MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY VOL. XIV BES SEPTEMBER, 1885 GENERAL GRANT'S RESTING PLACE* ITS HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS No. 3 ESIDE the smooth waters of the most beautiful river on this continent, and on a quiet eminence in the choicest portion of the metropolis-although isolated altogether from its busy life-sleeps the greatest general of modern history. His malady, death and burial have for months absorbed sympathy and attention from the whole civilized world, and now that his sacred ashes repose in peace, all eyes are turned with jealous interest toward the spot so unexpectedly selected for his final resting place. "Where is Riverside Park?" was the question asked by thousands of New York's own intelligent citizens when the preference of the Grant family was first made known to the public; and outside of the city this park was a myth indeed. It must have been inspiration that guided the choice, for nothing could have been more appropriate. The natural beauty of the site and its commanding prominence surprise and delight all visitors. Its secluded situation, while easily accessible by street and elevated cars as well as carriage driving, impresses the mind with a sense of harmony and peculiar fitness. Furthermore, the region and the rolling river are alive with historic associations of a rich and varied character. As a public domain Riverside Park is young, and its name a new one in the alphabet of parks; but these picturesque heights which have produced the park are full of years. Long before the Revolution this part of Manhattan Island near the river was dotted with country seats, fruit orchards, flower gardens, and deer parks, and known as Bloomingdale; it was, in truth, the watering-place of the elite of New York, the resort of all distinguished strangers from abroad, the Newport of that ancient period when the city proper was struggling heroically to overcome the swamps and malaria in its advance toward the ditch at what is now Canal street. Riverside Park does not, however, stretch over the whole Bloomingdale district, but occupies the wooded borderland or precipitous bank of the Hudson for a distance of three miles north and south-from Seventy-second to One Hundred and Thirtieth street-with a varying breadth of only three or four hundred feet. Neither * Copyright, 1885, by MRS. MARTHA J. LAMB. VOL. XIV.-No. 3.-15 is it connected with Central Park, except by the cross streets from Eighth Avenue. A smooth park drive curves along the crest of the high bluff, itself a part of Riverside Park, at an elevation averaging one hundred or more feet above the river, and is pronounced the finest drive of similar extent in this country-or in any country on the globe. At the extreme northern end of Riverside Park is a high plateau of several acres of ground, jutting out like a promontory, some one hundred and thirty feet above the river. It is unimproved further than that the handsomely finished park drive circles gracefully about its ragged edge in the form of a loop. A gently sloping elevation in the central portion of this plateau seems to have been specially provided by Nature for the illustrious soldier's tomb. It commands a view looking up the Hudson toward West Point for a great distance, at least thirty miles on a clear day, and southward to the Battery and across the Bay to the Narrows; while in the direction of the rising sun may be seen the East River and the blue waters of Long Island Sound, and to the west, beyond the Hudson, the Palisades, Fort Lee, and the bold, steep, leafy shores of New Jersey. The temporary vault fronts the west, and the eminence in the side of which it is built is crowned with a cluster of native forest trees. The proposed monument will be exceptionally conspicuous from many points of view, while opportunity for the display of taste in ornamental terraces and grounds about it is unequaled. TEMPORARY VAULT. The most noteworthy memories that cluster about this beloved burialplace are singularly enough connected with the greatest commander of the eighteenth century-Washington. One hundred and nine years ago (in 1776), the month of August was one of the hottest that had been experienced in New York for many decades. The city was in a condition of perpetual terror-panics were of daily occurrence-for a hostile British armada, outnumbering in both ships and men that which Philip II. organized for the invasion of England in 1588, was snugly anchored in a safe haven between Sandy Hook and Staten Island. Spies reported a force of forty thousand disciplined warriors preparing to invade Manhattan Island. What was to prevent this great fleet from running up the Hudson and landing its troops at some of the convenient points along the shore? Washington, whose small army occupied the city, had called for volunteers to