[CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING NEWSPAPER COLUMN, WRITTEN IN 1882, CONTAINS ONE PARAGRAPH THAT USES ETHNIC SLURS TYPICAL OF THE PERVASIVE RACISM OF THE TIMES]
People who go down to Rockaway or Coney Island now to bathe have no idea of the cosy but primitive style in which the people of the last generation took their baths. These were free baths, too. Yet the city had nothin’ to do with ‘em. Right along the East River, just above the old ship yards, there extended quite a beach called Dandy Point. It was really a fine beach, the sand bein’ remarkably fine and clean.
To this beach every Summer night would come whole wagon loads of people, men, women and children, to take a bath. There would sometimes be fifteen or twenty persons in one wagon– one of the big truck wagons.
As soon as they reached Dandy Point the women would take their duds, old dresses, stray skirts, and so on (there were no regular bathin’ suits then) and would go a little way up the beach and put on their things for the bath. There weren’t any bath houses, but the woman would form a kind of screen around each other while they undressed and dressed again, and sometimes they would stick up shawls, or curtains as a kind of protection.
Meanwhile the men would be riggin’ themselves up in old pants and shirts, sometimes omitting the shirts, and when they were all ready the women would meet the men with a laugh, the boys would join the girls with a cheer, and they would plunge in and have a splendid time.
A tavern kept by “Sandy” Gibson stood near Dandy Point, and was quite famous for its refreshments, drinks and cakes. Bathin’ parties used to patronize it quite literally and many a lark have the old timers had at Sandy Gibson’s.
It was all very primitive and cheap this, but there was as much downright fun in it as there is to-day in surf bathing at Cape May.
Then there used to be a good deal of bathin’ done at the foot of Corlears street, but it wasn’t anythin’ like as good as the bathin’ at Dandy Point. Corlears dock used to be called “Point Baptism,” because it was used so much by the Baptist ministers to immerse in, and whenever a lot of women or men wanted to become Baptists the ministers brought ‘em down in coaches to the foot of Corlears Street, and, as it were, “dumped ‘em” there. Then the ministers would take the would-be Baptists, and with appropriate and rather solemn ceremonies, would duck ‘em in the East River. Sometimes the whole river front would be lined with the spectators of the ceremonies.
One thing must be borne in mind. The East River was a clean river then. It didn’t drain any sewers in those days like it does now. I was much purer than the sea around Coney Island beach now is.
Talkin’ about the East River, there was what was called the “East River Garden” on Cherry street that was very popular with the mechanics of those days. It was an open air garden, with one end roofed in for a stage, on which variety performances were given.
On great occasions there used to be a balloon ascension from this garden which would always draw a monster crowd. Then there were also performances on the tight and slack rope. A mechanic called Tom Baldwin was a favorite tight-rope performer in those days, and was very much envied by his comrades in consequence. Poor fellow, he was to be pitied, not envied, for his public performances turned his private head and unfitted him for his work and made him neglect it. Then he was discharged and took to tight-rope performances for a livin’. It was a very uncertain livelihood, and he took to drinkin’, and once when drunk he tried to do some tight-rope business, slipped and broke his neck.
There was another place much patronized by the boys of the East River side called the Mount Pitt Circus. This was a very Democratic place of amusement. It was owned and managed by one of the aristocratic swells of New York, Major-General Sandford, who was interested in several places of public entertainment. At this Mount Pitt Circus there used to be all sorts of performances given, sometimes a circus, sometimes a theatre and sometimes a menagerie.
The East Side mechanics and shipbuilders of the good old times worked hard, but still contrived to pick up a good deal of stray fun.
The apprentices and younger mechanics had plenty of “larks” at nights, startin’ out from Noah Brown’s place on Columbia street. Here there boarded a lot of apprentices who made ‘emselves a sort of terror to the tradesman of the neighborhood.
“Sign changin’,” was one of the main larks. Every tradesman hung out his sign over his shop then, and the joke was to go at night time and change the signs, makin’ a butcher of a tailor and a grocer out of a shoemaker.
One night a lot of these apprentices were “lain for” by the shopkeepers, who came down on them just at the right minute, just as they were changin’ the signs. A row ensued between the shopkeepers and the apprentices, in which the latter got far the best of it, till old Captain Asten, the constable, with two others, charged down upon ‘em.
Asten had only one leg, but he had a big club and used it even more fiercely than Captain Williams. So his comin’ and his club decided the row in favor of the shopkeepers.
When not engaged in changin’ signs the wild apprentices would amuse ‘emselves by “mussin’” with three old darkies, formerly slaves, who were on Judge Ogilvie’s place. This “place” stood then where the block bounded by Sheriff, Rivington, Columbia and Delancey streets stands now. The three old darkies were known all over the East side as “Dick,” “Tom” and “Jess,” and whenever a wild apprentice wanted an excitement he would go for these three darkies and “lick” ‘em.
Or he would go and steal pears from Colonel Willett’s place, a garden which took up the block embraced in Lewis, Delancey, Broome and Columbia streets now. This garden was famous for its pears and had a guardian in the person of Camp, the gardener, who some of the apprentice boys used to call “Scamp”–not a bad name for him, by the by, as he used often, with his dog, to make the boys scamper.
