THE OLD MERCHANTS OF NEW YORK CITY
        Second  Series

By  Walter Barrett, Clerk
     1863

     MERCHANT  DESCRIPTIONS

       CHAPTER  15



      Within a short time, three persons of some distinction____mercantile
and quite celebrities____among the fast and dashing portions of the city
have died, and have already been mentioned among the "Old Merchants," during
the past two years. I allude to Charles Davis, Theodore Dehon, William D.
Kennedy, Edward Vincent, J. Sherman Brownell, and Henry P. Gardner.

HENRY  P.  GARDNER

      The last named died October 4, 1861, aged thirty-seven. It is nearly
twenty-two years ago, when he entered mercantile life, under the mercantile
auspices of Fernando Wood. He was a boy in the store of Fernando Wood, at
No. 133 Washington street. He was his clerk at the time Mr. Wood had $1500
placed to his credit wrongfully, and which Mr. Wood with prudent foresight
drew out of the clutches of the "Merchants" Exchange Bank."

      That year Mr. F. Wood went before the people as their candidate for
representative to Congress. The real facts of the case were laid before the
people, and honest men like W.B. Astor, and leading merchants, indignant at
the swindle attempted to be put upon Wood by the "Merchants' Exchange Bank,"
took his part, and elected him to Congress.

      Henry P. Gardner was a most excellent young man. He knew the real
facts of this case, but being young he was taken care of by Charles A.
Secor, and went into his employ. It is a curious fact, that the devil does
protect and take care of those he loves. There never has been a good and
true man who has stood up and fought Fernando Wood, with naked name, and
naked facts. I say there has been no such man who did not die out before he
had succeeded. Lorenzo B. Shepard was a glorious fellow. The battle with
Wood killed him. Had he lived most probably Mr. Wood would not have been in
Congress at this time.

      I am not aware how long Mr. Gardner was with Wood.

      Henry P. Gardner, after leaving Wood, became a junior clerk with Secor
& Co., afterwards Secor & Livingston. After being some years with the
Secors, Henry was taken into partnership under the firm of Secor  & Co., his
partner being Charles F. Secor, son of Charles, Joseph Morton and H.P.
Gardner. Young Charles married a daughter of James B. Nicholson, now one of
the Commissioners of Charities and Corrections.

      After the firm had existed some time and comed money, it was
dissolved. Henry P. Gardner then became a partner in the large house of
William A. Freeborne & Co., ship chandlers, at No. 254 South and No. 501
Water, and brass founder at No. 498 Water. About a year ago he left that
house, and started the ship chandlery business on the North river side, at
No. 50 West___a new street, but fronting the Water, as Washington did when
he first went with the Secors. Henry was very much beloved by all who knew
him. He was married, had four children, and had every prospect of  happiness
and a successful mercantile career before him. He was a member of the
Masonic order. His death was very sudden. I met him a short time previous,
and he asked me to drop in and see him at his new store. I never was more
shocked than when I heard of his death.

WILLIAM  D.  KENNEDY

      Another man who believed Fernando Wood capable of any wickedness, was
William D. Kennedy. He was a merchant. He knew New York, and I have a sketch
of him that will appear, and be one of the deepest  interest. He despised
Wood, because he knew him to be  treacherous. He admired his sublime
impudence, his church membership, his sending his carriage to Irish
funerals; but if the Colonel's gallant spirit could have been present at the
funeral of his own body, and seen Wood weep crocodile tears, and heard his
voice say, "Poor Bill," while he would probably have begged some friend to
kick the audacious man out of the precincts of the church, he would have
added;  "Wood is right. He acts out his part to the life, to the death, and
to the last. He hates me. He comes to my funeral with his feelings crawling
with gratification. He says to himself, "I want to see that Kennedy in his
coffin, cold, and ready to be food for worms. See it with my own
eyes____then I can gloat over what I know to be an undisputed fact. He has
crossed my path day and night, in season and out of season." Wood is right."
So William D. would have said, and he was a good judge of human motives.

      Others who do not know Wood, think he went to the funeral of Kennedy
to make political capital. That is not so. A shrewd man told me: "Wood went
there as I once went to see an infernal scoundrel who had wronged me
individually, who had also wronged the State, and was sent to Sing Sing for
ten years. I wanted to see with my own eyes that he had met his fate I
wanted to feel that he who had opposed, thwarted, exposed, and tried to
blast my prospects, was a degraded, hapless criminal."

