Dabblin’ in horses for a friend of mine some years ago, I paid several visits to what was probably the greatest horse market in the country, around the neighborhood of Twenty-fourth street and Third avenue, and while in this locality I also paid a visit to the old Bull’s Head Tavern, or what was left of it. It was as about as ugly a buildin’ as one would want to see, unless positively seekin’ after deformity and ugliness. It looked like a big coal box, and the only really good thing about it, the old sign-board, with its bull’s head painted on it after a fashion, had been taken down.
But what a place this old tavern used to be in the good old times when they sold cattle around here instead of horses, and when this neighborhood was the great stock market–live stock market–of the country.
There have been four different live stock markets in New York at different times, showin’, plainly, the growth of the great city.
The first stock market was at the head of what is now Rector street, and right adjoinin’ the graveyard of the first original Trinity Church.
Then the first Bull’s Head Tavern and Drovers’ Inn was built, and a queer, ugly, but substantial buildin’ it was, on the site of the present Astor House. Some people thought this tavern a little far up town for the drovers at the time, but that objection passed away. The stock market soon clustered around the tavern, and old Adam Van Der Bergh, some of whose direct descendants are still doin’ business here in New York, made money off his inn. He was a genial old party, sang a good song, told a good story, and was as popular in his way as old Colonel Stetson was, generations after him.
Then in course of time, as New York got bigger, the cattle market was moved further up, and the Bull’s Head followed the drovers.
Old Steve Carpenter started the second Bull’s Head Inn right where the Bowery Theatre stood afterwards. Carpenter was a “character.” Everybody in New York knew him, and he made money. Old Richard Varian kept the place after Steve Carpenter.
There are a good many interestin’ associations clingin’ to the old Bull’s Head Tavern in the Bowery. They used to have shootin’ matches there and prize fights, or what was meant for prize fights in those days. And dog fights were popular, and two or three times they had regular bull fights. Yes, bull fights, right here in New York–fights, and sharp ones, too, between a bull and a bear; bulls and bears on four legs, not two, as nowadays.
The fight was a square one, too. The bull meant business and so did the bear, and there was no humbuggin’ or shenanigan, which is more than you can say about the bull and bear fights on Wall street. The bulls and the bears of the old Bowery were honest beasts, anyway.
The old Bull’s Head Tavern was also the last haltin’ place for the old stages before they left town. A six-in-hand stage used to drive up in fine style, with a lot of fuss and clatter, twice and three times every week, and people used to walk half a mile or more to see it start.
At first New York, or the country right around it, was able to supply all the cattle it needed, and the Bowery, what there was of it, was full of calves and sheep on their way to bein’ turned into lamb and veal. Dan Drew made his first appearance in New York drivin’ down the Bowery a flock of sheep to slaughter–not the only sheep he drove to slaughter, by the by. Dan was then about eighteen years of age, and a very “raw” lad–as raw as his sheep. He had no shoes on his feet and a pair of pants too small for his legs, and the boys all made fun of him as he passed along; but he lived to make a good deal of fun of another kind for “the boys” of an older growth.
In course of time, however, New York got to be so large that it became quite a conundrum how to supply it with cattle. New York State was gettin’ used up, as well as Connecticut and New Jersey. So, one day a smart, plucky chap named Felix Renwick, who had once lived in New York but had for years been farmin’ and grazin’ out in Ohio, conceived the idea of sendin’ cattle to New York all the way from Ohio. This idea then was fully as big as the idea afterwards of sendin’ cattle from America to Europe, and it took a deal more trouble to carry it out.
At that time corn in Ohio was worth only ten cents a bushel, and, as Renwick afterwards remarked, as there were no railroads to transport produce to the Eastern markets, the farmer was obliged to make his produce transport itself. In the early part of March a herd of just one hundred cattle was started from Renwick’s stock yard, and for nearly eight weeks it jogged along at from ten to fifteen miles a day, generally near to the ten than the fifteen. One of Renwick’s drovers went ahead of the herd with a bullock, and the rest of the animals followed along quietly enough. The other drovers kept alongside of the herd with whips made of the skins of the black snake, ready to pummel any stragglers or refractory steers. Renwick himself did the “head work” of the expedition, arranged for all the board and feed of the party, but rode on horseback, lettin’ his cattle and his drovers “walk.”
The herd took the way over the old National road from Wheeling to Baltimore and from Baltimore on. And Renwick carefully so timed it that the herd entered New York early on Monday mornin’. He was first goin’ to have it enter the city on Sunday afternoon, but that might give offense to some of the sober Sabbath-respectin’ citizens, so he very wisely waited twelve hours and then marched in with his herd, havin’ the whole of the week in which to dispose of his cattle. Before Saturday night he had disposed of all his stock to advantage, and had sold his horse, too, at a profit. Then Renwick went back to Ohio on the stage, and his drovers and men went back on foot. One of his men made the distance from New York to Columbus, Ohio, over six hundred miles in just twelve days–pretty good trampin’, even for a time when “walks” for wagers were unknown.
