All look to thee when sorrow wrings the heart,
To heal, by future prospect, present smart.
Naturalists tell us that this eligible site was once characterized by the graceful foliage of the pride of the American forests, the lofty plane-tree, the platanus occidentalis. It must further increase our interest in the spot, to be assured that through its shades strolled our Franklin, in company with that lover of rural scenery, the botanist Kalm—an occurrence not unlike the interesting one of the excursions of Linnæus with Hans Sloane, in the Royal Gardens, near London. Here, too, the wild pigeon was taken in great abundance; while in the Common (now Park) those primitive inhabitants of the city, the Beekman family, with the old doctor at their head, shot deer and other game in their field sports. But enough at present of the locality where this anniversary is held.
The history of the American periodical press, if given with any thing like fidelity and minuteness, would occupy several hours; it is a noble specimen of our triumphs as a free people, and of our determination so to remain; it has demonstrated the progress of knowledge, and the intrepidity of New-Yorkers, as much as any one series of facts or occurrences we could summon for illustration. Everybody within this hall is aware that William Bradford was the first in time of the newspaper publishers of New-York. His gazette made its earliest appearance in October, 1725, four years after James, the brother of Benjamin Franklin, began the New England Courant—this being seventeen years after the commencement of the Boston News Letter, the first regular newspaper commenced in North America. I advert to this circumstance because we possess the completed file of that earliest of the journals of our land now in existence. The copy in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society was presented that institution by the famous antiquary, Dr. Eliot; that in our own Historical Society is the file which was preserved by Professor McKean, of Harvard University, who bequeathed it to the Rev. T. Alden, from whom I purchased it and deposited it where it now remains.
From Franklin's representations, Bradford was a sorry individual, of low cunning, and sinister; yet I must not deal harshly with him. His, I believe, was the first printing press set up in New-York: he published the laws, and other state papers, and he was the grandfather of Bradford, afterwards Attorney-General of the United States; and as from his loins proceeded Thomas Bradford, the adventurous and patriotic publisher of Rees's Cyclopædia—the most enterprising of the craft, and our greatest patron of engravers—I desire to hold him in grateful memory. Our second newspaper was the New-York Weekly Journal, commenced about three years after Bradford's. John Peter Zenger, its proprietor, was a German by birth, a palatine, and something of a scholar; a man of enlarged liberality, patriotic, and an advocate of popular rights. He attacked the measures of the provincial Governor and Council, was subjected to a prosecution by the officers of the crown, and was brought to trial in 1735, when Andrew Hamilton, the Recorder of Philadelphia, came to this city and successfully defended him. I have before stated that the late illustrious Governor Morris considered the decision of that case in behalf of the press as the dawn of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America. To the ladies now present, the lovers of sweet sounds, it may not be uninteresting to know that the first piano forte (harpsichord) imported into America, arrived in this city for the musical gratification of the family of the noble Zenger.
But I can say at this time little concerning newspapers. Our worthy associate in good works, Edwin Williams, has lately issued a memoir of much value on the subject, to which I must refer you. I regret that his catalogue of early journals is somewhat defective. As he justly observes, our Historical Society is wonderfully rich in these interesting documents. Our most precious treasures in that way are, unquestionably, the Rivington Royal Gazette, the old New-York Daily Advertiser, containing debates on the State Constitution, the American Citizen and Republican Watch Tower, the New-York Evening Post, and the Commercial Advertiser, through a long series, the New-York American, the Independent Reflector, containing the patriotic Essays on Toleration, by William Livingston, of New Jersey, and the Time-Piece of New-York, replete with invective against the Washington Administration—whose editor, Philip Freneau, verbally assured me that its most vituperative features were from suggestions of Jefferson, during the crisis in our public affairs provoked by Citizen Genet. But I must hasten to other topics.
Among the most conspicuous editors and publishers of gazettes whom I have personally known was Noah Webster, now so famous for his Dictionary. At the time I knew him, some forty years ago, he was in person somewhat above the ordinary height, slender, with gray eyes, and a keen aspect; remarkable for neatness in dress, and characterized by an erect walk, a broad hat, and a long cue, much after[pg 256] the manner of Albert Gallatin, as depicted in the engraving in Callender's Prospect Before Us. If with philologists he is deemed a man of merit, it may with equal justice be said that he is to be recognized by medical men as an author of importance, for his History of Pestilence.
Next I may note William Coleman, usually called in earlier days, by his antagonist Cheetham, Field-Marshal Coleman. Mr. Bryant, the able editor of the Post, in his biography of the first fifty years of that prominent gazette, has well described him. He was a sensitive man, of great tenacity of opinion, which he cherished by intercourse with many of the leading patriots and politicians who were among us some thirty years ago. He almost leaned on the arm of the inflexible Timothy Pickering, and had, in his younger days, held communion with Hamilton, John Wells and Rufus King. I shall never forget how the death of the immortal Hamilton subdued his feeling. When Gouverneur Morris delivered his felicitous eulogy from the portals of old Trinity Church, over the dead body of the noble martyr, with grief in every countenance, and anguish in every heart, Coleman's acuteness of feeling paralyzed every movement of his frame, and drowned every faculty of his mind. While on this topic, the decease of Hamilton, I may state an anecdote, the import of which can be readily understood. It was not long prior to the time of his death that the new and authentic edition of The Federalist was published by George F. Hopkins. Hopkins told me of the delicacy with which Hamilton listened to his proposition to print a new edition of these papers. "They are demanded by the spirit of the times and the desire of the people," said Hopkins. "Do you really think, Mr. Hopkins, that those fugitive essays will be read, if reprinted?" asked Hamilton; "well, give me a few days to consider," said he. "Will this not be a good opportunity, Gen. Hamilton," rejoined Hopkins, "to revise them, and, if so, to make, perhaps, alterations, if necessary, in some parts?" "No, sir, if reprinted, they must stand exactly as at first, not a word of alteration. A comma may be inserted or left out, but the work must undergo no change whatever."
A few days had elapsed when, on the next interview, General Hamilton agreed to the reprint, with the express condition that he himself must inspect the revised proofs. Not a word was ever altered. "You think something of the papers?" says Hamilton to the printer. "Mr. Hopkins, let them be issued. Heretofore, sir, I have given the people common milk; hereafter, shortly, sir, I shall give them strong meat." What the Union lost by that fatal duel, the Deity only knows.
Coleman was a writer of grammatical excellence, though occasionally sadly at fault in force of diction. Under the influence of some perverse conceits, he would labor for months to establish a theoretical doctrine, or to elucidate a useless proposition. It was hardly in the power of mortals ever to alter his opinions when once formed. That yellow fever was as contagious as small-pox; that skull-cap (the scutellaria) was a specific for hydrophobia; that Napoleon wanted the requisites of a military chieftain, were among the crotchets of his brain. The everlasting tractates which he put forth on these and other subjects, would in the present day of editorial prowess scarcely be tolerated in a chronicle depending on public patronage. Coleman had read extensively on medical topics, and was the principal writer of that able and elaborate Criticism of Miller's Report on the Yellow Fever in New-York, addressed to Governor Lewis, and printed in the second volume of the American Medical and Philosophical Register.