[ALERT: PLEASE READ THE “EDITOR’S NOTES” AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN!]
One of the oldest, wealthiest and best citizens of New York, Gordon W. Burnham, who was to have been married yesterday, died on Wednesday. Mr. Burnham was thoroughly a self-made man; and I was told by one who professes to know the facts in the case, the followin’ interestin’, suggestive and creditable reminiscence of his early life-struggle.
He came from New England to New York for the first time when a child ten years old, and with three hundred and fifty cents in his clothes. With two dollars of this money he got from a junk dealer a bootblack’s outfit–got a box, with a slidin’ lid and a “rest” for the feet of the customer, a box of blackin’ and two brushes, and a leather strap attached to carry it all.
With this outfit, and a good meal inside of him, for which he had paid twenty cents–leavin’ him possessor of just one hundred and thirty cents–he stood at the old Erie ferry, foot of Chambers street, till a countryman, named Barker, residin’ on a farm near the Ramapo mountains somewhere, came along, with his boots all muddy. There were about a score of bootblacks who besought him for a shine, but the chap with the hundred and thirty cents in his pocket was the youngest of the lot, and so the farmer from the Ramapo mountains gave him the preference. The one-hundred-and-thirty-cents chap blackened his boots, and the farmer from the Ramapo mountains offered him half a dime for doin’ it. But the boy plead so hard for ten cents that the farmer paid the ten and passed on, little dreamin’ that the time would come when the little bootblack would own a palace on Fifth Avenue.
The young chap I am writin’ about did not find much trouble in gettin’ customers. He attracted people by his very youth, freshness and earnestness; but he got into a row right off with the regular bootblacks, who regarded him as an outsider, or interloper, and made it very unpleasant for him for a while, until he joined the great fraternity of bootblacks, and became a regular member of the “order”–for at that time, some forty years ago, there was a regular “order of bootblacks” which was a very important thing among the boys and men who blacked boots for a livin’.
The headquarters of this interestin’ and influential club was at No. 18 Baxter street, and was really well organized, judged by the true standard in these cases–the purposes and profit of the organization.The admission fee was one dollar every six months, paid invariably in advance, and the object of the association might be defined as mutual protection. The “club,” or “order,” established a fixed price for “a shine” and protected its members in every possible way from the competition of irregular Intruders or outsiders, everybody bein’ considered an “outsider” who had not paid to be an “insider.” The regular established price for blackin’ boots was fixed at ten cents.
There was not any secretary of this bootblack club, the members lookin’ upon such an officer as purely “literary” and superfluous, but there was a regular treasurer, who took care to collect the one dollar every six months, invariably in advance, and the whole affair was under the control of a “captain of the bootblacks” whose word was supreme, and who was invested with arbitrary power, which he wielded just as if he was a Napoleon or a Vanderbilt.
When young Burnham joined this society the captain of the blacks was a chap of some fifteen or sixteen years of age called Dick Allen, a big burly fellow, who could “lick” any other “cove” belongin’ to the club, and who held his office by virtue of his fists and feet, for he could kick as hard as a mule in his fights.
This dick Allen took a great fancy to the chap I am writin’ about, and ever since he became a millionaire, Burnham had often tried to find out what had become of Dick Allen, or what Dick Allen has become, but without avail.
And really the millionaire owed Dick Allen a debt of gratitude, for once he saved him from a most tremendous lickin’. It was the custom with the bootblack club whenever any boy blacked anybody’s boots for less than ten cents to report the matter and the boy to the club, which thereupon took action on the report, this “action” generally bein’ either a warnin’ not to black boots at a cheap rate any more, or a lickin’, and drivin’ the cheap labor cuss from the street–generally the the latter.
One day, near the City Hall, young Burnham bein’ hard up, begged a gentleman passin’ by to have his boots shined. The gentleman said all right, but also said that he would only pay five cents for the job. At first the little fellow didn’t like–or was afraid–to take the job at this “cut” rate, but finally, lookin’ round and seein’ no other bootblack near he consented.
