Castle Clinton National Monument
New York City, New York County, New York, USA
A Day in Castle Garden
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
© March 1871
Pages 547-556
Part I
In the lower part of Broadway, on our way
down to the Battery, we met groups of immigrants,
newly landed, walking slowly along
on the sidewalk, and bestowing a look of wonder
on every thing they saw. Trinity Church
and the new magnificent "Equitable Building"
on the corner of Cedar Street seemed to be
special objects of attention. In passing I heard
a German woman say of the latter building,
"Das muss der Palast sein," an opinion that
seemed to be instantly shared by her companions.
For a city without a "Palast" of some
kind or other is an impossibility in Germany.
At length we passed through the venerable
iron gate into the Battery grounds. Sad sight!
What was years ago a blooming garden is now
a barren waste, on which hardly a sprouting
grass is to be seen. It looks like a large
drilling field, with a few trees standing in clusters
near the entrance on Broadway, and in the
back-ground looms Castle Garden, with its
outbuildings, hospitals, and office - all encircled
by a large wooden wall. Before long the
grounds will have assumed their old, almost
forgotten, aspect; gangs of laborers are at
work with pickaxe, shovel, and wheel-barrow,
the whole ground is being surveyed and laid
out, and before another summer we may hope
to see the Battery as it ought to be - one of the
most attractive parks in the city. The location
could not he better. There is the fresh sea,
with cooling breezes in the hot summer; nearly
opposite lies Governor's Island; and in the
distance the Jersey shore and the verdant hills
of Staten Island.
Here the groups of immigrants became more
frequent, and as we approached the entrance
to Castle Garden we found it almost impossible
to make our way through, the passage was so
blocked up with vehicles, peddlers of cheap
cigars, apple-stands, and runners from the
different hoarding-houses and intelligence-offices
that abound in the neighborhood. However,
we succeeded in getting through, after encountering
an outpouring stream of new arrivals, and
being nearly deafened by the repeated shouts
of "D'ye want a conveyance?" "Hotel Stadt
Hamburg!" "Zum goldenen Adler!" "This
way, gents, this way!" etc.
We presented our passport to the officer on
guard at the entrance, were admitted, and
ushered into the yard of the Garden, amidst a
crowd of passengers, children, and baggage of
all kinds. Into this yard open the different
offices connected with the Garden. We enter
the main building, which a sign over the
tremendous doorway announces as "Castle Garden"
proper. Truly it looks like a "castle,"
but the "garden" is less observable. Open
port-holes stare us in the face as we approach,
but excite no alarm. In the good old times,
when this pile was built for a castle, it must
have answered its purpose pretty well; the
walls are at least fully six feet thick, and built
of heavy square blocks of brown stone, closely
cemented. The old nail-studded gates of the
fort are there yet, but they are never closed
now, a lighter and smaller gate having been
made to supersede them.
Passing through the gateway, we have on the
left side a roomy and cleanly kept wash-room
for females, and on the opposite side one for
males, both plentifully supplied with soap, water,
and large clean towels on rollers, for the
free and unlimited use of all immigrants.
From these rooms we emerge into the rotunda
- the main feature of Castle Garden.
The steamer Holland, from Liverpool, had
just arrived, and the steerage passengers were
being landed. It was a motley, interesting
throng. Slowly, one by one, the new-comers
passed the two officers whose duty it is to
register every immigrant's name, birthplace,
and destination in large folios - a work that is often
rather more difficult than it would first appear
to be. In the first place, the officer in charge
must be able to speak and understand nearly
every language under the sun. This, however,
can be learned and mastered; but then arises a
second difficulty - the remarkable want of
intelligence and the constantly recurring
misapprehension shown by some of the passengers.
These latter instances are very numerous, and
to deal with them requires a great deal of
patience. Some of their answers are exceedingly
comical, as, for instance: a young fellow in
corduroy knee-breeches and nailed shoes was
asked in my presence if he was alone. "No,
Sir," he said, boldly; and upon being asked who
was with him, then, he answered, "Sure my
box!" Another wanted to register two game-cocks
he had brought with him from Tipperary.
"Sure I paid for their passage," he said. Still
another - an old woman - on being asked her
name, said that that was on her box, "an' if
we wanted to know, sure we could go and see;"
and upon being asked by a by-stander how,
then, her box would be found, her answer was,
"Ah, be jabers, an' isn't me name painted plainly
on it?" It was with difficulty that her name
was finally ascertained.
