Passin’ along Prince street and Broadway the other day I began to think how rich in reminiscences old Prince street is, and all that section around the corner of Prince street and Broadway. In the very early days of New York it was considered very far “up” or rather “out of town.” Now it is considered by a very large and influential class of people very far “down town,” so far “down” that some people don’t get down that far from one year’s end to the other. But at one time it was the very centre of fashion, and has had some very noted resorts on or near it.
A president of the United States died on Prince street, in a house afterwards occupied by Judge Charles M. Clancy. I refer to President James Monroe, who had inaugurated what was then called “the era of good feelin’.”
Old John Jacob Astor took a great fancy to real estate in the vicinity of Prince street, and before he got through managed to own a good deal of the street. The offices of the Astors were for many years on Prince street, and William B. Astor, in his time the richest man in America, was a familiar spectacle on old Prince street any week day. By the by, it is curious how really little New York knows about its very rich men. There is the Astor family, for example. A few big facts are generally known about the careers and the personalities of its members, and outside of these few facts all is guesswork or mystery. Nobody knows, and nobody cares to know, apparently. Any ward politician almost is better known to New York than its big millionaires.
Hardly anybody, for instance, is aware that John Jacob Astor had two sisters who came to this country. One sister, Catherine, was married in Germany before she came over here to George Ehringer, who was the first man to start a “cordial” distillery in this country. He made a good livin’ by this, and he died by it too, for he met with a fatal accident in his distillery one day, and was burnt to death. But the widow, who was a very shrewd woman, liked the business so well that she married another boss distiller called Michael Miller, and carried on the business for many years afterwards. Mrs. Miller’s place was in old Barley street, as it was known then, a street which ran from Broadway to Church, and whose place is taken by Duane street now. Then when Miller himself died his son took his place in the business and carried on the distillery. The old lady was bound there should always be a distillery in the family. The other sister married a man by the name of Wendell, who was employed for a while by John Jacob himself, and who afterwards went into business for himself as a furrier on Maiden lane. With Astor’s help old Wendell made a pile of money, and his son lives, or lived lately, in a fine house on Fifth avenue.
Very few people, either, knew that John Jacob Astor had seven children. Most people think that there were only two, two sons, William B., the heir, and John Jacob Astor, the crazy child; but there were five others–one more son and four daughters.
As for the crazy Astor, I don’t know but what he had the pleasantest time of any of ‘em. He had all the money he wanted, and a great deal more money than he could ever spend, and no trouble about it. He had watchful guardians all the time and servants and attendants who saw to his every wish; constant companionship and every luxury. A splendid house was built for him on West Fourteenth street, near Ninth Avenue, and he lived and died surrounded by every care.
He was always a favorite with his father, the best part of whose nature was his touchin’ love for his imbecile child. Rough as he was to all the world beside, shrewd and hard and cold and calculatin’, old John Jacob’s heart was soft as a woman’s to the child that had been afflicted–or was it blessed?–by heaven. The last thoughts of the dying millionaire were for the happiness and protection of his crazy son, and his wishes were religiously carried out.
The third son, Henry Astor, named after his jolly uncle, Henry Astor, the Bowery butcher, died young. As for the daughters, they were all girls of character and turned out well. Magdalen Astor married first a Dane, governor of the island of Santa Cruz, and then she married an English clergyman by the name of Bristed. Bristed was a very smart man–became a first-class physician and then, studyin’ theology, became a first-class clergyman. He could thus save bodies and souls both. He was also, at one time, a lawyer–a partner of Beverly Robinson. This is a one of the very, very few cases I ever heard of in which one man succeeded equally well in all the three learned professions. One of his descendants, John Astor Bristed, was almost as smart as he was, and became quite a popular writer. But as a rule the Astor family has never been noted for its brilliency; it deals chiefly in dollars and sense–hard dollars and hard common sense.
Sarah Astor died when a child. Eliza Astor was the flower of the family; a very sweet, benevolent, pious girl. She went abroad and while in Paris married a Swiss count–a genuine count, who afterwards came to this country in a diplomatic capacity and negotiated a commercial treaty with Henry Clay when he was Secretary under Adams. Dorothea Astor, the remainin’ daughter, married a down-East Yankee named Langdon.
William B. Astor was born in a little house in Little Dock street. The B. in his name stood for Backhouse, the name of a gentleman who was very kind to John Jacob Astor when he first came to New York. William B. never wrote his middle name in full, and dropped the name altogether in his children.
Personally the Astors have been tough and brave. One of ‘em, the second John Jacob, was a tip-top fightin’ colonel under McClellan, and was the father of the present W. W. Astor, now Minister to Italy.
Among the old time noted places near Prince street was the old Tattersalls, or horse mart, on Broadway. This was the great resort for all the noted turfman–a sort of genuine turf club–not in name, but in reality.
