The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (51 page)

But the ferry ride Locke recalled in his 1840 letter had been a pleasure excursion on a warm summer afternoon, sailing down the Long Island Sound from Connecticut. Up on deck, he had noticed a lovely young woman, a milliner by trade. On her lap she held a brand-new bandbox, on which were pinned a dazzling array of pink, green, and blue devices, as shiny as a fisherman’s lures, and glistening now in the sun and spray. Intrigued, Locke pulled out his spyglass to get a better look. He peered at the objects more closely through the glass, like an astronomer he had once conjured up, and to his wonderment recognized there his old friends from the Ruby Colosseum, the man-bats, his very own creations: gathered together into groups of three, as if they were the Graces themselves, with wings uplifted like angels.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Like all who love New York, I am indebted to the magisterial
Encyclopedia of New York City,
assembled by Kenneth T. Jackson and innumerable writers—though perhaps a bit more than most, as it was in the
Encyclopedia
that I first stumbled across a mention of something called the Moon Hoax. That book was just one of many sources in which I happily lost myself during the research for this book, in libraries and archives that included, in New York, the New-York Historical Society (the librarians of which are themselves a treasure of the city), the New York Public Library, the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Bobst Library of New York University, and the Butler Library of Columbia University; in Washington, the Library of Congress; and in England, the British Library and the Somerset Record Office.

Along the way I received invaluable assistance from a host of others.

Lockwood Rianhard, a descendant of Richard Adams Locke, provided genealogical information about the Locke family. In Somerset, my family and I spent a lovely afternoon with John and Pat Coombes (John is chairman of the Burnham Philosophical Society, an outgrowth of the society founded by Richard Locke in 1762), who gave us a tour of various Locke-related sites in the area; also in Somerset, Chris Richards of the North Somerset Museum located various pieces of Richard Adams Locke information, including an 1871 newspaper article the existence of which I had only surmised. In London, Holly Hudson provided exemplary research assistance. James Secord of the University of Cambridge directed me to the issue of the
New World
in which Richard Adams Locke’s letter appeared, and Alex Boese, curator of the online Museum of Hoaxes, generously provided me a bibliography he had compiled of Moon Hoax literature.

Caitlin Tunney, Joan Dempsey, and Deborah Schupack—dear friends and fine writers all—read the manuscript in various stages and offered

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Acknowledgments

thoughtful criticism and cheerful encouragement; I look forward to future opportunities to impose on their goodwill. Michael Crowe of the University of Notre Dame and Thorin Tritter of Columbia University read and commented on various chapters; this book benefited enormously from their close attention, and any errors in it that remain are mine alone.

My deepest thanks to Henry Dunow, who from the very beginning helped me to find the proper shape and best story for this book, and was its tireless advocate throughout; he manages to be at once an exceptional literary agent and a total mensch—a rare and unbeatable combination.

Likewise, I am grateful for the unwavering support this book has received from everyone at Basic Books, including, though by no means limited to, Lara Heimert, Brandon Proia, and Chris Greenberg. David Groff was an editor nonpareil, who went over the book again and again, bringing to it his admirable scrupulousness, intelligence, and fine literary sensibility; it has been my good fortune to work with him.

Finally, I offer this book with love to my children, Ezra and Vivian (who now know more about nineteenth-century newspaper editors than anyone their age has any reason to), and to my wife Cassie Schwerner, who first encouraged me to write it, who listened to its every word, and who all along has been my best reader and wisest counsel, and to whom, and for whom, I am grateful far beyond the measure of this book.

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N O T E S

P R O LO G U E: TH E MAN O N TH E M O O N

2
“To have a graceless child”:
The quotation from
King Lear,
as Locke had it, was somewhat in error; it should have read, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

4
“Ugly brutes”:
Dickens, 97.

5
More than a quarter-million people:
In 1835 New York’s population was 270,089. Greene, 15.

5
Privy vaults:
See the excellent discussion in Burrows and Wallace, 588.

5
“A person coming into the city”:
Ellis, 249.

6
Not disease but riot:
In his
History of New York City from the Discovery to the
Present Day,
William Leete Stone (the son of the newspaper editor) observed,

“The year 1834 may with propriety be called the Year of Riots.” Stone, 457.

6
First direct mayoral election:
New York’s earliest mayors were appointed by the governor; from 1820 to 1834, mayors were elected annually by the Common Council.

6
“Damned Irishmen”:
Anbinder, 27.

6
Adopting black children:
Richards, 114–115.

7
The mayor of Brooklyn:
Brooklyn was an independent municipality until 1898, when it was incorporated into the city of New York.

7
“I have not ventured”:
Wyatt-Brown, 231.

10
“Organ of acquisitiveness”:
Barnum (1855), 20.

10
“My disposition is”:
Barnum (1855), 107.

11
“Having read the Moon story”:
Harrison (1902), 15:134.

11
The eleven-thousand-word account:
For comparison, this prologue runs about fifty-five hundred words.

12
“Decidedly the greatest
hit”: Harrison (1902), 15:134.

12
“The sensation created”:
Barnum (1866), 193.

C HAPTE R 1: B E NJAM I N DAY’S WH I STLI N G B OY

17
At the north end of William Street:
The exact site of the original
Sun
office, 222 William Street, is no longer there; today it would be in the shadow of the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Notes to Chapter 1

18
The job would require at least ten hours of printing:
Thompson (2004), 220.

20
A set of loaded pistols:
Thompson (2004), 74.

20
In front of the American Hotel:
Today it is the site of the Woolworth building.

20
A circulation of some 4,500:
For circulation figures, see O’Brien, 11.

21
“English, German, French, and Spanish”:
Lieber, 80.

