Every now and then there is quite a fuss in the papers about the ringin’ of church bells, whether they are a nuisance or a delight, and this reminds me that a years ago there lived in New York a Quaker, a queer Quaker, called Caleb Offley, who, although a member of the “Society of Friends” who are opposed to all kinds of music, yet was very fond of the chimes of the church bells. This Caleb Offley was a half or three-quarters idiot, but he had a splendid taste in music.
He got to listenin’ to the chimes, till at last he got to ringin’ the chimes. He was only an amateur at this, but, unlike most amateurs he became so proficient that he could beat the regular bell ringers ‘emselves.
The spectacle of a Quaker, or “broadbrim,” ringin’ a church bell, attracted a good deal of attention, and caused a little scandal among the Quakers, who reproved Caleb for so doin’. Caleb promised to stop his ringin’ the bells and tried to keep his promise, but he couldn’t he couldn’t keep away from church at bell ringin’ time anymore than a moth can keep away from a candle in the evenin’. One reason was that the regular bell-ringers, gettin’ lazy, used to offer Caleb some whiskey, of which he was very fond, “on the sly,” to ring the bells for ‘em, and save ‘em the trouble–Caleb doin’ all the work and gettin’ some of the whiskey, while they got all the salary.
Finally the Quakers in meetin’ called up Brother Caleb and censured him first for bell ringin’, then for whiskey drinkin’, and required that he should give up both of these bad habits or be read out of the meetin’.
Caleb stood up before the broadbrims and made a little speech, the only public speech he ever made in his life: “I have done wrong,” he said, “and will try and do better; I will give up drinkin’, but friends, dear friends, I can’t give up the bells. Don’t, please, ask me to give up the bells, for I can’t.
So the Quakers consulted together, and very sensibly didn’t push the matter about the bells. Caleb stopped drinkin’, but he kept on bell ringin’ till he died.
During Caleb’s time the original Swiss bell-ringers visited New York. There were seven men in this troupe, and they played on forty-two bells. Some of the bells were as small as a very small dinner bell, and others were as large as a very large cow bell. These bells were all very carefully made, and were “tuned” by scrapin’ the metal, the clappers bein’ upon springs. A piece of leather was passed through the ball of the tongue, the leather strikin’ the ball direct, makin’ the tone soft and sweet, without lessenin’ its distinctiveness. The men put their forefingers and thumbs on the bells, and thuss kept a steady hold of ‘em. It took nine months of practice to get a bell into perfect tune, and it took about nine or ten years to make a first-class bell-ringer.
These bell-ringers made altogether a most beautiful orchestra, and played music of all kinds magnificently. There has never been such bell-ringing before or since in New York.
Talkin’ about Quakers, there used to be a famous old Quaker, well known from Boston to Philadelphia, called Hopper, Isaac T. Hopper–”friend Hopper,” he was generally styled. And he was everybody’s “friend” in the best kind of way.
He made himself very popular among the Irish by a good deed once. An Irishman named Pat McKeever had served a term in State prison for burglary, and when he came out of prison tried to leave an honest life, but found it very hard, as everybody was all the time throwin’ up his past life as a convict to him. It so happened that a robbery was committed near where this McKeever was working’,and just because he had once been a convict, poor Pat was blamed for this robbery, though he was innocent and ignorant of it; he was arrested on suspicion, and as he had once been a thief, nobody would defend him, or speak a good word for him, or go his bail.
But friend Hopper came to the front. Havin’ examined closely into the case, convinced himself that Pat not only didn’t, but couldn’t, under the circumstances, have committed this second robbery, he shook poor Pat’s hand in the court and went his bail.
Poor Pat had been actin’ despairin’ and desperate before, as he had no hope. He could easily have been taken, or mistaken, for guilty; but now, as Hopper shook hands with him, he burst out cryin’ like a baby, and protested his innocence so strongly that people began to think he might not be guilty after all.
Then Hopper got Pat a good lawyer, who proved his entire innocence, and from the time the case was decided in his favor till the day of his death Pat McKeever was an honest, industrious man, and Isaac T. Hopper was his friend.
