The Bittersweet Legacy of David T. Valentine

By Claudia Keenan

After reading the morning papers on February 25, 1869, David T. Valentine closed the door on his life in the brownstone city. [1] Friends believed he died of a broken heart. Fourteen months earlier, Valentine had been fired from the job he loved dearly. For almost thirty years, he arrived each morning at his office, City Hall #8, a room tossed with old maps, letters, and records. Without the work, he was lost.

New York (N.Y.), Common Council., Hufeland, O., Hardy, J., Shannon, J., Valentine, D. T. (David Thomas)., Willis, S. J. (184270), Manual of the corporation of the city of New York, New York, 1841 & 1842.

Born in 1801 in Eastchester, NY, Valentine was a treasure hunter with a historical sensibility who recovered valuable memorabilia and documents from far-flung corners of the city, including the dingy archive room located right in City Hall. “He possessed the patience and perseverance to dig and delve among the dusty records of the past,” observed the iconophile William Loring Andrews. [2]

Descended from Benjamin Valentine, who emigrated from Holland or France during the mid-17th century, David T. Valentine was appointed Chief Clerk of the Common Council of New York in 1842. [3] Subsequently, he devoted much of his time to researching and writing the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. [4] These were annual compendiums of data about the city: lists of real estate transactions, pawnbrokers, fires, government officials, marriages, ordinances, and so forth.

The Valentine’s Manuals, as the books came to be known, started life in 1801 as informational pamphlets. In 1818, they were renamed the City Directory. That title lasted until Valentine came along and transformed the volumes. “The idea was to make the books interesting to the public as well as to city officials,” he explained in 1865. [5] Armed with new-old material, Valentine enlivened the dry data with excerpts from founding documents, essays about old buildings and parks, and anecdotes about New Amsterdam.

But the books owed their popularity largely to the iconic pictures that Valentine added: scenes of New Netherland by local illustrators who drew on memory, description, and imagination. “Historical accuracy was not required,” observed historian Annette Stott of most images commissioned by Valentine. [6] The public did not mind. It loved the evocative prints, which were available for sale separately.

During the early nineteenth century, nostalgia was defined as “homesickness.” Doctors considered it a medical condition, too. In antebellum New York, many old-timers experienced nostalgia, as we now conceive of it, for the long-ago city. Among younger generations, the feelings stirred up by the Manuals and prints were more like a yearning to know a place in the past where one has never been. During those same years, plenty of New Yorkers wrote personal memoirs and letters about old New York, but few published books. [7] Eventually, anniversary celebrations would bring this history to life through pageants, exhibitions, and lectures. The first such commemoration did not arrive until 1883, however, when New York threw a big party for the centennial of Evacuation Day. [8] In the meantime, the Valentine’s Manuals aroused nostalgia by conjuring the “little red brick two and a half story city that was here yesterday, but is gone today,” in the words of historian Henry Collins Brown. [9]

The Manuals Meet Production Hurdles and Political Resistance

Producing the Valentine’s Manuals was not always smooth sailing. Over the years, Valentine faced pushback, especially after the mid-1850s when the books reached 500+ pages and print runs exceeded 2,000. In 1860, a member of the Board of Alderman, Charles Pinckney, objected to paying Valentine $3,000 for his work on that year’s Manual, recalling when Valentine’s fee was $1,000. Pinckney also complained that production costs kept rising, apparently oblivious to the fact that demand for the books grew with the city. [10]

Four thousand Manuals were printed in 1859; 6,000 in 1860, and 7,000 in 1864, Valentine reported. [11] Purportedly, half of each printing was given to Common Council members. The remainder was allocated to government employees, public institutions, and prominent New Yorkers. Any and all of these people may have sold the books or given them away. [12] While David T. Valentine was admired for his scrupulous honesty, he could not control every aspect of the Manuals’ existence. There appears to have been little oversight and accountability for their distribution.

Further, Valentine’s son Gustavus, who had served as the City Hall librarian since 1860, had a hand in the distribution of the Manuals to the Common Council. He manipulated the numbers to favor certain members, recalled Francis Twomey, who served as David T. Valentine’s longtime deputy. “Gus raised up a strong feeling of opposition not only to himself, but also to his father.” [13] By early 1867, Twomey added, “a movement was set on foot to supersede the old man as Clerk of the Common Council.” [14] The movement failed on one vote, but the board refused to allot funds for the 1867 Manual.

Here is where Valentine’s story—usually recounted as a life of fulfilment and recognition—becomes deeply sad. Perhaps he sensed that the 1866 Manual would be his last. But he could not have imagined that he would never be paid for it and another important book which he produced that year, Obsequies of Abraham Lincoln in the City of New York, Under the Auspices of the Common Council. [15]

The Common Council Turns on Valentine

President Lincoln’s casket traveled by train from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, stopping eleven times along the way. It arrived at New York’s City Hall on the morning of April 25 and departed amid a procession up Broadway on April 26. Topping off the many proclamations, eulogies, and resolutions regarding Lincoln, the Board of Alderman appointed David T. Valentine to write up Lincoln’s obsequies in New York City and arrange for the printing and distribution of 25,000 copies. [16] Tammany Mayor Charles Gunther vetoed the resolution but its supporters overrode the veto. Objectors pointed to cost, the city having spent more than $25,000 on Lincoln’s obsequies. The board debated the resolution several times between May and October 1865. It finally passed, 12-3. [17] But the Tweed Ring kept tightening its grip on New York City

In 1866, David T. Valentine finished writing Obsequies, including an elegant profile of Lincoln and detailed descriptions of the city’s mourning decorations. The 254-page book was printed and distributed. Back at City Hall Valentine, reelected clerk in January 1867, pursued his duties—everything except the Manual. Then, toward the end of December 1867, news leaked that the Common Council planned to replace Valentine. The public reaction was angry. “Turning out Valentine is an act of vandalism,” declared the Brooklyn Eagle. [18] On January 8, 1868, David T. Valentine was replaced by Tweed acolyte Joseph Shannon. [19] Boss Tweed had many whims, but not this time. Rather, Valentine’s dismissal was political payback.

A few years later, the New York Times began publishing investigative stories about Tammany Hall. It was a dream of the publisher, George Jones, to bring down the Tweed Ring. [20] One of the Times informants, former sheriff James O’Brien, recounted what happened to Valentine; after all, he had been present. The players were John Morrissey, James O’Brien, John T. Hoffman, and the Ring. Morrissey, a U.S. Representative from New York’s Fifth Ward, had backed former Mayor John T. Hoffman for governor in 1867. Morrissey’s support secured Hoffman’s nomination. Flexing his muscles, Morrissey backed Alderman Joseph Shannon for Sheriff in 1868 but the Ring decided to ignore the formidable Morrissey and supported former Alderman James O’Brien instead. [21] Now the Ring had to placate the furious Morrissey. They decided to toss Valentine aside and appoint Shannon Clerk of the Common Council. The deed was done and Valentine left City Hall.

Within a week or two, Valentine filed a claim against the city. He wanted a reimbursement: $5,835.27 for the compilation of the 1866 Manual and Obsequies, plus extra services to the boards of Aldermen and City Canvassers, various out-of-pocket costs, and interest on everything. [22] The claim was disallowed and never paid. The Board of Audit invoked parts of the City Charter and cited the lack of budget authorization for the two books. Some or all of the arguments may have been true. But the Common Council’s refusal to honor its obligation to Valentine was a dagger in the former clerk’s heart.

Less than one month after the Common Council turned him away, Valentine died and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. “His death was perhaps hastened, as suggested by Dr. Kendrick in his funeral address, by the loss of the position ‘the old and faithful clerk’ had held for so many years,” wrote William Loring Andrews. [23]

Valentine’s Legacy

Eventually, the Ring was brought down and Boss Tweed convicted and imprisoned. In 1881, during one of his two stints in the Ludlow Street Jail, Tweed had a visit from George Alfred Townsend, a war correspondent and journalist who wrote a pseudonymous column for the New York Tribune. “Why did you let the good old clerk, Valentine, be discharged?” Townsend asked Tweed.

“He got to be somewhat intemperate,” Tweed replied.

“But he was of great use to the scholastic history of the city, sir. His manuals are the only literary monuments of your reign.”

