Specimen Days (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

Besides Fulton Ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway—that noted avenue of New York’s crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a courtroom in Chambers Street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case—I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against someone. I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him (it must have been in 1845 or ’6) in his office, second story of a corner building (Duane or Pearl Street). He was editor and owner or part owner of The Broadway Journal. The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish’d. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear’d well in person, dress &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner, and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the west side, just below Houston Street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck’d in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop’d in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn’t think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York City; folks look’d for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp’d and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor.