There I stood by and saw two men whipped at the whipping post, one a white man and the other a black man. The white man’s back resembled, from his shoulders to his hips, just one bloody blister. The screams of that man will always remain in my memory. The scream of that man was perfectly frightful. He would scream, get a little lower down, and it seemed as if it was beyond his endurance.
Until the election of 1800 the first two Presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams, belonged to the Federalist party. Now Thomas Jefferson was the candidate of the Democratic-Republican party. Aaron Burr, a member of Jefferson’s party, whipped the Tammany Society into a formidable political machine for the first time. Jefferson’s supporters agreed with Tammany to let Burr become Jefferson’s running mate. Thirty-nine young members of Tammany collectively bought a house and lot so that they could meet the property qualification to vote, but a court ruled their scheme illegal.
State legislatures named Presidential electors. New York was the pivotal state in the election. John Adams, running for reelection as a Federalist, got only sixty-five votes. Jefferson and Burr tied with seventy-three votes each. This threw the election into the House of Representatives. After much balloting Jefferson won. He became President, and Burr, the New Yorker, became Vice-President.
Jefferson believed that Burr had tried to win the Presidency for himself despite the arrangement with Tammany. The new President regarded Burr as “a crooked gun, or other perverted machine, whose aim or shot you could never be sure of.” Alexander Hamilton found out differently. Not long after the inauguration Jefferson was visited in Washington by Matthew L. Davis, a Tammany sachem and a Burr henchman. Davis told the lanky Virginian to his face that he held the Presidency only because of Tammany’s help. Jefferson listened intently. When Davis finished, the President flicked out a hand and caught a fly. Then, with the air of a professor, he asked the Tammany leader to note the remarkable disproportion between one part of the insect and its entire body. Getting the point, Davis returned to New York in a sour mood because he considered Jefferson an ingrate.
Burr agreed with Davis, but it was Alexander Hamilton, not Jefferson, whom Burr regarded as his chief rival. Fate had entwined the lives of Hamilton and Burr. Hamilton was the illegitimate son of a hot-blooded West Indian beauty and a handsome ne’er-do-well. Burr was wellborn, a grandson of the cool New England theologian Jonathan Edwards. Burr was one year older than Hamilton. In some ways the two men were much alike. Both had been officers during the Revolutionary War and had served on Washington’s staff. Both had founded a bank and a newspaper. Both practiced law in New York and owned town houses and country estates just outside the city. They met socially, and Hamilton even lent money to Burr; but Hamilton considered Burr a dangerous politician. Hamilton had used his influence with Washington to prevent Burr’s appointment as brigadier general. And, as Burr well knew, when the election had been thrown into the House of Representatives, Hamilton had lobbied against him and caused him to lose the Presidency. Burr bided his time, letting thoughts of Hamilton marinate in the brine of his resentment.
In 1802 the idea of building a bridge across the East River was proposed to the state legislature, only to meet with ridicule. This project was not realized until the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge eighty-one years later. With the growth of population, City Hall on Wall Street became inadequate, so in 1802 a prize was offered for the best design for a new building. The $350 prize was won by John McComb, Jr., a Scotsman, and Joseph Mangin, a Frenchman. It was Mangin who, with his brother, had designed the Park Theatre.
The site chosen for the new City Hall was the northern side of the little plain known in turn as the Commons, as the Fields, and, after its enclosure within a fence in 1785, as the Park. Not until 1871 was it legally established as City Hall Park, which it is today. It was a beautiful area shadow-dappled by elms, poplars, willows, and catalpas. In 1803 Mayor Edward Livingston laid the cornerstone for this third and present City Hall, the celebration continuing all that day of September 20 and far into the night.
The building’s exterior, a gracious blend of French Renaissance and American Colonial design, was essentially Mangin’s inspiration. McComb oversaw the interior details and the magnificent marble stairway. The copper roof was imported from England. City Hall was faced in white Massachusetts marble, varying in thickness from five to eighteen inches. Delivery of the stone posed many problems. McComb bribed political hacks who maintained roads, and he tested the bridges over which the marble had to pass.
