People are talkin’ now of the monster musical memorial to be paid by New York to the memory of Wagner, and are sayin’ what a sign all this is of the musical growth of the metropolis. But the fact is that more than a generation ago New York was, in proportion to population, quite as musical as it is to-day, and got up a memorial on the death of Mendelssohn which was quite a fine affair.
The Mendelssohn memorial was given at Castle Garden, and nearly every musician of any account in New York then took part in it. And among those most interested in the memorial was a man who, although not a professional musician himself, did more for the cause of music than perhaps any one man in New York, although his name has passed into history entirely unconnected with musical matters–I mean Henry Meiggs.
Henry Meiggs, strange to say, was one of those New Yorkers who are more popular and more famous among outsiders and foreign nations than in New York itself. Before he died his name was known throughout all South America as the greatest financier and benefactor that part of the world had ever known.
And yet in New York it might have been mentioned without anybody particularly knowin’ or carin’ who was meant. You see, the most eventful part of his life was passed away from New York, and yet even his New York career was quite interestin’, and gave promise of what kind of man he was goin’ to be.
Henry Meiggs was one of those big-hearted, big-headed men, who couldn’t do anythin’ on a small scale, to save their lives. What he did, he did wholesale. Even his mistakes were big. He was a Jim Fisk and Ralston sort of a man, without bein’ quite as reckless or dissipated as either of ‘em.
He took a fancy to music, and day and night in old New York he devoted all his spare time to musical matters, just as if his livin’ depended on ‘em–nay, a great deal more earnestly than most men whose livin’s really depend on music.
He was one of the chief promoters of the Mendelssohn testimonial, and he hired old Apollo Hall to rehearse Beethoven in, and spite his various engagements, never missed a rehearsal, and made himself personally beloved by all musicians, because not being a professional musician himself the rest were not jealous of him. Musicians, as a class, hate each other worse than women or actors, but nobody hated Henry Meiggs. He lent money to musicians, he got puffs in the papers for musicians, he figured as the musician’s friend. One of his friends was old Professor Barta, who had been a member of the old Euterpean and the original Philharmonic societies, the two “crack” musical societies of old New York.
The Euterpean was the very oldest and the very jolliest musical society ever known here. All the old swells and the young beaux used to belong to it, just for an excuse to have a good time, although there were really some good singers in it.
The Euterpean gave concerts every month, and after the concert there was a supper and a dance at the old City Hotel. There used to be “high jinks” at these gatherin’s in a very mild but satisfactory way.
The rehearsals used to be held at the corner of Nassau and Fulton streets, where the Commercial Advertiser buildin’ is now. The old codgers never missed these rehearsals, when the fathers of our prosperous merchants were boys. The Philharmonic tried hard to be as popular as the Euterpean, but, somehow it never succeeded, although it was decidedly more musical. But the Philharmonics were too “high toned” to give a supper and a ball, so only the real lovers of music had much to do with ‘em.
The Philharmonic outlived the Euterpean, however, and Henry Meiggs took a great pride in the Philharmonic–also in the Vocal Society.
The Vocal Society used to give concerts at the Washington Hotel, right on the site of Stewart’s downtown store. The concerts were held in the ball room of the hotel, what was then considered very splendid, and all New York was there, to see and hear. Major Fanning C. Tucker used to direct the ceremonies with great majesty, and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Loder, the Misses Cumming, Henry C. Watson, and the rest of that set used to sing.
The Cumming Sisters were very popular in their time as vocalists, but they had one fault, or weakness, which is very common with women–they never knew when they were growin’ old, and thought ‘emselves forever young.
Their favorite duet was a piece, “We’re Ower Young to Marry Yet,” and they kept on singin’ this piece for some fifteen years, till it began to be one of the standin’ jokes of New York to go and hear the played-out old-maid sisters announcin’ to all the world that they “were ower young to marry yet.”
Then there was a musical barber–a Scotchman called Clirehugh–who was in the habit of assistin’ the Cumming Sisters. Clirehugh always appeared at these concerts with one of his own wigs on, as an advertisement. He was a peaceful-lookin’ sort of a chap, but he used to sing a patriotic, warlike song–”Scots Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled”–with a blood-curdlin’ expression. He was always fallin’ in love, this Scotch Barber; and what with his singin’ and his sentiment, was quite a character in old New York.
In old St. Paul’s Church, the oratorio of the Messiah was once given entire in fine style, under the direction of Mr. Samuel Taylor, organist, who, by the way, came near bein’ killed by one of his orchestra at last in a very funny way.
Taylor had caused a stagin’ to be built all around the big organ, to hold the musicians. One double bass was a double sized chap, as fat as his voice was deep, and awful heavy. One day at rehearsal Taylor got excited leadin’ the performance, and the double bass got excited, singin’ in the performance, and in his ardor Taylor approached right under the edge of the stagin’, and the fat double bass in his ardor approached right over the edge of the stagin’. And just then somethin’ happened which made the double bass lose his footin’, and down he stumbled right on top of his beloved leader, nearly mashin’ at once all the life and the music out of him together.
Another down-town church, Dr. Chapin’s, on Broadway between Spring and Prince streets, was famous in the good old times, for its music, and Meiggs tried to form in it the biggest choral society as yet known to New York. Meiggs engaged the singers personally, and furnished ‘em with the music, and he and his pet son “Billy” were always at the rehearsals, workin’ harder than anybody else, although the name of Meiggs was never on the programme.
