Great Fire of New York

The opening of the Erie Canal ten years earlier connected New York to raw materials and commercial interests in the Midwest and allowed the city to rise to prominence as a market hub.

Attempts were made to deprive the fire of fuel by demolishing surrounding buildings, but at first there was insufficient gunpowder in Manhattan to use as demolition charges.

Later in the evening, a detachment of U.S. Marines and sailors returned at 3 o'clock in the morning, with gunpowder from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and began to blow up buildings in the fire's path.

The Evening Post reported that "The detachment of marines from the navy yard under Lieutenant Reynolds and sailors under Captain Mix rendered the most valuable service, the gun powder brought the magazine at Red Hook was partly under their charge.

[9] This part of the city is now known as Coenties Slip, an area between the East River and Maiden Lane in the north and William Street in the west.

[10] According to an account published in the History of the City of New York: Many of the stores destroyed in the fire were new, with iron shutters and doors and copper roofs.

[9] A report that appeared shortly after the fire in the Evening Post, 23 December 1835, recounted that, "674 tenements, the merchants exchange and three or four vessels lying at the wharf's on South Street were destroyed.

"[11] A report from London gave a colorful account of the damage, praising the resilience of the population: A most awful conflagration occurred at New York on the 15th of December, by which 600 buildings were destroyed, comprising the most valuable district of the city, including the entire destruction of the Exchange, the Post Office and an immense number of stores.

[12] A London magazine wrote, "Plans of rebuilding on an improved scale and modes of borrowing money for that purpose, on sound securities, are under arrangement.

The energy of the inhabitants and the ready manner in which the banks had offered to make advances to the different insurance companies, as well as to private individuals, would avert, it was expected, a commercial crisis.