_Pages of Romance_
In the resolute spirit of another Andor Andorra, the Village
of Greenwich maintains its independence in the very midst of
the city of New York--submitting to no more of a compromise
in the matter of its autonomy than is evolved in the
Procrustean sort of splicing which has hitched fast the
extremities of its tangled streets to the most readily
available streets in the City Plan. The flippant
carelessness with which this apparent union has been
effected only serves to emphasise the actual separation. In
almost every case these ill-advised couplings are productive
of anomalous disorder, which in the case of the numbered
streets they openly travesty the requirements of communal
propriety and of common-sense: as may be inferred from the
fact that within this disjointed region Fourth Street
crosses Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth streets very nearly at
right angles--to the permanent bewilderment of nations and
to the perennial confusion of mankind.--THOMAS
JANVIER.
It seems a far cry from the Greenwich of the last century to the
Greenwich of this; from such quaint, garden-enclosed houses as the
Warren homestead and Richmond Hill, from the alternately adventurous
and tranquil lives of the great men who used to walk its crooked
streets long and long ago, to the Studio quarter of today. What tie
between the Grapevine, Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Brannan's, and all the
ancient hostelries and mead houses and the modern French and Italian
restaurants and little tea shops which are part and parcel of the
present Village? So big did the gap appear to your servant, the
author, so incongruous the notion of uniting the old and the new
Greenwich harmoniously that she was close to giving the problem up in
despair and writing her story of Greenwich Village in two books
instead of one. But--whether accidentally or by inspiration, who
knows?--three sovereign bonds became accidentally plain to her. May
they be as plain to you who read--bonds between the Green Village of
an older day and the Bohemian Village of this our own day, points that
the old and the new settlements have in common--more--points that show
the soul and spirit of the Village to be one and the same, unchanged
in the past, unchanged in the present, probably to be unchanged for
all time. The first of these points I have already touched upon in an
earlier chapter--the deathless element of romance that has always had
its headquarters here. Every city, like every brain, should have a
corner given over to dreams. Greenwich is the dream-corner of New
York. Everyone feels it. I found an old article in the _Tribune_
written by Vincent Pepe which shows how the romance of the
neighbourhood has crept into bricks and stone and even the
uncompromising prose of real estate.
"Each one of these houses in the Village is from
seventy-five to one hundred years old," writes Mr. Pepe (he
might have said a hundred and fifty with equal accuracy in a
few cases), "and each one of them has a history of its own,
individually, as being one of the houses occupied by someone
who has made American history and some of these houses have
produced some of our present great men.
"New York has nothing of the old, with the exception of
those old Colonial houses and for this reason we are trying
to preserve them.... This is the great advantage and
distinction of Washington Square and Greenwich Village and
this is what has made it popular and it will be greater as
the years go by. It will improve more and more with age,
like an old wine.
"There is only one old section of New York and that is
Greenwich Village and Washington Square, and the public are
also going to preserve this little part of old New York."
Then there is that curious quality about Greenwich so endearing to
those who know it, the quality of a haven, a refuge, a place of
protected freedom.
"It's a good thing," said a certain brilliant young writer-man to me,
"that there's one place where you can be yourself, live as you will
and work out your scheme of life without a lot of criticism and
convention to keep tripping you up. The point of view of the average
mortal--out in the city--is that if you don't do exactly as everyone
else does there's something the matter with you, morally or mentally.
In the Village they leave you in peace, and take it for granted that
you're decent until you've blatantly proven yourself the opposite. I'd
have lost my nerve or my wits or my balance or something if I hadn't
had the Village to come and _breathe_ in!"
Not so different from the reputation of Old Greenwich, is it?--a place
where the rich would be healed, the weary rest and the sorrowful gain
comfort. Not so different from the lure that drew Sir. Peter out to the
Green Village between his spectacular and hazardous voyages; that gave
Thomas Paine his "seven serene months" before death came to him; that
filled the grassy lanes with a mushroom business-life which had fled
before the scourge of yellow fever; not so different from the
refreshing ease of heart that came to Abigail Adams and Theodosia
Alston when they came there from less comforting atmospheres.
Greenwich, you see, maintains its old and honourable repute--that of
being a resort and shelter and refuge for those upon whom the world
outside would have pressed too heavily.
There is no one who has caught the inconsequent, yet perfectly sincere
spirit of the Village better than John Reed. In reckless, scholarly
rhyme he has imprisoned something of the reckless idealism of the
Artists' Quarter--that haven for unconventional souls.
