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TO THE
NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
This work is respectfully Dedicated,
as a humble and unworthy Testimony of the profound
veneration and exalted esteem of the Society’s
Sincere Well wisher
and
Devoted Servant

 

DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR

It was sometime, if I recollect right, in the early part of the Fall of 1808, that a stranger applied for lodgings at the Independent Columbian Hotel in Mulberry Street, of which I am landlord. He was a small brisk looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few grey hairs plaited and clubbed behind, and his beard seemed to be of some four and twenty hours growth. The only piece of finery which he bore about him, was a bright pair of square silver shoe buckles, and all his baggage was contained in a pair of saddle bags which he carried under his arm. His whole appearance was something out of the common run, and my wife, who is a very shrewd body, at once set him down for some eminent country school-master.

As the Independent Columbian Hotel is a very small house, I was a little puzzled at first where to put him; but my wife, who seemed taken with his looks, would needs put him in her best chamber, which is genteely set off with the profiles of the whole family, done in black, by those two great painters Jarvis and Wood; and commands a very pleasant view of the new grounds on the Collect, together with the rear of the Poor house and Bridewell and the full front of the Hospital, so that it is the cheer-fullest room in the whole house.

During the whole time that he stayed with us, we found him a very worthy good sort of an old gentleman, though a little queer in his ways. He would keep in his room for days together, and if any of the children cried or made a noise about his door, he would bounce out in a great passion, with his hands full of papers, and say something about “deranging his ideas,” which made my wife believe sometimes that he was not altogether compos. Indeed there was more than one reason to make her think so, for his room was always covered with scraps of paper and old mouldy books, laying about at sixes and sevens, which he would never let any body touch; for he said he had laid them all away in their proper places, so that he might know where to find them; though for that matter, he was half his time worrying about the house in search of some book or writing which he had carefully put out of the way. I shall never forget what a pother he once made, because my wife cleaned out his room when his back was turned, and put every thing to rights; for he swore he should never be able to get his papers in order again in a twelvemonth—Upon this my wife ventured to ask him what he did with so many books and papers, and he told her that he was “seeking for immortality,” which made her think more than ever, that the poor old gentleman’s head was a little cracked.

He was a very inquisitive body, and when not in his room was continually poking about town, hearing all the news and prying into every thing that was going on; this was particularly the case about election time, when he did nothing but bustle about from poll to poll, attending all ward meetings and committee rooms; though I could never find that he took part with either side of the question. On the contrary he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath—and plainly proved one day, to the satisfaction of my wife and three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, one of whom was as deaf as a post, that the two parties were like two rogues, each tugging at a skirt of the nation, and that in the end they would tear the very coat off of its back and expose its nakedness. Indeed he was an oracle among the neighbours, who would collect around him to hear him talk of an afternoon, as he smoaked his pipe on the bench before the door; and I really believe he would have brought over the whole neighbourhood to his own side of the question, if they could ever have found out what it was.

He was very much given to argue, or as he called it philosophize, about the most trifling matter, and to do him justice, I never knew any body that was a match for him, except it was a grave looking gentleman who called now and then to see him, and often posed him in an argument. But this is nothing surprising, as I have since found out this stranger is the city librarian, and of course must be a man of great learning; and I have my doubts, if he had not some hand in the following history.

As our lodger had been a long time with us, and we had never received any pay, my wife began to be somewhat uneasy, and curious to find out who, and what he was.