File:A tour around New York, and My summer acre; being the recreations of Mr. Felix Oldboy (1893) (14594225077).jpg

Identifier: touraroundnewyor00minea (find matches)
Title: A tour around New York, and My summer acre; being the recreations of Mr. Felix Oldboy
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Mines, John Flavel, 1835-1891
Subjects: Historic buildings -- New York (State) New York New York (N.Y.) -- History New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel New York (N.Y.) -- Buildings, structures, etc
Publisher: New York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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by turning the steps ofthe tourist to a quarter of the city that was the earli-est business centre, and that held the homes of thewealthier colonists, at a time when the splendors ofthe old Walton House were quoted in the British Par-liament as an incentive to the tax-gatherer. Yet thereare some recollections which sadden me as I take myway up the water-front of the East River. In myboyhood the wharves were filled with clipper shipsand packets that bore the flag of the Union, and fur-ther up were great ship-yards where we school-boyswent to see the great vessels launched. I am enoughof a free-trader to be at war with the dog-in-the-mangerpolicy of our Government which forbids our merchantson the one hand to go into the open market and pur-chase ships built in other lands, and on the otherhand retains the heavy war taxes on material whichprevents them from entering into competition withforeign shipwrights. My uncles were shipping mer-chants in South Street, near Wall (above the door I
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A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 187 can still read the faded lettering of the sign), who werecompelled to sell their ships when Confederate cruis-ers began their depredations. The ghost of our lostcommercial marine haunts my steps as I pass by. The east side from the earliest time was the cradleof mercantile life. The old Dutch founders of thecity settled it by locating their canal on Broad Streetand anchoring their vessels in the East River, onwhose banks their primitive wharves and storehouseswere built. There is not a street between the Batteryand the City Hall Park which is not redolent withthe romance of the old merchants of the metropolis.They were a social power in colonial days, a politicalpower in the years that saw the struggle for independ-ence, a progressive power in the building up of theyoung republic. To write their story would be togive the history of the rise and prosperity of the city.Yet their social, business, and domestic life in the ear-lier part of this century is a them

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