In 1846 I was one of the guests at a fashionable wedding in a residence on the west side of this park, which was possibly the first ceremony of the kind to take place in this then remote region. The bride's mother, the widow of Richard Armistead of New Bern, N.C., who habitually spent her winters in New York, had purchased the house only a few months previously. The bride, Susan Armistead, was an intimate friend of mine, and a well-known belle in both the North and the South. The groom, a resident of New York, was John Still Winthrop, of the same family as the Winthrops of Massachusetts. The guests composed an interesting assemblage of the old regime, many of whose descendants are now in the background. I met on that occasion many old friends, among whom the Kings, Gracies, Winthrops and Rogers predominated. Mrs. De Witt Clinton honored the occasion, dressed in the fashion of a decade or two previous. Her presence was a very graceful act as she then but seldom appeared in society, her only view of the gay world being from her own domain. Her peculiarity in regard to dress was very marked as she positively declined to change it with the prevailing style but clung tenaciously to the old-fashioned modes to the end of her life. Miss Armistead was an ideal-looking bride in her white dress and long tulle veil and carried, according to the custom then prevalent, a large flat bouquet of white japonicas with white lace paper around the stems. In the dining-room, a handsome collation was served, with a huge wedding cake at one end of the table and pomegranates, especially sent from the bride's southern home, forming a part of the repast. The health of the newly wedded couple was drunk in champagne and good cheer prevailed on every side. The whole house bore a happy aspect with its floral decorations and its bright Liverpool coal fires burning in the grates. Furnaces, by the way, were then unknown. In New York there was at that time a strong prejudice against anthracite coal, and Liverpool coal was therefore generally used, the price of which was fifteen dollars a ton. I have many close and tender associations connected with this bride of so many years ago, especially as our friendship, formed in our early life, still extends to her descendants. Some years after Mrs. Winthrop's marriage, and in her earlier widowhood, four generations traveled together, and then, as at other times, dwelt under the same roof. They were Mrs. Nathaniel Smith, Mrs. Richard Armistead, Mrs. John S. Winthrop and her son, John S. Winthrop, who, with his interesting family, now resides in Tallahassee.

In 1841, Lord Morpeth, the seventh Earl of Carlisle and a worthy specimen of the English nobility, visited the United States, and while here investigated the subject of the inheritance of slaves by English subjects. His report seems to have been favorably received, as a law was passed subsequent to his return declaring it illegal for Englishmen to hold slaves through inheritance. England's sympathetic heart about this time was in a perennial throb for "the poor Africans in chains," apparently quite oblivious to the fact that the "chains" had been introduced and cemented by her fostering hand.

I recall with unusual pleasure an entertainment where Lord Morpeth was the guest of honor, at the residence of William Bard on College Place, at that time a fashionable street in the vicinity of old Columbia College. I have always remembered the occasion as I was then introduced to Lord Morpeth and enjoyed a long and pleasant conversation with him. Our host was a son of Dr. Samuel Bard, physician to General Washington during the days when New York was the seat of government.



Mr. and Mrs. John Austin Stevens lived on Bleecker Street and had a number of interesting daughters. They were an intellectual family and I attended an entertainment given by them in honor of Martin Farquhar Tupper, the author of "Proverbial Philosophy." Mr. Stevens' sister, Lucretia Ledyard Stevens, married Mr. Richard Heckscher of Philadelphia.

Another gentlewoman of the same period was Mrs. Laura Wolcott Gibbs, wife of Colonel George Gibbs of Newport. The first Oliver Wolcott, a Signer, Governor of Connecticut and General in the Revolutionary War, was her grandfather; while the second of the same name, Secretary of the Treasury under Washington and Adams, Governor of his State and United States Judge, was her father. I am in the fullest sympathy with the following remarks concerning her made at her funeral by the Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows: "I confess I always felt in the presence of Mrs. Gibbs as if I were talking with Oliver Wolcott himself, and saw in her self-reliant, self-asserting and independent manner and speech an unmistakable copy of a strong and thoroughly individual character, forged in the hottest fires of national struggle. The intense individuality of her nature set her apart from others. You felt that from the womb she must have been just what she was—a piece of the original granite on which the nation was built.... The force, the courage, the self-poise she exhibited in the ordinary concerns of our peaceful life would in a masculine frame have made, in times of national peril, a patriot of the most decided and energetic character—one able and willing to believe all things possible, and to make all the efforts and sacrifices by which impossibilities are accomplished."

Mrs. Gibbs was literally steeped and moulded in the traditions of the past; in fact, she was a reminder of the noble women of the Revolutionary era, many of whom have left records behind them. She was gifted with a keen sense of humor, and her talent in repartee was proverbial. Although many years my senior, I found delightful companionship in her society, and her home was always a great resource to me. Her accomplished daughter, the wife of Captain Theophile d'Oremieulx, U.S.A., was particularly skilled in music. Her son, Wolcott Gibbs, the distinguished Professor of Harvard University, maintained to the last the high intellectual standard of his ancestors. He died several years ago. I was informed by his mother that at one period of its history Columbia College desired to secure his services as a professor, but that the Hon. Hamilton Fish, one of its trustees and an uncompromising Episcopalian, objected on the ground of his Unitarian faith and was sustained by the Board of Trustees. It seemed a rather inconsistent act, as at another period of its history a Hebrew was chosen as a member of the same faculty.

As nearly as I can remember, it was in the summer of 1845 that I spent several weeks as the guest of the financier and author, Alexander B. Johnson, in Utica, New York. Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Abigail Louisa Smith Adams, and she was the daughter of Charles Adams, son of President John Adams. During my sojourn there her uncle, John Quincy Adams, came to Utica to visit his relatives, and I had the pleasure of being a guest of the family at the same time. He was accompanied upon this trip by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, a young grandson whose name I do not recall, and the father of Mrs. Adams, Peter C. Brooks, of Boston, another of whose daughters was the wife of Edward Everett. Upon their arrival in Utica, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and the elderly ex-President was welcomed by an old-fashioned torchlight procession. In response to many urgent requests, Mr. Adams made an impromptu speech from the steps of the Johnson house, and proved himself to be indeed "the old man eloquent." Although he was not far from eighty years old, he was by no means lacking in either mental or physical vitality. Mrs. Charles Francis Adams impressed me as a woman of unusual culture and intellectuality, while her father, Peter C. Brooks, was a genial old gentleman whom everyone loved to greet. He was at that time one of Boston's millionaires; and many years later I heard his grandson, the late Henry Sidney Everett, of Washington, son of Edward Everett, say of him that when he first arrived in Boston he was a youth with little or no means.

After the Adams party had rested for a few days a pleasure trip to Trenton Falls, in Oneida County, was proposed. A few prominent citizens of Utica were invited by the Johnsons to accompany the party, and among them several well-known lawyers whose careers won for them a national as well as local reputation. Among these I may especially mention the handsome Horatio Seymour, then in his prime, whose courteous manners and manly bearing made him exceptionally attractive. Mr. Adams bore the fatigue of the trip remarkably well and his strength seemed undiminished as the day waned. His devoted daughter-in-law remained constantly beside him while at the Falls to administer to his comfort and attend to his wants; in fact, she was so solicitous concerning him that she requested that she might, in going and coming, occupy a carriage as near him as possible. I cannot but regard her as a model for many of the present generation who fail to be deeply impressed by either merit or years.

The Adamses were charming guests, and I have always felt that I was highly privileged to visit under the same roof with them, and especially to listen to the words of wisdom of the venerable ex-President. I have heard it stated, by the way, that during his official life in Washington, Mr. Adams took a daily bath in the Potomac. This luxury he must have missed in Utica, as at this time it offered no opportunities for a plunge except in the "raging canal." Mrs. Charles Francis Adams accompanied her husband when he went to England, during our Civil War, to represent the United States at the Court of St. James. The consummate manner in which he conducted our relations with Great Britain at that critical period marked him as an accomplished statesman and a diplomatist of the rarest skill. The nature of his task was one of extreme delicacy, and it is highly probable that, but for his masterly efforts, England would have recognized the independence of the Southern Confederacy. The energy and fidelity with which he met the requirements of his mission undermined his health and, returning to this country, he retired to his old home in Quincy.

While in Utica I drove in the family carriage with Mrs. Johnson and her sister, Mrs. John W. King, to Peterboro, about twenty-five miles distant, to visit Mr. and Mrs. Gerrit Smith. Mr. Smith had already commenced his crusade against slavery, and the family antipathy to the institution was so strong that two of his nieces, sisters of General John Cochrane, who later became President of the Society of the Cincinnati, refused to wear dresses made of cotton because it was a Southern staple. As I remember this great anti-slavery agitator, he was a remarkably handsome man with an air of enthusiasm which seemed to pervade his whole being. From 1853 to 1855 he was in Congress, and I had the pleasure of listening to one of his scathing speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives in denunciation of slavery. I recall his unusual felicity in the use of Scriptural quotations, one of which still lingers in my ears: "Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." His daughter Elizabeth married Charles Dudley Miller, a prominent citizen of Utica. She was a woman of very pronounced views, as may be judged, in part, by the fact that some years after my marriage, and while living in Washington, I met her by accident one day at the Capitol and to my surprise discovered that she was wearing bloomers!