William K. [T.] Porter, called “the tall son of York,” and the founder of the Spirit of the Times, used to be a constant visitor at Tattersalls. So was Henry William Herbert, and Will Cowan, who used to keep the Crosby Street Bazaar, and who used to drive Sally Miller. There were also to be found General Dunham, who drove the powerful horse Moscow, and John C. Perrin, the first driver of Flora Temple, and Sam Segue, who made it a rule to tell a better horse story than any other man who visited the Tattersalls, and who was once unanimously voted a prime beef’s tongue, as bein’ the best talker. Sam Segue was a chum of old Commodore Vanderbilt, who listened to Sam’s horse talk by the hour. Hiram Woodruff, Joe Elliott, Charley Brooks, Jim McMann, Horace Jones and George Alley, the sports, were also frequenters of Tattersalls.
The chief owner of Tattersalls was, I believe, George W. Miller, who used to drive Ice Pony and Maggie, and who was a very popular sport and a thorough turfman.
But perhaps of all the places around Prince street and Broadway, the most noted and popular was Felter’s wine room, or as everybody styled it, “Harry Felter’s.” Perhaps there is no such place exactly in all New York to-day as Harry Felter’s was for nearly forty years–a sort of rendezvous for everybody.
Harry Felter’s was a sort of Broadway on a small scale–a species of “interior thoroughfare.” All the men you would be likely to meet on Broadway, all the different classes of men, were to be found represented at Harry Felter’s.
In fact, as Judge McCann once remarked to Judge Barnard, “if you didn’t find the man you were lookin’ for on Broadway, you would probably find him by lookin’ in at Harry Felter’s.”
Some of the big bugs in the way of bankers and merchants were regular patrons of Harry Felter’s. August Belmont used to drop in there, and Sheppard F. Knapp, of the Mechanics’ Bank, along with his son. Old David Austin, John Haggerty, old George Law, Dan Drew, E. S. Jaffray, and lots of men of that sort who hardly ever went inside of any other place of this kind. John Hoey was a chum of Felter’s, and so was George McLean, of the Old Guard; Charles Dennison, of the Grocers’ Bank; Whitlocks, the popular grocers of their time; Fargo. of the old Overland Express, and a lot of others of that sort.
At different times two Presidents of the United States have “dropped in” at Felter’s and partaken of his genial hospitality–James Buchanan and Chester A. Arthur–both gentlemen excellent judges of Harry’s sideboard and its contents.
General Scott was a friend of Harry’s and was to be seen here occasionally, and Senators Cameron, Bayard and Pendleton were regular patrons when in New York.
Bayard, of Delaware, has had many a high old time here along with Saulsbury, while James T. Brady recited some of his best stories at Felter’s.
John Graham and John McKeon have chatted there sociably, and old David T. Valentine, the clerk of the Common Council for so many years, was a dear friend of Harry’s, in his happy days, before he broke his heart with grief at losin’ his place as clerk, a place that ought to have been his for life. Henry J. Raymond was quite a frequent visitor, as was his city editor, Barnes, then the husband of Rose Eytinge, the actress, and a great friend of Raymond’s.
Any quantity of writers hung around Felter’s, and as for actors, the place was full of ‘em. Forrest, Burton, Brougham, Blake, Hackett, old Wallack, and the young Wallacks, Ned Adams, Robert Macaire Browne, Jacques, Strong, Williams ,Jemmy Twitcher Sefton, Walcott, Ben Baker, the author of “Mose.” All these were regular habitues of Felter’s, which answered, in its time, all the purposes of a “Union Square,” “in the house,” as well as a Broadway; an actors exchange, as well as a general meetin’ place for all New York.
The “sports,” too, used to congregate at Felter’s. Joe Jewell, the heavy weight; “Cale” Weeks, the practical joker–Harry Felter’s “wicked partner” in all his pranks; Jake Somerdyke, Pat Matthews, Tim Hughes, Jim Bevans, Pat Hearn, “the faro banker”; Joe Hall, “the sportin’ gentleman,” as they insisted on calling each other; Sam Suydam, George Beers, John Colton, John Morrissey, and before his time even Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan. In fact, Felter’s answered all the purposes of “a sportsman’s hall.”
Felter’s was also quite a place of resort for the hotel men of the time. The Stetsons, of the old Astor’ gorgeous Sam Leland, of the Metropolitan; Hiram Cranston, of the old New York Hotel; Ned Luff, of the famous old road house; Rogers, of the famous old Red House; Windust, the Florences, Edmund Jones, of the Clermont; and almost every noted innkeeper and hotel man of the time made Felter’s a sort of “exchange.”
Now, certainly there is no place to-day in New York exactly like Felter’s that can take its place. New York is gettin’ too big for any one establishment to represent it. It has a big Broadway now, and a big Union Square, and several sportin’ centres, but it has no one place which, like Harry Felter’s in the past, was a miniature Broadway, a condensed Union Square, and sportsman hall, and hotel-men’s exchange combined.
[Editor’s notes: Surprisingly little has been written about Harry Felter’s wine room.
However, an obituary of Felter does make the case that it held a very significant place in New York’s social life:]