swell the ranks, however brief might be their terms of service, and men had come from all quarters of the compass in the greatest possible haste and confusion, and in the most grotesque of costumes. Some wore tow frocks of home manufacture, some green hunting-shirts with leggings to match, some were in the old red coats used in the French wars; the Delaware men were in dark-blue coats with red facings, the New Jersey riflemen in short red coats and striped trousers, the Pennsylvania regiments in all the colors of the rainbow-brown coats faced with buff, blue coats faced with red, brown coats faced with white and studded with great pewter buttons, buckskin breeches, and black cocked hats with white tape bindingsand the Virginians were in white smock-frocks, furbelowed with ruffles at the neck, elbows, and wrists, black stocks, hair in cues, and round-topped, broad-brimmed black hats. Washington's guards wore blue coats faced with buff, red waistcoats, buckskin breeches, black felt hats bound with white tape, and bayonet and body belts of white. The variegated throng were uniformed after awhile, but for the present they worked day and night on the fortifications. The daring men whose names were to make the age illustrious were alive in every fiber. Washington was everywhere. The push of a century was behind him. He knew the whole shore of the Hudson, and made swift observations every few hours. Hundreds of times during that memorable summer he was on this high bluff, now endeared to the American people by the tenderest of ties, accompanied on different occasions by Lord Stirling and Generals Heath, Greene, Spencer, Putnam, Mifflin, Knox, and George Clinton, and the younger officers, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. The Bloomingdale road then terminated as a legal highway at Adam Hoagland's house, about One Hundred and Fifteenth street, but it was continued as a farm road to Manhattanville, and a well-worn bridle-path branched from it to this look-out bluff. The terminus of the Bloomingdale road was also connected by a narrow public way with old Kingsbridge road at McGowan's Pass. General Putnam devised a curious scheme by which he thought to trip the British vessels when they should attempt to pass up the Hudson. He worked manfully to obstruct the channel opposite Fort Washington, and in full view from this point, by sinking the hulks of old vessels, to be fastened together with chains. In the midst of his Herculean efforts, however, two large ships. of the enemy, the Rose and the Phenix, with three tenders, sailed defiantly by the city and its batteries, passed these "new-fangled" and unfinished obstructions without touching them, and anchored in Tappan Sea, where they remained four or five weeks. The movement was interpreted to mean the ultimate surrounding of Manhattan Island. A queer little fleet-made up of schooners, sloops, row-galleys and whale-boats and commanded by Benjamin Tupper-hovered about, chiefly in this neighborhood, dodging in and out of the coves, and keeping a constant look-out. Six of these ambitious craft glided into Tappan Sea one bright day and attacked the British men-of-war at their anchorage, fighting valiantly for two long hours to the great perplexity and discomfort of the enemy, and then retired. Fire-ships worried the British ships excessively also; one little fire-ship grappled the larger war vessel in the night-time, and was with difficulty shaken off. All these varied movements were witnessed by some of the American officers, from the Bloomingdale bluff, with the most intense interest. In the course of the eight years' Revolutionary War this particular point of observation bore the footprints of probably all the great generals of both the opposing armies. In the immediate vicinity, not far from a mile distant, was the elegant suburban mansion of Charles Ward Apthorpe, a gentleman of culture, æsthetic tastes, and large property interests, who, appointed by the king, was one of the honorable counselors of the royal governor of New York. The ladies of his family were socially prominent, and the wealth and fashion of the city had long esteemed it a privilege to be counted on their visiting-list. The house itself was a gem of domestic architecture for that period. It stood on an eminence, commanding a broad view of the Hudson, surrounded by majestic shade trees of man's palace in the Old SECTION OF MANTEL IN THE APTHORPE DINING-ROOM. was not an active partisan, and while his sentiments were those of loyalty to the crown, he satisfied the Revolutionary committees of his peaceable The Apthorpe mansion is still standing at the corner of Ninety-first Street and Ninth Avenue, and with numerous surrounding structures of a temporary character, and a portion of its guard of ancient forest trees, is known as Elm Park, a pleasure resort of the Germans. |