A second application at Erie procured him employment for a few months in the office of the Erie Gazette, and he won his way, not only to the respect, but to the affection of his companions and his employer. That employer was Judge J. M. Sterrett, and from him I heard many curious particulars of Horace Greeley's residence in Erie. As he was only working in the office as a substitute, the return of the absentee deprived him of his place, and he was obliged to seek work elsewhere. His employer said to him one day:
"Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you; don't go about the town any longer in that outlandish rig. Let me give you an order on the store. Dress up a little, Horace."
The young man looked down on his clothes as though he had never seen them before, and then said, by way of apology:
"You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help him all I can."
In fact, upon the settlement of his account at the end of his seven months' labour, he had drawn for his personal expenses six dollars only. Of the rest of his wages he retained fifteen dollars for himself, and gave all the rest, amounting to about a hundred and twenty dollars, to his father, who, I am afraid, did not make the very best use of all of it.
With the great sum of fifteen dollars in his pocket, Horace now resolved upon a bold movement. After spending a few days at home, he tied up his spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the shortest road through the woods that led to the Erie Canal. He was going to New York, and he was going cheap!
A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest, brought him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and after various detentions he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just in time to see the regular steamboat of the day move out into the stream. At ten o'clock on the same morning he embarked on board of a towboat, which required nearly twenty-four hours to descend the river, and thus afforded him ample time to enjoy the beauty of its shores.
On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of New York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants.… He had managed his affairs with such strict economy that his journey of six hundred miles had cost him little more than five dollars, and he had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis. This sum of money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital. There was not a person in all New York, as far as he knew, who had ever seen him before.
His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw upon a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled him. His round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too fast for his strength; he stooped a little and walked in a loose-jointed manner. He was very bashful, and totally destitute of the power of pushing his way, or arguing with a man who said, "No" to him. He had brought no letters of recommendation, and had no kind of evidence to show that he had even learned his trade.
The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap boarding-house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an experiment, and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start homeward while he still had a portion of his money. After walking a while he went into what looked to him like a low-priced tavern, at the corner of Wall and Broad streets.