At the Close of the Knickerbocker Days
A bustling, energetic, but provincial city was New York between the
years 1830 and 1840, the last days of the Knickerbockers. After 1840
it changed greatly, speeding rapidly on in the making of a metropolis.
Looking back now it is plain that the progress of enlargement went
steadily on year by year, but then the changes came on imperceptibly
enough.
To any one who knows the great metropolis of this twentieth century,
it will seem remarkable that Hanover Square was the place where
merchants and jobbers most did congregate, and that the business part
of the city (and that really meant all the town in those times) lay
all below Canal Street. Beyond that was the country, crossed by sand
hills, watered by many rivulets, traversed by roads that led to the
country places of the wealthy or to popular wayside taverns. The main
thoroughfares looked wider than they do now, for they were far less
crowded, although there were busses, and coaches, and drays, and many
other vehicles of a variety that would look quite odd on the streets
of this day, and in fact anywhere except in old prints, for they
became extinct many a day ago. There were no surface roads, no
elevated roads, no clanging electric cars, no bicycles, no motor
carriages, no thousand and one conveniences of comfort and confusion
that inventive genius and modern methods have called forth. To be sure
the first street railroad in the world had just been projected and
the cars were about to run through the streets, but this was not as
yet established.
The architectural appearance of the city was more meagre, more
uniform, far more picturesquely simple. There were wooden houses,
squat and irregular, and there were brick houses, low and solid; there
were no great towering structures to make one crane the neck to see
the top. It was a city where provinciality stared out at every corner,
a city which has been swept so entirely away that what is left of it
lingers only in odd nooks and corners and back streets where even the
oldest New Yorker has lost sight of it, and where visitors spend many
hours seeking out old-time curiosities in the byways of the
metropolis.
[Illustration: Museum at the north end of the Park
1825]
The larger buildings of those days, the ones to catch the eye of a
stranger, are all memories now, and it is a difficult matter to say
even where they stood with any degree of certainty. There was Masonic
Hall in Broadway and Pearl Street, with its great chamber in imitation
of the Chapel of Henry VIII., that was quite the pride of the town,
and indeed looked upon as the most elegant reception-room in detail
and appointment to be found in America. Close by, on the other side of
the way, was Contoit's Garden, a delightful resort, where could be had
the finest of ices and cakes. Farther on the Apollo dancing-rooms were
a Mecca for the youth of the town. Opposite the lower end of City
Hall Park was Scudder's, the first museum in the city, the forerunner
of Barnum's, filled to overflowing with curiosities of earth and sea
and air. Across the way, on the opposite side of the park, was the
Park Theatre with its broad white front and its record as the chief
playhouse of the city, although there were hosts of admirers and
patrons of the Old Bowery, and of the National in Leonard Street, and
of the Olympic in Broadway, where Mitchell was established as a great
favorite. Out beyond the city was Niblo's Garden, newly established
and a real rural retreat; near to it, over on the Bowery Road, was the
old Vauxhall, fast losing caste as a place of outdoor amusement. In
Nassau Street the Middle Dutch Church still stood, its silvery bell
sounding over the city in which Sunday was a day set apart for
religious observance and had not come to be a day of merrymaking.
[Illustration: THE APOLLO ROOMS IN 1830.]
[Illustration: Niblo's Garden]
It had come to be very near the end of the Knickerbocker days in this
quiet city where brimstone matches and india-rubber overshoes had just
been introduced,--indeed, it was close upon the year 1840,--when the
Astor House was a new structure talked about all over the land as a
wonderful palace. On the ground floor of this hotel John R. Bartlett
kept a well stocked book-shop, and not a day but it was much visited
by the literary folk of the town, for he was the friend of all bookish
people. He himself was a quiet, scholarly man, and it was there in his
shop, when his many friends left him leisure for work, that he
arranged the greater part of his _Dictionary of Americanisms_, by
which his name is remembered far better than by his historical
records,--remembered when the fact that he was Secretary of State in
Rhode Island is quite forgotten if it was ever widely known.
One of the familiar figures in Bartlett's book-shop was a keen-eyed,
spectacled man who walked with quite a noticeable limp. This was
Charles Fenno Hoffman, a notable man of his time, whose song,
_Sparkling and Bright_, was on everybody's tongue. Thirty-four years
of his life were behind him, years that were full to overflowing. He
was a New Yorker in the full meaning of the term, and many of the
events of his active life had centred about the little book-shop. His
birthplace was only eight blocks away, there where the structure of
the Elevated Road throws its shadow over Greenwich Street at its
crossing with Rector. Those interested searchers who have visited the
house where Washington Irving boarded close by this same corner will
find the house where Hoffman was born nearby it. Thoughts of Irving
and Hoffman entwine themselves naturally and closely, for Hoffman's
half-sister was that Matilda who was affianced to Irving and whose
early death shadowed his whole life.