The eastern, southern, and western sides of City Hall were covered with the white marble, but the city fathers decided to save $15,000 by using brownstone on the northern rear side. After all, the city lay south of the new building, and its back “would be out of sight to all the world.” Obviously, nobody ever would build farther north.
The new edifice was not used until July 4, 1811, and wasn’t fully completed until 1812. Having spent half a million dollars on it, New Yorkers hoped that their City Hall would become the most handsome structure in the world, and it indeed became the finest public building in America. At the time the Capitol at Washington, D.C., was still under construction.
Then there rose in New York another building less noble in design and purpose than City Hall. A fat butcher built an open-air bull-baiting arena, seating 2,000 persons. A bull was led into this amphitheater and tied to an iron ring sunk into the ground. The rope was long enough for the animal to run around in wide circles. Then bulldogs were set on the captive bull. Spectators bet on how many dogs would be killed by the bull or how long the pack would need to tear the beast to pieces. Sometimes a buffalo was substituted for the bull.
In 1804 a secession plot touched off a train of events that ended with the most famous duel in the annals of the nation. Diehard New England Federalists were disgusted with President Jefferson. They connived to withdraw from the Union and set up a Northern Confederacy, consisting of New England and New York. Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton was offered a role in the scheme. Even though his party had differences with that of Jefferson, Hamilton never forgot how once, on the sidewalk outside Washington’s New York residence, Jefferson had helped him maintain the Union. Now he turned thumbs-down on the plot.
Then the plotters approached smart, ambitious, and bitter Aaron Burr. Burr belonged to Jefferson’s party and Jefferson had edged him out of the Presidency. He got no federal patronage from Jefferson or state patronage from Governor George Clinton. Burr was Vice-President of the United States, true, but this did not satisfy him. Aware of his discontent, the New England schemers made him a proposal. If he ran for governor of New York, they would influence their New York friends to vote for him. After his election he could resign as Vice-President, lead New York State out of the Union, and join it to the new confederacy. Then, as his reward, he would become president of the new nation.
Too crafty to commit himself forthrightly to such an intrigue, Burr did promise that if he were elected governor, he would guarantee an administration “satisfactory to the Federalists.” Political wheels began to turn. New York’s leading Federalists met in an Albany tavern to decide whether to nominate Burr, the Democratic-Republican, for governor. Influenced by their New England friends, many were well disposed toward him. But up rose Hamilton, Burr’s nemesis, to read a paper criticizing Burr. Hamilton convinced Federalist leaders that Burr’s nomination might lead to “dismemberment of the union.” Judge Morgan Lewis was chosen in preference to Burr. Every word spoken by Hamilton was overheard by Burr’s spies, hidden in an adjoining room of the tavern.
Denied the nomination by the Federalists, Burr also was rejected by the Democratic-Republicans. He ran as an independent candidate for governor and opened campaign headquarters on John Street. His followers, called Burrites, included most members of Tammany. Hamilton then threw all his political weight against Burr, split the Federalists, and caused Burr’s defeat. Morgan Lewis became the new governor.
This was
the last straw, Burr decided. Every time he tried to advance his career, he was blocked by Hamilton. So the Vice-President of the United States cold-bloodedly provoked the former Secretary of the Treasury into a duel. One June day, about two months after the election, into Hamilton’s law office, at 58 Wall Street, strode William P. Van Ness, a young lawyer who was a personal friend and political associate of Burr’s. Van Ness handed Hamilton a note from Burr, asking Hamilton to explain remarks that he had allegedly made about Burr. Two days later Hamilton replied in a way that Burr considered evasive. More notes passed back and forth. On June 27 Burr formally challenged Hamilton to a duel. Even though he opposed dueling, Hamilton accepted. The two antagonists were to meet on the field of honor at 7 A.M. on July 11, 1804.
