\er 711030 ‘ who 2 a
’9 * lament e i ‘
i . hum, 3mm. 1, 1922
\‘V
\-
e , ‘ ’ ' _ .
- -. ' . . i . 'y 7 i V _ ‘ 7 , '\ 7‘ " when the emotion of the Dec-pie
By EDWIN C. HILL. ‘ . '. _ 7 a Street , flaShed om along the WhOIe kngm
.. ....- .. . - -~ .emlnlscences 0 ,, e . f W , e ....
James Henry V’Vhitehouse." , ' , , - ,. _
dean of “'31! Street. is scarce-
‘ly to be measured in years. Though
he sturdily supports eighty-nine. and
with the vigor of a pioneer—for great
cities have their pioneers—it is not
C so mustang, aggregate 213‘ mg-
netizes interest as it is the fasicfiaT-Y
mg retrospect of such eminent age.
Such men. few indeed, should be pre-
served as the most eloquent and
lively records of New York's meta-
morphosis from infancy to maturity.
Born in New York and living in
New York through this chep of
years. Mr. “'hitchouse has not only
gnjoyed with younger gcncrations
the mall-rial miracles that are even
now becoming ccmmonplacc-such
as electric illumination, electric
transportation. wireless, airplanes-
but has felt the human thrill of the
announced perfection of railway
travel itself and transatlantic cross-
Ings by sic-um; of communication by
wires over land and under sea. The
Old magic and the new have been his
heritage.
He camc into life in the Presi-
dency of Monroe. lie was a school-
boy. near the New York City Hall,
when John wuincy Adams governed.
and. since Adams he has known
twenty-three occupants of the “White
House and has voted for or against
nineteen. Of the Governors of New
York he has known a long line, '
He has seen the. town change and
change again. most marvelously,
made ovrr in a thousand ways, each
transition extraordinarily interest-
Ing. l-It- was a sizable baby when
THE SEX came into being in 1833
and whom Bennett launched Tim
NEW l'muc ili:i:.\i.o two years later.
He kncv.‘ intimately the life of a city
much smaller. much quieter and.
possibly. more pious than it is to-
duy. llc has watched the social life
of the city form and transform from
the days of Philip IIone. He was‘n.
bay win-n New York was still guarded
by the old Leather Heads. when
Dickens first came here in 1812 and
when the clubs not such magnifi-
cent retrmts for the hard pressed
malc {13 War are to-day, had not yet
moved to l-‘ifih avenue, and when
the lowvr reach of tho avonuc had
not been alumloned by the Knickcr-
rockers.
The City That Has Gone.
In such long: past episodes of the
life of the town Mr. \Vhitchouse
knows how to discourse brightly and
checrily—whcn in the mood—ran-
dom recollections. all the more en-
tertaining iorausc of casualncss.
“It is not easy to \‘v'iLVE' a wand
and summon pictures of the calm,
‘dignii‘ied old New York, the New
York of three-quarters of a century
ago, before vast tides of immigrac
tion had l'fillvd over its quarters and
depositml so much sediment," Mr
VVhitehouse says. "Certain duties
and ceremonies of existence which
are taken lightly nowadays were
matters of almost religious obser-
vance then. Seventy-five years ago
people were very serious about
churchcoing. Sunday had not lost
By MAURICE MORRIS.
county."
“‘WIIEN I lived up in Ulster
from
said the man
Longcddy, "I
knovvcd a frog " ‘
“This yer cheese 0’ yourn, Newt.
In purty strong." said old man
Ketchum. "fer store cheese."
“Leastways,” said the man from
Longedtty. “to be strickly ackrit "
Old man Ketchum dropped the
wire cheese cover with a clatter.
“I never what you might call
tnowed him," continued the man
trom Longeddy, "but I’ve saw him
more than once."
"Prob'ly saw him twicet at once,"
muttered old man Ketchum.
Started It Himself.