_"Yet we are free who live in Washington Square,
We dare to think as uptown wouldn't dare,
Blazing our nights with arguments uproarious;
What care we for a dull old world censorious,
When each is sure he'll fashion something glorious?"_
So we find that the romance of Colonial days still blooms freshly
below Fourteenth Street and that people still rush to the Village to
escape the world and its ways as eagerly as they fled a hundred years
ago. But the third and last point of unity is perhaps the most
striking. Always, we know, Greenwich has refused rebelliously to
conform to any rule of thumb. We know that when the Commissioners
checker-boarded off the town they found they couldn't checker-board
Greenwich. It was too independent and too set in its ways. It had its
lanes and trails and cow-paths and nothing could induce it to become
resigned to straight streets and measured avenues. It would not
conform, and it never has conformed. And even more strenuously has its
mental development defied the draughtsman's compass and triangle.
Greenwich will not straighten its streets nor conventionalise its
views. Its intellectual conclusions will always be just as unexpected
as the squares and street angles that one stumbles on head first. Its
habit of life will be just as weirdly individual as its tangled
blocks. It asks nothing better than to be let alone. It does not
welcome tourists, though it is hospitality itself to wayfarers seeking
an open door. It is the Village, and it will never, never, no _never_
be anything else--the Village of the streets that wouldn't be
straight!
Janvier, who has already been quoted extensively, but who has written
of Greenwich so well that his quotations can't be avoided, says: "In
addition to being hopelessly at odds with the surrounding city,
Greenwich is handsomely at variance with itself."
New York, and especially Greenwich, grew by curious and indirect
means, as we have seen. This fact and a lively and sympathetic
consciousness of it, leads often to seemingly irrelevant digressions.
Yet, is it not worth a moment's pause to find out that the stately
site of Washington Square North, as well as other adjacent and select
territory, was originally the property of two visionary seamen; and
that the present erratic deflection of Broadway came from one
obstinate Dutchman's affection for his own grounds and his
uncompromising determination to use a gun to defend them, even against
a city?
So, lest what follows appears to be a digression or an irrelevance,
let me venture to remind you that the Village has always grown not
only with picturesque results but by picturesque methods and through
picturesque mediums. It is frankly, incurably romantic. Sir. Peter
Warren's estates, or part of them, were sold off in parcels by the
fine old custom of dice-throwing. Here is the official record of that
episode, by the bye:
"In pursuance of the powers given in the said antenuptial
deeds the trustees therein named, on March 31, 1787, agreed
upon a partition of the said lands, which agreement was with
the approbation and consent of the cestui que trusts, to
wit: Earl and Lady Abingdon, and Charles Fitsroy and Ann his
wife, the said Susannah Skinner the second not then having
arrived at age. In making the partition, the premises were
divided into three parts on a survey made thereof and marked
A, B and C; and it was agreed that such partition should be
made by each of the trustees naming a person to throw dice
for and in behalf of their respective cestui que trusts, and
that the person who should throw the highest number should
have parcel A; the one who should throw the next highest
number parcel B; and the one who should throw the lowest
number, parcel C,--for the persons whom they respectively
represented; and the premises were partitioned accordingly."
Eleventh Street was never cut through because old Burgher Brevoort did
not want his trees cut down and argued conclusively with a blunderbuss
to that effect--a final effect. It never has been cut through, as a
matter of fact, to this day. And by way of evening things up, Grace
Church, which stands almost on the disputed site, had for architect
one James Renwick, who married the only daughter of Henry Brevoort
himself. So by a queer twisted sort of law of compensation, the city
gained rather than lost by what a certain disgruntled historian calls
the "obstinacy of one Dutch householder."
[Illustration: THE BREVOORT HOUSE. "... The atmosphere of chivalry to
women, friendliness to men, and courtesy to everyone, which is, after
all, just the air of France."]
These things are all true; the most amazing thing about Greenwich
Village is that the most unlikely things that you can find out about
it are true. The obvious, every-day things that are easily believed
are much the most likely to be untenable reports or the day dreams of
imaginative chroniclers. You are safe if you believe all the quaint
and romantic and inconsistent and impossible things that come to your
knowledge concerning the Village. That is its special and sacred
privilege: to be unexpected and always--yes, always without
exception--in the spirit of its irrational and sympathetic role. It
needs Kipling's ambiguous "And when the thing that couldn't has
occurred" for a motto. And yet--and yet--like all true nonsense, this
nonsense is rooted in a beautiful and disconcerting compromise of
truth.
