The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-10-17


trum of American History
Names That Call to Mind the
Fierce Struggles of Our Earlier
Days.
Richard Grant White some years ago
pointed out that New York has what
he called "a horizon line of fifteen
years" says j. P. NJ, in the New York
Post. 1t appeared to him to be the
limit of mans popularity and of a
houses adaptability. A poet, a player,
belle, or preacher became ancient
history at the end of that time.
This mutability of the face marks of
great city is indeed about the only
characteristic that New York, does not
outgrow. It's palaces pass, by some
steady pressure, into banks, clubs and
bazaars. It's churches, when they do
not pull up stakes and affairs and get
away bodily, stagger into theaters or
express offices, and even the shops do
not outlaSt generation. Let a young
man born in the BoWery, who knows
all the neighbors and the familiar
signs, go away for fifteen years and
then come back. 1t is the Bowery still,
but it is not the Bowery that he knew.
that has stayed thus far and doesn't
adapt itself to the mansarded times,
and nobody thinks of 1t. 1t is the
Astor house, which defies with its
square granite honesty the mural ter
gfversations of our day.
Though not the Oldest hotel in the
city (for "Holt's Folly" still stands
there on Fulton street, and it was
built several years before), 1t is the
most famous hotel in the United
States, and during it's sixty-four years
of standing there with it's arms open
to the world, so to speak, history has
been pouring steadily through that
granite entrance. When the steps were
laid Andrew Jackson was president.
Four times at least he was a guest
in the house, and all you have to do
is to recall his political associates to
know who gathered round him there.
This was before the American hotel
keeper had passed from boniface to
bureaucrat. He stood at the head
of his own table in white apron, not
only the host, but the supervisor
The formal opening of the Astor
house was attended by all the mag
mates Of the city, his honor, Mayor Cor
nelfus w. Lawrence, presiding, while
about him were grouped Caleb s.
Woodruff, Isaac L. Varian, Gen. Will
liam Hall, Thurlow Weed (who was
then editing the Albany Evening Jour
| nab, and the men best known to us
afterwards as Recorder Talmadge and
Judge Ingraham. 1t is curious to
| know that, aside from the festivities
| Of the occasion. the chief topic of con-
versation was the murder of Helen
| Jewett.
ITS INDUSTRIOUS GUESTS.
A year later, Hawthorne wrote his
''Twice Told Tales" Dickens wrote
Sketches by Boz" and Irving 1.-THE
Adventures of Capt. Bonneville" and
they shook hands afterwards in the
Aston house court. which is now the
rotunda. One year after the opening
| Black Hawk stood on the granite steps
with the scars of the pale face still on
him, and looked wonderingly across to
| the brick church, high up on a bank,
where the Times building now stands
| and to the Park tf1eater, where the
| memories of Sweet Fanny Kemble
were still fresh. And there, too, stood
Sam Houston, one year after the bat
tie of San Jacinto. with civic guard
| Of honor waiting for him to enter that
| civic chariot, the barouche Similar ba-
| roUcheS drove UP to the same steps fol-
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Franklin
| Pierce, Willard Fillmore, James Bu-
| chanan, Winfield Scott, Jefferson Da-
In 1841, Poe edited Grahams Mag
azine, and went there regularly for re-
! freshment for news, and it was there
| during the Mary Rogers excitement
| that he caught the idea which he EN-.
bodies in the tale of Marie Roget.
| From these steps we cheered Gen
Scott when he went to Mexico, and
welcomed Gen. Worth's brigade when
| it came dilapidated back, as did the
| regiment of his son-the Thirteenth
regulars-William l.. Worth, from San.
| tiago, the other day. From the same
steps Dickens looked out for the first
| time on New York and saw the pigs
doing scavenger work in that square
where the cable cars now make q mer-
| ry-gO-rOund.
There, too, Louis Kossuth babe fare
we'll to America, and the Prince OF
| Wales and the Duke Alexis bowed tC
| the Democrats. 1t was there that Lord
Ashburton was welcomed, and there
was once heard the now-forgotter
shibboleth of $40 or fight" There
| Thackeray admired the pictures or
Barnum's museum and heard the band
on the balcony playing Wilkins anG
| His Dinah."
IT'S OLD REGISTERS.
The old registers which were pre-
served by the 6tetsons had depths O.
| SCrdWlSQ anu ploSIlSQ Big H1uCduCG, pu
down with all manner of hands reach.
ing out of all manner Of events, anG
| leaving an indelihle trace of all kind:
| Of character They were written b1
| men who made wars, and made treaties
and even made international love, Wh(
| wrote proclamatiOnS and epics and pre-
| scriptiOns No such-collection of auto
graphs can be found anywhere else. II
| it are all the unarranged mysteries o.
! complex life, with the detective look
ing for the murderer of Nathan, fixins
| his alias by the side of the foreign his
torian, looking for dinners and Waitins
for committees. It is an inky spectrum
| of American history. What recurrence,
| Of forgotten circumstances, big enough
| in their day, what upheavals of ghosts
all operative once, in those long layer
| of interviewer sign manuals, so hig
gledy- piggledy, but so surely fixed IL
their succession by the date at the top
To turn the pages must be like dig
| cling in memorial sands, to find the rec
| ords Of drifts and storms and the print
of gigantic feet amid the ripple marks
| The names come in eventful groups
Here they signify anti-rent riots, ant
there the opening Of the Crystal Palace
Here they indicate the Tweed ring an(
there the return Of the cholera or tn,
| yellow fever Now they tell Of Walker
| and his filibusters, and now Of Dret
| Scott and Gen. Ben Butler and hi
staff One page, if you interpret 1t
means Dead Rabbit Riots" and an
other the Bill Pool excitement. will