But the boss fun of the apprentice boys was with John Edwards. John Edwards was a street preacher, and used to go around the neighborhood in an old gig. He was great on what he called “arousin’ the people.” He certainly did yell enough almost to rouse the dead. While he was preachin’ he would get down from his gig, and walk among the crowd of listeners, gesticulatin’ at ‘em right in their midst, and screechin’ like a steam whistle.
And while he was gesticulatin’ and screechin’, the wild apprentices would get at his old gig and play circus with that. Sometimes they would stick all sorts of things in it, so Edwards couldn’t get into it, and would remove the linchpins from the wheels.
Then old Edwards would mount his old gig majestically, say a few partin’ words to his hearers, wave his hand, and then tumble out of the wheelless gig amid the roars of the apprentices. Old Edwards used to say that he had some doubts whether apprentices could be saved. He was inclined to think that an apprentice was too much even for the infinite mercy.
As for the mechanics and shipbuilders of the East Side, who had passed the stage of apprentices, there were two great excitements–one of ‘em being a ship launch.
Nobody ever hears or sees a ship launched from a New York dock now-a-days; but in old times it was a frequent as well as a fine sight, and used to bring a good many strangers into town. It was a kind of a holiday–a regular junketin’ time–with all the builders and owners’ friends for guests, and plenty of wine and refreshments. Old Christian Bergh (the father of Henry, the great horse philanthropist, who was himself a prominent shipbuilder), was about the only man in New York who didn’t believe in havin’ a high old time at a launch. Old Bergh was a sober-sides, and didn’t believe in junketin’ at any time, but old Jabez Williams, Steve Thorn, James Morgan & Son, Sneden & Lawrence, Samuel Harvard, Henry Eckford, William H. Webb, George Steers, William H. Brown, and all those shipbuilders used to laugh good-naturedly at Old Bergh’s scruples on this point, and all went in for a good old time at every launch.
The proprietors of the clipper packet lines always went into this “launch and lunch” business heavily, and gave all their workmen a good blowout, with plenty of rum punch to blow out on.
Sometimes the mechanics and shipwrights built a regular platform, or stage, on which they place their wives and children to see the launch–a kind of private box for the multitude.
As the ship slid gracefully into the water a young lady broke a christenin’ bottle of wine over the bow, the sailors heaved anchor, the cannon were fired off, and the crowd cheered, while a band of music would strike up “Departed Days,” or some such air. It was a fine sight, truly.
The other big excitement in an old time shipwright’s life was the fire engine racket. For a while there was no fire engine connected with East Side shippin’ interests, and several fine vessels were burned on the stocks. Then the shipwrights got together and organized a fire engine company, which became one of the most celebrated in the city–the old Live Oak, No. 44, which lay on Houston street, near Lewis. Several prominent shipbuilders and owners belonged to this Live Oak company. Joseph L. Perley, recently President of the Board of Fire Commissioners, belonged to it, bein’ its second foreman. William H. Webb, the great ship builder, used to run with the machine. So did Ike Webb. Beside the Live Oak Company, there was the Mechanics Hose Company and the Marion Hook and Ladder Company, to which I have already alluded in previous chapters of these reminiscences.
Once a big fire broke out in Brown’s shipyard, and two steamboats, almost ready to launch, were burned. It was a magnificent yet painful sight to see those steamboats burnin’ on dry land. Old Brown himself, though not much of a “weepist,” shed tears, beholdin’ ‘em. But he didn’t week long, but turned to and tried to extinguish the fire, along with Charley Forrester, afterward engineer of the old Fire Department; old Jeremiah Bunce and hundreds of others.
This Jerry Bunce was a great boy at a fire, and this time he particularly distinguished himself. He carried a hose on the deck of one of the blazin’ steamboats and tried to stay the progress of the flames, but without avail.
Finally he was himself cut off by the flames from escapin’. The roarin’ fire completely surrounded him and it was thought he was lost; but Jeremiah Bunce was seldom “left” and never completely “lost.” He gave a leap through the flames from the vessel’s deck down to the river. He fell into the water with a tremendous splash, comin’ within half an inch of splittin’ his head against some timber as he fell, and then swam to shore.
Charley Forrester once saved an enormous vessel and nearly two millions of dollars by a timely application of a bucket of cold water. The steamship Panama, the first of the celebrated Pacific mail steamers, got on fire at the side. Quick as lightning Charley Forrester, who happened to be around inspectin’ proceedin’s, dashed a bucket full of water on the vessel.
There was a good deal of fun and some excitement about an East Side shipwright’s life in old New York.
[Editor’s notes: The above column is an adaptation of an article, “The Old Shipbuilders of New York,” by G. W. Sheldon, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, v. 65, n. 386, July, 1882. The Harry Hill column appeared within weeks of this Harper’s article. This was the second Harry Hill column based on that same source article.
The source article in Harper’s included the anecdote about apprentices assaulting older African-Americans. However, it did not identify them as “former” slaves, but instead as slaves owned by Judge Ogilvie, “the last slave owner in New York.”
Alexander “Sandy” Gibson had passed away in 1871. His obituary:]
