The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, No. 5, May, 1884

This means pleasant rooms, books, papers, good companionship, classes, lectures, concerts, the hall, and the gymnasium; but more important than all, a trained man who shall give his whole time and heart to the work, and be amply remunerated.

Since these things are more or less necessary to successful effort for young men, it will readily be seen why so many associations have ceased to exist.

The committee have come to the conclusion that every town in the State where rooms can be kept open in charge of a general secretary should have a Young Men's Christian Association, and where these cannot be furnished we are not anxious to establish it.

At the convention of 1882, in Charlestown, it became apparent that, to meet the calls for evangelistic work and push the distinctive association work, two men were required. Two, therefore, were appointed: one to give his time largely to evangelistic work, the other wholly to that of the association. In the following year, 1883, the evangelistic secretary decided to do the same work independently of the committee, and the whole energy of the state secretary has been devoted to the organization of association work.

We may safely say that, although numerically small, never before has this work been so efficiently organized as now, and never has there been so much done as now for young men. At the convention of 1881, a constitution was adopted which binds the different state associations in organic union. These hold an annual convention of three days, at which time one half of the executive committee is chosen, thus making it a perpetual body. This committee represents every section of the State, and meets monthly for consultation; while the individual members are means of communication between headquarters in Boston and other respective sections. There is a further subdivision into three districts, each of which holds a quarterly conference of one day, under the management of the district committee.

The associations now number 35.

Membership, about 11,300.

Employing general secretaries, 19.

Having buildings, 7.

Value of buildings, say, $490,000.

Value of building funds and lots, $50,000.

Having rooms, 23.

Having gymnasiums, 8.

Annual expenses, about $65,000.

This is only a beginning. This work for young men is far too important to remain within such limits. Every town in the Commonwealth of seven thousand inhabitants should have a fully equipped association. Some smaller towns already have.

My excuse for this sketch is: first, the importance of the subject; second, the ignorance concerning it of a large portion of the Christian community; third, that the blessings of the work and its support may be shared by far greater numbers; and, lastly, that the courtesy of the editors of The Bay State Monthly afforded altogether too good an opportunity for making this work known, to be lost.

TOWN AND CITY HISTORIES

By Robert Luce

The United States government has now in press two volumes of the census of 1880, entitled The Social Statistics of Cities. These statistics have been in process of preparation for some four years, under direction of Colonel George E. Waring, jr., the eminent sanitary engineer, of Newport, Rhode Island. They will fill two large quarto volumes of something over six hundred pages each; and as each page will average over one thousand words, it will be seen that the work will, at least, be massive and imposing, like most government publications. Unlike many of these, however, it will not be dull, unintelligible, or valueless. The fact that one half of it is devoted to the history of the cities of our land is well-nigh sufficient proof that these epithets cannot be applied to it, and the question is settled beyond a doubt when it is learned that the greater part of the labor has been performed by people who are well known in the literary world, and who brought to their task experience and ability,—rare qualifications to be found combined in government employees. Colonel Waring himself, though a clear thinker and good writer, furnished comparatively little manuscript to the volumes, but he has revised them thoroughly, and has stamped them with his individuality.

It was Colonel Waring's original design to embrace in his work the statistics of the twenty largest cities of the country, and these happened to be the cities that in 1880 had more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. Then it was decided to allow the smaller cities to be represented if they chose, and early in the work steps were taken to induce them to furnish the necessary material. Over two hundred of the largest were given all the opportunities for representation that could be asked for, and, as a consequence, nearly every community in the land containing more than ten thousand inhabitants has a more or less full account. Each one of these is prefaced by a small outline plan, on which is marked the direction in which the surrounding cities lie, and the distance to each. Accompanying this plan are tables of the population at different decades, and of the sex, color, and nativity of the present population. Then comes an historical sketch, and then an account of the present condition of the community. This last describes the location and topography fully; gives the principal features of the country immediately tributary; details the facilities for communication given by railroads and by water; gives statistics about the climate; describes the public buildings and public works, including water and gas works; gives figures about the streets, horse railroads, and markets; touches upon the places and methods of amusement, and the parks and pleasure-grounds; the sewers, the cemeteries, sanitary organization (boards of health), and the system, or lack of system, of municipal cleansing,—all receive especially full treatment, as would naturally be expected when a sanitary engineer of Colonel Waring's stamp had charge of the work; the police department gets its share of the space; and in some cases the schools, fire department, and commerce are represented. The material from which these accounts were compiled was, in the main, obtained by sending schedules of questions to the various town and city officials; in the case of some of the largest cities the material was secured by special agents, but in general, the desire of the cities to be represented was considered sufficient guaranty that the schedule would be filled out fully and accurately, and this generally proved to be the case.

