to work every day of the week,
if they can get paid for it. Their only holiday is at New Year, which
occurs with them usually in February, but is a movable feast, when they
require an entire week to settle their affairs, square up their
religious and secular accounts, and make a new start in life. The
Chinese have one saving virtue. They pay their debts on every New Year's
day. If they have not enough to settle all claims against them they hand
over their assets to their creditors, old scores are wiped out, and they
commence anew.
The six Chinese Emigration Companies, each representing a Chinese
province, manage the affairs of the immigrants with a precision,
minuteness and care which is unparalleled by any organization of western
civilization. Before the passage of the anti-Chinese law, when a ship
came into port laden with Chinamen, the agents of the different
companies boarded it, and each took the names of those belonging to his
province. They provided lodgings and food for the new comers, and as
quickly as possible secured them employment; lent them money to go to
any distant point; cared for them if they were sick and friendless, and,
finally, sent home the bones of those who died on American shores. These
companies settle all disputes between the Chinese, and when a Chinamen
wishes to return home, they examine his accounts, and oblige him to pay
his just debts before leaving. The means for doing all this are obtained
in the shape of voluntary contributions from the immigrants. These
companies do not act as employment bureaus, for these are separate and
thoroughly organized institutions. These latter farm out the work of
any number of hands, at the price agreed upon, furnishing a foreman,
with whom all negotiations are transacted, who, perhaps, is the only one
speaking English, and who is responsible for all the work.
The English spoken by the Chinese is known as "pigeon English," "pigeon"
being the nearest approach which a Chinamen can make to saying
"business."
Most English words are more or less distorted. L is always used by them
for r, mi for I, and the words abound in terminal ee's.
The Chinese problem is one which is agitating the country and giving a
coloring to its politics. The Pacific States seem, by a large majority
of their population, to regard the presence of the Mongolian among them
as an unmitigated evil, to be no longer tolerated. Eastern capitalists
have hailed their coming as inaugurating the era of cheap labor and
increased fortunes for themselves. Hence the discussion and the
disturbances. A lady who had made her home in San Francisco for several
years past, says, in a letter to the writer of this article, "A person
not living in California can form no conception of the curse which the
Chinese are to this section of the world."
Yet without them some of the great enterprises of the Pacific coast,
notably the Central Pacific Railroad, would have remained long
unfinished; and they came also to furnish manual labor at a time when it
was scarce and difficult to obtain at any price. The Chinaman is a
strange compound of virtue and vice, cleanliness and filth, frugality
and recklessness, simplicity and cunning. He is scrupulously clean as to
his person, indulging in frequent baths; yet he will live contentedly
with the most wretched surroundings, and inhale an air vitiated by an
aggregation of breaths and stenches of all kinds. He is a faithful
worker and a wonderful imitator. He cannot do the full work of a white
man, but he labors steadily and unceasingly. He takes no time for
drunken sprees, but he is an inveterate opium smoker, and sometimes
deliberately sacrifices his life in the enjoyment of the drug. He is
frugal to the last degree, but will waste his daily earnings in the
gambling hell and policy shop. Scrupulously honest, he is yet the victim
of the vilest vices which are engrafting themselves upon our western
coast. Living upon one-third of what will keep a white man, and working
for one-half the wages the latter demands, he is destroying the labor
market of that quarter of our country, reducing its working classes to
his own level, in which in the future the latter, too, will be forced to
be contented on a diet of "rice and rats," and to forego all educational
advantages for their children, becoming, like the Chinese themselves,
mere working machines; or else enter into a conflict of labor against
labor, race against race.
The latter alternative seems inevitable, and it has already begun.
China, with her crowded population, could easily spare a hundred million
people and be the better for it. Those one hundred million Chinamen, if
welcomed to our shores, would speedily swamp our western civilization.
They might not become the controlling power--the Anglo-Saxon is always
sure to remain that--but as hewers of wood and drawers of water, as
builders of our railroads, hands upon our farms, workers in our
factories, and cooks and chambermaids in our houses, a like number of
American men and women would be displaced, and wages quickly reduced to
an Asiatic level; and such a time of distress as this country never saw
would dawn upon us.
There seems to be no assimilation between the Caucasian and the
Mongolian on the Pacific slope. In the East an Irish girl recently
married a Chinaman; but in San Francisco, though every other race under
the sun has united in marriage, the Chinaman is avoided as a pariah.
White and yellow races may meet and fraternize in business, in pleasure,
and even in crime; but in marriage never. Chinamen rank among the most
respected merchants of San Francisco, and these receive exceptional
respect as individuals; but between the two races as races a great gulf
is fixed. The Chinese immigrant takes no interest in American affairs.
His world is on the other side of the Pacific. And the American people
return the compliment by taking no interest in him. It is undeniable
that, by a certain class of San Francisco citizens, popularly known as
Hoodlums, the treatment of the Chinese population has been shameful in
the extreme. A Chinaman has no rights which a white man is bound to
respect. Insult, contumely, abuse, cruelty and injustice he has been
forced to bear at the hands of the rougher classes, without hope of
redress. He has been kicked, and cheated, and plundered, and not a voice
has been raised in his behalf; but if he has been guilty of the
slightest peccadillo, how quickly has he been made to feel the heavy
hand of justice!
It seems a pity that before the cry was raised with such overwhelming
force, "The Chinese must go!" some little effort had not been made to
adapt them to Western civilization. They are quick to take ideas
concerning their labor; why not in other things? We have received and
adopted the ignorant, vicious hordes from foreign lands to the east of
us, and are fast metamorphosing them into intelligent, useful citizens.
We are even trying our hand upon the negro, as a late atonement for all
the wrong we have done him. But the Indian and the Chinaman seem to be
without the pale of our mercy and our Christianity. It might not have
been possible, but still the experiment was worth the trying, of
attempting to lift them up industrially, educationally and morally, to a
level with our own better classes, instead of permitting them to drag us
down. Returning to their own country, and carrying back with them our
Western civilization, as a little leaven, they might have leavened the
whole lump. It is too late for that now, and the mandate has gone forth:
"The Chinese must go!" Considering all things as they are, rather than
as they might have been, it is undoubtedly better so, and the only
salvation of our Pacific States.
San Francisco had, in 1880, a population of 232,956. The commerce is
very large, and must every year increase as the West is built up. The
chief articles of export are the precious metals, breadstuffs, wines and
wool. She has important manufactures, embracing watches, carriages,
boots and shoes, furniture, iron and brass works, silver ware, silk and
woolen. California seems peculiarly adapted to the silk industry, and
her silk manufactures will probably assume marked importance in the
future. The wonderful climate and unequaled productiveness are
constantly attracting immigration, and the Pacific Central, which spans
the continent, has vastly improved on the old methods of travel by
caravan across the plains and over the mountains.
The population of San Francisco is cosmopolitan to the last degree, and
embraces natives of every clime and nearly every nation on the globe.
Yet in spite of this strange agglomeration she is intensely Yankee in
her go-ahead-ativeness, with Anglo-Saxon alertness intensified. In fact,
as San Francisco is on the utmost limits of the West, beyond which there
is nothing but a vast expanse of water until we begin again at the East,
so she represents the superlative of Anglo-Saxon enterprise and American
civilization, and looks to a future which shall far outstrip her past.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SAVANNAH.
First Visit to Savannah.--Camp Davidson.--The City During
the War.--An Escaped Prisoner.--Recapture and Final Escape.--A
"City of Refuge."--Savannah by Night.--Position of the City.--
Streets and Public Squares.--Forsyth Park.--Monuments.--
Commerce.--View from the Wharves.--Railroads.--Founding of the
City.--Revolutionary History.--Death of Pulaski.--Secession.--
Approach of Sherman.--Investment of the City by Union Troops.--
Recuperation After the War.--Climate.--Colored Population.--
Bonaventure, Thunderbolt, and Other Suburban Resorts.
My first visit to Savannah was made on the twenty-ninth of July, 1864,
when I was brought there as a prisoner of war. I found the city with its
business enterprises in a state of stagnation, and the streets thronged
with soldiers in Confederate uniforms. About four thousand troops were
doing garrison duty in the city, which was thronged with refugees, and
the entire population was suffering from a paralysis of all industrial
enterprises, and from the interruption of its commerce by the Federal
blockade at the mouth of the river. Camp Davidson, where we were
confined, was in the eastern part of the city, near the Marine Hospital,
with Pulaski's Monument in full view, to the westward.
The camp was surrounded by a stockade and deadline, and the principal
amusement and occupation of the prisoners was the digging of a tunnel
which was to conduct them to liberty beyond the second line of
sentinels, without the stockade. But our little camp, like Chicago, had
a cow for an evil genius. This luckless creature broke through the
tunnel, as it was nearing completion, and suddenly ended it and our
hopes together.
The nearest Union forces were at Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah
River, and Savannah was one of the most important military posts of the
Confederate army. Our treatment at Camp Davidson was exceptionally kind
and considerate, and the ladies of the city, in giving suitable
interment to the remains of a Union officer who had died in the camp,
proved themselves to be possessed of generous hearts. Therefore it was
with regret that we received the order to leave Savannah for Charleston.
I next visited Savannah a few months later, when the war was drawing to
a close, after General Sherman and his army had made their successful
entrance into the town. On the sixteenth of December, myself and a
companion found ourselves twenty miles from Savannah, after having been
many weeks fugitives from "Camp Sorghum," the prison-pen at Columbia,
South Carolina. We were on the Savannah River Road, over which
Kilpatrick's Cavalry and the Fourteenth Army Corps had passed only a
week before. Emboldened by our successes and hairbreadth escapes of
three weeks, when we at last felt that deliverance was close at hand, we
pursued our way, only to fall suddenly into the hands of the enemy. Hope
deferred maketh the heart sick. But who shall describe the terrible
sinking of the heart--the worse than sickness--when hope is thus
suddenly crushed and turned to certain despair? Our second captivity was
not, however, of long duration. Death was preferable to bondage under
such masters. Taking our lives in our hands, a second escape was
effected, and on December twenty-third, but two days after Sherman's
occupancy of the city, Savannah proved itself, indeed, a city of
refuge. Union troops welcomed us with open arms, and we were soon
despatched northward.
The traveler who visits Savannah to-day will view it under very
different auspices. The white wings of peace have brooded over it for
more than half a generation, loyalty has taken the place of treason in
the hearts of her people, and prosperity is visible on her streets and
wharves. Let him, if he can, approach the city from the sea, and by
night. Fort Pulaski stands like a sentinel guarding the entrance to the
harbor, the lighthouse upon the point keeping a bright eye out to
seaward. As he glides up the river, which winds in countless lagoons
around low sea islands covered with salt marshes, at last he will see in
the distance the lights of the city set on a hill, and of the shipping
at her feet. A distant city is always beautiful at night, though it may
be hideous by daylight. Night veils all its ugliness in charitable
shadows; it reveals hitherto unseen beauties of outline, crowns it with
a tiara of sparkling gems, and enwraps the whole scene in an air of
romance and mystery which is charming to the person of poetic nature.
But whether seen by night or day, Savannah is indeed a beautiful city,
probably the most beautiful in all the Southern States.
The Savannah River winds around Hutchinson Island, and the city is built
in the form of an elongated crescent, about three miles in length, on
its southern shore. It is on a bluff about forty feet above the stream,
this bluff being about a mile wide at its eastern end, and broadening as
it extends westward. Surrounding it are the low lands occupied by market
gardens, for Savannah is a great place for market gardeners, and helps
to supply the northern market in early spring.
The streets of Savannah are laid out east and west, nearly parallel to
the river, with others crossing them at right angles, north and south.
They are wide, and everywhere shaded with trees, many of the latter
being live oaks, most magnificent specimens of which are found in the
city. Orange trees also abound, with their fragrant blossoms and golden
fruit, stately palmettoes, magnolias and oleander, rich in bloom, bays
and cape myrtles.
The streets running north and south are of very nearly uniform width,
every alternate street passing on either side of a public square, which
is bounded on the north and south by narrow streets running east and
west, and intersected in the centre by a wide street taking the same
direction. These public squares, twenty-four in number, and containing
from one and a half to three acres, are a marked feature of the city.
They are placed at regular intervals, as already described, are
handsomely inclosed, laid out with walks, shaded with evergreen and
ornamental trees, and in the spring and summer months are green with
grass. In a number of these are monuments, while others contain
fountains or statuary. These squares or plazas are surrounded with fine
residences, each having its own little yard, beautiful with flowers,
vines, shrubbery and trees. In these premises roses thrive and bloom
with a luxuriance unknown in the North, and the stately Camelia
Japonica, the empress among flowers, grows here to a height of twelve or
fifteen feet, and blossoms in midwinter. Savannah, the most beautiful
city of the South, if not in the United States, is more like the wealthy
suburb of some large city, than like a city itself. It is embowered in
trees, which are green the whole year around; and shares with Cleveland,
its northern rival in beauty, the _soubriquet_ of the "Forest City."
Forsyth Park, originally laid out in the southern suburb of the city, is
now the centre of a populous quarter, abounding in handsome edifices.
Many of the original trees, the beautiful southern pines, are left
standing in this park, and other trees and shrubbery added. Sphynxes
guard the Bull street entrance, and in the centre of the old park, which
was ten acres in extent, is a handsome fountain, modeled after that in
the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. This fountain is surrounded by a
profusion of flowers, while shelled walks furnish pathways through the
park. It has recently been increased in dimensions to thirty acres; in
the centre of the new or western portion stands a stately monument in
honor of the Confederate dead.
Pulaski Monument stands in Monterey Square, the first plaza to the
northward of Forsyth Park. The steps of the monument are of granite, and
the shaft of fine white marble, fifty-five feet high, surmounted by a
statue of Liberty holding the national banner. This monument covers the
spot where, in 1779, Count Pulaski fell, during an attack upon the city,
while it was occupied by the British. In Johnson Square, the first
square south of the river intersected by Bull street, is a fine
Druidical pile, erected to the memory of General Greene and Count
Pulaski. The corner-stone of this obelisk was laid in 1825, by
Lafayette, during his visit to America.
Savannah was founded in 1733, by General James Oglethorpe, whose plan
has been followed in its subsequent erection. Upon each of the
twenty-four squares were originally left four large lots, known as
"trust lots," two on the east and two on the west. We are told by Mr.
Francis Moore, who wrote in 1736, that "the use of this is, in case a
war should happen, the villages without may have places in town to bring
their cattle and families into for refuge; and for that purpose there is
a square left in every ward, big enough for the outwards to encamp in."
These lots are now occupied by handsome churches, conspicuous public
buildings, and palatial private residences, thus securing to all the
squares a uniform elegance which they might otherwise have lacked.
Bay street is the great commercial street of the city. It is an
esplanade, two hundred feet wide, upon the brow of the cliff overlooking
the river. Its southern side is lined with handsome stores and offices.
At the corner of Bay and Bull streets is the Custom House, with the Post
Office in the basement. Its northern side is occupied by the upper
stories of warehouses, which are built at the foot of the steep cliff
fronting the river. These upper stories are connected with the bluff by
means of wooden platforms, which form a sort of sidewalk, spanning a
narrow and steep roadway, which leads at intervals, by a series of
turns, down to the wharves below. Long flights of steps accommodate
pedestrians in the same descent. The warehouses just spoken of are four
or five stories high on their river fronts, and but one or two on the
Bay.
One should walk along the quay below the city to gain a true idea of the
extent of its commerce. Here, in close proximity to the wharves, are
located the cotton presses and rice mills. Here everything is dirty and
dismal, evidently speaking of better days. The beauty of the city is all
above. The buildings are some of them substantially built of brick, but
begin to show the ravages of time. There is an old archway, which once
had pretensions of its own, but the wall has fallen away, and it is now
an entrance to nowhere. Yet in spite of this general dilapidation, there
is all the bustle and activity of a full commercial life. The wharves
are piled with cotton bales, which have found a temporary landing here,
awaiting shipment to the North, or perhaps across the sea. For Savannah
is the second cotton port in the United States. But cotton is not its
only export. It is the great shipping depot for Southern produce bound
for Northern markets. Some sheds are filled with barrels of rosin, while
great quantities of rosin litter the ground. From others turpentine in
great quantities is shipped to various ports. The lumber trade of the
city is immense, the pine forests of Georgia furnishing an apparently
inexhaustible supply. The city is also in the centre of the rice-growing
region, and sends its rice to feed the North. Steamships from all the
Atlantic ports lie along its wharves, while those of foreign nations are
by no means scarce. Vessels of too large a draft to lie alongside the
wharves discharge and load their freight three miles below the city.
The view from the river front is over the river itself, filled with
craft of all sorts, from the tiny ferry boat up to the immense ocean
steamer, across to Hutchinson's Island and the Carolina shore. The
island, which is two miles long by one wide, has upon it numerous lumber
yards and a large dry dock. Rice was formerly cultivated upon it, but is
now forbidden by law, because of its unhealthfulness. The river is about
seven hundred and twenty feet wide in front of the city, with a depth of
water at the wharves varying from thirteen to twenty-one feet. The
portion of South Carolina visible is low and flat, dotted here and there
with palmetto trees. There is little of the picturesque about this
river view except the busy life, which keeps in constant motion.
Savannah has extensive railroad connection with all parts of the United
States. She has direct communication by rail with Vicksburg on the
Mississippi. She also offers an outlet, by means of railroads, for the
products of Georgia, Florida, and portions of Alabama and Tennessee. She
has unbroken railroad connection with Memphis, Mobile, Cincinnati,
Louisville, and the principal commercial cities of the West and North.