I didn't approve of the way old
man Ketchum acted. Never did, for
that matter. But it. didn’t do‘any
good to say anything. First place.
he wouldn’t have paid any attention
to me, and then again it wouldn't
have made any difference if he had.
The man from Longeddy was set
and determined when he once
started. I knew it, and all the rest
, did, too. except old man‘ Ketchum.
“And Lord knows he ought to have;
experience enough, he'd had.
Besides that, old man Ketchum
ought to have realized that he didn't
have in body but himself to blame.
Started it himself. he did. Came into
the store that night and says. “Well,"
he says, '1 just see Normi Smith in
the side yard. so I druv inter town,"
' he says.
"She come. back last week.” says
we Upshaw.
’WThey all do." says the old man,
unpleasant like. "But some way I
thought Norml would make more of
a. go’of it. Got to wearing them
flab-net things like the summer
, bodrders, with no arms and no legs
‘10 m and Shiny stockin's, and cut-
‘pug shoes. Then nawthing would do
fer-flier but the city—too slow for
589.. here. Yet here she is back.
Thelpin' her maw with the churnin',‘
9hr! prob'iy eatin' according. Yaas,‘
. 'allus come “back—boys and
gig-brand cats, 0' course "
" ”men I lived up in Ulster county
ed p; frog." said the man from
_ ' ' eutways, I’ve saw him
' had a rec-cord that
, wholepulel of can.
here he come m
- anything but buckwheat. -, «
' its old Puritan: ‘11 character, derived
from New 1;. 1nd. Sundays were,
silent. except for much ringing of
church hells. At 10 in the morning
and ‘at 7 at night the streets were
filled wi’h sedate churchgoers. And
TFei befiifimsifhsf listened-7m;
Preachers were earnest and long-
winded and had not lost oldtime con-
ceptions of heaven and hell. Two
hour sermons were customary and
long hymns.
"A't'ter church families considered
it to be in the best taste to seclude
themselves and take the injunction
as regards the day of rest very
seriously. Cold meals were the rule.
The important meal of the day was
at noon in weekday life, and the
boards of those days were heaped
with substantial food. It was not
until the younger generation began
to visit Europe and acquire Conti-
nental manna rs and customs that
the dinner hour was changed and
the heavy foods began to give way
to more delicate vlands. The old
Delmonico's. in \‘Viliiam street, be-
tween Fulton and Ann. set the new
style for restaurants.
“Our old clubs were pretty gen
erally modeled on British lines. The
club of sixty or seventy years ago
was not a very pretentious affair
perhaps because family life was
more absorbing than at present.
The entertainment was simple as
compared to what is offered now,
but it had a very fine and dignified
flavor.
Clubs Move Uptown.
“I think that the first of the clubs
that moved to Fifth avenue was the
Union. It Went in 1855 from
Broadway, near Fourth street, to the
northwest corner of Fifth avenue
and Twenty-first street. and occu-
pied the first building that 'had ever
been built for club purposes so far
as I know. It has always been one
of the most exclusive of clubs, and
on the old rosters are the names of
the Livingstons, the Van Rensse-
lam-s, the Stuyvesants. the Suydams.
the Van Cortlandts, the Clowns and
the Oakleys. Philip Hone. who
wrote the ‘Dlary,’ was a. member. of
course, and fifty years ago one met
in its quiet rooms such men as the
elder Belmont, Rufus Ingalls. A. T.
Stewart, Andrew H. Green, Samuel
J. Tildcn and Isaac Bell.
"The Union League, organized in
the stress of the war and to stand
behind Lincoln. started at Seven-
teenth street and Broadway. The
Manhattan. too, came into being in
the war days to express the aims of
the Democratic party. The Lotos
dates back to 1870 and the associ-
ation of young journalists, and it
was modeled somewhat upon the Sav-
age Club of London.
“I‘ don’t suppose there are many
persons who can recall the old.
Leather Heads. as we called the mem-
bers of the' city police force seventy
years and more ago. They lasted
until about 1845 and they patrolled
the town by night. Leather Heads
were recruited from all sorts 61'
on his leg joints, an’——but to begin
ta. the beginnin"'—-—-—
“Huh," said old man Ketchum.
