Chapter XXV

In the preceding chapter I alluded to the aged Peter Embury as one of the "Battery walkers." He continued to be so, in the warm season, until he removed up town. The family of Emburys are an old stock. Peter married a sister of old Aymar. The oldest Embury was a Methodist preacher in John street, long before the Revolution. He went up and settled in Camden, Washington county, in this State. During the war of 1776, as the congregation of Mr. Embury were not fighting men, they had to quit the pleasant spot where they had settled, and emigrate to Canada. The pastor himself did not go. One of the number, who came back from Canada, after the war, is now living at Camden, aged 106 years. His name is John Swertzer.

Young Peter Embury was a poor boy in the city. He was early apprenticed to the chair-making trade. He followed chair-making for years. In a former chapter I have mentioned that he opened a grocery store in Beekman street, corner of Nassau. It was on the northeast corner, where the Park Hotel now stands. At that time the ground in front was a common. It was before Dr. Spring's church was erected. Mr. Embury for many years kept the choicest family grocery in this city. He had wines, "rich and rare," not to be found elsewhere. The store was on the first floor, and his family lived in the upper part. It was a good old custom, and if it were followed now by business men they would not be any the worse for it. It was a good old Dutch custom, and to this day, in the great cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the most extensive merchants have their counting rooms in the same building in which their families reside. Why not? Had the custom been continued in New York for the past forty years, what a difference would have been presented in our city. Our shipping merchants would have lived in West, South and the river streets. The upper part of the houses would have made a great display, and probably trees would have lined the river streets. Not only that—canals would have been introduced into such streets as Greenwich, Front, Water and Washington streets, and ships would have been hauled in to unload before the doors of the owner or consignees. But it may be that it is as well as it is, if not decidedly better. The present plan of separating the dwelling house from the stores of our great merchants, gives New York a chance to spread herself. Mr. Embury, after he retired from business, built a splendid house at No. 331 Greenwich street. It was deemed at that time a model house. It is still standing. He never dreamed that it would be in an unfashionable neighborhood. He moved from that house up to Thirty-seventh street. He said he would not live a year after moving from his old home and usual haunts, and he did not. He lived until 1857.

When Prince William, Duke of Clarence—afterwards King William of England—was over here in his boy days, he skated on the "Collect," (below Canal, in the surrounding region of the Tombs at present.) The Prince had an attendant with him, but the latter knew nothing about skates, or skating, and Mr. Embury assisted the Prince to fix on his skates. At that time the "Collect" was an extensive sheet of water, and very deep. People were drowned in it very frequently.

Mr. Embury had a son named Philip. He was a tinsmith in Broad street, and will be remembered by many who read this chapter. He still lives in Thirty-seventh street, with his sister, in the same house occupied while living by his father. Another son of Mr. Embury was in the distillery business in Brooklyn. Another son is an Episcopalian clergyman. The next elder to Philip was Daniel. He is now cashier of a bank in Brooklyn. Another brother of Daniel was named Peter, who is now dead. Both Peter and Daniel were clerks with a large broker, Jacob Barker, for some years.

Old Peter Embury and the late Philip Hone were very intimate friends to the close of the life of the latter in 1851, although they belonged to different strata of society. Mr. Hone and his family were among the pure aristocratic sets of the day. He had been rich once–had been mayor in 1825–had traveled largely in Europe, and gave the largest dinners known at the time. Mr. Hone lived on Broadway, one door below Park Place. A wooden house graced the corner; reaching far up above it was Mr. Hone's large house, its northern side boarded and painted red. Over his door could be seen a bust of some remarkable man; it could be seen from the street. Here resided Mr. Hone in his prosperous days, and no one of any note in the city but had been entertained by him at his dinners or evening parties. He was one of the elite of our city, but became poor in the after years of his life. Under General Taylor he received an office in the Custom House. Mr. Embury outlived Mr. Hone six years. It would be useless to write the lives of men, or to revive recollections of them, unless good can be derived from so doing. I will take the lives of these two men, and their mode of managing. Mr. Hone used to advise with his venerable friend Embury in relation to every matter of great importance. Both had large families of boys. Mr. Embury's sons worked; the sons of Mr. Hone, although amiable, yet relied upon the wealth of the father, and were not remarkable for their activity. One son was a clerk for some time with Brown, Brothers & Co. The fathers used to talk over these matters. One day Mr. Hone asked his friend, "What is the reason that your boys are all smart and hard-working, while mine are good for nothing else except to spend money? How have you brought up your sons, that there should be such a difference?"

"Well," replied old Uncle Peter, somewhat affected, "you are a fashionable man, and you have a fashionable family, and you have brought up your children in the fashionable school. I have brought up mine to work—to take care of themselves. They are all employed, but all board at home. I make them pay me board just as regularly as if they were entire strangers. If they want money, I lend it to them, and take their notes for the amounts, with an understanding that they pay those notes to me when due, the same as if they had been placed in the bank for collection. They pay those notes. I make them know that they must take care of themselves as I did of myself, when I was a boy, and when young.

