CHAPTER   ZT,
 

(1780-1784.)
 

Chelsea TOl^ro—Its Origin—Clement C. Hoore—Treaty of Peace Signed—
Beoeption of General Washington—Blaok Sam's Tavern—^Recep¬
tion to Lafayette—Proposition to Establish Waterworks.

"Dear old Chelsea Village," said one of Ita reaidents to the writer lately,
"has nearly passed away. Its green llelda and its gardens, redolent of tbe
perfume of Howers, have given place to bricks and mortar. It is too bad
that life la not perpetual. If It were, thoae who love tbe peace and quiet
to bo extracted from relationship with nature would be able to press back
that unromantic fiends Commerce, and retain, unmolested, their rus et
urbe."

It la no wonder tbat auch sentiments are expressed- There are many
people in New Vork to-day wbo strain to break the link of the commercial
chain holding; them, that they may have one day now and then to wander
through the sectiona of country where echoes not tbo trolley boll nor pumps
the elevated train, where money la not an all abaerbins topic and where
peaco reigns.

In Chelsea Village tbe searcher after relics of bygone days may find a
few. though many have been crushed out of exiatence. Modern Improve¬
ments have not entirely obliterated the green wooden shuttera or the curi¬
ously designed Iron fences, or the carved doorways* with brass knockers,
or tbe diamond-pane windows, or the wide stairways with heavy posts, as,
for instance, in the row of little houses west of Ninth avenue on Twenty-
fourth street, known as tho Chelsea Cottages. The old people of tho section
of New York whoro all that remains of old Chelaea Village is can tell you
of tbe quaint little houses, with pretty gardens, that stood behind such
and auch buildings standing to-day. They will point out to you little
atleya. black and gloomy, that woro one time atreota or short cuts from one
place to another place. They will tell you that on the block between
Twenty-second and Twenty-third atreota. from Eighth to Ninth avenue, at
one time stood the picturesque home of Clement C. Moore, son of the
second Bishop of New York and writer of the nursery rhyme, "'Twas the
Night Before Christmas." "The kindliest of scholars, the moat learned of
college professors, the most asalduous of bookworms," composed this little
rhyme In what the Old Chelsea resident will tell you was a coeey home
surrounded by great oaks and elms. In the Church of St. Peter, In West
Twentieth street, reminiscent ot the old days, a memorial tells the elmple
record of Clement C. Moore's good works. Old St. Peter's has been touched
up with modem Ideas during the last few years, but it still retains Its

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