Those Five Beehivec.
"The beginnin' was Cale Burnhart’s
five beehives. I s'pose Cale Burn-
hart's honey was the finest ever
hivcd. Three kinds. Cale had, each
better‘n the other. There was his
buckwheat honey—that was in the
two end hives; his white clover
Old man Ketchum.
honey, in the middle hive. and in the
two in between'hfves he raised his
celebrated ten-perennial mixture.
Known all over that end of the
county. Cale’s honey was, and I did
hear—" . .
“Mean ter tell me," snorted old
man Ketchum, "you can see-lect
honey that away, some as you trap
nest aigs!” '
"And I did hear," resumed the man
from Longeddy, "that a man from
the city, biggest fancy grocer there.
I guess, said he was ready to take
all Cale could mannifactur at double
prices. You. see, Cale had got so he
didn't pay no attention to nothing
on‘the farm but. bee raisin'. and
honey. He'd imported a kind of
Greek bee, Tuscan- they call ’em,
that wouldn't feed on nothing, but
white clover. Then he sent up in.
the hill kentry where the land's so
poor that the only crop they can‘
raise is buckwheat, and got allot of '
bees that didn't know the midst"
:“Buthh'crownin'tn
laborers, stevedores andporters and
so on, and they wore a kind of fire-
man's cap, which had no front; a.
camlet coat and carried a lantern. ,
They were prudent souls, as doubt-
less was required in a time of so
many lawless persons, and wherever
they‘went
their progress. Few of them ever
went above Fourteenth street. Fire-,
men were volunteers and did good
work, too. with a great pride in their
duties. It is hard to bellevethat life
was carried on in such a haphazard
kind of way.
I“Thcre were some pretty bad quar-
ters-in the ’Nchork of the old day’s,.
The Five Points was a habitat of de
chambers such as the Chinatown of San Francisco possessed.
places where life'was not safe. The
'Five Points was :1 habitat of des-
perafioes and it was burrowed with
underground chambers such as the
Chinatown of San Francisco pos-
sessed. Good citizens did not dare to
be found in that and similar neigh-
borhoods after dark. Policemen sel-
dom went there and there was inces-
sant drunkenness and brawling. fre-
quent murders and a great deal of
wretchcdness and misery. All about
were warrens of the depraved or un-
fortunate. such as )Iurdercr‘s Alley
and Cow Bay, and the lodging houses
were terrible places, the last resort
of ruined men.
“In the Bowery. close by, there was
a great, harsh jungle of life. It was
the street to which the desperate and
the miserable repaired to forget or
blunt their sufferings with drink
and vice. Fifty or sixty years ago
the Bowery was one long street of
brilliantly lighted drinking dens and
resorts of vice, interspersed with low
concert halls and theaters where im-
moral plays or gariSh melodramas
were performed to stimulate un-
heélthy~minds ,Tberc were a. good
many picturesque characters, but, as
a rule, the inhabitants and frequent-
7 7 ers of the old Bowery were a sor’did:
they Tiallooed ‘newsifi‘mnpfescsan’rfiafircgsela‘fr
A!
wretched men and miserable wom'bn.
Robberies were very common and
stabbings and shootings familiar.
"There was much_.. open, public
gambling then. In the sections fre-
quented bLthe criminal elements it
fwas often accompanied by brutality,
especially when sailors, the great prey
of these districts, were to be robbed. 7
c
But in the aristocratic neighbor-
,hoods there were some very Splen‘
did gambling establishments. Sixty
years ago these palaces of chance
were richly appointed affairs, orna-
mented in rosewood and mahoganY.
silks and satins, lacquer and glit-
Meals of the consult-st foods and wines
were served free of charge to the
patrons, who were. carefully selected
with almost the rigidity of social ex-
cluslveness. Men» from Wall Street
and sporting men. played at dice and
cards or at the roulette wheel in
these plays and often lost great for-
tunes for the times. One of the best
known and the most interesting of
these old time gambling house keep-
ers was John Morrisey. He began
life as the keeper of a low drinking
den in Trey and then, going into the
prize ring, fought his way to'i’ame.
