Ogdensburg, New York

“ Moreover, he was requested to notify the conductors not to pass any persons without a pass except the Directors and Secretary of the company, and their families, the roadmaster, paymaster, station agents, and “persons who the conductors think are entitled to charity.”
Despite obstacles to its full earning power such as this, the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh prospered ... and progressed. Forever it was planning new frills to add to its operation. In [Pg 118] 1865 it had placed a through Wagner sleeping-car in service between Watertown and New York. ”

“ Wind and tide favored them, and Harry was an excellent sailor, so that in a comparatively short time they had left the waters of the Hudson behind them, had rounded Fort George, the Battery of to-day, and were headed up the East River, with New York on the one side, and the then scattered town of Brooklyn on the other. Skilfully tacking in long slants from shore to shore, the wharves and shipping were soon exchanged for the sloping banks of Manhattan Island on the left, and of Long Island on the right, and then suddenly the dismasted hulk of the old “Jersey” loomed up before them. ”

“ Now as soon as these American troops should have gotten out of the way, the Marberrys had planned a little surprise for the rest of the party, which they knew would prove a great addition to the day's pleasure. So, just as the children had begun to scramble down from the fence, with the intention of getting into the city as best they could, up drove old Jake, the Marberrys' coachman, with a farm wagon piled high with straw. “Whoa! whoa, da!” called Jake to the Rector's old black horse, and then, bowing and smiling, he said, importantly, “At your sarvice for Evacuation Day, chilluns.” ”

“ I'd give a great deal to see father and mother and the youngsters; but there's nothing for me to do in New London—that is, not the sort of work that I think I am equal to, and, after leaving it the way I did, I hate to go back empty-handed. Then, I'm sure, father would much rather I'd find something to do in New York. He believes there is a good deal more of a chance for a fellow here.”
“And you have heard of nothing, Harry; nothing whatever?” Aunt Frances let her knitting fall in her lap, and looked straight at Harry as she spoke. ”

“ New York was a fine place for movies and restaurants, for walks up Broadway, a cigar in your mouth, watching whisky and petticoats, spool cotton and the latest leg show, wink their merits at you overhead; but it was poor in nice girls. There were plenty of the other kind. He felt disgust as he remembered with whom he had already chaffed and dallied, but only by chance would he be likely to meet such a young woman as Hertha Ogilvie. ”

“ At the back of Frau Van Vleet's customary seat at the larger table was the great open fireplace, which was roomy enough to accommodate two people on each of the benches lining either side of it. On a crane, suspended over the crackling logs, hung a huge copper tea-kettle, from which Harry, since he had been staying with the Van Vleets, had taken upon himself the duty of refilling the Delft teapot whenever needed during the progress of a meal, and indeed had completely won the heart of the kind old Frau, as soon as he had come among them, by his eagerness to serve her in every possible way. ”

“ The old prophecy that a little child shall lead them is more often fulfilled, even in this world, I think, than most of us have any idea of.”
Meantime the current of the river had carried the boats close into shore, and Aunt Frances, with the charm of manner that was always natural to her, asked the Captain to come up to the house, and he came up, and accepted the Van Vleets' cordial invitation to stay to supper, and not until the moon was high over the river did he call to Peter to row him back to New York ”

“ Ogden, and who slept in a loft up stairs, not feeling bound by the old man's oath, alarmed the neighborhood and commenced a pursuit. Their track was easily followed in the snow, and in the morning they came upon a camp where the marauders had slept over night, and where their fires were still burning. The chase was kept up until they reached Goshen, in the State of New York, where they recovered part of the plunder, but the rascals escaped. These expeditions in pursuit of the Tory wretch were called "Moody-hunting," and were followed up frequently with great energy. ”

“ The city grew rapidly after 1875, and the colored society, the little group that had attained to modest means and education, bought homes, chiefly in Brooklyn, where land was easier to secure than in Manhattan, and strove to enlarge the opportunities for those who were to come after them. Color prejudice had waned, and they often met with especial consideration because of their race. Had they been white they would have slipped into the population and been lost, as happened to the Germans and the Irish, who had been their competitors. ”

“ Few of New York's citizens are so American as the colored, few show so little that is unusual or picturesque. The educated Italian might have in his home some relic of his former country, the Jew might show some symbol of his religion; but the Negro, to the seeker of the unusual, would seem commonplace. The colored man in New York has no associations with his ancient African home, no African traditions, no folk lore. ”

“ It is a daring person who attempts to answer. We, who have studied the Negro in New York, may perhaps venture to predict a little regarding his future in this city, his possible status in the later years of the century; whether he will lose in opportunity and social position, or whether he will advance in his struggle to be a man.
Looking upon the great population of the city, its varied races and nationalities, I confess that his outlook to me begins to be bright. New York is still to a quite remarkable extent dominated socially by its old American stock, its Dutch and Anglo-Saxon element. ”

“ Wouldn't some of the little people who live in that crowded part of the city to-day be surprised to know, that only a hundred years ago ponds and hills took the place of the level city streets, and that a boy could start way over east of Broadway, skate under the arch at Canal street, and then strike out across the broad Lispenard meadows straight to the North River? ”

“ LEAR and cool dawned the twenty-fifth of November, and, joy to the heart of every Whig, before nightfall not a member of the King's army would be left on American soil. Never, I ween, had the break of any day in New York found so large a number of its inhabitants awake to greet it. Too excited to sleep, with the thought of going home, were scores of English soldiers, and too excited to sleep, at the thought that they were soon to be rid of them, was well-nigh every loyal Whig throughout the length and breadth of the city. ”

