THE BATTY CHRONICLES

June 26, 1883

2007-01-24T21:14:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, Diary, I am so sorry that my tears are on your pages! To-day was the last day of school, and I have received my report-card. My grades were all well, and I (illegible) my studies. I did receive an A in Composition, an A in Mathematics, a B in Fear of the Almighty Lord and an A in Sciences.

I also did most well in the behaviors:

Penmanship: A-
Posture: A
Neatness: A-
Not At All Smiling: B
Manners: A
(illegible) of A Cat Upon The Head: A
Wearing of Many Layers of Clothing With No Regard to Weather or Comfort: A
Punctuality: A
Bleeding of Sickly and Undesirable Vagrants: B+
Hyphenation: (illegible; probably an A. -ed)

My parents were most pleased, and took me to the Longacre Oyster House as reward. Yet even an extra plate of oyster-cat pie could not make me well, for I have learned that next year I am to have Mrs. Truncheon!

(paragraph illegible except for the end) -cut apart my eyes into little bits and throw them into the river!

Mrs. Truncheon is the meanest, most horrible instructor there ever was at the Sutherland School. Oh, it is the end! I am faint!

Diary, I am most sorry to have fainted upon you some hours ago. Mrs. Truncheon has made me most cross, as she shall give a stiff beating for the smallest

oh, faint again

June 11, 1883

2007-01-16T19:14:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, a scandal! To-day at lunch recess Rose and Helen and Emily and I were playing Gad-about. I was a schoolmaster who had kicked her husband onto the tracks of the elevated, and Rose was a nurse that choked her sweetheart with a stocking, and Helen was an opera singer who had stuck her father and husband with a pitch-fork (Diary, I love Helen so, but she can put on airs), and Emily was a seamstress who ate a boy.

It was the third or fourth turn for us to run about and yell "Gad-about!" but over came Walter. "Hullo! Are you playing Gad-about?" he said. "Why yes we are," Helen said to him. "May I play Gad-about too? I can be a druggist who has run over his wife with a lion!"

Oh, Diary, we laughed so hard that we thought our heads might split! Emily and Rose then gave Walter a sound thrashing.

Most silly Walter! Every-one knows that a boy cannot play Gad-about! Oh, it was the talk of the school by three-o'-clock! I do not know why the yard does not have a part for boys' and a part for girls. Isabella has one at her school.

Yet I do hope that Walter can return to school by Friday.

I love you.
Harriet

May 27, 1883

2007-01-14T19:15:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, Diary, yester-day there was far too much to tell. I did not even talk much of Friday! Yet to-day I shall.

I do remember some of the questions asked of Mister Roosevelt at the assembly, but I could not tell you who had asked them, as all the school was present. Yet here is what I do recall. (I wrote a part or two of it down when there.)

Question: What is the height of the bridge towers?
Mr. Roosevelt: It is 276 feet, 6 inches high, and is the tallest thing made by man in the city, but for Trinity Church.

Question: Might there be sweets in a hidden place upon the bridge?
Mr. Roosevelt: Only if there shall be a man upon the bridge with sweets in his pocket.

Question: Is it true that one may pull at the bridge with a giant cord and Brooklyn City will pull closer to New York?
Mr. Roosevelt: I have been told that this cord is stored in the Manhattan anchorage, is only to be used in an emergency, and can be pulled but once. (Diary, Mister Roosevelt then said something I could not understand about how "metaforicly" the two cities are now one.)

Question: Would you be able to guess the amount of oyster shells that can be placed upon the bridge?
Mr. Roosevelt: If I were to hazard a guess, if one were to include the promenade, the cable car road, the railway, the outer road, the tops of the towers and the ropewalks, it would be a hundred thousand million million million oyster shells. I should bet that Mister Roebling should know the answer better than I, for the bridge has been completely oyster-tested.

Question: What if there should be the showing of an ankle upon the bridge?
Mr. Roosevelt: I have been told by the police that said person shall have their ankle cut away and thrown into the river.

There was far more, but it was too much for me to know now. Yet even that was not the great thing that I shall remember!

Not an hour after we had returned to our class-room and Mister Rusk had himself locked back into his cage, I did receive a note from the headmaster's office that my Uncle Otto had taken very ill and that I would be excused for the day so that I should be with my family. Oh, poor Uncle Otto! I thought that his moustache had again grown into his mouth.

My whole family was outside the front gate to collect me. Yet we did not go to the Gramercy Hospital, or the Consumption Hospital or the Bellevue Brain-Punching Hospital for the Feeble and Insane. It was all but a fake, for Father and Mother had shut their store for the day and we were to take the elevated to the bridge and walk upon it!!!

Diary, I was never so excited in all my life.

We paid our pennies to the toll-man and began to walk up the bridge. It was most crowded, yet we could make our way. I have seen the bridge always, yet not so close! It is the most grand thing ever. I would look out at the water yet could not keep from looking at the towers also. There shall never be a thing taller, I am sure of it.

I had never seen all the cities from above, and they are so beautiful. There were more buildings that I ever had seen, and there was the Green-Wood Cemetery and I think the Prospect Park, and fields and farms past Brooklyn. There was all the piers and buildings and our City Hall behind us -- it is so handsome now that the evil Mister Mayor Grace is not within it! The river and all its boats were below us, and I have seen a steam-ship from the top!

Oh, I must sound so foolish. It is most hard to write how I felt, but it was perhaps as a sea-gull or a faerie.

Father did not talk the whole way across. I asked Mother of this, and she said that Father remembered a time before there had been any part of the bridge there at all, and that he could not believe that he should be alive on a day when he could walk the East River. Father said later that it shall be a great thing for their business, as he can now take ovens to market in Brooklyn

We shall need to be careful with William, tho, as he is magnetic still. He is pulled to the railings all this way and that. "Ma, it is a boatie!" he would yell, and then he would be lifted off his toes and stuck to the rails. A police-man had to free him with a crow-bar, but then William became stuck to that, and it was six or seven crow-bars before a man came with a hammer to free him.

Oh, Diary, so tired. Why must I write so much? I shall be more brief for awhile, as I see your pages are near an end.

I love you!
Harriet

May 26, 1883

2007-01-09T22:08:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, Diary, I shall remember these last two days for all the rest of my life!

I did not cross the bridge Thursday. Father said that tickets were most hard to get, and that he knew not one person whom had them, except for Mister Roosevelt. It was all I could think of, and I could not enjoy Gad-about so much as I do most times, even though to-day I was a ballerina who had choked her husband with twine.

Yet the day was not lost, for Mother and Father had bought tickets for a special viewing of the fire-works atop the roof of the Madison-Square Garden! Oh, Diary, I do wish you were there! It was the grandest, greatest fire-works anyone had ever seen! The crowd was as if every last family were out upon the street.

They sky was so bright and full of color that Father did take off his hat and wave it about like a little boy! Diary, I have never seen Father do that before.

My head was all twiddly-twoddly in school, as I was awake far past my bed-time. (Diary, I do think Mister Rusk was too, as he fell over in his cage and Walter in the first row had to poke at him with a ruler.) We were all most surprised when all of the Sutherland School was gathered into a special assembly at about 10, and there before us was Mister Roosevelt! He told us all about the ceremonies on the bridge and answered many questions from us (and from the teachers too)! I cannot remember most of what he said right now, Diary, I shall try to write of it to-morrow or Monday.

The greatest surprise was that there was a stack of papers on a table next to Mister Roosevelt. They were handed out to us, and each one of us did get a program of the opening ceremonies!!! Diary, I cannot believe it!!! I shall hold onto it for ever and ever.

I had thought that I should glue it to your pages, Diary, but I think I should keep it all fresh and will write down the whole program here to the letter.

INAUGURAL PROGRAM

of the opening of the

NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Thursday, May the Twenty-Fourth, Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Three

PROGRAM OF EVENTS

2:00 P.M.

"Inauguration of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge March"

United States Army Twenty-Third Regiment Band, Otto Henze, Cndr.

2:10 P.M

"Almighty God, We Dread That You Shall Strike Down This Bridge at Any Moment"

Invocation by the Most Holy John Pettit, Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York

2:25 P.M.

"New York And Brooklyn Bridge Inaugural March"

New York Marching Symphony Orchestra, Morris Heathcoate III, Cndr.

2:30 P.M.