Her water communication is established with all the great Northern and
Southern seaboard cities. Her harbor is one of the best and safest on
the South Atlantic coast, and she is the natural eastern terminus of the
Southern Pacific Railroad, being almost on the same parallel of latitude
with San Diego, its western terminus.
The corporate limits of Savannah extend backward from the river about
one and one-half miles, and embrace a total area of three and one-half
square miles, but additions are fast being made to the southward, which
will, in time, greatly extend its area, and add to the population,
which, in 1880, was 30,681.
Savannah's history goes back to the early days of the colonies. Its site
marks the first settlement in Georgia. General Oglethorpe, with a
hundred and fourteen men, women and children, having landed at
Charleston, in January, 1733, sailed from that port with a plentiful
supply of provisions and a small body of troops for their protection,
and landed on Yamacraw Bluff, on the Savannah River, eighteen miles from
its mouth. On the bluff General Oglethorpe laid out a town and called it
Savannah, and by the ninth of February the colony commenced the erection
of buildings. The colony survived various haps and mishaps until 1776,
when, in the War of the Revolution, the British attacked the city, but
were repulsed. On December twenty-ninth, 1778, they made a second
attack, surprised the American forces, who attempted to fly, but were
mostly killed or captured. On the morning of October fourth, 1779, the
American and French troops made a direct assault upon Savannah,
attempting to take it from the British, but were obliged to retire with
heavy loss. Count Pulaski, a Polish nobleman, who had been expatriated
for participating in the carrying off of King Stanislaus from his
capital, was wounded in this battle, and soon afterwards died. Pulaski
Monument, as already stated, was erected on the spot where he fell.
Savannah received its city charter in 1788. In 1850 it had a little more
than fifteen thousand inhabitants, and in 1860, 22,292. When Secession
cast its shadow upon the sunny South, it fell like a pall upon Savannah,
no less than upon the other Southern cities. All her business was
suspended, and grass grew in her streets. On the northeast corner of
Bull and Broughton streets stands the building known as Masonic Hall,
where, on January twenty-first, 1861, the Ordinance of Secession was
passed. On the sixteenth of March the State Convention assembled in
Savannah, adopted the Constitution of the Confederate States of America,
Georgia being the second State to adopt this Constitution without
submitting it to the people. The mouth of the river was blockaded by
United States gunboats, and all commerce prevented. On April fifteenth,
1862, Fort Pulaski was captured by the Federal troops, and great
excitement prevailed in the city. Women and children left their homes,
and property and furniture were sent into the interior.
During the following years a number of unsuccessful attempts were made
by the Union naval forces to capture the city. In December, 1864,
Sherman was making his famous march to the sea, and was steadily drawing
nearer the city, while southern chivalry fled before him, and the now
emancipated slaves gathered and rolled in his rear like a sable cloud.
On the twentieth, heavy siege guns were put in position by his forces
between Kingsbridge and the city; and General Hardee, suddenly awakened
to a sense of the danger which menaced them, set his troops hurriedly to
work to destroy the navy yard and government property; while the
ironclads, the "Savannah" and "Georgia," were making a furious fire on
the Federal left, the garrison, under cover of darkness and confusion,
were being transported on the first stage of their journey to
Charleston. Before leaving, they blew up the iron clads and the
fortifications below the city. On the twenty-first, General Sherman
received a formal surrender from the municipal authorities. On the
following day, the twenty-second, he sent a dispatch to the President,
presenting him, "as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah." On December
twenty-eighth, 1864, Masonic Hall, already historical, witnessed a
gathering of loyal citizens celebrating the triumph of the Union army.
Sherman, when he entered the city, encamped his forces on the still
vacant "trust lots." This triumphant conclusion of Sherman's march from
Atlanta broke the backbone of the Confederacy, and was the prelude to
the downfall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army.
Prosperity eventually followed in the wake of peace. The blockade
lifted, the deserted wharves were soon filled with the shipping of all
nations. Her silent and empty streets grew noisy and populous with the
rush of business, and Savannah is now one of the most prosperous of our
Southern cities. Her architecture is not striking for either its beauty
or its grandeur; nevertheless she has many fine public and private
buildings. The City Exchange is one of the former, and it also possesses
a historical interest, General Sherman having reviewed his troops in
front of it in his investment of the city. From its tower the best view
of the city and neighborhood may be obtained. The Court House, the
United States and Police Barracks, Artillery Armory, Jail, Chatham
Academy and St. Andrews' Hall, are all conspicuous buildings. The
Georgia Historical Society has a large and beautiful hall, with a fine
library and interesting relics. St. John's and Christ's Episcopal
churches, the Independent Presbyterian Church, and the Roman Catholic
Cathedral, are all striking edifices. Trinity Church, in Johnson Square,
is near the spot where John Wesley delivered his famous sermons. Wesley
visited Savannah in its early days, having been invited thither by
Oglethorpe. At Bethesda, about ten miles from the city, where the Union
Farm School is now located, was the site of the Orphan House established
in 1740 by Whitefield, Wesley's contemporary and companion.
The benevolent, literary and educational institutions of Savannah are
numerous and well sustained, some of them being among the oldest in the
country. The Union Society, for the support of orphan boys, and the
Female Society, for orphan girls, were founded in 1750.
Savannah is situated just above the 32d parallel of latitude, and
possesses a mean temperature of 66° Fahr. Being within the influence of
the Gulf Stream it enjoys all the mildness of the tropics in winter,
while the summers are less oppressive than at New York or Washington. It
is a favorite resort for northern invalids, being comparatively free
from malarious fevers and pulmonary diseases.
Colored people abound in Savannah, constituting about three-eighths of
the entire population. They do most of the menial work of the city,
being laborers, waiters in the hotels and public houses, and stevedores
upon the wharves. It is astonishing to see the number of colored men it
takes to load and set afloat a steamship; and one of the last sights
which meets the eye of the traveler and lingers in his memory, as he
leaves the city by means of the river, is the long row of upturned black
faces, most of them beaming with good humor and jollity, on the wharf,
as the vessel casts off her lines and turns her head down stream.
Savannah possesses certain famous suburban attractions, without seeing
which the traveler can scarcely say he has seen the city. In a bend of
the Warsaw River, a short distance from its junction with the Savannah,
and about four miles from the city, is the famous Bonaventure Cemetery.
A hundred years ago this was the country seat of a wealthy English
gentleman, who, upon the marriage of his daughter, made her a wedding
present of the estate. The grounds were laid out in wide avenues, and
shaded by live oaks, and the initials of the young bride and her husband
were outlined with trees. In course of time the property was converted
into a cemetery, and for many years has been devoted to that purpose.
It is filled with monuments to the dead, some of them bearing historic
names. Meantime the live oaks have grown to enormous dimensions, their
gigantic branches meeting and interlacing overhead, forming immense
arches, like those of the gothic aisles of some great cathedral, under
and through which are visible bright vistas of the river and the sea
islands lying beyond. The branches are fringed with pendants of the gray
Spanish moss, yards in length, which sway softly in the breeze, and by
their sombre color add to the solemnity of the scene. The steamers on
the Sea Island route to Fernandina, Florida, pass Bonaventure, and
afford glimpses of white monuments through the avenues of trees.
Bonaventure is a favorite drive from the city, and is also reached by
the horse cars.
Thunderbolt, so named, tradition tells us, because a thunderbolt once
fell there, is a short distance from Bonaventure, down the Warsaw River,
and is a popular drive and summer resort. A spring of water flows from
the spot where the lightning is supposed to have entered the ground.
Jasper's Spring is two and one-half miles west of the city, and is the
scene of the exploit of Sergeant Jasper, who at the time of the
Revolution succeeded, with only one companion, in releasing a party of
American prisoners from a British guard of eight men. Another
fashionable drive is to White Bluff, ten miles distant from the city.
The latter, with Beaulieu, Montgomery and the Isle of Hope, furnish salt
water bathing and delightful sea breezes for the summer visitors.
There is but one line of horse cars in the city, running on South Broad
street, and then out the Thunderbolt road to Thunderbolt, Bonaventure,
and the other suburban resorts. This company, we are told, has been so
reckless in regard to the limitations of its charter, that the municipal
government refuses to charter a second road. If our Northern cities were
as scrupulous, we wonder where their many horse railroads would be!
Since the war Northern men and Northern capital have helped to build up
the various interests of Savannah. Planing mills, foundries, flouring
and grist mills, have been established, furnishing employment to a
considerable number of workingmen. Old channels of commerce have been
extended, and new ones opened; and the natural advantage of her
position, added to the public spirit which her citizens manifest in the
accomplishment of great enterprises of internal improvement, give a
guarantee of increased prosperity in the future.
CHAPTER XXXV.
SPRINGFIELD.
Valley of the Connecticut.--Location of Springfield.--The United
States Armory.--Springfield Library.--Origin of the Present
Library System.--The Wayland Celebration.--Settlement of
Springfield.--Indian Hostilities.--Days of Witchcraft.--Trial
of Hugh Parsons.--Hope Daggett.--Springfield "Republican."
A journey up the Valley of the Connecticut at this season of the year is
a positive luxury to the tourist or professional traveler. It is a
broad, beautiful road, winding through hill and dale, with grand old
forests and mountains in the background, their foliage tipped with
variegated colors by the fingers of Autumn, as an artist would put a
finishing touch to his landscape.
A ride of twenty-five miles northward from Hartford brought us to
Springfield, the most enterprising and important town in Western
Massachusetts. The United States Armory, located here, gives to the city
a national consequence. No city in the Union did more to crush out the
Rebellion than Springfield, through her Armory. Two or three thousand
men were kept constantly employed here during the war, turning out the
various arms used in the Federal service. The force now employed is
considerably less than in war times. All hands are engaged just now upon
the Springfield rifled musket, which has recently been adopted by the
Government. The military precision with which every detail is attended
to is the admiration of all who are shown through the Armory.
A visit to the City Library, on State street, cannot fail to interest
every person who feels a pride in the public institutions of New
England. A fine, large, brick and stone building, with plain exterior
and artistically finished interior, is the Springfield Public Library.
Over forty thousand volumes cover its shelves, and are so systematically
arranged that the librarian or his assistants can produce at once any
work named in the catalogue. The oblong reading room is furnished with
black walnut tables; and winding staircases, painted in blue and gold,
lead from the columned alcoves to the galleries above.
The library owns some very old and valuable books of engravings. A room
on the first floor is devoted to stuffed birds, geological specimens,
preserved snakes, and a wonderful assortment of curious relics obtained
from all parts of the world. Icelandic snow shoes and Hindoo gods occupy
places on the same shelf, in peaceful proximity, and catamounts,
paralyzed in the act of springing, glare at you harmlessly behind their
glass cases. Patriotic mementoes are not wanting, as the bullet-riddled
battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments will testify.
The free public library system is distinctively a New England
institution, and wields a mighty influence for good. It was originated
in 1847, by Rev. Francis Wayland, President of Brown University,
Providence, Rhode Island. On Commencement day of that year Mr. Wayland
expressed a wish to help the inhabitants of the town of Wayland,
Massachusetts, to a public library, and tendered a donation of five
hundred dollars to the town for that purpose, upon the condition that
another five hundred should be added by the town. The required fund was
quickly raised, by subscription, and President Wayland immediately
placed his donation in the hands of one of their prominent citizens,
Judge Mellen. This was the beginning of the movement which resulted in
the "Library Act," of May, 1851, in the State of Massachusetts.
The people of Wayland bought their library and provided a room in the
"Town House" for its safe keeping. A librarian was chosen, whose salary
was paid by the town, and the institution made its first delivery of
books August seventh, 1850. Rev. John B. Wright was a member of the
Massachusetts Legislature, from Wayland, during the session of 1851, and
through his agency the Act "to authorize cities and towns to establish
and maintain public libraries" was passed. A "Library Celebration" took
place in Wayland, August twenty-sixth, 1851, and was a most interesting
affair. Thus it came to pass that through the practical working of this
man's idea public libraries were established, not only all over the
State of Massachusetts, but throughout New England.
Springfield was founded in 1636 by William Pyncheon, who with seven
other men settled here, with their families, on May fourteenth of that
year. They were bound together by mutual contract, with the design of
having their colony consist of forty families. There was an especial
provision that the number should never exceed fifty.
The early prosperity of Springfield was considerably retarded by Indian
hostilities.
In October, 1675, the brown warriors of King Phillip made a descent upon
the place, burning twenty-nine houses and killing three citizens--one of
them a woman. The timely arrival of Major Pyncheon, Major Treat and
Captain Appleton, with their troops, prevented further destruction and
repulsed the attack of the Indians. Springfield was also the scene of
operations during the troubles of 1786-87. At that time, General
Shepperd was posted here, for the defence of the Armory.
Thus, through much tribulation, has the thriving town attained its
present prosperity.
In its infant days, Springfield cherished a strong belief in witchcraft,
as the following incident will testify: In the same year that Hartford
set such a bad example to her northern neighbor on the Connecticut, by
hanging Mrs. Greensmith, Springfield, not to be outdone, preferred a
charge of witchcraft against one Hugh Parsons--a very handsome and
pleasing young man, it seems, with whom all the women fell in love. Of
course, this was not to be tolerated by the male population of the
place, who hated him, as a natural consequence; and, accordingly, the
handsomest man in Springfield was indicted and tried, on the grave
accusation of being in league with the powers of evil. It is not
surprising that the jury found him guilty. But, through some influence
not explained, the judge, Mr. Pyncheon, stayed proceedings in his behalf
until the matter could be laid before the General Court, in Boston.
There the decision of the Springfield jury was reversed, and Mr. Parsons
set at liberty. Whether after this his dangerous attractions were duly
husbanded, or whether he went on, as of old, winning such wholesale
admiration, we are not informed.
One of the sensations of the hour during my sojourn in Springfield, was
an encounter between the State Street Baptist Church and Hope Daggett,
one of its members. The disaffected sister had at sundry times and in
divers manners made herself so obnoxious to the congregation, by her
strong-minded peculiarities, that an officer was called upon the scene
and requested to eject by force, if necessary, the eccentric and
uncompromising Hope. Officer Maxwell, suiting the action to the word,
seized the unruly sister, and without stopping to consider the sudden
fame which this act would launch upon him, thrust her into the street,
amid the cheers and taunts of friends and enemies. Now it was the
peculiar misfortune of Miss Daggett to have a wooden leg, and on the day
following this tragic affair the press of Springfield was devoted to
various accounts of the engagement, in which Maxwell and the wooden leg
figured alternately.
I cannot leave Springfield without some mention of its leading paper,
the Springfield _Republican_, which for many years has been one of the
solid papers of the Bay State, and a representative organ in politics
and literature. Its editor, Samuel Bowles, is an energetic business
manager and a stirring politician, who has fought his way up from
obscurity to a position in the front rank of American journalism.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
ST. LOUIS.
Approach to St. Louis.--Bridge Over the Mississippi.--View of
the City.--Material Resources of Missouri.--Early History of St.
Louis.--Increase of Population.--Manufacturing and Commercial
Interests.--Locality.--Description of St. Louis in 1842.--
Resemblance to Philadelphia.--Public Buildings.--Streets.--
Parks.--Fair Week.--Educational and Charitable Institutions.--
Hotels.--Mississippi River.--St. Louis During the Rebellion.--
Peculiar Characteristics.--The Future of the City.
The visitor to St. Louis, if from the east, will probably make his
approach over the great bridge which spans the Mississippi. This bridge,
designed by Captain Eads, and begun in 1867, was completed in 1874, and
is one of the greatest triumphs of American engineering. It consists of
three spans, resting on four piers. The central span is 520 feet in
width, and the side ones 500 feet each. They have a rise of sixty feet,
sufficient to permit the passage of steamers under them, even at high
water. The piers are sunk through the sand to the bed-rock, a distance
of from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet, the work having been
accomplished by means of iron wrought caissons and atmospheric pressure.
Each span consists of four ribbed arches, made of cast steel. The bridge
is two stories high, the lower story containing a double car track, and
the upper one two horse-car tracks, two carriageways and two foot-ways.
Reaching the St. Louis shore, the car and road ways pass over a viaduct
of five arches, of twenty-seven feet span each, to Washington avenue,
where the railway tracks run into a tunnel 4,800 feet long, terminating
near Eleventh street. Bridge and tunnel together cost eleven millions of
dollars.
[Illustration: THE LEVEE AND GREAT BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS.]
This wonderful structure, which has few if any equals upon the
continent, will impress the traveler with the commercial magnitude and
enterprise of the great western city to which it forms the eastern
portal. Looking from the car window he will see, first, the Mississippi,
which, if at the period of low water, disappoints him with its apparent
insignificance; but which, if it be at the time of its annual flood, has
crept, on the St. Louis side, nearly to the top of the steep levee, and
has filled up the broad valley miles away on the hither side, a rushing,
turbulent river, turbid with the yellow waters of the Missouri, which,
emptying into it twenty miles above, have scarcely, at this point,
perfectly mingled with the clearer Mississippi. He will see next the
river front of St. Louis--a continuous line of steamboats, towboats and
barges, without a sail or mast among them; the levee rising in a steep
acclivity twenty feet above the river's edge; and multitudinous mules,
with their colored drivers, toiling laboriously, and by the aid of much
whipping and swearing, up or down the steep bank, carrying the
merchandise which has just been landed, or is destined to be loaded in
some vessel's hold. Beyond the river rises the city, terrace above
terrace, its outlines bristling with spires, and prominent above all,
the dome of the Court House.