"As I said, my boys board with me. I live plain. I feed them on good food—lamb, for which I pay one shilling and sixpence per quarter, (price in old times.) I never have any wines or liquors on the table—never, thus my boys never get a taste of it—never hanker after it. I am not fashionable. I live plain and eat honest food, and by example in eating and drinking I inculcate honest but healthy precepts into the minds of my boys. Now I have given you my method of bringing up a lot of boys. Let me tell you what you have done. You are fashionable—you move in fashionable society. You hold a high position in the community, and you deserve to do so; but my friend Hone, you have done as hundreds of other rich and prosperous men have done. You have brought your sons up under greatly mistaken ideas, if you wished to make men of them. They lived with you; you had upon your table every day the choicest wines that money could procure. They joined in drinking healths day after day, and remained at the table for hours, when they should have been attending to business. You taught them this. Is it strange that by such examples they should have been taught how to spend money, or that they should be anything else than what they are? Stern industry, friend Hone, is all that can rectify in your children the faults and follies of the home education you have given them."

"You are right, old friend, but your advice is too late for me to profit by it. Everybody should hear your experience. There is where I have failed in my family," replied Mr. Hone.

"All of Mr. Hone's children are respectable, high-minded men, but I believe none are rich. They lived out their fortunes before they were of age.

I mentioned in another place that Mr. Embury had two sons, who had been for some time doing business in the office of that remarkable man of other days—Jacob Barker. He is still alive and a very aged man. In the days of his prosperity, he must have been a wonderful man, this same Jacob Barker. There is no man of whom so many wonderful things are related as of Jacob Barker. The celebrated Jacob Little was once a clerk with the banker, and if young Jacob should ever get poor, he can rise again by publishing a book to be called "Recollections of the Napoleon of Wall street."

Two sons of old Peter Embury, Daniel and Peter J., were clerks with the famed Jacob Barker. There were seventeen more clerks in the office. Jacob Barker had no equal, on the contrary he was superior to any money broker or banker that ever lived before, in, or since his time. He went ahead—stopped for nothing—not even to go home to dinner. His wife sent his dinner down to his office. His clerks perfectly detested old Jacob Barker. He was a tyrant. When his dinner arrived, it would be on a tin warmer, and wrapped up in a towel. This would be placed on his desk, and then Jacob would sit and eat it, the clerks laughing and making faces at each other in a quiet, subdued way. Sometimes old Jacob would not be in when the dinner arrived. In such a case one of the clerks—who was a great wag—would take Jacob's place, and while he took off the broker in first rate style, amidst screams of laughter from the admiring clerks, would also positively eat up the dinner—put the dishes aside, and Jacob would suppose the dinner had not come. But on one occasion, when this dinner scene was being enacted, old Jacob popped in, and witnessed almost the entire performance before his presence was discovered by the principal performer. "Oh, don't let me interrupt you—eat on," said Jacob. The clerk slid. He was not discharged, but remained with Jacob until he went into business on his own account.

Peter Embury kept his great grocery in Beekman street, his family living above it, until he moved to Brooklyn. It was a two-story house, with dormer attic windows, and only three feet of yard. He kept store until 1830, or thereabout.

Then he retired to private life, and to that superb model house he had built at No. 331 Greenwich street. He had built in the yard a little shop where he could make chairs as he had done in his early days. It was a source of real pride to the aged man to speak of his chair-making days. He boasted of them, and showed to his admiring visitors, in his parlor, a set of rush-bottom chairs he had made three-quarters of a century previously, when he was an apprentice boy!

There are chairs now in a residence in this city made by him. I observed a set in a friend's house last New Year's day. His darling house, in Greenwich street, was one of the grandest in its day.

About the year 1826 young Peter carried on business in Fulton street, opposite old Washington Market, under the firm of Vreeland & Embury, grocers. They retired rich. Mr. Vreeland lives at Bergen. Young Peter died at the old house in Greenwich street. He was a bachelor. He built the house next door to his father, and it was sold afterwards to Israel Cook, the butter merchant mentioned in a former chapter.

In connection with merchants and commerce for over two hundred years, stands the name of De Peyster. Old Johannes De Peyster was a merchant before 1650. In 1655 he was schepen. He was Alderman from 1666 to '69, burgomaster in 1673, and mayor in 1677. From that day until now the descendants have been prominent men in the city and connected with the city affairs. They have been Mayors (Abraham was Mayor from 1691 to 1694; Johannes, Jr. was mayor in 1698), and there have been aldermen, Johns, Cornelius, Isaacs, Abrahams, Pierres, Williams and Gerards, from 1696 to 1799, and to 1821 in this century.

