The Seaport district at the lower end of Manhattan Island dates back to the 1600s and, over a period of 300 years, grew into one of the City's most vital commercial centers, serving as the international gateway to New York.
In 1624, the Dutch colony of New Netherland was founded, with the town of New Amsterdam on the lower tip of Manhattan established as its key settlement. Peter Minuit was subsequently sent by the Dutch West India Company to take charge of its holdings in America, and in 1626, he formally purchased Manhattan (for $24) from the local tribe from which it derives it name.
The Manhattans, Indians of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock, did not understand European customs of property and it was not long before they came into armed conflict with the rapidly expanding Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam. Beginning in 1640, a protracted war was fought between the colonists and the Manhattans, ending five years later with the tribe practically exterminated.
In 1664, without resistance, Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to a British naval force under Colonel Richard Nicolls, ending the Netherlands' colonial role in the New World. With the departure of the Dutch, the name of the promising settlement was changed to New York, in honor of the duke of York.
New York became a great city because of its access to the sea and through the 17th and 18th centuries, the city and the port grew steadily. By the start of the 19th century, the port -- located along South Street -- had begun a period of intense growth and activity.
Brooklyn was incorporated as a village in 1816 and construction began on the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Wallabout Bay. After the Erie Canal opened in 1825, waterfront warehouses and factories began to appear along the East River.
Enterprising
merchants created new waterfront land here for hastily built warehouses and
counting-houses to handle the wealth of goods coming in and out of the city
by ship. The district received further boosts from the inauguration of Fulton's
Brooklyn ferry service in 1814 and the establishment of the Fulton Market
in 1822.
In 1825, with the opening of the 425-mile Erie connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River, produce and goods from
the country's midwest poured into the harbor. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fees in less than half the previous time. Barge loads of farm produce and raw materials traveled east and manufactured goods and supplies flowed west. The port was booming, and South
Street became known to the world as the "Street of Ships." China clippers,
trans-Atlantic packets, coastal and Caribbean schooners, grain barges, fishing
smacks, and Long Island Sound steamboats crowded the teeming wharves.
During the months immediately following the discovery of gold in California, New York became the center of ship building in America.
Milwaukee Daily News, Milwaukee Wisconsin
May 4, 1855
A SERIOUS CHARGE--Stephen E. Glover, a well-known merchant of New York, has been arrested on a charge of fitting out the barque Milendon for the slave trade and required to give bail in $20,000.
New York Daily Times
Saturday, September 10, 1858
Arrival of the Star of the West.
Over $1,000,000 in Gold Dust
The steamship Star of the West, Captain E. L. Tinklepaugh, arrived at 10 o'clock yesterday, in eight days from San Juan del Norte, with 560 passengers and $971,523 in gold dust on freight, and $475,000 in the hands of passengers—to Charles Morgon. She brings dates from San Francisco per Sierra Nevada, to 4 o'clock P.M. of August 16. The Pacific U.S. Mail steamship Winfield Scott left same date at 9 o'clock A.M. Tues U.S. frigate Columbia left San Juan August 31 at 4 P.M. bound to Pensacola—officers and crew all well. The brig Globe, to leave 3d inst. for New York. Hon. Solon Borland, Minister for Central America, was to proceed to Granada on the 3d inst.
We clip from the San Francisco Herald the following summary of the fortnight's news:
After the 1860s South Street declined, as New York outgrew its East River port. The maritime industry shifted from sail to steam, and deep-water piers drew ships across town to the Hudson River. By the mid-twentieth century, the port's activity had moved to the city's west side, to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Only the Fulton Fish Market and a few lingering cargo lines continued to use South Street's deteriorating piers.The news o the past fortnight possesses a good deal of interest. The Nicaragua steamship Sierra Nevada arrived on Sunday afternoon, July 31, a little before 6, in eleven and a half days from San Juan bringing dates from New York tot he 5th ult. and from New Orleans to the 7th. The P.M.S.S. Co's steamer, Oregon with New York files of the same date, did not arrived until Friday afternoon, August 5, in fifteen days from Panama. She, however, brought telegraphic dispatches from New York by way of New Orleans, to the 9th ult., and New Orleans papers to the 13th. Both steams brought a large number of passengers.
Monday, January 10, 1870
New York Herald
The First Services in the New Building for Seamen, Foot of Pike Street—Sermons by Bishop Porter and the Rev. Samuel Cooke, D.D.—The Spiritual Comfort "Poor Jack" Has Received in this Port.On January 1, 1892, after immigration services were taken over by the federal government, a new and larger immigration station was opened on Ellis Island in New York harbor. Here, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, immigrants underwent medical examinations and answered questions about their work, money situations, and destinations. Later a literacy test was also administered. At its peak, more than 5000 people a day were processed at Ellis Island and during its tenure, more than 12 million people went through Ellis Island.
"The zest displayed by the "Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Society for Seamen in the City and Port of New York," in the erection of the new and elegantly appointed floating chapel at the foot of Pike Street, East River, designed for the use and spiritual welfare of that class of men exposed to great temptations, both at sea and on shore, not ordinarily reached by the influences of the ministry and the Church, deserved the warmest commendation. God's blessing on such a work is already manifest. Not in the history of the society, when the first chapel was moored, in the year 1814, at the same location as the present, has the usefulness of the mission been so apparent as now. Yesterday, both in the morning and in the afternoon, services of consecration were held in the chapel, and appropriate thanksgiving in song and prayer indulged in, that such a place of rest, security and comfort, such a pleasant religious haven was finished. Throngs of ladies and gentlemen, friends and promoters of the Christian enterprise, guided by a heavenly impulse, participated in the exercises, and many were the ejaculations of surprise heard as they collectively referred to as the appearance of the chapel, in contract with the dens of sin that are open and usually receive "Poor Jack" when first he reaches port.
