Passin’ across City Hall Square not long ago, with a friend, he reminded me of the excitin’ time there was a New York one day, about thirty years ago, when Kingsland was mayor and Matsell was chief of police, and the Know Nothin’ party was beginnin’ to make itself felt as a power.
Before tellin’ the story of this excitin’ time in the City Hall Park I may as well say a word or two about the Know Nothin’s.
As early as forty years ago there was an Order of United Americans organized. This wasn’t intended for a political body, it was more patriotic than political, cared more for the country than offices, and made its greatest points in celebratin’ Washington’s birthday and the Fourth of July. Simeon Baldwin, president of the old Merchant’s Exchange, was a leading member of this order. He was Sachem of Alpha Chapter No. 1.
The Native American party was a political body which took and carried further the ideas of the Order of United Americans. At one time this Native American party was a power in the land, especially in Philadelphia and out West.
Then there was a New York society called the Sons of Columbia which was “down” on foreigners and on Catholics because it was supposed most of the Catholics were foreigners.
At last the Know Nothin’s were started as an anti-foreigner party, and got to be a great party, too, both in numbers and influence.
Why they were called Know Nothin’s has never been clearly explained. The old members say that it arose from the fact that when one member met another he would ask, “What do you know?” to which the other member would reply, “Nothin,” and then give a peculiar grip.
The Know Nothin’s insisted first that a man to have any chance in politics should be born in this country. Pretty soon they went a step further and insisted that a man’s father should have been born in this country before him. And then some, not even satisfied with that, insisted that a fellow’s father’s father must have been a native born American. Well, the country stood the father business pretty well, and only laughed good naturedly at it. But when they insisted upon a man’s family for two generations bein’ born in the country before he could have any chance in the country, why then the country wouldn’t have it at all. Besides, the organization began to be used by ambitious men in it for their own private ends, and that sort of thing is always fatal to any party that claims to be a national party. So it fell to pieces after a while but by its own weight, and after tryin’ to run Millard Fillmore for President, the great Know Nothin’ party gave up the ghost.
While it lasted the spirit of Know Nothin’ism pervaded all circles, and made itself manifest in all classes and condition of men. It was especially observable in sportin’ circles.
Tom Hyer was a great Know Nothin’, and incurred the hatred of a great many representatives of “the foreign element” on that account. John Morrissey was an avowed anti-Know Nothin’, and this antagonism was the cause of the original bad blood between Morrissey and Hyer.
One Day Lew Baker tried to kill Tom Hyer by braining him, in a row, with the butt end of a pistol. Hyer was fightin’ with a chap called Turner, a friend of Baker’s, at the time, and came near bein’ killed between the two of ‘em.
A policeman came into the saloon while the fight was goin’ on, but he didn’t interfere. Hyer called upon the policeman to arrest Baker, but the policeman wasn’t a Know Nothin’, and wouldn’t make the arrest.
Lew Baker was a medium-sized man, with quite a pleasant face; he didn’t look like a rough, and was always well dressed; but before Tom Hyer got through with him this time he looked like a tramp. His clothes were torn, his face was cut and bleedin’, and he lay sprawlin’ in the gutter, into which Tom Hyer had kicked him.
Years afterwards, when the Know Nothin’s had died out, and Bill Poole was dead and buried, Tom Hyer and Lew Baker met again in a saloon. They would have revived their quarrel, but mutual friends parted ‘em. But they separated with a curse, Tom Hyer denouncin’ Baker as “an unhung assassin,” and to the last Tom Hyer was fond of callin’ himself “a Know Nothin’ who knew somethin’.”
But I alluded in the beginnin’ of this chapter to an excitin’ time that took place in the City Hall Park durin’ the height of the Know Nothin’ excitement.
People had been “exercised in spirit,” as the ministers would say, about foreigners and natives, and the rights they had and the rights they didn’t have, and one mornin’ a street preacher, a queer old chap, who boasted that all in his family on his father’s and mother’s side had been born and bred in this country since before the Revolution, was deliverin’ a first-class native American harangue on the sidewalk in front of the Astor House.