The De Peysters have been a fine old continuous race, even down to one we shall now name in a more especial manner. Augustus De Peyster (or as he is familiarly known, Captain De Peyster), is probably the oldest Captain that has commanded ships out of New York now alive. A more modest, unassuming man does not breathe, and the young of the present generation who meet him in the street, or on the ferry-boats, never dream of the remarkable scenes that this gentle, but apparently not very aged man, has seen.

Fancy a man who was a boy on one of John Jacob Astor's ships sixty-five or seventy years ago, who has been sailor, mate, and finally captain in the same employ; who has fought French privateers; who has commanded ships for both Astor and Francis Depau, and had his owners on board as passengers to Europe; who commanded the brig "Seneca," belonging to Mr. Astor, that carried the Proclamation of Peace in 1815, in fifty-five days, to the Cape of Good Hope, and then to Java and China, and yet, the man who has been through all these scenes and events is still quite a young man, and sprightly as a cricket-an active man, and bids fair to live forty if not fifty years more. If I could tell all he can, would I not do it?

Augustus De Peyster was born in 1784 or 1786, and took to the sea a few years afterward as naturally as a young duck. He sailed several voyages with Captain Whetten, one of John Jacob Astor's old captains. Mr. Astor had married a sister of Captain Whetten. The latter died in 1845. Young De Peyster also sailed with Captain Cowman. Mr. Astor called C. his "king of captains." He was a very severe, stern man, but a complete navigator and a good sailor. Captain De Peyster continued in the China trade until about 1828. He after that went into the employ of the celebrated Francis Depau, the merchant who first organized a line of packets from this city to a port in France.

Mr. Depau had married a daughter of the Compte de Grasse, so celebrated in our Revolutionary history. He named one of his Havre packets after her some years later, viz: "The Sylvie de Grasse."

Old Francis Depau must have been in business as an importing and commission merchant long before 1806. When he started the line is not exactly known by me. He ran a regular packet to Havre in 1822. He was a prompt, exact merchant, and very much respected. Two of his clerks, Fox and Livingston, married daughters of Depau. They continued the business long after the death of Mr. Depau. When they failed, they did a good thing—secured all their captains from loss, gave them security on the ships, &c. That is the way Captain Lines came to own such a heavy amount of stock in the Havre line.

Captain De Peyster went into the employ of Francis Depau about the year 1829. He then superintended the building of the ship "De Rham" at old Berg's yard. The ship was named after one of the finest men in the city and county of New York, Henry C. De Rham. The latter was born in Switzerland, but for years he had one of the largest importing houses, and principally in French goods. Forty years ago the firm was De Rham & Iselin; twenty five years ago it was De Rham, Iselin & Moore, Mr. Moore being of a New York family. The ships of the Havre line in those days averaged 350 tons. The "De Rham" was launched in 1830, and Captain De Peyster commanded her. His name will now become more familiar to the present generation when I say that the commander of the "De Rham" was a long time in her, and was also in the "Sheridan;" and after Captain Whetten's death, in 1845, became governor of the Sailors' Snug Harbor at Staten Island, and has continued so up to the present day, and I hope will continue there for many years longer.

What a wonderful institution is that sailor's arrangement! Nothing like it ever occurred. It seems to be romance.

On the 1st day of June, 1801, an old sea captain, named Robert Richard Randall, made a will. He had as witnesses his friends, Harry Brevoort, Isaac Humbert and Uriah Bridge.

Captain Randall was a bachelor. In his will, he left to his brother Paul's children about five thousand dollars each. The rest of his property he left to trustees to build a "Sailor's Snug Harbor."

The property so left was a farm upon which he lived, (now Fifteenth Ward,) of twenty-one acres.

It was worth at that time about	$5,000,00
He also left what he deemed really valuable, viz: 50 shares Manhattan stock	$5,000,00
our lots in First Ward	$5,000,00
In 3 per cent, stocks 6 do. do.	$6,430,00
	$22,153,00

He expected the Hospital, or Snug Harbor, to be built upon the twenty-one acres, and that the other property would be used to support the decrepit and worn-out sailors. It was to be so applied as soon as it would support fifty infirm sailors.

Luckily for the fund, the heirs of his brother Paul contested the will. It lasted twenty-nine years. During that time great difficulty existed in effecting leases, and consequently the property became immensely valuable. It is leased to good advantage, and brings in $60,000 a year. The idea of the donor was not carried out exactly in the way intended, but far better, by purchasing 130 acres of land on Staten Island, and then erecting the present buildings. They were commenced in 1831 and finished in 1834. Some of the most prominent men have been trustees, including De Witt Clinton, Marinus Willett, C. D. Colden, Pierre C. Van Wyck, Peter A. Jay, Cornelius Ray, Wm. Bayard, James De Peyster Ogden, James G. King, Captain John Whetten, Bishops Moore, Hobert & Berrian.

The subject of this sketch, Captain De Peyster, is the Governor, and resides on the Island.