A YOUNG MAN IN NEW YORK 25 
woods of Hoboken (called then the Elysian Fields), to Astoria 
on Long Island, and to Coney Island—‘“‘all very different 
places from those of the present time.’ Each morning the 
family cow was taken to pasture at Madison Square—a few 
blocks from the residence on Gramercy Square. This locality 
was soon to change radically as the city grew uptown. In 
1850, a few months after the birth of a son, the entire family 
left New York in two horse-drawn carriages for a ride of four 
weeks, first to Guilford, then to Stockbridge, then on a night 
boat down the Hudson. These family activities illustrate 
the typical life of prosperous New Yorkers during Victorian 
days—the so-called “age of innocence.” 
In the summer of 1851, Cyrus and Mrs. Field toured the 
Southern, Western, and Northern states, seeing the Natural 
Bridge in Virginia, the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and 
an Indian tribe in Minnesota. They also participated in one 
of the famous boat races on the Mississippi; the steamer they 
were on threatened to blow up as all kinds of fuel, including 
hams from the cargo, were fed to the boiler. At Niagara Falls 
they stopped in the same hotel with ‘“‘the Swedish Nightingale”’ 
Jenny Lind, outside whose door was usually a circle of ad- 
mirers. Field’s detailed expense accounts of these trips sug- 
gest that, even on vacation, he was not able to forget business 
methods and that, like most self-made Americans of the pe- 
riod, he was inclined to think in terms of the ledger. He out- 
grew this trait, however, as he became more a man of the 
world. 
After paying the old debts and retiring from business in 
1853, Field planned a long tour of South America with his 
friend, Frederick Church, the well-known painter of land- 
scapes. He hoped that it would benefit his health, although 
he had to pay a hundred dollars extra premium on his life 
insurance because of the risks involved. They sailed up the 
Magdalena River in Colombia for six hundred miles and 
