Part 1
# Historic towns of the middle states ### By Unknown
---
American Historic Towns.
Historic Towns of New England.
Edited by LYMAN P. POWELL. With Introduction by GEORGE P. MORRIS. Fully illustrated. Large 8ᵒ, $3.50.
Historic Towns of the Middle States.
Edited by LYMAN P. POWELL. With Introduction by ALBERT SHAW. Fully illustrated. Large 8ᵒ, $3.50
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
[Illustration: _The “Half-Moon” on the Hudson—1609._
_From a painting by L. W. Seavey._]
American Historic Towns
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE MIDDLE STATES
Edited by LYMAN P. POWELL
Illustrated
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK & LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899 BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration]
PREFACE
In offering to the public the second volume of _American Historic Towns_ the editor desires to bring three facts to the consideration of the reader.
1. This being the middle volume of a series dealing with the older towns along, or near, the Eastern coast, it is hoped that the title _Historic Towns of the Middle States_ will seem not inappropriate.
2. The plan which underlay the making of the first volume, _Historic Towns of New England_, has in the main been followed. Each author has invariably been chosen because of unique fitness for his special task. The editor believes that in every case the enthusiasm of the native or the resident will be found wedded to the perspective of the _litterateur_ or scholar. No effort has been made to harmonize divergencies in style or judgment, for obvious reasons. The success of the first volume has set the stamp of approval on the method of the series, and the editor is glad to announce that a volume on the Southern towns will shortly follow this.
3. The chapter on Princeton first served as an address in 1894 before the Historical Pilgrims on the last day of their Pilgrimage, which is described in _Historic Towns of New England_, pp. iii.-v.
To the making of this volume many have contributed in various ways. The editor is under special obligation to his wife, Gertrude Wilson Powell, for such assistance as makes her really a co-editor of the volume. Dr. Albert Shaw, and Mr. Melvil Dewey too have given freely of their counsel and encouragement, and the editor is happy to acknowledge their great kindness.
LYMAN P. POWELL
ST. JOHN’S RECTORY, LANSDOWNE, PENNSYLVANIA, October 17, 1899.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION Albert Shaw xv
ALBANY Walton W. Battershall 1
SARATOGA Ellen Hardin Walworth 39
SCHENECTADY Judson S. Landon 71
NEWBURGH Adelaide Skeel 107
TARRYTOWN-ON-HUDSON Hamilton Wright Mabie 137
NEW YORK CITY Joseph B. Gilder 169
BROOKLYN Harrington Putnam 213
PRINCETON William M. Sloane 251
PHILADELPHIA Talcott Williams 297
WILMINGTON E. N. Vallandigham 335
BUFFALO Rowland B. Mahany 367
PITTSBURGH Samuel Harden Church 393
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
Transcriber’s Note: The illustrations listed as “Seal of Tarrytown” and “Seal of New York City” were not, in fact, printed in the book. Illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph break, which may be on a different page.
PAGE
THE “HALF-MOON” ON THE HUDSON, 1609 _Frontispiece_ From the painting by L. W. Seavey.
ALBANY
OLD CHART OF NIEU NEDERLANDT[1] 5
PLAN OF ALBANY, 1695[1] 11
OLD DUTCH CHURCH, ERECTED IN 1715 ON SITE OF ORIGINAL CHURCH ERECTED IN 1656[1] 13
ST. PETER’S CHURCH ERECTED IN 1715. FORT FREDERICK IN THE BACKGROUND[1] 15 From a water-color sketch in the British Museum.
MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER[1] 23 From the painting by Colonel Trumbull.
STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER[1] 25 From the painting by Ezra Ames.
VAN RENSSELAER MANOR-HOUSE, 1765[2] 26
SCHUYLER MANSION, 1760[1] 27
WEST SIDE OF PEARL STREET, FROM STATE STREET TO MAIDEN LANE, 1814[1] 31
VIEW OF ALBANY, 1899[2] 33
JOHN V. L. PRUYN 35
SEAL OF ALBANY 37
SARATOGA
SARATOGA LAKE, N. Y. 40
MAP SHOWING HISTORIC AND OTHER DRIVES IN THE VICINITY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS 42
SARATOGA BATTLE MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, N. Y. 43
NORTH BROADWAY, SARATOGA SPRINGS, 1898 47
GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER 50 Bronze statue in niche of Saratoga monument, Schuylerville, N. Y.
CONGRESS SPRING IN 1820 52
KAYADROSSERA PATENT, WITH GREAT SEAL OF QUEEN ANNE PENDANT, 1708 55 Original in Saratoga County Clerk’s Office.
WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION, 1776 57 From tablet on Saratoga battle monument, Schuylerville, N. Y.
“OLD WELL,” FREEMAN’S FARM, BATTLE-GROUND, BEMIS HEIGHTS, SEPT. 19, 1777 61
GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN 63
CONGRESS SPRING, 1898 66
SIGN, “PUTNAM AND THE WOLF,” ON PUTNAM’S TAVERN, SARATOGA SPRINGS 67 Original sign in Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga Springs, N. Y.
SEAL OF SARATOGA 70
SCHENECTADY
COLONIAL HOUSE, UNION STREET 72
VIEW ON STATE STREET 74
“THE BLUE GATE” ENTRANCE TO UNION COLLEGE GROUNDS 77
GLEN-SANDERS MANSION, ERECTED 1714 82
FIRST REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH 87
ELLIS HOSPITAL 90
EDISON HOTEL 93
UNION COLLEGE, 1795 99
STATUE, SITE OF “OLD FORT” 100
“THE BROOK THAT BOUNDS THRO’ UNION’S GROUNDS,” UNION COLLEGE 103
ELIPHALET NOTT 105 President of Union College for sixty years.
SEAL OF SCHENECTADY 106
NEWBURGH
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURGH[3] 109
JOEL T. HEADLEY[4] 111
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH 113
ANDREW J. DOWNING[4] 116
HENRY KIRKE BROWN[4] 119
HEADQUARTERS OF MAJOR-GENERAL KNOX AT VAIL’S GATE[3] 123
CLINTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT LITTLE BRITAIN, NEAR NEWBURGH 124
CLINTON STATUE IN COLDEN SQUARE, NEWBURGH 126
THE WILLIAMS HOUSE[3] 129
MONUMENT ON TEMPLE HILL, NEAR NEWBURGH[5] 130
THE VERPLANCK HOUSE[5] 131 Baron Steuben’s headquarters, where the “Nicola Letter” was written.
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT FISHKILL[6] 133
CHARLES DOWNING[4] 134
SEAL OF NEWBURGH 135
TARRYTOWN-ON-HUDSON
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TARRYTOWN 139 From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
THE POCANTICO RIVER 149 From a photograph.
OLD MANOR-HOUSE (“FLYPSE’S CASTLE”) AND MILL, TARRYTOWN 151
THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW 153 From a drawing by W. J. Wilson.
INTERIOR OF THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW, PRIOR TO ITS RESTORATION IN 1897 155 From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
MONUMENT TO THE CAPTORS OF ANDRÉ 159 From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
WASHINGTON IRVING 161
“SUNNYSIDE” 163 The home of Washington Irving.
THE JACOB MOTT HOUSE, WHERE KATRINA VAN TASSEL WAS MARRIED 165 Now occupied by the new Washington Irving High School.
SEAL OF TARRYTOWN 166
OLD SLEEPY HOLLOW MILL 167
NEW YORK CITY
FIRST SEAL OF THE CITY, 1623-1654[7] 170
MAP OF ORIGINAL GRANTS[7] 171
THE FORT IN GOVERNOR KIEFT’S DAY 174
PETER STUYVESANT 176
SEAL OF THE CITY IN 1686[7] 177
JOHN JAY 179
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 180
FRAUNCES TAVERN 183
THE STADT HUYS 191
STAINED-GLASS WINDOW IN “BOWLING GREEN OFFICES,” SHOWING GREEN ABOUT 1760[8] 193
GOVERNMENT HOUSE[8] 195
FEDERAL HALL 196
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH 199
CITY HALL 200
GRANT’S TOMB, RIVERSIDE DRIVE 203
WASHINGTON ARCH 209
SEAL OF NEW YORK CITY 211
BROOKLYN
VIEW IN BROOKLYN IN THE OLDEN TIMES 215
DENYSE’S FERRY 217 The first place at which the British and Hessians landed on Long Island, August 22, 1776. Now Fort Hamilton.
BUSHWICK TOWN-HOUSE AND CHURCH, 1800 223
SECTION OF MAP OF BROOKLYN, 1776 231
BROWER’S MILL, GOWANUS 233 The Yellow Mill is seen in the distance.
MONUMENT TO MARYLAND’S “400” 241
NAVY YARD 243 In foreground 5.5-inch breech-loading gun, with mount and shield, taken from Spanish cruiser _Vizcaya_, after destruction of Spanish fleet, July 3, 1898; also submarine mine from Guantanamo.