Henna even elected to Congress. I
believe, and I know that in his late
years he claimed as friends some of
our pretty big man. .
Cale Burnhart’s "Come
sight to see 'em passing by the
sweetest kind of yaller and pink and
red flowers and sticking to the hardy
blue perennual larkspur and gentian
and erysipelas"—
"Seems to me it's a mighty long
ways to get that there frog," said old
man Ketchum.
Getting to the Point.‘
"Choice produce that honey surely
was," pursued the man from Long-
eddy. “only. of course. the supply
was restricted. And the worst of it
was Cale got to feeling that his ten—
perennial brand was kind of peterln'
out, and he couldn’t ngger how it
could be. \X‘orrled himself most sick.
he did, slaving away in his bluff
flower beds and pampering them
cross bred bees every way he knew.
and still the supply kept dwindlin‘.
He even rehived 'em in blue um-
brella hives he‘d decorated himself,
but it didn't help none. and finally it
got so he couldn't sleep nights."
“IVs-ll, to cut a long story "
"Huh." said old man Ketchum.
"Short," saki the man from Long-
C‘ddY. "Cale was. wandering round
near the hives kind 0’ distracted one
"Of course there was a. vast deal of
drinking, particularly in the con-
sumption of ardent spirits, and I
sometimes think that men of the
better classes knew how to many
their.” notations better. A great deal
of Madeira, port and sherry were
MA; the better houses.
Champagnecame later. Ladies won 1’
no more have thought of drinking
whisky neat' or with water even
than they would have thought of
drinking poison. It would have been
.in execrable taste. Cigarettes were
virtually unknown. That is a cus-
tom which has grown upon the coun—
try in the past twenty-five years
speradoes and it was burrowed with underground
In the old days men smoked cigars
from Cuba or indulged in pipes, and
there were many who clung to the
ancient habit of snuff. I can recall
quite clearly when it was no un-
common thing for an older friend
in any one of the clubs to proffer his
snuffbox with an old fashioned bow.
"To have known the hardships
and delays of travel, even for a. short
distance out of the city, one must
have had to live in those times. , Until
shortly before I was born there Was
utter derision at the very idea that
steam locomotion was a practical
thing. In 1820, right across the river '
from here. John Stevens lost his
temper because he could not make
people see what a. 'wondert'ul future
lay in steam transportation. So he
built a little railroad. a narrow gauge
, affair, on his estate in Hobokcn, and
he ran a little train successfully.
SO far as I know; that was the first
railroad and locomotive successfully
operated in America, but it was
‘years before there was much de-
Back Frog
night. when he saw a. shadder move
near one of the blue umbrellas.
Bright moonlight it was. and creep-
ing closer he saw this frog I’m tellin'
about. He was settin' there in front
of the entrance to the umbrella hive
with his eyes most poppin’ out of his
head, and as Cale looked he seemed
to stretch out twice his natural"
length and then come a ‘sound like a
mole trap beln' sprung. and there
was the frog same as before.
' “Four or five times that happened.
Cale creepin’ closer all the time, and
finally he see how it .was. Ever-r
g! ’4 2/274”
velopment of the great idea. When
I was a little boy It was to stage
coaches we had to look when we
wanted to journey ‘out of our city.
When my father had to go to Bos-
ton he went by steamboat to Provi-
dence, twenty—three hours, and then
, . a ingforty,
miles. When I was ten it Still re~
quired forty-one hours to make the
trip. Even a journey up to Yonkers
was no small undertaking.