Burr prepared by practicing with a pistol at his country estate. Hamilton, however, went about his business as usual, seeing clients and appearing in court. He did straighten out his affairs so that his wife and seven children would suffer less in the event of his death. Resolved not to fire at Burr, Hamilton wrote: “My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling, and it would ever give me pain to be obliged to shed the blood of a fellow-creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws.”
Several people knew of the impending duel, but nobody tried to stop it. On July 4, one week in advance, Hamilton and Burr met at the annual banquet of the Society of the Cincinnati, which Hamilton had headed since Washington’s death. The former army officers drank heartily, and Hamilton seemed as vivacious as usual. His friends asked him to sing his favorite ballad, called “The Drum.” After a moment’s hesitation Hamilton raised his voice in a solo. Burr seemed more silent than usual that day. As Hamilton began singing, Burr, elbows on a table, turned toward him, staring into the face of his opponent.
For their duel they chose a secluded spot at Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River due west of Manhattan’s present Forty-second Street. About twenty feet above the water a little ledge was niched into a cliff. Six feet wide and thirty-six feet long, this grassy area was screened by cedars from boatmen below or pedestrians above. No footpath led to the spot. One got there only by boat and then by scrambling up rocks.
That historic morning Burr arrived before Hamilton, as prearranged. Burr was accompanied by his second, Van Ness, and by another friend, Matthew L. Davis, who had watched in disgust when Jefferson had lectured him about a fly. Davis stayed in the boat that brought them to the spot. Burr and Van Ness picked their way up to the ledge, doffed their coats, and began clearing away bushes and limbs of trees so that a big enough opening could be made. They were still engaged in this work when, a few moments before seven o’clock, Hamilton arrived in another boat with his second, Judge Nathaniel Pendleton; Dr. David Hosack; and a boatman. The physician and boatman remained below as Hamilton and the judge climbed to the dueling ground. Burr pulled on his coat and bowed to Hamilton, who returned the courtesy. The seconds exchanged greetings.
Then Van Ness and Pendleton drew lots to determine which should decide where the combatants must stand. Pendleton won. Again they drew lots to decide which should give the word to fire. Again Pendleton won. The two seconds carefully stepped off twelve paces. Pendleton placed Hamilton at one end. Van Ness stationed Burr at the other. A case holding a brace of dueling pistols was opened. The weapons were loaded under the gaze of the rivals. Pendleton gave one to Hamilton, and Van Ness handed the other to Burr. Then Van Ness stepped back out of the line of fire.
Pendleton solemnly explained to the two principals the rules already agreed on. When he cried, “Present!” they were to raise their pistols and fire at will. Now Pendleton stepped back. Both combatants wore hats, although it was a bright warm summer morning. The dipping of breeze-stirred leaves spilled shadows into the hollows of their tight cheeks. All was silence except for the drone of a flower-flirting bee nearby and the soft slap-chunk of little waves on the rocks below.
“Gentiemen, preee-ee-sent!”
At Pendleton’s command Burr raised his right arm, slowly and deliberately, took aim, and fired. A slug slammed into the right side of Hamilton’s belly a little above the hip. His muscles contracted, pulling him up onto his toes. He spun to the left—oddly enough—and fell on his face. As he fell, his fingers tightened in a spasm, squeezing off a shot from his pistol, the bullet ripping through the limb of a cedar tree above and to the left of Burr. After a moment of brittle silence Burr advanced toward Hamilton with regret showing on his face, but after one look he turned away silently.
Pendleton shouted for Dr. Hosack. The physician scrambled up the rocks. Van Ness quickly opened an umbrella and held it in front of Burr’s face so that Hosack would not be able to testify that he had seen the Vice-President. Then Burr and his second descended the cliff and boarded their boat. The doctor found Hamilton half sitting on the earth and half supported in Pendleton’s arms. Hamilton looked up, recognized Hosack, murmured, “This is a mortal wound, doctor,” and fainted. The doctor ripped open his coat and tore away his shirt. Placing his fingers on Hamilton’s wrist, he could feel no pulse. He laid his hand over Hamilton’s heart but could detect no movement. Hosack and Pendleton picked up the bleeding man and carried him laboriously down the rocks to the boat, where the boatman helped ease him into the craft.
