Wednesday, 16 May 2018

To Church, after a free breakfast!


New York, Sunday, October 19th 1823 [Some much-needed horticultural housekeeping from Douglas for the next few days]
After getting to my lodging [where?] with all that I could carry of my little gleanings, I waited on Dr. Hosack at 8 o’clock in the morning. After breakfast [nice cheeky free breakfast there, Mr Douglas!] I called on Mr Hogg, arranged matters &c as to unpacking, went to dinner and to church in the afternoon.

I can't be sure but I strongly suspect that this, St Paul's Chapel, Trinity Church, Wall Street,  is the church Douglas visited: 

 


 
I visited this church on May 10th, 2001, while on my Churchill Fellowship "Following David Douglas" and my journal records that "The churchyard contains aged, weathered gravestones from the period and there is a memorial plaque to Major General Richard Montgomery who died Dec 31st 1775 at Quebec, and whose remains were relocated to Saint Paul's Chapel on 8 July 1818, 5 years before Douglas's visit. So there is a high probability that he was there and saw this. This may actually be the first tangible connection - looking at something Douglas looked at."

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