Presentation of the Bridge to the Cities Of Brookyn and New York

Mr. Kingsley (No First Name), Trustee, The New York And Brooklyn Bridge Company

2:45 P.M.

Acceptance of the Bridge

The Honorable Seth Low, Mayor of the City of Brooklyn

2:50 P.M.

"March of the Inauguration of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge"

United States Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, Cndr.

3:00 P.M.

Acceptance of the Bridge
The Honorable Franklin Edson, Mayor of the City of New York

3:10 P.M.

Response By Mr. Low

3:13 P.M.

Rebuttal of Mr. Low by Mr. Edson

3:16 P.M.

General Harrumphing from A Coterie of Men in Frock Coats and Tall Black Hats

3:18 P.M. - 3:30 P.M.

INTERMISSION

3:30 P.M.

"O, Mighty Nymph of Commerce, Let This Bridge Be the Path Towards Physical Congress With Your Nubile Flesh"

Oration by the Honorable Abram S. Hewitt

3:40 P.M.

Throwing Off of the Bridge of Twenty-Four Small Orphan Boys, Twelve Each from the New York and Kings County Alms-houses, To See Which Ones Shall Stay Afloat The Longest, With The Award of a Fine Goose Going To the Mayor With The Hardiest Orphan Boys

3:50 P.M (or after conclusion of prior ceremonies)

"The March of the New York And Brooklyn Bridge Inauguration"

Cyrus Terwilleger Marching Band, Cyrus Terwilleger, Cndr.

4:25 P.M.

"The Almighty Beseeches Thee to Buy Farm-land in Flatbush Now And Hold It"

Oration by Rev. Peter Ditmas, Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church

4:40 P.M.

"A Bridge to the Very Late Nineteenth Century"

The Honorable Grover Cleveland, Governor of the State of New York

5:00 P.M.

Procession of His Excellency Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States, Across the Bridge; Twenty-One Gun Salutes to the President from the Forts at Governors Island and Naval Vessels At Sea, Being Careful Not to Hit Either the President or the Very New and Very Expensive Bridge with Gigantic Cannonballs

6:00 P.M. (Brooklyn Anchorage)

Burial of a Time Capsule Not To Be Opened Until the Year Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Three, Containing All of To-Day's News-papers, Ceremonial Cutting Shears, Assorted Clothing Items from the A.T. Stewart Department Store, One Italian Immigrant (Bronzed), and a Base-Ball.

9:00 P.M.

Fire-works Ceremony

10:00 P.M. - 11:00 P.M.

Removal of Charred Bird Carcasses from the Bridge Deck

11:00 P.M.

OPENING OF THE BRIDGE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Oh, Diary, that was quite a program, and I am all tired out from writing it. I shall tell you all the rest to-morrow!

I Love you.

Harriet

Page 1, The New York Tribune, May 21, 1883

2007-01-06T01:56:00.000-05:00

THE CRISIS AVERTED

Mayors Edson and Low Announce that "Missy-Bloomers" Has Been Set Free

"Was Released Out Back Door When No-one Was Looking," Says Mayor Low

REEKING SAILORS RETREAT, SHIPS CLEARING HARBOR

Solution Arrived At During "Tele-phonicular Conference" Amongst Mayors, Deputies

Much Winking Observed Amongst Mayors, Reporters At Announcement

GREAT BRIDGE OPENING MAY NOW PROCEED!

Trinity Church Doors Opened, Remaining Parishioners Sent to Almshouse, to Be Eaten

President Arthur, Mutton-Chops "Pleased" at (Headline cont'd, Page 4)

Page 1, The New York Tribune, May 17, 1883

2006-12-04T22:51:00.000-05:00

MAYHEM!

THE NEW YORK HARBOR IS FULL!

Ships from Near And Far Jam Upper Bay, East and Hudson Rivers; Bring Commerce to A Halt

Food Cannot Get Through -- Portly Rich Man's Neck Wattle Shrinking Mightily

Mysterious Tele-Graph Message Regarding "Missy-Bloomers" Summons All Vessels Here -- Trinity Church Besieged by Imbibing Sailors

Brooklyn City Residents Able To Cross River By Hopping From Boat to Boat -- New Bridge May Need to Open Early For Emergency Oyster Rations

SUPPLIES OF CORSETS IN PERIL -- Shall Ladies Be Forced To Stay In-doors?

NEW YORK -- Ships from all points on the Atlantic Ocean are continuing to arrive in the New York Harbor for the fourth day straight, trapping many Knickerbockers and their Brooklyn brethren ashore.

Not a jot of water can be seen betwixt two boats on the river for miles on end, and some enterprising ferry-men have built a rope-walk along the path of the Fulton Ferry.

Hundreds of new vessels joined the mammoth throng Wednesday. The new arrivals included the Wendell, the Dunlop the SS Liverpool, the SS Chum the SS Mollusk, the RMS Imperial Bastard, the Dutch frigates Ooterduyk and Piegengleut, two ferry-boats from Baltimore, and sixteen tug-boats which are tugging at each other in a futile attempt to escape.

Trinity Church remains padlocked, as it has been since Tuesday . The Rev. Prescott Root and twenty-nine parishioners are said to be trapped inside, and the TRIBUNE has learned that several of these parishioners have already been called home to the Almighty and eaten by the remainder of the flock.

Outside the church was a growing cohort of gamey and intemperate sailors, some from as far as Porto Rico, calling for the release of a "Missy-Bloomers," who is believed by may of the sailors to be a kindly but misshapen elf whom is somehow responsible for holding up the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. No evidence exists of such a creature, yet the sailors remain steadfast in their determination to liberate her, despite rivulets of excrement emanating from them which forced the closing of the Stock Exchange for the second day straight.

Much of this conviction is likely due to a tele-graph message of uncertain origin. Through numerous interviews, the TRIBUNE has pieced together the message, which was as follows:

ALL SHIPS AT SEA - MISSY-BLOOMERS IN PERIL - SHE IS IN TRINITY CHURCH CELLAR - CNR BROADWAY AND WALL ST -- COME QUICK FOR GREAT BRIDGE SHALL FALL IF SHE IS NOT FREE - PLEASE SEND OYSTER-CAT PIE

Mayors Edson and Low were called upon to-day by the men of the City Club and the Committee of One Hundred to open bridge to-day instead of a week hence, for emergency deliveries of Jamaica Bay oysters, but the arrival of President Arthur next week has complicated matters. "Should we not wait for our president and his mighty muttonchops to open the bridge? They are the mightiest side-whiskers in all the land!" exclaimed Mayor Edson.

Brooklyn City was also besieged as Orville Steenwyck, the most wealthy and porcine citizen of that fair city, saw a marked decrease in the girth of his neck wattle. "More blarpgh!" shouted the walrus-like Mr. Steenwyck, as a carriage full of hams formerly destined for the poorhouse was hurriedly reassigned and sped to his hungry maw. A crowd of onlookers, several of them going without bread for the fifth straight day, descended upon Mr. Steenwyck and (Cont'd Page 5)

April 30, 1883

2006-11-23T19:36:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, Diary, there is so much afoot! I do not know where to begin, so I fear this entry shall go all twiddly-twoddly. I shall number my thoughts then, so as not to alarm you.

1. Yester-day William reached the age of 4! It was quite the day. Mother and Father took him and myself to the Barnum and Bailey Circus at the Madison-Square Garden! We saw The Flying War Orphans, and Millicent the Non-Moving Cat. She does not move at all! It is remarkable! We also did see the Mercury-Swallowing Fitzsimmons Triplets (Diary, what is so odd about swallowing mercury?), and a little play with many clowns and a horse called "A Trip to the Glue Factory."

However, the great finale was what I had been waiting for. Again I have gotten to see Jumbo, the Giant Ele-phant! Hurrah! I am sad to tell you that no more can he be turn't loose upon the city, for there were many cross feelings about him crushing passer-by and eating them, as he did two years past. To-day he was instead loosed upon the audience, and he swallowed a fat man whole! Oh, what gay folly!

2. School has been well enough but a bit dull of late, as Mister Rusk has taken to teaching from inside a cage. He fears that he shall be gored by goats once more, since the Sutherland School has announced that the entire school shall return to the Museum of Natural History for the '83 Class graduation program in June. He speaks barely at a whisper, so that he shall not be heard by the goats, which may attack him at any time.

