THE OLD MERCHANTS OF NEW YORK CITY
        Second  Series

By  Walter Barrett, Clerk
     1863

     MERCHANT  DESCRIPTIONS

       CHAPTER  9


THE  SCHENCKS  (Father and Son)

      In a previous chapter I wrote about the two Peter Schencks____father
and son. I now return to young Peter H. Schenck. At that time, a grocer
looked up to the great merchant. Consequently, a man of this stamp aimed to
place his son where he would rise to the highest rank of merchant. Buying
largely of the great merchants, he was a man not to be refused;
consequently, when old Peter A. Schenck asked Lewis Simond to educate young
Peter, it was granted. He remained with Simond & Co. until 1798. That year
the yellow fever prevailed, and Peter A., whose store was at 66 Front
street, near Coenties slip, when Smith died, was the second person taken.
Young Peter was sent for to conduct the business of the old man, and I have
before me an account for "Scythes & c.," made out by young Peter H., and
signed for his father while the latter was laid up with yellow fever___viz.,
"7th of August, 1798."  I have also another receipt which he signed for
seventy-five dollars, in full for one year's wages, 1792. Peter A. lived and
carried on business as a grocer many years after in the old store, and
residing in Pearl street No. 92. In 1802, he took in young Peter H., and the
store was kept at 49 Front street, under the firm of Peter A. Schenck & Co.,
youngster also being with his father. At this time Martin W. Bull was a
clerk with the firm. They continued on in business together until 1806, when
Peter A., the father, was appointed surveyor of the Port of New York. At
that time David Gelston was collector and Samuel Osgood was Naval Officer.
The business was now conducted solely by Peter H. Schenck at the old place.
Old Peter was kept in office through the Jefferson and Madison
administrations until 1815, when he went to Washington. The young Peter H.
kept the old store, 49 Front street, and did business as Peter H. Schenck &
Co. until 1824. Then he moved to 40 Fulton street, and lived at No. 2
Bowling Green. The next year he moved to 123 Maiden Lane, and I think the
character of his business changed. His partner's name was Samuel G. Wheeler.
He was father-in-law to D.B. Allen, who is son-in-law to Commodore C.
Vanderbilt.

      Peter H. Schenck, in the last war of 1813, gave Government $10,000.
About that time he built a cotton factory at "Mattewan," and when New York
was blockaded, they carted cotton by land from Charleston  S.C. to Fishkill
Landing, N.Y., about 900 miles distance.

      He had added greatly to the wealth of the city of New York. Few men
have done more than this. Who represents the name and race now I know not.

JAMES  DE  PEYSTER  OGDEN

     James De Peyster Ogden is an old merchant of this city. None have been
more eminent than he. I have before me writing of his in 1805. At that time
he was a clerk with Van Horne & Clarkson, merchant, of high standing,
shippers and importers. Their counting-house was at 129 Pearl street. The
senior of the firm was old Garret Van Horne. The junior partner was David M.
Clarkson.

      Old David M. Clarkson was in business at 73 King street (Pine) as
early as 1784. A few years after he formed the partnership with Garrit Van
Horne. The signature of Van Horne & Clarkson, as written by old David, is
the bold, large, old-fashioned hand-writing, so prevalent among the
merchants of the Revolutionary period. It has a world of character and
meaning in itself.

      Even "James D.P. Ogden," as he signed himself fifty-six years ago,
wrote a bold, open hand, and one that evinced character.

      I have no means of knowing the age of the noble old merchant, but, in
1805, to be trusted with nine hundred dollars, he was not likely to have
been under fourteen or fifteen years old. If so, he cannot be far from
seventy now.

      Fifty-four years of active mercantile life in this and other counties!
What a life!  What scenes he must have passed through!  What an experience
of commerce, happily, has been his!

      Mr. Ogden received a regular education in the counting house of Van
Horne & Clarkson. He went out to the north of Europe, where he remained
three years, acting as the agent of the New York house of Le Roy, Bayard &
Co. I do not know precisely when the noble old firm of Van Horne & Clarkson
dissolved, but I think it was about 1809 or 1810.

      James De Peyster Ogden went into mercantile business in this city in
1820. His store was at 24 Broad street, near the corner of Garden, and he
lived at the City Hotel. He continued business at that place for some years,
and then went abroad to Liverpool, England.

      While General Jackson was President, Mr. Ogden acted as United States
consul at that port for a short time.

      After his return and for twenty-five years, his course in this city
was one that is to be envied. No man is more respected and more esteemed,
and no one deserves it more. His family on both sides is coeval with the
settlement of New York. Father and grandfather were eminent in their day and
generation. His father  was a contemporary of the celebrated Dr. Hosack, and
they were students together in the office of the eminent Dr. Bard. Dr. Ogden
was intimately known and esteemed by the great Washington.

