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Page 24 text:
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control of smallpox by vaccination, and the protestion against yellow fever by a system of quarantine. The authorities did trace this latter disease, which they called the great sickness, to a vessel which had docked in the harbour at the time of the outbreak, having recently arrived from St. Thomas. One thing is definite: the' mor- tality Was so great, that a tremendous panic seized the inhabitants of the city. The effeets of these pestilences are seen in I-Iardie's description of the speedy exodus in the summer of 1882: Saturday, the 24th of August, our city presented the appearance of a town besieged. From daybreak till night one line of carts, containing boxes, merchandise, and effects, was seen moving towards Greenwich Village, and the upper parts of the City. Carriages and hacks, wagons and horsemen, were scouring the streets and filling the roadsg persons with anxiety strongly marked on their countenances, and with hurried gait, were hustling through the streets. Temporary stores and offices were erected, and even on the ensuing day QSundayJ carts were in motion, and the saw and hammer busily at work. Within a few days thereafter the Custom-house, the Post-opice, the banks, the insurance-offices, and the printers of newspapers located themselves in the Village or in the upper part of Broadway, where they were free from the impending danger, and these places almost instantaneously became the seat of im- mense business usually carried on in the great Metropolis. He adds: the Rev'd Mr. Marselus informed me that he saw corn growing on the present corner of Hammond and Fourth Streets on a Saturday morning, and on the following Monday Sykes Zee Niblo had a house erected capable of accommodating three hundred boarders. Even the Brooklyn ferry-boats ran up here daily. . 5. INETEENTH century Greenwich Village is perhaps the most interesting of all. In 1802 Thomas Paine, alleged Infidel, Weary of a life-long struggle, indicted as a sceptic and an unbeliever, his Age of Reason completed, came to the village to die. Greenwich Was to him a sanctuary and an escape from the turbulent political world which had failed truly to appreciate his greatness. This Englishman of scanty fortune but liberal ideas, a friend of Franklin and a believer in democracy had, by publishing his pamphlet Common Sense, made tens of thousands throughout the colonies ready to declare themselves independentg this man whose pamphlet had made Washmgton declare enthusiastically that Common Sense was of sound dottrine and unanswerable reasoning, and of whom Edmond Randolph, the first attorney general of the United States, made the statement that the declaration of the independence of America Was due, next to George III, to Thomas Paine, this Infidel was to live almost in obscurity for seven years, dying in the Village on the 8th of June, 1809. He had lived on Bleecker Street, then called Herring . . . after his death -4 20 od' vN '4- f 1 P T 5 Y? Rf' lf
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Page 23 text:
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their streets to flow, like spring freshets, around such obstructions which could not be surmounted. In a later day, when the creative mind of an O. Henry, a Dean How- ells, a Walt Whitman, or a Richard Harding Davis sought refuge from the monotony of meticulous, man-made Manhattan streets they appreciated and came to live in the crazy-quilt pattern of the Village lanes, places, and squares. The evolution and growth of the Village as a community was recognized by New Yorkers to such an extent that in 1810 a line of stage coaches began to operate be- tween the City and the Village. Although perhaps not as elaborate as the Fifth Avenue Buses which now do an about face in Washington Square, still those buses of a cen- tury ago were noble carriages in their own right. Of brightly painted wooden exte- riors, and decoratively lined interiors, they assured as much comfort as did the straw- covered floors assure warmth to the adventurous passenger embarking upon a sojourn away from the city, up into that new little town of Greenwich Village, That stage line was not a misplaced venture on the part of its owners, for, in 1822, another smallpox epidemic broke