St. Louis is situated in the very heart of the great Mississippi Valley,
and a large share of its rich agricultural products and mineral stores
are constantly poured into her lap. Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain, both
containing inexhaustible supplies of the useful ore, are not far
distant. The lead districts of Missouri include more than 6,000 square
miles. In fifteen counties there is copper. In short, within one hundred
miles of St. Louis, gold, iron, lead, zinc, copper, tin, silver,
platina, nickel, emery, cobalt, coal, limestone, granite, pipe-clay,
fire-clay, marble, metallic paints and salt are found, in quantities
which will repay working. In the State there are twenty millions acres
of good farming lands; five millions of acres are among the best in the
world for grapes; and eight millions are particularly suited to the
raising of hemp. There is, besides, a sufficiency of timber land. With
all these resources from which to draw, it would be surprising if St.
Louis did not become a leading city in the West. Situated, as she is, on
the Mississippi River, about midway between its source and its mouth,
the junction of the Missouri twenty miles above, and that of the Ohio
about one hundred and seventy-five miles below, and being the river
terminus of a complicated system of western railways, the towns and
cities, and even the small hamlets of the north, south and west, and to
a limited extent of the east also, all pay her tribute. As Chicago is
the gateway to the East, by means of the great chain of lakes and rivers
at whose head she sits, so St. Louis holds open the door to the South
and the East as well, through the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers.
In many respects the business rival of Chicago to-day, it has a history
reaching half a century further back. While Chicago was still a howling
wilderness, its only inhabitants the warlike Pottawatomies, who
sometimes encamped upon the shores of its lake and river, St. Louis had
a local habitation and a name. On February fifteenth, 1764, Pierre
Laclede Siguest, an enterprising Frenchman, established at this point a
depot for the furs of the vast region watered by the Mississippi and
Missouri, and gave it the name of St. Louis. This was done by permission
of the Governor General of Louisiana, which was then a French province.
In the course of the year cabins were built, a little corn planted and
the Indians placated. The Frenchmen seemed to have gotten along with the
Indians tolerably well in those days. They had no hesitation in marrying
squaws, even though they already possessed one lawful wife; they were
good tempered and merry, and attempted no conversion of the Indians with
a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other. So the two races got along
nicely together.
The peace of 1763 gave the country east of the Mississippi to the
English, and the Frenchmen who had settled upon the Illinois made haste
to remove to St. Louis, to avoid living under the rule of their "natural
enemy." This was scarcely accomplished when the more terrible news
reached them that Louis XV had ceded his possessions west of the
Mississippi to Spain. For the next thirty years the town was a Spanish
outpost of Louisiana, in which province no one not a Catholic could own
land.
To go to New Orleans and return was a voyage of ten months; but in that
early day, and under such surprising difficulties, St. Louis began its
commercial career. It exported furs, lead and salt, and imported the few
necessaries required by the settlers, and beads, tomahawks, and other
articles demanded by the Indians in exchange for furs. In 1799 the
inhabitants numbered 925, a falling off of 272 from the previous year.
In 1804, St. Louis passed to the United States, together with the whole
country west of the Mississippi. In 1811 the population had increased to
1400, and there were two schools in the town, one French and one
English. In 1812 the portion of the territory lying north of the
thirty-fifth degree of latitude was organized as Missouri Territory. In
1813 the first brick house was erected in St. Louis. In 1820 its
population was 4,928. In 1822 it was incorporated as a city.
After the cession of Louisiana to the United States, the law forbidding
Protestant worship, and requiring owners of land to profess the Catholic
faith, was repealed, and men American born but of English descent began
to pour into the town. In 1808 a newspaper was established, and in 1811
many of the old French names of the streets were changed to English
ones. In 1812 the lead mines began to be worked to better advantage, on
a larger scale, and agriculture assumed increasing importance. In 1815
the first steamboat made its appearance.
In 1820 St. Louis cast its vote for slavery, and settled the question
for Missouri. The population then was 4,928, which in 1830 had increased
to 5,852; 924 additional inhabitants in ten years! From 1830 to 1860 its
population trebled every ten years, the census returns of the latter
year giving it 160,773. In 1870 it had nearly doubled again, the number
being 310,864 inhabitants. According to the United States Census report
of 1880, the population was 350,522, which made St. Louis the sixth city
in the Union. Since that time it has been rapidly on the increase.
St. Louis is among the first of our cities in the manufacture of flour,
and is a rival of Cincinnati in the pork-packing business. It has
extensive lumber mills, linseed-oil factories, provision-packing
houses, manufactures large quantities of hemp, whisky and tobacco, has
vast iron factories and machine shops, breweries, lead and paint works.
In brief, it takes a rank second only to New York and Philadelphia in
its manufactures, to which its prosperity is largely due. In 1874 the
products of that year were valued at nearly $240,000,000, while it
furnished employment to about 50,000 workmen. Great as are Chicago's
manufacturing interests, St. Louis excels her in this respect, while she
rivals the former city in her commercial interests. The natural
commercial entreport of the Mississippi Valley, the commerce of St.
Louis is immense. It receives and exports to the north, east and south,
breadstuffs, live stock, provisions, cotton, lead, hay, salt, wool,
hides and pelts, lumber and tobacco.
St. Louis is perched high above the river, so that she is beyond the
reach of all save the highest floods of that most capricious stream. She
is built on three terraces, the first twenty, the second one hundred and
fifty, and the third two hundred feet above low-water mark. The second
terrace begins at Twenty-fifth street, and the third at Côte Brillante,
four miles west of the river. The surface here spreads out into a broad,
beautiful plain. The highest hill in the neighborhood of the city was
the lofty mound on the bank of the river, a relic of prehistoric times,
and from which St. Louis derived its name of the "Mound City." Greatly
to the regret of antiquarians a supposed necessity existed for the
removal of this mound, and now no trace of it is left.
In 1842 Charles Dickens published his _American Notes_, in which is
found the following description of St. Louis:
"In the old French portion of the town the thoroughfares are narrow and
crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque, being
built of wood, with tumble-down galleries before the windows,
approachable by stairs, or rather ladders, from the street. There are
queer little barber shops and drinking houses, too, in this quarter; and
abundance of crazy old tenements, with blinking casements, such as may
be seen in Flanders. Some of these ancient habitations, with high garret
gable windows perking into the roofs, have a kind of French spring about
them; and, being lopsided with age, appear to hold their heads askew,
besides, as if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American
improvements."
There is nothing of this now seen in St. Louis, except in the narrower
streets along the river, which remain a lasting relic of the ancient
city. Yankee enterprise has obliterated, in the appearance of the city
at least, all trace of its French and Spanish origin. The work of
renovation must have commenced soon after Dickens' visit, for Lady
Emeline Wortley, visiting St. Louis in 1849, describes it as follows:--
"Merrily were huge houses going up in all directions. From our hotel
windows we had a long view of gigantic and gigantically-growing-up
dwellings, that seemed every morning to be about a story higher than we
left them on the preceding night; as if they had slept, during the
night, on guano, like the small boy in the American tale, who reposed on
a field covered by it, and whose father, on seeking him the following
day, found a gawky gentleman of eight feet high, bearing a strong
resemblance to a Patagonian walking stick."
[Illustration: SHAW'S GARDEN AT ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.]
If Chicago is a western reproduction of New York, with its
characteristic alertness preternaturally developed, St. Louis takes
Philadelphia for her prototype. The merchants and statesmen plodding
wearily across the continent during the latter part of the last century
and early in this, found Philadelphia the chief city of the country, and
went home with their minds filled with the distinguishing features of
that city. These they reproduced, as far as was practicable, in their
own young and growing town. They laid it out with regularity, the
streets near the river, which describes a slight curve, running parallel
to it. Further back, they describe straight lines, while the streets
running from east to west are, for the most part, at right angles with
those they cross. Imitating Philadelphia, the streets are named
numerically from the river. Those crossing them have arbitrary names
given them, while many Philadelphia nomenclatures, such as Market,
Chestnut, Pine, Spruce, Poplar, Walnut and Vine, are repeated. The
houses are also numbered in Philadelphia fashion, the streets parallel
with the river being numbered north and south from Market street, and
those running east and west taking their numbers from the river. In
numbering, each street passes on to a new hundred; thus No. 318 is the
ninth house above Third street on one side of the way.
Not only in these superficial matters is Philadelphia imitated, but the
resemblance is preserved in more substantial particulars. Many of the
buildings are large, old-fashioned, square mansions, built of brick with
white marble trimmings. There is less attempt at architectural display
than in Chicago, apparently the main thought of the builders being to
obtain substantiality. Yet there are many handsome buildings, both
public and private. One of the finest structures of its kind in the
United States is the Court House, occupying the square bounded by
Fourth, Fifth, Chestnut and Market streets. It is in the form of a Greek
cross, of Grecian architecture, built of Genevieve limestone, and is
surmounted by a lofty iron dome, from the cupola of which it is possible
to obtain an extensive view of the city and its surroundings. The
building cost $1,200,000. The fronts are adorned with beautiful
porticoes. The Four Courts, in Clark avenue, between Eleventh and
Twelfth streets, is a handsome and spacious building, constructed of
limestone, at a cost of $1,000,000. A semi-circular iron jail is in its
rear, so constructed that all its cells are under the observation of a
single watchman. A Custom House and Post Office has recently been
erected, at the corner of Olive and Eighth streets. It is of Maine
granite, with rose-colored granite trimmings, three stories in height,
with a French roof and Louvre dome, and occupies an entire square. The
cost of the structure was $5,000,000.
The Chamber of Commerce is the great commercial mart of the city, the
heart of enormous business interests, whose arteries sometimes pulsate
with feverish heat, and whose transactions affect business affairs to
the furthest extent of the country. The edifice is the handsomest of its
kind in America. It is five stories high, wholly built of gray
limestone, and cost $800,000. The main hall of the Exchange is two
hundred feet long, one hundred wide, and seventy high. In the gallery
surrounding it strangers can at any time witness the proceedings on the
floor, and watch how fortunes are made and unmade.
The most imposing and ornate building of the city, architecturally
speaking, is the Columbia Life Insurance building, which is of
rose-colored granite, in the Renaissance style, four stories high, with
a massive stone cornice representing mythological figures. The roof is
reached by an elevator, and affords a fine view.
The city abounds in handsome churches. Most prominent among them all is
Christ Church (Episcopal) at the corner of Thirteenth and Locust
streets. It is in the cathedral gothic style, with stained-glass windows
and lofty nave. The Catholic Cathedral, on Walnut street, between Second
and Third streets, is an imposing structure with a front of polished
freestone faced by a Doric portico. The Church of the Messiah
(Unitarian), at the corner of Olive and Ninth streets, is a handsome
gothic structure. The Jewish Temple, at the corner of Seventeenth and
Pine streets, is one of the finest religious edifices in the city. There
are many others which will challenge the visitor's attention and
admiration as he passes through the streets of the city.
The wholesale business of St. Louis is confined to Front, Second, Third
and Main streets. Front street is one hundred feet wide, and extends
along the levee, being lined with massive stores and warehouses. Fourth
street contains the leading retail stores, and on every pleasant day it
is filled with handsome equipages, while on its sidewalks are found the
fashion and beauty of the city. Washington avenue is one of the widest
and most elegant avenues in St. Louis, and west of Twenty-seventh street
contains many beautiful residences. Pine, Olive and Locust streets,
Chouteau avenue and Lucas Place, are also famed for their fine
residences. Lindell or Grant avenue, running north and south, on the
western boundary of the city, and slightly bending toward the river, is
its longest street, being twelve miles in length.
The corporate limits of St. Louis extend eleven miles along the river,
and about three miles inland. The densely built portion of the city is
about six miles in length by two in width. Its public parks are one of
its striking features. They embrace an aggregate of about 2,000 acres.
The most beautiful is Lafayette Park, lying between Park and Lafayette,
Mississippi and Missouri avenues. In it are a bronze statue of Thomas H.
Benton, by Harriet Hosmer, and a bronze statue of Washington. It is for
pedestrians only, is elaborately laid out and ornamented, and is
surrounded by magnificent residences. Missouri Park is a pretty little
park at the foot of Lucas Place, containing a handsome fountain. St.
Louis Place, Hyde Park and Washington Square are all attractive places
of resort. Northern Park, on the bluffs to the north of the city, is
noted for its fine trees, and contains 180 acres. Forest Park is the
great park of the city. It lies four miles west of the Court House, and
contains 1350 acres. The Des Pares runs through it, and the native
forest trees are still standing. With great natural advantages, it
requires only time and art to number it among the handsomest parks in
the country. Tower Grove Park, in the southwest part of the city,
contains 227 acres, offers delightful drives among green lawns and
charmingly arranged shrubbery.
Adjoining this park is Shaw's Garden, which contains 109 acres. It
possesses a peculiar interest, from the manner in which it is arranged.
It is divided into three sections, the first being the Herbaceous and
Flower Garden, embracing ten acres, and including every flower which can
be grown in the latitude of St. Louis, besides several greenhouses
containing thousands of exotic and tropical plants. The second section,
called the Fruticetum, comprises six acres devoted to fruit of all
kinds. The Arboretum, or third section, includes twenty-five acres, and
contains all kinds of ornamental and fruit trees. The Labyrinth is an
intricate, hedge-bordered pathway, leading to a summer-house in the
centre. There are also a museum and botanical library. This garden is
entirely the result of private taste and enterprise, having been planned
and executed by Henry Shaw, who has thrown it open to the public, and
intends it as a gift to the city.
Bellefontaine Cemetery is the most beautiful in the West. It is situated
in the northern part of the city, about four and one-half miles from the
Court House, and embraces 350 acres. It contains a number of fine
monuments, while the trees and shrubbery are most tastefully arranged.
Calvary Cemetery, north and not far distant, is nearly as large and
quite as beautiful. Here, in these quiet cities of the dead, far from
the bustle of the great town, the men and women of this western
metropolis, whose lives were passed in turmoil and activity, find at
last that rest which must come to all.
The people of St. Louis are supplied with water from the river, the
waterworks being situated at Bissell's Point, three and one-half miles
north of the court house. Two pumping engines, each with a daily
capacity of 17,000,000 gallons, furnish an ample supply for all the
needs of the great city.
Fair week, which is usually the first week in October, is the great
holiday and gala season of St. Louis. The writer of this article was
once so fortunate as to visit the city early in this week. Every train
of cars on the many lines which centre at St. Louis, and every
steamboat which came from up or down the river, brought its living
freight of men and women, who were out for a week's holiday, and, it may
have been, paying their annual visit to the greatest city west of the
Mississippi. The country roads leading to town were black with vehicles
of all descriptions, and laden with men and merchandise. The laborers
and mules upon the levee were busier than ever, receiving and
transporting the articles to be exhibited and sold. Every hotel was
crowded, and the surplus overflowed into boarding and lodging houses, so
that their keepers undoubtedly reaped a golden harvest for that one
week, at least. The streets were thronged with an immense and motley
multitude: business men, on the alert to extend their trade and add to
their gains; working women, who found an opportunity for a brief
holiday; ladies of fashion who viewed the scene resting at their ease in
their carriages; farmers from the rural districts, looking uncomfortable
yet complaisant in their Sunday suits, and trying to take in all there
was to see and understand; their wives, old-fashioned and countrified in
their dress, and with a tired look upon their faces, which this week
given up to idleness and sight-seeing could not quite dispel; sporting
men, easily recognizable by their flashy dress and "horsey" talk;
gamblers and blacklegs by the score, whose appearance and manners were
too excessively gentlemanly to pass as quite genuine, and whose gains
during the week were probably larger and more certain than those of any
other class; western men, with their patois, borrowed apparently from
the slang of every nation on the globe; Southerners, with their long
hair, slouched hats and broad accent; river hands, whose most
noticeable accomplishments seemed to be disposing of tobacco and
inventing new oaths; negroes, whose facile natures entered heartily into
the occasion, and on whose sleek, shining countenances the spirit of
contentment was plainly visible; eastern men, with the Yankee
intonation; Germans, in great numbers, patronizingly endorsing their
adopted country, and selling lager beer with stolid content; Irishmen,
whose preference was whisky, and who were ever ready for fun or a fight;
beggars, plying their vocation with an extra whine, adopted to conceal
an unwonted tendency to cheerfulness; magnates, who looked pompous and
conscious of their own importance, but who were jostled and pushed with
the democratic disregard for rank and station which characterizes an
American crowd.
Probably in no city in the Union would one find quite so cosmopolitan a
multitude, representing all sections and all nationalities so
impartially. In the business and populous centre of our country, here
came all classes and peoples who had been born under, or had sought the
protection of, our flag, to worship one week at the shrines of Ceres and
Pomona.
The fair grounds of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical
Association are three miles northwest of the Court House, and embrace
eighty-five acres handsomely laid out and containing extensive
buildings. The Amphitheatre will seat 40,000 persons. The street cars
leading to these grounds were at all times filled with people, and in
addition there was a constant procession of carriages, wagons and carts,
going and returning. Within the enclosure the dense throng surged and
swayed like a human whirlpool. The displays in the agricultural and
mechanical departments were something astonishing; for where in the
world is there such grain grown and in such quantities, as in the
Mississippi and Missouri valleys? Where are there such fat oxen, such
sleek, self-satisfied cows, with such capacity for rich milk? Horses,
hogs and sheep were all of the best, and indicated that the West is very
far advanced in scientific stock raising. The farm implements displayed
all sorts of contrivances for lightening and hastening the farmer's
toil. It needed but a glance to show that farming in this region was no
single-man, one-horse affair.