FERNANDO  WOOD

      In 1834, Wood himself had left making cigars, and had been hired as a
clerk with Francis Secor & Co., at 103 Washington street. To that family,
and the combinations they were enabled to make, Wood owes his political
start. The old Francis is still alive, has a farm out in Westchester county.
He was foreman to Henry Eckford, when the first steamboats were built.
Eckford's ship yard was in Water street, up near Clinton street in 1810. He
had several sons, Thorne, Zeno, Henry, Charles A. and James. They all were
connected with the establishment in which Wood was a clerk. Then there was
Joseph Sherman Brownell, at 100 Washington, where he had commenced business
in 1830. He had hosts of friends. There was John S. Gilbert, the ship
joiner, at 118 Washington street, James Munson, the block-maker, at 108.
Thomas Shortland, the cooper, was at 101, and lived at 111 Washington
street. All these men had gret primary influence, employed many men, and
could carry political meetings in several of the wards. They were excellent
materials to build up any man. While Wood was a clerk with Secor & Co., he
became personally known to these men. Toward the close of 1836, Wood
proposed to start the liquor store (the lowest three cent shop is dignified
with the name of "ship stores,") at 99 corner of Rector. At that time there
was no West street, Washington faced the North river. The numbers were
continued on the same side; 99 was Wood's store;  100 next, was Brownell's;
101 Shortland's;  Secor, 103.  Shortland owned the property on the corner,
and he leased it to Wood, without any security, believing him to be an
enterprising young business man. The business was a shocking one. It was to
sell bad liquor at three cents a glass to the hundreds of workmen that
worked in the stevedore gangs on board ships lying at the docks on that side
of the town. These men, of course, would have no money during the week, and
it would have been a losing business but for the extraordinary mercantile
sagacity and commercial foresight  of Mr. F. Wood. There were several
prominent stevedores at that time. Mr. Seeley was one. Everleigh was
another, and Smith one. Wood arranged with all these stevedores that their
men should be paid off in his groggery.  Wood kept an alphabet book of
charges, so that when Saturday night came, when "Jo Smith,"  "Bully Bob,"
or  "Jack Duff" was called up to be paid,  Wood was asked, "What have you
got against him, Fernando?"  Wood would turn to his alphabet, and reply, $3,
$4.50, $1.25, or 75 cents, as the case might be. The sum would then be
deducted from the wages due of $9, or $7, and the poor fellow would have two
or three dollars to take home to his family, while the rest went to the till
of the future great statesman of New York!


      It was a common occurrence that the men would say:  "Wood, you have
charged me with three dollars' worth of your stuff, and I know I have not
had it. Mr. Wood would try on his irresistible amiability, offer to treat,
and it would pass over to be renewed again week after week for three years.
On one occasion, a worthy fellow, named Ferguson, said to several of his
cronies: "Last week, my wages were docked two dollars and fifty cents for
Wood's charge. I had no such sum, but to satisfy myself whether he is a
rascal or not, I have not drank a drop this week and will not." Saturday
night came. Ned Ferguson, called the stevedore, "How much have you, Wood?"

      "Seventy-five cents," said Fernando Wood.  Furguson replied:  "I have
not drank a drop here or anywhere else this past week, and by the help of
God I never will again, and thus rescue myself from the clutches of such a
man as you are. All the men know that I have not drank, for they heard me
say I would  not, and have watched me."  Wood insisted, and got the
seventy-five cents he had charged.

      When his first year was up, Thomas Shortland, the landlord, said: "If
you can give me security, you can have that place for another year, not
without."

      "But Tom, you let me have it when I was poor; you know that I have
made money while I have had it, and yet you now want security?"

      "Yes, Wood, that is it; when I let to you first, I knew you poor, but
I believed you would pay me. Now I know you have made money, but I believe
you to be anxious to make money, and lawless how you make it. It shall not
be out of me. I know that you can give security. I know it will be Charles
A. Secor."

THOMAS  SHORTLAND

      That Thomas Shortland was one of those who added to the wealth of New
York, though merely a cooper. His two sons, Thomas Jr., and Stephen, are
carrying on the same business in the old locality, and under Henry P.
Gardner's recent store, 50 West street, and the old gentleman has the
Atlantic Docks, Brooklyn, and is very wealthy. One of Thomas Shortland's
sons married a daughter of John S. Gilbert alluded to. Gilbert was the
inventor of the celebrated Balanco Dock. It has been adopted by the
Government and by several foreign governments. He is worth half a million of
dollars.