"An estimate of the good work which this society has accomplished may be inferred from facts developed during yesterday's services. A "Home" in Franklin square, under the same management and founded by reason of the condition of that destitute and friendless class as observed in the original chapel, has received in fourteen years 12,701 men, of whom 1,000 destitute from shipwreck were gratuitously provided with board and clothing. The large sum of $146,812 has been received from inmates for deposit in savings banks or sent to their friends, and 750 men, mostly drunkards, were reformed, many of them afterward becoming members of city churches. For the twenty-five years the mission has been in operation, the result of the work accomplished is embodied in the following:—Seamen and boatmen, exclusive of others to whom they have proclaimed the Gospel through the services of the church and sermons delivered 150,000. Visits have been made to 10,000 sick sailors in the hospitals; distributed 7,129 Bibles, 16,697 Testaments, 8,708 Prayer Books; 75,558 miscellaneous books of a religious tendency, and over 2,760,000 pages of tracts; baptisms, 1,544; confirmations, 324; marriages, 539; burials, 551; communicants added, 516."
Hamilton Daily Democrat,
Hamilton, Ohio
Thursday, July 19, 1888
There is no line of statistical figures more amazing, and yet unquestionable in their bearing, than those which give us the immigration of foreigners into our states.
In 1820 there were a little over 8,000.
In 1825 a little more than 10,000.
In 1830, 23,000.
And in 1885, 45,000; 1840 does not quite reach 100,000, but 1845 goes over that figure up to 114,000.
From that date, the tide has risen higher, and constantly higher, with only occasional ebbing. In 1865 them were over 200,000. In 1870 over 300,000. In 1872 over 400,000. In 1892, 788,502. This was the maximum figure touched. The total immigration during those years, from 1820 to 1887, amounts of 13,802,771. The effect of pouring such a vast bulk of foreign people, with foreign ideas, into our land, has been nearly as great on ourselves as on them. Our Institutions have been largely modified, and are in danger of still greater modification.
Globe-Democrat
American Settler, London, England
June 21, 1890
THE RISE AND FUTURE OF NEW YORK CITY
New York City is destined to be the largest
in the world. It already contains counting all
the suburban portion, about 3,500,000 inhabitants,
and as it grows at the rate of a third
every ten years it will not take long before
it is abreast of London. Such are the advantages of position that although its government
always bad, and at times infamous, may have
checked its growth slightly, nothing can stop
the advance of the great commercial metropolis
of America to the first place in point of
population.
In the main town on Manhattan
Island the inhabitants are reckoned at 1,600,
000 : Brooklyn 850,000; Jersey City 150,000;
Long Island City, Hoboken, Staten Island,
Yonkers, and other towns and villages around,
making up the rest. Another disadvantage
under which the commercial city labours is that
its population comes under two States, being
divided also into four cities and six counties.
The port is lined by these cities, all really
homogenous and governed by the same interest, one in sentiment and political aspiration,
yet, as the New York Times has remarked,
under conflicting municipal machines, which
stand in the way of its healthful and orderly
progress.
The tendency, however, is to consolidation, though there may be grave difficulties. By tunnels, by bridges, by railroads,
and steamers, all the disjointed sections are
being united ; and although two sovereign
States may claim part of the New York harbour,
the communication is so close, the interests
so intimate, that a means will be devised
by which this vast mass of population,
increasing more rapidly than is any Western
settlement may be united in one government. If
New York city reaches as it quickly will to a
population of 5,000,000 it might claim a government,
apart from the States by which its
two cities are misruled.
The commercial metropolis is a sort of milch cow to the politicians at Albany, and interests really adverse; to those of the great American city prevail in the State capital where lobbyists can deal with Bills which have money in them. The city owes the high place it occupies to its port, its river, and the fact that the natural cleft through the Alleghenies to the Valley of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes leads to that port. It forms a waterway and a highway for railroads, and presents the advantage of a navigable river, and a level line leading through a chain of mountains into the section which forms the producing prairies. It is not only the most capacious but the deepest port along the whole seaboard of the North Atlantic ; and although cities possessing many facilities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, &c, grow apace, they are all outstripped, falling farther and farther behind, each decade, till what were once rivals are compelled to admit that they have passed altogether out of the same category as New York. Yet the policy of the U. S. has been detrimental to the growth of New York city and other seaports. To make a port really great, it should be free, and whatever acts as a restriction, handicaps its growth. The American policy has been to exclude foreign products, to encourage home industries, and to reduce the competition of the cheaper labour of Europe" to the smallest dimensions.
New York is the gateway, and if the American people incline to close those gates, that policy reduces the value of the port. Full and free imports stimulate to large exports, and if all the roads concentrated on New York for the exports and distributed the imports from New York, business would increase and the city would flourish to a still greater degree. Nothing can stop the growth, though something might impede, and New York city grows, and will continue to grow though ruled by a Tammany Hall, with Ward politicians to parcel out its municipal offices; though broken up into contending sections under different governments, and though the policy at Washington should continue to be to check to the utmost the import trade.