The historical sketches of the smaller cities and towns were compiled from information obtained in the same way, and from gazetteers, encyclopaedias, town and city histories, and all other sources available at the headquarters of the bureau. To the preparation of the sketches of the twenty largest cities, especial attention was devoted, and the results have been correspondingly valuable. Perhaps the most important, both from the historical and literary point of view, will be the sketch of the history of New Orleans, written by George W. Cable, who is better known as a novelist, but who has no mean abilities as an historian. His familiarity with the Creole element in New Orleans past and present, together with a very happy style of writing, have made for him more than a national reputation, from which this sketch will not detract. Originally his work was intended to occupy some ninety pages of the report, but later, unfortunately, it had to be condensed into fifty. Luckily it will not be found necessary to omit a number of interesting maps that accompany it.

Next in value, perhaps from the purely historical point of view the most valuable, or at least the most complete, of all, comes the sketch of the early history of St. Louis, by Professor Waterhouse. The author became greatly interested in his task, and spent a vast amount of time in collecting materials for it. From the care bestowed on the work, it may be taken for granted that this will be as full and accurate an account of the settlement and early history of the "Philadelphia of the West" as can possibly be compiled. It is expected that it will occupy fifty or sixty pages of the report, and even then it will only bring the history down to 1823, when the first city government was organized.

The largest of the Eastern cities furnish little chance for original work in an historical line, but yet the sketch of New York by Martha J. Lamb, of Philadelphia by Susan Cooledge, and of Boston by Colonel Waring, will be acceptable additions to the very scanty stock of American historical literature.

The words "very scanty" are used most advisedly, for in very truth the American historian is a rara avis. Of American compilers-of-facts, to be sure, there have been and are very many, but an aggregation of details is not a history, nor can a man who makes a book out of local gossip and the biographies of local heroes and heroines be called an historian. The truth of this fact has been most forcibly impressed on the writer in the course of preparing for the Census Bureau historical sketches of many of the leading cities of the country, and he has become thoroughly convinced that of all the vulnerable portions of American literature that which pertains to the history of American towns and cities is the most vulnerable.

In the first place, American town and city histories are few. In the second place, the books that pretend to be such are many, and as a rule historically worthless. In the third place, both the real and the sham are intensely dull.

Real histories are few, evidently because there is not demand enough to encourage historians to enter the field, and not because material is lacking. With the exception of the Atlantic seaboard, our country has been developed in an age pre-eminent for records and statistics; and there is scarcely a town or city in the land that has not its records and its public documents, its newspaper files and its Fourth-of-July orations,—all replete with information waiting for the historian. Nearly every State has its Historical Society, and Pioneer Associations are as plenty in our glorious West as was the fever and ague with which their members were baptized. If the golden opportunities of autobiography are lost, the American historian of the future will have to be satisfied, as must be satisfied the New England historian of to-day, with the meagre, lifeless information given by records, and the hyperbolical, untrustworthy knowledge to be obtained from local tradition and gossip.

We need go no farther to find the first reason why American histories are so meagre and dull. They are not pictures from life. The fact is, that the historian might as well try to write a valuable and interesting history from the materials which our older cities possess, as a painter might try to paint the battle of Crecy from the details given by Froissart. To be sure we have all seen such pictures, but who has more than admired them?

The absence of contemporaneous literature has been the greatest misfortune of all history. Every student knows how great and deplorable are the breaks constantly met with in tracing the thread of past events. Shall we, then, let the students of posterity remain in the dark on such questions as these: why Providence became the second city of New England; why she left Newport so badly in the race for prosperity; why Buffalo and Cincinnati went up, while Black Rock and North Bend went down; why Chicago became the largest manufacturing city on the continent; why New England kept the town-meeting, and the West preferred the township and the county; and why a thousand and one other important things happened. To be sure we have had Bancroft, and Sparks, and Hildreth, but these and their brethren have told us as little about the history of the people as Lingard, Hume, Hallam, and all the rest of them told England. Within a very few years historians have begun to see this defect, and such men as Green, Lodge, and MacMaster have undertaken to give us histories of the people, the first and last taking the lead on their respective sides of the Atlantic. MacMaster's work is excellent as far as it goes. His first volume is deep and scholarly, and does credit to American literature. It is clear that the task of its preparation was immense, and more time must have been spent in merely collecting authorities than has been bestowed altogether on more pretentious histories. Where Mr. MacMaster found all these authorities is a puzzle, for even such libraries as those in Boston and Cambridge have not all the materials for such an undertaking. Yet even he leaves many points untouched, or cursorily disposed of. Among the subjects referred to, of which we would like to learn more, may be mentioned: the township system of the West, the development of American municipal institutions, and, above all, the origin and rise of the various centres of population and business which we call cities.

