[Illustration:  View of Federal Hall and Part of Broad Street, 1796.]

Washington was escorted to the house that had been prepared for him, a little way out of town at the top of a hill.

If in the days that you read this you walk along Pearl Street until you come to the East River bridge at Franklin Square, a part of the city crowded with tenements and factories, you will stand close by where the house was.  On the abutment of the bridge you will find a tablet that has been riveted to the stone, so that all who pass may know that Washington once lived there.  The house was built by Walter Franklin, a rich merchant, and was therefore called the Franklin House.  The square, however, does not take its name from this man, but from the renowned Benjamin Franklin.

Very soon, on a bright, sunshiny day, Washington stood on the balcony of Federal Hall, surrounded by the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, with the citizens thronging every inch of the nearby streets.  And there he took the oath of office, and having taken it the cry was raised, “Long Live George Washington, First President of the United States,” a cry that was echoed from street to street, and went on echoing out into the country beyond.

[Illustration:  The John Street Theatre, 1781.]

The life of the First President was a simple and a busy one.  He rose at four o’clock each morning and went to bed at nine in the evening.  Many hours a day he worked at matters of state, receiving all who called, so that there was quite a stream of people going to and from the Franklin House at all times.  Sometimes during the day he took a long drive with Mrs. Washington, which he called the “Fourteen Miles ’round,” going up one side of the island above the city and coming down the other.  Sometimes of an evening he attended a performance at the little John Street Theatre.  Always on Sunday he and all his family went to St. Paul’s Chapel.  And the pew in which they sat you can sit in if you go to that old chapel, for it has been preserved all these years.

By this time the fort by the Bowling Green, which had stood since the days of the Dutch, was torn down to make room for a mansion that was to be called the Government House and be occupied by the President.

The mansion was built, but you shall see presently why no President ever occupied it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Concerning the Tammany society and burr’s bank

There was formed just about this time, in fact the very month after Washington’s inauguration, an organization which was called the Tammany Society.  And out of this society grew the great political body—­Tammany Hall.  The Tammany Society took its name from a celebrated Indian chief, and at first had as its central purpose the effort to keep a love of country strong in every heart.  The best men in the city belonged to the Tammany Society, which held meetings and transacted business under all sorts of odd and peculiar forms.  It divided the seasons of the year into the Season of Blossoms, the Season of Fruits, the Season of Moons, and the Season of Snows, instead of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.  And the head of the order was called the Grand Sachem or Chief.