the waters of the open sea as they rush past sandy hook strike upon the northeasterly shore of staten island, a low-lying beach overshadowed by abruptly terminating cliffs. northeastward, separated by this channel known as the narrows, lies long island. as the waters flow onward, following the trend of the shoreline of staten island, they become less and less exposed to the winds of the sea, and soon, as they pass the northernmost end of the island, they make a sharp bend to the west, passing between it and liberty statue, where the tranquil kill von kull separates the island from new jersey.
long ere they reach this region the sea winds have spent their force, and the billows, which in clear weather are still visible far out, have sunk to ripples so diminutive that the water is not even disturbed. and here, in staten island, facing the kill von kull, still stands in almost rural quiet and beauty sailors’ snug harbor. long ago this was truly a harbor, snug and undisturbed, a place where the storm-harried mariner, escaping the moods and dangers of the seven seas, found a still and safe retreat. to-day they come here, weary from a long life voyage, to find a quiet home. and truly it is restful in its arrangements. the grounds are kempt and green, the buildings pleasingly solemn, and the view altogether lovely, a mixture of land and sea.
in the early days this pleasantly quiet harbor was a245 long distance from new york proper. staten island was but thinly settled, and the kill von kull a passageway seldom used. to-day craft speed in endless procession like glorious birds over the great expanse of water. on a clear day the long narrow skyline of new york is visible, and when fogs make the way of the pilot uncertain the harbor resounds with endless monotony of fog-horns, of vessels feeling an indefinite way.
though the surroundings are pastoral, the appearance of the inmates of this retreat, as well as their conversation, is of the sea, salty. housed though they are for the remainder of their days on land, they are still sailors, vain of their service upon the great waters of the world and but little tolerant of landlubbers in general. to the passer-by without the walls they are visible lounging under the trees, their loose-fitting blue suits fluttering light with every breeze and their slouch hats pulled rakishly over their eyes, an abandon characteristic of men whose lives have been spent more or less in direct contact with wind and rain. you may see them in fair weather pacing about the paths of the grounds, or standing in groups under the trees. upon a long bench, immediately in front of the buildings, others are sitting side by side, smoking and chatting. many were captains, not a few common sailors. but all are now so aged that they can scarcely totter about, and hair of white is more often seen than that of any other shade.
for a period of nearly a year—a spring, summer and fall—i lived in the immediate vicinity of this retreat and was always interested by the types of men finally islanded here. they came, so i was told, from nearly246 all lands, france, germany, sweden, norway, finland, iceland, spain, austria, russia, and elsewhere, though the majority chanced to be of english and american extraction. also, i was told and can well believe they are, a restless if not exactly a troublesome lot, and take their final exile from the sea, due to increasing years and in most instances poverty, with no very great equanimity. yet the surroundings and the provision made for them by the founder of this institution, who, though not a sea-faring man himself, acquired his fortune through the sea over a century ago, are charming and ample; but the curse, or at least the burden of age and the ending of their vigor and activities, rests heavily upon them, i am sure. i have watched them about the very few saloons of the region as well as the coffee-houses, the small lunch counters and the moving picture theaters, and have noted a kind of preferred solitude and spiritual irritability which spells all too plainly intense dissatisfaction at times with their state. among the quondam rovers are rovers still, men who pine to be out and away and who chafe at old age and the few necessary restraints put upon them. they would rather travel, would rather have the money it costs to maintain them annually as a pension, outside, than be in the institution. not many but feel a sort of weariness with days and with each other, and i am quite convinced that they would be happier if pensioned modestly and set free. yet this is a great institution and indeed a splendid benefaction, but it insists upon what is the bane and destruction of heart and mind: conformity to routine, a monotonous system which wears247 as the drifting of water and eats as a worm at the heart.