Yet to-day we had an interesting assembly, for the whole school did come to see a special talk by the Health Commissioner of New York City! His name is Mister Roland Hapgood, and he did tell us many things so that we may grow up to be fit and strong. Mister Hapgood said that we should eat a cup of veal in the morning, and brush our teeth once weekly and have a cup of rum thrice daily, except for the fifth-graders and below who should have it twice daily. Diary, he even sang us a song called "To your Health!"

Drinky, drinky, drinky, drinky,
drinky, drinky, drinky, drinky,
brush your teeth, a time a week,
then drinky, drinky, drinky, drinky!

When time came for Mister Hapgood to have questions, one of the upper-grade pupils asked if Mister Hapgood was a relation to Doctor Hapgood of the tonics and potions &c.

Mister Hapgood said it was but a coincidence that their names were similar, and then ran off the stage.

Diary, it is quite fortunate for the commissioner that he is so associated with Doctor Hapgood, is it not?

3. The New York and Brooklyn Bridge is to open next month! Oh, I cannot wait to cross it. It is all the talk of the school! Some persons have already walked it, tho it is not yet open.

What am I to do to mark this day? I do not yet know.

4. After school many of us played again our new favorite game of Gad-about! To-day I was a baker who had beat my husband to death with a rolling pin, and Isabella was Mary Todd Lincoln. Gad-about, Gad-about!

Oh, it is nearly 10 o'clock, and I was to be asleep at 9. Good-night, Diary!

I love you.

Harriet

Franklin Edson -- April 6, 1883

2006-11-19T21:19:00.000-05:00

His Honor, Franklin Edson
Mayor, the City of New York
City Hall, New York

April 6, 1883

Hullo, Mr. Mayor! My name is Harriet C. LaMarche. I am 9 years old. I live at 91 East 25th Street. My Father and Mother have a bakery supplies store, and many ovens are stored about the house. My brother is William, and he is nearly 4 and magnetic.

My instructor at the Sutherland School is Mister Rusk. He has asked us to write you so that you may help remove the bats in our class-room. I must tell you that I have not seen them, but Mister Rusk swats at them all through the day, and he will oftentimes scream "BATS!" in the middle of our studies. Rose in the fifth row has a fear of bats, and has not come out from under her desk since February.

Yesterday we went to Castle Garden and saw the immigrants! Mister Mayor, would you know why some of them are thrown into the harbor? Mister Rusk said to us that it was because of the small-pox. Many of them are floating about and I saw one run'd over by a ferry-boat.

Have you received my tele-graph messages? I have called upon you many times and asked if you shall set free Missy-Bloomers from the basement at Trinity Church before the great bridge is open! I do know that it is not your fault, for it was the evil Mister Mayor Grace who shut her away. Yet there is almost no time, for the bridge shall be ready in weeks! Would you like the fair ladies of Brooklyn City to fall into the river where they shall catch the small-pox from a head-less immigrant and then be hit upon the head by a boat? Only Missy-Bloomers can save the bridge from falling!

My Father has talked to me much over the last week. He says that you are a Kelly man and that you have worked with a place called Tammany Hall near Union-Square. It does not sound like much of a real hall, as there is no dancing and twirling about. Three months past I saw a picture-drawing of you in Harper's Weekly (I have cut it out and sent it along to you for your pleasure) Look and see! Boss Kelly is a sled-driver and you are a little crying dog-man pulling him down a path called "Bossism and Municipal Ruination." Ha-ha, you are a little dog-man! Does that not make you laugh?

I hope that you are not a real part-man part-dog or I shall be most alarmed.

Salutations!

Harriet C. LaMarche

March 28, 1883

2006-11-13T20:21:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day school was cut short for a visit to a rally in Union-Square Park by The Anti-Electric Light Bulb League. "Light bulbs should have in them candles!" said the speaker, and the crowd did cheer. The speaker's name was Mr. Jeremy, and Father says he is a "lost tiger" in a fight with the Kelly Machine. I have only a small idea of what Father was saying. I do know of Boss Kelly, of course -- even the first-graders know the name. But the rest is a puzzle to me. I shall ask Father about it to-night.

Mr. Jeremy was speaking and holding a torch, and he then raised the torch and by accident set a tree ablaze. This was the end of the rally and Mr. Jeremy was taken away.

It did make me think of past times, before the light-bulb and tele-phone and immigrant scooper. My first memory is of the old building we lived in on East 11th Street, before William. It was such a small place, and we had to climb atop stoves to reach the front door.

Mother and Father took me to a rally at a parade ground. I was sitting on the lawn, and everyone about me was very tall.

When I asked Mother of this, she told me it was a rally to make the parade ground into a proper park, and but a year or two passed before the park did happen! Mother said was in spring or summer of 1877, so I was but 3.

Yet in less than one year I shall be 10! That is quite a large number. Diary, the number looks odd even as I write it in your pages and stare at it. Ten. 10. 10. 10-10-10-10-10.

It is still odd.

I love you, Diary.

Diary, is it childish to tell you that I love you each day?

Harriet

March 19, 1883

2006-11-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day Isabella and I went outside after school to play a new game which is most popular with our school-mates. It is called "Gad-about," and here is what Isabella told me of it. "I shall be a widow whose husband was kilt in the Civil War, and you shall be a lady whose husband's head was crushed in a cider-press. Then we shall run all about, screaming 'Gad-about! Gad-about!' running round and round in circles until we shall crash into each other and fall into a heap."

Oh, Diary! It is so much fun to play "Gad-about!" We did play with some other girls from the third-grade class. Rose was a society lady whose husband was mauled by a lion, and Helen was a laborer girl who had her husband's fingers cut off and fed to him by her land-lord, whom then had him shot and mounted. "Gad-about" Is the most delightful game there is!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

February 27, 1883

2006-11-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day I awoke and a third toe had grown in back of my knee. I had been quite low about the extra toes, and was filled with great fear about what I should do. Diary, what would happen should I call upon the school Nurse and she decides that I should lose three of my normal toes so that I should again have ten? I shall hobble about like Old Man Hobble-Foot in Tales of the Meat-Packer! (1) Yet I could not go on as I were.

Mister Rusk has been teaching us of the proper and improper ways to fire a small pistol, with the use of one he had found lying about in Union-Square Park. We have learnt many interesting ways one can fell a goat, or a bat. Yet I knew I had to be a big girl and to put this off no longer, and so I asked to excuse myself so that I could visit the Nurse.

Do you know what happened, Diary? Whence I showed the Nurse my extra toes, she fell over and did faint! Oh, it was quite the sight. In time, the Headmaster called upon a Nurse from the nearby Public-School to minister to our Nurse. Our Nurse was given a healing compress and ether and was sent home for the day.

I was now most sad, for my toes remained and I had cause a Nurse to fall about. Yet by a miracle the Public-School Nurse removed my added toes! After she had "washed her hands" (Have you ever heard of such a thing, Diary? I must try it!), she offered to me some of her ether!

Diary, I remember nothing.

I must have slept two hours, for when I awoke, my knee had been bandaged and my added toes were gone! The Headmaster sent me home for the day also, so long as I promised that I would drink a dose of Doctor Hapgood's Healing Elixir of Yahweh thrice daily for a week.

Hurrah! I have ten toes once again, and they are upon my feet!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

(1) Editor's Note: For over 35 years, Tales of the Meat-Packer (1879) was standard reading for many third- and fourth-graders nationwide. Written by Arthur W. Studge, it "portrays the heroic struggle of Miles Bunting, the founder and president of Bunting Meat-Making, as he battles against trade unionists, free sharecroppers, loud-mouthed abolitionists, greasy immigrants and hook-nosed loan-sharks in a fight to accumulate more capital than any man on God's Earth." (This quote is from his granddaughter Maureen Blum's book, Shithead: The Horrible Life and Literature of Arthur W. Studge (1972)). Tales of the Meat-Packer remained part of many school curricula until 1906, when it abruptly became much, much less popular.

February 4, 1883

2006-11-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, what an exciting day, Diary! To-day I am 9 years old! Nothing can pass the tele-graph machine I received last year, yet on this day I was given a most wonderful present. To-day Mother and Father (William had been stuck to our wash-basin since Thursday) took Isabella and I to the Madison-Square Garden to watch an exhibition called, "An Assortment of Most Interesting and Slightly Large Vegetables, As Rendered Artistically by Mr. Leonard Wetherole of the Queens County Board of Agriculture"! Diary, I had never seen paintings of so many vegetables which were slightly larger than their normal size than I had to-day! And after that I was given OYSTER CAT-PIE! Hurrah!

