Archive for the ‘Landmarks’ Category

Highwood in Weehawkin — Where “The Great Little Dickens” was feasted by James Gore King

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902

During the summer of 1832, the cholera year, when scared New Yorkers were dosing themselves with Dr. De Kay’s famous prescription of port-wine and Dr. Rhinelander’s equally famous one of brandy as preventives, James Gore King, the noted New York banker, and seventeenth president of the Chamber of Commerce, removed his family to his then only partly completed country-seat on the woody crest of the Palisades at Weehawken.

The house, a severely plain two-storied structure, though large and roomy, was surrounded by one hundred and eighty acres of land lying between the Bull’s Ferry Road and the river, and the adjoining Stevens estate on the south. After several years spent in beautifying a naturally fine situation, the place became one of the most noted residences in America, and was always visited by distinguished foreigners when stopping in New York.

James Gore King, was the third son of Rufus King, the eminent statesman. He attended school in London and Paris, and was graduated from Harvard in 1810. In early life he married Sally Gracie, a New York belle, and daughter of the distinguished Archibald Gracie. His brother, Charles King, who became president of Columbia College, also married into the same family, uniting his fortunes with those of another daughter, Eliza Gracie. At one time in his career he virtually controlled the operations of Wall Street, and earned for himself the soubriquet of “The Almighty of Wall Street.”

Instead of improving his large area of land at a great expenditure at one time, Mr. King went about it judiciously, and continued adorning and enlarging his gardens almost up to the time of his death in 1851 His wise plan seems to have attracted considerable notice. In an old number of the Merchant’s Magazine and Commercial Review, Freeman Hunt wrote that Lord Ashburton, when visiting the United States, was greatly charmed with Highwood and the “sensible manner in which Mr. King had laid out his grounds.

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Read the complete piece.

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In Hoboken, some things stay the same.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010


Hoboken church featured in On the Waterfront
In On The Waterfront, this church stood in contrast to corruption on the docks.

Hoboken park that was in On the Waterfront
This park also was featured in On The Waterfront. Like the church, the passing of
over a half a century has had little effect.

Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken
For the Hudson River at Hoboken, everything has changed since On The Waterfront.
Piers, warehouses, and ships, all are gone.

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Astor Villa – Hoboken

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Astor Villa - Hoboken

Astor Villa, Hoboken, In 1934

Where John Jacob Astor the first entertained the literati of the Country

From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902

According to the New York City directories, 1828 was the year that John Jacob Astor, the richest American of his day, became a resident of Hoboken. Previous to that time, during the erection of the Astor Villa, still standing in a rather dilapidated condition at the corner of Washington and Second Streets, he occasionally stopped at the famous boardinghouse of the Misses Van Buskirk, on the water-front, which is said to have obtained a finer patronage than any of the other hostelries of this old-time resort. The “old maids Van Buskirk,” as the irreverent called them, in their black silk gowns and white mull caps, doing the honors of their parlors, were well-remembered figures by many of the last generation of Hoboken frequenters, now passed away. They were ideal boarding-house mistresses of the old school, when boarding-house keeping was the one remunerative recourse for reduced gentlewomen; and the pride they took in the fare they gave their patrons, the trimness of their garden, and the skill they exhibited in preserving fruits and making pastries, gave them high recommendation in the eyes of all lovers of comfort and good living.

. . .

Washington Irving and Martin Van Buren when in New York City often crossed the Stevens Ferry to visit him. Hoboken was a town which pleased them both, for they were very fond of the old Dutch settlements on the Jersey shore, and it was from the Van Horne family, who lived in the “House of the Four Chimneys,” still standing in Communipaw, that Irving obtained much of his matter on early Dutch customs for “A Knickerbocker’s History of New York.” Some writers have even gone so far as to state that the book itself was written in the homestead, but a careful perusal of Irving’s letters shows this to be a fiction.

The millionaire and his author friend, Washington Irving, used to be constantly seen driving or walking together in the vicinity of Hoboken. They were very popular in a score of nearby old Dutch households, and it is a noteworthy fact that they distributed many bright silver dollar pieces to proud mothers displaying infants bearing their appellations.

Hoboken in John Jacob Astor’s time was a great resort for the theatrical world, and to its sylvan solitudes many jaded Thespians came to recuperate before the evening performance. In the shady “Turtle Grove,” made memorable by the feasts of the “Turtle Club,” Lover’s walk, and the wood of fir-trees by Sibyl’s cave, the chance frequenter was always sure to run across some actor deep in his play-book, and speaking unconsciously a telling passage, with only the fleeting birds and whispering leaves to voice approval.

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The complete article

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