and yet i doubt if a better conducted institution than this could be found, or one more suited to the needs and crotchets of so many men. they have ample liberty, excellent food, clothing and shelter, charming scenery, and all the leisure there is. they are not called upon to do any labor of any kind other than that of looking after their rooms and clothes. the grounds are so ample and the buildings so large that the attention of every one is instantly taken. as you enter at the north, where is the main entrance, there is a monument to robert richard randall, the founder of the institution. this marks his final resting-place; the remains of the philanthropist were brought here from st. mark’s church in new york, where they had lain since 1825.
the facts concerning the founding of this institution have always interested me. it seems that the father of “captain” robert randall, the founder of the harbor, was a scotchman, who came to america in 1776 and settled in new orleans. the spanish governor and intendant of that city, don bernardo de galvez, having declared the port open for the sale of prizes of yankee privateers, mr. randall took an active interest in that great fleet of private-armed vessels whose exploits on the high seas, and even upon the coast of great britain itself, did much to contradict the modest assertion of the “british naval register” that:
“the winds and the seas are britain’s wide domain,
and not a sail but by permission spreads.”
248 at his death his son robert inherited the estate. accustomed to come north to pass the summer months, robert made, on one of his trips to new york, the acquaintance of a mr. farquhar, a man possessed of means but broken down by ill health. the mild climate of louisiana agreed with the invalid, and a proposition to exchange estates was considered. after a bonus of five hundred guineas had been sent to farquhar, this was effected. mr. randall then became a suburban resident of what was then the little city of new york. his property consisted of real estate fronting both sides of broadway and adjacent streets, and extending from eighth to tenth streets. at a distance of one-half mile to the westward, namely, near the site of the old presbyterian church on what is now fifth avenue, stood the dwelling of the captain. upon the piazza of this house, it is recorded, shaded by a luxuriant growth of ivy and clematis, the old gentleman was wont to sit in fine weather, with his dog by his side. before the door were three rows of gladioli, which he carefully nurtured. he was a bachelor, and on the first day of june, 1801, being very ill and feeble but of “sound, disposing mind and memory,” made his will. alexander hamilton and daniel d. tompkins drew up the papers. in this document he directed that his just debts be paid; that an annuity of forty pounds a year be given to each of the children of his half-brother until they were fifteen years old; a sum of one thousand pounds to each of his nephews upon their twenty-first birthday, and a like sum to his nieces on their marriage. he bequeathed to his housekeeper his sleeve-buttons and forty249 pounds, and to another servant his shoe and knee buckles and twenty pounds. when this had been recorded he looked up with an expression of anxiety.
“i am thinking,” he said, “how i can dispose of the remainder of my property most wisely. what do you think, general?” turning to hamilton.
“how did you accumulate the fortune you possess?”
“it was made for me by my father, and at his death became his sole heir.”
“how did he acquire it?” asked hamilton.
“by honest privateering,” responded randall.
“then it might appropriately be left for the benefit of unfortunate and disabled seamen,” volunteered hamilton, and thereupon it was so bequeathed.
the early history of snug harbor is clouded with legal contests which covered a period of thirty years. though at the time of the bequest randall’s property was of little value, being mostly farming land, situated on the outskirts of the populated parts of the city, the heirs foresaw something of its future value. in the national and state courts they long waged a vigorous war to test the validity of the will. their surmises as to the future value of the property were correct. for, although the income of the bequest was not more than a thousand a year at first, as the population of the city increased the rental rose by degrees, until in the present year it has reached a sum bordering $1,500,000, and the rise, even yet, is continuous.
however, the suits were eventually decided against the heirs, the court holding the will valid. as an institution the harbor was incorporated in 1806, and the250 first building erected in 1831 and dedicated in 1833. so thirty years passed before the desire of a very plain-speaking document was carried into effect.
in the beginning there were but three buildings, which are to-day the central ones in a main group of nine. in toto, however, there are over sixty, situated in a park.