Oh, I am so full and sleepy.

Diary, something curious has come into my head. To-day I asked Mother and Father why I do not remember any of our aunts and uncles or grand-parents calling upon me for my birth-day. I remember all of my birth-days back to the age of 4.

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. See, Diary?

Yet, I only once remember another relative calling upon us, and that was Uncle Otto three years past, before the terrible moustache-wasting disease which has shamed him from being out of doors since. Isabella's family all comes and makes a great scene of her day every December.

Mother and Father made an odd look to each other, and said that they would explain this to me when I was older. Pah! I do so hate it when they do that. Yet they did say that it was not the fault of me.

Oh, so sleepy, Diary. The taste of oyster-cat pie is still in my mouth.

I love you, Diary!
Harriet

homework assignment from January 5, 1883

2006-10-26T19:45:00.000-04:00

What Shall New York Be Like in Nineteen-Hundred Eighty-Three?

In the Year of "1983," there shall be no more horse-and-buggy, as every family shall have their own balloon! Steam-ships shall also fly by balloon over the land.

There shall be a tunnel from New York to Long Island, and then to China.

New York shall be built up to One-Hundred Fifty-Fifth Street. The elevateds shall go north to the Annexed District and shall carry cows and lettuce to Manhattan.

Everyone shall walk about with a tele-phone atop their heads, which shall sit upon pointy hats. Shoes shall have upon them electric light-bulbs so that dancing may happen at night-time.

Men shall wear a time-keeping herring around their necks, and they shall tip their hats upon seeing a lady and say, "Good day to you, ma'am. Would you like to know what time it is?" And then they shall hold their herring up to the sun and say, "It is half past a herring!" Or, "The sun lies in back of the herring!" &c. Then they shall dance and be married!

Ladies shall wear gloves many times larger than their hands shall be, as each glove shall have a steam-engine within it to keep hands warm. Their gloves shall be three feet tall and three feet high and held up by poles with wheels below, so that they may roll to market.

Many buildings shall have the electric light, as will many young boys and girls, who shall have them in their eyes from birth.

An award shall be given for the most awful baby in all of New York.

There shall be several new states: Faerieland, North and South Thimble, Spanish Ohio, and Yonkers.

The New York and Brooklyn Bridge shall be most crowded, and a new bridge shall be built atop the old one in Nineteen-Hundred-Forty. A third bridge shall be begun atop that and opened in Nineteen-Hundred-Ninety-Five.

There shall be a show about cats which shall run forever! Hurrah!

Harriet L.

Page 1, The New York Herald, December 11, 1882

2006-10-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

PANIC!

Rumors Spread of President Arthur Being Possessed With Power of Flight!

Mayhem in the Streets as New Yorkers Seek Refuge

BANDITS OF THE WEST COWER IN TERROR

Trade Ground to A Halt -- Ships Refuse to Dock

Are His Side-Whiskers Lifted Aloft by Angels?

COLLISION WITH SANTA-CLAUS FEARED!

President Vehemently Denies Rumors, Calls for Calm

MIGHT QUEEN VICTORIA BE A VAMPYRE?

New York, December 10th -- Persistent claims that President Arthur is capable of flight without earthly assistance have sown great apprehension in the city of late, as they have across the entire nation.

Larders from Boston to San Francisco have run low of supplies, as the general populace has been gripped by fear that they should be snatched into the air by Mr. Arthur and then brought to the Kingdom of Heaven before their time.

President Arthur himself, in an unprecedented effort, communicated with all the nation's major papers by tele-phone in an effort to dispel the rumors. The entire text of his message to The HERALD follows below:

"I can't fly."

Dr. Calvert Van Schiack of Columbia College has had personal dealings with President Arthur as a physician, and has also been doing his utmost to dispel the speculation, yet only with limited success. Said the doctor: "I have proceeded to explain to anyone whom shall listen that President Arthur is an overweight, porcine, sedentary man who would be further inclined to eat a pound of pork-chops at a sitting than to take flight. I doubt he would be capable of such a feat, should he even try."

Yet the United States Naval Observatory has been placed upon a twenty-four-hour watch through the end of the year, out of concern that the President might collide with Kris Kringle and his eight reindeer while both men are aloft. Such a catastrophe would rank only with that forecast in the Book of Revelation.

The rumor is believed to have been originated some months ago in New York, yet its exact beginnings remain uncertain. Few can forget the claims in the Spring of 1877 that Rutherford B. Hayes had come into possession of a gigantic balloon, from which he could ascend high enough to the heavens so that he could watch the whole goings-on of the nation at once whilst at the shoulder of St. Peter. Those claims were later dispelled when (Cont'd on Page 4)

November 13, 1882

2006-10-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Last night, I had tele-graphed the H.M.S. Wendell to return to Bremen and to not dock at New York until the ship was filled with pie. It was shortly after then that a message was tele-graphed to me! I had won a sweep-stakes in Denmark and was to receive $500 in silver coins! I had only to relay my name and address and birth-date and at what time I would be home and I would be told where to collect my prize. "Hurrah!" you might say.

Yet when Father came to my room (for it was late) (Look, Diary, we have learned how to use paren-thasees in Mister Rusk's class!) (I have grown a second toe behind my knee.) and I told him of the prize, he ordered my day clothes back upon me and took me to the Police station! Oh, Diary, there are tricksters afoot! Father told me that the tele-graph message was from a "confidence man" who could have done most horrible things if I had gone along and replied!

We told the police and they were most kindly after Father had paid them $10.

Father said he had half a mind to remove the tele-graph from my room for-ever! NO! I did plead. After a time Father called back his idea, but said that I shall halve my allowance to 5c pay for the Police call. I am most sad at this, yet I am also most grateful. I love you, Father.

School is well. Mister Rusk has recovered somewhat (although he has run low of Doctor Hapgood's Salve of Redemption) and is more strict than Miss Glynnis but often full of good humor also, and we are learning much. There are at least 27 and up to 185 states in the Union! Here are some of the states I learned of to-day, with a fact about each!

Nevada. It had become a state in 1864 and is alike in shape to a door-stop.

Colorado. It had become a state in 1876. Hurrah, I am older than Colorado!

South Virginia, South-East Virginia, Outer Virginia, and Anti-Virginia. They are more states which have broken off from Virginia, which is now quite tiny, as if a doll-house.

Frenchylvania. It is alike to Pennsylvania, yet French!

Canarsie. It is a town east of Brooklyn City which has secretly been a state of its own since Thomas Jefferson's time!

Stinkberry. A most horrid place. I do not wish to go to Stinkberry.

To-night I shall tele-graph President Arthur and ask if he shall fly to Stinkberry to save its people from its most dreadful mud-farms.

Oh, I fear I shall have nightmares!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

October 8, 1882

2006-10-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

We are in a most wonderful age! Yester-day eve, Mother and Father and William and I took the El to Fulton Street and saw the electric lights. Mister Edison has lit rows of buildings with his invention. Many old men were seen about Pearl Street, screaming and covering their eyes. "OH, THE LIGHT! I AM BLIND! I AM BLIND!" they would holler. The lights were very bright indeed!

Also a band on Nassau Street playing The Electric Light-Bulb March was pounded to death by a band playing The Edison Light Electric-Bulb March. One tuba was filled with a head, and played badly.

The corner grocer said to me that the Edison Company also placed many electric devices at the waterfront. They are cucumber-like in shape and move around much. When we return'd I asked Father what they could be, and he caned me and sent me to bed without supper.

Still, I am most happy. What device shall be next? The steam-cat? I cannot wait to know!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

homework assignment from October 2, 1882

2006-10-16T23:03:00.000-04:00

To-day our class was visited by Mister Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. He is in the New York State Assembly. The Assembly is a place that creates laws. Mister Roosevelt said that he had helped make a law that horse-dung on city streets shall be no more than four inches deep. Huzzah, Mister Roosevelt!

Mister Rusk tried to hit Mister Roosevelt with a hat-stand. Our teacher, he yelled, "The goats! The goats!" Mister Roosevelt had brought with him a bear-claw and warned him away. "Fie!" said Mister Roosevelt.

Mister Rusk then hid below his desk for all the rest of the day.