Cities do grow through their romances and their adventures. The
commonplaces of life never opened up new worlds nor established them
after; the prose of life never served as a song of progress. Never a
great onward movement but was called impossible. The things that the
sane-and-safe gentleman accepts as good sense are not the things that
make for growth, anywhere. And the principle, applied to lesser
things, holds good. Who wants to study a city's life through the
registries of its civic diseases or cures? We want its romances, its
exceptions, its absurdities, its adventures. We not only want them, we
must have them. Despite all the wiseacres on earth we care more for
the duel that Burr and Hamilton fought than for all their individual
achievements, good or bad. It is the theatrical change from the
Potter's Field to the centre of fashion that first catches our fancy
in the tale of Washington Square. In fact, my friend, we are, first
and last, children addicted to the mad yet harmless passion of
story-telling and story-hearing. I do hope that, when you read these
pages, you will remember that, and be not too stern in criticism of
sundry vastly important historic points which are all forgot and left
out of the scheme--asking your pardon!
The Village, old or new, is the home of romance (as we have said, it
is to be feared at least once or twice too often ere this) and it is
for us to follow those sweet and crazy trails where they may chance to
lead.
Since, then, we are concerned chiefly with the spirit of adventure, we
can hardly fail to note that this particular element has haunted the
neighbourhood of Washington Square fairly consistently.
If you will look at the Ratzer map you will see that the Elliott
estate adjoined the Brevoort lands. It is today one of the most
variously important regions in town, embracing as it does both
Broadway and Fifth Avenue and including a most lively business section
and a most exclusive aristocratic quarter. Andrew Elliott was the son
of Sir. Gilbert Elliott, Lord Chief Justice, Clerk of Scotland. Andrew
was Receiver General of the Province of New York under the Crown and a
most loyal Royalist to the last. When the British rule passed he, in
common with many other English sympathisers, found himself in an
embarrassing position. The De Lanceys--close friends of his--lost
their lands outright. But Elliott, like the canny Scotchman that he
was, was determined that he would not be served the same way.
To quote Mr. J.H. Henry, who now handles that huge property: "He must
have had friends! Apparently they liked him, if they didn't like his
politics."
This is how they managed it: He transferred his entire estate to a
Quaker friend of his in Philadelphia--this was before the situation
had become too critical; then a little group of friendly New Yorkers,
among whom was Alexander Hamilton, bought it in; next it passed into
the hands of one Friedrich Charles Hans Bruno, Baron Poelnitz, who
appears to have been not much more than a figurehead. However, it was
legally his property at the time of the adoption of the Constitution
of the United States, and so it was not confiscated. It probably is
safe to assume that Mr. Andrew Elliott still remained the power behind
the throne, and benefited by the subsequent sale of the land to Capt.
Robert Richard Randall.
Which brings us to a most picturesque page of New York history.
I wonder what there is about privateering that attracts even the most
law-abiding imagination. This ancient, more than half dishonourable,
profession has an unholy glamour about it and there are few
respectable callings that so appeal to the colour-loving fancy. Not
that privateering was quite the same as piracy, but it came so close a
second that the honest rogues who plied the two trades must often have
been in danger of getting their perquisites and obligations somewhat
merged. It would have taken a very sharp judicial mind, or a
singularly stout personal conscience, to make the distinctions between
them in sundry and fairly numerous cases.
Wilson says:
"In these troublous and not over-squeamish times, when
commerce was other than the peaceful pursuit it has since
become, a promising venture in privateering was often
preferred to slower if safer sources of profit by the
strong-stomached merchants and mariners of New York.... News
that piracy under the guise of privateering was winked at by
the New York authorities spread quickly among the captains
serving under the black flag."
Now there never was a lustier freebooter of the high seas than Capt.