in a line, in the center of an eighteen hundred-foot lawn, stand the five main buildings, truly substantial and artistic. the view to the right and left is superb, tall trees shading walks and dividing stretches of lawn, with rows of benches scattered here and there. a statue by st. gaudens beautifies the grounds between the main building and the governor’s residence, while in another direction a fountain fills to the brim a flower-lined marble basin. everywhere about the grounds and buildings are seen nautical signs and many interesting reminders of the man who willed the refuge.
the first little chapel that was built has long since been succeeded by an imposing edifice, rich in marbles and windows of stained glass. a music hall of stately dimensions, seating over a thousand people, graces a once vacant lawn. a hospital with beds for three hundred is but another addition, and still others are residences for the governor of the institution, the chaplain, physician, engineer, matron, steward, farmer, baker, and the buildings for each branch of labor required in the management of what is now a small city. in short, it has risen to the dignity of an immense institution, where a thousand old sailors are quietly anchored for the remainder of their days.
sailor’s snug harbor
some idea of the lavishness of the architecture can251 be had by entering the comparatively new church, where marble and stained glass are harmoniously combined. the outer walls are pure white marble, the interior a soothing sanctuary of many colors. underfoot is a rich brown marble from the shores of lake champlain. the wainscoting is of green rep and red numidian marble. eight immense pillars supporting the dome are in two shades of yellow etrurian marble, delicate and unmarked. the altar is of the same shade, but exquisitely veined with a darker coloring. both chancel and choir floors are richly mosaiced, the chancel steps being of the same delightful coloring as the piers. to the left of the chancel is the pulpit, an octagonal structure of alps green, with bands and cornices of etrurian and sienna marble supported on eight columns of alternate alps green and red numidian, finished with a brass railing and etrurian marble steps. the magnificent organ, with its two thousand three hundred or more pipes, is entirely worthy its charming setting. over all falls the rich, warm-tinted light from numerous memorial windows, each a gem in design and coloring. on one of these the worshiper is admonished to “be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of life among ye, but only of the ship.”
admonish as one may, however, the majority of the old seamen are but little moved by such graven beauty; being hardened in simple, unorthodox ways. not a few of them are given to swearing loudly, drinking frequently, snoring heavily on sundays and otherwise disporting themselves in droll and unsanctified ways. to many of them this institution appears to be even a252 wasteful affair, intended more to irritate than to aid them. not a few of them, as you may guess, resent routine, duty, and the very necessary officials, and each other. although they possess comfortable and even superior living apartments, wholesome and abundant food, good clothing, abundant clean linen, a library of eight thousand volumes, newspapers, periodicals, time and opportunity for the pursuit of any fad or fancy, and no restrictions at which a reasonable man could demur, still they are not entirely happy. life itself is passing, and that is the great sorrow.
and so occasionally there is to be found in that portion of the basement room from which the light is debarred, looking out from behind an iron door upon a company of blind mariners who occupy this section, working and telling stories, a mariner or two in jail. and if you venture to inquire, his mates will volunteer the information that he is neither ill nor demented but troubled with that complaint which is common to landsmen and sailors, “pure cussedness.” in some the symptom of this, i am told, will take the form of an unconquerable desire to go from room to room in the early morning and pull aged and irate mariners from their comfortable beds. in others it has broken out as a spell of silence, no word for any one, old or young, official or fellow resident. in another drunkenness is the refuge, a protracted spell, resulting in dismissal, with an occasional reinstatement. another will fight with his roommate or his neighbor, sometimes drawing a chalk line between the two halves of a double room and defying the other to cross it at peril of his life. there253 have been many public quarrels and fights. yet, all things considered, and age and temperament being taken into consideration, they do well enough. and not a few have sufficient acumen and industry to enter upon profitable employments. for there are many visitors, to whom useful or ornamental things can be sold. and a few of these salts will even buy from or trade with each other.