“In transatlantic travel we had
two or three steam lines—the old
Black Ball between New York and
Liverpool. the Red Star and the,
Swallowtail. I think the record
crossing was held by a Black Ball
ship. which did the voyage in just
under sixteen days. I remember
when the first Cunarder came into
this port. This was the Great
Western, in the spring of 1838, and
after that steam was pretty solidly
established. That'was the period of
the clipperahips—wonderful, swal-
lowlike sailing vessels which carried
the Stars and Stripes to every great
port in the world and made Yankee
seamanship famous. These were
wonderful ships and the old SUN
and old New YORK HERALD bristled
with proud records of their achieve-
ments, immortalizing such ships as
the Challenge and Invincible._
"I remember when Dickens visited
New York for the first time. in 184...-
He Came over on. the Britannia to
' Boston and had a terribly tedious
journey to reach New York. Ten
years later, when Thackeray visited
us for the first time, travel was
pleasanter and more unbroken.
There Were interesting days when
these great writers came to call on
us, but there have probably been no
more brilliant ceremonies than were
arranged in honor of the Prince of
Wales when he came here in the
autumn of 1860. The whole city
turned out to greet him, and for the
rest of the time there was a vast
to—do of flag waving, parading, band
playing and dances and dinners. He
was only a boy, and when his grand-
son came here a little While ago it
struck me that there was a remark-
able similarity between the occa-
‘ sions, allowing for the material and
temporal changes. They worked the
young fellow pretty hard on that
occasion of sixty-two years ago, Just
as they worked his bright faced
grandson recently. for distinguished
visitors to New York must prepare
to endure exhausting hospitality. It
seems characteristic of us.
"“‘hen Dickens returned to New
York in 1868 they gave him a g: and
banquet at Delmonico's, which I re-
member very well. He had. become
an old man. lame and tired? It, was
on this occasion that he apologized
very neatly for some rather harsh
things he had said about the United
States. Among his hosts on that oc-
casion were two great editors, Hor-
ace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond.
"I have seen many brilliant days
in Fifth avenue in the course of sev-
enty-five years or more, but days
never more stirring and brilliant
than in the period of the recent war,
snap meant the death of one of them
cross bred bees. That frog just sat
there till one came along " ‘
“In the night?" egrunted old man
Ketchum.
"Goin' in or out, made no matter.
Frog gave a heave—wouldn't leave
the ground—stretch up maybe three
times his length, snap his jaws on
the bee, gulp an settle back.
"Cale chased h away and stood
guard till mornin'. but it didn't do no
The man from Lengeddy.
good. Soon as he ,wént of! to git
some sleep, back came the frog and
'started stretchin' and snappin’ and
gulpin' again. i ‘
“The second night Cale captured
him and took him across the road
and dumped him in the slew, but
next day he was back. snappln’ and
gulpin’ away same as before. When
I heard about it and druv by to see
' him. there was a'crowd'ghore‘nke é. '
EL People had
in back to git a.
co'll
trottin’ match
come. from ’w
glimpse of
; “Mexjc *sajd Funk Whalley.
"Er ntrout Finch named ' him
that? said the 'man from Longeddy.
‘ueaip '0: Mexico, he called him after
‘ seeln" him work. or Mexico for short.
7 Erin Fincb's honey hadbéen given
the gof’nyyhenicale “got so scien-
tific: but'Ei-mentrout still kept at his
"Some of these days, I suppose.
there .w‘rll be nothing residential in
Fifth avenue south of Central
Park. for the march northward of
usiness has been relentlessly Stf‘ii‘lv.
What a change has come about Fines
the days of the old Knickerboc; >53
Probably the southernmost en: 0:
the avenue has changed least (-i all,
jfipmpcriy,mordi—wamsififi fig
most picturesque and the mo>t his.
toric. Up to almost the civil our
days Fifth avenue in this ion-n;-
stretch was one of the most auras-
tive dwelling quarters in the W
city. The old mansions had won ,
ful gardens, some of thcm ninr.