In September, 1849, I was returning to my home in New York from another visit to the Johnsons in Utica, when, upon the invitation of Mrs. Hamilton Fish, whose husband was then Governor of the Empire State, I stopped in Albany and visited them. They were of course occupying the gubernatorial mansion, but its exact location I cannot exactly recall. Life was exceedingly simple in the middle of the last century, even in the wealthiest families, and through all these years I seem to remember but a single incident connected with the family life of these early friends—the trivial fact that the breakfast hour was seven o'clock. Mrs. Fish was a model mother and was surrounded by a large and interesting family of children, some of whom are among the highly prominent people of the present time.

Apropos of the Fish children, an amusing story is told of the keen sense of humor of the late William M. Evarts, who presented in every-day life such a stern exterior. When, on one occasion, he was a guest of the Fish family at their summer home on the Hudson, his attention was called to a large and beautifully executed painting of a group of children which, as was quite apparent, was greatly treasured by the ex-Governor. Mr. Evarts gazed upon the portrait for some minutes in silence and then exclaimed in a low tone, "little Fishes." Mr. Fish stood near his guest but, not catching the exact drift of his remark, replied: "Sir, I do not understand." The bright response was: "Yes, I said little fishes, sardines,"—reminding one of Artemus Ward's definition of sardines, "little fishes biled in ile."

Another witticism of Mr. Evarts's which seems to me deserving of preservation is said to have been uttered during his residence in Washington, when he was Secretary of State under President Hayes. A party of distinguished Englishmen was visiting the National Capital and Mr. Evarts escorted it to Mount Vernon. After inspecting the mansion and the grave of Washington the party walked to the end of the lawn to view the attractive scenery of the Potomac River. One of the Englishmen who seemed decidedly more conversant with certain phases of American history than the others asked Mr. Evarts whether it were really true that Washington could throw a shilling across the Potomac. "Yes," said Mr. Evarts, in a diplomatic tone, "it is quite true." The same evening at a dinner, the Secretary of State repeated the conversation to a mutual friend and added: "He could do even better than that; he could toss a Sovereign across the Atlantic!"

The day after my arrival in Albany, President Zachary Taylor and his suite were the guests of Governor and Mrs. Fish, and the same day a dinner was given in his honor which was attended by prominent State officials. Meanwhile, a concourse of people had surrounded the mansion, anxious to see the President and to demand a speech. Old "Rough and Ready" appeared at an open window and faced the multitude, but was not as "ready" in speech as with his sword. He made a brave attempt, however, to gratify the people, but he seemed exceedingly feeble and his voice was decidedly weak. In the course of his remarks his aide and son-in-law, Colonel William W. S. Bliss, came to his rescue and prompted him, as it were, from behind the scenes; so that everything passed off, as I understood the next day, to the satisfaction of his audience. Possibly this was one of Taylor's last appearances in public, as he died the following summer.

Although Mrs. Fish was at this time a comparatively young woman, she presided over the Governor's mansion with the same grace and ease so characteristic of her career in Washington when her husband was Secretary of State under President Grant. In my opinion, and I know but few who had a better opportunity of judging, Mrs. Fish was in many respects a remarkable woman. For eight years her home was a social center, and she was regarded as the social dictator of the Grant administration. When any perplexing questions of a social nature arose during her regime, the general inquiry was: "What does Mrs. Fish say?" This in time became a standing joke, but it illustrates the fact that her decisions usually were regarded as final.

One of the social leaders in New York during my younger life was Mrs. Isaac Jones, who, in her own set, was known as "Bloody Mary." Why this name was applied to her I cannot say, as she was not in the least either cruel or revengeful, as far as I knew, but on the contrary was suave and genial to an unusual degree. She lived on Broadway, directly opposite the site where the New York Hotel formerly stood, and her entertainments were both numerous and elaborate. She was one of the daughters of John Mason, who began life as a tailor but left at his death an estate valued at a million dollars, which was a large fortune for those days. Isaac Jones was president of the Chemical Manufacturing Company and later became prominently connected with the Chemical Bank of New York. A brother of Mrs. Jones married Miss Emma Wheatley, a superior young woman who, unfortunately for her father-in-law's peace of mind, was an actress. This alliance was most distasteful to the whole Mason connection, and when John Mason was approaching death George W. Strong, a prominent lawyer, was hastily summoned by his daughters to draft his will. Almost immediately following Mr. Mason's funeral a legal battle was commenced over his estate. He left outright to his three daughters their proportionate share of his fortune, but to his son who had displeased him by his marriage he devised an annuity of only fifteen hundred dollars. Charles O'Conor, the counsel for the son, in his argument in behalf of his client, said that Mr. Mason's daughters, instead of sending for a clergyman to console his dying moments, had demanded the immediate presence of a respectable lawyer, "a lawyer so respectable that throughout his entire practice he never had a poor client." Mr. O'Conor succeeded in breaking this will, and young Mason was given his proper share in his father's estate.

One of John Mason's daughters became the wife of Gordon Hammersley, whose son Louis married the beautiful Miss Lilly Warren Price of Troy, the daughter of Commodore Cicero Price of the United States Navy. She subsequently married the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards Lord William Beresford. The Marlborough-Hammersley ceremony was performed in this country by a justice of the peace, and the new Duchess of Marlborough went to England to live upon her husband's depleted estates. It is said that she was allowed by her late husband's family an annual income of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and Blenheim, which had long felt the strain of "decay's effacing fingers," began again, through the agency of the Hammersley wealth, to resemble the structure once occupied by that tyrant of royalty, the imperious Sarah Jennings.

Very little seemed to be known about Louis Hammersley, as he lived a retired life, and when seen in public was almost invariably accompanied by his father, Gordon Hammersley. When the two appeared upon the street, they were sometimes facetiously dubbed "Dombey and Son." They were familiar figures on Broadway, where they invariably walked arm in arm. John Hammersley, a brother of Gordon, was the aesthetic member of this well-known family. One of his pet diversions was the giving of unusual, and sometimes sensational, dinners. To celebrate the completion of the trans-continental railroad, he planned what he called a Roman dinner. His guests were furnished with togas and partook of the meal in a reclining position, like the Romans of old. This unique entertainment was, of course, thoroughly enjoyed, but did not become a la mode as the flowing toga could hardly compete with trim waistcoats and clinging trousers, even on festive occasions.

Fifty years ago, more or less, a house was erected in New York on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street by Mrs. Charles Maverick Parker, and, to the astonishment of Gothamites, it was said to have cost one hundred thousand dollars! Later it became the home of the Manhattan Club. Many old residents visited it on its completion, as such a costly structure was regarded with nothing short of amazement. I remember it was an on dit of the town that upon one occasion, when Mrs. Parker was personally escorting some unusually prominent person through the mansion, she pointed to a pretty little receptacle in her bedroom and exclaimed as she passed: "That is where I keep my old shoes. I wear old shoes just as other people do." The cost and pretentiousness of her establishment caused her to be nicknamed "Mrs. House Parker." Her residence was built of brown stone, which so strongly appealed to the taste of New Yorkers that in time the same material was largely employed in the erection of dwellings. High ceilings were then much in vogue and were greatly admired. In our house in Houston Street, where I passed my late childhood and early womanhood, the ceilings were unusually high, while all of the doors were of massive mahogany set in ornamental white frames. In subsequent years I met so many persons who in former days had been our neighbors in Houston Street that I was conceited enough to designate that locality as "the cradle of the universe." Anthony Bleecker Neilson was our next-door neighbor in this famous old street, and during my life in China twin sons of his, William and Bleecker, were again my neighbors in Foo Chow, where they were both employed in the Hong (firm) of Oliphant & Company.

A rival to Mrs. Parker's fine house was not long in appearing. Directly opposite a stately residence was built by Mrs. Richard K. Haight which subsequently became the New York Club. A great rivalry existed between these two matrons which even extended to hats, feathers, gowns and all the furbelows so dear to the feminine heart. In fact, the far-famed houses of Montague and Capulet could not have maintained more skillful tactics; and all the while the Gothamites looked on and smiled. A few years later Eugene Shiff, who had spent the greater portion of his life in France, built a large house on Fifth Avenue which he surmounted with a mansard roof. These pioneers having set the pace, imposing residences were erected in rapid succession, and the process has been continued until the present day.

In December, 1851, New York was agog over the arrival upon the shores of America of Louis Kossuth. As everyone knows, he was the leader of the Hungarian revolution of 1848-9, and became the first governor of the short-lived Hungarian Republic. When this was overthrown by Austria and other countries, Kossuth fled to Turkey and subsequently sailed for this country on the U.S. Frigate Mississippi. When his arrival became known, thousands of people thronged the streets anxious to catch a first glimpse of the distinguished foreigner. One might have fancied from the enthusiasm displayed that he was one of our own conquering heroes returning home. Americans were even more sympathetic then than now with all struggles for political freedom, as the history of our own trying experiences during the Revolution was, from a sentimental point of view, even more of a controlling influence than it is to-day. Several months later I heard Kossuth deliver an address at the National Hotel in Washington before a large assembly chiefly composed of members of Congress, when his subject was "Hungary and her woes." I vividly recall the impression produced upon his audience when, in his deeply melodious tones, he invoked the "Throne of Grace" and closed with the appealing words: "What is life without prayer?" I have never before or since observed an audience so completely under the sway of an orator, as it seemed to me that there was not a person in the room who at the moment would not have been willing to acquiesce in whatever demands or appeals he might present. Kossuth's countenance suggested such profound depression that one could readily credit the assertion he made during his remarks, "I have been trained to grief." He wore during the delivery of his address the picturesque costume of the Magyars of his country.