J.  SHERMAN  BROWNELL

      J. Sherman Brownell at 100 Washington street did a large business, and
I believe he went into politics after Wood's first success. He was led into
it by the force of example, as have been many others, who have said, "If
Fernando Wood can be elected to Congress, there is no office I can not
aspire to." I don't think Sherman Brownell would ever have aspired to any
civic dignities had he not kept a store next door to Fernando Wood.

EDWARD  VINCENT

      Edward Vincent died suddenly. He was formerly a merchant in this city.
Curious enough, in Chapter 26 of this work, I alluded to him pleasantly in
this way; "Captain Edward Vincent, James B. Glentworth, and George L. Pride,
used to go out to Cato's in the early summer morning, and drink mint juleps
together, previous to the late war with England in 1812." The next day, Mr.
H____, a broker went to Captain Vincent, and asked him if he would sell him
a land warrant, granted to soldiers of the 1812 war. Of course, the captain
had none. The visitor expressed surprise, as he, Captain Vincent, was out in
that war. He took the joke at once____said he should have to challenge W.B.
for making him nearly seventy years old.

      I do not think he was far from sixty years old. Thirty years ago he
was a merchant, under the firm of  Vincent & Butterworth, in Pearl, near Old
Slip, about No. 86. At that time Vincent was a splendid fellow of very
agreeable manners, plenty of customers and plenty of cash, lived at Mrs.
Mann's, or one of those ostentatious boarding houses in Broadway, below the
old Grace Church, (Rector Street). He was a Virginian, and was welcomed
wherever he went. He was a military man and popular. He was a regular
attendant upon the old City Hall assembly balls. He could have picked a wife
any where. Vincent & Butterworth did a very extensive business, until the
cold night in December, 1835, when the lower part of New York, on the East
river side, was laid in ashes. They were insured, but no insurance company
paid their losses. I think the concern was staggered and a new order of
things was started, for he opened again at No. 45 Broad street, under the
firm of Brett & Vincent. That firm continued some years, at least as late as
the election of General Harrison in 1840. From Tyler, his successor, I
think, Captain Vincent received an appointment in the Custom House, and if
my memory serves me, he was not removed from it until within a few weeks of
his death. He was a man with many friends. He enjoyed society. He had his
share of the good things of this world , and he knew how to make the most of
them. I am not aware when he ceased to command the "Light Guard," or when
that brilliant company was disbanded. Certainly it has not been heard of
since the war commenced.  Of course, Captain Vincent, being a Virginian by
birth, could not have been expected to command  against his own State,
although General Scott took a different view of it. George L. Pride has
since died.

CHARLES  DAVIS  AND  THEODORE  DEHON

      Charles Davis and Theodore Dehon were at one time both partners of the
house of Davis & Brooks. I have written fully about the house and its
partners in previous chapters. When they died, they were not of the firm.
Davis had retired from business altogether, and Mr. Dehon was in business on
his own account. He died in London. Davis died in this city.

THE  EMBURYS

      Twenty-five years ago, no fashionable person could have gone to two or
four aristocratic parties a week in this city without meeting one or both of
these men. They were welcome everywhere. Such is life, and such is death. To
the list I might have added another old merchant's name. I had much to say
of Peter Embury, and mentioned his son, Daniel Embury, president of the
Brooklyn Bank. On the 2d of November, a son of the latter was killed by an
unknown assassin, while proceeding to the residence of W.S. Verplanck, about
two miles from Fishkill Landing. Phillip Augustus Embury was a young man of
much promise. He was a clerk of an insurance company in this city, and
betrothed to Miss Verplanck. He left the city at 5 o'clock p.m., November 2,
in the great storm that raged. It was a fearfully dark night; when he left
the cars he had proceeded but a few rods when he was stabbed in the back by
some unknown assassin. His body was not discovered until the next day. His
age was twenty-five. His mother was the celebrated authoress, Emma C.
Embury, the most popular poetess and magazine writer of the day, from 1840
to 1850. She is dead.



Source:  The Old Merchants of New York City
Author:  Walter Barrett, Clerk           Second series
Publisher:  Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway
Entered according to the Act of Congress 1863
             _____________________________________

    Researched, Prepared and Contributed by Miriam Medina
                  For the Brooklyn Information Page

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