Then the gentleman stood still, and the bootblack knelt down and blacked one boot in first-class style. Then he tackled the other boot, and was going on swimmin’ly, or rather shinin’ly, when another bootblack appeared, and havin’ nothing else to do with his valuable time just then, came close to our chap and commenced watchin’ his operations with as much interest as if he had never seen a pair of boots “shined” before in all his life. This is a curious way bootblacks have, as probably most of my male readers may have noticed at one time or another in their own experience.
Burnham trembled in his own boots–or rather boot, for he only had one on–about the other chap, but he couldn’t help himself, and he trusted that somehow the fact of his only bein’ paid five cents when he got through would pass unnoticed. But it didn’t. When the boots were shined the gentleman handed our chap his coin, sayin’ at the same time, “Here’s your five cents, sonny.”
This “give away” did Burnham’s business, and he was promptly reported to the club, which thereupon set in council on his case. There could be no doubt about his guilt: the evidence was too strong; in fact, Burnham confessed that he had blacked the boots “for only five cents.”
It was thereupon proposed to “punch his head” and “bounce” him. Punchin’ his head was bad enough, but “bouncin’” was worse, for that was equivalent to “boycottin’” now. Bouncin’ meant drivin’ a bootblack out of the business, by doin’ anythin’ and everythin’ to make livin’ and bootblackin’ unpleasant and unprofitable for him. “Punchin’ his head” was only a passin’ trouble, but “bouncin’” was a permanent and persistent misery.
But there had been several cases of this cut rate bootblackin’ lately, and the bootblack club had resolved to make an example of the next offender, and the next offender bein’ little Burnham, he expected no mercy. In fact, he had made up his mind to give up bootblackin’ and to leave New York and to try to get work on some some farm, and thus change his whole life and future; but Dick Allen saved him. Somehow the captain of the bootblacks had a soft place in his heart for Burnham, and he let him off this time with a warnin’, and a reprimand, exactin’ from him a promise that hereafter, as long as he blacked boots, he would never black ‘em for five cents.
And he never did. He didn’t give up his bootblackin’, he didn’t go to a farm, he didn’t change his future, but he stuck to bootblackin’ for ten cents a shine in New York, till he drifted back again to New England, and hung around stables, gettin’ jobs at drivin’. While workin’ as driver it was his good luck to drive General Lafayette around the town of Hartford, during his second visit to this country, and he felt very proud of the honor all the rest of his life. Then, leavin’ the stable, he entered a store as an errand boy. Then he got to be a clerk in the store, and then head clerk, and then partner, and then head of the firm, and then partner and (later on) president of another firm in New England, and then partner and president of other firms, till he became the husband of the one of the finest ladies of her time, the daughter of the famous Bishop Brownell, of Connecticut, and became a millionaire.
And to the day of his death Mr. Burnham believed, and believed rightly, too, that indirectly he owed his success to the kindness, one memorable afternoon, of Dick Allen, the captain of the bootblacks.
[Editor’s notes: Of the over one thousand columns of “Thirty Years in Gotham,” the majority are derivative rewrites of previously published book sections or magazine articles; while some others represent fresh accounts, especially those close to Harry Hill’s scope of interests. And a few, involving melodramatic stories of unnamed characters, could safely be labeled as harmless fictions presented as anecdotes.
The above column on brass magnate Gordon W. Burnham’s childhood represents something different: a clear misrepresentation. Burnham was raised on a farm in Hampton, Connecticut, 150 miles from Manhattan. As a teen he was self-employed as a door-to-door peddler, based in Hampton. Nothing in the biographical materials published about Burnham mention running away to New York as a ten-year-old. He would have been 10 years old in 1813. It is doubtful that there were any cadres of young bootblacks in New York City in 1813 or that they had formed any protective association. Charging five or ten cents for a shine in 1813 would have been robbery. Moreover, we are informed that Burnham’s first customer was a farmer from the Ramapo mountains named Barker; facts an omniscient narrator might know, but no one else.
This column is an obvious falsehood. As an editor presenting this content, one of my tasks is to investigate and whenever possible corroborate the facts presented, track their sources, or question their veracity. The above column appears to have been intended to echo a common dime-novel, Horatio Alger type of story about a self-made man who started as a bootblack.]
