On February 28, 1828, Allan reported to his brother-in-law Peter Gansevoort: “We have taken a house on Broadway (No. 675—if I mistake not) for 5 years @ $575 without taxes—being the 2d beyond the marble buildings & nearly opposite Bond Street. The house is a modern 2 stories built 4 years since for the owner & has only been occupied by his family. The lot is 200 feet deep through to Mercer St., Maria is charmed with the house & situation.”
But Allan never lived to see this lease expire. The dull business of which he earlier complained settled upon him, and in 1830 the prospects in New York were so hopeless that he moved back to Albany, to die two years later, leaving his wife and eight children practically penniless.
But before Allan moved away from New York, Herman had time to write the earliest manuscript of his that survives. It reads:
11th of October, 1828.
Dear grandmother
This is the third letter that I ever wrote so you must not think it very good. I now study geography, gramar, writing, Speaking, Spelling, and read in the Scientific class book. I enclose in this letter a drawing for my dear grandmother. Give my love to grandmamma, Uncle Peter and Aunt Mary. And my Sisters and also to allan,
Your affectionate grandson
Herman Melville.
In Redburn, Melville speaks “of those delightful days before my father was a bankrupt, and died, and we moved from the city”; or again, speaking of Allan: “he had been shaken by many storms of adversity, and at last died a bankrupt.” Allan’s journal, however, which he kept until within a few months of his death, is proudly superior to anything suggestive of the outrageousness of fortune: its hard glazed surface betrays to the end no crack in the veneer. Beyond a persistent tradition, and Melville’s iterated statement, no further evidence of Allan’s financial reverses has transpired.
It is certain, however, that after Allan’s death his family found themselves in straitened circumstances. After 1830, the most specific evidence known to exist about the whereabouts and condition of Melville’s family is preserved in old Albany Directories, as follows:
1830: no Melvilles mentioned.
1831: Melville, Allan, 446 s. Market.
house 338 n. Market.
1832: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market.
Melville, widow Maria, cor. of n. Market & Steuben.
1833: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market.
Melville, widow Maria, 282 n. Market.
1834: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market,
res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.
Melville, Herman, clerk in N. Y. State Bank, res. 3
Clinton Square n. Pearl.
Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.
1835: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market,
res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.
Melville, Herman, clerk at 364 s. Market, res. 3 Clinton
Square n. Pearl.
Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.