Some do not understand a word of English,
and can only speak Irish; but these are few, and
are nearly always very old people.
On they passed, one by one, in single file, till
a few steps farther down they came to the desk
of the so-called "booker," a clerk of the Railway
Association, whose duty it is to ascertain
the destination of each passenger, and furnish
him with a printed slip, upon which this is set
forth, with the number of tickets wanted, and
their cost in currency. Having received this,
the passenger is passed over to the railway
counter, where, if he so desires, he purchases
his ticket. It is left to his own option what
road he will patronize, and whether he will go
by the first class or the immigrant train. This
arrangement is productive of much good, as by
buying his ticket here be will be only charged the
just price, and get the full value for his money,
if he pays with a foreign exchange. It is too
often the case that passengers, buying their
tickets in outside offices, are shamefully swindled;
the daily press exhibits numerous instances
of this fact.
That it is not always easy to furnish an immigrant
with the proper and correct ticket, may
be conjectured from one example. A passenger
(a Swede) desired to go to Farmington. But
as there are no less than twenty-one cities and
villages of that name in the United States, this
address was hardly satisfactory. He was asked
by the Danish clerk attached to the Railway Bureau
what State that particular Farmington lay
in; but this he could not tell. He had no
further address than Farmington, U. S. The
probability was that it was away Out West,
as nearly all the Swedes are far travelers,
and Illinois or Iowa were consequently suggested;
but he did not know. Finally he remembered
something about "Da," or "Dada,"
or "Dakota;" and it was found to be "Farmington,
Dakota County, Minnesota," a fact
which was proved correct by letters which he
afterward produced from his trunk. He received
a ticket accordingly, and went on his
way rejoicing the same afternoon.
Instances of this kind - of passengers knowing
only the name of the city to which they are
destined, but not those of county and State -
are of frequent occurrence, and give a deal of
trouble to the railway employee. It is of the
first importance to ascertain the right place, and
it sometimes requires considerable skill and
experience to avoid mistakes. In some instances
it becomes wholly impossible to discover the
destination, and forward the passenger. The
Railway Agency is under strict control of the
Commissioners of Emigration, and is held
responsible to the purchaser of a ticket for any mistake
that may occur. It will be readily understood
that but few outside ticket offices, not so
controlled, care about exercising the same care and
vigilance in forwarding a passenger; they only
want his purchase of a ticket and departure out
of the way; if he arrives at his destination he
is lucky, unless it is some such point as Chicago,
or of similar importance, where mistakes
can not easily take place. And if he gets a
couple of hundred miles out of the way, what
does it matter? he paid down his money, and
is too far away and too unsophisticated to
complain!
Directly opposite the railway counter are the
desks of the exchange brokers, which are at
present occupied by four firms, each working in
its own interest. A blackboard conspicuously
displayed announces the current rates at which
foreign and domestic coin are exchanged - a rate
that is but a trifle below the Wall Street quotation.
Whenever a change takes place in the
street it is instantly reported to the brokers in
the Garden, and the rate on the blackboard
altered accordingly. And this, too, seems to
puzzle our transatlantic friends. An Englishman
comes along and changes a sovereign, for
which he receives, say $5 70, according to the
then present rate. A moment later gold goes
down one per cent. or one and a half in Wall
Street; it is instantly recorded at the Garden,
and the prices are altered accordingly. Our
friend comes along again with some more
sovereigns to change for himself and comrades;
but now he only receives $5 65 for his gold. "Ay,
Sir, you have made a miststake," he says.
The broker's clerk says he has not, and
tries to explain. But it is no use. Less
than two minutes ago he got $5 70 for his
sovereign, and now he gets five cents
less! That surpasses his comprehension
"No, no," says he, shaking his head
incredulously; "gold is gold. This 'ere is
good British money; no change in that;
that stands to reason." He is offered
his sovereigns back if he chooses, but
lets it pass, scratching his head and
saying, "Blast the durned paper-money,
that one can't make neither head nor tail
out of!"
Often, of course, the opposite thing happens,
and the price of gold is advanced in the interim
between a customer's changing his coin. Then
he gets the higher price for the last lot, but, in
this case, never complains.
