the contrary, everything was orderly and. Digitized by Microsoft® 28 The Hudson River to use a phrase unhappily somewhat obsolete, "was conducted with propriety." The British ships hung in the offing and received their barges as they came up; then, without further ceremony, sailed away and took with them the last shadowy vestige of royal claim to the land where they had struggled so long for supremacy. There is one bit of comedy associated with the British evacuation of New York. The retiring garrison, either with the connivance of their officers or as a piece of un- authorised waggery, left their flag flying in front of the fort. When the Americans, in accordance with orders, tried to pull it down to hoist the American colours in its place, they found that it had been securely nailed to the pole, the halliards cut, and the staff well slushed with grease. It was a dilemma awkward on one side as it was amusing on the other. We may imagine the departing soldiers waiting a short distance from the shore to watch the frantic efforts of their successors to exchange the flags. A flag was fastened to a stick by the Americans, and while, this makeshift was flying several guns of the sa- lute were actually flred, but the British ensign was still waving overhead, and the American's pot of oint- ment was polluted by this very obtrusive fly. At the nick of time there came a young soldier, John Van Arsdale by name, late of the Continental army, and it was his good fortune to succeed where others Digitized by Microsoft® Two Cities on One Site 29 had failed. Disdaining to attempt to scale the greased pole unaided, as others had done, he called for a ham- mer and nails. With pieces of board he fixed cross- pieces to the flagpole, making a ladder by which he ascended and finally tore down the obnoxious bunting. THE HOUSE THAT WAS BUILT FOR WASHINGTON Digitized by Microsoft® Chapter III New Buildings and Old AT the end of the eighteenth century there were a large number of historic houses clustering about the old fort. The names of some of the most notable New Yorkers were associated with them, and the reign of social leaders long celebrated for courtly and unstinted hospitality gave distinction to a neighbourhood now occupied by steamship offices and noisy with a jargon of foreign tongues. It was here that was situated the great house built for the first President of the United States and his suc- cessors. It was never occupied by Washington, as before its completion he had removed with the govern- ment to Philadelphia; but it became the residence of Governor George Clinton, and after him of John Jay, whose wife led the beauty and fashion of the little metropolis. Several weddings of note were performed at this old mansion, which in, its day was the most magnificent in the city. Mrs. Lamb says: The newspapers in November, 1796, chronicle a marriage and reception of this character at the governor's mansion as fol- 30 Digitized by Microsoft® New Buildings and Old 31 lows: " Married on the 3d at his Excellency's John Jay, Governor, Government House, John Livingston, of the Manor of Livingston, to Mrs. Catharine Ridley, daughter of the late Governor William Livingston." The bride was Mrs. Jay's accomplished and pi- quant sister, Kitty Livingston, who in 1787 became the wife of Matthew Ridley, of Baltimore, and after brief wedded happiness was left a widow. The fort and battery, that, to the discomfiture of all good Continentals, were held by the British troops, and which, to the immense satisfaction of the elect, they evacuated in 1783, were in large part within the line of the present elevated railway, and never very far be- yond it. The extension of the Battery Park to the south and west of the ancient water-front has finally resulted in a symmetrical wall that coincides with the front of Castle Garden, though the earlier pictures of - that famous landmark represent it as an isolated structure. Even as late as 1852 boats could approach it on three sides. The ground once occupied by the old fort now holds the new Custom House. At the lower end of Broad- way is a group of splendid buildings, among them the Standard Oil, Welles, Bowling Green, Columbia, etc. |vOpposite the Green, at what is now No. i Broadway, was a lot belonging at one time to Arent Schuyler, brother of Peter Schuyler, the first Mayor of Albany. It afterwards came into the possession of Archibald Kennedy, who built a house with a handsome broad front and spacious rooms. Next door to the Ken- nedy house was that of John Watts, whose daughter Digitized by Microsoft® 32 The