In art the East as yet excels the West; for in the scramble after
material gain the artistic nature has not been greatly cultivated, and
its expressions are, for the most part, crude. But they give promise of
future excellence. St. Louis has no picture gallery worthy the name, but
excells in scientific and educational institutions.
The Mercantile Library, at the corner of Fifth and Locust streets,
contains 50,000 volumes, and its hall is decorated by paintings, coins
and statuary, among which latter may be mentioned Miss Hosmer's
life-size statue of Beatrice Cenci and Oenone; a bronze copy of the
Venus de Medici, a sculptured slab from the ruins of Nineveh, and marble
busts of Thomas H. Benton and Robert Burns. The library with its reading
room is free to strangers.
Besides the library there is a public school library of 38,000 volumes;
an Academy of Science, founded in 1856, with a large museum and a
library of 3,000 volumes; and a Historical Society, founded in 1865,
with a valuable historical collection. Washington University, organized
in 1853, embraces the whole range of university studies except theology.
With it is connected the Mary Institute, for the education of women, the
Polytechnic School, and the Law School. The public school system of St.
Louis is one of the best in the country, and its school-houses are
commendably fine. The Roman Catholic College of the Christian Brothers
has about four hundred students, and a library of 10,000 volumes.
Concordia College (German Lutheran), established in 1839, has a library
of 4,500 volumes. Besides the numerous public schools, the Roman
Catholics, who embrace a majority of the inhabitants, have about one
hundred parochial, private and conventual schools. They have also a
number of convents, charitable homes, asylums and hospitals.
The hotels, chief amongst which are the new Southern Hotel, Lindell
House, Planters' Hotel, Laclede Hotel and Barnum's Hotel, will compare
favorably, in point of attendance, comfort and elegance, with any in the
country. Horse cars traverse the city in every direction, rendering all
points easily accessible, and carriages are in waiting at the depots and
steamboat landings. Ferries ply continually to East St. Louis, on the
Illinois shore, from the foot of Carr street, north of the bridge, and
from the foot of Spruce street, south of it, the two points of departure
being about a mile apart.
So long as the Mississippi River washes the levee in front of the city,
the citizens of St. Louis are in little danger of long remaining dull,
for want of excitement. That river, one of the uneasiest of water
courses, constantly furnishes fresh themes of interest, and even of
anxiety. It has a singular penchant for a frequent change of channels,
and occasionally threatens to desert to Illinois and leave St. Louis an
inland town, with its high levee a sort of rampart to receive the
mocking assaults of Chicago. Then, every spring, there is the annual
freshet, which, once in ten or fifteen years, creeps up over the top of
the levee, and finds its way into cellars and first floors of stores and
warehouses. Occasionally there is a severe winter, when ice is formed
upon the river as far south even as St. Louis; and when it breaks up in
the spring, mischief is sure to ensue. A hundred steamboats are in
winter quarters along the levee, their noses in the sand, and their
hulls extending riverward, fixed in the ice. At last the great mass of
congealed water, extending up the river hundreds of miles, begins to
move down stream. The motion is at first scarcely perceptible; but,
suddenly, the ice cracks and breaks, and fragments begin to glide
swiftly with the current of the river. The various masses create
conflicting currents, and, presently, the surface of the stream is like
a whirlpool. Some boats are crushed like egg shells between the floes;
cables snap, and others are drawn out into the midst of the whirling
waters and are fortunate indeed if they are not overwhelmed or forced
upon the ice. Meantime, consternation reigns upon the levee. The
multitudes are powerless to prevent, yet make frantic and futile efforts
while they watch, the disaster. At the breaking up of the ice in 1866,
seventeen steamboats were crushed and sunk in a few minutes. Then there
are other river disasters; steamboats burned; others struck on snags and
sunk; and now and then a boiler explosion makes up the tale of horrors
and prevents the Mississippi from ever becoming monotonous or
uninteresting.
St. Louis was most unfavorably affected by the war, and made to expiate
her political sin of 1820. On the border land between the North and the
South, the conflict was carried on in her very midst. Sectional strife
was most bitter and keen. There was no neutrality, and there could be
none. All were either for or against; families were divided in deadly
strife; and while the city suffered to a terrible degree from this
condition of affairs, in back counties whole sections were depopulated.
The population being largely southern, either by birth or descent, its
sympathies were with the South. The class truly loyal was the Germans,
who numbered about 60,000 of the population, and who were characterized
by the Secessionists as the "D---- Dutch." The blockade of the river
reduced the whole business of the city to about a third of its former
amount. Yet, when the war was ended, St. Louis was quick to recover her
prostrated energies. In 1866, and but two years after the war, the city
did more business than in any preceding year; and, relieved from the
incubus of slavery, which had retarded its progress, it aroused itself
to new life.
With the Quaker-like simplicity of its outward appearance, its absence
of business rush, and its general tranquillity, St. Louis' resemblance
to the Quaker City ceases. It is a town of composite character, but from
its earliest existence has been under Roman Catholic domination. Even
now the Roman Catholic element predominates in its population. And its
French and Spanish founders, though their quaint buildings are torn down
and replaced by more modern ones, and their very streets re-named, have
left their impress upon the city. Its many places of amusement, compared
to its population, its general gayety, its stores closed by sunset in
winter, and before sunset in summer, its billiard rooms open on Sunday,
and its ball-playing on the same day, all give indication of its being
the home of a people whose ancestors had no New England prejudices
against worldly amusements, and in favor of sobriety, decorum,
industry, and the observance of the Sabbath.
St. Louis presents a pleasing contrast to many other western cities. Its
prosperity is substantial--not a sham. The capital which has paid for
these costly places of business and elegant residences, and is invested
in these gigantic enterprises, has been created out of the immense
material wealth of the State--not borrowed on a factitious credit. Its
merchants do not make princely fortunes in a day, but what they acquire
they keep. With so satisfactory a past, the errors of its youth atoned
for, the future of St. Louis cannot fail to be a brilliant one.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SYRACUSE.
Glimpses on the Rail.--Schenectady.--Valley of the Mohawk.--
"Lover's Leap."--Rome and its Doctor.--Oneida Stone---The Lo
Race.--Oneida Community.--The City of Salt.--The Six Nations.--
The Onondagas.--Traditions of Red Americans.--Hiawatha.--
Sacrifice of White Dogs.--Ceremonies.--The Lost Tribes of
Israel.--Witches and Wizards.--A Jules Verne Story.--The Salt
Wells of Salina.--Lake Onondaga.--Indian Knowledge of Salt
Wells.--"Over the Hills and Far Away."--A Castle.--Steam
Canal Boats.--Adieux.--Westward Ho!
The distance from Albany to Syracuse by rail, on the line of the New
York Central, is about one hundred and forty-two miles, or reckoned by
language on the dial, between six and seven hours.
Schenectady, the first stopping point on the route outward, was once
hovered under the motherly wings of Albany--her lawful progeny. The
embryo city, however, had aspirations of her own, and set up in the
world for herself. She now rejoices in a population of about twenty-five
thousand, and has separated herself from the maternal skirt by seventeen
miles of intervening country. Union College, the _alma mater_ of many of
the sons of New York and her sister States, is located at this point.
The route from Albany to the junction of the Watertown and Ogdensburg
Road, at Rome, takes us through the Valley of the Mohawk--one of the
loveliest valleys in the State. At Little Falls the scenery is wild and
rugged, and looking out from the car window to the opposite hillside,
where the waters break into foam over the rocks, set in a dark framework
of pines, the imaginative traveler conjectures at once that this must be
the scene of the "Lover's Leap"--a bit of romance rife in this region.
But the Mohawk rushes on, unmindful of those legendary lovers; the
heartless conductor, who cares nothing about dreams, shouts "all
aboard!" from the platform, and the screech of the engine whistle echoes
down the valley, as the train is once more in motion.
At Utica we make a longer stop. This point is the largest place between
Albany and Syracuse, and is as handsome a city as sits on the banks of
the Mohawk. The Black River Railroad joins the main line of the New York
Central here, and it is also the location of the State Lunatic Asylum.
Rome comes next in order, in importance and population, and is the last
place of any note on the road to Syracuse. It is a stirring little city
of about ten or eleven thousand inhabitants, and at least some of its
citizens have mastered the art of advertising, if one may judge from the
pamphlets which flood the arriving and departing trains. We are
repeatedly made aware of the fact that one of the dwellers in Rome is a
doctor, and that he doats on curing--not corns, but cancers.
The Midland Road from Oswego, and the Watertown Road--those connecting
arterial threads from Lake Ontario and Northern New York--unite with the
main artery, the Central, here, and the flow of human freight down these
channels is continuous and unceasing.
The second station from Rome, on the road to Syracuse, is Oneida--so
named from the tribe of red men who, less than a century ago, occupied
this particular region. A tradition once existed among the Oneidas that
they were a branch of the Onondagas, to whom they were allied by
relationship and language. Long ago they lived on the southern shore of
Oneida Lake, near the mouth of the creek, but afterwards their
habitation was made higher up the valley. The famous "Oneota" or _Oneida
Stone_ became their talisman and the centre of their attractions. Many
of their tribe were distinguished as orators and statesmen.
The Oneida "Community" live about two miles back from the station, and,
notwithstanding their peculiar religious belief and social practices,
they have achieved a reputation for quiet thrift, industry and harmony,
which their more Puritanic neighbors would do well to emulate.
But, at last, our train enters the outskirts of Syracuse, and
penetrating the heart of the city, rumbles inside the gates of the New
York Central Station at this place. Outside, all is hurry and bustle,
and confusion, as we descend the steps and elbow our way through the
crowd, to run the gauntlet of hack drivers and baggage expressmen, with
their plated caps and deafening calls.
Syracuse is sometimes known as the Central City, on account of its
location near the geographical centre of New York. It was first settled
in 1787, and did not pass the limits of a small village until the
completion of the Erie canal, in 1825. Two canals and three or four
lines of railway now centre here, and contribute to the growth of this
enterprising city. The region surrounding Syracuse is rife with the
romantic history of that once powerful Indian Confederacy known as the
Six Nations, now fast fading from the memory of men. The site of their
ancient Council House was on Onondaga Creek, a few miles distant from
the city, and is still held sacred to their traditions by the remnant of
the lost tribes now occupying the Indian reservation. The Onondagas
became the leading nation of the Confederacy. No business of importance,
touching the Six Nations, was transacted, except at Onondaga. They held
the key of the great Council House; they kept the sacred council fire
ever burning. From what portion of the country they emigrated before
occupying this region is unknown, but there is a very early tradition
among them that, many hundred moons ago, their forefathers came from the
North, having inhabited a territory along the northern banks of the St.
Lawrence. After a lapse of time there was an exodus of the powerful
tribe to the hills and hollows of Onondaga.
The River God of this nation was named Hiawatha--which meant "very
wise." He always embarked in a white canoe, which was carefully guarded
in a lodge especially set apart for that purpose. Their favorite
equipments were white. White plumes, from the heron, were worn in their
head-bands when they went on the war path; white dogs were sacrificed.
The yearly sacrifice of the dogs, among the Onondagas, was a ceremony of
great importance with the tribe, and occurred at one of the five stated
festivals of the Six Nations. On the great sacrificial day it was the
habit of the people to assemble at the Council House in large numbers.
Early in the morning, immense fires were built, guns were discharged,
and loud hallooing increased the noise. Half a cord of wood, arranged in
alternate layers, was placed near the Council House, by a select
committee of managers, for the sacrificial offering. The two officiating
priests for the occasion, as well as the high priest, were dressed in
long, loose robes of white. At about nine o'clock in the morning the two
priests appear. The white dogs following them are painted with red
figures, and adorned with belts of wampum, feathers and ribbons. The
dogs are then lassooed and suffocated, amid yells and the firing of
guns. After some intervening ceremonies, the details of which are too
long for recital here, a procession is formed, led by the priests in
white, followed by the managers, bearing the dogs on their shoulders. A
chant is sung as the procession marches around the burning pile three
successive times; the dogs are then laid at the feet of the officiating
priest, a prayer is offered to the Great Spirit and the high priest,
lifting the dogs, casts them into the fire. After this, baskets of herbs
and tobacco are thrown, at intervals, into the fire, as propitiating
sacrifices.
Their idea of these sacrifices was, that the sins of the people were, in
some mysterious manner, transferred yearly to the two priests in white,
who, in turn, conveyed them to the dogs. Thus the burnt offering
expiated the sins of the people for a year.
These ideas and customs are so singularly similar to the ancient Jewish
religious rites as to suggest a possible origin from the same source.
The mystical council fire of the Six Nations, which was kept always
burning by the Onondagas, who had charge of it, and which, if
extinguished, was supposed to prophesy the destruction of the nation,
may have a deeper meaning than that attached to it by the chiefs
themselves. It may possibly point to a common parentage with the
ever-burning flame in the Vestal Temple at Rome, whose eclipse
endangered the safety of the city. Another point of resemblance may be
noted. Time, which is reckoned among the Red men by moons, also
suggests the Jewish year, which began with the new moon, and was
reckoned by lunar months.
The Six Nations had a firm belief in witches and wizards, and executed
them, on the discovery of their supposed witchcraft, with a zeal and
spirit worthy of our early Christian fathers. One old Indian used to
relate a story something on the Jules Verne order. He said that, as he
stepped out of his cabin one evening, he sank down deep into an immense
and brilliantly-lighted cavern, full of flaming torches. Hundreds of
witches and wizards were there congregated, who immediately ejected him.
Early next morning he laid the matter before the assembled chiefs at the
Council House, who asked him whether he could recognize any whom he saw?
The sagacious Red man thought he could, and singled out many through the
village, male and female, who were doomed to an untimely execution, on
the evidence of this person's word.
The Senacas, another numerous and powerful nation of the Confederacy,
were always noted for the talent and eloquence of their orators and
statesmen. Corn Planter, Red Jacket, and other celebrities, came of this
tribe.
Syracuse is celebrated for its salt, the country over; and the most
singular thing about it is that the salt wells surround a body of fresh
water. This sheet of water bears the name of Onondaga Lake, and is six
miles long by one mile wide. It is about a mile and a half from the
heart of the city. A stratum of marl, from three to twelve feet thick,
underlaid by marly clay, separates the salt springs from the fresh
waters of the lake. The wells vary in depth, from two hundred to three
hundred feet, and the brine is forced from them, by pumps, into large
reservoirs, which supply the evaporating works. The salt is separated
from the water partly by solar evaporation and partly by boiling. The
reservoirs for the solar salt evaporation cover about seven hundred
acres of land. The brine is boiled in large iron kettles, holding about
a hundred gallons, which are placed in blocks of brick work, in one or
two long rows, the whole length of the block. It takes about
thirty-three and a fourth gallons of brine to make a bushel of salt,
which will average from fifty to fifty-six pounds in weight.
These salt wells were known to the Indians at a very early
period--Onondaga salt being in common use among the Delawares in 1770,
by whom it was brought to Quebec for sale.
Le Moyne, a Jesuit missionary, who had lived among the Hurons, and who
first came to Onondaga in 1653, with a party of Huron and Onondaga
chiefs, is supposed to be the first white man who personally knew about
the springs, though Father Lallemant had previously written of them. In
a letter which Colonel Comfort Tyler wrote to Dr. Jeremiah Van
Rensselaer, in 1822, the first manufacture of salt at this place by the
whites, in 1788, is described. He says: "In the month of May, 1788, the
family, wanting salt, obtained about a pound from the Indians, which
they had made from the waters of the springs upon the shore of the lake.
The Indians offered to discover the water to us. Accordingly, I went
with an Indian guide to the lake, taking along an iron kettle of fifteen
gallons capacity. This he placed in his canoe and steered out of the
mouth of Onondaga Creek, easterly, into a pass since called Mud Creek.
After passing over the marsh, then covered with about three feet of
water, and steering toward the bluff of hard land (now that part of
Syracuse known as Salina), he fastened his canoe, pointed to a hole,
apparently artificial, and said: "There is the salt!"
Salina, or the first ward, as it is frequently spoken of, lies partly
upon the shores of this lovely lake of Onondaga, and enjoys the
advantages of a close proximity to the saline atmosphere of the wells.
The drives in the vicinity of the lake and about the neighboring
localities afford an ever-shifting panorama of beautiful views, with
glimpses of the blue Onondaga at all points. On a breezy day, in the
early part of May, 1875, when the air was soft with hints of coming
summer, and the violets along the river banks were just putting on their
hoods of blue, I took one of those long and delightful drives which so
exhilarates the blood and gives a kind of champagne sparkle to the mind.
If there are any known remedial agents which can possibly be an
improvement on pure air and sunshine, will you tell us what they are,
Dr. Dio Lewis? My companion was keen-witted and full of jollity; we had
a spirited animal, and miles upon miles of space quickly vanished behind
us, as we sped onward over the smooth roadway. The hills seemed to open
wide their portals and close again as we passed; the valleys allured us
with their romantic, winding roads, and Lake Onondaga, viewed from all
points of the compass, tossed itself into a multitude of little waves
which sparkled in the sunshine like a thousand diamonds. The sky,
changeful as April, alternated between floating fields of atmospheric
blue and pillars of gray cloud. As we rounded the last curve of the
lake, the tall chimneys and long, low buildings of the salt works at
Salina came into view, forming a more conspicuous than elegant feature
of the landscape.