All kinds of money are here exchanged, and
often in considerable quantities. One of the
gentlemen doing business there informed me
that as much as two to three hundred sovereigns,
and one to two thousand Prussian thalers,
were not unfrequently changed into paper-money
by one individual. While I was there
a passenger changed a bag of sovereigns
containing at least fifty pieces, for which he
received the full value in United States promises
to pay, with a memorandum of the transaction
signed by the broker. It is unnecessary to say
that this department also is under the strictest
control and surveillance of the Commissioners,
who, with a jealous eye, look out for the
interest of the immigrants.
Sovereigns and Prussian thalers form the
bulk of exchange; but other coins, of nearly
all countries and denominations, are also daily
exchanged. American gold is very frequently
brought over, and, if not changed at the Garden,
often leaves the unsuspecting immigrant's
pocket at par. Twenty-dollar pieces, eagles,
and half-eagles are the denominations most
used; but many bring over small one-dollar
gold pieces, of which one out of every four or
five is perforated with a hole, as if it had been
used for a charm. This is an artifice frequently
resorted to on the other side; the pieces are
drilled, by which they lose On an average about
fifteen to twenty per cent. of their value, but
are still, of course, sold for the full price, and
often more, to the emigrants at Liverpool.
The fine dust thus drilled out makes a handsome
extra profit for the unscrupulous broker.
Others bring bags full of American silver of
small denonainations, which they have also
obtained in Liverpool, where it is imported at
a considerahle discount from Canada. Strange
to say, spurious coin or paper is seldom found
in the possession of the immigrants, although
one would naturally suppose that there would
he a wide and comparatively safe field for
imposing these upon emigrants previous to their
departure from Europe. Passengers via Bremen
very often bring with them American greenbacks,
having changed their money previous
to their departure, and the currency is almost
always genuine. In some few instances a corner
is missing, or a bill otherwise somewhat
mutilated. Some time ago a Mecklenburg farmer
arrived, who had quite a considerable sum
of money in greenbacks on his person. To
keep it safe he had sewed it in the lining of
his shirt, where he had worn it during the whole
voyage. When he came to open his package
he found that two fifty-dollar bills bad become
stuck together, caused by the perspiration of
his body and some adherent matter probably
sticking to the paper. It was found impossible
to detach them. They stuck together as one
bill as nicely as if they had been glued together
by an artist. Loud were his lamentations
and great his distress. He tried to peel them
carefully asunder with his thumb-nail, but only
succeeded in tearing the paper. He commenced
crying, when somebody advised him to give the
refractory bills a cold-water bath. He caught
the idea, and did so, and lo! the bills came
apart as nicely as two sheets of mica, and his
one fifty dollar-bill was made good for a hundred
dollars. Great now was his joy, and he
was shortly after seen treating at least a score
of his shipmates to schnapps and lager.
One poor fellow, who came over in the Holland,
a Frenchman, brought with him a Parisian
bank-note for fifty francs - all the money he
had. Under other circumstances the note would
have been exchanged at the Garden at par;
but owing to the present uncertain value of
French paper-money, caused by the war, it
could not be redeemed there. He could not
possibly understand how a note for fifty francs
on the Bank of France could not be equal to
the same amount in bright silver or gold; it
was at par at home when be left, and his faith
in the Bank of la belle France was unshaken.
He refused to change it at a discount, and left,
doubting and disgusted, to be fleeced by some
outside sharper. The paper-money of Prussia
has also been depreciated by the war. Formerly
the paper thaler stood a trifle above par
(probably one-quarter per cent.), for the facility
in carrying; but now it stands about two
and a half per cent. below. This puzzles German
immigrants. The thaler is in their country
a thaler, whether silver or paper, and if the
latter even a little more; and why should it be
otherwise here? "Das kann ich ni't verstehen,"
they say. However, as a class, they
are easily satisfied that it is correct, and accept
their fate without grumbling. Most of them
bring "harte" (silver) thalers; but when they
do it is generally in large amounts. It is not
seldom that one paterfamilias brings with him
a chest full of bright thalers that it takes two
or more men to carry. This money they exchange,
purchase their railway tickets, and
then go out West, buy lands, settle down, and
form one of the most desirable classes of citizens
of this great republic.
Continue to Part II
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August 8, 2006