I
or
a hundred feet deep, full of fiun'crg'
with white trellises. They were luvgly
old places. undisturbed li;.- th ha. i.-
ing of motor horns and the dim or
burning gasoline—~—swect, fwsh, old
fashioned, lovable. Such aid: the
Henry Brevoort place, later Jr‘q’rll‘ed
by Henry is Rham, and the nor-
man mansion at the northrvast
of Washington Square and the
nue. Fifth avenue was 3-
and made a. stately slimy ,
drawn vehicles. with fine harm:
dignified, éoachmen. Ewn i's
stables in Washington Mm";
Macdougal alley were too a: ‘f
tive to waste and are made our new
into dwelling places.
.ch-
Past, Present, Futu re.
"These scattered rt ,.
’mine sketch :1 city anti :3"
city that are long gone;
tive in retrOSpect to u'
but probably gone for t“
the Whole. I am a great
progress, and I have. s
own eyes a very gradual
the better in most thin
New York. The old
is to:
syrily sanctified, though it pr :13
manners and modes that are null
worth foilowing; a way. But iEf-: is
much more comfortable on the
whole. Tnvre is so much less igno—
ran‘c and m
has been the
Stcadily growing
:mcntal idea of
and to make life
and childrrn in cspuiai.
see how anybody can come to my
cash: for
I do not
age in New York without having
acquired a calm optimism.
"I Wonder what New York will be
eighty-nine years ht’l‘lf-D'. is
truly a thrilling spr-cul; .
imagine it will be infinlttiy
beautiful, because public taste is t...“
tering visibly. More attractive 1i. lid.
ings, both-public and private. are
being erected. The atrocities «if he
brownstone front age have 12:: * ii, I
dare say, for good. The st.‘ of
architecture that libcled good
we do not turn any more to tn-
saw artisans for the decorations of
our cottages. That has gone “:1?!
the iron deer and the granite iiozzi
that used to ‘decoratc’ our lawns.
"Eighty—nine years from now New
York will be the wonder city of the
world. I should like to come back
for a glimpse of it. May be I shall.
“he knows '3"
\. fl
on the bank of Goose Creek, but two
days later that pesky frog was back
on the job. Little lame he was, but
it didn’t interfere with his stretchin'
and gulpin'."
“Why didnt he kill him and be
done with it?" asked Late Upshaw.
"0h, Cale couldn't do that, him
being a Quaker, and his mother wry
strict in the sect and livin' there
with him. “'hy she wouldn't let him
even kill a critter small as a mas-
quito. Bragged she'd never sh l a
drop of blood. and he never should _
The Neck Was Goad.
"Poor Cale took Mex on the slum
cars several times, once 'xvay over
In Delaware county—before the (3..in
at
..
of autos, of course, this wasw‘
Mexico always turned up, no
how far away he'd been drop; . ,
how much blindfolded he‘d been. 1‘13
seen him comin’ back from viz» 0'
them long journeys so dead in: ;;s
couldn’t" hop half an int-l. a . ‘:-8
and his feet raw, but 115'.“
stretchln' and hiseyes popwu' sum.
as ever. ‘
"He finished up the crumb-rid: in
time, then started on {llcnl '1" ~
and swifbhedrover to the buck“
bees. They got so distracted mung.
to avoid him that they began stip~
Din’ Into each other’s hives, and 0’
course that was the end of C::Ze'5
‘ business so far as fine honey was
concerned, for, while lmckwimt
hODeY’S good in its place and Clu'r'e’
honey in its place, as a mixture they
lose all their good qualities."
“What ever became of him?" $72934
Lafe Upshaw.
"Sold out to E1111 Finch and
the county, so I hear ," sail
man "from Longcddy.
."No, I mean the frog,” s:.‘-..
“Huh." said old man Keith;
a. nasty sort of way, “better
Ermentrout Finch about
I guess he could give you t‘
ticklers of them long comvrb
frog made too, if he'd a niliid :04
w: w; :13
» Among books announced for can;
.publlmtlon W Thomas Seltzer '15
“331500313." by Rene Maran, the rot;
“Tithe 3681‘0 author which read.
}
Norwalk Chronicler