The principal street for retail business in Syracuse is named Salina,
and it always wears an air of brisk trade and enterprise. The large dry
goods houses of McCarthy and of Milton Price are located on this street.
Some of the public edifices are built of Onondaga limestone, quarried a
few miles out of the city. It makes very handsome building material, as
the Court House and other structures will testify. The ranking hotels of
Syracuse are the Vanderbilt and Globe, though the Remington, Syracuse
and Empire Hotels are well-kept and well-conducted houses.
The Erie Canal runs through the heart of the city, and the bridges over
it are arranged with draws. The first steam canal boat I ever saw lay
moored at this place, at the corner of Water and Clinton streets. It was
gay with new paint and floating pennons, and created quite a sensation
on its first trip out. It belonged to Greenway, the great ale man, and
was named after his daughter.
The High School, on West Genesee street, has a delightful location on
the banks of Onondaga Creek, and combines with its other advantages that
of a public library. It has a free reading room, thrown open to the city
at large, and a choice collection of many thousand volumes adorn its
shelves. Sitting at the open window and listening to the noisy waters of
the creek as it flows past, intermingled with an occasional bird carol
overhead, I could almost imagine myself out in the heart of the country,
away from the struggling masses of the crowded marts, in their mad race
after wealth--with nothing more inharmonious around me than the bird
orchestra of some imaginary June sky, the low sweep of waters and the
sound of the summer wind among the pines.
Syracuse rates herself sixty thousand strong, and I am unable to say
whether the hard figures will bear her out in this assertion. Perhaps,
however, a small margin of egotism ought to be subtracted from our
estimate of ourselves, especially when "ourselves" means a city.
James street is decidedly the handsomest thoroughfare in Syracuse. It is
wide, well paved, and two miles or more in length. On it are
congregated, with a few exceptions, the finest residences of the city.
These are surrounded, for the most part, by spacious grounds, and some
of them by groves of primeval forest growths. The street is an inclined
plane on one side, with a gentle declivity on the other. From its top,
quite an extensive prospect opens to the view, taking in most of the
city of salt, and its enclosing amphitheatre of hills. Looking down the
street, and over across the valley, the gray turrets of Yates' Castle
can be seen, nearly hidden by its surrounding trees.
"A castle?" I hear my imaginary reader question. "Yes," I answer, a
castle,--the real, genuine, article--towers, turrets, gate-keeper's
lodge and all; nothing lacking but moat and drawbridge, to transport one
to the times of tournament and troubadours--of knight-errantry and fair
ladies riding to the chase with hawk and hound.
A Latin motto, on the coat of arms adorning the arched gateway, points
to an ancestry of noble blood. But, alas for greatness! not even the
lodge-keeper's family knew the meaning of the Latin inscription. We
learned, however, that the armorial emblems were of English origin, and
belonged, possibly, to the times of the royal Georges. The grounds about
the castle are quite in keeping with the building itself. Winding roads,
rustic bridges, statuary, summer-houses and fountains, fitly environ
this antique pile.
Just opposite this place, on the hill-top, stands the Syracuse
University--its white walls outlined in bold relief against the sky. It
is a Methodist institution, and its chief office is to prepare young men
for the ministry, and teach the youthful idea how to shoot, in
accordance with modern theology. The location is breezy enough, and high
enough, to satisfy almost any one's aspirations, and, if height has
anything to do with ideas, the thoughts of these young students ought to
be well-nigh heavenly.
But, at last, we are compelled to say good-bye to Syracuse, and all its
pleasant associations, to say nothing of its salt. Westward the star of
Empire takes its way, and we have engaged a seat on the same train. It
is with real regret that we part company with these cities of our
beloved New York--Syracuse not the least among them. But the arrival of
the midnight "Lightning Express" for Rochester cuts short our musings,
and we are soon whirling away in the darkness, leaving the country of
the Onondagas far behind us, slumbering in the arms of night.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TORONTO.
Situation of Toronto.--The Bay.--History.--Rebellion of 1837.--
Fenian Invasion of 1866.--Population.--General Appearance.--
Sleighing.--Streets.--Railways.--Commerce.--Manufactures.--
Schools and Colleges.--Queen's Park.--Churches.--Benevolent
Institutions.--Halls and Other Public Buildings.--Hotels.--
Newspapers.--General Characteristics and Progress.
Toronto, the capital of the Province of Ontario, is situated on the
northern shore of Lake Ontario, on a beautiful and nearly circular bay,
about five miles in length, formed by a long, narrow, curved tongue of
land, extending out into the lake in a southwest direction. This harbor
is capable of receiving the largest vessels upon the lake, and is
defended at its entrance by a fort upon the extreme end of the
peninsula, which is called Gibraltar Point. This fort was thoroughly
repaired in 1864, and mounted with the most efficient modern ordnance.
Toronto was founded in 1794, by Governor Simcoe, who gave it the name of
York. In 1813, it was twice captured by the Americans, who burned the
public buildings and destroyed the fortifications. It was incorporated
as a city in 1834, when its name was changed to Toronto, an Indian word,
signifying "The place of meeting." It was the headquarters of the
Rebellion in 1837, when Sir Francis Head, then Governor of Upper Canada,
dissolved the House, for having stopped the supplies, as a retaliatory
measure upon his refusal to grant an elective legislative council. Sir
Francis had sent away from Upper Canada the whole of the Queen's army,
but putting himself at the head of the militia, he succeeded in
suppressing the insurrection. The city also suffered severely from the
fire of 1849. It has no manufactures of any importance, but, like most
of Western Canada, is chiefly dependent upon agriculture.
The growth of Toronto has been more rapid than that of any other city in
Canada. Though of such recent origin compared with many Canadian towns,
it is now second only to Montreal in size and population, the former
having increased from twelve hundred in 1837 to upwards of eighty
thousand at the present time. The site of the city is low, the
surrounding country being level, but free from swamp and perfectly dry.
The ground rises gently from the shores of the lake. The scenery in the
vicinity is tame and comparatively monotonous, though not unpleasing.
The city lies along the shores of the lake for something over two miles,
and extends inward about a mile and a half.
As one approaches Toronto its outlines appear picturesque, being varied
and broken by an unusual number of handsome spires. The traveler will be
pleasantly surprised, as he enters the city, at the extent and
excellence of its public edifices, the number of its churches, and its
general handsome and well-to-do aspect. Many of the houses and business
structures are built of light-colored brick, having a soft and cheerful
appearance. The streets are laid out regularly, crossing each other at
right angles, and, as a general thing, are well paved. In the winter
time they are filled with sleighs, and the air is alive with the music
of sleigh-bells. These sleighs are, some of them, most elegant in form
and finish, and provided with most costly furs. Every boy has his
hand-sled or "toboggan." At the same season of the year skating upon the
bay is a favorite amusement. King and Yonge streets are the leading
thoroughfares and fashionable promenades, being lined with handsome
retail stores which would do credit to any city in America. Other
important business streets are Front, Queen, York, Wellington and Bay.
Five railways centre at Toronto, connecting it with every section of
Canada, the West and the South. The principal of these are the Grand
Trunk and Great Western railways, which connect the city by through
lines with the East and West. While navigation is open magnificent
steamers connect it with all points on the lake, and carry on an
extensive commerce. It imports large quantities of lumber, both
manufactured and unmanufactured; wheat and other grain, soap, salt and
glue; while foundries, distilleries, breweries, tanneries, rope-walks,
paper and flour mills, furnish products which reach markets throughout
the Provinces and States.
Toronto is the centre of the Canadian school system, and its educational
institutions are numerous and of the highest order. It has Normal and
Model schools, in the first of which teachers exclusively are trained.
These schools, with the Educational Museum, built in the plain Italian
style, are picturesquely grouped in park-like grounds, on Church street.
The Museum contains a collection of curiosities, and a number of good
paintings and casts. The University of Toronto exhibits the finest
buildings in the city, and the finest of their kind in America. They
stand in a large park, approached by College avenue, half a mile in
length, and shaded by double rows of trees. The buildings, which are
of Norman architecture, of gray rubble stone, trimmed with Ohio and Caen
stone, form the sides of a large quadrangle. It was founded in 1843;
possesses a library of twenty thousand volumes, and a fine museum of
natural history, and has attached to it an observatory. Knox College,
Presbyterian, is situated a short distance north of the University, and
is a large building, in the Collegiate-Gothic style. Trinity College, in
Queen street west, overlooks the bay, and is an extensive and
picturesque structure, turreted and gabled, and surrounded by extensive
grounds. Upper Canada College is found in King street near John.
[Illustration: UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, CANADA.]
Adjoining the University grounds is Queen's Park, embracing the most
elevated quarter of the city, and including fifty acres, handsomely laid
out. In this park a brownstone shaft, surmounted by a colossal statue of
Britannia, perpetuates the memory of the Canadians who fell in repelling
the Fenian invasion in 1866. This park is from one hundred to two
hundred feet above the level of the lake, and is surrounded by handsome
public buildings and private residences.
The Episcopal Cathedral of St. James, at the corner of King and Church
streets, is a spacious edifice, in the early English style, with lofty
tower and spire, and elaborate open roof. It was built in 1852, and is
surrounded by well shaded grounds. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St.
Michael, fronting on Bond street, is a large, decorated Gothic
structure, with stained windows, and a spire two hundred and fifty feet
high. The Wesleyan Methodist Church, in McGill street, is the finest
church of that denomination in America. Its massive tower is surmounted
by graceful pinnacles, and its interior is tastefully and richly
decorated. Knox's Church has a beautiful spire. One of the finest
church edifices in the Dominion is the Jarvis street Baptist Church, in
the decorated Gothic style. St. Andrews Presbyterian is a massive stone
structure, which dates back to the Norman style of architecture.
Toronto contains many benevolent institutions, hospitals and asylums.
Prominent among them is the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, a large and
handsome building, situated west of the city, and surrounded by two
hundred acres of handsomely ornamented grounds. The General Hospital is
a fine structure, east of the city, in Don street, near Sumach.
The Normal School Building, with its beautifully laid out grounds, is
one of the most attractive spots in the city, and the building is said
to be the largest of the kind in America. There is very little fine
scenery in the environs.
One of the most strikingly beautiful buildings of Toronto is Osgood
Hall, in Queen street, an imposing structure, of elegant Ionic
architecture, the seat of the Superior Law Courts of Upper Canada, and
containing an extensive law library. St. Lawrence Hall, in King street,
is a stately structure, in the Italian style, surmounted by a dome,
containing a public hall and reading-room. Masonic Hall, an attractive
stone building, is in Toronto street. The city contains two Opera
Houses: the Grand, capable of seating two thousand persons, and the
Royal, with accommodations for about fifteen hundred persons. The Post
Office, a handsome stone building, stands near the head of Toronto
street. The Custom House is of cut stone, of imposing proportions,
extending from Front street to the Esplanade. The City Hall stands in
Front street near the Lake Shore, in the midst of an open square, and
is an unpretentious structure, in the Italian style. Near by is the
extensive Lawrence Market. The Court House is in Church street.
Of the hotels, the Rossin House, corner of King and York streets;
Queen's Hotel, in Front street; the American House, in Yonge street; and
the Revere House, in King street, are the most noteworthy.
Toronto takes a front rank in literature, a large number of newspapers
and periodicals, daily, weekly, and monthly, being issued from its
presses. It is unlike, in many respects, its sister cities of Lower
Canada. It has more of a nineteenth century air, and more of American
and less of European characteristics, than Montreal and Quebec. The
French Canadians form a smaller proportion of its inhabitants. The
people in the streets are well dressed and comfortable looking, stout
and sturdy, though not so tall, on an average, as the people of New
York. An educated population is growing up, and Toronto already ranks
well, in general intelligence and public enterprise, with other cities
of like magnitude in the States while it outranks all others on Canadian
soil.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
WASHINGTON.
Situation of the National Capital.--Site Selected by
Washington.--Statues of General Andrew Jackson, Scott,
McPherson, Rawlins.--Lincoln Emancipation Group.--Navy Yard
Bridge.--Capitol Building.--The White House.--Department of
State, War and Navy.--The Treasury Department.--Patent Office.--
Post Office Department.--Agricultural Building.--Army Medical
Museum.--Government Printing Office.--United States Barracks.--
Smithsonian Institute.--National Museum.--The Washington
Monument.--Corcoran Art Gallery.--National Medical College.--
Deaf and Dumb Asylum.--Increase of Population.--Washington's
Future Greatness.
Washington, the Capital of the United States of America, is situated in
the District of Columbia, on the left bank of the Potomac, between the
Anacostia or eastern branch of that river, and about one hundred and
eighty-five miles from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. At an early period,
indeed, before the clamor of war had fairly ceased, or the proud
standard of England had been driven from its shores, the necessity of a
territory which should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress
had engaged the attention of the founders of the new Republic. The
possession of such a territory formed an important feature in the
debates upon the framing of the Constitution, and it was only
forty-eight days after the last act of ratification that the Capital
City was, by solemn enactment of Congress, located on the eastern shore
of the beautiful Potomac.
The site of the Capital was selected by General Washington, the beloved
first President of the Republic, and covers an undulating tract on the
east bank of the river. From the rugged elevations on the borders of
Rock Creek, a crescent-shaped ridge crosses the northern portion of the
city, which is abruptly sundered, as it were, to admit the passage of a
small stream called the Tiber. From this point the ridge ascends,
gradually expanding into the extensive plateau of Capitol Hill,
overlooking the Anacostia on the east. Within this encircling ridge the
surface declines, in gentle slopes and terraces, down to the banks of
the Potomac. From the lower falls of the river at Georgetown, beyond the
outlying spurs of the Blue Ridge, a chain of low wooded hills extend
across the north, which, continuing along the opposite shores of the
Anacostia and Potomac, emerge again in the hills on the Virginia side of
that river, presenting the appearance of a vast amphitheatre, in the
centre of which stands the Capitol.
The mean altitude of the city is about forty feet above the ordinary low
tide of the Potomac; the soil on which it is built is generally a
yellowish-clay intermixed with gravel. In making excavations for wells
and cisterns, near New Jersey avenue, trees were found, in a good state
of preservation, at a depth of from six to forty-eight feet below the
surface.
The Tiber, a little stream, with its tributaries, passes through the
city. Tradition affirms that this stream received its name more than a
century before Washington city was founded, in the belief and with the
prediction that there would arise on its banks, in the future, a Capital
destined to rival in magnificent grandeur that which crowned the banks
of its great historic namesake. The streams forming this river have
their source among the hills to the east, and enter the city in several
directions, the principal branch winding off to the southwest, around
the base of Capitol Hill, across Pennsylvania avenue, to the Botanical
Gardens. Originally its course continued along the Mall and emptied into
the Potomac immediately west of the Washington Monument, but
subsequently it was diverted into the canal, the filling up of which
caused still other changes. The Tiber and its tributaries were utilized
by diverting them into the sewerage system of the central and southern
portions of the city; consequently, although the stream traverses one of
the most populous sections, its course is not visible, the current
flowing beneath heavy brick arches upon which buildings have been
erected, and avenues, streets and parks laid out. In primitive days the
banks of the Tiber were covered with heavy forests, while shad, herring
and other fish, in their season, were taken from its waters, under the
very shadow of the hill upon which the Capitol now stands.
There is no city in the Union which presents to the thoughtful and truly
patriotic American so many objects of interest as does the city of
Washington. First of all, this feeling is intensified by the fact of its
having been located and founded by the great, immortal _Pater Patriæ_
whose illustrious name it has the honor of bearing. A plan of the city
was prepared in 1791, by Peter L'Enfant, a French engineer of fine
education and decided genius, who had served in the Continental army
with such distinction as to attract the attention of General Washington.
He was assisted in the work by the advice and suggestions of Thomas
Jefferson, who, while diplomatic representative of the United States,
had studied the plans of the principal cities visited in Europe, with a
view to the future wants of his country, and was prepared, by the aid of
his personal knowledge of their details, to contribute valuable
information and suggestions.
It is evident that the predominating object in designing a plan for the
city, was first to secure the most eligible situations for the different
public buildings, and to arrange the squares and areas so that the most
extended views might be obtained from every direction. The amplest
arrangements were also made by the founders of Washington for its rapid
growth and expansion, while they evidently designed and anticipated its
being magnificently built up and embellished. The indifference of the
Government and people has permitted these suggestions to remain too long
unheeded; yet it is consoling to those possessing an intelligent
patriotism and proud love of country, to know that the neglected
condition of the Capital of the United States for nearly three-fourths
of a century was not the result of any defect in the design originated
by its noble founders.
Any one who has visited the royal residence of the kings of France, will
immediately recognize the resemblance between the plans of Le Notre for
Versailles, and L'Enfant for Washington City. The grand avenues, de
Sceaux and St. Cloud, diverging from the _Cour Royal_, are reproduced in
Pennsylvania and Maryland avenues, radiating from the east front of the
Capitol. Its broad thoroughfares are among the principal attractions of
Washington, and are the finest possessed by any city in the world. The
avenues, twenty-one in number, radiate from principal centres and
connect different parts of the city; the original number was thirteen,
named for the States constituting the Union at the time the Capital was
laid out. The first in importance is Pennsylvania avenue; its width
varies from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty feet; its
length is four and one-half miles, traversing the finest business
portion of the city, as well as being the most popular and fashionable
thoroughfare for driving. The War and Treasury departments, Washington
Circle, and the President's House, are each located on this superb
street, which, winding up and around Capitol Hill, finds its terminus on
the banks of the Anacostia.