Just around the corner from Bartlett's shop Hoffman went to school at
Columbia College, where the present Park Place now wends its way from
the river to Printing House Square. After leaving college he studied
law, but soon gave up that profession to become the associate editor
of the _American_ as the commencement of a literary career. In 1833 he
founded the _Knickerbocker_ magazine, and while conducting it enjoyed
the intimate fellowship of Harry Franco, William Cullen Bryant, Lewis
Gaylord Clark, William L. Stone, the brothers Duyckinck, Frederick S.
Cozzens, Park Benjamin, John L. Stephens, and a great many others in
the same field of writing.
All this was behind him when he became a familiar figure in Bartlett's
shop; and more, too, for he had worked with N.P. Willis on the
_Mirror_, and had travelled far in the wild West despite an accident
in his youth which had crushed his leg between a boat and the wharf,
leaving him a life-long cripple. In this western journeying he
gathered material for _A Winter in the West_ and _Wild Scenes in
Forest and Prairie_. He had already written _Vanderlyn_, and now in
the book-shop was daily discussing his plans for _Grayslaer_. No hint
came to the minds of those who listened to his witty talk in idle
hours at the book-shop that in another ten years he would be taken
from his last city home in Greene Street to live out the remaining
thirty-four years of his life in the asylum at Harrisburg, Pa., a
mental wreck.
It was Hoffman who introduced Lewis Gaylord Clark to the book-shop.
Clark had been associated with him on the _Knickerbocker_ magazine,
and it was Clark who continued that publication for many years in the
office on Broadway, just south of Cortlandt Street. To the office very
often went his twin brother, Willis Gaylord Clark, editor of the
Philadelphia _Gazette_, who contributed his now long-forgotten verse
to his brother's magazine almost to the day of his death.
It was quite natural that John L. Stephens should make Bartlett's
book-shop a headquarters while he was in town, for Bartlett and he
were firm friends of years' standing, and their minds ran along in
very much the same historical groove. Many a story the famous
traveller recounted to his friend and to the others who were gathered
there, and his presence was eagerly looked for. He had been to Egypt
and had written from there letters that were published in the
_Knickerbocker_ when Hoffman was at its head. He had been to Arabia,
to Poland, and to half a dozen other countries, and had written of his
travels with a straightforward directness that was very much like his
clear ringing talk. His visits to the book-shop happened years before
he became interested in the Panama Railroad, for when this project
came to his hand he devoted so much of himself to the building of the
road across the Isthmus that he gave little time to writing.
Another man who lingered in the book-shop more than any of the others
was a sort of _protege_ of Clark's, since Clark had in a great
measure discovered him. His name was Frederick S. Cozzens, a wine
merchant, and almost every afternoon he walked from his place around
the next corner in Vesey Street, the second block below Broadway. It
was Clark who recognized him as a humorist long before any one else
appreciated him. His merry conversation was a delightful incident in
the book-shop years and years before he moved to Yonkers and was then
a great deal talked about as the author of the _Sparrowgrass Papers_.
This book-shop was a veritable treasury of literary secrets, for if
there was to be anything new in the literary world it was sure to be
spoken of there before it was rumored about anywhere else. In this way
the book-shop was first to hear of the publication of that journal of
books and opinions, _Arcturus_, for Evert A. Duyckinck was one of the
_habitues_ there. This is the author who, seven years later, with his
brother George was to start the publication of _The Literary World_;
and these are the brothers Duyckinck who while editing this
publication collected material and wrote their _Encyclopaedia of
American Literature_, which gave them fame long after both were dead.
The publication of literary periodicals was in the air that year of
1840, and the little book-shop, being a literary world unto itself,
heard of all of them in turn before public announcement was made.
James Aldrich, who four years before had given up a prosperous
business for a writer's career, projected his _Literary Gazette_, in
which most of his poems afterwards appeared; and Park Benjamin, rather
a newcomer in the town, it having been only three years since he
transferred his _New England Magazine_ to New York under the title of
the _American Monthly Magazine_, the same year established _Our New
World_. He was a pleasant, affable man, and his companions at
Bartlett's place thought much of the author of _The Old Sexton_.
William Cullen Bryant lived in New York through these last days of
Knickerbocker life and still lived there when these times were looked
back upon as a period of great good-fellowship. He arrived in the city
a young man, scarcely known, but he lived to be old, still a citizen,
so entwined with the literary, social, and business interests that
innumerable places can be pointed out to-day as bearing closely upon
the poet's life and suggesting many reminders of himself and his work.
In the far down-town, in Broadway at the Pine Street corner, these
memories start. At that corner, in a building long gone now, when
Bryant was quite a stranger in the city, he edited the _New York
Review and Athenaeum_, in which his own poem, _Death of the Flowers_,
was published, and in which Halleck's _Marco Bozzaris_ first appeared.
In his office there Bryant often talked with Percival and with
Hillhouse, and there he discussed with Verplanck and Sands what manner
of verse he would contribute to the newly started _Talisman_ magazine.