The history of a nation should be compiled in the same way that the French people of the ancien régime compiled their lists of grievances to be presented to the king. In the early States-generals the deputies of all the orders received from the electors mandates of instructions containing an enumeration of the public grievances of which they were to demand redress. From the multitude of these cahiers (or codices), the three estates, that is, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate (the people), compiled each a single cahier to serve as the exponent of its grievances and its demands. When this complex process had been completed and the three residual cahiers had been given to the king, the States-general, the only representative body of France, was dissolved.

Thus it should be with our national history. Already the clergy have presented their cahiers in the shape of church histories and theological essays innumerable. The nobles, that is, the statesmen and politicians, have formulated their lists of grievances in such works as Thirty Year's View, The Great Conflict, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, etc. But where is the cahier of the third estate? The States-general has met and the tiers état is not ready. What excuse have they? Quick comes the answer: "Our electors have sent in but few cahiers, and these are defective. We cannot tell our king, the nation, what the people were and what they are, what they have and what they want, until they tell us. Our cahier must wait the pleasure of the people." Meanwhile, the regent, irreverently called Uncle Sam, who rules the land while his master is away in Utopia, reads the cahiers of the nobles, laughs in his sleeve at that of the clergy, and forgets all about that of the third estate. Or if he thinks of it at all, it is only to try to fill its place with twenty-four-volume Census Reports and massive tomes from the other departments.

The cahiers of the third estate are, in truth, few and defective, yet there are some communities that have done their work well. For example, there is The Memorial History of Boston which does credit even to the Hub of American historical literature. It was the work of cultivated men, and although the cooks were many, the broth is excellent. That the people were a-hungering for just such broth is shown by the fact that the net profits from it in the first twelve months after publication, as it is said, were over fifty thousand dollars.

Boston is almost the only city in the land that has been the subject of a full, accurate, and interesting history. The History of New York, by Martha J. Lamb, is not so full as might have been wished, but is otherwise unexceptionable. New York is fortunate in having the most graphic and humorous history of its early days that any city in the world ever had, but nobody except Diedrich Knickerbocker himself ever claimed a great amount of accuracy and truthfulness for his unrivaled work.

It was to be expected that our older cities,—those whose seeds were planted by Puritans, Dutch traders, Catholic fugitives, Quakers, Cavalier spendthrifts and rogues, Huguenot exiles, and in general the motley crowd that sought the land of milk and honey in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries,—it was to be expected that these cities would have historians ad nauseam. The very nature of the early colonization of America, the elements of romance and adventure so conspicuous in the history of early days on the Atlantic coast, gave warrant to such expectations, and the event has justified them. But where the romance and adventure end, the historian lays down his pen. It is left to the census enumerator to complete the work, and the brazen age of statistics follows the golden age of history.

As the cities in the heart of the continent have very little of the picturesque in their history, the same line of reasoning would lead us to expect that the historian would carefully avoid them, or else write only of their earliest days, when Dame Fortune was yet coquetting on the boards with Mr. Yankee Adventurer. Again we are not mistaken, for we find that what few critics are present when the curtain is rung up, leave the house when the first act ends with the death of the aforesaid adventurer. How the fickle dame flirts with all the neighboring young men, and at last, at the end of the second act, has her attention led by Captain Location to the hero of the piece as a suitable mate for her wayward daughter, Miss Prosperity,—all this is usually written up from hearsay. For the third act, wherein the twin brothers Steamboat Navigation and Railroad Communication help the hero to press his suit, the imagination often suffices. The grand finale, however, brings back some of the old set of critics, together with a host of new ones, who describe in glowing language the setting of the act, the costumes, the music, etc., and tell minutely how young Miss Prosperity blushingly yet boldly promises to be forever true to the gallant hero, now known under his rightful name of Mr. Metropolis. Ac-cording to the critic, this grand drama always ends happily for all concerned; the acting is always perfect,—the best ever seen on the stage; the scenery has seldom been equaled, never excelled. And this is the way the public hears about every "greatest drama ever produced on any stage."

Do you think the critic too harshly criticized? Look for yourself. Take Cleveland, if you want a good city with which to begin your explorations among the histories of Western cities. Here is one of the loveliest places in all the basin of the Great Lakes—rich, prosperous, beautiful. It was the one city which alt the travelers through the West in the second quarter of this century united in declaring to be attractive. For instance, J.S. Buckingham, who visited America forty-three years ago, complimented Cleveland as follows, in a book called The Eastern and Western States of America: "The buildings of Cleveland are all remarkably clean and neat, many of them in excellent architectural style, and, like the dwellings we saw at Cincinnati and other towns of Ohio, all evincing more taste, love of flowers, and attention to order and adornment than in most of the States of the Union." Mrs. Pulzky, who accompanied Kossuth in his journey through America, in 1852, wrote in her diary: "Cleveland is a neat, clean, and agreeable city, on Lake Erie. Americans call it the 'Forest City,' though the original forests have disappeared. Cleveland has a most lovely aspect; with the exception of the business streets, every house is surrounded by a garden. It was for the first time that I found love of nature in an American population. On the journey, until here, I had always missed pleasure-grounds and trees around the cottages."