out in the City, causing every known sort of vehicle adaptable for transportation to triple in its value. A Vesuvian volcanic eruption could not have made New Yorkers flee into the open country any faster than they fled before the epidemic. John Lambert, writing a sketch of New York in 1807, de- scribed the sickness as follows: As soon as this dreadful scourge made its appearance in New York, the inhabitants shutiup their shops and flew from their houses into the coun- try. Those who cannot go far, on account of business, removed to Greenwich, a small 'village situated on the border of the Hudson River, about two or three miles from the town. Here the merchants and others have their ojices and carryl on their concerns with little danger from the fever, which does not seem contagious beyond a certain distance. The banks and other public ojices also remove - he e e their business to this place, and markets are regularly established for the supply of the in- habitants. Very few are left in the confined parts of the town except the poorer classes and 1 the negroes. The latter, not being ayfefted by the fever, are of great service at the dreadful crisis, and are the only persons who can be found to discharge the hazardous duties of at- tending the sick and burying the dead. Upward of 20,000 people removed from the interior parts of the city and from the streets near the water-side in 1806. Although this graphic description seems, to the modern eye, unwarranted, it must be remembered that all this occurred before the 19 V 096 NIP? -cl L J fi 't Ml ' eral -4 at
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Page 25 text:
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an adjacent thoroughfare Was named Reason Street after The Age o Reason But txme erodes and effaces all memorres Reason became Razszn and now rt ns Barrow A Mr John Bandel Jr engmeer to the Comm1ss1oners of the C1ty, was de6t1ned to become, unW1ttmgly the Boswell to th1s 1conoclast1c Johnson He Wr1tes I boarded zn the czty, and zn gozng to the o ce I almost dazly passed the house zn Herrzng Street Cnow Bleekerj where Thomas Pazne reszded, and frequently zn fazr weather saw hzm szttzng at the south wzndow o the first? story room of that house The sash was raised, and a small table or Stand was placed before hzm wzth an open hook placed upon zt whzch he appeared to be readzng He had hzs speftacles on hzs left elbow rested between the thumb and fingers of hzs hand hzs rzght lay upon hrs book and a decanter contaznzng lzquor of the color of rum or brandy was standzng next hzs book or beyond zt I never saw Thomas Pazne at any other place, or zn any other posztzon SW1ft speedrng years saw the Sappokanzkans and the natxve Amerncans vamsh only to be followed rn rap1d success1on by the Dutch the Enghsh the Colonxals and the R6V0lut10H1StS Thomas Paine had d1ed The spmnmg roulette Wheel of Tlme has stopped for a br1ef moment so that We may read the contemporary label New Amer zcans Each dynasty thought xtself everlastmg But l1ke those h1stor1es of greater and more vast terr1tor1es of the past, the old order m Greenwlch V111age keeps changxng Today not far d1s'tant from the s1te of the mrghty Keeya Meeka s tepee the monstrous Emplre State Bunldxng stands Ozymandlas hke lordmg over 1ts lesser ne1ghbors But It too W1ll perhaps some day be only two vast and trunkless legs of stone zn the desert The n1neteenth century w1tnessed much ln GreenW1ch Vrllage An attempt was made by Gouveneur MOIIIS to get the crooked crazy streets 1nto the ofHc1al map of the c1ty but h1s commxssxoners gave lt up as a bad job In 1822 another ep1dem1c sent more resrdents up mto the V1ClI11tY of Potter s Fzeld By th1s txme the V1llage had become urban consclous so Potters Fzeld was hurr1edly covered over and 1n 1826 the old graveyard was declared to be the new Washzngton Mzlztary Parade Ground But thxs d1d not prevent one of the heavy cannons set up on the mornmg celebra t1on from smkmg down mto a recently dug and poorly' filled grave HE UNIVERSITY of the Clty of New York was founded 1n 1830 on the east 21 SH . . f . ' ' up u a A ... ... . . , ., , . I - . . ' : . a : . , . D a 9 O U 9 9 . .... . I n u a n 0 -' . . . . , s ' 1 a ' 9 ' 9 , . . . . a a . . 1 , . . 9 . . . . . . L svn in ' Z 'El lo PIFSTARI CCCK'F
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