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Progress of the City of New-York, During the Last Fifty Years ...
Progress of the City of NewYork During the Last Fifty Years Author:Charles King Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE. The subject to which I wish to ask your attention this evening, is The City of New- York, and its progress during the last fifty years. Born myself i... more »n this City, and identified with it through all that period, by? interest, association and affection, I very cheerfully acceded to the suggestion made to me by the Committee at whose instance I am here, to take New-York for the topic of my lecture. You will readily apprehend that the difficulty in treating this topic lies not in the scantiness but in the superabundance of materials ; and, with all my efforts to avoid what would be inevitable—if any thing like a detailed enumeration were attempted of the manifold proofs and illustrations of the City's growth and progress—the dryness and formality of a mere journal or record, I yet fear that I may fail to interest my hearers in what, nevertheless, is a most interesting theme. Without further preface, I enter at once upon it. It is now 237 years since the passengers of a Dutch emigrant vessel landed on the point of the Battery, and laid the foundation of this proud and populous City. On its struggles, its vicissitudes and its triumphs, from that period to the commencement of the present Century, this is not the place nor the occasion to enlarge. Passing at once to the year 1801, we find that feeble Dutch settlement already a goodly City, numbering about 61,000 people ; and then entering fully upon the career of commercial greatness, which—favored by the wise national policy of Washington, and stimulated by the enterprise of intelligent freemen, whose own strong arms had, under the favor of Heaven, achieved the independence of their country—has gone on increasing, and to increase, so long as the descendants of those freemen shall be true to the character of their fath...« less