I do so like Mister Roosevelt, who lives not far from my house. I have seen him about the neighborhood, and he will now and then have for me a trinket. Just two weeks past I saw him at the Madison Square Garden, at the Exposition of Interesting Varieties of Bricks. He did talk with Father and myself, and then reached into his pocket and gave me a tiny, shrunken head. Mister Roosevelt told me it was the head of the Third Earl of Bathurst, and that he was a British secretary during the War of 1812, and that his head was once quite a bit larger but Mister Roosevelt had it made smaller. I told him that President Arthur could fly, yet this news upset him.

I do not agree with the Assemblyman on one point. Mister Roosevelt saw Mister Rusk's desk had on it a jar of Doctor Hapgood's Healing Lard-Ointment, and he called it "snake oil." I have used the Healing-Lard for a boil atop my foot and it has made it turn a fine shade of green. It is Healing-manna!

Harriet L.

September 13, 1882

2006-10-12T21:10:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

School-time has come again. I am in the third grade! My teacher is after all Mister Rusk, who has recovered from his goat-goring. This first week we have begun to learn the parts of a radish. There is an inside part and an outside part!

Sometimes Mister Rusk shall turn about and instruct with his back to us for many minutes at a spell. Also he holds on to his desk at the sides and thinks Percy Smith in the fourth row is a bat. Oh, Percy! You have been swatted at so!

I do wish I could have wore my telegraph-hat to the school, yet still I cannot! The George S. Metzger Faerie of Brooklyn City has yet to return. Father has said that I shall also need a cord of many hundred feet long to leave the house.

I shall pray harder.

Yet all is not bad. I am having much success with the tele-graph, though it be not on a hat. I have cabled President Arthur! Diary, did you know that President Arthur can fly about like a bird? He is carried far and near by angels who grab upon his side-whiskers and carry him wherever he wishes to go! I know of this because I have tele-graphed his office daily and asked of his where-abouts, until a man called Mr. Pritchard who said that he was an assistant to the President said that yes, he can take to the air! He was quite cross about it.

I have also tele-graphed Mr. Throckbottom, who is the manager of the R.H. Macy and Company Store and informed him that the President can fly.

Also I have tele-graphed many ships at sea with the news. One has tele-graphed me in return and said that they are afraid to dock.

A-ha! I have foiled a pirate! Bless you, Flying President Arthur!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

P.S. I am sorry that I told you many months past that the President has a tele-graph machine in his mutton-chops. That is quite silly!

August 21, 1882

2006-10-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day Mother and Father had to take William to Dr. Knox, as his coughing has been bad. Molly our housemaid had been given the day away for travel to her family in Newark. Oh, Newark! I do wish I could have gone.

Mother had given me a list of all the things we were in need of and asked me to go to the corner grocer. She said "Harriet, you are no little child anymore and Father and I need you to be 'responsible.' Here is a list of the things you shall have to buy."

The list was this:
eggs
milk
bread
jam
butter
beef
corn
brine-meal
oyster-cat pie (2)

Then Mother gave me TWO WHOLE DOLLARS as they left for a hansom cab.

Diary, I must tell you I was scared. I had been to the grocer for a pig-stick or oyster-cat pie, but not ever for all of these items, and NEVER had I had two whole dollars in my pocket at once, not even the day two years past when Mister Astor was ill and screaming many most awful words and throwing quarter-dollars at children on Madison Avenue, hitting many upon the head.

I was able to get the milk, eggs and butter right away, as they were sitting upon a table out in the sunshine in front of the grocer door. I went and scooped out a pound of jam from the jam-barrel with my hands and placed it in a jar, staying far from the part of the barrel with all the finger-nails.

The bread and beef were stuck upon a hat-stand, and I broke off a part of each. (I do so like their beef, as it tastes much like gum-drops!) The brine-meal was in a barrel aside the jam and I had to scoop some out with an old hat the grocer has for brine-scooping.

But Diary, what of the corn and oyster-cat-pie? I could not find them anywhere, even among the tripe-wafers. Aha, yet they were before my eyes all along, for the grocer had been using the corn-cobs to roll the crust for the oyster-cat pies!

When my family had return'd, mother saw what I had bought and was most pleased, and said that she had a surprise for me! Diary, do you know what it was? She said that one of the oyster-cat pies was for me, and that I could have the change, which was thirty-two cents! HURRAH!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

July 15, 1882

2006-10-06T00:05:00.000-04:00

Diary:

A TELE-GRAPH HAT!

Mister Faerie Metzger has returned to Brooklyn City. Yet I shall have my hat by summer's end. HURRAH!

Harriet

July 10, 1882

2006-10-05T21:53:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, we have had a most exciting week! We have returned from Coney Island, as our whole family had stayed at the Brighton Beach Hotel. I have seen many cabbages!

On the steamer to the hotel, we passed beneath the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, which is so nearly done. I have never seen a thing so great. Reverend Bagley says that when it opens one may look beneath the robes of Almighty God. Diary, I do so hope this is not sinful, but I do not like Reverend Bagley.

We crossed to Brooklyn City and took a railroad to the hotel. Here is where I have seen the cabbages! After Flatbush town there are many farms with fine vegetables. Is it not the most exciting thing?

We saw many grand amusements during the week. The was the Finger-Pointing Contest, The Elephant-Punching Festival, The Salted Brine-Tasting Guessing Game, The Missing-Finger-In-The-Porridge Hunt, and the Reciting of the Bible to Heathens.

Yet none of those were the most splendid event of this week. It is that I HAVE CAUGHT A FAERIE! He is in a large box next to the stove in the drawing room. He is all aglow and has the most beautiful wings upon his back! He was wandering about the grounds whence a guard at the hotel threw him to the ground! I was filled with dread that such a man may hurt an angel so, and so I yelled, "Unhand that faerie, for he is mine!" The guard called upon his captain, and since I had said that the faerie belongs to me, they took him and mailed him to our home. He was waiting for us with the morning milk.

I have fed him much water and oyster crackers. At night I pray to the faerie, who says his name is George C. Metzger of 186 Baltic Street in Brooklyn. Mister Metzger the Faerie has said to me that he would grant me a wish if I were to release him, as he has missed several days of work at Rudnick's Amusements pavilion and that Mister Rudnick shall be quite cross with him.

Diary, the faerie smells funny.

Oh, but I do not know what my wish shall be! Until I am sure, the faerie must stay. For what shall I ask?

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

Page 3, The New York World, July 6, 1882

2006-10-02T22:20:00.000-04:00

A STEAMER IS LOST AT SEA?

The Curious Case of the H.M.S. Admiralty

Where-abouts of Hamburg America Steamship Unknown -- Was Due in New York One Week Ago After Calling in Belfast

PRIME MINISTER OF LUXEMBOURG SAID TO BE ABOARD!

Last Tele-graph to Halifax: "We Are Turning Left."

Hamburg America Line President Stammering, Apoplectic

From The Naval Desk, July 5 -- It has been reported that the Hamburg America steamer Admiralty, which was to arrive in New York on June 29th, remains the sole ship unaccounted for on the high seas. The Admiralty is reported to have five hundred seventeen passengers, amongst them the Honerable Baron de Blochausen, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who is said to be calling upon President Arthur with an assortment of fruits and interesting shoes.

The Hamburg America company president, whose name is both unspellable and unpronounceable, was elevated from what his aides described as a muttering stupor to a state of excitement when contacted via tele-phone by the World. With aid of a translator, he informed the World that Hamburg America was attempting to divine the meaning to the wayward ship's last communique, and that the Admiralty's sister vessels the Rebecca and the Bundt-Cake have been ordered to also turn left in an attempt to find the lost ship.

A ship bearing the likeness of the Admiralty was said to be south of Cuba, but this was though to be a ruse by the vile Spanish Empire.

The Navy and Revenue Cutter Service both remain vigilant in their pursuit of the [CONTINUED, PAGE 14]

June 27, 1882

2006-10-01T10:27:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Much most exciting news to report!

Hurrah! School has been ended for the year! I am now to work on the telegraph-hat during all the summer. Diary, you must tell no one, but Father was right. The tele-graph machine was far too heavy to put atop my head. I shall need to find two lead pipes to hold the hat up from my shoulders.

Yet all is well, for I have mastered the numbers and most all of the letters in Morse Code, and have sent my first message! It is to the steam vessel Admiralty, which the World says sailed from Belfast and shall dock here Thursday. I have written, "Turn left!" To which I heard in response, "Aye!"