New York had an unusually large coterie of litterateurs, many of whom it was my good fortune to know. Some of these had only recently returned from Brook Farm "sadder but wiser" and, at all events, with more practical views concerning "the world's broad field of battle." Brook Farm had its origin in 1841, and completely collapsed in 1847. It was chiefly intended to be the fulfillment of a dream of the Rev. Dr. William Henry Channing of "an association in which the members, instead of preying upon one another and seeking to put one another down, after the fashion of this world, should live together as brothers, seeking one another's elevation and spiritual growth." It was essentially socialistic in its conception and execution and, although professedly altruistic in its nature, was in reality a visionary scheme which reflected but little credit upon the judgment of either its originators or its patrons. Its company was composed of "members" and "scholars," to whom may be added a celebrated list of those who sojourned at the Farm for brief periods and were known as "visitors." The whole scheme was without doubt one of the most visionary expressions of New England transcendentalism, and it failed because in the nature of things no such ventures ever have succeeded and, until human nature is essentially revolutionized, probably never can. Among its most distinguished members were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles A. Dana, later the brilliant and accomplished editor of The New York Sun, and George Ripley. George William Curtis was one of its scholars, and among its visitors were the Rev. William Henry Channing, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Orestes Augustus Bronson, Theodore Parker and Elizabeth P. Peabody—forming together one of the most brilliant intellectual galaxies that were ever associated in a single enterprise.

Of this number I especially recall George William Curtis, a genius of the first brilliancy and remarkable withal for his versatile conversational powers. I was talking to him on one occasion when someone inquired as to his especial work in the co-operative fold of Brook Farm. His laughing reply was, "Cleaning door knobs." George Ripley was a distinguished scholar and a prominent journalist. His wife, a daughter of Francis Dana, became a convert to Catholicism and is said to have found much to console her in that faith until her death from cancer in 1861. Margaret Fuller, though not possessed of much outward grace, was a prolific votary of the pen. I occasionally met her in society before she started on an European tour where she met her destiny in the person of the Marquis Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, to whom she was secretly married in 1847. Some years later she embarked with her husband and little boy upon a sailing vessel for America, and all were lost off the coast of New York in July, 1850. Horace Sumner, a younger brother of the distinguished Massachusetts statesman, also perished at the same time.

About 1845 I met Anne C. Lynch of Providence, who came to New York to promote her literary ambitions, and was a pleasing addition to this same intellectual circle. She was the author of several prose works and also of some poetical effusions which were published in 1848 and received high commendation. She married Vincenzo Botta, a learned Italian who at one time was a professor in the University of Turin. Their tastes were similar and the marriage was a very happy one. They lived for many years on Thirty-seventh Street in New York, where they maintained a charming salon. On Sunday evenings their home was the rendezvous of many of the literary lights of the metropolis as well as of distinguished strangers. Some years before her marriage, Mrs. Botta was visiting in Washington, where she formed a friendship with Henry Clay. Upon her return to New York he committed to her care a valuable gold medal, but upon arriving at her home she discovered to her dismay that it was missing from her trunk. It was the general impression that it had been stolen from her on her way to New York. About the same time I also knew Donald G. Mitchell ("Ik Marvel"), but this was before he had entered upon his active and distinguished literary career, and when he was a temporary sojourner in New York. He was contributing at that time some much appreciated letters to various magazines under the signature of "The Lorgnette," which were subsequently republished as a volume bearing the same title.

N. P. Willis was another literary genius of the same period whom I had the pleasure of knowing. He was cordially welcomed into the social world of New York; but, unfortunately for his popularity, he wrote a prose effusion entitled, "Those Ungrateful Blidgimses," which was generally recognized as a direct attack upon two old ladies who were held in high esteem in New York. It was known to many persons that he had had a misunderstanding with them and that he had employed this manner of taking his revenge. New York society frowned upon what was generally considered his ungallant conduct, and for many years the doors of some of the most prominent houses in the city were closed against him. As I remember reading his story at the time, I thought its title was but a poor disguise, as the sisters were named Bridgens, the christian name of one of them being Cornelia. This name was distorted into "Crinny," who, by the way, was a woman of decided ability. It was against her that the author's animosity was chiefly directed. It seems that the Misses Bridgens and Mr. Willis chanced to be sojourning at the same time in Rome, where the scene of his narrative is laid. Miss Crinny was a sufferer from an attack of Roman fever and, under these dire circumstances, Mr. Willis represents himself as her attendant, and in this capacity refuses to condone the peculiarities of the poor old lady's sick-room. His patience in gratifying her morbid fancies is graphically described in a vein of ridicule and he tells how by the hour he threaded what he terms her "imaginary locks." He also dwells at length upon her conversational powers and likens her tongue to the elasticity of an eel's tail, which would wag if it were skinned and fried. Charles Dudley Warner has described this writing of Mr. Willis as "funny but wicked"; it was more than that—it was cruel! Willis made another reference to the two sisters in his "Earnest Clay" where he speaks of "two abominable old maids by the names of Buggins and Blidgins, representing the scan. mag. of Florence."

The New York public was in no hurry to reopen its doors to Mr. Willis; indeed, it was not until after his marriage to Miss Cornelia Grinnell, his second wife, that he was again kindly received. I recall with much pleasure a visit I made at Mrs. Winfield Scott's in New York, after that city had ceased to be my home, when we went together to dine with Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Willis at Idlewild, their country home on the Hudson. These were the days when Mrs. Scott was sometimes facetiously called Madame la General. This charming residence of Mr. Willis was several miles south of Newburgh, on high ground overlooking the river, and from its porches there was an enchanting view of West Point. Mr. Willis told us that when he first came to that vicinity he called the attention of a countryman from whom he had purchased the land to some uncultivated acres and asked a suggestion regarding them. "That," said the man, waving his hand in the direction of the trees, "is nothing but an Idlewild." The word lingered in Mr. Willis's mind, and he subsequently adopted it as the name of his new home.

While living in New York we frequently attended parties at the hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Butler in Washington Place. He was an elegant gentleman of the old school and had served as Attorney General in the cabinets of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren. They were people of deep religious convictions, and consequently all their entertainments were conducted upon the strictest code of the day. For example, dancing was never permitted and wine was never served. In place of dancing there was a continuous promenade. I generally attended these parties accompanied by my father, who enjoyed meeting the legal lights of the country, some of whom were always there. Exceptionally handsome suppers were served at these entertainments, and every effort was made by Mr. and Mrs. Butler to make up, as it were, for the lack of dancing which was sorely missed by those more gayly inclined.

A hundred thousand dollars was considered a highly respectable fortune in New York between sixty and seventy years ago. Seven per cent, was the usual rate of interest, the cost of living was low, and life was, of course, much simpler in every way. I recall a prominent young man about this period, Henry Carroll Marx, commonly called "Dandy Marx," who was said to be the happy possessor of the amount I have named. He was devoted to horses and from his home on Broadway he could frequently be seen driving tandem on the cobblestone streets. I do not remember his entering the social arena; possibly he avoided it in order to escape the wiles of designing mothers, whom one occasionally encountered even in those ancient days. His faultless attire, which in elegance surpassed all his rivals, won for him the nickname of "Dandy." He also rendered himself conspicuous as the first gentleman in New York to wear the long, straight, and pointed waxed mustache. His two maiden sisters were inseparable companions and nearly every day could be seen walking on Broadway. Miss Lydia Kane, one of the wits of my day and of whom I have already spoken, facetiously called them "number 11"—two straight marks!

In 1845 Burton's Theater was an unfailing source of delight to the pleasure-loving public. William E. Burton was an Englishman of rare cultivation, and was the greatest comedian New York had ever known. Although so gifted, his expression of countenance was one of extreme gravity. His presentation of Aminadab Sleek in the "Serious Family" has, in my opinion, never been surpassed. He frequently acted in minor comedies, but the "Serious Family" was his greatest role. Niblo's Garden on Broadway, near Houston Street, was a source of great delight in those days to all Gothamites. It was in this theater that the Ravel family had its remarkable athletic performances. When I recall their graceful, youthful physiques, I am reminded of Hamlet's philosophical musings in the graveyard: "Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?" P. T. Barnum was a conspicuous figure about this time. His museum was on Broadway, at the corner of Ann Street, and not far from the City Hall. He was considered a prince of humbugs and perhaps gloried in his reputation as such. I distinctly remember the excitement which he created over a mummified old colored woman who, he asserted, had been a nurse of Washington, and to whom he gave the name of Joice Heth. She was undoubtedly a very aged negress, but she still retained full powers of articulation and was well coached to reply in an intelligent manner to the numerous inquiries respecting her pretended charge. It is needless to add that she was only one of Barnum's numerous fakes.