The spaces at the intersection of the more important avenues form what
are called _Circles_. Washington Circle, at the intersection of
Pennsylvania and New Hampshire avenues, contains the equestrian statue
of General Washington, which was ordered by Congress, and cannon donated
for the purpose, in 1853. The great hero is represented at the crisis of
the battle of Princeton; the horse seems shrinking from the storm of
shot and shell and the fiery conflict confronting him; his rider
exhibits that calm equanimity of bearing so eminently his
characteristic. This statue was executed by Clark Mills, at a cost of
fifty thousand dollars.
At the western base of Capitol Hill stands the naval monument, termed in
the resolutions of Congress, the "_Monument of Peace_." It was designed
by Admiral Porter, and erected by subscriptions started by him among the
officers, midshipmen and men of his fleet, immediately after the fall of
Fort Fisher. The height of this monument is forty-four feet; it is built
of Carrara marble and cost $44,000. The surmounting figures represent
History recording the woes narrated by America, who holds a tablet in
her hand on which is inscribed: _They died that their country might
live._ This monument is exceedingly well executed, and was considered,
in Rome, one of the finest ever sent to America.
Lafayette Square, comprising seven acres lying north of the President's
House, is beautifully laid out with rustic seats, graveled walks, and
adorned with a rare variety of trees and shrubbery. In the centre of
this square stands an equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson, by
Clark Mills, originally contracted for by the friends and admirers of
the General composing the Jackson Monument Association, who subscribed
twelve thousand dollars towards its erection. Congress afterward granted
them the brass guns and mortars captured by General Jackson at
Pensacola. In 1850 an additional donation of guns was made; in 1852
another appropriation sufficient to complete the work was granted, and
Congress assumed possession of the monument. The figure of the horse is
weighted and poised without the aid of rods, as in the celebrated
statues of Peter the Great, at St. Petersburg, and Charles I., at
London. This was the first application of the principle, and resulted in
the production of one of the most graceful and astonishingly beautiful
works of its kind in existence. The statue is of colossal size, weighing
fifteen tons, and was erected at a cost of $50,000.
_Scott Square_, lying north of the White House, contains a bronze statue
of General Winfield Scott, made of cannon captured by the General during
his Mexican campaign, and donated by Congress in 1867. The work was
executed by Brown, of New York; with the pedestal, it is twenty-nine
feet high, and cost $20,000. The General is represented in full uniform,
mounted on his war-horse, surveying the field of battle.
The _Circle of Victory_, at the intersection of Massachusetts and
Vermont avenues, contains a bronze equestrian statue of General George
H. Thomas, of the Army of the Cumberland. The statue confronts the
South, in the direction of the General's native hills of Virginia. On
the site of this monument a salute of eight hundred guns was fired in
commemoration of the capture of Petersburg and Richmond on the third of
April, 1865; and, a few days later, five hundred guns were fired from
the same spot in honor of General Lee's surrender and the fall of the
Southern Confederacy.
On East Capitol street, at a distance of about one mile from the
Capitol, is a square comprising six and a half acres, beautifully laid
out and adorned with trees, shrubbery and walks. In this enclosure a
bronze group called _Emancipation_ has been erected; Abraham Lincoln is
represented holding in his right hand the proclamation which gave
freedom to the negroes of the South. A slave kneels at his feet, with
manacles broken, and in the act of rising as they fall from his hands.
This monument is said to have been built exclusively of funds
contributed by the negroes liberated by Lincoln's proclamation of
January first, 1863. The first contribution of five hundred dollars was
made, it is stated, by Charlotte Scott, formerly a slave in Virginia,
out of her first earnings as a freed-woman, and consecrated by her, on
hearing of President Lincoln's death, to aid in building a monument to
his memory. The interesting memorial was unveiled with appropriate
ceremonies, on the anniversary of his assassination, April fourteenth,
1876, the President and his Cabinet, foreign ministers, and a vast
concourse of white and colored citizens being present. Including the
pedestal of Virginia granite, the structure is twenty-two feet in
height, and cost $20,000. It was in this square, now called _Lincoln
Square_, that, according to the founder's original plan of
embellishment, a grand _Historic Column_ was to have been erected, to
serve as an itinerary column, from which all geographical distances
within the boundaries of the United States should be calculated.
_McPherson Square_, on Vermont avenue, contains a bronze equestrian
statue of General James Birdseye McPherson, who was killed near Atlanta,
at the head of the Army of the Tennessee, in 1864. He is represented in
full uniform, with field-glasses in hand, surveying the battle-ground. A
vault was constructed beneath the statue, for the purpose of receiving
his body, but the devoted opposition of the people prevented its removal
from his native place.
Farragut and Rawlins squares contain respectively colossal, but not
equestrian statues of Admiral Farragut and General Rawlins.
Mount Vernon Place, at the intersection of New York and Massachusetts
avenues, is handsomely laid out and planted with trees; in the centre,
occupying an elevated circular space, is a superb fountain of bronze.
There are numerous smaller spaces at the intersection of various streets
and avenues, called triangular reservations, all of which are highly
adorned with trees, shrubs and beautiful small fountains.
The Government Propagating Gardens cover an area of eighty acres on the
banks of the Potomac, south of Washington's Monument. The Botanical
Garden, an instructive place of public resort, lies at the foot of
Capitol Hill, between Pennsylvania and Maryland avenues. North of the
Conservatory is found the Bartholdi Fountain, which is supplied with
water from the aqueduct, its highest stream reaching an altitude of
sixty-five feet. This fountain is the work of Frederic Augustus
Bartholdi, a French sculptor and pupil of Scheffer. It will be
remembered by all who visited the National Centennial Exposition at
Philadelphia, where it was exhibited, and afterward purchased by
Congress for the inadequate sum of six thousand dollars. The lower basin
is twenty-six feet in diameter, and from its centre rises a pedestal
bearing aquatic monsters and fishes spouting water; three female
caryatides, eleven feet high, support a basin thirteen feet in diameter;
a smaller basin above this is upheld by three infant Tritons, the whole
being surmounted by a mural crown. Twelve lamps, arranged around the
lower basin, and lighted by electricity, give the most beautiful effects
of light and water. On the plaza in front of the Treasury Department, is
another fine fountain, in the form of an immense granite urn, the
_tassa_ of which measures sixteen feet in diameter.
Immediately in front of Washington city the Potomac expands into a
broad, lake-like body of water, a mile and a quarter wide and at least
eighteen feet deep. The Anacostia River, at its mouth, is almost the
same width and fully as deep. Improving the navigation of the Potomac
and the construction of a canal to the head waters of the Ohio River,
were enterprises that began with the founding of the National Capital.
In 1872, Congress appointed a board of officers with a view to the
improvement of the channel of the river and water fronts of Washington
and Georgetown, for commercial purposes, as well as the reclamation of
the malaria-infected marshes opposite the city. These improvements will
necessitate the rebuilding of Long Bridge for railroad and ordinary
traveling purposes, and reclaim more than a thousand acres of valuable
land. It is proposed to remove the National Observatory and use the
earth for filling up the marshes.
The _Navy Yard Bridge_ crosses the Anacostia River, at the foot of
Eleventh street, having supplanted the wooden structure built in 1819,
over which Booth made his escape after the assassination of Lincoln.
The various buildings occupied by the Executive and Legislative branches
of the Government are worthy of especial notice. The _Capitol_ is
considered one of the largest and finest edifices of the kind in the
world, and in point of durability of structure and costliness of
material, it certainly has no superior. It stands on the west side of
Capitol Hill, very near the centre of the city, and one mile distant
from the Potomac River. The main or central building is three hundred
and fifty two feet in length, with two wings or extensions, each having
a front of one hundred and forty-three feet on the east and west, and a
depth of two hundred and thirty-nine feet along the north and south
_façades_, exclusive of the porticoes. The entire length of this great
edifice is seven hundred and fifty feet; its greatest depth three
hundred and twenty-four feet; the ground plan covering three and a half
acres.
The central and original Capitol building is of freestone, taken from
the Government quarries at Aquia Creek, forty miles below the city,
which were purchased for that purpose, by the Commissioners, in 1791.
This building is now painted white, to correspond with the extensions,
columns and porticoes of white marble. From the centre rises the great
dome, designed by Walter, to replace the original one removed in 1856,
after the additions to the building had rendered it out of proportion.
The apex is surmounted by a lantern fifty feet high, surrounded by a
peristyle, and crowned by the bronze statue of Freedom executed by
Crawford in 1865. The height from the base line to the crest of this
statue is three hundred and eight feet, making the dome of the Capitol
rank fifth in height with the greatest structures of the kind in Europe.
The great dome is visible from every elevated point in the District for
miles around, and from its windows, as far as the eye can reach, is
extended a panorama of wooded hills, beautiful valleys, with the
majestic cloud-capped spurs of the Blue Ridge raising their lofty heads
in the distance. The eastern façade of the building looks out upon the
extended plain of Capitol Hill, with its background of green hills
reaching far beyond the Anacostia. On the north a broad valley extends,
until it unites with the encircling hills of the city; on the south the
majestic Potomac and Anacostia rivers are seen to meet and mingle their
placid waters; while from the west are beheld the lawns and groves of
the Botanic Garden, the Mall, and handsome grounds of the President's
house, with Georgetown Heights and the glittering domes of the
Observatory in the distance.
The main entrance, from the grand portico into the rotunda is filled by
the celebrated bronze door modeled by Rogers, in Rome, 1858, and cast in
bronze at Munich, by Miller, in 1860. On the panels of this door are
portrayed, in _alto relievo_, the principal events in the life of
Christopher Columbus, and the discovery of America. The key of the arch
is adorned with a fine head of the great navigator; in the four corners
of the casing are statuettes, representing Asia, Africa, Europe and
America, with a border in relief of ancient armor, banners and heraldic
designs emblematic of navigation and conquest. Bordering each leaf on
the door are statuettes, sixteen in number, of his patrons and
contemporaries; the nine panels bear _alto relievo_ illustrations of the
principal events in his life; while between the panels are a series of
heads, representing the historians of the great discoverer and his
followers. Altogether, this justly celebrated bronze door, besides being
wonderful as a work of art, constitutes in itself a small volume of the
most interesting and important events belonging to the history of our
country.
[Illustration: EAST FRONT OF CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON.]
The rotunda into which the door leads is embellished with eight large
historical paintings, by different artists. Four of these were executed
by Trumbell, who served as aid-de-camp to Washington in 1775, and
reproduced in his figures the likenesses of the actors in the scenes
portrayed. In arranging the characters for the "Declaration of
Independence," in which the Congress of 1776 is represented in the act
of signing that great instrument of American liberty, the artist
conferred with Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration, and John Adams,
both of whom were present and signers. The individual costumes, the
furniture, and the hall itself, are represented with scrupulous
fidelity, all of which tends to increase the interest inspired by this
painting.
The _National Library_ was founded by act of Congress in 1800, and the
following year, after the report of John Randolph, of Roanoke, had been
submitted, setting forth the necessity for further legislation on the
subject, a second act was passed, which placed it on a permanent basis.
The number of volumes first contained in the library was three thousand,
but appropriations were annually made by Congress to increase the
number. In 1814 the Capitol was burned by the British, and the library
destroyed; a few months later, Thomas Jefferson offered the Government
his private collection of 6,700 volumes, among which were many rare and
valuable works obtained in Europe, and these were purchased for the sum
of $23,950. In 1866 the Smithsonian Library, containing forty thousand
volumes, was added, and a year later, the _Peter Force_ collection was
purchased by Congress, for $100,000; constant additions have increased
the number, until the library now contains nearly four hundred thousand
bound volumes, and one hundred thousand pamphlets. It is enriched also
by journals, manuscripts, and maps relating to the history and
topography of the country; in respect to the latter, being only
approached by the library in the British Museum. The Library halls
occupy the principal floor of the entire west projection of the Capitol.
In the _Vice President's Room_ hangs the original painting of
Washington, taken from life by Rembrandt Peale, and purchased by the
Government in 1832, for the sum of two thousand dollars.
The _Senate Reception Room_ is a beautiful and brilliant apartment,
about sixty feet in length, with its vaulted and arched ceiling, divided
into four sections, adorned with allegorical frescoes of _Prudence_,
_Justice_, _Temperance_ and _Strength_, executed by Brumidi, in 1856.
The ceiling is heavily gilded throughout; the walls finished in stucco
and gilt, with a base of Scagliola, imitating the marbles of Potomac and
Tennessee. A finely executed fresco, in oil, by Brumidi, adorns the
south wall, representing Washington in consultation with Jefferson and
Hamilton, his Secretaries of State and Treasury.
The _President's Boom_ is an equally magnificent apartment, with groined
arches embellished with numerous allegorical figures in fresco, the
decoration, by Brumidi, being, in general design, the same as in the
private audience chamber of the Vatican at Rome. The work throughout is
very fine, being richly decorated with arabesques on a groundwork of
gilt; the luxurious furniture of the apartment is entirely in keeping
with this high order of artistic finish.
The old _Hall of the House of Representatives_ is a magnificent
apartment, designed and planned after the theatre at Athens, with
fourteen Corinthian columns of variegated marble, forming a circular
colonnade on the north. The bases of these columns are of freestone, the
capitals of Carrara marble, designed and executed in Italy, after those
in the temple of Jupiter Stator, at Rome; the paneled dome overhead is
similar to that of the Pantheon. This venerable apartment was occupied
by the House of Representatives for thirty-two years; its atmosphere
must, in consequence, ever continue redolent with historic associations.
On its walls, in the old days, hung the full-length portraits of
Washington and Lafayette, presented by the latter on his last visit to
this country; and the exact spot is pointed out where stood the desk of
the venerable Ex-President, John Quincy Adams, when that aged patriot
and senator was stricken by death. When, on the completion of the new,
the old Hall was abandoned, in 1857, it was set apart, by Congress, as a
_National Statuary Gallery_, and the President authorized to invite the
different States to contribute statues, in bronze or marble, of such
among their distinguished citizens as they might especially desire to
honor, the number being limited to two from each State. These
contributions have been coming in slowly from year to year, besides
which, many valuable statues and paintings have been purchased and
added, by the Government.
The new _Hall of Representatives_ is said to be the finest in the world;
its length being one hundred and thirty-nine feet, width ninety-three,
and height thirty-six feet, while the galleries will seat twenty-five
hundred persons. The ceiling is of cast-iron, with panels gilded and
filled with stained-glass centres, on which are represented the
coat-of-arms of each of the different States. The walls are adorned with
valuable historical paintings and frescoes.
The _Supreme Court Room_, formerly the old United States Senate Chamber,
is a semicircular apartment, seventy-five feet in diameter; its height
and greatest width being forty-five feet. The ceiling is formed by a
flattened dome, ornamented with square caissons in stucco, with
apertures for the admission of light. Supporting a gallery back of the
Judges' seats extends a row of Ionic columns of Potomac marble, with
capitals of white Italian marble, modeled after those in the Temple of
Minerva. Along the western wall are marble brackets, each supporting the
bust of a deceased Chief Justice.
When occupied by the Senate, the Hall contained desks for sixty-four
Senators. It was in this chamber that the Nation's purest and most
profound statesmen assembled, and the great "Immortal Trio," Clay,
Webster and Calhoun, made those wonderful forensic efforts which gave
their names forever to fame and the admiration of posterity.
The _New Senate Chamber_, first occupied in 1859, is a magnificent
apartment, belonging to the new extension of the Capitol, one hundred
and thirteen feet in length by eighty feet in width, and thirty-six feet
high. The Senators' desks are constructed of mahogany, and arranged in
concentric semicircles around the apartment. The galleries rise and
recede in tiers to the corridors of the second floor, and are capable of
seating twelve thousand people.
Immense iron girders and transverse pieces compose the ceiling, forming
deep panels, each glazed with a symbolic centre piece; the walls are
richly painted, the doors elaborately finished with bronze ornaments.
From the lobby we pass into the _Senate Retiring Room_, handsomely
furnished, and said to be the finest apartment of the kind in the world.
The ceiling is composed of massive blocks of polished white marble,
which form deep panels, resting upon four Corinthian columns, also of
white Italian marble. Highly polished Tennessee marble lines the entire
walls, in the panels of which are placed immense plate glass mirrors,
enhancing the brilliancy and already striking effect of the whole.
The limits of this chapter will not admit of further description of the
numerous apartments gorgeously furnished; the palatial corridors
beautifully designed; magnificent vestibules with fluted columns of
marble; richly gilt paneled ceilings and tinted walls; grand stairways
of marble and bronze, with the statues, busts, paintings and bronzes,
which enrich the Capitol, many of them being masterpieces of art, and
none devoid of merit. A detailed account of all would fill a small
volume; we are compelled, therefore, to reluctantly leave the subject,
and proceed to the description of the Public Buildings.
The _President's House_ is situated in the western part of the city,
distant one and a half miles from the Capitol. A premium of five hundred
dollars was awarded James Hoban, architect, of South Carolina, for the
plan, and the corner stone laid, with Masonic honors, October
thirteenth, 1792. John Adams was the first presidential occupant; he
took possession during the month of November, 1800, after the Government
offices had been removed to Washington. This building was burned by the
British in 1814; the following year Congress authorized its restoration,
committing the work to the original architect, Hoban, by whom it was
completed in 1826, in all its details. It is built of freestone, one
hundred and seventy feet in length, eighty-six in width, with grand
porticoes on the north and south fronts, supported by Ionic columns. The
main entrance is on the north, by a spacious vestibule handsomely
frescoed. The _Blue Room_, in which the President receives, on both
public and private occasions, is an oval-shaped apartment, finished in
blue and gilt, with draperies and furniture of blue damask.