      The remark quoted from St. Paul, "All save these bonds," Morgan Lewis
says, was original with Dr. Ogden.

      The committee of public safety in those days had a grudge against him.
They took Dr. Ogden to General Washington's headquarters. "What," said
Washington, "is that you?  How are you?"  "Well, I thank you, General," said
Dr. Ogden, "save these bonds," looking very contemptuously upon the fellows
of the committee who had brought him there. Washington replied, "Ah, those
bonds were not intended for you, Doctor, and they knew it, but I am very
happy to profit by the occasion to say how glad I am to see you, and to
repeat my respect and esteem."

      James D.P. Ogden is a grandson of this spirited old gentleman.

      As a merchant no man has been more esteemed during the long life spent
in this city, only relieved by the occasional absence upon important matters
alluded to above, in Europe.

      He has been one of the most prominent and esteemed members of the
Chamber of Commerce for years. In politics, he has always occupied a
prominent position in this city. It would have been fortunate had he been
more identified with it, officially. He has always been a national whig of
liberal principals. He was one of the most active and prominent members of
the Union Safety committee. He greatly dreaded the effect of the warfare
waged against slavery, as it existed under the Constitution.

      His speech, when he presided at the great meeting at the Cooper
Institute, January 8th, gave his views of the then existing state of
affairs, with his opinion of the necessity of passing the "border state
resolutions," as prepared by Mr. Crittenden.

      No man so deeply deplored the civil war that afterwards broke out, and
that is now raging in our own  prosperous land. But friendly as he always
was to the South, no man could more sternly recognize to its fullest extent,
the duty of opposing Secession, which is but another word for Revolution,
and of maintaining the Union, the Constitution and the laws, as the only
safeguard of every section of the Republic.

      Few men can realize the honest city pride of such a man as J. De
Peyster Ogden. No man can realize how deep and abiding the interest that New
York city has in the momentuous issues of the passing hour. He has for more
than half a century been a merchant here, and he knows that commercially and
financially our city is destined to exert a paramount influence upon the
peace, the prosperity and the character of our common country.

GARRIT  VAN  HORNE

      Garrit Van Horne, the merchant, lived at No. 31 Broadway (where the
counting house of Van Horne & Clarkson had been in their last years,) as
late as 1825. I think he died about that time. The next year it was occupied
by David Clarkson, and for many years after. Long David they called him.

THOMAS  S.  CLARKSON

      Thomas S. Clarkson lived next door at 33 Broadway. David (long) was
the son of David M., although the partner of Mr. Van Horne in 1790, who
lived at No. 16 Courtlandt street, some seven years after he dissolved with
Mr. Van Horne. Old David Matthew (father of David and Matthew,) I think died
at No. 16 Courtlandt street, about 1817 or 1818.

      Never was there a nicer family than these old fashioned Clarksons. Not
only the male members, but the female members of it were splendid specimens
of the human race. I do not know why it was so, but they always seemed to me
to be in mourning. It was a sight to see them all go to Trinity church, as
they moved slowly and dignifiedly up Broadway thirty or forty years ago.

IT WAS AN  UNFORTUNATE HOUR FOR THE NATION WHEN THE CAPITAL WAS REMOVED FROM
NEW YORK TO PRESENT LOCATION.

      If ever there was at time in the history of New York when she should
prepare to be the empress or mistress of affairs, no matter how complicated
they may become, it is now.

      It was an unfortunate hour for the nation when the capital was removed
from New York to its present location.

      Had General Washington agreed to let it remain here, millions would
have been saved, and the Union would have been perpetual.

      But he and other leading men had become scared at seeing at Paris the
French Government overawed by a mob, and they thought a village location for
the American capital would prevent that ever happening here. It was a bad
hour when they did it.

      When General Ross burned Washington forty-eight years ago, it was a
blessing in disguise. Had we, then, in New York, refused to give a dollar to
the General government unless the capital was removed back to New York, it
would have been better, and saved the nation a thousand million of dollars,
many lives, and prevented rebellion, and, perhaps general anarchy hereafter.

      Even now the dirty hole that nature spurned for her capital, while she
made her pet city the real capital of a continent and of the western world,
is in danger. It has cost us thousands of lives; 200,000 men stand ready to
protect what, save in honor, need not and ought not to have cost us a life
or a penny, for it is worth neither; and if rebellion is happily subdued, it
is to be hoped that the wisdom so dearly bought will be practiced at once,
and that regarding the penny-wise policy that built Washington, we may
consult the pound policy that will make us destroy it, and remove the
national capital back to the city of New York, where it legitimately
belongs. The Central Park is the proper place for our national buildings,
and there they will be safe.