Thomas Randall, known familiarly as "Cap'n Tom," commander of the
privateering ship _Fox_, and numerous other vessels. This boat, a
brigantine, was well named, for she was quick and sly and yet could
fight on occasion. Many a rich haul he made in her in 1748, and many a
hairbreadth escape shaved the impudent bow of her on those jolly,
nefarious voyages of hers. One of her biggest captures was the French
ship _L'Amazone_. In 1757 he took out the _De Lancey_, a brigantine,
with fourteen guns, and made some more sensational captures. He is
said to have plied a coastwise trade for the most part from New York
to New Orleans, but, to quote Mr. Henry once more, "The Captain went
wherever the Spanish flag covered the largest amount of gold." At all
events he amassed a prodigious fortune even for a privateer. In 1758
he withdrew from active service himself, but still sent out
privateering vessels. Some of them he lost. The _De Lancey_ was
captured, and so was the _Saucy Sally_--the latter by the British ship
_Experiment_. The _De Lancey_ however made some excellent hauls first.
Peter Johnson, a seaman, made a will in 1757, leaving to a friend all
debts, dues and "prize money which may become payable by the cruise of
the _De Lancey_, Captain Randall commanding." The luckless _De Lancey_
was taken by the Dutch off Curacoa and the crew imprisoned. Perhaps
poor Johnson was one of them.
In spite of occasional ill-luck these were good days for the Captain,
because the law, never over scrupulous, allowed him especial license,
the country being at war. Never was there a better era for
adventurers, never a time when fortunes were to be sought under more
favourable stars!
A third quotation from Mr. Henry:
"In those days a man was looked upon as being highly unfortunate if he
had not a vessel which he could put to profitable use!"
He was part owner of the _Snow_ with sixteen guns, full owner of the
_Mary_ and also of the _Lively_. He had a bad time in connection with
the latter. He sent her out with Thomas Quigley for captain. Quigley
took the little schooner down the Jersey coast and stayed there. He
never put out to sea at all. He rode comfortably at anchor near shore
and when he ran out of rum put in and got more. After a while the
mates and crew sent in a round robin to Captain Randall telling him
the story. The _Lively_ was swiftly called in and--what Captain Tom
did to Quigley history does not state!
The jolly piratical seaman did finely and flourished, green-bay like,
in the sight of men. He was not without honours either. When
Washington was rowed from Elizabethtown Point to the first
inauguration, his barge was manned by a crew of thirteen ships'
captains, and he who had the signal distinction of being coxswain of
that historic boat's company, was Cap'n Tom!
Indeed there seems to be abundant proof that the Captain engineered
the whole proceeding. It is certain that it was he who presented the
"Presidential barge" to Washington for his use during his stay in New
York, and he who selected that unusual crew,--practically every noted
shipmaster then in port. On the President's final departure for Mount
Vernon, he again used the barge, putting out from the foot of
Whitehall and when he reached Elizabethtown, he very courteously
returned it as a gift to Captain Randall, and wrote him a letter of
warm thanks.
It is believed that Captain Thomas came from Scotland some time in the
early part of the eighteenth century, but we know nothing of his
antecedents and not much of his private life. He married in America,
but we do not know the name of his wife. We do know that in 1775 his
son, Robert Richard, was a youth of nineteen and a student at
Columbia. This was the same year that the old Captain was serving on
important committees and playing a conspicuous part in public affairs.
Oh, yes! he was a most eminent citizen, and no one thought a whit the
worse of him for what he called his "honest privateering." He was a
member of the Legislature in 1784 and voted in favour of bringing in
tea free--when it was carried by American ships!
And I picture Cap'n Tom as a stout and hearty rogue, with an open hand
and heart and a certain cheery fashion of plying his shady calling,
rather endearing than otherwise (I have no notion of his real looks
nor qualities, but one's imagination must have its fling on
occasion!). After all, there is not such a vast difference between the
manner of Sir. Peter Warren's gains and Cap'n Tom Randall's. You may
call a thing by one name or by another, but, when it comes down to
it, is the business of capturing enemy prize ships in order to grow
rich on the proceeds so different from holding up merchantmen for the
same reason? But we are concerned for the moment with the Randalls,
father and son, and most excellent fellows they appear to have both
been. I should like to believe that Cap'n Tom owned a cutlass, but I
fear it was a bit late for that!
Captain Tom appears to have been generous and kindly,--like most
persons of questionable and picturesque careers. The Silversmith who
left his entire belongings to the Captain in 1796 is but one of many
who had reason to love him. One historian declares that he settled
down, after retiring from the sea, and "became a respectable merchant
at 10 Hanover Street," where he piled up more and more gold to leave
his son Robert Richard. But it is a matter of record that the address
at which he died was 8 Whitehall. On Friday, October 27, 1797, he set
forth on his last cruise,--after seventy-four adventurous years on
earthly seas.