“You mean the long dry papers he wrote about dead people,” Tweed said. “Oh, he wasn’t up to the times at all.” [24] Still later, Valentine was memorialized affectionately as “Clerk Dryasdust Valentine,” “a true grubber,” and a “venerable gentleman” in commentary following the 1892 death of Valentine’s replacement, Joseph Shannon. “The inestimable value of his work grows more apparent as we leave the New York of the past farther and farther behind us,” the critic wrote, “and the monuments of the city’s history vanish before the progress of commercial iconoclasticism.” [25] Boss Tweed thought he could banish David T. Valentine. But the clerk lives on, and his Manuals resonate through time.

Claudia Keenan received her Ph.D. in History of Education from New York University in 2002. She has published on the history of college debate, the progressive education movement, and suburban public schools. She blogs about American history and culture at www.throughthehourglass.com.

[1] “Obituary, David T. Valentine,” New York Times, February 26, 1869.

[2] William Loring Andrews, An Index to the Illustrations in the Manuals of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1841-1870 (New York, 1906), ix.

[3] “A Corner in Ancestors, Valentine Family” Buffalo News, February 12, 1905, 16; Robert Bolton, A History of the County of Westchester from its First Settlement to the Present Time, vol. II (New York, 1848), 544-5.

[4] The year that Valentine became editor of the Manuals has been variously cited as 1841, 1842, and 1845.

[5] “The Senate Investigating Committee,” New York Times, March 18, 1865.

[6] Annette Stott, “Inventing Memory: Picturing New Netherland in the Nineteenth Century” in Revisiting New Netherland, Joyce D. Goodfriend, ed. (Brill 2005), 18.

[7] Among them were Washington Irving’s satire The History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (New York: Inskeep & Bradford, 1809), John F. Watson’s Historic Tales of Olden Time: Concerning the Early Settlement and Advancement of New-York City and State for the Use of Families and Schools (New York: Collins & Hannay, 1832) and John W. Francis’s Old New York or Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years (New York: W.J. Widdleton, 1865).

[8] Evacuation Day occurred on November 25, 1783, when the British Army finally left New York City and George Washington and the Continental Army traveled south from Newburgh, N.Y., ending their march at the Battery.

[9] Henry Collins Brown, Book of Old New-York (New York, 1913), vii.

[10] “Board of Councilmen,” New York Tribune, May 4, 1860, 7.

[11] William Loring Andrews reported that 9,000 copies were printed in 1864 and 10,000 in 1864 and 1865, Index, xxiv.

[12] “Valentine’s Manual and the Partisan Move in the Board of the Councilmen,” New York Daily Herald, February 3, 1862, 5; “The Senate Investigating Committee.”

[13] “He Noted City History, David T. Valentine’s Work on the Common Council Manuals,” New York Times, April 28, 1895.

[14] Ibid.

[15] David T. Valentine, Obsequies of Abraham Lincoln in the City of New York, Under the Auspices of the Common Council (New York, 1866).

[16] Ibid. A special committee of the Common Council appointed Valentine to write the Obsequies.

[17] “City Government [Official] Board of Councilman,” New York Times, May 20, 1865, 3; “Municipal Affairs,” New York Daily Herald, June 30, 1865, 8; “Motions Again Resumed,” New York Times, July 12, 1865, 3.

[18] Untitled, Brooklyn Eagle, December 21, 1867, 2.

[19] “City Intelligence,” New York Herald, January 8, 1868.

[20] N.R. Kleinfield, “150th Anniversary: 1851-2001; Investigative Reporting Was Young Then,” New York Times, November 14, 2001, H7, 47.

[21] “Morrissey, O’Brien and Hoffman-A Political Reminiscence,” New York Times, October 22, 1870, 4.

[22] “Board of Audit,” New York Daily Herald, January 28, 1868, 6.

[23] Andrews, Index, xv.

[24] “Johnny Bouquet’s Walks, Musings about the Metropolis,” New-York Tribune, April 10, 1881, 10.

[25] “Browsings in Brookland,” The Collector, vol. 3, No. 19, September 15, 1892, 293. The writer was art critic Alfred Trumble.