The Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, was recreational parkland located on the city's northern riverfront in the 19th century. The area was a popular getaway destination for New Yorkers in the 19th century, much in the tradition of the pleasure garden, offering open space for several sports, public spectacles, and amusements. The lavish grounds hosted the Colonnade Hotel and tavern, and offered picnic areas, a spa known as Sybil's Cave, river walks, nature paths, fishing, a miniature railroad, rides and races, and a ferry landing, which also served as a launch for boating competitions.
The Elysian Fields was the site of countless baseball matches between amateur clubs based in New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn in the pre-professional era of the 1830s to the 1870s. Cricket matches were also popular at the grounds, and the New York Yacht Club established quarters at the Fields.
The grounds extended south to north roughly from present day 8th Street to the southern edge of what is now Weehawken, and west to east from Washington Street to the Hudson River. It was established in the 1820s and 1830s on land owned by Col. John Stevens III and his family.
Historian Tom Gilbert said, "The Elysian Fields [was] a kind of laboratory of transportation, leisure and recreation. Disneyland, Central Park, Coney Island and the modern baseball park can all claim the Elysian Fields as an ancestor."Gilbert, Thomas W., How Baseball Happened: The True Story Revealed (Godine, 2020)
Early history of the area Originally called "Hobuck Island," the area had in the 18th century been an estate owned by the politically prominent Bayard family. Because William Bayard was a British loyalist during the Revolutionary War, after America achieved independence the land was confiscated and sold at public auction. Col. Stevens acquired the estate in 1783.W. Jay Mills, Historic Houses of New Jersey, 1902 . "On the highest eminence of "Point Castile," whose "greene and white cliffes" were supposed to be "copper or silver mynes" by the followers of Henry Hudson, on his memorable voyage up the river which bears his name, Colonel John Stevens, the famous inventor, built a handsome mansion soon after his purchase of Hobuck Island, in 1784 [sic], and called it the Castle. By many of his generation John Stevens was looked upon as a mild madman, so far ahead was he of his age, and his purchase of such a large area of land as Hobuck Island created a sensation in the society of the times. Hobuck Island, or Hoboken Island, formed the largest part of the confiscated Bayard estate, and was much sought after when it was noised about that it was to be put upon the market. That noble gentleman, Baron Steuben, set his heart on obtaining it for the services he had rendered the government during the Revolution, and wrote to Governor Livingston for right of pre-emption; but Colonel Stevens was ahead of him, and became the owner of the whole property in March, 1783, for the sum of eighteen thousand three hundred and sixty pounds." In 1788, Stevens bought another 125 acres in the rural area known as Weehawken. With these real estate purchases, Stevens owned more than a mile of Hudson River frontage.Mann, William A., "The Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey," Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Vol. 1, No. 1, McFarland Books, Spring 2007 In the early 19th century, the Stevens property in Weehawken acquired notoriety as "The Dueling Ground," where New Yorkers went to settle disputes with pistols, because dueling was outlawed in their state. It was on these grounds that Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804.
The Stevens family lived in a villa atop Castle Point, a bluff that overlooked the Hudson, surrounded by lavishly landscaped property. "[The] gardens eventually boasted many vegetables and fruit trees, and hundreds of varieties of flowering shrubs, coffee plants, and exotic plants such as yucca," according to Hoboken historian Melissa Abernathy.Abernathy, Melissa, "John Stevens, Avid Gardener: Hoboken's Horticultural History", hMAG (Hoboken lifestyle magazine), June 3, 2015
At the time, the rest of Hoboken was largely an undeveloped, mosquito-infested swamp. There was also an abundance of turtles to be found—the swampy wetlands were known as "Turtle Grove""Improvements at Hoboken," The New York Commercial Advertiser, July 14, 1831. ("[We] visited yesterday afternoon the Elysian Fields, as the now cleared and beautiful groves and lawns in the vicinity of what was formerly known as Turtle Grove, have been called by the enterprising owners.")—and this led to the founding, in 1796, of The Hoboken Turtle Club (see illustration below). According to a story published by the Penn Museum, "The Club became a venerable part of the local culinary landscape and continued throughout its existence to offer turtle soup and turtle steak dinners to its members."Schweitzer, Teagan, "The Turtles of Philadelphia's Culinary Past: An Historical and Zooarchaeological Approach to the Study of Turtle-based Foods in the City of Brotherly Love ca. 1750 –1850", Expedition Magazine via the Penn Museum, 2009
In the 1820s, the Stevens family began to drain the swamp and fill nearby marshes. The family, who shared interests in engineering, invention, sports, real estate, and business, began to envision the waterfront area below their estate as a combination recreational/pleasure resort for New Yorkers looking to escape from the city during sweltering summers and on weekends.Thorn, John, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (Simon & Schuster, 2011)
In 1824, before the full development of the landscape surrounding Castle Point, Col. Stevens offered to sell the site to the city of New York for use as a public park. (This was decades before the creation of Central Park.) After the proposed sale was rejected by the city of New York, Col. Stevens decided to finish the project himself.