I will so miss Miss Glynnis! She was my favorite instructoress yet! It is not known if Mister Rusk shall pull through from the goat-goring at last month's museum trip. I hope he shall because Mrs. Oglivy is the other third grade instructoress, and she is a devil with the cane and horse-whip.

Diary, you may wonder why I write "tele-graph" but then "telegraph-hat." I learnt this from
Mister Godey's Book of Grammars. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 8 are about hyphens, and a rhyme in Chapter 5 says:

"A hyphen once is all you need,
for two is but a sin indeed.
Thrice shall fill your soul with dread;
Four and God shall strike you dead."

Oh, the hyphen scares me so!

Lastly, my secret toe has fallen off. A new one appears to be growing in its place.

To-morrow we shall go to the Madison Square Garden for the Throwing of Cats In German Festival. I cannot wait to see who shall throw a cat the farthest in German this year!

"Auf Wiedersehen!"
Harriet

homework assignment from May 17, 1882

2006-09-26T19:59:00.000-04:00

Yester-day the Sutherland School second and third grades went to the Museum of Natural History. The Museum is on West 77th Street and lies in a square next to many rocky hills and farms. Oh, it was a splendid day for a trip to the country!

A number of goats walking through the Museum gored Mister Rusk, the third grade instructor. Mister Atley was our guide. He said that should Mister Rusk expire he would be stuffed and mounted and joined to the Museum collection, along-side the other gored teachers and headmasters.

Mister Atley was covered in blood and guided us to many exhibits. We saw a stuffed cave-man and many stuffed birds in a "dio-rama" where they were upon the shoulders of Almighty God. The grandest sight was the giant skeleton of a bronto-saurus! It was in the main hall and wore a cross of gold about its neck. Mister Atley said that the dino-saurs were Christian but not of strong faith and so they passed from the world. I do not wish to be a dino-saur!

Mister Rusk was sent on the Ninth Avenue El to the Northern Feeling-Well Hospital. I do think he must have been bleeding all about the train! To-day Miss Glynnis told the class that he was on a course of ether and Doctor Hapgood's Resting Fluid.

Harriet L.

April 29, 1882

2006-09-24T22:15:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Hurrah! Little William is to-day 3 years old! He has received a new dress, and a small oven from Mother and Father. I have given him his favorite treat from the corner grocer, buttered liver on a sugar cane. I do love him so, Diary!

Many small bits of metal do seem to stick to William. Yesterday at the El station he again flew out of Mother's hand and was stuck upon the iron stove in the stationhouse. We cover all stoves in our home with Vulcan Rubber, as to make sure that the event of two years past does not again happen.

Diary, did you know that Mother and Father are soon to have a tele-phone in the store? Father can play nothing but The Tele-phone March upon the piano in the study.

I am nearing completion of my Morse Code study. Diary, you must not tell Father of this, but I have begun to work upon my telegraph-hat. Oh, I shall be the most popular girl in all the Sutherland School when I enter class with such a hat, which shall have many ribbons!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

homework assignment from April 3, 1882

2006-09-23T17:22:00.000-04:00

To-day the Sutherland School had a special Assembly. We were visited by the United States Marine Band. The conductor was John Philip Sousa, and the Marine Band wears many feathered hats.

The Marine Band played a concert for us. They played The Gettysburg March, The Appomattox Court-House March, The Monitor And Merrimac March, The New York And Brooklyn Cities March, The East 35th Street Between Lexington And Park Avenue March, The Trombone March, The Frank Leslie's Illustrated News-paper March, The Glorious Expectorating March, The Gout March, The March Of The Whooping Cough, The Consumption March, The Tea-Cozy March, The Walking Across The Street In No Particular Hurry March, The March In Which Everyone Is Coverted With Horse Droppings, The Standing Completely Still March, The Forgetting Where One Put One's Comb March, The March of the Two Marching Bands Crashing Into Each Other Due to an Unfortunate Error, and The Blue Danube Waltz (As Played If It Were A March.)

I cannot hear. However the Nurse says it is but temporary.

Harriet LaMarche

March 10, 1882

2006-09-23T13:16:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

I am much for the better to-day, as the fever I had has passed. Hurrah! My class at the Sutherland School is more well too. We are most blessed that we are in good health now, as the Nurse informed us that we had run out of Doctor Hapgood's healing tonics.

Our studies are return'd to normal. I had never guessed that there were so many types of large hats! We have a new study book, Lady Balderidge's Directory of Society Ladies and the Unspeakably Large Hats that They Are Wearing, Up-dated for the 1880s. Lady Astor has a hat so large that it itself requires another hat. It is called "The Hat Hat."

The Morse Code is most hard to master, but i have learnt some of the letters and the numbers. Perhaps I shall create a hat with my tele-graph machine upon it! I told Father of this idea, and he looked at me as if I were mad. "You cannot do that! It would be so heavy as to crush your head!" he said. "But Father, Lady Balderidge's Directory of Society Ladies and the Unspeakably Large Hats that They Are Wearing, Up-dated for the 1880s says that Lady Musgrove of Boston has a hat with a tiny piano upon it!" I said. To which Father replied, "And who sits upon her head and plays such a piano?" Mother blushed at that, though I know not why.

I love Father dearly, Diary, but he knows not about hats.

.. .-.. --- ...- . -.-- --- ..-, -.. .. .- .-. -.--!
Harriet

February 6, 1882

2006-09-17T23:12:00.000-04:00

Do you give up, Diary? Then I shall tell you. It is a tele-graph machine! I cannot believe it, though I wish I had a horsey or a pound of the salty pork hash pie from the corner grocer. Yet I believe it may be a most fun thing. Perhaps once I learn the Morse code, I shall call upon Jumbo! Or I shall speak to President Arthur, whom I have heard has a tele-graph machine in his muttonchops! Oh, how exciting that shall be! I shall say to him, turn left, now turn right, now stand upon your head and mewl as if a cat, and he shall have to do it!

School has been not so good as it was. Many of the pupils are ill, and study of new subjects such as the many types of large hats has been put off. I am well, but sleepy quite often, as I have been on a daily cup of Doctor Hapgood's Illness-Reducing Tonic, which burns my stomach so. Much of my class has been to the Nurse in the month past to take a dose of Doctor Hapgood's Fever-Vanquishing Tablets Full of Raw Sewage, which the Nurse says keeps illness away.

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

February 4, 1882

2006-09-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Hurrah! I am 8! To-day Mother and Father brought me to the Barnum and Bailey Circus at the Madison Square Garden. We have seen Jumbo! He is the world's grandest ele-phant, and at the final act of the circus he was set free upon Madison Avenue, whence he crushed and ate many passer-by. Oh, Jumbo!

Diary, you would not guess in a thousand years what present Mother and Father have bought for me. Would you wish to guess? I shall give you a while to think.

January 21, 1882

2006-09-14T23:36:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, the days are most very terribly cold! Isabella and I wished to go to the Madison Square Park and play round the Frightening Giant Arm, which has been there so long as I remember. Mother says it is to someday be a part of a great statue that shall be the size of Jehovah. I cannot imagine such a thing! Shall the statue be partly a horsey? Oh, please, please, I so hope that the arm shall be attached to a great, giant peony!

(Here, Harriet drew a giant statue of horse with an arm and torch for a head. The horse/arm/torch creature appears to be dancing with Jesus over the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. At the scale it's rendered, Jesus and Arm-Head would both be over 2,000 feet tall. Also, Jesus has a strangely creepy smile. This picture gave me nightmares. I'm not publishing it. --ES)

After break-fast, Mother and Father said that I may go out and play with Isabella, who had been out for some time already. Hurrah! Mother had dressed me, which I do not like so much anymore whence she does, but she was firm about it because of the winter cold outside. Mother dressed me in Stockings, Woolens, Shirt, Inner-Hat, Middle-Hat, Outer-Hat, Junior Corset, Junior Outer Corset, Dress, Pantaloons, Waistcoat, Overcoat, Face-Hat, Gloves, Boots, Neck-Reducer, Scarf, Foot-Binding Glue, Ear-Muffs, Eye-Muffs, Kerosene-Shoes, Corset-Reducing-Corset, and a Warm Roast Suckling Pig, placed atop my Outer-Hat. I think I fell over often at play but cannot tell, for I have not been able to feel anything since noon. My head smells of pig.

