A YOUNG MAN IN NEW YORK 15 
church-like building of New York University was uptown at 
Washington Square, on the outskirts of the city. 
The bad sanitary conditions then prevailing exposed the 
citizens to terrible plagues of yellow fever and cholera. The 
drinking-water from the hand-pumps was so uncertain and 
tainted that many residents depended largely upon other 
beverages. When epidemics ravaged the city, the remedies 
and preventives included such hallowed superstitions as 
building bonfires at street corners to purify the air, profuse 
bleeding of under-nourished patients, smearing the body with 
oil or medicaments, and putting garlic in the shoes. 
David Field found New York hospitable and easy-going 
compared with the austere towns of New England. His letters 
home painted a city where money was relatively plentiful and 
opportunities for a smart young man so promising that any- 
thing might happen. Cyrus, though barely in his teens, was 
inspired by David’s glowing descriptions. Apparently a new 
world down the Hudson awaited the repressed boy from the 
puritanical village in the hills. 
When he was five months past his fifteenth birthday, Cyrus 
got his parents’ consent for leaving home to seek his fortune. 
Realizing that money was not available for a college educa- 
tion, he resolved to go to New York, where David was a rising 
young lawyer, and to enter business. The father gave him 
eight dollars from the thin family purse, and on April 29, 
1835, he set out—only a boy in years but resolved to act like a 
man. 
‘There was a drive of thirty miles to the Hudson river, as no 
railroads had yet approached Stockbridge. ‘This short drive 
cost more than the hundred-mile steamer trip down the Hud- 
son. The steamer fare was only fifty cents and his entire 
expense from Stockbridge to New York was only two dollars, 
although the trip required twenty-four hours to complete. 
Today it is a railroad or motor ride of about three hours up 
the Housatonic valley from New York to Stockbridge, but it 