They shoved off from the Jersey shore, heading for the Manhattan waterfront estate of Hamilton’s friend Samuel Bayard. The doctor rubbed Hamilton’s lips, temples, neck, and wrists with spirits of hartshorn, or ammonia. When they had rowed about fifty yards, Hamilton began to breathe perceptibly. He sighed. His deep-set eyes fluttered open, and he stared about vacantly. Between long breaths he murmured, “Pendleton knows that I did not intend to fire at him.”
Brought back to Manhattan, Hamilton lingered in great agony. As he lay on his deathbed that night, Tammany members celebrated at Martling’s Long Room, toasting the victorious Aaron Burr, who had shut himself up in the library of his country place. But after Hamilton had died at half past two the following afternoon, the men of Tammany found it expedient to take part in the public mourning. The funeral was one of the most impressive in the city’s history. Alexander Hamilton’s death drove his twenty-year-old daughter insane, converted Aaron Burr into a social leper, and resulted in widespread revulsion against dueling. Hamilton was buried in Trinity Churchyard.
When Washington Irving was a boy, he had gone to a school at 37 Partition (now Fulton) Street run by an old soldier, named Benjamin Romaine. This was a private institution, as were all other New York schools. They were maintained by churches. No education was given to the children of unaffiliated parents. Obviously, something had to be done, or many of the new generation would grow up in ignorance. On April 9, 1805, the state legislature passed an act incorporating a free school society.
Public School No. 1 opened on Chatham Street on April 28, 1807. Before the end of the year 150 pupils were enrolled. The educational system first used here was devised by an Englishman, named Joseph Lancaster. The schoolmaster taught pupils, who in turn taught children in lower grades. This meant that fewer schoolmasters were needed, an economy appreciated by the rich. After all, a part of the excise duties was now being used to support the schools.
Besides education, the city fathers were concerned about the growth of population. In 1807 the state legislature named a three-man commission to plot Manhattan’s undeveloped land. Because the chief engineer was John Randall, Jr., this first real city plan was called the Randall Plan. From today’s East Houston Street northward to 155th Street Randall laid out a gridiron or rectangular system of north-south avenues crossed at right angles by east-west streets.
The Randall Plan made no allowance for the shape of the land, preferring to iron out Manhattan’s hills by force instead of by blending man’s needs with nature’s gifts. It was too late to do anything about Greenwich Village’s streets, which cut diagonally southwest to northeast. However, there was serious talk about abolishing Broadway altogether, for people belie
ved that the city’s business life would center on the Boston Post Road. Almost no space was allotted for public parks, an oversight that later cost the city millions of dollars.
Undeveloped land was divided into lots 100 feet in depth. As often happens during a land boom, householders put exorbitant values on houses in the path of a proposed street. When the city wouldn’t pay their prices, they set dogs on public surveyors. One new avenue was laid out on a line that cut in half the kitchen of a vegetable woman; she and her neighbors bombarded surveyors with cabbages and artichokes.
Citizens laughed at the commissioners for laying out the city as far north as the wilderness of 155th Street. The officials replied:
It may be a subject of merriment that the commissioners have provided space for a greater population than is collected at any spot this side of China. . . . It is not improbable that considerable numbers may be collected at Harlem before the high hills to the south of it shall be built upon as a city, and it is improbable that for centuries to come [italics added] the grounds north of Harlem Flat will be covered with homes. . . .
As a matter of fact, just before World War II a total of 3,871 persons lived in a single Harlem block. If all Americans had lived together that closely, the nation’s whole population would have fitted into one-half the area of New York City.
The Epic of New York City Page 23