He died much respected,--by no one more than his son, Robert Richard
Randall, who had an immense admiration and reverence for his memory.
It was he who, in 1790, bought the Elliott estate from "Baron"
Poelnitz, for the sum of five thousand pounds--a handsome property of
some twenty-four acres covering the space between Fourth and Fifth
avenues, Waverly Place and approximately Ninth Street. The Elliott
house which has been described as being of "red brick with white" was
clearly a rather pretentious affair, and stood, says Mrs. Lamb, so
that Broadway when it was laid down "clipped the rear porch."
It is a curious fact and worthy of note that the old, original house
stood undamaged until 1828, and that, being sold at auction and
removed at that date, its materials were used in a house which a few
years ago was still in good condition.
Robert Richard Randall was also, like his father, known as "Captain,"
though there is no record of his ever having gone to sea as a sailor.
Indeed he would scarcely have been made an "honourary" member of the
Marine Society had he been a real shipmaster. Courtesy titles were _de
rigueur_ in those days, when a man was popular, and he appears to have
been thoroughly so.
When it came time for him, too, to die, he paid his father's calling
what tribute he could by the terms of his will.
His lawyer--no less a person that Alexander Hamilton himself--called
to discuss the terms of this last document. By the bye, Hamilton's
part in the affair is traditional and legendary rather than a matter
of official record;--certainly his name does not appear in connection
with the will. But Hamilton was the lawyer of Randall's sister, and a
close family friend, so the story may more easily be true than false.
This, then, is the way it goes: Alexander Hamilton was summoned to
make out the last will and testament, or at least, to advise
concerning it. Randall was already growing weak, but had a clear and
determined notion of what he wanted to do with his money. This was on
June 1, 1801. The dying man left a number of small bequests to
friends, families and servants, before he came to the real business on
his mind. His bequests, besides money, included, "unto Betsey Hart, my
housekeeper, my gold sleeve buttons," and "unto Adam Shields, my
faithful overseer, my gold watch," and "unto Gawn Irwin, who now lives
with me, my shoe-buckles and knee-buckles." Adam Shields married
Betsey Hart. They were both Scotch--probably from whatever part of
Scotland the Randalls hailed in the first place.
When these matters were disposed of, he began to speak of what was
nearest his heart. He had a good deal of money; he wanted to leave it
to some lasting use. Hamilton asked how he had made his money, and
Randall explained he had inherited it from his father.
"And how did he get it?" asked the great lawyer.
"By honest privateering!" declared Captain Tom's son proudly.
And then, or so the story goes, he went on to whisper:
"My father's fortune all came from the sea. He was a seaman, and a
good one. He had money, so he never suffered when he was worn out, but
all are not like that. I want to make a place for the others. I want
it to be a _snug harbour for tired sailors_."
So the will, July 10, 1801, reads that Robert Richard Randall's
property is left to found: "An Asylum or Marine Hospital, to be called
'The Sailors' Snug Harbour,' for the purpose of maintaining aged,
decrepit, worn-out sailors."
One of the witnesses, by the bye, was Henry Brevoort.
The present bust of Randall which stands in the Asylum is, of course,
quite apocryphal as to likeness. No one knows what he looked like, but
out of such odds and ends of information as the knee-buckles and so
on, mentioned in the will, the artistic imagination of St. Gaudens
evolved a veritable beau of a mariner, with knee-buckles positively
resplendent and an Admiral's wig. And, though it may not be a good
likeness, it is an agreeable enough ideal, and I think everyone
approves of it.
Robert Richard Randall is buried down there now and on his monument is
a simple and rather impressive inscription commemorating this charity
which--so it puts it--was "conceived in a spirit of enlarged
Benevolence."
Shortly afterwards he died, but his will, in spite of the inevitable
wrangling and litigation of disgusted relations, lived on, and the
Snug Harbour for Tired Sailors is an accomplished fact. Randall had
meant it to be built on his property there--a good "seeded-to-grass"
farm land,--and thought that the grain and vegetables for the sailor
inmates of this Snug Harbour on land could be grown on the premises.
But the trustees decided to build the institution on Staten Island.
The New York Washington Square property, however, is still called the
Sailors' Snug Harbour Estate, and through its tremendous increase in
value the actual asylum was benefited incalculably. At the time of
Captain Randall's death, the New York estate brought in about $4,000 a
year. Today it is about $400,000,--and every cent goes to that real
Snug Harbour for Tired Sailors out near the blue waters of Staten
Island. So the "honest privateering" fortune has made at least one
impossible seeming dream come true.