These Ohio drovers were known in New York by the peculiar dress they wore. They were attired in a picturesque costume made of linsey woolsey, huntin’ shirts with wide capes fringed over the seams, and with a large number of buttons. Some called ‘em “capes” and some styled ‘em “buttons,” and by these unromantic names the Ohio cattle men were first known in the markets of New York.
About the time Renwick started his cattle scheme in the New York live stock dealers and the Butchers’ Association determined to move still further up-town, and made a big jump in that direction, buyin’ two blocks of ground on what is now Twenty-fourth street, between Third and Lexington avenues.
These blocks they converted into huge cattle yards, and made things lively in that neighborhood. Then an old tavern keeper from Poughkeepsie, named Tom Swift, came to town, and undertook to build a third and first-class Bull’s Head Tavern. He built the tavern, sure enough, but he didn’t have any luck keepin’ it after he built it, and he soon sold out to a man named Daniel Valentine, who did a little better than Swift, but soon sold out again to Dan Drew, who had by this time risen from bein’ a raw drover’s boy to bein’ a wide awake and thrivin’ drover.
In “Uncle Dan’l’s” time the old Bull’s Head Tavern was one of the great institutions of New York–it formed one end of the town at as the Battery did the other, and when people wanted to embrace the whole of New York in one sentence, they said “from Bull’s Head to the Battery,” just as they would say now from the Battery to the Harlem River.
In the “boss days of the old Bull’s Head” there was a tremendous big sign post, and underneath it was a tremendous big bell, which was always rung, and rung hard, for dinner, givin’ all the neighborhood its time of day. Five minutes after that bell had been run by the head waiter everybody around knew just where to find the drovers, right in the dinin’ room, and eatin’ a mighty good dinner, too.
There wasn’t much of the “good mine host” or the “genial” tavern keeper about Dan Drew, but it was his policy to feed his customers well, and he knew it and did it. He kept a good general “bar,” too, where one could get applejack or the best brandy at sixpence a tumbler, and a full tumblerful. No wonder the good old topers call those days the good old times.
The only trouble was that there was such a demand for drinks that the bar couldn’t accommodate enough barkeepers, while as for meals there was such a rush that fights often took place for seats at the first table, for there wasn’t much left for the second table, you may be sure. Strangers passin’ along the vicinity of the old Bull’s Head about noon, seein’ men rushin’ wildly along, as if their lives or property were at stake, would be apt to fancy there was a big fire, if somebody didn’t tell him that the bell he heard was not a fire alarm–only a feed alarm–not a danger signal, but a dinner bell.
There was a comfortable porch alongside the tavern, where the drovers picked their teeth and joked, after dinner, and there was a low-roofed Dutch stable back, and a big wooden pump and a tremendous big trough, where the drovers and butchers used to duck each other occasionally, just for fun.
Talkin’ of fun, there was a deal of it in those days–such as it was. Some of the old drovers, now livin’, like to tell of it still, and the larks they had when they were butchers’ boys and fledglin’ drovers.
The Bull’s Head had the cream of the “hotel” business in its neighborhood. Still it had two rivals that did a fair trade. One of ‘em was called “the Black Swan” and the other was styled “the Bull’s Head, Junior.” Back of the “Black Swan,” near what is now about as thickly a settled neighborhood as there is in the city, at the corner of Twenty-third street and Third avenue, right about where the L road station rises, stood then a grove of trees, some of ‘em apple trees, and in this grove stood the old farm house that had been occupied by General Gates.
The Bull’s Head, Junior, was very little, but very lively, and the biggest “sports” went there for fun. The leader of these sports was “Ike” Gardner, who was very proud of his “sportin’” character, and wouldn’t allow that anybody could beat him in anythin’. This sort of pride kept him pretty poor, for he was always backin’ himself heavy, and when he got beat, as he often did, it cost him more in a day than he could make in a month or two. He was a great hand at tenpins, then a sort of “national game,” and one night he and an Ohio drover called “Roxy,” a friend of Felix Renwick, who had come from Cleveland with some cattle, played a match game “for the championship,” a sort of New York versus The West game.
The night appointed for the game, Friday–the day after market day, Thursday–saw a bigger crowd at the little Bull’s Head, Junior, than had ever been seen before. All the Western men came there to bet their pile on “Roxy,” and all the New York drovers came to bet on “Ike.” The game began at four in the afternoon and lasted without break till ten o’clock, at which date New York and Ike were ahead. Then they stop playin’ until eleven o’clock, when they began again and kept at it till six o’clock in the morning. At this time Ohio and Roxy were a little ahead, and Roxy and the Ohio men were wild.
Then they halted in the game half an hour or so, and then went at it again, Gardner havin’ backed himself to the tune of $500 and his friends havin’ put on him about $3,000 more. Before ten o’clock the match was over, everybody was tired out, and Gardner was winner by about $1,500, which in those times was big money. This was the longest match at tenpins ever played, and during its progress over two hundred people stayed awake all night.