Up Broadway a little farther, at the Fulton Street corner, is the
publication office of the _Evening Post_, a building which more than
any other in New York should call forth thoughts of Bryant, for he was
the editor of that newspaper for two-and-fifty years. When he joined
the staff in 1826, in two years succeeding Coleman as editor and
remaining so until his death, the _Evening Post_ had its office in
William Street, near Pine. But Bryant spent many years of his
editorial life in the Broadway building, and one of its attractions,
now pointed out to all visitors, is the poet's window on an upper
floor where he sat at his desk, that was always stacked high and
negligently with all manner of useless papers and rejected
manuscripts, and looked over the city to the south as he worked.
[Illustration: VIEW OF OLD BUILDINGS IN WILLIAM STREET, LOOKING
TOWARDS MAIDEN LANE, 1800.]
Standing beside this window there are memories of other men than
Bryant to be called up, for here remembrance of many of his associates
comes vividly to mind. There was William Leggett, the poet's friend
and business companion, the brilliant journalist who wrote _Tales of a
Country Schoolmaster_, and who worked beside Bryant from 1829 to 1836.
With thoughts of him come those of Parke Godwin, who joined the
_Evening Post_ staff the year after Leggett left it, who as long as
the poet lived was his close friend, and who, marrying Bryant's
daughter Fanny, wove closer year by year the relations that bound
them. There are memories, too, of John Bigelow, who occupied an
editorial chair on the _Post_ for a dozen years after 1849.
Going still farther up Broadway in search of Bryant reminders, you
walk past the Post-Office and over the stretch of pavement made
historic by the personal encounter between the poet and William L.
Stone. This happened in 1831, and Stone, then editor of the
_Commercial Advertiser_, was not at all friendly to Bryant. The two
met there on the parkside, just opposite where Philip Hone lived, and
Hone, looking from his window, saw the encounter. Sitting down he
immediately wrote of it in the diary which is such a perfect
reflection of the city's history during the first half of the
nineteenth century.
Those were the days when Stone was collecting his information
concerning the Indians which he afterwards utilized to such advantage
in _The Life of Joseph Brant_, _The Life of Red Jacket_, and kindred
books.
Keeping on up Broadway to Leonard Street, thence over across town
three blocks west to 92 Hudson Street, the stroller comes to a
warehouse that has been reared above the home where Bryant lived when
he became editor of the _Evening Post_ and from which he often walked
around the corner to 345 Greenwich Street to make an evening call on
his near neighbor and friend J. Fenimore Cooper.
On a little farther, up Varick Street this time, past the old Chapel
of St. John's, lingering in its stately age quiet and dignified amid
the unwholesome neighbors that have grown up around it. On the very
next block, close by Canal Street, there is a red brick house with
stone steps, and here Bryant lived after his removal from Hudson
Street.
This same Varick Street leads straight north for half a mile until it
touches Carmine Street, and in the second block of that thoroughfare
is the house of age-worn brick that was the poet's "home in Carmine
Street," of which he spoke so often and so affectionately.
From this point, a walk due east straight across town to the Bowery is
as direct a route as could be found to the house where Bryant boarded
in Fourth Street near the Bowery. It was here he entertained the
friendly Unitarian clergyman, Orville Dewey, and discussed poetry with
him. Here too he began the acquaintance with his fellow-lodger, Parke
Godwin, without a thought that Godwin would one day be his son-in-law,
without a thought that they would walk side by side through a literary
life for close upon half a century.
Still on up-town, this time to Union Square. Between that green spot
and Irving Place in Fifteenth Street, you come upon the home of the
Century Club in its early days, when it was the chief place in America
for the entertainment of men of letters. This club, founded by Bryant,
was presided over at various times by Bancroft, Verplanck, and men
whose names are equally well remembered. Bryant was the president when
he died. The club now has a sumptuous home in Forty-third Street near
Fifth Avenue.
Last home of all of Bryant in New York is the brownstone house next to
the College of St. Francis Xavier, in Sixteenth Street. Here he lived
during the last years of his life when he was not passing the long
spring and summer months at his well-beloved Cedarmere at Roslyn, Long
Island, which had been his favorite abiding place since 1843. It was
in this Sixteenth Street house that he wrote his last lines of
verse--on the birthday of Washington; it was here that he died.
One more structure not a great distance away calls up strongly the
memory of Bryant. In Fourth Avenue at Twentieth Street is picturesque
All Souls' Church, which has been there since 1855. Built of brick
trimmed with Caen stone, planned in the form of a Greek cross, it was
the first example of the Byzantine style of architecture in America.
It was to have a tall, square, tower-like steeple, but this was never
built. To this church the body of Bryant was taken, and there in the
presence of all literary New York, and while the whole city mourned,
Dr. Bellows, who had been his long-time friend, preached his funeral
sermon.