The Mysteries of Hoboken
“ELYSIAN FIELDS” OF YEARS AGO — Famous Pleasure Ground in Hoboken, Where Many Generations of New-Yorkers Took Their Outings.
The subtitle above has been appropriated from an article in the New York Times of February 17, 1895, one that I have long held in my files. When I was writing Baseball in the Garden of Eden, it had provided a valuable clue as to the fate of the Colonnade Hotel,a famous dining and drinking establishment at the Elysian Fields of Hoboken even before baseball clubs began to relocate there from playgrounds in New York City, notably Madison Square. According to the Times story, the Colonnade had survived into the 1890s, when the Elysian Fields was no longer a glamorous pleasure ground and baseball and cricket matches were but a memory. I knew that Rodenberg’s (also spelled Rodenbourg’s) Tavern had sprung up nearby and may have endured beyond its neighbor, but that had seemed a mere sidelight.
Last week my friend Ken Mars posted on Facebook an interesting map of Hoboken from 1881, with an enlargement of that city’s most notable but by this time bedraggled landmark, the Elysian Fields.
The Knickerbockers were gone by this time, though they did not formally disband till 1882. Ball play at the Elysian Fields was pretty much a memory, too. (The Cuban Giants played a few games there in 1889; otherwise professional clubs found the poorly maintained diamonds inadequate.) Depicted in this detail from the map, I informed Mars, was Rodenberg’s Tavern, which (I had thought) adjoined the old Colonnade Hotel. But if this was Rodenberg’s, and the Colonnade endured into the following decade, where was it in this 1881 image?
Then I made a bit of a discovery. Analysis of two images, both containing one of John Stevens’ famous cannons, reveals that the Colonnade was subsumed within the later Rodenberg’s Tavern. Here is the Colonnade image from the Rural Repository of June 6, 1846.
And here is a photograph of Rodenberg’s in the 1880s … captioned “Colonade” by its photographer, Alexander Beckers. Note the railing on second floor; and note the cannon.
Rodenberg’s WAS the old Colonnade, if built out a bit. The entirety of the older structure seems to have been retained. I confess, this sort of sleuthing still excites me even if, I fully understand, few will share my enthusiasm. By the way, the lot behind the Colonnade/Rodenberg’s was the site of the 1865 championship game nominally depicted in the Currier & Ives “American Game of Base Ball.” [https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/unraveling-a-baseball-mystery-b443c0541c96#.br41h9duo]
Last for now, while the tavern was commonly referenced as Rodenberg’s, the proprietor was Charles W. Roedenburg.
In another post soon, we’ll talk about the Sibyl’s Cave, surely the greatest of Hoboken’s mysteries. Here’s a peek, followed by the full transcript of the aforementioned Times story that supplied the subtitle to this one.
New York Times, February 17, 1895:
Few of the many thousands who cross the North River every day on the ferry from New-York to Hoboken know that the territory in the neighborhood of the ferry house at Hoboken was in bygone times the one popular resort for the masses of this city. That old pleasure ground, which was at one time the Sunday retreat of Gothamites, has undergone a striking transformation. In fact, certain quarters of the favorite, ancient domain will scarcely he recognized. Three-quarters of a century ago the “Elysian Fields,” as this once popular resort was called, consisted of a series of walks and shaded paths, starting from the ferry gates and extending along the river’s bank and skirting the hill known as Castle Point, where Col. John Stevens, the ancestor of the late John Stevens, lived, until turning to a road just under the hill on the way to Hoboken.
Col. John Stevens, who had purchased all the property in that neighborhood, thought the best way to develop it was to make it a Summer resort. The spring at Sibyl Cave, under the brow of the terrace of Castle Point, was declared to contain mysterious and health-giving water, which was sold at 1 cent per glass. To develop the property, on Oct. 11, 1811, Col. John Stevens established the first steam ferry in the world between New-York and Hoboken. The boat used was called the Juliana. The first regular ferryboats run to Hoboken were put in operation in 1823. One was called the Pioneer and the other the Fairy Queen. Both boats plied from the foot of Canal and Barclay streets, on the New-York side of the river.
It was not until 1834 that the “Elysian Fields” became the one popular resort of New-Yorkers, and not until 1836 was the ferry landing at the foot of Christopher Street operated. The Barclay Street boat ran every hour, while that from the foot of Christopher Street only once every four hours, and as fog and ice frequently caused vexatious delays during the Winter trips, a bar was allowed on board of the Pioneer and Fairy Queen to supply liquids of a stimulating character to keep passengers from suffering from the cold. While Col. Stevens was profiting by his ferry franchises, he had associated with him his brother, Robert L. Stevens, and both men turned their attention at the same time toward improving on the methods of river traffic by steam. The New-York and Hoboken Ferry caused the Elysian Fields to grow steadily in popular favor as a pleasure resort, and its natural attractiveness, enhanced by its locality, and the addition of cricket, baseball, yachting, and family picnic grounds and other facilities for outdoor recreative enjoyments, made it the place to which all Gothamites, rich and poor alike, flocked during the Summer, and especially on holidays and Sundays.
Upon a sloping knoll, near the bank of the river, the New-York Yacht Club built the first yacht clubhouse in America. It is now occupied as the quarters of the New-Jersey Yacht Club. It is a picturesque object, with its quaint style of architecture, many gable ends, curiously shaped windows, and lichen covered shingle roof. The members of the New-York Yacht Club looked upon this house with pride when it was their headquarters. This was before steam yachts were known, when “single stickers” predominated, and the celebrated Maria, built by Robert Stevens, with her 94-foot boom and hollow mast, 7 feet in circumference, was in the height of her fame. It was upon the Elysian Fields that the New-York Cricket Club held sway and played its greatest games with the famous eleven of England. In the middle of the grounds the celebrated Colonnade Hotel was built with its white front and Doric pillars, which was demolished but a short time ago. At the rear side of the Colonnade Hotel were the grounds of the famous Mutual Baseball Club.
It was on this spot that the Atlantics of Brooklyn, then the champions, on Aug. 3, 1865, played the last championship game. This locality was at one time known as the “Cannon Lots,” on account of the Stevenses using it frequently to test some of their inventions of warfare in the form of great guns. It was also in this locality, on May 26, 1851, that the famous riot between the German Turnvereins and the New-York “Short Boys” took place, during which several persons were killed.