Communicating with this is a second parlor called the _Green Room_, from
the prevailing color of the furniture and hangings. In this apartment
are found the portraits of Presidents Madison, Monroe, Harrison and
Taylor. _The East Room_, which closes the suite, is a truly royal
apartment, magnificently decorated in a style purely Grecian, the
ceiling frescoed in oil, mantles of exquisite wood carving, immense
mirrors in magnificent frames, with the richest furniture, and window
drapery of the costliest lace and damask. A full length portrait of
Washington adorns this apartment, purchased by Congress in 1803. When
the Capitol was burned, in 1814, this painting was rescued from
destruction by Mrs. Madison, who had it removed from the frame and
carried to a place of safety. A portrait of Martha, the wife of
Washington, also hangs in this room, painted by Andrews in 1878.
The numerous other apartments in the President's House exhibit the same
lavish style of adorning, the furniture being constantly changed and
renewed; but the vandal spirit of _change_ has not, as yet, dared to lay
its sacrilegious hand upon or to alter the construction of the house,
which remains the same as when, almost a century ago, it was first
occupied by the elder President Adams. It is not difficult, therefore,
to evoke the spirit of the past while standing among these ancient
apartments, halls and corridors, and behold in fancy the long line of
true statesmen, incorruptible patriots and noble men, who have
successively lived and moved among them, in the early days of the
Republic. And it is to be devoutly hoped that the vanity and caprice of
the rulers who, in these later years, are being cast into high places,
will not prevail in the effort to have this venerable home of the
Presidents, hallowed by the memories of the nation's past, cast aside,
and another building, modern and meaningless, substituted in its stead.
Immediately west of the President's House stands the _Department of
State, War and Navy_, a vast and imposing structure in the Doric style,
combining the massive proportions of the ancient with the elegance of
modern architecture. The Diplomatic Reception Room is a magnificent
apartment, decorated and furnished in the most sumptuous manner, with
ebonized woods and gold brocade, after the Germanized Egyptian style.
The portraits of Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton, by Healy (purchased
by Congress from the widow of Fletcher Webster, 1879), adorn the walls,
and over the mantels are busts, in bronze, of Washington and Lafayette.
In the Diplomatic Ante-room is seen a full-length portrait of the Bey of
Tunis, sent by special envoy in 1865, with a letter of condolence to the
Government, on the death of Lincoln. Above this apartment is the
library, containing a valuable collection of works on diplomacy, and
many objects of interest, including the original draft of the
Declaration of Independence, with the desk on which it was written,
presented to the Government by the heirs of James Coolidge, of
Massachusetts, to whom it was presented by Thomas Jefferson. The
original document, _signed_, is also here, together with the sword of
Washington, purchased by Congress in 1880, and his commission as
Commander-in-Chief; the staff of Franklin; original drafts of the laws
of the United States, the Federal Constitution, and other valuable and
interesting historic documents, from the foundation of the Government.
The entire building contains one hundred and fifty apartments, and cost
five million dollars.
The _Treasury Department_ is situated east of the President's House; it
presents a most classic appearance, with its three stories in the pure
Ionic style of architecture, upon a basement of rustic work, surmounted
by an attic and balustrade. It has four fronts and principal entrances;
the western front, consisting of a colonnade, after the style of the
temple of Minerva, at Athens, is three hundred and thirty-six feet long,
with thirty Ionic columns, and recessed porticoes on either end. This
building contains the vaults in which the current funds and National
Bank bonds of the Government are kept. The Secretary's office is a
beautiful apartment, on the second floor. The walls being formed of
various kinds of highly polished marble. This building contains two
hundred apartments, exclusive of the basement and attic, and cost six
million dollars.
[Illustration: STATE, WAR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
The _Bureau of Engraving and Printing_, a branch of the Treasury
Department, occupies a separate building, recently erected, at a cost of
three hundred thousand dollars. It is a handsome structure, of pressed
brick, in the Romanesque style, is entirely fireproof, and situated
between the Agricultural Department and the Washington Monument.
The _Patent Office_, an immense building covering two squares, or two
and three-fourths acres of ground (which in the original plan of the
city had been set apart for the erection of a National Mausoleum, or
church), is in the Doric style of architecture, after the Parthenon at
Athens, and impresses all who behold it with the grandeur of its
proportions. The Museum of Models, a collection of inventions, both
native and foreign, patented by the Government, occupies the four
immense halls on the second floor, and contains upwards of one hundred
and fifty-five thousand models, which have accumulated since the fire of
1836. In December, of that year, the old building was destroyed,
containing four thousand models, the accumulation of half a century. But
for this calamity, the progress of mechanical arts in the United States
could be traced back to the foundation of the Government. The south Hall
of the Museum is a magnificent apartment, two hundred and forty-two feet
long, sixty-three feet wide, and thirty feet high, decorated in the
Pompeiian style, the entire structure of the room being in solid
masonry. Among the historical relics contained here, are the uniform of
Washington, worn at the time he resigned his commission, and his sword,
secretary, compass, and sleeping tent, with camp utensils for cooking,
etc. The number and variety of models contained in these four large
halls are almost bewildering, and afford material for hours of study.
The cost of this immense structure was two million, seven hundred
thousand, but the entire sum has been principally liquidated by the
surplus funds received, which annually amount to at least two hundred
thousand dollars.
The _General Post Office_ building is immediately opposite the Patent
Office; it is a most imposing edifice, constructed of white marble, from
the quarries of New York, and was built--the portion fronting on E
street--in 1839. The northern half of the square was afterward purchased
by the Government, and the extension begun in 1855; the building, as now
completed, being three hundred feet in length, by two hundred and four
in depth, with a large courtyard in the centre, entered on the west
front by a carriage way, where the mails are received and sent out.
Above the basement, on every side of this noble structure, arise
monolithic columns and pilasters, surmounted by handsomely wrought
capitals, upon which rests a paneled cornice. The main entrance is
adorned with Doric columns, and the ceiling, walls and floor finished
with white marble. In the office of the Postmaster-General is a fine
collection of photographs and crayons of those who have filled this
position since the appointment of Samuel Osgood, by Washington, in 1789.
The cost of this building was one million seven hundred thousand
dollars.
The _Agricultural Building_ is a large and handsome structure, built of
pressed brick, in the _renaissance_ style of architecture, with
trimmings of brown stone. Immediately in front of the house is a flower
garden, beautifully laid out, and planted with an almost countless
variety of flowers; the remaining grounds adjacent to the building have
been laid out as an _arboreture_, with walks and drives winding through
forests of trees and shrubs, all of which have been planted according to
the strictest botanical rules. The experimental grounds, occupying ten
acres in the rear of the house, contain artificial lakes, rivers and
swamps, for the cultivation of water and marsh plants. The building is
handsomely finished and the various apartments and offices elegantly
furnished, including a handsome library, thoroughly equipped laboratory,
and an _Agricultural Museum_, which occupies the main building, and is
replete with objects of interest and beauty too numerous to admit of
description. The _Plant Houses_ are immense conservatories, in which the
fruits and flowers of every clime and country may be found _growing_.
The main structure is three hundred and twenty feet long, by thirty
wide, with a projecting wing giving one hundred and fifty feet
additional. On the north bank of the Potomac is the _Naval Observatory_,
one of the principal astronomical establishments in the world. The
Observatory was founded in 1842, the location being selected by
President Tyler. The site had been called "University Square," from the
fact that it had been the cherished intention of Washington, from the
foundation of the city, to urge the erection upon this spot of a
_National University_. The central building of the Observatory was
completed in 1844--a two-story building, with wings, and surmounted by a
dome. The great telescope, purchased in 1873, cost forty-seven thousand
dollars, and is the most powerful instrument in the world, the
refracting glass being twenty-six inches; the focal length thirty-two
and a half feet. The library contains six thousand volumes, a number of
them very rare, dating back to 1482.
The _Army Medical Museum_ was formerly Ford's Theatre, in which
President Lincoln was assassinated on the fourteenth of April, 1865. The
building was purchased a year later, by Congress, remodeled and
converted to its present use. No trace has been left to indicate the
exact location of the murder. The Chemical Laboratory, on the first
floor, was the restaurant in which Booth took his last drink; among the
relics and curiosities is a portion of the vertebrae taken from the neck
of the assassin. The first floor is occupied by the record and pension
division of the Surgeon General's office, and upon the registers are
inscribed the names of three hundred thousand of the _dead_. The Museum
is on the third floor, and contains about sixteen thousand medical,
surgical, and anatomical specimens.
The _Government Printing Office_ is a large four-story building, in
which the printing of the two Houses of Congress and other Departments
is done. In 1794 an appropriation of ten thousand dollars was made, and
sufficed, for "firewood, stationery and printing; the amount required at
the present time to meet the expenses of this department is two million
five hundred thousand dollars per annum, showing the rapid advance of
the country, in extent, population, and the prodigality of its
representatives as well.
The _United States Barracks_, formerly the _Arsenal_, is situated at the
extreme southern point of the city. A Government Penitentiary was
erected on the grounds in 1826; in one of the lower cells was buried
the body of Booth, and afterward those of the other conspirators. The
Penitentiary was taken down in 1869, at which time the family of Booth
was permitted to remove his body to Baltimore, where it was interred in
the family burial lot at Druid Hill, the grave remaining unmarked. In
front of the old buildings, the grounds, since the war, have been
beautifully laid out, and contain a number of cannon captured by the
Government forces in different conflicts. There is a brass gun with a
ball shot into its muzzle at the battle of Gettysburg, and two captured
Blakely guns, one of which bears the inscription: "Presented to the
Sovereign State of South Carolina, by one of her citizens residing
abroad, in commemoration of the twentieth of December, 1860." There are
also British, French, and Mexican cannon, captured from those nations,
some of them dated as far back as 1756.
On the Anacostia, three-fourths of a mile from the Capitol, is the _Navy
Yard_, formally established by act of Congress in 1804, and in those
early days standing unrivaled, as it sent out such famous vessels as the
Wasp, Argus, and Viper; and frigates, carrying 44 guns each, were built
in its shops. But the gradual filling up of the channel in which ships
of the line formerly anchored, and the increased facilities of other
later established stations, have deprived the old yard of its importance
as a naval constructing port, although it is still one of the most
important for the manufacture of supplies. The _Marine Barracks_,
organized in 1798, are but a short distance from the Navy Yard gate; the
building is seven hundred feet in length, with accommodations for two
hundred men. The Barracks were burned by the British in 1814, but were
at once rebuilt.
The _Smithsonian Institute_, by name, is generally familiar, while
comparatively few are acquainted with its origin, the design of its
founder, his antecedents or history, all of which are peculiarly
interesting, and deserving of a more extended notice than our sketch
will permit. James Smithson was an Englishman, the son of the first Duke
of Northumberland, and a grand nephew, on his mother's side, of Charles,
the proud Duke of Somerset. Whether or not any secret romance was
connected with his life, we are not informed; all that is known is, that
he devoted himself to literature and science, was never married, and
died at Genoa, Italy, in 1828, bequeathing his fortune to his nephew,
Henry James Hungerford, during life; at his death to become the property
of the United States; in the language of the will, "To found, at
Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institute, an
establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."
The Government accepted the bequest, which was at its disposal as early
as 1836, and the original fund, of upwards of five hundred and fifteen
thousand dollars, was deposited in the Treasury. A little more than ten
years later the Smithsonian Institute was organized, a board of Regents
appointed, and the corner-stone laid, with masonic ceremonies, May the
first, 1847. The building was completed in 1856, the accrued interest
being mere than sufficient to cover all the expenses of its erection,
and leaving a permanent fund of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in the Treasury for its future maintenance. In less than a year after
the close of the war the main building was partially destroyed by fire,
together with the papers and reports of the Institute, and the personal
effects of its founder. It was immediately restored, however; but the
Library, comprising a large collection of valuable scientific works, was
removed to the Capitol. It would seem that this immense building, so
generously endowed, could, and should, be made to advance "the increase
and diffusion of knowledge among men," in a more direct and individual
manner, by being devoted to educational purposes. But further than its
use in conducting exchanges between the Government and scientific bodies
at home and abroad, and the care of the National Museum, the Smithsonian
Institute has contributed nothing toward "the advancement of knowledge
among men," and those, generally, of the country whom it was especially
intended to benefit.
The _National Museum_, completed in 1879, is situated a very short
distance east of the Institute, and covers nearly two and a half acres
of ground. It is a handsome structure, of the modernized Romanesque
style of architecture; having four entrances and eight lofty towers; the
principal entrance being approached by granite steps, thirty-seven feet
wide, to a richly tiled platform. Above the inscription plate on the
globe of the nave, is an allegorical group representing Columbia as the
patroness of Science and Industry. The whole is surmounted by a dome;
the windows filled with double glass imported from Belgium; in fine, the
entire building is externally and internally complete, being finished
and furnished in the most costly and elegant manner. The large
collections of the Museum in the Smithsonian Institute, are to be
divided; objects of purely natural history being alone kept in the
Institute, the second floor of which will be devoted to archæology,
including the antiquities of the "Stone Age."
South of the President's House, and but a short distance from the stone
which marks the centre of the District stands the National Monument to
the Father of his Country, designed by Mills. It was completed on
Saturday, December sixth, 1884, by the setting of its marble cap-stone.
The idea of this National Monument took definite shape in 1833, when the
_Washington National Monument Association_ was organized, composed of
some of the most distinguished men of the country. The design was to
build it by means of popular subscriptions, of individual sums, not to
exceed one dollar each. In 1847 the collections amounted to $87,000, and
with this sum it was determined to begin the work. On the Fourth of
July, 1848 the corner stone of the monument was laid; in 1854, the funds
of the _National Monument Association_ were exhausted. The structure had
then reached a height of one hundred and seventy feet, and during the
succeeding twenty-four years only four feet were added to its altitude.
August twenty-second, 1876, Congress passed an Act, creating a
commission for its completion, and made the necessary appropriation,
which was to be continued annually. Before resuming work on the
monument, it was deemed best to strengthen the foundation by placing
under the shaft an additional mass of concrete, one hundred and
twenty-three feet, three inches beyond the old foundation. The weight of
the mass then worked under was 32,176 tons. The total pressure on the
foundation as it now stands is 80,378 tons.
The monument is a marble obelisk, the marble having been brought from
the quarries of the Beaver Dam Marble Company, Baltimore County,
Maryland. The shaft, from the floor, is 555 feet, 4 inches high, being
thirty feet, five inches higher than the spires of the great cathedral
of Cologne. The present foundation is thirty-six feet, eight inches
deep, making an aggregate height, from the bed of the foundation, of 592
feet, the loftiest work of ancient or modern times. The walls of the
obelisk, at its base, are over fifteen feet thick, and at the 500 feet
mark, where the pyramidal top begins, eighteen inches thick. The total
cost of the monument has been $1,130,000. Within the obelisk is an
elevator and a stairway. On the latter there are nine hundred steps, and
about twenty minutes are required to make the descent.
The _Corcoran Art Gallery_ is one of the most interesting and valued
institutions belonging to the National Capitol, and the last that our
limits will permit being described at length. The building stands on the
corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventeenth street, and is constructed
of brick, in the Renaissance style of architecture, finished with
freestone ornaments and a variety of beautiful carving. On the avenue
front are four statues, in Carrara marble, executed by Ezekiel, in Rome,
of _Phidias_, _Raphael_, _Michael Angelo_, and _Albert Durer_,
representing respectively, sculpture, painting, architecture and
engraving. In the vestibules and corridors are casts of ancient _bas
reliefs_, with numerous antique busts and statues in marble. The _Hall
of Bronzes_ contains a very large and interesting collection of bronzes,
armor, ceramic ware, etc. The Hall of _Antique Sculpture_, almost one
hundred feet in length, contains casts of the most celebrated specimens
of ancient sculpture. The _Main Picture Gallery_ is also nearly one
hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, with a collection of paintings
ranking among the first of this country, and more than one hundred and
fifteen in number. The _Octagon Chamber_ contains the original Greek
Slave, by Powers. In the _East Gallery_ is displayed a valuable
collection of portraits of distinguished Americans, painted by the best
native artists; in the _West Gallery_, is a large number of paintings,
historical, landscape and other subjects.
The _Corcoran Art Gallery_ was presented to the city and country by W.
W. Corcoran, Esq., in 1869. This magnificent gift, including the donor's
private collection of paintings and statuary, cost three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, to which he added an endowment fund of nine
hundred thousand dollars more. Mr. Corcoran has also erected and
elegantly furnished, a large and beautiful building, called the _Louise
Home_, at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, with an endowment fund
of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. _The Home_, the only
institution of its kind in the entire country, is an asylum for ladies
of education and refinement who have been reduced in fortune. The house
is furnished in a style of subdued elegance, with every luxury and
convenience to be found in the best appointed private residence; while
the ladies are waited upon and treated with the same attention and
respect as if they were each paying an extravagant rate of board. There
are ample accommodations for fifty-five ladies, who must have reached
the age of fifty-years, as a general rule, and who make their
application for admission in writing. There is _no charge_ for
admission, nor expense of any kind, nor _limit_ to the time of remaining
at the _Louise Home_. This beautiful institution, in which charity is
bestowed in so refined and delicate, yet magnificent a manner, has been
erected and endowed by the Founder _in memoriam_ of a beloved wife and
only daughter and child. It is but due to this great philanthropist, to
mention here, that in addition to his gifts named above, the _National
Medical College, of Columbian University_, was his gift, in 1864, and
cost forty thousand dollars. The original grounds of _Oak Hill
Cemetery_, comprising ten acres, were also donated by him, together with
an endowment fund of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars; the
grounds were incorporated by Congress in 1840. It were fortunate for
mankind if the number of such benefactors were greater, and the wisdom
displayed by Mr. Corcoran oftener imitated by the rich, who, if they
_give_, permit their good deeds only "_to live after them_," instead of
planning, and directing with their own hands, the schemes of benevolence
they desire to inaugurate for the benefit of their unfortunate fellow
beings.