in consequence one meets with an odd type of merchant here and there. there is one old seaman, for instance, a relic of federal service in “’61,” whose chamber is ornamented to the degree of confusion with things nautical, most of which are for sale. to enter upon him one must pass through a whole fleet of small craft, barks, brigs, schooners and sloops—the result of his jacknife leisure—arranged upon chests of drawers. still another, at the time i visited the place, delighted in painting marine views on shells, and a third was fair at photography, having acquired his skill after arriving at the harbor. he photographed and sold pictures of other inmates and some local scenes. many can and do weave rugs and mats, others cane chairs or hammocks or fish-nets. still others have a turn for executing small ornaments which they produce in great numbers and sell for their own profit. no one is compelled to work, and the result is that nearly all desire to. the perversity of human nature expresses itself there. in the long, light basement corridors, where it is warm and cozy, there are to be found hundreds of old sailors, all hard at work defying monotony with rapid and skilful finger movements.
254 all of these are not friendly, however, and many are vastly argumentative. no subject is too small nor any too large for their discussion in this sunlit forum. especially are they inclined to belittle each other’s experiences when comparing them with their own important past, and so many a word is passed in wrath.
“i hain’t a-goin’ to hear sich rubbish,” remarked one seaman, who had taken offense at another’s detailed account of his terrible experience in some sea fight of the civil war. “sich things ain’t a-happenin’ to common seamen.”
“yuh don’t need to, yuh know,” sarcastically replied the other. “this here’s a free country, i guess, ’cept for criminals,—and they hain’t all locked up, as they should be.”
“so i thought when i first seed yuh,” came the sneering reply, and then followed a hoarse chuckle which was only silenced by the stamping away of an irate salt with cheeks puffed out in rage.
nearly all are irritatingly independent, resenting the least suggestion of superiority with stubborn sarcasm or indifference. thus one, who owned his own ship once and had carefully refrained from whistling in deference to the superstitious line: “if you whistle aloud you’ll call up a blow; if noisy you’ll bring on a calm,” met another strolling about the grounds exuberantly indulging a long-restrained propensity to “pipe the merry lay.”
“i’ll bet you wouldn’t whistle aboard my ship,” said he insinuatingly.
“yeh! but i ain’t aboard yer ship, thankee—i’m255 on my own deck.” and “haul in the bow lines; jenny, you’re my darling!” triumphantly swelled out on the evening breeze.
down on the unplaned planks of the snug harbor wharf a score of old salts, regardless of slivers, sit the livelong day and watch the white-winged craft passing up and down. being “square-riggers”—that is, having served all their lives aboard ship, barks and brigs—they look with silent contempt upon the fore and aft vessels of the harbor as they sail by. presently comes, “hello, jim! goin’ to launch her?” from one who is contemplating with a quizzical eye a little weazened old man who comes clambering down the side of the dock with a miniature ship under his arm and a broad smile of satisfaction on his face.
“ay, that’s it,” answers the newcomer. he has spent many weeks in building the little ship and now will be decided whether or not his skill has been wasted on a bad model. at once the critical faculty of the tars on the dock is engaged, and he of the boat becomes the subject of a brisk discussion. sapient admonitions, along with long squirts of tobacco juice, are vouchsafed, the latter most accurately aimed at some neighboring target. sarcasm is not wanting, the ability of the builder as well as the merit of his craft coming in for comment. the launching of such a craft has even engendered bitter hatreds and not a few fights.
we will say, however, that the craft is successfully launched and with sails full spread runs proudly before a light wind. in such a case invariably all the old sailors will look on with a keen squint and a certain256 tremor of satisfaction at seeing her behave so gallantly. such being the case, the builder is at liberty to make a few sententious remarks anent the art of shipbuilding—not otherwise. and he may then retire after a time, proud in his knowledge and his very certain triumph over those who would have scoffed had they had the slightest opportunity.
i troubled to ask a number of these worthies from time to time whether, assuming they were young again, they would choose a sea-faring life. “indeed i would, my boy,” one answered me one morning. and another: “not i. if i were to sail four thousand times i’d be as seasick the last trip as on the first day out. every blessed trip i made for the first five years i nearly died of seasickness.”
“why did you keep it up, then?” i asked.