FORT LAFAYETTE, NEW YORK NARROWS 245
BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM 246
HENRY WARD BEECHER 247
SEAL OF BROOKLYN 249
PRINCETON
THE LINE OF HISTORIC CATALPAS 253
A VIEW OF THE FRONT CAMPUS 255
JOHN WITHERSPOON 260
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT ROCKY HILL, N. J., NEAR PRINCETON 261
MORVEN 263
RICHARD STOCKTON, “THE SIGNER” 269
HALL IN THE MORVEN HOUSE 273
BATTLE OF PRINCETON. DEATH OF MERCER 277 From the painting by Col. J. Trumbull.
NASSAU HALL 287
PRESIDENT JAMES MCCOSH 293
SEAL OF PRINCETON 296
PHILADELPHIA
READING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 299 From an old French print.
THOMAS PENN 303 From a painting owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, copied by M. I. Naylor from the portrait in the possession of Major Dugald Stuart.
SECOND STREET, PHILADELPHIA, SHOWING THE OLD COURT HOUSE ON THE LEFT 305 From an engraving by W. Birch & Son.
FRANKLIN IN 1777 307 After the print reproduced from the drawing of Cochin.
THE PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY 309 The old building on Fifth Street, now demolished. From an engraving by W. Birch & Son.
CARPENTER’S HALL, PHILADELPHIA 313 Wherein met the First Continental Congress, 1774.
THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL 315 From an engraving by W. Birch & Son.
INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, BEFORE 1876 319
THE MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA 321
DR. WILLIAM PEPPER[9] 324
FRANK THOMSON[9] 326
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 331
SEAL OF PHILADELPHIA 333
WILMINGTON
PLAN OF CHRISTINA FORT, 1655 338
RESIDENCE OF THE LATE THOMAS F. BAYARD[10] 342
OLD SWEDES’ CHURCH 345
REV. ERIC BJORK[11] 348
BISHOP LEE 349
THOMAS F. BAYARD 351
SHIPLEY BUILDING[11] 354
OLD FRIENDS’ MEETING-HOUSE 356
HOUSE OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 359
CITY HALL 361
NEWCASTLE COUNTY COURT HOUSE 363
SEAL OF WILMINGTON 365
BUFFALO
JOSEPH ELLICOTT 368 Founder of Buffalo.
LAFAYETTE SQUARE 371
A GLIMPSE OF BUFFALO HARBOR 375
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH 379
MILLARD FILLMORE[12] 383
BEACON ON OLD BREAKWATER 386
DELAWARE AVENUE, SHOWING BISHOP QUIGLEY’S HOUSE 388
DR. JOHN CRONYN 389
WILLIAM I. WILLIAMS 390
SEAL OF BUFFALO 391
PITTSBURGH
AN EARLY RESIDENT OF PITTSBURGH 395 From the statue by T. A. Mills in the Carnegie Museum.
SUN-DIAL USED AT FORT DUQUESNE 398
THE EARL OF CHATHAM 403 From an oil painting in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
BLOCKHOUSE OF FORT PITT. BUILT IN 1764 406
PLAN OF FORT PITT 409
PHIPPS CONSERVATORY 415
THE COAL FLEET 419
CARNEGIE INSTITUTE 421
COURT HOUSE 425
SEAL OF PITTSBURGH 426
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
BY ALBERT SHAW
The designation “Middle States” has a negative, rather than a positive, significance. In our later history, as well as in that of our colonizing and federalizing periods, the term “New England” has had a definite value for many purposes besides those of geographical convenience: and it is equally true that “the South” has meant very much in our American life besides a mere territorial expression. But the “Middle States” lack the sharply distinguishing characteristics of the other groups. In more senses than the strictly literal one, the two immense States of New York and Pennsylvania, with one or two smaller neighbors, have occupied middle ground.
If New York, on the one hand, has been somewhat closely related to New England, Pennsylvania has had many neighborly associations with Maryland and Virginia. New Jersey, meanwhile, has been a close link between Pennsylvania and New York. The development of New England was dominated in a marvellous way by a set of ideas, religious, political and philosophical, that belonged to a certain phase of the English Reformation. Virginia and other settlements to the southward had their origins in a colonizing movement that was more typically representative of contemporary English manners, views and ways of living. The aristocratic system would have disappeared rapidly enough in the South but for the gradual extension of an exotic institution,—that of African slavery.