There are many places of historical interest that might be described, as
well as numerous Halls, Colleges, Hospitals, etc., but the limits of
this paper will not permit. We shall only refer to the _Government
Hospital for the Insane_, situated at the junction of the Potomac and
Anacostia rivers, and one of the finest and largest institutions of the
kind in the world. It is seven hundred and fifty feet in length by two
hundred deep, containing five hundred single rooms, and accommodations
for more than nine hundred patients. The _Deaf and Dumb Asylum and
College_ are also conspicuous among the Public Institutions, built in
the pointed Gothic style, and costing the Government $350,000.
During the late war Washington was converted into a vast fortress, and
made the base of operations for the entire forces of the Union. The
hills surrounding it were covered with the camps of soldiers, while its
vast streets and avenues hourly echoed the tread of moving troops, and
the heavy crushing roll of artillery. At the close of the contest the
city was found to have risen high upon the wave of revolution; a new
element had been infused into its population, and the march of
improvement had begun. In ten years the number of inhabitants had
increased fifty thousand. With the continuance of peace, and the spirit
of improvement and progress remaining unchecked, it may reasonably be
predicted and confidently anticipated, that the close of the Nineteenth
Century will find the Capital City of this great Republic approaching in
splendor and importance the realization of the proudest hope and dream
of magnificence ever cherished in the hearts of its worthy founders, and
in _itself_ a monument worthy of the immortal name of WASHINGTON.
_TESTIMONIALS._
COMMENDATIONS
OF
Peculiarities of American Cities.
_Buffalo Sunday Times._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is the title of the latest work of
Captain Willard Glazier, whose numerous books show great versatility and
vivacity. The work before us contains sketches of thirty-nine of the
principal cities of the United States and Canada. It is replete with
interest. The pages are not filled with a mass of dry statistics or mere
description, but record the personal observations of the author,
detailed in an easy, familiar style.
_Hamilton (Canada) Tribune._
The "Peculiarities of American Cities" contains a chatty description of
the leading American and Canadian cities. A bright, descriptive style
gives piquancy to the work, which is a gazetteer without seeming to be
so. The Canadian cities described are Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec, and
the accounts given of them are accurate. This being so of our own land,
the probability is strong that the accounts given of the American cities
are so too.
_Rock Island Union._
Captain Willard Glazier, whose war stories have proved so attractive,
has turned his attention to another field, and proved that he can write
entertainingly while imparting information to his readers of permanent
reference value. His new book is entitled "Peculiarities of American
Cities," and embodies the results of his personal observations and
studies in the leading towns of the country. There are thirty-nine
chapters, and each one is devoted to a different city, and may be said
to be complete in itself. The classification is alphabetical, beginning
with Albany and ending with Washington. The descriptive work has been
well and faithfully done, and the prominent features of each city have
received especial attention. This is the special point of the work--to
show the distinct peculiarities and characteristics of our cities--and
the charm lies in the fact that every city is treated in accordance with
its local color, instead of in a stereotyped manner, as is usually the
case. The book is a valuable one, and should be perused and studied by
old and young.
_Detroit Journal._
Under the title of "Peculiarities of American Cities," Captain Willard
Glazier, the author of half a dozen successful volumes, has lately
produced a very attractive book of nearly six hundred pages. It is
written in a graceful style, as one would describe a trip through the
country from East to West, including visits to the chief cities, and
touching upon their most notable characteristics. The author gives his
readers the salient and significant points, as they strike an observing
man and a skilled writer, and in this he has been very successful.
_Madison State Journal._
Captain Glazier is a noted American traveler. His canoe trip down the
Mississippi and his extended horseback tour through the States made him
quite famous at the time. The volume before us presents the peculiar
features, favorite resorts, and distinguishing characteristics of the
leading cities of America, including Canada. The author launches into
his subject with directness, treating them with perspicuity and in an
easy, flowing, graphic style, presenting a series of most admirable pen
pictures. The book is practically invaluable in households where there
are children and youth.
_Chicago Tribune._
In this work Captain Glazier has entered upon a new field in literature,
and his researches are at once unique and interesting. The first chapter
opens with a visit to Albany, the quaint old Dutch city of the Hudson,
and here at the outset the author discovers "peculiarities" without
limit. Boston is next taken up, and then follow in succession
thirty-seven of the leading cities of the United States and Canada. The
book is a compendium of historical facts concerning the cities referred
to which are not given in any other work with which we are acquainted,
making this volume a valuable addition to any library.
_Saginaw Courier._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is a handsome and attractive volume,
descriptive of the characteristics of many of the cities of North
America, by one who seems to be thoroughly familiar with the subject,
and who has developed an aptness in grasping the peculiarities of modern
city life, as well as the power to graphically portray them. To those
who may never be able to visit the places described, as well as to those
who have seen them, the pen pictures will be both interesting and
entertaining. The author gives his readers the salient and significant
points as they strike an observant critic and a fascinating writer.
_Racine Daily Times._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is a work that will give to the
person who has only money to stay at home an intelligent idea of how the
great cities of the country look, and what their people do to gain a
livelihood, and what objects of interest there are to be seen. Through
the medium of this work one can wander through the streets of far-off
places; he can watch the rush of the multitude and hear the roar of the
industries that help to make our country the great land that it is. He
can gaze upon the palaces of the rich or hurry through scenes where
poverty is most pitiful and vice most hideous. It is a work that ought
to be in every house.
_Alton Democrat._
One of the most entertaining books is "Peculiarities of American Cities"
by Captain Willard Glazier, whose pen has enraptured thousands by
descriptions of battle scenes and heroic adventures. The book is almost
a necessity, as it familiarizes one with scenes in travel and history.
The author has the faculty of making his readers see what he has seen
and feel the impressions which he has felt in the view. The style is
easy and flowing, not complicated and wearisome, The great cities are
described in a way which makes the reader familiar with them--their
history, society, manners, customs, and everything relating to their
past, present, and future. The book will be a companion of many a
leisure hour.
_Buffalo Courier._
The books written by Captain Willard Glazier have had a very wide,
almost a phenomenal circulation; in myriads of volumes they have been
distributed throughout the country. From the time when a very young man,
and just after the war, in which he served, Captain Glazier published
his first book, they have, until the one just out, been all founded on
and descriptive of events and scenes of the Revolution and the
Rebellion. Now, however, he has turned from the beaten path and taken an
altogether different topic, as is clearly explained in the title of his
new work, "Peculiarities of American Cities." There are thirty-nine
chapters, in which as many different cities have their noteworthy
characteristics set forth in a pleasing and very interesting style, with
handsome illustrations.
_Hamilton (Canada) Spectator._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is a work by Captain Willard Glazier,
who has earned some fame as a writer of books describing the incidents
of the War of the Rebellion. The present work is a compilation of facts
concerning thirty-nine of the principal cities of the continent,
including Toronto, Quebec, and Montreal, and the information the work
contains is brought down to recent date. The history, growth in
commerce, progress in art and science, and architectural and physical
characteristics of each city are treated of in a very interesting way.
Few people who have traveled at all but have visited one or more of
these cities, and will read the work with pleasure. Others will find it
intensely interesting because it gives them in detail much they have
often wanted to know of the cities of America.
_New York Herald._
The author talks of cities as he has seen them; describing their
appearance, their public resorts, and the peculiarities which
characterize them and their people. He leads the reader through the
streets, into the public parks, museums, libraries, art galleries,
churches, theatres, etc.; tells him of great business schemes, marts,
and manufactories; sails to suburban pleasure resorts; describes the
many avocations and ways of picking up a living which are peculiar to
large cities and the phases of character in men and women which are to
be found where men most do congregate. The book will prove to be an
interesting and instructive one to those who have not seen the cities it
describes, and interesting to those who have traveled as a review and
comparison of views from an experienced traveler and chronicler.
_Detroit Christian Herald._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" contains brief studies of the
history, general features, and leading enterprises of thirty-nine cities
of the United States and Canada. The author states in the preface that
he has been a resident of one hundred cities, and feels qualified to
write largely from personal observation and comparison. It is not a dry
compendium of facts, but is enlivened by picturesque legends, striking
incidents, and racy anecdotes. Though the author has attempted no
exhaustive description of these prominent centres of interest, he has
shown taste and judgment in selecting the things one would most like to
know, and skill in weaving the facts into an entertaining form.
_Davenport Democrat._
This is the fifth of a readable series of popular books by the
soldier-author, Captain Willard Glazier. Many readers have become
familiar with "Soldiers of the Saddle," "Capture, Prison-pen, and
Escape," "Battles for the Union," and "Heroes of Three Wars," and they
will welcome the volume under notice as one of the most attractive of
the list. Captain Glazier does not compile--he writes what he has seen.
He has a trained eye, a facile pen, and a power of graphic description.
"American Cities" is a work devoted to a pen-portraiture of thirty-nine
cities, and those who have not or cannot visit these cities have in this
book an easy and most fascinating way of acquainting themselves with
their distinguishing characteristics. All readers ought to know
something of our American cities, each of which has features peculiar to
itself.
_Syracuse Herald._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is the title of a new book by Captain
Willard Glazier, author of "Soldiers of the Saddle," "Battles for the
Union," and several other popular works. In its pages the favorite
resorts, peculiar features, and distinguishing characteristics of the
leading cities of America are described. Dry statistics are avoided, the
facts which the general reader most desires being given in the style of
graphic description for which the author is noted. The book not only
contains a great deal of information in regard to America's principal
cities as they exist to-day, but many important events in local history
are cleverly worked in. The _Herald_ feels safe in commending this book
as both instructive and entertaining. It will be read with interest by
those who have "been there," and seen for themselves, as well as by
those who can at most see only in imagination the places treated.
_Indianapolis Educational Weekly._
This book occupies a niche in the literature of the country peculiar to
itself. It describes thirty-nine cities of America, including all the
largest cities and some others which, though not quite so large, are
rapidly growing, and seem destined to occupy positions of importance.
Still other sketches possess peculiar interest for their historical
associations. Of the latter class are the stories of Savannah,
Charleston, and Richmond. It is said that Americans too often rush off
to Europe without knowing that America possesses a Niagara Palls,
Yosemite Valley, and Yellowstone National Park. The same may be said of
our reading. Many books descriptive of European cities and places of
interest are widely circulated and read. And if they are reliable they
should be read. But America might, with profit, be studied more. This
book offers a splendid opportunity to learn something of our American
cities.
_Altoona Times._
The reader will find a great abundance of useful information contained
in a small compass and very pleasantly imparted in Captain Glazier's
"Peculiarities of American Cities." Those who have little time to gather
their information from more extended sources will find this a valuable
work that will supply a vacant place in their library. It is certainly a
book very much in advance of the volumes of like import that from time
to time our people have been solicited to buy.
_Boston Transcript._
Captain Glazier's style is particularly attractive, and the discursive,
anecdotal way in which the author carries his readers over the
continent, from one city to another, is charmingly interesting. He lands
his reader, by the easiest method, in a city; and when he has got him
there, strives to interest and make him happy by causing him to glean
amusement and instruction from all he sees. Every page of the book is
teeming with interest and information. Persons are made conversant with
the chief characteristics and history of cities they may never hope to
visit. The book has apparently been written principally for the purpose
of presenting the truth about the various chief centres of trade in the
country, and the writer has adopted a pleasant conversational style,
more likely to leave the impression desired than all the histories and
arid guide-books ever published. It is a delightful book, full of happy
things.
_Pittsburgh Sunday Globe._
"Peculiarities of American Cities," by Willard Glazier, will be found
disappointing to those who look for an ordinary re-hash of musty data
about leading cities, as, aside from the numerous illustrations, which
are far above the average book illustrations in accuracy, the work will
be found to contain pleasantly written chapters on the industrial and
social features of New York, Pittsburgh, Washington, Montreal, Portland,
Savannah, Boston, Albany, Quebec, Omaha, Chicago, Buffalo, St. Louis,
Hartford, Cleveland, Richmond, Providence, Baltimore, New Orleans, San
Francisco, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, etc. The chapter on Pittsburgh
embraces a summing up of its features as an iron, glass, and oil centre,
while the descriptions of our people and the labor organizations,
banking, and business interests are well-timed and as comprehensive as
the limits of the work will permit. It will make a valuable addition to
any library.
_Fort Wayne Gazette._
The author gives his views concerning the history, character, or
"peculiarities" of some forty prominent American cities. The subject is
an interesting one, familiarizing the reader with what belongs
particularly to his own country. Persons may visit a place frequently,
yet know nothing in regard to its history or the events connected with
it which make the same memorable. Such matters have been carefully
collected by the author and properly arranged into a systematic
narrative. The chapters are exceedingly entertaining aside from the
information they convey. The author has the ability to present what he
wishes to communicate in an admirable way, and is tedious in nothing he
has written. We know of no work on this subject from which so much that
is valuable can be obtained in so concise a form. It is a book that will
never weary or lose in interest, and can be placed in the library among
the valuable works.
_Milwaukee Sentinel._
"Peculiarities of American Cities" is a book rather unique in character,
and may be said to occupy a place somewhere between the regular
guide-book and the volume of travels. As people who stay at home are not
generally given to reading guide-books, and as volumes of travel
embracing the same route as that gone over by our author are not common,
"Peculiarities of American Cities" fills a niche that has hitherto been
vacant, and meets a want not before satisfied. The writer takes up the
most important cities of the United States and Canada in alphabetical
order, beginning with Albany and ending with Washington, and gives a
more or less extended description of each, commencing usually with a
slight historical outline, particularly where it would be of general
interest, as in the case of Boston, but devoting the greater part of his
space to the treatment of their present condition. The natural
advantages of each place are considered, its commerce and manufactures
discussed, its public parks and buildings described, and illustrations
of a number of the latter given.
_New York World._
To become well acquainted with the principal cities of the Union is not
a matter of secondary importance, but should be one of the first duties
of an American citizen. It is at once a source of pleasure and profit to
know the points of interest in the various places; to be able to give an
account of the commercial transactions, the people and customs; and, in
fact, to know about other communities what you find it necessary to
learn of your own. To the great majority of Americans the opportunity is
not given of personally becoming acquainted with the various cities of
import, and the only way we have of knowing the peculiarities of our
sister cities is by the few scraps we read now and then in the
newspapers. The want of some method by which to instruct the people in
this matter has long been manifest, but what to do has often been asked
and remained unanswered. Educators recommend the compilation of
statistics of the various places, and many plans were suggested by which
a knowledge of the subject could be diffused among the masses. It has
finally been solved by Captain Willard Glazier, of whom the country has
heard in civil and military life on many former occasions. Captain
Glazier has traveled over the entire continent since the late war, and
has become well acquainted with the principal cities, and the thought
struck him to write a book on the points of interest he has visited in
the various places. For a number of years he has been at the work, and
finally gives to the public his latest literary effort, which he has
appropriately entitled "Peculiarities of American Cities." The book is
just what is needed in every public and private library in the country,
and will awaken a deep interest in the citizens of each city on which
the work treats. The public cannot fail to be interested in the work,
for it treats on a live subject, and, furthermore, the author's style is
far too pleasing to permit of any lack of interest. Captain Glazier is
the author of a number of books, all of which have become popular, and
we predict for this, his latest effort, the success which it merits.
* * * * *
POPULAR WORKS
OF
Captain Willard Glazier,
THE SOLDIER-AUTHOR.
I. Soldiers of the Saddle.
II. Capture, Prison-Pen and Escape.
III. Battles for the Union.
IV. Heroes of Three Wars.
V. Peculiarities of American Cities.
VI. Down the Great River.
* * * * *
Captain Glazier's works are growing more and more popular every
day. Their delineations of _social_, military _and frontier_ life,
constantly varying scenes, and deeply interesting stories, combine
to place their writer in the front rank of American authors.
* * * * *
SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION.
PERSONS DESIRING AGENCIES FOR ANY OF CAPTAIN GLAZIER'S
BOOKS SHOULD ADDRESS
THE PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
2. Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.
3. The words "Phoenix" and "Oenone" uses an oe ligature in the original.
4. The following typographical errors have been corrected:
"Bath-on-the Hudson" corrected to "Bath-on-the-Hudson" (page 28)
"facades" corrected to "façades" (page 30)
"scarely" corrected to "scarcely" (page 168)
"Real" corrected to "Rèal" (page 236)
"Situate" corrected to "Situated" (page 248)
"condemed" corrected to "condemned" (page 261)
"transferrred" corrected to "transferred" (page 261)
"pedestrains" corrected to "pedestrians" (page 312)
"possesesion" corrected to "possession" (page 358)
"establisment" corrected to "establishment" (page 438)
"granduer" corrected to "grandeur" (page 459)
"ignominously" corrected to "ignominiously" (page 464)
"excelence" corrected to "excellence" (page 523)
4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peculiarities of American Cities, by
Willard Glazier
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