He found quite an enthusiastic throng ready to listen to and applaud him, and pretty soon his crowd of listeners blocked up the thoroughfare. The police told him to move on, but he said somethin’ about his forefathers havin’ fought and bled for freedom, and he wouldn’t move on. The police didn’t see exactly why if his fathers had fought and blood for freedom he should be allowed to interfere with other people’s freedom of locomotion, and arrested him. The officers who arrested him happened to be Irishmen, and the street preacher called attention to this fact as he was taken along, and proclaimed that “it was a gross outrage that a free, native-born American citizen should be taken into custody by foreigners, simply because he was opposed to foreigners.”
A great hue and cry was made over this arrest, and an indignation meetin’ was called to meet in the City Hall Park.
On the day of the meetin’, it being well placarded, a tremendous crowd of people gathered together in the park, in front of the City Hall. There had been rumors that it was intended to free the street preacher at all hazards, so Matsell had doubled the police on duty. Seein’ how big and threatenin’ the crowd looked, Kingsland got nervous and consulted with Matsell. A number of extra men were sworn in as “special police,” and assigned to preventin’ any disturbance in the Park.
“Ned Buntline” (Judson) and “Jack Brace” (Bryce) were then prominent in the anti-foreigner excitement, and at this indignation meetin’ Buntline and Bryce and other speakers ventilated their eloquence and kept the crowd at fever heat. Still no violence was attempted.
Matsell had taken one of the leaders of the Know Nothin’s to one side that mornin’ and had told him solemnly, pointin’ to the throng: “There are 100 special policemen in that crowd waitin’ my orders.” But the K. N. orator hadn’t wilted a bit, but only replied: “There are 100 special revolvers in that crowd waitin’ my orders.”
But there was no disturbance, though there was plenty of the “raw material” lyin’ around loose, and it only needed a beginnin’, such was the pitch of the excitement to which the crowd had been worked up, to have led to most disastrous results.
A company belonging to the Sixty-Ninth, “an Irish regiment,” as it was called then, had been on a target excursion, and was passin’ by the City Hall Park while the crowd was there. Just out of sheer deviltry the members of the target party took it into their heads to cross the park, in the very midst of this crowd.
They had the legal right to do so, but under the circumstances it was a very ticklish thing to do. They did it, though. They marched right through the crowd, the musicians playin’ a popular Irish air, as if to defy the native American multitude.
For a moment or two the situation was very serious. The crowd frowned and groaned, and some of the men drew their breath and cocked their revolvers.
Had the leaders of the mob given the word then to resist the passin’ of the target company; had any man in the mob forgot himself under the spur of the provocation, the City Hall Park would have been the field of riot and bloodshed–there would have been more lives lost than there were in the Astor Place riots. It was a ticklish moment for all concerned. Mayor Kingsland was anxiously watchin’ the scene from a window of the City Hall. Matsell stood prepared for any emergency.
But the danger passed, and the target company passed with it. They Know Nothin’ leaders on the platform addressed the crowd in the park, counselin’ self-restraint, advisin’ their hearers by their behavior, now under provocation, to prove ‘emselves true and worthy American citizens. And their hearers heeded their advice. They let the target company pass through their midst–but they didn’t give ‘em an inch of room to spare, and it was close shave.
Probably the forbearance of an over-excited crowd was never more strikin’ly Illustrated than in this almost forgotten episode of City Hall Park.
[Editor’s notes: There were a series of Know Nothing rallies in City Hall Park in November and December, 1853. The one featured in the above column was likely one of the latter ones, following the arrest of Rev. Mr. Daniel Parsons. Contemporary newspaper accounts do not mention a unit of the Sixty-Ninth militia regiment passing through the crowd, but it’s plausible–and the Sixty-Ninth was an all-Irish regiment.
“Jack Brace” was the penname of Captain John W. Bryce, and newspaper editorial writer and former Naval Academy graduate. “Ned Buntline” was the penname of Edward Z. C. Judson, a writer and editor, who penned several dime novels, and later in life became a promoter of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Judson disliked foreigners; in a much-publicized event, he was horse-whipped on the street by Lola Montez.]