The Middle States had a more varied origin,—one that does not lend itself so readily to the purposes of contrast and generalization. The Hudson, called by the Dutch the North River, and the Delaware, which they called the South River, were both entered by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, in 1609; and apart from an extremely limited settlement of Swedes on the west bank of the Delaware, it was the Dutch who controlled the beginnings of European settlement along the seaboard of what afterward came to be known as the Middle States section. The Dutch colonization was not large, but it had a strong and persistent influence upon the subsequent development of New York and the region round about.
The gradual predominance in New York of men of English speech and origin came about partly by infiltration from the New England colonies and partly by direct migration from England. There resulted a natural and harmonious fusion between the Dutch pioneers on the Hudson and the English-speaking colonists. Various Dutch institutions survived long after the English language had come into general use.
Before the grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn, the settlers on the Delaware had been mainly Swedish, Dutch or otherwise from continental Europe. William Penn’s colonists at the outset were largely English Quakers, and some years later there arrived great numbers of Germans, some French Huguenots, and a good many Scotch-Irish Protestants.
Thus, as compared with New England on the one hand and the Southern colonies on the other, the Middle States had cosmopolitan, rather than purely English, origins. This cosmopolitanism has remained, as a leading factor in all their subsequent history. The spirit of compromise and tolerance that had been developed in the middle section by the contact of different nationalities was of incalculable value when the time came for the co-operation of the thirteen colonies in the struggle for independence, and in the subsequent formation of their federal union.
If the colony which developed into the Empire State, and that which came to be known as the Keystone State, had occupied some other geographical position than the one they held as a buffer between New England and the South, the history of America might well have taken a wholly different course. For there was almost as much difference in institutions, life and points of view between the New Englanders and the Virginians of Colonial days as between the New Englanders and the Canadian Frenchmen across the St. Lawrence. But the transition from New England to New York was easy, and involved no violent contrasts. There had been a steady movement of population from the New England States westward across the eastern boundary line of the State of New York. On the other hand, it was comparatively easy for Maryland and Virginia to co-operate with Pennsylvania. In so far, indeed, as population had extended back from the tide-water districts into the hill country and the Appalachian valleys, the settlement both of Maryland and Virginia had proceeded very largely from Pennsylvania.
Thus the Middle States had a great mission to perform in uniting and holding together the more extreme sections. In the development, after the Revolutionary War, of the country west of the Alleghanies, this harmonizing influence of the Middle States was very conspicuously shown in the creation of the great commonwealth of Ohio, and only to a less degree in the making of a number of other States in what has now come to be called the Middle West—the region that produced men of the type of Lincoln and Grant, and that joined with the old Middle States in later crises to preserve the Union and fuse its elements into a homogeneous nation.
No communities in the world lend themselves more profitably to the study of history than these which are described in the present volume. Concrete illustration aids no less in the study of history than in that of the physical sciences; and these towns of the Middle States illustrate not only the more recent tendencies that have marked the course of human history, but also lead us back by easy stages to an insight into conditions of an earlier time. For example, the survivals of the Dutch _régime_ in New York quicken a sympathetic interest that greatly aids the comprehension of the international career of the Netherlands. On the very day when these remarks are written, the larger news of the world—that which is history in the making—concerns itself with two widely severed scenes of early Dutch colonization. From Paris comes the decision of the Venezuela arbitration tribunal, involving principally the material and legal facts as to the extent of Dutch exploration and settlement in the same general period as the Dutch colonization of New York. The relations of the Dutch and English in successions and exchanges of jurisdiction on the northern coast of South America can only be understood in the light of the history of the settlements at the mouth of the Hudson River.
In like manner the conditions of Dutch settlement in South Africa in the middle of the seventeenth century are best comprehended in connection with the story of contemporary Dutch colonization in America. The Knickerbockers of New York and the Boers of the Transvaal are of common origin,—a fact frankly recognized by the Holland Society of New York in its expressions of sympathy with the Dutch element in South Africa in its struggle against fate.
The history of the communities of Pennsylvania affords a convenient initiation into much of the complex religious and ecclesiastical history of Europe. Penn brought the Quakers and other fine English stock from the middle and north of England for reasons that go to the very heart of the English life of the seventeenth century. A little later the Protestant Germans of the Palatinate came in great numbers, impelled by motives to understand which is to find oneself essentially comprehending the conditions of Church and State that so disturbed and harassed Western Europe for a long period. Thus, to study the great city of Philadelphia in its origins, its later accretions and its existing conditions, is to find inviting avenues leading into many fields of historical inquiry both of the new world and the old.
