The Hatching Cat of Gotham

When New York City Policeman James Breen joined the Leonard Street Station in the late 19^th century, he probably never dreamed that one day he’d have to play the role of a Wild West cowboy in Manhattan on West Street, at the Chambers Street Ferry Terminal.

In the late 19^th century, West Street was always crowded in the afternoons during rush hour, even on Saturdays. The main thoroughfare was especially busy near the Chambers Street Ferry Terminal, where thousands of men, women, and children boarded the Erie Railroad Pavonia Ferry to Harsimus Cove in Jersey City, New Jersey.

On Saturday, January 23, 1896, Policeman Breen was on crossing duty at the ferry terminal when he saw about 20 women and children who were just about to cross West Street scatter in every direction. Turning around to see what had caused the commotion, he saw a herd of cows charging toward him. Within seconds, he was knocked to the ground.

Not about to let a herd of 16 cows ruin his day, Breen stood up, dusted himself off, and arrested the drover, 25-year-old blacksmith William Kane of 853 Pacific Street in Brooklyn. Breen charged the young man with violating a city ordinance that prohibited anyone from driving cattle through the streets of the city without a permit between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. (Laws of 1872, chapter 776.)

William Kane told the officer that he had been hired by Thomas E. Wheeler, a prominent cattle dealer in Brooklyn, to take the cows from Staten Island to the stock yards adjacent to the Pavonia Ferry Terminal in Harsimus Cove.  Kane did have a permit, but it had been issued in Brooklyn in 1894 and was thus no longer valid.

Policeman Breen left two other policemen and a few young boys at the scene to drive the cattle into a temporary corral while he took Kane to the Leonard Street station. There, an inquiry at the Board of Health office showed that Wheeler had no permit for Manhattan, so the arrest was justified.

Following the arrest, Captain Cross gave Breen some money and told him to buy 50 yards of stout rope for capturing the cattle. Sixteen patrolmen were sent to assist Breen, including Roundsman Leonard, who had some experience as a cowboy a few years prior in New Mexico. The rope was cut into 16 pieces, one for each officer and their respective cow.

By this time, the cattle had become restless, and some had escaped from their temporary corral. It was quite the scene as hundreds of commuters gathered to watch the city cops lasso the cows and attach their ropes to the cows’ horns. When every cow was captured, the policemen walked them to Clark’s stable at 31 North Moore Street, where each cow had a stall to herself. The plan was to feed and milk them at Thomas Wheeler’s expense at the rate of $2 a day each until, if necessary, they could be “impounded” at the city pound at 183^rd Street.

Nine months after the cow incident, the Pavonia Ferry house was partially destroyed by fire. Policeman Mackay of the Leonard Street station discovered the blaze in the telegraph room about 8:30 p.m. on October 6, 1896. By the time the first engines arrived, the fire had spread and smoke was pouring from the cupola, where 200 pigeons had made their home (the birds reportedly hindered the firemen’s efforts). The flames were confined to the attic, where the ferry records were kept, and no one was injured.

Seven years later, the Erie Railroad announced plans to construct a wide pedestrian bridge connecting its new 16-story office building on West Street to the ferry house. The new bridge allowed passengers to safely cross the busy street and easily board the new double-decker ferry boats without having to worry about cars, cows, or otherwise.

Thomas E. Wheeler and Brothers

The incident on West Street in 1896 was not the first time cattle dealer Thomas Wheeler and his brothers, John and James, had been in trouble with the law, nor was it the last time. The brothers, who operated a large stable at 603 Bergen Street in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, were often in the news whenever their cows escaped.

In April 1885, one of the Wheelers’ cows being driven from their establishment on Bergen Street to the farm of Mrs. Farrell on Fourth Street (between Bond and Hoyt) escaped and charged after a group of children on Third Street. Three-year-old Janet Moynahan was severely injured—several broken bones—which resulted in a case law titled Moynahan vs Wheeler et al. Although the Wheelers were originally charged and fined, the decision was reversed on appeal because it could not be proven that the Wheelers knew that the cow was vicious before it charged the girl.

In 1907, one of their Holstein cows and her calf were being driven past the Board of Health offices at Sixth Avenue and 55^th Street during broad daylight when the driver was arrested for violating the city ordinance.

In this incident, Probationary Health Officer Robert Dawson took charge of the cow and used his derby hat as a milk pail as he milked her right on the sidewalk.

“I thought she needed milking,” Dawson told the press. According to news reports, a young boy who witnessed the event said, “Gee, I always thought it came from bottles.”

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, members of the Wheeler family lived in several new brownstone townhouses on St. Marks Avenue between Carlton Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue (sometime around 1860, this land had been occupied by the Wheeler family farm).

Thomas E. Wheeler and his wife Mary Donovan Wheeler lived at #138, James B. Wheeler and his wife Louise F. Hartigan Wheeler lived at #201 with their seven children, and John Donovan (Mary’s father), a prominent builder who developed all the lots from about #122 to #144, lived at #144 St. Marks Avenue, constructed in 1885.

A Brief History of the Pavonia Ferry

The Pavonia Ferry began running in 1851, along a route from Powles Hook (Paulus Hook) in the Harsimus Bay to Cortlandt Street in Manhattan. This route had been established around 1764 by Cornelius Van Vorst, then one of the richest men in Bergen County, New Jersey.

Cornelius reportedly had several flat boats for ferrying wagons and coaches and some smaller boats for passengers. He also owned a mile-long circular racetrack that went around Paulus Hook as well as a one-story tavern called Ellsworth Tavern, which was near the ferry docks by present-day Grand Street and Hudson Street.

The Paulus Hook to Cortlandt Street route was picked up by Nathanial Budd sometime before 1802, which is the year he got permission to expand his “Budd’s Dock” at Paulus Hook. In 1803, Budd advertised that he had “good boats and careful ferrymen for carrying passengers, horses, cattle, carriages, goods, wares, and merchandise” to and from New York City.

 

 

The Pavonia Ferry was taken over by the Erie Railroad Company in 1854 and sold to the Pavonia Ferry Company of Jersey City for $9,050.

Although a number of people had petitioned for ferry service from Harsimus Cove to Chambers Street in 1818, it wasn’t until February 1859, when Nathaniel Marsh of the Erie Railroad Company purchased the lease on behalf of the Pavonia Ferry Company, that service from Chambers Street to Jersey City commenced.

Ferry service between Chambers Street and Harsimus Cove in Jersey City ended in 1958 when the Erie Railroad moved its passenger services to the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad’s Hoboken Terminal at 1 Hudson Place.

The Demise of the Chambers Street Terminal

In May 1966, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and New York City Mayor John Lindsay proposed the construction of a “coordinated community” of offices, light industry, and housing on 98 acres of landfill extending from the Battery at Manhattan’s southern point to Chambers Street. Called Battery Park City, the project was expected to cost $1 billion.

The plan was to construct a bulkhead and dump rocks, dredged-up sand, and other materials excavated from the site of the World Trade Center and a water tunnel into the river (45 feet deep) to create a base level with the ground. In order to make room for this new landfill city, 17 dilapidated piers on the Hudson River along West Street–including the old Chamber Street Terminal and Liberty Street Terminal piers–were demolished.