Philip Kearny, a handsome gentleman of a former school, who lived at the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street, was a lavish entertainer. He was a widower when I knew him, but his daughter, the wife of Major Alexander S. Macomb, U.S.A., the son and aide of Major General Alexander Macomb, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, lived with him. Major Macomb was conspicuous for his attractive personality and imposing presence and was said to bear a striking resemblance to Prince Albert, the father of Edward VII. His wife was one of the three heirs of John Watts, who owned a princely estate. The other two were her brother, the gallant General Philip Kearny, and her cousin, General John Watts de Peyster, a son of that most accomplished gentleman, Frederick de Peyster, of whom I have already spoken. Mrs. Macomb was a generous and attractive woman who dispensed with a liberal hand the wealth she had inherited. Her pretty cousins, Mary and Nancy Kearny, whom I knew quite well, daughters of her father's brothers, were her constant guests. Another frequent visitor of this household was Mrs. "Phil" Kearny, as she was invariably called, whose maiden name was Diana Moore Bullitt, a famous Kentucky belle, well-known for her grace and intellectual attractions. Her sister Eloise, usually called "Lou" Bullitt by her intimate friends, married Baron Frederick de Kantzow of Sweden, a courtly foreigner who had commercial relations with the merchant princes of New York. Tradition states that the Baroness de Kantzow, though not possessed of Mrs. Kearny's beauty, was a more successful slayer of hearts than her sister, and it is said that she had adorers by the score. A third Bullitt sister, Mary, married General Henry Atkinson and after his death Major Adam Duncan Steuart, both of the United States Army, the latter of whom was stationed for many years at Fort Leavenworth.

Mrs. Macomb's health failed at an early period of life and to restore it she sought a foreign clime; but, alas, her many friends were never gladdened again by her kindly welcome, as she died abroad. In my young womanhood I frequently attended parties at the Kearny house where dancing and other social pleasures enlivened the scene. In this connection it seems proper to refer at greater length to John Watts and his interesting trio of daughters. I have already spoken of his son Robert, who died unmarried at an early age. His two older daughters, Susanna, wife of Philip Kearny, and Mary Justina, wife of Frederick de Peyster, did not long survive their marriages; but a third daughter, Elizabeth, the wife of Henry Laight, who never had children, lived many years with her father and managed the affairs of his household. An amusing story was told me many years ago regarding Mrs. Laight which is well worthy of mention. As a young girl she was deeply in love with the young man who eventually became her husband, but her father was so devoted to her and so very dependent upon her that he violently opposed her marrying anyone. Accordingly, a secret marriage was planned by the young people to take place in Trinity Church. As the youthful pair was standing in front of the altar, surrounded by a few sympathetic friends, the rector reached the words, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" when, to the astonishment of the assembled group, a gruff, loud voice in the rear of the church shouted "I do." Old John Watts had opposed his daughter's marriage with all his might, but when he learned by chance that she was to be married clandestinely, he graciously accepted the inevitable and without the knowledge of anyone hurried to the church and, entering it by a side door, duly performed his part as just related. This anecdote was told me by Arent Schuyler de Peyster, a distant cousin of General John Watts de Peyster. Many years later, when I repeated it to Mrs. Diana Bullitt Kearny, she remarked in her characteristic manner: "He was mean enough not to even allow her the satisfaction of a runaway marriage." This estimate of his character, however, does not seem to agree with that given by others. The Laights were prominent in New York society. One of them, Edward Laight, whom I knew as a society beau, was remarkably handsome. He was a good deal of a flirt and transferred his affections with remarkable facility from one young woman to another. His sister married a Greek, Mr. Eugene Dutilh, a gentleman of culture and refinement, who owned a beautiful place at Garrison's-on-the-Hudson which he sold about 1861 to Hamilton Fish.

Philip Kearny and his family lived next door to Peter A. Jay, and I frequently met the young people of his household at Mrs. Macomb's parties. Gouverneur Morris, a son of the distinguished statesman, and Edward Kearny were habitues of this establishment, as were also Ridley and Essex Watts, both of whom I knew well. General "Phil" Kearny from his youthful days was an enthusiastic soldier, but he was not a graduate of West Point, having been appointed to the regular army from civil life by President Van Buren in 1837. He served throughout the Mexican War, where he had the misfortune to lose an arm at the battle of Churubusco, and was killed during the Civil War in 1862 at the battle of Chantilly.

Speaking of General Macomb, I am reminded of a social on dit of many years ago. Mrs. August Belmont (Caroline Slidell Perry) lived in a fine house on Fifth Avenue and frequently gave large receptions. His sister, Sarah Perry, subsequently Mrs. R. S. Rodgers, was an early friend of mine. The elegant Major Alexander S. Macomb, who was his father's namesake and aide, on entering Mrs. Belmont's drawing-room was unfortunate enough to brush against a handsome vase and completely shatter it. It was generally conceded that his hostess was conscious of the disaster, but "was mistress of herself though China fall" and appeared entirely unconscious of the mishap. Some months later at the house of Lady Cunard (Mary McEvers), a similar accident happened. The unfortunate guest, however, in this case was immediately approached by his hostess, who with much elegant grace begged him not to be disturbed as the damage was trifling. Immediately society began an animated discussion, when even the judicial powers of Solomon might have found it embarrassing to decide which of the two women should be accorded the greater degree of savoir faire.

In 1844, accompanied by my father, I attended the wedding of Estelle Livingston, daughter of John Swift Livingston, to John Watts de Peyster. At the time of this marriage, Mr. de Peyster was considered the finest parti in the city; while, apart from his great wealth, he was so unusually talented that it was generally believed a brilliant future awaited him. It was a home wedding, and the drawing-room was well filled with the large family connection and other invited guests. At this time Mr. Livingston was a widower, but his sister Maria, Mrs. John C. Stevens of Hoboken, did the honors of the occasion for her brother. The young bride presented a charming appearance in all her finery, and at the bountiful collation following the ceremony champagne flowed freely. This, however, was no unusual thing, as that beverage was generally seen at every entertainment in those good old days. Mrs. John C. Stevens lived at one time in Barclay Street, and I have heard numerous stories concerning her eccentricities. In 1849 she gave a fancy-dress ball but, as she had failed to revise her visiting list in many years, persons who had long been dead were among her invited guests. She was especially peculiar in her mode of dress, which was not always adapted to her social position. It is therefore not at all surprising that unfortunate mistakes were occasionally made in regard to her identity. Another of her eccentricities consisted in the fact that she positively refused, when shopping, to recognize even her most intimate friends, as she said it was simply impossible for her to combine business with pleasure. In spite of her peculiarities, however, she possessed unusual social charm. Her husband was prominent in society and business circles. He was founder of the New York Yacht Club as well as its first president, and commanded the America in the memorable race in England in 1851, which won the celebrated cup that Sir Thomas Lipton and other English yachtsmen have failed to restore to their native land. Mary Livingston, the younger daughter of John Swift Livingston, was a petite beauty. She married a distant relative, a son of Maturin Livingston. I am told that her brother, Johnston Livingston, is still living in New York at a very advanced age.

Joseph Kemmerer's band was an indispensable adjunct to all social gatherings in the days of which I am speaking. The number of instruments used was always in proportion to the size of the entertainment. The inspiring airs of Strauss and Labitzky, then in vogue, were popular with the younger set. These airs bring back pleasant memories, as I have frequently danced to them. The waltz in my day was a fine art and its votaries were numerous. I recall the fact that Edward James of Albany, a witty young gentleman with whom I occasionally danced, was such a devotee to the waltz that, not possessing sufficient will power to resist its charms and having a delicate constitution, he nearly danced himself into another world. Two attractive young brothers, Thomas H. and Daniel Messinger, who were general beaux in society, played their parts most successfully in the social world by their graceful dancing, and no ball was considered complete without their presence. These brothers were associated in the umbrella industry, and Miss Lydia Kane, some of whose witty remarks I have already quoted, dubbed them the "reigning beaux!" Daniel Messinger eventually married Miss Elizabeth Coles Neilson, a daughter of Anthony Bleecker Neilson, and became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The British Consul General in New York from 1817 to 1843 was James Buchanan. He was Irish by birth, and many young British subjects visiting the United States made his home their headquarters. He had several daughters and, as the whole family was social in its tastes, I often enjoyed meeting these sturdy representatives of John Bull at his house. Those I knew best came from "the land of brown heath and shaggy wood," as in our family we were naturally partial to Scotchmen and, as a rule, regarded them as desirable acquaintances. Many of these were graduates of Glasgow University and young men of unusual culture and refinement. I especially remember Mr. McCorquodale, a nephew of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, the distinguished Presbyterian Divine of Scotland. He met his future wife in New York in the person of a wealthy and attractive widow. Her maiden name I do not recall, although I am acquainted with certain facts concerning her lineage. She was the granddaughter of Madame de Genlis.