As time went on this section--the Sailors' Snug Harbour Estate and the
Brevoort property--was destined to become New York's most fashionable
quarter. Its history is the history of American society, no less, and
one can have no difficulty in visualising an era in which a certain
naive ceremony combined in piquant fashion with the sturdy solidity of
the young and vigorous country. In the correspondence of Henry
Brevoort and Washington Irving and others one gets delightful little
pictures--vignettes, as it were--of social life of that day. Mr. Emmet
writes begging for some snuff "no matter how old. It may be stale and
flat but cannot be unprofitable!" Brevoort asks a friend to dine "On
Thursday next at half-past four o'clock." He paints us a quaint sketch
of "a little, round old gentleman, returning heel taps into
decanters," at a soiree, adding: "His heart smote him at beholding the
waste & riot of his dear adopted." We read of tea drinkings and
coaches and his father's famous blunderbuss or "long gun" which he is
presenting to Irving. And there are other chroniclers of the times.
Lossing, the historian, quotes an anonymous friend as follows:
"We thought there was a goodly display of wealth and
diamonds in those days, but, God bless my soul, when I hear
of the millions amassed by the Vanderbilts, Goulds, Millses,
Villards and others of that sort, I realise what a poor
little doughnut of a place New York was at that early
period!"
He goes on to speak of dinner at three--a formal dinner party at four.
The first private carriage was almost mobbed on Broadway. Mrs. Jacob
Little had "a very showy carriage lined with rose colour and a darky
coachman in blue livery."
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brevoort's house stood on the corner of Fifth
Avenue and Ninth Street--it is now occupied by the Charles de Rhams.
And it chanced to be the scene of a certain very pretty little romance
which can scarcely be passed over here.
New York, as a matter of course, copied her fashionable standards from
older lands. While Manhattan society was by no means a supine and
merely imitative affair, the country was too new not to cling a bit to
English and French formalities. The great ladies of the day made
something of a point of their "imported amusements" as having a
specific claim on fashionable favour. So it came about that the
fascinating innovation of the masked ball struck the fancy of
fashionable New York. There was something very daring about the
notion; it smacked of Latin skies and manners and suggested
possibilities of romance both licensed and not which charmed the
ladies, even as it abashed them. There were those who found it a
project scarcely in good taste; it is said indeed that there was no
end of a flutter concerning it. But be that as it may, the masked ball
was given,--the first that New York had ever known, and, it may be
mentioned, the very last it was to know for many a long, discreet
year!
Haswell says that in this year there was a "fancy" ball given by Mr.
and Mrs. Henry Brevoort and that the date was February 24th. It
certainly was the same one, but he adds that it was generally
pronounced "most successful." This one may doubt, since the results
made masked balls so severely thought of that there was, a bit later,
a fine of $1,000 imposed on anyone who should give one,--one-half to
be deducted if you told on yourself!
Nevertheless, George S. Hellman says that Mrs. Brevoort's ball,
February 24, 1840,--was "the most splendid social affair of the first
half of the nineteenth century in New York."
There was great preparation for it, and practically all "society" was
asked--and nothing and nobody else. It was incidentally the occasion
of the first "society reporting." Attree, of the New York _Herald_,
was an invited guest and went in costume--quite an innovation for
conservative old Manhattan.
Lossing tells us: "At the close of this decade the features of New
York society presented conspicuous transformations. Many exotic
customs prevailed, both public and private, and the expensive
pleasures of the Eastern Hemisphere had been transplanted and taken
firm root. Among other imported amusements was the masked ball, the
first of which occurred in the city of New York in 1840, and produced
a profound sensation, not only _per se_, but because of an attending
circumstance which stirred 'society' to its foundation."
The British Consul in New York at that time was Anthony Barclay,--he
lived at College Place,--who was destined later to fall into evil
repute, by raising recruits here during the Crimean trouble. He had a
daughter, Matilda, who was remarkably lovely and--if we may believe
reports--a very great belle in American society. She had a number of
"suitors," as they were gracefully called in those days, and among
them was one Burgwyne, from South Carolina--very young, and, we may
take it, rather poor.
Lossing says: "There was also in attendance a gay, young South
Carolinian named Burgwyne."
