The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-12-21
N NASH|NGION'S DAY
What Americas Future Me-
tropoIis Was Like.
SOME ANCIENT LANDMARKS
How the Bowery Became the
Sort of Thing 1t Is.
SOME ANCIENT Lam DMARKS

New York, Dec. 20.-The Herald says
One Of the ever memorable events in the
annals of New York City was that which
occurred on April 60 1789-the Inaugural.
ton of General George Washington as
the first President of the United States
Among the twenty-five thousand soul who
constituted its population at that time
(reckoning one soul to each inhabitant
an average that would be statistically
nay, theologically, correct even at the
present day, despite the frequent diff
Guilty OF squaring internal facts with ex-
ternal action)-among this little nucles
of the millions to be there was residing
here bright little Quaker lady who, by
birth, marrige and remarrige afeter the
death of her first husband, had been sue
cessively a Sharples and a Franklin, and
was now an Osgood the wife of Samuel
Osgood, Postmaster General under the
new administration.
Mrs. OsgOod had every reason, person
al as well as patriotic, to take a keen
interest in the event, for it was the house
built by her first husband. Samuel Frank
lin, on that part of the city now known
as Franklin Square, which had been Sc
lected by the city to be the first resi-
dence of the nations first President.
To one of her friends in Philadelphia,
this lady wrote a letter, dated on the
day of Washingon's Inauguration, which
is still preserved by her descendants 1t
begins as follows:
Great rejoicing in New York on the ar
rival Of General Washington; an elegant
barge decorated with an awning of sat
in, twelve oarsmen dressed in white
frocks and blue ribbons went down to E.
Town (EHzabethtown) last Fourth day
"wednesday to bring him up. A stage
was erected at the Coffee house wharf,
with a carpet for him to step on, where
company Of Light horse, one of artil-
lery, and most of the inhabitants were
waiting to receive him. they paraded
though Queen street in great form. while
the music Of the drums and the ringing
of the bells were enough to stun one with
the noise"
She goes on to tell how he Aunt Os-
good and Lady Kitty Duer had super
vised the furnishing of the house:
II went the morning before the Gener-
ais arrival to take a look at 1t. The best
OF furniture in every room and the graf
est uantity of plat and china I ever saw;
the whole of the first and second stories
is papered and the floors covered with
the richest kind Of Turkey and Wilton
carpets. The house did honor to my
aunts and Lady Kitty; they spared no
pains nor expense on it. There is scarce
ly anything talked about now but Cen
eral Washington and the Palace"
The Palace" khich was the occasion
of so much talk, was a mansion of the
old Colonial type, three stories and an
attic high, with a door opening on Cher
ry street-it was known as No. 8, Cher
~ street-and lighted by twelve windows
on the Cherry street side and fourteen on
Franklin, or, as it was then called, St
Georges square. To eyes accustomed, as
Washington's had been from boyhood, to
open daily the optupetaoinshrdluc
open daily upon the shining reaches of a
river. there must have been comfort in
the beautiful bits Of water view that
could be caught from the windows-the
near East River on the Franklin square
side and the more distant bay on the
Cherry street side. There We're COM
plants at the time that the residents
house was too far out of the city prop
err which then centred in Bowling Green,
with a narrow northward extension along
Broadway to the Commons" now City
Hall Park. And, indeed. it was some
time after the President had left Cher
~ street and New York itself before the
town residences extended so far to the
eastward as Franklin square. Then came
the marts of trade to drive the resi-
dences northward and to fill the square
with the hum of traffic, whose storm
centre took a nohtward flight in its own
due time. so that the house hallowed by
so many memories became in turn a
music store and a bank, and then, after
conversion to still baser uses, was torn
down in 1856 The only bit Of it now
known to exist is the presidents chair
of the New York Historical Society.
which is made of wood taken from the
old house.
And what sort OF a city was the new
and as it turned out the temporary cap
ital of the nation over which Washington
had been called to rule? She was far.
indeed. from having even the relative i'm
portance which is hers today. In size,
in wealth, in population. Philadelphia far
outstripped her. Even Boston outstrip-
ped her. New York came in as a bad
third. She was a plain. sober sided lit
tie town. unable to conceal the ravages
of repeated fires and of seven years Of
British occupation. 1t is true that thous-
ands Of her citizens who. during those
disastrous seven years, had been living
in exile up the Hudson or in New Jersey.
had returned after her evacuation by
the British CNovemeber 81. 1881, and
were even now engaged with an energy
that seemed marvellous, in repairing the
damage done by fire and war. Never
theless. all the energy Of her children
could not blind some Of the travellers
who at the time Of the inauguration
fiocked in from other and more favored
localities 70 her obvious shortcomings.
This town" said Governor John PAGE.
a Virginia Congressman. is not half as
large as Philadelphia nor in any man
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