th their laughter,
bringing old Aunt Susan to the sitting-room door, where, poking her head
in, she had courage to say, "'Pears to me yous folks is havin' great
sport over Aunt Susan's fust sleigh-ride."

[Illustration: RUINS OF TRINITY CHURCH, 1776.]

NEW YORK'S FIRST GREAT FIRE.

The first great fire in New York happened in September, 1776, just after
Washington had been driven from the city. New York was then a small but
beautiful town; it reached only to the lower end of the Park, but
Broadway was lined with shade trees, and its fine houses stretched away
on both sides to the Battery. Trinity Church stood, as now, at the head
of Wall Street. St. Paul's--a building of great cost and beauty for the
times--almost bounded the upper end of Broadway. The British soldiers
marched into the pleasant but terrified city, the leading patriots fled
with Washington's army, and in the hot days of the autumn of 1776 New
York seemed to offer a pleasant home for the officers and men of the
invading forces. They took possession of the deserted country-seats of
the patriots at Bloomingdale or Murray Hill, and occupied the finest
houses on the best streets of the town. Here they hoped to pass a winter
of ease, and in the spring complete without difficulty the rout of the
disheartened Americans.

But one night in September the cry of fire was heard, and the flames
began to spread from some low wooden buildings near Whitehall, where now
are the Produce Exchange and Staten Island ferries. In those days there
were no steam-engines nor hydrants, no Croton water nor well-organized
fire-companies. But as the flames continued to advance, the British
soldiers sprang from their beds and began to labor to check the fire
with all the means in their power. They used, no doubt, buckets of water
brought from the cisterns and the river. They found, it was said,
several persons setting houses on fire, and in their rage threw them
into the flames. But their labor was all in vain. All night the fire
spread over the finest quarter of New York. From Whitehall it passed up
Broadway on the eastern side, devouring everything, until it was stopped
by a large new brick house near Wall Street. It crossed to the western
side, and laid nearly the whole street in ruins. It fastened on the roof
and tower of Trinity Church, and soon, of all its graceful proportions,
only a few shattered fragments remained. Then the flames passed rapidly
up to the west of B