When the great famine took place in Ireland, when A. T. Stewart gave $50,000, and sent on a ship loaded with provisions, Henry Meiggs got up a great concert at the Tabernacle for the benefit of the sufferers. There was a splendid programme offered, but the night turned out to be a terribly stormy one, so no one dared venture out. But Meiggs quietly took his seat in the back row, calculated what the house would have held if full, and then sent on a correspondin’ amount to old Ireland. He afterwards repeated the concert for the same purpose on a better night. So, in the long run, Ireland gained by the storm.
And, one Summer day, Henry Meiggs gave the whole musical profession of New York a free picnic. He chartered a steamboat, and, fillin’ it with invited guests–every man and woman a musician–took ‘em on a twenty-four hour excursion up and down the Hudson. It was the biggest musical excursion ever given by a private liberality in the world, and was the talk of the town, as it deserved to be. There never was a pleasanter picnic. One or two old fellows are livin’ still who were young people on it, and who remember to this day how they enjoyed themselves that day and that night–that moonlit night–when, after a nice supper, they had such a delightful dance under the moonlight. New York was a small place then, and a dollar was a good deal of money. But there never has been given such a private excursion and public treat as Henry Meiggs gave to the musicians of New York.
The old Broadway Tabernacle just mentioned had some splendid performances given in it at different times. Leopold de Meyer played there, and Henry Herz and Ole Bull, three names which couldn’t be surpassed, if equaled to-day. But some of the so-called “concerts” in old New York were just as big humbugs as some of the concerts to-day and Henry Meiggs got sold in one of ‘em given by an “infant phenomenon” and her father, who was announced to “perform the hitherto unattempted feat of playin’ upon the piano and flute at one and the same time.”
Night came, and the audience, and the infant phenomenon, who wasn’t in the first place an “infant,” although she wore short dresses. She was at least fifteen years of age, and big for her age, and had very fat legs. Her voice was the only really infantile thin’ about her, and that was very reedy and shrill and squeaky, really squally. It set the audience to laughin’ and made kind-hearted Henry Meiggs sweat with mortification. But the father was worse than the daughter, and his double performance upon two instruments at once was really a performance upon neither, for in the first place he couldn’t play well, and in the next place his double performance was only a trick, a mechanical trick which was clumsily gotten up, and which fell through right in the sight of the audience. He had a pair of false hands made to work one instrument, while his real hands were workin’ the other, but the false hands wouldn’t work, and were n. g., exposin’ him to the derision of the audience.
But the funniest thing about the affair was the quiet “cheek” of the big infant. She had evidently been through many a scrape of this kind, and paid no more attention to the coughin’ and howlin’ and cat-callin’ of the audience than if it had been all cheerin’ and applause. She went through the whole programme, and when the audience got tired of callin’ her out in fun she called herself out in earnest, encored herself, and sang some of her worst songs over and over again. Altogether it was a performance “seldom excelled and never equaled.”
It put the laugh on Meiggs, who was one of the “patrons” of “the infant phenomenon,” and it put the quietus to the place it was given in–old Constitution Hall, on Broadway near Bond street.
Had everythin’ gone in the old humdrum way, probably Henry Meiggs would only have been known as a prominent New York businessman with a hobby for music. But when the California fever broke out in ‘49, Meiggs was one of the first to see what a big thing it was goin’ to be, and he made tracks at once for the land of gold.
But even then he took his music with him. He paid the expenses of four singers to California, two ladies, Miss Laura Jones and Miss Maria Leach, and two gentlemen, Mr. T. Connor Smith and Mr. Loomis of old Grace Church choir. With these four he went round California givin’ concerts in caravan tents, and sometimes in the open air. Gold Dust was the currency then, and at one of his concerts Meiggs, who acted as treasurer, took in eighty-four bags of gold dust in exchange for eighty-four bits of pasteboard–the highest prices ever paid for any concert, not exceptin’ Patti’s or Nilsson’s.
After a while Meiggs gave up music for minin’ and singin’ for speculation, and got to be one of the very richest and most important men in ‘Frisco. Then he got into a snarl, and one day he was “missin’.”
There was a big fuss, and Meiggs was called hard names, as he had left half a million in debts behind him. But nothin’ more was heard of him for years, and he and his debt got to be an old story in ‘Frisco, just as his name had got to be a mere memory in New York.
When, all at once, he was heard from livin’ in Peru, and making millions upon millions as a government contractor.
And then he was heard from as behavin’ like a hero and a big-hearted Christian at the frightful burnin’ of the cathedral at Santiago. And finally he was heard from very satisfactorily as payin’ up all his old California debts with interest, after ten years.
And at the very last he was heard from as havin’ died suddenly, universally mourned throughout South America, while a whole nation went to his funeral, which was the most imposin’ on record.
And one of his the very last letters that this great man wrote was to an old chum in New York, who had once been connected with him in some musical matters.
[Editor’s notes: Henry Meiggs South American legacy is a mixed bag. He founded several railroads, and built them under government contracts. However, the main beneficiaries of his public works were foreign (European and American) companies interested in extracting natural resources from Peru and Chile.]