“ Had he followed the inclinations of others, and the probable desires of relatives, he would have settled down to a life of ease in the society of congenial and well- to-do people in Montreal, or elsewhere in Lower Canada. For Peter Skene Ogden's mother was a patrician, from a family of wealth near New York City. ”

“ As it was, they formed a society apart from the rest of the city, meeting it occasionally in work or through the friendship of children, who, left to themselves, know no race. They had battled against prejudice and had won their rights as citizens. ”

“ The tiny, narrow streets are lined with boozing dens, the doorways know blowsy, beckoning women; here are money-changers and pallid, furtive-eyed men with faces of preying birds, and worse. This town is a center for many things—sea-trade, traffic with America and England, the coast resorts lying all around—and is on the line between Paris and London and New York. Havre in the west, like Marseilles in the south, has its finger on the very pulse of France.
“Why not?” Ogilvy laughed suddenly. ”

“ There is some truth in this comparison of economic conditions among the Negroes in the North and in the South, but it must not be taken too literally. Today's tendency to minimize southern and maximize northern race difficulties, while strengthening the bonds between white Americans, sometimes obscures the real issues regarding colored labor in this country. We need to look carefully at conditions in numbers of selected localities, and we can find no northern [Pg 77] city more worthy of our study than New York. ”

“ The lower East Side of Manhattan, a many-storied mass of tenements and workshops, where immigrants labor and sleep in their tiny crowded rooms, was once a fashionable American district. At that time Negroes dwelt near the whites as barbers, caterers, and coachmen, as laundresses and waiting-maids. But with the removal of the people whom they served, the colored men and [Pg 43] women left also, and it is difficult to find an African face among the hundreds of thousands of Europeans south of Fourteenth Street. ”

“ Hilbrough again, to arrange about the people she is to have at the reception, he bowed to me and said, 'And Miss Callender, I hope.'"
"I'll tell you what, Phillida, I'll bet he took a fancy to you."
"Nonsense, Agatha Callender; don't talk such stuff. He's been for years in society, and knows all the fine people in New York."
"Nonsense, yourself, Phillida; you're better than any of the fine ladies in New York. Mr. Millard isn't good enough for you. ”

“ The Phipps model houses, built especially to benefit the poor, charge twenty-five dollars a month for four tiny rooms and bath; and while this is a little more than the dark old time rooms would bring, it takes about all of the twenty-five dollars you make running an elevator, to get a flat in New York. What wonder that, once secured, it is overrun with lodgers, or that, if privacy is maintained, there is not enough money left to feed and clothe the growing household. The once familiar song of the colored comedian still rings true in New York ”

“ Millard was sorry that his innocent question had led the conversation into channels so personal. Mrs. Hilbrough was inwardly vexed that Phillida should be so frank, and express views so opposed to those of good society.
"You find Brooklyn a pleasant place to live, no doubt," said Millard, taking it for granted that Phillida was from Brooklyn, because of her friendship for the Hilbroughs.
"I liked it when we lived there. I like New York very well. My relatives all live on this side [Pg 77] of East River, and so I am rather more at home here." ”

“ I have endeavored to know the life of the Negro as I know the life of the white American, and I have learned that while New York at times gives full recognition to his manhood, again, its race prejudice arrests his development as certainly as severe poverty arrests the development of the tenement child. Perhaps a study of this shifting attitude on the part of the dominant race, and of the Negro's reaction under it, may not be unimportant; for the color question cannot be ignored in America, nor should the position taken by her largest city be overlooked. ”

“ In 1880 this was the centre of the Negro population, but business has entered some of the streets, the Pennsylvania Railroad has scooped out acres for its terminal, and while the colored houses do [Pg 36] not diminish in number, they show no decided increase. No one street is given over to the Negro, but a row of two or three or six or even eight tenements shelter the black man. ”

“ Quite another group of laborers are the longshoremen who, far from lounging indolently in a hallway, are straining every muscle as they heave some great crate into a ship's hold. The work of the New York dockers has been admirably described by Mr. Ernest Poole, who says of the thirty thousand longshoremen on the wharves of New York—Italians, Germans, Negroes, and Swedes, "Far from being the drunkards and bums that some people think them, they are like the men of the lumber camps come to town—huge of limb and tough of muscle, hard-swearing, quick-fisted, big of heart." ”

“ The captain walked the deck impatiently, and, as the Italians went in leisurely fashion about their task, declared, "If I had those men in New York I could get twice the amount of work out of them." That is what New York does; it works men hard and fast; sometimes it mars them; but it pays a better wage than Genoa, and there is an excitement and dash about it that attracts laborers from all parts of the earth. The black men come, insignificant in numbers, ready to do their part. ”

“ Leadership might be extinct, but Mrs. Oglethorpe was still a power in New York Society, with her terrible outspokenness, her uncompromising standards, her sardonic humor, her great wealth, and her eagle eye for subterfuge. How could a mere servant hope to oppose that formidable will when his betters trembled at her nod? ”

“ I beg your pardon, Edgerton!" he added, turning red; "don't think me a cad."
"No offense," smiled Edgerton; "I resigned because I couldn't afford it. It's a good club; hope you make it soon."
"I hope I do.... But we're rather recent additions—if we are additions—to New York. You never can tell what New Yorkers will do to people like us," he added laughingly.
"New York is practically composed of recent residents," said Edgerton, smiling.
"They're the most pitiless to newcomers. ”

“ Loving sociability, these new-comers to the city—and it is in the most segregated districts that the greater number of southern and British born Negroes are found—keep to their own streets and live to themselves. If they occupy all the sidewalk as they talk over important matters in front of their church, the outsider passing should recognize that he is an intruder and take to the curb. He would leave the sidewalk entirely were he on Hester Street or Mulberry Bend. New-comers to New York usually segregate, and the Negro is no exception. ”