"NEW YORK, _December 11, 1833_. Friday, _2.30 P.M._
"MY DEAR FATHER,--The last has been the most calamitous night New York
ever saw. The very centre of the commercial part of the city--from
Wall Street across William and nearly to Broad, and to Coenties
Slip,--all is a mass of smouldering ruins. A concurrence of unfortunate
circumstances rendered the fire thus disastrous. The engines had been
much disordered, in consequence of the extensive fires on the previous
night--the hose, many of them, frozen and unfit for use. The atmosphere
was in a state peculiarly calculated to support and extend combustion,
the wind blew with great violence, and the weather was so intensely
cold as to clog and almost close up with ice the hose. The flames raged
through the whole night with uncontrolled violence, impressing every
beholder with the utter impotency of human effort to contend with the
devouring element. The spectacle was grand and awful beyond conception.
I shall not attempt to describe it. All the fires that ever occurred
here before were perfectly insignificant in comparison.
"The question is now, not who is injured, but who has escaped? Almost
all I know are involved in the common catastrophe. At No. 12, Mr.
Hichcock burnt out; Mr. Birch, not even his books and papers saved. Mr.
Brown burnt out, and his goods consumed in the street or in the stores
to which they were removed. Mr. Starkweather not yet injured, but in
imminent danger. Mr. Williams' employees, everything destroyed; and
also Mr. Conckling's, I believe. At 14, Mr. Stewart's employees. At
20, Mr. Bronson among the lost; Mr. Soullard, same; Mr. Davis and ____
escaped. Halsted and Baines, $40,000 lost; 20 to 30,000 saved. Hunt and
Andrews, Conckling & ____, &c., &c.
"So vast is the destruction that insurance affords but a very
insufficient security. The whole insurance capital of the city will
scarce exceed one-half the amount of property consumed in one night!
Estimates are very vague and uncertain--the loss, however, can hardly
be less than twenty millions of dollars.
"There is not time to write a word more to-day.
"Affectionately yours,
"S. J. TILDEN."
"I have business acquaintance with a great many of the sufferers."
Silas Wright took the oath of office as Senator of the United States
from the State of New York on the 14th of January, 1833, and in the
thirty-seventh year of his age. He is still regarded in his native
State as one of the half-dozen wisest statesmen that ever occupied a
seat in the Upper House of our national legislature. He was a warm
supporter of the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren, and the most
eminent victim of New York's successful opposition to the conversion of
the Territory of Texas into five more sovereign slave-holding States
of the Union. He was also a close friend and constant correspondent of
Elam Tilden and of his two elder sons.
The letter which follows reached Mr. S. J. Tilden only a few weeks
before he was deprived of the Presidency by the 7-to-6 vote of the
Electoral Tribunal of 1876. It connotes Senator Wright's first
appearance in the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Waddell,
to whom Mr. Tilden was indebted for Wright's letter, had been United
States marshal during the administration of Mr. Van Buren.