Read Online Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City by Carla L. Peterson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carla L. Peterson
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York’s ruling Knickerbocker class. 17
In contrast to Irving’s depictions, these real-life Knickerbockers went to great pains to portray themselves as an aristocracy noted for its dignity, sobriety, work ethic, church attendance, and philanthropy. Beneath this facade, however, lay a ferocious determination to turn New York into the hub of the nation’s commercial, industrial, and financial activities and make a lot of money in the process. They did so in a variety of ways. Some owned large plantations along the Hudson River, others congregated in the city where they engaged in manufacture; many, like Boston Crummell’s former master Peter Schermerhorn, were slaveholders. But it was shipping, in all its forms, that dominated. Abiel Low, father of the future Brooklyn and New York mayor Seth Low, increased his wealth by opening up markets in China and founding the prestigious firm of A. A. Low and Brothers. Industries related to shipping grew at a fast pace; Schermerhorn was a ship’s chandler, supplying vessels with marine equipment and provisions. Auction houses sold imported goods. Private banks extended credit to merchants, while insurance companies gave them the confidence to trade.
To an astonishing extent, New York’s merchants benefited from slavery, mostly by trading in goods produced by slave labor. In these earlier decades, the major imports were sugar, molasses, rum, coffee, and cocoa brought in from the West Indies, which in turn gave rise to a hostof industries—distilleries, sugar refineries, and so on—run by men with solid Knickerbocker credentials. In the 1720s, for example, one Nicholas Bayard built the city’s most successful sugar manufactory. At century’s end, his son sold it to a merchant who converted it into a tobacco and snuff factory. 18
Also a slave crop, tobacco was another important commodity. Some of America’s most prominent men were involved in its trade. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were tobacco farmers, and a majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had tobacco interests. It was, in fact, the British taxation of tobacco that the founding fathers objected to most strenuously. Pierre Lorillard and his friends imported their tobacco from Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and other southern states and then resold it at auction. Lorillard eventually gave up trade to go into snuff manufacture, and set up a shop on the High Road to Boston. It was this business that his sons, Peter and George, took over after their father’s death. They moved the store to Chatham Street and added cigars to their list of products for sale; Peter even patented a machine for cutting tobacco. 19
As successful as his two brothers, Jacob Lorillard went into the leather tanning business, which was concentrated in an area of Lower Manhattan known throughout the nineteenth century as the Swamp; originally called Greppel Bosch (meaning a “swamp or marsh covered with wood”), the area lay slightly southeast of Collect Street. Later on, members of my family moved into that neighborhood. In the late 1840s Albro Lyons operated a boardinghouse for black sailors on Pearl Street, and he eventually consolidated the boardinghouse and his family’s home in a residence on Vandewater Street. By the 1850s, Philip White lived down the block from him and established his drugstore at the corner of Frankfort and Gold Streets. Although he did not invent a machine as had his brother Peter, Jacob understood the importance of technology. Ahead of his competitors, he was the first to introduce into the Swamp a new rolling machine that improved the drying of hides. 20
Knickerbocker families soon realized that they could increase their wealth not only through trade and manufacturing, but also through monopolization of landownership, control of the real estate market, and speculation on the city’s increasingly valuable property. At theend of the eighteenth century, Manhattan was undergoing a period
In contrast to Irving’s depictions, these real-life Knickerbockers went to great pains to portray themselves as an aristocracy noted for its dignity, sobriety, work ethic, church attendance, and philanthropy. Beneath this facade, however, lay a ferocious determination to turn New York into the hub of the nation’s commercial, industrial, and financial activities and make a lot of money in the process. They did so in a variety of ways. Some owned large plantations along the Hudson River, others congregated in the city where they engaged in manufacture; many, like Boston Crummell’s former master Peter Schermerhorn, were slaveholders. But it was shipping, in all its forms, that dominated. Abiel Low, father of the future Brooklyn and New York mayor Seth Low, increased his wealth by opening up markets in China and founding the prestigious firm of A. A. Low and Brothers. Industries related to shipping grew at a fast pace; Schermerhorn was a ship’s chandler, supplying vessels with marine equipment and provisions. Auction houses sold imported goods. Private banks extended credit to merchants, while insurance companies gave them the confidence to trade.
To an astonishing extent, New York’s merchants benefited from slavery, mostly by trading in goods produced by slave labor. In these earlier decades, the major imports were sugar, molasses, rum, coffee, and cocoa brought in from the West Indies, which in turn gave rise to a hostof industries—distilleries, sugar refineries, and so on—run by men with solid Knickerbocker credentials. In the 1720s, for example, one Nicholas Bayard built the city’s most successful sugar manufactory. At century’s end, his son sold it to a merchant who converted it into a tobacco and snuff factory. 18
Also a slave crop, tobacco was another important commodity. Some of America’s most prominent men were involved in its trade. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were tobacco farmers, and a majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had tobacco interests. It was, in fact, the British taxation of tobacco that the founding fathers objected to most strenuously. Pierre Lorillard and his friends imported their tobacco from Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and other southern states and then resold it at auction. Lorillard eventually gave up trade to go into snuff manufacture, and set up a shop on the High Road to Boston. It was this business that his sons, Peter and George, took over after their father’s death. They moved the store to Chatham Street and added cigars to their list of products for sale; Peter even patented a machine for cutting tobacco. 19
As successful as his two brothers, Jacob Lorillard went into the leather tanning business, which was concentrated in an area of Lower Manhattan known throughout the nineteenth century as the Swamp; originally called Greppel Bosch (meaning a “swamp or marsh covered with wood”), the area lay slightly southeast of Collect Street. Later on, members of my family moved into that neighborhood. In the late 1840s Albro Lyons operated a boardinghouse for black sailors on Pearl Street, and he eventually consolidated the boardinghouse and his family’s home in a residence on Vandewater Street. By the 1850s, Philip White lived down the block from him and established his drugstore at the corner of Frankfort and Gold Streets. Although he did not invent a machine as had his brother Peter, Jacob understood the importance of technology. Ahead of his competitors, he was the first to introduce into the Swamp a new rolling machine that improved the drying of hides. 20
Knickerbocker families soon realized that they could increase their wealth not only through trade and manufacturing, but also through monopolization of landownership, control of the real estate market, and speculation on the city’s increasingly valuable property. At theend of the eighteenth century, Manhattan was undergoing a period
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