drawing, and at candle-light finish’d an emblematical picture
(the Temple of Hymen).—
In the eveing, notwithstanding the rain, I went to Van
Vleck’s, and presented the picture to Miss N.—Heard some music on the Harpsichord.
9th. I was rous’d last night to witness a scene truly
awful. About 1 O’clock the fire bells began. I listen’d and thought I heard
somebody in the street say that a store near the Coffe-house was on fire.—I
hurried on my clothes, and ran with trepidation towards my Father’s. I
had the satisfaction to find that it was not on his side of the way, but
on the other, and some distance below on the wharf.—The flames were bursting
from a store, and the people were crowding goods into my Father’s and around
the door.—I assisted in taking care of them for above an hour. The wind
was not high, but the fire spread rapidly among the wooden stores, and
by 4 O’clock reign’d master of the whole block extending to the Fly-Market.*
The cutting down of the market and the exertions of the firemen put a
* At the time the first, or Vlaie Market, was built,
a creek extended through Pearl Street from maiden Lane to the East River.
The term “Fly market” is a corruption of the one originally adopted, Vlaie,
meaning to imply the valley or meadow market.