      Perhaps upon New York city at this moment depends the safety of the
country. All are sanguine, but let us suppose for a moment that the rebels
should capture Washington?

      New York city will then be forced to be the seat of government even if
events do not force her to take the helm of government. It is here the
millions of gold are to be raised to carry on the war. It is here that
exists the great power of the nation.

      A thousand Washingtons, a hundred presidents and congresses may be cut
off, and yet all is not lost, so long as New York is safe. They are the big
and little toes, fingers and hairs of the great political body. New York
city is the heart____the seat of vitality. Stop her beatings , and the
prosperity, the liberty, aye, the existence of the United States is ended.
The nation will die.

      How united, then, in such an hour ought the citizens to be? How
quickly they ought to prepare to place at the head of our powerful
municipality a man who may in the course of events, if disaster comes, be
found not only to be chief of the city, but chief of the nation!

      How important, under any circumstances, it is that the mayor of this
city, in such a fearful emergency as is gaping before us, should be a man
that has the entire confidence of the various powerful classes of the city
of the merchants, of the bankers, of the large property holders, of the
great mechanic and other interests, of the rich and poor, of labor. How
utterly important it is that socially, morally, and financially, he should
be  without a stain.

      Before his term of office expires in 1863, the mayor of the city may
be called to wield more power than ever the Caesars of Rome did in her
palmiest days.

      The "Old Merchant" articles are read and pondered over by the wealthy,
the merchants, and time-honored old citizens. It is them I address. Why not
take one of this class and make him mayor?

      Where among them will they find such a man as James De Peyster Ogden?

      When will the city have ever had such a mayor, combining, as he does,
qualifications and experience that will enable him to occupy any position
that events may force the city of New York to fill?

      She must not sink, and though anarchy and confusion may flit, like
death, in and out among sections and states, she and her two grand seaward
islands, Long and Staten, that make her a Trinity on earth, must stand as a
landmark for sections and states to re-annex to: and even if the present
four years government is rendered important by the probable clash with
military chieftains, New York must stand as a rallying point once more for
the whole Union.

      She needs, then, a Chief Magistrate capable of ruling a nation, as
well as city, in case of emergency, and in case of danger. With a mayor at
her head that has the confidence of the capitalists of the city, New York
can not only protect herself, but protect the rest of the continent.

      New York city alone, unemburdened by Washington city, could have put
down this rebellion six months ago!  Left to herself, she could put it down
now in six weeks!  Her great strength cannot be destroyed, but it is injured
in protecting Washington by millions of men and money___a place so useless,
so dead, so demoralizing, so expensive, that if God Almighty would give time
to a few human lives to escape, and then destroy it by fire and brimstone,
as He did Sodom and Gomorrah, before a week, it would be the greatest
blessing. He could confer upon the American nation, and it would re-unite
the thirty-four states; for then the capital would come back to New York,
and here it would rest forever. Here it belongs. To this point all the great
public interests and vast private interests tend. There is not a palace or
public building lofty, nor a hut, low and poor, in any part of the United
States, that has not in it some one interest, human or pecuniary, in the
city of New York.

      She should prepare for her great destiny, by electing for her chief
officer and men to her councils those who are equal to the task of
conducting her affairs.

      Among all the men I have written about no man comes so thoroughly up
to the high standard of fitness for mayor of New York as James De Peyster
Ogden.

LOUIS  SIMOND

      Louis Simond, of whom I have spoken, as the house that gave a
mercantile education to Peter H. Schenck, continued in business from the
period I have written____about 1792___until the war. At its commencement,
L. Simond & Co. was at No. 65 Greenwich street. They did a heavy West India
business, and sold 1,000 puncheons of rum every year. Henry Garnett was a
clerk in that house many years. Then in 1814 the house dissolved, and Mr.
Simond lived at 57 Broadway. I am not aware that the house failed, but it is
most likely. All those who were extensively engaged in foreign commerce in
1813, found their connections  and resources cut off, and were obliged to
close up their business. Some, like Henry C. De Rham, went through safely.

JOSE  ROIS  SILVA

      Another eminent merchant was Jose Rois Silva. In the war his store was
at No. 1 Beekman street. He afterwards removed it to No. 79 Front street,
and resided at No. 9 Beaver Street. He was doing a large and successful
foreign trade as late as August, 1798, when the yellow fever seized him, and
he died at 28 William street.

THOMAS  T.  GASTON

      His book-keeper was Thomas T. Gaston, a regular "accountant" of those
days, and who lived at No. 4 New Street. Mr. Gaston kept books for perhaps
twenty other large houses.




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


Back To The OLd Merchants of NYC 1863
Back To BUSINESS Main
Return to BROOKLYN Info Main Page