I doubt whether any of these young Scotchmen whom I met remained permanently in this country, as they always seemed too loyal to the "Land o' Cakes" to entirely expatriate themselves. Another young Scotchman, Mr. Dundas, whom I knew quite well through the Buchanans, embarked for his native land on board the steamer President. This ship sailed in the spring of 1841 and never reached her destination. What became of her was never known and her fate remains to this day one of the mysteries of the sea. In the fall of 1860 the U.S. man-of-war Levant, on her voyage from the Hawaiian Islands to Panama, disappeared in the same mysterious manner in the Pacific Ocean; and, as was the case with the President, no human being aboard of her was ever heard of again. There were many conjectures in regard to the fate of this ship, but the true story of her doom has never been revealed. I remember two of the officers who perished with her. One of them was Lieutenant Edward C. Stout, who had married a daughter of Commodore John H. Aulick, U.S.N., and whose daughters, the Misses Julia and Minnie Stout, are well remembered in Washington social circles; and the other was Purser Andrew J. Watson, who was a member of one of the old residential families of the District of Columbia.



CHAPTER VIII

WASHINGTON IN THE FORTIES

My first visit to Washington was in 1845. I started from New York at eight o'clock in the morning and reached Philadelphia late the same afternoon. I broke the journey by spending the night at Jones's Hotel in the lower part of the city, which was the usual stopping place of travelers who made this trip. A few years later when the journey from New York to Washington was made in twelve hours, it was thought that almost a miracle had been performed.

Mrs. Winfield Scott in 1855 characterized the National Capital as "an ill-contrived, ill-arranged, rambling, scrambling village"; and it was certainly all of that when I first saw it. It is not improbable that the cause of this condition of affairs was a general feeling of uncertainty as to whether Washington would remain the permanent seat of government, especially as the West was naturally clamoring for a more centrally located capital. When I first visited the city the ubiquitous real-estate agent had not yet materialized, and corner lots, now so much in demand, could be purchased at a small price. Taxation was moderate and Congress, then as now, held itself responsible for one-half of the taxes. As land was cheap there was no necessity for economy in its use, and spacious fronts were built regardless of back-buildings. In other cases, when one's funds were limited, the rear of the house was first built and later a more imposing front was added. The contrast between the houses of New York, built closely together in blocks, and those in Washington, with the abundant space around them, was a great surprise to me. Unlike many other cities, land in Washington, then, as now, was sold and taxed by the square foot.

My elder sister Fanny had married Charles Eames, Esq., of the Washington Bar, and my visit was to her. Mr. Eames entered Harvard in 1827 when less than sixteen years of age, and was a classmate of Wendell Phillips and of John Lothrop Motley, the historian. The distinguished Professor of Harvard University, Andrew P. Peabody, LL.D., in referring to him many years after his death said that he was "the first scholar of his class, and was regarded as a man of unlimited power of acquisition, and of marked ability as a public speaker." After leaving Harvard he studied law, but ill health prevented him from practicing his profession. He accompanied to Washington George Bancroft, President Polk's Secretary of the Navy, by whom he was made principal correspondence clerk of the Navy Department. He remained there but a few months when he became associate editor of The Washington Union under the well-known Thomas Ritchie, usually known as "Father Ritchie." He was subsequently appointed by Polk a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the Hawaiian Islands, and took passage upon the U.S. Frigate Savannah and sailed, by way of Cape Horn, for San Francisco. He unexpectedly found awaiting his arrival in that city Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, Prime Minister of the King, with two young Hawaiian princes. After the treaty was made, he returned east and for six months edited The Nashville Union, when he again assumed charge of The Washington Union. President Pierce subsequently appointed him Minister to Venezuela, where he remained until 1859, and then returned to Washington, where he practiced his profession for the remainder of his life. It was while arguing an important case before the Supreme Court that he was stricken, and he died on the 16th of March, 1867. He sustained a high reputation as an admiralty lawyer as well as for his knowledge of international jurisprudence. I have now before me a letter addressed to his widow by Wendell Phillips only three days after his death. It is one of the valued possessions of Mr. Eames's daughter, who is my niece and the wife of that genial Scotchman, Alexander Penrose Gordon-Cumming. It reads:

QUINCY, Illinois, March 19, 1867.

My dear friend,

I have just crossed from the other side of the Mississippi, and am saddened by learning from the papers my old and dear friend's death.

The associations that bind us together go back many, many years. We were boys together in sunny months full of frolic, plans and hopes. The merriment and the seriousness, the toil and the ambition of those days all cluster round him as memory brings him to me in the flush of his youth. I have seen little of him of late years, as you know, but the roots of our friendship needed no constant care; they were too strong to die or wilt, and when we did meet it was always with the old warmth and intimacy. I feel more alone in the world now he has gone. One by one the boy's comrades pass over the river and life loses with each some of its interest.

I was hoping in coming years, as life grew less busy, to see more of my old playmate, and this is a very unexpected blow. Be sure I sympathize with you most tenderly, and could not resist the impulse to tell you so. Little as we have met, I owe to your kind and frank interest in me a sense of very warm and close relation to you—feel as if I had known you ever so many years. I hope our paths may lead us more together so that I may learn to know you better and gather some more distinct ideas of Eames' later years. All his youth I have by heart.

With most affectionate regards believe me

Very faithfully yours,

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

Mrs. Eames.

I think women never fully realize the strange tenderness with which men cling to college mates. No matter how much opinions or residence separate grown-up men, to have been classmates is a tie that like blood never loosens. Any man that has a heart feels it thrill at the sight of one of those comrades. Later friendships may be close, never so tender—this makes boys of us again at any moment. Unfamiliar tears obey its touch, and a singular sense of loneliness settles down on survivors—Good-bye.

The young Hawaiian princes to whom I have just referred and who, by the way, were mere boys, accompanied Dr. Judd to New York where my younger brother, Malcolm, thinking he might make the acquaintance of some genial playmates, called to see them. Upon his return from his visit his only criticism was, "those dusky princes certainly give themselves airs."

My sister, Mrs. Eames, lived in a house on G Street near Twenty-first Street in what was then known as the First Ward. This general section, together with a part of Indiana Avenue, some portions of Capitol Hill, Sixth and Seventh Streets, and all of that part of the city bounded on the north by K Street, on the south by Pennsylvania Avenue, and westward of Fourteenth Street to Georgetown, was at this time the fashionable section of the city. Like many other places in its formative period, Washington then presented the picture of fine dwelling houses and shanties standing side by side. I remember, for example, that as late as 1870 a fine residence on the corner of I and Fifteenth Streets was located next to a small frame house occupied by a colored undertaker. The latter's business was prosperous, but his wealthy neighbor objected to the constant reminder of death caused by seeing from his fine bay window the numerous coffins carried in and out. He asked the undertaker to name his price for his property, but he declined, and all of his subsequent offers were ignored. Finally, after several years' patient waiting, during which offer after offer had been politely but positively rejected, the last one being an almost princely sum, the owner sold his home and moved away, leaving his humble neighbor in triumphant possession. This is simply a fair example of the conditions existing in Washington when I first knew it.

Two rows of houses on Pennsylvania Avenue, known as the "Six and Seven Buildings," were fashionable dwellings. Admiral David D. Porter, then a Lieutenant in the Navy, occupied one of them. Miss Catharine L. Brooke kept a girls' school in another, while still another was the residence of William Lee of Massachusetts. I have been informed that while serving in a consular office abroad, under the appointment of President Monroe, Mr. Lee was commissioned by him to select a dinner set for the White House.

Architects, if I remember correctly, were almost unknown in Washington at this time. When a person was sufficiently venturesome to build a house for himself, he selected a residence suited to his tastes and directed a builder to erect one like it. Speculative building was entirely unknown, and if any resident of the District had embarked upon such a venture he would have been regarded as the victim of a vivid but disordered fancy.

Mrs. C. R. Latimer kept a fashionable boarding house in a large brick dwelling facing Lafayette Square where the Belasco Theater now stands. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Fish boarded with her while the former was a Representative in Congress, and Mr. and Mrs. Sanders Irving, so well and favorably known to all old Washingtonians, also made this house their home. Many years later it was the residence of William H. Seward, and he was living there when the memorable attempt was made in 1865 to assassinate him. As is well known, it subsequently became the home of James G. Blaine. When Hamilton Fish was elected to the Senate, he purchased a house on H Street, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, which was afterwards known as the "Porter house." Previously it had been owned and occupied by General "Phil" Kearny.

The shops of Washington in 1845 were not numerous, and were located chiefly upon Pennsylvania Avenue, Seventh Street then being a residential section. The most prominent dry-goods store was kept by Darius Clagett at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Mr. Clagett, invariably cordial and courteous, always stood behind his counter, and I have had many pleasant chats with him while making my purchases. Although he kept an excellent selection of goods, it was usually the custom for prominent Washington folk to make their larger purchases in Baltimore. A little later Walter Harper kept a dry-goods store on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Eighth Street, and some years later two others appeared, one kept by William M. Shuster on Pennsylvania Avenue, first between Seventh and Eighth Streets, and later between Ninth and Tenth; and the other by Augustus and Thomas Perry on the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Charles Demonet, the confectioner, made his appearance a little later on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets; but Charles Gautier, on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets, was his successful rival and was regarded more favorably in aristocratic circles. Madame Marguerite M. Delarue kept a shop on the north side of the same avenue, also between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets, where small articles of dress dear to the feminine heart could be bought. There were several large grocery stores on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets. Benjamin L. Jackson and Brother were the proprietors of one and James L. Barbour and John A. Hamilton of another, although the two latter had their business house at an earlier day on Louisiana Avenue. Louis Vavans was the accomplished cook and caterer, and sent to their rooms the meals of many persons temporarily residing in Washington. Joseph Redfern, his son-in-law, kept a grocery store in the First Ward. Franck Taylor, the father of the late Rear Admiral Henry C. Taylor, U.S.N., was the proprietor of a book store on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Four-and-a-Half Street, where many of the scholarly men of the day congregated to discuss literary and current topics. His store had a bust of Sir Walter Scott over its door, and he usually kept his front show-windows closed to prevent the light from fading the bindings of his books. The Center Market was located upon the same site as at present, but of course it has since been greatly enlarged and improved. All the stores on Louisiana Avenue sold at retail. I remember the grocery store of J. Harrison Semmes on Ninth Street and Louisiana Avenue, opposite the Center Market; and the hardware store kept by Joseph Savage on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, and at another time between Third and Fourth Streets.