What single spot could one find anywhere that would more naturally stimulate the study of political and economic history in the nineteenth century than old Castle Garden at the lower end of New York City, through which millions upon millions of immigrants have entered the Western world to find contentment and prosperity? Many of these came from Ireland; and the municipal life of New York City has been profoundly affected by that fact. To answer the question why these people left Ireland and, in leaving, why their destination was New York rather than some port in the British colonies, is to review the history of the Irish land system, the Irish Church and the political administration of Ireland for several generations.
An enormous element of the present population of New York, as well as of the country at large, is made up of a comparatively recent German immigration, to understand which one must learn something of the German revolutionary movement of 1848, the growth of German militarism and the conditions under which educational progress in Germany has outstripped the average material prosperity. Still more recently there has been a huge immigration of Russian Jews, with local effects of a most marked character in the city of New York. To know why these Jews have come is to look into racial, political, and economic conditions throughout the great empire of the Czar.
To study the main routes of communication in a region like our Middle States is to gain an insight into the relations of physical conditions to historical development that will be of no little use in the study of other origins and remoter periods. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance, for instance, of the part that the Hudson River has played in the history of the Western Hemisphere since its discovery and settlement by the Europeans. The route by way of the Hudson, Lake George and Lake Champlain afforded in the early times the one interior passage to the St. Lawrence from the settlements on our seaboard.
Much of the land adjacent to the river was granted in large tracts under the Dutch system to patroons, so called, who were virtually feudal lords. Upon some of these tracts there still survive various peculiarities of the feudal system of land tenure. To know something of what feudalism meant as respects the control of the land, the student might find a worse method than to trace back the history of one of these Hudson River estates to the period of the Dutch grant, in order to get so much nearer to the survivals of the mediæval system in Europe.
At the spot where I live on the Hudson, and where I am now writing, the environment is suggestive of almost three centuries of American history. I look out upon the great stream which Hudson navigated in the _Half Moon_ in 1609, and upon which sailing craft have been plying almost continually ever since. I see great steamers passing where Fulton first experimented with steam navigation. The highway near by is the old Albany post-road, this immediate part of which was known as Edgar’s Lane and was opened in 1644. This morning I heard the pleasant notes of a coaching-horn, and looked out to see a stately four-in-hand on its way to the city, a forcible reminder of at least a century and a half of regular mail coaching on that same road. My home is a part of what was the old Philipse manor; and at Yonkers, a few miles below, one finds the manor-house, now in constant use as a municipal building. It was partly built in 1682, and assumed its present dimensions in about 1745.
On this very ground, and on the hills lying to the eastward, Washington’s army was encamped for a number of weeks in 1777, and near by is the well-preserved colonial house where Washington and Rochambeau sojourned for some time, and where the Yorktown campaign was planned. In the river at this point, on several occasions, the British frigates made appearance, the last of these being the final meeting between General Washington and General Sir Guy Carleton, in May, 1783, on the suspension of hostilities. A few miles farther up the road one comes to the lane that leads to Washington Irving’s “Sunnyside,” with its tablet stating that the house was first built in the year 1650.
With these older historical souvenirs in mind, I turn to the southward, and there, as a reminder that the current of American history flows on, and that our past is in no manner detached from the present and the future, I see, standing out in bold relief on the horizon, the tomb of General Grant, while anchored in the river lies the _Olympia_, the flag-ship of Admiral Dewey, just now returned from adventures as fraught with history-making results as was the presence of Hudson’s _Half Moon_ in this same river two hundred and ninety years ago.
The historical significance of the Hudson might be illustrated in some such way at many another point upon its banks. The location of Albany is particularly to be noted as one evidently intended by nature for an important rendezvous. In the earlier period Albany and the Saratoga district, and certain points of advantage in the Mohawk Valley, were of great strategic importance. They were natural gateways, which had to be held first against the Indians and Frenchmen, and afterward against the British. Their later importance has had to do with canals, railroads and the development of commerce.
But of Albany it must be said that it has also the distinction of being one of the three or four chief law-making centres of the English-speaking world. In no other way has the State of New York exerted so wide an influence upon the country at large as in the working out of laws and institutions which have been re-enacted almost without change by a great number of the other States of the Union. Thus Albany has been a great training school in politics and legislation.
Before the days of railroad building, the Erie Canal was the greatest undertaking that this country had witnessed in the improvement of its transportation facilities. This waterway connected the Great Lakes with the Atlantic by way of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys; and among other results of a far-reaching nature there followed the development of the city of Buffalo, a commercial and manufacturing community founded in the opening years of the nineteenth century, and destined in the twentieth to achieve such growth and splendor as few men are yet bold enough to anticipate.