21
“Human patchwork”:
Greene, 12.

21
The population of each of New York’s wards:
Burrows and Wallace, 576.

22
The area was known as the Five Points:
In his book
Five Points,
Tyler Anbinder states that the first reference in the newspapers to a neighborhood called “Five Points” was in 1829. Anbinder, 21. It was so called because of the intersection of five streets there: Mulberry, Anthony (now Worth), Cross (now Park), Orange (now Baxter), and Little Water (now gone). Burrows and Wallace, 392. Today the area is part of Chinatown.

23
Never particularly interested in the trappings of wealth:
A thoughtful, fond reminiscence of Benjamin Day, “Mr. Day Viewed by a Grandson,” by Clarence Day, appeared in the centennial edition of the
New York Sun,
September 2, 1933.

23
His grandson Clarence:
In the 1930s Clarence Day would write a book about his comically blustering stockbroker father, also named Clarence—Ben and Eveline’s fourth child—the best-selling
Life with Father.

24
The full text of their manifesto:
Saxton, 225.

24
“All practical printers”:
Saxton, 215.

25
In May 1833:
There is no historical record of the move, but at that time in New York May 1 was “Moving Day,” the day that leases were traditionally begun and ended. As a result, the city was always a pandemonium on that day, as thousands of people tried to move in and out of apartments at the same time. As a newspaper editor described the scene, “There scarcely could have been greater confusion had the news suddenly been circulated that the British had landed on Coney Island.” Blackmar, 213.

25
Chestnut Street:
Today it is known as Howard Street, running between Centre and Mercer streets, just above Canal.

25
Duane Street: Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City
Directory, for the Fifty-Ninth Year of American Independence
(1834), 234.

25
A young man named Horatio Sheppard:
The story of Horatio Sheppard and his illfated
Morning Post
is beautifully described in James Parton’s 1872 biography,
The Life of Horace Greeley,
pages 105–110. In his autobiography,
Recollections of a Busy Life,
Horace Greeley spells the name Horatio Shepard.

26
Presidential candidate:
Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, was reelected in a landslide; Greeley carried only six states.

27
About three feet long by two feet wide:
The newspaper editors of the time saw large pages as evidence of prosperity, and as the years went on they engaged in a kind of war of expansion, making their pages larger and larger, until eventually a page of the
Journal of Commerce
would measure an as-

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Notes to Chapter 2

tonishing fifty-eight inches by thirty-five inches—nearly five feet long, and, when spread out on a desk, more than six feet wide.

28
They were strikingly literate:
Literacy rates are notoriously difficult to calculate, but it is instructive to note that the 1840 state census put New York’s literacy rate at 96 percent. Henkin, 21.

28
Adventure stories and gallows confessions and broadsheet ballads:
See Burrows and Wallace, 522.

28
Reports from the police office:
Reporting on the cases before the police court had originated with London’s
Morning Herald
newspaper. In 1826 an American publisher brought out a collection of the
Morning Herald’
s police court reports, entitled
Mornings at Bow Street.
It proved so popular that a second volume was issued,
More Mornings at Bow Street.
Mott (1942), 36.

30
“Suddenly arrest public attention”:
Barnum (1866), 49.

31
After several hours of hawking:
There is no historical record of how Day sold the first day’s papers, but as Susan Thompson has pointed out, “It seems likely that after gathering information, writing, editing, typesetting, and printing the first issue himself, he probably would have helped distribute the papers as well.” Thompson, 220.

31
They had more than three dollars:
Thompson, 12.

C HAPTE R 2: TH E N EWS O F TH E C ITY

34
Under the stage name Barney Williams:
O’Brien, 18.

34
Printers who poured water on them:
Brace, 17.

35
The boys mostly dispensed with their given names:
Brace, 38.

35
Sixty-seven cents cash for a hundred papers:
O’Brien, 19.

35
“The King of the Newsboys”:
Foster (1850), 47.

36
To apprentice as a printer:
Sloan, 113.

37
Partner on a new literary magazine:
O’Brien, 87.

37
Four dollars a week:
O’Brien, 17.

37
“It is a fashion which does not meet with our approbation”:
Bleyer, 157.

38
“The Balzac of the daybreak court”:
O’Brien, 17.

39
Retained the title of senior editor:
Bradshaw (1979–1980), 118.

40
Left the editorial duties almost entirely to Wisner:
In his 1883 interview with the
Sun,
Day recalled, “When I got the printing of the American Museum to do I thought myself so lucky that I rather neglected the newspaper.”

42
A printer’s salary of nine dollars a week:
Pray, 182.

42
Wisner’s share of the
Sun’
s profits:
O’Brien, 23.

42
Itching feet and a parched throat:
Mott (1962), 204.

42
“Shrewd, active and unprincipled”:
Jaffee, 110.

42
“Facile with his pen”:
Pray, 182.

42
“Oily Attree”:
Cohen, 367.

43
Amusing descriptions of city life:
In 1837 Greene would publish a popular guidebook called
A Glance at New York.

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Notes to Chapter 3

43
Four-fifths of a cent per sheet:
O’Brien, 32.

44
The black snake of slavery:
This interpretation of the snake story comes from Gary L. Whitby, in his essay “Horns of a Dilemma: The
Sun,
Abolition, and the 1833–34 New York Riots,” 416–417.

44
A man named Robert Matthews:
The best account of the Matthews case can be found in Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz’s book
The Kingdom of
Matthias.

44
Clergymen, doctors, disobedient women, and men who wore spectacles:
Johnson and Wilentz, 94.

45
Not yet grown the beard:
“Those few men daring enough to wear beards . . .

two or three decades before their widespread adoption in the 1850s, actually suffered abuse and persecution.” Larkin, 184.