On Fifteenth Street opposite the Treasury was another well-known boarding house, conducted by Mrs. Ulrich and much patronized by members of the Diplomatic Corps. Willard's Hotel was just around the corner on the site of the New Willard, and its proprietor was Caleb Willard. Brown's Hotel, farther down town, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, was a popular rendezvous for Congressional people. It was first called the Indian Queen, and was kept by that prince of hosts, Jesse Brown. After his death the name was changed to the Metropolitan.

The National Hotel on the opposite corner was the largest hostelry in Washington. It boasted of a large Southern clientele, and until President Buchanan's administration enjoyed a very prosperous career. Subsequent to Buchanan's inauguration, however, a mysterious epidemic appeared among the guests of the house which the physicians of the District failed to satisfactorily diagnose. It became commonly known as the "National Hotel disease," and resulted in numerous deaths. A notice occasionally appeared in the current newspapers stating that the deceased had died from this malady. Mrs. Robert Greenhow, in her book published in London during the Civil War, entitled "My Imprisonment and the First Years of Abolition Rule at Washington," attributes the epidemic to the machinations of the Republicans, who were desirous of disposing of President Buchanan. John Gadsby was its proprietor at one time, from whom it usually went by the name of "Gadsby's." President Buchanan was one of its guests on the eve of his inauguration.

When I first knew Washington, slavery was in full sway and, with but few exceptions, all servants were colored. The wages of a good cook were only six or seven dollars a month, but their proficiency in the culinary art was remarkable. I remember once hearing Count Adam Gurowski, who had traversed the European continent, remark that he had never anywhere tasted such cooking as in the South. The grace of manner of many of the elderly male slaves of that day would, indeed, have adorned a court. When William L. Marcy, who, although a master in statesmanship and diplomacy, was not especially gifted in external graces, was taking final leave of the clerks in the War Department, where as Secretary he had rendered such distinguished services under President Polk, he shook hands with an elderly colored employee named Datcher, who had formerly been a body servant to President Monroe, and said: "Good-bye, Datcher; if I had had your manners I should have left more friends behind me." Some years later, and after my marriage into the Gouverneur family, I had the good fortune to have passed down to me a venerable colored man who had served my husband's family for many years and whose name was "Uncle James." His manner at times was quite overpowering. On entering my drawing-room on one occasion to greet George Newell, brother-in-law and guest of ex-Governor Marcy, I found him seated upon a sofa and apparently engaged in a "brown study." Referring at once to "Uncle James," he inquired: "Who is that man?" Upon my replying, "An old family servant," he remarked: "Well, he is the most polite man I have ever met."

Some years later my sister, Mrs. Eames, moved into a house on the corner of H and Fourteenth Streets, which she and her husband had built and which she occupied until her death in 1890. I naturally shrink from dwelling in detail upon her charm of manner and social career, and prefer rather to quote an extract from a sketch which appeared in one of the newspapers just after her death:

... During the twenty-eight years of her married life in Washington Mrs. Eames's house was one of the favorite resorts of the most conspicuous and interesting men of the nation; it was a species of neutral ground where men of all parties and shades of political opinion found it agreeable to foregather. Though at first in moderate circumstances and living in a house which rented for less than $300 a year, there was no house in Washington except, perhaps, the President's, where one was sure of meeting any evening throughout the year so many people of distinction.



Mr. and Mrs. Marcy were devoted to Mrs. Eames; her salon was almost the daily resort of Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, Charles Sumner, Secretary [James] Guthrie, Governor [John A.] Andrews of Massachusetts, Winter Davis, Caleb Cushing, Senator Preston King, N.P. Banks, and representative men of that ilk. Mr. [Samuel J.] Tilden when in Washington was often their guest. The gentlemen, who were all on the most familiar terms with the family, were in the habit of bringing their less conspicuous friends from time to time, thus making it quite the most attractive salon that has been seen in Washington since the death of Mrs. Madison, and made such without any of the attractions of wealth or luxury.

The relations thus established with the public men of the country at her fireside were strengthened and enriched by a voluminous correspondence. Her father, who was a very accomplished man, had one of the largest and choicest private libraries in New York, of which, from the time she could read, Mrs. Eames had the freedom; in this library she spent more time than anyone else, and more than anywhere else, until her marriage. As a consequence, it is no disparagement to any one else to say that during her residence there she was intellectually quite the most accomplished woman in Washington. Her epistolary talent was famous in her generation.

Her correspondence if collected and published would prove to have been not less voluminous than Mme. de Sevigne's and, in point of literary art, in no particular inferior to that of the famous French woman.

After three or four months spent in Washington, I returned to my home in New York; and several years later, in the spring of 1848, suffered one of the severest ordeals of my life. I refer to my father's death. No human being ever entered eternity more beloved or esteemed than he, and as I look back to my life with him I realize that I was possibly more blessed than I deserved to be permitted to live with such a well-nigh perfect character and to know him familiarly. From my earliest childhood I was accustomed to see the sorrowing and oppressed come to him for advice. He was especially qualified to perform such a function owing to his long tenure of the office of Surrogate. Widows and orphans who could not afford litigation always found in him a faithful friend. With a capacity of feeling for the wrongs of others as keenly as though inflicted upon himself, his sympathy invariably assumed a practical form and he accordingly left behind him hosts of sorrowing and grateful hearts. A short time before his death I visited a dying widow, a devoted Roman Catholic, whom from time to time my father had assisted. When I was about to leave, she said: "Say to your father I hope to meet him among the just made perfect." This remark of a poor woman has been to me through all these years a greater consolation than any public tribute or imposing eulogy. Finely chiseled monuments and fulsome epitaphs are not to be compared with the benediction of grateful hearts.

The funeral services were conducted, according to the custom of sixty years ago, by the Rev. Dr. William Adams and the Rev. Dr. Philip Milledoler. Members of the bar and many prominent residents of New York, including his two physicians, Doctors John W. Francis and Campbell F. Stewart, walked behind the coffin, which, by the way, was not placed in a hearse but was carried to the Second Street Cemetery, where his remains were temporarily placed. There were six clergymen present at his funeral—the Rev. Doctors Thomas De Witt, Thomas E. Vermilye, Philip Milledoler, William Adams, John Knox and George H. Fisher, all ministers of the Reformed Dutch Church except the Rev. Dr. Adams, the distinguished Presbyterian divine.

I find myself almost instinctively returning to the Scott family as associated with the most cherished memories of some of the happiest days of my life. During my childhood I formed a close intimacy with Cornelia Scott, the second daughter of the distinguished General, which continued until the close of her life. When I first knew the family it made its winter home in New York at the American Hotel, then a fashionable hostelry kept by William B. Cozzens, on the corner of Barclay Street and Broadway. In the summer the family resided at Hampton, the old Mayo place near Elizabeth in New Jersey, where they kept open house. Colonel John Mayo of Richmond, whose daughter Maria was the wife of General Scott, had purchased this country seat many years before as a favor to his wife, Miss Abigail De Hart of New Jersey, and Mrs. Scott subsequently inherited it. Colonel John Mayo, who was a citizen of large wealth and great prominence, was so public-spirited that not long subsequent to the Revolutionary War, and entirely at his own expense, he built from his own plans a bridge across the James River at Richmond. I have heard Mrs. Scott graphically describe her father's trips from Richmond to Elizabeth in his coach-of-four with outriders and grooms, and his enthusiastic reception when he reached his destination.

I have frequently heard it said that Mrs. Scott as a young woman refused the early offers of marriage from the man who eventually became her husband because his rank in the army was too low to suit her taste, but that she finally relented when he became a General. I am able to contradict this statement as Mrs. Scott told me with her own lips that she never made his acquaintance until he was a General, in spite of the fact that they were both natives of the same State. This did not by any means, however, indicate a marriage late in life, as General Scott became a Brigadier General on the 9th of March, 1814, when he was between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. In the Sentinel, published in Newark, New Jersey, on the 25th of March, 1817, the following marriage notice appears:

Married—at Belleville, Virginia, at the seat of Col. Mayo, General Winfield Scott of the U.S. Army to Miss Maria D. Mayo.

