The letters of Theodosia Burr
contain many passages expressive of her intense enjoyment of the
variety, the vivid verdure, the noble trees, the heights, the pretty
lakes, the enchanting prospects, the beautiful gardens, which her
daily rides brought to her view. She was a dear lover of her island
home. The city had not then laid waste the beauty of Manhattan. There
was only one bank in New York, the officers of which shut the bank at
one o'clock and went home to dinner, returned at three, and kept the
bank open till five. Much of the business life of the town partook of
this homely, comfortable, easy-going, rural spirit. There was a mail
twice a week to the North, and twice a week to the South, and many of
the old-fashioned people had time to live.
Not so the younger and newer portion of the population. We learn from
one of the letters of the ill-fated Blennerhassett, who arrived in New
York from Ireland in 1796, that the people were so busy there in
making new docks, filling in the swamps, and digging cellars for new
buildings, as to bring on an epidemic fever and ague that drove him
from the city to the Jersey shore.
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