Other things that I have learned at school: There are limes. Also, I shall not have a moustache.

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

December 25, 1881

2006-09-12T21:11:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, hurrah! Figgy pudding!

Shall write more to-morrow. I am filled with pie!

Merry Christmas, Diary!
Harriet

William R Grace -- December 9, 1881

2006-09-12T20:07:00.000-04:00

His Honor, William Russell Grace
Mayor, the City of New York
City Hall, New York

December 9, 1881

Good day, Mr. Mayor! My name is Harriet C. LaMarche. I am 7 years old. I live at 91 East 25th Street with many ovens and my brother William, who is but 2. My Father and Mother have a store where they sell many quite large things to bakeries and rest-o-raunts, yet there is not room in the store and they put much of it in the house. Last year they sold my bed in an accident and I was still in it.

Did you know that you were Catholic? I learned that in class! Also, I have a new toe! It is on the back of my right leg, above the knee. Would you like to see it?

I go to the Sutherland School on East 22nd Street. Miss Glynnis is my instructoress, and I am in the second grade. We are writing you letters for an assign-ment, and we are supposed to ask you a question. Why do you treat Missy-Bloomers so? Do not pretend you do not know what I speak of. It is no secret! Missy-Bloomers is helping to build the great New York and Brooklyn Bridge and is keeping it from being cursed by goblins who are stealing the piglets on the towers. You feed her only crackers and oysters, and she is in a small room in the Trinity Church! I am most most most most angry at you, Mr. Mayor. Shame to you! It is Mrs. Emily Roebling's pretend daughter! Would you treat a pretend daughter such if she were yours? LET HER GO AND BE FREE!

Miss Glynnis said that we may ask but one question, but I have more to ask.

Are you 10 feet tall?
What color is your favorite fruit?
Is your horse the mayor of horses?
Are you short one toe?
How many eyes do you have? My Grandmother has five.

Salutations! (Miss Glynnis told us to write that!)

Harriet L.

November 15, 1881

2006-09-10T14:41:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day I went to the Infirmary at school and sat with the Nurse. I had gone to tell her of my new toe, which is growing out the back of my right leg, right above the knee. I can move it much like my other toes! It is quite the task, though, to clip its nail. I must do it with mirrors.

I know I can trust you, Diary, as I am about to share with you a secret. When I sat before the Nurse, I could not speak to her of it, for I was afraid! Does this make me a coward? Perhaps next time I shall bring it up to her whlist talking of something else, so as not to alarm her.

Yet I had to say something, since if I did not I would be given the switch by the Headmaster for pretending illness. You would have been most happy with me, for I thought quick! I worried to the Nurse that Rupert in my class was looking most ill and drowsy. The Nurse then laughed and said not to worry, Rupert had actually been ill with fever late in September but was now becoming well. He is now on a course of Doctor Hapgood's Fever-Reducing Tonic Aid, which the Nurse gives him at the day's start. The Tonic has a magic ingredient that only the Doctor Himself knows! How exciting it must be for Rupert! I hope that I shall be ill soon!

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

October 27, 1881

2006-09-08T22:51:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

I am cross today. Mother told me that we are to go to the Hall-o-we'en ball again next Monday evening at the Glasgow Hall. Oh, I may as well pitch myself in front of the el! Hall-o-we'en is the most dull, most longest, most awful holiday!

It is the same every year: I stand amongst all of these grown-ups and there are stories for hours on end about Scotland. Father says Mother is happy that little William and I go, since she came from Scotland whence only a little older than I, but then there is that poetry, especially that one that seems as if it will go on forever. "The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs, Weel knotted on their garten, Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs,Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'." I am only 7 and half the thing is in my head like a worm! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS! FLIBBLE FLABBLE FLIBBLE FLABBLE FLIBBLE FLABBLE!!!

Diary, I am so sorry that I am mad with anger. It is not you.

School is well. Miss Glynnis is teaching us the very large numbers. Perhaps someday I shall count some for you. Also, a boy in my class named Rupert is mostly asleep all the time. Perhaps he is nearly dead. I shall ask if he has been to the Infirmary.

Also, Diary, I appear to have a new toe. Shall I ask the Nurse about it?

I love you, Diary.
Harriet

Page 1, The New York Times, September 20, 1881

2006-09-07T00:49:00.000-04:00

THE PRESIDENT DEAD; HE EXPIRES AT HALF-PAST TEN LAST NIGHT. THE END COMES SUDDENLY AND WITHOUT WARNING. GEN. ARTHUR TAKES THE OATH AS PRESIDENT. SYMPTOMS THAT WERE APPARENTLY FAVORABLE FOLLOWED BY SEVERE PAINS IN THE HEART-- DEATH ENSUES IN- (Headline goes on for a really long time like this -- ES.)

(From paragraph 16:)
The doctors at his bedside labored heroically, but to no avail. One physician who had been recently called to the president's sickbed, Dr. Richard Gustav of Baltimore, noted that the attending doctors' efforts appeared to have been complicated by a mysterious substance, glue-like in texture, which may have been poured into the president by the doctors themselves in order to stanch his injuries. Dr. Gustav also noted that the other doctors had, after president expired, kept sticking their unwashed fingers into him out of force of habit until asked to cease by a local constable. Dr. Gustav added that such a practice was consistent with accepted medical theory, since "maintaining the essence of a patient" during his entire period of treatment is essential to his full recovery.

September 12, 1881

2006-09-07T00:09:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

It is back to The Sutherland School, for now I am in the second grade. I do wish the summer were longer. I had this summer counted 17 men with no hats and 695 lemons. The lemons, they have won! Also this summer i learned about many fruits, like the lime and the meat-bread. The meat-bread comes with or with-out oysters, and it is a chewy fruit. It is sold at the corner grocer who told me of it. It looks much as meat would were it covered in sour bread and hit with a hammer.

My instructoress is Miss Glynnis, and she is quite full of good cheer. Today we saw a most giant balloon out our class window, of a giant man-face bouncing down 23rd Street. "Oh! It is the Devil!" Isabella said. Miss Glynnis said it was of a man named Doctor Hapgood who sells medicine tonics, and that the giant head meant no harm.

Today my shoes were not so covered in horse dung as they are most days. Hurrah!

I love you, diary.
Harriet

James A. Garfield -- August 5, 1881

2006-09-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

President James A. Garfield
Excative Mansion
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President Garfield:

My name is Harriet C. LaMarche. I am 7 years old. I live on East 25th Street in New York City. Mother and Father told me that you were shot and are feeling quite low.

Did you know that we have something in common? I saw a man shot once! When I was 5 my Father and I took a steamer to Coney Island. Mother could not join us because she was in the Expecting Home, which is a special room they put you in for many months whilst you get a baby. Father and I went to the the Brighton Beach Hotel, and one day at the amusements we went to see a chimmney-sweep get shot. Oh, it was exciting! But one of the marksmen in error shot himself in the stomach. Father says that you too have been shot in the stomach! There, you see, now we are best of friends!

I have grown most fond of my pet but i want it to be yours, so that it may bring you cheer and aid your feeling better. His name is Elmer, and he is in the box I have attached to my letter. Perhaps you can put him in your stomach and he can bind you up! Elmer is most playful. Do enjoy him!

Pehaps when you are well you can come up to New York and have a visit with us. We can go, you and me and witness a shooting!

Good health to you, Mr. President!

Love,

Harriet L.

July 23, 1881

2006-09-03T23:47:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

To-day we all went to the Madison Square Garden for a show. It was "A Demonstration by Dr. Oliver B. Meriwether of Columbia College, As He Counts From the Numbers Zero to One Hunderd Using the Even Numbers Only and Then Counts Backwards from Ninety-Nine to One Using Only the Odd Numbers." Oh, it was quite the thrill!

Elmer and I invited Isabella over to play with my dollys. We used Elmer to stick Mother's hair to the tea set. I am not to leave my room until next Thursday.

I love you, Diary.

Harriet

homework assignment from June 8, 1881

2006-09-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

To-day the Sutherland School was visited in an assembly by Mrs. Emily Roebling. Mrs. Roebling is charged with building the New York and Brooklyn Bridge with her husband, Mr. Washington Roebling. I think that Mrs. Roebling also has a pretend daughter named Missy-Bloomers who is also helping to build the bridge. Missy-Bloomers is in charge of placing many swine on the bridge to keep away goblins. She is kept in a tiny room at the bottom of Trinity Church and she is fed Graham Crackers and oysters by the Mayor. The Mayor should be ashamed of himself!