“well, when i’d get into port everybody would ask: ‘well, how did you like it? are you going again?’ ‘of course i am,’ i would answer, and went from pure shamefacedness and not to be outdone. after a while i didn’t mind it so much, and finally kept to it ’cause i couldn’t do anything else.”
one of the old basket makers at the harbor had occupied a rolling chair in the hospital and made baskets for nearly thirty-nine years. there was still another, ninety-three years of age, who would have been there forty years the summer i was there. and withal he was a most ingenious basket maker. one of the old salts kept an eating-stand where appetizing lunches were served, and he bore the distinction of having rounded the horn forty-nine times in a sailing vessel. he was one of the257 few who possessed his soul in patience, resting content with his lot and turning to fate a gentle and smiling face.
“will you tell me of an adventure at sea?” i once asked him.
“i could,” he answered, “but i would rather tell you of thirteen peaceful years here. i came here when i was seventy, though at sixty, when i was weathering a terrible storm around the cape with little hope of ever seeing the rising sun, i promised myself that if ever i reached home again i would stay there. but i didn’t know myself even then. my destiny was to remain on the sea for ten years more, with this harbor for my few remaining years. at that, if i were young i would go to sea again, i believe. it’s the only life for me.”
back of all this company of a thousand or more, playing their last parts upon this little harbor stage, is an interesting mechanism, the system with which the institution is run. there is a clothing department, where the sailors get their new outfits twice a year. i warrant that the quizzical old salt who keeps it knows every rent and tear in every garment of the harbor. there is a laundry and sewing department, of which the matron has charge. there is a great kitchen, absolutely clean, where is space enough to set up a score of little kitchens. at four p.m. there are visible only two dignitaries in this savory realm. at that time one slices tomatoes and the other “puts on tea” for a thousand, the number who regularly dine here. the labor of cutting great stacks of bread is done by a machine. broiling steaks or frying fish for a thousand creates neither excitement258 nor hurry. the entire kitchen staff numbers thirty all told, and the thousand sailors are served with less noise and confusion than an ordinary housewife makes in cooking for a small family.
there are separate buildings devoted to baking, vegetable storing and so forth, and the steward, farmer, baker and engineer, that important quartette, has each his private residence upon the grounds. the hospital, too, is a well-kept building, carefully arranged and bright and cleanly as such institutions can be made.
passing this place, i have often thought what a really interesting and unique and beautiful charity it is, the orderly and palatial buildings, the beautiful lawns and flowers, and then the thousand and one characters who after so many earthly vicissitudes have found their way here and who, if left to their own devices, would certainly find the world outside a stormy and desperate affair. so old and so crotchety, most of them are. where would they go? who would endure them? wherewith would they be clothed and fed? and again, after having sailed so many seas and seen so much and been so independent and done heaven only knows what, how odd to find them here, berthed into so peaceful a realm and making out after any fashion at all. how quaint, how na?ve and unbelievable, almost. the blue waters of the bay before them, the smooth even lawn in which the great buildings rest, the flowers, the calm, the order, the security. and yet i know, too, that to the hearts of all of these, as to the hearts of each and every one of us, come such terrific storms of restlessness, such lightnings of anger or temper, such torturing hours of259 ennui, beside which the windless lifelessness of sargasso is as activity. how fierce their resentment of that onward shift and push of life that eventually loosens each and every barque from its moorings and sets it adrift, rudderless, upon the great, uncharted sea, their eyes and their mood all too plainly show. and yet here they are, and here they will remain until their barque is at last adrift, the last stay worn to a frazzle, the last chain rusted to dust. and betimes they wait, the sirenic call of older and better days ever in their ears—those days that can never, never, never be again.
who would not be ill at ease at times? who not crotchety, weary, contemptuous, however much he might choose to possess himself in serenity? there is this material snug harbor for their bodies, to be sure. but where is the peaceful haven of the heart—on what shore, by what sea—a snug harbor for the soul?