There were never so many Quakers, of course, around New York as there were in Philadelphia, still the Quaker element has had its influence, and a very good influence, too, in makin’ up New York.
There was an old Quaker meetin’ house where the stables or sheds connected with it were so comfortable that, as the story goes, you could hardly get a horse to go past ‘em. All the horses wanted to go to Quaker meetin’. One Quaker, who lived in White street, called Reuben Whitson, had a sleek, well-fed horse that was accustomed to take his master and wife to the old meetin’ house regular. One Sunday Reuben’s wife was taken sick just before startin’ to church, while the horse was waitin’ with the wagon at the door. Reuben forgot all about goin’ to meetin’ and about the horse waitin’; but the horse took care of himself. He waited the regular canonical time at the house, then he started off by himself to the old meetin’-house, waited there about as long as he usually waited at the church door to unload, and then walked, as usual, to the shed, under which Reuben found him makin’ himself comfortable at last.
This Reuben Whitson was a mighty cute hand at a bargain, and it was believed that the reason he was so fond of attendin’ “the silent meetin’s” of the Quakers, where nobody is allowed to speak, was that durin’ these “silent meetin’s” he had his best chance to think out his business schemes. The old chap used to put up all his best jobs at those silent meetin’s.
This Whitson made himself very obnoxious to the Millerites, who were proclaimin’ that the end of the world was at hand, “sure pop.” Whitson boldly denounced what he called their fanaticism, and is said to have convinced many people of their error, “plucked ‘em,” as Beecher would say, “like brands from the burnin’”
One of the men who got seriously affected by the Millerite mania was a chap called “Curiosity Bartlett,” a man who made a sort of livin’ by selling what he claimed were genuine relics, but which were really manufactured by him, and palmed on the public.
Among the “relics” he had disposed of too advantage was what he said was a piece of wood from the old, original wooden synagogue of the Jews, on Mill street, the first Jewish synagogue in New York. A creek from the East River flowed past this synagogue, and in this stream the Jewish women performed some of their peculiar rites. It belonged to the Shewell [Shearith] Israel Congregation.
Another “relic” he had was a piece of Ball Hughes’s statue of Hamilton, which had been destroyed by the great fire in ‘35. There was a story connected with the destruction of this statue. It was placed on the Exchange, and when the roof fell in at the fire, the statue was crushed to atoms. Ball Hughes stood lookin’ at the fire and shoutin’ to save his statue; but when the crash came and his two years’ work of art was only a lot of rubbish, the story goes that the artist sat on a stoop, hid his face in his hands and cried like a child.
Then there was what he claimed to be a curious relic of bygone days, which he had bought, from the place where it had stood for a long while, right over the door of a house in Hudson street, between Hammersley street and the old Greenwich Bank. It was the sign of a fish, with a ring in its mouth, and was said to be over one hundred years old, commemoratin’ some romantic story in the history of a noble family in old England.
Then he had what he said was a piece from the old Randall homestead, which stood right on the old Randall farm, which used to extend where Eleventh street and Broadway is now, and embraced the site of Stewart’s up-town store. This old Randall farm was the basis of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor property, one of the most valuable in or around the city of New York.
Besides these, “Curiosity Bartlett” had a lot of other curious “relics” illustratin’ the history of New York, and by collectin’ these “relics” and disposing of ‘em to those interested in this line, he made a neat thing of it–for himself–till the Millerite craze got hold of him, and then he owned up that most of his relics had been gotten up for the occasion.
This disgusted a good many people who had been showin’ these relics to their friends, and who had been in their turn tellin’ others about ‘em, not lettin’ on that they had bought ‘em from Bartlett, but pretendin’ that they had got ‘em in very romantic or odd ways.
There was a double hocus pocus about these Bartlett relics, Bartlett havin’ humbugged his customers and his customers havin’ humbugged their friends; but although just before what he took to be the end of the world Bartlett went round to his customers and confessed his little humbug, yet it is not known that any of his customers went to their friends and confessed their little humbugs.