The growth of Cleveland was steady and healthy. Although foreigners came to it in large numbers, it has been and is a representative American city. The spirit of public improvement early made itself felt here, as has been intimated by the above quotations; wide avenues, beautiful dwellings, pleasure-grounds, both public and private,—all the attractions that a lavish expenditure of money can secure were bestowed upon it. The oil discoveries of a quarter of a century ago made many of its citizens wealthy, and their city was so pleasant to live in, that, unlike most Western people who have gained sudden wealth, they stayed at home to spend their money.

From the history of the rise of such a community, much might be learned. Yet in the large libraries of the East we find only one book on the subject, and Poole's mammoth Index—that "Open, sesame," of the literary man—refers us to not a single magazine article of any sort on Cleveland. The book referred to is entitled Early History of Cleveland, with Biographical Notices of the Pioneers and Survivors; its author was Colonel Charles Whittlesey. As is the case in almost all such histories, the biographical notices form a very considerable portion of the book, and, as usual, its value is diminished in an exactly equivalent degree; for the biographies of Western pioneers are fully as tedious and valueless as the catalogue of ships in the second book of Homer. And, oh! the garrulity of the biographers, the minuteness of detail, the petty incidents, the host of dates! With these we are inflicted because some adventurous Yankee happened, by sheer luck, to build the first shanty on what became the site of a great city, or chanced there to be a pioneer victim of the "shakes" or the jaundice!

Whittlesey's book contains four hundred and eighty-seven pages. Of these he uses up seventy-six before he gets a civilized man in what became Cuyahoga County, and fifty more before he gets any actual settlers to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. The history of the next thirteen or fourteen years, down to the War of 1812, fills the mass of the book, details being here given that really have historical value. The last forty pages are devoted to the history of the two or three following decades. Nothing is told us about the actual development of a great city,—the haps and mishaps, the successes and failures, in short, the growth, of the community.

This same Colonel Whittlesey, in a volume entitled Fugitive Essays, published a sketch of the history of Cleveland covering the same ground more concisely, and also giving a few extra details about the history between 1812 and 1840.

These constituted the sum total of works solely devoted to Cleveland which were accessible to a writer in the East. The Ohio Historical Collections, by Henry Howe, a series of sketches of the counties, cities, and towns of the State, added a little to the meagre stock of information. For further knowledge, the public must be thankful that the argus-eyed tourist has not left the place unnoticed, and that the mathematically-inclined gazetteer has told us from time to time the number of Cleveland's churches, banks, and city councilmen, and other equally important facts!

Take another lake city—Buffalo. The growth of this city has been rapid. Its sudden rise to the dignity of a metropolis was largely due to that most interesting of the many important internal improvements of the first half of the century,—the Erie Canal. With the development of Buffalo was identified the rise of lake navigation and the grain elevator. Its population has been increased by the addition of a large foreign element, which has had its due influence on manners, morals, and public life. It appears from the report of the board of health for 1879, that, in 1878, of the children born in Buffalo, nineteen hundred and seventy-five were of German descent; of all other descents, two thousand and fifty-six,—a difference of only eighty-one. The city has indeed been thoroughly Germanized, if we may coin the word.

Here are things of which we would know more. Yet what do we find about them? Save in meagre or verbose pamphlets, nothing. To be sure, there was a book written which claimed to be about Buffalo, but a microscopic examination would fail to find in it anything worth knowing about the history of this community. The author of that book, William Ketchum, had the audacity to name it, as we read on the title-page, "An Authentic and Comprehensive History of Buffalo, with some account of its early inhabitants, both savage and civilized." It was published in Buffalo in 1864, in two octavo volumes, containing respectively four hundred and thirty-two and four hundred and forty-three pages. To comprehend the utter absurdity of the thing, we shall have to glance at history a bit.

It will be remembered that during and for some time after the Revolutionary War the country about the Niagara River remained in the possession of the British. The Seneca Indians, who sided against the Colonies in that war, and who were driven from their homes by the expedition of General Sullivan in 1779, gathered around Fort Niagara and became such a nuisance that the English had to set up anew in housekeeping these faithful allies and disagreeable neighbors. One of the villages they started was at Buffalo Creek. Our historian, Ketchum, has twenty-five chapters in the first volume of his Authentic and Comprehensive History of Buffalo. He gets the Senecas settled at Buffalo Creek in the twenty-fourth!