Mrs. Roebling says the bridge will be ready in two years, whence I shall be in the third grade. I told Mrs. Roebling about Elmer and said that Elmer could help keep the bridge from falling all about and drowning horribly. I also told her that I know about Missy-Bloomers and Mrs. Roebling then looked at me quite strange. Then Mr. Bryce the headmaster told me that i could return home early. Hurrah!

May 8, 1881

2006-08-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh! Today I am confused and sad and happy all at once! My Topsy is gone! What am I to do, diary? But I have a new friend too!

On Friday Father and I were out in the Union Square with Topsy. We went to the Square to watch the Men in Uniforms with Very Large Moustaches Indeed Parade that happens every May. The leader counted the moustaches and said they were "satisfactory." Then the men in the parade all yelled "Huzzah!' and did a dance Father says is called a quadrille and then they rubbed their moustaches together and then i wanted to go home.

But before we returned home Father said that Topsy had grown too large and that we could not keep him inside because more ovens were soon going to be in the drawing room and Topsy would become stuck.

Diary, I was so cross! But Father stood fast and said that I should say so-long to my peony but that he would be happy at his new home at Kip's Bay. I was worried that Topsy would be lonely by Father said that soon he shall be mixing with many of his horsey friends.

I was still low. But some hours later, Father did return with a new pet! He lies in a small basin and acts as if he were a stone, but warm him and he becomes like water but pale. He is quite sticky and enjoyable! I can now play with him and attach little William to the bedroom door by his head, or stick all the books in the study together. Oh, my new friend is so merry! I will name him Elmer.

Father says it is like Topsy had never left.

I love you, Diary.

Harriet

homework assignment from April 20, 1881

2006-08-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

SPELLING WORDS

comfabulatorium
consumption
dropsy
perambulatorium
pustilence
tea
vapors
wasting-disease
mutton-whiskered
oyster-flavored
frock-topped
temperance-scented
to-morrow
yester-day
derby-hatted
semi-rotten
electrically-de-Frenched
flibble-flabble
Hoodledee-doo!
hyphen

March 11, 1881

2006-08-25T00:13:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Today was most cold and William has 7 toes on his foot. Uncle Phillip has an eye in the middle of his face. Yesterday my peony (her name is Topsy) and I went to market and I bought her a tonic and oysters for 8c. Isabelle called and we played with Topsy and fed her many hats that are in the foyer. I know what a lemon is!

Diary, do you believe that i know what a lemon is?

One of William's toes is behind his knee.

I love you, Diary.

Harriet

February 6, 1881

2006-08-24T00:20:00.000-04:00

Dearest Diary:

Oh, hurrah! I am to have a peony! My Father is tall and has a beard. And we must fear God.

You are a friend to have for all eternity, Diary! I shall write more soon! I am the only girl on East 25th Street with an oven in her room.

Love,
Harriet.

Editor's Note

2006-08-23T23:14:00.000-04:00

This project almost never came to be. A protracted three-way legal struggle between Batty's closest surviving relatives -- her daughter Alice, her late son's son Nathan, and her youngest grandnephew Quentin -- tied up the Madam's possessions in court for over two years after her death. It was Alice who received all of her mother's writings, but she didn't have much time to review them; in 1980 she had a stroke and the following year she died.

Fortunately, Alice had the foresight to change her will before her impairment, thus avoiding another legal battle upon her death. Unfortunately, the new will stated that Harriet's papers, which were voluminous enough to fill a good-sized ... large thing, were to be microfilmed and stored in the lining of an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile based out of Milwaukee (Alice Frond owned stock in Oscar Meyer & Company, and wrote dozens of intensely erotic poems about engaging in drunken trysts in the Weinermobile.) The records were to remain sealed for 20 years after Alice's death, as per the will's instructions.

Two Weinermobiles later, in December of 2001, the records became public. Kraft Foods, which bought out Oscar Meyer years earlier, was no doubt tired of custom-building new Weinermobiles around an impregnable layer of microfilm, and put the collection up on eBay. I won them with a bid of $14.50 plus shipping and handling, which turned out to be an additional $18,619.33. Apparently, Kraft kept the original paper documents too. Thank you, Kraft. I should have the credit card and bank loan paid off by 2011.

Over the last four years, i have scanned, digitized and catalogued Harriet Batty's writing, so that for the first time since in well over a century, one can carry her life's work in a single suitcase. I have read everything she's written, and have done my best to select a representative sample of her writing -- writing which is, by the way, the product of a person who once had a name for her nose. ("Little Miss Twinkle")

What follows is a chronological sampling of the diaries and correspondence of Madam Harriet Batty. Diary entries are merely dated; letters are listed with the intended recipient in the title.
Not everything that Batty ever wrote will be posted here. (The Madam made copies of all her correspondence, which she occasionally set to music and made into operettas.) Doing that would be madness. For one thing, as vigilant as she was, a few small chronological gaps do exist; these thoughts are likely lost forever to history. Also, some of her writing defies any context or description, as her diary entry for September 29, 1936, reprinted below in its entirety, shows:

Dearest Diary:

Too many cats. Binghamton, Syracuse. I've got five of them.

M.H.C.B.

Nothing from her previous or subsequent entries gives us any clue as to what the hell she was referring to here.

What will be Harriet Batty's legacy? Read her story, and judge for yourself.

Introduction

2006-08-22T22:46:00.000-04:00

IF MADAM HARRIET C. BATTY HAD NOT BEEN BORN, someone would have had to invent her. The tightly coiffed hair. The matronly, judgemental leer, as if glaring down from atop a mountain of legumes. The tightly pursed lips, from which a smile was so rarely seen. The piercing voice. The inbreeding.

Most of all, the words. Harriet Batty began keeping a diary shortly after her seventh birthday. On her deathbed, she made her final entry -- an uninterrupted chronicle of ninety-six years in the life of a great city through the eyes of a woman who once called a mandarin orange her best friend and confidant. And the diary was only half of it. Mayors, governors, presidents, public servants low and high were all recipients of her numerous letters, as were representatives of the arts, sciences, and the world of entertainment. Batty was so prodigious that in 1966, when her diaries finally began to be catalogued, transcribed and photocopied, it took two full-time employees a year each to get them caught up to the present.

These are the basic facts: Harriet Chester LaMarche was born on February 4, 1874 in Manhattan to John and Cornelia LaMarche, both of whom owned a successful bakery supply store. Prosperous but not wealthy, Harriet and her younger brother William grew up surrounded by ovens. And a few ladels. She went to private school through the eighth grade -- which was often regarded a sufficient education for a young woman of the time -- and then spent the rest of her adolescence, against her relatively liberal parents' wishes, in Madam Croogmoore's Horrid Finishing School and Posture Reformatory for Girls. When she emerged in 1892, the Madam of legend was almost complete. Her marriage two years later to Ernest Batty, an ambitious and well-connected junior account manager for the New York Central Railroad, was the crowning touch.

By her early 20s, Harriet had become part of high society, and Ernst had the ear of the Vanderbilts. And from that lofty perch, Harriet sat, as Procurement Officer of the Greater New York Sitting Down and Standing Up Society, for forty years. Two daughters were absently pumped out. In 1907, the Battys moved to an elegant house south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. A few years later, one of their daughters turned out to be male. Apparently no one had previously noticed.

In 1942, with the society of Harriet's youth in a long decline, and after a disastrous experiment in which she had bought a dozen houses in the neighborhood and connected them to each other with giant cast-iron tubes, the Battys left for Riverdale, a wooded, secluded area of the Bronx. This revived Ernst's flagging health and probably added a dozen years to his life, much to Harriet's dismay. Estranged from her son and almost cut off from her daughter, Harriet's grip on reality, never strong to begin with, frayed even more. She began to try to eat her piano, an obsession that met with mixed success during the rest of her life.

Five years after Ernest's death, Harriet was packed up in a truck to an indigent home in Bayside, Queens in 1960. Like a badly dented ping-pong ball that keeps falling of the basement rec room table, Harriet bounced from old age home to psychiatric facility until 1964 -- when she escaped and, in a final spectacular display of power, blackmailed City Hall and municipal and private power brokers into giving her a plush penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side -- an apartment she rarely left until her death on June 24, 1977.

That's the outline. The details are all hers.