Mrs. Scott's record as a belle was truly remarkable, and in the latter years of her life when I knew her very intimately she still retained traces of great beauty. Her accomplishments, too, were extraordinary for that period. She was not only a skilled performer upon the piano and harp, but also a linguist of considerable proficiency, while her grace of manner and brilliant powers of repartee added greatly to her social charms. On one occasion during Polk's administration she attended a levee at the White House, and as she passed down the line with the other guests she received an enthusiastic welcome and was soon so completely surrounded by an admiring throng that for a while Mrs. Polk was left very much to herself. It was Mrs. Scott who wrote in the album of a friend the verse entitled, "The Two Faults of Men." Two other verses were written under it several years later by the Hon. William C. Somerville of Maryland, at one time our Minister to Sweden, and the author of "Letters from Paris on the Causes and Consequences of the French Revolution."

Women have many faults, The men have only two; There's nothing right they say, And nothing right they do.

Reply

That men are naughty rogues we know, The girls are roguish, too. They watch each other wondrous well In everything they do.

But if we men do nothing right, And never say what's true, What precious fools you women are To love us as you do.

Many years ago General and Mrs. Scott traveled with their youthful family through Europe, and while at the French Capital Mrs. Scott attended a fancy-dress ball where she represented Pocahontas and was called La belle sauvage. I have talked to two elderly officers of our Army, Colonel John M. Fessenden and General John B. Magruder, the latter subsequently of Confederate fame, and both of them told me that at this entertainment she was an object of general admiration. Many years later, long after Mrs. Scott's death, I was visiting her daughter, Mrs. Henry L. Scott, for the last time at the old Elizabeth home, accompanied by my young daughter Maud, when the latter was invited to a fancy-dress ball given to children at the residence of General George Herbert Pegram. At first I was at my wits' end to devise a suitable gown for her to wear, when Mrs. Scott brought out the historic fancy dress worn by her mother so many years before in Paris and gave it to me. It seems almost needless to add that the child wore the dress, and that I have it now carefully put away among my treasured possessions. Many years subsequent to Mrs. Scott's visit to Paris, her sister, Mrs. Robert Henry Cabell of Richmond, published for the benefit of a charity her letters written from abroad to her family in Virginia, containing many interesting recollections of Paris.

At the beginning of the Mexican War the Scotts were living in New York but, for a reason I do not now recall, Mrs. Scott decided to spend a winter during the General's absence in Philadelphia. She secured a portion of a furnished house at 111 South Sixth Street, and in the spring of 1847 I was invited to be her guest. The evening of the day of my arrival I attended a party at the residence of Judge John Meredith Read, a descendant of George Read, a Signer from Delaware. Upon the urgent request of Mrs. Scott I went to this entertainment entirely alone, as she and her daughter Cornelia were indisposed and she wished her household to be represented. Judge Read was a widower and some years later I renewed my acquaintance with him in Washington. During my visit in Philadelphia, Mrs. Scott was suddenly called away and hesitated about leaving us two young girls in the house alone, her younger daughters being absent at school. Finally, she made arrangements for us to spend the days of her absence in Burlington, New Jersey, with Miss Susan Wallace, a friend of hers and a niece of the Hon. William Bradford, Attorney-General during a portion of Washington's last administration. This, however, was not altogether a satisfactory arrangement for us young people and we became decidedly restless, but to Burlington we went just the same. Meanwhile, news came from Mexico of a great American victory and the public went wild with enthusiasm. Philadelphia made plans to celebrate the glad event on a certain evening, and Cornelia Scott and I decided to return to Philadelphia for the festivities. We carefully planned the trip and took as our protector a faithful colored man named Lee. Arabella Griffith, an adopted daughter of Miss Wallace, also accompanied us, and as another companion we took Mrs. Scott's pet dog Gee whom, before the evening was over, we found to be very troublesome. We made the trip to Philadelphia by water and landed in an out-of-the-way portion of the city. Owing to the dense crowds assembled to view the decorations, illuminations and fireworks, we were unable to procure a carriage and consequently were obliged to walk, while, to cap the climax, in pushing through the crowd we lost Miss Griffith. General Scott's name was upon the lips of everyone, and his pictures were seen hanging from many windows; yet the daughter of the hero who was the cause of all the enthusiasm was a simple wayfarer, rubbing elbows with the multitude, unrecognized and entirely ignored. I may state, by the way, that Arabella Griffith subsequently became the wife of General Francis C. Barlow and that, while her husband was fighting the battles of his country during the Civil War, she did noble service in the Union hospitals as a member of the United States Sanitary Commission, and died in the summer of 1864 from a fever contracted in the hospitals of the Army of the Potomac.

I remained in Philadelphia much longer than I had originally anticipated, and unexpected warm weather found me totally unprepared. I immediately wrote to my sister Margaret and asked her to send me some suitable apparel. Her letter in reply to mine, which I insert, gives something of an idea of New York society of that period. As she was quite a young girl her references to Miss Julia Gerard whom she knew quite well and "Old Leslie Irving," who, by the way, was only a young man, must be regarded merely as the silly utterances of extreme youth:—

Dear Sister,

I received your letter and as it requires an immediate answer, I shall commence writing you one. I believe in my last I mentioned to you that I was going to Virginia Wood's [Mrs. John L. Rogers] the following evening. I went with [William B.] Clerke [a young broker] and had quite a pleasant time. There were two young ladies there from Virginia whose names I do not know, Dr. Augustine Smith's daughter, myself, Mr. Galliher, Mr. Rainsford, Mr. Bannister and Mr. Pendleton [John Pendleton of Fredericksburg, Virginia]. I was introduced to the latter and liked him quite well. I had a long talk with him. His manners are entirely too coquettish to suit me; he does nothing but shrug his shoulders and roll up his eyes—perhaps it is a Virginia custom. He seems to think Miss Gerard [Julia, daughter of James W. Gerard] his belle ideal or beau ideal of everything lovely, etc. I told him that I thought her awful, that she had such an inanimate sickly expression, and I abused her at a great rate! I expect he thinks I am a regular devil!

Tonight I am going to the opera. "Lucretia Borgia" is to be performed. I have learned a song from Lucia. So you can imagine how much the rooster has improved!

On Thursday evening I was at the Moore's [Dr. William Moore]. Frank Bucknor came for me and brought me home. His sister [Cornelia Bucknor, subsequently the wife of Professor John Howard Van Amringe of Columbia College] was there, Beek Fish [Beekman Fish], Bayard Fish, Dr. [Adolphus] Follin, old Leslie Irving and Frank Van Rensselaer. Miss Moore told me that May came for us that evening to go to the Academy. I am dreadfully sorry that you will not be able to go to the Kemble [Mrs. William Kemble] ball; they are going to have it on Monday. I dare say it will be very pleasant and old Chrystie will be there. Emily B. [Emily Bucknor] and Frank [Bucknor] are going.

My hat has come home, and it is very pretty; it is a sherred blue crape, without any ribbon—trimmed very simply with blue crape and illusion mixed and the same inside.

Mrs. William Le Roy has been to see you. Ma thinks that you had better come home when you first expected—on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am very much disappointed that you are not here to go to the Kembles as you have a dress to wear.

You can tell Adeline [Adeline Camilla Scott], if you please, that Mr. Pendleton wants to know the use of sending her to school when her head is filled with beaux and parties. I told him her mother did it to keep her out of mischief. Bucknor says he thinks it is time for you to come home. If you stay much longer my spring fever will come on and I shall get so many things there will be no money left for you. Besides Mr. Pendleton is going to the Bucknor's some day next week and I am going to get him to stop for me, and if you are home I shall invite you to go along. Beek Fish will be there the same evening with his flute. He told Emily B. that his sister [Mrs. Thomas Pym Remington of Philadelphia] had written them that you had been in Philadelphia and that she was so delighted to see you.

Leslie Irving told me that he had seen a letter in the Commercial Advertiser from Thomas Turner [subsequently Rear Admiral Turner, U.S.N.] to Hamilton Fish. He thought of sending it to you, but he thought some one else had probably done so. I hear that they [the Fishes] are to have a party. The Bankheads [General James Bankhead's daughters] are going to spend the summer at West Point. Pa and Jim are better. Pa rode out yesterday and walked out to-day. He has been in a great state of excitement about General Scott. It was reported two days ago that he was killed and he was afraid it was true. Vera Cruz, I believe, is taken. I cannot write any longer, I'm so tired. I will send Cornelia's [Cornelia Scott] purse by H. Forbes [Harriet Forbes, Mrs. Colhoun of Philadelphia].

M. CAMPBELL.

Saturday April 10th.

Pa thinks it is time for you to come home. Do you know of any opportunity? I shall not send anything to you. You see you never will take my advice in anything. I told you to bring your pink dress with you but you would not. I suppose I shall not hear from you again. Pa says you can do as you please about staying longer.

