Goin’ down Broadway recently I passed the site of the old Canterbury saloon and pointed it out to a friend. This brought up memories of the time when the Canterbury and Melodeon were the great “attractions” (?) of the city in the eyes of a certain class.
“Over a dozen men to my knowledge,” said my friend, “have gone to the dogs through those two places. Why, there was a magnificent brewery in Jersey City swallowed up in the Canterbury.”
This mode of expressin’ a fact struck me rather forcibly and I made some inquiries of my friend regardin’ this “swallowin’ up” process.
Its story is rather interestin’ and illustrates strikin’ly how soon and completely a big fortune can be “wiped out” here in the great metropolis; how soon the very residences and business places of a large estate can be obliterated, and how rapidly and utterly the very name of a once rich family can be forgotten.
Years ago in Jersey City there was a brewer by the name of Wescott. A very rich man, who had the very nice faculty of making money. Wescott was a lucky man, and everythin’ he touched turned to gold, like the king in the fable. It was said of him once that “all his schemes paid him but one, and that one scheme he got out of in time to come out even.”
This brewery was especially profitable. He kept on enlargin’ and enlargin’ it till it occupied nearly half an acre. He must have made out of it over a million of dollars. But this brewery only represented about one half of what he left his family when he died, and as this family was small, only a widow and two sons, the three Westcotts were naturally and justly considered, as far as money goes–and it goes pretty far with most people–the luckiest three in Jersey City.
The elder of the two sons passed most of his time in New York, where he was very popular, not only for his money but for himself. He was one of the most “sociable” and companionable of men, and everybody liked him. He was especially popular among women, and might have married “well”–in every sense of the word–in fifty quarters.
But he got drinkin’ hard and goin’ to saloons, and went downhill at a tremendously rapid rate. His money proved his greatest curse. He contracted a fondness for the Canterbury, and was seen there all the time. It was an infatuation or insanity; it couldn’t have been called anythin’ else. A man with fifty elegant houses open to him, where he was always welcome; with scores of beautiful and accomplished young ladies glad and proud of his society–a man thus fixed who would spend his time in such a place as the Canterbury, must really have been as crazy as anybody in a lunatic asylum.
He did all sorts of queer freaks at the Canterbury one night. He came in and insisted upon standin’ the entire expenses of everybody who entered the place durin’ the whole night. The proprietor, not used to and rather shy of such a wholesale customer, interposed a mild protest. But young Westcott, pullin’ out a roll of bills and counting out ten hundred dollars, said he was ready to spend up to that amount if it was called for. A large proportion of it was “called for” before the night was through, for the majority of the men present did not hesitate to avail ‘emselves of his foolish offer and drank heavily and smoked freely at the expense of the man who they did not know personally–whom most of ‘em had never met before. And the news of this freak soon spread around town. News of this sort spreads in a dozen odd ways in a remarkably brief space of time over a comparatively large space, and before midnight it was noised abroad between the Battery and Madison Square and from the North to the East rivers that “a sucker was standing treat at the Canterbury” and that a “free drunk” could be had there, and crowds visited the Canterbury that night to take advantage of the generous fool’s folly.
On another occasion this misguided young man raised a sensation at the Canterbury of a different character. He had been drinkin’ terribly hard for some time, and one night was seized with a fit of delirium tremens right in the saloon. In his torment he went mad and dashed around the place like a wild beast. He howled terribly and frightened even the men present. In fact he cleared the Canterbury this time almost as completely as he had filled it the time before.
And yet this young man was at bottom a splendid fellow, not only truly good-hearted but smart, when sober. There was the makin’ of a first-class man in him. And he was charitable as well as liberal–two very different things. He would not only spend money lavishly among his own set, where he got publicity and popularity by spendin’ it, but he often relieved the necessities of those who had no friends, no “set,” who never could repay him except by gratitude, and not always even with that.
And one good deed he did which has not been forgotten even yet by those to whom he did it. One night, comin’ away comparatively early and comparatively sober from the Canterbury, he met a little boy, a decent-lookin’ lad, who solicited alms, but in a sad, shy, shame-faced way, as if he wasn’t used to beggin’. Westcott was attracted by somethin’ in the boy’s face and manner; asked him some questions, listened to his story, took stock in it at once, followed the boy to his poor, cold room where he and his little sister were freezin’ and starvin’ together, and the very next day gave the boy and girl some money to make ‘em comfortable at once. But it didn’t stop there. With a deal of sense, only too rare in its exercise with him, and which he never used for his own benefit, he got the boy a place in a store and his sister a place in a family–two places which were the makin’ of ‘em both. The boy is to-day a well-to-do bookkeeper and the sister has married a decent young man who is doin’ well. And they have never forgotten, and they are of that kind who never will forget, the name of Westcott.
And I have a notion, too, that there is One above who hasn’t forgotten, and who never can or will forget, this good deed on the part of young Westcott; especially as the girl in this case was about fifteen years of age and very pretty, and actuated by the warmest feelin’s for her and her brother’s preserver, fell in love with him. A great many men who didn’t drink a drop would have taken the usual advantage of the position and the young girl’s feelin’s. But young Westcott didn’t.
If he’d only been half as good to himself as he was often to others. But he wasn’t, and he went to the devil–as the parsons say. He was carried from the Canterbury one night to his home in Jersey City, laborin’ under mania a potu, and he died in his poor mother’s presence, a prey to the most horrible agonies.
He left a very handsome young brother, one of the finest lookin’ men in the country, and surely one would think such a career and end as that of one brother would have been a lesson for life for the other. But it wasn’t.
He took a fancy to the Melodeon and spent most of his abundant cash there. Then he got down among the dives, and one night he got into a brawl and was murdered.
The poor rich mother died broken-hearted, and the business, neglected since the death of the old brewer, has died too. The brewery has been sold and removed and the ruins of a recently large and wealthy estate has been transformed into vacant space. And to-day if you was to ask who used to occupy this vacant lot not one in a hundred can tell you, and not many people in the whole of Jersey City probably remember, the name of Westcott.
[Editor’s notes: The brewer patriarch was Samuel Westcott (1811-1861), who was one of the wealthiest men in New Jersey, and the largest landowner in Hudson County, New Jersey. Samuel Westcott was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 1860, but resigned in October 1861 due to ill-health. He died just a month later. Before his death, he won a painting in a raffle, Thomas Cole’s A Dream of Arcadia:
Samuel and Altanah Westcott had three sons: Walter Westcott (1838-1855) died when he was sixteen, and isn’t mentioned in the above column. The oldest son, William Westcott (1830-1852), is the one that the Harry Hill’s Gotham writer suggests drank himself to death at the Canterbury. Henry Westcott (1842-1868), despite being the sole heir to his parent’s fortune, abandoned his wife and children in Jersey City and took up residence with a young women in a low Houston Street boarding house. One night he came in, argued with the woman, and beat her. Her screams were heard by a man who rushed in and beat Westcott to death. So much for a dream of Arcadia.
Note that the disapproving depiction of the Canterbury and the Melodeon concert saloons is probably a good indication that Harry Hill himself had nothing to do with the writing of this column. Harry Hill’s own concert saloon differed little from the Canterbury and Melodeon; it would probably be possible to trace the downfall of several men’s fortunes to their nights at Harry’s.]
