The sun., 1909-06-28

a ~ 81 q
that wes charged for his schooiinR In
heeses younger than Marty to be looked
after besides. Billy already had started
to work and Marty had to follow suit.
he got job in the Ford surgical instrll-
ment factory In what is now Lafayette
street and worked there for three or four
years.
just after his mother died-in the
latter part Of iSs5-Marty was walking
down the Bowery one Sunday night
when he happened upon lecture on the
conquest Of Nicaragua in the old Bowery
theatre Gen. Walker was the lecturer.
Marty was won over TO the youthful
Generals cause and Joined his forces.
ne never got nearer Nicaragua. however,
than the upper Jersey coast, for--as has
been told In THE SUN--Marty's dreams
OF being a filibuster with Walkers ia
Falange Americana" were ended by h!s
being thrown into the Atlantic in January
1855. After wading ashore he made his
way back to New York.
He enlisted in Ellsworth's Zouaves in
Sol and saw his first real fighting at Bull
Run, whore he was wounded. He re-
turned to New York just in time to take
his place in the ranks Of the soldiers and
firemen that saw the vicious fighting
which marked the draft riots that began
with the week Of Monday. July IS, 1858.
Besides his fighting, on Southern battle
fields Marty did valiant work in another
way just before -Ellsworth's Pet Lambs
marched away in their enviable gray
jackets and the wide trousers trimmed
with red braid. for 1t was Firemen Marty
Reese. A. F.. Ookershausen, Dave MILF
ken. Zophar Mills, John Decker and John
Dix that raised most OF the $40, 900 that
was subscribed for the zouaves in a few
days.
II you asked Marty about civil war
days he would begin by telling you OF
the fire in Wizards Hotel, Washington,
which the aouaves-then quartered in the
Capitol building-put out, for fires and
portance to Marty-battles came Sec
ond. Then he would show you in his
scrapbook clipping Of which he was
proudest-from a New York paper OF
May 13. 1851:
There were no ladders to get on to the
building, which Is five or six stories high.
but there was a lightning rod In the court
yard. Martin j. Reese, formerly
Of Matthew T. Brennan Hose Company No.
90. climbed up the lightning rod and was
the first on the roof.
In Marty Keese's New York you were
elected Mayor or. Comptroller or City
Chamberlain or Sheriff or what not be-
cause you were prominent as fireman.
Marty didn't aspire perhaps to offices
quite 30 high as these, but it was because
he was good fireman that Sheriff Matt
Brennan took Marty into his Office, and he
served also under William E. Connor
1t was while Marty was a deputy under
Brennan that he arrested Tweed. and when
Slippery Dick was arrested the fol-
lowing month he locked himself in for
days with slippery Dick in his apartments
in the New York Hotel in Broadway near
Waverly place. Early in 1881 Marty
was appointed custodian Of the City Hall
and he had held the job ever since, whether
Tammany did or did not hold sway.
His wife. who was Elizabeth Starr Dunn
Of Halifax. died in the City Hall in 1888.
pofaon sse Ens %ssm R. Heese oo in
charge of the law department OF the
Bureau of Street Openings in Queens;
Mrs. James A. Maxwell, Charles w and
Miss Maria Reese, teacher in the public
schools Besides the offices Marty held
in the volunteer firemen's organizations
ham Post, q. A. r. He was trustee Of
the Firemen's Home at Hudson. N. Y.
Marty seemed to think OF late that he
hadn't done thing worth while since the
midnight of Thursday. May -. 1883.
THE SrN Of the following morning in
Bridge the day before also told Of Marty:
THE first New Yorker, other than the
reporters, who paid his cent to cross the
bridge was Martin j. Reese" Marty was
even ahead of the reporters. for one Of
them who was too tired to stand in line
got Marty to take his place, and Marty
.se ihs s e q RE- SStynp sS sprint
He used to say that his life really began
when he was 2 years old, even il he
couldn't remember the occasion-it was
the celebration Of the semi-ccntennial
of Washington's inauguration. Over
sea OF heads in the Old Middle Dutch
Church in Nassau street his mother held
him high in her arms SO that she covh
tell him in after years that on that day he
had looked upon the speaker Of the occa-
sion, the venerable John Quincy Adams.
Many OF the statesmen that Martyrs
work brought him into contact with later
in life were not quite OF the calibre Of this
first one that his mother held him up to
see in Old Middle. They've come and
gone during all the years that Marty has
been at work about the City Hall corri-
dors. and no matter what Marty may have
thought Of them as statesmen they've
all thought lot of Marty Reese.
His life was a sort Of conn Getting link
between the New York that was sort
of overgrown village and the New York
that is a world metropolis. He wasn't
cynical about the New York we know
best, but as you sat with Marty in the
cool shadows OF the City Hall lobby he
would tell you stories by the hour about
a Kew York that was much finer to him.
That was 'onoe upon a time" when Man
haitian was a fairyland; for. as Marty
said. the sun shone brighter then because
it was younger, and the stars were cleaner
and new washed at night. and the Bat
terry WAS the most beautiful park in
America, where all the little tads were
ia ken to roll on the grass on Sundays or
to gaze with wide eyes out over a dancing
bay that was misty with the tremulous
clouds Of canvas on all the eli pper ships
from all the world.