The Consul and Mrs. Barclay disapproved of him strongly. But Matilda
who was beautiful, warm-blooded and wayward did not. She loved
Burgwyne with a reciprocal ardour, and when the masked ball at the
Brevoorts' came on the tapis it seemed as though the Goddess of
Romance had absolutely stretched out her hands to these two reckless,
but adorable lovers.
They had a favourite poem--most lovers have favourite poems;--theirs
was "Lalla Rookh."
There may be diverse opinions as to Thomas Moore's greatness, but
there can scarcely be two as to his lyric gift. He could write
charming love-songs, simple and yet full of colour, and, given the
Oriental theme, it is no wonder that youths and maidens of his day
sighed and smiled over "Lalla Rookh" as over nothing that had yet been
written for them. It is a delightful tale, half-prose and half-poetry,
written entirely and whole-heartedly for lovers, and Burgwyne and
Matilda found it easy to put themselves in the places of the romantic
characters in the drama--Lalla Rookh, the incomparably beautiful
Eastern Princess and Feramorz, the young Prince in disguise, "graceful
as that idol of women, Crishna."
[Illustration: GROVE STREET. Looking toward St. Luke's Church.]
They secretly agreed to go to the masked ball at the Brevoorts' as
their romantic favourites and prototypes. The detailed descriptions in
the book gave them sufficient inspiration. She wore floating gauzes,
bracelets, "a small coronet of jewels" and "a rose-coloured, bridal
veil." His dress was "simple, yet not without marks of costliness,"
with a "high Tartarian cap.... Here and there, too, over his vest,
which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kaskan, hung strings of
fine pearls, disposed with an air of studied negligence."
So they met at the ball and danced together, and I suppose he quoted:
_"Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But, oh! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love, or thrones without?"_
Obviously she chose the tents with love, for as the clock struck four
they slipped away together and were married!
As Lossing puts it:
"They left the festive scene together at four o'clock in the
morning, and were married before breakfast."
They did not change their costumes, dear things! They wanted the
romantic trappings for their love poem--a love poem which was to them
more enchanting--more miraculous--than that of Lalla Rookh and the
King of Bucharia. I hope they lived happily ever after, like the
brave, young romanticists they were!
In 1835 a hotel was opened on the corner of Eighth Street and Fifth
Avenue, and it was appropriately named for the illustrious family over
the way. The Brevoort House is certainly as historic a pile, socially
speaking, as lower New York has to offer. Arthur Bartlett Maurice says
of it:
"In the old-time novels of New York life visiting Englishmen
invariably stopped at the Brevoort."
Of this hotel more anon, since it has recently become knit into the
fabric of the modern Village.
But a scant two blocks away from the Brevoort stands another hostelry
which is indissolubly a part of New York's growth--especially the
growth of her Artist's Colony. It is the Lafayette, or as many of its
habitues still love to call it--"The Old Martin." This, the first and
most famous French restaurant of New York, needs a special word or
two. It must be considered alone, and not in the company of lesser and
more modern eating places.
John Reed says that the "Old Martin" was the real link between the old
Village and the new, since it was the cradle of artistic life in New
York. Bohemians, he declared, first foregathered there _as_ Bohemians,
and the beginnings of what has become America's Latin Quarter and Soho
there first saw the light of day--or rather the lights of midnight.
Jean Baptiste Martin who had been running a hotel in Panama during the
first excavations there--made by the French, as you may or may not
remember--came to New York in 1883. He had been here the year before
for a time and had decided the city needed a French hotel. He arrived
on the 25th of June, and on the 26th he bought the hotel! He chose a
house on University Place--No. 17--a little _pension_ kept by one
Eugene Larru, and from time to time bought the adjoining houses and
built extensions until he had made it the building we see today. He
called it the Hotel de Panama.
But it was not as the Hotel de Panama that it won its unique place in
the hearts of New Yorkers. "In 1886," Mr. Martin says, "I decided to
change the name of my place. 'Panama' gave people a bad impression.
They associated it with fever and Spaniards, and neither were popular!
So it became the Hotel Martin. Then, when I started another restaurant
at Twenty-sixth Street, the 'Old Martin' became the Lafayette."
The artists and writers came to the Hotel Martin to invite their
respective Muses inspired by Mr. Martin's excellent food and drink.
From the bachelors' quarters on the nearby square--the Benedick and
other studio houses--shabby, ambitious young men came in droves. Mr.