The only class of people in old New York who didn’t seem to be at all affected one way or the other by the Millerite excitement were the Indians who were just then visitin’ New York and bein’ exhibited at the American Museum. There were some fifteen of these, and they made quite a stir and a show.
One of ‘em was called Nan-Nouce-Fush-E-To, or the Buffalo King. He was a special favorite with the ladies, because he was such a blood-thirsty monster. He had killed, it was said, one hundred and eight men with his own hand–more men than even any doctor has ever killed. Then he talked nine distinct Indian dialects, which was more languages than even any woman could talk. So what with his nine languages and one hundred and eight murders he was very popular fellow, greatly in demand. The phrenologists examined his bumps at the museum one day and said that his bump of destructiveness was the biggest they had ever seen. If the old fellow could have got at those phrenologists I dare say he would have proved their words correct by their own scalps.
Then there was a chief called Mon-to-Goh, or the White Bear, who didn’t look at all like a bear and wasn’t at all white, and Wa-Con-To-Kitcher, a prophet, who looked wise and smoked all the time.
But the pet of the collection, the favorite of the public, was a pretty Squaw called Do-Hum-Me, or the Productive Pumpkin. Her name wasn’t romantic, but her story was.
These Indians liked New York immensely, but the things in New York they like best of all were the public fountains.
The fountain in the park opposite the old Aster House consisted of a large central pipe with eighteen smaller jets, in a basin a hundred feet broad. By movin’ the plate of the principal pipe the fountains could be made to take various shapes to which various names were given, such as “The Maid of the Mist,” “The Croton Plume,” “The Vase,” “The Bouquet,” “The Sheaf of Wheat” and “The Weepin’ Willow.”
The Indians saw this fountain in full play, and were more delighted with it than with all the rest of New York put together.
The pretty squaw, Do-Hum-Me, was the most pleased of ‘em all. Miss Do-Hum-Me married a young Indian chief while in New York and was very happy. Everybody went to see the young Indian bride. But civilized life didn’t agree with her. Between the hot anthracite fires indoors and the keen cold out of doors, what with late hours, little exercise and rich food, she took sick, and in a little while died.
Her poor young husband wore his loss like in Indian, but he felt it like a man. Her father was among the party, and he was bowed with grief. It was an affectin’ sight to witness the old father and the young lover desolate together.
Do-Hum-Me looked almost as handsome dead as alive. Her coffin was decorated accordin’ to the Indian customs, and she was buried as near to the wait she would have been out in her native plains as possible.
Poor pretty Do-Hum-Me was laid to rest under the trees at Greenwood, while her father and lover left New York to return to it no more.
[Editor’s notes: The story of Caleb Offley, as well as of the visit of the “Swiss Bell Ringers,” was reported in the New York Evening Post, Oct. 24, 1844, pg. 2, “The Capanologians, Music, &c.” The Swiss Bell Ringers were not Swiss at all, but were from Lancashire, England. Showman P. T. Barnum had seen them performing in England, and brought them over to America, but renamed and dressed them to make them more exotic.
A news item from October, 1844, attributed to Edgar Allen Poe has promulgating (or originating) a tongue-in-cheek rumor that the Swiss bell-ringers were automatons, i.e. cleverly-made machinery. This was inspired by the Maelzel chess automaton fraud, which Poe exposed in 1836. Never one to miss an opportunity, P. T. Barnum must have noted this, and years later placed before the public an actual (?) bell-ringing automaton:
The Swiss Bell Ringers also spun off successors and imitators, as detailed in a blog entry at Skaneateles: The Character and characters of a Village.
Isaac T. Hopper stood against injustice wherever he saw it. He was a leading figure in the abolitionist movement in America.
Do-Hum-Me and her father were of the Sauk Nation. Iowa Nation members, including Do-Hum-Me’s husband, were contracted by Barnum for display at the American Museum, recruited by artist George Catlin. He later took them from New York to London, which he claimed was in return for taking away the Lancashire bell-ringers from England to America.]
