Although he tells us that his heart throbbed at sight of New York, and that in all his travels he had seen no place that caused such a thrill of joy, it was no longer the city of his youth. He had left a town of one hundred thousand people and found a city of two hundred thousand. The companions of his youth had grown to be men, and many of them were renowned in literature and business life. He found streets grown long out of all remembrance, houses tall beyond all knowing, strangers who knew him simply as a name. He found many silent graves where he had left blooming youth. But for all this there were many ready and anxious to do him honor.
A few steps beyond Trinity Churchyard on Broadway is a narrow thoroughfare called Thames Street. It is easy to be found, and beside it is a tall building on which is a tablet relating how the Burns's Coffee-House once stood on the spot. This had been a mansion built by Étienne De Lancey, a Huguenot noble, and Thames Street was the carriage-way that led to the door. In this coffee-house the merchants of the city signed the Non-Importation Agreement in the days before the Revolution.
When Irving returned to the city the coffee-house was gone, and on its site was the City Hotel, the main hostelry of the city. Here the chief citizens gathered and a banquet was held and all honor paid to the "illustrious guest, thrice welcome to his native city."
From the site of this old house, it is a pleasant walk down Broadway, past the Bowling Green to Bridge Street, where, at No. 3, Irving, after his return, went to live with his brother Ebenezer, who had been the Captain Greatheart of "Cockloft Hall." Here, in this home, Irving spent many happy days. It was called by him "the family hive," for it was always filled to overflowing with relatives.
1. JAMES KIRKE PAULDING.
2. PHILIP HONE.
3. WASHINGTON IRVING.
4. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
5. FITZ GREENE HALLECK.
6. J. FENIMORE COOPER.
But one place above all others in New York is filled with the memory of Irving. This is a bit of ground on the east side of the city, a point of land stretching out into the river. Here of all places the spirit of Irving still lingers, for here of all places it is less changed in appearance since his feet trod the ground. In Irving's day it was a stretch of countryside with summer houses of the wealthy at long distances facing the river. Now, though the city has encompassed it, there is still left the one green spot by the riverside beyond Eighty-eighth Street. The East River Park they call it, and there are rough stone steps leading to the waterside, winding paths and overhanging trees—the trees that Irving stood beneath. And there, across the stretch of water, is Hell Gate, its tempestuous waters tamed by the hand of man, but nevertheless the same Hell Gate that Irving looked upon and that Irving wrote about. Part of this park were the grounds of John Jacob Astor, the friend of Irving. His house stood beyond the park, where Eighty-eighth Street now touches East End Avenue,—a square two-story frame dwelling of colonial type, painted white, with deep veranda, wide halls, and spacious rooms; set high upon a hill, backed by a forest of towering trees, and fronted by a vast lawn stretching by gentle slope to the cliff at the riverside. Here Irving was a guest, and wrote Astoria, telling of Astor's settlement on the Columbia River and of scenes beyond the Rockies; here he met Captain Bonneville and his friends, and the journals of the one and thrilling tales of the other gave material for the Adventures of Captain Bonneville.