Elizabeth, New Jersey, was a quaint old town whose inhabitants seemed almost exclusively made up of Barbers, Ogdens and Chetwoods, with a sprinkling of De Harts. There was a steamboat plying between Elizabethport (now a part of the City of Elizabeth) and New York, and we were its frequent patrons. Ursino, the country seat of the Kean family, then as now was one of the historic places of the neighborhood. As I remember the beautiful old home, it was occupied by John Kean, father of the late senior U.S. Senator from New Jersey. At an earlier period the latter's great-grandfather had married Susan Livingston, a daughter of Peter Van Brough Livingston of New York, and resided at Ursino. After the death of her husband she married Count Julian Niemcewicz, who was called the "Shakespeare of Poland" and who came to America with Kosciusco, upon whose staff he had served. She was also the grandmother of Mrs. Hamilton Fish. Another noted estate in the same general neighborhood, was "Abyssinia," owned and occupied for a long period by the Ricketts family, whose walls were highly decorated by one of its artistic members. I am informed that it still stands but that it is used, alas, for mechanical purposes!

I recall with intense pleasure another of my visits to New Jersey when I was a guest at the home of General and Mrs. Scott in Elizabeth. Isabella Cass of Detroit, daughter of General Lewis Cass, was also there at the same time. She attended school in Paris while her father was Minister to France and received other educational advantages quite unusual for women at that time. While residing in Washington at a subsequent period she was regarded as one of the reigning belles. She married a member of the Diplomatic Corps from the Netherlands and lived and died abroad. A constant visitor of the Scott family whom I recall with great pleasure was Thomas Turner, subsequently an Admiral in our Navy. He was a Virginian by birth and a near relative of General Robert E. Lee; but, though possessing the blood of the Carters, he remained during the Civil War loyal to the national flag. His wife was Frances Hailes Palmer of "Abyssinia."

Still another guest of the Scotts in Elizabeth was the erratic but decidedly brilliant Doctor William Starbuck Mayo. Although Mrs. Scott was a Mayo, they were not related. He was from the northern part of the State of New York, while Mrs. Scott, as is well known, was from Virginia. Doctor Mayo, however, was an ardent admirer of Mrs. Scott and made the fact apparent in much that he said and did. He was the author of several works, one of which was a romance entitled "Kaloolah," which he dedicated to Mrs. Scott. When I met him in Washington he was on his first bridal tour, although pretty well advanced in years. His bride was Mrs. Henry Dudley of New York, whose maiden name was Helen Stuyvesant. She was the daughter of Nicholas William Stuyvesant and one of the heirs of the large estate of Peter G. Stuyvesant. During Van Buren's administration, Doctor Mayo was a social light in Washington.

There was another Dr. Mayo—Robert Mayo of Richmond—who, in some respects, created a temporary commotion in public life in Washington and elsewhere. He was a Virginian by birth, and at one time figured prominently as a politician. He engaged in the presidential campaign of 1828 as an ardent partisan of General Jackson and during that period edited in Richmond the Jackson Democrat. He subsequently, however, parted company with his presidential idol, and in 1839 published a volume entitled, "Political Sketches of Eight Years in Washington," which is almost exclusively devoted to an arraignment of General Jackson's administration. In an original letter now before me, written by Martin Van Buren to Governor William C. Bouck, of New York, which has never before appeared in print, he speaks in an amusing manner of Dr. Mayo. I insert the whole letter, as his allusions to General Jackson are of exceptional interest. No one can well deny that the parting admonition of Polonius to his son Laertes is a masterpiece of human wisdom, but this letter of the "Sage of Lindenwald" to Governor Bouck reveals ability by no means inferior to that of this wise councilor of Denmark.

[EX-PRESIDENT VAN BUREN TO GOV. WILLIAM C. BOUCK OF N.Y.]

Confidential.

Lindenwald, Jan^y. 17th 1843.

My dear Sir,

I embrace the occasion of a short visit of my son Major Van Buren to Albany before he goes South to drop you a few lines. Although I have not admitted it in my conversations with those who are given to croaking, and thus alarm our friends, I have nevertheless witnessed with the keenest regret the distractions among our friends at Albany; & more particularly in relation to the state printing. It is certainly a lamentable winding up of a great contest admirably conducted &, as we supposed, gloriously terminated. Without undertaking to decide who is right or who is wrong, and much less to take any part in the unfortunate controversy, I cannot but experience great pain from the eying of so bitter a controversy in the face of the enemy among those who once acted together so honorably & so usefully, and for all of whom I have so much reason to cherish feelings of respect & regard. Permit me to make one suggestion, & that relates to the importance of a speedy decision, one way or the other. Nothing is so injurious in such cases as delay. It is almost better to decide wrong than to protract the contest. Every day makes new enemies & increases the animosities of those who have already become so, & extends them to other subjects; and yet nothing is so natural as to desire to put off the decision of controversies among friends. Most happy would I be to find that you had been able to mitigate, if not altogether to obviate, existing difficulties by providing places for one or more of the competitors in other branches of the public service to which they are adapted & with which they would be as well satisfied.

It has afforded me unfeigned satisfaction to learn, as I do from all quarters, that you keep your own secrets in regard to appointments, & don't feed every body with promises or what they construe into promises—a practice which so many public men are apt to fall into, & by which they make themselves more trouble & subject themselves to more discredit than they dream of. Persevere in that course, consider carefully every case & make the selection which your own unbiassed judgment designates as the best, & above all let the people see as clear as day that you do not yield yourself to, or make battle against, any cliques or sections of the party, but act in good faith and to the best of your ability for the good of the whole, and you may be assured that the personal discontents which you would to some extent occasion, if you had the wisdom of Solomon & were pure as an angel, will do you no harm & be exceedingly evanescent in their duration. The Democratic is a reasonable & a just party & more than half of the business is done when they are satisfied that the man they have elected means to do right. The difficulty with a new administration is in the beginning. At the start little matters may create a distrust which it will take a series of good acts to remove. But once a favourable impression is made & the people become satisfied that the right thing is intended, it takes great errors, often repeated, to create a counter current. Will you excuse me if, from a sincere desire for your success, I go farther & touch upon matters not political, or at least not wholly so? Your situation of course excites envy & jealousy on the part of some. It is impossible from the character of man that it should be otherwise, bear yourself ever so meekly & you cannot avoid it. There will therefore in Albany, as well as elsewhere, be people who will make ill natured remarks & there will be still more who will make it their business, in the hope of benefitting themselves, to bring you exaggerated accounts of what is said, and if they lack materials they will tell you, if they find that you like to listen to small things, a great deal that never has been said. It is my deliberate opinion that these mischievous gossips cause public men more vexation, yes, ten fold, than all the cares & anxieties of office taken together. I have seen perhaps as much of this as any man of my age, & claim to be a competent judge of the evil & its remedies. The greatest fault I ever saw in our excellent friend Gen^l. Jackson, was the facility with which (in carrying out his general principle that it was the duty of the President to hear all) he leant his ear, though not his confidence, to such people. Though very sagacious & very apt to put the right construction upon all such revelations, it was still evident that he was every day more or less annoyed by them. I endeavored to satisfy him of the expediency of shutting their mouths, but did not succeed, & I am as sure as I can be of any such thing that if the truth could be known it would appear that he had experienced more annoyance from such sources than from all the severe trials through which he had to pass & did pass with such unfading glory. Having his case before me, I determined to profit by the experience I had acquired in so good a school. I had no sooner taken possession of the White House than I was beset by these harpies. The way in which I treated the whole crew, with variations of course according to circumstances, will appear from the following dialogue in a single case. The celebrated Dr. Mayo called upon me & in his stuttering & mysterious way commenced by asking when he could have a few minutes very private conversation with me. Knowing the man, I anticipated his business & told him now, I will hear you now. He then told me he had discovered a conspiracy to destroy me politically the particulars of which he felt it to be his duty to lay before [me]. I replied instantly, & somewhat sternly, Dr., I do not wish to hear them. I have irrefragable proof, he replied. I don't care, was the response. It is in writing, Sir, said he. I won't look at it, Sir. What, said he, don't you want to see it if it is in writing & genuine? An emphatic No, Sir, closed the conversation. The Dr. raised his eyes and hands as if he thought me demented, & making a low bow & ejaculating a long Hah-hah retreated for the door. The story about the Dr. got out and, partly by mine & I believe in part also by his means, & alarmed all the story tellers who heard of it. A few repetitions of the same dose to others impressed the whole crew with a conviction that nothing was to be gained by bringing such reports to me. The consequence was that although Washington is perhaps the most gossiping place in the world, I escaped its contamination altogether, and had no trouble except such as unavoidably grew out of my public duties; and although I had perhaps a more vexatious time than any of my predecessors in that respect I was the only man, they all say, who grew fat in that office.

I was happy to learn from my son John by a letter received yesterday the high opinion he entertains of your discreet & honorable bearing in the midst of the difficulties by which you are beset. I hope he & Smith, [another son of Martin Van Buren], exercise the discretion by which their course has heretofore been governed, in meddling as little with things political that do not belong to them as possible. They know that such is my wish, as any contest there must necessarily be more or less between my friends; and I shall be obliged to you to give them from time to time such advice upon the subject as you may think proper. Be assured that they will take it in good part. You may, if you please, at your convenience, return me the suggestions I sent you, as I may have occasion to weave some parts of them into letters that I am frequently obliged to write; the rough draft was made with a pencil & is now illegible. Be assured that your not using them occasioned me no mortification, as I before told you it would not. You had a nearer & could take a safer view of things than myself. Don't trouble yourself to answer this letter as it requires none; only excuse me for writing you one so unmercifully long.