New York ship-builders used to be so famous that France, Russia and Turkey all sent to New York for their finest vessels. The Russian steam frigate Kamchatka was built here to the order of the then emperor of Russia, Nicholas.
The model of this frigate was said to be the very finest in existence. It was calculated that it could cross the ocean in eight days, although steam navigation then hadn’t quite reached in all respects the excellence of to-day. The vessel I speak of was called “The Steam Swan,” it was so graceful. The builder defied any steamship afloat to equal its speed, and the defi was never taken up. Every bit of the metal about the Kamchatka was American. As a paper said of the vessel, “She was all New York from stem to stern”–Russian only outside, in her name.” The machinery was made by Dunham & Co., of New York, and was the finest ever constructed up to that time, and about as fine as any constructed since. A New York man–[Joseph] Scott–was her chief engineer, and superintended every detail of her construction.
Her cabins were really magnificent. The vessel was, in fact, a floatin’ palace. There were two drawin’ rooms for the use of the Imperial family. The hull was entirely black, the bows and stern bein’ surmounted with a large double-headed gilt eagle, the Russian symbol; also with a crown.
She sailed from the Battery for Cronstadt one bright mornin’ in the presence of a tremendous crowd, and accompanied down the bay by a large party of ladies and gentlemen.
Among this party was a celebrated New York shipbuilder named [Foster] Rhodes. This Rhodes was a great favorite with no less a man than the Sultan of Turkey. He could do what he liked with the Sultan. The story goes that the Sultan once offered Rhodes a harem full of beautiful Circassian girls if he would only remain in Constantinople. But Rhodes had a wife in New York; so, for the sake of the woman here, he gave up twenty women there.
The way Rhodes had so managed to please the Sultan was all in the way of business. The Sultan had been tryin’ to build up a navy and had employed several European contractors. Somehow these hadn’t done their work satisfactorily; so at last Mr. Rhodes undertook the job of buildin’ a large gun-ship for the Turks. Rhodes didn’t take any special trouble with this job. But the Sultan was so pleased with his gun-ship, so glad to get hold of a really clever and conscientious contractor, that when the ship was successfully launched the sultan jumped about the deck like a child for joy, windin’ up his performance by huggin’ Mr. Rhodes, givin’ him a diamond ring and a golden box full of gold pieces.
Henry Eckford was another very skillful shipbuilder, and one who helped to make the fame of New York world-wide His name wasn’t at all classical or romantic, but the Greeks made a great time over it, for he built several fine vessels for ‘em, which they thought the perfection of marine architecture.
But the very handsomest and fastest-sailin’ vessel that was ever seen in New York waters was a slaver–a Baltimore-built clipper called the Catherine.
She was owned by a highly respectable New York parties, and made a great many successful voyages. But, strange to say, when at last she was taken by a British cruiser and brought to New York to be adjudged by the United States courts, condemned and sold, with all the chains and padlocks used in her “peculiar line of business,” nobody could find out who owned her.
The bay in the vicinity of the Battery used to be very lively and variegated with its shippin’. At one time there was an unusual gathering of war vessels, includin’ the French frigate La Belle Poule, which was commanded by Prince de Joinville, the son of Louis Philippe.
Louis Philippe had been in this country himself in his days of exile, was hard up, and had taught school awhile on the Bloomingdale road.
His son came to New York as a Prince, in command of one of the very finest vessels. This French ship La Belle Poule had quite an interestin’ history. She had been appointed by the French government to convey the remains of the great Napoleon from St. Helena to Paris. Having fulfilled this appointment she was sent to America awhile. The band of music which had accompanied the remains of the great Corsican to Paris, and which had played funeral marches and dirges, came in the vessel to America, and used to give afternoon concerts to New Yorkers off the Battery, and afforded young New York a lot of first-class free entertainment.
The Prince de Joinville himself was a very clever and nice young man, although outside of the accidental circumstance of bein’ a prince. He was very unaffected in his manner, and the people all liked him. His private stateroom on board his ship was full of momentos of his family. There was a bronze copy of Joan of Arc, sculpted by his own sister, the Princess Marie, and some paintin’s that he executed himself. He sang well and talked delightfully. He was fond of comin’ on shore incog. and strollin’ along the city seein’ things for himself.
While the French ship was off the Battery one of the crew died. Instead of buryin’ him at sea, as would otherwise have been the case, he was buried in a cemetery near the city, at the request of some relatives who had settled in New York. The funeral took place on Sunday. The coffin was carried through the streets of New York suspended on ropes and covered with the tricolor. The crew marched alongside the coffin bare-headed, and bare-headed with the rest walked the Prince de Joinville.
Among the crowd that used to come to hear the French band play was quite a noted character of old New Yor–Grant Thorburn. He has passed out of recollection now, but in his day everybody in New York knew him. He was a great gardener, and had splendid flower shows at Ravenswood, as he called it, on the East River, a little south of Hallett’s Cove.
Grant Thorburn was quite a curious looking person, small, almost humpbacked, and a tremendous talker–very fond of talkin’ about Grant Thorburn. He came over to New York in the steerage of an emigrant ship, and landed with a sixpence in his pocket. Within forty years he had one of the finest country seats around New York, and the finest gardens in the United States. He commenced New York life by openin’ a little shop without any capital to buy stock. He made up his lack of capital by Scotch cunnin’. He took some brickbats, covered ‘em with ironmongers’ paper, and tied a knife and fork on the outside of each covered brickbat. This made a tremendous show of bogus cutlery. Then he got some snuff-boxes and fastened ‘em on round hunks of wood, to add to the illusion.
One day Grant Thorburn got hold of a rose geranium. He had always been fond of flowers, and this rose geranium gave him an idea that changed his whole life and made his fortune. He devoted himself to flowers and seeds, and got after a while to be the leadin’ man in this line in America.
Grant Thorburn had his bit of romance in his love for his Rebecca, who preferred him when a poor but “canny” Scotchman to a rich New Yorker.
He also had his particular chance for glory in bein’ taken hold of by the writer Galt, who made him the hero of the popular novel, “Lawrie Todd,” just as the Sands-Weeks New York murder was made the subject of the novel “Norman Leslie,” by Fay.
The Grant Thorburn Garden was the institution of the New York suburbs, and an excursion to it from the city was one of the regular things to do.
[Editor’s notes: Most of the above anecdotes were adapted from Lydia Maria Child’s Letters From New York, C. S. Francis, 1843.
The slave ship Catherine has not been mentioned very frequently, but was seized by the British in 1839. The instructions to the captain on what to do if captured survived and were printed:]
