Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

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It is said that William IV, who was then the Duke of Clarence, came to New York during the Revolution and was in charge of Admiral Digbie on whose ship he was an officer. He was fond of skating on the Collect Pond when off duty, and would have drowned there on one occasion, having broken through the ice, were it not for the quick action of Gulian C. Verplanck, one of New York’s distinguished citizens. Mr. Verplanck was afterwards President of the Bank of New York, which position he filled for twenty years. He died in 1799.

In 1805 the City Council gave orders that the Collect Pond should be filled in with clean dirt from the hills that surrounded it, as it had become a menace to the health of the city because of the filth that had been dumped into it for several years. But little had been done towards carrying this order into effect.

The winter of 1807-8 was one of great distress and poverty in this city. To add to the misery of the poor, business was at a standstill and hundreds of men were out of employment. In January, 1808, the unemployed made a demonstration in front of the City Hall and called upon the Mayor and Common Council to give them bread for themselves and their families who were then in a starving condition. After a thorough discussion of the situation money was appropriated and several hundred men put to work to fill in the Collect Pond as a public improvement. After many months the work was completed.