Martin remembers "Bob" Chambers, and some young newspaper men from the
_World_--Goddard, Manson and others. From uptown the great foreigners
came down--some of them stayed there, indeed. In 1889, approximately,
it started its biggest boom, and it went on steadily. Ask either Mr.
Martin or its present proprietor, Mr. Raymond Orteig, and he will tell
you, and truthfully, that it has never flagged, that "boom." The place
is as popular as ever, because, in a changing world, a changing era
and a signally changing town, it--does not change.
It was to the Hotel Martin that the famous singers came--Jean and
Edouard de Reszke and Pol Plancon and Melba; the French statesman,
Jules Cambon, used to come, and Maurice Grau--then the manager of the
Metropolitan--and Chartran, the celebrated painter, and the great
Ysaye and Bartholdi. And Paulus--Koster and Bial's first French
importation--to say nothing of Anna Held and Sandow!
A motley company enough, to be sure, and certainly one worthy to form
the nucleus of New York's Bohemia.
Says Mr. Martin: "The most interesting thing that ever happened in the
'Old Martin'? I can tell you that quite easily. It was the blizzard of
1888, when we were snowed in. The horse cars ran on University Place
then, the line terminating at Barclay Street. I have a picture of one
car almost snowed under, for the snow was fully six feet deep. It was
a Saturday night and very crowded. When it became time for the people
to go home they could not go. So they had to stay, and they stayed
three days. They slept on billiard tables, on the floor or where they
could. We did our best, but it was a big crowd. Interesting? It was
most interesting indeed to me, for I could get no milk. I could supply
them with all the wine they wanted, but no milk! And they demanded
milk for their coffee. Oh, that blizzard!"
Mr. Martin, in remembering interesting episodes, forgot that trifling
incident--the Spanish-American War, in 1898. Whether because of his
early connections with Panama (there were countless Spaniards and
Mexicans who patronised the hotel at that time) or whether because of
a national and political misunderstanding, he was justifiably and
seriously concerned as to the feeling of New York for the Hotel
Martin. Many good and wise persons expected France to side with Spain,
and many others watched curiously to see what Frenchmen in New York
would do.
Mr. Martin left them but a short time for speculation. Today, with our
streets aflutter with Allied colours, perhaps we fail to appreciate an
individual demonstration such as this--but at that time there were few
banners flying, and Mr. Martin led the patriotic movement with an
American flag in every one of the fifty windows of the Hotel Martin
and a French flag to top off the whole display! Perhaps it was the
first suggestion, in street decoration, of what has recently proved to
be so strong a bond between this nation and France.
If any of you who read have even begun to peer into Bohemian New York
you have undoubtedly visited the Lafayette as it is today. And, if
you have, you have undoubtedly seen or perhaps even played the
"Lafayette Game." It is a weird little game that is played for drinks,
and requires quite a bit of skill. It is well known to all
frequenters; the only odd thing is that it is not better known.
"Americans are funny!" laughs Raymond Orteig. "When I go abroad and
see something which is new and different from what has been before, my
instinct is to get hold of it and bring it back. If I can I bring it
back in actual bulk; if I were a writer I would bring it back in
another way. But through these years, while everyone has played our
absurd little game, no one has ever suggested writing about it--until
tonight!"
Its name? It is _Culbuto_. That is French,--practically applied,--for
failure! It is, you see, an effort to keep the little balls from
falling into the wrong holes. As it so often results in failure
_Culbuto_ is an ideal game to play for drinks! Someone has to pay all
the time! It is an unequal contest between the individual and the law
of gravity!
But we must not linger too long at the Lafayette, alluring though it
may be. All Greenwich is beckoning to us, a few blocks away. We have
a new world to explore--the world below Fourteenth Street.
Fourteenth Street is the boundary line which marks the Greenwich
Village's utmost city limits, as it marked those of our
great-grandfathers. Like a wall it stands across the town separating
the new from the old uncompromisingly. Miss Euphemia Olcott, who has
been quoted here before, describes the evolution of Fourteenth Street
in the following interesting way:
"Fourteenth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues I have
seen with three sets of buildings--first shanties near Sixth
Avenue from the rear of which it was rumoured a bogy would
be likely to pursue and kidnap us.... These shanties were
followed by fine, brownstone residences.... Some of these,
however, I think came when there had ceased to be a
_village_. Later on came business into Fourteenth
Street...."
And today those never-to-be-sufficiently-pitied folk who live in the
Fifties and Sixties and Seventies think of Fourteenth Street as
downtown!