Development of the grounds
Stevens described the newly developed parkland as a "place of general resort for citizens, as well as strangers, for health and recreation". He further boasted that the grounds were "easily accessible, and ... in a few minutes the dust, noise, and bad smells of the city may be exchanged for the pure air, delightful shades, and completely rural scenery." Historian Tom Gilbert wrote:
In 1829 Hoboken's permanent population reached 500. Two years later the Stevenses expanded and upgraded their pleasure grounds to raise the tone and appeal to the discriminating emerging urban bourgeoisie. This is when they began using the name "Elysian Fields," after the paradise of classical mythology where earthly heroes somehow spent a blissful eternity .... The wooded section north of the Castle Point site of the Stevenses' Italianate villa was cleared and landscaped.
In 1831, the New York Commercial Advertiser printed the following account:
[We] visited yesterday afternoon the Elysian Fields, as the now cleared and beautiful groves and lawns in the vicinity of what was formerly known as Turtle Grove, have been called by the enterprising owners. The name, if trite, is apt. The change from the wild state of these woods and banks to their present condition, has been magical. The Hamadryads, it is true, have perished in great numbers, and the Sylvans retired to other nooks, where the solitary lover of nature may still explore their haunts. It was impossible that these shores and groves, along which there is one of the finest walks in the world, should remain forever in their rude state, so near the crowded city. The business of reform fell happily into good hands. Nature has been tamed, not violated; and our citizens have reasons to thank the owners of this property, while they boast of having, so near their wilderness of brick and mortar, a place of resort for health and recreation."Improvements at Hoboken," The New York Commercial Advertiser, July 14, 1831
The Elysian Fields became a popular destination for city-weary New Yorkers, with ferries to the grounds originating at Barclay, Canal, and Christopher Streets. "From the opening of the 'River Walk' to the public in about 1810, until the Civil War," wrote historian William Mann, "New Yorkers flocked to the Elysian Fields in the summer months. Among the luminaries that history records as visitors were Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, and Washington Irving. Descriptions of the place were made by many of the park's visitors, including [William Cullen] Bryant, Mrs. Frances Trollope, Frances Kemble, and scores of lesser-known writers." During its midcentury heyday, the grounds drew upwards of 20,000 visitors on weekends, and proved a financial bonanza for the family of Col. Stevens. According to Gilbert:
The Stevenses' pleasure grounds ... became New York City's main playground for much of the 19th century. It provided New Yorkers with something their government could not or would not provide, ample green park space, including grounds for baseball, cricket, and other sports—for free. One by one, the top New York City baseball clubs gravitated to Hoboken. And the Stevenses' pleasure grounds helped sell a lot of real estate. ... John Stevens's real estate sales and the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company, formed in 1838 and owned by Colonel Stevens's son Edwin, made an astronomical amount of money. When Edwin Stevens died in 1868 the real estate company's holdings were valued at $20 million, a figure that did not include the Elysian Fields and other waterfront land worth an additional $15 million, for a total of $35 million.
John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball, explained that the encouragement of baseball at Elysian Fields had commercial implications for the Stevens family: [P]roprietor Edwin Augustus Stevens (in conjunction with his brothers) had already donated the use of his grounds to the New York Cricket Club and the New York Yacht Club, and had offered liberal lease terms to the Magnolia and New York baseball clubs. In this support of sport, Stevens was of course encouraging traffic to the Elysian Fields: he controlled the ferries as well as the resort, which included the Beacon Course, a horse-racing track opened in 1834. By encouraging play (and gambling) on his turf and along his waters, he created a long-standing model for "traction magnates" to own baseball clubs.Thorn, John, "New York's First Baseball Club, The National Pastime: Baseball in the Big Apple (New York, 2017), posted at SABR.org
The Stevens villa was destroyed in a fire in the early 1850s, and was replaced by a castle in 1854.
Baseball and cricket While the city of Hoboken boasts that the Elysian grounds were the "birthplace" of baseball in 1846, this is a myth. There were countless baseball clubs and games played during the 1830s, if not earlier—in Hoboken, New York City, Brooklyn, and elsewhere—and the first rules were drawn up by the Gotham Club of New York in 1837."Gotham Club Rules (1837)" at Protoball.org Nonetheless, while Hoboken cannot claim to be "the cradle of baseball", it has historic standing for its pivotal role in the early game as it evolved from a pleasant leisure time pursuit to a highly competitive—and commercial—spectator sport.Ryczek, William J., "New York City and Vicinity: Introduction," Base Ball Founders: The Clubs, Players, and Cities of the Northeast that Established the Game (McFarland and Co., Inc., 2013). "Until the enclosed Union Grounds [in Brooklyn] were constructed in 1862, the Elysian Fields were the center of baseball activity in the New York area."