NEW YORK FIFTY YEARS AGO
A GENERAL TALK ON OLD NEW YOURK BY WM. R(?) DODGE
New York Tribune -- When I was a boy, said Mr. Dodge in a conversational tone to the audience, there were only 35,000 inhabitants in New York. I remember going to the old stone bridge, which was entirely cut off from the city. I remember well the first murder I ever heard talked of. A William street tailor killed his wife. He was hanged on a hill at Broadway and White Street. The Battery then was a promenade and the Castle Garden was a fort. The Bowery Green was a beautiful spot near the city. I recall the fact of a minister who had a church in Wall Street, hiring a house in White Street as his residence. ROBERT LENNOX, the father of the present Mr. Lennox, expostulated with him for his imprudence in living so far up town and having a church in the city. The old watchers were a curious institution. These men used to hoot through their horns the hour and that all was well, and they could be heard by nearly the whole of New York.
We used to take a great deal of paint to drum up custom. In 1826 I went into business on my own account. I had for my partner an old family friend who had been graduated from Yale College. He came down to the city with the idea that he knew a great deal about everything. I had sold a large amount of goods to eastern and western peddlers. Peddlers in those days used to stop at the villages and show their goods. Soon after we started in business, three of these peddlers came in with leather straps over their shoulders. They saw something they liked in the window, and came in to make a bargain. They had large tin boxes with them. I said to them while they were in the store: “I see that you have started in business just like myself. I would like you to put your tin boxes there,” pointing to a place in the store, “and have your goods sent here, even if you don’t buy anything from me. I want to make a show of business and people will think I am doing a large trade.” They selected places and were well pleased. My partner from Yale came to me and said: “Are these what you call customers?” I said, “Yes, large oaks from little acorns grow.” He didn’t quite agree with me. These three peddlers grew to be noble men. One is in Ohio, and another is in Danbury, and has accumulated a large fortune.
In those days, when the minute service began in the churches, two chains were stretched across the street, and no one was allowed to pass the church. Brooklyn was a very small village then, with not more than 10,000 inhabitants. There was no ferry, and hundreds of little boats of all sorts and colors were at the river front, as thick as the hackmen are now at the Grand Central Depot. They charged ten cents. Afterward there were the horse-boats to carry people across. In 1824 the first steam ferryboats went over to Brooklyn. Not as many people passed over the ferry in a week as now go over in a day. De Witt Clinton pushed forward the great plan of uniting the Hudson River with the lakes and of forming a canal. It was decided that the State should build the canal. In 18245 it was completed. A canal boat came from Buffalo to Albany and was towed down the Hudson River. The steamboat Chancellor Livingston, loaded with the leading men of Western New York, was on the river to celebrate the event. De Witt Clinton was there and also Dr. Mitchell, who had brought bottles of water from the Western lakes. He made an address. He poured the bottles of water from Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and the other lakes into the river, and said that the commerce of the West was now mingled with the commerce of the world as these waters were mingled with the waters of the world.
[From: The Vernon Clipper, Lamar County, AL, March 19, 1880 - Transcribed and submitted by Veneta McKinney]

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