Any number of thimble-riggers, dressed like gentleman, used to hang around the little Bull’s Head and the Black Swan, but Ike Gardener, bein’ a square man, didn’t like this kind of “sportin’” and did all he could to stop it, lickin’ the thimble-riggers when he got a chance. But on one occasion the thimble-riggers got up “a gang” and licked Ike, half killin’ him.
In those days the Third avenue was a regular well macadamized road from Eighth street to what was called Spark’s Four Mile House, which stood at about Sixtieth Street, the two miles or so between Spark’s place and the Bull’s Head bein’ considered then the finest drive on Manhattan Island. The Bull’s Head piazza was, like old Ned Luff’s place later, a prime spot for seein’ horseflesh speed, and sports used to congregate there on fine afternoons, or at the old Willow Grove, another sportin’ tavern, on what is now Thirtieth Street, to see the flyers go by.
A lot of horsemen used to hang around the Black Swan, too, and one afternoon two young “boss butchers” got up a queer sensation. They were Jim Eastwood and Charley Cooper, who were “butchers of the period,” wags and practical jokers of the hardest kind. They were a little jealous of each other, too, and each aspired to be the leader of the “Black Swan crowd.”
This particular afternoon Eastwood and Cooper were both in front of the Black Swan, Eastwood ridin’ a bay horse and Cooper drivin’ a tip-top gray mare to a sulky. The boys around got banterin’ Jim and Charley on there turnouts and they got banterin’ each other, and Charley Cooper, to take the conceit out of Jim Eastwood, bet fifty dollars that he could drive his gray anywhere and everywhere where his rival could ride his bay.
No sooner was the bet made than Jim Eastwood turned his horse’s head and rode him right up to the steps leadin’ to the entrance of the Black Swan. This set the boys a-cheering, and this applause gave Jim a new idea, for he forthwith rode right into the barroom, where at the bar on horseback he called for drinks for the crowd.
Everybody thought, of course, that Cooper was done for, but Cooper didn’t. What did he do but absolutely drive his gray mare up the steps also, followed by the sulky, and then he even got so far as to get part of his horse in the barroom. How much further he would have got nobody could tell, for just then the sulky yielded to the unusual strain put upon it and parted in two, the wheels and axle separatin’ from the wagon.
Down fell Charley Cooper and away went his gray mare down the steps, but Charley came up smilin’, and then it was arranged that Jim and Charley should compromise the bet between ‘em, Charley only payin’ Jim half the wager, as he had come at least halfway in, and Jim spendin’ the twenty-five dollars in a high old supper at the Swan,
Meanwhile Uncle Dan’l didn’t bother himself about sport but devoted himself to business. He made money as a tavern-keeper, but that was only part of his money-makin’. He soon made himself a kind of broker, and collected for the drovers. He got into the habit, and a very good habit it was for him, of cashin’ for the Drovers their claims against the butchers. You see the butchers got their cattle of the drovers on thirty days credit, and the drovers often being hard up for ready money, he would cash their accounts or pay their butcher’s note for ‘em, only askin’ and gettin’, one per cent, and sometimes two, for his kindness. This twelve and twenty-four per cent a year on a good many thousands of dollars soon made Uncle Dan’l, as it would anybody else, rich.
Uncle Dan’l soon became the great man of the New York live stock market around Twenrty-fourth street, just as he was, later on, the great man of the New York stock market in Wall street.
He tended bar himself sometimes, but not often. He saw to the tavern’s meals and so on, but only for a little while each day. His main thought and time and work was how to get rich by makin’ money off of other people’s money in a legitimate way, of course, and by drivin’, when he got a chance, the very hardest kind of a hard bargain.
When thinkin’ out some scheme he used to walk up and down his bar-room talkin’ to himself, but to nobody else, and in a very low tone of voice at that. Nobody was ever any the wiser for what Uncle Dan’l said to himself.
He used to wear a blue swallow-tail coat with a lot of brass buttons and a tall hat, and when he put his hands under the tails of his swallowtail coat and stuck his hat on his head so as to shade his keen eyes and walked up and down solemnly and slowly, and talked gently to himself, then the butchers and drovers took note that there was somethin’ in the wind, and that the wind would blow in the direction that Uncle Dan’l wanted.
One time he kept talkin’ to himself and walkin’ about for a whole day nearly, and the next day he disappeared. He stayed away two days, and when he came back he made his first “corner.” It was a corner in cattle. He had gone to Philadelphia and bought cheap, for cash, all the cattle that were on their way to New York, and made lots of money by doin’ it.
The butchers swore; but Uncle Dan’l never swore–he was too good to swear–he only smiled. He could afford to.
After keepin’ the Bull’s Head for several years Uncle Dan’l went into steamboatin’, following Vanderbilt and Garrison’s example. He made millions, but the old Bull’s Head never amounted to much after it was given up, or sold out, by Uncle Dan’l.
[Editor’s notes: Much of the content of the above column was adapted from a magazine article, “At the Old Bull’s Head,” Scribner’s Monthly, v. 17, Nov. 1878-Apr 1879, pp. 421-432. The images above were taken from the same article.]
